Category: Food

Dinner.

We recently travelled to Toronto for a weekend in the Big City. After delivering the dogs to our boarding kennel we rode VIA (the Canadian passenger train) and chose Business Class for the trip there. That meant we were treated to dinner – for me, cod in a tomato and caper sauce with green beans and potato wedges, an olive roll, skewered cheeses and cherry tomatoes, and strawberry slices with strawberry ‘squish’ topped by a mint leaf. All washed down with a glass of pleasant white wine.

What a civilized way to travel and so much less stressful than a three hour drive in the dark on very busy freeways.

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Smoking meat

A beef brisket, rubbed with spices and herbs, smoked low and slow. And oh is it good.

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Bounty

Bounty from our berry patch – two plus cups of strawberries and one of haskap, our third harvest of each. Very tasty and enough to freeze for later.

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Dinner!

Pizza on a home-made crust with a pesto base, chopped bell pepper, fresh mushrooms, smoked chicken, and mozzarella.

Yum.

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Lettuce

We have a healthy crop of lettuce – on December 27th! It is partly because the hoop tunnel moderates night time low temperatures. I cannot help thinking that it is largely because night time temperatures have been fairly mild compared to the historical average – generally -5C or warmer. Daytime highs have been 5C, give or take a few degrees.

Are these temperatures the new normal? Hard to say. We will find out as the years roll out.

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No photo tonight . . .

. . . instead, a recipe.

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tsp garlic salt

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/4 tsp cardamom powder

1 head cauliflower (2 lbs or so) chopped into bite size florets

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. Combine oil and spices into large bowl and mix well.
  3. Add cauliflower and stir thoroughly to coat the cauliflower.
  4. Turn onto large roasting pan and arrange evenly.
  5. Bake for 20 minutes, stirring or shaking 2 or 3 times.
  6. Enjoy as a side dish, snack, or appetizer.

Modified from a recipe in the book Serving Up the Harvest by Andrea Chesman.

 

Dinner

Pan-roasted salmon garnished with cilantro and quick-sauteed diced jalapenos, oven-roasted skin on sweet potatoes, and jasmine rice also garnished with cilantro. Delicious.

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From cutting board to pot

The vast majority of what we eat, we prepare ourselves. It’s healthy; nutritious; tasty; the way to control ingredients; and a very important skill/art to engage in.

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Dinner on the way. Clockwise from top: garlic; roast pork loin; potato; carrot; onion. Offstage and waiting to play their parts: salt and pepper; turkey stock; crushed tomatoes; Hatch green chilies;  ground cumin.

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It’s quite good.

I will return on Thursday.