Hello Blog Friends,
Welcome to the first blog of 2022! As mentioned before, I consider the New Year to begin on the first Sunday of Advent but also recognise that today marks the beginning of a new calendar year 😊.
It has been a quiet week around here. Across Canada the number of COVID cases has continued to increase on a daily basis, hitting especially hard in Québec and Ontario, thus there are tighter restrictions on the number of people who can gather indoors and even outside. I can now only have 1 visitor and most families have hunkered down and are just not going anywhere.A curfew has also been imposed and once again all churches have moved back to meeting exclusively on line with the exception of very small funerals and weddings.
Over the Holidays, CTM office work has slowed to a trickle although, as always, there are invoices to pay and a few emails to which I must respond, we have also been blessed with a few generous yearend donations, which I need to enter into the accounting system. Early in the week I spent a bit of time designing a flier for the virtual Team Gathering planned for early February. I then posted it @mrsphilmoreschickens on Instagram and created an event on our FaceBook page. Next emails were sent to the group lists of Team Alumnae in the hopes we can collect a good group for the event 😊.
Over the week there were also a couple of FaceTime chats. Wednesday morning I connected with the Irish family in Halifax. Anna is our master of puppet videos for Day Camps and a former Team member, leader and committee member. The family lived for several years in Richelieu, just south of Montreal where Anna’s husband, Charles, served as a Military Chaplain but three years ago he was relocated to Halifax to serve as a Port Chaplain so I haven’t seen them in person since Anna and their 2 sons stayed here for a couple of weeks in the summer of 2019. It was good to catch up with them and the boys showed me all their Christmas gifts and decorations! And yesterday afternoon I was also so happy to FaceTime with Brenda, another dear friend in Halifax, with whom I had not chatted since last April! It was lovely to spend nearly an hour catching up on each other’s news.
I have been able to get plenty of reading done, including dipping into a book of poetry, which I received as a Christmas present.It is a collection of poems about Newfoundland and since my family lived in the province for 2 years the writings, all of which utilise many words in the local dialect, certainly reminded of the many native Newfoundlanders we met during our time there. And of course there is always knitting 😊. My Christmas socks were finally completed after thinking I had run out of wool and then finding another ball and great progress has been made on the shawl my friend commissioned from me.
We have had a few snowfalls too, although thankfully of a manageable size so although I have done quite a bit of shovelling it hasn’t been very exhausting. Today there is a forecast of more freezing rain, which does not make me happy so I’m really hoping it passes us by otherwise Thomason and I just won’t be able to take our usual long walks 😊. It is to be hoped that, if the freezing rain does come, we don’t lose power since, as today really isn’t different from any other Saturday, I am still planning to bake! A dear friend brought me a small Venison pie as part of my Christmas gift so I decided to save it and have it tonight, as it was frozen and still needs to be baked. Sue also needs her Gluten Free bread and I’m going to make myself 2 loaves of Italian Farmer’s Bread, a batch go granola and some small mince pies as another friend has given me a jar of homemade mincemeat and Christmas just isn’t Christmas without mince pies 😊.So it’s time to wrap up this post and put my apron on
One evening this week I decided to make Dolmas for dinner, since I had a jar of vine leaves sitting in the pantry. They a a tasty Greek treat and not too difficult to make at home.
Dolmas
- 1 16-oz jar grape vine leaves in brine (about 60 to 70 leaves),
- 1 ½ cups short grain rice, soaked in plenty of water for 15 mins., then drained
- Olive oil
- 1 large yellow onion, finely chopped
- 12 oz. lean ground beef
- Sea salt & Black pepper
- 1 tsp. allspice
- ½ tsp. cumin
- ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro or parsley
- 1 Tbsp. each dried dill and mint
- 4 cups chicken broth
- ¼ cup lemon juice
Rinse the vine leaves and set aside to drain in a colander. Sauté the beef and onions in 1 Tbsp. olive oil until the meat is no longer pink. Stir in the spices, herbs and drained rice. Allow the mixture to cool.
Prepare a heavy bottomed Dutch oven or stovetop casserole by greasing with a little oil and then lining the bottom with several vine leaves (damaged ones are okay to use here)
Place a vine leaf on your work surface with the veined side up. You may need to trim off a bit of stem or any coarse veins but try to keep the leaf whole. Place a generous spoonful of filling on the leaf then fold in the two sides and roll up as if making a small burrito. Place the dolma, seam side down in the prepared pot. Continue neatly arranging the filled leaves in a single layer in the pot; do not crowd them, as they will expand as the rice cooks. Make a second layer if necessary. Once all the leaves are filled, place an inverted plate on top of the Dolmas.
Bring the chicken broth to a boil then pour it over the Dolmas. Cover tightly and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the plate and pour the lemon juice over the Dolmas, drizzle with more olive oil. Cover the pot again (without the plate) and simmer gently for a further 30 minutes.
Serve accompanied with Tzatziki or plain Greek yoghurt. Serves 4-6. Leftovers can be refrigerated or frozen and reheated by placing in a single layer with a little water or broth, covered and steamed for about 15 minutes.