I KNOW IT'S BEEN AWHILE....
I'm trying really hard to focus on my knitting lately and get a stock pile because I'm really hoping to open an "Etsy" shop.  So that's why I haven't posted anything for a good week now.  Knitting takes awhile to accomplish anything, however I have managed to finished two hats and a scarf this week.  I'm also finding as the baby gets older she is much more demanding :)  She is my main priority, obviously.  Thank god it's Friday...daddy is home for two days!!!  Well i'll try to keep up with this a little more in the next couple of days.  Happy Friday!!!

HOO HOO......OWL STUFFIE!

I made little Ruthie a stuffed owl for her birthday.  I really love owls, especially stuffed owls...they are super cute.  I pulled out my bin of fabric and decided to make a denim owl.  I was also kind of going for an Asian kind of look with the colors and the choice of ribbon.  Anyways, I really love this owl and I hope that Ruth does too.  

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY RUTH!
My good friends little girl turns 1 on Sunday.  So as part of her birthday gift I did a pencil sketch of her.  It's officially finished and framed.  I can't believe it's already been a year since she was born.  In no time my little Willow will be one.  It's pretty crazy how fast time really flies when you are having fun.  Here's a photo of the finished product.

SWEET N SALTY
We are nearing the end of our two week salad challenge, but really hasn't really been a challenge at all.  However some seem to think poor Marty is starving to death.  I just happened to mention that some were mentioning having a week of steak on the drive home from work last night.   Low and behold what does he decides he wants for dinner....STEAK...yuk!!!  I'm not a red meat eater so that idea was not so appealing to me.  I figured I had tortured him enough with salads, so I allowed him to break the streak and have steak and cheese sandwiches (with a side of salad of course).  I myself went ahead and ate my really delicious fig salad.  I would have to say this one was my favorite of all of them.  So many combinations of flavors that all worked really well together.  
I was also told that It was mandatory that I post photos of his steak...so here are the pics.

CAKE POPS!!!
I recently discovered these cute little creations all over the internet and was surprised I had never heard of them before.  For whatever reason they got me really excited and I couldn't stop talking about wanting to make them. My friends little girls 1st birthday is this weekend and we were asked to bring a little something to eat.  What better opportunity then a birthday party to make cake pops!!  It was a really fun project and they taste really good too.  A little bit time consuming, but hey...I'm on maternity leave!  
Very very easy to make too.  I just used a chocolate cake mix and some chocolate icing.  You simply bake the cake and then crumble the entire thing in a bowl.  Mix in a tub of icing and form balls.  I froze the balls for about 4 hours (sucker sticks in before freezing).  Then I melted some pink chocolate pieces (bought at Michaels) and dipped them in.  Sprinkled a few little sprinkles on them and voila!  I'm geek so I went all out and wrapped them in individual sucker bags and added some ribbon.  Hey, I have a lot of decorations left over from the candy bar that I had at my wedding last year.  Here's some pics of the process.

WATERMELON...HMMMMMmmmm MY FAVORITE!!!

Every since I was pregnant watermelon became one of my all time favorite foods.  It's just so refreshing and juicy!  I don't even want to begin to think about how much of it I actually ate when I was pregnant.  I guess it's better then being hooked on ice cream.  I'd have a hell of a lot more weight to loose right now if that was the case.  

A while back I was watching one of the many shows that I enjoy on the food network.  They had an episode dedicated purely to watermelon and things that you can make with watermelon.  Who knew it would be delicious in a salad!?  Every since I've been making different variations of watermelon salad.  This one was super delicious and here is the recipe for you.  

Ingredients

Watermelon (of course)

Lettuce of your choice, I used baby spinach

Grilled chicken breast (I marinated mine in a bit of olive oil, lime juice and honey)

Crumbled goat cheese

Toasted sunflower seeds

Fresh mint

Balsamic Vinegar (simmered on medium heat until it forms a syrup)

Sea Salt 

Black Pepper

Olive oil

Fresh lime juice

WEEK TWO, SALAD ONE....COBB!
We are now officially into week two of eating salad every night for dinner.  I'm actually not sick of eating salad at all and I'm kind of looking forward to the rest of the week.  My thoughts today were that I might potentially try out a two week period of eating only vegetarian meals for dinner.  Does anyone actually know if statistically speaking vegetarians end up having better health???  
I found some really great vegetarian entrees in the LCBO magazine that I might try out.  Speaking of LCBO and it's magazine, has that some how been taken off the press???  I haven't seen one in a very long time and it is quite disappointing.  I love the recipes out of it and always look forward to the new one coming out.  
Anyways, back to salad....tonight's salad was probably one of my favorites out of all of them so far.  It was a light cobb salad with a really great dressing.  Here is the recipe...I did substitute a few of the ingredients.  I am NOT  a fan of blue cheese, I find it quite repulsing.  So I used an applewood smoked cheddar, my favorite cheese.  I also stupidly forgot that the avocado that I had bought was for that salad and used it making guac this weekend.  So simply there was no avocado.

Ingredients:

- 1/2 head of romaine, coarsely chopped
- 1 cucumber, chopped or sliced into small pieces
- 1/2 head of Boston lettuce (or Iceberg), coarsely chopped
- 2 hard-boiled large eggs, separated, whites and yolks finely chopped
- 5 slices of extra lean turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled
- 1 ripe avocado, cut into small pieces
- 6 oz chicken breast, cooked and diced
- 2 tomatoes, finely chopped
- 1/2 cup blue cheese

Dressing
- 1/3 cup red-wine vinegar
- 2/3 cup olive oil
- 1 tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 small clove garlic, crushed
- Salt and pepper

Directions:
Combine chopped lettuce in a large salad bowl.
Arrange the chicken, bacon, tomato, egg and avocado over the greens.
Whisk vinegar, mustard, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Add the oil in a slow stream, whisking until it is emulsified. Serve separately.

COLD, FLU AND KNITTING
It has now been two weeks that my husband, daughter and myself have been suffering from this never ending cold.  It seems as though one of us is getting over it and then bam it's back again.  That being said it's been really hard to get things done creatively.  I've been working on knitting a lot lately and I just finished a tuque for my husband today.  It was a very simple pattern and only took me two days to knit it, not too bad considering the babe has been super cranky.  Other than that not much to report.  Oh yes...we did make caramel apples today, that was challenging but fun! 
Here's the hat!

SALAD FOUR.....NOT THE BEST 
Friday finally arrived and it was the last day of the week for eating salad.  This was a version of an Asian salad that I make often.  It's usually just made with mango's and lots of other veggies.  To make it a little hardier I decided to add some spicy shrimp.  Spicy was not the word to describe these shrimp. I thought when I read the recipe that 1/4 cup of chili paste seemed like wayyyyy too much, so I cut it down to 2 tbls and even that made them out of this world hot.  Don't get me wrong I love heat in my food but this was brutal.  We decided to wipe them down with paper towels to get the sauce off so we could some what stand them enough to eat.  I'm not even going to bother putting up the recipe for this one, but you can have a peak.

SCALLOPS MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER
Salad number three and some how we are not sick of eating salad yet.  By the time we got to eating dinner last night it was after 8:00 and I don't think Marty even took one breath eating this yummy salad.  He is a big fan of scallops, especially the gigantic ones you can buy at Costco.  I highly recommend them, especially wrapped in the extra thick maple bacon from Costco.  
Back to salad...this salad was definitely the more time consuming of the three and you really have to watch those scallops carefully to cook them properly.  Here is the recipe and a few photos...enjoy!!!

Ingredients

·         2 strips bacon

·         2 bunches watercress, thick stems trimmed (I used baby spinach)

·         2 Kirby cucumbers, cut into spears

·         1 bunch radishes, quartered

·         1/3 cup instant flour (such as Wondra) (I used regular all purpose flour)

·         Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

·         3 to 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

·         1 1/3 pounds large sea scallops (about 16)

·         Juice of 1 lemon

·         1/3 cup chopped fresh chives

·         4 thick slices rustic bread, toasted

Directions

Cook the bacon in a medium nonstick skillet until crisp. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to drain; reserve the skillet.

Divide the watercress, cucumbers and radishes among plates.

Season the flour with salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Discard all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon drippings from the skillet, add 1 tablespoon olive oil and heat over medium heat. Working in batches, toss the scallops in the flour and cook until golden on the bottom, about 2 minutes. Turn and cook until golden on the other side, about 2 more minutes (add 1 tablespoon oil, if necessary).

Arrange the scallops over the salads. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and the lemon juice to the skillet, then remove from the heat and add 1 to 2 tablespoons water, swirling the pan to release the browned bits. Crumble the bacon and add to the skillet along with the chives, and salt and pepper to taste; swirl to combine, then pour over the salads. Serve with the bread.

DAY TWO OF SALAD
This salad was really delicious!  It's really hard to decide which one I liked better out of the two.  Liquid smoke was the key to success for this one.  
Here is the recipe...


INGREDIENTS
Mixed lettuce
Cherry tomatoes 
Boiled eggs
Pickled asparagus
Green onions
Goat Cheese
Grilled salmon
Liquid smoke


DRESSING
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp of sugar
Juice from half a lime


Brush a few drops of liquid smoke on the pieces of salmon and add some fresh black pepper.  Grill on the bbq.  Top the salad with your salmon.  Pretty simple and very very delicious. 

YOU DON'T MAKE FRIENDS WITH SALAD.....

As some of you know it's been four months now since I had my baby Willow.  I'm in need of loosing some unwanted baby weight, so my husband and I are on a two week dinner salad kick.  He's so awesome that he agreed to eat only salads for dinner with me for the next two weeks.  We'll see how that goes and perhaps I can convince him to continue, with  "special" meals on weekends.  

I came up with 10 "meal" type salads and I've decided to post them on here with the recipe because they are going to be soooo delicious.  Tonight was our first night and it was a huge success.  Salad number one was originally called a "BLT" salad, but I decided to replace B with some P!! P standing for prosciutto.  

Here is the recipes and some photos for your enjoyment!!

Ingredients

Mixed lettuce

Fresh basil leaves

Tomato slices

Mozzarella slices

Smoked prosciutto 

Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar 

1tlbs of maple syrop

1 clove of garlic

fresh pepper to taste

LOTS N LOTS OF BABY HATS

Some how I managed to knit several hats for the babe this weekend.  The first attempt ended up being too big, so I guess that one will be gifted to Ruth.  We did end up with two successful hats though.  It's getting cold out there quickly.  

BEAUTIFUL BIRTHDAY WEEKEND

So as usual my birthday always falls on Thanksgiving weekend.  All I wanted to do was spend some time outside in the beautiful fall weather, despite the entire family being sick.  The fresh air probably did us a bit of good.  We went to Cannamore orchard in Crysler to pick some apples and once again I did NOT get to pick apples.  Some day I will pick them myself I swear.  I guess we were a week to late according to the lady at the orchard.  We were however able to still buy a basket of lobo apples and a giant pumpkin.  

On our way back from the orchard we decided to stop at St Albert's cheese. $20 bucks goes a long way there, tons and tons of cheese.  Curds, pickled, swiss, mozza and so on...yum!!  So I guess it was a fun filled day of all sorts of different food.  

Monday we had our Thanksgiving dinner at Upper Canada Village, as usual it was very nice. I only wish that Fall was a little bit longer.  

Cannamore Orchard

Kind of feeling like this guy after all that turkey!!

Upper Canada Village

Upper Canada Village

UNPRODUCTIVE WEEK
Well it's kind of been a very unproductive week for me.  My husband has been really sick all week, so I've been taking the time to care for him and the baby.  I haven't had a chance to much of anything.  Thankfully Willow and I have managed to dodge his illness.  Knock on wood!! 
This weekend is my 31st birthday and I plan on relaxing and doing some fun fall activities with the family.  We are going to an apple orchard on Sunday to pick apples and pumpkins.  Monday we will be indulging in a delicious Thanksgiving meal at the restaurant at Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg.  It's always so nice to go there in the fall.  Anyways, looking forward to a nice weekend.  


So I wanted to mention something about this great art studio and a group of local artists that I discovered a few years back in Ottawa.  The group is called "Enriched bread artists".  The name comes from the simple fact that they work out of a former bread factory located on Gladstone Ave.  Every year they open there doors to the public in October to come in and visit there studio spaces.  It's really neat because it's all broken up into separate rooms and you can freely walk through and look at all there work.  So if you are interested in art and you would like to check this out, I would highly suggest it.  They have a website and the dates for the open house are coming up soon.  Check it out!!!
http://www.enrichedbreadartists.com/index.htm

FASHIONABLE BABY
I know I've been slacking the last couple of days, but really I haven't been.  I just can't post anything up here because everything is Christmas presents.  However I did manage to create something yesterday.  It was 2:45 and I usually leave at 3:30 to pick up my husband at work.  All of a sudden I decided to make my daughter some leg warmers because it's getting pretty nippy outside lately.  I had a sweater of mine that I love but some how I managed to get a hole in it.  So I used the sleeves of the sweater to make baby leg warmers.  There was so much sweater left over that I thought I could make her a matching hat.  I managed to do all of that and take pictures of her with it on, in less then 45 minutes.  I literally laughed out loud to myself when I got it on her.  She just looked to friggin adorable.  Here are a few photos and I hope to make one more thing out of that sweater.  We'll see what I can come up with.