Highlights from the Weekend

We had a lovely family weekend. We spent some time out and about and some time at home, some time being productive and some time relaxing, some time just the three of us and some time with friends. And we had some nice meals too.

Got to try our latest homebrewed beer that we've called "hoptometrist". It is definitely our best yet with all the bitterness that we wanted.

Drove out to Fergus, one of our favourite small towns in the area and did some playing and some walking.


Finally stopped at this overlook that we see on our country drives and found out that it is quite beautiful. And Henry got to do some walking up and downhill, his favourite kind.

Saw this snapping turtle on the golf course when we were doing Waterloo's RIM Park walk with some friends.

Had homemade chocolate beer waffles with homemade ice cream and chocolate sauce for our Sunday dinner - delicious! Recipes from Vegan Brunch and Vegan Scoop.

Potatoes

Last year I read the book One Straw Revolution which was all about letting nature take its course as much as possible in farming to make less work for the farmer plus there are all sorts of ecological benefits too. Anyway, this new philosophy lead to quite a messy garden last year. This year I think I'm a bit more balanced but I was happy when these potatoes sprung up themselves this spring. That involved no work from this farmer, was just a result of good soil and nature taking its course.

But these guys weren't growing in the right place and were starting to overcrowd the tomatoes that I had actually planted there. So I let the potatoes grow till they had flowers (a sign that there are some definite potatoes under the ground) and then this week I carefully pulled them up. I had to be very careful as not to disturb the tomato plants so I am sure that again this year there will be some leftover potatoes that will grow next year.

I was surprised that I got a whole 3 L basket of lovely new potatoes. And yesterday I cooked them up in my favourite way for new potatoes: steamed and tossed with light olive oil and some garden chives. We had them with chickpea cutlets and also tried a new veg - swiss chard. Neither of us are swiss chard fans but it was worth a try. And for dessert we had some more homemade ice cream.


This is raspberry ice cream made from our backyard raspberries. It was delicious but our favourite so far has definitely been banana. I am still loving the Vegan Scoop but someone has put it on hold so I have to return it to the library soon.

Here are a couple of pictures of Henry keeping cool in the water all around town. He doesn't do much at the splash pad other than stand and watch the other kids play but he is slowly getting more adventurous and he is definitely more adventurous when we go to the creek.

Banana Ice Cream

Yum! I tried my second vegan ice cream recipe today and it was delicious (my first was caramel, also delicious). This was banana ice cream. The recipe is from the book The Vegan Scoop that I currently have out of the library and that is now definitely on my want-to-own list. I want to try some of the crazy flavours in there like yam and sweet curry coconut but I think next should be raspberry since it is raspberry season and we have a steady supply coming from the backyard.

It turned out delicious, especially with a few chocolate chips sprinkled on top. One thing I did differently this time was to make my own 'soy creamer' instead of buying it for $3 a pint which cut down on the cost a lot and means we will almost always have all the ingredients on hand. I followed the directions for making the soy creamer from the book Vegan Bake Sale which I also have out of the library right now. It is mostly a mix of soy milk and oil.
Henry actually refused to try the ice cream but he loved the chocolate chips.

4 year anniversary

Kevin and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary yesterday. We had a special evening at home with Henry.
First we made dinner together, enjoyed some spanakopita loaf (from the book Vegan Bake Sale) as an appetizer while we cooked.
We made our favourite cheeseless pizza which we haven't had in years since it is quite a bit of work. We like eggplant, mushrooms, and caramelized mushrooms on top of a sauce of diced tomatoes. We also added some fresh basil from the garden.
We had fun with Henry while we waited for it to cook.
Kevin made us some mojitos using mint from the garden.We had perfect weather for hanging out in the garden enjoying our special meal.Henry liked the pizza, well mostly the crust.We went for an evening stroll.
And when we came back we had my homemade ice cream with homemade caramel. The recipe was from the book The Vegan Scoop which I just got out from the library. This book is full of great vegan ice cream recipes, I want to try more for sure. The caramel was supposed to be mixed into the ice cream but both the ice cream and the caramel ended up too hard for that, it was actually quite difficult to eat them together at all. It is also great to be using our ice cream maker again, a wedding present that has sat unused for too long.