Where has time gone? We went to California beginning of June and had a great time. Soon we’ll go camping. I’m sure Molson will enjoy it a lot.

Last night I made chiles rellenos and documented the whole thing, here are the instructions step by step.

Get 2 chiles poblanos per person. Wash, pat dry, spray with oil and broil for about 12 minutes turning once.

Take blackened chilies and put in plastic bag. Close and let them cool off.

While chilies are cooling off, prepare filling and sauce. I used the typical tomato sauce used for a lot of Mexican food: in blender put fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic, cilantro, veggie bouillon. Blend until liquified.

Cook sauce in 2 tbsp vegetable oil, for about 10 minutes. Salt to taste and season with bay leaf, oregano, garlic powder, cumin and pepper while it’s cooking. Let boil to thicken a bit.

For refried beans: finely chop onion, cilantro, jalapenos and garlic. Use one can of black beans.

Heat oil in pot, saute chopped ingredients for 4 minutes. Add the undrained can of beans. After about 8 minutes, mash beans with masher.

Chilies are now cooled. Peel skin off, make a side slit and take the seeds off as well as any veins.

Once peeled, seeded and deveined, fill chilies with refried beans. Careful, the flesh is very soft and delicate.

Serve sauce on top of chilies, with a side of rice and fried plantains. The sweetness of the plantains goes very well with the flavour of the poblano chilies.

Enjoy!

Molson went on a road trip. He wanted to know all about our country so we took him to Ottawa.
The first thing he came through was the Byward Market:

He thought it was a charming little place with lots of restaurants and shops.
Then he did a tour of Parliament:

He looked behind the Houses of Parliament and, surprise, surprise, he found a place full of cats! The cats also live in some type of kitty-mansion.

And what a nice view of the Ottawa river from behind Parliament.

And the back of Parliament is round. And there’s a burnt bell from some fired that occurred some time ago.

And here’s Molson being totally touristy and posing in Parliament Hill.

The following day Molson decided to be active and took a hike in Gatineau Park, in Quebec. It was beautiful with streaming water that he wanted to drink all the time.

He also saw some granite rocks that he kind of wanted to take back home to make a kitchen counter top.

He posed for a nice picture.

But he started to get tired. For some reason he doubted this was the way to make it to the pub.

So he took time for some playing and another rest.

Molson was tired by the next day, but he did not want to miss the wonders of Highway 2. He saw the Air Force base in Trenton and the Brighton post office.

By the end of it he was knackered and he just had to take a nap.

Four days ago I went to the Bochner Eye Institute. The whole procedure took in total 2 hours, but the actual laser was like one minute each eye.
I still feel a bit weird in the eyes, they sometimes hurt, but even now I can tell that I can see perfectly. I’m having mental regressions to when I was 12 or 13, probably the last time I could see without a prescription. I started wearing glasses at 15 but I think that I may have needed them a bit earlier.
It is amazing, and I totally recommend it, like everyone else I’ve heard has had the surgery.

I’ve been wearing glasses for myopia since I was 15 years old. Little by little I’ve become sick of them. I wore contacts for a while, but in the last couple of years, they seem to be itchy and hurt most of the time. Not a nice experience.
I’ve wanted to get laser eye surgery for 10 years now. It was never the right time, I was doing other things.
Finally, I decided to do it, and booked my appointment for March 12 2010. I’ll be going to the Bochner Eye Institute in Toronto and am pretty excited about it. A bit freaked out and icked as well, but excited nonetheless.
Well, was it ever a good time to book it, it turns out that on Monday, during the “big snowstorm” we had here in Toronto, I couldn’t wear my glasses, since they were just getting wet. I went to the park with Molson.

When I got home my glasses, which I had kept in my pocket, were broken in two! It’s the first time in more than 20 years that something like this happens.
I guess it’s a sign from nature, I need to have laser surgery, and soon. The time has come to do it.

Molson and Maria at the lake

Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto

Who would have thought that it would be so mild in Toronto in late February?
It was beautiful yesterday, so Molson and I decided to take a long walk at the lake shore. We had a great time and were tired the rest of the day!

I went to San Diego for Christmas. All we did was go shopping. I didn’t even buy much!
Here are some pictures of UTC, University Town Centre, the mall. I’ve been going to this mall since I was like 7 or even younger!

Hello my dear three readers. I have not forgotten about you.
I want to wish you all a Happy 2010, I was in California for a few days at the end of the year but I’m back, ready for working and having a great time this year.

I had a really good 2009, a year in which I sold my old condo and got a bigger one, moved and got a dog that we both adore. I also quit a job that was not working for me and was actually making me sick, and I got a new job that seems amazing. All in all I had a year full of good news and promises. Hopefully 2010 will stay like that.

It is December and I haven’t updated this blog in two months! I think it’s the longest it’s ever been between updates.
I just have been so busy, and happy, Molson is a great dog but it takes lots of our time, I barely have time for cooking anymore, so I haven’t been making anything special.
But I have taken up crochet, so I expanded my repertoire from knitting to crochet. Basically I was making a scarf and it was too skinny, I decided to do a round of single crochet and I liked the look of it a lot, I remembered that I had a book called Crochet Scarves!: 16 Hip Projects for Dressing Up Your Look by Candy Jensen, so I went and fetched it and made a whole scarf with Noro Silk Garden. I enjoyed doing it a lot and it was so fast, compared to knitting. So I made a trip to Romni Wools and got the materials for making the Orchard Mitts and the Leaf Pepper Hat (”teen” model”) from the Fall 2009 issue of Interweave Crochet. I made the mitts in about 1.5 weeks and the hat has been taking me a bit more. I’m done with the red but I am still to start with the contrast colour. I’m very excited about that, though.
I guess that’s all the updates I got for now. I’ll keep you posted and will probably have a recipe soon (I took the pictures, I just haven’t sat and written it down).

This recipe has been cross-posted with Garlicster.

How to make a creamy soup when no milk or cream is to be added? I found a few recipes but they all said to mix everything with the blender, but then the leeks would not be visible. I wanted the soup to be creamy but the leeks to be recognizable within the soup. To make this recipes you need to prepare the leeks and the potatoes in separate pots, this will allow to puree the potatoes and leave the chopped leeks to add chunky texture to the soup.

I used:
4 cups potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 large leeks, chopped (there are 3 in the picture but I only used 2)
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups vegetable broth or water (or more depending on how thick it is and/or how liquid you like it
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 teaspoon chopped ginger
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
In a large pot brown the garlic in the olive oil, add the potatoes and sautee until lightly browned. Add the broth to the potatoes and boil until softened.

In a separate pot, sautee the leeks in the olive oil for 2 minutes.

When the potatoes are cooked in the broth, puree with the hand blender, the texture will be that of a vichyssoise. Add the leeks and simmer for 2 minutes for flavour.

Add the chopped ginger and the curry powder to the soup. This will make the soup look a bit yellow, not the usual white, but will give it a distinctive flavour of deliciousness. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve and enjoy!