Year End 2017

Son K gave this box of Ferrero chocolates to his sister for Christmas, it is a special release box.

Happy New Year when it comes!

Snow and Cold

It's been snowing a lot around here and bitterly cold (-13c or 8.6F). It helps when the sun comes out. I took these photos on Christmas Eve, when I met my friend S for a walk.

Paint Party Friday - Snowing

Welcome to Paint Party Friday, thanks to Eva and Kristin for always faithfully hosting, so much appreciated. I wanted to do a mountain sunrise and got the idea to make it snow. This is an ACEO, acrylic on canvas (2 1/2" x 3 1/2").

Portuguese Blood Sausage

I wanted to share my recent cooking adventure with you. This Portuguese blood sausage was clearing at the supermarket and it's something I've wanted to try. After some googling, I discovered it was pre-cooked and just needed warming up in a pan. I cut the sausage into roughly half inch slices, removed the skin and pan fried with onions for about 3-4 minutes on each side. It tasted like a smoked pate and was pretty good with crackers. You can see the list of ingredients in one of the photos above.  It's a good dish if you need more iron.

Cronut

My brother and his family were recently visiting Los Angeles and stopped by this mall where they bought these cronuts. He says they were so delicious with creme in the middle. They were from the Dominique Ansel Bakery, recommended by Yelp. A cronut is 'a hybrid doughnut and croissant'.

I would love to try this, I'd also like to try a beignet from New Orleans one of these days.

Diabetic Banana Pancakes

I had some overripe bananas and needed a diabetic friendly recipe for them. This flourless banana cake recipe was perfect for what I had in mind. Here is my version:

3 ripe bananas, peeled
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
canola oil
1 tbs butter

Whisk eggs, add to bananas in a mixing bowl and mash with baking powder, vanilla and nutmeg. Heat oil and butter, add pancakes in 1/4 cup measures and they are done when they are golden brown on both sides. This makes about 7 pancakes.  There are about 9 carbs per pancake.

Merry Christmas 2017

Hope your Christmas Day is warm and wonderful! Best wishes from my family to yours.  It snowed last night so we do have a white Christmas.

Christmas Eve 2017

Some good friends of ours gave us these wonderful chocolates pictured above as a present. It has some unusual flavours which are very subtle and the chocolate is delicious.  They are hand painted and handmade. If you click on the last photo you can see the detail of the flavours.

Have a lovely Christmas Eve!

Florida theme

Sharing an ornament from my tree as we inch closer to Christmas Day. A good friend had moved to Florida some years ago and gave me this flamingo ornament as a Christmas gift. I guess she was having a theme to her gifts related to her move to a warm area.

Paint Party Friday - In Silhouette

Welcome to Kristin and Eva's Paint Party Friday. Today, I am bringing you leaves in silhouette.  The  piece is an ACEO acrylic on canvas (2 1/2" x 3 1/2").

Freezing cold

This past weekend we met some good friends for dinner. We decided to have dessert at a coffee shop in a trendy shopping mall complex. They had a pretty Christmas tree all lit up in the square as pictured above.  It was freezing cold that night, brrr.

Scribble Picnic - Christmastime

Welcome to Michael's Scribble Picnic! This week's theme is 'Christmastime'. My piece is an ACEO acrylic on canvas (2 1/2" x 3 1/2"), based on a Victorian Santa Claus.  It is outlined with a black PITT artist pen.

A nice visit

gift basket

fruit and cheese snack

Husband M and I visited my uncle who has dementia in his senior's home last week. I coordinated the visit while making sure his partner would be there. She visits the home 5 days out of 7 and is very attentive to his needs. When I asked, she told me that a good gift might be some cashew nuts, so I made the gift basket pictured above. It has a large bag of unsalted cashews, I hope he will enjoy them.

It so happened that there would be a little concert that afternoon. A talented gentleman played old Irish and Scottish songs on his harmonica to entertain the crowd. We were served coffee with some fruit and cheese, the perfect snack. Before long, it was time to go, but it was nice to see how my uncle was progressing (or not) and we enjoyed the visit and the music.

Artificial Intelligence

I saw these cute decorations in an office building recently. The Santa sack is for collecting food for the hungry.

Daughter L received an Amazon echo dot as a gift this summer. Alexa has finally come to Canada and we were able to install the echo. It is so fun. You can ask Alexa the weather, the news, to play your favourite music, just about anything. It's like having a friend in the room. According to wikipedia, 'Alexa is an intelligent personal assistant developed by Amazon, first used in the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Echo Dot devices.'  We are inching closer to robots taking over the world, with artificial intelligence!

Office Xmas Party

party favour sunglasses

cream of tomato

salmon

chocolate mousse

My friend S invited me to her office Christmas party last weekend. It was a lovely festive atmosphere and some of the ladies wore beautiful dresses and shiny shoes.  Our salmon entree was so delicious as you can see I ate all of mine. There was an interesting man at our table, he is a lung cancer survivor, about 70 years old. He is divorced with a couple of kids in their early forties. Of course, S saw him smoking later on in the hall way. He told us he is not interested in finding another life partner, in fact his preferred age group is a woman older than 40, who must be financially independent. He would never move in with her either. He seemed to have his life well thought out and was in fact currently seeing someone. He hoped to die quickly and painlessly. His golfer friend passed away at age 74, choking on a piece of lobster and he was fine with that ending. Hmm, well that is a quick way for sure.

We had a great time, it was a fun social occasion.

Advent Calendar

Dec 12

My daughter received this Lindt chocolate Advent calendar and has been opening the slots whenever she remembers. On Dec 12th she noticed an extra special chocolate as pictured above. Mostly there are little round ones inside. Sometimes she will offer one to me depending on how much other chocolate she has eaten that day. I am happy to oblige.

Paint Party Friday - Winter Scene

Welcome to Kristin and Eva's Paint Party Friday! I've done an ACEO (2 1/2" x 3 1/2") winter scene today, acrylic on canvas. It's outlined with a black PITT artist pen.

Something new

Martha recently shared a recipe for spanakopita crescent rolls in a recent post. I decided to try it with a few modifications and it was delicious! Thanks Martha.

Scribble Picnic - Spinning top

It's time for Michael's Scribble Picnic! This week's theme is 'Driedel/Spinning Top/Teetotum', I chose to do 'Spinning Top'. My piece is an ACEO canvas on acrylic outlined with a black Pitt fine point artist pen (2 1/2" x 3 1/2").  Don't the tops look  like little dancers?

Pasta Salad

pasta salad

topped with feta cheese

my portion

Daughter L made this delicious Greek Mediterranean pasta salad to take to a pot luck party. Fortunately she made extra so we were also able to enjoy some. It was delicious, I actually had 2 of the bowls pictured above.

New Bowls

I was doing some Christmas shopping and couldn't resist buying these covered stoneware bowls for myself at Costco. It wasn't long before I started using them to store leftovers. I did manage to purchase the gifts I went looking for!

Peanut butter cookies

Daughter L made these lovely peanut butter cookies for a cookie exchange she was invited to. They smelled so good. Apparently the cookies bake evenly when they are all the same size, who knew.  I am not really a baker.

Poke Bowl

poke bowls

we loved them

Daughter L took me to lunch the other day. She wanted me to experience a proper poke bowl lunch. The first time I had it, I thought it was just 'ok'. A poke bowl is basically a raw seafood salad. This restaurant gives you a choice of salmon, tuna, steak, etc. We chose salmon. L always selects a buttermilk dill weed dressing. I chose a teriyaki dressing. You can choose to have it with sushi rice, brown rice or zoodles (zucchini noodles). Well we were hungry but it was also delicious as you can see in the second photograph! Next time I will have it with the buttermilk dill weed dressing. Dill and salmon are a classic combination, raw or otherwise.  I love the way they shred the seaweed, those green bits you see in the top photo.

Is this something you would try?

Paint Party Friday - Grasses

Welcome to Kristin and Eva's Paint Party Friday! This piece is an ACEO mixed media, acrylic on canvas outlined with a Pitt artist pen (2 1/2" x 3 1/2"). It is based on a photo I took of some grasses in a park at this time of year.

Led Lights

So my tree is up. I used a string of led lights this year. It is only a 50 light set, but led lights are so much brighter I think I don't need an extra set. It is about a 6 foot artificial tree, not overly huge.

Scribble Picnic - Finland/Scandinavian

Welcome to Scribble Picnic! The theme this week is 'Finland/Scandinavian'. My piece is an ACEO art card (2 1/2" x 3 1/2"), acrylic on canvas. The reindeer is a symbol of Finland, so I thought of using it here.  Whenever I draw animals I get this eerie feeling that they are so human like, their features.

Xmas Luncheon

We received this pretty Christmas card in the mail:

Husband M and I were invited to a luncheon by an old friend last week.  There were 4 couples in attendance.  It was a middle eastern buffet restaurant, so we enjoyed pita bread with various dips, lamb, lentils, rice, falafels, and I loved the lentil soup.  I applied what I thought was some salad dressing to some items on my plate, it turned out to be a hot jalapeno sauce so that was a bit of a fail on my part (check the sign above it Christine)!  I ate what I could and fortunately I was able to return for another plate of my favourite items.  The dessert bar was a success, I found several items I liked, the less sugary tasting items.  M liked their lemon poppy seed cake.

My girlfriend's husband is suffering from heart failure, which my late mom had.  He is doing well on medication and was able to drive them to the luncheon although he gets tired when he walks too much.  They are in their 70's.  Another couple in their 70's also attended and we enjoyed meeting them.  They have been married some 46 years, with no children but are proud dog owners.  The wife was a self-declared picky eater.  The husband ate cautiously at first then towards the end he was trying everything with gusto!  It was his first time at a middle eastern restaurant. The 4th couple was about our age, late fifties.  That lady loved to tell fun jokes, so they always add life to the party.  Unfortunately her husband had to leave after a quick lunch.

It's nice to get out and socialize every now and then with friends.

The 60th Birthday Party

Husband M and I attended a 60th birthday party at a pub downtown about a week ago. We had a really good time. The gentleman's son planned the whole affair with the help of his mother. Their pretty daughter was there greeting all the guests as well. They had arranged for their dad's favourite jazz band to perform that night. And when the band was not playing there was lively music in between their sets. We sat with a bunch of friends we have known for over 30 years. The couple's family and the man's old work friends had also been invited along with friends of their young adult children. It was a great mix of people. Wonderful cocktail treats were served and it was an open bar. The birthday cake was delicious. It was a great start to the holiday season.

A Nice Sermon

Our priest did a nice sermon last week.  He said he was asked to make a short video on 'What is the meaning of life?'  After some thought, he said 'to love someone, to have something to do and to have something to look forward to.'  Then he thought he should have changed that 'to be loved' instead of 'to love'.  Which led him to say that 'God loved us before we loved him'.  

Walnut fig cookie

Last weekend, husband M and I did some Black Friday shopping, yes, it's come to Canada in the past few years. I did manage to get some boots at 50% off and some more art materials at 55% off. Fortunately we had managed to miss the morning rush hour lineups. We stopped in at a cafe where M ordered a grilled whole wheat chicken/cheese wrap and this delicious walnut fig cookie. It tasted more like a tart wrapped in a shortbread cookie, yum! My chocolate hazelnut gelato was equally delicious. We were tired after all the shopping that day.