What do you do when..

You walk past a crabapple tree heavy with fruit that no one is picking and is falling to the ground to rot?

You pick every single crabapple you can reach from the branches hanging over the sidewalk (in our case that turned out to be 17lbs worth!!), and you turn them into....


JELLY!

Best buddy and I used this recipe and proceeded to

Wash, cook, smash, and strain (note the improvised jelly bag - yep, that's a pillow case)


our crabapples.

Once we had the juice we boiled it up as per the recipe with the appropriate amount of sugar, jarred it, processed it and were done.

It's delicious and for my first go at jelly making I'm really happy it all set. It's a little too hard set for me (I prefer jelly a little syrupy - this is like jello set). So next time I make it I think I'll boil it for less time.

Got a tree that you think is an edible apple but not sure? Cut the fruit along the equator and look for the 5 seed star formation.

It's a deodorant miracle!

Yes! This is really about deodorant!!

Ok, confession time. I sweat a lot. I know! Too much information! Wait! There's more!

Until recently, I'd tried and failed with just about every conventional deodorant/antiperspirant under the sun. After giving up on antiperspirant a few years ago (never stopped the sweating and left nasty greasy pit marks on my clothes, also aluminum=bad 4 u), I switched to deodorant. I tried all the ones you see in the pic (yes those were all in my medicine cabinet).

Not only did I continue to sweat a lot, it was like whatever scent was in the deodorant (natural or otherwise) somehow turned into the stinkiest of stinks under my pits. It's as if the deodorant was helping my body manufacture stink!

The deodorant that came closest to working was the adidas one you see in the pic. Its the only commercial deodorant on the market for women (and by "commercial" I mean loaded with stuff in the ingredients list you can't pronounce). But even still I'd have to wear an undershirt and often reapply and or even resort to wadding toilet paper into the pits of my clothes to soak up the sweat and the stink.

And then about a month ago, I read a post on Crunchy Chicken's blog. Turns out she is a big time sweater as well! Not only that, she'd found something that worked! What she had found was the deodorant stone. Now I'm not such a fan of this because I tried wiping that slimy stone under my pits in high school when I was working at the health food store and learning how to be all crunchy and granola-y, and it didn't do a darn thing for me. Also some of the comments on Crunchy's blog, from those I highly respect, said that that there was still aluminum in those stones (I know, the companies say its safe but I'm skeptical).

But anyhow, I was still totally psyched for her Crunchiness and was excited with the hope that there might actually be something that works for me.

So I tried something that many of my blogging heros are already doing.

I tried baking soda.

For reals folks.

And let me tell ya, this shit works.

Like oh my god, change my life works.

Not only do I not stink anymore (for days I was constantly asking hubby to smell my pits), I seem to sweat a lot less. Like a LOT less. Maybe even, a normal amount! Or for those that get hung up on the word 'normal', I sweat as much as all the other peeps that don't have to worry about walking around with pit stained clothes!

Woo hoo!

The other bonuses include: you can buy it in bulk, and its not full of chemicals.

The only side effects that I have noticed is that my pits seem a bit dry so I've been washing the bs off at night and applying a bit of olive oil. I know! Food products as beauty products! I'm turning into a salad! Ok, not quite because you wouldn't actually put baking soda on a salad but you know what I mean!

For those wanting to give it a go, here's what you do. When you get out of the shower and your pits are still damp, put a bit of baking soda in the palm of your hand, then slap it on one pit. Repeat with the other pit. You are done! Dry, stink free pits all day.

I love my neighbourhood

Yeah, it has a bit of a bad reputation (mostly unfounded) but one thing's for sure....nothing goes to waste in this 'hood.

Anything that we haven't been able to freecycle and have put to the curb (and that isn't actual garbage) is almost always gone before the garbage trucks even arrive. And our deck reno was no exception.

I've mentioned the deck reno before and how replacing our falling down, rotting, mushrooms growing out of deck was a bummer as it's screwed our chances of making any reductions in the consumer goods category of the Riot for Austerity. But I was also really stressed about how much waste would be produced. This stress was not eased when I saw the mountain of wood stacked in the back yard after the deck was demo'd.

So I was really happy when one of my neighbours (who I hadn't met before - mental note - I have to work on this), walked up and said he'd take all that old wood. He said his buddy would re-use what he could (apparently a lot of the frame was still in reasonable shape), and he'd use the rest as firewood at his cottage.

As a result there was very little garbage produced by our deck reno.*

*confession - I did sort through the builder's trash and removed all the items that could be recycled. It's a compulsion.

long weekend breakfast

Its a long weekend here so I thought I'd make myself a breakfast treat.



This is the pretty but deconstructed version. For true deliciousness you need to unfold the crepe, sprinkle in that maple sugar (from Springdale Farm), add some blueberries (from Ferme la Rosée), roll it up and sprinkle some more maple sugar on top. Then eat ensuring that each bite has a bit of crepe, sugar and blueberry.

Here's the recipe:

150g spelt flour (whole grain - I wasn't sure that would work but it really did!)
300ml milk
1 egg
(plus lots of butter for the frying pan)

-mix all ingredients together (the batter will be v. runny)
-add a ladle full to a v. hot frying pan and swirl around until you have a thin even coating of batter at the bottom of the pan).
-wait a few minutes, flip, wait a minute or so, and its done.

how to freeze peas

Got a nice surprise at the farmers' market today - peas!

Thought I'd missed the season as I couldn't find a farm to buy peas from in quantity and then I got busy yada, yada, yada. Anyway, my favourite farmer had a huge tub of peas at the market today so I snagged a big bag full. Then came home and got to work processing them.

Here's how it works.

1. Find a comfy spot to shell the peas



2. Shell the peas.

3. Admire the shelled peas (and maybe sink your hand into the bowl just because)

3. Get a bowl of ice water ready and also a pot of boiling water and start blanching - 45secs to 1min in the boiling water and then immediately into the ice water (I keep the peas in a sieve in the ice water because I heard something about not letting the ice touch the peas, but maybe I'm making that up. I keep the peas in a sieve in the boiling water because its easier to get them in and out).



4. Lay all the peas out on trays covered in dish towels and dry them gently.



5. Lift the peas off the trays, line the trays with wax paper, and put the peas back on the trays (without the dish towels).

6. Put the trays in the freezer. The next day put the peas into yogurt containers or ziplock bags or other freezer safe container.

7. In january pull some peas out of the freezer and enjoy the summery goodness

No tasty treats for me. boo.

Just felt like telling anyone who is listening that instead of going to the caf and getting a chocolate bar or an iced cappucino (things that I want even though they are bad for me and the world - including the orangutans), I am going to sit at my desk and drink the juice that I brought into work in a mason jar.

Hurrumph.

(I'll feel good about this decision later. But now I'm just grumpy.)

my nanna and butterflies

My nanna was among other things, an amazing seamstress. She made my mum's wedding dress and my aunt's wedding dress and for a time, most of her own clothes.

This weekend my aunt came for a visit and presented me with this box of my nanna's thread. Isn't it gorgeous? There is some silk thread in there and some of it is even on wooden spools. My favourite is the lime green one.

Now I can start making some stuff with all the fabric I got from usedottawa last summer. :) My first project is going to be a top to wear at a cottage/around the house (takes a bit of pressure off as it won't have to be perfect!) I'm hoping it looks something like this (except more flow-y at the bottom).

An on an unrelated note, we saw our first butterfly in the garden this weekend. I figure the garden must be in good shape if we are attracting butterflies.

See how pretty.....

more jam

Last weekend my mum and I made a batch of raspberry redcurrant jam using a recipe from Seasonal Ontario Food. I liked it so much I decided to make another batch this weekend.

Ferdzy over at SOF has some great canning recipes so even if raspberry redcurrant jam is not your thing, you should go and have a look at her blog. Let me tell ya though, you might want to give this jam a try. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it is the best jam I've ever had.

Free transit

Impossible you say? Crazy?

Well Hamilton city council was discussing just that last week.

The short version is that HCC received a recommendation from its Works Committee outlining ways the city could introduce free transit. On smog days only, in the summer only, or year-round all-the-time free transit.

The year-round all-the-time free transit would come at a cost to residents of, on average, $161 a year (included in property taxes).

At first I thought, everyone is going to have to pay for something that not everyone uses? No way is that going to fly.

But then I thought, wait a sec, the point of taxes is to provide services that are for the general good of society - free health care, free social services, free education. I would certainly argue that free transit should fall under that category. Offering free public transit would make taking the bus more palatable to those who aren't so keen, and would also mean that folks who aren't making a lot of money would be able to get to work and still have money for food, and if transit were free prompting more people to take the bus (figures show that there would be a 20% increase in ridership), then carbon emissions would be reduced a substantial amount.

I think its something worth talking about.

Unfortunately Hamilton decided that it didn't have time to implement it this year but would look into it for next year. Boo.

Mini harvest

My first harvest from the garden!

Fennel tops
Raspberries
Green beans
Gooseberries and
Spearmint

Am cooking the gooseberries up now with a bit of maple sugar. There weren't really enough to do anything with so I think I'll add them to some thickened yogurt.

If I had more I would have made this.