North Again – the Tradition Continues

[haresfur]

Interested to hear how the Injera turns out. I can't get teff four here.

[Kerry Beal]

Here's the brownie recipe

Worlds Best Brownies

• 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate
  
• 6 tablespoons butter 3 ounces
  
• ½ cup sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 1 ¼ cups flour
  
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
  
• ¾ cup pecans approximately
  
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate chopped into chunks
  

1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2.Melt the 5 ounces of chocolate with the butter in the microwave in a medium sized glass bowl or over a double boiler on the stovetop. If chocolate is not completely melted, stir it to aid melting of chunks that are left. Allow to cool. Stir in the sugar, and the eggs. Now stir in the flour and baking powder. Mix in the pecans, as well as the chunks of chocolate.

3.Place mixture into a greased 8X8" pan. Place in preheated oven and watch carefully. They should bake for approximately 22 minutes, however as soon as you see the top start to turn shiny take them out of the oven. These are great a little under baked, however they become dry if overcooked.

[Anna N]

Lunch was entirely satisfactory. We had the braised duck on steamed buns with Momofuku quick pickled cucumber.

After lunch we drove off the Island to Espanola to pick up more supplies.

We arrived home extremely hungry but thought we had supper under control. we would have the Ethiopian stew scooped up with lovely, tender injera. However it was not to be. The batter was alive and frisky:

but the bread was an epic failure:

It was flat, dull, sour and never did develop that light spongy texture we had enjoyed in the restaurant.

To further our troubles a visitor arrived (she was expected) but she stayed until we thought we might succumb to malnutrition. Kerry adroitly kept her entertained while heating up the sous vide and lighting the Little Green Egg. As soon as our visitor left we dove into a sirloin steak so fast we forgot to take photos. As an aside I had to send Kerry to put out the garbage because she was making me laugh so much I couldn't post!

[Kerry Beal]

Working in Wikwemikong tomorrow - a rather large gang of people there so need to take a couple of things.

I have one of the loaves of banana bread remaining and tonight I made some hermit like cookies to take along.

Also got around to dipping the truffles I made with the President's Choice Bittersweet Chocolate - I went with expresso and marmalade for the flavouring. I'll temper up a bit of white chocolate to drizzle them with tomorrow.

[robirdstx]

You go girls!

[Peter the eater]

Great stuff you two. Will there be any wild game on the menu given the time of year?

I didn't know Barrie had a Fran's Diner. I get the (original) banquet burger when we're downtown Toronto.

[rotuts]

Id be very much interested in the Rx for those hermit like cookies. I love a 'chunky' cookie!

[Kerry Beal]

Id be very much interested in the Rx for those hermit like cookies. I love a 'chunky' cookie!

Here you go - basically I started with the sour cream recipe that I got from the lady who lived next to my granny on Vancouver Island and added the brown sugar in place of the white, a bit of molasses, the spices mentioned and the dried fruits.

Sour Cream Cookies

• ¼ cup butter
  
• ¾ cup sugar
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2 ½ cups flour
  
• ¼ tsp salt
  
• 1 tsp soda
  
• 1 cup sour cream or yogurt
  
• 1 tsp nutmeg
  
• 1 cup raisins, soaked
  
• lemon and orange rind
  
• Hermit Variation
  
• ¾ cup brown sugar
  
• 2 tablespoons molasses
  
• 1 tsp cinnamon
  
• ¼ tsp cloves
  
• ¼ tsp allspice
  
• 1 cup raisins, soaked
  
• ½ cup chopped nuts
  
• ¼ cup peel
  
• ½ cup chopped dates
  
• lemon and orange rind
  

Alternate liquid and dry ingredients. Bake 12-15 minutes at 375

[Anna N]

Id be very much interested in the Rx for those hermit like cookies. I love a 'chunky' cookie!

Kerry gave me one fresh from the oven and it was delicious.

[Anna N]

Kerry is working in Wiki today. That's about a 45 minute drive from Little Current so she will not be home for lunch. This leaves me with the kitchen to myself for many hours. This was my plan:

MCAH vegetable stock, carrot soup, mushroom purée, and bok choy. I will also sous vide the chicken forewings for the yakitori wings, sous vide a couple of steaks to have on hand and try to bring a modicum of order to the multitude of spices here.

Kerry talked to the dairy people yesterday and they seemed to indicate that their milk underwent nothing but regular low temperature, long time (LT LT) pasteurization. That suggests that my last cheese failure was operator error! So today I will give it another shot. Not knowing the quality of the milk though I will attempt something other than mozzarella. This will allow me to add some calcium chloride to overcome some of the damage done to milk through pasteurization and homogenization and I hope improve my chances of curd formation.

Already I have had to somewhat modify my plans for the day. As I prepped the carrots for the MCAH carrot soup I discovered I had misjudged the quantity of carrots on hand. The vegetable stock will have to wait for another day.

So the carrots are in the pressure cooker, the sous vide is coming up to temperature for the steaks and the milk for the cheese is out of the fridge. Let the games begin.

[Kerry Beal]

I seem to have internet access out here in Wiki today - so I should be able to follow along. It was a lovely drive this morning - going from rainy Little Current to little peaks of sun to a clearly sunny day here in Wiki. The changing leaves are gorgeous and there were no OPP on the road!

I ran home for a quick minute after rounds in order to get a bite of breakfast - a couple of slices of Anna's walnut bread toasted, some cheddar cheese and a nice slathering of onion jam. Snarfed it down as I drove.

The cookies and the banana bread are almost gone in the lunch room and it's not 11 yet.

[Anna N]

The carrot soup is quite amazing and remarkably simple to make if you use purchased carrot juice.

Even using supermarket carrots the flavour is intense. With freshly dug carrots from the garden or the Farmers' Market it would probably achieve orbit.

I brought the milk to temperature and added the culture. It is now ripening as I try to maintain the temperature at 30 C for an hour.

The steaks are in the sous vide so I'm going to put my feet up for 1/2 hour until my cheese calls for attention.

Edited to remove a line repeated from my previous post.

Edited October 19, 2012 by Anna N (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Lunch in real time - potato soup, chicken salad sandwich and a chai latte.

[ElsieD]

Anna, I baked your tea loaf yesterday and had a couple of slices today with my - what else- cup of tea. I had them toasted with butter and they were delicious. It is hard to imagine that such a simple recipe could be so tasty. Thanks for sharing.

[Anna N]

Anna, I baked your tea loaf yesterday and had a couple of slices today with my - what else- cup of tea. I had them toasted with butter and they were delicious. It is hard to imagine that such a simple recipe could be so tasty. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you. I could not believe such a recipe could produce anything but a disaster when my sister first shared it. I have made it many times since and am anxious to try it with a little rum as suggested by lesliec.

[Anna N]

So I have added the calcium chloride and the rennet to the milk. For the next hour I shall again be trying to maintain a temperature of 30 C while paying great homage to the cheese god. If she's willing I'll have curds an hour from now.

[Anna N]

And the cheese god smiled upon me:

[MelissaH]

It's probably not a huge help to you if I say that my only experience fermenting teff for injera was also a miserable failure. I don't remember whose recipe I was following (I know I was in grad school, living in my house rather than my apartment but before I started dating my now-husband, which puts it somewhere between 1995 and 1996) but mine also turned out to be inedibly sour. I obviously haven't gotten around to trying it again, but I think that if I do, I'd be inclined to maybe ferment a tiny portion of teff flour to get the flavor, but use some form of chemical leavining for lift.

It's a shame, because Ethiopian is another on my list of "cuisines I love, but need to make myself if I want any".

MelissaH

[Anna N]

So Kerry threw me a bit of a curve ball. She called me around 2 p.m.to say she was heading back from Wiki and would pick me up so we could hit the "flee" market before it closed. Then on the way home we stopped at the United Church yard sale and then, on the spur of the moment we decided to stop for dinner.

As a consequence of all of this a few things fell off my list and the steak and cheese had to wait a bit longer for my attention. Kerry dealt with the steaks and they are now being chilled and I dealt with the cheese. It is well on its way to being feta. It is salted and will age a few days in the fridge.

Kerry wanted me to share a photo of my recipe card holder:

[Kerry Beal]

Only had the phone with me today - so my pictures are a little poor. I was originally taking a picture of some dogs running free in Wiki (too far away to be seen in the picture) and managed to accidentally snap this picture of the rose hips outside the clinic when I forgot to disable the camera on the phone.

Stopped at Strawberry point to take a picture of some cows - also too far away to be seen.

Dinner tonight was at the Edgewater in Little Current. It's a restaurant that has been around since I was a kid - it's been open, it's been closed... now it's open again by a chef who ran a high end restaurant in Sudbury for a number of years.

They had an Italian theme'd menu this week - quite a variety of choices in the 3 courses. We shared apps of carpaccio and calamari fritti.

Followed by seafood risotto and salmon

Dessert was referred to as Sabayon - I think rather loosely - never seen a sabayon that could be piped this way.

[Kerry Beal]

A bit of catching up on pictures.

Yesterday when I came home early we were able to catch the 'flee' market that Anna mentioned. This is an old building that sits on the side of the road in Sheguindah (the 'town' south of Little Current) and houses a rag tag collection of stuff. There's an appliance section that has everything from old ringer washers and iron stoves to bar fridges, a book section, some antiques and junkque, surplus jobbers food and cleaning items and there is even a Watkins table set up.

Upstairs there is kitchen and glassware and a variety of furniture. Suffice it to say - you never know what you'll find!

There was also a jumble sale going on at the United Church - so we hit that one our way home.

Our haul -

One of these great Tablemate ll tables - nothing exciting to look at but they hold 50 lbs (or one volume of Modernist Cuisine at Home).

Food goodies - I'd paid about $3.00 for Savoiardi packages at home - these were $1.00 each, also $1.00 each for the fancy cashews and cinnamon mixed nuts. 50 cents for the little knorr concentrated stock packages (apparently they are closer to $4 in stores).

Anna got a couple of nice aprons, a thermometer that won't get wonky around induction and a couple of cheese draining implements. I got some foil containers for a few cents - I've been stocking my elderly father's freezer with meals for when he doesn't feel like cooking. And a stainless lid for the many little hotel pans I have at home and use in my chocolate room.

Our cocktail last night - Eeyore's Requiem

[Kerry Beal]

Got a call from the doc going off call to hand over some patients - then spoke to the nurse who said there was no one waiting to see me in the ER. I jokingly said - "but I've got my baking done, you better send someone over to pick it up in case I don't have to come in this morning". Well 15 minutes later there is a knock at the door!

So the only picture I've got is the ones we hung on to for ourselves - and Anna's already eaten half of hers.

I enjoyed mine slathered with butter and a bit of nice Seville orange marmalade.

[Anna N]

This morning's breakfast of shredded duck and leftover steak on toasted light rye. Onion jam on top of the steak:

Not feeling quite as ambitious today but did manage to get the brined wings into the sous vide (should have gone in last night!) and made the mushroom puree from MCAH preparatory to attempting the striped omelet:

I also microwaved the bok choy as per MCAH and think this one needs a trip back to the drawing board. The bok choy was fine and I ate mine with some miso butter but ........... the plastic bags both exploded in the microwave. My bok choy were slightly larger so I had to divide them between two bags and cook them consecutively. I used a store brand zipper bag the first time and a Ziplock bag the second time. Both exploded.

I ate the bok choy along with some leftover steak for lunch, washed it down with 2 glasses of wine, followed that up with 1/2 a Score bar and slept it off while Kerry rushed off to the hospital to do the work that allows us to come to Manitoulin. No, I do not have a guilty conscience - I am simply amoral.

[Tri2Cook]

I was originally taking a picture of some dogs running free in Wiki (too far away to be seen in the picture) and managed to accidentally snap this picture of the rose hips outside the clinic when I forgot to disable the camera on the phone.

The area where I pick wild blueberries also has huge growths of wild roses that become huge amounts of rose hips in the fall. I go out and look at them every year hoping something I could do with them will come to me... so far that's failed to happen.

Our cocktail last night - Eeyore's Requiem

Still one of my personal favorites.

[Anna N]

Another iteration of the tea cake this time with some dark rum and I added a few chopped dates and some slivered almonds.

Had just put some rice on to cook for supper when the phone rang and Kerry was off to emerg once more. Fortunately the torrential rain had stopped only minutes before.

So I ate alone. The Ethiopian stew which was supposed to be accompanied by injera bread found itself, instead, on top of jasmine rice. The green beans were tossed in olive oil and salt and roasted. I think they are as much a snack as a meal accompaniment so I ate them with my fingers.

I told you I am amoral so I made myself a negroni ... Kerry won't drink when she's working.