Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The Best Family Picture Ever!

In my family, it seems like everyone enjoys owning good quality family pictures...

...but there's nothing they hate more than having family pictures taken!

I'm the photographer, so I'm the one who always suggests we get a picture when everyone is home together. I set up a room in the house where the background looks good and I figure out how to arrange people. Mom makes sure we're all wearing half-matching-non-clashing outfits and then everyone drags themselves into place while I center everyone in the shot.

The following picture is what I see, as the photographer, while getting everything ready for the good pictures.

Best Family Picture Ever!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Cheese

Steve and I have been complaining about the ridiculous price of cheese in Alberta for a while now. Just recently, however, Steve suggested we do something about it. So, we learned how to make cheese! It's certainly not a way to avoid buying regular blocks of cheddar, mozzarella or marble but it could easily be a substitute for special cheeses like Havarti or Brie.

This is a soft cheese. It's made from milk and vinegar. It is amazingly simple and fun! I'll post the recipe so everyone can try it.

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Ingredients:
- 2 cups of milk (whole milk works the best) *2 cups of milk will produce about 1/3 of a cup of cheese. 1 L of milk will make about 1.5 cups of cheese*
- 4 teaspoons of vinegar or lemon juices
- salt (or other seasoning)

Steps:
1. Place two cups of milk in the saucepan, slowly bringing the milk to a boil while stirring constantly. It is very important to constantly stir the milk or it will burn.

2. Turn the burner off once the milk is boiling, but leave the saucepan on the element or gas grate.

3. Add 4 teaspoons vinegar to the boiling milk, at which point the milk should turn into curds and whey.

4. Stir well with spoon and let it sit on the element for 5-10 minutes.

5. Pass the curds and whey through cheesecloth or a handkerchief to separate the curds from the whey. (We used pantyhose... straight from the package ofcorse!)

6. Press the cheese using the cloth to get most of the moisture out.

7. Open the cloth and add about 1/2 tsp of salt or another type of flavouring. (we've tried salt, chilli flakes and Italian dressing so far)

8. Mix the cheese and salt (or other flavouring) and then press again to remove any extra moisture.

9. Put the cheese in a mold or just leave it in a ball type form.

10. Refrigerate for a while before eating.
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The Italian dressing was our favourite. We plan to try lots of other flavours soon though. I should mention that the whey can be used for lots of different things too. We saved the whey this time and plan to use it in some baking this week.

Here are some ideas for how to use the whey:
- add garlic and use as a substitute for water when cooking rice
- make ricotta cheese
- add a bit of sugar and slowly cook it into a delicious caramel-like syrup that's great on ice cream.
- it can be used in almost any recipe that calls for water
- feed it to your dog as a treat
- it can be mixed into animal feed (for chickens, cows etc)
- it's great in a bath for healthy skin
- season it and use it as a marinade (especially good for meats that have been frozen)

Another amazing recipe I found this week is for Fish Cakes. It's from the Kraft website.

I made them on Thursday and have been craving them ever since!


Frozen

We have been having some strange weather here in Alberta the last few days. For one thing, there has been little, to no, wind (which is very unusual!) It's also been 'foggy'. Not real fog like on the coast, but frozen fog. I think it's called Habitation Fog. Anyway, I've never experienced it before. This is what it does to everything...

There are ice crystals on every surface. It looks really pretty, but it's also kind of weird.
It's surprisingly not that cold outside. It looks WAY colder than it is.

Lely enjoys being outside no matter what the temperature.

Steve had his first fire call today but it turned out to be a false alarm. However, he did get to drive there in an Ambulance... but the sirens weren't working!
Steve has been a member of the Stirling Volunteer Fire Department for almost 4 months now and this was the closest thing to excitement since October! Not that we hope for fires... well... maybe a harmless one :)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Laura's Visit

I never enjoy leaving Nova Scotia, but I'm now back in Stirling, Alberta. I've been telling my family how cute/creepy Stirling is, so I'm glad Laura was able to come back with me for a visit.
She stayed for a week and is now on her way to Utah for a few days. She'll come back to Alberta for a little while before flying home on the 1st.

The first night here I had to show Laura my wedding dress (since she wasn't here for the wedding). I love my dress! Then Laura tried it on and I'm in the process of convincing her to wear it for her wedding (whenever that may be)!


It fits her perfectly and looks great! Now she just needs to find a husband :)

It's fun having her here and I would LOVE to have more family members and friends come visit! We didn't have much opportunity to do many fun things since it's been a bit hectic with our new business, but we went shopping (and I found 3 pairs of boots for $10. Not $10 each... $10 total! Very exciting.)


Laura went to a YSA dance with Steve's sister, Emily. Steve and I drove them to the dance and then spent the evening watching The Lion King on the mp3 player in the car. It was a fun date!

We drove around Stirling and explored the local convenience store which also acts as the pizza place, the movie rental place and the gas station. We saw the outdoor pool and waterslide which we'll visit all the time in the summer! We also saw the library, gym, church, school and haunted mansion. Stirling is very cute!

We also got Shaun to make us his best homemade french fries (delicious!) and Laura made us Italian hot chocolate!


I'm glad she's here!

Mom's Christmas present

I love to paint! Unfortunately I'm not very good at it. So, my trick is to use paint-by-number kits. They sound easy enough, but they are definitely not easy! I painted a picture for Nannie and Poppa MacKinnon a few years ago. I painted one for Nannie and Poppa Hodder the year after that and then I painted one for mom this year.
It took me 2 months! It is very difficult but i really enjoy it! I'd recommend them to anyone who loves to paint, has lots of time to spend painting and who doesn't really have much creative ability to draw/paint an original.


New Years Eve 2009/2010

Laura and I were in charge of planning a New Years Eve party at the church. It was a lot of fun! We got Ashley to make one of her fancy cakes and we had a lot of yummy treats. The Relief Society room was filled with couches and chairs and nice music. The Primary room had the Wii projected onto the wall. And the gym had tables and chairs for different board games. The other half of the gym had noise makers and confetti bombs for 12:00am.


The clean up was almost as fun as the party :) (not quite though)
Mom got a Roomba vacuum for Christmas, so we covered Laura with all the garbage and then let the robot do the rest!