Saturday morning ritual.....

Every Saturday morning Neil makes a mega-stack of pancakes, I make a pot of tea and we sit and snaffle it all while the kids chat and squabble and laugh. We'll often be on skype to Grandad in Malta at the same time and it's often chaotic and noisy but it's always tasty. I realized that I'd never thought to take out my camera and document this simple but constant little ritual in our lives. So here it is...Saturday morning at the Ralston house.....

Our Christmas 2012...

Christmas in Canmore was cosy. Outside it was a cold one. In fact it was the coldest day of the season so far. The temperature topped out at -30 on Christmas morning, about 14 degrees colder than the coldest it's been here this year, brrrrrr! Needless to say our plans of skating on frozen lakes were abandoned and we stayed cozy and warm in the house all day long. The kids didn't change out of their pj's and Bel's hair was left in it's natural wild and bed-heady state till boxing day.
Our day began at 3.46am, you heard me 3.46AM!! Despite a late night for all of us on Christmas eve celebrating with the neighbours the kids came charging into our room in the wee hours to announce that Santa had been and gone. In our confusion (mostly down to the lack of a bedroom clock) we all arose and tiredly staggered downstairs to begin the present opening chaos. We'd worked our way through two or three presents and half a cup of tea before we realized that it was STILL THE MDDLE OF THE FLIPPIN NIGHT! We had no idea how to proceed considering the kids were totally buzzed with Christmas euphoria. We decided to finish opening presents then told them to pick one toy each to take back to bed with strict instructions not to make another peep of noise until the sun shone through their windows. To my astonishment it worked! We all went back to sleep for three more hours and then woke up for round two of Christmas morning! 

It turns out Santa shops at Ikea too! He bought Bel this lovely play kitchen which means that after two years of collecting play food and kitchen gadgets she finally has a place to keep them all.

We've been debating about buying a play kitchen for so long and had really considered trying to make one but with everything else going on at the moment that never quite happened. I'm actually quite glad we waited until now because Both Bel and Seb are at an age where they will really play make believe games together and they've both been cooking us meals and serving us drinks ever since Christmas morning. On Christmas eve I did manage to whip up a couple of play tea bags from fabric scraps as a little hand made addition to her kitchen. I think they're pretty cute and now I'm planning to sew a couple of aprons and tea towels whenever I get a chance. 

Along the food theme we also received a really cool playdoh candy making machine from my bro and sister in law that seems to be a massive hit with the kids (thank you Uncle Dan and Auntie Monkey!)

Anyway, moving on from the pressies.....
Neil and I put our Sodastream to good use by fizzing up some ok wine to create our own delicious Champagne alternative! We stole the idea from Jamie Oliver who did the same thing on The Jonathan Ross Christmas Special we'd watched the day before. If you're cheap and not at all classy like us ( heck, we don't even own a pair of Champagne flutes!) why not give it a whirl....I promise it really works! :)



Dinner was fantabulous! Definitely not super complicated, just a nice roast chicken with fresh veg, roasted sweet and blue potatoes, yorkshire pud and Neils homemade cranberry sauce. I think it's simplicity was what made it so good :)

We spent the rest of our day skyping family and snuggling under blankies by the fire, oh and scoffing the Christmas Puds sent over from England. Yum!

I hope all your Christmases were just as merry and bright!
xo

Best Brownies.......

Seb had a friend over today, I pulled out all the stops to make myself appear to be Martha-esque super Mummy. I tidied up (I really did!), rented a movie and baked brownies....... the proper butter, chocolate and sugar kind.....naughty, naughty :) I used a recipe from my new favorite food blog Smitten Kitchen. I've tried a few of Deb's recipes now and each time I've found them to be simple to put together but impressively tasty! I'm also a sucker for her beautiful photography. The brownies were perfect and I ended up having to hide them from the kids to stop them sneeking another one from the tin (and of course to make sure there were enough left for me to snaffle later that evening!) Anyway I highly recommend checking out Smitten Kitchen next time you're looking for some Nosh inspiration and if anyone is still wondering what to get the food lover in your life for Christmas.......Deb has bought out a book that looks so lovely! (ahem....*hint*hint*)

This post is intended to make you drool...(Yes you Dale!)

It's been a good week food wise. Neil has been in a bun making frenzy and has knocked out at least three dozen delicious buns. Some were even made with kamut flour! (Please will someone drag me away from those buns before I turn into one!) He also wipped up a few authentic (as you can get without a pizza oven) Neopolitan style pizzas, some scrummy fennel sausage, a to-die-for butternut squash and fig ravioli (with his own hand made pasta), lamb slow cooked with san marzano tomato and lemon, oh, and some more buns. Unfortunately not very much of it stuck around long enough for me to photograph so you'll just have to take my word for it. I think I'd best get myself off to the gym incase next week is just as good!

Adventures in bread making....

Neil's been making our bread  pretty regularly now for quite some time, it's definately an art and at first the loaves would be hit and miss but these days they are consistently good and usually only last about five minutes after coming out the oven before being gobbled up. His fancy twisty loaf pictured above was just about as perfect a loaf as he's ever made and it was so pretty too :)
I haven't really mastered the bread making yet although I do whip up a mean soda bread, a very handy skill to have when hungry kids need bread in a hurry. For Neil's bread he uses store bought fresh yeast and in my new homesteading spirit I decided that we could do better than than and culture our own wild yeast in the form of a sourdough starter. With that, Cuthbert was born......

It's much more simple than I thought to begin your own Sourdough starter.  It's a simple mix of flour and water left in a warmish spot to magically ferment. Cuthbert needs care and attention. In addition to  being kept in a consistently warm spot, every day I need to feed Cuthbert by emptying out about 80 percent and feeding in half a cup of warm water and half a cup of flour. After a week or so you can use your starter to bake a loaf of bread. I was doing well feeding little Cuthbert, in fact he was being fed before every other member of the household, I've discovered that you're better off using a nice organic flour so that you avoid any chemical residues that might be present in a non organic flour from killing off the wild yeast. The same goes for water and that's one thing that presented dear little cuthbert with a problem. I used tap water and being the picky eater that he is, Cuthbert didn't seem to like it. I haven't tested our water but it's quite likely that it has a chlorine content or fluoride content that is too high for Cuthbert and quite frankly not too great for us humans either! I've since discovered that rain water or distilled water are better for cultivating a sourdough starter. Unfortunately it doesn't really matter for poor Cuthbert......Neil killed him.
Yes, Cuthbert, my little bubbly lump of wild yeast, is dead. It is partly my fault, it was a bit chilly in the house the other day and I was worried he might be too cold so I popped him in the oven with the light on just to keep him nice and snug. I forgot to tell Neil he was in there and the next thing I know, Neil's pulling a piping hot pizza out the oven and I'm thinking  "Oooo Yummy!" when it suddenly dawns on me that Cuthbert WAS IN THERE!!! He didn't make it. How could he, it was 550F in there!
 Let's just take a moment for Cuthbert. RIP friend.

It's probably for the best, I was having visions of having Cuthbert tucked into my sleeping bag while we camped. We'll just have to have another go with Cuthbert II upon our return. I'll keep you posted.

Neil's smoker and the alder smoked apple butter ribs.....

I'm not sure how best to describe these ribs. Lets just say, if you can imagine perfect, tender meat with a deliciously smokey but sweet flavour and just a hint of a spicey kick that would be about right. For sures......they were the best ribs I've ever eaten. I love the smoker. Enough said.

We got sprouts!

And we're eating them on EVERYTHING :)