Some very funny Valentines...

England and Canada share a language (although as I'm always telling the kids I teach, I'M not the one with the funny accent!) and we also share some aspects of our history and culture. However, it is the little differences between the two cultures that I find so fascinating - often things that I just hadn't thought about before coming here. My work as a teacher can often provide great insights into these differences, and nowhere is this more evident that in the way that the residents of both countries celebrate certain festivals...

I have already discussed Hallowe'en on this blog. It is a HUGE business here, and I happily threw myself into some aspects of it... well, the ones that involved food anyway! I even dressed up for the occasion.

When considering whether to don a costume for the 31st October, I chose a witch as an obvious option. After all, what else would one dress up as at Hallowe'en? But when answering the door to the multitude of trick-or-treaters, I found myself grinning confusedly at children dressed up as everything from princesses to Spiderman. At school the following day I asked the class what costumes they had worn the previous night... answers ranged from Scooby Doo to Jack Sparrow. Baffling to a Brit, for whom Hallowe'en is firmly linked with witches and wizards, not superheroes, royalty or cartoon dogs!

Valentines Day has provided yet more occasion for wide-eyed amusement. In the UK it would be considered usual to send a Valentines card to your partner - boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, etc. If one is single, then a Valentine may legitimately be sent - often anonymously - to someone who you 'fancy'. It would seem more than a little suggestive to send a Valentines card to someone who was simply a friend, and it would seem downright incestuous to send one to a family member (although perhaps small children, in their innocence, could get away with it?). Here in Canada it couldn't be more different. The juggernaut of commercialism has thundered out of control - cards are freely available for every possibly family member, one's teacher, friends, and quite probably postman, dentist and gynaecologist too.

This year I had the pleasure of going to work in a Grade 1 and 2 class on the afternoon of February 14th. According to the teacher's plan, half of the afternoon was to be for a 'Valentines Party', where the children could go around the class, delivering Valentines via the cute mailboxes they had all made and displayed proudly on their desks. After 18 months here in Canada I was aware that it was de rigeur for children to give Valentines to their friends, but I wasn't quite prepared for the sheer amount of cards and gifts that were given! I think that every child in the class had brought in cards for every other child in the class - these were clearly bought in class-sized packs, adorned with every character you can imagine, from Spongebob Squarepants to Hannah Montana (I'm so 'down with the kids' - I even know who these people are!).

I was even presented with a hurriedly-written one by a very cute little chap called Nick:

Forget hearts and flowers, good old Spidey is the perfect Valentines messenger! I even snaffled a spare card to take home for my very own loved one:

Who said romance is dead?!

Cards, it seems, were just not enough... many children also brought in gifts, most of which involved large amounts of sugar and lots of artificial colourings - guaranteed to create a sugar-rush of epic proportions in all 20 kids. I just let them get on with it!

I even received some cute Valentines candies of my own, presented to me by a fellow-teacher who must have spent hours creating a basketful of these little goodies. I thought this was hilarious!

I'm very anxious to clarify myself here - although I find this whole North-American Valentines extravaganza quite amusing (it's just so different to the British way of celebrating the day) it was a hugely enjoyable day for the children. They had been doing heart-themed work for weeks, they all wore red or pink to school on the day, and they all went home with bulging bags of cards and candy, and blood-sugar spikes that were off the charts. It seemed a rather charming way to celebrate friendships, and a great excuse for what was basically a break from 'proper work' at school. And why not? Valentines Day would barely be mentioned in your average UK school. As a concession, I have on occasion allowed my class to make Valentines cards, but always with the sneaking feeling that it was somehow a little inappropriate to encourage young children into 'romantic love' - there's plenty of time ahead for that! However, here this was not an issue, it was simply a fun way in which to tell your mates that you like them, and Spiderman and I think that's OK!

The Vegetarian Challenge

Rob and I usually get on really well, agreeing with eachother on most subjects, and generally living fairly harmoniously together. However, on occasion he will make a statement that really irks me... A few weeks ago I was talking about what one might cook if a vegetarian friend was coming to dinner, and Rob casually said "You can't make a 'special' meal without meat".

Now, I'm an eager meat-eater. I adore steak, will happily eat meat as part of every meal, and think that the English 'roast dinner' is one of the most sublime meals of all time, but this comment really stung me. OF COURSE you can have a 'special' meal that doesn't include meat! At this point I was well into my third glass of wine, so I rashly threw down a challenge to myself - I would cook vegetarian food for an entire week. Hah! So there!

In the cold sober light of day, I began to panic. As a teenager I gave up meat for Lent for a couple of years, and remember enjoying the food I cooked for myself then. However, that was many years ago, and I only had vague memories of what I had actually cooked. We do regularly eat one meat-free meal - last Summer I bought vast amounts of beautiful tomatoes from a local grower, and spent hours chopping and roasting them. Consequently we still have a freezer full of small bags of roasted tomato sauce, which we both adore. A regular speedy supper is spaghetti with some of this fantastic tomato sauce, and a scattering of parmesan cheese. But that was about all I had to go on!

I began scouring my shelf of cookbooks and soon began to feel a little more inspiration. I then posted a question on the topic on the cookery forum to which I belong... and what a fabulous response! I suddenly had hundreds of ideas, and started the week feeling as if I could cook vegetarian food for a month with no problem at all!

I started well - a fabulous Jamie Oliver recipe for Aubergine Lasagne, which I had found in a recent edition of Easy Living magazine. It contained thyme, and a small chili, which gave it a lovely gentle heat. A real winner.

I also made a wonderful butternet squash, red pepper and cream cheese soup, having been inspired by a day of cooking soup with my friend Sarah who supplies a local village shop with her homemade goods. I had never thought of adding cream cheese to soup, but it gave it a very velvety texture. It's always great to find new uses for the fabulous local squash that are so plentiful here. The co-ordinating Le Creuset pan was a happy accident!

One of our favourite Friday night meals is an all-American classic, the burger. Good burgers, nice buns and a huge selection of toppings (including the ubiquitous orange slices of processed cheese!) make it a really decadent end-of-week feast. I thought I would attempt a vegetarian take on this meaty classic, so announced to Rob that we would be having... mushroom burgers instead. How his little face fell! I roasted the huge portobello mushrooms with garlic and butter, and put them into some lovely onion rolls I had bought. I thought it was delicious - at least as good as the meaty alternative, especially when served with lots of grainy mustard, spicy fries and the New Orleans Coleslaw from Nigella Express. I could tell Rob wasn't quite so enthusiastic.

And this is where my vegetarian project hit a small glitch... I came downstairs on Saturday morning to find Rob in the midst of preparing a distinctly meat-filled Carbonade of Beef. Rebellion within the ranks! Of course, he made a vast amount of beef casserole (and very delicious is was too) so we ended up eating it for days.

As soon as the casserole was finished, I tried again, this time making a recipe given to me by a fellow cooking-forum member: Squash-stuffed Cannelloni. This consisted of making a mashed squash stuffing, filling cannelloni (which I soon discovered was a very tedious task!), then pouring over a delicious oniony, creamy sauce, and baking the whole dish. This, I have to say, was a huge success. Both Rob and I loved it, and I even ended up making the dish again a few days later, adding some red pepper to the sauce this time.

And so, after a very brief foray into vegetarianism, we are back to eating meat most evenings. However, it did serve the very useful purpose of reminding me how many fabulous meat-free dishes there are, and how easy many of them are to prepare. I am now finding myself cooking at least 1 vegetarian meal per week from my now-large and inspired list of ideas... and I'm getting no complaints!

A True Canadian Breakfast

Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day. The general wisdom is that, in an ideal world, one should breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper - all of which makes a great deal of sense to me in theory. Breakfast is the meal that should set you up for the day, whereas dinner should not be a time to over-indulge on calories and fat just before bedtime.

However, my main problem with this theory is that I just don't like breakfast. I'm not naturally an early-riser, so breakfast for me must be grabbed in the 10-15 minutes before I go to work, but even on the days when I don't work I can never whip up much enthusiasm for this meal. Cereal... I eat it occasionally, but get bored of it if I'm having it every morning, although I do use it as a way to eat my daily dose of health-giving seeds. Toast... my current daily breakfast: granary toast with Bovril (brought back from the UK in my suitcase!), or occasionally low-fat cream-cheese and my homemade wild grape jelly. All washed down with a large mug of tea of course.

I don't really mind the dullness of my morning meals from Monday to Friday, but at the weekends I really want to enjoy everything I eat. Food is a way of celebrating every aspect of life, even something that happens as regularly as a Saturday or Sunday. Thus, a lot of thought goes into our weekend breakfasts. Sometimes we go for the good old English fry-up of bacon and eggs. This is always a winning choice, although has the disadvantage of forcing you to spend the rest of the day smelling as though you are wearing 'Eau de Bacon', and filling the house with the stife of frying. It is also well nigh impossible to buy back-bacon here in Canada so streaky bacon must be used instead - still a good option but not quite authentic.

More recently, having been treated to this for breakfast over the Christmas holiday whilst staying with family, we have been eating a poached egg on toast with smoked salmon, which feels somehow healthy and delicious (don't disillusion me now, smoked salmon is full of those Omega oils!). I can see this entering our repertoire of 'special breakfasts'.

However, I think that my favourite ever weekend breakfast has to be the Canadian classic of pancakes with maple syrup. Over the last 18 months we have tried many variations of this: during the summer months when the beautiful peaches from the Niagara region are so abundant we slice some fresh peaches over the pancakes before dousing them with maple syrup (pictured).

At other times of the year the slightly surprising combination of crispy bacon placed on top of the pancakes, and covered with syrup is also a fabulous plateful. This is where the streaky bacon comes into its own as it fries into wonderfully crunchy strips of meat which provide an excellent contrast to the squidge beneath.

This morning what prompted me to come to the computer and write my first blog for weeks was the discovery that adding a handful of blueberries - bought in bulk locally last summer and thrown into the freezer - to each pancake as it cooked produced perhaps my favourite yet permutation of this breakfast. The blueberries defrosted as the pancake cooked, and then began to cook themselves, ending up in a slightly 'jammy' consistency. The slight tartness of the fruit worked beautifully with the blandness of the pancake and the sweetness of the syrup. I was in breakfast heaven!

What a wonderful way to start the day! I certainly do feel as though I have breakfasted like a king. Although I don't think there's much chance of us eating a paupers' dinner this evening...

Another Baking Mix...

Oh dear. After the success of my Funfetti Cake, I now find myself in supermarkets lingering around the 'packet cake' section of the baking aisle. In the past I'd walk quickly past this area, heading for the 'real' baking section where I would lovingly fill my basket with ingredients - packets of nuts, Chipits chocolate chips, etc - for my genuinely home-made cakes and cookies. Now however the evil Pillsbury boy and wicked Betty Crocker have weaseled their way into my consciousness and I find myself being increasingly tempted by what they're offering up.

I knew it would happen sometime, but last week I actually succumbed in true Oscar "I can resist everything except temptation" Wilde style when my eye alighted on this thing of beauty:

For those of you not in the know, Nanaimo Bars are a wonderful Canadian invention, purportedly hailing from the town on Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. They are a layered traybake consisting of a coconutty, chocolatey, biscuity base, topped with a sinfully creamy layer of, er, creamy stuff, and a final topping of chocolate. They are most definitely the kind of thing that a gastro-snob would shun, but despite my inate snobbery about cake-mixes, I wouldn't call myself one of those. I have often pondered making my own Nanaimo Bars, but somehow the idea of creating 3 layers was just too much mental baggage for me to carry and my plan has never made it to fruition. However, the words 'No Bake Treat' on the side of this gorgeously packaged box made it too much for me to resist.

Upon reading the instructions I was delilghted by the ease of the preparation (the box contains 3 packets, one for each layer) but also slightly taken aback by the sheer volume of butter required to make the finished product... Packet A - add half a cup of butter; Packet B - add butter; Packet C - add... guess what... more butter. Oh well I thought, something that tastes this good was never going to be a health food now was it?!

This photo was thoughtfully composed for my bilingual blog-readers!

And so it was made. For the amount of pure fat mixed into this creation, it fills a frighteningly small tray. The instructions suggest that you cut the finished traybake into 40 - yes, FORTY - pieces, and a 'serving' of 2 tiny pieces contains a mere 240 calories and 38% of your daily allowance of saturated fat. The message is clear: don't read the nutritional information on these boxes.

Looking again at this photo, I see that the closeness of the shot makes it deceiving... each piece is about 2cm x 4cm. Teeny.

Terrified that I would scoff the entire tray and induce an instant heart-attack, I took it to a Pot-Luck supper last night, where they were very popular. Fortunately there were just a few left at the end of the evening...

Bright Copper Kettles and Warm Woollen Mittens...

So enchanted have I been with Mara's fabulous idea of sharing our kitchen favourites, I thought I'd start a new one... show us you CHRISTMAS favourites!

We put our decorations up last weekend and I was delighted anew by some of the lovely things we have for the Christmas tree. After 11 months hidden in the attic it was great to rediscover these baubles. (That's the decorations in the attic, not me...).

So, here we are...

As you can see we aim for the 'jumble-sale' effect with our tree. Yes, it's a little crowded; no, it's in no way co-ordinated, but nonetheless it brings a smile to my face every time I see it. Christmas is no time for good taste and elegance now is it?

These teeny sweaters must surely rank among the 'best Christmas tree decorations EVER'. I find them adorable. We bought some in the UK over the last few years (from Accessorize) but were highly excited to find some in Canada too... and even more excited that we found them after Christmas so they were 75% off.

Another favourite decoration is this cute knitted monkey. My friend Vicky sent him to me last year, bought on her travels in Africa. I have a group of brilliant University friends and the 5 of us have a long-running amusement with monkeys (loooooong story!). The sheer variety of monkey-themed gifts that have passed between us in the 10 years since we graduated never ceases to amaze me.

I think it's nice that the tree is a reflection of the things that we love... so of course here's my cookie-baking ornament. This was a present from my fellow-foodie-friend Sarah this year, given to me a few weeks early so we could enjoy it before Christmas.

Something Rob and I both enjoy - the snow, and snowshoeing. We had a fabulous snowshoe walk last Winter, using snowshoes borrowed for a weekend from Base supply, and hope to do the same again this year. We bought these mini snowshoes in the LL Bean flagship store in Freeport, Maine, whilst on our Fall road-trip. I love to pick up Christmas tree decorations from around the world, so each one brings back memories. Mind you, I give thanks to the great LL Bean every time I put on my fantastic down-jacket that I bought there on the same trip. It's been incredibly warm over the last few weeks when Winter arrived here with a vengeance. You can see a mini-cardigan in the shot too.

My fondness for Emma Bridgewater is well documented, and how fortunate that I have friends with the same taste! This is another gift from Sarah - it a gorgeous scented candle, which smells wonderful. It's great when you find a friend who loves the same things as you do, and Sarah definitely falls into this category. Gifts this year from her have ranged from the delightfully tasteful Emma Bridgewater to the delightfully kitch Elvis rubber duck and the Jim'll Fix It soap on a rope. Comedy gold!

And so we move to the fireplace. In an ideal world this would be a real fire, but we're in an Army Quarter so don't get much choice about this kind of thing. However, we wouldn't be able to put fairy lights on the hearth if it was real, so I guess you could say we're making the best of it. The fairy-light ball on the table next to the fire is a favourite of mine, though not strictly a Christmas favourite, as it's there all year. I shamelessly stole the idea from my sister-in-law (or possibly it was my niece?) and made it as a present for Rob last Christmas. The three stockings that hang from the mantelpiece were bought here in Canada last year in the marvellous 'Michaels' art and craft superstore. I have to ration my visits there, otherwise I could bankrupt us.

As you can see from the mantelpiece, we like to have lots of real greenery in the house, and had an expedition out on the cross-country skis last weekend to gather some. Most is over the fireplace, but lots of our pictures are adorned with a good sprig of it too. Or an entire branch... I don't go for subtlety here.

And what am I listening to whilst decorating the house for the festive season?! Pure Christmas kitch of course. My favourite ever Christmas CD is the one on the left, bought in Bath and Body Works in Las Vegas last December. It's a charity double CD, a compilation of old and new, containing such delights as 'It's a Marshmallow World' by Bing Crosby, and 'Green Christmas' by the Barenaked Ladies. I love it. A recent acquisition is the Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers album, a treasure unearthed in Walmart recently. 'Hard Candy Christmas' is my favourite song. And of course Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without John Rutter. Perhaps you won't have heard of him, but anyone who has ever sung in a choir will be familiar with his gloriously harmonised carols. It became trendy in the singing world to dismiss his work as slightly 'naff', but that's all part of its charm. It's fabulous to sing, and really accessible to listen to.




I'll finish with another new purchase - this wonderful Santa's washing line, bought recently in Canadian Tire. It's hanging across the kitchen window and actually brought a spontaneous smile to my face this morning as I staggered down the stairs, half asleep, in search of my morning cup of tea. And after all, that's what Christmas should be all about - bringing a smile to your face in whatever way works for you.

Happy Christmas to one and all.

Fun, Fun, Funfetti!

I'm a keen baker. I aim for Domestic-Goddessery. I do not use packet cake mixes. For me, the packet cake mix belongs in some kind of culinary purgatory, inhabited by jars of Dolmio pasta sauce, tinned carrots, and 'Smash' instant mashed potato.


What then has brought me to this? A morning happily spent mixing, baking, icing and finally eating a large slice of a Pillsbury 'Funfetti' cake. Once again I can quite happily blame some of my fellow food enthusiasts who have raved about this cake, and persuaded me to throw aside my prejudices and try it.

I purchased a box of Funfetti cake mix, along with the accompanying tub of Funfetti Frosting (in for a penny, in for a pound...) on my last trip south of the border, adding it to the list of groceries stockpiled in an already full-to-bursting car. Even if I had not previously been primed to purchase this cake the jaunty box and, most importantly, the picture of the vibrantly-coloured cake would have been enough to land it in my trolley. The claim that 'a cup of pudding' was a part of the mix only added to the intrigue. How sweet is that Pillsbury man?! (Mind you, having read the ingredients, I can now only assume that the cute little chap is formed from pure lard). He had been peering at me out of the kitchen cupboard for far too long, so armed with my new sillicone bundt pan, I felt the urge to bite the bullet and bake the cake.






As you can see, the baked sponge looked gorgeous, even to me with my inate distrust of blue food...


I went for the 'artfully casual' style of icing the cake (cake-decorating not being one of my culinary strengths) and had great fun literally throwing the sprinkles at the sides of the cake. I will be finding them on the kitchen floor for weeks I'm sure.

And the proof of the pudding? Well, I actually thought it was quite nice! Teeth-achingly sweet, as Nigella would doubtless say, but deliciously moist, vanilla flavoured and excitingly speckled with colour. I'm not sure I would go out of my way to purchase it again (and considering that I need to drive to a different country to buy it, it would be quite far out of my way) but it has been hugely fun to try.

The Ultimate Comfort Food (or School Dinners Revisited)

The weather here has turned cold. Not just a little chilly. We're way past the point of just putting on an extra sweater, and turning the heating on for a couple of hours in the evening... the local schools have already had a couple of 'snow days' (last Thursday I had to do yard duty in a blizzard), my regular exercise is now shovelling the snow from the driveway and the average temperature over the coming week will be -10. Pretty soon we'll be plugging in the car's block-heater overnight so that the engine doesn't freeze.

I could say that it's at this time of the year that our thoughts turn to puddings, but that wouldn't strictly be correct... my thoughts are more or less permanently turned to puddings, although I rarely make them. However, it's at this time of the year that a very particular type of pudding comes into its own; yes, the School Dinner Pud. Stodgy, starchy, rib-sticking, custard-doused, but above all warming and filling. I suddenly felt a desperate urge for a pud like this last Tuesday evening. The problem with most such puddings however, is that they take a long time to cook - a steamed syrup sponge would have hit the spot, but I wasn't going to wait 3 hours for it.

Fortunately a brain-wave hit - semolina! Even more fortunately I had a packet of it in the cupboard, so within 5 minutes Rob and I were tucking into a bowl of it. It's hard to believe that 3 simple ingredients (semolina, milk and sugar) can create such a satisfying pudding (sorry, but 'dessert' just seems far too fancy a name for this), and in such a short time. A dollop of raspberry jam (Rob's topping of choice was Golden Syrup) and my joy was complete.

I'm not sure that I ever ate this at school - although Rob did, and hadn't eaten it since, so emotionally scarred had he been by the experience! - but I do remember eating it at home as a child, and loving it even then. I think now it ranks with rice pudding as one of my favourite Winter puds, and is probably old-fashioned enough to be lovingly thought of as 'retro', only adding to its appeal.