All my ideas seems soooo glorious before the follow through

It all began during one of the many trips to the store to buy the weekly allotment of food for the family. I was tasked with a list that was by no means long but was difficult to execute, such as kids cereal (the kind they want or the kind I want them to want), and yogurt (again, so many damn options, and flavours, and delivery methods of yogurt I was doomed to get the wrong kind), I believe I bought the wee little kids cups when I was supposed to get the tubes!

Anyways, before I actually got bogged down in all those damn choices I came across a large box near the end of fruit and veggies. It was full of 4 to 5 foot lengths of brown-ugly-bamboo-looking things. I almost walked right by with a smirk that everyone would have read as "Ha! no one wants to buy a 4 foot piece of creepy bamboo. Am I right?", but my eye caught the label as I passed by.

"Raw Sugar Cane - $1.98"

Well holy crap I stopped in my tracks and pulled the nicest piece of raw sugar cane I had ever seen (it was also the first piece I had ever seen) out of that box and strutted away with an amazing coolness and unconcerned look of "Oh this, I buy raw sugar cane all the time, I feed my 27 year old box turtle* Gorki and then transform the rest of the stalk into a crude flute that I use to express my worldly angst with."

* I really don't think you should ever feed sugar cane to a turtle, it just seems like something someone else would do.

Though I am sure that in those 30 seconds I went from smug smirk to excited as hell and then to cool calm I looked like an idiot that buys something without knowing what he is going to do with it.

..........sigh

See, I have not idea what to do with this thing.The drive home I envisioned the family being excited to see thing new 'food' and rally around plans to consume it in what ever ways we saw fit. Instead all I got was my oldest boy grabbing it shouting "COOL!" and taking a swing at the cupboards with it, resulting in a loud crack. Boy did he look sheepish until we saw that no damage was done to the cupboard door.

Mom asked, "So what do we do with it?". To which I replied "Eat it!"

Well that was the end of that conversation and she wandered off.

I heard her shortly after share a laugh with our daughter when she said "Dad is going to eat a branch for supper."

After a few quick minutes on the Google and I had a whole list of ideas to utilize my length of sugar cane for.

• Soup
• Chew it
• Cook with it
• Kebob skewers
• Tea sweetener
• Boil down in to a natural sweetener
• Coffee stir stick and sweetener (seems like the coolest idea ev-er!)
• Fruit kabobs

...and the list goes on.

I then got out the cutting board, my biggest knife, and a wee paring knife. The directions I found said to cut the cane as close to the knuckles or joints and then peel the hard exterior to get the sweet juicy sugar cane.

Well it was like cutting a piece of 2x2! I had to slam the palm of my hand on the back of the butchers knife over and over and over to get the damn thing to cut. 

So I chopped and swore, and peeled and chopped, and worked so damn hard to turn this stick into nice pieces of soft sugar cane. 

The pictures online made it look so much easier!So with my tiny pile of yummy sugar cane I approached the family for a taste. The one site said to chew the sugar cane and suck all the sweet juice out and then spit the pulp out afterwards. So I thought the kids would be excited to chew some natural sugar.

......sigh

I only convinced the middle guy to give it a try. And after he spit out the pulp he said "This is the best thing I have ever had before in my whole life Dad!". So I offered him as many as he wanted because it would be just him and I, he said "No thanks." and walked away. 

I ended up trying a few different recipes with the sugar cane and not a one of them really worked out. Oh well, at least I have a two foot piece of sugar cane in the pantry and a deep tissue bruise on my palm to remind me of what it could have been. I can still recollect a faint image of the family sitting around, tlaking and laughing while chewing on the fresh raw sugar cane and drinking some home made iced tea lightly sweetened by nature.

I don't think I will ever learn my lesson, because  on Monday I bought a giant can of Gulab Jamun. I plan on cracking it open tonight, when Mom is at her university class, and subjecting the kids to this yummy hot sweet dessert. Deep fried dough balls soaked in sweet syrup, they should just give up and get used to me forcing new strange foods on them, because I don't plan on stopping.

Best way to finish off a fantastic Indian buffet!

Kids pancake cutters

We have been working hard on the pitch and now we are ready to present our idea to the Dragons Den.

Get ready Canada for the soon to be patented product, the Kids Pancake Cutter!

Some of you may mistake this technological wizardry as a pizza cutter but you would be ass wrong.

This is a pancake cutter, and it only cuts pancakes. To some it may seem like a trivial kitchen utensil to have but when you are continuously trying to keep pancakes on hungry kids plates cutting pancakes manually with a fork and knife is an absolute waste of time.

With the pancake cutter you can hand over the cutting duties to your kids! And with all the free time you can lean on the kitchen counter while a fresh batch are cooking away and watch your kids make a horrible sticky buttery syrupy evil mess!!!!

Pancakes sure taste good but I hate the stickiness they create, the devil's breakfast of choice. I touched syrup on the bottom of my little one's plate and almost threw up...

Good ole outdoor winter cooking!

So before we get into the winter cooking I want to go back 6 months to whne a friend stumbled upon a great little outdoor wooden stove online. We both think that we could sruvive for weeks in the forrest with just our wits and a hatchet, so this stove was like candy to us.

Stovetec sells numerous stoves and such but we were fixated on the 2 door recreational stove. We talked big and made palns but our pizazz petered off and we forgot about it. Then one faithful day in November last year he email ed me and said "I am getting myself one for Christmas! Do you want one?". 

"Yes please!!! You are getting the one with two doors right?" I asked. A few shortly weeks later we were in possesion of out new beautiful mean green wood burning stoves. 

NOw fast forward to last weekend when we were lookign at my daughters Brownies book to see what Brownie badge she would like to try for this month. And we fell upon the Outdoor Cookout badge. Now my mind opened up and shot straight to the Stovetec stove that had beenin the garage for a few weeks now and had not been used, and that was it!

Our daughter wrote a list of the materials she would need and proceeded to gather them up and get ready.

we are now ready to cook in the snow!

So the oldest attempting to earn a badge was in chage of the whoel endeavour, and I was the safety officer. Most of my conversations ended with "...and then you will burn the house down."

After she cleared a spot on the deck (don't worry a good 1.5 feet from teh house) and placed a board to hold everything we all got excited to light the stove and get a water-boiling-on!

burn baby burn! and once hte fire was lit and hte bottom door closed the flames dropped and the heat roared.And then we had to wait, which seemed to take forever, for about 10 minutes until the water began to roll and boil. 

Only the hardiest of outdoor winter chefs sit on a purple IKEA chair.

The stove does have an adjustable sleeve, that you can see surrounding hte pot of water, that focuses the heat onto the pot or pan used to cook with, the tiny pot we used had a low handle which would not allow us to tighten the sleeve snuggly to the pot. So I would guess that with a tight fit on the pot it would have reduced te boiling time by a few minutes.

Well with the macaroni in thewater and steam rising all over the palce we were one excited bunch. And htat made me.....beside myself with pleasure!!! I hoped they would enjoy this, and I hoped even more that this would actually work. And I was pretty proud of myself when she had a huge smile stirring the macaroni.

the miners came out hte hills that afternoon. Drawn by the smell of the famous Elbow Noodles a la Torgerson. Their fascination with the stove was first, second was watching the wooden spoon steam after stirring the noodles.

After we successfully cooked a wee pot of noodles we went on to thfe best food eveer...boiled weiners. YUM!

THe middle guy was sooo excited to stir the hot dogs and talk almost not stop in the 5 minutes it took to 'cook' them, about camping, cooking,  fire, pots, wood, fire again, steam, spoons, steaming spoons, and how he could cook all our suppers like this, even tea!

"...the water we would get from a stream that was by the tent. And then I would cook supper with it, and wash dishes in it, and then we would build a bridge over the stream so we could play soccer in the field on the other side...."It was a lot of fun and the weather made it absolutly awesome. The amazing thing about the stove that I haven't mentioned was that all we used was 4 short pieces of wood, maybe an inch around and 10 inces long, to cook the noodles nad the hot dogs. 

So it would even come in handy when the zombies come and you don't want to be out with the hordes gathering armfuls of wood for every meal.

Paint, paint, paint...

This weekend, even though we started on Thursday, we primed and painted the basement. 

That is it! No wacky fun fueled adventures as a family, just a weekend. And really it was good.

Between painting and laundry, and lawn and....other stuff, the kids went to visit Great G & G. When they returned I asked how it went and the response from our oldest was,

"Grandma helped me fix my crocheting! And then I did another row! And then we had a snack."

And the middle guys' response was,

"I got $10 for graduating...that it."

And he skipped away happy as could be and dropped the $10 in our giant vacation piggy bank in the living room. By the way that pig is heavy as hell! it must be made with concrete and plaster. But it will be fun to smash it to bits once it is full.

And on Saturday, just when we were worrying that the kids were geting bored our oldest walks into the kitchen with her friend and says, "We want ot make cookies and deliver them to our friends."

Well that started a process of cookie making, cookie cooking, cookie cooling and cookie bagging, followed by running down the street with arms flaying wildly and smooshing those fresh cookies to crispy cookie dough and melted chocolate.

The friends loved the cookies and the girls spend 2 hours creating their plan, reading a recipe and making cookies, waiting (for what seemed like forever!!!!) for the cookies to cool, and walking a couple blocks to go and make some friends happy.

A pretty good idea that is for sure!

Well Sunday night we finished the painting, till we have to touch it up after carpet installation. The laundry was done and we were looking forward to a tea and a couch.....

Then we heard a thump and our big girl came downstairs complaining about a sore tummy. Sigh! That is the way it goes I guess. 

Our Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

(Nestle Toll House Cookies ~ with some changes)

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (this batch was from the mixed whole wheat and white flour bin...no one noticed)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup cooking splenda
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar splenda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs (egg substitute) 
• 1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

Directions

Turn on oven to 375° F.

Mix flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one glug at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Add chocolate chips to batter and be prepared to give same amount of chips to kids helping as reward. Cook them. 

Cook for 9 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Don't let cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes, instead just consume scalding hot melty soft cookies; place any left overs in a bag to be shaken vigerously for 2 minutes. 

All done

"Dad there is a bird on the fence and..."

This past Sunday it was raining and windy all day. The weather was what I imagine it being like on a stereotypical day living in Labrador; cold driving grey rain, having to put on my bright yellow slicker to go and check the lighthouse light, as my  bushy beet red thick beard keeps my face warm, while my sheep dog Séamus follows me faithfully and my clutch of red haired kids play their fiddles in the livingroom practicing their new single Is binn béal ina thost a new gaelic wonder band The Brambing Ones!

......sorry, a little off topic there.

So it was rainy and windy and cold all day. Around late afternoon we were all bustling about getting ready for supper at our place with Mama and Bop-a. When our oldest girl says "Hey look there is a bird sitting on the fence!" I was a little busy getting ready for supper so I didn't really pay much attention,I did peek out the window and sure enough there was a little bird sitting as flat as it could on the top of our fence, about 4 feet from our living room window.

Wet bird on the fence

After that I dd not pay much attention to the bird. But later that Mom said that our oldest was glued to the window watching the bird get blown about by the wind. She would pipe in every 10 minutes or so "she is just sitting there" and "why is she not flying away?".

About 10 minutes before supper she pulled herself from the window and stopped in the kitchen to say that she thought the bird was tired wet and hungry, and that she decided she has to feed it, and there is bird seed in garage, and that we could put a plate on the fence and then some seed on the plate and then...

"Not now sweetie, it is almost supper. Why don't you go wash your hands." is what I interrupted her elaborate plan with. 

"But Dad she is hungry and if she doesn't get some sup....."

Excuse me, those hands won't wash themselves." I said.

Now before she had a chance to "but Dad" me again, Mom gave me a look and whispered "She is worried about the bird."

Then Mom and her proceeded to discuss a plan about how to best feed the bird. What to feed it? How will we get the food on the fence? What do we put the bird food on? 

Mom had seen how entranced our oldest was with the bird and how concerned she was with it's condition. She realized that even though it was pre-supper time taking these 5 minutes to spread some peanut butter on a slice of bread, sprinkling some bird seed on it and then putting the food near the bird was what our daughter needed. 

She was empathizing with the bird and may have been imagining what it was like to be stuck outside cold and wet. Either way it was fantastic to see her follow through with the plan the two of them had developed and be outside as Mom put the food down.

Who wants a PB and seed sandwich?

The bird took flight and left once they went outside and didn't seem to return. But our daughter checked back at the window throughout the night, and was beaming when she caught some sparrows sneaking a snack of seed and peanut butter.

And on a completely separate note, our youngest spent the full Sunday afternoon playing in the giant cardboard castle that Mom picked up from Sears Bargain Centre.

And your the dirty rascals!Happy rainy Sunday it was!

May Long Weekend, why are you so long?

Now don't get me wrong I love a good old long weekend. But this one was different for us, we were busy!

1. We rebuilt a deck in our backyard (with some necessary assistance from a neighbour),

***pictures coming***

2. Helped build the neighbours deck (he helped us what was I supposed to do!),

***pictures coming, maybe. His deck is nicer than mine***

3. Went out to grandpa's farm and planted a massive garden (the kids planted their pumpkins),

Mom enjoying an old fashioned garden planting!We have been working to ensure or kids know where food comes from. We are by no means as ethical a maybe we should be when it comes to what we consume, but we try to show our kids the importance of food, the environment, and taking care of our planet.

We have been helping with the large garden at the farm for a few years, and last year we stepped up our gardening game.

We built a garden box and grew some carrots, chives, cucumbers, and onions. And we also spent more time at the farm. We planted,weeded (occasionally), watered, and then harvested.

Digging for potatoes in 2011This year we are going to try and get the kids even more involved and engaged (we will see how that goes!). 

Posing by his pumpkin plant

4. Spent a morning in Moose Jaw (see post below),  

5. Had a great walk at Wascana park and fed geese and ducks at Water Fowl Park,

and then

6. Ended the long weekend with a wiener roast in the backyard. 

the blank looking at fire stare......fire......

It was a great way to end the weekend. Grandma and Grandpa came over and sat around the fire with us. An we all got to relax out doors and reflect on the past 4 days. The kids were happy to be eating macaroni and hotdogs outside!

It did get a bit hairy once the hose came out and the kids plastic slide was covered in grass and water and the little guy was sitting on top of the slide screaming "Cock-a-doodle Do!!!!!" over and over again, but overall it was a good evening.

Wait!

I forgot the s'mores. We ate s'mores. Lots of s'mores. It looked like our middle one got into a fight with a s'more and the s'more won! Followed by mores s'mores!

Not your ordinary s'mores. These beauties though began like all other s'mores. 3-5 marshmallows burnt to hell then the one perfectly toasted brown one. But the s'more upgrade comes when you smash your roasted mallow between two chocolate coated biscuit cookies.

It is amazing!

No fumbling with chocolate bars and scalding marshmallow between graham crackers. This is the whole package just waiting for your expertly cooked marshmallow. mmmm!

And while we are talking about food making this weekend great. I would like to pass on a drink recipe that we heard about from our awesomest friends ever (I have likened it to our family dating our friend'sfamily, we are together so much. It is the best!).

I will make up a name for the drink right now and call it....Summer Orange Juice or Daddy's Orange Drink For Hot Days, or even a Summer Screwdriver. 

If you look close you can see an empty glass that once had the yummy cocktail

RECIPE

1 ounce Pinnacle Whipped Vodka - it tastes like Cool Whip!!!

1/2 orange - all the juice squeezed into glass with ice - make sure to get some pulpy bits, they make the drink work.

top your glass with Ginger Ale - we used diet Ginger Ale. 

ENJOY - next weekend we want to try this blended....

So that was our looong weekend. Deck built, clean laundry piled in our bedroom waiting to be put away, kids exhausted, and we are both tired, slightly sunburnt (just Dad), and happy. Except Ang - she started getting sick yesterday. 

Update on 2012-05-24 03:31 by Steve Torgerson

Pictures of the 'new' deck

So I finally got around to taking a picture of the deck this morning. It is nice to have a deck with out 1/2 gaps between boards that includes spoons, toys, garbage, a shoe, etc.

Last Thursday night once we had taken the railing off, with help from our friendly neighbourhood neighbour-man, our middle son who is not really afraid of things, he seems more to be challenged to try dangerous things, runs full tilt to the edge of the deck and launches himself off the side to the lawn below. 

The drop is only 3 feet, and he made it unscathed, but this is the kids who broken a bone near his elbow and had to get it pinned after falling 1 short foot 2 summers ago.

poor guy waking up after having 3 pins put in his elbow.

So I am ordering the railing today!

Butterflies Are Starting To Butterfly!

Yesterday we had our first butterfly emerge from it's cocoon. I was on my way home from work when my oldest called me on my cell phone. I could barely understand what she was saying over the noise of the boys in the background, but they were looking at their first butterfly.

The hatching chamber!!! or butterfly basket home, which ever works for you.

We had taped all the lids of the tiny containers to the top of the mesh basket that came with the butterflies. We then had to wait about a week for the butterflies to come....

 

Butterfly BF001 - welcome to the world.

The first of the litter, I am sure butterfly babies are a litter of butterflies.

Turns out it is a lek or swarm of butterflies, who knew.

Stay tuned for further developments on the growing butterfly army.

Update on 2012-05-23 01:29 by Steve Torgerson

We have sent our wee butterflies free. After 5 weeks of raising them they have been released into the neighbourhood. The kids sure enjoyed it and loved watching them fly away!

We recommend it for anyone who wants to expose their kids to a different side of Spring.

Close inspection before the good bye flight.Just watching the butterflies find new homes.