December 28th, 2008

Well, I had a few minutes so I thought I'd post to the blog.

Calvin's doing OK the past couple days... he woke up early, so he and I walked over to the outdoor market which is up and running before dawn, I think. It's on a tiny street that wraps around a supermarket, much to small to hold all the vegetable and meat sellers... I bought some millet and fruit, and four bottles of fresh squeezed orange juice from a man who was selling orange juice, grapefruit juice, and pigs hooves at his stall. It's an interesting life...

So, I spent some of the afternoon with Rhiannon making stewed tomatoes in vinegar.

It's become a staple for us, especially in tomato season. In winter, it can be made with cans of tomatoes (I work near a restaurant supply store, and we can get them there), but fresh is better. I buy up as many discounted packs of cherry tomatoes as I can find over a week, this time I had about five or six dozen of the things... Rhiannon and I sliced them in half (to make peeling easier after cooking), put them in a pot with about half a cup of oil, a cup of vinegar, salt, pepper, Italian spices, and paprika. Cook that all together for a couple hours in a 190 degree Celcius oven. Meanwhile, mince one or two onions, and cook that for a few minutes in a little oil and a little vinegar on a stove.

When the tomatoes are delicious, take them out of the oven and peel them. It's quite messy... From there you can do two things with them. Add the onions plus a little minced garlic and put them over pasta. Or take the tomatoes plus the onions plus a can of tomatoes (to cut down that acidity) and blend them in a blender. The kids really like it, and the vinegar takes on a wonderful flavor after being baked in the oven. This sauce has been evolving over a year to this current version. I also use the larger tomatoes, quartered, but they're harder to find on sale here...

So, we have that over pasta plus some capers. Calvin, we found out tonight, loves eating capers. Eli spent the afternoon building one of his Christmas presents, a Lego car, while Rhiannon copied numbers from the calendar and practiced writing them. She also made some popcorn chains for the Christmas tree while watching some Christmas stuff on the computer.

We're letting the candles on the Advent Wreath burn slowly down, and added 12 tea lights to the center, and light a new one each day of Christmas. We're planning to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, and it's been nice marking the days of the season, not letting it be just one day of presents madness.

Anyway, just posting for the sake of posting.

Much Love.