Beans, turkey stock, city life, and a firewood safety tip

Firewood safety tip

OK first, let’s get this out of the way. A tip for all you wood burners out there.

You know how dry pieces of firewood sometimes split apart? So you have some nice, long, ruler-thickness pieces of wood you can rip off as quick and easy kindling to get your fire started? Okay those. Safety tip. When you are pulling and twisting to get that last edge to rip off the piece of firewood, please don’t pull it toward your face. Please. Or at least keep your lips shut to save your teeth. Because when that piece of kindling rips off, it’s going to come at you fast. Keep your lips shut and then you’ll only have a few bloody scrapes along your lip to explain to your husband.

Turkey stock

I’ve never made my own stock, and always just buy it, but my great aunt Miep’s living simply cookbook convinced me I could do it. Jeff cooked a small turkey last weekend so I saved the carcass and on the stormy Tuesday when Jeff was home from work, we put the big pot on the stove for about 12 hours with some carrots and onions. It made more than I thought! And was ridiculously easy. I’m not big on soup, but we’ll use it instead of water when we make rice and vegetable dishes. We’ve froze it in containers in the freezer.

Beans

After making the turkey stock, I was inspired to cook more. I found an old pioneer recipe and we had a bag of dried navy beans so I made a huge amount of baked beans and they are AMAZING.

The recipe is from the Sherbrooke Village. I doubled the recipe, and left out the brown sugar. I used an entire package of smoked sliced bacon that Jeff had in the freezer. Instead of a bean crock, I used the crockpot.

They have a real home cooked, campfire taste. I will definitely make these again. Here they are minus a few bowls 🙂

City Life

I’m a country girl, and a bit of a hermit. I work at home and don’t have to leave home too often. I find I need a change of scenery once in awhile to keep my productivity up. Jeff had a meeting in Dartmouth on Friday so I decided to go with him and I bummed around the city for the day.

I started out at the Two If By Sea coffee shop. Their pastries are ENORMOUS! I got a hot chocolate and a chocolate stuffed pastry. I asked for their wifi password and asked if they wouldn’t mind if I worked for a bit. They said people often stay and work all day, so it was no problem. Alright!

I think it took me 3 hours to finish this pastry.

It was my friend Chrissy’s birthday so she came by the cafe on her way out of town for the weekend. We headed to the Mic Mac Bar and Grill so Chrissy could have a nice steak for her birthday, but the line for a table was too long since her pups were waiting in the car.

Instead we headed over to Sam’s Seafood and Grill. Chrissy got her steak and I went for the fish and chips special.

This was the look on my face when I saw how big the lunch plate was.

TWO pieces of haddock and two shrimp and two scallops AND fries! More than half of it left in a take out dish that Jeff seemed to really appreciate after a long day of meetings.

Here is Chrissy and her steak on her birthday!

After lunch, Chrissy dropped me off back near the building where Jeff had his meeting. I got totally mixed up in directions and walked the wrong way for a while. I didn’t mind one bit. It was a beautiful day. Stupid iPhone died though so I’m glad I was able to call up Google Maps to get my bearings before it conked out. It really hates cold. It doesn’t matter how much juice is in the battery. A bit of cold and it says the battery is suddenly dead and shuts off until I warm it up and plug it back in.

Here you can see Halifax across the water.

After I got turned around, I found the Just Us Coffeeshop close to Jeff’s meeting location with wifi, plugs, and a great high table to work at. It was a great place to work, with nice big windows, and really good iced raspberry tea.

Today, Saturday, it is pouring rain again. After snow, and before the next snow, the Nova Scotia way. As you would expect, pouring rain after snow leaves the driveway a steep, slippery mess. Despite coming down with a bad cold, Jeff plowed the slush off the driveway earlier today before it freezes again tonight.

Another storm coming in Monday/Tuesday. I’m hoping for lots of snow and really cold temperatures. Winters are way too easy here.