chromedome

I've got the garden and the rabbits; chickens hopefully will happen in the spring. Retirement, now.. that's not looking so likely.

As mentioned elsewhere, I made up a couple of rabbit terrines on Christmas day. I had no particular recipe, but reviewed a handful of them and winged it with those as a basis. I used two large-ish rabbits from the freezer, along with pistachios for a garnish. Flavorings were salt and fresh-ground pepper, sage and thyme from my garden (picked on the day!) and a goodly splash of Crown Royal. One terrine used ground pork as the fatty complement to the lean rabbit. Because my GF can't eat pork anymore for medical reasons, the second used Beyond Meat's mild Italian sausage. I don't have the traditional narrow terrine mold, so I used wider and flatter loaf pans. After cooking in their water bath, and cooling for an hour at room temp, I filled in the gaps around the edges with some well-reduced rabbit stock I'd made in the IP. In the event, it turned out that the "well-reduced" stock was not well-reduced enough, and did not set up as well as I'd hoped. So that went back into the fridge for another usage, and I'll experiment to get it right before I do this again (I may just add some plain gelatine rather than relying on reduction). In any case it was (IIRC) the first terrine I'd made since culinary school,. nearly 20 years ago, so I won't complain about the minor dificulties. I halved both, with the pork one going as gifts (one to an aunt, one to my longtime best friend's family). The other will be part of our NYE festivities at home, with the second half in reserve for some other special occasion. I didn't take photos as I made it, because I was under a tight time constraint, but I did get shots of the interiors when I halved them: That's the "with pork" version... ...and this was the "with Beyond" version. The rabbit-loin garnish shows up better in this one. I haven't tasted the final version just yet, and won't until NYE, but I quick-cooked samples of each forcemeat to test the seasoning before I assembled the terrines. It tasted pretty good at that point, so I'm confident in the end product. It was kind of fun; I'll hope to do a few more terrines this coming year and will post them in that cook-off if I do. Unless they're rabbit-based, in which case I'll put them here again.

It had never occurred to me to wonder about it, but CBC published an article about the local tradition of candles in the window at Christmas (all but invariably faux candles now, of course). I don't recall whether I saw them or not out West. Is this something that happens where you live? I'm kind of curious now. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/east-coast-tradition-christmas-window-candles-1.7066387

Earlier today I'd made up a couple of rabbit terrines for holiday entertaining/gifting. I took the opportunity to get a meat/bone ratio for our current Flemish Giants, since we'll be doing a compare/contrast with other breeds next year. My start weight for two well-grown bunnies was 3.686 kg (a little over 8 pounds, so they were big ones) and the weight of stripped bones left over at the end was 496g or just over a pound. Quick math tells me that's a meat:bone ratio of just over 7.4:1. Not too shabby.

This is AI "art," but it's still pretty cool. https://www.facebook.com/mira.gupta.7771/posts/pfbid0P4nNSgi3EGJcVADLuJBGDoVgA9NxGJMTMRheYQ5LpYNxVkyH8rgPFCWuKWLyynafl?__cft__[0]=AZXLppYgs5Esnt4I8YD2X0WjBUCiKQzC6NcJWPLdxkp8tVTcbqsemM3agZFobUAeGItbg7yV1_eX8fB28WNwbK1Wzfrz7pkUPp7QpGsQKP3-rhxlYuD4wDcN5rOZ7fTC-2hwLmO__CXtulwCSzYmTHmlBSElZG2x5a23cYUHiYWS4Q&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R

Via Montreal-based cartoonist Gabrielle Drolet (New Yorker, Globe & Mail, etc):

I made up additional cookies yesterday morning, so I have enough now for the various gift boxes we'll be giving away. Then I prepped the meal, because we typically eat ours on Christmas Eve. The three grandkids were "his, hers and theirs," so there's lots of juggling involved in balancing our immediate household, oldest/youngest's paternal family, middle one's dad and his parents; and this way one or more of the other families gets to have them on Christmas day. As it happens this year there were a lot of abrupt changes of plan owing to miscommunications, illnesses, shift changes, etc so it all went pear-shaped despite our best efforts. I'd shifted the meal from our usual mid-late afternoon slot to more of a dinnertime schedule (6-6:30), but then - as I said - things changed at the last minute. So I told them "you see us every day, go to [in-laws' place] and have fun, we'll eat when you get back." That ended up being nearly 9 PM, but so be it. I spatchcocked the turkey, made stuffing, baked a buttercup squash in slices (glazed with honey, with fresh black pepper and allspice ground over it, because my sweetie wanted a sweet side dish); made a quick stock in my IP with the neck, back, keelbone and wingtips for gravy purposes; cooked Brussels sprouts low and slow in a large skillet with onions and turkey bacon (because my GF can't have the regular kind); made a big bowl of mashed potatoes; and the rest of the veg were peas, green and yellow string beans, carrots and greens. I often do the beans as "green bean casserole," but forgot to buy the fried onions this year so I didn't bother. The potatoes, beans, greens, carrots and peas all came from my garden, and with the carrots coming out of the ground just a few days ago and some of the greens (and herbs) being harvested on the day. Row covers are a wonderful thing! The squash and turkey came from local farms, about 15 and 10 minutes up the road respectively. The Brussels sprouts were also local, from a farm about 30-40 minutes the other direction. If people were still obsessing over "food miles," it would be considered a pretty virtuous meal in that respect. Sorry for the lack of photos, but in addition to my usual litany of excuses (cramped and unattractive kitchen, poor lighting, elderly cell phone camera, deficient photography skills) I can safely say "C'mon, you've all seen lots of roasted turkeys..." Gift-opening happened this morning, and was every bit as much fun as you'd expect. Grandson (5) had to periodically give vent to his excitement by leaving the area of the tree and thundering up and down the hallway, celebrating the most-recent "best gift ever" at the top of his lungs. Funniest of all was the hulking mastiff, who gets her own stocking filled with toys and is even more excited about it than the kids. She stands there quivering and dancing with anticipation as my stepdaughter pulls out each toy in turn, giving each one an exploratory chomp, until one of them just "does it" for her. At that point she and her newly-designated favorite disappear into a little world of their own for a half-hour or so. Eventually she emerges with head and tail high, swanking around the living room and squeaking it proudly for everyone. It's sweet and hilarious in such a big, burly dog. All of the veg trimmings went out to my rabbits at this morning's feeding, so they've had a holiday feast as well.

I did indeed get a small harvest of greens from my garden yesterday, along with some sage and thyme for the turkey/stuffing. It's not a large quantity of greens, but it's about half of what went into the meal (the rest came from the freezer). I'm the first to admit that there's a strong element of "just so I could say I'd done it" involved. I was surprised to find that my broccoli plants are still hanging in there. You'll recall I'd given up on them a few weeks ago and reallocated their covers to other beds. Despite enduring spells of weather getting down to near -20 at times (roughly 0 F) some of them are still pushing out new growth and tender little buds like this one: I picked several of those as well, some of which are visible in the bowl if you squint just so. It's good to know: if I succeed in building a more durable greenhouse in 2024, or salvaging a usable remnant from this year's ill-fated hoop house, there's a possibility that broccoli might survive deep into the winter even in a "passive heating only" scenario.

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2011/07/23

We were gifted a 5-lb bag of local crab claws by a friend, who's a former fisherman. The local variety is Jonah crab, not one of the more desirable species (they're bland as crab goes), but the claws are perfectly fine and of course free is always good! I didn't think to take pics at the time, but since yesterday was a special occasion* I used them to make a crab variation on Eggs Benny. (*Nine years ago on the 22nd was when my GF and I transitioned from "friends" to "more than friends," so we treat it as our anniversary.)

The trade agreement the UK negotiated with Canada in the wake of Brexit (for cheese, and I would assume other foodstuffs as well) will reach its end-of-life as 2023 ends, meaning British cheeses will face a large tariff relative to those from the EU and other points of origin that have active free-trade agreements with Canada. Expect to see a large increase in the price of your favorite Stilton or extra-sharp Snowdonia, and a corresponding drop in availability. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/23/hard-cheese-canada-rejects-british-attempt-to-secure-tariff-free-exports

I took advantage of the warm weather earlier this week to harvest my remaining carrots while the ground was thawed. I got just under a kilo, or exactly 2 pounds. They're an "Imperator"-type carrot and would typically be much longer than this (scale is hard to judge from this image, but the longest are probably in the 20cm/8in range), but I'd planted them late simply because the garden was such a work-in-progress this spring (weather, making up new beds, etc). My row covers needed some TLC after the wind and high rains, but the greens underneath are still hanging in quite nicely. As long as I have above-freezing temperatures on the day, I'll be able to harvest some kale and chard for my Christmas dinner (and the forecast looks mild for both the 24th and 25th, so that should happen). The greens are growing slowly enough, with the currently-minimal daylight, that I'll probably call time on this experiment after the holidays. I think I'll pile mulch over the kale and chard and see whether/how well they bounce back in early spring. If they show signs of life, I'll cheerfully treat them as an early harvest and enjoy them to the hilt before replanting in something else. They're biennials and will go to seed/become inedible if I leave them longer, but it'll also be a "proof of concept" should I want to get into seed-saving. I may - I like the idea of evolving my own "landrace" strains - but that's TBD.

I gifted my own son a chef's knife, slicer and paring knife of his own when he was in high school and I was in culinary school. They weren't in that same ballpark for quality (the commercial yellow-handle Henckels used in so many restaurant kitchens) but he was still pretty proud. He was in the cooking class at his school because they'd had the bright idea of splitting the traditional "Home Ec" into two modules called "Food" and "Fashions," which opened the door - psychologically - for more boys to sign up for the cooking portion of it. He was so enthused, fact, that he wanted to take his shiny new personal knives to school and use them in class. I asked him, "Say, refresh my memory... why was it your school got locked down last week?" "Geez" he replied, "Because some freakin' idiot brought a knife to- ... oh." He definitely caught the bug, though. He made us perfectly good individual cheese souffles one morning for breakfast, when I had a (rare) day off and could sleep in. I appreciated the gesture, if not the three hours' kitchen-cleaning afterwards. He's 35 now, and his Facebook posts are still frequently about one or another meal he's concocted.

I got the boxes of cookies in the mail yesterday for Alberta (late even by my standards); now today I have to bake some more for local giving. I'm going to stick with the "grown-up" kinds for this round, as opposed to sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies which need subsequent decoration. I also dug out the tote containing my late mother-in-law's Christmas decorations. Most of them are just inexpensive commercial things from Zellers (for those who don't know, think "Canadian K-Mart") but... they were hers. Serious sentimental value within the family.

In the UK, The Guardian has named The Bear the best show on television in 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/20/the-50-best-tv-shows-of-2023-no-1-the-bear

Mashups for the win!

At the price they charge for cherry tomatoes here, that's $25-$30 worth of tomatoes (mind you that's in $CDN, so perhaps $18-$20 USD).

I've gotten a few kinds of cookies done... sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, zimmtsternen, vanillekipferln (sp?), Linzer cookies, and what my GF knows as "Russian teacakes" though they have a number of names (some of you will know them as "pecan meltaways"). No great amount of any of them; half or less compared to my usual, but it's enough to get boxes out in the mail to my grandkids, niece and son out west with a few left over. On a completely unrelated note, one of my friends shared this photo with a suggestion that it's ideal for "retro entertaining": Pretzel sticks, white chocolate, pink icing, Oreo crumbs.

Posted with the caption: "Error 404, drink not found."

Surprise, surprise, it's enoki again! https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/golden-mushroom-brand-enoki-mushroom-recalled-due-listeria-monocytogenes-3?utm_source=gc-notify&utm_medium=email&utm_content=en&utm_campaign=hc-sc-rsa-22-23

Yeah, I'm scratching my head over it. If they were fruit-containing products I'd have thought maybe stems, but that clearly isn't the case here.