Fall is here

Fall is here and that means no more beach time, boating or bathing suits. It means a significant reduction in margarita drinking and cheese-filled smokie eating. It means jean shorts, sandals and block rockers are being put away.

The arrival of fall makes me want to type a frowny face. This feeling usually comes and goes pretty quickly, because I force myself to remember that there are a few things I actually like about fall. In case you are suffering the loss of summer as well, I will share my list and hopefully bring you back to Happy Town. No promises, but let's give'er a whirl...

• fall means new clothes. Back to School clothes, if you will. Oh.. not going back to school? Doesn't matter. Go shopping, buy new things. It's cold out for god sakes! Boots and a jacket at minimum.
• Fall means my birthday is around the corner. October 19th for those of you who haven't memorized it. Put that on your list of things to remember, along with present shopping for said birthday. Hint: shiny is good.
• fall means delicious comfort food. soups, stews, chili and things covered in cheese. *Drools*
• it means fall-inspired baking can begin. You can't even imagine how fast I typed that. I super love pumpkin in baking and apples and doughy things topped with ice cream.
• On my To-Bake list: pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin loaves; apple tartlets (so I can perfect my tartyness); something with beets (see previous blog).; and Halloween themed something - cupcakes or cookies perhaps.
• it means thanksgiving, a day of turkey and thanks for turkey, is 8 days away. Oh yes, turkey AND time to hang with the family as well, which is, of course, my favorite part. Oh and lots of wine, which is my second favorite part.
• fall means Halloween is nearly upon us. Super excited to see my dogs dressed up like hot dogs, my new nephew dressed up as a pumpkin. Side bonus: a whole lot of mini chocolate bars. Not that I would overindulge, that would be wrong.
• fall means Christmas is almost here, which makes me giddy. *spoiler alert* I'm decorating my Christmas tree in pink this year.

Welcome, Fall! If you could please ask your friend Rain not to join us, that would be splendid.

xo Shelly.

that's me in fall. nom nom nom.

Beeturia

My exposure to beets has been limited. Growing up I would see my grandma eat canned beets *shudders* and that was enough to keep me away from said tubers.

I changed my mind as I 'grew up', by that i mean, as I got older, the growing up part is debatable. My first grown up encounter with beets was at Earls, they were roasted and delicious but tasted slightly like dirt (earthy might be a more apt word, but at the time all I could think of was dirt). My second encounter with beets was, as most new food adventures are, with Katie - again roasted beets - again, deliciously earthy. I made a mental note to strike beets off my Do Not Eat list, but went no further.

Earlier this week, after realizing my freezer was empty and my fridge even more so, I decided to grocery shop and *gasp* cook some food. I purchased a whole array of vegetables, mini potatoes and chicken. Filled up one casserole dish with chopped bell peppers & zucchini,  another with onions, mushrooms & beets, a third pan with halved baby potatoes and a fourth with chicken breasts covered in pesto sauce. Stuck everything in the oven on super hot and took the pans out at varying times when they started to burn... i mean brown. Everything in the dish with the beets ended up a delightful pink colour.

I ate a king sized plate and packed the rest up in Tupperware for my lunches for the next 6 days.

Now here comes the real reason for the blog. For those of you who are squeamish, get out now- this blog will be out of your comfort zone.

My first pee the following morning was slightly pinkish. Interesting, I thought to myself...must drink more water. Later that day, pink pee again! Hmmm.. slightly concerning... but then it hit me, perhaps it was the beets causing this strangeness. I rushed immediately to a doctor to find out... and by doctor, of course, I mean google.

Here's what I discovered:

When some people eat beets, it turns their pee and poop red. Only 14% of the population experience this. Beeturia is the real name for this phenomenon, and it may be genetic, the majority of the time however, red pee after eating beets is a sign that your body needs a little more iron in your diet.

On the other hand, beeturia may be genetic, as the capability to metabolize the betalaine, or betaine, the red pigment, is a recessive gene, and with two recessive genes, a person would inevitably pee red each time he or she ate beets.

I don't eat enough red meat for sure and god knows I don't eat a lot of spinach or other salady things, so it could possibly be the fact that I'm low on iron. Conveniently, last night my parents were bbq'ing steak for dinner, so I stopped by and visited. I also inquired with my mom if she pees pink when she eats beets, but she doesn't eat a lot of beets and doesn't recall that ever being a problem. Odds are good I need more steak in my life. I don't see that as a bad thing. Perhaps I will have beets as a side dish with my steak, seems like a good pairing.

Stay tuned - I'm planning to bake with beets very soon! Either beet chocolate brownies or red velvet cupcakes with beets (which eliminates the need to use food coloring).

Michelle Kicks the BLEEP Out of Cancer (Round 2)

What's a few bucks?

Earlier this week, I accidentally spent a chunk of change on a new jacket. All week long, I easily spend 5 dollars on Venti Americanos at Starbucks. Let's not even talk about the 13 dollars I put out to go see a movie, plus another 12 dollars on popcorn and KitKat bites. The worst part is, none of that will help to cure cancer. But, guess what? Your donation of a few bucks will help cancer research. Donate now and let's kick the $hit out of cancer.

For the second year in a row, I am participating in 30 Minute Hit Kicks the *&%! Out of Cancer to help raise funds for the BC Cancer Foundation and women's cancer research at the BC Cancer Agency. Last year I did 50 and it nearly killed me, so I am going to be slightly more conservative this time around and just pledge to show my face at the gym a few times!

We all know people who have been hit by cancer and it’s our turn to hit back. Every donation counts - it all adds up!  I greatly appreciate your support and will keep you posted on my progress.

To make a donation online, visit my Personal Fundraising Page HERE! 

Seriously, go there and hit Donate Now.  

Baby Damo

Oh, you haven't heard? The baby is here, the baby is here! Damon William Swain-Little has arrived. He was born on August 31, arriving in the wee hours of the morning. Damo was born 5 lbs 9 oz, quite tiny. At just under three weeks old, I believe he is still under 6.5 lbs. Such a cute little guy. Unfortunately the night of his birth, I had left the hospital to go home and catch some sleep and missed the whole thing. To be honest, I'm not that sad about that- apparently it was a rather horrific affair. Luckily everyone was so exhausted that they left shortly after he was born. Know what that means? It means that when I showed up the next morning I was the first in our family to hold the baby. I am still stoked about that. Pretty sure Damon will be like 20 years old and I will still be telling that story. Crazy Aunty Shelly he will call me.


Welcome Damon and Congratulations Lisa and Slatedogg. Here's some shots of big Dmoney.

PS. I've given up on even trying to be the best aunt. Amanda has that in the bag. She likes diaper changing and doesn't mind being puked on. 

Butter Tarts Bake-Off

On Friday I came across this ad:

3rd Annual Great BC Bake-Off
Think you’ve got superior baking skills?
Prove it in our amateur baking contest!
Enter all three categories or just one.

1. Fruit Pie – any kind of fruit cherry, peach, apple, berry etc.
2. Open – anything goes within the outlined rules – entries must not require refrigeration
3. Butter Tarts  – this is a Canadian competition after all!

How could I possibly resist? Answer: I couldn't. My first thought was to enter all three categories, but that I actually had plans last weekend so I didn't really have time to do a bake-a-thon. For some strange reason I decided on butter tarts. I don't even really like butter tarts. I am not a pastry person. It's a guilt laden confection full of butter, or as I found out in my preceding research, lard - more on this later.

It's tart time. *Rubs hands together excitedly*. Normally I would go straight to google, but this, this is butter tarts. Butter tarts are an old people thing (and I say that affectionately). This is a grandma recipe - I phone her immediately. Her phone is busy. sigh. Three minutes later, she calls me back at work - the old broad has call display! I ask Nancy for her recipe, which she digs up and recites for me. The pastry recipe is my great grandma's. Apparently she was a great and avid baker. Must be where I got my mad skills from. My grandma then tells me she almost always just uses pre-made, frozen tart shells - such an ungradma move ***Face Palm*** twenty-five minutes of chit chat with grandma and I am armed with a butter tart recipe that looks deceivingly simple. I get scared and turn to google to counter research. At the same time I throw out some feelers in the office to see who has butter tart experience, advice or preference - there are lots of takers and I file their comments under 'uninformed nonsence'.

My research results pretty much showed that butter tart recipes are all fairly similar. There are only a few ingredients, so the amounts range slightly and there is a grand debate on whether or not adding nuts in is OK. I immediately, without a second thought, deemed nuts a Yes - pecans are god's gift to baking. In regards to pastry, all signs pointed me in the direction of the Tenderflake Pastry Recipe. It's as old as the hills (total grandma saying) aka tried, tested and true. For those of you who don't know- tenderflake is a brand of Lard. LARD! I've spent 25+ years avoiding lard. I don't even know, or want to know what it consists of. The fact that it doesn't need to be refrigerated, is colorless and mostly tasteless are enough for me to kill any and all Lard-yearnings. However, I sometimes must concede my snot-face and just bite the bullet and join the masses in their lardy lifestyles.

I borrowed Mom's tart tins, I believe they were wedding gifts to her 33 years ago. I thought it was kind of neat that I was using vintage tins to bake an old family tart recipe (kind of). Turns out old pans suck- they are not non-stick. Insert super aggrieved face. My first three dozen- that's 36 bloody tarts - stuck to the stupid vintage tart tins. I probably spent 1.5 hours rolling, cutting and filling those old, ugly tins. I even used an adorable flower shaped cookie cutter. Imagine the horror at having to scrape these pretty confections out of the tins - losing all the delicious crust of which I had so deliciately placed. IMAGINE! you probably can't. that's okay- I live that nightmare over and over again, certainly enough for the both of us. Following my scrape fest I went to bed.  By this time it was midnight. and I was tarted out.

6am, Saturday morning - up and at'em. I took my wonderfully chilled dough and grabbed my non-stick muffin tins and made fast work of three more batches. I even tried a batch in my new SQUARE individual brownie pan. they all came out lovely. I delivered some to neighbour Wendy and downstairs neighbour Cam. I dropped a dozen off for my parents, complete with my mom's tart tins. I packaged two dozen up to take to work on Monday and one more dozen to go to Nick's. I left a few at my house and set six aside for the Bake Off, of which I was now wavering on. Somewhere during this process, I realized that i might not be ready for a butter tart bake off. I mean, there's people who have been baking butter tarts for 30 years. I've only done one batch. True, everyone who ate them gave them a 10+ rating, but people are liars. I decided to bow out of the competition this time. I am officially on the lard bandwagon though and plan to perfect my pastry over the next little while. Pies, anyone?

 

 

Commissioned Baker

Laura From Work (LFW) agreed to cater a wedding for a friend of hers and asked if I would help with the baking. How could I say no? I actually, physically couldn't. Perhaps one day I will grow a back bone and learn to turn things down, but these days I'm a Yes girl. Unless it's in relation to eating Fish, then I can No the crap out of it.

After this adventure I realized that baking as work and baking for fun are two totally different things. When I bake for fun, I can mess around with the ingredients, let cat hair get in the goods and lick the spatula whenever I please. Work baking, not so much. Although I MIGHT have accidentally licked the spatula once or twice... might have! That is in no way a confession. I am a weak person. who can say no to spatulas covered in chocolate? If I ever meet that person i might light them on fire to make sure they aren't a witch, or perhaps stab them with a stake to make sure they aren't a vampire. No real, good human being in my association says no to chocolate. At this point, if you hate me because YOU don't like chocolate, you can leave. Go. go right now. check yourself into a mental health facility and figure your sh*t out. Then go eat a chunky KitKat bar and enjoy life. *rant over*

My baking assignment was this: 3 key lime pies, 3 batches of mini 2 heart cheesecakes (new york style) and 2 double layer chocolate cakes with butter cream icing.

The key lime pies turned out super amazingly delicious. I actually followed them up with a batch of mini key lime cheesecakes, topped with a key lime reduction sauce, but i still had more limes left so i made a batch of shortbread lime bars. This, of course, was after some limes had been appropriated as beer limes.

I made a double batch of the chocolate cake recipe and the first batch of cakes stuck to the pan which made them not usable. Apparently reading the directions helped. Step 1, line pan with waxed paper. Apparently greasing and flouring the pan is not sufficient. Oh well, those cakes are in my freezer and will be turned into cake balls at some later date - stay tuned. The other batches of cakes came perfectly.

Third- mini cheesecakes. 72 of them. that's 6 cupcake pans. LFW gave me 2 to use, I own 1 (which is blasphemous and which I will rectify soon by borrowing one of mommy's), and I broke into Cam's apartment and stole two more. Which is 5. So I made a TRIPLE batch of cheesecake batter, which is like 16 bars of cream cheese and a kajillion eggs and three tons of sugar. Deliciousness. Andddd time consuming. I had to pre-bake the mini crusts and let them cool, and fill each cup with filling and then put two dots of raspberry coulis onto each one and drag a toothpick through to make it look like 2 hearts, then i had to bake them in water baths and then chill them. A project and a half. They didn't even turn out that cute. Delicious yes, cute meh.

I made some bucks doing it and it was a neat project to undertake, so I guess it was worth it. My first commissioned baking assignment, and perhaps my last. Here are some pictures for your eyes to feast on: