Hello Blog Friends!
There is no doubt we are now in the thick of winter around here. It seems that it has snowed every day this week along with extremely cold temperatures. Today there is a high of -16ºC and last night it dipped down to -24, we even had an extreme cold warning of -34ºC last Monday. Living in an old house can be challenging when it gets this cold but we Canadians do adapt and for much of this week I have done my office work sitting as close as possible to a radiator while wrapped in a blanket!
But enough of the weather.
Early in the week I got busy preparing a PowerPoint template for the upcoming Virtual Team Gathering and have since sent links to the guest speaker in case he wanted to add any slides and to the music team so that they can start adding the song recordings and lyrics.
The main excitement around here was selling 5 more copies of “Come Together”, thanks largely to the help of Lee-Ann at our Synod Office who posted information about it on the Diocesan Website and on her contacts list. It was a bit upsetting on Wednesday when a Parish Administrator in Ontario who had purchased a copy for her community emailed to say that the links were not working. AGH!!! I immediately sent a panic message to Jessica, who handled the layout for the book and fortunately, after consulting her Dad who knows a lot about software, the problem was identified and turned out to be an easy fix. Of course then I had to message everyone who purchased a book since it’s launch in December apologising for the problem and reissuing a fresh copy, that task took up a chunk of time on Thursday.
Meanwhile I have been preparing the template for the CTM Board Meeting minutes as our first meeting of 2022 will be happening tomorrow afternoon but right now I have been scurrying around getting ready for a lunch visit from Jillian 😊. Thursday was her’s and Victor’s wedding anniversary so I am anxious to give her their gift, although I don’t know if she will want to open it here or save it to open at home with her husband.
We are having a “gouté” of toasted homemade baguette with bowls of mochaccino and a platter of fresh fruits, as it needs to be an early meal. Jillian and Victor coordinate the young adults’ fellowship at their church and the group is having an outing to a museum on the campus of McGill University this afternoon. It all works out well as I will need to walk Thomason after lunch and then start baking. Sue wants her 2 gluten free loaves this week and I shall also be making a Miche, a pear crostina, and a batch of ginger biscotti, if there is time I might also do a pizza for my own dinner 😊.
So the next item on my agenda is to assemble the fruit platter but before I do that we’ll end off with our weekly recipe. With the current cold snap I have been relying heavily on hearty soups for my supper and this week I made a quintessential Québecois favourite: –
Split Pea Soup
- 6 slices bacon
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 2 Tbsps. olive oil
- 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
- 3 carrots, peeled and diced
- 1 lb. green split peas
- 2 tsps. Herbes de Provence
- 1 tsp. smoked paprika
- 8-10 cups chicken broth
Cook the bacon in a large soup pot and set aside. Add the olive oil to the pot and sauté the onion and garlic for 5 minutes, seasoning well with salt and pepper. Add the carrots, split peas, spices and 8 cups chicken broth. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer partially covered for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Remove the pot from the heat and mash with a potato masher or immersion blender, keeping some texture in the vegetables and adding more broth if the soup seems too thick. Reheat briefly if you have added extra broth, then ladle into bowls, garnishing with crumbled bacon. Serves 6-8