Happy birthday!

For some reason birthdays make me wake up with a child-like anticipation. I love to give gifts; especially a thoughtful gift that I know the person will love. I don't always find that "perfect" gift but usually I can make one. My go-to perfect gift is a freshly made chocolate peanutbutter pie.

I got home from work today and got thinking about what I could take to Jeff at work for a surprise....pie....everyone loves pie. I got the recipe from my own blog and got to work.

I pulled two frozen disks of dough from the freezer and carefully thawed them in the microwave on defrost in 10 second intervals....very risky but I didn't have enough time to wait!

Homemade pudding is done in a snap and tastes way better than the powdered box I used to buy.

Whisking....

Off the heat I added the chocolate and peanutbutter.

Meanwhile; my pie crusts are blind baking. Blind baking is when you bake them with nothing inside. To avoid the dough puffing up you line the pie crust with parchment paper and fill it with dry rice or beans. Once the dough is pretty much set you remove the parchment and the  "weight" and let it brown. I reuse my rice for all my pies and just store it in a ziploc container in my baking drawer.

And voila.

At this point I put Liam down for a much needed nap and was waiting for the pies to chill before I dropped the birthday pie off to the birthday boy. I still needed to make the whipped cream so I tried to do it as quietly as possible not to wake the sleeping child in the next room!

My sister came over so I could run the pie to Jeff's work while Liam napped. I threw a pasta bake in the oven and took Aubrey and her cousin Hurley with me for the brisk drive to headingly to surprise the birthday boy.

An adventure and a movie!

It was a surprise!

He even sent us home with a few treats!

So back home we went feeling quite happy that we made his day. 

Having made two pies we had one at home to share; so we ended up having our own little party for Jeff without him. This included my sisters and my aunt...dinner tastes so much better with a full table!

Before bed the kids sent this picture to their dad....happy birthday.

Vacation curry

What an amazing time off we've had. We ended the busy summer season with 10 days together as a family. We had so much fun and enjoyed discovering fun things in Manitoba.

We made a lot of yummy meals but I decided to just enjoy the time as a family and not stop to blog. I did decide to blog about this chicken mango coconut curry I made; very blog worthy!

I got everything ready and then got to cooking.  I chopped cauliflower, green pepper, onion and celery and set that aside. I chopped up boneless skinless chicken thighs and set that aside. As well I chopped brocolli, red pepper and cilantro and set that aside since those ingredients won't take as long.

Firstly, In my largest pot I browned the chopped chicken thighs but did not cook them all the way through. I put them in another bowl and set it aside.

In the same pot I added the chopped veggies. I sautéed them until they were tender; I deglazed the pot with 1cup of white wine.

After the wine reduced by half I added two cans of coconut milk, and one jar of VH Mango curry. (They have so many different sauces and are pretty reasonably priced)

I added the chicken back in along with two cans of rinsed chickpeas and let this simmer. 

About ten minutes before I wanted to eat I added in chopped brocolli, red pepper and cilantro. 

I cut wedges of lime and served them on the side with basmati rice.

I almost forgot to take a picture of the final product; I was too busy eating!

Here are a few pictures of our time off...

Fun in the sun 

Jeff and Liam at the children's museum

Me in lac du bonnet trying out tennis

The kids at auntie melzas and uncle drews

Us at the Goldeyes game

Aubrey cheering on the crowd

Popcorn party

Liam loves swimming

We ended our vacation with a dinner out

Here's our four year fast asleep with a cook book; too precious!

Pasta bake without red sauce

I was craving pasta and I also wanted to put a few meals in the freezer. Using only what I had on hand I started preparing everything to make pasta bake.  I cooked up two boxes of pasta.

In that same large pot I cooked up one lbs of bacon and a package of sausage. I took the sausages out of their casings and used a wooden spoon to break them up.

I added an onion soup mix package and 3 cheese sauce packages left over from Annie's Mac and cheese. To this I added two mugs of water.

Separately I  sautéed up 2 diced green pepper, 2 diced onions and four ribs of chopped celery.

Once cooked I put everything in my massive bowl and tossed it altogether. I added about a cup of milk and salt & pepper to taste.

I divided this into four freezer safe baking dishes.

In the bowl I had already used I put three cups of Rice Krispies, 2 cups of shredded cheese, a couple swigs of olive oil and salt & pepper. I mixed this up and topped each casserole.

I baked one of these and froze the other three! I baked this at 375F uncovered for 30 minutes. From frozen this would take more like an hour.

We took a little break and picked up aubreys back to school gift from her grandma. Can't believe I will soon be the mom of a kindergartener?!

This was a last minute photo with two portions already served up. From four of us eating there was about 1/4 cup left over; I'd say it was a hit!

It was remiscent of a ramped up hamburger helper and I served this with an Italian style kale salad. It was very satisfying and delicious; that's a positive thing since I now have three huge cassoroles in the freezer!

Fast forward to August 27; we went as a family to A&W to support the fight against MS. We had a blast and Aubrey proudly wore her red MS walk tshirt. 

We are thoroughly enjoying the last few weeks of summer before the busy routine of school begins; those cassoroles in the freezer should come in handy!

A day in the life; no bake cookies

The day began at home...then auntie Cher made a lunch shout out.

We spent the afternoon at chers and Aubrey had  some much needed baby Roxy time.

Then we all headed to my parents. My mom was hosting a lunch the next day so I offered to make her pavlovas for dessert.

I usually get Jeff to make me lemon sabayon to put layered on the pavlova but I thought I'd like to try making a Raspberry sabayon. 

I strained some raspberry jam with the juice of three limes and cooked this down into a syrup.

I tempered in a few egg yolks & whole eggs and over a Bain Marie I whisked whisked and whisked some more!!!!

This is how I knew it was done.

I added a few tablespoons of cold butter and then covered the surface of the curd so it didn't get a skin.

I put it in the fridge and hoped for the best.

I turned around and this was happening...

My sister was whipping up no bake oatmeal coconut cookies that my dad could eat (since my pavlovas were occupying the ovens overnight).

She used coconut palm sugar and unsweetened coconut.

She boiled the first 6 ingredients and then folded that into the mixed oats and coconut.

We couldn't believe what we were witnessing!

Ready for the freezer...

Yummy!! They were so good.

Skip to the next day...assembly...

I topped the pavlovas with sweetened cream, raspberry sabayon and fresh berries.

I finished this with lime zest and that is the secret to this dessert; it adds such a vibrant flavour to cut the sweet.

We sure love being busy together; one big happy family!