Friday, May 24, 2013

Massive amounts of food porn here.

Ok, none of these are *my* recipes.  I DID however get some mutton in my CSA share this week.  Was completely lost as to what to do with it. So I googled..and googled..

This is what I got

FIRST!  The Rhubarb Chutney.

Recipe for the Rhubarb Chutney can be found here

It's about to start simmering here

Finished product! It thickened in the fridge.

Now, on to the Naan bread!!!

Recipe for the bread can be found here

Now I DID tweak the method a little, since I have a pizza stone.  I preheated my oven/stone to 500deg.  Then turned the broiler on and slapped the breads on the stone to cook.  Came out BEAUTIFUL.

About to be rolled out!!

Final product!!!!

Now, on to the Kebabs.


Mutton/spice/onion mixture

On the sticks about to go in the oven!

Now on to the rice.  I used normal long grain because that's all I had.  Feel free to use Basmati or Jasmine..
btw if you don't know how to cook rice, you make me sad.

Rice ready to be switched on.

And here's the final product!!!  Was sooo delish.  MOST of this was provided by my local CSA at http://www.taprootfarms.ca  The mutton, cucumbers, rhubarb, onions...yeah all of that was from the CSA.  Nothing like eating exotic, locally!! HAHAH




Monday, May 20, 2013

More Food Porn

Ok Everyone!  I'm back.  I should blog more often but meh..I'll blog when I wanna blog.

Today, I'll share my recipe for mince pork pie..or as Quebequois call it "Tourtiere"

Here are the ingredients:



FILLING



  • 5 slices of bacon, chopped (it's the stuff in the pan)
  • 1lb of ground pork
  • 2 medium potatoes, washed and diced small
  • 2 medium leeks sliced
  • 1 medium onion minced
  • 2tbsp Clubhouse Montreal Chicken Spice
  • 2tsp Dried Thyme
  • 2tsp dried rosemary
  • 1tsp dried sage
  • *of course you CAN use Fresh and I fully encourage that, I didn't have fresh so I used dried*
  • 1 heaping tablespoon of minced garlic...or 3 cloves minced give or take

Step 1:  Cook the chopped bacon in your skillet. Do so until it's starting to get crisp.
Step 2:  Put the pork, garlic, leek, onion and spices into the pan with the bacon, mush it all up and cook until no longer pink and crumbled



While the pork is cooking, put your diced potatoes in the microwave for about 2 minutes to partially cook them.

Once the pork mixture is done put in a bowl with the potatoes, mix well and put in the freezer to cool off.



PASTRY!

1 Cup Shortening/Lard/Coconut oil/ Whatever Solid Fat you choose to use, I don't care.
2 1/4 cups of Pastry flour
1/2 tsp salt
ice water.

Now, you take a cold fork or pastry cutter, and blend the flour, fat and salt in a bowl until it looks all crumbly like..almost like coarse oatmeal.  Keep it cold.  then add the ice water bit by bit until it comes together to form a dough ball.  Don't knead don't use your hands..keep anything warm away..or it turns to crap, and you don't get the nice light flaky pastry goodness.



Split the dough ball into 2 halves,  Roll out on a floured surface, put one half in a pie plate, dump the filling in, then put the other half on top.  Cut slits in.  Grab a pastry brush and brush beaten egg or fresh milk on top of the crust to give it a nice colour when it's done cooking.



Stick in a 375deg F oven for about an hour.

Enjoy!


Sunday, May 12, 2013

The challenges of writing a novel.

This past November, I thought it would be cool to start up a NaNoWriMo project.  I was like 50k words in a month?  Cake.

Not so much.  That cake was a lie.  I got writers block not even 8000 words in.  That and life took over, husband came home with a broken leg, distraction upon distraction, you get the idea.  Now, I'm trying to get over it.

I had a few wonderful suggestions over Twitter on how to get over it, and I'm really trying.  I WANT this novel series to take off, and go somewhere.  I HAVE the world, culture and story in my head.  It just doesn't want to come out smoothly.

I don't want to front load my novel.  I don't want to make it too sparse either.  I want to set up the conflict, but I don't want it to be terribly obvious either.

It's such a delicate balance.  I don't want to put out a bad novel.  I want to put out a GOOD one.  Properly written, rich story, rich characters and a rich world that the reader can get lost in.

I've seen so many BAD books make the NYT Best-seller's list it isn't even funny.  Twilight, 50Shades...it's rather sad, really.  There are so many GOOD indie authors out there that put out great books, that get buried under that tripe.

Right now I'm reading and re-reading the stuff I have already, seeing what I can flesh out, prune, or whatever.  I don't want a sub par book.  I believe people are smarter than that.  I KNOW my potential readers have brains, and deserve to be entertained by a well written book.