Happy Accidents…in the Kitchen

My featured image proves that there are happy accidents in the kitchen. It’s cheese with a dollop of my APOS jam, i.e. Apricot-pineapple-orange-saffron jam. While one may want to consume a bite of this with a cracker, I found it wonder to take a small serving and eating it with a small spoon. Think – small spoon with which one might eat caviar. Also, it’s great on a nut cracker, which does not overwhelm the delicate flavor of the cheese and the jam.

How did I make the cheese? That’s the happy accident! Backstory: I drink lactose-free milk. I have a favorite brand, but I was at a different grocery store a few weeks ago, and I bought the “store brand” of lactose-free milk. An ingredient added to lactose-free (lactose is milk sugar) milk is lactase, an enzyme that helps us to digest milk sugar. Cells in the walls of the small intestine produce lactase.

Well, I was heating up the milk on the stove for coffee. It separated, just like when you put a rennet tablet in milk you’ve heated to 118 degrees fahrenheit (47.7779 C) for cheese. Noticing that curds had separated from the whey, I poured it all in a cheese bag. After squeezing more whey out of it, I had a creamy, solid ball of cheese. The natural sugars in milk rendered a slightly sweet cheese. I added salt to the forming curds to give it some body. Voilà, c’est fromage!

Always looking for yummy happy hour appetizers, I purchased another of the “store brand” of the lactose-free milk, this time from a different store. I heated it to about 120 degrees F. (48.8889 C), and this time, the curds that separated from the whey were smaller. Well, I thought a nice dessert cheese would be nice, so I added a small box of lemon flavored gelatin and 6 strands of the wonderful saffron! I rubbed the lovely orange-red (crimson?) stigma and styles in my hand to release the aroma and flavors. After I spend a few minutes deeply inhaling the perfume of the saffron, I mixed the gelatin and the saffron gently so as not to disturbed the developing curds too much.

I let the mixture gather, drain, and form in the cheese cloth for about 8 hours. The result was the most scrumptious, creamy cheese you could imagine. Quite incredible considering that I did not age it in a dark room surrounded by little pine wood cases (I’m thinking of one of my favorite cheeses, brie!). It turned out to be a great appetizer with a small glass of sweet vermouth. Or it could be a small dessert with a small glass of port.

Notice the color imparted by the lemon-flavored gelatin and the orange-red streaks from the saffron. I’ve used the lemon-saffron combination for Thanksgiving “jello” salad last fall. Right now, I am thinking about other flavors. I wonder how blueberry would taste. I mean, it’s best not to expect, like, Stilton, which goes great with blueberry. It may be worth a try.

Actually, I found the best cheese cloths are handi -wipes. I think handi-wipes are a cloth-paper hybrid. They’re great for a semi-disposable dish cloth that dries easily to cut down on bacterial build-up in the kitchen. I use those freshly from the bag – never used.

Now, this is not a happy accident, but my friend, Mirta, asked if I knew how to make lavender honey. I had some locally-sourced honey, which carries the local pollen, which helps us to build up immunities to those pollens as allergens. Also, I had some locally sourced lavender from a friend. I heated the honey, which was starting to crystalize, just enough to make the crystals melt. Then I crushed the lavender buds to add them to the honey. I used about two cups of honey and 1/8 of a cup crushed lavender bud and one drop of lavender essential oil, for good measure. The result was delicious! It’s great on toast, with peanut butter on bread, and in teas.

The immersion blender helped to whip the honey into a creamy substance while it assured that no lavender buds would get stuck in your throat.

I have more creations from my kitchen, but I will share those later.

Thank you for reading.

The Joys of Jam!

I love color. I like to fill my house with color! I think my favorite color in a window is cobalt blue. Oscar Wilde, my favorite 19th Century Irish playwright and aesthete once said, “I fear I will never live up to my cobalt dishes.” I think it was actually decorative urns to which Wilde referred. I would have to agree with the great intellect. Cobalt does delight the senses. The featured image is my kitchen window. It looks to be a setting sun outside, which gave the blues an extra boost of color.

Speaking of color, I like color in my foods. Jams are a good example of a colorful food. While jams, that wonderful concoction of sugar and whole fruit, may not appear to be useful beyond peanut butter and jam, bread and jam, jam glaze, etc., for some, I think they can be used every day in a myriad of recipes. I like to create jams. I am less inclined toward jellies, made of fruit juices and sugar, though they make wonderful sweetener for, say, tea! This week, I created a new jam. I give my jams weird names. Actually the names derive from the acronym that comes from the main ingredients, like “CAOS,” pronounced, chaos, is my cranberry-apple-orange-spice jam that I make in November when cranberries come to the grocery. My CAOS graces the holiday table, and goes splendidly with turkey and its trimmings.

“FAJ” and “FOJ,” pronounced fahje and foeje, are my fig-apple jam and fig-orange jam. They pair nicely with brie and other buttery cheeses. I think I’ve written about these previously.

To assure that I measure fruits, sugar, and other ingredients going into the jam, I look at other recipes. My latest is called, APOS, and now I’m sorry I didn’t arrange those letters differently, because some use a similar acronym derogatorily. Going forward…APOS is apricot-pineapple-orange-saffron jam. I followed a recipe for apricot jam. First, you should know that my freezer is full of apricot pulp. My mother has a prolific apricot tree. She picks and cleans the apricots. She adds a “produce protector” with dextrose, ascorbic acid, and citric acid, so that the fruit keeps its brilliant orange, and she adds some lemon juice and freezes in jars.

I thaw the jar and mix my “jam.” For APOS, I used this quart (453.59g) of crushed apricots, and chopped up enough fresh pineapple and two whole oranges to make eight ounces (226.80g) of additional fruit. To which I added four cups (860g) sugar, and two ounces (56.70g) of lemon juice and four good pinches of saffron (about 20 threads for stigma). Saffron is a rare and fragrant spice. Each flower of the crocus produces three stigma and must be harvested by hand. I visited Spain 15 years ago, and I still hang on to the saffron I purchased there. Luckily, my mother’s friend, who lived in the Middle East gifted some. I am using that now. Here it is cooking down to a thickened state. Notice the saffron threads imparting their brilliant color to the already colorful blend of apricot, pineapple, and naval oranges.

While the jam thickens, jars must be cleaned and sterilized. The rings must be clean, and the lids must be covered with hot water to soften the rubber seal. Pour the boiling jam into the prepared jars, and the lid-ring must be adjusted to fit properly. Lower each jar into a boiling water bath canner where the water covers the jars by two or more inches (5.08 cm). Place the lid on the canner, and begin the count (15 minutes) once the water comes back to a boil. Consult your canning guide for best results.

I tested the jam with silky goat cheese, and it did not disappoint. It went well on a freshly baked slice of sourdough, too. I think it’s a keeper.

Jams are a must when you present a meat and cheese board. We like a meat and cheese board when we’re watching a movie on the television.

On this particular board, I used whole figs in place of the jam (What was I thinking?). My husband loves kippered snacks (herring), which is great with cream cheese and crackers. Eat this kind of meal slowly so that you know when you’re full. Otherwise, it’s easy to stuff yourself, because everything is fresh and flavorful.

I’m off to visit my mother for her 90th birthday. My sisters and I are preparing a great feast. Perhaps I’ll share. Thank you for reading.

Nature, Meditation, and Cooking

I hope you like my featured photo. I took it on my way home from Nebraska in 2017. We had traveled there to witness the total solar eclipse. Of course it was incredible, and luckily, the sun set that day with a spectacular view in Western Kansas.

I have a list of topics on which to write in my series of blog posts. One thing I thought of was the joy of camping. My Father used to take us camping when we were young. Of the seven children, all of us continue to enjoy nature and all it has to offer us. My best memories of camping with my father and siblings were the nature lessons on edible plants, astronomy, mushroom hunting, and fishing. Cooking what we caught and gathered was the best part, and eating all of the food we prepared was the bonus. My father used to sing to us while he cooked our camp meals. Today, our camp sites are a place for gathering (Pre-Corona Virus times), conversing, and enjoying each detail of the natural world around us.

My Father’s favorite and best meal was, “Sheepherder’s Delight.” Basically, it is a one-pan meal, and was cooked over an open fire. It was a favorite of Dad’s for camping trips since it was a staple meal for sheep herders who lived in the mountains of Colorado with during the summers, as was my Father’s life as a young boy. Today, when my family goes camping, we prepare the meal the way Dad did, but when we make it at home, we change it a bit. Here’s my Father’s recipe for Sheepherder’s Delight prepared in one large cast iron skillet or Dutch oven:

1 pound (0.45 kg) of bacon. Cook until crisp. Remove cooked bacon, and set aside. Cube two to four potatoes, depending on the number people that you will feed. Figure about one small potato per person or two people for a large potato. Place the potatoes in the hot bacon grease, and fry until soft with crisp edges.

Next, open a can of prepared baked beans, pork and beans, or beans in tomato sauce. Pour the beans over the potatoes, and add the cooked bacon. I don’t have a picture of it, but it’s best served after a hard day of hiking, fishing, mushroom hunting, or what ever you do to enjoy nature. We have a slightly different take on Sheepherder’s Delight when we’re at home. We change up the ingredients:

1 pound of ground beef (453.592g) I’m sorry if my metric measurements are not quite right. I look them up on the web for the conversions. Cook the ground beef with some diced onions, salt, and pepper.

Prepare the potatoes for oven baking. I cut mine into strips, and toss them with salt, pepper, some oil, and some malt vinegar. Bake the potatoes in an oven set at ~365 degrees Farenheit (185C). Bake until brown and crispy at the edges.

While the potatoes are baking, finish cooking the ground beef. Drain of any extra fat. Then you’re ready to add the canned baked beans, pork and beans, or with what you’re familiar. It should look like this.

Now, to assemble this wonderful comfort food, bring the potatoes out of the oven. Arrange some of the potatoes on your plate. Then serve the bean-meat mixture over the potatoes. We make this for camping trips. We use one pan by cooking the potatoes first. Set them aside while you cook the meat. Add the beans, and serve over the potatoes. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product until I had but one bit remaining.

Another thing we do to enjoy nature is hike up to my Father’s fire circle. It’s in the same mountains of his childhood and that of his children, grandchildren, and the “Old Ones,” our ancestors. The Fire Circle is a place to drum and sing our songs, and honor our beloved ancestors. The hike to our sacred fire circle is about two miles from the main forest service road. We pass stands of quaking aspen trees, scrub oak, pinon pine, and Ponderosa pine trees. The fire circle overlooks a canyon where my people hid when the U.S. government was removing them from their ancestral lands to reservations in the 1800s. It is a very sad time in American history, that is not taught in the schools today. Here’s a glimpse of those lands. Our grandson enjoys his time there.

Speaking of “Indian Removal,” there is the reality that the people were moved away from their hunting and gathering grounds, so there was no way to raise their food. So the government provided commodities, food surpluses, which included white flour, powdered milk, lard, and a variety of canned meats and vegetables. The food was highly processed, and we can trace obesity and diabetes back to this down turn in our physical health and food sovereignty. Having only white flour, dry milk powder, and lard, fry-bread was born, out of necessity. Though it is a symbol of a bad time for my ancestors, we use it today to symbolize that we are resourceful, and we are still here! Here I am frying bread at my Father’s fire circle. My grand nephew was learning how to roll out the dough. It’s never too early to teach the “younguns” as my brother would say. He was the one hauling the cast iron Dutch oven up to the circle. The elevation is ~8,000-plus feet above sea level. The beauty contributes to the meditative state in which we find ourselves when we visit this place.

It was a good day to be alive and a good day to honor our ancestors while celebrating the children.

Thank you for reading.

Three Days of Venison On the Table

One of my all-time favorite meats is venison, deer meat. I grew up in Colorado, and my mother did not like the taste of venison, so we did not get to enjoy it much. My father purchased a license and went hunting every year, but I later learned that he mostly had gone out into the woods to look at deer and other wildlife (he was a self-made naturalist) while enjoying an occasional cigarette, something he could not do in front of my mother.

Colorado venison tends toward a stronger taste since the beautiful animals are often left with eating sagebrush, lichens, and similar forage that survived during high snowfall in the higher elevations. Luckily, our Native grandmothers had the answer to any strong meats, such as sage-fed venison and mutton (old sheep): Juniper berries. They harvested their juniper berries from the Rocky Mountain (Juniperus scopulorum) or Colorado juniper. Natives used the juniper berries (ripe when they are a purple color) for neutralizing strong meats, for bad breath, for tea, and for coffee substitute. I like to use one smashed berry to drop into my gin and tonic. It brings out the flavor of the gin, which is made from juniper berries.

My other favorite meat is lamb. Since I grew up eating mutton at my grandparents (another thing my mother refused to prepare), I learned in my adult life that lamb tastes much better. An added bonus is that one of my best friends is a sheep farmer, so I have ready access to buying one or two lambs a year. Our grandchildren absolutely adore grilled lamb! I’ll write about that another time.

I know that my featured picture shows me with a buck, but I am not a trophy hunter. I usually hunt does for their meet. The buck in the picture, which I had an “any sex” license, but the does were not to be seen that morning. My hunting pal is Adrian, who, along with husband, Bob, own the sheep farm. Actually, we’re lucky that we shoot anything. Bob says we talk too much! We have been, occasionally lucky enough to “bag” a deer, however.

My venison menus these days consist not of Colorado venison. Since I live in Kansas (the American Midwest), I get to enjoy grain-fed venison (white-tailed deer), and since they have year around access to farmers’ row crops, they are well fed and their meat is lean and sweet. My husband and I process the meat ourselves. Often, if one takes their deer to a meat processor, it’s processed with many other deer. Processing it myself, I know it’s all my deer. When I am not lucky enough to get my own deer, I have friends who will share, so we process with them.

Day 1: Venison Curry

Curry is a lovely flavor. I brown the cubed venison. In this case, I used the back strap meat, which is the length of loin that runs along the back. It’s the “ribeye” in beef and the “loin” in pork. The back strap is quite tender and lovely. Sometimes, I like to bread and fry it, and fold it inside a homemade flour tortilla or flat bread.

Brown the cubed meat – cook until brown
Add half an onion – cook until translucent
one crushed juniper berry (optional)
Then add a three diced carrots and two diced russet potatoes (or what ever you like)
Add enough water to cover the meat and vegetables
Add curry spices – simmer
Add coconut milk to taste
Serve over brown or white rice

Day 2: Venison Stroganoff

Brown cubed venison
Add onions and garlic
Add sliced mushrooms
Season with salt, pepper, and thyme
one crushed juniper berry (optional)
I like to sprinkle with a tablespoon (15 mL) of buckwheat flour
Add enough water to simmer and thicken
Add enough sour cream to make a nice thick sauce
Serve over noodles, white rice, or brown rice

Day 3: Venison Spaghetti

This time, I use ground venison. Since it’s quite lean, I like to add a pat or two of salted butter (or unsalted, depending on preference) so that it has some fat in it.

One pound (0.453 kilograms) ground venison – cooked in skillet
Half an onion
10 mushrooms, chopped
two cloves garlic
two stalks of celery
Dried basil to taste
2 teaspoons (9.857mL) of prepared basil pesto)
1 bottle passata (strained tomato sauce)
2 teaspoons (9.857mL) of tomato paste
425 mL wine
Simmer all until thick
Serve over spaghetti pasta

As you may have observed, I like to use my carbon steel wok. I possesses a well seasoned patina, and nothing spills over the sides. Oh, here’s how I paired my dishes:

Because of the sweetness of the curry, I paired it with Sauvignon Blanc
The stroganoff was paired with a whiskey old fashioned
The spaghetti was paired with Cabernet Sauvignon.

Enjoy, and thank you for reading me.

Thankful – For Friends, Family, and Food!

For a Native American with a long history of Indigenous ancestry, the holiday of Thanksgiving offers a mixed bag of emotions. United States history would have you believe Thanksgiving was a time when Pilgrims (colonists) had a meal where they fed the Indigenous souls who inhabited what is now the United States. Of course, my ancestors were treated as “hostile” because we fought when having our lands taken away from us by laws that excluded us from owning the lands on which we hunted and gathered our food, raised our families, and build our habitats. Be that as it may, we Natives continue to celebrate a National Day of Mourning to acknowledge an era that would change our lives for ever.

My family celebrated and continues to celebrate a Thanksgiving meal with thoughts that turned to what our ancestors’ experiences and when their lives changed after colonization. Because of the time of the year, we also used it as a time to honor our Creator for the bounty of food given to us from the land, from the seas, and from all the elements that made life possible. So I continue that tradition today.

Let’s discuss what was on my table on “Thanksgiving Day.” A thwarted trip to my home state (Colorado) because of heavy snows, a rock slide on one of the mountain passes, and sloppy driving conditions gave the green light for us to “stay put.” We decided to stay home, cook the big meal, and find someone to feed. I learned from my Mother’s holiday meals that they had to be vast, take a long time to cook, and had to have a variety of offerings on the table. Here’s my menu:

Aperitif: Sweet Vermouth
Roast Turkey
Sauteed, Buttered Brussels Sprouts with Sliced Almonds
Savory Dressing
Squash “Boats” (recipe follows)
Pickled Beets
Relish Tray
The Ubiquitous Two-layered Jello Salad
Baked Beans
Cranberry Apple Orange Spice (CAOS) Jam
Sourdough Bread
Cava (Sparkling Wine from Spain)

Dessert:

Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream for Dessert
Creme Sherry

I began my own tradition of making my “signature” Cranberry Apple Orange Spice jam, also known as “CAOS” (pronounced, Chaos) because I loved the taste of the combined fruits with the added Chinese 5 Spice, and I didn’t like the store-bought cranberry in a can that came out like a lump! I love the aroma of my CAOS even more! Next time you create your “Cheese Board” or your “Charcuterie Board”, I highly recommend pairing CAOS with brie, fried Mexican panela, or with goat cheese. The flavors come together quite nicely. Also, I make a Fig Apple jam that goes nicely with cheeses. I had spoken of CAOS in one of my previous posts. Let me know if you want the recipe.

Here’s the recipe for my “squash boats”.

Wash and slice two acorn squash. Clean out seeds. Assemble on a baking pan. You should have four “boats” into which you add this mixture:
Two apples: Cored and diced with skins. I like honey crisp.
Two oranges: Diced with peels
3/4 cup (96g) raisins
3/4 cup (96g) Walnuts
2/3 cup (85g) salted butter
2/3 cup (85g) brown sugar
3/4 cup (96g) brandy

Preheat your oven to 365 degrees (185 Celsius).

Add ingredients (#2 to #8) in a bowl. Mix well and spoon into prepared squash.

Put an additional pat of butter on each boat before you put into oven. Bake until the squash is soft and the fruits are bubbly. Serve whole boats on table.

I knew I wanted to cook a large meal, but most people we knew had plans, and we’ve only lived in this town since last May. I called one set of our best friends who live a little more than two hours away. Their daughters would not be joining them for Thanksgiving, so I said, “Come spend a few days with us, and eat Thanksgiving!” They agreed, and we had a marvelous time! I am so grateful for friends. I miss our children and grandchildren, and my family, and I am so fortunate to have friends. I see them as “adopted” family, certainly.

Our lovely day, filled with warmth and laughter, ended with turkey sandwiches and more laughter.

Thank you for reading.

Food in Social and Intercultural Interactions!

In the past three months, I’ve attended a Diwali (The Hindi celebration of Light in the Darkness) in my rural Kansas town, thanks for my friends and colleagues from India. Two days later, I had a wonderful Filipino meal, which included Pancit, stews, and bread. There I watched as my friends, Karen and Jonathan, parents witnessed their first snowfall, back in November. All this while, I had the honor of interacting with a wide range of folks. I learned a little more about them by sharing in their cultural celebrations and the foods of their regions and countries. It’s my favorite thing to do! I walk away, a little fuller in my stomach, heart, and mind. I will chronicle some of the events, here. The food from the Diwali included curry spices, chick peas, basmati rice, potatoes, chicken, and, in the white bowl, Gulab Jamun, these wonderful little pastry-like rounds soaked in syrup. This food fed my soul!

Eating with my friends, who hail from the Philippines, we were treated to pancit, a clear noodle and vegetables dish with lovely flavors of garlic and savory flavors of pork (the preference of our host). We were also treated to a stew with beef and Lumpia, a spring roll of vegetables and meat. Yes! Also the first snow for Karen’s parents!

Well, it’s been a few weeks since this pleasant evening out on the porch, but I’ve wanted to tell you about it for a while. We call it, “Happy Hour”. We each bring food and drink to share. In addition to the homemade pizzas, cheese, and dessert that I offered, my friends brought cooked carrots, the best Leche de flan from my friend, Karen, who apparently learned to bake this velvety, smooth custard in her home country of the Philippines. She’s pictured above with her parents’ first snow fall while on a visit to the U.S. Another friend offered her sweet carrots, and another brought apple cobbler, and we had chicken pot pie. In such “happy hours”, I’d say the conversation stands as the most important aspect with food bringing up a close second. I found it interesting that, on this particular occasion, the men sat outside, and the women sat inside. Hmmmm….I wonder why this happened.

For an appetizer, I made my own type of Bourisin cheese by draining whole-milk, Greek style yogurt in a hanging cheese cloth. I added my own blend of dehydrated vegetables for a tangy cheese spread. One of my favorite things to do is make pizza dough and have all the trimmings of vegetables, meats, cheeses, sauces (marinara and pesto are my favorite sauces to have available), and attendees make their own pizzas. We have a great time. Here are some of the offerings for this lovely October evening: 1) My “Boursin” cheese nestled in a clay pot, 2) Baked pizza with pesto, and 3) Leche de Flan

Eggplant Parmigiana – Made Simply

I might be a little brain dead at the moment, so I’ll just write about this evening’s dinner. Again, I didn’t set out for this to be a blog only about food, though its preparation wanders into a sort of therapy for me, sometimes. I have many topics on which I want to share. I don’t want to be boring, however. Sooner or later, I plan to discuss food in books a bit more along with other points of interest such as music, film, history, culture, and themes of social justice. Let’s continue with food, for now.

My all-time favorite cookbook, given to me by my friend, Lynn, is more of a story book, called There’s a Tuscan in my Kitchen, written by restauranteur, Pino Luongo, who hails from Tuscany (Toscana) region of Italy. Tuscany sits on the same latitude as Corsica (birthplace of Napoleon) and would be considered the upper part of the “boot” (but not the upper flaired part!), that is Italy. The Tuscan region is on the Ligurian Sea. Luongo’s book tells a story of each featured dish. My favorite part is that he does not give the reader/cook ratios and measurements for each dish. He trusts the reader to make his/her own judgement. He does list the ingredients based on where one might find them: pantry, cold storage, and market.

Yes. I love Luongo’s book, but my food travel, this evening, goes north to Parma! This evening’s menu: Eggplant Parmesan on linguine (literally, “little tongues” from the Liguria region west of Parma).

Since my basil garden continues to be quite prolific, I have a goal of incorporating the “mint cousin” into as many dishes as possible. First, however, I sliced the eggplant, and salted it on each side before laying the slices on paper towel to drain from lunch time to evening.

My sauce:

1 can whole tomatoes
1 very large bunch fresh basil leaves
4 cloves of garlic
¼ yellow onion
1 TBS mix of dehydrated and ground onion, celery, and mushroom (my own creation)
Salt and pepper
¼ cup red wine

Blend all ingredients, then pour into cooking pot and simmer for three- four hours (I put these ingredients in the pot when I came home for lunch and simmered on low until I returned).

Put 2 eggs into a pan. Dip the sliced eggplant in egg mixture then in flour before placing in hot oil to fry until golden brown. Place browned slices into a glass cake pan in one layer until all slices have been browned.

Pour your simmered red sauce on the browned eggplant slices, then cover with Parmesan cheese and mozzarella. Bake in a 350-degree oven until the sauce is bubbly and the cheese is browned.

Serve the eggplant and sauce on top of linguine or spaghetti. Enjoy with a salad and a beverage of your choice.

Thank you for reading!

Saturday at Home and Creating in the Kitchen

We have not been home for many weekends, so this weekend, we stayed home. Dale mowed the ever-growing lawn because of an unusually wet July. The wet July also gave rise to ants! I cleaned shelves, placed oil of peppermint in every nook and cranny to ward off the little creatures. We woke up to clear counter tops and shelves in the kitchen, so those essential oil home remedies work!

All that work in the kitchen did not stop me from cooking. I love to cook, and the summer’s bounty contributed greatly to locally-sourced meals.

So, Saturday lunch was simple. Menu:

chicken fried venison steaks
baked and mashed sweet potatoes
Spanish rice made with a wild/sweet/black rice mix.

I live in a region of Kansas popular for its hunting opportunities. Hunters come from other countries and from different corners of the U.S. to hunt for pheasant, quail, and deer in this region. Having grown up in Colorado, I know the wonders of great-tasting venison. However, I am loathe to say, that Kansas venison may be a bit better. Colorado deer resort to eating sage and lichens when the snows are too high for their usual forage. When someone says, “This venison is strong!” He or she is reacting to the tastes of sage and lichens, for example. My Native grandmothers would crush juniper berries and rub it onto the meat, and that neutralized the “strong” flavor in any wild game and old mutton. Try it sometime. It really works. Kansas venison does not need juniper berries, because this wild game feeds on corn and sorghum, which makes for wonderful tasting meat!

Okay. How did I prepare this meal?

Before frying my venison in a combination butter and sunflower oil, I dusted it with sprouted wheat flour, and sprinkle some seasoned salt.

I like sprouted wheat flour from my childhood. The grandmothers used it cooked as a gruel with milk and sugar. They did the same with ground blue corn, and called it, “chackawe”. The Spaniards called it, atole. It was said to fixed “what ailed you!”

The sweet potatoes were simply baked. I scraped the baked flesh into a bowl, added salt, ¼ teaspoon of brown sugar, and butter. I mashed them and served with a pat of butter.

This version of Spanish rice:

In a tablespoon of oil, sauté onions, yellow sweet pepper, (some of my dehydrated tomatoes, onions, and green chili), and 1 cup of rice until veggies are soft and the rice is browned. Add about 2 cups of chicken stock and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for up to 40 minutes until liquid is absorbed. In the end, I didn’t like the rice mix, because the wild and brown rice took longer to cook than the sweet rice. It was a little hard to judge.

I looked for the history of “Spanish Rice”, but I just kept finding recipes for “Mexican Rice”. Having eaten my way through Spain, about 10 years ago, I wonder if what we call Spanish rice, is a form of Spain’s “paella” (pie-yay-yah), which is rice, veggies, fish, sausage, chicken, and flavored with saffron. So, since saffron was not readily available when Spain was colonizing what is now New Mexico and, a bit later, Meso, Central, and South America. What we cook today, may be a cousin to paella. I’ll keep looking. If you know, let me know.

So, that was lunch. We ate a wonderful supper (dinner), too.

Menu:

Fish tacos with marinated cabbage topping
quinoa garden salad

Here’s how I prepared it.

2 cod fillets – Sautéed in ghee (clarified butter) and olive oil and seasoned with a dried “fish tacos” seasoning.

I sliced the cabbage and tossed with olive oil, sherry vinegar, smoky salt and garlic powder.

We grilled the locally sourced corn tortillas made freshly on a daily basis.

The quinoa salad:

1 ½ cups cooked quinoa (keen-wah) – a lovely South American grain
3 ears of grilled corn cut off the cob
1 ½ cups black beans
1 large grilled zucchini (not too large!)
5 green onions
2 TBS snips of celery (off my celery plant from my window pot)
1/2 cup thawed sweet yellow and red pepper (I had thawed my chopped/frozen pepper for the noon meal. This was the other half cup).

My dressing for this salad: olive oil, lime juice, sherry vinegar, seasoned salt, chili powder, and cumin.

Toss and chill before serving.

Try these meals. Let me know what you think. If you don’t have one or more of the ingredients, don’t hesitate to substitute. It’s fun to experiment. I don’t use a lot of measurements. Use what works for you.

Thank you for reading.

Regional Foods of Patabamba – Peru

A few years ago, I went on a study trip to Peru. I wrote about it previously. Of course, I’m always up for a new adventure in eating, though I love interacting with people with different backgrounds from my own. (Which is every day, really! I don’t have to go to another country to do that!). My study group and I took many trips in-country, so I will talk about those from time to time. This story begins in Cuzco, and it includes food, too!

The Cuzco church bells pealed at 4:00 a.m. We ate a lovely breakfast of ham, cheese, eggs, fruit, granola made with puffed millet in place of our traditional oatmeal, liquid yogurt, and hot espresso. Espresso is the only type of coffee served in Cuzco! Having only been a consumer of coffee for a few years, this was strong for me, but it proved to be beneficial in the high altitude. Cuzco is considered the Peruvian Andes and is 11,152’ altitude. Coming from a mountainous region in Colorado, I adjusted quite well. As for the espresso and any coffee in Peru, I must say that there was no such thing as a bad cup of coffee in Peru. After a lovely breakfast, we chewed on some coca leaves for good breathing, and then, we boarded the bus to Patabamba.

Patabamba, in Quechua, means “upper flat. Originally, it was Patapompa, but the Spanish colonizers changed it to Patabamba. From what I could gather regarding Quechua, it is a complex language, which was largely replaced with Spanish after Spain’s invasion in the 15^th Century. Many of the remote villages around Cuzco are functionally monolingual speakers of Quechua. It is a beautiful language with only three vowels (i, a, u), and in some words the vowels are completely devoiced (silence, a stop, or a sort of throaty sound). I was able to observe the language in action when village members relayed instructions to one another as they prepared our most sumptuous and interesting meal of the whole trip. At first, I did not understand that the, aforementioned, stops, hisses, and throaty sounds were part of the language. Then after, I learned to listen for the “devoiced” part of the language that is Quechua (Ketch-wah).

Our menu of lamb, chicken, llama, potatoes, sweet potatoes, lima beans (cooked in their pods), plantain, and blocks of farmer cheese were baked in a rock “oven” especially built for the occasion. We watched as the hole was dug, and then lined with the rocks. The most impressive was the dome built by the large stones leaning against each other. The crowing touch came when the “keystone” was placed in the ground oven.

The domed rock oven was filled with wood fuel and burned until the rocks were hot. When the rocks reached the target temperature, the dome was deconstructed by first removing the cap stone which held all the stones in place. The rocks that made the dome were removed, and the raw foods were placed on the hot stones. The cheese was wrapped in brown paper before being place on the other ingredients. When all the food was in place, green branches with yellow flowers still in place, were spread on top of all the foods. Then large sheets of heavy plastic were laid out on the green branches. Then the moisture-rich soil dug to make the cooking pit was spread out on the plastic until nothing, but soil was visible. The food stayed in the “oven’ for 35 minutes, and voilà! We ate the most agreeable meal with cups of coca tea to wash it all down. The meats, plantain, and vegetables cooked to perfection. We ate with our hands. I ate my potatoes with the peelings still intact, and I noticed that the villagers peeled their potatoes. It was my favorite meal of the trip.

While the meal was cooking, my fellow travelers and I met the elders of the village. The elders, male and female, invited us to try on their beautifully dyed and woven dresses, ponchos, capes, and hats for photo opportunities. One of the featured photos in a past blog was me and one of the elders.

After interacting with the village elders, we went for a walk to gather plants and flowers. That was followed by a lesson on the plants used for dying wools for weaving. The flowers gathered that day became the dyes of brilliant reds, yellows, and blues from which all other colors were made. After spending a fine luncheon with the villagers, they set up a store for us to purchase handmade clothing, wraps, and hats.

What struck me most was the happiness of the people. They seemed to be quite contented. As they told us about their plans for promoting the village for tourism, which includes home-stays, I wondered if the influences that would inevitably follow would interfere with the peace they appeared to possess. I wonder how they are faring these few years later.

Thank you for reading.

Pizza: Origins of the “Humble Pie” and Whipping up a Pizza After Work!

According to the History Channel’s website, there’s a great history of the pizza. In the town of Naples, in the 1700s, the working class devised a way to get eat large amounts of calories in an easy way: flat bread with oil, cheese, and other toppings. It was an inexpensive and portable meal that could be consumed in haste. Seen as a food for the lower classes, pizza became popular when Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889, and fell in love with the “pizza mozzarella”, which now bears the name of the young queen. Word has it that the queen, especially, liked the fact that the pizza bore the colors of her country’s flag!

Pizza can be made quickly, after work, for a delicious and special meal for you, your family, or for friends. You don’t need fancy ingredients, just be creative with what you have.

A few days ago, I told you about my windfall of basil and about dehydrating veggies for use as seasonings in my cooking and baking. Last evening, I fixed yummy pizzas after work.

Pizzas from scratch are quick and simple, and the activity can easily contribute to a fun party with guests. All you have to do, is make the dough, and seal it in a large bowl, for up to an hour, until you’re ready to divide it for your visiting pizza makers.

For my pizzas, last night, I made a pesto and added extra ingredients to make it more zippy, than usual, for the sauce. It was delicious for lunch, today, too! We ate it cold!

Pesto Pizza Sauce:

One bunch basil (about 1 cup of leaves)

¾ cup olive oil

¼ cup parmesan cheese

¼ cup of ground hazel nuts with two juniper berries (I did not have pine nuts, so improvised)

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon of dehydrated onion, celery, tomato, and chili peppers

Blend to a liquid consistency – set aside

Pizza dough:

2 cups flour

Warm water

¼ cup Honey or sugar

Mix and wait until bubbly

When it’s bubbly, add 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp salt, and 1 TBS oil

Add enough flour to make a thick dough – let rest

Knead and add enough flour to make a nice dough

Roll out flat and place on your gas grill to set the pizza dough – turn over to slightly brown on the other side. Grilling the dough also gives it a wonderful, smoky flavor.

Remove from heated grill and spread pesto pizza sauce on browned pizza dough, add cheese and other toppings. Place back on grill until finished.

Enjoy with a nice salad and a glass of wine.

Thank you for reading.

Reference:

Turim, G. (2012). A Slice of History: Pizza Through the ages. Access date: August 10, 2018,

https://www.history.com/news/a-slice-of-history-pizza-through-the-ages

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