Manitoulin Unravelled

[Kerry Beal]

 

early-morning in Rio 

[Porthos]

Those cocktails are making my mouth water.

 

[Anna N]

2 hours ago, Shelby said:

Geez that club sandwich looks good.  I'm hankering a good sand.  Must make bread tomorrow.

 

Anna, the tart sure looks good.

 

I'd love your pickled mushroom recipe.  I used to buy some from Sam's that were really good.  Not so pickled that they made my mouth hurt, but pickled enough to be interesting if that makes sense.  I can't find them anymore.

Promised to provide it soon. 

[Anna N]

 

Dinner hardly gets any simpler. Chicken thighs pre-salted about two hours ahead of time and cooked in the CSO 400°F bake/steam for about 40 minutes. Corn cooked in its husks in the microwave, four minutes per cob, ends whacked off and silk-free corn expelled. 

[Tere]

Ooh! I've never tried corn done that way - will have to attempt when we get our sweetcorn bed up and running!

[Kerry Beal]

 

Cape Breton Pork Pies - neither pork nor pies!

[Smithy]

If not pork, then what?  I'm reminded of mincemeat, for obscure reasons.

[Kerry Beal]

Dates.

[Smithy]

7 minutes ago, Kerry Beal said:

Dates.

 

No wonder I'm reminded of mincemeat.  More info, please. (If you've written about this before, then a link - and an acceptance of my apology - will do.)

 

[Kerry Beal]

Don't recall if I've written about these before - I use a recipe that was given to me 35 years ago by the wife of my boss in the lab when I lived in the Queen Charlotte Islands - like so many military folks and their families she was from down east - Cape Breton to be exact.

 

Cape Breton "Pork Pies" Ingredients   2 ½ cups dates, 500 grams ¾ cup brown sugar, 150 grams - used 100 g 1 cup boiling water, 250 grams ¼ tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla Pastry dough 1 cup butter, 225 grams ½ cup icing sugar, 62.5 grams 1 egg yolk 1 tsp vanilla 2 cups flour, 280 grams 2 tbsp cornstarch, 20 grams ¼ tsp salt Icing ⅔ cup icing sugar 1 tbsp maple syrup 1 tbsp soft butter   Method   1.Form pastry into 3/4 inch balls and press into small tart cups. Bake at 300 degrees for 18 minutes or until just litely browned but firmed.  2.Make filling by pouring boiling water over chopped dates, salt and brown sugar, Cook for a few moments on stove, until dates soften but are still formed. Add vanilla. 3.Beat icing sugar with butter. Heat maple syrup and drizzle into icing sugar mixture until light and fluffy. you may need to add more maple syrup. Top with icing.

Source Sandies wife Servings/Yield 1 servings

[Smithy]

My imagination runs short of why it should be called "pork", but it looks like a great dessert.  Thank you!

[Kerry Beal]

The Old Foodie did a piece on them in 2008 - some of the conjecture was there - worth having a search for it.

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

10 hours ago, Anna N said:

 

 

This is the recipe from the booklet that accompanies  the CSO. The booklet is available online as a PDF. Perhaps I should have activated my BS detector when the recipe suggested that a 9 inch square tart could make 9 servings!  Despite following directions there was nothing caramelized about the onions and I should have stopped right there and thrown them into a cast-iron skillet and caramelized them stovetop. I was at least smart enough to prepare the puff pastry on parchment rather than the suggested floured surface. Moving a tart base that has been docked and brushed with egg wash seemed like a pretty precarious proposition to me.

 

 I ate some for lunch but found it somewhat on the greasy side and with none of the crispiness I associate with puff pastry.   But there is another thing. This particular brand of  puff pastry prided itself on being 100% butter. That was then. It is no longer the case as they are now using shortening as well as butter.  Oh well. Back to the drawing board. Tomorrow is another day, as they say.  

 

I had been thinking of trying this once my tomatoes come in.  I'll take the warning about the onions.

[Tri2Cook]

Those tarts just reminded me that I have about 150 chocolate mini tart shells in a container in the deep freezer. I made them for something I was going to do back in April that got postponed due to other circumstances. And then, as happens way too often with me, I forgot about them. I should figure out something to use those for. Thanks for the reminder!

[Anna N]

8 hours ago, Smithy said:

My imagination runs short of why it should be called "pork", but it looks like a great dessert.  Thank you!

These things are SO ADDICTIVE. I like to think I do not have a sweet tooth but Kerry had better get these out of the house soon!

[Anna N]

@Shelby

 

Here's a link to the recipe I used for the mushrooms. 

[Anna N]

Good morning!  Could not bring myself to throw out the tomato tart so it became breakfast this morning. I reheated it in the CSO 400°F steam bake for 10 minutes. I think it improved it somewhat.  Anyway I console myself with knowing that I freed up some space in the refrigerator if nothing else.

 

 

Kerry  has gone off to work in the clinic in Little Current taking all of her little devil pork pies with her. 

 

I have no ambitious plans for today. I might check the freezer to see if there are any blueberries remaining and pickle a few because -- well I can.   

 

 I am easily seduced by what I consider fairly unusual recipes. Yesterday I run across a savoury Dutch pancake or Dutch Baby recipe from the New York Times.  That may happen sometime this trip although not necessarily today.  Shortly I will consult the list I made before I came up here of things I would like to attempt and see if any of them  can be accomplished with what is on hand in the house.

 

 

[Smithy]

Lists....  I am a  champion at bookmarking recipes and making plans...from what to work on for a season in the trailer, to what to do today.  I find I have far more ambition in the planning stage than (what is it? discipline? energy? actual time?) in the execution stage.  You inspire me to keep working at it.

[Deryn]

Take heart, Smithy. You are definitely not alone in the 'planning to' department. I tell myself that 'planning to' but not 'executing' saves me a lot of calories.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Deryn (log)

[Anna N]

7 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Lists....  I am a  champion at bookmarking recipes and making plans...from what to work on for a season in the trailer, to what to do today.  I find I have far more ambition in the planning stage than (what is it? discipline? energy? actual time?) in the execution stage.  You inspire me to keep working at it.

Ha ha!  As if I am any better than you! I make lists and then something else catches my eye and the list gets forgotten.  I list the recipes but then forget where I found them.  I decide to make something but then find I am missing a key ingredient.   I decide to make something but then realize there's absolutely no occasion in the next 15 years when I would actually serve it.  I want to make salads in February and hearty stews in August  but then realize of course that I have no appetite to eat them!   I frequently find Walt Whitman speaking to me:

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself,  (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" 

Here, for example, is the small list I made up before we came to Manitoulin this year.

 

 

Glancing over it I ask myself why would I want to make a frozen zabaglione and for whom?

Pickled strawberries may still happen.

Kimchi cheese-its will definitely happen  but on a day when I am certain I can maintain my energy level. Kimchi is already made and happily bubbling away.

Banchan? Not even sure what I was thinking.

 Ginger tahini dressing for slaw.  I have a current fixation on tahini and its uses.  

 Pickled lettuce condiment.  This got made down south and I'm not sure I would bother repeating it.

I will most definitely be making cheese in the Instant Pot.  Was waiting for room in the fridge for some milk so this could happen now almost any day. Or not 

  Speedy Korean chicken noodle soup still holds some appeal as does Heidi Swanson's summer squash soup with coconut milk.

And definitely I will make some corn fritters at some point. 

I could also look back at lists made for other summers up here. But why would I want to embarrass myself that way?

 

[Anna N]

 

 

 Do these look like pickled blueberries to you? Me neither. There are plenty of blueberries to pickle but as  I was about to begin that task I remembered the piece of daikon hanging about in the de-crisper the drawer.  I soaked it a couple of hours in icewater in the hopes of restoring its crispness  but don't think I was all that successful. Still the pickles taste OK.

 

Kerry is tormenting me by leaving some of those little devil pork pies here for us to enjoy.  Let me tell you -- she is evil.

[Deryn]

17 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Kerry is tormenting me by leaving some of those little devil pork pies here for us to enjoy.  Let me tell you -- she is evil.

 

I say .. eat them all while she is gone. That will teach her.

 

And maybe if you add some blue food colouring to that daikon pickle jar you could fool her into thinking you made blueberry pickles?

Edited July 14, 2016 by Deryn (log)

[Smithy]

3 hours ago, Anna N said:

Ha ha!  As if I am any better than you! I make lists and then something else catches my eye and the list gets forgotten.  I list the recipes but then forget where I found them.  I decide to make something but then find I am missing a key ingredient.   I decide to make something but then realize there's absolutely no occasion in the next 15 years when I would actually serve it.  I want to make salads in February and hearty stews in August  but then realize of course that I have no appetite to eat them!   I frequently find Walt Whitman speaking to me:

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself,  (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" 

Here, for example, is the small list I made up before we came to Manitoulin this year.

 

 

Glancing over it I ask myself why would I want to make a frozen zabaglione and for whom?

Pickled strawberries may still happen.

Kimchi cheese-its will definitely happen  but on a day when I am certain I can maintain my energy level. Kimchi is already made and happily bubbling away.

Banchan? Not even sure what I was thinking.

 Ginger tahini dressing for slaw.  I have a current fixation on tahini and its uses.  

 Pickled lettuce condiment.  This got made down south and I'm not sure I would bother repeating it.

I will most definitely be making cheese in the Instant Pot.  Was waiting for room in the fridge for some milk so this could happen now almost any day. Or not 

  Speedy Korean chicken noodle soup still holds some appeal as does Heidi Swanson's summer squash soup with coconut milk.

And definitely I will make some corn fritters at some point. 

I could also look back at lists made for other summers up here. But why would I want to embarrass myself that way?

 

 

I've been weeding through my cookbooks - many beautiful, but rarely used - and thinking about "ambitions" as they show a fairly thorough path of ambitions.  I am, of course, weeding through them to make way for new arrivals.  I need an intervention, but am not likely to get it here.  

 

I personally hope you do the ginger-tahini slaw dressing (do please report on it!) and the IP cheese.  I have a jar of tahini in the fridge - as I often do - and the idea of using it for something like a slaw dressing had never occurred to me.

[Anna N]

 @Smithy

 

The "evil one" is picking up milk this afternoon so I shall have to get the lead out and make some cheese in the IP.   I believe @blue_dolphin adds cream to whole milk to make a creamy ricotta. I plan on trying that even though I have no clue as to the ratio of milk to cream. I would also like to make some paneer so I can make matar paneer.  We would have to ditch the no-name frozen peas we bought in favour of something with flavour if I am to do that.   Never had frozen peas that tasted like overcooked marrowfat peas before!  

[blue_dolphin]

3 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I believe @blue_dolphin adds cream to whole milk to make a creamy ricotta.

 

I have indeed done this.  The whole milk alone makes a very nice ricotta but several times I've had some cream or half & half leftover and have added it to the pot.  Unfortunately, I didn't measure or record anything in my laboratory notebook .  I suspect it would have been less than one cup added to 1 or 2 quarts of whole milk.  If there was a full cup of cream, I would likely have done something else with it.  Sorry, not much help there.