A Beginning, A Plan Of Action

Hello beautiful people of the internet!

September is upon us which means that school will be starting again for all the little kidlets that have been around all summer. This also means, that I too will be going back to school. Albeight it will be part time and online. I am pretty sure that I have mentioned in a previous post that I am doing an online course for the next two years to get my Legal Administrative Assistant Certificate. The plan after that will be to get my education to become a Paralegal. I still haven't decided if I want (or can with the way I'm doing my schooling) to end up getting my Bachelor of Law Studies - Paralegal. Which in my mind would be pretty skookum. Seeing as no one in my family, well except for my brother who went into trades, has any formal education after high school.

Along with the beginning of school, I also have a plan. See, although it is hard to tell in my photos, with my height, waist measurement and weight, I happen to fall into the obese category. So, one of my friends on Facebook has decided to start a 21 day challenge. This 21 day challenge is a no junk challenge. See rules below:

For the most part, it should be fairly easy I think, seeing as I currently don't drink pop or eat candy. The biggest challenges I see are the donuts, muffins, fast food and chips. Those will be my biggest obstacles. This challenge will be starting on Sept 1 and I will try to do an entry every day for the challenge to help keep me accountable. Also with the Facebook group, that should keep me accountable also.

And to push myself even further, during this challenge, I also want to throw in a 30 day *insert exercise here* challenge. The ones that I'm talking about are the ones that get increasingly harder every day. I have a bunch of them saved on my Pinterest page under Kill The Muffin (Top). So I will decide shortly which one I want to conquer.

Hopefully, you will continue to follow me on this journey. Seeing as my path seems to be splitting and converging in multiple places currently. Only time will tell as to where it all end up.

Until next time lovelies!

New Year, New Recipes

Hello everyone out there in internet land!!

So with the new year and changing up the blog and that jazz, I am also going to start trying out some new recipes. Tonight was day 1 of new things.

Todays recipe is brought to you by: https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/crockpot-bourbon-bacon-pulled-pork/

The main reason as to why I chose this recipe was because while buying ingrediants for dinner last night, I discovered that Superstore has a scoocum deal on whole pork loins. So being the one that loves to have pulled pork, plus I just bought this
 from Bass Pro Shop and cannot wait to try it out.

This was technically a two day recipe as I have to wake up at 4am to go to work. I did the majority of the prep work the night before. There were some minor changes that I made to the recipe, that actually worked out well in my 'flavour'. (Ha! See what I did there?)
My night before prep included the following: I premade the sauce that the pork would be made in. For this recipe I used my whiskey of choice, Jack Daniels, 

for the bourbon that they called for. Along with the sauce, I also rubbed my pork roast and then used my vacuum sealer to seal in the flavour over night.

Bright and early in the morning (okay not really bright seeing as it was 4am and it's winter so the sun rarely comes out), I put my roast in the slow cooker, stirred up my sauce again and dumped it on top. You could definatly smell the whiskey in the mixture. Then I set my slow cooker on low and let it do its thing. 

When I got home, the house was filled with the wonderous smell of whiskey (my drink of choice). It was at this point that the recipe confused me. 

Whenever I normally make pulled pork (venison, etc), I always dump out the liquid that the meat was cooked in. Well with this recipe, from the sounds of it, the author wants you to add the meat back to the liquid. So after texting my best friend, Tara, and discussing pulled pork and how we normally make it, I came to the conclusion that I would reserve some of the liquid and then dumping the rest out. 

So after dumping out the liquid, I shred my pork, put it back in the pot and added the reserved liquid plus my bbq sauce and the bacon. I then let it heat up for a bit longer. Made up some coleslaw, sliced my buns and wham-bam thank you ma'am dinner is served. 

Needless to say it was different from my usual pulled pork recipe. Even Justin figured that out, as he immediately started asking what I did differently (he likes how I usually make my pulled pork). I never did get a response as to whether or not he liked it. He didn't say he didn't like it, so that's a plus. 

So I say give this one a try. You won't be disappointed. 

I don't do well...

I don't do well at taking criticism. I made rabbit stew in the slow cooker with baking powder bisquits today for dinner. This was my first time ever making stew. Needless to say, I have some work to do to create a good stew. (And biscuits for that matter.)

What went wrong? The veggies were not cooked, the meat did not fall off the bones as it was supposed to, and my bisquits were semi hockey pucks. Other than that, I thought it tasted good. It was flavourful and had the right amount of spice. Did I get any recognition for even cooking dinner? No. All I got was criticism. This was wrong, this was wrong, this was wrong...

I'm sorry my 1st attempt at stew was not up to your standards. Mistakes will be made while trying to traverse in the realm of wild meats. Wild meats have to be prepared differently. I was trying to go an easier route for my first stew attempt, rather than royally screwing something up trying to make it on our extremely finicky stove that doesn't like working half the time. At this rate I don't want to attempt stew again. Either in the slow cooker or on the stove. But you know what? I will try it again. And if I get the same results again, I will find a different way to cook rabbit. Although that may be the end of my stew making, as I'm not that huge a fan of beef stew. I'll eat it, but it isn't my favourite.

As for the bisquits. That was the result of bad baking powder. That powder has now been dumped out and has been added to the grocery list. They will be made again. It is a tried and true recipe that my mom has been using for years. I just have bad luck with baking powder. That recipe will eventually be posted, as I want a permanent pin for it on Pinterest. Then I don't have to keep taking a photo of it every time I want to make them.

Pinterest Win–Pineapple

So in June, it was my cousin Becky’ wedding. Now as I don’t have a lot of money, I wanted to make them something handmade and unique. As they have two houses currently, they did not need a lot of the usual items that newlyweds need. I tried to get answers on decor from her sister, but was not given any good information. So I went on Pinterest and started looking for unique craft ideas. I searched and searched to no avail. And then one day I came across this pineapple.

So I thought to myself that this would be the perfect gift for Becky and Brett. I asked my mom to ask one of her clients for a recommendation for a good bottle of cheap sparkling wine. After getting the name of a good one, went out and bought it and then waited for pay day to come around to buy some Ferraro Rocher. Mom was nice enough to buy me two boxes that had 12 each in them. With those original 24, I mocked out the bottle of wine with the chocolates to get a rough estimate on how many packages I would need to buy. I ended up having to purchase 16 more packages (16x3=48 + 24 = 72!!). After it was all said and done, I had 6-8 chocolates left over from creating the pineapple, so my estimating was pretty spot on.

And now, here is how my pineapple manifested (and turned out better looking than the one that I had pinned originally).

Supplies

• Bottle of sparkling wine or champagne
• Approx 75 Ferraro Rocher (I suggest buying a large box first and then measuring out to get an estimate like I did)
• Green card stock
• Pencil or pen
• Hot glue gun with glue sticks (I used a low-temp gun, regular may work better)
• Clear cellophane wrap (I used the stuff that can be heat shrunk to baskets)
• elastic band

Instructions

1. Start off by opening all the packages of chocolates. I had them spread out on my work table. And plug in your glue gun. Wait for that sucka to get hot.
2. Once your gun gets hot, take a chocolate and put a trigger squeeze of glue on the bottom of it and push against the bottle. Don’t push too hard on the chocolate as it will crush it and we don’t want a deflated pineapple. Start at the bottom of the bottle and go all the way around.
3. On your secound layer, you will want to stagger the chocolates slightly so that they are sitting within the spaces of the first layer. Try to keep them as close as possible.
4. Keep repeating this process until you get just past the shoulder of the bottle. A word of warning, the chocolates like falling out of their little brown “trays” as you keep rotating the bottle in circles. Just leave them off until you are done putting all the chocolates on. Use a little bit of glue to get them to stay back in their little trays.
5. Once all the chocolates are attached, it is time to start making the leaves of the pineapple. The pin that I had found had no instructions at all, so I wasn’t too sure on how to proceed at this point. I ended up googling an image of a pineapple leaf and just free-handed all of them. This is where having the pencil will come in handy, as I kept changing the way that the leaves looked. I drew the leaves close enough that they could just be cut out as one piece and then glued to the bottle. I used about 2 or 3 pieces of cardstock to make all the leaves for my pineapple.
6. You will want to start off with bigger leaves and then work your way to smaller ones as you go up the crown. You can add a bit of curl to the leaves by running them along the edge of the table. I ended up adding the curl by running my finger nail along the center of the leaf. This way you can adjust how much curl each one has. It is easier to do this part before gluing them to the bottle.
7. Keep adding leaves until you work all the way up the stem of the bottle to finish the crown. For the top pieces, I ended up gluing a large piece of green cardstock onto the foil wrapper of the lid to cover the brown. I then added a single leaf to the very top. Once you  have finished adding the leaves, take a look at it and glue in individual leaves wherever you think it could use it.
8. Voila! You have now created a pineapple. Your final step would be to wrap it with the cellophane and secure the loose ends at the neck of the bottle with the elastic. Be careful getting the elastic over the leaves! I did end up getting a bit of help from Justin to do this part. If you use the shrink wrap cellophane, be very careful when you shrink it with the hair dryer so as to not melt the chocolate. You just want it so that it is taught against the chocolates.

Becky loved the pineapple! Turns out that pineapples are her favourite. Needless to say, the bottle of wine will never be drunk. She loves her pineapple.

Overall, I would call this a Pinterest Win!

Blueberry Cobbler

Hello Everyone!
Long time, no post again. Hopefully I can eventually try to get at least one post a month. Then maybe two, followed by one a week....Yeah that is wishful thinking.

So right now, as I type this on my phone, I am sitting on the steps to our basement suite bbqing in the front entrance on our camping bbq. Downside to basement suite?  Lack of space for a real size bbq. Wish we could fit one here, as I would really enjoy being able to control the temperature on our bbq. I currently cook everything on the lowest setting and it still burns. Or maybe it just might be time for a bbq that isn't a 'hand me down'.
Anyways, that was a long segway. So what exactly am I cooking on my bbq this beautiful June evening?  Well I'm not cooking. I am actually baking. I am making a blueberry cobbler. Found the recipe on Pinterest and have been trying to make it for two nights now. Finally got around to it tonight. It is just in the final bisquit baking stage at the moment. It'll be eaten by the time I post this though, as I have to finish on my computer to post so you can have photos.

 The blueberries cooked and ready to be topped with the bisquits.

 All cooked and ready to enjoyed.

 Topped with vanilla ice cream. This is one recipe I will have to make again. It was gone the next day.

Here is a link to the original recipe. BBQ Blueberry Cobbler

It will not be in a tomb

So I have acquired my mom's canning supplies and I have started a new hobby. I have started canning. I have only done two things so far, but I definitely want to continue.

I have made some Cherry Jam and Habanero Cherry Jam. And am currently canning some plums. There will be incoming posts on both of those. Unfortunately no pictures od of the process of the jam. Next time...I'll try to remember.  I can't guarantee anything. 

On the list items to be canned in the future is plum jam, plum salsa, and maybe plum chutney. I also want to try my hand at a mango habanero salsa. After that we'll see what happens. 

So look for those posts in the future.

The Ants Go Marching 2x2

So last week I discovered we had an ant problem.  I didn't want to spend money on poisons, and I wanted a solution right then. So after doing some research on Pinterest,  I found out that if you mixed together icing sugar and baking soda, they can't tell the difference between the two and when they eat the baking soda it reacts with their digestive system and makes them explode.
So I mixed up a couple lids of it and waited a day for the ants to take the bait. Well that never happened.  The ants didn't touch it at all. So after some more research,  I discovered they didn't like vinegar. So I went out to the dollar store, bought a spray bottle, then proceeded to fill it with vinegar when I got home.

The ants didn't know what hit 'em. There was mass genocide in my kitchen.

Though I did find that if you sprinkle the ants with baking soda first and then spray them with the vinegar, it is a much more efficient way to kill them.

So hopefully you find this post informative and helpful if you were need to get rid of ants without resorting to poisons.

Ta ta for now