A Life, Lived

Charred Corn Salsa

Now that we are on the cusp of grilling season I'm digging out some of my favourite grilling recipes. They are plenty of folks who prefer a sweetish fruit salsa as an accompaniment to grilled meat and while I'll never turn my nose up at that, I tend to prefer a savoury salsa. This corn salsa is a perfect example of this.

Grilling the corn before you make this salsa recipe gives the dish great depth of flavor. Use this charred corn salsa as a side or incorporate it into your next taco recipe. It also makes a great topping for grilled meats and fish. I grilled a marinated Tri Tip a few weeks ago and this salsa went well with it.

One of the unexpected treats from grilling fruits and vegetables is that like roasting the grilling process can bring out depths of flavours in produce that is not at the peak of freshness. The corn on the cob that I bought for this salsa was from the US. Now I know their sweet corn season finished up last fall so those ears of corn had been sitting in a cold storage for more than 6 months. Once grilled, you'd never know the corn wasn't more fresh than that.

Charred Corn Salsa

4 medium ears corn, husks removed
1 pint red and/or yellow cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 jalapeño pepper, very finely chopped
Juice of 1 medium lime
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
Salt

Heat an outdoor gas grill to medium or prepare a charcoal grill for indirect heat. A grill pan over medium heat will work as well.

Grill the corn uncovered until some the kernels are bright yellow and a few are charred, 2 to 3 minutes per side, for a total of 12 to 15 minutes. Remove the corn from the grill and cool for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the tomatoes, onion, jalapeño, and lime juice in a medium bowl. Once the corn is cool enough to handle, cut the kernels from the cob, and add to the bowl. Season with salt and stir to combine.

Spring in the Garden

It is amazing how quickly the plants start to grow once the weather warms up. I am not sure why but it is shaping up to be a gorgeous spring in the garden with more flowers and colour than normal. In fact, bulbs which were planted and never gave us anything but leaves are surprising us with blooms this year.

and of course, the dandelions are back. I'll need to start the back breaking work of digging them out.

Travel Tuesdays - the Bay of Naples

Friends of ours are visiting Italy right now and posting fabulous pics from their rental on the Bay of Naples. Guess what my inspiration was for this week's Travel Tuesdays post?

 

Easter Sunday

 . . . and here we go, a week later . . .

Paul and I had a relaxing start to the day. Breakfast was a bit later than normal and certainly a tad heartier. We figured this way we would be able to go right through until dinner without worrying about lunch (yes, of course we snacked. We are human after all. :-) )

There wasn't a ton of dinner prep to do - much was done in advance. We did the few things which we could do ahead of time.

We set the table and then waited for mom to arrive.

In what must be some sort of Easter miracle mom almost arrived on time. Long-time readers know what a rarity this is.

We had asked her to come early so that we could do our annual Easter hunt. The first card is in a Easter card. Once that clue is solved it takes you to the location of the next clue and so on. Paul seems to have finally gotten the hang of the hunt - when he started he'd say something like 'look for some art' as a clue. Needless to say I'd be frustrated looking under or around the 100 + pieces of art we have. Having lasted through 19 years of Easter hunt boot camp he now provides a bit more detail. There was no frustration this year and I was the first to find my Easter basket.

Happy days.

The next while was spent nibbling on Easter treats. More and more of the treats in our baskets aren't edible any longer, instead there will be books or gift cards. . . much better than a ton of crap which none of us need.

Dinner started with appetizers in the family room (I was tempted to sit outside as we had on Good Friday but there was a chilly breeze and I didn't want to listen to mom complain bitterly for an hour).

Polish Easter sausage, deviled eggs, the classic 1980's rye bread dip, and min-quiches.

After eating and drinking for a bit we moved into the dining room for the main meal. The menu is pretty much the same from year to year - ham, scalloped potatoes (this years were the best we've had in recent memory, if I do say so myself). Mom made her famous marinated carrot salad. Pierogies made it on the menu this year. The final item was a delicious cauliflower gratin (bought at Dennigers). When you think about it - the only thing I had to cook was the ham (and they are already cooked - you just heat it up with a glaze), the scalloped potatoes, and get the pierogies ready to eat.  Pretty simple.

We also had egg bread - it isn't Easter without that!

After dinner was cleared we moved back into the family (that exercise helped work off dinner. LOL) for dessert.

I had bought a cake at Molly Cake.

They had decorated it like a robin's egg - blue icing with specks of brown. The cake itself was vanilla with a strawberry cream filling. YUM

It was an awesome day. Even with going smarter this year and not feeling as if everything had to be made by my own hands, it was tiring. I was glad to have Monday off of work to recover!!

Earth Day

This seems appropriate today . . .

How NOT to Behave as a Tourist

Lately there have been reports of tourists getting a little too close to monuments. After some significant damage over the years Rome is cracking down on this. Here is how it played out over the weekend . . .

€ 450 fines for tourists caught in Rome fountains over Easter weekend

Two Californian tourists, a male and female in their early 20s, were fined €450 each after climbing into Rome’s Trevi Fountain on 17 April.

The day before, Easter Sunday, two Danish tourists were fined €450 each for putting their feet into the waters of a fountain below Rome’s Vittoriano monument.

The 60-year-old woman and a 17-year-old boy were caught with their legs submerged “up to their knees” in the Piazza Venezia fountain, according to city authorities.

(for those interested 450 euros is about is about $ 700 Canadian - OUCH)

Italian Fountains

You'll know why I posted this collection of pictures when you see my post on Thursday. ;-)

 

Good Friday Eating

I worked half a day on the Thursday before the Easter weekend. On the way home I made my annual trek to Toronto's famous gourmet food shop the Cheese Boutique. I had nothing in mind, just wandering the aisles to see what inspired me. Inspiration came in the guise of a huge shipment of morel mushrooms from BC - morel mushroom and asparagus risotto was on the menu for Good Friday.

I made a few more stops on my way home and I was set.

For Good Friday breakfast we had eggs benedict.

We ate late so we skipped lunch.

Mom was arriving at 5 for dinner.

At 4:30 we had completed the prep work.

Those delicious looking hunks of protein there are veal chops - a last minute inspiration to go with the risotto.

Once mom arrived we had our appetizers out on the terrace.

I can't remember the last time we've eaten outside over the Easter weekend - or if we ever have for that matter.

Once the sun started to go down it got a bit cooler so we went inside for dinner.

The grilled chop was fabulous - all it needed before grilling was a drizzle of olive oil, some salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of thyme leaves.

Paul had made a salad to go with dinner.

Dessert was an Italian favourite - Colomba di Pasqua a traditional sweet bread/cake studded with currants and candied orange peel similar to a pannetone.

Happy Easter!

Hopefully things will go a wee bit more smoothly this year than last when mom was sick and Easter was cancelled. The good thing is that when I was setting up her Easter hunt this year I could use the exact same clues again - and most of them were still taped in place from last year. :-)

We are having the traditional dinner at 5 . . . ham, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, egg bread, perogies (toss back to Paul's Polish roots), mom's famous carrot salad . . . a feast.

I'm hoping the weather holds out so we can have our appetizers on the terrace. It's warm enough but there are scattered showers in the forecast.

In the end nothing about this really matters in the grand scheme of things.

I am thinking today of the various people I know who have lost family over the past year. These family focused celebrations have got to be challenging!

10 Cat Sleeping Positions

Cat owners know that sleeping can sometimes be a challenge. Cats, by nature of their personality, think that they rule the world. Thus their sleeping behaviour is completely rooted in what they feel like doing on any given evening. There is not need to try and control them - it will fail.

These pictures show some of the favourite cat sleeping positions. We're lucky I guess, our cats do not bring us dead things (although there have been a few icky barf situations) nor do they often sleep ON us. The rest we've all experienced. Of course, with two cats we often experienced two completely different sets of behaviours an evening making for a challenging night!