Archive | January, 2015

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Grow Lights and Garden Resolutions

Last night, Bea wowed us all at her school’s annual Science and Technology Fair with her project on the way in which the colours of light affect plant growth. Not that we weren’t expected to be wowed. All January, we’ve had a series of coloured compact flourescents in a basment room, clipped onto a bookshelf […]

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Get Your Love On: Beet Cranberry and Coconut Milk Soup [Vegan]

Towards the end of January, I tend to start thinking pink. So, for our final Wednesday Soup of the season, I came up with a super soup of beets and cranberries with coconut milk and amazing subtle spices.  It tastes great hot OR cold. All we need is a heart-shaped saucepan to cook it in! Tee-hee! No! What we […]

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The Last of the Castles

For both of the kids, the grade four curriculum has included a Medieval unit, culminating in a trip to Medieval Times and the creation of a “medieval castle” out of recyclables. Toby had a friend from school come over a few weekends back to complete their grade four castle project. As they worked, and as […]

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The Kids Photograph the Season: The Toronto Zoo, Winter 2015

It’s been an ongoing project for the kids to “photograph the season.”  When Bea also got an assignment from school to photograph everything “here and now,” we made sure we kept up with our efforts.  Of course, when asked for a destination “here” and “now” the first place Bea thought of was the Zoo. Here […]

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Roasted Carrot Soup with Lentils, Preserved Lemon, and Ras el Hanout

Every year, in the spring, I start to crave carrots like nobody’s business. This usually escalates until I make at least one if not two carrot dishes for Easter supper. [Oh, and carrot birthday cake…don’t get me started on carrot birthday cake…] This year’s carrot craving came early – in the fall of 2014, and it […]

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Building a Bird Feeder from an Old Gingerbread House Kit

We’ve had an Ikea Pepparkaka Hus Kit around the house for more than a few months, now. It’s one of those things that we got out around Christmas time, thinking, oh yeah, well, sure, we’ll get to that.  And, of course, we never did…..So Bea and I decided that this January, we were going to make it […]

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Inspired by … Book Lists

Inspired by … Book Lists This December, I read through several amazing lists of “Books read in 2014” and other year-end reviews by movers and shakers in my own little literary community and beyond.  I was awe-struck by Nathalie Foy and Vicki Ziegler‘s lists of books-read and favourite reads for 2014. Greg Zimmerman’s singular account of reading Jane Eyre for the […]

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Chicken Soup with Za’atar, Lemon, and Parsnips

I’ve been trying to plan our 2015 March BreACK!, which means having a look back at last year’s amazing Mediterranean week.  The thing I long for the most is the taste of our Cheese and Za’atar Manakeesh, those lovely seasoned flatbreads the kids gobble up like pizza. [Toby still won’t eat the za’atar, but Bea […]

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Elderflower Ices and Snow Ice Cream

We’ve made a pact. This year, any time it snows, we are going to put bowls out on the back porch to collect the snow for ices and ice cream.  Our most recent triumphs have included elderflower ices or icees and a snow ice cream made with sweetened condensed milk. Here’s how we make them! Enjoy! Nourishing the Weather: […]

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Onion Soup with Lemon Thyme, Lavendar, Cognac and Piave Vecchio

You’re a lucky duck if, when you are sick in the middle of winter, your husband and children bring you two gigantic organic onions from the market. Luckier still, if you happen to have a mini-harvest of lemon thyme in your backyard planters, despite the snow. Lucky in the extreme, if you happen to have a wedge […]

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FEature 250 nourish

Winter 2015: Nourish

We don’t tend to make resolutions here at The Lunchbox Season, at least, not until Chinese New Year. Call it procrastination if you wish. We prefer to look on it as dwelling in the New Year properly, without resentment or rejection of the old [not to say we aren’t interested in shedding lots of thoughts […]

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