2010 September | Guilty Kitchen

Mushroom Masters – Shiitake Showdown!

Today is the first day of the Mushrooms Masters – A Tournament of Taste “Shiitake Showdown!”, a food blogging competition between the US, Canada and Australia. Bloggers from these countries have been recruited to create fantastic, mind blowing recipes to compete against the other nations in a side by side comparison, where you (the readers) get to vote for the winners! So far Canada has one winner and Australia another. Can we squeak out another win for Canada this week?

Ongoing until September 28th (September 27th is the last day to vote!), you can vote for your favourite recipe, your favourite country or even your favourite blogger! Just visit Tastespotting.com to vote for the winners or click the shortcut available in my left sidebar <——-

To see each of the recipes go to The Mushrooms Canada Blog or go directly to my recipe.

We have some great Canadian Foodies on our team so far: Kevin from Closet Cooking, Angela from Oh She Glows, and Jeannette from Everybody Likes Sandwiches so I’m super excited to be a part of the whole thing. My recipe for shiitake crusted pizza with steak and shiitakes, smothered in Gruyere cheese and loaded with all sorts of other goodies is up for voting today!

So get out there and vote for Canada!!

**Disclaimer: I have received compensation from Mushrooms Canada for my recipe and photos.

Scallops, Polenta and Tomato-Citrus Vinaigrette

Wonder.

Your sense of wonder is so strong when you are so tiny. You gaze at the one holding you with such innocence in your eyes and smile with pure joy.

I wonder what it’s like to be such an empty slate. I know I was once, not so long ago, also in such a state, but my first memories consist of my older sister bouncing me by my head while I stood precariously in a doorway, mounted to a Jumperoo. Not the picture of innocence right?

When I look at my daughter I wonder what she thinks. What goes through her mind when I stare at her and am rewarded with coos and giggles? They are learning so much, so fast and in such short a span of time. It must be exciting and overwhelming and somewhat….tiring, I imagine. Which would explain the 10 hours of sleep I am so blissfully receiving each night. What once I thought the stuff of legends, myths and lying mothers trying to impress (zing!) actually does occur.

No matter the stuff going on behind the scenes, what I see before me every morning, afternoon and evening is a sight I will not tire of anytime soon. I could stare at this face all day.

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Portobello Mushroom Skewers

Weekends at our house are filled with activities.

We go to the Farmer’s Market, and the butcher shop, the grocery store and the liquor store (I know I’m not the only one!). We eat quick bites at random places, I nurse our littlest one, we play with our older son and we spend time as a family. That’s what weekends are about for me. Food and family.

Well this weekend marked a big event for us. There were drinks out of jars in the yard, where we burned a large pile of debris that has been waiting since before summer (a burning ban stopped us until now).

And there were moments of pure joy with my most favourite of people. Here’s papa singing to Isla…doesn’t she looked completely entranced?

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Granola Bars

Yup. I’m that Mom.

This girl is going to be smothered in so much pink crap that she’ll be mortal enemies with it by the time she’s nine. Or maybe she’ll become as obsessed as I am…

Having only had a boy before having this lovely girl, I had already succumbed to the thought that I would never have girls and would be stuck dressing my boys in monster truck shirts and washing muddy socks and pants. But now I have the power, the power to play dress up that is. One day she’ll be the best dressed kid in school.

Today is a big day for a lot of kids. The first day of school, or the first day back to school after a long summer break. Exciting and scary, nerve racking and over stimulating, the first day of school was always something I equally dreaded and revered. I wanted to be excited, but I hated school. In all honesty, living out in the middle of nowhere has made me seriously consider homeschooling my children. I will do it! I am just not that into the public school system. I have a lot of reasons, which I won’t go into here, but let’s just suffice it to say, I am not a fan of the public school system in British Columbia. There, I said it. Sorry about that.

Okay, politics over. School requires nourishment. Sustenance to sustain you through breaks, classes, studying, learning, cavorting, gossiping, locker decorating, vending machine finding, etc. What better than a homemade granola bar made with love packed neatly into your kids lunch box? Lower in sugar, sodium and fat than anything you could buy commercially and they taste fabulous! Make these today for your little munchkins and watch as they grow up right in front of your eyes.

**Note: There is another reason I made these treats. Warning! Long Story!

One night, we took the whole family down to the lake for a little fishing excursion. That’s me, the mister, Cohen (son) and Isla (daughter) plus our doggie, Domino (a puggle).

We fished, we laughed, we threw sticks for Domino, we had good times. Then it was time to go and we couldn’t find him. We called, we waited, we yelled some more. Nothing, not even a peep. Sometimes he gets stuck in things and we have to rescue him, but usually he whines or barks to us. This time, nothing.

We decided to head home, a two minute walk, to see if he had gone back before us. Nope.

We headed back down to the lake, where I swore I could hear him choking on water, but it sounded far away. We couldn’t see him anywhere. Adrian (Mr. Guilty) waded into the lake and around the corner to see if he could see him, but nothing.

We headed back up the hill towards our house and stopped at our neighbour’s house. We asked if they had seen him, but they said no. Then the husband hopped on his bike and cruised up the road to see if he could find him. Nothing.

They headed back to the lake, and we had been missing our doggie for about 30 minutes at this point.

Nate, our neighbour, headed down to the lake with Adrian and all of a sudden he jumped in, shoes and all!

Domino was paddling his little butt in the lake, mouth full of a Kong toy that someone had tied to the side of their boat! He was unsuccessfully trying to deattach it and drowning slowly in the process. He would absolutely not let go and had to be pried off! What drama!

So for Nate’s courageous jump into frigid waters and the rescuing our our son;s beloved puppy, we thanked him with somewhat healthy baked goods. Thanks Nate and Tracy!

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Cauliflower and Potato Salad

I haven’t talked much about our trip to the Okanagan, so I thought I would share a short recap of our adventures. Really I just want to saturate this post in glorious pictures of my family. So there.

The trip started with a short ferry ride across the Straight of Georgia or if you like, the Salish Sea. After an eight hour trip. we were there. And what you see above is the first thing I did when we got there.

Although I do already live on a lake, the lakes in the Okanagan are 1) way warmer and 2) surrounded in sandy beaches instead of the rocky, tree and bush laden variety from which I hail from. To dig my feet into molten lava hot sand and watch as my son and husband frolicked in the water was a beautiful glimpse at what this short vacation would all be about.

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