Finding comfort in a winter storm

The whole west coast is getting a big old wallop of winter, complete with a bit of shake, rattle and rolling up in the Haida Gwaii. So my wonderful DH and I hunkered down and enjoyed a warm, cozy romantic, lazy Saturday.
We started the day with a big plate of Danish pancakes, known otherwise as crepes. My wonderful DH insists that the only way to eat them is rolled up with raspberry jam. Luckily we had some of that in the house. It was even locally made. Yippee!














I spent most of the day knitting up a Healing Shawl for a cousin who's recovering from a car accident and daydreaming about all the projects for this coming year.
For my wonderful DH, I have a pair of Gaston Socks, a Bog Jacket and a Tree of Gondor sweater to do. For myself, I'm brainstorming a few ideas for my Tolkien Yarn project.
I've also had my heart set on knitting a corset. It's been on the back burner for years but I think it's time.
Annie Modesitt's gorgeous knitted corset.

I've sewed and constructed a number of corsets for myself and friends in the past. My fascination with corsets started about 15 years ago when I and a bunch of a guerilla feminist friends took part of an installation that looked at the politicization of the female body. I made a papier-mâché corset using strips of paper that had my rants and raves and general soapboxing about women's bodies. My entry was probably the most tame of all the installations. Well, from a well-meaning, albeit neophytish criticism of fashion, media and society's unrealistic expectations of women and their bodies, I took the corset the other direction. I began celebrating it.
Well, actually, more precisely, I started celebrating women's body of curves and reclaimed the corset as a symbol of a woman's tool to self-definition of her body and her life. You have to remember, this was during the whole Grunge era and everyone including me was dressed like a lumberjack. To peel away all that frumpy, cloaking fabric and to re-introduce myself to my silhouette was quite refreshing.
Corsets don't have to mean constriction and conformity. They can be a tool for a woman (and men) to underline and redefine themselves. They can be a way for a women to say " I want to accentuate all the things that make me who I am." Corsets can be made with paper, flowers, feathers, metal, wood, fabric, leather, latex, bark or anything else you can get your hands on. You tie all that together with my love for historical clothing and you have quite a fun hobby:).
Well, if anything, at least a corset does wonders for your posture.
For a bit more information on corset building, check out this general overview.

*****
Back to dinner...
To help keep us warm during this weekend storm, I decided to make up a lamb curry with some lamb shanks from Heritage Horizon organic farm that I had in the freezer. In fact, most of the lamb is still in the freezer. It's amazing how much meat can come from one small lamb.
(some of our lamb order)













This is one those all day cooking affairs but it's mostly hands-off since most of the cooking time is letting the curry simmer and do it's magic. The recipe and summary of the curry is at end of this entry. Obviously, the curry paste itself can be used with wide range of meats, seafoods and veggies. It's a great sauce to make up and freeze for another time. You can also use the curry sauce, uncooked as a form of meat marinate/rub.
For the curry, I decided to make a curry paste based on a chermoula. Here's my chermoula, one red onion, 1 large bunch of cilantro, a couple of black hot peppers, 2 thumbs of ginger, a head of garlic. All except for the ginger were either from local farms or from my garden.














I then took the handblender to it made it a chunky sort of paste. You can also do this in the food processor.














To this I added my curry powder and threw it all into my wok with some veggie oil. I cooked up until it started taking on some colour and the whole house smelled like Little India.














Then I added about 4 cups of my tomato sauce. You can use chopped tomatoes, either frozen or canned. I used a homemade tomato sauce from my freezer stash that didn't have any seasoning, just veggies (red and golden tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms, red peppers.)














My sauce came out more yellow due to the fact that most of my tomatoes were golden tomatoes from my garden. If you use red tomatoes or canned tomatoes, your sauce will end up red, of course. I tossed the curry sauce into a crockpot and let it simmer on high for about an hour and half. This will develop and bring together all the flavours.
Then I browned some gorgeous lamb shanks in some veggie oil on medium high heat. Be careful not the crowd the meat in the pan or else you'll up steaming it instead of browning it.
Then I dump the shanks into the crockpot and cover them with the curry sauce and let it simmer away for a few hours. The aromas will now start permeating through the walls and will waft through the neighbourhood.
DH considers having to smell this wonderful curry cooking away all day as a form of torture:) All evening, he kept asking when dinner was going to be done, groaning that he was so hungry and it was smelling so good. Ah well, it's about time his Id learns some patience :P



Once the meat is all cooked and tender, I simply pull the meat off the bone and cut it into bitesize chunks. I keep the bones in the curry for it continue releasing it's flavours. Here's the finished product:














It was sooooo good. I don't think we said a single word to each other while eating. It was that good. The best thing....leftovers!

Not so Fast but still Dirty Lamb Curry

Curry Paste:
1 medium red onion
1 large bunch of cilantro
2 thumbs of ginger, peeled and minced
1 head of garlic, peeled and minced
chili peppers (you can use whatever heat bombs. I used 3 small black hot peppers which are about the same heat as 3 thai red chilis for a bit of heat kick)
3-4 tablespoons of curry powder (I used a homemade curry powder but you can use store bought)

3-4 cups of chopped tomatoes (fresh, canned, frozen)
4 lamb shanks
3 tablespoons of veg oil or butter
salt & pepper to taste

1- Chop and combine all the ingredients of the curry paste except for the curry powder. Blend with a hand blender or food processor until it makes a chunky paste. Add curry powder.
2- Heat up a tablespoon of oil over medium heat in a wok or large pan/skillet. Toss the curry paste into the pan and cook for 5-7 minutes or until it takes on a bit of colour and the onions have softened.
3- Add the tomatoes. Stir and bring the sauce to a boil
4- Either continue simmering in the pot on the stove over low heat for an hour or transfer to a crockpot and continue cooking on high for an hour or more.
5- An hour later, heat up 2 tablespoons of oil over high heat in a skillet/frying pan. Add lamb shanks and let them sit and sear for 4 minutes on each side. Don't move the meat around when searing, just leave it alone!
6- When the lamb has been browned on all sides, add to the sauce.
7-Continue cooking until the meat starts falling off the bone, about 2 hours later.
8- Pull meat off the bone and cut into bite size pieces.
9- Serve with chopped cilantro, mint, yogurt and your favorite chutney!

Happy Eating!

Good-bye asparagus, Hello strawberries!

What’s today? Sunday? Tuesday?! How did it get to be Tuesday?

What do you mean it’s already June?

You're kidding me. Excuse me, I've gotta go throw my tomato plants outside.

(first fruits of my tomato plants)

Thank goodness I made a quick stop to the farmer’s market over the weekend. It’s coming to the end of the local asparagus season. I know. It was way too short. If I had blinked once more I would have totally missed it. But look at the bright side, it’s now the beginning of the local strawberry season!
(asparagus, strawberries and golden beets from farmer's market.)

Yippee! You can take your tasteless Cali-styrofoam-a strawberries and stuff it. These local gems are worth the wait. They're deep red and juicy through and through with just enough tang and a whole lot of flavor.

according to the paper, local berry farms are also opening up their gates for the season. Dudink's Gardens has freshly picked strawberries for sale from 1pm to 5pm daily. They're at 2219 Gomerich Road (off of Minetown) at the south end of Nanaimo. Many other local farms are also offering their a spring bounty of goods.

We celebrated another seasonal milestone this past weekend - the first BBQ of the year. Now, technically, there’s no reason why I can’t BBQ throughout the fall and winter around here other than I’m a total whiny wuss when I’m not in the mountains or buckled into a kayak. Well, sometimes even then I can be a whiny wuss too…

Though I have thought about cracking open the BBQ mid-January, especially when we get one of those mild spells, it's still pretty dark and cold after 5pm. It is still winter and I would much rather throw a stew into the crockpot or roast up some veggies and chicken in the oven than stand over a BBQ in my down jacket and toque.

So, I meticulously went through the whole dish soap gas leak testing procedure to make sure I don’t burn down the house. Though it’s a pretty new BBQ and there’s no reason for failure, it’s always a bit unnerving to be testing for gas leaks. That first lighting of the BBQ is always seasoned with a pinch of trepidation for me.

For the first BBQ of the season, I pulled out a couple of lamb chops from the freezer package that I got from Horizon Heritage farms last fall. I’ve been saving these babies for some good old fashion open fire cooking. I also threw on a bunch of sausages, locally raised meat of course, so we’d have enough to see up through a busy weekend.
I also threw a bunch of locally grown veggies onto the BBQ. I got one of those pizza BBQ grill pan thingamabobbidies. It’s basically a round sheet of metal with holes and a handle. It’s perfect for lazy buggers like me that don’t want to bother threading their veggies on a skewer. I simply lay them out in a single layer on the grill pan over medium heat and let the fire do it’s magic.

Both the lamb and the veggies got a simple treatment of olive oil, salt and pepper. I heated the grill on medium high and threw the lamb on for 4-5 minutes each side. Don’t mess with it while it’s cooking. Just leave it alone to do it’s thing. Some leftover spaghetti squash and a dollop of parsley pesto finished off the meal.

The lamb chops were gorgeously rich and meaty. Even DH, who is usually 'meh' about lamb, was smacking his lips and waxing poetic. The little selfish muggle in me was hoping he wouldn't like it so I could have it all to myself :p

On Sunday, we were already sick of the heat and headed up to Mt. Cokely to romp about for the day. It was the perfect day of mountain adventuring and exploring. Red columbine was blooming along the road and the air was alive with bugs. Lots and lots of little biting, carnivorous bugs and we then remembered why we should have worn long sleeved shirts and long pants.
We got home late as usual. Sore and bug tortured, but happy, I was grateful that I had leftover BBQ sausages, veggies and other tasty bits that made for a bowl of leftover bliss in less than 10 minutes

Sauteed asparagus and local boerwurst sausage along with organic spelt, roasted veggies and parsley pesto (yes I love this stuff). Except for the grain which is from the BC mainland, everything was island grown and raised.

BTW, I’ve happy to announce that Nesvog Butcher in Terminal Park Mall along the Island Hwy, is now offering local beef and cheese, along with local free-range eggs and other tasty tidbits.

This coming week (I guess that's now, eh) is another non-stop week. I’ve got a Spinner & Weaver’s Guild potluck (no, I don’t know what I’m making for that yet), a meeting with a reporter from the Bulletin about the 100 mile diet (yippee!), a standing date for some kayaking, a couple of knitting lessons, farm stuff, a dinner party on Friday and a new bushel of 100 mile fleece to card and spin. I'm tired just thinking about it.

Have a great week!

Jen

Nanaimo 100 Mile Diet Challenge

Shank you very much!

Sorry, I couldn’t help it. Last night’s dinner has brought about a bad case of gastric punsters reflux.

We continued our St. Patrick’s Day weekend with an impromptu 100 Mile Diet potluck featuring another lamb dish last night, Moroccan Lamb Shanks. Actually, I didn't even ask our dinner guests to make their contributions 100 mile diet specific, they just knew me well enough and there's certainly plenty of local culinary goodies to bring for a potluck. So lucky to have such kindred dinner companions! (Thanks M,P&R for wonderful evening!)



One of our guests brought over a great selection of locally made artisan cheese from both Natural Pastures cheeses and Little Qualicum cheeses, a few locally grown apples and a pears for cheese & fruit plate. Our other guests contributed a couple bottles of Zanatta’s Ortega wine, a luscious full-bodied white wine that went very well with the spicy Moroccan dinner.













Instead of Guinness we opted for some Phillip’s Black Toque IPA, brewed down in Esquimalt. Before you start throwing Leprechaun scat at me, all my Irish friends and anyone who’s visited Ireland insists that Guinness that is sold here is nothing compared to the Guinness that comes out the taps in the pubs in Ireland. I will make sure I will have a pint or 10 of Guinness when I visit the Emerald Isle. Until then, there is no lack in tasty dark beers from our local microbreweries. Phillip’s Black Toque IPA is the older, more intriguing brother of their light IPA. It has a deep malty flavor with hints of licorice, at least according to my taste buds. Anyways, it was a great beer to sip away as we chatted our way into the wee hours of the night.

Here’s my Fast & Dirty recipe for Moroccan Lamb Shanks. The prep only takes about 15 minutes to do. It’s a slow cooking dish and definitely has me thinking again about getting a slow cooker. While it cooked away, I also roasted a local organic squash. Nothing more than cut it open lengthwise, gutting out the seeds and placing the halves cut side down into a roasting pan. I then added a scant inch of hot water into the pan and let it roast beside the lamb shanks. It took about an hour to roast. It should be soft and scoopable.

Moroccan Lamb Shanks

1 large lamb shank or 2-3 smaller ones

2-3 yellow onions – cut into 1/8ths

4 cloves of garlic- chopped coarsely

3 cups of diced vegetables – I used local carrots, parsnips, russet potatoes

handful of morrocan salt-cured olives – pitted and chopped coarsely

1 litre chicken stock

olive oil

2 tablespoon coriander seeds – toasted and ground up

1 teaspoon cumin

2 teaspoons curry powder

cilantro or parsley chopped – for garnish

1-Preheat oven at 300F.

2-In a oven-proof pot (dutch oven or similar style pot), heat up a couple glugs of olive oil over medium-high heat. Once hot enough, sear all sides of the shanks. Simply place them in the hot pot, let the heat do it’s magic. For crying out, don’t mess around with every 10 seconds. Just let it sit on the hot surface for 4-5 minutes and turn. Repeat until all sides are golden brown.

3- Remove shank from pot and throw in onions and garlic. Add more oil if needed. Bring heat down to medium and sauté until onions are translucent. Throw in the rest of the vegetables, except for potatoes, and let them cook for a few minutes.

4-Dump in spices and let them coat the vegetables. Add the shanks back in. Add in the olives and the stock and water. Don’t worry if it doesn’t totally cover the meat.

5-Cover pot with foil or lid. Throw it into the oven and forget about it for about 1hour or so.

6-An hour later, throw in the potatoes. Turn the meat over. Again cover it, throw it back into the over for another hour or so.

Garnish with cilantro or parsley

The meat should fall easily off the bone. The key is to cook it slow and at low heat. I literally torn the meat off the bone with my hands with little effort. Again, there really isn't much work involved, just sit back and bask in the inticing aromas. Such a wonderful and savory way to end the weekend!

Happy Eating,

Jen

Nanaimo’s 100 Mile Diet Challenge