Arc France Mason Jar with Label

I found this lovely old Triomphe bail top jar by Arc, made in France. It was priced at a quarter by the lovely volunteers at a hospital thrift that I popped in to.

It still has the original label! It sort of pained me to scrub it off, but at least I can share some photos with you.

The wire clasp is a little rusty and the gasket was stiff and cracked.

However, it just so happens to be the perfect container for my homemade sourdough starter! Since the wild yeast culture needs air circulation, I removed the gasket and have the perfect container!

Linking up to Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Butterless Banana Bread

Hello everyone! I am late with my post this week as I was enjoying my long weekend with Canadian Thanksgiving festivities. Yum, I had two turkey dinners. :)

I wanted to share what I baked in my Pyrex Horizon Blue Fridgie... A butterless banana bread that is moist and delicious!

I adapted the recipe from a fellow Vancouverite's awesome blog, Everybody Likes Sandwiches. Simply mix together the following:

3 ripe bananas
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp cinnamon
3/4 cup chocolate chips or chunks (sometimes I cut this down to 1/2 cup and sprinkle them mostly on top)

Grease up your Pyrex fridgie or pan, and pour in that yummy batter. Bake at 375F for 45 minutes!

I hope you will try this recipe and let me know how it turns out. Next time I am going to make mini loaves using my small 501 fridgies; I think they would look so cute!

Ghirardelli Brownies in Pyrex!

Hello Everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day! I have to share some photos with you of some yummy and easy brownies we like to make at home.

You can see from the photo above that I like to use my workhorse Pyrex pieces - the yellow Fridgie and raised lettering measuring cup.  We don't normally have dessert or cake mixes in the house, but when we stumbled upon this one, we figured we had a winner.

We love making this with our nieces because you basically add in the wet ingredients and mix! Kids seem to love mixing...  The brownie mix is made by Ghirardelli, which makes some pretty rich and tasty chocolate goods. They call this mix Triple Chocolate, and it's actually crammed with little choco chips too.

The best part about the brownies is the nice crust that develops after baking. Yum!

Of course I have to serve these on Pyrex too, namely my beautiful Delphite side plate. Mmm, I love the corner piece.

FYI this is not a sponsored post or anything, I just really enjoy these brownies and wanted to share my Pyrex in Action!

Linking up to Vintage Thingie Thursday!

Easy Thai Green Curry!

No thrifty finds to share this week, but I thought I'd post about a dish I made this week... Thai Green Curry! My kitchen is pretty dark, so the lighting situation isn't great, but I still want to share some photos with you.

I started off with three boneless, skinless chicken thighs, a zucchini, and an onion, alll diced up.

After sauteeing the onions, I moved them over to one side of the pan and seared the chicken.

I like the concept of pushing stuff aside so the new ingredients get a chance to mingle with the hot pan. I think this is similar to the theory of using a wok, pushing the ingredints up the walls of the wok and searing the new stuff.

I found a great Supermarket in Vancouver that sells packaged Thai Green Curry Paste. I scooped a couple of tablespoons and toasted it in the hot oil. The fragrance it released was wonderful!

I added a small tin of coconut milk, about 170mL..

then threw in my zukes! A lot of recipes call up a full can of coconut milk, which is about 300mL but I find that the moisture from the vegetables makes up for it.

I let everything simmer for a bit, and ended up with a nice quick dinner. I love the versatility of this dish. You can use snap peas, eggplants, or whatever veggies you have in your kitchen. I think next time I might even omit the chicken and see if this works, as Vegetarian Green Curry over rice would be nice.

I'll try to work on my kitchen photography skills for next time!

Skillet Cookie Baked in Antique Wagner Cast Iron!

This summer, I purchased an old Wagner Ware cast iron pan at a Japanese Community Centre rummage sale for two bucks! It was dirty and grimy and the seller looked almost embarrassed to be selling it. I happily bagged it up to avoid getting greased up, and carried on.

The underside of the pan reads Wagner Ware Sidney -O- which signified its factory which was located in Sidney, Ohio. Mr. SixBalloons used a lot of elbow grease this summer to clean up this cast iron pan, and we seasoned it to a beautiful shine. I decided to bake a big skillet cookie this weekend using a Martha Stewart recipe.

It was definitely fun to make a huge cookie and cut it into wedges. I left it in the oven a bit longer than I should have, as the edges continued to brown in the hot and toasty cast iron pan. It was tasty and fun though, and I can't wait to try out more recipes in my new pan!

Just a note, we had a lot of fun this summer restoring our vintage cast iron pieces, including the valuable Griswold pan I found a while back. Perhaps I will blog a tutorial sometime indicating how we were able to get these in cook-ready shape!

Linking up to ATG's Thrift Share Monday!

Le Creuset Doufeu - Vintage Ebay Find!

I made a wonderful purchase off ebay last year of a vintage Le Creuset Doufeu. It has now become a workhorse in my kitchen, and is one of my favourite pieces.

The doufeu is a dutch oven with the unique feature of a concave lid for holding ice cubes. The term comes from the french words for gentle (doux) and fire (feu) and the principle of this pot is that it allows for slow cooking without letting the flavours escape.

As you can see from the detail, the handles are ears along the side of the pot, and there is a depression on the lid that allows you to hold ice cubes. The underside of the lid is is dotted to allow for gentle braising of meats. The difference in temperature between the top of the lid and bottom of the lid encourages condensation - similar to an ice cold glass of water getting foggy and wet. The droplets collect at the dots, and drip down on the meat, keeping it moist and not requiring you to open the lid and stir or add dilute liquids.

My favourite dish to cook in the doufeu is braised beef brisket. I start by browning the seasoned meat in some olive oil. Then I remove the meat from the pot, and sautee some vegetables with the seasoned bits in the pot.

What I love about this dish is that I can throw in veggies from the fridge in a somewhat carefree manner. If I have green onions, I'll throw them in. If not, I skip it and add some garlic instead. I try to base the veggie combo on the wonderful trifecta of onions, celery, and carrots, also known by the french as the mirepoix.

Soon I am able to place the meat back on the bed of sauteed vegetables. I add my braising liquid (I usually use a combination of dark soy sauce, some vinegar, ketchup, and/or any stock I have on hand), set it to low heat, and cook for 4-6 hours. Once I put the lid on, all I need to do is flip the meat at the halfway point. Otherwise, it takes care of itself and produces a beautiful succulent piece of meat!

I love all my Le Creuset items, but the intruiging science behind this pot makes it my favourite piece of all! It also never fails to deliver a flavourful braised beef brisket with minimal effort or risk of drying out.

I'm linking up with HLA's Flea Market Finds!

DIY Mesclun Salad

I harvested my first "crops" of the season and made myself a salad! This is my first year growing mescluns so I am pretty excited.

The cute little leaves are so tender, and it does taste better than the greens prewashed and boxed at the supermarket. It is shown above in a cereal bowl with my Pyrex Delphite side dish as a plate charger!

I have been growing them in a shady spot in my front yard in a planter, surrouding some little Carrot seedlings. This is what it looked like a week before harvest:

I'm really encouraged by this bit of growth, because we have had an unusual Spring in Vancouver. It has been too cold to put tomatoes and peppers out, but we had a couple days of heat last week that caused my lettuces and mustards to bolt. Can't win 'em all I guess.

My favourite way to eat salads is with some good olive oil, red wine vinegar or balsamic, plus salt and pepper. Is anyone out there having success in their veggie gardens yet?