Freezing rain

12/23/2011

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I attempted to capture the freezing rain on the trees outside our apartment from our porch the other night.  Danny and I had taken our time walking home from dinner with friends to enjoy the icicle scene.  It was really beautiful.  But once I got home there was no way I was going to brave the ice sidewalks again in order to get better light.
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Nancy's shortbread

12/23/2011

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_
Nancy's Shortbread
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 sugar
1 cup butter

Cream butter and sugar.  Sift in flour.  Knead well. 
Roll into logs and cover with wax paper.  Refrigerate for 3 hours.
Cut cookie from roll (1/4" - 1/2" thick). 

The recipe says bake @325 for 15-20 min, but mine took about 30 min before I saw a little bit of browning which is how I like it.

For these I also added raspberry jam by pressing the ball of a teaspoon into the tops of the cookie dough and placing a small dollop of jam on top before putting them in the oven.

This Christmas season I've received a number of cards in the mail from my mom containing family holiday recipes; pretty special.  One of them was my great aunt Nancy's shortbread.  I tend to assume that anything as good aunt Nancy's shortbread is probably really hard to make well, but this recipe is quite possibly the simplest recipe ever with only three ingredients: butter, sugar and flour.  And so delicious;  Crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside (with or without jam on top).  With that said butter is the main ingredient, so since I don't have any will-power when it comes to treats there has been a lot of tummy aches and heartburn around the house lately ;)

Also a lot of scenes that look like this:
Me, as I walk into the room to present Danny with my first ever batch of fresh baked shortbread: (in a sing-song voice) "I know how to make shortbread!"

Danny: (echoing my tune) "I hope you like man-boobs"


Happy Holidays,
xoJanna
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new explorations into printing

12/15/2011

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evidence of past
captures imagination.
Watercoloury.

-
xj

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Groovy Boots at St.Henri station

12/14/2011

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I did this stop-motion thingy just because it's fun and I'd never done one before.  Sadly before I was able to do some really fun things with it I was asked to stop by a metro driver since apparently you are not allowed to take photos or video in the metro since 1999 (so he said.  I haven't Googled it).  It's really too bad since I really love some of those stations.  I've done work in them before and had hoped to do more. 

St. Henri station has a great mix of lime green, flouro yellow and turquoise brick.  Love it.
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12/04/2011

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Picture
photo: Annalie Young
My dear friend Annalie Young who is a very talented photographer maintains a blog here where she showcases her work; wedding, personal as well as some really great creative stuff (well, it's all creative), like this week's advent calendar which she made herself from her personal stash of origami paper.  I love that her blog is full of beautiful images of varying nature, all of which belong to her.  Right now my fave is this diptych of a cow she met in the Netherlands at the beginning of the year. 
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12/03/2011

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My mom asked me to post pictures of our cat Lily, but I refuse to be one of those people who puts their pets on their blog (Isn't she cute though).  Until now,  but only because she is has found her new favourite place in my Anchor/Cradle outside on the porch where it will live all winter.  As you may be able to tell rusting has begun to occur on the metal and a little on the fabric already :)
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