What We Ate, August 27 - September 9

I haven’t been blogging much lately.  I got to feeling that I was spending so much time writing about what I do that it was taking away from the time I needed for actually doing the things I do, so I’ve been taking a break.  It’s been good too:  I’ve been working my way through my “to do” list, spending more date time with my husband, and finding  more time for crafts, sewing and recreational photography.  I’d been missing all those things.  I’m a happier human when I find time for them.

Less blogging means fewer “What We Ate” posts, so I now have two weeks’ worth of menus waiting to be shared.  That makes for a long post.  Hope you’ll bear with me.

We love this time of year at our house.  The pantry is nearly full and we’re enjoying the best of both late summer and early fall produce.  Lots of good food around! 

Despite the variety available to us, in reviewing our menu I see some recurring themes.  We’ve been eating a lot of cheddar cheese lately, because it’s been more affordable than usual, and a fair number of pork products, which also seem to go on sale at this time of year. 

Do you do that to? 

Find a bargain in the store and then find yourself eating it over and over again because it’s accessible to you? 

Good thing that cheese and pork are both versatile ingredients!  At least we can use them in several different ways so our menu doesn't end up feeling too repetitive.

Here’s what we ate:

Monday, August 27:

Breakfast – Granola and homemade yogurt

Supper – Cheddar and cauliflower soup, wheat and white biscuits, pepper jam, plum crisp

Tuesday, August 28:

Breakfast – Applesauce, homemade yogurt, whole wheat toast

Supper – Chicken, sausage, and applesauce pie (which was disappointing but I’ll keep working on it until I get it right), a salad of red leaf lettuce, shredded carrot, and tomatoes, with homemade ranch dressing, pears canned in brown sugar syrup with ginger

Wednesday, August 29:

Breakfast – Homemade granola bars, apples

Supper – Vegetarian black bean chili served over brown rice and topped with grated cheddar, homemade cinnamon, brown sugar, and peach ice cream for dessert

Thursday, August 30:

Breakfast – Boiled eggs and multigrain toast

Supper – Dinner out

Friday, August 31:

Breakfast – Oatmeal and stewed rhubarb

Supper – Pork steaks, baked potatoes, carrot, raisin andapples slaw, baked chocolate and caramel wontons

Saturday, September 1:

Breakfast – Apple and cheddar muffins, oranges

Supper – We had a big lunch so we skipped supper.  Just tea and fresh fruit for both of us.

Sunday, September 2:

Breakfast – Leftover muffins, apple sauce

Supper – Stir fry made with leftover pork steak, cabbage, carrots, and onions in a ginger garlic sauce, garnished with crumbled nori and served over soba noodles.  Peaches macerated in lemon juice and a little brown sugar for dessert.

Monday, September 3:

Breakfast – Oatmeal with raisins, apples, brown sugar, and cinnamon, homemade yogurt

Supper – Hummus, homemade flat bread (made with plain focaccia dough), sliced raw vegetables, feta tzatziki. Fresh plums for dessert

Tuesday, September 4:

Breakfast – Peach and plum crisp, homemade yogurt

Supper – Baked chicken legs, brown rice and cabbage salad, sliced tomatoes, chocolate pudding

Wednesday, September 5:

Breakfast – Scrambled eggs, whole wheat toast, banana

Supper – Chicken, vegetable, and barley soup, herb dumplings, apple slices and cheddar

Thursday, September 6:

Breakfast – Stewed rhubarb, homemade yogurt

Supper – Bean burritos made with home canned pinto beans, wheat and white tortillas, shredded cheddar, brown rice, fresh salsa, salad of spinach, baby beet greens, red onion, grated beets, julienned radish, and homemade ranch dressing, snickerdoodles for dessert

Friday, September 7:

Breakfast – Johnny cake and applesauce

Supper – I’d planned fried egg sandwiches and veggie hash for supper but came home to find that hubs had heated up the leftover soup from Wednesday and made cheese toast.  We had baked apples with an oatmeal and maple cookie crust for dessert.

Saturday, September 8:

Breakfast – Peach spice muffins and cream cheese

Supper – Ham, twice stuffed sweet potatoes from Love Bites With Lesa on Facebook, steamed spinach, broiled orange halves topped with homemade yogurt for dessert.

Sunday, September 9:

Breakfast – Oatmeal and pear butter

Supper – Eggs benny variation made with wheat and white biscuits, leftover ham, grilled tomatoes, baked eggs and cheddar sauce, steamed green beans.  We walked to Dairy Queen for ice cream cones for dessert.

Stock Making Basics

Waste bites.  

Literally.  

Food waste can take a huge chunk out of your budget!  

It's one of my pet peeves, and I work hard to keep kitchen waste at our house to a bare minimum.

Stock is an important tool in my waste reduction arsenal.  Even the smallest leftover can be used to make stock, along with all sorts of things that most people just fling into the bin without any thought at all.  

Making stock is an on-going project at my house.  There's almost always a stock pot simmering away on the back burner of the stove.  

I can't imagine what I'd do without a good supply of stock on hand.  It adds both nutrients and depth of flavour to an astonishing array of dishes.

The trick to making a really good, flavourful stock is to layer in many different flavours without watering them down.  I do this by starting my stock with a few ingredients, cooling it, straining it, refrigerating it, and then repeating the process the following day...and the day after that...and the day after that.  I’ll often cook a single batch of stock five or six times—with new ingredients added in each time—before I consider it finished.  

That sounds like a big investment of time, doesn't it?  

I guess it is in a way, but stock sits on the back of the stove, simmering away on low heat, requiring little attention from me.  It's not like I have to watch it every minute it's cooking.

I often begin my stock with water that I've used to cook some other ingredient.  Water that's been used for cooking vegetables, simmering sausages, cooking ham, or even heating hot dogs already has some flavour to bring to the party.  

I most often use a six-quart pan to make my stock.  I pack it quite full of vegetables, vegetable trimmings, and meat bones or chicken carcasses (if I have them), and add just enough liquid to barely cover the contents of the pan.  

I bring the stock to a boil and then reduce it to a simmer.  I let it simmer for as long as my schedule allows, then strain it, cool it, and refrigerate it, ready for new additions the following day.

Here are some things you can use to flavour your stock:

Wash your vegetables well before you peel them then save the peelings for the stock pot.  Be sure to trim away any parts that may hold soil, like the roots on your onions, and to discard anything that has any trace of mold, mildew, or decay.

If you have a recipe that calls for you to seed or peel your tomatoes, use the seeds and peels in your stock.  They have lots of flavour.

The outside leaves of cauliflower, and the stems and leaves of broccoli have wonderful flavour.  They also bring lots of nutrition to the party.

The trimmings from a head of lettuce—those leaves not pretty enough for the salad bowl—bring flavour and nutrients to a stock.

Use the stems!  Add the stems from beets, chard, and parsley to your stock pot.

Celery leaves are not discarded at our house.  We use them in salad or add them to our stock.

Pan drippings from cooking meat add a wonderful depth to any stock.  Drain the drippings, cool them, and then remove the fat that has risen to the top of the container before adding them to the pot.

The bones, skin, and trimmings from any poultry or meat that you're preparing can be added to your stock pot.  

Leftover cooked vegetables and meat can be added too.

When your stock has finished cooking for the day, cool it to room temperature as quickly as possible before putting it in the fridge.  

Many people cool their stock by setting the pot into an ice water bath, and replacing the cold water as needed until the stock has cooled to room temperatures, but some authorities are now advising against this practice.  The current recommendation is that you pour your stock into a wide, shallow container to cool, and that you set the container on top of an inverted pot.  The metal in the pot will help to disburse the heat more quickly.

I strain my stock out into a really big stainless steel bowl and then set the bowl on top of an inverted cooking pot.  It cools quite rapidly.

Once it's cooled, some people strain their stock a second time, either through cheesecloth or through a coffee filter, to obtain a clearer broth.  I don't mind that my stock is not perfectly clear, so I don't bother to filter it.

If you're planning to add more to ingredients to your stock the following day, or to use it up fairly quickly, this is the time store it in the refrigerator.

If you have a quantity of stock you wish to store away for future use, you can either freeze it or can it.  

I freeze my stock in 6-ounce portions, in silicone muffin cups.  The frozen stock pops easily out the muffin pan, like ice cubes, and can be stored in freezer bags until I need it.

I also can some of my stock, in pint jars.  Stock in a jar is handy to have on hand when I need some stock quickly but don't have any in the fridge.  

To can stock, I chill the stock and skim off any fat from its surface.  Then I heat the stock to boiling and pour it into sterilized jars leaving about an inch of headroom.  I process the jars at 11 pounds pressure for 30 minutes.

Please note that while I am an enthusiastic home canner, I'm not an authority on the subject.  If you're canning stock (or anything else), purchase a reputable canning guide book (Putting Food By and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving are both very good).  Review their instructions on safe canning practices and follow them to the letter.  Canning is no place for approximation or improvisation.  Food safety is a science and safe practice is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

So...Is making stock a lot of work?  

Yes and no. 

It’s more work than buying it in the grocery store, but it’s certainly not an arduous process. 

Is it worth it?  

Absolutely!

Give it a try and save some bucks.  You can thank me later.  
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This post is linked to Hearth and Soul Blog Hop hosted by Premeditated Leftovers, The 21st Century Housewife, Penniless Parenting, Zesty South Indian Kitchen, Savoring Today, and Elsa Cooks, to Gallery of Favorites hosted by The 21st Century Housewife and Premeditated Leftovers, to The Pity Party hosted by Thirty Handmade Days,

 

Blackberry Curd Tarts

Jams’n’Pans has one of my favourite pages on Facebook.  She’s an inspired cook, using seasonally available ingredients in innovative ways.  Her dishes are always quite beautiful, and those of her recipes that I’ve tried have proved to be delicious too.

A short while ago, Jams’n’Pans made a red currant curd flavoured with Chambourd.  The curd was made in the same way a traditional lemon curd is made, but the juice and pulp of red currants was used in place of lemon juice. 

I enjoy a good lemon curd and we have an abundance of blackberries right now, so Jams'n'Pans' recipe inspired me to make a curd of my own.  I followed the instructions in her post and made a blackberry curd.  It turned out beautifully, with deep blackberry flavour and a luxurious, smooth texture.  

I used my blackberry curd to make some pretty - and pretty delicious - blackberry tarts.  Here’s how I made them:

I combined 300 grams of freshly picked blackberries with 150 ml of water

and cooked them over medium heat until they came to a boil and expressed some of their juices.

I drained the berries through a sieve and then used the back of a spoon to push the berries’ pulp through the screen, leaving the seeds behind.

The sieved berries looked like this:

At that point I was ready to make the curd.  I used:

• the sieved berries
• 5 medium-sized eggs
• 250 grams sugar
• 250 grams cold butter, cut into pieces 

I put the sieved berries in a heat proof bowl.

I beat the eggs and added them to the sieved berries along with the sugar, stirring them until they were combined. 

I added the butter to the bowl.

I heated some water to a simmer in a medium saucepan, then placed the bowl with the curd ingredients on the top of the pan, so that it rested over the simmering water without touching its surface.

I stirred, and stirred, and stirred…and stirred.  It took quite a while but first the butter melted and was incorporated into the mixture, and then the mixture thickened.  

It seemed to take a long time for the blackberry curd to thicken – so long, in fact, that I began to doubt that it would thicken at all - but it did thicken at last.  It eventually reached the point where you could see where the spoon had been as it was drawn through the liquid.  Small drops of curd drizzled back onto the surface of the liquid retained a distinct shape.

(If you are making this, resist the temptation to overcook it.  The curd will continue to thicken as it cools.

If you spoon a small amount of curd into the bottom of a bowl or onto a saucer it should still be fairly liquid but, if you draw your finger through it, the liquid should not run back into the area you’ve cleared.)

Once the blackberry curd had thickened, I ladled it into two pint jars.  I allowed it to cool to room temperature, then capped the jars and stored them in the fridge.

The refrigerated blackberry curd set up very well.  It has a thick, spreadable consistency that would work well as a filling for cakes, a topping for cupcakes, a filling for cookies, or for individual tarts.

I’d recently been given a sleeve of small premade, frozen, unsweetened pastry shells.  This was an opportunity to use them. I allowed them to thaw, docked them with a fork so they wouldn’t bubble up as they baked, and then baked them in the oven until they were cooked through and the edges were lightly browned.

When the pastry shells had cooled, I removed them from their foil pans and spooned a little blackberry curd into each one.  I topped the curd with some fresh blackberries. 

They were quite tasty at this point but I wanted a little something-something more, so I whipped 250 millilitres of heavy cream and sweetened it with about a teaspoon of sugar, then piped the whipped cream onto the top of the tarts.

They were very pretty.  When we cut into one of the tarts with a fork, it looked like this.

The premade pastry was actually quite good: well flavoured and flaky.  The smooth curd and tart blackberries were wonderful together.  The whipped cream added the perfect finishing touch.

The tarts didn’t last long, but they were good to the last bite.

Cook’s notes:

• The curd might have cooked more quickly if I had turned the heat up under the pot so that the water was at a low boil but I didn’t want to risk having any of the egg scramble.  If you want to cook the curd at a slightly higher heat, I’m sure it will be fine.  Just run the cooked curd through a sieve when transferring it into your jars.
• The little tarts I made were about 2 inches in diameter.  I made a dozen of them, using about half of one of the jars of curd.  I still had enough left over to fill a cake another day. 

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This post is linked to Gallery of Favorites hosted by Premeditated Leftovers and The 21st Century Housewife, to The Pity Party at Thirty Handmade Days, to Foodie Fridays hosted by Rattlebridge Farm, to Foodie Friends Friday hosted by Tracy at Busy Vegetarian Mom, Robyn's View, Angie at A lil Country Sugar,  Marlys at This and That, Lois at  Walking on Sunshine, Lindsey at Family Food Finds, Cindy at Cindys Recipes and Writings, Keira at Luscious Delights, R Dawn at Spatulas on Parade, Ericka at Chef Picky Kid, Michelle at From Calculus to Cupcakes, Cynthia at Feeding Big, Sarah at Everything in the Kitchen Sink, Skye at A Virtual Essence, to Foodtastic Friday hosted by Not Your Ordinary Recipes, to Weekend Potluck hosted by The Country Cook, Meet Penny, The Better Baker, Sunflower Supper Club, Life As a Lofthouse, 4 Little Fergusons, to Strut Your Stuff Saturday hosted by Six Sisters' Stuff, to Think Pink Sunday hosted by Flamingo Toes, to Scrumptious Sunday hosted by Addicted to Recipes, to Must Try Monday hosted by My Favorite Finds, 

 

   


 

 

What We Ate August 20 - 26

I haven’t been blogging much lately, but I’ve been keeping busy.  It’s canning season so my mornings before work, my evenings after work, and my weekends find me at the kitchen counter, the stove, or elbow deep in the dish sink. 

Filling the pantry is a big priority with us.  We set a little money aside monthly throughout the year so that we’ll have the money to stock up when food is at its peak during the harvest season.  Come July, August, and September, we buy - and put by - a huge amount of food.  So much that it won’t all fit in the cupboards.  Boxes of food get tucked under beds and in the bottoms of our clothes closets, under my craft table, and pretty nearly anywhere else it will fit. 

We’ve had our share of tough financial times in the past few years and this pantry stocking habit has stood us in good stead.  There have been months at a time when we’ve had little or nothing to spend on food and, without our full pantry, we’d have been in big trouble.  I’m always grateful to have our little stockpile.  I feel more secure knowing it’s on hand.

All this canning is exhausting work.  It doesn’t leave me with much energy or enthusiasm for day-to-day meal preparation, or for making and photographing recipes for my blog.  

After hours of standing at the stove, the temptation to buy some take out or, better still, to head out for a quick meal so that I don’t have to do the dishes, can be almost overwhelming. Our budget doesn’t allow for much take out or restaurant food though so, whether I feel like it or not, meal preparation is on the schedule. 

Our meals during canning season tend to be quick and simple but we’ve managed to keep them pretty interesting.  Here’s what we ate last week:

Monday, August 20:

• I was sick that day so no cooking was done at all.  My fella foraged for himself and I stayed in bed, where he kindly brought me tea and toast.

Tuesday, August 21:

• Breakfast – Peaches and homemade yogurt
• Supper – Turkey scaloppini, tomato basil salad, peach and blackberry pie

Wednesday, August 22:

• Breakfast – Homemade granola bars, prunes
• Supper – Stir fry of spot prawns (from the freezer), broccoli, carrots, and onion served over rice, blackberry sorbet

Thursday, August 23:

• Breakfast – Oatmeal and applesauce
• Supper – Bean Bolognese, salad of romaine, pickled red onion, and cubed yellow zucchini with homemade thousand island dressing.  Fresh peaches and homemade yogurt for dessert.

Friday, August 24:

• Breakfast – Peanut butter, marmalade, and raisin sandwich on homemade whole wheat bread
• Supper – Puffy omelette with cheddar and chives, green bean salad with honey mustard vinaigrette.  We walked to the Dairy Queen and treated ourselves to ice cream cones for dessert.

Saturday, August 25:

• Breakfast – Apples, cheddar slices, whole wheat toast
• Supper – Slow cooker roast chicken, carrots cooked in the slow cooker, steamed cabbage, barley and onions cooked in homemade stock, blackberry curd tarts.

Sunday, August 26:

• Breakfast – Upside down cinnamon apple coffee cake
• Supper – Salad bar:  Romaine lettuce, sunflower shoots, sliced red onion, shredded carrot, shredded beet, celery, radishes, cubed chicken, cubed cheddar cheese, chick peas, green goddess dressing.  Blackberries and yogurt for dessert.

Ground Beef Canned in Beer

Sometimes, even though I carefully plan things out ahead of time, certain blog posts just don’t go smoothly for me. 

This is one of those posts:  I tried a new cooking technique for which the results were less than stellar, and I accidentally erased several of my pictures for the post from my computer.

I decided to forge ahead with the post anyway. 

You’ll find mention of the cooking technique I used, together with instructions for an alternate better method, in the recipe text. 

As to the photos, they’re gone forever I’m afraid.  I’m grateful you’re such a clever bunch.  This is a recipe well worth sharing and I’m sure you’ll be able to follow my instructions even without the missing pictures.

Ground beef canned in beer is a wonderful convenience food.  The cooking liquid is so flavourful that you can make a delicious meal simply by turning the beef out of the jar, thickening the gravy, and serving it over rice or noodles.  Ground beef canned in beer can also be used as a base for any number of flavourful soups and casseroles.

I’ve canned this recipe a number of times over the years.  The idea actually originated from a pot roast recipe on the back of a Lipton’s Onion Soup packet, which uses a combination of beer and onion soup for the braising liquid/gravy.  I reasoned that, if it worked for pot roast, beer and some seasonings would taste fine with ground beef too. 

To can this batch of ground beef in beer, I used:

• 15 pounds of lean ground beef
• 10 – 355 ml (12 ounce) bottles of beer
• 3 pounds of diced onion
• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1-1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/2 teaspoon pickling salt per pint jar

I don’t want the effervescence from newly opened beer in the canning jars so when making this recipe I pour all of the beer into a large kettle several hours ahead of time, cover the top of the pot with a clean cloth, and allow the beer to sit until it’s gone flat (usually overnight).

Once the bubbles are gone, I heat the beer to boiling, reduce it to a simmer, and then mix in the lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and allspice. 

When I made this batch, I decided to try something new.  A recipe I’d read recently suggested browning the beef before canning it, so I formed the beef into thin patties and cooked them for 15 minutes in a 350F oven. 

When the patties were browned on the outside, I crumbled them into a big bowl and mixed in the onion.  I put the meat mixture into the jars, then ladled in the liquid.

Browning the beef made the finished product a more attractive colour, but it left the finished beef tasting dry. 

I would recommend one of these two techniques instead:

• Either mix the onion into the ground beef and form the mixture into small meatballs before simmering them in the cooking liquid.
• or crumble the ground beef into the simmering liquid, allow it to heat through, remove it from the liquid with a slotted spoon, and transfer it to a large mixing bowl.  Mix the onion through the hot simmered beef and put the still-hot mixture into your jars. 

Both of these methods work better than browning the beef in the oven prior to canning it. 

I put 1/2 teaspoon of pickling salt in each jar, and add just enough of the cooking liquid to barely cover the meat, leaving an inch of headroom in each jar.

Please note that while I am an enthusiastic home canner, I'm not an authority on the subject.  If you're canning ground beef in beer (or anything else), purchase a reputable canning guide book (Putting Food By and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving are both very good).  Review their instructions on safe canning practices, then follow them to the letter.  Canning is no place for approximation or improvisation.  Food safety is a science and safe practice is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.

You are unlikely to find canning instructions specifically for these ingredients.  When canning any food that contains more than one ingredient, follow the processing instructions for the ingredient that requires the longest processing time, at the highest pressure.

I process my Ground Beef in Beer in a pressure canner, at 11 pounds pressure for 75 minutes.

Once the canner has returned to zero pounds pressure, I remove the jars, let them cool, and then check the seals. 

I wash the jars carefully in warm, soapy water, then label them and store them in a cool dark place.

You’ll notice that some fat from the beef rises to the top of the liquid in each jar.  It’s easily removed.  If you put the jar in the fridge for a while the fat will solidify.

The solidified fat lifts quite easily off the top of the meat.

This is what your canned ground beef and beer will look like when you turn it out of the jar:

If you’re going to use your ground beef canned in beer just as it is, you can thicken the gravy by stirring in some cornstarch and bringing it to a boil, or by making a roux, and then mixing the contents of the jar into the roux.  I prefer to use cornstarch because it’s quick and simple. 

The beef and thickened beer gravy looks like this:

We chose to use the first jar of ground beef canned in beer this way: 

I thickened the gravy with cornstarch and served it over rice, with steamed carrots and broccoli.  It made a delicious and comforting meal.
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This recipe is linked to Hearth and Soul Blog Hop hosted by Premeditated Leftovers, The 21st Century Housewife, Penniless Parenting, Zesty South Indian Kitchen, Elsa Cooks, and Savoring Today.