Homemade Lemon-Lime Soda

Started out with half a lemon and half a lime. Cut them into wedges and placed into a saucepan.

Added half a cup of sugar (most recipes use at least twice as much sugar - the beauty of making your own food is being able to control what goes into it!)

Added a cup of water, and boiled the stuff into syrup.

Strained the peels and leftover pulp from the syrup.

Bottle cleaned and sterilized, ready for soda.

Added the yeast that will make my soda bubbly.

In goes the syrup.

Filled the bottle the rest of the say with water. Left in the cupboard for 2 days to ferment. It turned out great!

The Sauce Stop

WWW.ALMONTESAUCESTOP.COM

Mexican Taco Pizza

Beautiful Taco Pizza

Mozzarella and cheddar cheese...

Homemade tomato sauce, of course...

Bacon. Not necessary, but bacon.

Taco beef seasoned with chili powder.

Homemade crust, thin as a cracker...

...delicious!!!

Making Sauce for the Farmer's Market

My booth at the Almonte Farmer's Market

New batch of sauces I made for next week's market

Italian Poutine

It was a little naughty, but what can you do?

Regular white potatoes, cut up home-fries style.

Frying in a mixture of vegetable oil, olive oil, and leftover bacon fat.

Golden brown potatoes - crispy on the outside, and buttery soft on the inside.

Covered with a nice layer of cheddar cheese. Only thing left is to douse the whole thing in some nice homemade tomato sauce...

10/10 would make again.

Homemade Fettuccine w/ Sausage & Grilled Veggies

What a beautiful meal!

Making some tomato sauce. Ever since I started making my own, I can't bring myself to buy it from the store. I use a simple recipe, and it doesn't take long. I also had some fresh basil leftover from making pizza, and that made it even better.

Preparing to make some noodles. Pasta dough is simple, and whole wheat flour is actually available here!

Dough made into a ball, and ready to hurry up and wait.

Rolled out; looks good; let's make this happen!

Noodlized!

Some nice fresh veggies for roasting - I love the combination of colors, and look forward to the combination of flavors (don't forget to sprinkle some salt on your zucchinis well before grilling to draw out the extra moisture).

Grillin' up a storm!

Noodles are cooked and ready to go...

Veggies and sausages are all grilled up...

A lovely dinner for two.

Vichyssoise (leek and potato soup)

This was a beautiful pot of soup. Shared with friends...verdict: creamy!

Nice lookin' potatoes.

Chopped up and soaking in cold water.

A big bunch of leeks - sometimes I get lucky in Korea and score some useful ingredients for a good price. I think these were around $1.40.

Close-up...

Onions and garlic - I wanted to make my own broth, because my neighbor is a vegetarian, so I didn't use chicken stock, as most people do when they make vichyssoise. 

Leeks all chopped up and ready to go. I use a lot of the green parts as well; though the soup doesn't look as white, they add a great deal of flavor, and I don't feel guilty for wasting food.

On the way to a nice broth - browning onions and garlic in a big mess of melted butter.

The finished product. I missed a few steps with the camera, but you can use your imagination to fill in the details.