What to do with the carcass?

Not being a huge fan of whole chicken (until we discovered that a small chicken done in our covered barbeque was THE way to eat poultry!), I usually ask Dave to carve the bits off the carcass to cook, and then save the carcass for later. We also completely bone out our squirrels: we found that when kept on the bone, it was easy to over cook the meat. By boning them, you can cook the meat in smaller portions and to just the right point.

Anyway, I had a freezer-full of carcasses and I thought I'd deal with them. So yesterday I made a pot of stock out of:

3 chicken carcasses (including necks & gibblets)
2 squirrel carcasses
1 medium carrot, peeled into the pot (i.e. peel the whole carrot into the pot)
1 medium parsnip, ditto
4 sprigs of fresh sage
3 very large bushy sprigs of thyme (probably equal to a couple of tablespoons if I had bothered to strip the leaves off)
sprinkling of grey sea salt
enough water to just cover the carcasses

Brought the water to a boil, and probably boiled it for a couple of hours. Skimmed off some of the scum (you're supposed to skim as it boils in order to keep it clear, but I wasn't able to because the peelings and herbs were floating in the way). Removed the carcasses (falling apart!) and all the trimmings. Put just the liquid back on the stove and reduced it down to about 2 litres (probably from 4 or 5 litres after cooking).

I picked the carcasses of meat and broke up the chicken livers and divided small portions of the bits into ice-cube containers, then poured enough stock over to create the cube & froze. These are Murri's "treats", which he gets in addition to the kibble hockey.

Today, I took the stock, skimmed the surface of scum, and strained it through a coffee filter over a sieve and used it to make my own version of "Italian Wedding" soup:

6 cups stock
3-4 sprigs of basil, chopped
1 cup chopped fresh green beans
2 large turkey & cranberry sausages, sliced into rounds & fried
1 package (12 oz) Tinkyada organic brown rice pasta

I cooked the pasta using their "energy efficient" method: boil the water, add the pasta & cook in the boiling water about 2 minutes, then turn off the heat, keep the lid on and let sit for 20 minutes. Drain & rinse. About 4 minutes to go, I turned off the heat of the soup & tossed in the basil & beans to warm up. Once everything was heated & cooked, I put everything together and served. Very tasty.

In Praise of Salt

It all started with a unique gift from my best buddy, Elizabeth. I think she bought it for me for Christmas (or maybe my birthday) a couple of years ago. She knows I appreciate unusual stuff, especially neat food items. She's a foodie and a wonderful chef, so she always has great surprises. This one was a gift of salt. Hawaiian red sea salt (in the photo), to be precise, the flavour and colour of which is influenced by baked red clay. Perhaps she got the idea from when we returned from our honeymoon in France with fleur de sel from the Camargue (that never got eaten, by the way: it makes the most lovely body scrub for the shower. Alas, all gone now...). At any rate, it was a great gift, but it took me a while before I fully appreciated it.

I let it sit on my shelf for a long time, because I didn't really know what I wanted to use it on. I thought it would be such a waste to just use it in cooking, especially as I wanted to be able to taste its unique flavour. I also don't really use a lot of salt in my cooking, and I never remember to place it on the table for people's use; a very early habit developed when my Dad was put on a salt-restricted diet when I was a child (I don't think the salt restriction for him lasted a long time!).

Then an idea struck me: I use salt on popcorn, and I'd be able to taste the unique flavour of this salt, so why not try it? That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. Next I tried it on our fried eggs (sunny side up, pinch of salt & pepper, maybe a little cumin, while cooking, perfection!). Now I add it to many things (including my whole grain dishes), and have it in a nifty little salt mill that I can set to coarse or fine (almost always coarse!) for adding that dash of difference during meal preparation.

Now intrigued by the world of "other" salt (having experienced Camargue, Hawaiian and of course, Kosher), I am enthusiastic to try other varieties. Not too long ago, I purchased grey sea salt from Brittany. It has its own unique flavour and character, not the least of which is that it's much less distinctively crystalline than the red salt, and much harder to use in the salt mill (gums it up). So it stays as whole salt to be added in a pinch to certain things.

If you know nothing of the history of salt, then I highly recommend Mark Kurlansky's "Salt: A World History" as an interesting history of the world as seen through humanity's addiction for and interaction with salt.

New Kitchen Staple

I had heard good things about toasted sesame oil, but had never had occasion to use it, so it didn't live in my pantry until recently. I picked it up a couple of months ago from my favourite bulk and specialty food store Galloways, but it still sat in my cupboard for a while before I thought to try it. Then I made one of my typical "all in one" dishes (a grain & bean salad) and thought I'd dress it with with an oil based dressing and remembered the toasted sesame. Wow! What a difference! I mean, I put lots of goodies into these dishes, so they usually have good flavour, but this takes the prize. I shall never make this dish without toasted sesame oil again if I can help it!! So, here are, generally speaking, the ingredients from this week's version (contents subject to availability & boredom levels!).

• 1 cup cooked grain (this week wheat berries; alternatively barley, but also sometimes second grain of quinoa or buckwheat groats)
• 1 cup cooked beans (aduki this week; alternatively turtle, kidney or cocoa, or garbanzos)
• 4 small carrots, sliced in rounds (this week from our garden, yay!!)
• 1 pomegranate, just the seeds (when in season)
• 1 cup chopped parsley & cilantro (about half a bunch each; alternatively, from our fall garden, I use a mixture of chopped chives, mint and celeriac leaves)
• 1 broccoli crown, chopped into little broccoli florets, steamed briefly (2 min in microwave; green peas, pea pods, and apples are also good alternatives)

I have been known to add other seeds, like pumpkin, sunflower, flax, etc., but with the pomegranate seeds, I didn't feel it was necessary. I LOVE pomegranate season. They're one of my all time favourite fruits. And they're so pretty they add such nice colour to any dish. Apparently the seeds freeze well, so I've got to try that. Here's how to shuck a pomegranate if you've never done it before. Try to pick a pomegranate with nice red skin, no dark or light patches, that's heavy in your hand when you pick it up.

For the dressing, I just whisked together:

• 1/4 cup grape seed oil
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
• zest and juice of 1 lime (sometimes I use red wine, or balsamic vinegar instead)
• 3 dashes of Louisiana hot sauce
• pinch of cracked salt & pepper

On the first night, we had this dish with venison steaks (garnished with home-made native berry jelly, a perfect condiment for game) and roasted mushrooms. It was one of those rare (for me!) times when everything was just right - each piece of food had its own wonderful flavour & texture.

So we're on our third night of this grain & bean glop, and the flavours are just getting better (except the broccoli is a little past its prime now). But now it's all gone!

In Memorium

Poor Goosey is no longer with us. After a valiant battle with a mink a few nights ago, while Goosey didn't appear to be physically damaged, we think that he was just stressed too far with the chase. Goosey, a great guard goose famed across Cobble Hill for his presence, will be missed dearly by all of us, as well as his field buddy, Lady the horse, who'll probably miss him the most of all.

Frankenrat

My aunt Jean has constructed for her cat (and other cats) a giant rat out of an old muskrat fur coat. While we were traipsing around Ottawa, she created one for Murri out of left over and re-used scraps: "Frankenrat". Murri took a little while to believe that such an enormous creature wasn't going to attack him (he's still not 100% sure), but then he figured he should get the first tackle in. Here are some photos of Murri vs. Frankenrat.




And after all that hard work, Murri required a snorgle, confirming his prowess as a rat hunter and slayer.

Fall Colour

Dave & I just returned from a trip to Montréal and Ottawa, to visit our respective aunts. Dave's aunts live in Montréal; one of my aunts and number of cousins and aunts of my mother live in or around Ottawa. We arrived mid-October, and while the weather hadn't co-operated for a crimson blaze of colour, I was very happy with the beautiful range of gold through red with green interspersed that was on display.


We stayed on Nun's Island (Ile des Soeurs) just across the river from the main city of Montréal, which was quite convenient in some respects, but a little challenging in others. Our first day was spent wandering all over old Montréal, the Quays, the Latin Quarter, the small Chinatown, and finally ending with a brew pub dinner with a friend on St. Denis. We visited the Museum of Archaeology, and while it was quite interesting, as you are wondering under old Montréal through an excavated site, through layers of history back to the original settlement, we felt that some of the displays lacked information. There was nothing, for example, on the actual process of archaeology, and we felt a little let down by that. We wandered down St. Paul and found a print atelier which we spent a good amount of time browsing through. Mostly, we just walked and looked, and got some interesting impressions of some of the neighbourhoods around Montréal.


Getting back to Nun's Island was a bit of a trick. We found the Métro to be great, and took it to Lasalle station in Verdun (a neighbourhood of Montréal not too far from Nun's Island). We knew that there was a bus that left from there to Nun's Island, so we figured we'd catch the bus. Unfortunately, it's more of a commuter bus, and the service stops at 7 pm; we were there at 830. No problem, I thought, we'll just call a cab. Well, I asked for a pickup at the Lasalle station. You'd think would be enough of a unique landmark to get the cab in the right general area. The dispatcher asked for the address. Now, if you were standing at a SkyTrain station in Vancouver, you would NEVER find a street address, nor would you need to! They're all pretty unique in name and location (just like the Métro stations!). So here I am frantically running around trying to find out what street the Métro station is on, and I did see a street number on the station, but wasn't 100% sure that it was a street number, so I looked for the number of an apartment block across the street and gave the dispatcher that. Feeling pretty pleased that I'd managed to figure out that information, the dispatcher then asks me where in Montréal that is. As in what district. I am a tourist, who has only been to Montréal once in my life, and very briefly at that. I have NO idea what district we're in. I repeat to the dispatcher that it's the Lasalle Métro station; how much more information can I, as a tourist, possibly figure out than that? So the dispatcher informs me that it's really important to know what district that I'm calling from, otherwise the cab can't find me. For goodness sake!! If I knew where I was, I'd probably be able to figure out an alternative bus route and not even bother with a cab!! Anyway, eventually the taxi came, and it was literally a matter of less than 5 minutes to get to Nun's Island from where we were. We could have walked that far, but we weren't sure if there was a pedestrian walkway over the bridge we'd need to cross (turned out that there was). We did make it back, but not without some extreme frustration on my part!

We went to Atwater Market beside the Lachine Canal the next day, and it was like being transported back to France. The food!! Although the pastries aren't quite as good, the fresh fruit, veg, beautiful cheeses & charcoutrie meats were fantastic. We stocked up on picnic goodies for our train trip to Ottawa the next day.


So we are on a roll with unsuccessful transportation options. We thought we'd rent a car from the train station in Ottawa (which is way out beyond hell's half acre from the centre of the city, go figure) and drive to my aunt's in Nepean, thus having transportation for the rest of the visit. Nope. No car rental. No obvious indication that car rentals are even available in Ottawa, from all the information available at the train station. Sigh. I suppose if you take the train, you can't drive and have no need of a vehicle.


We visited the Agricultural Museum in Nepean (quite good: tractors & animals; how can you go wrong!), wandered the footpath along the Ottawa River towards Parliament, I took a ridiculous quantity of photos of the stone carvings in the various buildings around the Hill, and then visited my mom's side of the family that afternoon. The next day was spent wandering all over Ottawa (including walking past and across the locks at the Rideau Canal as it joins the Ottawa River) and into Gatineau across the river. We figured we walked about 15km that day! But it was gorgeous; 23C weather, sunny, and the foliage was, if not spectacular, then lovely. And the scenery was nice: we walked part way up into Gatineau Park. We were happy to have the opportunity to sit for five and a half hours on the plane home the next day!

Oops!

Well, I started a new blog for me & my printmaking (Burnishings) but unfortunately, the profile seems to have overwritten this one. Sigh. Well, anyway, if you're here, you already know about Dave & I, but since I seem to have lost his info too, I'm adding his picture so you all remember him, too!

Still mired deeply in bathroom renovations, but they're progressing. Dave is wrestling drywall this week, and already, it looks more like a room! Will post photos when able.