Mushroom Gravy

2 cups potato water
1 large white mushroom chopped
half onion chopped
1 tablespoon butter
2 crushed fresh oregano leaves
pinch salt
pinch black pepper
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup water


Start by putting the potato water in sauce pan with the mushroom and onion boil for 3 minutes, as it is reducing add butter until melted, then add black pepper and oregano, stir and continue to boil on low heat for another 6 minutes then add salt and flour. Keep stirring adding water. Simmer another 5 minutes.

This will be a light coloured gravy, if you wish to add browning then feel free.

Newfoundland Eggnog

My Uncle owns a bar here in Thunder Bay called Newfie's Pub. There were a few times in the past when this version of eggnog was served at the bar. It took some hunting but I got the recipe.

1 bottle of screech
1 liter of fresh milk
1 tin evaporated milk
6 eggs
1/2 cup white sugar
nutmeg

Separate eggs beat yolks with 1/4 sugar then beat the whites with 1/4 sugar.
Combine all screech and milk and evaporated milk.
Add egg yolk mixture then top with the egg white mixture.
Sprinkle the nutmeg

Red Pepper Soup

Photo by Kimberly Hulst copyright hcvp-09

Okay, So I spent the last few days cooking. Well, part of yesterday anyway as mom had a doctor's appointment in the morning.
Yesterday, I made a homemade red pepper soup. No recipe. It turned out fabulous. I just forgot to write it down as I went. Brilliant me. Here is a photo of it. Well a screen capture actually, as my digital camera was dead I had to use my video camera to get a video then turn it into a still. Which took more work then the actual soup.


1 stalk celery
1 large mushroom
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon butter.
3 cups water
1 red pepper
4 leaves fresh oregano
1 cup uncooked pasta
1/2 cup sliced green beans
1 can stewed tomatoes
extra water as needed.

Chop the celery and mushroom and saute them with the butter and garlic for 3 minutes, then add the water. Let simmer on medium heat for half hour.
Cut the pepper into strips and add it to your mix, stir and continue to simmer now on a lower heat for another half hour, pinch up the oregano leaves and add. Stir. continue simmering for another 15 minutes.
Add the green beans and the stewed tomatoes, stir, add extra water if needed, simmer for another 15 minutes then add uncooked pasta.
Let simmer with lid on for another half hour.

Should serve 6. This can be made for under $10

But what do you want to do?

Originally posted on my other blog Andrew and the Aluminumsidings on Dec 8th 2009

Julie and Julia came out on dvd today. I had to rent it. I saw it back in the cinema this summer, and read the original book by Julie Powell, and am half way through the book My Life in France by Julia Childs.

I was suppose to be reading the next book for review from Harper Collins Canada, but I just did not feel like it today.
What I did do, was rent the movie and decide I wanted to spend the day cooking. I haven't been really serious about food in 10 years. Before I became a vegetarian I used to cook every night of the week. Roasted chicken with cous-cous and peppers in a yogurt sauce. Meatloaf with scalloped potatoes and green beans. Casseroles with home made tea biscuits. You get the idea.
I was good at it too. Not great, but no one ever starved. I can even make Fish and Brews. Not that I ever liked seafood. Hate it actually, even more so since becoming vegetarian 9 years ago.

Anyway, today I made a Hashbrown casserole, and a potato/asparagus cream soup. Still have to make the stock for the vegetable soup.

So there is one burning question in the movie that both characters face "what do you want to do?" Cooking ends up being the answer one gives and does it by doing a cook book and Writing is the answer the other gives, and does it by cooking then blogging it.
Cooking and Writing.

Hmmm. So while I was mixing up the casserole, I was letting my mind drift to that question. I want to write. But other then that, I want to paint, make videos, edit movies, basically just create. Which I do now.
So if I am doing what I want then why do I still feel like a bucket of dren? Then I thought maybe I picked the wrong role model?
I have been framing my life after Dorothy Parker. And I realized from what I have managed to learn of her, she had 2 failed marriages and a failed love affair. Great mind, fabulous skills as far as being a literary genius, but not really good at the domestic side.

So what is it that I want to do that I am not doing? To be useful, to be needed, to be someone's wife.
Am I going to find my purpose through cooking? Maybe who knows, but at the moment it's a great form of meditation. You tend to stop thinking of the stress in your life and focus for the few minutes it takes to chop an onion or mix a batter ,on the moment.

I think the one Yule gift I am going to buy myself this year is Julie Powell's second book Cleaving A Story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession. It came out last week. That and I am really coveting a new spice rack. The steel kind with the two shelves that spins and hold 40 spice bottles.

Cinnamon Layer Loaf

Mom's getting ready for the holidays, was over her place and she made the first round of goodies.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla
2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon cinnamon ground
3 tablespoon brown sugar

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs on at a time. Beat
Add vanilla,
In another container combine flour, salt and baking powder
Add this then to mix alternating it with the milk.
In another container mix the cinnamon and brown sugar.
Put 1/3 batter in bottom of pan and sprinkle cinnamon mixture over the batter. Continue to do layers of the cinnamon mixture and batter making sure you end up with the final layer being batter. Bake in a well greased pan at 325 F for one hour.