Merry Christmas Sandra to you and yours! I hope the coming year brings you peace and health. I am thrilled to be eating fresh produce from the garden. Attila trudges through the snow to cut the stalks of Brussels Sprouts, it seems very strange. He hopes there are carrots and beets somewhere under the snow as well, time will tell. I agree about appreciating every bit of fresh produce at this time of year!
JOAN LANSBERRY
I hope your meal was tasty! I wasn’t feeling much enthusiasm for our dinner, as I’d forgotten to put out meat to thaw. I just was NOT in the mood for canned sardines! When I took out the ground bison (so I wouldn’t have this lament tomorrow), I was so happy to see we had some frozen tamales in the freezer. So we had pork-cheese tamales, mixed vegetables and organic baked beans. Not too shabby! Happy New Year!
Maggie Turner
Joan, our New Years meal was delicious, everything on the menu we regard as a treat, so we spoiled ourselves today.
Tamales! They sound delicious, as does your entire meal. I’ve never had Tamales, watched video for making them a few years ago, but have not yet tried them. So glad you found something enticing to share for your first evening meal of the year!
Happy New Year!
Eileen Barton
Happy New Year to you and Attila, Maggie! Hope 2022 brings wonderful things!
Maggie Turner
Thank you Eileen! Happy New Year from our house to yours, hope 2022 is a great year for you!
WendyNC
Maggie, all best wishes to you and Attila for health and successful projects in 2022!
Maggie Turner
Wendy, Happy New Year to you and yours, and wishing you health and happiness in 2022!
Stubblejumpers Cafe
I keep forgetting that you live in the tropics, compared to here where Scott’s garden is covered by a foot of snow. Harvesting in January! I tend to think that Ontario is on a lateral par with my part of Saskatchewan, but of course where you are is much further south and obviously it makes a huge difference.
All the best to you and your handsome dude in the year to come,
Kate
Maggie Turner
Kate, Happy New Year to you and Scott and all those you love!
Yes, it can be quite “tropical” here, lol. Southern Ontario has the Great Lakes, which moderate the climate significantly, so it is cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter, than in places without a lake effect.
The Brussels Sprouts grow tall, and stick up through the snow, they have been covered with snow two or three times already, and made it through nights as low as -18C, but keep on going. It was above freezing here New Year’s Day, so Attila could dig under the snow and into the ground to get the few carrots and beets left in there. There are a few Brussels Sprout plants left out there, but Attila is leaving them until spring to see if they make it through the winter, and perhaps we can get seed from them if they make it through. Brussels Sprout plants are very cold hardy.
Teri
Happy New Year!
We had a tasty New Years Eve with a charcuterie board and a Dirty Chai Cheesecake that DH had made. Then for dinner on New Year’s Day we had some wonderful Monte Cristo Sandwiches made from charcuterie leftovers and topped with maple syrup. So tasty!
Well, looks like we will be cancelling our January 29th cruise. COVID is spiking and our cruise company has re-started their cancellation policy, so now we won’t lose our thousands of dollars in credit that we have with them. We’ve learned our lesson with trying to vacation in the winter with covid and will try for NS/NB/PEI cruise at the end of August or September. The cruises are fully vaccinated, though right now that doesn’t matter much with omicron. But Pfizer says it can have an omicron vaccine within 6 months, so that should make things s lot better too. I don’t think there would be much more COVID could do to out perform omicron. Even viruses have natural physical limitations.
Wishing you and Attila a healthy, happy new year bright with promise.
Maggie Turner
Happy New Year Teri and DH, wishing you both a healthy, happy 2022!
Your New Year’s menus sound delicious! I had to look up Dirty Chai Cheesecake, it looks really good!
Too bad about your cruise, hopefully your plans for the the end of next summer will work out! Who knows what Covid will do next, but hopefully it will fade into an endemic nuisance that causes little concern.
Eileen Barton
Nothing like a pot of homemade soup on a cold winter day! Hope 2022 is a wonderful year for you and yours, Maggie. 🙂
Maggie Turner
Thanks Elieen, hoping your 2022 brings peace, health happiness!
Hot soup on a cold day can be truly wonderful! Usually I don’t like soup, but this soup is very nice, and always a bit different because it is made from what is sitting around waiting to be used up. This time around I was able to use as liquid the water from cooking mixed vegetables, and from cooking sweet potatoes, just a little added nutritional value. Best Wishes Eileen!
Teri
Printer cartridges are such troublesome things! I’ve had my share of mishaps when getting them, so now I look in the printer if I have to. Our last printer had the cartridge info on a sticker at the front of the printer, but I don’t think the newer printer does.
Yesterday I made Cincinnati chili, one of our cold weather favorites. We’ll get at least 2 more meals out of that. Even better!
Wow, you’re making me wonder where you were looking for your parka. My favorite is landsend.com. They have really good coats and reasonable prices. You can set their website to show Canadian prices, though I usually order in American dollars because my credit card has historically had a better conversion rate than what they use.
As of this evening we’ve gained 16 minutes of daylight in the evenings. I LOVE seeing the difference, with it not being dark here before 5PM, anymore. I’m thinking you won’t get to that point until the end of the month, but atleast your sunsets are happening later than they were.
Covid has definitely been a problem. We’re at a point where we’re about to cancel our next vacation for the 3rd time in a row! We’ve cancelled in 2020, 2021, and now in 2022. But – if the business survives – at least we’ll have credits to try again later. The bright spot though is we’ll kind of be vacationing when we move into the new house, with having a different place to sleep. That might be happening in about a month. We’ll see!
Maggie Turner
Teri, printers are the worst part of technology for home administration, as far as I am concerned. I’ve never had one I liked, and most of them I have hated. When I found the wrong cartridge had been ordered, by me, I used a marker and some painter’s tape, and labelled the printer lid with the correct cartridge needed. I love painter’s tape!
Your Chili sounds delicious!
I looked at Lands End, they do not sell Gore-Tex items. Gore-Tex is the reason the parkas I look at are so expensive. Having worn a Gore-Tex parka for the last 30 years, I would not want to wear anything else. My parka has kept me warm and dry, walking five miles in winter rain. It has also kept me warm when outdoors for extended periods of time in -37C weather, with a much colder wind chill. I won’t take a chance on alternatives when I know that Gore-Tex is going to see me through just about anything the weather can send. I contacted the company that made my parka, but they don’t make that style anymore, too bad! They do however have other styles, but I would want to try them on before purchase if making that kind of pricey rest-of-my-life purchase. Right now is not the time for shopping, so I wait. It will be something interesting to do when the time comes to reorient myself in the world beyond my own front door.
That is too bad about all your cancelled vacations, I hope the company survives these trials and you get your cruise in the end! That is so exciting, moving to your new house, it will make whatever remains of the winter fly by!
Anonymous
Hello Maggie: I have not been away…intentionally. A lot of “life” getting in my way of some peace and enjoyment. I am really fatigued, mostly all the time, and have literally done only minimal online time. I am so sorry about your brother—I lost an older brother a couple of months ago, and I have slipped into a mindset of not depression…but just despondency. Perhaps, soon, I can write a short dissertation about it. For now…please know that I think of you often….I wonder how you find your way; how you manage to live your life as you do. I can barely find the ‘where with all’ to simply get a shower. Heck, I am depressing myself…none of you deserve this. Bye for now…Margarett ooxx
Maggie Turner
Margarett, I am sorry to hear about your older brother {{hugs}} My brother’s health deteriorated slowly over years, reconciling emotions was a slow process, and it continues. The pain is real, it is normal. Our conceptual “universe” is forever altered when those we love pass away, it takes time to find them a new place of honour. xoxo
JOAN LANSBERRY
I hope you feel better soon! If the sausage was made gluten free, it looks tasty. Stay/Get well, and warm!
Maggie Turner
Thanks Joan, I am just a bit uncomfortable. We are warm as toast thank goodness!
The sausage is not gluten free as I used bread crumbs from my homemade bread – BUT the last batch had no bread crumbs in it, so gluten free would be easy to accomplish without any change in quality. I am not a fan of sausages, but I love these sausage patties!
Sandy
Get well soon! The sausage patties look delicious 🙂
Thanks Sandy! I usually do not like meat, and sausages in particular, and I love these. I would not have stumbled across the recipe if it hadn’t been for a fluke. All of the tomato mills we looded at were out of stock, except this model, that came with an additional meat grinder. So we bit the bullet and bought it, then had to use it course, and so we began our sausage making journey.
Joan Marie Brennan
So sorry to hear that you are feeling unwell. Feel better soon!
Maggie Turner
Thanks Joan Marie! Love your middle name!
Teri
Hope you’re feeling better, now. I was feeling off on Monday but it went away as soon as the front went through. I react to weather like that, the drastic change in pressure makes me feel poorly.
Teri, still some symptoms but I am merely uncomfortable and will be going in for tests at some unknown point. Glad you are feeling better. You are really in tune with the planet!
WendyNC
Maggie, you have my sympathy about your furnace. What a challenge!
Regarding the humidity, we’ve had my husband’s steam canner simmering with the lid open on the stove (just using it as a big pot) all afternoon and it’s making a real difference with our humidity levels. I don’t know if keeping a pot simmering for hours is a viable option for you, but I thought I’d share what we do.
Maggie Turner
Thanks Wendy! For the sympathy, and for the tip! I think that a big pot simmering might be something we could afford to do (hydro costs the moon here) when the temperature goes down really low and the oil furnace comes on constantly. Thanks for the tip, we will give it a go, tonight is supposed to go down to -30C again, so it is a good time to experiment!
Merry Christmas Sandra to you and yours! I hope the coming year brings you peace and health. I am thrilled to be eating fresh produce from the garden. Attila trudges through the snow to cut the stalks of Brussels Sprouts, it seems very strange. He hopes there are carrots and beets somewhere under the snow as well, time will tell. I agree about appreciating every bit of fresh produce at this time of year!
I hope your meal was tasty! I wasn’t feeling much enthusiasm for our dinner, as I’d forgotten to put out meat to thaw. I just was NOT in the mood for canned sardines! When I took out the ground bison (so I wouldn’t have this lament tomorrow), I was so happy to see we had some frozen tamales in the freezer. So we had pork-cheese tamales, mixed vegetables and organic baked beans. Not too shabby! Happy New Year!
Joan, our New Years meal was delicious, everything on the menu we regard as a treat, so we spoiled ourselves today.
Tamales! They sound delicious, as does your entire meal. I’ve never had Tamales, watched video for making them a few years ago, but have not yet tried them. So glad you found something enticing to share for your first evening meal of the year!
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to you and Attila, Maggie! Hope 2022 brings wonderful things!
Thank you Eileen! Happy New Year from our house to yours, hope 2022 is a great year for you!
Maggie, all best wishes to you and Attila for health and successful projects in 2022!
Wendy, Happy New Year to you and yours, and wishing you health and happiness in 2022!
I keep forgetting that you live in the tropics, compared to here where Scott’s garden is covered by a foot of snow. Harvesting in January! I tend to think that Ontario is on a lateral par with my part of Saskatchewan, but of course where you are is much further south and obviously it makes a huge difference.
All the best to you and your handsome dude in the year to come,
Kate
Kate, Happy New Year to you and Scott and all those you love!
Yes, it can be quite “tropical” here, lol. Southern Ontario has the Great Lakes, which moderate the climate significantly, so it is cooler in the summer, warmer in the winter, than in places without a lake effect.
The Brussels Sprouts grow tall, and stick up through the snow, they have been covered with snow two or three times already, and made it through nights as low as -18C, but keep on going. It was above freezing here New Year’s Day, so Attila could dig under the snow and into the ground to get the few carrots and beets left in there. There are a few Brussels Sprout plants left out there, but Attila is leaving them until spring to see if they make it through the winter, and perhaps we can get seed from them if they make it through. Brussels Sprout plants are very cold hardy.
Happy New Year!
We had a tasty New Years Eve with a charcuterie board and a Dirty Chai Cheesecake that DH had made. Then for dinner on New Year’s Day we had some wonderful Monte Cristo Sandwiches made from charcuterie leftovers and topped with maple syrup. So tasty!
Well, looks like we will be cancelling our January 29th cruise. COVID is spiking and our cruise company has re-started their cancellation policy, so now we won’t lose our thousands of dollars in credit that we have with them. We’ve learned our lesson with trying to vacation in the winter with covid and will try for NS/NB/PEI cruise at the end of August or September. The cruises are fully vaccinated, though right now that doesn’t matter much with omicron. But Pfizer says it can have an omicron vaccine within 6 months, so that should make things s lot better too. I don’t think there would be much more COVID could do to out perform omicron. Even viruses have natural physical limitations.
Wishing you and Attila a healthy, happy new year bright with promise.
Happy New Year Teri and DH, wishing you both a healthy, happy 2022!
Your New Year’s menus sound delicious! I had to look up Dirty Chai Cheesecake, it looks really good!
Too bad about your cruise, hopefully your plans for the the end of next summer will work out! Who knows what Covid will do next, but hopefully it will fade into an endemic nuisance that causes little concern.
Nothing like a pot of homemade soup on a cold winter day! Hope 2022 is a wonderful year for you and yours, Maggie. 🙂
Thanks Elieen, hoping your 2022 brings peace, health happiness!
Hot soup on a cold day can be truly wonderful! Usually I don’t like soup, but this soup is very nice, and always a bit different because it is made from what is sitting around waiting to be used up. This time around I was able to use as liquid the water from cooking mixed vegetables, and from cooking sweet potatoes, just a little added nutritional value. Best Wishes Eileen!
Printer cartridges are such troublesome things! I’ve had my share of mishaps when getting them, so now I look in the printer if I have to. Our last printer had the cartridge info on a sticker at the front of the printer, but I don’t think the newer printer does.
Yesterday I made Cincinnati chili, one of our cold weather favorites. We’ll get at least 2 more meals out of that. Even better!
Wow, you’re making me wonder where you were looking for your parka. My favorite is landsend.com. They have really good coats and reasonable prices. You can set their website to show Canadian prices, though I usually order in American dollars because my credit card has historically had a better conversion rate than what they use.
As of this evening we’ve gained 16 minutes of daylight in the evenings. I LOVE seeing the difference, with it not being dark here before 5PM, anymore. I’m thinking you won’t get to that point until the end of the month, but atleast your sunsets are happening later than they were.
Covid has definitely been a problem. We’re at a point where we’re about to cancel our next vacation for the 3rd time in a row! We’ve cancelled in 2020, 2021, and now in 2022. But – if the business survives – at least we’ll have credits to try again later. The bright spot though is we’ll kind of be vacationing when we move into the new house, with having a different place to sleep. That might be happening in about a month. We’ll see!
Teri, printers are the worst part of technology for home administration, as far as I am concerned. I’ve never had one I liked, and most of them I have hated. When I found the wrong cartridge had been ordered, by me, I used a marker and some painter’s tape, and labelled the printer lid with the correct cartridge needed. I love painter’s tape!
Your Chili sounds delicious!
I looked at Lands End, they do not sell Gore-Tex items. Gore-Tex is the reason the parkas I look at are so expensive. Having worn a Gore-Tex parka for the last 30 years, I would not want to wear anything else. My parka has kept me warm and dry, walking five miles in winter rain. It has also kept me warm when outdoors for extended periods of time in -37C weather, with a much colder wind chill. I won’t take a chance on alternatives when I know that Gore-Tex is going to see me through just about anything the weather can send. I contacted the company that made my parka, but they don’t make that style anymore, too bad! They do however have other styles, but I would want to try them on before purchase if making that kind of pricey rest-of-my-life purchase. Right now is not the time for shopping, so I wait. It will be something interesting to do when the time comes to reorient myself in the world beyond my own front door.
That is too bad about all your cancelled vacations, I hope the company survives these trials and you get your cruise in the end! That is so exciting, moving to your new house, it will make whatever remains of the winter fly by!
Hello Maggie: I have not been away…intentionally. A lot of “life” getting in my way of some peace and enjoyment. I am really fatigued, mostly all the time, and have literally done only minimal online time. I am so sorry about your brother—I lost an older brother a couple of months ago, and I have slipped into a mindset of not depression…but just despondency. Perhaps, soon, I can write a short dissertation about it. For now…please know that I think of you often….I wonder how you find your way; how you manage to live your life as you do. I can barely find the ‘where with all’ to simply get a shower. Heck, I am depressing myself…none of you deserve this. Bye for now…Margarett ooxx
Margarett, I am sorry to hear about your older brother {{hugs}} My brother’s health deteriorated slowly over years, reconciling emotions was a slow process, and it continues. The pain is real, it is normal. Our conceptual “universe” is forever altered when those we love pass away, it takes time to find them a new place of honour. xoxo
I hope you feel better soon! If the sausage was made gluten free, it looks tasty. Stay/Get well, and warm!
Thanks Joan, I am just a bit uncomfortable. We are warm as toast thank goodness!
The sausage is not gluten free as I used bread crumbs from my homemade bread – BUT the last batch had no bread crumbs in it, so gluten free would be easy to accomplish without any change in quality. I am not a fan of sausages, but I love these sausage patties!
Get well soon! The sausage patties look delicious 🙂
Thanks Sandy! I usually do not like meat, and sausages in particular, and I love these. I would not have stumbled across the recipe if it hadn’t been for a fluke. All of the tomato mills we looded at were out of stock, except this model, that came with an additional meat grinder. So we bit the bullet and bought it, then had to use it course, and so we began our sausage making journey.
So sorry to hear that you are feeling unwell. Feel better soon!
Thanks Joan Marie! Love your middle name!
Hope you’re feeling better, now. I was feeling off on Monday but it went away as soon as the front went through. I react to weather like that, the drastic change in pressure makes me feel poorly.
Teri, still some symptoms but I am merely uncomfortable and will be going in for tests at some unknown point. Glad you are feeling better. You are really in tune with the planet!
Maggie, you have my sympathy about your furnace. What a challenge!
Regarding the humidity, we’ve had my husband’s steam canner simmering with the lid open on the stove (just using it as a big pot) all afternoon and it’s making a real difference with our humidity levels. I don’t know if keeping a pot simmering for hours is a viable option for you, but I thought I’d share what we do.
Thanks Wendy! For the sympathy, and for the tip! I think that a big pot simmering might be something we could afford to do (hydro costs the moon here) when the temperature goes down really low and the oil furnace comes on constantly. Thanks for the tip, we will give it a go, tonight is supposed to go down to -30C again, so it is a good time to experiment!