It occurred to me yesterday that it's been quite some time since I made a dish for dinner that was once a favourite. Yesterday seemed as good a time as any to correct that gap, and I set about making a savoury onion pie. It's fairly easy, not that many ingredients, just takes a little time, but the result is worth the effort. I started out with a plain pastry crust comprised of flour, salt, Crisco shortening, lemon juice and ice water.

The filling has few ingredients but they complement one another. I used four onions thinly sliced and two garlic cloves chopped, stirred them briefly in a pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, thyme sprinkled over and cranked a good amount of peppercorns over, then let it cool. I sliced up four tomatoes, and did the same with old Cheddar. Then I rolled out the bottom crust, fitted it into a pie plate, spread the onion mixture over the bottom, then added the tomatoes to cover the onions and sprinkled sweet basil over the tomatoes. Last came the cheddar cheese, covering the tomatoes and over that went the top crust.

It was baked in my little countertop convection oven at 350F for 35 minutes and we were ready to eat, with crisp little baby cucumbers alongside, and sliced fresh peaches from Chile for dessert. The pie is best with a really flaky crust, and that's just what this one came out as. A treat, but not one you'd want to repeat too often. Tonight it's chicken livers dredged in spiced-up breadcrumbs, mashed sweet potato, and steamed broccoli. with Moroccan minneola oranges for dessert.  

Typically, Irving will enjoy the first and the last; the items in between not so much, though he'll eat the yam, and some of the broccoli. The chicken livers are high in iron and that's important for his diet. Now I've got to think of how I plan to use the yeast bread dough I've got sitting in the refrigerator waiting for me to brainstorm it into baked shape.

The weather has moderated, we had a high of -4C today, sunny in the morning, overcast in the afternoon when we went out with Jackie and Jillie to the ravine for our usual daily tramp through the woods. New snow had fallen last night, though no more than 7cm. While we were still eating our breakfast this morning our neighbours had been over shoveling our porch and walkways. Which they insist they enjoy doing. What can I say?

 The snow that fell last has a silky quality to it, so it's slippery, and ascending the ravine's hills comes complete with sliding episodes. Which is fine for us, just takes a little more energy to attain the top when you experience that proverbial 'one step forward, two steps back'. What a visual treat it is viewing the landscape from all angles as we proceed along the trails. 

Newfallen snow lightly padding the earlier snowfalls render a wonderland appearance that's truly breath-catching. There's a sheen on the snow and a sparkle irrespective of the overcast perspective. Branches and boughs are thick with snow, some of them bending gracefully to the weight. A slight breeze penetrating the forest loosed snow from its perch now and again and we watched as a galaxy of tiny stars fluffed through the air, dispersing on the forest floor.

As we rounded the completion of our circuit and approached the creek for the final pass over the last bridge there was a tiny commotion below as we saw a bird lift off from the edge of the creek where it had been perched on a fallen ranch, to fly to the trees above. A robin. Which should have migrated in late fall, but decided to remain in this cold climate. It isn't a complete stranger, every year for the past decade or more we've seen robins, sometimes singly, sometimes in little groups, in the ravine and most often close by the creek. What they are able to find to eat puzzles us; dried berries, seeds, fruit. As live-eaters these options don't reflect their dietary preferences.

Changing over from summer to fall mode requires some thought and appropriate action. You wear different clothing and change your wardrobe accordingly. You begin to slowly and with deep regret, reconstruct your garden in preparation for winter's onset. And you begin cooking different meals, changing over the light meals meant for warm and humid days to more substantial meals suitable to warm you up when the days are shorter and dusk falls too early and the temperature plunges overnight. So, yesterday evening which was all of that, we had bowls of thick and piping-hot lentil-tomato soup for dinner, and along with the soup we ate still-warm-from-the-oven flatbread drizzled with cheese.

Tonight? A stir-fry. Featuring broccoli, onion, garlic, snow peas, red bell pepper, mushrooms, served over rice. And alongside the vegetables, stir-fried slivered chicken breast that has been marinated in rice vinegar, soya sauce, garlic and olive oil. It's what some might call stick-to-your-ribs food. Another apt description: comfort food.

We have afternoon sun today, but the sky is a restless one, with rolling swaths of dark clouds alternating with blue patches. There was no blue to be seen this morning and early afternoon, however, as a series of rolling thunderstorms crashed through the atmosphere, sending down episodes of heavily thumping rain and we cowered indoors, hoping we'd get a window of opportunity at some time in the afternoon to dash out for at least a short hike in the ravine with Jackie and Jillie.

Well, that opportunity did arise. The wind blasts were really quite spectacular, sending the trees whipping this way and that. Strangely, while we usually get wind blowing from the north-west toward the north-east, they were oddly reversed today. We watched the sky intensely as one bank of dark grey cloud after another heralded the approach of yet another storm.

At mid-afternoon when the sky finally opened and blue insinuated itself, the golden light of the sun was absolutely dazzling. Off we went, suitably garbed for the likelihood of more rain on this most changeable of weather days. We knew the creek at the bottom of the ravine would be in full flood but we weren't able to hear it flashing by because of the wind blasting the forest canopy, sounding like a runaway steam engine as the trees whipped back and forth.

We knew we were taking a chance venturing out to the forest under these conditions, the force of the blasting wind just perfect for knocking over dead trees, or branches from overhead. We would confine ourselves to the main trail, wider, and though still the trees form a canopy over the trail, roomier, and perhaps less opportunity for falling detritus or trees to fall our way. We hoped. Even pine cones pried loose by the wind from their perches overhead, made an impact on contact when they hit; a bit of a surprising sting when they whacked.

But the sun was out and partnering with the wind began to dry the atmosphere. We expected the sky to cloud over under the force of the wind at any given time, but white clouds had arrived instead of the charcoal black that had heralded thunderstorms and our way was nicely lit by brilliant sun rays -- and loud with tremendous bursts of wind lashing against the forest. We took a shorter circuit than usual. Jillie paid little mind to the wind, but it seemed to disturb Jackie, with its obvious intensity.

Relieved that we had been able to take them out for a good stretch in the forest, and that we had done so without encountering another rain event, a fairly rapid pace brought us back to street level where we headed for home. A brief tour of the garden reassured us that the flowers and plants were holding their own. Oddly, the red hibiscus that hadn't flowered all summer despite ample rain and fertilizing, has now put out flower buds; we can see the red peeking out, but it's highly unlikely it will have time to flower before everything has to be cut back.

 

We never cease to be surprised at the hardiness of some of the flowers. The dipladenia, which we've nurtured for the first time in our garden replacing other more familiar plants like zinnias which were unavailable this year thanks to the an oddly depleted offering due to the pandemic, have done very well.  But our absolute floral favourites, begonias, have done exceptionally well. Despite the battering everything took today they perked right up with the entrance of the sun.