Epic Cabbage Roll Day - Redux

I had a craving for cabbage rolls this week and cabbage was on sale at my favourite grocery store, T&T.  Also, lean ground pork was on sale!  Exciting times, let me tell you.  So I spent Tuesday making a big pan of cabbage rolls, and they turned out fantastically!  I didn't cook or par cook the rice first, I just put it into the filling mixture raw, and although it came out a bit mushy, it worked very well.  I used the rice I had on hand, which was jasmine, but in the future I think I'll get a longer-cooking rice so I don't get the mush problem.

Here are some photos I took of my day.

Yes, I put half a package of bacon over the top - and it was great!  I was too lazy to fry it up and add it to the filling.  This worked just as well.

For previous Epic Cabbage Roll Days, check out this post from 2011 and this post from 2012.

I'm Back!

So, where have I been and what have I been up to?  Well that's a long story.  The short story is that in Feb. I had a major health issue rear up before me - I was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy and heart failure.  As a result, I have to be on a low sodium diet and also I must restrict my fluids to 1.5-2L of fluid per day.  Easier said than done!

I have to convalesce from this for a while - I was in hospital for a month. I am bored, and I need a hobby.  Why take up something new when something I've had previously fill my recovery time with is right here, waiting to be revived?  Yep, I'm going to attempt to get back into food blogging.  Plus I have a new added dimension: low sodium cooking.

So far, I haven't enjoyed low sodium eating.  No salt = no flavour, right?  Well, pretty much!  I have recently become more obsessed with food labeling than usual, and I've had to make some pretty significant adjustments.  No salt also = no chips.  Ugh!  I have not had a potato chip in nearly two whole months!

Yesterday I ate out and had a case of the food fuck-its.  I gained 2lbs.  Today, I went to the grocery store and got some low sodium pantry items, feeling a little bit defeated.  I thought I could do low sodium my way, without any big substitutions.  But I was wrong.  My daily intake of salt should be no more than 2mg, which is about a teaspoon.  Dear God, how am I going to live with this?

Roast beef, seasoned with Costco's Mrs. Dash knockoff.

Tonight I made a low sodium meal with some of my new ingredients: roast beef and roast potatoes.  I don't know exactly how much sodium was in this meal, but the only ingredients that contained sodium were the packet of low sodium beef boullion (25% less salt than the regular stuff) which I cooked the roast in, and the 1/2 teaspoon of Club House's Garlic Plus seasoning mix I put on the potatoes (55mg/serving).  I seasoned the beef with Costco's brand of salt free seasoning, which wasn't bad at all. I sprinkled the dinner with Windsor's Salt Free "salt."

What a waste of $3.49!  The Salt Free = flavour free!  I also had the saltless salt on popcorn earlier today and though I thought I gave the stuff a decent shake over the popcorn, I didn't taste any saltiness.

The dinner as a whole, though, was quite palatable.  I have enough for leftovers and a few sandwiches.

 Man, this is going to be a long road.

Low sodium roast beef with roast potatoes.

Where are the veggies you ask?  Hmph!  I bought a salad kit the other day but it's gone off already.  Whatever!

Quick Beef Bulgogi

I've bookmarked a lot of recipes from the April 2012 issue of Canadian Living, and this is one of them. This is my first foray into Korean food, which is not a good thing living where I do. I should be way more adventurous and go off to a Korean restaurant and really try the food. I've been hesitant, though, because I once asked a friend who'd eaten Korean what it was like and she said one word, "fiery." OK, that put me off because "fiery" to me is not a good thing. I like a bit of kick, but certainly nothing anywhere approaching "fiery."

This recipe appealed to me because the ingredients were simple and there was no fieriness in it to be found. One thing I substituted out was the mirin for saké. I don't have mirin on hand but I always have saké around because lots of Kylie Kwong's recipes call for it.

The original recipe is HERE.

I have to say, this was a bit on the flavourless side. I let it marinate for an hour, but it seemed like little of the marinade stuck to the beef to flavour it. In theory, this should have been tasty. Was it the saké substitute? Would the mirin have packed more punch? I don't know. But, next time I might try saving the marinade and thickening it with cornstarch to retain some flavour.

I accompanied the dish with Kylie's Bok Choy with Oyster Sauce.

Elk Steak Dinner

My dad is the local gun guru, and as such, he always has a line on some game meat through his gun pals who hunt. Dad hasn't hunted in years, but he did when we were kids, and I remember one time he came home with a moose that we ate for the better part of a year. It was awesome meat, from what I recall, and to this day, I really enjoy moose meat. Game meat in general is great stuff: basically organic, free-range, drug free, and leaner than beef, pork, or other meats you get in the grocery store. And it tastes amazing. Some meats I avoid, however: bear is gross and I don't like eating teddy bears; white tail deer is very gamey and strong; and I won't touch cougar for ethical reasons.

Elk is a large animal and it's extremely lean. I have had elk done poorly, and when it's done poorly, it's really bad. However, when it's done well, it's excellent. Last night, Dad brought over an elk steak of unknown cut for me to grill up along with a beef sirloin he had hanging around his freezer.

The elk steak was ginormous, and it required some trimming to that I could fit in into my rather modestly-sized grill pan. it had two sections of bone in it and a large piece of very tough fat around the edge that was almost the texture of cheese rind. After trimming, I managed to fit it into my grill pan. I seasoned it with Montreal Steak Spice.

I have one of those cast iron grilling pans and I've yet to master using the stupid thing because I always seem to heat it too high and cause a lot of smoking to happen. While grilling last night, it got so smokey in my kitchen that my smoke detector, located in the living room, went of twice. I reduced the heat but still got smoked out. It was brutal!


I don't know how long I grilled this per side. I do know that you don't want to grill the crap out of game meats because they are so lean, so my aim was to cook this to a nice medium rare - which is how I like my steaks done anyway. Once I took it out of the pan and let it rest, though, it wasn't done to my father's satisfaction: it was still too rare for him. So I put it back in the pan for another few minutes - creating more smoke - until finally, it was done to perfection.

It was delicious and cut like butter. It was a beautiful thing indeed. I served it with some mini potatoes, also donated by my dad, and some yams. It was so big we each had a hunk and I sent my dad home with about 1/3 of it that was left over.

Oh, and the beef steak was pretty good, too, but not as good as this bit of elk. Go game meats!

Peruvian Roast Chicken

Long have I been a reader of Future Grown-Up's blog, Growing Up (And Having Fun) After 40. She makes a ton of delicious stuff - well, everything she makes looks delicious - and long have I been threatening to make some of her recipes. Alas, I haven't gotten around to keeping to that goal, until now. The other day, FG-U posted a recipe for Peruvian Roast Chicken with Garlic & Lime that so excited me I immediately went over to my freezer and took out my very last roast chicken from my last cross border shopping expedition. I was also excited because my herb AeroGarden is producing mint like crazy, and I had tons of fresh mint I didn't have to buy to use in this dish; everything else I had on hand. And so, last night, I made the chicken.

PHENOMENAL! Abso-freaking-lutely fan-frakking-tastic! This is one of the tastiest roast chickens I've ever made, if not the most tasty roast chicken I've ever made.

There recipe is here.

Making the paste was a beautiful thing, the colours, the scents...



And here is the end result:


The only thing I would change next time - and there will be a next time - is to perhaps halve the salt; I found the 2tbsp to be a bit too much.

Other than that - perfection!

Thanks FG-U!

My Boss's Goulash

I am blessed with some excellent bosses at the Telegraph, and one of them (that I know of) happens to also be a pretty good cook, if what he brought to our Christmas party is any indication. We had our Xmas shindig at the local cross country ski...place...(it's not really a hill...) where there is a big cabin groups can book for events. There was a big wood stove and an outhouse, and that night we got a huge dump of snow, so the kids were happy (and some adults, too, though I was not one of them). Everyone brought something for dinner; I brought a cake for dessert, Boss A brought sangria and mulled cider, Boss D's wife made homemade bread, which she makes professionally at a local coffee shop; and Boss AB brought Hungarian Goulash and some egg noodles. The picture above is of that meal, served on fancy paper plates!

I have always enjoyed goulash, and indeed my next article in Bread 'n Molasses Magazine will be about the goulash I enjoyed as a kid, made by my mom. That recipe, however, came from an old edition of Betty Crackpot's (AKA Crocker) definitive cookbook and is a highly Americanized version of the traditional Hungarian dish. AB's is different, and it was so good when we chowed down on it at the ski cabin in the middle of a snowstorm. During a my recent big batch freezing spree, I asked AB for his recipe so I could make a crock pot full of it to freeze, and he very nicely shared the recipe with me.

I quote:

Fry up stew meat and onions in quite a lot of butter until browned on the outside. Then I put enough cans of pureed tomatoes in the crock pot with the meat that it looks 'stewy'. Then I cook it for a whole day, adding some salt and a fair bit of paprika (I like the smoked). I'll add carrots and mushrooms, though some say this is a sin! I may even splash in some hot sauce to bring it up to the level of tangy-ness I like. Finally, if it feels too watery I'll add some cornstarch to thicken it a little. Oh, I also put garlic in because I put garlic in almost everything.

So, using this as a template, I got a family pack of stewing meat at Safeway that was about 1.2kg in weight. I had most of a bottle of passata left over from the quinoa salad recipe, so I dumped that in, along with a partial can of leftover diced tomatoes from the borscht I made last week. I have two kinds of paprika on hand, Spanish and Hungarian. I used a few tablespoons of both. After letting the goulash cook on high for several hours in the crock pot, I added some Worcestershire sauce to make it a bit tangy, but when I tasted the broth, I found it lacking. It needed something to cut the acidity of the tomatoes, so I added a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar.

It was fantabulous. Not as fantabulous as AB's, but fantabulous enough for me. I may not even freeze any; I might just spend a week eating this. For the initial meal I had, I served the goulash with what my mom used to serve her goulash with, Noodles Romanoff. A sinful side dish indeed - but wonderful, and nostalgic. It was perfect!


Awesomeness!

Epic Cabbage Rolls!

So, when my mood is in the crapper food, eating, meal planning, cooking, and grocery shopping all become very challenging for me. The last bout left me scrambling for meals and it wasn't pretty, so I decided during a sunny spell of three days and the resulting lift in my mood to get organized, get prepared, and start stashing meals in my trusty new freezer so that the next time I don't feel great, I'm not living on scrambled eggs and oatmeal and junky stuff that's easy to grab off the grocery store shelves.

Enter the humble cabbage roll. Actually, enter that show we get in Canada every afternoon called Best Recipes Ever. I was flipping around recently and decided to watch this; I'd kinda turned my nose up at it before because it's a Canadian Living thing and I already get the magazine and the subject matter is...well...cue the snoot...simpler than I prefer in a cooking show. But, there really was nothing else on so I gave it a go. And the chick made a vegetarian cabbage roll recipe that triggered some memories. My mom used to make killer cabbage rolls when we were kids, and also, my good friend and fellow foodie Mr. Anchovy, also posted eons and eons ago his mother's cabbage roll recipe. Mr. Anchovy comes from a Polish background and he has been known to post delicious recipes from that culture from time to time. A quick email to him asking about the cabbage roll recipe resulted in a quick response and a trip to the grocery store after the next pay day. All of that resulted in an epic cabbage roll afternoon.

It was as lot of fun, and in the end, after a few hours, I got 46 cabbage rolls, which for me turned into about 15 meals. Total cost of the meal = $15.21! So, my budget was pretty happy, too.

There were a few issues. I ran out of cabbage, so I froze the leftover filling I had for another time. Also, I got long grain rice from the bulk bin at LOGS because I didn't want to use a whole bunch of my pricey scented jasmine rice in this, and the rice was terrible. I have no idea what happened to it, but it cooked up into a pile of mush, and when the cabbage rolls were cooked, the absorbed so much liquid from the sauce that the rice went even mushier in the roll. That was disappointing. I seem to remember my mom using raw rice in her filling, but I need to confirm that. Certainly, I'd do that the next time given this experience.

I made a few amendments to Mr. Anchovy's recipe. His mom used salt pork, but I didn't want to go around looking for something like that in the boonies, but I did have on hand some fatty home-made bacon my dad's friend smoked for him and so I used that instead. Also, Mr. A's mom used to put a pork rib on the top of her cabbage rolls, but I didn't do that either (not really a fan). Also, the original recipe called for ground veal, pork, and beef, but I'm not a fan of veal, and while I was looking for a lot of cabbage rolls, Mr. Anchovy's claim that this recipe makes enough for the entire Polish army wasn't far from the truth, and I didn't quite need that many cabbage rolls. So, I stuck with only ground pork and ground beef). My mom used to put green peppers in hers, so I added some to mine, too.

So, here is the adapted recipe I used. And yes, that is a gigantic turkey roasting pan!

Epic Cabbage Rolls

2 - 3 cabbages
1lb each ground beef & ground pork
1/2 lb bacon, chopped
2 cups long grain rice, cooked
1 - 2 cans (the big ones, 1.36L) tomato juice
2 chopped onions
1 chopped green pepper
salt & pepper to taste
ground basil & dried thyme

OK...This really is quite simple!

Take your cabbage, and dig as much of the core out as possible without de-leafing it. Steam until soft - about 15 - 20 minutes. Now, I had to keep steaming the farther into the head I went, so you might have to do that, too. Alternately, I've heard of people freezing their cabbages, then as they thaw the leaves come right off. Keep some of the cabbage leaves to line the bottom and sides of your pan.


Brown all meats with onion & salt & pepper to taste. Add to rice and mix until combined.

Now make sure everything is cool enough to handle, because this is where the hands-on part begins. Trim the fibrous spine out of the cabbage leaves. This helps flatten them & makes them easier to roll.

Make your rolls like you would a burrito (this is how the host of Best Recipes Ever described the process). Take a small amount of filling in your hand, put it at the top of the cabbage leaf, roll, folding in the edges. Then place seam down in the pan. Repeat. Layer the cabbage rolls at will. Repeat.

I sprinkled the seasonings and chopped green peppers between the cabbage roll layers.


When you're all done rolling, pour the tomato juice right over top. Make a lid with cabbage leaves, which will help keep things nice & moist. I ran out of cabbage leaves...


Bake long & slow: 325F for 2 - 3 hours, or until nice & boiling hot. Mr. A says it's OK if the leaves on the top & sides start to brown; they are caramelizing & turn sweet. Mine didn't do that; my oven was very slow and I actually wound up cooking the whole thing for about 4 hours in total. Keep checking for dryness. If your rolls are looking at all dry, just chuck in more juice. Bear in mind that you are braising here, so you'll need plenty of liquid.

And, voila!

These freeze excellently...Here are all the fruits of my labour...

Woo-hoo! I am so set!

Full Flickr set here.

Many thanks to Mr. Anchovy for the recipe & the advice!

Dad's Birthday & Black Forest Cake

Steak & Kidney Pie and Black Forest Cake: probably two food items better not seen in the same sentence, but...

My dad has his birthday on Dec. 24, and though many people assume he gets stiffed with his day occurring in the midst of the biggest holiday of the year, the guy is actually spoiled freakin' rotten! We always have a great meal and I always make a special cake as per his request. The traditional meal for Dad's birthday is his favourite dish ever, Steak & Kidney Pie. Can we all say "yuck"? Yeah. We all detest it, but Dad's very British and this is our family tradition. I always associate raw kidneys with Christmas, because growing up when my parents were still married, my mom would buy a kidney from the butcher and soak it in the dishpan in the kitchen. It would ooze..."fluids." It was disgusting.

Now the pie is generally made by my SIL Shan and Dad gets the kidney. Here is a post from a couple of years ago about the making of the pie, including some detailed shots of Shan chopping the kidney up. This year, she couldn't do it. She just didn't have it in her, she told me. So she had my brother Jem do the chopping, and because kidney stinks like nothing you've ever smelled before, the filling for the pie was cooked entirely outside of the house: the kidneys were grilled on the BBQ and then combined with the other filling ingredients in a slow cooker that was placed in the far reaches of their garage.

Shan makes a great meat pie. This year, she did steak & kidney Guinness Pie for Dad and just a Steak & Guinness Pie for the rest of us. Our pie was great; Dad loved his version, too, and had plenty of leftovers to enjoy, too.

Here is Dad's pie, complete with his initials so there is absolutely no confusion about which pie is which!

And here is our pie, followed by a shot of the interior, and it was delicious. Shan knows how to make a mean meat pie, I can tell you that!

Now onto a more pleasant topic, Dad's cake! He requested a Black Forest Cake, and that's what he got. I made the cherry filling from scratch and it was absolutely amazing! I had wanted to get frozen cherries from the States, but bringing stone fruits, including cherries, across the border isn't allowed, and although I didn't know if that meant only fresh cherries and not frozen, I wasn't willing to take the chance, so I instead used a 720mL jar of sour cherries in juice purchased from LOGS (local overpriced grocery store).

Here is what I did. I didn't measure anything - sorry! Also, I had wanted to use kirsch as is traditional, however it's way too expensive for my modest budget and there weren't any minis available. So I used rum and it worked great.

Sour Cherry Filling

• 1 jar (720mL) sour cherries, strained, juice reserved
• a bit of sugar until I felt the sweetness was right, but not too sweet
• some cornstarch mixed with the reserved juice
• generous amount of amber rum, again to taste

- boil cherries & half of the reserved juice & add sugar to taste. With remaining cherry juice, add some corn starch & mix to dissolve. Add slurry to boiling cherries until desired consistency. You don't want it too liquidy but not too solid either as it will thicken as it cools. When desired consistency is reached, throw in some rum and combine. Let cool.

For the cake, I used my go-to cake recipe and baked it in a bundt pan. Because the dinner was being held in another town, I assembled the cake there for easy travel.

I cut the bundt in half lengthwise and spread in the filling, and then I put the top half back on. At this point, I kept things simple: I sliced & served with generous dollops of whipped cream.

It was a hit!

Magazine Monday (yes, on a Saturday!) #67: Pulled Pork

Long have I wanted to make pulled pork, but alas, the availability of the proper cut of pork - the butt, which is the shoulder - and the cost of said cut, has always put me off. Enter cross border shopping! On a recent trip across the border to get some good deals on all kinds of things, I found a 1.5lb pork picnic roast for a few bucks. Perfect size for one person!

The recipe I used came from Canadian Living's December 2005 issue, found here. It's a slow cooker recipe, which was perfect because this past week was seriously busy for me and I needed a no-brainer kind of meal.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed, which rarely happens with Canadian Living recipes. I didn't care for the sauce at all; it was not zippy or tangy, and it was way too thick for my liking. Also, I found the pork difficult to shred. The roast came with one of those handy-dandy blue dot devices that pops out when the meat is done, and so I took the roast out when I saw that happen. Apparently, according to my SIL, I needed to overcook the roast in order to facilitate easy shredding. I didn't know that; the recipe only said cook until pork is tender.

Anyway, I am eating this still - it's provided me with at least four meals. I served it with a tomato-y rice and black bean side dish and some nice creamy coleslaw.

Next time, I'll be trying a different recipe, though.

Pork Tenderloin, Starring....Huckleberries!

So this is my first kick at the can using my lovely huckleberry bounty, locally picked by yours truly. I wanted to do something different; muffins are so pedestrian! I whipped this pork tenderloin idea up on my own...divine inspiration out in the berry patch or something... My dad donated the tenderloins, of which there were two, and initially four were supposed to partake in the meal, but then plans fell apart, as they do once in a while. So, I knew there would be a ton of leftovers, I just didn't yet know if that was a good thing or not. Here's how it went.

For the rub:

1/3 cup brown sugar
ginger, cinnamon, allspice, garlic powder, salt & pepper - all to taste (I didn't measure)

For the filling:

1 package (140g) unripened goat's cheese (i.e. not feta), softened
a whole bunch of huckleberries
4 cups of spinach
3 cloves garlic
1tsp or so of the rub mixture

I was going to just put the spinach in raw, but decided against it. In fact, I wasn't going to put any spinach in at all, but I had so much left over from a salad I made that I decided what the hell. When my SIL does pork loin, she usually puts spinach in the stuffing and it's always awesome. Anyhoo, I sauteed the spinach because I wanted to cook the water out of it first. It was worth it to spend the extra few minutes to do this, I think. I sauteed the spinach in olive oil and the garlic.After the spinach was wilted, I added it to the goat's cheese & huckleberries. What I got was not particularly appetizing...But this was an experiment after all, right?Yeah, great colour, eh? At this point I was thinking, Hmmm...was this a good idea? But I soldiered on, and stuffed the tenderloins, after making a cut along the length in order to flatten them out and create a pocket for the filling.After that came the rub...I realized too late I should have rubbed first and filled second, but we live and learn, don't we?

Then, truss truss baby. You can see my blue silicone trussing thingies in this picture. Very cool gadget.Then into a 375F oven, covered with foil for about half an hour, then off with the foil and continue baking until an internal temperature of 180F was reached. And voila...While my meat rested (it took about an hour to cook, and I set my fancy-wancy thermometer with probe 180F so it would beep when the temp was reached) I made a sauce, using, what else? Well, yes, huckleberries, but also POM! The last of my POM (I have one coupon left). This was the one with blueberry juice in it as well.

Pomegranate Huckleberry Sauce

juices from the roasted pork loin
about 1/2 cup POM juice
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 cup brown sugar
a whole bunch of huckleberries

I dissolved the cornstarch in the POM as the drippings, brown sugar, and ginger came to a boil in a small saucepan. Once the drippings boiled, I added the huckleberries and the POM. I simmered for a few minutes... And forgot to take a pic of the sauce. Sorry. It looked like...blueberry syrup. Use your imagination.

Slicing the tenderloin proved difficult - it was very delicate and the filling so soft that it squished out the sides. This is what I got:Yeah...presentation-wise, I don't think this is a winner.The overall verdict, however: a hit! I loved it right away. Everything went really well together, from the rub on down. The sauce was great. The spinach, however, I could have lived without. It didn't really add any flavour and made the presentation less than stellar. I'd leave it out next time. Additionally, I would use feta cheese the next time, for a couple of reasons. A) I think the flavour contrast between saltiness of the feta and tart-sweet of the berries would be killer. B) It's a firmer cheese and would probably slice & present better than this goat's cheese.

My dad took a bit more convincing. He's not used to having sweet things mixed with his otherwise savoury dishes, and I get that. It's not everyone's cup of tea. He did, however, have seconds, and by the end of the meal, he was converted! He has half of the second loin we didn't even touch for leftovers, as do I. (I served this meal, by the way, with a barley & bean salad that will be the subject of an upcoming Magazine Monday post.)

Definitely a successful experiment! With a bit of tweaking, I might just make this my signature dish! And - I still have a ton of huckleberries frozen for future kitchen experiments!

Enjoy!

Garden Bounty 2009, Part 1: Arugula Meatballs

Last year's lettuce fiasco in my little garden plot resulted in a rethinking of my veggie plans for this year's garden. I decided not to grow leafy greens that grew in tight bunches, so I opted for arugula. I also had seen lots of arugula appearing in various blog posts amongst my regular food blog friends, and I thought it would be a good idea to try out some new things with it. One recipe that stood out to me was Bellini Valli's chicken & arugula meatballs, seen here. Tonight, after harvesting some young arugula, I made a bison version of this meatball.

I got some bison on special at the local overpriced grocery store. There might have been about a pound or so. I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, and about 1/2 cup of finely chopped arugula.
After mixing well, I got out one of my favourite and most-used kitchen gadgets: my #70 cookie scoop. I scooped out the meatballs and put them in a pan to brown.When they were nice and evenly browned, I added some homemade pasta sauce I whipped up last night using some of the tomatoes I canned last summer.I let the sauce and meatballs simmer until the meatballs were cooked through, then served them over pasta.
Arugula, especially if it's relatively young, has a pungent smell and is quite peppery. I have to say, however, that they didn't add much in terms of flavour to the meatballs. Perhaps I didn't add enough. Who knows. The bison might have been too strong a pairing, too. Still, it was an excellent meal.