Raspberry Vinaigrette

I’ve been so busy with school and work I’ve barely been cooking, let alone making anything worth posting about.  The most I’ve done on the weekends is bake bread, make applesauce, apple butter, and pumpkin puree.  I did pickle some hot peppers and have a bunch of little hot pepper plants growing like weeds under my grow light.  My rosemary is finally growing thanks to a friend’s organic fertilizer (thanks Claude!) and both lemon trees are doing well, although one of them is no longer a resident of my apartment.  I am trying to sprout some apple seeds currently and would totally plant a pumpkin seed when I puree the last 3 pumpkins I have if I wasn’t terrified of it taking over my livingroom.

On non-food related news, I have a real livingroom now!  Claude and Dallas were generous and wonderful enough to give me their entertainment unit and were at my place for about 2 hours on Monday evening helping me move everything around.  My computer desk is now in my bedroom and then tv, ps3 and ps2 are all in the livingroom on the entertainment unit.  I can now look for a coffee table and end tables!  So excited! 

Back to food…I have been searching for months for a salad dressing I love that I can make at home.  I finally found it this weekend.  I made a homemade raspberry vinaigrette for our thanksgiving supper and I adore it.  I’ve never liked storebought raspberry vinaigrettes before so it was surprising.  It’s simple to make and I have all the ingredients at home, amazingly.  It keeps well in the fridge, and just needs a shake or whisk to put it back together for serving. 

Raspberry Vinaigrette

2 tbsp homemade raspberry sauce (basically try to make raspberry jam but don’t add enough sugar or pectin for it to set, lol)

1 tbsp Red Wine Vinegar

1 tbsp White Vinegar

1/8 cup Olive Oil

1/8 cup Canola Oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Wisk the raspberry sauce and vinegars together.  Slowly drizzle in the oils, whisking constantly.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Stores well in the fridge, just shake or whisk before serving.

Lemons? In Manitoba??

I’ve been reading a bunch of vegetarian and eco-focused blogs lately and have been inspired!  I want to grow citrus trees in my apartment.  My bedroom is the only room that has south windows, and I’m thinking about moving my desk out to the livingroom once my current roommate moves out so that I have more room in my bedroom for plants and other things (dirty laundry mostly I bet).  So far the easiest and most common indoor citrus tree seems to be the Meyer Lemon.  Other fruits that are mentioned are usually key limes, dwarf grapefruits, kumquats, dwarf oranges, or Calamondin.  I figure I’ll start with something easy…ish and see how that goes.  Considering my first attempt at growing herbs from seeds ended disasterously, I’m hopeful but not overly so.  First issue I have to deal with is finding a greenhouse that actually carries meyer lemon trees!  I emailed Screimer’s greenhouse a little while ago and am just waiting for a response.

My somewhat green thumb

This winter was quite odd for me in general, I was working at a bookstore part time and found myself taking up interest in hobbies that I never had before.  One of these interests has actually become something that I can handle…plants!  I’ve been reading quite a bit about growing herbs indoors as I love to use fresh herbs when I cook and since I live in an apartment, I don’t have any kind of outdoor space I can use.

About 6 weeks ago I went to wal-mart and decided that I had the money to get some plants and supplies.  I picked up some potting soil and cactus soil, and three plants: a moses in the cradle, an english ivy and some kind of cactus.  I transplanted all three as soon as I got them home as they were all horribly root bound, the cactus was the worst. 

I didn’t know much about the moses in the cradle, and it wasn’t in any of the books I had at home from work so I went online and tried to find some information about it.  The information I found was interesting, you’re basically supposed to treat it as a succulent, water it sparingly and give it lots and lots of sun.  The bloody thing is growing like a weed!  It’s gained probably about 3-4 inches of height and probably 10 new leaves.  The purple colour on the underside of the leaves isn’t as dark on the new leaves as it is on the old ones, and it just leeeeeans towards the sun as much as possible.  I transplanted it to a much larger pot the other day and it still seems to be doing well, although I need to find a new place for it, I put my air conditioner in and it blocks most of the sun.  Once my current roommate moves out and I can actually put stuff outside of my bedroom it’ll be easier as my apartment gets a ton of light.  I can’t wait!

Can anybody hear me?

This is the little bit about myself thing that I’m going to use to start off this blog since I’ve never really had a “public” journal or blog before. 

This blog will probably be a mishmash of topics, everything from cooking to work stuff, gaming to pets, world of warcraft to long distance relationship crap, etc.  I am hoping to find a specific topic I can focus on as it develops but we’ll see if I can keep it up.

Let’s see, a little bit about me, I’m 26 years old and I currently live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.   I work full time for a large canadian investment company as an internal technical support rep, as well as part time at a book store (Chapters for you canadians who will know what I’m talking about).  I’m currently in a long distance relationship and have been for the last 2 years, he lives in Boise, ID and is helping his sister out with her 3 kids since she is out of town for work a lot. 

I have a variety of hobbies, I’ve started gathering a nice collection of plants and planted some herb seeds this weekend because I love using fresh herbs in practically everything…which brings me to my next hobby: cooking and baking!  I am attempting to eat and cook more vegetarian/vegan/organic foods and desserts, I’m not going completely vegetarian but am trying to make at least 2-3 vegetarian meals a week, and most of my baking is vegetarian as I only buy soymilk and use egg substitutes.  Smoothies have also been a big part of my menu lately as I’m trying to cut back on refined sugars and sweets.  The other hobby I have is more of an addiction and a bigger time waster then anything else (lol)…it’s World of Warcraft.  The boy and I play together, so it’s something that we can do together no matter where we are on the globe.

I really hate doing these intro posts, but here it is and I think I shall call it done!  Oh, and I really need a different title for this thing…hmm…