A Different Supper

I tend to get bored with the same meals. I need to change things up fairly often, whereas my husband would be content to have a "Monday meal", "Tuesday meal", etc. But I knew I'd be making supper tonight, so I searched through ideas that I had pinned from Pinterest in my "food" file and found something that looked good and was different than what I have usually been making. I figured out what ingredients I already had, then made sure to pick up the rest when I went grocery shopping today, because it's Saturday, and that's grocery shopping day!

This is teriyaki chicken and rice in the making. It was pretty easy to make and ended up being a big casserole, perfect for leftovers later in the week.

You make a teriyaki sauce with soy sauce, brown sugar, honey, ginger, minced garlic and a bit of olive oil, thickened with cornstarch. Then you cook four boneless, skinless chicken breasts in some of the sauce. Once the chicken is cooked, you shred it (I use two forks to do this) and add cooked rice, cooked Asian vegetables (the packaged, frozen kind), pineapple tidbits and more of the sauce. Then this mixture gets put back in the oven for another 20 minutes or so.

Once it comes out, you drizzle the remainder of the sauce on top. It was excellent!! If I make it again, I will add more than the cup of pineapple recommended. I think the pineapple helps to balance out the saltiness of the sauce.

That's the finished product with a couple of helpings already gone. My son will enjoy this when he gets home from work because he loves anything involving soy sauce.

My daughter, meanwhile, texted and sent a picture of a place that she and her boyfriend ate at tonight. It was an all you can eat Indian buffet. It looked wonderful. We have no Indian food restaurants around here at all, and it's a pity!

What about you, do you get bored with the same old reliable meals you tend to make over and over?

February 2nd

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Well, duh!!!!
Six more weeks of winter as predicted by our resident albino rodent. When has it not been six more weeks of winter?

Asking for an Opinion

I was wondering if any of you use Spotify. It's an app that lets you download music. I use the free basic level of Spotify, but because it's free, I only get some of the features. For example, I am only allowed to listen to playlists that I have made on "shuffle", I don't get to choose what I listen to first, and next, and so on. If a song comes on that I don't want at that time, I can skip it, but I'm only allowed to skip ahead about four times, then a message comes up asking if I want to buy the Premium level. Also, I always have to be online to listen to the music.

So... Premium costs a bit of money and apparently you can listen to what you want in the order you want and there are no advertisements that come on and interrupt the music.

I NEVER EVER pay for apps. If it isn't free, I don't want it. Mind you, I'm not a big techy person, so I likely don't even know what I'm missing.

I'm asking because I need something I can listen to in different settings, not just in my own home. I've started (to prove it to myself that I can) to run on the treadmill. I began with walking and running, alternating by looking at the minutes that go by and using those to gauge when I walk and when I run. I hated it until I started to listen to music when I ran/walked and then it was so much "more fun" (it's not really fun at all, but it's tolerable with music) Now I make little bargains with myself that I'll run for three songs, or whatever. When I listen to music from my phone on Spotify, I am stuck listening to whatever song comes up, and it's pretty limiting.

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So... any opinions about Spotify premium? Do you have it? Is it worth it? Do you have the family plan? Thanks all.

So We Thought a Cat Door Would Be a Good Idea...

We had become slaves in our own home. There are three possible doors out of which our "beloved" cats depart to go outside. They are very much indoor / outdoor beasts, even on the coldest winter day. Sampson, the eldest, has always let us know that he wants out by lifting and dropping the edge of the doormat with his claws. Sometimes he does the mat trick in front of the closest door to get our attention (i.e. to get us up off the couch) and then quickly moves toward the actual door from which he wishes to go out. He's actually pretty smart. Scooter, much younger and somewhat less intelligent, or so we thought, has learned the door mat flicking technique. We do a lot of letting out.

Sampson, the more refined, enjoying sleeping on unfilled Christmas stockings

Scooter, the cat with no tail, who is more laid back, not quite fitting on a chair

In order to ask to be let back in, our cats jump up on an outdoor window sill, close to one of the exterior doors, and "ping" (i.e. pull with claws) the screen on the window. In the winter time, there are much shorter durations between letting out and letting back in because, well, it's cold. But they really do want to go out, but then they really do want to come back in, and on and on it goes.

Not only were we tired of the constant doorman routine, but we were also anticipating an upcoming trip we were going on. We do not have family living any where close to us, so when we go away, we leave the looking after of cats to our reliable teenage son. This time around, however, we were going to go on vacation and take both of our children with us, so no teenage son in residence to let cats in and out. We have, in the past, asked our neighbour across the road to look in on our animals for us. He kindly agrees, but he works full time and he is not a "pet person". He agrees because it is the neighbourly thing to do. Also, it would be ridiculous to expect him to come back and forth to our house in the cold and snow to constantly let our cats in and out. That's asking too much of anyone! We had been contemplating a cat door for a while, so we decided now was the good time, well ahead of the trip so that our cats would learn the whole cat door process before we left.

Husband, who has no fear of tackling any home project, quite adeptly cut through a wall and installed the cat door in our mudroom, a perfect place because the access is well back in our car port where snow will not gather (defeats the purpose if you are shovelling snow away from the cat door) and the mudroom can be a self-contained large area where the cats can have their food, enough space to get away from each other (Sampson barely tolerates Scooter), and a litter box if necessary. As well, doors can be closed from the mudroom to the rest of the house so that the cats can go no further.

It was a "simple" cat door with a frame around the outside and a sturdy plastic flap with a magnetic closure.

We then began the process of teaching the cats how to use it. We moved their food and water to the mudroom, from the kitchen where it had been since we got Scooter. They had to know it was the new location so we were picking them up and carrying them out there quite a few times. As well, every time they wanted to go out and started lifting and dropping a mat in front of a door, we would pick them up, take them out to the mudroom and lift the flap of the cat door, gently urging them to go out that way. And yes, they continued to jump on the outdoor windowsills and wreak havoc with the screens. We would go outside (yes, it's winter) and literally walk around the house, cat in arms, to get to the car port and lift the flap to gently urge them to go in the cat door. This went on for many many days until Scooter (who knew??) figured it out on his own. We praised him every time he showed up in the house after using the cat door (do cats even care about praise?) and eventually Sampson also got the idea.

You know there's going to be a glitch, don't you? So, here's the glitch. I don't know if there's some kind of a cat telegraph line, or that our cats are just really friendly, social beings, or the neighbourhood cats look at our cats and think, "Gee, you're looking well fed!" and our cats are communicating back, "There's lots of food, come on over!", but we had a total of THREE other cats easily and gleefully using our cat door. In fact, they didn't just use it, but they went from the mudroom into the rest of our house! We spent a lot of time chasing cats away from our home, from our porch, from our mudroom, from our den, from underneath our cars (not in a bad way)... One of these delightful stray (but well fed) cats was also an unneutered male who felt the need to establish his territory all over my front porch and back porch and car port... Blehhhh!!!

Time marched on and it came time for us to leave for our vacation. We bought lots of cat food and large bottles of water which we kept in the mudroom. We propped the door from the mudroom to our den open and draped the couches and chair with sheets and blankets to protect them because I am a softie and thought our cats would like the comfort of lying on a couch for a week while we were gone. That was going to be their world, when they wanted to be inside: the mudroom and the den. We gave our key to our neighbour and asked him to just pop in every once in a while to check on the food and water levels, topping them up as necessary. We did tell him that there have been a couple of stray cats around and for him not to worry about it. The day before we left, I also watched a raccoon climb up the big blue spruce just off of our back porch. A raccoon which could likely have squeezed itself into our cat door along with the other animals. At that point, all we could do was put the luggage in the car and lock the door behind us.

Fast forward to returning from the vacation, luggage partially unpacked in the front hall, needing another vacation after the vacation... , our neighbour returns our key. We find out that one time, when he came to check on things, there was a totally different cat in our den. He had startled the cat and it shot around the room, leaping up in the air and actually knocking a painting off the wall! There had been copious amounts of cat hair all over the sheets and blankets draped on the furniture, and , I swear, there was a portion of cat poop on the baseboard in our den. Nowhere else, just clinging vertically to the baseboard!! How does that even happen?

Lord knows what else happened while we were away, what kinds of cat parties occurred, how many other species were in our home, but after we had been home for about a day, Scooter, who NEVER EVER EVER sits on anyone, jumped up on the couch on which I was relaxing with my feet up, and crawled on my lap and purred, for quite a while. Remorse? Forgiveness? Guilt?

Needless to say we had to close the cat door (there is a sliding closure that comes with it, we didn't actually diagonally nail a couple of boards over it) to prevent the onslaught of stray cats. We also spent a lot of time discouraging cats from showing up close to our home. In fact, I really don't even think they were strays. They looked cared for, fed, and they obviously knew how to use a cat door. I just wanted them to not come to MY home. If they go to someone else's home, that's fine with me.

Of course, closing up the cat door then led to more confusion and perhaps you could call it "untraining". Now our cats had to let us know they wanted out and in (and out, and in, and out...) the old fashioned way. Big sigh combined with an eye roll.

Okay, now it's your turn, do you have a pet door, and if you do, what, besides your pet, has come through it?

Go For a Walk

For the past two weekends, my husband and I have decided to spend some time getting out in nature and moving purposefully, for the benefit of both of us. As mother nature is gracing us with tremendously mild weather for the beginning of December, it is still lovely to be out walking on trails.

Two weekends ago, we walked along a lovely set of trails with just regular footwear and our winter coats and gloves. It was windy, but we were quite protected in the woods.

The water is not yet frozen and there is no snow covering the leafy floor.

Bracket fungus always makes me think of my sister. Yes, this is an odd statement. My sister was always far more crafty and artistic than I. When we were young, she had painted a rather large bracket fungus (taken off the tree) by coating each layer with a different colour. That fungus sat in our shared bedroom for years.

Who do you suppose lives here?

I love the sound of water running in little streams.

A couple of days later, it was time to make some comfort food. On the menu that night was leek and potato soup. Here are the ingredients ready to be cooked to a soft consistency and then blended with my hand blender. I loved my previous hand blender so much and used it until it died a noble death. My new one is great, too.

It made tons and I froze half of it. My husband and I had leftovers today for lunch.

Today's hike was even lovelier than the previous weekend. It was much more hilly and part of the route was called "Hardwood Highlands". The weather was wonderful. It is astounding to be snowless and seeing still-green lawns on December 3rd and I am very grateful. The walk helped us both physically and mentally. It is so nice to have this time together now that our kids are older and very independent. It's a great time to talk and solve life's problems.

This is how the trail started, on this beautiful path. We watched red squirrels chase each other through the trees. Red squirrels have very different temperaments than other types of squirrels. They are very cheeky and feisty.

This stump was covered in fungus (?) lichen (?).

Although most of the trail led us through a hardwood forest, there was an area at the end where beautiful, old cedar trees grew and the ground was spongy with their needles.

I love the texture of old cedar bark.

Yours truly in my very old, but well loved L. L. Bean coat and my fetching new hat ala Giant Tiger (a Canadian store). (sounds Canadian doesn't it??)

The trails we walked were part of a conservation area that also has beautiful ponds and rivers with ducks and geese and swans. There are also enclosures featuring interesting birds like various types of pheasants.

I thought this one looked like Phyllis Diller.

cat pics, sunset, beef for Joanne

Quite a gripping title wasn't it? I will first begin with the beef. I was reading Joanne's post over at  Cup on the Bus where she was describing how her granddaughter, a girl much more mature than I ever was at her age, might think about making a pot roast. Her granddaughter wondered if she could make it in a slow cooker. A bunch of comments ensued. The whole thing made me think of making roast beef, so that is what I did tonight. But, instead I used my "magical cooking pot", so called because everything turns out perfect in it.

It's never the same and I never measure, but tonight's roast was seared on all sides first, then I put it in a few tablespoons of tomato sauce (stole that idea from one of the comments on Joanne's blog), a good shaking of Worscestershire sauce, a shot of red wine (nothing says classy like wine in a box!) and a few shakes of "The Keg" steak seasoning. Then I cooked it slow and low in the oven (325 degrees until son came home from work at about 7:15 p.m.) I didn't keep track of time, but did check every once in a while to make sure the liquid was still sufficient.

My magical cooking pot (Dutch Oven) is a Kitchen Aid brand, but I know there are others out there. Mine was a fabulous price, on sale at Canadian Tire.

It turned out moist and wonderful, by the way. Mashed potatoes, carrots, corn, gravy, little frozen President's Choice Yorkshire Puddings, and a few Brussel sprouts for me. Sunday night supper.

A couple of nights ago, the sunset looked like fire on the horizon.

The picture doesn't do it justice. You can see some of the Christmas lights displays in the park across the road.

And now for some pet pics.

-Scooter rolling on the lawn (he's a bit of a idiot)

-Samson being disturbed mid-grooming

-Scooter's first chance to lick out the tuna can

And that's it. That's my Sunday night. 

Accidental Holiday Celebration

Tonight it was just the two of us as our son is away at a tournament (and daughter at university), so being as it was Friday night, I suggested we go out for supper. I didn't much feel like making anything, and I didn't want anything fancy, just good food.

We decided to go to one of our usual "hole in the wall" favourite restaurants in a nearby small town. As we drove up, we noticed a lot more cars on the main street than usual. The Christmas lights along the street were already up and glowing, so we thought perhaps it was a lighting ceremony this evening.

We went in to find a spot to eat (it is not a huge restaurant, so if you don't make a reservation, you might be taking your chances). Luckily there was still a spot that wasn't reserved. We ordered a draft beer each and thought about what we would like. The roast beef and Yorkshire pudding was one of the specials, so husband ordered that. I second-guessed myself and ending up ordering the barbecue Cornish hen, and shouldn't have. It was ok, but not really what I was hankering for.

As we sat with our food, we heard other people talking and realized that this evening was going to be the annual Santa Claus parade. We were quite close to the window, so we could see the parade from our table. We finished and paid for our meal before the parade was over, so I took some pictures to give you an idea of what a typical small town / rural Santa Claus parade is like.

The quintessential shiny red fire truck had already gone through, so no picture of that. I also didn't get the local high school float of a handful of the kids in the band playing a Christmas carol or two. Thankfully, today was one of the mildest days (and evenings) we've had, so the onlookers, as well as the parade participants, weren't freezing. There have been many Santa Claus parades that required winter coats, snow pants, hats, mittens, boots, scarves, and a lot of stamping of feet or sitting in cars with the engine running and the heat on!

Here's a sampling from the end of the parade:

A flat bed trailer with a host of little kids dressed up (as toys??) and lights strung along the side.

There are always animals - this one being a donkey wearing, if I'm not mistaken, a tree skirt as a cape.

It wouldn't be Christmas without a goat wearing a shirt. I apologize for the blurry quality of some of these photos. Trust me, it's a goat.

Pretty self-explanatory. This is the same vet service that took care of Scooter when he had to have his tail amputated, and Samson when he accidentally got a stick caught in his throat. I think we helped pay for part of this float.

Here is a giant grocery cart (those are full sized humans inside) pulling a regular sized grocery cart. This particular small town lost its one and only grocery store several years ago when it closed up. Thankfully, a few years later, it reopened under a new company. A town without a grocery store just can't survive, especially for those who do not drive.

The theme for the parade this year must have been gingerbread because there were a lot of gingerbread people and gingerbread houses.

 I love the teams of heavy horses and the sound they make coming up the street.

Santa is always at the end of the parade. Although he is very blurry here, he was an excellent Santa with resounding "Ho, ho, ho's". You can see the Rotary Club symbols on his float.

When Santa had passed, husband and I walked to where we had parked the car and knew it would be a wait until we could pull out and proceed home (we were also on the main street). Here are some images of parade participants on their way home as well that I caught as we were waiting in our vehicle.

-a pretty horse and rider complete with Christmas lights

 - and another

-and just to one-up the goat, here is a Christmas sheep. Its owners shouted Merry Christmas to us as we put the window down to take the picture.

Also in this community is a little store which always has a charming window display with moving figures. Last year's was featured in this post, but I think this year's is much more quaint. The mice moved as they decorated their little home.

Now we are home and the wind is just howling outside, although no snow is in the air. I have taken the advice of some of you wonderful readers and have begun to watch River on Netflix. I love it already! I even talked husband into watching with me and he concurs.

I hope you liked the glimpse of small town Ontario's early Christmas celebration. It is no "Macy's Day Parade", but it's predictable and hokey, and everybody waves and smiles. I know that many of you are celebrating your American Thanksgiving this weekend. I hope it has been lovely so far!