The kitchen at Matthew House has been a busy place even though we haven't been able to house any refugee claimants yet. I've been trying out some new recipes in hopes of incorporating them into the weekly menues. A special thanks to all of you who have sent your favourite recipes my way (Diana, that Kickin' Chicken was a big hit with the whole family!). 
In addition to mealtime dishes, I decided to try my hand at canning jam and salsa as well. My dear friend, Heidi, came for a visit and we diced tomatoes and hot peppers until our fingers burned (and kept burning well into the evening). The jam was a modification of SouleMama's Strawberry Rhubarb Jam. I say modification because I had roughly twice as many strawberries, the right amount of rhubarb and not nearly enough sugar. I actually had to re-can it the following day after adding more sugar and pectin. The salsa I ended up re-canning as well. It didn't turn out as hot as we thought it would be since we seeded the peppers. I added some more red tomatoes, some red hot peppers and a few jalapenos (with their seeds) and a bit more of a secret ingredient along with cayenne. It is apparently very good and hot. I won't dare taste it, but Keith is quite pleased :)
I've also been on a bread-baking kick which has the family eating a lot more white bread than is healthy. We ran out of bread the other day and so I whipped up a batch of white bread, since we only had white flour in the house. Yesterday we started into the second loaf so I made another couple of large loaves along with a mini herb and cheese loaf and another cinnamon sugar loaf. Yum.
Raspberry Lemon loaf and Pumpkin loaf have also been churned out in the kitchen along with Sheila's Pudding - my favourite Jamie Oliver recipe. Seriously, with hot custard it is nirvana. We went Pumpkin picking on the weekend (material for another post) so next on my baking to-do list is making the Keither his pumpkin pie.
On the craftier side of things - I've had three sweaters, one leg warmer and a pair of mittens come of the needles in the last month (it took much longer to knit the sweaters). I've also completed the 3 pairs of Christmas Eve pajama bottoms for the kidlets and 5 log cabin squares for my mom's Christmas present. I'm working on a couple of things for baby shower gifts (both due around Christmas) as well. There has been a whole lot of crafty-goodness going on here!
In the midst of all of this though, I tend to get focussed and serious and my long-suffering husband gets a bit neglected because he isn't being wrapped up (or put into a reusable, homemade cloth Christmas bag..oh brother, somebody stop me!) and put under a tree in three months. He is quite understanding about all of this, but occasionally offers me gentle reminders about the importance of putting down the knitting and being silly with him from time to time. Maybe those cloth Christmas bags can wait until next year. :)
