7. Take a Class in non-arts related subject area

So, this Spring I fulfilled this particular challenge by taking a class called Home Maintenance and Renovation for Beginners.  This was an eight week evening class offered by Toronto District School Board.  I learned how to cut and install drywall, tape and plaster the wall, and repair holes.  I also learned how to install, grout, and finish tile work.  We had some brief introduction to fixing a few minor plumbing problems and changing electrical outlets or light switches, as well as fixing cement and driveway pavement.  On the last class we looked at installing a drop ceiling.

The class was kind of terrible, but I did get to learn some skills that were valuable for a new homeowner.  I think I might look at some of the free workshops Home Depot puts on to learn more specific skills.

6. Visit Western Canada

The trip to Western Canada has come and gone.  I have now officially visited the lovely province of Alberta.  At least, I have visited some small parts of Alberta.  We flew into Calgary, and drove straight to Canmore, where we stayed in the lovely Stoneridge Mountain Resort.  For five adults and a toddler, we had 3 bedroom condo, complete with washer and dryer, BBQ,  and full kitchen.  This was a fantastic home base for our days in Banff National Park.  The first night we jumped right into our reason for being there by attending the opening night performance of Dance Masters at the Banff Summer Arts Festival.  If you ever get a chance to go to the Banff Centre, go.  It is beautiful.  Dance Masters in part of the professional dance program and features young dancers from various Canadian professional ballet companies.  This year, it also featured a new work choreographed by my brother, which was sublime.

We spent a few days in Banff National Park, visiting Sulphur Mountain, Lake Louise, Lake Minnewanka, the Columbia Ice Fields, Banff Springs Hotel, the town of Banff, and a number of other lovely natural sites.

Then, it was off to Drumheller, to see the badlands, the hoodoos, and the fantastic Royal Tyrell Museum.  The Tyrell is a fantastic museum of paleontology featuring dinosaurs and other prehistoric plants and animals.  We were there about 7 hours and still didn’t experience all it had to offer.  We stayed at a really nice three bedroom bed and breakfast called Urban Place.  Drumheller as a town is a bit rundown, but it is well worth visiting nonetheless.

A whirlwind drive through Calgary on the way back to the airport was all I saw of the city, but it looks like a nice place.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

6. Visit Western Canada

Progress!  I purchased plane tickets this week!  In July, I’ll be spending a week in Alberta.  Specifically, in the Banff area.  It is the week after the Calgary stampede.  I know I want to see Lake Louise and the ice fields.  Other suggestions???  It is time to start planning!

22. Try at least 20 new fruits and vegetables

1. Fennel – I’ve tried this raw before, but didn’t really like it as I don’t really like licorice and it tastes a bit like licorice. However, I’d heard the flavour is different when cooked, and that its quite good for you. So, now I’ve cooked and enjoyed, a few times, roasted fennel. It is very nice. There is a slight licorice flavour to it, but it is much subtler.

2. Fiddleheads – These are intriguing vegetables that you only really see in the stores during the spring. I’ve tried them before as they are quite common in Nova Scotia, but hadn’t ever cooked them, and it had been a long time. So, I bought some fiddleheads. I steamed them, and then tossed them with a little butter, salt and pepper. They were delicious.

15. Try New Recipes – several week catch-up post

So, during my move I missed a week or so, and tried to make up by trying a couple new recipes a week or so, and managed not to post about any of it whatsoever!  Here’s an attempt at a catch-up.

March 27 – Honey Mustard Roasted Chicken Breasts and Scalloped Potatoes

Both these recipes are from The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook. The scalloped potatoes were recommended by my brother and sister-in-law in Kingston who flagged this as one of their favourite recipes in the book.  It is delicious, and also surprisingly easy.  Basically it is a simple white sauce poured over sliced potatoes and onions.  The chicken is from a set of recipes called “roasted chicken breasts five ways”.  They were delicious.  The recipe says you can use legs instead, and they were on sale, so I went with them.  This was also simple.  You just poured a sauce over the chicken in a roasting pan and let it do its thing.  I served the two with some steamed greens and some peas, and it made for a lovely meal.

March 31 – Warm French Lentils

This is a recipe from The Barefoot Contessa cookbook called The Barefoot Contessa How Easy is That? Fabulous Recipes and Easy Tips.  I really enjoyed this.  It is made with leeks and carrots with green lentils.  I enjoyed the subtle flavour of the leeks together with the sweetness of the carrots.  It would work better as a side than as a main, which is how I made it.

April 3 – Stroganoff Meat Loaf and Roasted Carrots and Parsnips

Stroganoff meat loaf is from the same Canadian Living book already mentioned, from a set of recipes call “Meatloaf Many Ways”.  The stroganoff variety called for mushrooms, worcestershire sauce, and fat free sour cream in the recipe.  It was really nice and kept its moisture even after cooking.  The roasted carrots recipe comes from the book The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.  I added parsnips, which made for a lovely addition.  The carrots and parsnips get nicely carmelized which gives them a deliciously sweet flavour.

April 9

This is a bit of a cheat, as I’ve sort of made these muffins in the past.  Except that I’ve made them at my brother and sister-in-law’s house, and without nuts.  However, these are delicious banana chocolate chip walnut muffins from the fabulous Complete Canadian Living Cookbook.  I allowed this to count as a recipe because I wasn’t doing any baking at my old apartment because the oven was so terrible.  So, baking, even something I’ve enjoyed previously, is a bit new for the time being.

April 17

Peachy Pork Chops, from a Weight Watchers cookbook called Make it in Minutes, spaghetti squash, asparagus, and peas.  The pork chops are are cooked with a sauce made of peach preserves, garlic, mustard, and soy sauce.  It is a really nice sweet and tangy sauce, plus it keeps the chops nice and moist.  I mixed the spaghetti squash and peas together, with steamed asparagus on the side.  A nice light tasting spring meal!

April 25

Can’t remember.  Will update when I do.

May 1

Can’t remember.  Will update when I do.

May 8

Penne with garlicky rapini from The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook, except with linguini instead of penne.  It was quite nice.  I served this with chicken thighs coated in herbed flour and cooked in a large frying pan with a lid, and water to make a sauce.  The vegetables were my first ever attempt at roasting fennel, and some roasted eggplant.  I’m not really a fan of licorice, so I haven’t enjoyed raw fennel in the past, but once it is roasted it has a really nice flavour.  The fennel is from the book The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.  You toss the fennel in a little olive oil, and then sprinke with a little parmesan before serving.

May 15

Lemon chicken breasts from Barefoot Contessa how easy is that? fabulous recipes and easy tips.  On Mother’s Day, at mother’s home, brother R and I cooked a roast chicken stuffed with lemon, garlic, onions, rosemary, and thyme.  This was delicious, and it got us talking about how cooking a whole chicken is a bit of a pain as a solo eater because there’s a lot of clean up and prep involved for making individually frozen leftover portions.  We love the recipe, but the work isn’t awesome.  So, I set out this week to find a similar recipe, but with chicken breasts or thighs instead of the whole chicken.  This recipe from the Barefoot Contessa certainly gets the job done!  You first sautee the garlic and make a little sauce that you pour in the bottom of your roasting pan.  You set the chicken breasts and chunks of onion and lemon on top of the sauce, so that it cooks up into the chicken pieces.  Delicious!  I served this with brown and wild rice cooked plain, as well as mixed roasted vegetables (eggplant, zucchini, carrots, fennel), and some fiddleheads.  This is the first time I’ve cooked fiddleheads, though I have eaten them before.  They are quite easy.  Once you pick them over and trim, just steam them a bit, and then toss in a little bit of butter with salt and pepper.  Yum.  A very successful meal.

May 23

Not a recipe as such, but I cooked my first ever pork roast.  I crusted it with dried herbs and roasted in the oven, surrounded by carrots, celery, and onions.  It was delicious.  I also served this with some Spelt Couscous I bought from the fun new grocery store that shares a parking lot with my library.  I cooked the couscous with some apples and tossed with green onion.  It was very nice!  The vegetables were rounded out with some frozen greens (broccoli and peas).

26. Work in a Garden

Begun!

It is the first really gorgeous day of Spring today.  The sun is shining, and the air is warm enough that I was able to be out in my garden in my shirtsleeves.

 

The front of my house had a tiny little, poorly planned garden, that was really a bit lackluster for my tastes.  There are signs that there will be some lovely plants in there.  It looks like I’ve got a really good bed of irises starting to grow up.  However, that’s about it, and it is really small.  So, today, I made a start at expanding the front garden, and adding a little bit of visual splendour to my front yard.

My overall plan is to create a garden that extends all the way down my driveway.   In an attempt at reason, I didn’t attempt to de-sod the entire thing today.  For starters, my back wouldn’t hack it.  For another, that would be a lot of planting right now.  So, I added a curve around the place where the paved area juts out to make space for the steps and entry to the house.

Yesterday when I was at Home Depot picking up some gardening things, I came upon a “roll out flower garden“.  I was intrigued.  Plus, it only cost $9.99, rather than a couple dollars per plant if I’d bought seedlings, or a couple dollars per packet if I’d bought individual seeds.  It is a butterfly and hummingbird garden mix, including alyssum, aster,  baby’s breath, bachelor button, black eyed susan, butterfly milkweed, candytuft, catchfly, delphinium, forget me not, lemon mint, mexican hat, mignonette, plains coreopsis, purple coneflower, salvia, scarlet flax, shirley poppy, toadflax, and yellow prairie coneflower.  All I had to do was roll it out, and water it.

I guess we’ll see how it goes!

Next up: digging out my veggie garden! I got some seeds for that yesterday too!

1. Buy a House

I have been completely silent for a few weeks because I have been completely busy getting #1: Buy a House completed!  The deal closed on March 18, I had some electric work done, and moved in on Friday, March 25.  A week later and I’m still living out of boxes, but there’s a bit of progress each day.

I haven’t taken all that many pictures yet.  But this is a shot of the outside.  I’ve got a few before pics of rooms I’ll be redecorating, but am waiting for the after pics to be ready before showing them.

So far, I’m pretty happy with the whole thing.  As everyone warned me, its already cost more than I ever anticipated it would, but so far my situation isn’t too dire.  Fingers crossed, and here’s to home ownership!