Okanagancook

Indonesian meal for friends who helped cut apricot trees down for firewood....farmer is going with new cherry trees. Grilled chicken, shrimp chips, deep fried beef slices in curry gravy, curried pork in coconut milk, eggplant, rice which wasn't cooked all the way through and rice noodles with vegetables. Oh, and some quick pickled cucumbers. Drag files from your computer here to upload them for use in your post, or choose files... Accepted file types jpg, jpeg, png, gif, tiff, pdf, xls, xlsx, doc, docx, tif Insert other media Uploaded Images

Thanks for the recipe AnnaN, I even have that cookbook!

Dunnknow, what are Berkeley mushers?! Everything else on the plate looks yummers! About to part take in sous vide round roast, 131F x 48 hours...hope it's not mushy; mashed potatoes; sautéed mushrooms, just cremini; and cheese sauced cauliflower.

Why, oh why, is bread soooooo good!? Really, 4 ingredients. How silly. My DH made two large loaves from Flour, Water, Yeast, Salt to take to a friend's for Easter dinner/next day breakfast. They vanished quite quickly with everyone making funny noises while chewing on the slices slathered simply with butter.

A thing of beauty Kerry! Well done, you, not the meat!

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I do still have them. Waste not want not.

Maybe barberries?

I am not sure, probably at least 5 years. Maybe they were a little dry when I bought them. Can't remember.

I have the VacMaster 3 ml thick bags. I got a good seal however, I can't remember how long I have had them, maybe two years. Not sure what happened. The seal was still good. Maybe they were a little dry to begin with. I don't bake much so probably should only buy when I need them. Lesson learned. I do dried fruit also.

I vac sealed my vanilla pods and it dried them out. Cannot even split them.

I didn't see your question until now. The cap must have been hiding as the roast was sold hold.

I do this also. Sometimes the bags lose vacuum for no apparent reason. Try to store them in a place that doesn't jostle them. As you say, it makes a big difference.

The recipe didn't mention the egg white wash. I meant that I had seen this technique elsewhere and it would have been nice to use it to get the spices to stick to the outside of my roast. It is a great method but one has to keep an eye on the internal temperature. It is so moist done this way.

Can you elaborate on your high heat method? It would be fun to try it and compare.

Tere, your garden beds look lovely. Here in the Okanagan it is spring. The grass is getting green and most of the trees are budding. The apricots will be in blossom soon. I planted my peas, radish and greens Feb 22nd and everything is up! The garlic is doing nicely and again, such good luck with all of them coming up. Planted my onion sets (not as many as Selby though). We put in some carrots, beets and more peas yesterday. The greenhouse has my seedlings trying to germinate plus I planted some zucchini, cucumber, butter lettuce and basil seeds. I love this time of year.

Thank you AnnT, looks like your roasts :-)) I followed the Cooks Illustrated slow roast method: Meat is well seared; I put some steak spices over the meat (afterwards I saw somewhere to brush the meat with egg whites so the spices stick better which I will try next time); popped it in the oven at the requisite 250F; the temperature was going up really fast so I reduced the temperature to 220F; it was a 4 lb roast and the recipe said it would take 3 to 3 1/2 hours which I a bunch of bunk because mine was done (124F) two hours. I wrapped it in foil and a towel and put it in a cooler until the Yorkies were done. Red wine reduction over the Yorkies.

Roast Prime Rib with Yorkies done the slow way: 210F for about 2 hours.

Chris, I have to thank you for doing this documentation. I have ALL the books but some how I shy away from making much. They see to be labour intensive recipes and the ingredients usually need to be acquired with making a recipe in mind. I too will get out Plenty and cook more from it. cheers to your diligence and your descriptions are very informative.

cakewalk, you HAVE to make the hummus and do take the time to take the skins off as she directs. Her method is quite good....put on some tunes to help dull the tedious task. I toasted my cumin seeds before grinding and I used aleppo pepper flakes.

I have 8 lamb shanks in the freezer from our two beauties we got in October from the Organic Farm north of here. I want to sous vide them all together and then freeze what we aren't eating. There are various recommendations regarding cooking them. I would like them to be a little on the medium rare side but of course tender. Douglas Baldwin says 175F or 80C for 12 to 24 hours. That sounds a little too high a temperature to have them on the pinkish side. Modernist Cuisine: 144F or 62C for 48 hours. I am favouring the latter. Any thoughts on that? If your sirloin is on the tough side maybe try cooking it like a flank steak. I get grass fed beef which tends to be on the chewy side. I have had excellent results with 55C 131F for 24 hours. I've done the flank steak this way twice and it turned out perfectly tender but medium rare both times.

Sorry Anna, I didn't note the complete title: Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of Syrian Jew by Poopa Dweck. A truly stunning book. Excellent narrative and photography. I bought some lovely eggplants today so I'm going to try the baba ghanooj. Couldn't resist. My only dislike about the book: Very big and heavy like Thomas Keller's books but well made so hope it doesn't come apart. I scored some marinated Lebanese olives at the superstore today complete with lemon slice and chill! While there I had a chat with the meat man. There was only halal chicken out so asked if they get other halal meat. To my delight he said they were getting some beef in this week and they often have lamb. The 'ethnic' isle had a lot canned Lebanese products. I checked out the whole sale club here and they had nice big bags of chick peas/lentils and a big selection of rice. All will be good. Still no word about their arrival. It is so beautiful here at the moment: sun on the mountain tops which still have a dusting of snow, no wind and some nice puffy white clouds scattered about. If they only knew they were coming to paradise, should they choose. Some rumour that some are afraid to leave the city for the unknown. Easy to understand given what they have been through. cheers

Thanks everyone. We are still waiting to here if they are coming. I still know nothing more about the event but I did make 2 litres of hummus from the book Aleppo and it turned out to be the best hummus I have ever made. It is sitting in the fridge melding it's flavours. We also made pitas from the book Flatbreads and they have turned out very nicely and are in the freezer. We made a second batch of dough which the recipe said we could keep in the fridge for a few days for more flavour development so will bake them up in another day. I can always freeze the hummus. We have local walnut trees so I am going to bake some cookies show casing the nuts and some brownies as well. I think the event will not be as grandiose as some contributors are envisioning. More of a gathering to introduce everyone who will be helping so finger food and coffee. So some veggie crudities, olives and a few more baked Canadian items should do the trick. Cardamon offering for the coffee is a great idea.

That's the kind of meal I like to eat. Nice combo! I have some smaller russets in the pantry and you just gave me a recipe and I like the idea of parm and garlic.

M

Thank you all for your thoughts and ideas! We are a small village of around 2000 people except in the summer when we swell to around 5000. We are surrounded by vineyards and orchards. Penticton is a city of 45,000 and is a 15 minute drive away. We have a small grocery store for essentials and a couple of restaurants/pub. I don't think we are getting more families. We were scheduled to get 21 people but that got changed to 13 and I am not involved in this negotiation so don't know why but I think it is also the decision of the families as to where they want to settle. Apparently many are scared to leave the city and they certainly don't know Canada at all so they have no clue that the Okanagan is very desirable mainly due to it's lifestyle and climate. The families we are getting are apparently farmers but that's all I know at the moment. They have been given houses to live in for 6 months (free). So they have adequate cooking facilities and the stores in Penticton have pretty well every ingredient they will need including Halal meats! At this point I am not even sure what cooking facilities we will have for the welcome tea so I am thinking we just bring stuff for the table. I think the tea is just meant as a small welcome, low key affair. I have done research about their food and I even found a website that had a PDF of pantry items listed in English and Arabic which will be invaluable when helping them to shop. I don't know how much English they know. So, it's an adventure at this point. I will know more soon. I have some helpers so will run the idea of a mixed food table by them. Thanks for everyone's thoughts on this topic. We will have plenty of sugar out for the tea and coffee! I am thinking of taking my Jura coffee machine to the event and we can make beautiful shots of good coffee for them :-)) cheers