soeurs du jour

Cooking with Kath

Margie is home from the cottage.  I bet you thought you would be hearing more from her. I did too.  I got home last night and Barry had left a note on my computer - "Margie called, do Love Thursday".  So, I did Love Thursday as instructed.  It's the "got your back" thing.  But dontcha love how she worries about us, that we wouldn't have had a post?

Well, she is battling with Ma Bell, her internet service is not working.  She is very frustrated. I laughed at the thought that their dial up at the cottage is now infinitely better than their high-speed (no speed at all) home service.

Because of school Tuesday night (which by the way, was my second last class and the final exam is next week and I thought it was the week after and yikes, yes, I'm studying!) I didn't get to deal with my farm to table box until Wednesday night.   New potatoes, curly leaf kale, a wonderful green called mizuna, radishes, green onions, baby beets and an array of lettuces graced the counter last night.   So, what to do?   

Have you heard that saying, "Things that grow together go together."?   I had and sure enough when I went looking for Kale recipes I found a recipe for Kale & Potato soup, oh that works, I have Kale and potatoes (I don't know why I capitalize Kale, but I do)  I found the recipe in my kitchen boyfriend's cookbook (my kitchen boyfriend is Mark Bittman, I love his How to Cook Everything book).  I'm even friends with him on Facebook ...

I think it's okay if I give you the recipe, he didn't say so, he doesn't really know me, but I'm sure he won't mind. 

1 large baking potato, cut into eighths

5 c. stock

1 clove garlic lightly smashed

3 c. roughly chopped kale leaves stripped from the stalks

1 tsp fresh marjoram or oregano leaves

1 bay leaf

s&p

potato, garlic, 2 c  stock in a medium saucepan and cook at medium high until potato is soft - let cool slightly

at the same time cook the Kale in the remaining stock with the herbs & bay leaf until tender, about 10 mins and then remove the bay leaf

puree the potato mixture and stir in with the kale, season with s&p and heat through.

Okay, so this is not how I did it, I used a few of the wee potatoes, less stock and less Kale - I sauteed the onions & garlic in butter first and I didn't use a bayleaf.  I cooked it all together because it was enough with the pots already and I pureed the whole thing. It has an olive green colour, like a pea soup and I'm sure would be more beautiful if you did it HIS way, but oh man, it sure is tasty!

Now, on to the chard.  You must, please, you have to make this recipe.  Just make sure you wash the chard more than you think you need to, mine was a bit, ahem, gritty shall we say?

 

I found the recipe at Beyond Salmon.

Serves 2 as a side dish
(it will seem like a ton of swiss chard, but it shrinks a lot during cooking)

1 Lb swiss chard (1 bunch)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp heavy cream
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan

1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
Salt and Pepper

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Wash chard leaves in several changes of cold water.

Pull the stems out of each leaf and cut stems into 1/2 inch chunks. Dry the leaves on paper towels or spin in a salad spinner.

Put the stems in a 2 inch deep baking dish that is large enough to accommodate all the chard leaves later (I use an 8 by 8 pyrex). Drizzle with 1 Tbsp olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and mix well. Roast in the middle of the oven until the stems are tender and golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Pile the leaves on top of the stems. Drizzle with remaining 1 Tbsp olive oil. Toss with tongs and return to the oven. Roast until the greens wilt, about 5 minutes.

Stir in the cream, taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. Sprinkle with parmesan and return to the oven until cream is bubbly and parmesan is melted.

(the pine nuts are my addition to the recipe)

to die for.

seriously.

now go, go, support a local farmer and eat your veg!

xo 

Kath

new baby love thursday

The past few weeks have delivered three new babies into our lives. 

Lovely Claire was born to a friend's daughter.  She is a sweet, tiny little girl who is lucky to have a great-great grandmother, a great grandmother, a grandmother and her mom.  Fifth generation.   They are having so much fun, my friend tells me that she had no idea that she would fall so deeply in love with her first grandchild.  

Leo was born in a rush on July 4th, he is the second grandson to my best friend.  Leo's arrival was a surprise, three weeks early, born within minutes of getting to the hospital.   His Mom and Dad are counting themselves lucky that he wasn't born in the car.  By all accounts, his quick delivery was smooth and the family was back home that afternoon introducing him to his big brother Max who fell in love with him at first sight.  

Our third baby is Hans, he was born last Thursday to friends of ours.  He is a gorgeous big boy, over 9 pounds but has a heart problem and in his first four days has bravely weathered his first surgery and is doing well. The first photos we received show him in bed with his beautiful maman before he was whisked off to the Children's Hospital.  Her face says it all. You can see that she loves that baby with a ferociousness that guarantees mountains will be moved and oceans parted to ensure that he gets what he needs. The outpouring of love and prayers for this sweet boy would take your breath away.  I keep reading the facebook notes and see messages from all over the world.  Things will get better for our friends, we know it will, but for now, I am holding them so dear in my own heart, hoping and praying that Hans' heart heals quickly.  

On Love Thursday we seek out hearts in unexpected places.  We are reminded to appreciate the love in our lives.  I have yet to meet any of these new babies, time and distance have prevented it, but I love that their arrivals have created ripples of love all over, simply because they're now here.   

xo

kath

(if you have a baby nearby, would you kiss it for me? thx)

Love Thursday is hosted by Karen at Chookoolonks

Simple Things

This was an excellent thing to do today, to stop and think of the simple things. Sometimes I forget to slow down in my zeal to accomplish everything and my fear of not wasting a minute of summer.

* linens fresh from the line

* a morning kiss

* knowing my sister is cooking, eating, reading, doing and 
  watching the same thing I am

* when it works right the first time, no matter what it is

* a new pen

* the rain doing my watering for me

* homegrown & homemade

* remembering to keep it simple

xo Kath

 

i spent the day cleaning and organizing my house, getting it ready to sell. i exchanged emails with my sister and friend all day, i cried over michael jackson. i hate when someone dies before they finish living. always remember that someone is a brother, a father, a son, a partner.  

at the end of the day i looked back at the simple things:

* sharing a moment in time with a sister and a friend    

* knowing that my future is a dream and a plan

* a family dinner in a clean house  

* michael jackson's music 

* laughter, nothing beats laughter, laughter is trump

xo margie 

Simple things is hosted by the lovely and talented Christina at Soul Aperture.

money shot

kath and i have an old standing joke about taking the "money shot".  our money shots are always mushrooms.  i am a little envious of the other soeur these days.  her skill level seems to have bumped up with this course she has been taking and i am feeling, well, a little bummed about my own skill level.

i took this photo last week.

i am determined to step up my game.  

get a little sibling rivalry going.

maybe take her advice, haha, for a change.

you see, kath knows me better....well let's just say she knows me.

xo margie

Marble Macro Monday

I have been going over my assignments, making sure I have all the photos I need, they're due on July 21st.   I just knew if I didn't start looking at them now, I would find myself missing something or worse, have a better idea and it be too late to execute it.  

Sure enough, I was missing one assignment completely:  shoot at a slow shutter speed and a fast shutter speed making sure that the photos show which was which.   I had done a slow one but neglected to take the fast one. 

So I spent Saturday night doing my homework, it was probably the first Saturday night of my life where I spent my time doing homework ;-).  I just about lost my marbles trying to get it right.  

 

Happy Macro Monday!  

Visit Lisa to see what everyone else is macroing this week!

xo

Kath

(pssst ... anybody need 200 pictures of a marble?  They are truly exciting, in some the marble is rolling this way and in others it is rolling that way and some actually don't have the darn marble in them at all!)

diamonds on the soles of her shoes

today we pack up and head home to the city.  back to work.  that's okay.  i miss the kids, i miss my city home, i want to drive to montreal to see the babies, bluesfest is starting and there are concerts to go to. 

what about life at the cottage will i miss the most?  the solitude and quiet, absolutely, but most of all i will miss the person i am at the cottage.  i don't do my hair, i cook like i am a chef, i wear the same clothes over and over, with not a care about my appearance.  i figure i if i have a tan i look fabulous in anything!  i will miss the way we decompress, how we can read eight books in two weeks, waking up before six and sitting on the dock with coffee, reading.  the music!  why is it only at the cottage that we lie on the couch and listen to music for hours?  

at the lake, i am the girl with diamonds on the soles of her shoes.

xo margie

Niagara Falls at Night

 

On Tuesday we had a field trip to Niagara Falls to complete one of our assignments.  

It was so much fun.  After I took the blue photo a tourist standing beside me looked at the screen and said, "Oh, I would pay for that one!"  It made me feel pretty good.

Incredible isn't it?  And so easy. 

 Tripod, f/5.0 at 2 seconds, ISO 400.

I am going back without my classmates, I couldn't get many different shots with so many of us there, I was anchored to my spot.  I'll go back, take my time and try some different angles.  We had a great night though, the wind was blowing the mist away and we were able to stay dry.

At the risk of sounding all tooting my horn-ish (now there's a word for you!), can I just say that I am so proud because I think I rocked the photography this week!!

Happy 4th of July to our American friends, that's you guys over there on the right of  and us over here waving madly!!! 

Have fun.

xo

Kath

Flight School

On Wednesday when I was home I spotted this baby cardinal in the tree.

 

Later I almost stepped on him

 

I donned some latex gloves and popped him back in the nest, he was right in the path of our route to the composter and I was afraid he would get stepped on - but then in the afternoon, there he was again ... he had somehow managed to get from the back garden all the way around our garage and was in the driveway, er, on the runway ...

and then Dad came along

There's 50 photos in this series so I'm going to send you over to my flickr site to see them ... please go look.  It's fun to watch it as a slideshow.  If you are a parent or if you remember trying to learn how to do something new when you were a kid, I promise, this will warm your heart.  I have resisted putting captions on the photos because you'll find yourself giving this family voices.

Happy Friday

and remember, if at first you don't succeed, walk to the damn tree.

xoxo

Kath

H-Andy Love Thursday

you gotta love a handy man.  we are living hgtv's home improvement - the cottage edition.

a.'s real name is andy.  he is a real handy andy. our back room/storage room is now the nicest room in the cottage. pine from head to toe with the most fabulous storage.

all this klupping with the hammer and zinging with the saw leaves me to wander around the island looking for treasures

 

seeking and finding jewels like this water iris.

last night after all his work was done, we sat and enjoyed a glass of fine scotch and this beautiful sunset.

 

can you see why we love it here?

happy love thursday

xo

margie

Love Thursday finds its home over at Chookooloonks.

Happy Canada Day!

I asked a. to put up our Canadian flag on the dock

I hung out on the dock taking self portraits and reading, waiting for a bit of wind to catch the flag.

 

I trudged up the hill complaining that our flag was too peaceful.

a. replied "appropriate since Canada is such a peaceful place".

and so on that note,

peace out

 

xo

Margie

We have the technology thanks to Se'Lah for margie to use her iphone to send me posts!  Welcome back sister!!

xo

Kath

Editing to add:

The internet just ate the recipe I was going to post!  Well I suppose that is appropriate. So, as I was saying, last night we picked up our first farm to table box of the season.  It was a bounty of lettuce greens, radishes, onions, rapini, rhubarb, swiss chard, sorrel and of course garlic scapes!

I made garlic scape pesto that was out of this world.

Garlic scape pesto

1 pound garlic scapes

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

Olive oil (about 1/2 to 1 cup)

1/2 to 3/4 c. pine nuts

Chop the garlic scapes into 3 inch lengths. Put it in the food processor and process until pureed. Add the parmesan and pine nuts and process until smooth. Slowly add the olive oil as the food processor runs and continue until all the oil is combined into the garlic. Store in an air-tight jar in the refrigerator.

I served it over pasta with a side of sorrel, spinach and mushrooms sauteed in white wine and butter. 

It's going to be like Iron Chef around here this summer, I'll be getting ingredients I'm not expecting and have to cook with them.   I promise to share though.

Oh, what are garlic scapes?  They're the curly things on the right of this photo.

I found a great blog that is going to be my biggest resource this summer.   It is their fourth summer of farm to table.  So go check out eggs on sunday.  She has a post from last year about garlic scapes too!

xoxo

Kath