A supper for keeping us warm

We're camped on the east side of Glacier National Park at St Mary Campground. Despite the fact that it's nearly summer solstice, there's plenty of snow on the ground and the wind is mighty cold. That meant that supper had to be an oven affair.

Happily, I'd taken a seasoned pork tenderloin out of the freezer in the morning, so all I had to do was pop it into the oven and make accompaniments.

A packet of sour-cream-and-chive scalloped potatoes looked interesting. Nonetheless, I decided to doctor them up. Besides adding chopped-up onion (pretty much routine to spice up these boxed side dishes), I sliced a soft tomato and arranged it over top.

Fresh greens for salad rounded out the main courses, though we actually had a 'real' dessert as follow-up.

During the afternoon, I'd used a lot of strange ingredients to make a rhubarb crisp (with fresh stalks from the friends in Red Deer). The recipe was weird enough, it will likely get its very own post one of these days.

In the meantime, all this baking went a long way towards making The Rattler cozy tonight, as it's pretty darn gusty and cold beside all those mountains looming above us.

Not quite according to plan

Although I've been trying to use things before we reach the border, I hadn't planned on needing to cook everything from the freezer. Unfortunately, our little fridge has had a hiccup of a glitch (at least, I'm hoping that's all it is). It's decided to go on holiday and stop being cool.

This has meant a meal that's much too big for two, starting with appies of crab cakes from Carolina. With slices of cuke and wasabi mayo for dipping, this dish was probably enough -- only, uh-oh, there was still all that other stuff, thawing and getting soggy!

The main course was spicy Italian sausages with fries (not recommended for heart patients), with a not-quite-Greek salad of onions, peppers and feta cheese.

For 'dessert', there were still three Angus beef burgers staring at us, but we decided to set them aside for tomorrow's lunch.

After this crazy cookout, all I had to toss from the freezer was the too-soft-to-take-a-chance-on peas. I reckon the border guards should be impressed.

PS Luckily enough, we can let the fridge rest, as the next few days we'll be staying with friends, so there won't be any need for RV cooking.

A pair of broccolis, elks wild

Once again, we're nearing the border, so I'm doing my best to clear out those items they might not like us bringing across. Because we'll be entering Canada at Saskatchewan, I know they're sometimes fussy about meat. So I thawed two elk steaks from the little freezer, and then made up a salad with most of our produce, including last night's steamed broccoli.

Just about everything went on to the barbie -- Vidalia onions, little red potatoes, the last of the broccoli -- and, of course, the elk.

As for the Poker analogy, I'm still sifting through the lessons I got last weekend. A gambler, I don't think I'll ever be.

A place for remembering

Tonight's camping site was an incredible spot -- smack in the midst of a Civil War battlefield. It almost felt sacrilegious to be parked where we were. Still, that was where the man on the golf cart led us.

I'd thawed some pounded steak meat (minute steaks, I think they call them here), and the Dear Man cooked them perfectly on the barbie, even melting cheese over top. He also steamed two ears of corn in their husks there as well. (How I hadn't seen them in the crisper is one of those mysteries of life, but somehow they took me by surprise.) And then there happened to be one lonely tomato lying in the little fruit hammock, so once again, we had ourselves a lovely, complete supper.

When we sat down to eat, we paused and thought for a moment about all those boys and men who'd died, probably on the very spot where we were relaxing with our meal. Food for eating and food for thought.

Dry camping has its challenges

Like, no electricity (save for batteries) or water (except for what’s in the holding tank or in the jug under the sink)…

Luckily, the propane-powered stove works under just about any circumstance.

I don’t know who convinced me to pre-cook our supper yesterday, but I did.

We’d found a specialty meats place and stocked up on bison and elk and other goodies, including a packet of goat meat. I did some cross-cultural seasonings, low-heat cooking the goat with a Thai red curry base. Lots of onions and garlic in the pot too. But then, what else is new there.

By rights, tonight I should have added coconut milk and Thai basil. But despite the deep (if tiny) pantry here, I had to make do with coconut juice. I put half the coconut juice into the sauce, along with fresh cauliflower. The other half of the little tin went into the rice as half of its liquid.

Salad? Not tonight. The last of the somewhat-tired-looking greens went into the pot at the last minute, as a pseudo substitute for the Thai basil that should have gone in.

Still, for a supper by lantern light, after a long day’s hike, this was satisfying.

P.S. I lied. There was sort of a salad. The little yellow colander is on the table, holding the extra cauliflower florets that offered hand-picked 'salad' for the taking.

Rerun?

This looks like almost the same supper we had not very long ago. Still, it finally felt hot out, even if briefly. Though that might be only because we've come down out of the mountains.

Still, it felt warm enough to get out the barbie again (though we still had to eat indoors, too chilly for the picnic table). Spring seems pretty iffy everywhere.

Once again, it's bison burgers -- this time with barbecued onions and red peppers. Melted cheese and avocado and tomato and lettuce. . . plenty of toppings.

Oh, and those magical get-crisp-in-the-microwave easy chips. Way fun.

Pretend barbie

We'd had good intentions of barbecuing tonight, but a fierce wind blew up (not cold, but gusty and full of gritty sand). The breeze was stiff enough to deter even the Dear Man, but he made the burgers (buffalo) on the stove instead. Plenty of onions cooked up first, some cheese over top, stuffed onto a couple of buns.

I made some coleslaw a day ago, so the flavours should be starting to mellow. It wasn't my usual recipe, but used what was on hand -- olive oil, juice of a lemon, chili oil with bamboo shoots, plenty of pepper.

If this supper looks skimpy compared to our usual feasts, it might be because we already
had ourselves a plate of pretend nacho snack. And yep, that's where the leftover salsa for top of the burgers came from.

Honouring history

We've spent the last days travelling through traditional lands of the Paiute Indians. When we were at Zion, we learned that they lived here for thousands of years, and that the mainstays of their diet were game, corn and squash.

The corn is pretty obvious, the single vegie I like when it's out of a tin.

As for game, there's the last bit of the buffalo sausage, sliced into rounds.

The squash is trickier, as it's inside those wildly-striped ravioli!

Spectacular meal for a very special day

Crazy though it seems, I'm an April Fool. And what a birthday celebration I've had!

The day was spent exploring one of America's oldest national parks, Yosemite.

And now tonight, the Dear Man has cooked up an appropriately extravagant meal on our (his?) brand new barbie: buffalo steaks. He also cooked up some wonderful red potatoes and onions -- and really, I didn't mind a bit assembling a salad, complete with celebratory chunks of bleu cheese.

As for birthday cake, we had tiny doughnuts with ice cream -- and of course, a candle. But after a day like this, complete with the bluest of skies, what more could I possibly have asked for?

So traditional

Because we didn't have a hook-up for water again tonight, it was another of those times when I didn't want to use the cast iron skillet (too hard to clean up without easy H2O access). But my mouth was set on some Homer Simpson pork chops.

Again, I used the little baking pan on the stove, and cooked up some onions and garlic in olive oil, then added the chops to the pan for a bit of browning. Added a bit of the homemade barbecue sauce from the fridge, and popped the meat into the oven.

With sides of frozen peas and instant mashed potatoes (the kind with garlic), the tradition endured. And oh, how good the mix was -- swirling all those peas into the creamy potatoes!

Sattahday night mix-up

No post for last night, as were staying at a friend's. But tonight, we're finally across the border and have even had a chance to stop for a few fresh groceries.

There was a bit of cooked pork (kind of a pulled pork, barbecue mix) in the freezer. Cooked up with some fresh veg -- mostly onions and green beans -- it made for a satisfying, seaside meal. Something to go along with a spectacularly big moon.

Two...a couple of goodies

...from the freezer. There are still a few bags of those bockwurst the Dear Man made in September. I got out a small packet and decided to bake them to warm up the house. There'll be a couple left as snackies for him when he gets home (tomorrow night, hurrah!).

The freezer also turned up a serving-size container of leftover red cabbage. To save on pots, that went into the oven too.

A few leaves of lettuce, a piece of bread, and some good mustard go with the sausage. But the finishing touch is the little dish of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. For dipping lettuce or bread, this is what makes it a meal.

A supper for the longest night

Today, the Winter Solstice, is traditionally a day for weddings. Longest night and all that, eh.

I found a news item today that said we crave more carbs this time of year. Something about the darkness, insecurity and all. Tonight's supper covered pretty well all the fat groups, and even added a couple of root-cellar vegetables.

Roast pork, with onions and cauliflower, baked in the oven this afternoon and made the house smell cozy. Homemade perogies from my friend, Linda -- so much better than the store-bought variety. Those tiny bits of onion and potato in the filling! A cheese sauce to cover any or all of it -- the perfect wintry blanket.

Hearty stuff

A few pieces of bacon were left, after most of the pack went to make appies for the party last night. By luck, half a red cabbage was in the fridge. A slow-cooked cabbage dish made the house smell good and feel cozier – especially appreciated because it snowed today. Psychologically, the white stuff always makes it seem colder than it is.

Mititei (mee-tee-tay), a Romanian dish, is a relative of meatballs. We had some in the freezer, so we turned on the oven and baked those, even though they’d usually be cooked on the barbecue. Perogies seemed the just-right accompaniment.

Mmm. Happiness. Food that makes me want to hibernate.

Cooked at home

The scenery from the ferry didn't seem anywhere near as spectacular as it had yesterday on the ride over to Vancouver Island. But then, the sun was shining yesterday; today was back to this November's drenching rains.

As soon as I got home, I stopped at the stove and started up a little roast of pork, nestling it in with some garlic and carrots as companions. At the end, I added cabbage, and at the same time started a pot of perogies (not homemade, just store-bought frozen).

In honour of the pork, I put an apple into the salad.

There's something sustaining about a pot roast on a rainy day. And I love the way the chunks of food in the pot seem curled up against each other -- a reflection of how it feels being home again.

A square meal

Good solid food tonight, though the only square-shaped part might be the meatloaf, which is actually more rectangular than square.

There's cheese for pouring over top of the broccoli or baked potato or even the cabbage (or for that matter, over the meatloaf).

The salad is full of spinach and peppers and onion, and has bits of bacon (left from what didn't go into Saturday's sandwiches) -- even a few sprinkles of shredded mozzarella.

Solid food for a night that's cold and dark and miserable.

One pot wonder

Slow cooking for most of the day, tonight's supper is built around a pot of lamb shanks. Late additions to the pot included onions and parsnip and carrots. With a salad, pita, homous, and a hunk of beautifully runny goat cheese, although the lamb's from New Zealand, I'm calling this supper Greek food.

Pump up the iron!

Saturday's a night to slow down and take our time fiddling in the kitchen and assembling a supper. Tonight that means chicken livers with bacon and onions, perogies and cheese on the side.
Food that makes you want to go bowling...

Warm and cozy

It was a dark and stormy night... er, day.

Just about everything cooked in the oven, including a big pan of apple crisp that made the house smell even cozier when the troops arrived for Sunday family dinner.

Scalloped potatoes, another squash from Trauma Farm, green beans, corn, and great big hunk of ham. I'll confess one of the reasons I bought the ham was to get some bones I can put in the freezer for making soups over the coming rainy season.

Using and renewing the garden

A beautiful day meant a great day for cleaning up the little kitchen garden and planting the garlic we'll enjoy next summer. I'm excited at the prospect of two distinct varieties, cloves I got last weekend from my friend Sharon at Trauma Farm. Since she also gave me some squash, I decided to build a supper that would put that autumn vegetable to good use.

When I sorted the cloves for planting, I set aside those that were flawed and used them to start a pot with olive oil and a pack of Italian sausages (from the freezer). I gradually added bits from the last of the garden -- assorted tiny tomatoes (red, yellow, even green), the last stunted eggplant and a few branches of the year's oregano that's drying in the pantry. Contents of this pot became the topping for Thursday's leftover pasta (which steamed up just fine). It was also good over top of the baked squash.

One of the heritage apples Trauma Farm made a nice addition to the salad. But the crowning touch was bread and the fabulous cheese I bought on Salt Spring, not one I'd easily find around here, farm-made sheep cheese.

Our supper was delicious, yet looking at this meal, it struck me that aside from the curly pasta, this is how our ancestors ate -- the lucky ones at least.