We're Back
A proper update to follow, but a friend who stopped in to visit yesterday said she couldn't remember seeing me so mellow and relaxed. We've been in and out of each other's pockets for a couple years now, so that really says something. I'm feeling good about life (better once my body decides to stop bleeding :-P ) and ready to get some stuff done. I think my improved outlook on stuff can be attributed in part to a weeklong cooking marathon to set my FIL up with some homecooked meals until we visit in the summer. We went through my MIL's freezers and pulled out stuff Pop wouldn't cook and put it to good use.
Between us, DH and I made and canned or froze:
- 11 Litres of cranberry sauce
- 11 Litres of chili
- 7 Litres of cooked brown rice (ready to eat)
- 11.5 Litres of pea soup
- 8.75 Litres of stewed rhubarb
- 6 Litres of beef hash
- 5 (5"x8") aluminum pans of Indian dinners (several curries, rice and chutney - each about 2 meals)
- 6 single-meal square Rubbermaid containers of Indian food for freezing
- 8 (5"x8") aluminum pans of cabbage roll casserole
Some of the recipes can be found on my food blog. After all the cooking for the Indian meals, I'm now craving leftovers which are (of course) in a freezer in Nova Scotia! It was a great scoff: Jasmine Rice with Lime Leaves, Chicken Biryani, Smothered Potatoes, Lentil Dhal, Beef Vindaloo, Cilantro-Mint Chutney, and Sweet Onion and Cucumber Raita.
With the help of some other family members, we also packaged up an awful lot of food that friends and neighbours dropped by into meal-sized freezer portions. After the first hour or so, we had it down to a streamlined system!
On a related note, I think many of the family members were captivated by the big pressure canner we brought with us. ;-)