Regrettable Foods Christmas Potluck 2006

...Or shall we call it the Family Circle Christmas potluck?

The origins of this potluck go back to a lovely day at the beach this past summer when Jodi presented various cookbooks from The Family Circle Illustrated Library of Cooking to those present. This past weekend, we were all called upon to utilise these books to conjure up the magic of cooking in 1972. The consensus at the party was that it was painfully difficult for us to follow these recipes to the letter; the abundance of pre-processed ingredients, the lack of spices or seasoning, the insistence on hard-boiled egg garnishes, and the enthusiasm for molding perfectly good food with gelatin made this potluck prep an almost arduous task . However, we persevered and these are the results.

Ladies, if I get any of the details wrong, please say so in the comments below!

The Feast!

My own contribution to the feast was Scotch Eggs. Pretty simple - hard boiled eggs encased in spiced hamburger, rolled in crushed Corn Flakes, then deep fried. Not too much technique there - although I'd love to make these sometime with really little eggs covered in homemade turkey sausage. These beasts were a little overwhelming and kind of difficult to cook because of their hugeness. But oh, so tasty. (Next time, I'll spice 'em up! The Scotch won't know what hit 'em!)

Next, we have a casserole with pineapple, yams and ham with Marshmellow topping courtesy of Sharon (one of my favourites of the evening, actually...) and an eggplant salad. The ham was cooked in a sauce of canned pineapple juice and brown sugar. I think this is kind of a take-off on the whole candied yams American Thanksgiving thing. Yummy.

The eggplant salad was from the 'Foods from Afar' heading - this was a supposedly Israeli salad of cooked eggplant, cucumber, celery and green olives covered in sour cream. No spices apart from salt, sugar and garlic. The method for making the radishes into rosettes was also in the cookbook. Those 70s housewives sure loved their garnishes.

These two treats above were courtesy of Kreesta and John. The sandwiches were a corrupted Reuben sandwich with spam instead of corned beef - and the lovely tuna ramekins were concocted completely of preprocessed and canned foods. Even the biscuit topping was Pillsbury. A lovely little Tuna Pot Pie, if you will.

My vote goes to Jenny, however for the most ornate food of the night.

These little candied oranges were astonishingly beautiful. I want to decorate my Christmas tree with them. Jenny, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is how they were created. First, the orange was sliced at the top and all the insides were gently scooped out. Then the hollow peels were candied. I'm not sure of the process, but I think it involved cooking them in a sugar syrup over a long period of time. Then the candied orange peels were filled with Christmas cake and steamed.

In a way, these oranges reminded me of the beautiful molded Marzipan treats that I first saw in the Netherlands when I was a kid. Breathtakingly lovely, but you were a little afraid to eat them.

It was almost surprising that there was only one molded salad at the potluck - I would venture a guess and say that almost a quarter of all the recipes in these Family Circle books involved mixing gelatin with otherwise acceptable food and conforming it to a imposing, quivering tower of food.

Melanie took on the molded salad challenge with this little number composed of rice, cream, melted candy hearts, and canned pears. Garishly festive!

Alas, there were many other dishes that were enjoyed but not photographed - the quiche, the ambrosia salad, the cheesecake, the salmon spread, the molasses roll-ups... All truly wonderful, and all enjoyed.

Huzzah for Regrettable Food!

Sometimes the best food is the food someone cooks for you!

There hasn't been much interesting going on in my kitchen lately. It's busy at work and busy at home and its the time of year when I revert simple, easy, boring food. But thank God for ambitious friends!
Everyone needs a friend like Coral. Coral has found some interesting recipes lately. Coral wants to try them out. Coral calls me up like I would be doing her a favour by coming over and letting her try out some new recipes. Like the martyr I am, I say yes, Yes, YES! Green Coconut Curry soup with scallops and shrimp makes up the first course.
I go a little cuckoo for scallops - the succulent little pillowy morsels of rich sweet flesh make me groan with pleasure.

I remember once, long ago, coaching Coral for her first trip to the east coast of Canada. Like lots of people growing up on the prairie, she was a little nervous about eating seafood because the only thing we ever had growing up was frozen fish sticks and nasty canned or frozen shrimp. I had only discovered the joys of fresh seafood the year before on my first trip out east, so I passed along my newly found passion for Digby scallops and made her promise to at least try them when she was down there. As far as I can tell, she's never looked back since!

Oh, yeah - and the soup was damn tasty too. Not too spicy, with a hint of lemongrass. Veggies still crunchy. Yum.

Main course - Chicken breast stuffed with prosciutto and cheese, scalloped potatoes, and green salad with walnuts and blue cheese.
The chicken was coated in a tortilla chip breading, which made a lovely crunchy crust which contrasted nicely with the molten cheese and tender prosciutto within.

On an aside - I'm finding corn flour makes mighty tasty breading. My personal favourite lately has been corn flour with crushed pepitas with Mexican oregano as a breading for pan-fried fish. But I digress....

Dessert - Molten Chocolate and Espresso Fondants

These little lava cakes were OUT OF CONTROL. I don't know if any of you have ever had this experience, but this dessert reached out and punched me right in the face with the crazy flavour and texture! Then, just as I was trying to recover - another sucker punch to my taste buds! This dessert made me YELP right at the table!

Seriously. I'm not the hugest chocolate freak out there, but this was incredibly decadent. The almost-bitterness of the dark chocolate and espresso were offset so nicely by the cappucino ice cream. I couldn't finish the whole thing because it was so deliciously rich.

MMMMmmm. Molten.

This meal will give me the strength to make it through the craziness of December. And any spare moments will probably be consumed with thinking about how I can repay this meal!

Thanks, Chris and Coral, for a fantastic feast and good times!

I hate baking!

Now... in my younger years, I loved baking.
I loved finding new recipes that required precision and attention to detail. Complicated torte recipes, cheesecakes, florentines drizzled with chocolate - I even made fruitcake one year when I was 19. Even though I never had much of a sweet tooth, I would visit friends and bring them treats and generally just bake for the sheer joy of baking.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but the thrill is now gone. Or maybe yesterday night I just lacked inspiration or patience. Or maybe I just need a bigger kitchen for baking. Or maybe I just needed to know that my new oven really means 430 degrees when it says 400. Regardless of my new ennui towards the sugar and spice arts - I persevered. And I managed to get three batches of treats of the (too hot) oven.
Batch one: Vital Geback.
These came from a recipe that my mom got from a German friend. They kind of taste like sesame snaps, but with sunflower seeds and almonds too. However, I burnt many of the almonds when I was attempting to toast them, so I threw in some pepitas to make up for the lack of almonds. Then I overbaked the whole batch.
The recipe said to bake them for about 15 minutes. I checked them at 13 and they were starting to overbrown. Then I waited too long to cut them into slices (you have to cut them while they're still quite warm) so some of the pieces shattered. But they are still edible, especially if you suscribe to the notion that burnt sugar is an exotic and delicious flavour.

Batch two: Lime and Pepita Sugar Cookies.

This recipe came to me from the Rebar cookbook, by way of lovely Kreesta Doucette. They are kind of like a sugar cookie with lime zest and pumpkin seeds. Thankfully, they are hard to screw up, and so they actually turned out quite well. I should have taken them out of the oven sooner to keep them a little softer, but the hot oven foiled me again.

Batch Three: Chocolate Chip cookies

This was the batch that nearly killed me. This recipe was nominated the best chewy chocolate chip recipe ever by the folks at Chowhound ( I think it's originally from Cooks Illustrated) but by this time I had lost all patience for careful measuring and delicate mixing. I should also mention a large part of the frustration of the day was due to the fact that my sugar was mostly comprised of huge, hard lumps that I had to crush down to be able to use for these recipes. I keep big bags of sugar and flour in the pantry in the basement and I guess it's too damp for the sugar.

Those lumps of sugar broke my spirit. At one point I was literally yelling out my frustration and was throwing stuff around the kitchen until Jeff came downstairs to see what the hell was going on... Even though I had read that you really needed to follow all instructions down to the letter for them to turn out just right, I just wanted to be done with the horrible things!
So I don't know if it was the hasty mixing/measuring or the hot oven, but they turned out very average and not-chewy.

Sigh... I think I will just have to leave baking to others more dedicated to the craft. Or at least stick to one recipe at a time - mixing up a new batch of dough when you have to pay close attention to the batch currently in the oven is probably not a great idea.

I shall endeavour to learn from these mistakes. I promise.

Spaghetti and Meatballs

Ah... the classic dish.

I think today was the first time I've actually ever made spaghetti and meatballs. I was inspired by the Sundried Tomato and Fennel Turkey Sausage that I made this weekend. I didn't have any casings handy to make them into sausages, so I froze it in bulk.

Three Cheers for Turkey Meatballs!

Fish and Chips - HFX Style

My husband and I have always had a slight difference of opinion on the perfect fish and chips.
I've always been fond of light, crispy coating and am ambivalent to the type of fish being used. Jeff is a fan of the thick, heavy stuff that his favourite Halifax greasy spoons would use to coat their fish, which has to be Haddock. Cousin's Snack Bar on Agricola Street served his version of piscatorial bliss. The secret to Jeffery's favourite fish batter?

We have started getting phone calls from Mariner's Neptune here in Winnipeg every time they get fresh haddock in their shop. (It's pretty hard to find in Winnipeg, but I'm getting sold on it for the best fish-and-chips fish there is.) It's a firm white fish, with a tangier, saltier flavour than cod. When we got the call this weekend, Jeff laid down the law. After 6 years of marriage we were finally going to make Aunt Jemima Haddock Fish And Chips!


And I think I'm sold on it. The last light, frothy beer batter I made tasted fantastic- but it took forever to get ready because it had yeast in it. This was definitely simpler and still tasted really good. Yes, it's heavy....which meant I was stuffed after two pieces. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Happy Halloween!

Would you accept candy from this man?

St. Joseph Fall Supper - October 15, 2006

The fall supper so good, you'll do anything to get there - even hitchhike!
Yes, Jeff managed to fit in a bus-tour school field trip in the Pembina Valley and a fall supper 120 kilometres away. I think it was the sign that made that wonderful couple from Altona pick him up... (Whoever you are, thank you for taking pity upon my husband!) The food.

For me, this supper is all about the pies. Well, the pies and the roast beef. The entire menu listed above also mentions salads, hominy corn (a little bland and kind of cold) and a pork ragout (kind of a bland gravy with a few pieces of meat).

My favourite St. Joe treat will always be the tourtiere, delicately flavoured with cloves and garlic, topped with the flakiest crust ever. Not to mention the meltingly tender slices of medium-rare roast beef, rubbed lovingly with lots of pepper and spices.This beef was perfect! And this is how they did it - Rotisserie style on a trailer beside the community hall. (Please note the look of gleeful concentration on the gentleman with the roast.)
Last but certainly not least, are the (dessert) pies of St. Joe.

Most suppers have a set banquet menu with donated homemade desserts, but at this supper the pies are part of the set menu. Every year the pies are the same, and they're heavenly. Pumpkin pie, saskatoon pie, cherry pie, lemon meringue pie, chocolate cream pie and French Canadian sugar pie.

Pictured above is my favourite - Bean Pie. Pinto beans are grown locally in the area, and this pie is here every year. The flavour is similar to a sugar pie, but the texture is dense and almost a little chewy. Not too sweet. And the pecan is a nice touch.

Carnitas!

I was gifted with 8 pounds of Manitoba Berkshire pork a few weeks ago, and I was looking to find a recipe that would show off this pork to its fullest potential. I slow roasted the first roast, but I thought I'd try somthing more interesting and complicated for the second roast. I got the inspiration to make carnitas from Chowhound.com. I found pages and pages of endless debates on the Chowhound boards over the best way to make this dish, so it seemed like a fun challenge!

It's a strange feeling to try to make an authentic version of a food you've never eaten. The most 'authentic' recipes involved slowly simmering an entire roast in freshly rendered lard. Most of the other recipes involved slowly boiling the meat in water with spices and then browning it later. I always like to try for authentic preparation, but unfortunately I don't have large vats of freshly rendered lard on hand. So I did a little experiment - I'd render the lard from the roast, and try the 'authentic' method for as much meat as the lard would cover. The rest of the meat, I'd try out the other way.

Step one: Rendering lard.
This took a few hours on its own. I had about 3/4 pound backfat with skin that I cut into 1-inch cubes and boiled it down until the skin were crispy bits of crackly goodness. Funny, I always hated crackles when I was a kid, and now I went out of my way to produce them. I salted them and ate them hot - the first two were delicious, but the next one became lard overload. Jeff ate the rest.

Step 2 - The next day: Time to start boiling hog!
The roast got cut up into large chunks - about 1.5 x2.5 inches. I had about a 1 1/4 cup of lard from the night before, which got placed in a small saucepan. I was able to cover about 5 large pieces of pork with the melted lard. This I simmered slowly for an hour, then added the juice and rind from 1/2 an orange, and about 1/2 a can of Coke. I don't know how authentic the Coke was, but since I saw it in a few places, I thought I'd run with it. It simmered for about 2 hours longer, until the meat broke apart easily.
The other meat went into the stock pot with a cut up orange, a chili pepper, mexican oregano, cumin, lots of garlic and water. This simmered down for about three 1/2 hours until it looked like the picture above. Most recipes said to boil it down until there was no liquid left, but since I cut up the meat instead of leaving it as an intact roast, it was breaking apart at this point. I strained the meat and went shopping for corn tortillas.

Step three: Time to eat!
The water-boiled carnitas still needed to be crisped up. They were a little mushy and fatty, but 10 minutes in the oven at 425 degrees got them nice and carmelized. The lard-boiled carnitas were pretty perfect and just needed to be warmed up.
A little bit of avocado, fresh salsa and sour cream on a warm tortilla, and we got the final product pictured at the beginning of this post.

Final verdict? The flavour of both preparations was really similar. The taste of the oranges really came through in both of them, and the extra spices and garlic in the water boiled version weren't too noticable. I like the consistency of the lard-boiled ones better though. Strangely enough, they seemed leaner to me - less mushy fat still attached. Maybe next time I will boil them a little longer for that fat to render out, and maybe add a few dried chipotles to the boiling pot.

I called my pork farmers today to order some more of this stuff. I think I may be hooked!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yeah, we had Roast Chicken for lunch, and the pumpkin pie and stuffing, etc... But isn't this picture of our supper more interesting? Let's all give three cheers for vareneki and schmon faht.

Distinguishing between the Ukrainian perogy and the Mennonite vareneki is a little tricky. Ultimately, they come from the same tradition with the main difference that Mennonites fill their dumplings with cottage cheese and Ukrainians fill them with potato. (Although my Oma used to sometimes make fruit vareneki filled with cherries or apricots...)
Here in Winnipeg, the typical perogy is a pan-fried potato and cheese filled dumpling served with sour cream on the side. They are strangely ubiquitous in this part of the country - you can find them in diners, in mom n' pop family places, chain restaurants as a regional add-on, fried chicken places... They've become the ultimate starchy side dish for Winnipeg.

However, the perogies I've had at all the Ukrainian fall suppers are never pan-fried - always boiled, served with a cream gravy, sometimes on the side. I grew up thinking that only the Mennonites put cream gravy on their vareneki but I'm starting to realize that it is more of a restaurant vs. home-cooking thing instead. There are only a handful of actual restaurants that I know of that make good Mennonite-style vareneki, and they are all in Steinbach. Seek them out, and you shall be satisfied.

Ste. Agathe Fall Supper - October 1, 2006

24 degrees Celcius at the beginning of October! A good day to spend an hour waiting in line for a fall supper!
Apparently, the good weather brings out the crowds, because the community hall in Ste. Agathe (just south of Winnipeg) had a line-up about two blocks long by the time we got there. As the line moved ever-so-slowly towards the lovely aromas inside, we had a chance to do some chatting with some charming Franco-Manitobain Hommes. We asked these men about the local specialties at the supper, who responded with the opinion that Fall Suppers were not about the food - they were about community and getting together with your friends. (Not about the food?!) We did get some hot tips on Suppers to watch for in the future, though. La Broquerie is their traditional kick-off supper every year. Something to remember for next year, I guess.
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This was the first 'fowl' supper that I had been to. Roast Turkey, meatballs, ham, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, coleslaw was the fare. The supper itself was a bit lackluster, but the pie table more than made up for it. There was a huge selection of homemade pies and dainties, including creamy Sugar pie, strawberry, apple crumble pie, and a very intriguing coconut custard pie. Not too sweet, really eggy with lots of real coconut. Very yummy.

The spiky apple? Simply the most creative toothpick holder I've ever seen.

Pansy Fall Supper - September 24, 2006

After much debate, the decision to start the 2006 season was settled on Pansy, in South-Eastern Manitoba. Now, the great thing about Pansy it that it's not really a town at all. It's this community center, a church, and a mailbox. (Plus it's called Pansy! How great is that?) Oh, and they have an awesome Pet Cemetary. I have no idea what the story is behind the pet cemetary, but it's a few miles out of 'town', has a well-maintained parking lot, brand new sign, and picturesque paths winding around the bush. No markers as far as we could see, but fascinating nonetheless.
But I digress. The Pansy fall supper was noteworthy for its four-line system (no line-ups despite a packed house) and its fantastic variety of food, not surprising since it was advertised as a Ukrainian Smorg. Here, off the top of my head are some of the treats offered: Fried chicken, two kinds of meatballs, two kinds of cabbage rolls, perogies with a creamy dill sauce (great flavour, but a little gummy), yummy peppery mashed potatoes, amazing sauerkraut with big pieces of ham (so mild, tender and hammy), pickled beets (heavy on the cloves, which is a good thing), sweet Ukrainian crepes stuffed with cottage cheese (Nalysnyky) and piles of other preserves, salads, and jello. There was actually enough non-meat options here for the vegetarian among us to eat her fill too (not always that common on this circuit...)
The dessert table was also impressive - lots of homemade pies, dainties and squares to choose from. A big pitcher of thick cream straight from the dairy accompanied the coffee.
Sounds like heaven, right? The best in the East?

No, sir. Not the best. Although the results are unofficial, the moniker of best in the East may still have to go to Gardenton.

You see, part of the dilemma whilst choosing the supper this weekend was to decide if we wanted to branch away from Gardenton this year. As you have read in the 2005 recap, G. is the traditional kick-off to the supper season for this gang. But we thought we should try to branch out, to experience what else the world of suppers had to offer us. So we went to Pansy.

The gravitational force of Gardenton's perogies sucked us in, though. Yes, friends, we did TWO suppers in ONE afternoon. Disgusting. Over the top. Gluttonous. But we all can categorically now state that we can assert with confidence that Gardenton does have the best perogies ever consumed by any of us, plus it has pumpkin pie that will make you weep. Well, it made Jenny weep, anyway - (seen here in a 2004 photo...)

Even though it was the tail end of the supper and half the food had been taken off the tables already, the perogies maintained their amazing, light texture. No gumminess! Beautiful, thin cream sauce with tiny bits of fried onion. Intense cheddar flavour with the potato filling.

They. Are. Perfect.

Fall Suppers 2005 Recap!

The Ukrainian Village is the site of the Gardenton Fall Supper in South-Eastern Manitoba. It has kind of become tradition to kick off the fall supper season with this supper - the leaves on all the oak trees have just begun to change, the day is always sunny and warm, and you just know that you're going to have the best Ukrainian food in the province. The hall is small - seats about 100 - and a sweet guy named Mike is always there to greet you as you come in. The food is typical Ukrainian buffet - perogies, holubchi, potatoes, meatballs, fried chicken - but everything is prepared so delicately it's hard to think of this as a mass-produced meal. Highlights of this supper are the beautiful boiled cheese and potato perogies, the potatoes in cream and fresh dill, and the light pumpkin pie with real whipped cream. Sometimes you can buy some shredded Horseradish beets - Yum!

Silver, Manitoba is a Ukrainian town in the interlake area of Manitoba. Their fall supper is more of a dinner and dance than a come-and-go supper. The food was a little lackluster compared to the glory of Gardenton (Praise Gardenton!) but from what I can remember, it was a perfectly fine Ukrainian buffet with two kinds of holubchi, perogies, meatballs and homemade headcheese. The best part about this supper, though, was chatting with the locals about the best places to hunt for wild mushrooms - not that anybody gave up any real secrets - and dancing The Butterfly to a live band.

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2/froddard/thepiesofst.jpg (click on the link for a collage of St. Joseph... for some reason I can't upload these pictures properly...)

St. Joseph is a little French town south of Winnipeg. The feel of this supper is a little more razzle-dazzle than the down-home flavour of some of the other suppers. Don't get me wrong, there is still some damn fine home cooking here, it's just that St. Joe is so....organized! When you complete the buffet line (filled with crazy jello salads, hominy corn, beautifully tender roast beef and melt-in-your-mouth Tourtiere), there is a volunteer waiting to find your party a place to seat. There are at least another dozen volunteers scattered throughout the large hall that gesture with hand signals the availability of seating arrangements in the crowd. They run this place like clockwork! http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k2/froddard/Stjoseph004BW.jpg It can be a little tricky getting your pie after supper because those volunteers fill up any empty spaces so quickly. The pies are probably the highlight of this exemplary supper. Every year there is the same selection: Bean pie (kind of like a pumpkin pie consistency that tastes like caramel - Yum!), Sugar pie (much creamier than you might think), raisin, chocolate cream, apple, saskatoon, turtle, lemon and Cherry pie. St Joseph is pie heaven.

So there we have it - the highlights of the 2005 season.

This next weekend might be a little crazy - there are at least 8 suppers that I know of happening this Sunday alone. Please wish me and my cholesterol levels luck.

my first post...

What can I say - I'm a fan of good food.
Lord knows, I'd hate to work in the food industry, but food just seems to be more interesting than anything else.
So here's to food as celebration, food as sacrament, food as politics and food for sustenance!