Pizza Perfected!

Okay! I know you’re sick of gluten-free pizza by now. This is the last one, I promise. I’ll attempt muffins or cookies or something else delicious next week. This week, I wanted to finally perfect the elusive gluten-free pizza.

Success feel so good – and makes me feel like singing Iggy Pop when it’s been well earned. What made the difference this time? Several lessons:

1) Oil the pizza stone. Otherwise the dough sticks to it, and it is awful to get off.
2) Build the pizza on the stone. Don’t preheat (we keep ours in the compartment under the oven, so I suppose it gets a little warm).
3) Don’t hold your breath on the dough doubling in size. It will rise, yes, but it won’t fully double. I mark the bowl with a highlighter, and so long as I get a measurable rise, all is well.
4) Push the dough, don’t roll it. And work it out gently and gradually.
5) learn to love thin crust. GF dough doesn’t lend itself to thick crust. It just gets dry.

I am very excited to have figured this out. The dough has a really good flavor too, which I think is because it uses ground flax seeds. Only improvement is I think I’ll brush some oil on the edges to see if I can get them to brown more. Next time we have pizza night, I’m attempting the calorie-laden potato pizza from PieR Squared at UBC. Baked potato chunks, sour cream/Greek yogurt sauce, cheddar cheese, banana peppers, and bacon. Oh my yes!
-W-

Cross-Canada v 2.0 part 1: Ontario

Well, here we go. I find myself planning yet another trip across Canada. Having done it once before, and knowing the limits of a UHaul trailer, I have new plans for this trip. We’ll be a little less ambitious with mileage this time. We will also veer off the Trans-Canada when possible. Today I’ll profile some of the places we hope to hit up in the great province of Ontario.

Niagara Falls - one of the first stops on our upcoming trip

As I learned last trip, Ontario is huge, and daunting to get through. Luckily it is beautiful, or at least it was in the fall when the leaves were bright red, orange, and yellow, the skies were blue, and the temperatures were still on the warm side. I’m curious how things will look in the spring!

Here are some things I hope to check out:

• Niagara Falls: I know people say it’s big and cheesy and surrounded by kitch, but it’s a bucket list thing, and one of the sites I really want to see while here.
• York County is having a Maple Syrup Festival from March 3rd to April 9th – we’ll be just in time to catch the end! This would make a great lunch stop, as it’s just off the main highway.
• Algonquin National Park – I would love to see this place, even if it’s just a stop-over for lunch.
• Highway 11 – I found this great site (bear with the rough editing), with the most info anyone could want for a road trip!

Finding hotel accommodations will be interesting. The first two nights in Niagara and Huntsville is easy. Once we get past North Bay, things get very remote and very slow. Does anyone have any advice on places to stay in Northern Ontario between North Bay and Thunder Bay?

-W-

February 21, 2012 – Some Links, More News

I have a few links to get out of the way, and then some big news.

• Little Green Notebook reminds us of a great way to add subtle colour-punch to white interior doors.
• The Hubby will definitely get his indoor climbing wall if we can get holds designed like this!
• The Pasta-Free Runner shows us her home-cooked Valentine’s dinner – I will have to try her salmon rub! Sounds delicious!

Onto the news. Weekend before last, the Hubby and I had a bit of an evaluation of the state of life in Montreal. We had to make a call about how important it is for us to stay here, versus how much it is costing us, emotionally and financially, to stay. The Hubby has much more work in Vancouver than in Montreal, and my lack of French has made finding a job almost impossible. We had to acknowledge that, by staying in Montreal, we would be barely scraping by, not making enough money to actually enjoy the city.

Coming here, we acknowledged, was an experiment. We came, armed with some contract work, and planned to try and make things work. At first it seemed, with lots of work coming in from Vancouver, we would be able to do well here. Had that continued, we would have. But the contract work slowed to a trickle, and we weren’t able to find things here to supplement.

We will thus be heading back across the country to home, and we will be coming soon – April 1st. We are a touch disappointed, mostly that some of our travel plans won’t happen, and that our days in this beautiful bilingual city are numbered. I will miss the French most of all, I think. In the end, though, Vancouver and our friends and family there, are truly home. We always knew we had it great, and now we’ve discovered exactly how special our life there is.

We took our potential last trip to Ottawa this weekend – saw some sites, ate a Beaver Tail (my stomach will be in gluten-recovery for the next few days, but totally worth it), and hung out with Jm and his crew there (such wonderful people!). The weather was too warm to skate the canal, but it was nice for some good walks around the capital city.

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-W-

Nuit Blanch Preview

MONTREAL MONDAY! Every Monday I detail something new about la belle ville! Updates on things going on in the city, or new neighbourhoods I explore. This week: a preview of the upcoming Nuit Blanche!

Next Saturday, February 25th, is one of the most well-known festivals in Montreal, Nuit Blanche, an all-night-long outdoor and indoor arts, food, music, and sports extravaganza.  I am so excited, especially because there is so much to do that is free! Montreal is known for bringing the party, so I am really excited to see how this goes.

The official website lists the various activities, but really, the free mobile app is far easier to navigate. There are 3 main districts in which events will be happening: Centre-Ville, Vieux-Montreal, and Plateau/Mile-End.  There is also some stuff going on at Parc Olympique (by the Biodome). Some events start in early evening, and some events end early.  Most activities run until 2 am, with most DJ events running until 4 am.  Some things run all the way until 6 or 7 am!

Other things to see and experience on my agenda for the evening include (in no particular order):

• Frosted Volleyball: outdoor volleyball games! What!
• La Maison du Chocolat: artisan chocolate. Perfect after calorie-burning volleyball!
• Flashlight tours of the Redpath Museum: $4 for admission, but dinosaurs by flashlight!
• Camellia Masala: photography show of images from their trips to Asia to procure tea. Also free chai tea pick-me-up!
• Swing Dancing at City Hall: hourly swing dance demonstrations.
• Skating at Parc La Fontaine: free ice rink – I did just buy some skates!
• Underwater Art Exhibit: rent snorkel equipment, listen to music, and swim from picture to picture. Okay, I am not sure if I can actually do this, or if I need to have snorkeled before, but I had to include it, since it is the most amazing combination of things I’ve ever heard of!
• Penguin Red Carpet: the Biodome penguins come outdoors (weather dependent, obviously).

I heard that last year the lines were really long, so I have a whole bunch of other activities bookmarked. We shall see what we will be able to get up to, and next week I will have many pictures I am sure!

-W-

 

Foto Friday

Bienvenue a le primere et le deuxieme FOTO FRIDAY: A new photo every week, but with a twist – il va écrit en français!

Parce-que je n’ai pas ecrit le derniere vendredi, j’ai beaucoup des photos pour vous. Il y a photos de Le Pitou. Nous sommes en Ottawa pour le weekend. Jm et Mon Mari aiment jouer du violon et la guitare ensemble.   Il y a photos de Mon Mari et Jm lorsqu’il ont decide jouer dans la salle de bain. Quelle adorable!

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Gluten Free Banana Bread

After last week’s frustration with rising bread, I decided to go back to an old staple, the quickbread. I have made many a batch of banana bread in my time. My Hubby and my old roommates can bear witness to the fact that I could have a loaf of banana bread up and cooking in the oven in 20 minutes, PRE-Kitchenaid! Now that I’m eating gluten-free, the old Betty Crocker recipe I grew up with doesn’t stand. So I looked, as usual, to the queen of gluten-free, the Gluten-Free Girl.

Fantasy Vacation: Galapagos Islands

Let’s go see some boobies! No, not those kinds of boobies – these kinds of boobies:

Blue footed boobies!

Yep, for the dream trip, I’m putting together ideas for the Galapagos Island! First a few factoids.

The islands have a population of slightly over 25,000, way more than I would have guessed.  This mostly consists of Mestizos operating tours (population significantly increased in the 1980s).  There is a pirate-y history to the islands as well. The islands were originally named after associates of buchaneer Ambrose Cowley, who first charted the islands. They have now been given Spanish names by the Ecuadorean government who owns the islands. The Galapagos Archipelago consists of 15 main islands, 3 small islands, and 107 rocks and islets. Some are still forming, others are slowly disappearing as the archipeligo sits on top of a hotspot. There are two airports serving the islands: one on Balta, the other on San Cristobel.

We can pretend to be Dr. Stephen Maturin and little Blakeney scavanging for Darwin's finches! How grand!

Since this is the first fantasy-vacation, I’ll let you know in advance that I firmly believe vacations should last at least 10 days, if not more. The ideal vacation is 3 weeks – long enough that you really get to relax, but just at the point where you’re getting homesick. Thus, trips will be 14 days standard. I’ve also included  bit of Ecuador in this trip, because, hello colonial architecture

My itinerary:

Day 1: Arrive in Quito, Ecuador, check out Old Town, Parque Alameda, and the Monestary of San Francisco. Fancy dinner with wine and seafood, overnight at Casa Gangotena.

Day 2 – 11: morning flight to Guayaquil, from where we begin an amazing 10-day tour with National Geographic. Highlights include:

• swimming with penguins on Isla Bartolome
• a visit with “Lonesome George”, the last surviving Pinta Island tortoise, at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Isla Santa Cruz
• snorkel with sea lions on Isla Floreana, and visit Post Office Bay
• so much animal observation I cannot catalogue it all.

Day 12: Take an $8 bus to the colonial city of Cuenca, another UNESCO heritage site. Stay overnight at the Hotel Santa Lucia.

Day 13: Fly back to Quito, stay overnight again at Casa Gangotena.

Day 14: Fly home.

If National Geographic is out of your reach (it is pretty steeply priced!), Galapagos offers lots of other adventure tours and land-based tour options as well.  If you’re a sailor (*cough*brotherinlaw*cough*), you can charter a boat for 8 days for up to 10 passangers for around $2225 per person (not including airfare and some incidentals of course).  If you’re h2o-inclined, you can take a diving tour with Galapagos Underwater (looks sketchy, but highly rated from Trip Advisor). Other options can be found by contacting Galapagos Alternative, who can help make a more DIY trip more hassle-free.

Here are some more photos to make you swoon. I was swooning putting it together!

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-W-

Link Love: Valentines Lurve

Welcome to NEWSY TUESDAY: Links to interesting news stories, other awesome blogs, artists and musicians, and updates on our life. This week, an intro a few of the blogs I read regularly!

The Hubby and I aren’t much for Valentines. Our first Valentines as a couple, he was in Mexico, and I thanked my lucky stars because we’d only been dating a month and I couldn’t handle the pressure (I wasn’t even calling it dating at the time, but to be sure, it was). Our second Valentines we went out for a meal at a quaint restaurant on Granville I believe and then stopped at a grocery store at around 10 pm to buy discount cakes for our housemates.

In 2010, the Olympics were in town, I had a bum ankle, AND it was Chinese New Year.  We sat around with our friends, ate brownies, and gorged ourselves on Chinese food (take from those food items what you will). Then we watched the pairs figure skating, but turned off the official sound and played DJ, inspired by the skaters’ costumes. I will never go back to watching figure skating the traditional way again! 2010 was far and away the best Valentines ever.

Here are some links inspired by the day!

• Nothing says Valentines like cute animals! Can I can knit penguin sweaters to donate?
• Appropriate for V-Day, a DIY sugar lip scrub. I love homemade spa products.
• I love maps (I could go all instrospective and quote Death Cab For Cutie, but I’ll spare you). Check out these artist-rendered beauties.  Find the ones of your favourite cities for artwork around the house!
• This video made me cry today! Much applause as usual to Said the Whale and Amazing Factory.
• And something that will make you laugh – Axl Rose is a time-traveler!

As or a quick update, the Hubby and I have one more week of French classes.  Then I am taking French for Job-seekers to see if I can improve my business French. We shall see if it helps in the job search.  I have an interview tomorrow, but other than that the pickings are slim even if you do speak French. It’s getting a bit down to the wire for jobs now. Wish me luck!

-W-

Our Hood: Notre-Dame-de-Grace

MONTREAL MONDAY! Every Monday I detail something new about la belle ville! Updates on things going on in the city, or new neighbourhoods I explore. This week: our ‘hood, NDG!

Sorry for missing Friday’s post.  It was a stressful day, and the Hubby and I went into a bit of lock-down to process some things. Things are better now, and I will load up the photo this Friday and give you double photos

We’ve been in Montreal for 3 full months now, and I thought I would introduce you to our little neighbourhood, or borough as they call them here.  We live in Notre-Dame-de-Grace, called NDG, which is part of the larger Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Cote-des-Neiges bourough.  In Montreal terms, NDG is on the west side of the island.  By the rest of the world’s standards, we are south. Here’s a little promo video the borough did to show how purdy NDG is.

Our actual apartment is located near the border with Westmount, which is one of Montreal’s swankiest places.  Expensive shopping abounds; unfortunately for us, money does not, and thus we haven’t explored too much of it.  Although there is a few lovely consignment stores, like Deja Porte, where you can get Chanel and other high end pieces for much lower than retail price. Sherbrooke Ouest has some decent shopping, though mainly large chain stores or really high end boutiques.

The major strip in NDG is Monkland Avenue.  Monkland has a bevvy of cafes, snack-shops, and boutiques. It is really green, with lots of trees and patios. We almost had an apartment on Monkland when we first moved here, and it was where the Moms stayed when they visited.  It was really a homey place, and I’m kind of sad we didn’t end up there.

Sherbrooke Ouest in NDG is a little rougher. It’s more brick and old concrete, and is much less cozy.  There are still some interesting shops, but it is much more urban than Monkland.  Our apartment, however, is located right across the street from NDG Park, which boasts the Dahg’s favourite place – the dog park!  Next to the dog park is somewhat of a novelty for us Vancouverites: an outdoor hockey rink!

We took a stroll around the neighbourhood on Sunday.  We had planned to walk much further, but it was -15 C without windchill, and it is simply too cold at that point to be out too long.  The face gets scary numb! But enjoy!

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-W-

Round 2: Gluten Free Pizza

Welcome to the first TASTY THURSDAY: Meal of the Week time, where I will either cook a new recipe, experiment with gluten-free baking, or even the occasional restaurant review! Today, my second attempt at gluten-free pizza dough.

Tasty enough, but still room for improvement!

I’m just going to start off saying I am not used to things in the kitchen not going my way.  I have been very lucky with my lifetime of baking that things tend to go my way.  Sometimes they could be better, but most of the time I am getting nitpicky about flavour and texture. I credit it to good genes – the women in my family are fabulous cooks, specially my own mother.

Gluten-free baking, and particularly the baking of breads, has proven to be the biggest challenge I have ever faced in the kitchen. So far,  I am just not good at it. I’m sure the food is passable, but I haven’t developed the finesse needed for me to bra yet. So I can’t brag about this pizza.

Part of my ineptitude with the bread part of baking comes from lack of experience with “the real thing” (I say very derisively). I never made yeast bread with wheat flour growing up, so I am completely in the dark when it comes to the feel for things.  That being said, in some ways that could be to my advantage. Gluten-free breads are a different beast entirely, since wheat has entirely unique properties that cannot be fully realized with non-gluten flours.  It, much like my current lack of skills, an unfortunate reality.

Poor Hubby has to put up with my crankiness and near tears almost any time I try and make a GF bread-like thing. Last time it was because the pizza dough didn’t rise and then stuck to the pizza stone.  This time it was because the dough was too dry and threatened to crumble before it was transferred to the pizza stone. Next time two improvements: 1) more water, making the dough a midway point between dough and batter and 2) build the pizza on the pizza stone. I used Gluten-Free Girl’s recipe and the flavour turned out to be great! I just need to push the dough out a little thinner. I am in the process of getting myself a kitchen scale, but until then, Real Food Made Easy helped me better approximate weight-to-volume measurements that are so key to GF baking!

Ahh, life lessons from baking!

-W-