For A' That

Last night was Robbie, sometimes pronounced Rabbie, Burns Night, so I decided to have a Burns Night dinner. I've never actually been to one, I don't care for haggis or for scotch either so I doubt I'd ever go to an actual dinner. I do like some of Robbie Burns' poems though.  I'm sure most of us in North America and much of Europe, I would think, know Auld Lang Syne but the first poem of Robbie Burns that I can recall that I really liked was My Heart's in the Highlands.

I found a blog post that had a recipe that stacked mashed potatoes and mashed turnip (rutabaga to some of you) on a slice of canned haggis and I thought I could do that but without the haggis. I had some pork sausage and some hamburger that I mixed together with some dry onion soup, cinnamon and nutmeg.  The blog post used the haggis can to build the stack and then pushing the stack through. I couldn't get the bottom of a can cut off so I decided to use the silicone rings I have for cooking eggs. It worked rather well. I only had mini potatoes so had to do a rustic mash for the top. 

This haggis, neeps and tatties stack is served with a whiskey sauce. I wasn't sure I had Scotch but it turned out I did have a couple small bottles. Neeps and tatties are Scottish slang for turnip and potatoes. The sauce was more like a gravy and consisted of sauteed onions, beef broth, whiskey and cream. It was very good. 

I decided to make this a fancy dinner night so I set my table and got myself dressed for the occasion. I had no tartan to wear so I fashioned a sash to wear with my dress shirt with some pins I got in Scotland set off with a brooch that belonged to my mother. The sash is actually a pashmina that Amawaterways presented to each of the ladies at the end of our river cruise.

Formal but casual

The wine was from Chile, I'm not even sure they make wine in Scotland. I know there are lots of distilleries.  Anyway I thought the name of the wine sounded somewhat Scottish.

 

I also made a Scotch Egg that I had for lunch today. It wasn't bad, I overcooked it as I wasn't sure how you would tell if the meat was cooked all the way through. It was pretty good; someday I'll have to try a real one. They are supposed to be deep fried but the recipe I used was for a baked Scotch Egg.  Mine split at the bottom, perhaps I could have turned it while it cooked. 

Burns has a poem that is somewhat fitting for these pandemic days called A Man's a Man for A' That. The last verse is especially appropriate. 

Then let us pray that come it may,

(As come it will for a' that)

That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,

Shall bear the gree, an a' that.

For a' that, an a' that,

It's coming yet for a' that,

That Man to Man, the world o'er,

Shall brothers be for a' that.

Fire and Ice

Well, not too much to blog about while we're under a Stay-At-Home order especially now that we've gotten more snow and temperatures have dropped.

I've been trying to eat better and not have processed food so I've been finding simple recipes but ones that are still tasty and sometimes even somewhat elegant.  One recipe that I had intended to make while camping last summer was Sambucca Shrimp, but I forgot the shrimp.  I made it again just this month and this time I was ready to video when I flambeed the shrimp.

You can have this as an appetizer with crusty bread or as a meal served over rice or pasta. I'm trying to do low carb meals so I had it over steamed cauliflower.

I'm not a crafty person and other than agility I don't really have any hobbies so keeping busy has been a bit hard and I have to say I've been lacking motivation too. Yesterday, however I came across a blog about ice suncatchers and I thought that's something I could easily do. So I did. I cut a couple tips from the pine swag at the front steps, some berries from the Burning bush out front and gathered some cedar tips that had broken off when we got the heavy snow last week. I went through the plastic bin I have of Christmas decoration from various wreaths and swags and got some fake berries and a piece of ribbon.  All I had to do was put them in a pie plate with a little bit of arrangement, then poured boiling water into the pie plate. A friend had suggested boiling the water so it would be clear; I don't know if it helped or not but it sure made things smell nice. I added bird seed (the black and white bits) at the end, I'm hoping the birds will find them and enjoy it.

The shot glass was an idea to make a hole that I got from a blog about making ice suncatchers. The blog said to use a plastic glass and to weight it down, I thought the shot glass would be heavy enough that I didn't have to weight it down. It wasn't; so when I took it out, I had to chip out the ice underneath to make a hole for the ribbon. I put the whole thing outside overnight to freeze. 

You don't need to grease the pie plate or use plastic wrap, the ice sun catcher will come out of the pie plate. You just need to bring it in where it's warm and let it melt a bit. I had to wait about half an hour before it would come out.

I threaded through the ribbon and then hung it outside so it wouldn't melt while I got dressed this morning.  Then I went out and hung it in a tree where I can see it from my family room. It's so cold today that I couldn't get it as high as I would like it. My fingers were freezing just in the time it took to tie the bow.

This would be quite a fun craft to do with kids, just gather leaves, small evergreen bows, berries, nuts and other things. One blogger used grapes and orange pieces for colour. 

Anyway it was something fun to do, didn't take long, wasn't hard at all and it's pretty to look at.

Stay safe, stay home!

Wordless Wednesday

 

COVID Christmas

Well, I'm sure Christmas 2020 will be one most of us will remember from all the rest.  We were asked once again to reduce our close contacts but single people were permitted to have close contact with one other household so I'm still bubbling with my sister and brother-in-law.

On Christmas Eve, we made two porch visits to drop off gifts to my nephew and neice and their families. We dropped off gifts at my nephew's place just before lunch. After this visit, I went back to my place to get the shrimp chowder started as I was hosting Christmas Eve dinner for the three of us. My sister and brother-in-law came over later in the afternoon to pick me up to go to my niece's place. There we played a ring toss on the antlers game.  

After playing ring toss, we headed back to my place for shrimp chowder, meat pie with salad and lemon tarts for dessert.  Usually my nephew hosts a big family dinner on Christmas Eve with both sides of the family joining in, so this was a quiet dinner but still nice. This was the first time I've made an Acadian meat pie. It didn't taste like my mum's but it was still good.

Christmas morning at my place was pretty much the same as in other years with the dogs opening their gifts. Only Keltic really gets it; I think Liam might figure it our but all he wanted to do was rip paper. Keltic even managed to get into one of the bags of treats. I noticed before he got too many out. 

Christmas Morning - opening gifts

Then it was off to my sister's place for brunch, presents, virtual gift opening and dinner. Quiet without my sister's children and grandchildren but three dogs helped keep things a little lively. We had a lovely brunch with appetizers, eggs, bacon, cranberry orange bread, coffee and Mimosas. Then we opened our socks. We had decided only to do gifts for the boys this year and just stocking stuffers for the adults but some of the stocking stuffer gifts were pretty extravagant. Then we did a virtual gift opening with my neice and her boys. They had put our gifts aside so we got to watch the boys open them. You can see my great nephew opening one of his gifts at the Baby Yoda link below; I had signed it from the dogs.

Our view

The view on the other side.

Opening Baby Yoda

Dinner was great, even though we had just the three of us, there was enough food for an army; even the dogs got to have some Christmas Dinner.

Since it was a crazy COVID Christmas, my sister had decided we should do Ugly Christmas sweaters so we had to take some pictures with our Ugly Christmas sweaters, masks and silly hats.

The last picture is with the napkins my brother in law had picked out. He hadn't realized, when they were folded, that they were a picture of Santa's underwear; my sister noticed right away.  

The evening ended with taking pictures of Liam by the snowmen where we usually try to get a picture of the grandkids.  

It was a quiet Christmas but we still were very blessed with family and good health.  Let's hope that 2021 will be much better and that we can have our family close once again.

Already

Today, it is already a year since I had to let Beckett go, how time flies even when you're not having fun. I chose the song A Thousand Lovers by Lynn Miles when I did one of his videos and the lyrics "But there's nothing in this world tonight that's going to take away my pain" still are true some nights.  The song that really tears at my heart now though is Joni Mitchell's River; it's one of those songs I'd heard before but never really heard the words. The lyrics "I went and lost the best baby I ever had" and "I made my baby say goodbye" really get to me. I know it was for the best to let him go but it's still so hard that I had to make the decision.

Beckett was my first heart dog, who knows maybe he's the last. I needed him and I believe he needed me. I always felt Beckett looked through me to see my heart and soul. It's not that I don't love the others and that it didn't hurt to lose each one of them but I so miss the connection I had with Beckett. It's not the same right now with the others, Keltic I sometimes don't even like even though he is a character, Teddy still feels a little like someone else's dog and Liam hasn't been with me long enough. 

Agility Trial Champion of Canada

Tucker and Beckett

Ceilidh, Tucker and Beckett

I gots your chin, mums. 

Fall photo shoot with Keltic and Beckett

Last photo together - 17 Dec 2019

We had a wonderful life together with so many memories. He was an awesome agility dog despite my limitations as a handler.  Agility Trial Champion of Canada, Silver Versatility, Silver Award of Merit, Finalist at the Canada Cup, Beckett took me farther in agility than I thought possible. He loved to play with me; wish he was playing with me still.