Thursday, July 29, 2004
oops looks like this one didn't upload...I'll try again...Here's Sonia having a tuff day at the beach
Not such a great photo...sorry bout that...but the quiche is quite delicious nonetheless..See recipe below for Crab quiche and other Variants
Crabmeat Quiche
Crab Quiche... my way..You'll need one pie shell for each quiche...I prebake them for 7 minutes.
2 green onions saute'd in a tablespoon of butter
1 can of crabmeat or a cup of shrimp or a mixture of both, or fake crab
3 eggs
1 cup whipping cream (milk doesn't work)
1 tablespoon ketchup (stirred into egg and cream mixture until it is slightly pinkish)
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh or frozen parsley if you have it
salt and pepper to taste
about 3/4 cup grated Emmenthel (a kind of Swiss ) Cheese ( about $4.50 worth will do for two quiches) you can also use swiss or gruyere?..emmenthel is best
Preheat oven to 350* and prebake pie shell for 7 minutes...don't let it brown.
Saute onions ( you can saute the crab and shrimp for a few minutes at the end of cooking the onions) Allow to cool.
Meanwhile beat eggs with cream, add ketchup, salt and pepper, and then stir in the crab and onion mixture,using a fork. Pour into pieshell that has been prebaked and bake in upper middle of oven until puffed and a little brown...(about 45 minutes) Could be nuked to finish it off if you are in a rush...but don't overdo it...
Serve while hot for a delicious breakfast.
For other variations on the quiche theme... I often chop and lightly saute spinach in the sauted onions and add that with chopped partially fried bacon for a bacon and spinach quiche.
To make individual quiches you can buy premade tart shells and fill those for appetizers.
Another version uses canned "Flakes of Ham" with mushrooms instead of crab
Your possibilities are endless if you like mushrooms, green or red peppers o r broccoli and you can always add a bit of other cheeses like cheddar or top it with some Parmessean before baking.Myself, I prefer the emmenthal cheese in the quiche, as it imparts a flavour that I associate with quiche now.Sometimes I sprinkle a little paprika on top prior to baking for the colour.
(Enjoy...any questions...let me know. You can purchase pastry pie shells already made or you can make three pie shells from a half recipe of tenderflake lard.)
"The Creator"
2 green onions saute'd in a tablespoon of butter
1 can of crabmeat or a cup of shrimp or a mixture of both, or fake crab
3 eggs
1 cup whipping cream (milk doesn't work)
1 tablespoon ketchup (stirred into egg and cream mixture until it is slightly pinkish)
1 tablespoon of chopped fresh or frozen parsley if you have it
salt and pepper to taste
about 3/4 cup grated Emmenthel (a kind of Swiss ) Cheese ( about $4.50 worth will do for two quiches) you can also use swiss or gruyere?..emmenthel is best
Preheat oven to 350* and prebake pie shell for 7 minutes...don't let it brown.
Saute onions ( you can saute the crab and shrimp for a few minutes at the end of cooking the onions) Allow to cool.
Meanwhile beat eggs with cream, add ketchup, salt and pepper, and then stir in the crab and onion mixture,using a fork. Pour into pieshell that has been prebaked and bake in upper middle of oven until puffed and a little brown...(about 45 minutes) Could be nuked to finish it off if you are in a rush...but don't overdo it...
Serve while hot for a delicious breakfast.
For other variations on the quiche theme... I often chop and lightly saute spinach in the sauted onions and add that with chopped partially fried bacon for a bacon and spinach quiche.
To make individual quiches you can buy premade tart shells and fill those for appetizers.
Another version uses canned "Flakes of Ham" with mushrooms instead of crab
Your possibilities are endless if you like mushrooms, green or red peppers o r broccoli and you can always add a bit of other cheeses like cheddar or top it with some Parmessean before baking.Myself, I prefer the emmenthal cheese in the quiche, as it imparts a flavour that I associate with quiche now.Sometimes I sprinkle a little paprika on top prior to baking for the colour.
(Enjoy...any questions...let me know. You can purchase pastry pie shells already made or you can make three pie shells from a half recipe of tenderflake lard.)
"The Creator"
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Late Late Late...
Once again, everyone is catching their beauty sleep while I poke away at the computer. Sonia helped me rid my computer of a number of items that startup in the lower right taskbar of my computer. It was filling up with useless junk, I no longer needed down there. She directed me to a great site by a fellow named Collins who lists all of the things that could startup when Windows starts. He gives you a code that tells you whether the program is necessary for your computer to run, or up to you to keep or delete or whether it is attached to a virus... You can look at your own Startup programs by going to the Start Button, then typing in MSCONFIG and click on the Startup tab. You'll be amazed at how much stuff is running ... This site by Collins lets you do a search to see whether it is a "keeper" or a toss...you only uncheck what you don't want running at startup and then restart your computer for it to take effect. Just be sure you are only removing the stuff you don't require to operate your computer!
Now my little tray at the bottom right looks a little more empty!
I picked even more raspberries today...they are wild with berries this year...Time to turn last years crop into some jam or jelly as I don't have a stitch of either one left.
And the custard peach pie, never quite materialized, but here is the scoop...
Sonia blanched the peaches and we peeled and sliced them, then covered them in a light syrup made from 1 cup of sugar boiled with 3 cups of water.( Let cool) I then added 1/4 tsp of ascorbic acid to 1/4 cup of water to dissolve it, and then added it to the sugar syrup.
We put the peach slices into a big bowl and poured the sugar mixture over top to coat all the peaches, then lifted the peaches to a zip-lock bag. when our 3 bags were full, we added the juice so as to cover the peaches, then we sealed them up and popped them into the freezer.
When we need the pie, on Tuesday, we'll thaw the peaches and add them to the custard filled pre-baked shells... Yum...just thinking about it makes my mouth water! I also made and pre-baked three pie shells today so essentially, the pie is half made...just all in the freezer!
Well, all except one, cause I turned it into a crab quiche for breakfast this morning, for Sonia and I.Thats a good recipe too, if anyone is interested, leave me a comment and I'll write out the recipe...It was a delicious way to start the day!...ok, bed time now...I'll get some beach pics posted tomorrow...I hope the ones of Sonia's back turned out...Kaleigh was the official "Spread the Goo" on her back...ooopsie-daisie...she missed in a few places...
We'll try to balance it out tomorrow!
Good-night all..
PS...Thanks Joyce for the great dinner last night...the BBQ'd wings served with perogies, certainly hit the spot!
"The Creator"
Now my little tray at the bottom right looks a little more empty!
I picked even more raspberries today...they are wild with berries this year...Time to turn last years crop into some jam or jelly as I don't have a stitch of either one left.
And the custard peach pie, never quite materialized, but here is the scoop...
Sonia blanched the peaches and we peeled and sliced them, then covered them in a light syrup made from 1 cup of sugar boiled with 3 cups of water.( Let cool) I then added 1/4 tsp of ascorbic acid to 1/4 cup of water to dissolve it, and then added it to the sugar syrup.
We put the peach slices into a big bowl and poured the sugar mixture over top to coat all the peaches, then lifted the peaches to a zip-lock bag. when our 3 bags were full, we added the juice so as to cover the peaches, then we sealed them up and popped them into the freezer.
When we need the pie, on Tuesday, we'll thaw the peaches and add them to the custard filled pre-baked shells... Yum...just thinking about it makes my mouth water! I also made and pre-baked three pie shells today so essentially, the pie is half made...just all in the freezer!
Well, all except one, cause I turned it into a crab quiche for breakfast this morning, for Sonia and I.Thats a good recipe too, if anyone is interested, leave me a comment and I'll write out the recipe...It was a delicious way to start the day!...ok, bed time now...I'll get some beach pics posted tomorrow...I hope the ones of Sonia's back turned out...Kaleigh was the official "Spread the Goo" on her back...ooopsie-daisie...she missed in a few places...
We'll try to balance it out tomorrow!
Good-night all..
PS...Thanks Joyce for the great dinner last night...the BBQ'd wings served with perogies, certainly hit the spot!
"The Creator"
Bear Facts...
Since I seem to be on the Bear theme, I will stick with it... with another tip from my Conservation Phone Call Answering Daughter...If you ask for a bear trap to be set up in your neighbourhood, please be aware that the hunk of meat or fish hanging inthe trap and intended for the bear will also attract other wild animals as well as tame ones...In fact it will attract most any carnivor...so be careful what you ask for...
Thanks to Lynn for these great Black/white Bear photos that were sent to her..How unusual to see such a sight...
Also take a peak at Karen's website...Brownbear.ca
Very cute and a great idea for Christmas...
Time to hit the hay -everyone else has been asleep for hours now!
Lots of raspberries to be picked tomorrow and maybe even make a peach pie with the beautiful peaches Sonia brought...Reminds me of the days we owned a peach tree in Victoria..Yum, yum, yummy...I never ate so many peaches in my life, and they were soooooooooo delicious...especially in peach custard pie...
"The Creator"
Thanks to Lynn for these great Black/white Bear photos that were sent to her..How unusual to see such a sight...
Also take a peak at Karen's website...Brownbear.ca
Very cute and a great idea for Christmas...
Time to hit the hay -everyone else has been asleep for hours now!
Lots of raspberries to be picked tomorrow and maybe even make a peach pie with the beautiful peaches Sonia brought...Reminds me of the days we owned a peach tree in Victoria..Yum, yum, yummy...I never ate so many peaches in my life, and they were soooooooooo delicious...especially in peach custard pie...
"The Creator"
As some of you may already know, this mother bear and her cub are
less then an hour and a half from The Pas, Manitoba.
Not just any mother bear and her cub but a black bear with a white cub. I don't know how rare it if for a black bear to have a white cub but at least we can say we seen
it no matter how rare.
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Brown Bear Distributors
Brown Bear Distributors
Friends of Sonia's have started this exciting new business that can give you a great CD of Children's songs personalized with their own name...heard 38 times on the CD.. Check it out and start ordering early for CHristmas!
Friends of Sonia's have started this exciting new business that can give you a great CD of Children's songs personalized with their own name...heard 38 times on the CD.. Check it out and start ordering early for CHristmas!
Smoke is gone this morning...
Sonia arrived safe and sound albeit tired, late yesterday afternoon...much to the delight of the kids..Emil had them playing "Simon Says" out on the lawn for the whole hour prior to her arrival....and yes, it was smokey alright. I guess it was rolling our way from the Cariboo...hard to believe it could travel that far and still be so dense. The radio station reported smoke also from Nakusp where something like six fires started from lightening...and Sonia says a fire is burning south of the border down at Lake Shelan..so as I said...be careful with the campfires!
We had beef ribs last night in homemade bbq sauce.. I roasted the ribs in a little water for an hour or so,then poured off the fat and removed any extra fat fromt he ribs, then returned them to the pan with the BBQ sauce.Quite tender and very yummy...
Here is the recipe...you can use it on any ribs or chicken and make it as hot as you like by adding hot sauce
BBQ Sauce...Makes 1 3/4 cups
1 can of tomatoe sauce (8ounces)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup Ketchup
1/4 cup vinegar or apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
1 clove minced garlic
(molasses- 1 tablespoon))
(bulls eye hickory bbqsauce ...1 tablespoon)
I usually saute the onions in a little butter or oil to begin with ,then add the rest of the ingredients and stir constantly to heat it to boiling, then lower heat and simmer for five minutes. I add a tablespoon or so of molasses and sometimes a bit of BullsEye Hickory BBq sauce to give it just a wee hint of smoke flavour.
This is a good way to empty out the last dregs of any used bbq sauces you have kicking around...just add a little water to the bottle shake it up,and add it to the sauce as it is cooking...
This is an excellent sauce over any kind of ribs -- just paint it on while they finish bbqing for a glossy touch!
And if you don't already have one, check out Save-on for these amazing BBQ brushes with the clear plastic handle and a blue removable plastic brushy thing on the end...It is made out of that plastic that can withstand high temps...easy to clean, no hairs in the sauce and lets you goop on a ton of sauce...then it is easy to clean in the dishwasher... Happy BBQing Folks!
Have a great day... We might pop in on Joyce today so she can visit with the kids before she goes afternoons...and what do you say to someone who had their cow run over yesterday? yep, it died from multiple injuries and the truck who hit it must have been going at a high speed...I guess it will be hamburger from whats left...poor Morgan !
Speaking of injured animals...Here's a warning from Sonia , who takes Conservation calls on a daily basis...
DO NOT EVER...pick up an injured unconscious deer and put it in the back seat of your car...ICBC doesn't cover the damage it makes to your upholstery when it awakens and slices up the car seats with its hooves...
"The Creator"
We had beef ribs last night in homemade bbq sauce.. I roasted the ribs in a little water for an hour or so,then poured off the fat and removed any extra fat fromt he ribs, then returned them to the pan with the BBQ sauce.Quite tender and very yummy...
Here is the recipe...you can use it on any ribs or chicken and make it as hot as you like by adding hot sauce
BBQ Sauce...Makes 1 3/4 cups
1 can of tomatoe sauce (8ounces)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup Ketchup
1/4 cup vinegar or apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
1 clove minced garlic
(molasses- 1 tablespoon))
(bulls eye hickory bbqsauce ...1 tablespoon)
I usually saute the onions in a little butter or oil to begin with ,then add the rest of the ingredients and stir constantly to heat it to boiling, then lower heat and simmer for five minutes. I add a tablespoon or so of molasses and sometimes a bit of BullsEye Hickory BBq sauce to give it just a wee hint of smoke flavour.
This is a good way to empty out the last dregs of any used bbq sauces you have kicking around...just add a little water to the bottle shake it up,and add it to the sauce as it is cooking...
This is an excellent sauce over any kind of ribs -- just paint it on while they finish bbqing for a glossy touch!
And if you don't already have one, check out Save-on for these amazing BBQ brushes with the clear plastic handle and a blue removable plastic brushy thing on the end...It is made out of that plastic that can withstand high temps...easy to clean, no hairs in the sauce and lets you goop on a ton of sauce...then it is easy to clean in the dishwasher... Happy BBQing Folks!
Have a great day... We might pop in on Joyce today so she can visit with the kids before she goes afternoons...and what do you say to someone who had their cow run over yesterday? yep, it died from multiple injuries and the truck who hit it must have been going at a high speed...I guess it will be hamburger from whats left...poor Morgan !
Speaking of injured animals...Here's a warning from Sonia , who takes Conservation calls on a daily basis...
DO NOT EVER...pick up an injured unconscious deer and put it in the back seat of your car...ICBC doesn't cover the damage it makes to your upholstery when it awakens and slices up the car seats with its hooves...
"The Creator"
Sunrise this morning over Sunshine Bay... and FYI...there were more Nothern Lights last night...but I didn't stay up to see if they were going to turn into something spectacular..
Super Smokey day yesterday...apparently from fires in the Cariboo...or more likely from the states...or Nakusp...lots of fires happening...so be careful out there!.. Fire Reporting Number(Canada) 1-800-663-5555
Monday, July 26, 2004
Aurora Last Night...
Did anyone bother to look up at the sky last night some time after midnight???? It was ablaze with Northern lights...flaring up behind Kokanee mountain...right around to the Purcells in the distance beyond Balfour..Now this was a show and a half...fingers of soft yellow light radiating up in an ever changing aray of beams...By now, I had the kids out on the deck, and Sandy out of bed to see what the sky had to offer on this beautiful warm night.
Apparently it was the result of a huge sunspot, the size of Jupiter, on the sun...radiating an X-sized magnetic field that in turn drummed up the auroras we were witnessing.
The kids were ho-hum half asleep about it all and so they were popped back into bedbefore they dozed off on the spot. Sandra stuck with us as we whistled and cheered and yelled at the world to "LOOK-UP at the SKY". After all, it has been over a year since we last glimpsed Northern Lights around here.
Sandra went to the suite and E climbed back into his and I took one last look out at the phenomena before I headed off to bed...and good thing I did!
The sky had turned into a strobed -light abstraction...tumbling shafts of light blinking on and off as if someone were playing with one of those huge spotlights... first over the mountain directly across from us ( Kokanee area)and then pulsing up behind Balfour like a dinasour puffing clouds of steam into the night sky. This was the most amazing thing I have ever seen! It was straight out of a sci-fi movie...and I half expected a flying saucer to flip down and land on the lawn!
Well it is later tonight and I don't see anything out the den window, but I will go outside and take a checker-oo before I hit the hay...Don't want to miss those kind of glorious sites while they are happening!
So tomorrow "mom" comes and the kids can't wait! Sandra and Leo left today ...boo-hoo...they are great company and who can complain if they treated us to lobster!
Remind me to send Correna and Sue M a birthday card! Ok, to bed now...It was a great day and I got all the beds changed...did I mention that while I wasn't blogging last week, I was reading "The DaVinci Code" by Dan Brown? Thank-you Sean and Annette for buying it for me...It was a great mystery full of remarkable information about secret societies, art and the Catholic Church...Highly recommend it to anyone .
Sandra was reading a cute book called Miss Smithers...yes, about a gal living in Smithers. BC...She said it was full of laughs... so there you are ...summer books to inhale...and I had to make up a bedtime story tonight, for the kids...called Mr. Bubble...They were having histerics as the story grew more and more ridiculous. I promised an ending for them tomorrow...Better get my thinking cap on...
Apparently it was the result of a huge sunspot, the size of Jupiter, on the sun...radiating an X-sized magnetic field that in turn drummed up the auroras we were witnessing.
The kids were ho-hum half asleep about it all and so they were popped back into bedbefore they dozed off on the spot. Sandra stuck with us as we whistled and cheered and yelled at the world to "LOOK-UP at the SKY". After all, it has been over a year since we last glimpsed Northern Lights around here.
Sandra went to the suite and E climbed back into his and I took one last look out at the phenomena before I headed off to bed...and good thing I did!
The sky had turned into a strobed -light abstraction...tumbling shafts of light blinking on and off as if someone were playing with one of those huge spotlights... first over the mountain directly across from us ( Kokanee area)and then pulsing up behind Balfour like a dinasour puffing clouds of steam into the night sky. This was the most amazing thing I have ever seen! It was straight out of a sci-fi movie...and I half expected a flying saucer to flip down and land on the lawn!
Well it is later tonight and I don't see anything out the den window, but I will go outside and take a checker-oo before I hit the hay...Don't want to miss those kind of glorious sites while they are happening!
So tomorrow "mom" comes and the kids can't wait! Sandra and Leo left today ...boo-hoo...they are great company and who can complain if they treated us to lobster!
Remind me to send Correna and Sue M a birthday card! Ok, to bed now...It was a great day and I got all the beds changed...did I mention that while I wasn't blogging last week, I was reading "The DaVinci Code" by Dan Brown? Thank-you Sean and Annette for buying it for me...It was a great mystery full of remarkable information about secret societies, art and the Catholic Church...Highly recommend it to anyone .
Sandra was reading a cute book called Miss Smithers...yes, about a gal living in Smithers. BC...She said it was full of laughs... so there you are ...summer books to inhale...and I had to make up a bedtime story tonight, for the kids...called Mr. Bubble...They were having histerics as the story grew more and more ridiculous. I promised an ending for them tomorrow...Better get my thinking cap on...
Yep,it is our three "keepers"..tadpoles from the lagoon...a couple bit it and had to be buried and the rest went out to sea in their pea-green boat...Did you know that tadpoles like lettuce that has been boiled for 15 minutes and frozen ,then scraped off into their bowl...??? If you have apondful, then an ice-cube size piece of boiled lettuce will do the trick...
One of the tadpoles...keep looking...he is black...hard to tell but this one only had back legs a day ago...today he turned tri-pod, then quad-pod!
