Besides a huge pork loin roast, crazy sundaes and an ever evolving
black bean and pumpkin soup I've been messing around with:

Plum preserves: I had this often when I was a kid but haven't had
any for decades. I pitted and chopped up a pint of prune plums and
boiled them until just softened with a little water, just a wee bit
of sugar, lemon juice, allspice, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Half
was sweetened with additional sugar and reserved for sundaes but the
other half got a splash of vinegar, a pinch each of ground chile,
black pepper and mustard powder to make a tart accompaniment to that
roast pork we've been eating for the past several days. It was
wonderful both ways.

Irish Mist: Now that cooler weather has arrived I had a craving for
some Drambuie to make rusty nails with but discovered that it's
discontinued at my store, along with Chartreuse and Benedictine and
other venerable liqueurs, to make shelf room for more stupid
flavoured vodkas and nasty cheap artificially flavoured schnapps. So
I bought a bottle of Irish Mist which is or at least was similar.
What I didn't know until I got home, had a sip and read the label is
that the ownership has changed hands and they've messed with the
recipe. It is now lower proof (70 vs 80), sweeter and less herbal
(no hint of heather at all) than before. It's a major disappointment
and that will be my last bottle of it ever. AVOID!

Ginger bud: On the last hand of ginger I purchased a little bud
started growing on one of the fingers. I chopped it out and planted
it. It's starting to green up and grow so I'm looking forward to using
stems and leaves as an herb in a few weeks, as they do in tropical
Southeast Asia.

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06

Title: Rendang Sapi
Categories: Indonesian, Beef, Chilies, Curry
Yield: 8 Servings

SPICE PASTE:
50 g Dry red chilli
50 g Fresh red chilli
100 g Garlic; chopped
100 g Shallots; chopped
150 Ginger; chopped
150 g Galangal; chopped
150 g Lemongrass; chopped
100 g Candle nuts
CURRY:
800 ml Coconut milk
1 kg Beef rump; diced
150 g Brown sugar
3 tb Chicken stock powder
1 Cinnamon stick
3 Star anise
100 g Desiccated coconut; toasted
2 Fresh ginger leaves

To make the paste: Blend all the ingredients together in a food
processor until you have a fine paste. It will be necessary to add
about 1 cup water to the paste. Fry the rendang paste in hot oil in
a large pot until fragrant. Add the coconut milk and beef. Add some
water; if needed, to cover the meat. Add the remainder of the
ingredients and cook over a low heat for about four hours until the
meat is soft and falling apart.

To serve; sprinkle curry with fried onion and spring onion rings.

From: Tom Mc Rae To: Foodwine

Sapi is a bull. - JW

MMMMM



Cheers

Jim


... Thanks cows. I appreciate your tastiness.

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We had our company Christmas party at the Explorer Hotel,
Yellowknife's first and oldest 3 star hotel. The menu was shorter
and more basic than in previous years but there were a couple of
interesting things to choose from. The bone marrow canoes they
introduced last year were still on the menu but I went with their
cold smoked arctic char summer rolls which were really quite amazing
and had a very generous portion of char. As they should considering
an appetiser portion of 2 rolls goes for $20. Roslind had their
charcuterie plate with house made terrine, pate, smoked duck,
sausage, salami, Gruyere cheese, potato bread and a blueberry
chutney. It too was excellent. We ended up splitting and sharing
both items. For mains I had an excellent grilled bison ribeye, rare,
with whisky sauce and a side of spatzle. The bison was farmed from
Alberta and not wild from here so it was fattier, milder tasting
and more tender. Roslind had a turkey roulade that was tasty but
unremarkable.

Two of her clients have given her gifts of sun and wind dried
whitefish, known as Piffi in Inuinnaqtun (Western Inuit) or Ehgwaa
in the Tlicho Dene dialect. One batch was birch wood smoked, the
other unsmoked. In the north whitefish are netted, split and gutted.
The flesh is then cut into small squares or diamonds, very carefully
down to the skin without actually cutting the skin itself and then hung
over wood poles to dry outdoors until brittle. They are so dry that
they can be stored for a year or more unrefrigerated. To eat, one
peels the little bits off from the skin which then gets discarded.
The hard little shards can be reconstituted in soups, stews and
chowders or simply nibbled on as is. They go great with beer
instead of pretzels, chips or peanuts.

I played fast and loose with my last batch of spaghetti sauce and
the result was interesting. It started out as a basic Ital-Canadian
ground beef red sauce but I was out of celery so I threw in a couple
of the white base stalks from of bok choy, diced small and added
both lemon balm and stonecrop (Sedum rupestre Angelina) to the
standard herb mix. Lemon balm tastes of citronella and stonecrop
leaves are slightly peppery but mild, somewhat astringent and
bitter. A little bit goes a long way! The result was unusual but
tasty,

Tealish is a family owned, Toronto based seller of premium quality
loose tea which makes some interesting blends. I picked up a small
canister of chocolate strawberry dessert tea on a whim. Now
strawberries go nicely with both tea and chocolate but I was dubious
about combining tea and chocolate but the result was surprisingly
good. The base is a very fragrant, good quality black tea mixed with
chocolate bits, dried berries and safflower blossoms. It wonderful
hot without sugar, milk or lemon and equally good iced with a shot
of Creme de Cacao in it.

This winter I'm enjoying my favourite cocktails with a new riff by
simply swapping out gin with vodka and brandy for whisky. Vodka
negronis are amazing and brandy Manhattans superb. For additional
flavours I picked up a bottle each of Creme de Cassis and Cacao both
of which are excellent poured on sundaes as well as in mixed drinks.
Just a few drops of Cassis is pure magic in a Manhattan.

Latest wine: Apothic Inferno 2018. It a red blend with a distinctive
taste as it is aged in whisky barrels which gives the red and black
fruit profile spice, vanilla and char notes. It's great paired with
grilled, smoked or barbecued meats.



Cheers

Jim


... Too bad dinosaurs are extinct; some of them probably tasted awesome!

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President's Choice bang bang shrimp: I usually skip over frozen
prepared meals and just buy basic ingredients but they were marked
down to half price so we bought two.

The shrimp comes boxed and frozen and gets oven baked. They have a
crunchy cornmeal breading that's quite chile hot. The sauce comes in
a separate plastic pouch and is a brilliant orange, creamy, with a
mild chile flavour and slightly sweet. It gets thawed and warmed up
by plunking the unopened pouch into a bowl of hot water. So the prep
is dirt simple.

I suspect the sauce is made with a mixture of Thai sweet chili sauce
for chicken and mayo.

The shrimp was nice and juicy under the crispy breading. I liked the
heat level but Roslind found it too hot for her tastes. Neither one
of us was in love with the sauce. I found freshly squeezed lemon
juice to be vastly superior.

Moose dry meat: Ray got his limit last fall: one each moose, mule
deer, white tail deer and elk. He made a large batch of Native style
moose drymeat and we got a large zip lock bag of it for Christmas.
Drymeat is different than jerky in that it isn't salted, brined or
seasoned; it is air and wind dried with just a little smoke. It's
admittedly an acquired taste. Roslind prefers drymeat which she
grew up with as a child while I prefer jerky which is what I grew up
with. (Young Azlind Oliver teethed on it!) Having said that I'm
still having my share of that bag!

Eye of round: This is a meat cut I generally avoid as it's tough and
dry unless cooked very carefully. On Tuesday we had a post Christmas
dinner at a niece's place (the one with the triplets) and she made a
wonderful roast with it. Her secret is using a oven roasting bag
and a Coca Cola based marinade. She cooks the roast right in the
marinade and later makes a gravy with it. The marinade provides
the acidity needed to tenderise the meat and is not overly sweet.
She added a BBQ sauce to the finished gravy as well. The meat was
falling apart tender, had a great flavour and was quite moist. I am
going to try this myself sometime soon.

MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06

Title: Bonefish Grill's Bang Bang Shrimp
Categories: Appetizers, Shrimp, Thai
Yield: 4 Servings

1/2 c Mayonnaise
1/4 c Thai Sweet Chili Sauce
3 dr Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce (or
To taste)
1 lb Shelled and deveined shrimp
Dry cornstarch
Oil for frying
Lettuce
Chopped scallions

Mix mayonnaise with Thai Sweet Chili Sauce. Add hot sauce
to taste.

Dredge the shrimp in cornstarch. Deep fat fry the shrimp
until lightly brown. Drain on paper towel, put in a bowl
and coat with the sauce.

Serve in a lettuce lined bowl, top with chopped scallions.

cdkitchen.com attributes this to Bonefish Grill

From: Michael Loo Date: 03-08-15

MMMMM

Cheers

Jim

... An omelette is just an egg quesadilla

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