Making our own Sea Salt

The thought struck Paul recently that we live near the ocean and can therefore make our own salt out of seawater. We searched a bit online and found that it was quite easy, so yesterday we tried it out.
On Saturday, we took a couple of empty 2L pop bottles to the beach (side note: Tons of whales! Maybe even a Fin Whale!) and filled them with sea water.

We then put that water in a big pot and boiled it away to almost nothing. Towards the end it started popping and sputtering like popcorn.

So, when it was more like wet salt then water, we spread the salt on a pan and dried it in the oven:

It came out looking kinda like snow:

We got just over a shaker's worth from 4L of sea water. Plenty to last us awhile, and we may never have to buy salt again!

Genuine Newfoundland Sea Salt.

In Which I Like to Make Up Recipes

I made something yummy today and thought I'd share it with you. I like making recipes up off the top of my head, and this is one of them. It was inspired by something I ate years ago on a progressive supper when we were leading the youth group.

Coconut-Peanut Soup with Chicken 
(I'll show the pictures first, the recipe is below a la Smitten Kitchen)












1 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced (I use jarred minced garlic* - it changed my life)
1/2 can of coconut milk (200ml)
1 cup natural peanut butter
1/2 cup chicken stock
salt and pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper (more if you like it spicy - I would make it more spicy if G wasn't eating it)
2 Chicken breasts*, sliced thinly (I find that it's easier to slice thin when it's still partly frozen)
Bean sprouts (handful)
Vermicelli Rice Noodles (about half a cup cooked)


Fry up the onion - actually, my favourite way of doing onions is by steaming them in bit of water until it boils off, then adding a small splash of oil until they're fried - seems to cook them way faster (I learned this from Michael Smith, your chef at home, who is my hero).
Add chicken stock, peanut butter and bring to a boil. Turn down to low, add coconut milk and spices.

Fry chicken strips in a splash of olive oil until they are white and cooked.
Boil  and drain noodles, either breaking them up beforehand, or cutting them up (I use scissors) afterwards.

Layer in the bowl with noodles, then some bean sprouts, then the chicken, and pour the soup over top.

Yum.

* No-Name things I used in this meal.

Life Marches On

So we survived Hurricane Igor with not even a power loss. It seemed like ours was one of the few streets that didn't have the power go out - most people lost it for at least a day! I feel pretty lucky.
Life continues to move on, with me staying at home and Paul going off to the school every day - he's trying to get all his schoolwork done on a 9-5 basis so that he can be home on evenings and weekends without worrying about papers and readings. We call it "work" to G, just so it's less confusing.

I am trying to be more organized with staying at home. It's so easy just to let the days get away from you and then the whole day is gone. One of my goals is to bake at least once or twice a week.

This week was one of my favourite Autumn recipes - Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins. I love the ones at Starbucks, but since the closest Starbucks is a good half hour walk and the muffins are expensive, I try to make my own. They're pretty similar.




Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins


1 package of Cream Cheese
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar (I reduced this a bit to 1 1/2)
3 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp cloves
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups canned pumpkin
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
4 eggs

Oven: 350
Paper or grease 12 muffin cups (this recipe claims to make 24, but that must be small ones, cause I barely got 12 - I like big overflowy muffins, I think)

Stir together dry ingredients. Beat eggs and stir in pumpkin and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just till combined - cause they're muffins and you always do that with muffins.

For the cream cheese: You can either roll it into a big log and put it in the freezer, or you can just do it the lazy way like me and just take it straight out of the package .
Put a small spoonful of batter into each muffin cup, add a little chunk of cream cheese (like... half a tsp), then put more batter on top of that. Make another chunk of cream cheese (maybe a little bigger) and press it into the top of each muffin. This way you have cream cheese all the way to the bottom of the muffin, which is the best thing ever.
Bake for 20-25 min, or until a toothpick comes out clean, blah blah blah, just don't burn them.

My dream is to be able to put the candied pumpkin seeds on top like they do at Starbucks, but I haven't found them/haven't had the energy to make them.



G gives it her seal of approval.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

So, as we are waiting for some income to start flowing in from various sources for the upcoming year, we are living on a bit of a shoestring for a couple of weeks.
BUT! It is good for us. We tend to make bad habits of going out to eat ("Why, hello Extreme Pita just a block away! Yes, please."), but with a tight budget this month, there's no room for eating out on a whim.

So, we went to the farmer's market and stocked up on yummy veggies and I made a meal plan (which I try to do even in the best of times). Some highlights were a pot of fresh herbs to grow (parsley, thyme, rosemary and oregano), and multi-coloured tomatoes (which we made into salsa yesterday) Today I made a fantastic and very delicious meal that I totally invented, so I thought I'd share it.
I don't know how often I'll post recipes on here (a la The Mama), but I may post a few that I'm particularly proud of.

Summer Squash, stuffed with Split Peas 


I picked up some small round yellow summer squashes at the farmer's market, I'm still not sure what kind they are, but they're pretty similar to a yellow zucchini.

3 Summer Squashes
1/4 cup cooked rice
1/2 cup split peas (I used yellow, but I don't think green would make a difference)
2 tsp chicken bouillon
Bay Leaf
dash of oregano
sprigs of rosemary and thyme
2 Tbsp Sunflower seeds
2 Tbsp crumbs (bread or cracker)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Cut the squashes in half scoop out the seeds  and discard and then scoop out the majority of the flesh and set aside, leaving barely a quarter-inch thick walls.  Lob off the bottom bit of each half so it sits flat.

Boil the peas in about 2 cups of water, add boullion and all other spices. Cook until the peas are fairly mushy and have absorbed most of the water. You may need to add more water if the peas get dry while boiling them.
Meanwhile, boil the flesh of the squash in some salted water until soft.

When everything is cooked, mix together rice, peas, squash flesh, sunflower seeds and some more salt and pepper - maybe a bit more spices as well. Scoop the filling into the squash shells and sprinkle on the crumbs.

(this is also a view of our tiny kitchen)
Bake at 350 for about 10-15 min, changing the oven to broil for a couple minutes at the end so the crumbs get toasted.


Serve and enjoy!


G loved it, she kept saying "Yummy!" and ended up eating two of the littlest ones (an entire squash!). She has gotten pickier lately, so it was great to have her love something so much that she ate every morsel.


I also cooked up some beet greens and made a peanut sauce to go on them. I don't think I've eaten the greens on beets before, but they were similar to chard, but maybe a bit more bitter. The peanut sauce really helped with the bitterness. We got a HUGE bunch of beets at the farmer's market for only $2. The greens were this meal, and I think the beets themselves might last at least two more meals. Pretty sweet deal!