Beefy Lentils

Yesterday I caught an old episode of Iron Chef America.  My favourite Iron Chefs have always been Morimoto and Batali.  They are awesome!  As I don't watch tv much, it was a surprise to me to find out Batali isn't an Iron Chef anymore, and they've got these threee new chefs, instead.  New being a relative term, I guess, since I think at least one of them has been there for a few years now. 

Did I mention I don't watch tv much? *L*

So there was this episode with Batali, and the secret ingredient was lentils.  By the time it was over, all I could think of was the bag of lentils I had in my cupboard and, my goodness, wouldn't those be great!!

So the following recipe was inspired by Iron Chef America and whatever I scrounged out of my cupboards and fridge, and it was so good, even my lentil hating Eldest liked it. 

It was all I could do not to finish the pot off last night.  Instead, it made an even better lunch. 

Beefy Lentils

2 cups brown lentils
about 3 1/2 cups liquid (I used some bullion powder to make a beef broth)
seasonings to taste (I used some Emeril's Essence, approx 1/3 tsp)

1 medium onion, chopped fine
2-3 stalks celery, plus the inner heart of the celery bunch, with its leaves, chopped fine
3-4 cloves garlic, chopped fine
about 3 tbsp butter

1 small cooked and seasoned beef roast, cut into cubes

Pick over the lentils for any odd bits and pieces that don't belong.  Get rid of any shrivelled ones, too.  Rinse and set aside.

Prepare your liquid.  I just used some beef bullion powder in water and stirred in the Emeril's Essence, but go ahead and change it up however you like. 

Melt the butter in a pot large enough to hold everything.  Once hot, toss in the onion and lower heat to about medium/medium low.  Slowly cook the onions in butter until they are just starting to get transluscent.  Add the chopped celery (I had intended to use carrots originally, only to discover we were out, so celery it was).  Raise the heat a bit and cook the celery until it's starting to get soft.  Add the garlic and cook a minute or so longer. 

Add the chopped beef and cook until heated through.

(I buy warehouse packs of beef roasts, which usually have 2-3 hunks of meat in them.  I roast all at once, seasoning them with my favourite steak spice mix first.  If your meat isn't already seasoned, you may want to add more seasonings to taste later on.)

Add the liquid, raise the temperature again, stir and bring to a boil.  Once boiling, add the lentils.  Bring back to a boil and cook at a boil for 2-3 minutes, stirring occaisionally.  Reduce temperature to medium low, cover and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes.

Taste the lentils to check doneness.  I like mine rather toothsome.  Adjust seasonings, if necessary.  If there's more liquid on the bottom then you like, give it a stir and simmer a bit longer without the lid.

When done, cover and let sit for a few minutes before serving, or cool and refrigerate.  Reheat and serve the next day for even better flavour.

Between the beef broth, Emeril's Essence and the seasoning on the beef, I didn't need to add any salt or pepper.  Adjust your own seasonings to taste.

I'll mention right now, this is not the most visually appealing dish! *L*  The whole thing comes out a rather greyish brown colour.  Including some finely chopped carrots instead of (or along with) the celery would have added some colour.  I'll have to make it again the next time I've got carrots and see what a difference it makes.

Oh, and it's AWESOME eaten with buttered rye bread.

Okay, I've gone and made myself hungry.

Our Menu

This is the menu we have decided on for this year's Wigilia feast on Christmas Eve.

Starter: Devilled eggs, with bacon and shredded cheese

Salad: Spinach Salad, with yogurt dressing and quail eggs

Main course: Leg of lamb with fresh rosemary

                        Broccoli cooked a la Julia Child

                        Pierogi filled with potato and cheese

Dessert: whatever looks good at the bakery

Drink: Cranberry punch with frozen berries

             Red wine

We are going to focus on a few things to make ourselves, then allow others to do the work for the rest! lol  For the sake of time and space, we will be buying our pierogi and the dessert. We have never done leg of lamb before, but it is a simple dish to make.  The eggs can be cooked in advance.  The spinach salad recipe calls for hard boiled eggs, which we will use whole quails eggs for, instead.  We have long wanted to try quails eggs that haven't come from a can. ;-) For dessert, I see no point for us to make our own when bakeries can do so much better then us! lol It's just not worth the extra time, energy and stress to do any of that ourselves this year.

Later on,I will share the recipes for the lamb and spinach salad.

Getting Ready

This has been a very unusual Christmas season for us. Dh's back seems to have given up on him entirely. He is in massive amounts of pain and barely able to move.  He has been almost completely housebound for about two weeks now, and the rare forays out has taxed him to the limit. Thankfully, he has been able to work from home.  I must say, we are really appreciating how supportive his employer has been, though I imagine they are getting pretty frustrated over the situation by now.

Dh is working right now, actually, so I am currently posting this from the tablet.  I apologize for any weird typos in advance. lol

Meanwhile, our Christmas preparations continue, if slower than usual.  We didn't get our tourtiere done until a few days ago.  The temperatures have been too mild to store our pies on the balcony as usual, so we could only do as many as would fit in our fridge freezer.  We ordered 12 pounds of ground meats this year, and made deep dish pies. That translated into only eight pies.  We have had one so far, and they turned out quite well. We won't be doing deep dish again,though.  The meat to crust ratio is better in a regular sized pie.

Our gift shopping is done. We gave the girls some cash from the gift budget, in addition to anything they had saved up themselves. Dh hasn't done any shopping at all, of course, so I have done all the gift buying at our end.  Youngest decorated the tree this year, and Eldest has decorated the house.  The tree is full of gifts under it, which has been entertaining for the stray cat and her kitten that we have taken in for a while.  

All that is left right now is to do the final food shopping, which should be done tomorrow, though I am thinking of doing it tonight, instead.  I will post the menu separately.  Hopefully, once that is done, we won't have to go shopping again for a good while! 

You ate what?

I unabashedly admit that Eldest is braver than I am.

As someone who has such an interest in food history, culture, and trying new things, I'm actually a total suck.  As much as I'd like to explore new flavours, I often end up being very safe about it in the process.  Some is with good reason.  I have no tolerance for spicy heat.  I love the flavours, but what is mild or moderate heat for others leaves me in a whole lot of burning pain.  There's a reason for this, but I won't regale you about the condition of my tongue. ;-)

Other foods, I just can't bring myself to eat.  Like raw fish, or Eldest's favourite canned eel.  The smell alone sends me running.  While Eldest happily noshes away, analyzing flavours and textures, I'm off on the side with my fingers in my ears going LA-LA-LA-LA-LA and trying not to hurl.

She laughs.

One of the foods Eldest has been wanting to try for a long time is preserved duck eggs.  I finally succumbed and bought a package.  She tried one on rice, but I could only bring myself to taste a tiny bit of the "white" (which isn't white anymore) and that was it.  I didn't really eat enough to be able to taste it. That left us with a package sitting around and no one quite knowing what to do with it.

Well, today, I finally girded my loins, did some research, brought out the camera, and did a taste test.

Here is the result.  Click on the photos to see them in larger size.

First, the package.  This is the type we got, and I've no idea what the brand name is. It was found at a local Asian grocery store, though I've seen the same brand available at Superstore.  They come in a Styrofoam box and are not refrigerated.  Visit here (pdf) to learn more about their history and how they are made.

Inside, each egg is lovingly wrapped and nestled in it's own little pocket. 

Unwrapped, they look like this.  They're really quite pretty!

Ah, but what do they look like inside!

I used the back of a spoon to carefully start cracking the shell.  After the second hit, I heard a weird little pop, and a hole appeared.  I'd hit it over the air cell and I think there had actually been a bit of a vacuum, as the broken piece of shell had got sucked right in.

Is that good?  Bad?  I have no idea.

The shell is quite thick, as is the inner membrane.  It peeled rather easily, though, revealing this.

Again, it's really quite lovely!  The branching pattern in the white is a result of the preservation.

I believe the outer layer on the shell is part of the preservation, but I'm not sure.

While a bit startling to see such a dark colour where one would normally see white, I find it quite appealing.  The colour and semi-transparency, with the branching "fireworks" patterns are beautiful.

After cutting it open, however...

 Uhm...

Yeah.

This is the point where I look at it and wonder, "just how hungry did someone have to be to look at this and think it's edible?"

I mean, I can still appreciate the aesthetic appeal of the colours and textures from a purely visual standpoint, but as food?  No.  If I were to stumble upon this by accident somewhere, as it is guessed some ancient person did, I would not think this is edible.  I would think this is something that's gone rotten and might make me ill.

Quartering it didn't make it any better.  That squishy, slimy middle just...

No.  Uh-uh.  I am definitely getting nervous at this point.

In looking up how to eat these, I really didn't find much.  It's served in quarters like this with pickled ginger as an appetizer.  It's cut up and eaten in congee.  It seems they are mostly eaten just like this, though it's recommended the people not used to its pungent flavour eat it in small amounts or with something else.  There was little to tell me what that "something else" could be.

I did find a few recipes that described serving it with pork or on rice.  Well, I was making pork for supper anyhow.  I'd cut up some pork loin and wrapped it in aluminum foil with olive oil, a hint of vinegar, soy sauce, and spices.  After sitting overnight in the fridge, I roasted it still in the foil, opening the foil near the end to let things brown a bit.   To go with the pork, I made some quinoa, cooked in half water, half home-made turkey stock.

Then I made it all pretty for the picture.  There's only a small amount of quinoa and pork here, and I was afraid using an entire quarter of an egg would be too much.  Cutting it into little pieces did make it seem more like something I could eat.

My first taste, I made sure to have a bit of everything.  Some yolk, some white, some meat and quinoa.  When I finally tried it, I was totally amazed.  It was just bursting with flavour!!  I couldn't believe how good it was!  The egg added an earthy, mushroom-like flavour that I just loved.  It was awesome.

Eldest tried it, and she enjoyed it too, but the real litmus test was Youngest.  She doesn't like quinoa.  She was thoroughly turned off by the appearance of the preserved duck egg's yolk.  She dislikes mushrooms, too, so saying it had a mushroom-like flavour didn't exactly win points for her, either.

She tried it anyhow and even she enjoyed it!  Quinoa and all!  After eating she announced that yes, she liked preserved duck eggs. 

The flavour was still very strong, and small amounts are recommended.  It's not something I'd have often, but we're not going to have any problems figuring out what to do with the remaining four eggs!

That Olde Tyme Thang...

In the last little while, I've been enjoying the blog, Ridin out the Recession.  I heartily recommend bookmarking it and visiting often!  It's been a fantastic read.

It's a blog that has got me to thinking food again.  If you've been following either of my blogs for a while, you may have noticed I have an interest in food history.  You can learn alot about people by what they eat, how they prepare their food, and the customs and traditions surrounding food.  I find it fascinating.

Ridin out the Recession, in their posts talking about different ways to put up food for the future, has reminded me about this a lot.  Our modern society, with its technologies and international trade, has not only made an astounding variety of foods available to us, but it has made preparing and preserving our food for the future much easier, more consistent and safer.  Modern canning methods sure have improved from the days I helped my mother top her jars of jam with a piece of string and paraffin wax! (The string was allowed to hang outside the jar so you could pull the wax up to "open" the jar - but sometimes the wax would just break apart, and we'd have to use a knife to get the rest out, then fish little bits of wax off the top later on.)

Not too many people preserve food anymore, beyond sticking things into the freezer, though doing so was regaining interest even before the global economy tanked.  Much like traditional crafts often see a resurgence in popularity after being displaced by industrial versions, increased numbers of people have found that these old methods are satisfying and enjoyable skills.  It feels darn good to do things for yourself!  Being able to grow a garden, then fill your pantry with food for another day really does something for you!  Even those who aren't DIY'ers are increasingly appreciative of hand made items.

I love old cookbooks.  While I enjoy recreating historical recipes, some of my favorites are just a generation or two old.  As much as I like the recipes in modern cookbooks, I find myself less willing to try them out. With so many of them written and published in the US, for example, they tend to call for ingredients that aren't so easy to find in Canada, if they're available here at all.  New cookbooks also tend to use a lot of packaged ingredients. While the use of canned, bottled or powdered ingredients makes things handy, we just don't buy a lot of prepared foods.  I have little interest in buying them just to try out a recipe.

The old cookbooks don't have these prepared ingredients, since they didn't exist at the time.  Of course, there's also the problem of the old recipes using ingredients that were common then, but aren't anymore!  Others are foods that were common and cheap at the time, but are now expensive, luxury items.  Like rabbit!

Among my favorite cookbooks is The Canadiana Cookbook, by Mme Jehane Benoit, published in 1970.  This was one of those flea market finds that are such treasures.  The book is organized by province and territory, with plenty of Mme Benoit's wonderful commentaries strewn about.

In the Manitoba section, she has a recipe for Pemmican (Chippewa), which she in turn found in the Prairie Pantry cook book.  Pemmican played a huge part in Canadian development and trade, and in Metis culture.  Many of our modern highways closely follow the Pemmican trails - the Metis trade routes.  Pemmican was a vital food for a very long time, and was originally made using bison, elk or venison. 

I haven't tried this recipe yet.  In the cookbook, Mme Benoit says she made it using smoked venison instead of beef.  If you give it a try, please let me know how it turned out!

---
Pemmican (Chippewa)
The Canadiana Cookbook, pages 144-145

1 pound dried beef or smoked venison
3/4 pound dried crushed chokecherries*
1/2 pound fresh beef suet, chopped fine
1/2 cup light brown or natural sugar

Pass all through meat grinder, except the sugar.  Add the sugar.  Mix thoroughly.  Pack in a bowl and keep covered and refrigerated.  Serve with sourdough bread.

* I dry my own chokecherries in a 200 F oven.  They are usually easy to find in Health Food stores.  Dried currants can replace them, or fresh lingonberries when available.

---

Well, I don't know if you can get chokecherries in health food stores anymore.  Besides her recommended alternatives, cranberries, saskatoons and blueberries can be used, too.  The fruit is actually optional, and a more modern addition.  This is the only recipe I've seen that uses sugar.

We've made our own beef jerky, and if you want to dry your own meat, it's easy to do.  Get a cut of very lean meat, such as flank steak, and cut it very thin, against the grain (partially freeze the meat to make it easier to cut, if you want).  We laid wire cake racks over cookie sheets, then spread the meat out over them evenly.  After letting the oven warm up to the lowest setting (about 150 - 200 F), we put the meat in and left it overnight with the oven light on, but the oven off.  The oven can be heated back up as needed, though it just needs to be warm, not hot enough to actually cook the meat.  If you take the meat out to turn it, though, make sure to warm it back up again.  It can take a very long time to thoroughly dry the meat (I've seen as long as 15 hours - we didn't take as long with our jerky, since we wanted it to still be chewable).

In the days before meat grinders and food processors, the dried meat would be pounded into a powder.  The fat would be rendered and everything would be put into special leather bags and mixed together.

Pemmican was valuable because it was extremely nutritious, portable and, properly wrapped, could last 4-5 years.  It can be eaten as is, though I've read of the Voyageurs adding it to boiling water to make a soup.

I don't know how economical it would be to make pemmican now, with how much meat costs these days.  At least for someone who has to get their meat at the grocery store.  For a hunter or beef farmer, it might be a practical way to preserve some trail food.

Interesting times

Well, I've got a bit of catching up to do!

The biggest news is that Raider King found himself his own place.  It's the basement of a co-worker's house, and at an amazing rent - especially considering all the utilities are included, and it even comes with some furniture and a TV.  He's got Internet, too, but they haven't figured out how to set him up yet.  He's been there for about a week now, and it's working out really well for him.  Ah, I remember those days of living in one's very first independent home!  We're really happy for him, and he's finally not only got privacy, but space, as well.

I haven't even tried to do library lists lately.  The girls have been plowing their way through several series of Manga comics.  These days, our library trips involve putting a whole bunch of things on hold, then going in long enough to pick them up.  This past week I finally went for a regular library day with Youngest, bringing Eldest's card along so we could pick up her holds (Eldest had to get a new library card, now that she's an adult, which means her card is no longer free.  Not that it costs much, anyhow).  I hadn't been to the library in ages, so Youngest and I split up.  I went to the crafting section while she picked up the holds, then headed for the mythology section.  We met up in audio/visual, where I found a few dvds to borrow.  By the time I was done, she was waiting for me, reading one of the books she found.  Then she showed me the rest of the stack she'd picked!  When we got home, she insisted on weighing the backpack.  It was about 17 pounds of books! *L*

We've been doing an awful lot of running around lately, which has been a bit frustrating for Eldest.  She has to get ready for the art festival, and has been working on quite a few new paintings, along with her other sketch work, etc.  The festival is in July, but there's lots of preparation in between.  Her biggest challenge, I think, is going to be finding frames. 

Dh had brought up the idea of geocaching recently.  He's got GPS on his phone, so yesterday he and Eldest headed out in the wee hours of the morning to find some nearby caches.  It turns out there are seven of them near our place, some of which we've gone by many times without knowing they were there!  Of the seven, they found four this morning.  A couple of them were nano-caches - these are so small, they recommend bringing tweezers along to take out the log "book."  It's actually a tiny roll of paper that the finder dates and initials.  They also found a micro-cache, which is about the size of one of those magnetic boxes used to hide spare keys, plus a regular sized cache.  One they didn't find, they plan to go back to, as Eldest is now sure she knows where it is.  The other two, there were too many people around for them to be able to look for them.

Youngest now wants to go out geocaching, too!

Meanwhile, we're winding up our official school year.  Our facilitator visit is this Friday.  Looking forward to it. :-)

Youngest's guitar lessons will continue through the summer, though, as far as I know.  At least her teacher hasn't mentioned anything about a summer break.  She's still enjoying the lessons, though pains in her wrist (which, it has been determined, has nothing to do with her guitar playing) have been a bit of a problem. 

On a completely different note...

I quit.  I've thrown in the towel.  I give up in defeat.

(and no, Eldest, you are not allowed to feel guilty about this)

I've whined and moaned previously about how much I hate shopping.  In particular, how much I hate grocery shopping, due to the diverse nature of likes, dislikes and dietary requirements.  It's not usually much of an issue.  Dh has breakfast at home before I wake up, and usually has leftovers from supper as a lunch at work.  The girls have been making their own breakfasts and lunches for quite some time now.   We've basically had one major meal of the day, which I usually do, though the girls certainly have stepped in fairly regularly. 

The problem?

Well, I got tired of throwing away food.

You see, every now and then, no matter what gets made for supper, it just doesn't get eaten.  Oh, sure, some of it does, but very tiny amounts.  Then the leftovers get put aside for Dh to make a lunch for work, except he doesn't for some reason, so it sits there.  Next thing I know, I'm throwing away almost entire meals.  This *really* irritated me when that involved throwing out a lot of meat.  It got to be a real problem.  Sometimes, it was because leftovers were tucked into the oven or something, with the intent of it being used right away, only to be forgotten about.  I always made a habit of leaving the oven light on when something was set aside in there, but it would get turned off, and promptly forgotten about until the next time someone needed to use the oven.

Not good.

Well, about a week ago, I went to start supper, only to discover some food that had been sitting for 3 days, virtually untouched.  I'd made extra specifically so there would be enough left over for Dh's lunch, and not even the normal amount of it had been eating.  Few things bother me more than wasted food!

So I quit.

We are now responsible for our own meals.

Not that we don't cook for each other once in a while.  We've started using the BBQ now that the weather has finally improved, for example.  But overall, I've washed my hands of meals.

We'll see how long that lasts.

:-P

Easter preparations

We've been well into our Easter preparations for the last while.  As usual, this includes our traditional Easter basket.  We'll be making a few additions to it this year.

For the usual items, we'll have butter, sausage, a small ham, salt and cheese.  We've also got a chunk of fresh horseradish root, rather than the prepared paste.  Tomorrow (er... later today, I should say) we'll be baking bread and colouring eggs.  We'll be making a egg and milk bread that will be baked into some fancy shape.  For the eggs, we'll be colouring some by cooking them in onion skins, while others will be made into "dragon's eggs" for the pre-shelled eggs.  We're not going to bother doing colouful dyed eggs this year.  For that, colour will be from the tiny candy coated chocolate eggs we'll be adding, plus some foil covered chocolate eggs - the only sweets we'll include this year.

One of the traditional Polish items we never really used was bacon.  This year we've decided to include prosciutto as a sort of substitute, even though it's really a ham.  We also decided to add a small bottle of olive oil and two types of olives.  It seemed appropriate, considering how important olives and olive products were in Biblical times.

For my crafting this year, I ended up doing stuffed, crocheted eggs.  I'm still doing them, actually.  They're quick enough that I can do a simple one in a smooth yarn in about half an hour. I'm making some using textured yarn, some with colour changes, and others are being given a texture through stitch variations. They're all a variation of the free Lion Brand egg cozie pattern (you will need to sign in to see it).  I skipped any of the embellishments to the basic cozie shape.  Instead of ending it with an open bottom, I stuff it, then add a couple more decreasing rounds, then close up the bottom while sewing in the the yarn end.  I'm rather happy with how they're turning out. 

We're going to try something different for our Easter dinner.  We'll be doing a leg of lamb, which is a first for me.  Will have to look up different recipes and decide how I want to roast it.  For the dinner, we'll also have some barscz - I'm cheating, having bought it packaged.  To go with the lamb, Eldest suggested doing broccoli the Julia Child way, which is always a hit.  I'll be doing polenta, as well.  Though it's considered an Italian dish, I remember my mother making it when I was a child.  We called it by a Polish word that translates as porridge, and it was years before I found out what I knew as a child and polenta were the same thing! *L*  I am planning to make the polenta on Saturday, then pan fry slices of it for dinner on Sunday.

We'll likely pick up a wine to go with dinner as well.  Hmm... we should probably pick something up for a dessert, too.  I'd forgotten about dessert!

Almost ready!

Well, we're almost ready for our Wigilia!  The tourtierre are done.  We may pick up a few last minute gifts.  Otherwise, I've done my wrapping, though the girls have some to do.  The goose is thawing out right now, and the rest of the groceries needed will be picked up on the 23rd and the 24th will be spent preparing. 

In deciding on a menu this year, we've decided to cut things back a little, even though we've got a 5th person joining us this year.  We have a tendency to produce a huge menu that would feed an office party rather than just ourselves. *L*  We've dropped the cheese and soup courses completely.

This is what we've decided on for this year.

Appetizers:
Bacon and Cheddar devilled eggs
Fruit plate
Baguette

Salad:
Greek salad
Caesar salad
(we're doing two, as Youngest and I don't like some of the ingredients of a Greek salad, but Dh and Eldest love it)

Entree:
Roast goose, basted with orange juice and red wine (no stuffing)
Tourtierre
Cheesy mashed potatoes
Broccoli, Julia Child's style

Dessert:
Whatever tempts us at the bakery

Drinks:
Cranberry punch (cranberry juice, ginger ale and frozen berries)
Wine; probably a red, but whatever strikes our fancy


Yeah, we're "cheating" with some things.  The fruit plate will be something pre-made at the grocery store, and I'm quite content with their bakery offerings.  The rest won't require a lot of time or attention.  Even the goose won't need a lot, once it's in the oven.  The less time spent tending pots and pans, the better!  Eldest will be doing the salads and the broccoli.  We don't usually cook broccoli, but when I did, I usually either steamed or stir fried it.  After watching a Julia Child episode, Eldest was inspired to try out the method (first cooked covered in a small amount of water, then pan fried in garlic and butter).  It is SO incredibly good.

I think I'll need to take out those Julia Child dvd's again.  We could use some kitchen badassery.

A few brief moments...

It's becoming increasingly difficult to find uninterrupted time to write!  I've got a few brief moments now, but from the sounds of things, they won't last long, so we'll see how much I can catch up.

Though I haven't been putting up any library lists lately, it's not for lack of going to the library!  Eldest has been going several times a week, sometimes a couple of times a day, even after completing the studies she was working on.  As I write this, she and Youngest are there right now and I've got an open invitation to join them for coffee later on, if I want.  The branch we use has a Second Cup in the same building, next to their little free art gallery.  It's been a great place to get some quality time in together while having all sorts of discussions and doing some people watching, too.

Sadly, in noting the time, I won't be able to join them today.  As soon as I finish this, I need to get a stew going.  Ah, well.  Maybe this evening. :-D

Dh, meanwhile, is home sick today.  He seems to have finally caught the stomach bug I suffered with not that long ago. I hope that's not it, because whatever bug I caught, it seems to have completely messed up my digestion on a long term.  I'm guessing it effected my intestinal flora in a bad way, because even though I'm feeling fine now, no matter what I eat or how little, I've been suffering from bloat ever since.  Dh has enough problems without that on top of it!  Either way, he's just gone back to bed.

Raider King is still living with us.  He's still looking for work and has a job interview coming up, which is encouraging.

As a family, we're slowly trying to get ready for Christmas.  This year's Christmas decorations are based on these instructions.  They went over so well that both girls ended up making some, and even Raider King made a few as gifts for his family.

Our tree is up, as well as a few decorations, but very little else; a frustration of mine.  We're also behind on getting our yearly group photo that I use to make our digital Christmas cards.  It was supposed to be done yesterday, but between people being sick, in pain or just plain snarly, it just didn't happen.  It was going to instead happen today, with the girls and I meeting Dh near his office during lunch and getting some outdoor shots, but with him home sick, that's out.  So I have no idea when we'll get the photo taken now.

I've pre-ordered the meats for our tourtierre (24 pounds this year) and will be picking it up on friday.  We'll be baking like crazy over the weekend.  If things work out, we'll freeze a few and mail them to Dh's parents through Express Post.  Packed properly, they should still be frozen when they arrive, but even if they're partly thawed, it just means they can eat them faster. :-D

While ordering our meats I looked into getting a suckling pig, having been inspired by watching old Julie Child shows.  She recommended a 10-12 pound pig, which would be more than enough for the 5 of us.  No such luck!  The smallest available was 30-45 pounds.  I don't think our oven is even big enough for a pig that size, and it would be way too much for so few people.

So what I'll most likely do, then, is a goose.  I've never done goose before, and it's not the same as other birds.  One of the things I've learned while reading various cookbooks was that the skin needs to be pierced to allow the fat to drain.  The one time my mother cooked domestic goose, we found it so fatty, it was almost inedible.  I now suspect she didn't know about the skin piercing thing.  Having so successfully cooked a Canada Goose previously, it never occurred to any of us that a domestic goose would need to be treated differently.

Well, I've just lost my quiet time.  Oh, well.  At least I got this much done. :-P  Hopefully, I'll be able to catch up more soon.

Home Made Pizza

One of my most useful cookbooks was one that was given to students in my junior high school home ec class, many winters ago.  It's called Recipes for Young Adults, and had been given out to home ec students, courtesy of the Manitoba Sugar Company, for decades.  The copy I have lists the first printing in 1959 (5,000 copies) and the fourteen printing in 1975 (30,000 copies).  When I first moved out on my own, I took the copy that was in my mother's cookbook drawer, which was actualy the one given my sister when she was in school - 10 years before me.  They were identical.  Eventually, I wore that one out and went hunting for the copy I got, which is what I have now.  The cover is in tatters and the pages worn and dog earred.  The paper is yellowed with age, and more than a few spatters from whatever it happened to be near while cooking.

There was another version of this cookbook that I got a couple of years later.  It was an updated version with metric measurements and new recipes.

I hated it.

What I loved about the old version is that the recipes are far more practical, and it was filled with all sort of other advice.  In the front, there are pages of abbreviations, substitutions and equivalents, and even diagrams for table settings.  At the end of the book, there's information on preserving food in general, different canning methods for fruits and vegetables, including recipes, and even sections on laundry - with a wash 'n care chart - and a guide for selectiong pots and pan.  The recipes are very basic - no convenience foods for short cuts.  The sections include beverages, fruit, soups, salads and salad dressings, eggs, cheese dishes, and so on. There's even a chapter on "Luncheon and Supper dishes" and in the Party Suggestions chapter, there's a section on "How to estimate for a Tea" based on the number of guests, with quantities given for 50 people.  All this in only 103 pages!

The downside is that it's old.  Which is good if you're looking for "from scratch" recipes, but people generally can't find rennet anymore, and don't need instructions on how to care for their wringer washer.

Today, we decided we wanted pizza.  Usually, we order in, but just don't have the budget for it.  While doing my grocery shopping, however, I splurged a bit for toppings.  When it came to the dough, I found a curious problem.  Most of my pizza recipes called for frozen pizza dough!

Recipes for Young Adults to the rescue!

The recipe in the book is for Italian Pizza, with the ingredients divided into mixture's A (the dough), B (the sauce and C (the toppings).

All I was after was the dough.  Here is the recipe for it (though I didn't bother pre-sifting the flour):

1/2 c lukewarm water
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 envelope active dry yeast
1/2 tsp salt
2 T oil
3/4 c sifted all purpose flour
1/2 c sifted all-purpose flour

1. Measure into a bowl the lukewarm water and stir in sugar.
2. Sprinkle with yeast and let stand 10 minutes.  Then stir well.
3. Stir in 1/2 tsp. salk, 2 T oil and 3/4 c flour.  Beat until smooth.
4. Stri in an additional 1/2 c flour.
5. Turn out dough on board floured with 2 T flour.  Work in flour and knead until smooth and elastic.  Form dough into a ball.
6. Knead lightly on floured board and roll out into a circle about 18 inces in diameter.  Place on greesed cookie sheet and turn edges up slightly.

Then it goes on into the instructions for the sauce and toppings.

We doubled the recipe to make a dough for my 9x13 cookie sheet/jelly roll pan.  The pan was lightly oiled and sprinkled with corn meal so the dough wouldn't stick.  For that size pan, the double recipe made for a thin crust pizza.

For the sauce, I used a commercial pizza sauce in a squeeze bottle.  This is one of those times where getting the ingredients for the sauce would have been more wasteful, as we like our pizzas very light on sauce.  This way, we could just use a bit and I wouldn't have an open can of tomato paste and nothing to use it on (we're not big on tomatoes in any form in this household).

For the toppings, I picked up some Gypsy Salami, which has a peppery coating on the outside.  That went on all of the pizza, as did a blend of mozza and medium cheddar cheeses at the very end.  Half the pizza had sliced black olives and mushrooms added, and 1/4 of the pizza had artichoke hearts (it was on sale) and blue cheese (which I've never actually bought before).

Once it was in the oven, we figured it just wasn't going to be enough, so we whipped up a triple recipe to make a second, thick crust pizza.  This one went on my flat cookie sheet, so it was kinda, sorta rounded.  There was only enough salami for half the second pizza.  That half also got olives and mushrooms.  The other half was just cheese.  We didn't use the blue cheese this time, as only Eldest and I like it.

This is what's left of the first pizza - and my husband wasn't feeling well, so he hasn't had any yet.

The quarter section with the artichoke hearts and blue cheese was incredible!  Eldest absolutely loved it.  She says it's the best pizza she's ever tasted!  The cheese and salami only section was for Youngest, though the pizza got cut into thirds lengthwise, so only two pieces were truly cheese and salami only.

Here's our second pizza, waiting for this evening.

I noticed the flash made both pizzas looked far shinier than they really were.  They're not at all greasy, which can be a problem when cheeses are cooked for too long.

Eldest has asked that we never order pizza in again. :-D

It really didn't take long at all to make the pizzas.  The dough took maybe 20 minutes, and that counts the 10 minutes waiting for the yeast to do its magic in the warm water.  That was enough time to shred the cheeses and slice the mushrooms and artichoke hearts (the canned olives were already sliced).  Baking time was only 20 minutes.  So in about the time it takes to figure out what we want, phone in an order and wait for delivery, we could make one pizza ourselves.

It's toppings that we don't usually have.  Sure, we usually have cheese in the fridge, but not usually mozzarella.  I pretty much always have dough ingredients, but never the sauce.  Most of the ingredients for a home made sauce are standard pantry items for us, but not the tomato paste, which I just don't have much use for normally.

The small hunk of mozza I bought cost $10, and we used it up entirely on the two pizzas.  The Gypsy Salami cost a little over $6 for about 130 grams, and it covered 1 1/2 pizzas.  We got the smallest package of blue cheese we could find, which cost almost $4, though there's still some of that left since we only used it on 1/4 pizza.  Adding up the cost of the other ingredients, and trying to calculate for the portions used, I'd say it cost about $25-30 dollars to make those two pizzas.  It's still cheaper then ordering in, but with the place we usually order from, not by much.  Definitely a savings compared to the more gourmet pizza places we've tried over the years (which is where I got the idea to try the artichoke hearts).  On the other hand, the grocery store deli has a variety of large size fresh pizzas, needing only to be baked, for anywhere from about $5 - $7 each.  The most expensive one is a deluxe that has 3 kinds of meat, plus olives, mushrooms, green peppers and onions.  Frozen pizzas are more expensive than the deli pizzas, but still cheaper than these home made ones.

This definitely becomes a matter of taste over price.  These are better pizzas, but they're not necessarily better for the budget.

Sourdough bread

We've started up a new sourdough starter recently - we weren't using the last one often enough after a while to warrant keeping it going.  It's still a young starter, but old enough to start using.  The starter is about as basic as they come.  A cup of flour, a cup of warm water, a bit of sugar and some yeast to get it going (the commercial yeast isn't necessary, but depending on where you live, the wild yeasts in the air may not result in a good sourdough).

One thing different this time is that we are no longer using the quick yeasts that are so prevalent these days.  I actually found a grocery store that sells the old style dry yeast - in the big, vacuum packed package, too, rather than the little jars.  So I've got enough to last us a good long time.  I've since discovered they carry wet yeast cakes, too, which I definitely want to experiment with.  The store carries them in blocks the same size and shape as a pound of butter.

The quick yeast that most grocery stores carry now do not need to be softened before being added to the bread.  That makes things faster and more convenient, but there is a definite difference in how the bread rises.  We prefer the old style yeast.  They come in the same little round granules, but the old style yeast granules are much larger.  The faster acting the yeast, the smaller the granules.  Some look almost like a fine sand.

Anyhow.  Back to the starter.

We like to give a new starter at least 3 days to a week before we start using it for cooking.  (Reminder: when working with sourdough, avoid metal bowls, implements, etc.  Glass, plastic or ceramic containers that can be loosely covered, never sealed, are fine to keep your starter.  When actually cooking with a starter, try to stick to wood or plastic tools.)  It gets fed a bit of flour, water and a touch of sugar every day for the first few days, then ever other day or so, or after each use.

Usually, when we bake bread with sourdough, we just modify our basic bread recipe.  This time, I tried a sourdough bread recipe from The Sourdough Cookbook by Rita Davenport.  It has a lot of excellent recipes, including different types of starters, and I highly recommend it.

The main difference between this recipe and others I use is the overnight sponge.  Not something I've taken the time to do before.  The overnight starter is as follows:

1 cup starter
2 cups warm water
2 1/2 cups flour

Mix it all together in a large bowl, loosely cover it (with a cloth is fine, but my bowl has its own lid, which I just placed on top, without sealing it).  Leave the covered sponge in a warm place overnight.  We use our oven with the light left on. Don't skimp on the bowl size.  The sponge will expand quite a bit, then settle down to a smaller size.  The overflow is not easy to clean up! *L*

For the rest of the recipe, you'll need:

1 cup milk
3 Tbsp butter (the recipes adds "or margarine" but really... ew)
3 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp yeast
1/4 cup warm water
6-7 cups flour
oil for tops of loaves

Scald the milk (heat it until bubbles start to form along the edge of the saucepan, but don't let it boil), then melt in the butter.  Set aside to cool for about 10 minutes.

After 5 minutes, put your yeast into the warm water and leave it to soften and bubble for 5 minutes.

Add the softened  yeast and cooled milk and butter mixture to the overnight sponge.  Beat until blended.  Beat in 3 cups of flour until smooth.  Cover loosely and set aside in a warm, draft free place for 30-40 minutes, or until almost doubled.

Stir down the dough and start adding the remainder of the flour a little at a time.  When the dough is too thick to stir in any more flour, turn onto floured surface and knead.  Add more flour if necessary.  A sourdough dough is slightly wetter and stickier than regular bread dough, but it should still be easy to knead.  Keep kneading for 8 or 10 minutes.  Get a good arm work out in. ;-)  The dough should be smooth and elastic when it's ready.  I find this particular recipe has a wonderful, satiny feel when it's ready.

The recipe says to divide the dough in half, but I didn't bother.  Cover the dough and let it rest for 10 minutes.  Prepare your pans while you wait.  You can use two 9x5 loaf pans, but I used a 9x13 baking tray.  I only have 8x4 glass pans, so the amount of dough was too big for 2 of my pans, but too small to use 3 of them.

Form your loaves and place into your prepared pans.  I made two loves by rolling half the dough into a long rope, then folding it in half and twisting the two ends around each other.  After pinching the ends together, I lay them on my baking tray.  Lightly oil the tops, then cover your loaves and let rise for about an hour (we needed less then that).  Preheat your oven to 375F (190C). (Remember to reduce the temp by 25 degrees if you're using glass loaf pans.)  Bake for 45-50 minutes if you're doing the 9x5 loaf pans.  Our loaves, stretched out as they were, took about 35 minutes to bake.  With loaves, if they're already golden brown by 30 minutes, loosely cover them with a foil tent for the remainder of the baking time.  You can tell if they're ready by removing them from the pan and tapping the bottom.  If it sounds hollow, it's done.

Though it's not necessary, I've taken to keeping a foil pie pan of water on the lower rack while baking.  My oven has some pretty drastic hot and cold spots.  The steam from the water helps keep an even temperature throughout the oven, as well as making for a nice crust.

The bread we got with this recipe was much nicer than our usual breads.  The texture is just lovely.  As a white flour bread, it's a bit too delicate to for a hearty sandwich, but is great with soups and toasted.  I think I'd like to experiment with this recipe using blends of different flours.  It's definitely a winner with the family, though, just as it is!

Aftermath

Christmas has come and gone, though for us the season continues until Jan. 6.  This being Boxing Day, we're making a point of staying well away from stores! ;-)

Christmas was a lot of fun this year.  We stretched our Wiglia meal from somewhere before 7pm to past 11:30.  During one of the breaks between courses, Dh had time for a short nap. *L*  The Scallop Shumai turned out all right - Eldest and Dh liked them the most.  I'm not a seafood lover, so to me they were just okay, and Youngest wasn't too keen on them... which suited Dh and Eldest just fine. :-D  I managed to NOT cut my fingers off while chopping the shrimp, but not for lack of trying. *L*  I have a noteable chunk of my index fingernail missing now, and an annoying little slice on the side of my thumb that keeps catching on things.
Ah, the joys of cooking! *L*

The appetizer course also included a cheese plate.  Along with some tried and true favourites (havarti, gouda and brie), we tried a new artisanal goat cheese.  Mon âme est aux Terres de Portneuf ce que mon coeur d'artisan est fromage.  The goat cheese was coated in ash.  I figured the ash might lend a saltiness to it.  I was wrong.  No, this method brought out the painful side of ash.  It was extremely acidic.  Strangely, Eldest developed a taste for it, though it needs to be eating rather carefully! *L*  We also had a variety of olives to nibble on.  Plain black olives, caper stuffed green olives (way too salty!), and cheese stuffed green olives (quite nice).  There were pickled onions (very harsh and vinegary: I'll have to remember to stay away from this type in the future) and tiny pickles (much sweeter than I expected!) with fruit, sourdough bread, a baguette and olive and cheedar bread.  To drink, we had warm apple and cranberry juice (about a 50/50 mix) heated in the slower cooker with whole cloves, a few cinnamon sticks and some nutmeg.  We fished out as much of the spices as we could when it reached a flavour we liked, after a few hours in the slow cooker.

After a break to digest, Eldest made her Greek Salad.  We were still pretty full, so it was after this course that we took an even longer break and Dh got his nap in. *L*  After that we had the ham (falling off the bone tender!), garlic mashed potatoes and tourtierre, and the roasted leek and apple dish.  That was the one thing that could be considered a failure.  It was *really* sweet.  Even though it used only one apple, it dominated the dish, while the leek flavour just sorta disappeared.  I wouldn't mind trying it again without the apple, though.

When we were done with that, we waited long enough for the whipped cream to be made.  It was sweetened only with the crushed candy canes.  It was all right, but not something I'd want to do again.  Probably because we're just not really fans of candy canes in this household. *L*  The apple pie, however, was really good.  Youngest and Dh didn't actually have any.  She doesn't like apple pie or whipped cream, and Dh figured he'd screwed his blood sugars up enough already. *L*  So Eldest and I get the pies all to ourselves.  Mind you, there were also chocolates (boxed mix), cookies (we actually bought those as much for the tin as for the cookies) and brownies for sweets, too.  Those actually didn't see a lot of action.  The chocolates are gone by the end of Christmas Day, but there are still plenty of cookies and brownies.

After we finished eating, we relaxed for a while until midnight, then opened our gifts.  I am so glad I set up the video camera to film this!  The kids were pretty excited about their gifts.  We got Youngest a stereo CD player.  She's needed one to practise her singing in her room, but we have had the worst luck with basic portable players.  The CD players on all of them never seem to last more than a couple of months.  The radio's continue to work fine, but we really don't listen to radio.  With that in mind, we sprung for a higher end system that I really hope will last her a while.  I've been hearing her singing in her room for the past two days now. :-D

As much as she liked that, she was even more excited over the carved rosewood crochet hook and skeins of Peruvian wool yarn we got for her. *L*  Gosh, it's so much fun watching the kids unwrap their gifts.  With the hook, all she could do was squeak in excitement, and she was literally speechless when she unwrapped the yarn.

Those where the highlights of Youngest's gifts.  Eldest was just as fun.  We got her several books, including Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and The Zombie Survival Guide (I may be remembering the Zombie title wrong).  Then there was the big, hardcover reference book simply called Birds.  The remote control spider robot was a hit, too.

Dh's gifts were much enjoyed.  Some were hobby related, like the photography book on family portraiture.  I think he had the most fun with the Hickory Farms kit Youngest bought for him, with sausages, cheeses, etc., complete with a mini-cleaver.  She got it because of the cleaver.  It's adorable! *L*

The highlight of my own gifts was most definitely an autographed copy of Ree Drummond's The Pioneer Woman Cooks!  I love cookbooks that you can read to start with, but throw in some amazing photography and Pioneer Woman's fantastic sense of humour, and I'm totally hooked!  I keep reaching for it and flipping through the pages.  I'm really looking forward to trying some of those recipes!

After the gift opening, it was off to bed.  In the morning, we had our stockings waiting for us for a few more gifts, then a quiet Christmas day.  We've been drinking a lot of tea lately - one of Eldest's gifts was a tea chest, so we're working through all the flavours.  The days are sunny and relatively warm - after the Arctic deep freeze and snow we've been having, our current -6C is practically t-shirt weather - so I'm hoping we'll get a chance to head out somewhere and do some exploring and picture taking.

There's still New Year's to celebrate, and finally, Three Kings Day.  Dh doesn't even have to go back to work until the 4th, which is kinda nice. :-D

Our Menu

The girls and I have worked out the menu plan for this year's Wigilia.  Traditional, it's not! LOL!

Here's what we've worked out.

Appetizer: Scallop Shumai
recipe from: The World in Bite Size

It's a combination of chopped fresh shrimp and whole scallops in won ton wrappers that are steamed.

Salad: Greek Salad
(no recipe)

I wanted either a soup or salad for the second course.  Usually, we have a soup, then a salad with the entree.  The soup we usually had would be something like a clam chowder, which I found too heavy.  So my restriction with a soup was that if we had one, it would be something light.  Instead, Eldest suggested she could make a Greek Salad.  She makes an excellent Greek Salad, so we're going with that. :-D

Entree:
Baked ham studded with whole cloves, roasted with apple juice.
Tourtierre (this year, our filling mix included elk!)
Garlic mashed potoatos with cheese (Youngest asked for this one. :-D )
Roasted Leeks & Apple

The roasted leeks is a recipe from The Philosopher's Kitchen and includes white wine, honey, marjoram and anise seed with the apple and leeks. 

Dessert: home made apple pie
I use a recipe modifed slightly from one in Treasury of Country Recipes that is incredible.  I'm not actually a big apple pie fan, but this one is an exception!  We'll be baking this in the next couple of days.  Eldest recommended we try it with a whipped cream with crushed candy canes in it.  Should be interesting. :-D

Drinks
hot drink: Spiced apple and cranberry juice
(no recipe)
cold drink: Cranberry and ginger ale punch
(no recipe)

Along with this, we're going to have a cheese plate, fruit, and little nibblies like olives, tiny pickles, pickled onions and whatever else I see that looks good.  Hmmm... maybe we can do a fondue?  The kids love that. :-D

I'll have to see what nice breads I can pick up, too.  The breads, lettuce and seafood won't be picked up until the last minute - Christmas Eve morning, if I can swing it that late.  Otherwise, the night before.

I figure by the time we finish the feast, it'll be midnight or so. *L*  It easily takes us several hours to finish it, as we take our time with each course.

The family is debating whether or not we're going to Midnight Mass this year.  We're not practising Catholics at all, but Midnight Mass is something special.  We've got a Catholic church just up the block from us now, but I have no idea what they're got scheduled, if anything.  We'll see how that works out.

Either way, I'm looking forward to our first Christmas in our new home!

Pioneer Dinner; cooking rabbit.

Well, our pioneer themed dinner worked out quite well!  Before I go on to that, though, here's how I ended up cooking the rabbit for the evening.

The rabbit we got was frozen - fresh wasn't even an option.  Friggin' expensive, too.  Just over $25 for the one.  The bison roast was more expensive, though, and wasn't really much more meat, so we stuck with the bunny.

Ingredients for this dish:


1 whole rabbit
about 1/2 cup flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 onion, chopped
3 cups chicken broth (or water)

Once it was thawed, we figured out why we couldn't see the hind legs.  They were tucked into the body cavity, where we also found the liver (which fell out, so it isn't in the photo) and kidneys (which were still attached).

Some of the recipes I found included instructions for the liver and kidneys, but not for how I'd decided to cook it.  In the end, I chopped them up and gave them to the cat.  Only one of our cats will eat real food, for some reason, and she was more than happy to have it all to herself. :-D

If this had been an old rabbit, I would have soaked it in salt water for a while, first.  As it was, I just rinsed it out.

I then had to figure out how to cut the carcass into pieces.  I've never butchered a bunny before.  The legs were easy enough, but the body took a bit more figuring out.

I've decided I need a cleaver, though.  Making do with a chef's knife will only go so far.  Bunny bones are weak enough to go through, but it still took a bit more than I was comfortable doing with the knife I had.

This is what I ended up with - 8 pieces.  Plenty of meat on those back legs.  The ribs are quite scrawny, though.  The rib and back pieces got rolled up to make the thickness similar to the leg pieces.

The pieces were then dredged in a mixture of flour, salt and pepper.  Some versions from the time period had the pieces rest for a while, then get dipped in beaten egg, followed by breadcrumbs. I decided our hypothetical settlers weren't established enough to have eggs or large amounts of flour.  For a long time, if the settlers were able to grow their own grain at all, they usually had only enough to grind small amounts in a coffee grinder to make bannock or pancakes.  Breadloaves, especially yeast breads, didn't become common until the late 1800's, early 1900's.

The floured pieces were then browned in a pan.  I used bacon fat for this.  Pigs became common well before cows, so pig fat was more available than any other kind.  People would let their pig root around in the bushes, feeding itself throughout the spring and summer.  In the fall, they'd butcher it, preserve the meat (usually smoked or brined) and render the fat for use in the winter.  Adequate dietary fat was a major concern.  In the early years, a lot of people died of "rabbit starvation."   Rabbits were plentiful and easy to catch, but the meat is very lean.  It was the only food source for some people, but didn't have adequate amounts of fat for the human body's needs.  So even though their bellies were full, they were hungry, as their bodies craved fat.  Unable to get any, they died of "starvation."

Isn't that a cheerful subject.

*ahem*

The browned pieces were then set aside for later.

 Onion pieces were then added to the pan the rabbit was browned in.  I found myself needing to add more bacon fat, though, as the pan was really dry.

At this point, if our hypothetical settlers had had other veggies, they'd add the cut up pieces now.

When the onion (and any other veggies that might be there) were softened, I added about 3 cups of chicken broth that had the last of the dredging flour mixed into it.  Orignally, the broth might have been made from Prairie Chickens, other game, vegetables, or just plain water.

The broth was cooked down to about half it's volume, give or take.  With the flour in it, it started to thicken a bit, too.

Once the broth was cooked down, the browned pieces were returned to the pan and left to simmer for about 1 1/2 hours.

It went over really well at the dinner. Both of the girls found it delicious.  I had one person comment that this was the first time she'd had rabbit, and it won't be the last! *L*  With 20 people, we all took only a little bit each, and there was actually some left.  For a while.  A couple of the kids discovered them, and polished them off. *L* 

This is definitly something we'd do again - if we're ever willing to spend that much money on it again! *L*

Increases

Ugh!

Today is our big errands day.  Every couple of fridays, we do our bulk grocery shopping and general running around.  The girls helped me pick up the groceries, and the total bill was about $75 more than usual.  About $30 of that was stuff we don't buy very often, but at the same time, there were things we normally buy that we didn't need to on this trip.  In fact, the stuff we didn't buy comes out to more than the "extras" we did get this time around.  I'm going to have to totally re-work our budget and find some way to re-direct more into the groceries budget.

Part of our running around today involves getting ready for our pioneer dinner this Sunday.  We picked up a frozen rabbit at a butcher shop.  This particular shop has all kinds of unusual meats, including kangaroo, camel, and musk ox.  Today we saw something different - python!  A little piece about 6 inches long, 3 inches wide and maybe half an inch thick cost $7.50  Ouch.  We saw some alligator, too.  I didn't even look at the price of that.

Cooking the rabbit authenticaly isn't going to take much.  The butcher said to just cut it up and pan fry it, which is pretty much what I was thinking.  I'm tempted to marinade it or something, but that would never have been done in our time period.  There's so little meat, though.  Maybe I should do a rabbit stew, instead.  It was expensive - just over $25 for one - but it still cost less than a bison roast.  I'm not sure that the bison would have given us any more meat for our money, either.

Now we're on the hunt for wild rice.  I used to see it in our usual grocery store, but now I'm just finding it in blends.  There's another place I want to try out before I break down and use one of those.

*sigh*  Time to get off my butt and start on supper.  I'm making hamburgers tonight.  I haven't done that in a long time, and the kids are asking me to. :-)

Mushroom Pasty

Last night, we had a very successful evening of historical cooking and eating. More on that later, but first, here's how we made our mushroom pasty, using a recipe from this site.


The ingredients:

1 - 1 1/2 pounds mushrooms (the girls chose a mix of white button and crimini, and this is actually closer to 2 pounds)
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup grated cheddar
1/2 tsp each of salt and ginger
1/4 tsp pepper


dough for one pie






We started off by sauteing the mushrooms in the oil, though I did end up adding a bit of butter, too. I cooked them until the liquid was gone.
















Then added the other ingredients and mixed it all together well.












The recipe was for a pie or tart, but I decided to make individual pasties, instead. Using small tart pans as forms, I divided the dough into 8 and rolled out the pieces to cover the bottoms of the pans. Then I added the filling.


These can be made with or without a top. A single recipe of dough, which should have been enough for top and bottom of 1 pie shell, was just enough to cover the bottoms. I didn't like how they looked, so I tucked the edges over the filling a bit, then rolled out another 1/2 recipe of dough (I'd pre-made 3 recipes in anticipation of other baking) and used a glass to cut circles. I wet one side of the circles with water before putting them onto the pasties, so that the dough would stick better.

These were then baked at 350F until golden.

The hardest part of making these was to stick to the recipe. I kept wanting to add garlic or other flavorings. I'm glad I didn't. They were so delicious, just the way they were!

Strangely, I neglected to get a photo of what they looked like when I took them out of the oven. Ah, well.

The entire meal was made up of 3 removes. The pasties were served with the stewed chicken our guests brought, which was incredibly good. They, too, had to resist adding at least garlic to their recipe. *L* Their leek soup was wonderful, too. Very light.

The most challenging part of the meal was the strawberry tart and baked apples in the third remove. The recipes were originals, not translated to modern cooking. What instructions were vague and confusing, and there was one ingredient we couldn't figure out at all. We used strawberry syrup instead. They were good, though we'd definitely change things if we made them again - like not including egg yolks with the baked apple. (One of the dishes Eldest wanted to make didn't pan out, as we couldn't find elderberry blossums for it.)

At the end of the meal, we were all quite full and satisfied. They sure knew how to cook well in the 12th century! Unfortunately, our guests had to leave rather suddenly as a storm moved in. We were on the balcony when the wind, rain and what we thought was hail started - the "hail" turned out to be pieces of a neighboring tree. The real hail started later on. Thankfully, we'd brought most of our planters in by then. The electricity flickered a bit, but we didn't have an actual power outage. We were lucky. I've spoken to one person who was without power for 16 hours, and today we saw one area where the power was still out.

No surprise about the outages, judging from the carnage we saw today. The streets were littered with broken branches, and we saw downed trees all over the place. One street was completely blocked by a huge elm - thankfully, no vehicles had been parked where it fell, and only some branches at its top hit the house on the opposite side of the street it had fallen on. An apartment block we passed had a patio and second floor balcony filled with a downed tree. Many others were seen in various parks we drove past. There's going to be a lot of clean up in the next few days. For now, the city must be focusing on those areas there the power was knocked out.

We didn't even get the worst of it. After the storm blew over us, I went onto the balcony a few times. We have a clear view of about 1/3rd of the horizon from our balcony. To the south and east, we continually saw lightning strikes that must've been outside the city. The small towns in those directions would have been hit far harder than we were. Quite a wild night!

As for our medieval themed evening, we all had a great time and really look forward to doing it again. Nothing like the combination of good food and great company! The only question is, what time in history shall we do next? Eldest brought up ancient Egypt and the pioneer area, both of which I would love to try out.

Whatever we end up doing, it's going to be a blast! :-D

Making do with watcha got.

One of the skills I hope I'm instilling in our girls is the ability to creatively make do with what's available. This is particularly useful in the kitchen, and today is one example.

Our plans for the day changed, which meant my plans for supper changed, too. I was no longer going to be home to supervise a long, slow oven roasting. Instead, I quickly grabbed some ground beef out of the freezer and hoped it would be thawed out by the time we got back (it almost was).

It wasn't until I got back home that I could stop and think about what I could do with the ground beef. It wasn't a large package. Extra lean. I never buy regular ground beef, if I can avoid it. With extra lean, there's no fat to deal with, and there's hardly any shrinkage during cooking.

A peek in the fridge showed me half an onion that needed to be cooked before it got soft, three button mushrooms (stuffer size), and some plain yogurt.

Thinking of Shakespeare's Kitchen, one of the many cookbooks I've borrowed from the library, I decided to make meat filled "purses." These sorts of hand-held pastries were a common street food for many centuries, and I believe they still are in some parts of the world.

This is what I came up with.

For the filling, I cut the onion into smallish pieces and started cooking them in butter. Then I cut and sliced the mushrooms into thin pieces and added them to the onion. When the onions and mushrooms got to about half done, I started adding seasoning. I could have just added salt and pepper and it would have worked fine, but I like to keep a variety of herbs in the pantry. I added garlic granules (because I didn't think to cut up fresh garlic earlier), oregano, sage, thyme, tarragon and paprika, simply because those are some of my favorites. Then I added the mostly thawed out ground beef and cooked it all until the meat was cooked through and any moisture was pretty much evaporated.

When it got close to being done, I mixed about a cup of plain yogurt with roughly a tablespoon of flour. If I'd had sour cream, I would've used that. If I hadn't had yogurt, I probably would have left the filling as it was. Some tomato paste or sauce would've worked well, too, as long as it was kept thick.

When the yogurt and flour was well combined, I stirred it into the meat mixture until it was heated through, then took the whole thing off the heat and set it aside to cool down and thicken a bit.

While it was cooling, I made a basic flaky pastry dough. For a small batch - enough for top and bottom for a 6" pie - you need...

1 cup flour
1/3 cup fat
1/3 tsp salt
2 Tbsp or so cold water

In the old days, the fat would've been bacon grease or lard. Personally, I like to use butter, but shortening will do as well. I suppose you could use hard margarine, but I can't imagine why anyone would want to. ;-) The important thing is for the fat to be very cold. The water needs to be really cold, too. I just put some in a little bowl with a couple of ice cubes and set it aside until I was ready for it.

This basic recipe is fine on its own, but modifies well, too. If it's going to be used for a dessert, try adding things like a bit of sugar, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc. to the dry ingredients. For a savoury dish, like what I had in mind, all sorts of dry or powdered herbs can be used. For mine, I added paprika. When I found this recipe only used up half the meat mixture, I made a second batch with ground sage and dried tarragon.

To make the dough, combine the dry ingredients in a bowl, then cut in the fat until it's quite small and the texture is like coarse meal. Then start adding the ice cold water, one tablespoon at a time, mixing well after each addition. When the consistency is right, shape the dough into a ball and divide into equal pieces. Because there are 4 of us, I split it into 8 pieces.

Start pre-heating the oven to 350F at this point.

For a flaky dough, it needs to be kept cold and handled as little as possible. I worked with 2 pieces at a time, keeping the rest in the fridge. I rolled out each piece to about 1/8th inch thickness, added some of the meat mixture to the middle (careful not to over fill - I'm forever adding too much!), and pulled up the sides to make a purse shape. A bit of water along the inside edge helps the dough stick to itself better. If you want, they can be shaped into crescents or whatever shape is more convenient.

After shaping the filled purses, I put them on a lightly oiled baking sheet and stuck them in the oven. Since the filling is already cooked, they only need to be baked until the dough is starting to get a bit browned on the edges and bottom. For my oven, which I'm still not used to yet, it took about half an hour or so. That was enough time for me to mix up a second batch of pastry dough with sage and tarragon.



And this is what they look like. The paprika makes for a lovely colour. The sage and tarragon dough looks pretty bland in comparison! *L*















I broke this one open while it was still steaming hot. It smelled so good!

Youngest definitely preferred the paprika dough, though not being a fan of mushrooms, she would've preferred I didn't use those at all. Eldest loves mushrooms, but she hates ground beef. *sigh* Ah, well. Dh and I liked both versions, though I liked the paprika dough a bit more, I think.

All in all, I'd say this was a success.


I wonder how it would work with the ground pork I've got in the freezer right now?

Happy Easter!

Wishing everyone joy and blessings this Easter morning.




We start off our morning sharing the bounty of our basket. This year, I chose a brie for the cheese and baked it this morning. There's also the special bread we baked, eggs, prepared horseradish (WOW did that pack a wallop!), ham, kielbasa, butter and salt.

A wonderful way to celebrate Easter morning.

We did have a couple of chocolate bunnies, too. We'll get to them eventually. ;-)

Making do can be a success.

Yesterday, I tried a new bread recipe. It's a "5 minute" artisan bread. It doesn't actually take 5 minutes, of course, but the working portion is about 5 minutes - mixing together water, salt, yeast and flour for a batter like dough that is not meant to be kneaded.

The first hitch came when it was time to measure in the salt. It seemed like a huge about - the same as the yeast measurement. Turns out it was supposed to be *course* salt. So maybe that's why the dough didn't want to rise? Possibly. The dough was supposed to rise until it fell in on itself, a stage it never reached.

To give my bread dough a warm, draft-free place to rice, I use my oven. I turn it on to the lowest heat for a while, then shut it off, leaving only the oven light on to maintain temperature. The covered bowl of bread dough stays warm and toasty.

Because it wasn't rising well, I ended up leaving it overnight. With that length of time, I did actually re-heat the oven a bit a couple of times.

So I *know* that, last night, my oven was working.

This morning, I went to bake the bread and discovered my oven no longer working. I'd already shaped 4 small loaves and had them on a pan to rise before for about half an hour before I started pre-heating the oven, so I was kind of stuck. The rest of the dough (I'd made a double recipe) was already in the fridge, so it was fine, but what to do with what I had?

My initial thought was that I'd accidentally hit the timer button on the oven. I've done something like that before, so I fiddled with the knobs, ensuring that it was set to manual.

Nothing. The "on" light wouldn't even light up. The stove top was working fine, but the oven was doing nothing. It was warm only because of the light bulb being on all night.

The only number I have for the maintenance guy is an emergency cell number, so I called the co-op's office to see if there was another one. Unfortunately, there was no one there, so I left a message, explaining what happened.

After a while, since I was getting the mail anyway, I went to the office in person. Still no one there. I asked some people there, and was told she would be back later. Unfortunately, we had stuff we needed to do away from home, so when I got back, I called and left another message saying we'd be out, but that if he was available, the maintenance guy had permission to come in while we were gone. Then we left, making sure to cover the shaped loaves with a damp cloth.

When we got back several hours later, the oven still wasn't working and there were no messages, so I had no real idea if he'd come in. A few minutes later though, there was a knock at the door. It was the maintenance guy, and he managed to squeeze in a few minutes to check on us. His first thought, like mine, was the timers. He also checked the fuses, but they seemed fine. He took the 2 fuses for the oven anyways to check them properly, saying that if they were the problem, he'd be back with new ones. If not, he'll have to come back on Monday, since he only works 3 days a week (this is his "retirement" job).

He hasn't come back.

Which left me with 4 loaves under a now-dry cloth, and no oven to bake them in.

Time to get creative.

I got out my wok.

After putting 2 butter knives across the bottom, I added water. I have a pan - a stainless steel frying pan that lost its handle many years ago - that fits inside the wok, with the butter knives keeping it from touching the bottom. The water was enough to go partway up the sides of the pan. The loaves on the baking sheet were on cornmeal to prevent sticking, so I'd put cornmeal on the bottom of the pan, too. I was going to put a lid on the pan, but it has a handle on the top that prevented the wok lid from fitting, so I didn't use the pan's lid at all.

Only 2 loaves fit in the pan, and when I put them in, they looked all flat and dry from being out all day. A while after the steam did its work, they were puffed up and moistened beautifully.

I had no idea how long to leave them, or even if it would work at all. Talking to a foodie friend on MSN and doing some research online, I found that I probably should've at least tried to use aluminum foil to cover them. The loaves were also pretty large for this technique.

After a while - an hour? More? I never looked at a clock - I added some boiling water to the wok to top of the water levels. Maybe half an hour after that, I stuck a knife in one of the loaves to see if it was ready. It seemed hard-ish, so I quickly took one out, leaving the other still in the steam, and cut it in half to see if it was cooked through. It seemed to be. Then I took the other one out, brought the water back to a boil and popped in the remaining 2 loaves.

The end result is... strange. But good. The loaves are pale and dense. The bread is chewy in texture. But it tastes good (though much saltier than I like - no surprise there). The whole family has tried it, and Youngest REALLY likes it.

I still have the remaining 2 loaves steaming away. Since we won't have an oven until Monday, at the earliest, I at least know that I can still cook the dough that's in the fridge.

Hey, whatever works, eh?