Butternut Carrot Ginger Soup

Portobello, bacon, red onion quiche with homemade shell. 

Potato Leek Soup

Then I spent an hour making three little jars of relish and THIS happened. Sadness.

Relish Prep … forgot to take more photos. 

Made a batch of Garlic Dill Pickles the other week, everything (less the vinegar) from the our local farmers. Last year’s batch was so salty I had to rinse them off before eating, oopsies, here’s to hoping for a more eatable batch. 

Recipe

These were the first veggies I got from our garden a few weeks ago … yeah I’m a bit behind. 

Every Sunday I head to the Kitsilano Farmers Market to buy some food for the week (well it usually lasts a couple days), my new thing is to buy whatever is on sale and try to make something new with it … introducing Apricot Butter! It’s kind of like apple sauce but completely different, haha. Making fruit butter is like going a step past jam (less all the sugar), you simmer fruit with a dash or sugar or honey for a couple of hours until it because this thick flavourful deliciousness. I’m told you can make it in a slow cooker and then you don’t need to sit around for hours in the sweltering heat stirring it like I did. Canned and stored, booya apricots, see you in the winter when I need a summer reminder. 

In other news - I really despise foodmills or (“moo-lays” as the kiwi boyfriend calls them - yeah doesn’t make sense to me either), I seem to get most of the food on the counter and walls. Le sigh. 

Market goodness, ahhh summer food. 

Got a 10lb case of beautiful overripe organic heirloom tomatoes from the market, it’s scary how different fresh tomato sauce taste than the jarred store crap - so light and flavourful. Was able to make two batches of marinara style and a large batch filled with chunky garden veggie goodness. Next time I won’t bother peeling, what a huge time waster. In other news I need a small deep freeze, my sad little freezer is already full and I have so much more stuff I want to make before the season slips away! 

The blackberry bushes around my neighborhood are kind of out of control this year and it’s amazing! I’ve been picking bowls of them - with a few odd stares and one random who asked me to eat one in front of him to prove they are not poisonous - people are strange. They make an amazing fruit compote which goes on everything (by everything I mean oatmeal, porridge, yogurt, ice cream, waffles, pancakes and granola). My latest experiment, banana blackberry muffins… oh yes. Free local fruit, ummm I should be giving you weird looks for NOT picking it… on second thought never mind more for me.