Thursday, April 23, 2015

Tart Time

I'm visiting a friend to meet her new baby girl this evening, and I made this sweet treat to bring along. It's a basic flaky sweet tart crust, with a dark chocolate mousse and cinnamon poached pears drizzled with dark chocolate. Num!
Chocolate mousse and poached pear tart A Chocolate mousse and poached pear tart B
If it tastes half as good as it looks, it will be so delicious. Goodness knows the mousse is tasty, I practically licked the bowl clean after filling the crust heh. It's great to finally have the time to do this sort of thing again, I've missed baking. I used this recipe, it's super simple and makes more than plenty of everything for a big round pie despite the recipe being for a rectangular mold. Cheers!

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Abandoned Wanderings

I'm finally finished school - for good. Immediately I went to go spend a week with my honey on his job site. He's rebuilding a huge wrap-around deck in the muskokas, the boards of which had rotted in the shade, so he's had to trim all the surrounding trees, rip up the rotted wood and put down all new joists and decking. While he did all this work, I spent my time relaxing, reading, exploring and cooking.
April 13-17 2015 L April 13-17 2015 N April 13-17 2015 B April 13-17 2015 A April 13-17 2015 M
The area he's working in is just gorgeous and I spent a good chunk of time wandering around through the old muskoka houses left half-abandoned. Families with too much money leave these big old houses badly shut up for winter and then squirrels get in and make a nightmare of the place - but they don't care because maids come in each summer to make it all disappear for the weekend or two they might spend there.
April 13-17 2015 J April 13-17 2015 K April 13-17 2015 G April 13-17 2015 I
I like being in old homes, the smell of them, the strange sense that you can still feel the generations of people who stayed there. This one house in particular was built before there were even roads in to the place, its owners had to boat everything in on the lake, which is just mind boggling. Unfortunately its current owners have little respect to all the history, and effort that went into the place.
April 13-17 2015 F April 13-17 2015 E April 13-17 2015 H
While a lot of the snow has melted away, the lakes are still mostly choked up with rotten ice. Little creaks and streams are sprouting up everywhere, rushing with spring melt. When the sun is out and you're out of the wind, it can be deliciously warm but the nights are still quite cold and the wind nips at bare skin.
A photo posted by Célynne (@cosmicspider31) on
April 13-17 2015 C April 13-17 2015 D
It feels like real spring will never get here, I'm still amazed at being able to see the ground. Spring has a habit of just showing up overnight here, you go to sleep and it's cold and miserable and grey and you wake to a world sprouting with green life. Hopefully that day comes soon! Cheers!

Monday, April 6, 2015

That Instagram

I suppose it's finally time that I got myself an Instragram account, now that I have acquired a phone capable of posting to it. You can follow me at @cosmicspider31  Mostly it's silly selfies with animals, photos of food and other snapshots of my rather bland life, but eh!

A photo posted by Célynne (@cosmicspider31) on