Key Lime Pie.

At the beginning of January, my dear friend Heather came up to visit me from Calgary. We have been BFF's since about Kindergarten, and even if we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like, I always try to make some time to hang out. We have always enjoyed cooking and baking together, and the weekend was no exception. For dessert, we made the easiest Key Lime Pie recipe (her mother's) with the Key Lime juice she brought me back from Florida. It's super light and would be excellent in the summer time, but it was delightful even in January.

Some day I will try making a baked key lime pie (you know... the one with 8 egg yolks?) but I would probably put this on top instead of a meringue.

Easy Key Lime Pie

1 container Cool Whip
1 can condensed milk
1/3 C key lime juice

graham cracker crust

Allow the Cool Whip to thaw (this takes the longest). Mix together the first 3 ingredients. Pour into the graham cracker crust, and refrigerate until firm(er). Enjoy!

Told ya it was easy.

Bond.



Picture from here.

James Bond.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Dr. No and the start of a cinematic dynasty.

James Bond movies are so formulaic, and it's part of their appeal. They smack of "guilty pleasure" (or they would if I did guilty pleasures... I instead shamelessly enjoy things) because you can sit back for 2 hours, grab a bowl of popcorn, and watch a suave British spy predictively outshoot all the bad guys, charm the pants off all the ladies he meets, and continuously twart the world domination plans of Blofeld, SPECTRE, SMERSH and who knows what other megalomaniacs.

(To be honest, the only un-predictable Bond movie was On Her Majesty's Secret Service. I really didn't see that coming. Any of it. An allergy clinic would be the best cover story.)

I enjoy watching old Bond movies... it's almost worth it just to see the hilariously out-of-date technology. (Pretty much the only thing Bond gets to play with in Dr. No besides his new PPK is a Geiger counter the size of a bread box. Not very subtle.) My personal favorite comes in From Russia With Love, when we witness some Soviet spies sitting in a surveillance bush with a "cellular walkie talkie", trying to be covert except for the 2 foot antenna sticking out of the top.

It's also interesting to watch how the nationality of the Bond villians has changed over time. The majority of the early villians are Soviets and Eastern Europe (although SPECTRE is not very discerning in who it hires), and gradually the focus changes to Asia (China, Korea). Sound like any other countries we know?

Some Bond movies are better than others (personally I found Die Another Day to be painfully bad...) but my favorites are those that aren't afraid to be funny. Initially, all the sex and violence was considered too scandalous for the censors, so they would include the funny one-liners and campy moments (I don't know how this helps get by censors, but hey?) that have become part of the genre.

Favorite moment in Dr. No? The scene where Bond and Honey Ryder need to be "decontaminated" of radioactivity. The henchmen are told to "scrub them down", which involves spraying them with some soap, and being rubbed once with a broom. Surprise, surprise - it doesn't work!

Oh, henchmen... There's a reason you take orders from someone who is criminally insane.



Parsec.

I have talked about this before... but I came across this mock-tourism poster for Star Wars by artist Steve Thomas... and I love it!

Original art here

Windchill.

Thanks Weather Network.
 I was concerned about those few clouds.

So, it's pretty cold outside. And by "pretty cold" I mean "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey". (My father is so eloquent...)

But it's not just cold; it's very windy here in Edmonton, and that means windchill!

Temperature is a measure of the average motion of air molecules. Air particles are always moving around, and the speed they travel depends on their energy. The faster they go, the more energy they have, and the higher the temperature will be.

Windchill is a measure of how cold it "feels". A temperature like we had this morning (-32°C) can feel colder (-42°C) if there is a wind. A windchill of -42 means your body will lose heat as if it were -42°C outside, even if the thermometer only says -32°C.

All objects radiate heat, and our bodies are no exception. This radiated heat warms up the air around our bodies, creating a little buffer between us and the surrounding cooler air (hair and clothes help to trap this warm air next to our bodies).
However, if it is windy, this layer of warm air gets removed by a process known as convection and the windier it is, the faster the process happens, making it feel colder than the temperature alone.

And since you can use convection to cool down inanimate objects as well (think blowing on hot tea) plugging in your car's block heater is an absolute must in this weather!

Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

So, I use my frying pan for just about everything. It's a perfect size to make a stir fry, a stroganoff, aloo gobi, cook a bunch of chicken... you name it, I have probably made it in my frying pan.

However, I do not actually have a lid for the frying pan. Which makes it pretty hard to simmer stuff. But necessity is the mother of invention, and I have found a new use for my splatter guard... It fits perfectly over my frying pan, and is the exact same size as my Ikea dinner plates (coincidence?)...

Voila! Instant lid!

I wanted to make a stir fry for dinner and have actually had the fixings in my fridge for about a week. Last time I was at the store, I picked up some water chesnuts and corn to put in there as well. All good right? Until I open up the can of baby corn to find....



Not corn.



Papaya??

Not sure what happened there. But I did NOT want to put papaya in my stir fry. Thankfully the water chestnuts were indeed water chestnuts. (I am not sure when I developed this crazy infatuation with water chestnuts... but they are so great in vegetable dishes!) My dinner was lovely, if corn-deprived (I compensated by adding more carrots).

Meat Pie.

The other day I was driving, and heard this song come on the radio...

And it brought back so many memories of being in Australia, almost two years ago! I am not sure why the song picked that exact moment to trigger memories, as I've heard it many times since then... but whatever the case may be, it also triggered an intense craving for meat pies.

Meat pies are one of those things that everyone has their own way of doing. I had a French-Canadian tourtière over the holidays - they tend to be ground meat spiced with cloves and cinnamon. Very delicious, but also very different from the Aussie meat pie.

Australian meat pies are typically a single-serving size, and filled with minced meat and a thick gravy. They are a national favorite, and popular at sporting events like hot dogs are in North America. I used this recipe because it looked like it would give me a pie closest to how I remember them. I followed the recipe almost to a T... I only had to use a single, large pie plate, and needed to up the cooking time to ensure my puff pastry was cooked.

Isn't it cute?

The end result was everything I'd hoped for... a little stroll down memory lane. Almost like being back at the MCG watching a game of Aussie Rules Football (the friends that introduced me to the sport are Essendon Bombers fans, making me one by proxy)... A little taste of Oz in the Great White North.

Of course, served with "tomato sauce" on top!

Butterhorns.

I am not a huge fan of cookies. I don't really know why. They have just never appealed to me as much as say, pie. Or tarts. Or cake. So when I felt like making cookies the other day, I wasn't entirely sure what to do... make cookies I probably won't eat? (although that wouldn't be a bad idea, let's be honest...)

As I was flipping through my recipe book I came across the perfect compromise: butterhorns. A little flaky pastry with cinnamon and sugar wrapped up in them, they are kinda like cookies. But better.

Making pastry is often made out to be more challenging than it actually is. There are only two tricks... follow the recipe exactly and don't get overly enthusiastic with the mixing. Following the recipe exactly means using butter when it says butter, and shortening or lard when it says shortening or lard. The key to a nice flaky pastry is to have little pockets of fat that will melt away, leaving a space behind. Since different fats have different melting points, substituting one for another can affect the cooking time, appearance and texture of the final product. Getting overly enthusiastic with the mixing causes you to pulverize all the little fat blobs, meaning there are fewer pockets left behind when the fat melts. This causes the pastry to get tough and chewy - even though the dough will look nice before you roll it out. The most challenging thing about making pastry is to not stress!

Butterhorns

2 C flour

1 C cold butter

1 egg yolk

3/4 C cream with 1/4 tsp vanilla

1 T milk (if needed)

2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 C white sugar
1/4 C crushed walnuts/pecans (optional)

Cut the butter into pieces and cut into the flour, creating a crumbly mix. Add the cream and yolk, and mix until combined. If necessary (depending on the size of the yolk you used) add milk until most of the flour is incorporated. Divide the dough into 5 balls and refrigerate until firm.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough balls one at a time, as if you were making a pie. Sprinkle the dough with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Slice dough into 12 wedges, like a pizza. Starting at the wide end, roll up dough and place on a lined cookie sheet. (Lining the baking sheet will make your life much easier! Saves heaps of time on the cleanup of melted butter and sugar!)

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. Can be drizzled with icing sugar if you like, but they are divine as is. I challenge you to each just one!

Orchids.

I love having plants around the house. They make the air seem fresher, and bring a little bit of nature inside during these long winter days (even though we are experiencing much higher than normal temperatures, and it could pretty much be April now...).

However much I love plants, I adore flowering plants even more. It is very tempting to view flowers as nothing more than beautiful adornments that the plant puts on for our enjoyment. Of course, this is not true; flowers are the advertisement to get pollinators to come and sample the plants wares (usually nectar) in exchange for carrying a little bit of pollen to another plant in hopes of acheiving fertilization.

(Aside: while discussing Brownian motion with my 15 year old students, I asked if any one remembered what pollen actually was. Just as soon as I finished asking, one boy shouts "TREE SPERM!". A funny reminder that no matter how much I love flowers, the point is for the plant to have a bit of sexy times.)

Plants are often very particular about when they will decide to flower; just like an animal will come into heat at a particular time. It's all about increasing the chances of successfully being fertilized. There's not much point in putting out flowers if you are the only one... who will you exchange gametes with?

As such, getting certain houseplants to flower can be tricky. Some plants are triggered by a change in temperature or daylight hours (which would correspond to a particular season in their native habitat) which often is not met in climate-controlled homes.

Phalaenopsis.

Orchids are a particularly fussy plant to get to bloom. When you buy an orchid from the store, it comes with beautiful blossoms, which can last for a fairly long time. But eventually they will fall off, leaving you with a sad looking little plant. Most people decide it's not worth the hassle of encouraging their orchids to re-flower and will just chuck the old one out and buy a new one.

By sheer accident, I discovered a pretty easy way to encourage my orchids to re-flower. (When I'm not busy killing them that is...  orchids are a non-parasitic plant, or ephiphyte, that will live on the branches of trees in the rainforests, and are evolved to soak up the tiniest bit of moisture from their surroundings. This makes them prone to root rot when you are a little too vigorous with the watering can, like I can be...)




Dendrobium.



 Anyways, I was gifted a bunch of non-flowering orchids in June by a colleague who retired and moved out to the coast. The Phalaenopsis orchids (what you usually buy in the store) were almost blooming, so I  left them in my kitchen, but there was a Dendrobium orchid that I had  no idea what to do with. Dendrobium orchids are quite different  looking than Phalaenopsis orchids; they have a cane like structure, with leaves growing out the top, almost like a palm tree. I thought it would look quite nice in my bedroom, and left it on top of my filing cabinet for about 5 months.

In order to encourage orchids to flower, they are often put in a cool, dark place for several weeks, and brought back into the light when they form buds. I had no idea that I had put my Dendrobuim orchid into these exact conditions until I went to water it one day and discovered that it had a bud! I was so excited.

The Dendrobium has since been moved to my kitchen, where it's delicate blooms can be better enjoyed, (see picture above!) and I've relocated some Phalaenopsis orchids to my filing cabinet to try again!

New Year.

Happy 2012 everyone!

I cannot believe that Christmas and New Year's Eve have come and gone so quickly. I was levelled with the flu immediately after Christmas, which put a crimp in my holiday plans.

I don't typically make New Year's Resolutions. However, there were so many people I wanted to see while they were home this holiday that I didn't manage to connect with thanks to a nasty flu, I think a marvellous resolution for me would be to grab life by the horns more frequently than I have been, and try not to let opportunities slip past as often as I have.

Aside from sickness, it has been a lovely holiday so far. Just the right balance of ruckus partying and simple celebrating. The thing I cherish most about the holidays is being surrounded by those who are special to me, and my NYE was just that. A small gathering of friends who are like family out at the cabin, where we ate (too much), drank (also too much), ooh-ed and aah-ed at fireworks, and danced the night away.