Get Your Canada Day On

Today is Canada Day.  I've scoured my  Pinterest boards and come up with a round-up of Canada themed decor, crafts, and food.   Follow the links provided to the original sources, and in honour of this country's birthday you can -

...decorate

Canada Day Banner from Simple as That

Canada Day Poster by Inklings Posters

Canada Day Mantle from Jennifer Edwardson

Canada Day Tablescape from Dining Delight

Map of Canada Pillow by Nicole Tarasick

Canada Day Wreath by Shelley Valentine

Canada Day Decor Blocks by lisabees

...print and craft

Canada Day Cupcake Toppers from Polka Dot Prints

Canada Day Subway Art from A Mama's Two Cents Worth

Canada Day Cupcake Toppers from Behind the Studio

Canada Day Party Printables from A Little Pixel

Canadian Digital Papers by Digital Bake Shop

Canada Day Subway Art from It Works For Bobbi!

Canada Day Leaf Art from Birch & Lily

Canada Day Wall Art from Simple as That

Canada Doodles Printable from Kids on a Plane

Flag Bunting for Canada Day by Botanical Paperworks

Canada Day Printables by Kiki Creates

...and eat

Jello Cake from Making Sweets

Genuine East Coast Donair by Jenn's Random Scraps

Ontario Butter Tarts from Adventure Foodie

Red and White Jello Dessert from Mommy B Knows Best

Mini Red Velvet Cheesecakes as seen on CupCakes and CrabLegs

Beavertails from Inspired Edibles

French Canadian Tourtiere from I Breathe... I'm Hungry...

Nanaimo Bars by Jenn's Random Scraps

Red and White Cake Pops from the Ottawa Bakery

Simple Canada Day Cake by The Kitchen Magpie

Enjoy, and Happy Canada Day!

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Food on Instagram

So, my Instagram feed is full up with food these days.  Over the past few days there were cupcakes, muffins, and granola bars.  A taco night emergency resulted in some DIY taco seasoning, and now I know that I never have to buy the packaged stuff again. 

I want to make another batch of these granola bars before I share the recipe, just to make sure they turn out as well the second time around.  The taco seasoning was amazing, more heat and less salt than the store-bought stuff, and I'll be sharing that combo of spices soon too. 

The lemon glazed blueberry muffins were my kids' idea, based on this recipe, and the cupcakes were all the kids' doing as well.  

Father's Day is coming up on Sunday.  Check out last year's post if you're stuck for a quick and easy Father's Day craft.

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Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day isn't a very big deal in our house.  Most of the kids have outgrown the Valentine celebrations at school, so I'm not preparing treats to send to school, or sitting for hours watching them painstakingly write out Valentines for their classmates.  Truth be told, I sort of miss all that.  So I decided that there should be a little something pink to greet them in the kitchen when they woke up.

And hearts, lots of hearts.

The cake is the Sweet Soft Cherry Bread with Cherry Almond Glaze from Averie Cooks.  It turned out pretty good, although hers is much prettier than mine.  The almond and cherry flavour is fantastic.

The heart garlands came together easily.  Each heart is three folded hearts glued together, with string running through the centre of each heart to connect them.  I used these printable heart images.

All in all, pretty simple.  Some hearts, a pink cake.  They will always be my Valentines, after all.

Almond Cherry Loaf

Ingredients

One 10 oz. jar maraschino cherries

2 tbsp white all-purpose flour

1 3/4 cup white all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup reserved cherry juice

1 tsp almond extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

Glaze

1/4 cup reserved cherry juice

1 tsp almond extract

Approximately 1 1/2 cups+ confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 350F.  Spray two 8x4-inch loaf pans with floured cooking spray or lightly grease and flour the pans; set aside. Recipe may be baked in one 9x5 pan, as 4 mini loaves, or as muffins. Adjust baking time accordingly.**

Remove cherries from jar and place on a cutting board.  Blot with paper towel to dry slightly, then roughly chop them.  Don’t discard the cherry juice, you’ll need it!

Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons flour (prevents them from sinking during baking) and toss to coat evenly.  Set aside.  

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 3/4 cups flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Whisk together.

In a small mixing bowl, combine eggs, oil, all the cherry juice from the jar except 1/4 cup to be reserved for the glaze, almond and vanilla extracts.  Whisk together.

Pour wet mixture over dry ingredients and stir to combine.  Batter will be thick.  Do not over-mix.

Lightly fold in the chopped cherries.

Pour batter into the prepared pans, smoothing the tops lightly with a spatula.  Bake for about 40 minutes, or until bread is domed, set, springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter. Allow bread to cool in pans on top of a wire rack for about 15 minutes before removing and allowing to finish cooling completely on rack. While bread cools, make the glaze.

Glaze

In a medium bowl, combine 1/4 cup reserved cherry juice, almond extract, about 1 cup confectioners' sugar, and whisk to combine until smooth and satiny.  Continue to add sugar until desired consistency is reached. Glaze the bread just before serving.

**Click here for a pan size baking conversion chart.

Thank you for featuring me!

    

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Snow Days

So far the kids' Christmas vacation has been extended by two days.  Words like 'frost quake' and 'polar vortex' have entered the weather conversation.  We do love to talk about the weather, and as conditioned as we are to the extremes of winter, the state of affairs these past few days warrant more than a casual mention of wind chills and snow squalls.  

It's been COLD, bitter cold.  It's been snowy, and windy, and downright wintry.  I woke up in the middle of the night one day last week to a loud boom, when the overnight low was well into the -30's, colder still with the wind chill.   At the time I had no idea what it was.  Turns out if was a frost quake, something I'd never heard of before.  

We've been under a blizzard advisory for two days.  In all the years that I've lived here, I don't ever recall a blizzard warning.  Snow squall warnings are common, given our proximity to the Great Lakes and all the lake-effect snow they create.  Wind chill warnings aren't news either.  But a full fledged blizzard?  Those only happen on the prairies, or the maritimes, or the northern territories... not here.  Until this week.  All thanks to a pesky polar vortex.

The forecast is for warmer temperatures by this weekend, but we still have a lot of winter ahead of us. Plenty of time for more winter weather conversations.  Maybe even a few more snow days.  Cabin fever is great incentive to get crafty and make, oh, maybe a solar system or something.

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Twenty One Days - Photos and a Few Links to Share

Hello December.  Only three weeks until Christmas - twenty one days.  So much to do, so little time.  We spent the weekend in Chicago, traveling from one hockey arena to the next, admiring Christmas lights and watching cars drive by with Christmas trees on their roofs.  I need to make a list.  Many lists.  But first I need to finish unpacking, do some laundry, and sort through a few hundred photos from our weekend away.

I found a couple of new recipes I want to try this holiday season.  A beautiful Stollen at Magnolia Days.  My Mom buys Stollen every Christmas at her local European delicatessen and I'm going to try making one this year.  Also, this Bananas Foster Breakfast Strata at Prevention RD.  It's sort of like my Oven Baked French Toast , but with boozy bananas :)

I came across some words that struck a chord with me.  

"....find the reason to be happy for the ordinary. Let tedious be extraordinary"

Pinterest is overflowing with ideas for the most beautiful, delicious, and crafty Christmas ever.  Realistically, I'd like to make time to get one craft done with the kids and these Sock Snowmen are on my list.  

And I am now officially in love with The Cheesecake Factory.  I may or may not have pinched a menu while lunching there.  And I may or may not be planning to copy half of their menu items.  So good.

Twenty one days.  Better get cracking.

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Happy Thanksgiving Canada

We're celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend, and I have a busy few days ahead of me.  We'll be hosting the turkey sit-down at our house, making a couple of trips to the rink, and hopefully enjoying some beautiful fall weather.  A to-do list is running circles around my head and I don't have it in me to write anything inspirational today, so I'm recycling last years Thanksgiving post.  This weekend is all about family, gratitude, and turkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)

The long Thanksgiving weekend is here!  As excited as I am about enjoying three days off with my family and sitting down to an all-the-trimmings turkey dinner, I'm also reflecting on the many things we have to be thankful for.  Traditionally, Thanksgiving celebrated the harvest and all the blessings of the past year.  It was a holiday created to express gratitude.  I've been thinking about gratitude a lot lately.  I've watched people I love and care about struggle with various crisis in their lives and I am reminded again and again of all that we have to be thankful for.  

Gratitude is about taking notice of what's around you and being aware of all the good things in your life.  Often we are so busy thinking about the future, or dwelling on the past, that we don't see the present and all the things we should be grateful for on a daily basis.  Sometimes we get caught up in comparing our lives to the lives of others and wishing for better or more.  Gratitude is the act of looking to our own lives - the roads that we've travelled, the experiences we've been through, the gifts that we've been given - and appreciating all that this life is teaching us.  Life may not be perfect and our paths may need adjusting, but gratitude requires that we look to the good in our lives and be thankful for it.  Often the very things we take for granted are the things that some people only wish for.  Despite hardships and challenges, when you stop and really take a look around you, life is pretty good.

So this Thanksgiving weekend I am thankful for my family, healthy kids, our imperfect home, the turkey that's in the oven, and the beautiful autumn weather.  I'm also grateful for teachers that do great crafts in their classrooms.  A Thanksgiving table setting can be a beautiful thing, but it's decorations like this that make them great:

Easy, peasy... a potato, some toothpicks and construction paper 'feathers', and a turkey face from a colouring page... love it!

Thank you for the feature!

  

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Father's Day Craft

Sharing something quick before the weekend gets here.  I found this amazing site a while back and I'm finally putting it to use for Father's Day.

I'm not the craftiest person you'll ever meet, so this is well within my abilities.  The plan is to print the graphic onto an 8 x 10 sheet, have each of the kids sign it, and pop it into a frame.  Ridiculously easy, and the possibilities are endless... you can type in any word you like!

Go check it out:

http://metaatem.net/words/

And happy to Father's Day to all the special Dad's in our lives!


Thank you for featuring me!

 

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