Boo!

The theme for the Scribble Picnic this week is Boo! How appropriate for this time of year and also for me! I love anything scary, spooky and creepy! I woke up SO early yesterday morning, it was still dark out and I was on a roll alright! I started off painting some zombies with acrylics. Zombies definitely have a Boo! factor!! I remember the first zombie movie I watched was in 1984 at a second-run movie theater, Night of the Living Dead. It scared me REAL GOOD.

I haven't done a watercolour in a while, and I felt like painting some more. I looked out the window and all I could see was dark blue and black. It was pouring rain so there was no sunrise and it was drearily dark out. I remembered seeing an image like this online a while back so I figured I'd paint something like it! Walking in the pitch dark with just a lantern can be quite spooky! When I lived more up north many years ago, I would walk my pugs at night and all I had was my headlamp for light. Once in a while I'd hear a sound on either side of me. In the dim light of the headlamp, I could never see what was making the sounds. It got me spooked enough that I'd jump through the roof when a mouse ran across in front of us!

I'm a big fan of Poe as well. When I lived alone, I used to read his short stories by candlelight and scare myself silly. :) This is my Raven, another acrylic painting.

And I did this one just for fun! What's a Boo! theme without ghosts?? :) This is another watercolour.

Gasp! My October Wall of Horrors is full! I still have another week before Halloween too. This was so much fun to do, and I loved the theme this week Michael! :)

And just to end this post without giving you nightmares ;) here are our sleepy little angels! :) No nightmares here. :)

Jack

Leo

Charlie and Dana

Stella

Oscar and Marlene

Pavlov

Winter Garden Done!!! :)

WHAT A RELIEF...I will admit to my Blogging friends that my winter garden was making me sad lately. With the added responsibility and expense of our new doggie guests, my budget got cut in half. Alex and I went out the other day to buy some plexi-glass for my cold frames. We had to buy the cheapest stuff we could find sigh...very thin...I do hope it can handle the winter and snow fall...but I'm nothing if I'm not always trying to see the bright side, so I did my best with what I had and came up with some very basic cold frames. This is lettuce land which is already blossoming with winter lettuces!

Root Veggie Land is also starting to push through. For each "cold frame", I planted in containers. Then I measured what plexi-glass we had to make the covers. Finally, I covered the lattice-fences that were already there with a double layer of poly-tarp to help shield the containers from the cold. I'm really hoping this will work out. 

With the scrap pieces, I was JUST able to cover carrot and beet-ville. I had much more ideal plans for my cold frames, but when life takes a turn, you have to turn with it right? :) At least I managed to make do with a lot less!

My garlic patch is all planted and under poly-tarp. When it starts to snow, I wonder, should I take the tarp off? I know they have to "winter" but do they need more protection? I spent a good 6 hours in the garden today, it was fun, but I'm sore. I feel a sort of relief that the garden is done. I just have to concentrate on watering and making sure the plants don't sizzle under the plexi-glass now. When winter comes, I'll be very happy to go out daily to shovel snow and check on my garden!

A few weeks back I made some pickled cherry tomatoes with the last of the harvest. I didn't want them to go to waste. Well, we tasted them last night and ooooh! Can your cheeks get any more hollow??? This was an experiment recipe and boy oh boy, the recipe maker LOVED vinegar lol...it was really over the top...

...so I strained it about six times and now we have a flavoured vinegar. Alex said it tasted like the bruschetta I make so I officially now have some Bruschetta Vinegar! :)

Leigh from 5 Acres and a Dream posted about her cheese making yesterday.  She posted a photo of her grilled cheese and being the suggestible type...I HAD to make some kind of grilled cheese for dinner last night! The photo doesn't give it justice, but this was awesome! I kind of made it up as I went...I breaded some chicken breast and we made a chicken-parmesan-grilled cheese. With the breaded chicken, we added bacon, Mozza (homemade!) and a very generous sprinkling of Parm. Whoa...and I made some Marinara Sauce for dipping too. It was amazing! :)

My Marinara recipe makes enough to fill almost 4 Mason jars, so I decided to can the rest. I only have a water bath canner at the moment and I had a little guilt about filling it with water for just two jars! But our freezer is full, so I figured why not? Do you can just a few jars when you have some leftovers? Do you think it's worth it? 

Next week is an early monthly shopping day, so if I find more tomatoes on sale, I may just buy another 60 pounds for sauces!! (obsessed??? yes.)  :) Tomorrow I would usually post my Year of Projects update, but sadly I have done zero knitting. But...I have faith! :) I have every other little daily routine back in place, including my daily exercise and yoga...I've done some painting..now I need to make knitting more of a priority! Like I said above, when life throws you a curve ball, you just have to duck or try to hit it!!!! I'm aiming for a home run lol! :)

Scribble Picnic and HEADS

I don't normally write TWO blog posts in one day but I didn't realize that the Scribble Picnic had been extended again and I wanted to include my painting in the weekly challenge! If you'd like to read about yesterday's Homemade Pasta Adventure, feel free to click on the link! :)

But first, I have to show you my HEADS. How I would love to use these noggins for Halloween, but we ordered them to hold our new beloved hats! These heads are wonderfully creepy though! :))) What would you do with them??? Reminds me a bit of a horror movie...if I come down for a glass of water in the middle of the night and find one out of place, I will freak out lol...

So this week's Scribble Picnic's theme is Fill In The Blank (follow the link to see other artist's interpretations or to join!)...and this is the idea we were given...to fill in the negative space.

As it is the season to be spooky...of course, I couldn't help myself by doing a graveyard scene. That was the first thing that came to mind...my very macabre mind lol! ;)

So this painting will join the other two I did this month on the "October Wall of Horrors". I still have more space and we are only half way through the month!! :)

Homemade Pasta: Labour of Love

After yet another store bought, cardboard-tasting pasta experience a few weeks back, we decided NO MORE! From now on, I'll be making my own pasta at home. As I said in the title, it IS a labour of love. It's a long process but I found it really enjoyable! My idea was that I wanted to make fusilli pasta for our dinner, so that's what I started off with.

Making your own pasta is inexpensive and easy. It's eggs, flour, salt and a wee bit of olive oil. I posted my recipe: Homemade Pasta. I found many recipes call for way too much flour, so I kind of made up my own and it worked very well!

After mixing everything up, you knead the dough until it's smooth and let it rest at least 30 minutes. I read a trick online, if you cut it in half and it's got lots of air bubbles...like this:

Then it needs more kneading.

So I continued to knead...I'm developing new muscles from this pasta and my pizza dough kneading! :)

Of course, I had to make my own Ricotta. :) What's a homemade dinner without homemade cheese?

This is a wonderful tool! My pasta maker. I love it. I bought this eons ago and it still works very well. It has an attachment on top for linguine and cappellini as well. 

After the rest period, I cut the pasta dough in four and started to stretch it out with the pasta maker. We like our pasta thin so I stretch it out a good 2 feet per dough ball.

Here's how I made the fusilli. Once you get going it feels like an assembly line! A fourth of the pasta made enough for our dinner.

I had lots of dough left so I decided to make ravioli also for the freezer.

My Ricotta made 2 cups, dinner called for 1 cup, so I made ricotta ravioli. Homemade pasta is very filling, so this amount will make us two dinners. I used up two more balls of dough for this.

With the last ball of dough, I made cappellini. This dried pretty fast on the hangers! You are only supposed to keep fresh dried pasta for a few weeks in an air-tight container. Makes you wonder what they put into the boxed pastas to keep them going for months and years huh?

So that I wasted nothing, I took all the little scraps and made some noodles for chicken soup. This experience was a lot of fun, but it did take a good 7 hours NOT including clean up! :)

We only got dinner on the table around 10pm! That's usually my bedtime lol...It was very good! Fusilli with Ricotta and Ham Sauce. Next time I'll use more chives though, they kind of got lost in the sauce!

Good thing we had dessert ready beforehand! I made individual Trifles. This time though instead of raspberry jam we decided to open up one of our preserved cherry pit with rum concoctions and it was really nice!

Aaah...the canines taking over our bed. Aren't they lazy-looking?? Believe it or not, Alex and I can still squeeze in there and have Oscar the cat on one of our laps too, though it's a tight squeeze!!

Fondue Night and Halloween Ideas

Most of my Blogging friends know I'm a sucker for celebrations and holidays. :) Every month on the 14th, Alex and I celebrate our anniversary. Our official yearly anniversary is March 14th, but I think that it's fun to have a special romantic dinner to celebrate our months together as well! So, the 14th of each month has become "fondue night". The other night I made a French Gruyere and Onion Fondue...oh gosh...I can't describe the delicious flavour, it was out of this world.

The author (who writes for Williams Sonoma as well), describes the fondue like this: "Are you one of those people like me whose favourite part of the onion soup is the melted cheese on top?" And boy was he right!! :)

I like to share our monthly fondue with my friends, to encourage you to MAKE FONDUE!!! :))) It's such a comforting meal! Sure, it's fattening...but I'm getting ready for winter after all right? ;) With some homemade bread and a glass of white wine...what could be better? Alex got me the fondue book last spring and it encouraged us to buy our first fondue pot together. 

With winter just around the corner, Alex and I spent an entire day closing up the summer garden and preparing the yard for winter. I brought in all my herbs and my lemon tree to my "winter window garden". :) There is one more shelf I have to put up for any additional plants I'm going to start this winter. I also want to find a way to grow lettuce indoors without having little feline bite marks all over them. 

And look, another lemon! That will make 4 lemons this summer that we were able to grow! I wish we could get more, but one day I'll have more lemon trees now that I know they can handle the climate! My garlic patch is planted and my winter garden is all ready for the cold frames. We'll be tackling that this week. Maybe then I can get back to some knitting!

So here it is, the pumpkin harvest! :) Just one turned orange, but that's okay. They will sit on the front stairs until Halloween when they will receive their carved fate! I'm in Halloween mode and I'm getting some great ideas. Any to share? Put a link in the comments if you do please!! Here are a few good ones I found online! (if there was a recipe, I included the link to it, you can get there by clicking the photo).

Superstitious? :)

I had to do it...it's Friday the 13th, so what better a painting to do than Jason from the horror movie Friday the 13th? :) I wouldn't want to run into him in the woods...he has something against people...wants them all chopped up in creative ways lol...he's especially angry against sexy young teenagers who go to abandoned camp and cottage sights. Have you ever tortured yourself by watching a series of horror movies in a row? Alex and I did that last year, we watched all ELEVEN Friday the 13th movies in one weekend...oh the horror for us lol!

Actually we do start watching horror movies in mid-October, one each night to get us in the mood for Halloween! :) This year Alex downloaded a bunch of mummy-themed movies. It'll be fun. Do you watch movies for Halloween? Are you superstitious today? I'm not particularly, but I have some quirks about me. I toss salt over my shoulder if I spill some...I throw a silver coin out the door on New Year's Day to start the new year with prosperity...I believe in "three's"...when two bad things happen, I'm always waiting on the third...but it works with three good things too! :)

Last night was day four of having turkey meals! I made turkey quesadillas with my Fart and Dart Beans again. I don't have a recipe for the quesadillas, it's basically a tortilla, a load of cheese, salsa and turkey, another tortilla on top, all fried up in a non-stick pan. It was wonderful comfort food! We still have another meal's worth of turkey but it's now in the freezer, we're all turkey'd out! :)

The pack having dinner. Things are going pretty well I'm happy to report! 

I wake up to this each morning now. Frosty mornings below zero...it's just a matter of time before it snows, so today Alex and I will be finishing up all of the garden work and I'm planting my garlic in containers today. I have to find time to put up my cold frames VERY soon. And we have to go shopping for winter tires soon too. So many things to do this month!

'Tis The Season!

The weekly "Scribble Picnic" has been postponed, but I wanted to paint anyway. Alex and I are slowly getting back into our routines as the pets all adjust to their new pack! Now that Thanksgiving is over, I am concentrating my thoughts on Halloween and all things spooky! :) I did this acrylic when I woke up today. Fun and creepy! :)

How is this for breakfast? :) We didn't even bother with plates, the pumpkin pie is a thing of the past now!

Oscar has commandeered my yarn basket it seems...these cats can fit into any small space they can find!

A familiar sight...Jack's big butt sticking out from under our covers...he's not as stealthy as he thinks he is. Just as I snapped this photo, I called out "Jack! Where are you?" His tail started wagging but he made no move to come out, too cozy in there! :)