I’m not sure I can identify any of those greens. They were tasty, even if they were a mystery.
So typical. I’m not even sure why I was surprised, as this is a regular situation at my mother-in-law’s place. We were up over the weekend closing up the cabin. *sigh* When we left, it was decided that facing yet another awful fast-food meal on the drive home was more than we could handle. My wife made some quick egg salad and my mother-in-law cracked open her collection of lettuce from her garden to put on the sandwiches. I think she used one of each leaf she had. I bet there are half a dozen different greens on that sandwich.
Tasted great, I’ll admit. But I’ll also admit that I nearly burst out laughing when I saw the collection. My mother-in-law does nothing in half-measures.
See? The cucumbers did actually grow. We have had several from my plants so far…
Every time I look at a vegetable garden, my first impression is that I just can’t see why anyone would bother. Strange, I know, given the fact that I have a garden myself.
Stranger still, given that I know what can come out of a garden. Somehow, I just can’t shake the notion that there isn’t much there.
Even if I can conjure up a cutting board like this in a matter of a couple of minutes out in the garden. And then a couple of days later I can do it again.
Even if my mother–in-law (who, admittedly, has quite the garden) can come in with endless armloads of produce
It’s almost as if I have some sort of an inherent inability to accept that you can actually get a lot of produce out of a small garden. I’m actually at the point now where I just ignore my first impressions and I start picking. There always seems to be more than enough out there, even if I have to sample all kinds of things along the way.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-09-01 12:54:582020-09-01 12:54:59Green Thumb. Of a Sort.
It wasn’t smoky. The mornings were cool but not cold, by any means. It was possibly perfect weather, really.
I’m not sure I have ever visited Christina Lake in August. Generally, we head up in July for a couple of weeks, but given the insanity of this year, we decided to sneak up for a few days over the last weekend. That, and the cabin was sitting unused, begging for attention. Our July time slot has as much to do with the fact that we can’t wait until August to get away as anything else, and a second summer trip up there might just become a more regular occurrence.
As always happens, food was a major part of the trip. Heck, there wasn’t much else to do except zip around in the boat, read books, swim… Take the dog for a walk. Plan and prepare food, we did that, too.
There was no work (not that there is a lot these days, anyway) and no household tasks, as they were left far behind.
We defaulted to the usual cabin fare – pizza on the barbecue – and no scorched dough this time, which was good. I tried to just cook just the dough off a little bit, which I think worked all right as the charcoal barbecue I have offers zero heat from above and as a consequence pizza can be a bit soggy. A pizza oven the barbecue is not. It *was my impression* that my mother-in-law (who is the owner of said cabin on said lake and the final arbiter of what is permitted to be set up at the cabin) seemed to be somewhat keen on me building a wood-fired pizza oven, but I might have been mistaken. I’ll have to double check before I bring over several sacks of pre-mix and start troweling.
Regardless, pizza was good. We also did some steaks, and a pulled pork. Before I give the impression that all we did was resort to our inner palaeolithic selves, most of what we ate was vegetables. The pork shoulder did triple duty as dinner for 8 in tacos one night, breakfast the next morning and then a second breakfast the next day, along with numerous incidental snacks.
Lunches were a mish-mash of brunch (as teenagers tend to sleep in quite a bit) and some salads. Rather good, really.
In hindsight, what made the food so good (aside from the fact that everything tastes better at the lake) is that we had the space, mentally, to plan and prepare great meals. We weren’t rushed to try to make any appointments. We didn’t have too many expectations on what we were going to eat – it was all pretty simple and straightforward.
The ancient cookware didn’t help things, but we managed to get around that. I will bring a couple of new non-stick pans out next year as well as a decent French knife. It seems that the entirety of the kitchen is made up with items that are old or superfluous from other kitchens. Some of the cutlery feels like it was never actually meant to be used in a kitchen situation at all. And a couple of the pots have bottoms so thin that they scorch the contents in a moment.
What did help was the fresh fruit we picked up on the way to the lake – there are some farming communities along the route and August is prime season for pretty much everything.
What also helped was my mother-in-law raiding her garden. Salad greens, cherry tomatoes, green onions…
That and some decent sunshine made for unlimited good food.
Not quite manna from heaven, but still greatly appreciated.
This is a common situation in our backyard. Dinner (yet another pizza – I think I’m getting the hang of the dough now. Sort of…) accompanied by a liberal dusting of fruit from above.
Further to my previous posts about pie and, well, pie… Nah, I’m not cool enough to refer to a pizza as a ‘pie’. At any rate the pizza dough I made on Friday for Saturday’s dinner was pretty good. Better than before – after a couple dozen tries I think I’m getting the hang of it. I’ll write about my learning process on dough later.
Here’s what I like about this photo – the juxtaposition of the apple and the pizza. On the one hand a pizza that has taken so many tries to get the dough right. My goodness, I have brought out some pretty marginal doughs over the last couple of years. Still a work in progress. On the other hand you have the apples. The apples, that according to Wikipedia, “…very juicy and has a sharp, refreshing taste.” The apples that literally fall into your lap. Or, in this case on to the table and almost break your wineglass. The apples that make the most incredible pie. When I have made apple pie (only a couple of times) with these apples, I almost feel like I need to stand aside and do as little as possible in order to get the most amazing result. Even my ham-handed pie technique is no match for these apples. They save me in spite of my limited pastry abilities.
As opposed to the pizza dough that seems to want to thwart me at each and every turn. Sometimes I wish pizza dough would fall like the apples, but that might well get messy in a hurry. I’ll stay with the apples.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-08-17 12:01:462020-08-17 12:01:48It just sort of dropped into my lap.
Not sure what happened to the fellow in the middle-right, there, but he was as tasty at the rest.
Sometimes they just don’t get any better than local and fresh. I love how the stems are still on them and they still have some dirt from the field.
Obviously a couple of these berries wouldn’t win any beauty contests, but contests are passé and we have more important things to do than get hung up on looks.
Lucky. That’s all I can come up with as to how on earth I made a pie that tasted like that. Perhaps I should explain a bit. It’s rare that I make something and when I have a bite I think, “Holy cow, that’s way better than I expected.” Such was my response from my most recent pie. I make it sound like I bake pies on a regular basis. They are a bit of a rarity, but after this I’m thinking I may have to do it again.
The pastry recipe came from The Best Recipe cookbook, from Cooks Illustrated. Simple, quick. Food processor, cold butter and shortening, a few tablespoons of ice cold water and some time to rest in the fridge.
Here’s a tidbit: the pastry was made with some special, possibly illegal, butter that my sister-in-law sourced for me. That does sound strange, and it may sound like I’m a conspiracy theorist, but I can assure you that up until very recently, in Canada, it was true. I believe things have changed somewhat but until a couple of years ago it was the law that all butter in Canada had to have a fat content of at least 80% and that all butter had to be made from pooled milk. As in, if you were a dairy farmer and you wanted to make your own butter with a higher fat content or from a specific type of cow (Holstein, Jersey…) you were not allowed to do it. It was against the law. As a consequence all butter was 80% fat and really rather boring.
When I was a kid there were two types of butter in the store: Salted and unsalted. A decade or more ago they added organic butter for a total of three types, but that was about it. No European Style butter. No butter with sea salt. No ghee, no ability to have any say whatsoever in the type of butter, except with or without salt. Like our eggs. White, brown and free-range. That’s ti.
Of course you could buy butter from New Zealand if you wanted to. Or the USA. It was in specialty shops and it cost $14. For a half-pound. More expensive than beef tenderloin at the butcher. Nothing like a little import tax of like 200% to dissuade the casual cook.
But somehow someone is making unsalted 84% milk-fat butter and selling it for less than a king’s ransom. And they are doing it in Canada, so the rules must have changed at some point.
I used some of this 84% butter for the pastry. Amazing how I can go from baking to supply management in a couple of paragraphs.
That was a segue. Back to the pie.
Regardless of the butter, I think the key, really, to an epic apple pie is (big surprise here) the apples. The recipe called for Granny Smith and something a bit sweeter, like McIntosh, but I used transparents. We have a transparent apple tree in our backyard. It’s probably as old as the house – so pushing 100. The apples are almost inedible off the tree, but the flavour for a pie is amazing. Apparently they’re great for applesauce, too. The ripen in mid-July to mid-August, so now is the ultimate apple-pie making season.
Finished Product. I need a little less time, I think
My sister-in-law was in town for an impromptu visit and I managed to get the pie into the oven and out in time for it to cool so everyone could have a slice. It was a big 9-inch pie. It lasted a few hours and then was all gone.
The ultimate compliment for a chef (and timid baker) is to have the food demolished before you have an opportunity to put leftovers away in the fridge.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-08-10 12:14:032020-08-10 12:14:04As American as Apple Pie? Sure, except that I’m from Canada…
Having a neighbour who has a zucchini plant is so commonplace that even referring to it as a cliché seems strange, as everyone knows someone who has a zucchini plant. Or, I suppose, everyone knows someone who planted zucchini and ended up with too many to count and had to give them away.
They’re incredibly productive. Personally, I have never actually grown a zucchini plant, but I do have cucumbers out there and I did grow a pumpkin one year, accidentally – that’s poorly-rotted compost for you.
I’m sure there is some sort of a joke about a neighbour with a zucchini plant. I did Google a few, but most were strange puns and had to do with ‘squash’.
Regardless, the near-perfect specimen above was given to us by a friend. she also gave us a yellow one.
I bet it’ll be amazing. Seriously. I’m going to shred it and mix it with ground turkey and some herbs and spices and make turkey burgers. The recipe is from Jerusalem and it is a true family favourite.
There is more to this blog post, though. More than a snicker about yet another zucchini.
I remember back to when I used to assist a food photographer. On shoot days we would have a kitchen full of food. When the food stylists shopped they made sure we had enough of every ingredient for any and all eventualities. Often we would be shooting a product – packaging or menu items – and we would have more than enough of that, too.
At the end of every shoot day we would put together a bunch of bags of groceries – for the clients as well as for the assistant (me). The photographer would take his share of the spoils, too.
I remember John, the photographer, commenting on how the perceived value of the gift of food was far beyond its actual value. I am always amazed at the response from people when a gift of food is offered.
Even if it is a much-maligned zucchini.
Grilled zucchini, zucchini bread… Those turkey burgers… And it’ll taste even better because of the gift, no question.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-08-04 13:04:452020-08-04 13:04:46The Gift of Zucchini
Hang on. I should clarify. It’s her specialty in the same way that making most things in the kitchen is her specialty. Like her huckleberry pie, or any of a zillion other meals she has made over the years.
She makes the best French Toast. No idea how she does it, but it is definitely better than mine. Admittedly, not much of a bar to clear, but I have to make some sort of comparison. Great with raspberries, too. Especially if they are out of her garden. Lots of raspberries.
Betty is one of those cooks who pulls a bit of this, some of that…
…and makes something spectacular.
Like all of her meals, the french toast benefits from this talent. She announced she was going to make breakfast – something we try to discourage her from doing, given that she did more than her fair share of cooking while raising 4 daughters, let alone feeding yours truly every time I came to visit for the last 25 years.
However, she insisted, and I wasn’t going to stop her. Nothing like a half-hearted “Oh, there is no need” to really cement the deal. Funny how we have these conventions.
But to the french toast. Perfectly cooked – perfect consistency, super hot and exactly the right surface upon which to pile a bunch of said raspberries and a bit of maple syrup.
The only drawback was that my hungry kids move faster than I do, and by the time I looked up all the ‘extra’ pieces were long since spoken for.
Next time we’re up I’ll see what I can do about getting her into the kitchen. I’m working on my speech now… “Oh, really, no, we couldn’t ask you… Are you sure? I’ll get the eggs…”
I would love to meet the person who figured out you could eat plants. Hm. Maybe that’s a strange thing to say. How about this – I would love to meet the person who figured out that this certain plant was tasty, and that one was toxic. I should like to shake their hand for doing the heavy lifting for me. No foxglove in this household, as far as I know, although one of my kids was talking about Socrates and how he had a difficult time with hemlock. I’m no Greek philosopher, but I’ll pass, thanks.
When I go into the forest there are a few things I know I can eat – huckleberries, salmonberries, thimbleberries, saskatoon berries… Asparagus, morels… Fruit trees from long-overgrown orchards… Fiddleheads? That’s about it.
And I’m also pretty sure I can identify a pine mushroom. But in a million years I would never trust myself to eat one. My father-in-law knows his mushrooms and he did find and cut up one for me off the forest floor many years ago. It was great.
But I’m still leery. I have heard of enough horror stories about eating the wrong thing out in nature. It’s wild out there and nature doesn’t care how carefully edited your ‘eat from the wild’ book was.
And thus to the sage. This grows in our garden and I’m pretty sure even the morning glory that tries to choke it out at every turn is also edible but just not nearly as tasty, lest a spring of it end up in the soup. thankfully, the balance of plants in this area are also edible – namely the thyme on one side and the oregano on the other side… Rosemary and tarragon just down the way. I feared the sage plant was near death not too long ago. The morning glory was strangling as best it could, the cold winter obviously didn’t help, either. The leaves were nearly all gone. I did my best to not pick too many and it was quickly becoming obvious that there soon would be no more to pick. However, some regular water, warm weather, and a bit of fresh soil and we have an abundance of one of my favourite herbs.
Perfect with some wide-noodled pasta. Farfalle or the like. Butter and olive oil in a pan; cook the sage leaves until they sizzle and get crispy, hoist in a quarter-cup of roasted pine nuts, salt and pepper, toss and serve with a bit of the pasta water.
Yummy. It’s a bit of a starch overload so we don’t do it that often, but man, it’s good.
https://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.png00Alastairhttps://dontcrowdthepan.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Dont_Crowd_Logo_new-1.pngAlastair2020-07-22 15:54:262020-07-22 15:54:28Plant life.
My mother-in-law has this vegetable garden. I built her some raised beds a few years back. When I say ‘I’ what I mean is there was a crack team involving my brother-in-law who can actually build things and myself, doing a lot of the ‘support’ work. Like hauling seemingly endless yards of dirt.
My mother-in-law fills them with the most amazing collection of produce.
Including Arugula. It grows rather slowly in those boxes we built, but she has lots of room and as a consequence there is plenty to go around. Over the last few days it has been on pizza, in several salads and eaten straight. It has a lovely, soft flavour. What is even more galling, from a fellow gardener’s point of view, is that she has plants that are volunteers from the year before. And that arugula is amazing as well. I struggle to get anything going in my garden.
The produce is nothing like what you would get in a box. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with buying arugula from a store. In fact, I find it incredible that they can pick it, wash it, package it and move it hundreds of miles and it’s still fresh. But I do wonder if they grow a varietal that’s is prone to last, rather than taste good. Or I wonder if sitting in a truck for a few days would take the edge off of pretty much everything.
Regardless, it is amazing how much better it tastes fresh from the garden. I feel very lucky that we have access to it. And to her, too. My mother-in-law is a lovely woman. Her daughter is nice, too.
