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eG Foodblog: Zucchini Mama - A Merry Zucchini Christmas


Zucchini Mama

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Aaah, love the pierogi. That's the sort of work that goes much better with more people around. Reminds me of helping the local Polish Catholic church make them for St. Stephen's Festival a couple of years ago. A couple of people in the kitchen made the dough in food processors. The dough balls would rest for a few minutes, and then get moved outside to the hall where the rollers would roll the dough and cut it into circles using cans. (I like your jar lid idea, though: it looks like it would be much easier on the hands!) The circles of dough would get transferred to sheet pans, and then sent to the tables where the pinchers would sit. The pinchers had not only the dough circles, but also the various fillings, previously scooped into balls onto paper-lined sheet pans and then frozen. The cheese and potato were both relatively easy to handle, but the kapusta (cabbage) were a pain because the shreds had a tendency to stick out away from the ball of filling, and get in the way of pinching. The filled pierogi went back onto a sheet pan, sent to a checker who re-pinched any that looked like they might not have been completely sealed, and then sent back into the kitchen where they were boiled and then fried. Most of them were frozen at that point, and on the day of the festival they were given a quick re-frying before service.

The last task of the day was always scooping the next day's filling into balls, so it would be ready to pinch in the morning.

Thanks for sharing, and I wish I lived closer to help you...and to find help for me!

MelissaH

MelissaH

Oswego, NY

Chemist, writer, hired gun

Say this five times fast: "A big blue bucket of blue blueberries."

foodblog1 | kitchen reno | foodblog2

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I dreamt I was Saskatchewan in my elevating bra.

I am the Goddess of the Feminist Utopia that is Saskatchewan:

Goddess of wheat and teet,

Goddess of flat land and buxom women,

Goddess of bus strikes and uncooperative co-operatives.

I come from an island in the middle of Saskatchewan

There aren't many of us, but we all dress like this,

and we all sing like this:

Mmoooahh ahh!

Oh. my. goddess. That odd noise you might have heard emanating from a couple thousand miles due south of you was that of me laughing hysterically. That line about "Goddess of wheat and teet" was what put me right over the edge. That, and the photo of your fetching attire. Too bad there are no cats in this household for me to scare with the full-fledged ROFLASC routine. Just brilliant. Thank you.

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Oh. My. Holy. Oats. What is left to be said? ZM, you are a gem. I have decided to teach kiddle peirogies this month, I do believe that they will entertain her, and I've always thought that they are good fodder for teenage parties, as well.

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Thanks for your warm comments girls. I hope the Goddess of the feminist Utopia didn't scare all the guys! :biggrin:

Boy are my teets tired. I've been to UBC Farm and trekking over on the west side doing some urban foraging. I took loads of photos. The chickens are very happy today and I got some lovely eggs.

The savory tart is in the oven, so the scent of rosemary is tiptoeing up the stairs. I got the whole wheat rosemary crust recipe from "Once Upon a Tart...: Soups, Salads, Muffins, and More from New York City's Favorite Bakeshop and Café by frank Mentesana and Jerome Audreau with Carolyn Carreño." It is a really GOOD recipe and a great cookbook. Now what is a savory tart? It's really a quiche by another name but lower to the ground, filled only with enough of the egg mixture to bind all the lovely ingredients. It's a perfect clean the fridge out kind of meal. I'll go through all the ingredients later when I post the photos.

For appies we had two kinds of salmon candy, one with maple syrup, pepper, and garlic, and one with maple syup only. I bought two kinds of cheese and toasted pumpkin seed bread (from Mix Bakery). We're drinking a 1991 Tinhorn Creek Cabernet Franc which was splintery yesterday, but i quite nice with a bitter cherry flavour today. Needs more cellar time.

Photos coming!

Zuke

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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Is there a joke in there about the elevator not going to the top floor?? :laugh: Just kidding Zuke!

I knew you were an artist ... but a poet and a fashion diva too? Such talent.

Ullie will love the Junior Scrabble ... keeps me entertained for hours.

A.

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As impressive as your, er, elevators are, it was the real elevator that brought a lump to my throat. That's the quintessesntial Saskatchewan, Pool logo and all. All that and salmon candy too.

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So my idea for solstice was to make cute little pine cone bird feeders filled with sunflower seeds to bring to the farm with Ullie to hang on the trees for the song birds.That will have to be for next year, or maybe even next week. Anyway, I popped out to the farm on the bus (we don't own a car), and it was good timing because there was a warm wind blowing and it stopped raining and lightened up a bit. The feruginous hawk that overseas the farm was screeching out his songs of bravado as I went to chat up the chickens. The lucky girls have a full-time hunky chicken sitter who lives on the farm to keep them safe. Before they did this, someone let the chickens out one night and the coyotes got them all.

The idea for my 100 Mile Solstice Tart was to source ingredients as close to home as possible. All week I've been asking Peter: "How many miles to Victoria? How far away is Saltspring?" My B.C. geography isn't very good yet.The great thing about this game is that I had to ask the shopkeepers what the "closest" ingredient (say cheese, for instance) they had to offer me. It was fun, and a good way to strike up a conversation. At the farm office Mark Bomford told me the chickens eat organic feed produced in Langley from grains grown in Alberta. I asked if they're going to have a fundraiser to fix their ailing tractor and he said they're hoping someone can donate them a used one that works.

It was great to be back at the farm in a completely different season. A few bees were active in front of the hives. Everything was very quiet, patiently waiting for the longer days to come.

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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I went to this store to get some maple salmon nuggets: They are soft sweet, and unctuous, best served at room temperature. The salmon candy was more chewy and a touch more savory with the garlic. At the Sustainability luncheon at C this summer we had salmon candy dipped in this amazing mixture, like a spicy gomashio. I wish they'd sell it, because it's really elevates the candy to a new level.

What's this?

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Could it be the free range Christmas Octopus?

"Mom, I want the biggest tentacle!"

"You've got ten suckers on that one and it's big enough."

"Where's the wishbone, dear?"

I found some interesting first Nations wild-harvested products at the store. I bought a little jar of jam for a stocking stuffer: "Three Fruit/ A First nations Product Wild Harvested/Ingredients: Blackcap, choke cherry, Saskatoon, sugar, pectin."

I found a reference to these Siska Traditions products from Lytton B.C. in this interesting article in the about harvesting wild produce in B.C. in the Georgia Straight.

.

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This is where I bought the garlic salmon candy.The proprietor was very sweet and asked me to taste the product. He said kids come in and buy it all the time instead of chips or pop, which pleased him very much.

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I went to Mix Bakery to grab a loaf of toasted sunflower bread and I had a quick bowl of hot and nourishing Rancho Bean Soup.

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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Good morning everyone! I'm up and sipping a cup of Noisette tea from Tearoom T. I've been listening to the gentle lullabyes of Angelika Kirschlager. My back has seized up today, so I'll have to do stretching in between packing and posting. I still have to post the meal from last night. Hope you all had a good sleep. I had wierd dream of eGullet, of course. :wacko:

Soba,

I bought the salmon candy. I didn't make it. It's actually quite affordable here. So just hop on a plane and come and visit!

Lemon Yogurt Scones

I've been reading a tea shop mystery called The English Breakfast Murder by Laura Childs. Her series is set in Charleston, South Carolina in the Indigo Tea Shop. When she describes the aromas of the exotic teas and the baked goods I find myself wishing the tea shop really existed. The back of the book has a few recipes, but I hope Laura Childs puts out a cook book because some of the dishes described in the book aren't in the recipe section.

Other books in the series are Death by Darjeeling, Gunpowder Green, and Shades of Earl Grey (Berkley Prime Crime Books). I love her characters, and imagine these books would make a very fun television series. She delves into the history of Charleston and the architecture, the antiques, and the books are saturated in Southern charm. I've always been fascinated by the concept of "charm"-having spent one summer of my university life reading the plays of Tennesee Williams.

My ultimate comfort food is tea and scones. One of my favorite spots in Vancouver is Tearoom T. It's a place I go with my girlfriends on a Saturday afternoon. We have wept and cried over clotted cream and jam and fabulous scones made by Leslie Stowe. They come in exotic flavors like chocolate cherry hazelnut and chocolate espresso pecan. They inspired scone envy in me, so I needed to do some research on the subject. I finally came up with this recipe:

Lemon Yogurt Scones

2 c. flour

2 tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 cup cold butter

1 cup yogurt

grated rind of one lemon

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cut up butter into pea-sized pieces and work with your fingers into the flour mixture until it's combined and the butter is in even smaller bits-like you would to make pastry. Add the yogurt and lemon rind and mix until combined. Pat the dough into a circle one inch thick and cut into 2 inch rounds using a glass or scone-cutter.

Bake at 425 Degrees F for 12-14 minutes.

I put a bit of Tuscan ham and Dijon mustard on them for little sandwiches. These scones would be good with marmalade, lavender jelly or strawberries and whipped cream. You can vary the flavor of the yogurt to add interest and add chocolate, dried cherries-you name it! They are good with jasmine green tea.

Autumn Variation: substitute 1/2 cup oatmeal for 1/2 cup of the flour, and add 1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts (leave some pieces nice and big for extra crunch!). Use buttermilk instead of yogurt. These are really good with baba ganouj!

Edited by Zucchini Mama (log)

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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This is one of the cookies we baked yesterday. I wish I could have taken a picture of it with my SLR, because the depth of field is so crappy on these cheap digital cameras. Anyway, I love a glass of cold skim milk and a warm chocolate chunk cookie. The glass is vintage Cahill's and I love the text on it.

Nature's Gift From the Desert

Cahill's Prickly Pear Jelly

We pioneered and developed

this unusual jelly in 1949.

It is a PURE product.

10 1/2 oz. net wt.

This jelly is made from

luscious, red, pear-shaped

fruits growing along edge of

pad-like stems of prickly

pear cactus plants.

These healthful desert fruits

ripen during long sun-filled summer days.

For centuries, Indians have

prized prickly pears highly

and call them "FRUIT OF

THE DESERT."

Delightfully Different.

Copyright 1958.

Cahill Desert. Prod. Co.

E Thomas Road

Phoenix, Arizona.

Edited by Zucchini Mama (log)

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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Is there a joke in there about the elevator not going to the top floor?? :laugh: Just kidding Zuke!

I knew you were an artist ... but a poet and a fashion diva too? Such talent.

Ullie will love the Junior Scrabble ... keeps me entertained for hours.

A.

Yes I know Arne, weren't you the junior SCRAPPLE champ of 2004?

:raz:

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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It's so funny when you're blogging to see people's names at the bottom of the screen. I have this urge to wave to them. Anyway, Ullie's a bit concerned Santa will not fill his complete order. He thinks we should leave some cash with the milk and cookies. He also thinks that Lego toys that are too expensive should be labeled with a warning!

He said something cute yester day. Peter woke up in a foul mood and Ullie said "Daddy, you woke up on the worn side of the bed. You should go sit on the Naughty Point." That's a Super Nanny Technique. Ullie and I watched an episode of that show one and he was shocked at the behavior of some of those kids. "Mom, I would never do that! Can we get a Naughty Point?"

So now the NP is a running joke, so whenever anyone disagees with us we try to send them over to the Naughty Point. I think Super Nanny gets grown men who ask to be put on the naughty Point, but we won't go there.

Ahem, okay, Solstice Tart:

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Notice the rosemary in the whole wheat pastry. The rosemary is from our back yard, harvested moments before cooking. The flour is Anita's Organic unbleached from Chiliwack. How far is Chiliwack from Vancouver? Is the wheat grown there or milled there?

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Since Nancy and Peter are lactose intolerant and I didn't have any soya milk I just used four eggs mixed with a bit of mashed potatoes as the binder. The pumpkin was from my friend Lysa's garden in Maple Ridge. How far away is that? The potatoes are organic, but I forgot to ask where they came from. The salt is from Windsor Ontario--thousands of miles away. Is there any locally harvested salt here? The tomatoes are another cheat-just some Mexican grape tomatoes that needed using up. The roasted garlic--I can't remember. The pepper came from a friend in Emilia Romagna, but I don't know if it's grown in Italy. It is the ingredient that comes from farthest away. Oh, and on half the tart I put some of the Poplar Grove Tiger Blue, which is what those funny black bits are. It's from the Naramata Bench in the Okanagan which is our favorite wine region and some day I'd like to get married there if we can ever afford a big fat vineyard wedding!

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This is a slice with a salad I made of spinach, red cabage, pomegranate seeds and pumpkin seed dukkah from the Stock market in Granville Island, drizzled with pumpkin seed oil of course.

Edited by Zucchini Mama (log)

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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Oh, what a wonderful blog! Your writing is fascinating, and I'm so happy to see many people here with Saskatchewan ties.

I have lived all my life in Saskatchewan, and have lived all of my adult life here in Regina. You are bringing back wonderful memories of Christmases at my parents' farm, near a small town an hour or so north of here.

The pictures of all that cheese nearly did me in. Lord, but I'm hungry now.

I don't mind the rat race, but I'd like more cheese.

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It was great to be back at the farm in a completely different season. A few bees were active in front of the hives. Everything was very quiet, patiently waiting for the longer days to come.

I'm really enjoying your blog!

It was interesting to read the above. My daughter just asked me what bees do in the winter. I had no clue! Do they just slow down? Is it business as usual?

Danielle Altshuler Wiley

a.k.a. Foodmomiac

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Oh, what a wonderful blog!  Your writing is fascinating, and I'm so happy to see many people here with Saskatchewan ties.

I have lived all my life in Saskatchewan, and have lived all of my adult life here in Regina.  You are bringing back wonderful memories of Christmases at my parents' farm, near a small town an hour or so north of here.

The pictures of all that cheese nearly did me in.  Lord, but I'm hungry now.

Well, I've always wondered, with a name like that where you were from. Nice to meet you in the virtual world, saskanuck! What town are you from? I love small town lore. You must post about Regina on the Western Canada forum--people have been asking about the food scene there.

Quick points before I forget an important part of the perogy process was when the Perogy Diva poked the dough with her finger before she started working with it. By the look on her face I could tell she was assessing it. She says by touching the dough she knows how easy or hard the dough will be to work with and how much flour she'll need. She has the knowledge that comes from experience. So don't forget to poke the perogy dough!

Also, the web site for the Long House fish shop. I just wanted to say that their maple salmon nuggets are the best I have ever tasted.

Long House web site

Edited by Zucchini Mama (log)

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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It was great to be back at the farm in a completely different season. A few bees were active in front of the hives. Everything was very quiet, patiently waiting for the longer days to come.

I'm really enjoying your blog!

It was interesting to read the above. My daughter just asked me what bees do in the winter. I had no clue! Do they just slow down? Is it business as usual?

Good question danielle! Bees hibernate and feast on honey all winter long. So if you're a bee born in the late fall you live much longer than the usual three weeks. Check out this month's issue of the

Honey Gardens Newsletter for more info.

"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."

--Mae West

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Zuke mama, I grew up in Raymore and moved to Regina when I was 18. I've lived here for 25 years now.

I'm going over to the western Canada food thread to see what's up over there.

We have some very good restaurants here and new ones are opening all the time.

I don't mind the rat race, but I'd like more cheese.

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