Adventure in a bowl

The real adventure has been our drives and hikes yesterday and today. Lots of rough roads and curving mountain routes -- even a sighting of a mama Grizzly with her cub.

The adventurous part of this supper was trying to figure out what to put into that bowl.

The Dear Man requested noodles, but stir-fry was what I had in mind, and I was thinking rice. Easily enough, a compromise appeared -- two packs of Asian soup noodles, made with much less water than specified by the recipe.

Base for the stir-fry was the usual -- plenty of chopped-up fresh garlic and onions sauteed in olive oil.

I'd saved about a quarter of last night's tenderloin, so slices of pork were the next ingredient into the pan. For flavouring, I tossed in the bit of juice I'd gleaned from the pork pan and the last drops of our homemade jalapeno hot sauce. Fresh green beans, followed by yellow pepper and the last of the broth looked as though they might do it, but somehow the dish was tasting flat.

Nearly hidden in the flavourings basket was a packet of spice for making satay chicken wraps -- and who knows when I might have bought it. I tore it open and sprinkled a bit over top of the mix. It seemed to work as the final ingredient. Or, maybe we were just hungry from all that tromping through the bush.

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.

Mixed-up Mexi

That fat little chicken we started on the other night was sitting in the fridge, waiting for a second chance. There was still quite a bit of the mixed rice I'd made as well, so I broke up the breast meat, blended it with the rice, and stuffed the mix into tortillas. The result? Sort of wraps, sort of burritos.

I added a little tin of chorizo peppers to the 'Coq au vin' sauce from the chicken, cooked it a bit for the flavours to blend, then poured that over top of the roll-ups.

I opened a tin of refried beans (not worth cooking them from scratch for two of us) and put those into the oven to heat through at the same time, then topped both pans with grated cheese at the last minute. Because we'd spotted a few fresh helvellas on a late afternoon walk, those went over top of the beans too.

Not really Mexican, but close enough for a Tuesday.

Hot stuff!

After a late afternoon walk through a nearby forest, a spicy hot supper sounded just right.

It started with eggplants from the garden -- one the traditional purple, the other a white one.

Once those started heating, I gradually added other vegies to the mix. Onions, garlic, half a red pepper, a few bunches of baby bok choy.

There was half a packet of prawns in the freezer, so they got a quick defrost under cold water.

Flavouring was Thai red curry paste and coconut milk. Topping it off were some of today's mushroom findings: a bit of cracked bolete, a solitary chanterelle, and a few bits of coral (you can spot one on top of the mix, to the left). Served with rice, it was hot in both temperature and seasoning. Just what a couple of bushwalkers needed.

Use it all up!

Because we're heading out to the Gulf Islands tomorrow, it's another of those use-everything-in-the-fridge suppers.

Veggies on hand included half a red (purple?) onion, five mushrooms, some green onions, one baby zucchini from the front yard, and a few rags of tired-looking spinach.

There was about a quarter of a jar of satay sauce in the fridge too, plus the leftover sauce the chicken had baked in the other night.

I found a packet of Thai rice noodles in the pantry, pulled out some prawns from the freezer, and got to work.

While the water got hot for the noodles, the stir-fry came to life -- and somehow a salad found itself made too. That was also pretty eclectic with celery, onion, the last of the lettuce and chunks of the leftover bacon sprinkled in. I even managed to use the last of the jar of homemade dressing.

A last minute dollop of Thai fish sauce (that's when the spinach went on too) completed the dish.

Now that's the makings of an empty fridge!

West meets East

Our leftovers from last night formed the basis of this interestingly fusionesque meal.

I chopped up the jerk chicken and stir-fried it with onions, garlic, orange pepper and baby bok choi. For sauce I used the end of last night's coconut milk and some Thai red curry paste, along with fish oil. Topped with fresh cilantro from the garden, it smelled pretty darn good.

Served over last night's Caribbean red rice 'n beans, this was a fusion of East and West. Oh yes, and complemented by a 'salad' of cut-up vegies with the last of the most recent batch of homous. World-wide supper!

Last night's supper

Yes, I ate a fine supper last night -- just wasn't anywhere near a computer. And now this one won't accept pics from my camera. Until later, trust that I'm not starving.

As you can see, there really was a Friday night supper.

A warm June evening, walking with friends along Vancouver's Commercial Drive, Cathy spotted a place that looked like it would be good for conversation. Turns out, it was also terrific for food.

Heather and I shared -- always a good way to get the chance to try more than one thing. The combination of vegetarian spring rolls and paneer salad proved to be perfect.

Local treats

Only the second night here and the kitchen staff has already surpassed last night’s meal. Once again, the side table was filled with many choices for us to assemble our salads – bowls of lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, tomatoes, cukes, grated carrots – even coleslaw.

The main course was perogies, only anything but ordinary (as if perogies could ever be called ordinary!). Instead of the usual potato or cheddar cheese filling, these contained spinach and feta. Served with them was a beautfully firm sausage made by the local butcher shop. Yellow beans with lots of butter, mmmm.

And because the dessert was just so darn beautiful, I had to include it. Really, these women are spoiling the heck out of us.

Fusionesque!

What a mix tonight's supper is! There were a few cheese enchiladas left over from last night, so I freshened them up with a sauce that was really just the end of a jar of V-8 juice. Because that seemed too much like a re-run of last night, I opened a packet of pre-made emergency food, a spicy Indian eggplant dish, and poured that over top of the enchiladas, and let the whole thing bake until it was thoroughly heated.

There were a few spears of asparagus that begged me to steam them. And, of course, a salad of fresh greens. For something slightly different, I took the last of the vegie dip from Sunday, added a bit of milk and a drop of vinegar. The result made for an interesting salad dressing -- one that complemented the spicy eggplant(ed) enchiladas.

Mexi-Fuse

A weird name for an odd supper. As things turned out, I didn't go grocery shopping, so I had to get creative with what was in the fridge.

There was still a bit of last night's chicken in curry sauce and even some of the rice. I added the last of the V-8 juice to the rice, along with some chili powder and cumin and put that into a little casserole dish for the oven.

Then I pulled the chicken meat off the bones and piled it into some wheat tortillas. Those went into the curry sauce, then into the oven with the rice dish.

Like I said, I'm not sure what to call it, Curried Enchiladas, anyone?

Stewsday night supper

Tonight's stew is all-veg, with a heap of Thai red curry paste stirred in for excitement. Oh, and a bit of coconut milk, just for a dash of the tropics. The vegies were quietly living in the fridge, waiting for an occasion where they might get cooked up together: garlic, onions, eggplant, cauliflower, mushrooms -- and a few chickpeas to thicken it some and add a protein boost.
We're serving it over top of mamaliga (that's the Romanian word for it). Others might call that polenta, or even just cornmeal mush. Whatever -- it's a nice neutral base for the spicy topping (and one that holds its warmth beautifully, down to the last bite).