Spring Pasta

I got a new camera! New camera = happiness. It is a Canon PowerShot and it is very cool and sleek and most importantly, it takes great photos. I've been taking random pics of everything since I got it (I wish I could take a picture of the new camera, but that would require another camera so I am out of luck).

The picture above is of last night's dinner. Not only did this pasta look pretty, but it was really tasty. I found the recipe in the May 2009 issue of Chatelaine. The orange peel gives it a fresh flavour - great for spring and summer. I had to improvise a little as I didn't have all ingredients on hand, but it still turned out really well. I will list my improvisations in brackets, but I am sure the original recipe is even better so try it if you have the ingredients.

Orecchitte with Herbed Garlic Tomatoes

1/2 of 500g pkg of orecchiette, about 2 cups (I used 2 cups of dry whole wheat penne)
1 small orange
2 garlic cloves (I used 3 because I love garlic)
Olive oil
1 pint cherry/grape tomatoes
pinches of salt and pepper
4 cups of arugula (I used spinach)
1/2 cup of chopped fresh basil or fresh chives (I used chives from my new garden!)
11/2 cups of crumbled feta or goat cheese.

Cook past according to directions. Meanwhile finely grate peel from half of the orange. Mince garlic. Lightly coat large frying pan with olive oil & set over medium heat. Add tomatoes, garlic, salt & pepper. Stir frequently until tomatoes start to break down (watch out cuz those little suckers squirt when they break down!) about 3 to 5 minutes. Chop basil or chives.

When pasta is cooked scoop out 1/4 cup of water. Drain the rest of the the water from pasta and add pasta to garlic tomato mixture along with pasta water, orange peel & basil/chives. Toss well & gradually stir in arugula & 1 cup of crumbed feta. Taste & add salt if needed.

Serve in pasta bowl & crumble remaining feta over top.

Really simple and really tasty!

Patio Furniture Refresh!

I've been experimenting with some old patio furniture that a good neighbour donated to us. It was in good shape overall albeit a little bit of rust. I always see those rust paint commercials on TV, so I thought I would try "stroking on the sunshine, right over the rust" as they say. I also invested in some outdoor fabric to make new cushion covers (on sale at $7.99/meter not bad at all).

Sewing the cushion covers was the fun part - the spray painting on the other hand wasn't as fun. I used 6 cans of spray paint to cover this patio set! Seems most of the spray paint went in the air, not on the furniture (frustrating and bad for the environment I am sure) Note to self - maybe painting the old fashioned way (with brush) might be better next time? Still - the whole refurbishment cost me approximately $65.00. Not bad at all. Way less than the cost of a new patio set and I think this set looks pretty good now. It will take us through this summer at least. Pretty thrifty, don't you think?

A Gardening Tip

I have good news and bad news today. The good news is that May is finally here - happy May! The bad news is (well...bad news for me anyway) that I broke my camera on Wednesday. I dropped it and now it doesn't work. Argh! So alas, I must buy a new one. I'm looking for recommendations, so if you have a digital camera that you truly love, I would love to hear from you!


In other news, I've been doing a lot of gardening research lately (I am sort of garden obsessed at the moment) and found an alternative seed starting tray to the plastic, store bought one I have been using. In my research, I discovered that a paper egg carton works just as well if not better.


I have taken a few of my established cold weather seedlings and planted them in the garden and found it difficult to transplant them without all of the soil falling apart when I take them out of the plastic seedling tray. With a paper egg carton - you don't need to take the seedling out of the carton. You can just separate the egg carton 'cell' from the rest of the carton and plant it directly in the ground! The paper carton is biodegradable! Not only does this practice omit the use of plastic, but it also means less stress on the seedling. Mind you, I am still experimenting at the moment - I will let you know how these seedlings fare once I plant them in the garden, but it seems like a stellar idea to me.

Note: As my camera is broken, I had to borrow these great pictures from here and here.