Dejah

We too had homemade wontons! (ground pork, waterchestnuts, shrimp) Added shrimp roe noodles, chicken stock, and broccoli. Good comfort soup after hubby had minor day surgery yesterday.

Quick IP Beef Stew with a small Sterling Silver round roast. It will never replace chuck roast for stew for me. Made up some German potato dumplings from a package. Great for the sauce!

Sometimes, if there is a lot more fat than what I like, then I will trim some off. But, the fat chars 😋 and sorta melts off during cooking. And lean pork does not work for Char Siu Baos well. I like this cut because it is done in strips and easy to do in the oven or BBQ I used to hang the strips on a cross bar at the top of my oven...until it broke. These are great on the BBQ outside, but this last week has not been pleasant to be outside.;

Supper was Maple and Mustard Salmon, except I used steelhead trout. Same colour😊 Trying to use up some hash brown potato patties I picked up for the grandkids. Liked this recipe by Chef Michael Smith. I did the fish on a baking sheet with ridges and in the oven. It was easy and quick.

Skinless chicken legs and thighs marinated with fish sauce, soy sauce, OJ, orange zest, brown sugar, then cooked in the air fryer @390F for 20 minutes. Coconut pineapple rice with a sprinkle of toasted sesame seeds and ginger (from a jar) , stir-fried bak choy, and mango salsa. Really nice change up!

More of the country-style pork ribs with Patak Vindaloo paste and fresh curry leaves. I love lots of onions and bell peppers with this. Cooked up some brown basmati rice with cardamom seeds, and roasted cauliflower. Cold bitter wind today while cleaning up more leaves, so this hit the spot.

Had a big tray of country-style pork ribs out to marinade for Char Siu. Took some and marinated with lemon juice, soy sauce, cumin, and fresh oregano. Packed in foil and roasted at 300F for 2 hours. Eaten with sweet potato and yu choy. The juice from the ribs made a flavourful light gravy.

Found Scottish Boned Kippers at local Safeway! Made for a lovely brunch with scrambled eggs, canned tomatoes.

This is the old knife rack. It sits on the window sill above my counter and sink. The new one will be longer - 18" and also two tiers.

One pane of glass broke in my two tiered knife rack, and it was made (by a kind friend) in such a way that I couldn't slide it out to replace or to clean. Another retired friend, needing a project to work on in his shop, offered to make me a new one. He made me TWO! I still need to treat the wood, then get glass inserts. Might have to buy some more knives to fill both racks! 😉 My friend wouldn't take any money, not even for the oak he used. Do I made him Cantonese Chow Mein to take home for supper. I made a double batch, so we also had it for supper.

It's called apple crisp, but not made with the usual suspects of oat meal, brown sugar, etc Here's the recipe. I used apples from a neighbor's tree. They had a bumper crop, so I was the happy recipient . Canadian Cheddar Cheese Apple Crisp - from E.D. Smith Pie Filling Recipe Basic Recipe: 6 portions 1 - 19 oz. E.D. Smith apple pie filling or your own pie filling 1 - cup all purpose flour ¼ cup sugar 1 ½ tsp. baking POWDER ½ tsp. salt 1 ½ cup shredded cheddar cheese ( I use old cheddar) 1/3 cup melted butter ¼ cup milk Combine and sift all dry ingredients Mix in cheese Mix together the melted butter and milk. Add to the above mixture Mix gently with a fork until all the flour is incorporated Spoon apple pie filling into a shallow 1 quart / 1 litre baking dish Drop flour/cheese mixture by forkful to evenly cover the entire dish. Don’t press down! Use the fork to spread the dough if lumpy Bake in pre-heated oven at 375F for 25-35 minutes or until golden brown The recipe calls for a shallow 1quart dish. I used an 8” x 11” Pyrex glass dish. I made 1.5 times the topping recipe but 2 cans filling Great with ice cream or by itself.

Shrimp and Grits with field greens salad (drizzled with toasted sesame dressing), and sauteed Shanghai Bok Choy Dessert was Canadian Cheddar Cheese Apple Crisp - fresh from the oven. Someone couldn't wait!

@patti: My husband prefers Hoisin based BBQ sauce on ribs. I also use Hoisin for my Char Siu - so easy to do on the BBQ.

Snow! Definitely a chill in the air. Made up another recipe from the WW Cook Up Comfort cookbook. I have made the multi-steps Moussaka often, but this one was all done in one skillet then browned under the broiler. Picked up lovely spinach at the Chinese grocery. Sauteed them and roasted carrot fries. Kitchen was toasty!

My friend Linda who gifted me with a tagine, is French Canadian. She offered to bring me one of her tourtières the next day, and she did. I duly put it in the oven to re-heat for our dinner. I could smell cinnamon, which is a common spice in tourtieres. Half way into the heating, I stuck a knife into the middle to see if it was heating through. Out came a slice of apple! OK. She did mention that every family has its own recipe. Left the pie to continue heating. After an appropriate time, and the sides were ready, I took the pie out. When I sliced into it, it WAS an APPLE PIE! 😄 Her husband was sent to the freezer to grab a torutiere, but it turned out to be apple pie. Guess she found out the tourtieres were all gone. So, Linda made more this past weekend, and dropped one off on Sunday. It was so heavy - 3" of meat filling. I did smell cinnamon again, but this time, it was indeed tourtiere. I also wanted chips, memories of meals like this from our trips to England. Salsa was great with the meal too! Last night, I made Chicken and Brown Rice Fajita bowls. This was perfect, from a WW cookbook. It was rather fun eating in a bowl.

My sister-in-law dropped something off that she made. I've never seen this before, and it was too cold to chat outside, so I didn't find out where she got the idea/recipe from. I sliced it, warmed it up a bit, and ate it with a conglomeration of the lamb and the chicken tagine leftovers, a little mix of basmati rice and corn. I guess I can call it Rice and Sausage Bun? The dough was slightly sweet. The sausage was wrapped with cooked sticky rice, and the whole thing steamed. All served us well for supper after our trek out to the farm house. It was windy and cold today, with a light snow flurry. 😒

You can always make Nor Mai Gai. Cook sticky rice with diced meats, mushrooms, then wrap with lotus leaf and steam. This is just a stock photo from the Internet.

Continuing with tagine cooking : Moroccan Chicken Tagine with Dried Fruits for supper last night with air-fryer chips

Had some friends over who wanted to learn how to make joongzi / sticky rice in bamboo leaves. Together, we put together 170 packets. Batches of 24 were boiled on a turkey fryer burner outside for 2.5 hours. Some packets were prettier than other, but they all; tasted delicious! Used only sticky rice instead of my other combos of long grain jasmine and short grain sweet rice. These were so silky! Filling was Chinese sausage, mushrooms, dried shrimp, peanuts, salt pork, salted egg yolk. My cousin brought some smoked duck breast and they were great! Another cousin made something I've never had before. I think it is a Toisanese / Guangdong type of savoury "cake". Her Mom called it Tay-Tay. It's tapioca and ground pork, then steamed.

It's been a busy time prepping for fall and winter. Outside work is done and temperatures are now in the single digits dipping to minus at night. A new adventure in cooking came along just in time. I was gifted with a tagine from a friend whose husband is from Algeria! I have made tagine recipes in my cast iron casserole, but this was a lot of fun using the real deal. My kids had gifted me 6 months of Cratejoy (a waste of money but a great gift for a Mom who loves to cook). It so happened that this month's box was Morocco, and it came with a small bag of Ras-al- hanout. After proper seasoning process, I cook Lamb Tagine with Preserved Lemons. I had put up the lemons months ago, and this was the first time I've used any! Lamb shoulder, onion, garlic and spices set to simmer. 4 hours later

THIS really caught my attention! I assume these were giant meatballs perhaps made from ground Roo meat and not really from a neutered kangaroo!

Temperatures are really cooling off by supper time, single digits with frost a couple of nights. Time for some "stoking up the internal furnace" kinda meals: Finally found pearl onions, so made Beef Bourguignon, eaten with egg noodles. Carrots tossed in at the end for additional veg. Memories of my Mom's cooking - Chicken, Mung Bean Noodles, Lap Cheung, napa cabbage, and Salted Fish ( Ham Yu) in clay pot. Love Romano beans! Good fresh clams and mussels are hard to come by, but I've been able to get pretty good frozen cooked mussels at Safeway, and frozen clams from our local Chinese grocery. With these in the freezer, it was easy to have paella whenever we want! Haven't made this recipe for a long time - Chicken and Dates Tagine. Used a heavy casserole as I don't have a tagine...YET It's coming in October from a friend. Threw in some white potatoes, sweet potatoes, and a red onion along with the casserole in the oven.

Here are the two kinds of dried shrimp I have on hand. Used the larger ones for Joongzi last month. Can't remember what my niece paid for the shrimp meat. She was shocked at the price, but for her favourite auntie, any price 😉 The large pieces were bulk, so no label. The smaller ones listed water, salt, sulfite Size comparison.

My hubby would say DEFINITELY!

Not sure how to describe the difference. I think the little ones may have been dried with their shells and so are a little bit crunchy if eaten out of hand? These are definitely peeled then dried. I can eat these like jerky! Splurged on a couple of Cornish game hens, stuffed with wild rice pilaf. Sides were local corn and sauteed water spinach Had a chicken breast and a few shrimp to use up. Coated with fine Panko crumbs and pan fried. More of the lovely local corn and new taters. Had sliced my pinky earlier on one of the inserts for the spiralizator, easy prep was required.