the past couple days have had gorgeous weather & so we’ve been spending most of our time outside, my time indoors has been spent on making a birthday cake…. I used the gumpaste flower that Credit union point I made the other day, marshmallow fondant, chocolate cake from scratch.
this is a napkin for the party theme….
ta—-da— here is the cake!
tomorrow I will post some pictures of break-up that I took today. The ice is all broken & sitting in the river. waiting for more water to show up to push it into the bay….
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Break-up & Gumpaste.
Today was eventful – well as eventful as it gets in the life of a mom in a small northern town without someone having to go to the hospital for losing a limb!
First of all break-up is here. For those of you who might be reading this who are from the south might wonder what I mean by break-up. Well we are located on a large river that flows into the James Bay. Our river freezes well during the winter so much so that we are able to drive on it in vehicles on an ice road. In the spring the river breaks up & the ice runs into the bay.
This can sometimes be very dramatic with a lot of extra water & huge chunks of ice pushed up onto the shore. Sometimes it is very boring (like last year) where the ice just kinda melted out. This year is about in the middle, nothing dramatic or quick but some pile-ups of ice, water is higher but nothing crazy. REGARDLESS every year this is a much anticipated event & signals the changing of the season. I’m always amazed at the power of the river & how so quickly it changes from skidoo traffic on the river to boats!
I’ve had this “Ziggy’s” Ravioli with Spinach & Cheese in the freezer for sometime & haven’t known what to do with it, so for supper today I made a sauce, kinda like an alfredo/carbonara sauce. Bacon, onions, mushrooms, cream (some 5% and some whipping…whoaaaa), garlic, parmesan cheese – I read a bunch of different recipes and they called for an egg to thicken it – I didn’t have an egg so I used some cornstarch to thicken it.
It turned out really well & the kids ate it right up!
Wow this is getting to be a long post…. tonite I wanted to try some gumpaste – I bought some stuff from Amazon.ca a little while ago & have wanted to try it plus I’m making a birthday cake for the weekend so thought I’d try a couple flowers for it. It was super fun! I had an observer (not helper 🙂 who kept me supplied with endless youtube videos of techniques that I mostly didn’t use but maybe they helped by osmosis. The flower still needs a stamen, not sure how to do that yet. YouTube here I come.
The last thing to share for today is a lesson on what happens when you don’t listen to your mother.
If you don’t listen you have to wear plastic bags in your boots. 🙂
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Cotton Candy Birthday Cake
Today I made a birthday cake for my sister who turned 12 today! My mom had found a cake in a Rachel Ray Magazine and it was the inspiration for this cake.
I swear that not everything I do is Rachel Ray inspired – according to this blog this appears to be the case! I was actually able to find gumballs AND cotton candy at Northern. I was shocked. The cotton candy was a bit shmooshed so didn’t stand up as the picture. I made the cake from the box (gasp) which is SO much easier – especially for white cakes. I marbled the cake with pink as per the birthday girl’s request. The recipe called for the cake to be cooked in a 3″ pan which I did and then slice them in half & fill them with jam. Nope. Skip. From the box cake always falls apart and it would have been a big FAIL. So I skipped that.
I usually cover cakes in marshmallow fondant which is fun & easy to use. But this cake was just covered in buttercream which scares me cause its not nice & smooth – or I guess it could be if you were good at it…. so I tried it and it turned out well I think….
I did take a picture of the inside of the cake when we cut it but I took them on my brother’s camera not mine. oops.. so I’ll have to load those another day.
In other news…. Jade wants to be a mermaid when she goes up. Don’t worry, she’ll bring the whales to visit us and will get our attention by splashing so we can say hello every once in awhile.
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Curry – don't mind if I do…
So tonite for supper I made one of my stand-by favourites Rachel Ray’s “Fruited Chicken Curry in a Hurry”. Yumm – I do make some alterations to the recipe… I do add more veggies – I cut them up nice & small so the littles eat them right up with out even counting them (ie. how many green pepper pieces do I have to eat? – insert eyeball poking here) I don’t use 4 chicken breasts, I am far too cheap to put that much meat in one dish. I used regular raisins instead of golden only because I only have the brown ones and I’d have to leave Sydney at the store to pay for some others – so we make do. I added green peppers & mushrooms to this but have in the past used red peppers, carrots, whatever is in the fridge really. Oh yeah and I use whatever apples are around.
My new absolutely FAVOURITE product is PC Greek Yogurt. It is SO creamy & thick and yummy and has NO FAT, NO FAT! Tastes better than the good sour cream, the 18% kind and has NO FAT. Ok. I love it and will now order 2 every time I order in groceries, I hope they send it (if you don’t know what I mean by order in groceries that is a story for another day).
Here is the recipe……
2 cups basmati rice
3 tbsp vegetable oil
4 6-oz boneless, skinless chicken breast halves, cut into ½ inch slices across the width of the breast
coarse salt and coarse black pepper
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated
2 tbsp ground coriander
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large green apple, peeled and diced
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken stock or broth
2 tbsp curry paste, mild or hot
¼ cup golden raisins
Mix-and-Match Toppings
4 scallions, thinly sliced
½ cup sliced almonds or Spanish peanuts
1 cup prepared mango chutney
¼ cup finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Prepare the rice according to the package directions.
Preheat a large, deep nonstick skillet over medium-high heat with 2 tbsp of the oil. Add the chicken, season with salt and pepper, and lightly brown. Remove the chicken and reserve on a plate. To the same pan, add the garlic, ginger, coriander, onions, apples and remaining tablespoon of oil and sauté together for 3 to 5 minutes. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute more. Add the chicken stock to the pan and bring to a bubble. Add the curry paste and golden raisins. Reduce the heat to medium low. Add the chicken pieces back to the pan. Simmer the curry for 8 to 10 minutes.
Assemble the toppings in small dishes. Serve the curry in shallow bowls with scoops of basmati rice. Garnish with any of all of the toppings.
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Easter Monday – a holiday from real life!
so useful things completed today…. well I made scalloped potatoes – 10lbs of them for our family Easter dinner, 10lbs is a lot of scalloped potatoes, we ended up having a lot leftover but better that running out! I need to get into the swing of this whole blogging thing & take pictures of what I’m making. The recipe was very simple, good old Canadian Living. I omitted the thyme, I tried them once with that ingredient but I found it very overwhelming to the nice cozy taste of scalloped potatoes! The only other really useful thing I did today besides the regular kids duties (stop bugging your sister, please clean up the tornado of polly pockets on the living room floor) was go to the fitness class this morning & go for a run/walk.
I’ve committed to doing a Couch to 5K program. It is a 8 week program to “learn to run” ack. pain. SO far I’ve got 2 days in and am tracking my progress on Daily Mile which allows me to hook up virtually with some other ladies in my area that are running (or attempting to!). The podcast that I’m using now is some Nicole lady who posted it on her blog but its AWESOME! Audio cues to change walk/runs & different music every 30second – 1 minute, just what my music ADD needs! I’ve attached my little kms tracker to this blog so that I can keep track of my km grand total! Today the wind was COLD. COLD NORTH WIND, I should have worn mitts but instead I went out with wet hair after my shower. oops…
Break-up is doing nothing, water is higher, ice is looking rotten. Hopefully there will be some movement on that front this week. Tomorrow I must be on the ball and have a picture for my post.
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