I know. Three posts in one day! I've been banking up material for a while now but I never seem to get around to posting in the evenings. Today I had a super lazy day so I'm ripping down my todo list and trying to finish some small things to make me feel like I accomplished something.


I had an extremely impromptu discovery tonight. I decided to make spaghetti and meatballs and when I was just about ready to mix all the ingredients together for meatballs, I realized that we were out of pasta. Never fear, because I am reading this great book which I know I have previously mentioned but I'll throw another plug in here because I am still really enjoying it. It is going to be one of those books that I read two or three times and get something new out of every time.

Just last night I had read a chapter on Pâte à Choux dough which is also known as puff pastry dough. This simple preparation of flour and water can also be used to make Gnocchi so it was on! I quickly whipped up the dough and threw it into a plastic bag, cut a corner off and piped the dough into boiling water using scissors to cut at even intervals. It was amazingly easy and tasted great too. I served it under spaghetti sauce and meatballs with some oven roasted tomatoes and red peppers. Eli was a fan of his dinner even though he doesn't look incredibly pumped! This picture captures his mood tonight well. He was a bit of a grump.

I've never been a fan of breakfast sausage until my Mom cooked me some of her homemade sausage patties. These pork sausages have some serious bite but none of the noxious grease when you bite into a casing (ew!) and none of that "I feel like I'm going to hurl" after effect. I know that anyone who has eaten breakfast sausages in a cheesy restaurant (read as Denny's or bad hotel breakfast or in the Pacific Buffet while riding on a BC Ferry) will know these feelings I am referring to. I now make my own sausage with my wonderful Mother's recipe. I purchase a big package of ground pork from Costco about every 6-9 months and make a batch of sausage and freeze it. To make the breakfast patties, defrost the meat in the fridge overnight or even in the microwave on defrost and make mini burger patties. Then cook! This sausage is not only great for accompanying a feast of pancakes and eggs but is also great for pasta dishes. And it is already fully spiced.

I stopped buying the real stuff about a year and a half ago when the price of a medium jug of maple syrup increased by about five bucks over night. On special special occasions we'll still splurge for a little taste of the good stuff but most of the time we are buying whatever is the cheapest. My Mom has made Maple Syrup for as long as I can remember but it never occurred to me just how easy this might be.