Beef Broth and Noodle Soup - Simple yet Tasty!

Today was the end of an era. My 8-year old daughter who has not had a stomach bug since the age of 3 woke up last night vomiting. Sigh..

She vomited 4 times - twice overnight and twice in the morning.

I still don't really know if it was a stomach bug or just something she ate. Saturday evening she had spent the night at the neighbour's house and had burgers and fries for dinner, McDonald's for breakfast and some fun in the indoor playground, a trip to the Discovery Centre (children's museum), Subway for lunch (with Fruitopia to drink) and smores for an afternoon snack. Hmm...yeah...obviously this is NOT the usual diet we feed her. As much as we try to feed her one way whatever happens at someone else's house is out of our hands unfortunately.

It's amazing how often she has gone to a birthday party or spent the evening with a friend and then becomes sick with a cold or something else. A diet of sugar, fast food and refined flour (and lack of sleep) definitely has a huge effect on the immune system. Ever notice that kids usually become sick in the few days after Halloween or Easter and during Christmas Break? Yup...diet plays a huge part.

She's starting to figure it out though. After she vomited the first time she said that she wished she hadn't eaten so much junk. She knew what she had done.

Luckily my husband and I seem to be okay (so far). To be sure though we have both been quiet today and have spent time studying and watching television. What we have eaten today has also been quite plain as well to cause as little distress to our digestion as possible. In case it was a stomach bug our bodies are likely trying to fight off the little buggers. Why make it more difficult on ourselves? For breakfast I had toast and a banana, lunch was plain rice and some tea, an apple for an afternoon snack and dinner was a broth-based soup. The dinner was a bit of a surprise actually. Initially it was just supposed to be a ho-hum broth, onion and noodle soup but it turned out pretty darn yummy.

Here's what went into it:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, sliced
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• 4 cups beef broth
• vermicelli spinach rice noodles
• green onions

Doesn't sound like much eh?

Heat the olive oil in a large pot on medium heat and add the onion and garlic. Cook until softened. Add the broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add amount of noodles desired. Serve and top with green onions. Like I said, super simple, but a tasty surprise.

My daughter's bowl had more broth than noodle and had no green onions. Earlier she had managed to drink water, eat a banana and a bit of bread but I didn't want to push her system too much. Broth and a few noodles would be enough for her.

Now, let's hope we're all healthy in the morning!

Garden Update - Week 2

It's amazing the difference a week can make for a plant. It has been a week since I got my garden and yard ready and planted a few seeds. For the first part of the week we were out there making sure we watered everything every day. It was so sunny and the ground was so dry. Then came the second half of the week and the rain came. It poured! The soil is no longer dry that's foresure . Luckily the sun came out today to dry things up a little and get things growing.

Here is the progress so far.

My rhubarb is doing really well. I have a second stalk coming through and a big leaf that wasn't there before.

My haskap berry bush seems to have gotten a little taller.

I'm not too sure about my second haskap bush (the pollinator). It's looking a little stumpy and it may have drowned in the rain a little. I'll keep my eye on this one and see how it looks next week. Hopefully I don't have to replace it. They're not cheap!

My raspberry bush, however, is doing extremely well. Many more leaves and a little taller.

In my raised bed I had to squint and get right close but there is some progress in there. Here is a radish seedling.

This one I believe is lettuce (or green onion). Uhm...I've already forgotten where I planted the green onions. Oops!! At least it'll be obvious once it gets growing a little more.

And then there is my kale. This one seems to be sprouting quite nicely in a couple of spots.

No sign of the peas yet and I have yet to plant my flax seeds. I'm not sure where I'll plant the flax seeds yet. These flower and look pretty so they won't be going in the raised bed, but somewhere in the yard. Just need to figure out where. It is my task this week.

Not bad for one week's progress, eh? Let's see what the next week will bring.

How is your garden coming along?

For those of you in Ontario I hope that the snow, freezing rain and frost haven't affected your plants and gardens. I know that the farmers are having a difficult time with the never-ending winter out there this year.

A Day Out in Downtown Halifax - Open City 2013

So remember in October when I went to City Harvest? Remember how much fun we had spending the day downtown? Well we did it again. Today was Open City 2.0 in Halifax. Open City was created in the Spring of 2012 and then re-incarnated as City Harvest in the Fall and now Open City 2.0 happened.

The event is used to promote the shops, museums and restaurants downtown and to encourage residents to spend their money locally and to return downtown more often. It works! I won't say too much and I'll let the pictures do the talking. Here is what my day downtown was like..

Our first stop wasn't in Halifax actually. We made a stop at the Alderney Market in Dartmouth first to get a few things. While we were there we sampled homemade marshmallows,

found the first rhubarb and asparagus of the season (woot!),

and then picked up my order of Made with Local Bars. Today they introduced their new Haskap bar and also instant oatmeal. Yes, there is now such a thing as local oatmeal around here, made with Speerville Oats, Valley Flax Flour, maple sugar, and Terra Beata dried blueberries or apples. Can't wait to try it!

While we were there my daughter spied a vendor with lots of hair accessories and got herself a new headband. These are totally her style. She loves flower headbands.

After our pit stop at the Alderney Market we continued on and made our way into Halifax. Free Parking for all!!

Our first stop was to the Brewery Market and to the Food Wolf Food Truck parked outside.

We got their OpenCity special and tried the Vegan Milkshake - made with coconut milk.

Inside the market we walked around a bit and bought some lettuce, some sausage, radishes and vanilla beans. Check out these quail eggs. I might need to pick some up next time. So cool!

After the market we continued our excursion and visited the Waterfront. In the Sands at Salter we found Krista from Food Savvy (www.befoodsavvy.com). She was giving samples of homemade sports drinks (aka homemade Gatorade) made with lime, honey and sea salt. Yummy!

Next to her was the new I Heart Bikes location. It would have been fun to rent a bike today but they didn't have any little kid bikes available. With a mention on Facebook or Twitter we could have received a free 30 minute rental. Another time I suppose. Instead, we bought my daughter a new hand-painted bell for her bike.

Bikes weren't the only option for transportation today. There were Segways too. Now THAT would have been cool to try.

Next Stop? Rum Runners Rum Cake Factory. The hubby bought some Newfoundland Screech Coffee. It smells divine...and I don't even like coffee all that much.

At Bishop's Landing we stopped in at Bishop's Cellar and tried the new Nova 7. It was quite nice.

Also at Bishop's Landing we went to Maples Gallery and after sampling the maple salad dressing we proceeded to buy a bottle.

This is new on the Waterfront this year. Yes, mis-shapen light posts. Really cool! Yeah...it was just a little bit foggy out there today. No rain though!!

A little further down we found Lost Cod Clothing Co. Their special for Open City were $10 I Love Local HFX Tees. There's my shirt getting pressed.

Love it!

At this point we were starting to get hungry. Hmmm...Lobster Poutine from Grill at CUT? Sure!

This was my husband's lunch. It was the best poutine ever. The fries were to die for! Before today we had never heard of this restaurant. Guess what - Open City works. We now have plans to go to this restaurant for a meal because we were so impressed.

My daughter's lunch was found at 2 Doors Down (2 Doors Down from Chives on Barrington St. haha). They had cheeseburger sliders and kettle chips. Perfect serving size for her.

After her lunch we walked up Spring Garden Rd. and then to Dresden Row. Susie's Shortbreads was having Cupcake Bingo. Choose a cupcake and if there's a sticker underneath you get it for free. We had to pay for ours. She could not wait to dig in.

Now for my lunch. Still on Dresden Row I ended up getting Fid Resto Back Door Pad Thai. This is a typical offering for them, not just something they do for Open City. Isn't it the coolest setup ever? There was a bit of a wait since they were so busy but it was worth it. My Shrimp Pad Thai was delicious. It's too bad this restaurant is closing its doors later this month though. Bummer!

Still on Dresden Row again we stopped at Pete's and got the $3.00 Mango Tango Smoothie. Refreshing!

At that point we moved on to South Park St. and visited P'Lovers and Halikids.

In Ontario I had been to the P'Lovers in Stratford and in London (before it closed) but not to this one. What a beautiful store! We bought a really cool reusable mason jar takeaway lid. I'll go back again and buy some more stuff another day. I loved their book selection. So many books that I'll have to add to my must-read list.

Initially I had hoped to have my lunch from Envie Halifax located just outside the P'Lovers but after checking Twitter I had seen that she had completely sold out of the lentil burgers and kale salad. That's okay. I loved my Pad Thai.

Back on Spring Garden we visited a few more shops and ended up at Bookmark. Lots of great books here. I could have spent a lot of money here. Too bad I'm too busy studying to read any books right now. So many cookbooks on my list too. I need more money (and more time to cook).

We took a break on Queen St. to watch this guy break down some rocks. Sounds a little dull but we could have really watched this all day. Machine makes it look like the rocks don't weigh a darn thing.

At Queen and Morris we went to Atlantic News for a free fruit slushy for the kid. She got one of the last ones before they ran out.

To be honest, I never would have walked into this shop before. I had no idea what was inside. Turns out they carry pretty well any magazine or newspaper you could be looking for. Again, if it wasn't for Open City I probably would have never known.

That was our last stop.

Although I had a huge list of places to see I think we visited half of them. It was starting to get a little chilly and we had to get back to Dartmouth and pick up our other car that had received an oil change while we were out. I'm upset that we didn't make it to the North End. I have yet to spend any time there and this would have been a good opportunity. I had wanted to go to Julien's and pick up my loaf of Spelt Bread that I usually get at the Seaport Market, to Liquid Gold to try their olive oils, to Local Source because I'm just plain curious about the place, and mostly, to Hair I Am for a free bang trim. My bangs are really, really long right now and could have used the free trim. Shucks!

Overall it was a productive day. My goal was to visit some shops and restaurants that I never visited before. I think we fulfilled that goal.

Back at home we were chilled so had some leftover soup to warm up and a salad on the side using the maple syrup dressing I had bought at Maples Gallery and our first taste of asparagus for the season.

Did you make it out to Open City? What place did you learn about you didn't know about before? What place will you go back to again?

Garden Update - Week 1

Last year when we moved to Nova Scotia it was late June so with unpacking and getting settled we didn't get a chance to set up the garden. This year, however, we are well-prepared. 

A couple of weeks ago we got the process started and picked 'the spot'. The 'spot' is next to the shed and receives a good amount of sun. There was another area in the yard that gets even more sunlight but  doesn't seem to drain very well so we figured the spot we chose would work out a little better. 

Then we started digging. The bonus is that the ground here is nowhere near as 'clay-like' as it was in London. I was actually able to dig it all up all by myself easily. There were a LOT of rocks though; and I'm not talking pebbles, I mean big rocks. There were also a few cans of iced tea (??)

While I waited for my husband to build the raised bed I got to work and started planning what we would plant. I decided that this year's garden will contain kale, lettuce, beans, peas, green onions, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, flax seeds, herbs and some fruit bushes.

The most important thing to remember when gardening is that although some seeds can be planted in early May others cannot be planted until after the frost date. Also important is that some must be planted as seedlings and not direct, like tomatoes and peppers, for instance.

So being that it is still early May I went out and bought the seeds that I could plant now and will wait and plant the others at the end of the month. I bought some of my seeds from Annapolis Seeds at the Halifax Seaport Market and got some others at The Halifax Seed Company on Kane St.

It was my first trip to the shop and I wasn't really sure what to expect. Driving over it was in the oddest location, on a residential street off Robie St. Weird!

When I arrived I took a quick look around to see what was available and then went around again to decide on my purchases.

The first thing that caught my eye were the Haskap Berry plants. Did I buy one? Yes!

I didn't just buy one though. I bought two. One of the lovely women on staff made sure to let me know that you can't just buy one. You MUST buy two - one 'pollinator' and then another variety to go along with it. I got a Borealis. I probably won't get any berries this year but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

By the time I left I walked out with my two Haskap plants, a raspberry plant, a rhubarb plant, and some packages of seeds.

Luckily the weather cooperated all weekend and gave us tons of sunshine. Perfect weekend for gardening and yard work.

In various locations around the yard I planted my raspberry, haskap and rhubarb plants, leaving enough space between everything for future growth. My flax seeds haven't been planted yet but I have to figure out where they'll go first.

Oh, and I planted a rosebush too. I'm looking forward to some seeing some yellow roses in my yard.

In the main bed (see how nice it looks all built up?) my daughter and I planted some radishes, green onions, lettuce, kale and peas. We put in a bit of each and will plant more every couple of weeks. That's one thing to note actually - don't plant all of the radishes all at once, for instance, because then you will end up with a lot of radishes and then none the rest of the season. Stagger your plantings so that you can enjoy everything over several weeks.

So this is where we are at right now. All we can do now is wait.

As the weeks go by I will give weekly updates on our progress. Hopefully by next week's update we will start seeing little tiny green sprouts poking out of the dirt. Stay tuned!

Lobster Risotto

You know what makes a Friday even better? When your husband calls you on the way home from work, asks if you have anything planned for dinner yet, and then picks up some fresh lobster on the way home. He was in the Bridgewater area today and on the way back home he made a stop in Upper Tantallon and bought these lobsters from your run-of-the-mill-lobster-in-the-back-of-the-truck kind of guy. In Ontario you don't buy lobster from the guy who sells them from the back of his truck in August.  Blech! In Nova Scotia, yes, please do!

While waiting for him to come home I had to figure out what I was going to make with them. By the time Friday comes around there isn't too much to choose from in the fridge and pantry so I was going to have to be creative. In the end, I thought a risotto sounded nice! We hadn't had that in a while.

Risotto's are easy to make and can usually be put together with anything you've got hanging around.

Today's risotto started with some butter in a pan with a diced onion and the rest of the mushrooms I had, around 6 or so.

Once the mushrooms and onions were softened I added 1 1/2 cups arborio rice and toasted them for a minute or so. I usually like to use barley in place of rice but barley was not an option today (looks like I'm all out). Instead, the rice that has been sitting in my pantry for months now was finally put to good use.

At this point there are a few options. Some people will start with a cup of white wine to begin cooking the rice and then continue with broth. I had no wine so it would have to be just broth. In this case, I used a seafood broth. What? Seafood broth? Where do I find that? Easy! It's just the water we used to boil the lobsters.

Add the broth a ladle-full at a time. When the liquid is absorbed add another portion of broth and continue until the rice/barley reaches a consistency that you like. I usually use between 4 and 6 cups of broth.

While I was getting the risotto prepared my husband got the lobster meat ready. He's a little more experienced than I am with it so it has become his job to do this part. With the two lobsters we got we ended up with enough lobster for the risotto and more for lunch tomorrow. Lobster rolls maybe?

When I was about to add the last little bit of broth I added in the lobster at the same time to heat it through.

To finish it off, add 2 tbsp of butter, salt/pepper and then your choice of cheese. Parmesan is the most popular choice for risotto but I didn't have any of my usual goat's cheese parmesan so I used feta instead. Another great option would be soft unripened goat cheese - like cream cheese it would just melt right in. Top with chives or green onions and you're all set. I didn't have any chives or green onions though. Oh well! Apparently it must be time for my Saturday trip to the market!

Lobster Risotto wasn't what I was planning to make for dinner when I got up this morning but it was a nice surprise nonetheless.  Our discussion over the dinner table was trying to figure out what this meal would have cost us in a nice restaurant. Thirty dollars a plate? Lobster doesn't come cheap when you're eating out. Our two FRESH lobsters cost a mere $17 and has given us enough for two meals. In Ontario, the cost would have been double that easily. We're so lucky!

What about all the rest of that lobster water in the pot? Did I throw it down the drain? No, I took the opportunity and jarred the rest and put it into my freezer. This will be great for a nice chowder or other seafood-related dishes later.

Like really? Where else would you find seafood broth?