overnight hut in the gatineau & Steve's tahini and gomasio

(Not quite) favourite thing from two days ago: staying overnight at a hut in the Gatineau. It was "not quite," however, because Michal was sick and so I had to stay home with her while Joel went with Ben and our friends. It is one of my favourite things, though, and I want to mention it here so that others will know about this too. It's great to ski or snowshoe into the hut in the dark, to arrive and make a fire, to eat and drink wine, and then to sleep in the stillness of the woods. We do it every year and I was really sorry to miss it this year.

(I just noticed that the friends with whom Joel went to the cabin, Rob and Monique, have listed as one of their five favourite things: "Skiing under the starry skies." Little did I know that when we do this with them every year we are right up there in the "top five" of best things!)

Steve was here this weekend and he introduced us to one of his favourite things (not on his list, however): homemade tahini. This is how you do it:

get a bag of brown sesame seeds

soak them in water overnight

rinse them in the morning

toast them at 250 degrees until they dry (about 30 mins maybe) and then an additional 20 mins until they're golden brown

grind in a food processor (we have a mini one that is easy for this)

remove some for gomasio (just add salt to slightly ground sesame seeds and you have it!)

grind the rest of the seeds completely

add flax seed oil and salt

it's delicious!

We ate the entire jar this weekend and so Steve made us some more before he returned to Toronto this morning.