2016 The International Year of Pulses

"Pulses are part of the legume family, but the term “pulse” refers only to the dried seed. Dried peas, edible beans, lentils and chickpeas are the most common varieties of pulses."

(credit to: Pulse Canada dot com for the above quote)

I stumbled upon this as I have been picking up my neighbours newspaper while they have been away.  It's The Globe and Mail, a bit too highbrow for me, but it has a Sudoku, so I am not going to turn it down, as I love doing the Sudoku's; keep's the brain ticking over.

Anyhoo, I digress.  In Wednesday's paper there was an article about this "newest" food trend.  I read the article with interest, as I don't mind pulses; I don't use them much but with the price of food increasing by the second they are a good cheap alternate to some other foods.  Plus they are good for you.  It also helps that The UN had declared 2016 The International Year of the Pulses.

Not only is there an article in the Globe and Mail, but CBC News has it's own article here.  Canadian Chef Michael Smith is spearheading the campaign, at least in Canada, for us all to eat more pulses, and there is even a website for us to sign up to pledge we will eat half a cup of pulses per week for ten weeks. www.pulsepledge.com    I must say after looking around the site there are some yummy recipes on there that pretty easy to make.  One of my favourites and one I think I may make next week was Bean Lasagna.

If you have just over six minutes to spare you may want to listen to this recording of Chef Michael Smith talking about how good pulses are for you.

A couple of facts about pulses:

Pulses have twice as much protein as whole grains such as wheat, barley or rice. 

Pulses are high in fibre, which helps decrease and control cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

Pulses are also high in B-vitamins, and key minerals including iron, potassium, magnesium and zinc.

I have posted a couple recipes over the years on my blog that include pulses.  One of my favourites is Lentil Stew.  Not only is it vegetarian it is also vegan. 

Then there is my "famous" Baked Bean Lasagna  This was one of the first recipes I posted back in 2008, when I first started my blog.  Mark's and Spencer recipe that I have been making for years.

I also posted a 50 + 1 recipes for Chickpeas here, I do not know if all the links work though.

Plus a 50 + 1 recipe for Kidney Beans.  Now when I do my menu plan for next week, I am going to include at least one meal that has some sort of pulse in it.

Do you eat a lot of pulses in your house?

All about groceries, deals and food prices.......

Had to go into town and run some errands, plus go to my quilt club.

Called into a couple of places on my travels and picked up some grocery items.  I signed up on the Gay Lea website for their newsletter and I got a $2 off coupon for sour cream and a free product coupon for their squirty cream, so sign up as you may get one also.

I called into Sobeys as they had mushrooms on sale for 99 cents per 8oz package.  The sour cream was on sale for $1.99 a tub, so with the $2 coupon it was free.  Not sure if you can see on the package of cereal but there is a mail in offer for a $5 gas car, and that was on sale for $3.97.  Local new potatoes were on for $2.99 for 10 lbs.  The lunch meat was on for $1.99 for 500 grams.

All in all paid $10.92 for that; had $2 in coupon savings and earned 12 Sobey's points.

When I was in Cookstown I called in at Foodland to pick up a couple of things.  I had the free product coupon for the squirty cream so saved $3.99 there.  The Kraft Romano grated cheese was $6.99, but I had a $1 off coupon for that as well.  The liver was $2.36 and I plan on making liver casserole, that's why I bought the mushrooms.  I am a HUGE fan of black licorice and that was $2.49.  Foodland has a great deal on at the moment.  If you print out this coupon when you spend $10 at Foodland you can get a package of kabobs up to $8 for free.  I spent a total of $11.16, and had coupon savings of $11.86.

This is an interesting article:

Canadian consumers cope with dramatic increase in food prices.

"Inside an east-end No Frills around dinner time, customers are lining up with coupons and grocery carts full of discounted items.

But, these days, discount shopping isn’t necessarily enough to keep grocery bills low.
The price of food in Canada is steadily on the rise. The cost of basic staples such as bread, meat and eggs is increasing at a relatively rapid rate.

A recently-released report by Statistics Canada which looked at Canadian food prices between 2007-2012, found prices rose nearly twice the rate of the Consumer Price Index.

“The report showed that prices have increased at a cumulative rate of 19% over the last five years,” said Mark Brown, from the federal agency’s economic analysis division."

The rest of the article is here.  No wonder we are all struggling.

Where did the long weekend go to?

One minute it was Saturday morning, and now here I am writing this on Monday night.


As always I had a list a mile long that I wanted to get done this weekend, and as always some things didn't get crossed off the list.  Still we made a dint in the list.  Dh's job was to finished mudding and sanding the drywall in the closets, and he got that accomplished.  It was a horrible job as the closets aren't the biggest of rooms, so quite claustrophobic and very hot in there.  A job when all completed will be so worth it.  I now need to undercoat/prime them to see if there are any imperfections that need sorting out before I paint them. Mind you I have to strip some paint off a door frame; I didn't realize it was painted, and sand and varnish the floors, so we are still a bit away from finishing them.


I got all the grass cut.....YEAH!!!  I even got some whipper snipping done; then I lost the ends again and didn't dare ask dh to sort it all out for me........AGAIN!!  I got some raspberries picked and frozen.  I have enough now to make some jam.  Goodness knows when that will be though as I have a lot of other things to do first.


We did get errands ran in between hands, so it wasn't all work all weekend.  No housework done though, other than a load of laundry and hoovering up downstairs.  Again I'll no doubt get to the housework later on in the week.


I have to work on Tuesday.  I don't know how people work outside of the house and try and look after five acres and everything else?  If you own an acreage and work outside of the house, can you let me know how you do it all?  Dh works hard at work and does all the renovations, so looking after the housework, all the cooking and cleaning and all the outside garden work is my job.  I have found it hard this time working as well.


I picked up a copy of the September/October Hobby Farm Home magazine the other day.  Check out the website if you have a moment.  I saw this recipe on there for Crockpot Potato Soup, that I think I may make sometime.


Also do you think we are in for a cold winter?  The trees and bushes are covered in fruit and berries this year, which I always think is an indication of a long hard winter.

This Mountain Ash tree is covered in berries.

I noticed that they are harvesting the field opposite us..........Fall is heading our way!!!

The new header photo is of a Coconut Lime Echinacea flower I have in the garden.

Buy, Buy American Pie

As usual I can't do the embeded verison of this Youtube video, so you will have to click on this link  I first saw this on Caroline's blog, which is sort of funny as she is Australian........I would have thought it would have done the rounds of the American blogs, but I haven't seen it on anyone's?


I have to agree with a lot of what the video says, as we have had one recall after another here in Canada with goods from China.

Another busy day around the acreage on Friday.  Dh was busy in his closet.  As with everything in this house even the smallest of jobs take forever to do.   His poor finger is red raw, it's going to take a while for it to mend.

It was a lovely day on Friday and I managed to get two big loads of laundry washed, dried and ironed.  I also trimmed some more trees, so the firepit is overflowing again.  It was just too windy to start a fire on Friday, so it will have to wait until next week.

I even got around to visiting some blogs on Friday......finally.  I miss visiting everyone.  Only a few more months before things slow down in the garden!!  Here are some neat sites that I hope you have time to visit.

The Lemon Lady collects food and produce for the local food banks; plus she has a lot of useful links on her blog.

This is a neat thing called Seedballz that are hand rolled by people with disabilities.

 For those of you in Britain, I saw this site in the June issue of Prima Magazine.  It's called Approved Foods, and is a discount site that sells produts that are past their "best before dates," but obviously still fine to eat, as well as discontinued and trial lines and food in older packaging.

A question for you..........

When we were out and about on Saturday we saw a number of cars and trucks with Chirstmas Trees tied to them, "real" Christmas trees not artificial ones. Now me and dh were saying we thought it was a tad too soon for people to put up a real Christmas tree, as its still a month away.


So for those of you who put up a real Christmas tree, when do you generally put it up?


We have an artificial Christmas tree so can put it up whenever. I put up our tree on Saturday night, as Saturday night is hockey night and I don't like hockey, so figured I would do something useful!!  I still have the rest of the house to decorate, I'll do that through the week.

Dd went to The One of a Kind Show in Toronto on Saturday with her friend and she said there were a lot of lovely things there. Some were expensive though, but some things were well priced. She bought a hat from this lady for a friend for Christmas.  She bought this hat for someone else for Christmas.  This lady, she went to school with up to Grade 5.  We were trying to figure out the name of this type of paper art, but couldn't remember it, click on the cards to see the detail.

Reading........Country Living and Homesteading

I finished the book "Made from Scratch; Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life," by Jenna Woginrich.

I enjoyed the book, it was full of experiences that Jenna has had and the mistakes she made, and the trials and tribulations she had, for example, having to kill/shoot one of her rabbits, not something I would have wanted to do either. She writes in a way that makes it easy for you to read. Would I buy the book, no, only because I tend to only read books once, unless they are a reference book; however I would recommend you borrow it from the library and read it, as it is enjoyable.

One of the things she does do is have a section at the back of her book for links and books that she does recommend that would be useful in various aspects of your life.

Jenna has a blog called Cold Antler Farm it's worthwhile popping by to see what she's up too now.

Some books she recommends are: "The Contrary Farmer," by Gene Logsdon

"Better Off," by Eric Brende I have read this book and I really enjoyed it.....

"Encyclopedia of Country Living," by Carla Emery

"MaryJane's Idea Book," by MaryJane Butters (that link covers all MaryJane Butters publications)

"Hit by a Farm," by Catherine Friend

"Storey's Basic Country Skills," by John and Martha Storey

"The Good Life," by Scott Nearing this book got a lot of harsh reviews?

"Barnyard in Your Backyard," by Gail Damerow

"Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens," by Gail Damerow

"Chicken Coops," by Judy Pangman

"Sew What! Skirts," by Francesca DenHartog and Carole Ann Camp

"Sew What! Fleece," by Carol Jessop and Chaila Sekora


She also recommends a number of websites, including;

Urban Homesteading

How To Homestead

Homegrown Evolution

Lehman's I have looked at this online store a number of times and found neat things, just never ordered from them.

Green People no not people from another planet...

Home Power alternative energy ideas and resources

This is a great site for books on Appalachian cooking, music and lifestyle, don't be put off by the title, Native Ground Music

Local Harvest is a site that is mainly for the Sates, but does have some Canadian content on it, and is worth a look at.

There are many more links, recommendations and information at the end of the book, but these are ones that jumped out too me. If you have any favourites that you'd care to share please let me know...........