Food For Thought

Food is a hot subject these days with cooking shows seeming to take over television and bloggers trying out new recipes and cookbooks for a year. Spending most of the last 5 years without a cookbook its hard to imagine needing one anymore. I've even gotten to the point where I look up a recipe and think "that would taste good" and make it with only half the ingredients called for and substitute the other half with random fillers and not even bother to measure any of it! For instance, today I was wondering if I could make a peach crisp with only three small peaches, and then remembered that I also had a couple of apples, so I looked up a peach and apple crisp recipe, saw that those flavours went well together and decided to make it... not having nearly enough ingredients for the full flavor I added things and left some out. No flour, so I ground up some oatmeal in my blender and used it instead. Not enough peaches and apples, I added some zucchini. Hardly any brown sugar, I added some white as well.

For those of you who are stuck back at the zucchini part, let me expand my thinking! When I was about 11 or 12 we had a HUGE garden and that year we decided to plant zucchini and see how it would do. Well, we had enough zucchini to last us a life time!!! The whole family ended up looking for ways to use up the zucchini! We ate plenty of zucchini loaf and started grating it and freezing it. Then my wonderful sister-in-law found a recipe for appless apple pie, which called for zucchini instead of apples! It was amazing! The texture was a little off but the flavor was great! The lesson learned, zucchini takes on flavor very well! Having learned that lesson at a young age I add zucchini to a lot of recipes when I am short on ingredients.

The result is a very tasty crisp, once again I have out done myself with hardly anything in the kitchen!!!

Last night was an experiment that turned out ok but not as good as planned. I decided to make tropical-ish chicken. Chunks of chicken baked in a mango sauce with pineapple chunks. I would have worked better if the mango's would have been ripe! Hate to leave you hanging, but I have to run and cook dinner (eggs and potatoes, nice and mindless and easy!). I will try to write more tomorrow.

The last 5 months, plus three more!!!

The last 8 months have been busy. There was working at a fast food restaurant while pregnant (right up until 8 months) cooking a Thanksgiving dinner all by myself and getting a nasty bug and having to talk my husband step by step through finishing that dinner! Travelling to BC for a visit spending an extra week there and then taking a bus back to Ontario (for any of those how may be pregnant and thinking of travelling, take a plane or car, don't listen to the man and his "cheaper" logic!) having a roommate in an already small basement suite, making Christmas dinner all by myself, feeling like a beached whale on my couch, packing a hospital bag, unpacking it to find clothes that fit, packing it again and then on the day you go into labour realizing that you forgot to put important things back in it, like your toothbrush! Realizing half way through labour that it is going much faster then you ever thought it would and then thinking "I should've taken the painkillers when I had the chance!", at least it didn't last long (5 hours from when I woke up to holding the baby!). Moving upstairs came next (trying to lift things and climb stairs two weeks after having a baby and stitches that didn't want to heal, not recommended), then the roommate moving out without any notice on the day rent was due... the only time you should let a good friend move in with you is when you want to see just how good of a friend they really are!!! most of the time they aren't that great of a friend, lesson learned, now I just got to learn an easier way to learn these lessons!!! Somehow we are surviving without a roommate in a place that we really shouldn't be able to afford with no family around and not a lot of friends around either. I will have to admit that it is nice being on our own sometimes though, as much as I miss my family and friends on the other side of the country, we now have to fend for ourselves and learn how to spread our wings as we throw ourselves out of the nest!

Now my son is waking up so I should go tend to him and I will try to post a little more often to keep all updated on the life and times of the Busch residents!

Mississauga

We are all moved in, sort of...

We have our own place, a two bedroom basement suite in Mississauga, ON in a quiet neighbourhood close to everything. We are starting to accumulate some stuff although most of our stuff is still in BC.

This must be a relaxing place to live in some strange way since not long after we moved out here I finally conceived!!! The due date is February 22, 2011. I am finding out all the fun stuff that not many people tell you about pregnancy! Like how your breasts grow so fast you think they are going to explode if someone touches them (up a bra size in under four months), just how exhausted you really are for the first three and a half months (I would sleep over twelve hours a day and still not have any energy), how badly your back can ache when you get a new burst of hormones to loosen up those joints (not being able to walk when you get home and trying to explain to a man that its "normal" and you will be okay tomorrow, morning) how if the baby doesn't like something that you are eating or drinking you will either run to the bathroom or have brutal gas cramps for the rest of the day (sauerkraut and sausages do not taste good anymore) and all the lovely emotions and especially how no male on this planet is ever going to fully understand them lol.

There are lots of joys as well though, such as the first flutters and knowing that soon you will have a child of your own!!! Now just to make it through the next 5 months!!!!

That time of year, again....

Sooo.... Once again its that time of year. For most people that means spring cleaning, melting snow, planning gardens and yard work, and getting ready for garage sales. For me, it means moving!
It seems like yesterday that we were moving from Calgary to Burnaby. Hard to believe its been a year. Now we are in for the biggest move yet. Nazko to Brampton Ontario!!!
Now, for those of you who don't know me, or havent been around through my moving era, these decisions are usually made fairly quickly, one day we are staying for a few years, the next day we are moving (sometimes by the weekend)!!!
This move is no different. Only a few days ago, we were thinking about buying a house and staying in Quesnel area permanetly. Within a couple of days we were buying a plane ticket for my husband and figuring out dates to move. To the other side of the country!!!
This will be the furthest East in Canada that I have ever been.
Although the packing and getting over there and being away from my husband for over a month is stressing me out, I'm excited to move there. There will be lots of places to go and plenty of things to see!!!
Because of moving so much, most of my stuff stays packed. However, I still havent gone through all my stuff from two years ago and need to sort it all out and repack a bunch of things. Its always hard trying to figure out what to take when you don't know for sure how long you will live there for.
Now I jsut have to figure out how much it is going to cost to move out there, plus there is a wedding to go to at the end of May in Vancouver. Gonna be travelling lots this year! should be a fun summer.
Packing, here I come!!!

Life Lessons

This is my very first blog. I dont really know where to start since my brain is always full of ideas and doesnt seem to want to slow down very much (except when I really need it). I'm sure I have lots of stories and ideas that I can keep anyone amused with, afterall, my life is far from boring!
I have been married now for two and a half years and in that time we have moved 12 times, had numerous roommates, lived in cities and the "boonies", had to spend hours on city transit and hours driving through snowstorms without wipers or a heater, like I said, far from a boring life!!!
The many life lessons we have been given by our many adventures have taught us to grow up faster then we wanted to at times. Some of these lessons include (but are not limited to);
-Packing a house in a day or less because a friend will be there to pick you up sometime after midnight (and only has a Jeep to fit all your stuff and four people in!)
-How to bake and cook with one cookie sheet (small) one frying pan, one pot, four plates, three bowls, one mmixing bowl (small) three forks, two spoons, one butter knife, and one wooden spatula, and no cook books, all of this for two or more men and youself
-Dont believe the friend that just showed up on the doorstep with a backpack that it will only be for a few days until him and his girlfriend work things out, cause he's gonna end up living there until you see why she kicked him out and do the same as she did so that you can have your couch back and food in your fridge again!!!
-When writing a budget, you have to remember bills, bank fees, movie rentals, gas and oil, and that you will probably end up spending money on a bunch of little things that you didnt think about
-Never go grocery shopping when you're hungry, you will spend way to much on snacks and junk food and won't have the food to last until the next pay cheque!
-And, of course, even though Mr. Noodles, Kraft Dinner, and hot dogs are cheap, you do get sick of eating them after a month or two, so dont be afraid to cook and spend a bit of money on real food.

Every month brigns a new adventure in my life, ever three to five months usually brings a new house or new city as well. Hope you will stick around to see what new and exciting things are in store for me!