One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure

Greetings on this fine fall day! It's a holiday here today, so the city is quiet and our morning has been slow going.

Today I thought I'd show you some things I have recently found put out to the trash by others.Here in Toronto we are required to put our trash out in big plastic garbage bins which you can't see through or into, so often if someone has something they no longer want but that might be of interest to somebody else, they set these items out near the street, separate from their regular trash, to be picked up by someone who wants them. Sometimes they will stick a sign on the goods stating that they're up for grabs. If the things don't get picked up before the garbage day, they end up going to the dump. But usually anything with some life left in it gets picked up.In fact, recently I saw a nice little wooden shelving unit put out, that would have been perfect for storing our shoes at the front door. I was on my way to the store when I saw it, thinking to myself that I'd grab it on my way home. Not! Someone else also thought it was quite nice and nabbed it before I got back for it.But this story is not about the things that got away, but about the things that have made it to our home. The most beloved being the wooden and cast-iron bench that Nick found four years ago. Before I proceed with the other things, I want to dwell on it a bit.I hope you believe me when I say that this bench and our yard were meant to be together. After doing some work in the garden one spring day, I had a sudden urge for a nice bench to put in our yard. I had gotten everything looking quite pretty and thought it would be lovely and romantic to have a bench to sit on out there, to enjoy the view. I mentioned this to Nick and we had a conversation about where one would get a good one. We didn't want something light and utilitarian that we could find at the Home Depot or IKEA ... really what we wanted was a real park bench, and we wondered where they came from. The conversation ended with me saying that I would call the city parks department to see if they could give us some insight into where be could find a good durable bench.Then, the very next day (honestly), I was upstairs when Nick called up to me for a bit of help outside. Lo and behold, he was trying to get this extremely heavy cast-iron bench into our yard. He had come upon it put out by someone who amazingly didn't want it anymore, and had carried it all the way down the street by himself.

Eddie Likes His Thanksgiving Dinner

It is Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend. Eddie thinks this is grand. He usually eats a special kibble which he likes ok, but what he really craves is Thanksgiving Dinner.

Food Friday : Pumpkin Soup

Hi! I know that at this time of year you have recipes for pumpkin stuff coming from all sides but I'm going to throw ours for 'Pumpkin Soup' into the pot (hehe) (a) because it's tasty, (b) because it was made with roasted pumpkin pulp from fresh pumpkins that we prepared last fall and had in our freezer, and (c) because it seems very rich and decadent but is quite low in fat.

Our fresh cooking pumpkins are not quite ready yet here in Canada, but we had one last bag of fresh-frozen pumpkin pulp that we prepared last fall. I don't mind canned pumpkin but after Nick introduced me to 'real' home roasted pumpkin, I am sold that it tastes quite a bit better. It's more work yes, but the extra delicious flavor is worth it. Plus you only have to do it once a year and then you have fresh (frozen) pumpkin all year long. I've included a slideshow below of when we made some.

[Update : If you're interested in roasting and freezing your own pumpkin puree there's a post about it here.]

↑ That's a slide show ↑

Anyway, use fresh pumpkin pulp or canned for this recipe. The other 'magic' ingredient that we used in this soup that we have just discovered makes a really nice creamy tasting soup, but is low in fat, is Evaporated milk. This is regular cow's milk with 60 percent of the water removed. We bought a can by mistake when making Key Lime Pie a little while ago, when we meant to be buying Sweet Condensed Milk. So we had this can in the pantry and I'll admit that I was a doubter when Nick suggested using it to make soup, but it truly does make a soup that is a lovely texture. Since we discovered it, we have had this pumpkin soup, leek and potato, and cauliflower soups, that I would precede with "Cream of ..." but there was no cream in them. But really, if I didn't know otherwise I would definitely have thought there was. And who wants the extra fat and cholesterol if you don't need it, right?! To give you a feel of how much lower in fat it is, 1 tablespoon Evaporated Milk = 1gram of fat, Light Cream (aka coffee cream) = 2grams, Whipping Cream = 5grams, and Heavy Cream (the type usually used in cream soups) = 6grams of saturated fat.