And what not

We need an inspiration for our next destination. I think we'll go somewhere in February or March, a weekend trip, but I don't know where yet. Maybe Amsterdam. I want to go to Italy but not until we have a real trip planned and at least a week we don't mind taking off. In Germany, we get 4 or 5 days of public holidays around April/May, so maybe somewhere around then.

There is a big carnival at the beginning of February in Maastricht, in the Netherlands. Maastricht is only 15 minutes from Aachen so it's very close for us. It's a costume in the streets sort of thing, bright and colorful and crazy from what I have heard. We're going to probably go with Francois, Gerry and the other Dan (guys from work).

Pictures posted

on our picasa page. New web albums for Christmas 2007 and our trip to Boston in January.


.

Is it any wonder

that Florida is a big winter destination?

Image from weather.com

Still on Break(!!)

Dan and I have been lucky enough to have quite a long break over Christmas this year to enjoy some time with our family and friends. We took 3 weeks off from work and as of now still have another week to enjoy ourselves - then it's back to Deutschland. We may not be back until next Christmas so we are trying to make the most of our time here.

It's fun to see both sides of the family, the climate extremes makes it almost comical. In Florida, we were clipping tangerines off my grandmother's tree, playing basketball by the beach, and eating key lime pie for dessert. In Quebec, we got to listen to some traditional French-Canadian music at a Gregory Charles concert, go glissading (sliding) at a snow park, and help prepare/eat all the amazing Quebec/non-Quebec food that Dan's mother and sister are masters at creating. We had some amazing food this holiday, example - dinner last night was scallop, shrimp and lobster in a white wine creme sauce wrapped in a crepes, sprinkled with cheese and baked (soo good!), followed by rack of lamb with port and raspberry sauce along with rice and broccoli, and cake with tea for dessert. It takes time, but with the whole day to relax, it's fun to make something nice. Especially on the last night of the year.

I miss hanging out with my sisters more often than we do, but we do keep in contact while Dan and I are away - we have alot of books to discuss in the coming year after the all book gifts we exchanged at Christmas. What's really great now that we've been together for over a year, is that I really look forward to seeing Dan's family too. I'm pretty sure Dan feels the same way.

Tonight we are going to St-Ephrem for New Years dinner with Dan's mothers side of the family. Will be nice to see his cousins and aunts/uncles again. We're here in Quebec until Saturday, then we're flying to Boston to see Dan's sister's place there. Should be fun. I'm excited about meeting their petit(?) chat, Morris. He sounds tres gentile.

We'll probably post photos here and on our picasa, once we have it all straightened out.

Hope everyone is enjoying their day off!

Hair cuts

Buttermilk and eating the whole refrigerator

I didn't know much about buttermilk in the past, when I saw it in the dairy case I assumed it was in line with heavy whipping cream or the yogurt you can't actually eat. You know, one of those ingredients you get for making one recipe and then you have this fattening cream leftovers in your refrigerator that you feel too guilty to eat, and just as guilty throwing out a week later. So, not so long ago I looked up buttermilk, and found this amusing explanation by Mr. Breakfast. Buttermilk is lower fat than milk, thick like yogurt, and great for making things soft and fluffy.

So back to this morning, Dan and I are going home for the holidays we are trying to clean out the freezer. We had trouble about 3 months ago when we were out of town and one of the circuit breakers popped and so our electricity was off for a least a couple of days. The refrigerator and freezer were full of spoiled food, it was a real mess. The freezer never fully recovered. We had the maintenance man look at the circuit breakers but he wasn't able to see any problem. So we are going to do our best to eat everything we can before we leave, just in case it happens again while we're gone.

For the frozen blueberries in the freezer, I made these this morning. The only changes I made was to substitute 1/2 cup canola oil for the butter, added 1 tsp of vanilla, and the blueberries are what really make it great, so I used closer to 2 cups instead of 1.5 cups. It made roughly 16 normal muffins (with big tops). This recipe is nice because it really is just a vehicle for blueberries, not overly sweet or too oily like store-bought blueberry muffins.

To go along with

what seems like a news blog turning into a food blog, I have further resigned to myself the fact that I'm scared to cook red meat. Also, the fact that red meat, can in fact, smell fear.

Friday night I tried to make this sirloin tips over pasta recipe, and it really was almost un-salvageable. Luckily, Dan is tall, and was very hungry after driving back from Buckeburg, because the smell (it was too much red wine or something) after two hours of me standing around it and giving it the occasional stir, was almost too much. It ended up being ok, but it looked like something they would serve at the cafeteria at work here, not really a compliment. Perhaps I used the wrong type of beef.

Tonight we are hopefully redeeming the Katherine & Daniel Kitchen's culinary standard - we bought everything to bake salmon, an easy favorite.

Other than that, we have been doing typical weekend stuff, with a few preparations for the holidays thrown into the mix. It's right around the corner already!