Cannolis for dessert

Daughter L shared this photo of some cannolis she bought recently to take to some friends for dinner. She is happy to have discovered this bakery.  Cannolis are an Italian pastry consisting of tube shaped fried pastry shells piped with a sweet creamy ricotta filling.

Paint Party Friday - Fir Tree ACEO

Welcome to Paint Party Friday! I did an ACEO (2 1/2" x 3 1/2") on cardstock in permanent markers today. It is a fir tree in the snow.  The background is a sky blue using an alcohol ink marker.

Rain's Thursday Art Date - Leaps and Bounds

Welcome to Rain's Thursday Art Date, Leaps and Bounds theme. I decided to do a green grasshopper on a pale mint background. They leap vigorously from powerful hind legs so I thought they would represent our theme perfectly!

On Spare Ribs

Here is a funny meme for you today. It's a photo of a shower faucet. The meme says 'every naked person I see turns me on.'

Over the years I have posted various pork spare rib recipes. Recently I tried slow baking them on a low temperature and they came out really good. The trick is to seal the ribs in a packet of foil.

So, coat the ribs with your favourite barbecue sauce. I used back ribs. Seal them in a packet of aluminum foil. Bake at 250F for 2 hours. At the end I removed the fat from the drippings and poured it on top of the cut up ribs.

With this method there is no need to boil the ribs beforehand.  

Eggplant Melt - Take 2

A few weeks ago I posted about this eggplant melt recipe. I have made improvements to the recipe.

After baking the oiled and salted eggplant for 30 minutes at 350F, I layered on some sliced olives from a jar and finished up my jar of olive paste. Next I layered on some sliced tomatoes, then mozzarella slices, then some fresh basil leaves. At that point it needs to bake for 15 mins to get the cheese melted perfectly. It is eggplant pizza really! I may try using some sundried tomatoes on it next.

For those that like eggplant, it is a great vegetarian dish, quite filling.

Stroganina

The newspaper has many interesting articles.  I learned of Stroganina, a Russian delicacy in northern arctic Siberia.   It is raw frozen fish or meat sipped in sauce. The Reindeer meat is shaved very thinly then dipped in a blood sauce made from Reindeer blood, vegetable oil and mustard powder.  It is permanently frozen in these remote areas where reindeer herders have no firewood or time to build a fire.  So these delicacies evolved.  Here is an article on the Reindeer stroganina.

Frost Quake in Toronto

Recently I saw an article in the paper describing these frost quakes or cryoseisms in Toronto.  They are set off by a sudden drop in temperature.  So say it is above freezing during the day then drops dramatically below freezing at night for example.  The water in the ground quickly freezes and causes the soil to expand with loud crackling noises, minor shaking and rattling. This couple experienced this at 2 am then at 7 am one day.  This happens mostly in the winter of course.

I have never felt this, fortunately or unfortunately.

Millionaire Shortbread

My sister in California baked these good looking millionaire shortbread bars using this recipe from The Brown Eyed Baker. I remember her saying it was supposedly an easy recipe but she didn't find it so. I think she did a really good job though, the photo looks so professional. It is a shortbread layer, then caramel topped with chocolate ganache. It is something I would never try to be honest.

Paint Party Friday - Lamp ACEO

Welcome to Paint Party Friday! This is a Lamp ACEO I showed recently on Instagram.  The small outdoor lamp is mounted on a garden fence and it is pictured after a snowfall.  It's done on cardstock (2 1/2" x 3 1/2") in permanent markers. I chose this Japanese proverb to go with the piece.

"One kind word can warm 3 winter months".

Rain's Thursday Art Date - Wisdom of the Ages

Welcome to Rain's Thursday Art Date! I chose to do a portrait of William Shakepeare (1564-1616) for Rain's 'Wisdom of the Ages' theme. The bard had many wise quotes in the Modern English of that time. It is hard to understand nowadays. 'All that glitters is not gold' is fairly straightforward. 'To thine own self be true' is another of many famous and wise quotes of his.

Beignets

I accidentally double posted yesterday so I am reposting this one on beignets that you might have missed.

I found this easy beignet recipe from The Southern Lady Cooks. It doesn't use any yeast. I may never make it to The Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans, so this is an easy way to get an idea of it. It occurred to me that you can pay to have them shipped to you, in fact they ship worldwide, but...here is this easy recipe anyway:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Honey, Syrup, Molasses or Powdered Sugar (Optional)

Combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Mix well in a bowl with a wire whisk. Beat milk, egg, oil and vanilla together and add to dry mixture. Beat batter with whisk until smooth. Drop by tablespoon full into hot oil either in skillet or deep fryer. Cook to golden brown on each side being careful not to burn. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or drizzle with honey, syrup or molasses. Makes about 24 beignets.

New Chocolate Bar

M and M  has some new chocolate bars, I decided get this mint flavoured one (pictured above) for son K.  Or course I had a yummy little taste.  They have one with almond, one with peanuts, and one with rice krispies with plain milk chocolate.

Simple Cookie Recipe and in Memoriam

I found this basic ball cookie recipe on instagram by Amy Stopnicki @myskoshertaste. It is simple and quick.  I ate 3 of them that day.

Here is her recipe:

3 eggs
3/4 c sugar (I used brown sugar)
3/4 c canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt

preheat oven 350F

In a large bowl, beat eggs, sugar, oil until smooth
mix in vanilla
combine dry ingredients
form into 1" balls
at this point you can sprinkle icing sugar on the cookies
bake on a tray lined with parchment paper for 10-12 minutes or until light golden colour.
can sprinkle with more icing sugar.

(I baked it at 325F in my hotter oven for 10 minutes.)

My mom would have turned 82 today, she passed away 3 years ago.  She liked to bake, so this post is in memory of  you today mom.

How times have changed

My daughter sent me this spoof video called ' GenZ Discovering the Library'.  It made me realize how times have changed.  This young man comes in with no idea of what a library is.  A librarian introduces him to a book, how ancient.  He has no idea how to read it, there is no touch screen.  He is shown a computer with a mouse (what?).  And what is a DELL computer?  He is mystified by CDs and DVDs.  This is the iphone age with touch screens and all services online, with e-books and e-readers.

It was a bit depressing, I felt ancient.  My daughter just thought it was very funny.  I remembered in the late 80's my girlfriend admitting to me that she had trouble operating a mouse at first.  Those were new at the time.  E-mails were limited to within the company there was no global system yet.  In fact, I remember using the Toronto Free-Net, it was an early free internet facility, with very limited capabilities.  The World Wide Web had not yet been introduced to the public.   You can still find the Toronto Free-Net on the internet.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my look back into the past.

My New Art Markers

No it's not a box of pizza!

I was excited to find these Staedtler permanent art markers at the store on sale. There are 36 colours with both a fine point tip and an extra fine point tip. So I will do some small ACEO (2 1/2" x 3 1/2") pieces using these fine tip markers.

Paint Party Friday - Hearts Pattern

Happy Valentine's Day!

For Paint Party Friday, I am showing a Hearts pattern piece I did on Instagram for @alexandrasillos #patternedthingsbyalex.  It was a pattern theme for the month of January.  I was inspired by the spiral stars of a galaxy, so my hearts in red, pink and white on textured purple cardstock (6" x 6") are forming a simple spiral pattern across the 'galaxy'.

Rain's Thursday Art Date - Love

Welcome to Rain's Thursday Art Date, the theme is 'Love'. I made a heart tessellation pattern designed on graph paper. I chose 3 colours that seemed to work well together (red, pink and purple)  and am so proud of the result. I have never done anything like this before, very math-like. Art and Math geometry have a lot in common as I have come to learn. Tessellation patterns are like tile patterns in the way shapes fit together, very much like a puzzle. So I made upright rows of hearts alternating with upside down hearts with no spaces in between the pattern.

This was also shared on Instagram for @alexandrasillos #patternedthingsbyalex.

Happy Valentine's Day tomorrow!

A love story

I thought this joke above was quite funny and wanted to share.

Girl to Boy: 'What is your idea of a perfect date?'

Boy replies: 'DD/MM/YYYY other formats can be really confusing.'

Girl: 'You will die single.'

And as we approach Valentine's Day, I recently heard that  the legendary Tina Turner's 2nd husband donated a kidney to her in 2018. You can read about her transplant love story here.  She had an abusive first husband and found her second husband late in life.  He is 16 years her junior.  She is 80 years old now.

Luxury soaps

I picked up some Luxury soaps by Castelbel from Portugal, in Almond + Wild Honey, Goat's Milk, Almond Oil fragrances as pictured above. I like that they are large 10.5 ounce bars.

Do you have small items that you will treat yourself to?  

Rubber jar openers

I bought these inexpensive rubber jar openers from Bed Bath and Beyond.  One is a bright green circular shape of a 5 inch diameter.  Another is a blue square shape.  These would be for opening large jars. Then there is a 3/ 1/2" red cone shaped one for opening smaller bottles and jars.  There was an old rectangular one I used that eventually tore.

Cocoa Brownies

One of my sisters passed along this Smitten Kitchen brownie recipe, it is easy and so delicious as you can picture from the photo above. It uses a half a cup of butter along with cocoa powder instead of chocolate.

Here is what I did:

pre-heat the oven 325F (I did 300F in my hot oven)

Ingredients:

1/2 c butter

 1 c sugar

3/4 c plus 2 tbs cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 c flour

I microwaved the butter, sugar, cocoa powder and salt in a heat proof bowl for 1 minute 20 seconds.  Then I mixed in the vanilla and eggs.  Then I beat in the flour.  

I baked the mixture in a 9 inch pan lined with parchment paper for 20 min at 300F.  The recipe said 20-2 mins at 325F.  It makes 16 small squares.

Jungle cats and perfume

This article says that a zoo in London was asking for donations of perfume and aftershave for their jungle cats. Leopards, cheetahs, ocelots, jaguars and tigers love the scent of certain perfumes.  Calvin Klein's 'Obsession for Men' is particularly popular. It seems that many perfumes contain a chemical called civetone, now artificially made, but is secreted naturally by civets from their anal glands. It has a musky scent.  The article has a video showing the animal's reaction to the scent. They will paw at trees and rub their faces into logs.

Paint Party Friday - Monarch Caterpillar Pattern

Welcome to Paint Party Friday! I am showing a monarch caterpillar on a green leaf. It was done on white cardstock (4 1/4" x 5 /12") for an Instagram pattern theme in January for @alexandrasillos #patternedthingsbyalex. This caterpillar has a natural yellow, white and black striped pattern.

I got the idea from a post Busy Bee Suz made the other day.

Rain's Thursday Art Date - Dinner

Welcome to Rain's Thursday Art Date's 'Dinner' theme. I went straight to dessert with this piece on lilac cardstock. It is a lemon cake with white icing on a patterned cake stand. It is decorated with lemon shavings on top.

This piece was also shown last month on Instagram for @alexandrasillos #patternedthingsbyalex.

New donuts

Tim Hortons have these new Dream donuts and daughter L wanted us to try them. The flavours are Dulce De Leche, Chocolate Truffle. and Strawberry Confetti. So husband M and I stopped off for a coffee break and picked up a bunch of these new flavours (pictured above).  They were out of Strawberry Confetti at the time.  They are full of sweet filling and double the price of regular donuts. But we had small tastes and saved the rest to share with the others. Daughter L said they had a lot more filling than the ones she had tried at a different Tim Horton's. 

Are you a donut lover?

Cauliflower rice and ham soup

Having a lot of leftover ham, I found this cauliflower and ham soup recipe that was low carb and gave it a try. It is delicious, as pictured above.  Warning the recipe link has a lot of popup ads.  Here is my version:

1 pkg (500g) frozen cauliflower rice  (you could probably cut your own cauliflower florets)
1 pkg (950 ml) low sodium chicken stock
2 c water
cup of sugar snap peas (optional, can substitute with whatever vegetables you have on hand such as bell pepper)
cup celery/celery leaves chopped
handful of fresh basil leaves
1 tbs fresh thyme leaves or 1 tsp dried
3 green onions diced or 1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 tbs apple cider vinegar
2 tbs butter
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp pepper sauce (optional)
3 c diced ham

boil 30-40 mins

Eggplant Melt

Jan at The Low Carb Diabetic posted this low carb eggplant recipe that I couldn't wait to try. It is simple and delicious! Thanks Jan!  It is vegetarian too.  My photos are pictured above.

olive oil
2 eggplants halved lengthwise
2 tomatoes sliced
1 ball of mozzarella sliced into 12 slices
handful of fresh basil leaves
salt and pepper to taste
olive pate or pesto or whatever flavoured sauce you choose


heat oven 350F

Lightly salt and pepper the eggplant halves, drizzle olive oil over top, bake 30 mins.  I notice the eggplant absorbs a lot of oil, be careful.
Add tomato slices, cheese and basil and bake for 10-15 mins more.

I found a jar of olive pate in my fridge so I spread it over top at the end, yummy!  You could spread it at the time of adding the other toppings too.

Fish Pattern

 I did this angel fish for the Patterned Things challenge over at Instagram last month that @alexandrasillos was running #patternedthingsbyalex. The angel fish is predominantly blue and yellow stripes done on lilac cardstock (4 1/4" x 5 1/2") in sharpie oil paint markers.

My February 2020 Calendar Page

Welcome to February!

I am sharing my February 2020 Calendar page with you. It is a painting I did of a hot cuppa in a red mug with steam escaping from the vessel. This is the quote I chose to go with it:

'Winter forms our character and brings out our best' -Tom Allen