A Winter Wonderland

   We had a dump of snow last night. In fact it was still coming down when I got up so I was glad not to be driving anywhere until it stopped. I was out shovelling by 9:00 this morning and it was quite beautiful with everything white and fresh. The temperature was hovering on zero so the snow was rather wet and heavy. Luckily there was only about 5 cms. so it is almost all cleared away. I have to do it in intervals as my back starts to ache after half-an-hour. There will be more to do at the bottom of my driveway once the snow plow has been around but that can wait until tomorrow.

    I had another Mah-jong lesson this morning at the Community Centre and am finally getting the hang of it. There were eight of us and, luckily, two people who knew what they were doing. We played until noon then my Bridge group headed over to Margaret's condo as the Senior's Centre is closed this week and next. Her condo is quite spacious and I could see myself living there if it wasn't for the lack of outdoor space. I do love being able to step out into the garden.

She gave us a light lunch and we played until 3:00 when I came home to do some more shovelling.

   Still eating leftovers but they are diminishing. After the chicken, stuffing and vegetables I plan to treat myself to a mincemeat tart and custard. There seem to have been a lot of treats recently!

Keeping Busy

   With all my usual fitness classes over until the new year I habitually at this time get some long delayed chores done. Today was no exception. First off was to put away the last of the Christmas decorations. I took the tree down on Boxing Day as I had nothing else to do; yesterday I boiled the carcass of the bird (this year, again, we had a capon and lovely and juicy it was) so today there was a quick trip to the grocery store (blessedly quiet) to pick up the veg for the chicken soup. This all got done before lunch with the soup bubbling away while I had a nap.

    When I got up I decided to make some marmalade as the clementines left over from Christmas lunch were already getting soft. I found a great recipe in my "Preserving and Pickling" guide book on all things domestic and made three jars of marmalade with one pound of clementines and a lemon (and, of course, a ton of sugar). It seems to have turned out well but I will have to wait and see if it has set as I couldn't get the temperature up to the proscribed 105 degrees. Best part, it called for 2 tbsps. of Cointreau so I had a swig while the bottle was open - very tasty!

 

These jars of chicken soup are going in the freezer. Notice I craftily left a space for expansion as I have had nasty accidents when using glass containers in the freezer.

Not a bad result from a few clementines and a lemon. One jar is only half full so I will use it first.

My preserving bible - I particularly like some of the chutney recipes.

A New Treat

   Still eating leftovers but decided I needed something fresh today so started with a salad. Truth to tell it was also a leftover but at least it was fresh and uncooked.

   I brought this olive oil home from Spain this Fall and hadn`t yet tried it but just sprinkled the baby spinach with it and some balsamic vinegar. What a treat!

The last of the wine from Christmas dinner complemented it nicely!

    I was out early this morning to play tennis - we had three great sets and I`m happy to say I was on the winning side on all three. I seemed to hit my stride during the second set - maybe I need to play more!

   I had decided to see a movie this afternoon forgetting that everyone and his brother was on holiday this week. The parking lot was packed, there was a long lineup at the ticket office and the movie I wanted to see, `La La Land` was sold out! So I came home. I`ll try again next week.

Boxing Day

   Haven`t set foot outside today as it is rainy and mild. Seemingly in some parts of the GTA it is treacherously slippery so I`m not taking any chances. It got up to 7C today.

   This has been a day for cleaning up and eating (and drinking) leftovers. All went well yesterday with the family and friends here until late in the afternoon. Today I cooked up the carcass of the bird for soup and ran two loads of dishes through the dishwasher. Now the place looks almost back to normal.

Some of the desserts we were treated to, not including the plum pudding - and these are what was left!

The children's table - this was the first time we had tried this and it worked well.

The adult`s table - only civilized conversation here!