Vegetable Garden: some progress is better than none

Our up and coming vegetable garden is now a pile of dirt in the back of our yard. We have yet to turn over the dirt or add any compost but we hope to get that done before the ground gets too hard... which will need to be very soon.

Our very small garden of tomatoes and peppers served us well this summer and we got many tomatoes and we were even able to can some peppers. We now have banana peppers for sandwiches, soups and stews for the winter.

Ultimate Sausage Cheese Pizza

Another recipe from 'Cook Yourself Thin'. Pretty good! Not the best pizza I've ever had, but for a healthy alternative it was worth the sacrifice. To me nothing beats a greasy pepperoni pizza from Capri or Little Caesars, but this was quite good. Recipe can be found HERE. It wasn't difficult to make, although I had a difficult time coming across Chicken Basil Sausage but I think any chicken or turkey sausage will work with this recipe. I used a regular turkey sausage and it was fine. This is a recipe that can be modified to suit your tastes as well. I like broccoli on my pizza so I added that to half (since I wanted to also try it by the recipe). You could add mushrooms, regular bell peppers (which would be an even healthier alternative to the roasted), or any other fresh vegetable that you enjoy. Its very versatile and is definitely a keeper for a starting point to a healthy pizza the whole family will enjoy. You could also split the dough and make small individual pizzas for the entire family (may need to double the recipe for a family of 4).

Calories per serving 475

Opimian Society

The Opimian Society is a wine group in Canada. They offer cellar offerings from small vineyards around the world. They send out offerings 8 times each year, and each offering is from different regions. They also offer a select program which sends you 6 bottles automatically from each offering. We have been members of the select program for 3 years now and have recently canceled. We found that they send from the same wineries each year and often the same wines. Also, sometimes each offering comes with 6 bottles from the same winery. It is a good program to do for one year to get your cellar going but once you have a good starting point, it is my advice to just order when you see something you like. Another downside to the society is that you have to order 6-12 bottles of each wine you select. This means if by chance you don't like it you are stuck with 6-12 bottles. Therefore, it is nice to have a group of people to share the wine with and split the cost. Only down side to this is if you really like the wine, you now have to give some away. Either way is a risk, but so is purchasing any wine. They also send you Tidings Magazine (free) which is a nice magazine primarily about food and wine and offer tastings in major cities of most provinces (extra cost). We do enjoy the society and plan to continuing our membership.

Portobello Mushroom Benedict with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

A recipe from the 'Cook Yourself Thin' cookbook. Aaron and I decided to give this a try. Not that we are partial to eggs benedict, I am not a big fan myself, but this recipe looked very tasty. The recipe can be found HERE. This recipe was delicious. I cut the mayo in half since I found it to be a bit much and over powered the red pepper flavour. Also we have used other types of greens for a substitute for the spinach... whatever you have on hand should be tasty, except maybe mustard greens, they can be a bit much. We used beet greens which was very yummy as well as collards. Spinach would be ideal since it is mild in flavour compared to most other greens but use what you have on hand. I would recommend this recipe for any occasion. It didn't take long to make and was no trouble at all.. but it is definitely nice enough for a special occasion such as an anniversary or when you want to impress your guest(s).

Calories per serving 253.

Do you really recycle?

Recycling has become part of most peoples every day life when it comes to cans, bottles and paper. But what about chemical waste, batteries, our clothes, old electronics and appliances, toys and any and all household items. You can go for a walk on garbage day and see many of these things on their way to our land fills. Why? There are many programs available for proper disposal of these items as well as reuse of most of them. Many people are too proud to have a garage sale, so donate. Diabetes Association and Salvation Army are just 2 of the many programs out there available for your household items to be "recycled". Anything in good working order can be given to others who can use it and need it. As for unusable things, there are many waste plants that will accept old appliances and electronics and sell off for scrap parts and any reusable parts and then disposes of the rest properly. Windsor has a decent program for recycling and information can be found HERE.

Wine: Pelee Island Winery Visit-2009

Aaron and myself visited Pelee Island Winery recently. We were running low on our white wine selection and I tend to enjoy their white selection. Opposed to the LCBO, the winery has limited editions as well as simply a larger selection available. We did a few tastings and found some we enjoyed and one or 2 we did not. We purchased the 2008 Eco Trail-White-VQA, a blend of Auxerois and Chardonnay, which I rather enjoyed. It was light and fruity with a hint of acidity, a bit green for Aaron's tastes but he thought it was alright for an unoaked white. We also purchased the 2008 Pinot Grigio-VQA which is always one of my favourits. This Pinot Grigio has a great balance of fruity and grassy notes and is great to sip on its own or with some fresh summer salads. We also tried their unoaked Chardonnay which neither of us was very keen on. It was flat and not very complex as you would expect a Chardonnay to be. We also grabbed a bottle of their 2006 Umbrealla-Gewurztraminer Riesling which is 50% of each grape variety. We had the bottle a while after our visit and it was alright. Not what I was expecting but not terrible. It was a bit unbalances for me. It didn't have enough acidity to accompany the fruity palate and dry finish, it needed some crispiness to it, if you know what I mean.

Wine

Aaron and myself drink our fair share of wine. We used to own a brew on premise wine store, which we have since sold, and we are currently members of the Opimian Society. The area we live in is home to a astonishing 13 wineries, some of which we visit frequently. Some being small and quaint such as Erie Shores and some are quite large such as Pelee Island. You can consider us self proclaimed "wine experts". Taking all of this into account, I think its just common sense that we write about the wines we drink and the wineries we visit. We will start writing all about the wines we drink and evaluating them and offer pairing suggestions.
Cheers!