Greek Dinner Revisited

Hi friends,

I don't know about you but when it is very hot outside I find it difficult to know what to eat. Only a few things appeal to me. Greek foods seem to agree with me well in this heat. You might remember I made a Greek dinner a few weeks ago.  It was time for another one.

This time I cooked the potatoes extra long to make sure they were brown. In my oven that takes awhile.

You can find the recipe here 

I skipped the oregano spice but made sure to put lots of garlic, lemon juice and oil. 

I didn't feel like making kebabs or souvlaki so cubed the pork, marinated it and put it on my indoor grill. It is so quick to cook but you need a bit of time for the marinade to work.

Frugal Tip: Purchase a full boneless pork loin roast and slice into pork chops as well as pork cubes for stir fry, kebabs and marinated cubes (as in photo below). I was able to get a full side of pork loin roast on sale for only $12.  It was a fabulously frugal way to get some nice dinners.

Here is a recipe. Again I skipped the oregano. I do like oregano but I am out of it at the  moment.

I also made some Greek Tzadziki (Cucumber) Sauce. I didn't have thick yogurt on hand so I strained the whey out of some before I used it. I found it was much runnier (thinner consistency) than last time even though I drained a lot of whey from the yogurt and water from the cucumbers too. You can avoid that problem by buying thicker yogurt or straining yours longer.  I decided to thicken up the sauce by adding a bit of ground up flax seeds.  This not only made it the right consistency but gave me some needed fibre. It didn't affect the taste either.  Here is a recipe for the sauce (minus the flax seeds).

Frugal Tip:  Purchase plain yogurt on sale and strain the whey out using a thin cloth. You can make it to your preferred consistency and save on cost of buying more expensive Greek yogurt.

To round out the meal there was some toasted pita bread and leftover green salad from the previous night's dinner. A few cherries for dessert. I love cherries and eat a lot of them during their brief season.

Frugal Tips:  There can be a tremendous gap in pricing at local food markets for fruits in season. Shop around. Prices in my neighbourhood range anywhere from $2.49 per pound to $9.99 per pound for cherries. One week a local grocer might have them on at the highest cost but the next week their cost is lowest. You can save a lot of money just by being willing to go a few blocks more for your treats.  Another tip is to purchase flax seeds whole and grind them yourself as needed. Store both the bag of whole seeds and the ground up seeds in the fridge to keep it from going rancid so quickly due to the oil in the seeds.

As you know I've been mentioning the excessive heat for long but in anticipation of some small rain we are having, it cooled off on Friday and Saturday. 

The predicted rain arrived on Saturday but there wasn't a lot of it.
Thunder and lightening storms are predicted for the rest of the province and the fear is the lightening will cause more wild fires.
We already have over 200 fires burning and the cost to the treasury is now in excess of 100 Million Dollars (Canadian).

Sunday (June 11th) called for a bit more rain. It did come down a bit but not a whole lot.

Here is a photo I took on Saturday morning.

The sky is very dark with a combination of smoke and rain clouds.

Today is Monday and we have a lot of blue in the skies for the first time in a week. The sun is also out in full force and there are a few clouds in the sky.
I may add today's pic later but right now am preparing to green my niece who will arrive within the hour.



Thank you for sharing my world with me.
Joining in with Our World Tuesday

I hope you visit again soon.

xx

Saturday's Critters

Hello friends,

I'm joining up with Eileen at Saturday's Critters today. Stop by and see all the other fabulous creatures featured there. Have a wonderful Saturday!

This is a resident Salmon Crested Cockatoo at the Bloedel Conservatory located in the Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada.

Entrance to the Blodel Conservatory

A cockatoo is a type of parrot. See the distribution of the cockatoo in the image below.

Image credit:  Wikipedia

As you can see in the first photo, the cockatoo was at rest and  and very placid. I got several photos of him staring at me intently.

A few minutes later he was squawking loudly and putting on quite the show.

 I think he enjoyed an audience of more than one. Either that or one of the children agitated him.

In any case, it was fun to see the bird in action. I wasn't quick enough to capture it hanging upside down on the branches with feathers puffed out.

My Little Garden

My little garden has been subjected to a lot of heat so the flowers aren't doing quite so well. I water them it but haven't much energy in this heat to really spend time deadheading. Pansies don't do so well in excessive heat and they do need regular deadheading. All the other flowers are also struggling. My anemones which I thought were going to do very well bloomed early and promptly died.

The loops got into the cabbages and the beets but I still haven't caught any of them. There seem to be a lot of ants this year too. My little cherry tomatoes are now starting to ripen but the romaine lettuce is so-so. Good thing I don't really grow the garden for food. At this point, I am experimenting to see what will grow but hope soon that I can actually grow a bit for food needs. The only food I expect to harvest from my garden are the cherry tomatoes and the hot peppers.

The cherry tomotoes should be ripe and ready to use soon.

This busy bee was so excited flitting from plant. It really didn't know where to land but kept coming back to this red geranium. 

I've had a particular species of  butterfly come by daily too but I'm afraid I don't know the name. It is a simple, pale yellow coloured butterfly.  But the birds who used to like to splash at the bird bath, haven't been around. I'm guessing they too like the shade. Plus with all the smoke around, I think it would be hard on their little lungs. At least it looks as if my garden is feeding the butterflies and the bees, if not the humans and the birds.

Thank you for your visit.

I've got some treats lined up in the next few posts so I hope you will drop by again soon.
 

Enjoy the rest of your week!
xx

Birthdays & Fireworks

Hello friends,

I trust those of you in Canada and USA had a wonderful July 1st and July 4th respectively. It is wonderful to celebrate birthdays.  Canada is now 148 years old and USA is 239 years old.

Those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile know I love fireworks.

On July 1st Canada Day I was able to watch fireworks from my patio. Though I don't have the best view I did manage to see some good bursts of colour and I did not have to deal with trying to make my way along with thousands of other people to get home after the display ended.

A few nights later, I captured a fantastic fireworks display on television. Seattle had a fabulous display of lights and I had a front row seat on my sofa.

 

This year the Honda Celebration of Light will celebrate 25 years of free fireworks in Vancouver.  Here is a little promo for the event that will be held July 25, 29 and August 1st. This is a fireworks competition and this year's competitors are: China, Brazil and Canada.  I don't watch every year but whenever I have, it has been thoroughly enjoyable.

To My American Friends

Night Skies Around Vancouver

These night sky photos were taken hurriedly as "drive bys" or "walking bys" in various degrees of night sky.

The first 3 photos were taken on the Lion's Gate Bridge connecting Stanley Park in Vancouver with North Vancouver and West Vancouver.

This next photo was taken from the Salmon House on the Hill restaurant in West Vancouver where a few of us gathered to celebrate my nephew's graduation from university.

A photo of the graduate and his girlfriend who also graduated but on an earlier day in the week.

Both of them will commence their master's level studies in their respective fields come September and are now on much deserved holiday.

Church in the 'hood. Photo taken with cell phone in late evening.

Joining with Skywatch Friday. Have a look at the beautiful skies from around the world.

Thank you for visiting my sky post.
Have a wonderful weekend!

Wild About Colour

As I've mentioned a few times already the weather in this part of the world has been very unusual. I think that is true the world over these days. In Kericho, Kenya where I do missions work, they have been having so much rain and that is also unusual at this time of year. One of the things I've always loved about Kericho is the temperate climate. It rains virtually every day but outside of rainy season it is just enough to make everything fresh and new and then the sun comes out.  It can get quite hot for a Canadian girl like me but nothing like the dry, arid areas of the north and south.

I'm mentioning the weather again because we've had a spell of hot days. It was supposed to rain or cool off for a few days but I don't remember it really doing so.  Too much rain or too much heat is not good for my little garden which is very fragile.

I go out to water the garden late at night and try and soak the ground but there are still so many very sandy patches despite all my efforts over years to enrich the soil. It makes it rather difficult to grow things. I have better luck with growing things in containers but I keep trying to grow something edible or pretty in the small patch of land I call my garden.

Here is what the garden is growing right now.  These photos were taken at night so aren't as clear as they might be. All the drops of water on petals are from the hose. Not the sky.

Cherry tomatoes are coming up. Cabbage in back.

The leaves still show hail damage from a few weeks ago but the plant is growing well.

I love this tree but it sheds so much throughout the year. It is responsible for a lot of my time in the garden.

Thank you for stopping by. I'm joining in with Our World Tuesday this week.