The Geo-Centre and Bowring Park

Aug25

Since Evie loves rocks we decided to take her to the Geo-Centre on Signal Hill. Just out side are two nice statues of a Newfoundland Dog and a Labrador.

There are a few different areas inside, but today we stayed with the rocks and saw the Titanic exhibit. There are alot of artifacts in this exhibit and it was quite interesting to see these.

passenger summary

Third class menu, there is gruel on the menu, must have been popular

The distress call

there were alot of other artifacts too, soap, dishes and cutlery, a piece of the floor block from the engine room. I took many pictures, too many to post.

Evie really enjoyed the rock exhibits, I will spare you a plethora of rock pictures. We also took a walk through Bowring Park to see the swans and the beautiful statue of Peter Pan.

This is the end of our vacation. We will be back to posting recipes and getting ready for back to school.

Quidi Vidi Brewing

Aug24

On our last day in St. John’s we visited Quidi Vidi Brewing.

They give both brewery tours and tasting. Our schedule only gave time for the tasting, which took about an hour. Ray wanted to try the British IPA, he had already had an Iceberg the night before and it was really nice.

You cannot get this beer off the island as they are at full capacity to supply the local market and do not export.

The tasting includes a talk about both history and the brewery and a generous tasting of 6 beers. It was interesting and well worth the $15.

The iceberg beer is very pure, they get the iceberg water from iceberg alley on the Northern Penninsula of the island. Apparently, the U.S. weather network has a reality show about the iceberg hunters who help get the water. If the berg is to big they actually shoot it with a rifle to break off small bits that can be harvested for the water.

After the brewery I wanted a snack. Well actually I was a little desperate for another treat that I cannot find off the island, Snack & Half ice cream. These are so good.

The Happy Hummus Hut

Aug24

We were out and about in St. John’s and came across The Happy Hummus Hut on Duckworth Street.

We thought it looked interesting, and it wasn’t here before and Evie loves hummus. The menu looked good, they even have a chocolate hummus with apples for dipping. After walking we needed a snack so we ordered the hummus dipper, and Evie wanted the infused water because it was cucumber and she loves cucumber. The staff were really nice, super nice! When she brought our food she told Evie that she added cucumber also because she knew she really liked them.

This only cost $6, and it was alot of hummus, gluten free crackers, baby carrots and she added the cucumber. The hummus was really good, good texture and tasty. It was a hit. I hope this place is still there on our next visit, we will definitely be going there for lunch and snacks.

Our walk out and about we found some more foodie treats, some old favourites. These are Purity candy, Peppermint Nobs

my poison, Tunnock’s tea cakes and snowballs in one case, I pack these in containers to put in my luggage. If I can find them at home they are easily double the price I pay in Newfoundland

and some new

Haggis crisps, that is unique. We found quite a few things to buy at Fat Nanny’s Groceries, YUMMY!

Lunch on Breadmaking Day – Toutons

Aug20

On breadmaking day in Newfoundland lunch is served with toutons, if you are lucky. The morning that we were preparing to go to St. Johns, Mom was making bread. I snagged some of the dough to fry up for toutons (pronounced taotins). It is white bread dough, after it has risen, pulled into a small disk shaped and fried in melted butter. Traditionally served with a drizzle of molasses.

We also had salt fish cakes with mustard pickles.

After lunch we headed to the city. St. John’s downtown area is well known for its very colourful row houses.

We needed a latte and went to Fixed Coffee and Baking on Duckworth St.,

it was a really good latte, complete with pretty design in the foam, and they have awesome chocolate chip cookies!

We have also had their bagels for breakfast. I love a good bagel and their’s was sooo good, a crisp crusty outside and dense and chewy on the inside. I wish I had one tomorrow for breakfast!

If you are in St. John’s I would recommend a visit to Fixed Coffee and Baking.

A few pictures in Newfoundland

Aug12

We are heading into the city for a few days before heading back home. I am not sure I will have computer access so I am just going to post a few random pictures here that we took over the past week.

Lobster traps……mmmm Lobster!

A lock box found in a cave in this small town. Located at the Wooden Boat Building Museum.

Old fashion Newfoundland kitchen. See the gray thing on the stove door, that is a beach rock inside a knitted bag. Back in the old days people heated beach rocks in the wood fired stove in the evening and then put them in their beds at night to warm it up and keep them warm, there was no heating and the stove heated as much of the house as it could.

Wash day.

Tea time.

Jellyfish, look at that clear water.

Evie with Amelia Earhart

Amelia Earhart memorial in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, Canada

The Kyle, also in Harbour Grace, picture taken from the Amelia Earhart memorial

They drink/use a lot of carnation in Newfoundland. This is actually an old barrel that is being used as a garbage can, painted to look a little nicer!

We are heading to St. John’s for a few days.

Wild Blueberry Cake with Brown Sugar Sauce

Aug12

We went to pick some blueberries, they just grow on a little hill right next to the house. We probably picked about 4 cups, the blueberries here are wild and plentiful, extra sweet and tasty too. We wanted to make something out of them, but not muffins. We chose this recipe because I haven’t had it in a long time and Evie really likes it. This is a traditional Newfoundland recipe.

we used about 1 and 1/2cups blueberries

mix together 1/4 cup butter and 1/2 cup sugar

add 1 egg and mix then add about 1 to 1 and 1/2 cups of flour, 1 tsp baking powder and mix until combined

add milk (about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup) while mixing so it is thick and creamy like cake batter.

then add the blueberries and fold in

then place in an 8 inch square baking pan and bake at 350F for 35 to 40 minutes until dark golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean

While the cake is baking you can make the brown sugar sauce.

place 2 tbsp butter melted and 2 tbsp flour in a small pot and whisk while heating

Whisk in 1 cup brown sugar (it will be dry and thick)

then add 1 cup of boiling water and 1 tsp vanilla whisking and heating bring to boil and whisk until it thickens to a syrupy brown sauce

Serve the warm sauce drizzled over a piece of the cake

Hiking D’Iberville Trail

Aug11

This morning we got up early to get a small hike in before the rain came. This area is in a small town in Newfoundland and the trail runs along the side of a large hill that spans between two communities. At the start of the trail is an old sod cellar, these were (some still are) used to keep vegetable over the winter. The trail follows some mysterious rock formations, which appears to be old rock walls and houses. When these were found archaeologists visited but were unsure because they haven’t seen these type of formations and not sure why they are in this location and the “wall” is in a strange place and why would it be there. They did find a distinct house formation. There is also a lot of small pottery pieces in the ground around there which they dated from the 1700s. We found some small pottery pieces just walking the main trail. I think if this was excavated they would find a lot as they has been 300 years of erosion and overgrowth to hide what is actually there. I think this was a small fishing village that was colonized as to what happened after that who knows. There are also a lot of caves around there that have grown over, we saw a few. It was always rumored, when my Dad was a kid, that Beothuk Indians used to live around in those hills on that point of land. There was also talk of pirates and one particular one who this trail is named after. If we were brave enough to go in one of those caves maybe we might have found pirate treasure…not brave enough. There are also a lot of pretty brightly coloured mushrooms growing in the dark moist environment. Dad said in the fall some of these are really nice pink and blue colours. We picked a few handfuls of blueberries along the way. We saw a big Loon just floating on the water, every few minutes it would stick its head underwater and then come back up.

Cod Fishing

Aug9

We went cod fishing, jigging , with friends. It was a lot of fun, we caught 15 fish. Evie caught one of those and was very excited to get it. We also saw lots of seagulls and some puffins. We saw some jellyfish too.

Arrived in Newfoundland…a little late

Aug9

We left on Tuesday afternoon to catch our flight, everything was going fine until we boarded the plane, then a power surge blew the computer and the navigational software was lost, over 2 hours later we took off, but missed our connecting flight. We ended up landing in St. John’s at 4am. Evie was a trooper slept on the plane then went back to bed at 4:30am and woke up ready to go at 8am. After a small breakfast and a visit with her cousin we went to get her “Kitty Cat Pizza”, she has been waiting almost 3 years to have this pizza again. Raye and I had “East Coast Donairs”. This isn’t our favourite place for donairs, but our old university haunts will be visited when we are back in the city.

We made it “around the bay” mid afternoon and then we has fresh cod and chips for supper. My Mom’s batter recipe is below also. After all of that eating we had to go for a walk and picked a few handfuls of blueberries. The next day was going to be busy we had a local museum to visit, going jigging for cod, and supper at Nan’s.

fish dipped in flour before dredging in the batter.

Old time village

Aug6

On Sunday we went to visit Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg, Ontario, Canada (www.uppercanadavillage.com). Evie LOVES this place. We have been here with her before, but this year she has been asking to go back before the winter was over. We have been reading Little House on the Prairie together. She is just learning to read so this is our bedtime reading, each night we read a chapter. We are only on the third book in the series, but it has been fascinating for her to learn how they had to do and make everything themselves. Upper Canada Village is the village as it was settled in the 1800s, it is very accurate as it is a World Heritage Site. She really liked the animals and gardens, seeing the girls in calico dresses just like Laura and Mary.

The lady in the picture was making toast to use to make vinegar. She was a very nice lady on the tenant farm. Evie’s attention was completely captured in this little house. The lady explained to her that she was making the toast to use in making her own vinegar to use for canning, it would take 6 weeks and she explained exactly what she was going to do.

She told us that she was using white sugar to make this vinegar normally she made molasses vinegar because white sugar was too expensive at 6cents a pound. However, that ladies in the village told her that she could not win a prize for her preserves in the fall fair using molasses vinegar, so she was making this one. I think that was Evie’s favourite part of the day. Now she wants to make vinegar, but we are not doing that, maybe we will ferment something instead.

Then at the hotel and tavern her Dad bought her a sarsaparilla, it was really good.

The village also has a mill which mills the flour that is delivered to the bakery where they bake fresh bread daily, you can buy that in the gift store along with the cheese made from the cow’s milk. It is both very good.

They also have a woollen factory showing in detail the old process for making yarn. There is dirty sheep wool that has just been shorn, washed wool ready for use then the area where they spin, dye and win

d it into skeins. This was a cool process to see since I am just starting a sweater for Evie with yarn that is in skeins and we are hand winding it into balls.

This afternoon we are leaving for two weeks in Newfoundland (www.newfoundlandlabrador.com). We have lots of adventures planned, there will be a lot of food. Evie has planned cooking with her great-grandmother and a great-aunt. There may be some fishing and berry picking. Both my husband and I grew up on this island so there is alot of food that you can only get there that we cannot wait to eat. I think I will probably put on about 10 lbs!

cookswithevie

our adventures cooking … and other fun stuff

Monthly Archives: August 2013