Photo of the Day August 31st

Well, I'm taking the next step in my tenuous journey of growing some of our own vegetables and am trying to save and dry the seeds from some of our favourites for planting next year. Certainly a learning experience for me! I've chosen miniature Black Zebra tomatoes for my first try, and was surprised to discover it's not as simple as de-seeding the tomatoes and washing off the seeds before laying them out to dry. Apparently they need to be fermented for several days before you begin the drying process, or they cannot germinate once planted. Everything I've read warns me that this is not the most pleasant smelling process, so wish me luck that I can get past the "yuck" factor to follow it through...

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Photo(s) of the Day August 30th

The peaches we picked up from the market yesterday are ripe, juicy and ready to eat... but with all of us enjoying them as snacks it was hard to keep enough of them around to make the peach tart we had planned! Luckily I hid a few in a bowl in the fridge, so when Sophie and I started baking this morning she was able to polish off another peach ("quality control", as Chris calls it) without putting too big a dent in our inventory - we had just enough to fill our home-made tart shell. This recipe is interesting because you leave the peaches halved instead of chopping them up, and after an initial baking of just the shell and the peach halves with some sugar, you add a custard-style mixture (Sophie is shown in the smaller picture manning the custard bowl) and bake it again. The hollowed-out peach halves hold the custard nicely as it firms up and turns golden-brown and the crispy crust is reminiscent of a cookie... but most importantly, it's simply delicious. I've posted my recipe here - if you try it please let me know how it turns out!

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Photo of the Day August 29th

I went with my friend Cheryl to see the movie "Julie and Julia" last night, and has it ever put me in the mood to cook something! I think next week I'll make Boeuf Bourguignon (proof of the power of this cooking urge: I'm a vegetarian after all), but for now it's off to the market to pick up the ingredients for broccoli cheese soup and peach tart. I rave weekly about our trips to the market so I'll try not to repeat my general "local produce is so good! The growers and sellers are so great!" and instead focus on one shop within the market I visit weekly - Jantzi's Cheese. There's often a lineup at the counter, but you're rewarded for your patience when you reach the front and get to their selection of delicious local cheeses (and a few imported favourites). Jantzi's specializes in extra old cheddar, so if you're a fan of deeply flavourful aged cheeses this is definitely the place for you. This week Rick packed me up a grated six-cheese blend (which included some of that extra-old cheddar and will be excellent for that cheese soup), our favourite hot pepper brick, and a block of Greek-style feta. I can't wait to start enjoying them in some of the recipes we've got planned for this week!

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Photo of the Day August 28th

Today's photo represents the turning over of a new leaf... I've finally joined a gym, and I'm proud to say I've gone four times a week since activating my membership three weeks ago. I know it takes six weeks of repetitive behaviour before I can say I've developed a "habit", but I'm at least half way there and feeling good about it. Finding the time to go to the gym has been made easier by the fact that they offer childcare, so on mornings when Chris is either at work or sleeping and I don't have Rhys or Rowan coming over, Sophie and I head for the gym. She plays with the other kids while I work out, and when I pick her up we often either go swimming in the gym's salt water pool together or split a fruit smoothie... it's quite the treat either way. I'm hoping that these trips to the gym combined with some positive changes to my eating habits will help me end 2009 a healthier person than I began it - wish me luck!

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Photo of the Day August 27th

Our friend Rowan was with us today, and with a spot of sunshine in the sky (rare this summer) we decided on an impromptu trip to Greenway Park to enjoy it. It's a great park, not too far and with lots to look at - our morning just flew by in a flurry of sliding, swinging, climbing and running. We were lucky that Chris had a break in his schedule and was able to join us after a couple of hours to cheer the kids on and help roll the infamous gondola back and forth some more. Here, "Captain Rowan" (as Sophie was calling him) proudly steers his pirate ship on the high seas before hitting the slide.

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Photo of the Day August 26th

Chris and Sophie enjoyed a special Daddy-Daughter "date" this morning, taking a ride on the double-decker bus and doing some sight seeing around London. The bus travels first through downtown London, then out to the east end of the city and around the Western Fair grounds. From there it heads west to Springbank Park, stops for 20 minutes at Storybook Gardens, drives through Byron and makes its way towards the University of Western Ontario via several twists and turns through the west end of the city. The ride ends back downtown about 2 hours later and is a nice way to get a quick feel for the city from a good, high vantage point. Unfortunately Chris and Sophie had a rather rainy morning for this little outing, so they didn't get very many good photos... but Chris was creative and captured this image from their bus "admission" tickets.

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Photo of the Day August 25th

Our neighbourhood has been a cacophony of noise this summer with road construction, home renovation projects up and down the street and the crazy amounts of digging that Union Gas has done in our yard (we're on the 4th ever-bigger hole they've dug in less than two weeks - I suspect we'll see a hole the size of archaeological dig next) . Our house has added to those buzzing and sawing sounds this week as our garage and the back porch of our house are being re-sided. The garage in particular has been in dire need of help for quite some time, so it was exciting for us to look outside late this afternoon and see a huge amount of progress... it looks like we have a whole new building out there!

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