Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Cup of Joy



I found so many photos in my archives that qualified for the category of "Joy". But I couldn't resist using this one. This was taken during a pit stop at a cozy cafe after walking down main street, enjoying ice sculptures and Christmas lights with my three favorite men. This is the 7 year old of the bunch enjoying a Peppermint Hot Chocolate. His eyes just scream joy.


Don't be too jealous - this was only seconds before my 5 year old spilled his "cup of joy" all over the table, my wool coat and my camera...

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Comfort Food


Life as Mom is hosting a recipe swap with the theme of Comfort Food. I searched my mental recipe box for something that would qualify and what I came up with is Toast. There is no recipe to swap but I thought that good old, white bread, melty butter covered toast should get an honorable mention as my favorite comfort food. We rarely have white-bread in the house and whole wheat just isn't the same. Whenever we have the rare loaf of white or better yet Scali bread we all ask for toast.

Now for an actual recipe. I think everything that I make regularly, the things I learned from my mother all count as comfort food. I guess the king would be Shepherd's Pie. This recipe came from my French-Canadian grandfather and we always called it Pate Chinois and frowned on my peasant friends who called it by it's common name :) It wasn't until recent years that I even knew what the name meant. If you are interested you can see it here . After that I got embarrassed by a lifetime of mis-pronunciation and let my family call it Shepherd's Pie.
Here is our recipe.

I've tweaked it a tiny bit because I don't enjoy buying creamed corn - for fear that someone important will see it in my cart and somehow think less of me. This is the original version - no real measurements.

1 small onion
1 lb Ground Beef
1 can Creamed Corn
1 small package of frozen corn
small batch of mashed potatoes (make 'em good)
butter
salt and fresh ground pepper


Preheat the oven to 350. Prepare the mashed potatoes and brown the ground beef with the onion. In a medium casserole dish layer the ingredients in this order starting with the meat.
Browned Meat
Creamed Corn
Regular Corn
Mashed Potatoes


Score the top in fancy swirls with a fork. Dot with butter and sprinkle with salt and fresh ground pepper. Bake for approx. 1 hour or until the top is all crispy and everything is bubbling over. I usually put a cookie sheet underneath to catch any rogue liquid. Let it sit for a bit before serving. And dump as much salt and pepper as you can stand all over it.

Like a lot of comfort foods this has as many variations as there are families. My sister-in-law uses carrots. The Irish recipe is very different. Enjoy your version or try mine!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I Heart Faces




I am a total novice when it comes to photography but I love to capture the hearts of my boys in a photo - and nowhere is their heart more obvious than in their faces. This contest caught my attention big time. I hope you enjoy this entry. Down to this very moment I'm undecided between two possibilities...