siglinde99

The cooking challenge is amazing, so far. Tonight I made Rainbow trout with garlic-dill sauce, from a March 2009 issue of Chatelaine. It took about 10 minutes to prepare, and was quite tasty. I halved the recipe (designed for 2) and still have enough for lunch tomorrow.

I also made a Ginger Butternut Squash Soup from a cookbook called "Recipes from Smokey Tom's", a 2009 cookbook from Saint Thomas's Church in Toronto. The church is known as Smokey Tom's because of the clouds of incense that feature in its services. I like the introduction because it talks about the importance of the Eucharist in Christian workship, and the history of food and hospitality in this parish. Cookbooks put together as fundraisers by churches and small communities are among my favourites; I tend to use them a lot because the recipes are usually relatively simple, and they have been well tested (barring typos!). They often reflect the ethnic heritage of the community (this particular book is heavy on Indonesian, but there are Korean, Indian, Italian, Greek, Ukranian, Cornish, and many other recipes - often with stories about the contributors' immigrant parents, or experiences while working abroad). There are also modern recipes created by, or in honour of, well-known Canadians, and the recipe for oyster stew that was served on the CPR railway on the way to its inauguration in Cragellachie, published in a newspaper in 1967, and a staple New Year's eve recipe in the contributor's family for many years after that. So far, I have made at least 5 recipes from the book and there are many more I want to try. I'm not at all sure that the oyster stew will be among them, as I hated canned clams the last time I had them, and I don't know whether I can manage preparing a pint of fresh raw oysters (though I suppose I could learn, or invite a friend from Nova Scotia to help cook).

My third recipe of the night was Polenta with Tomato Sauce. I'm not quite sure where I found this recipe, but it has been in my binder of recipes to try/recipes worth keeping for at least a year. It was a good way to use up the cornmeal that otherwise is used only to keep my pizzas from sticking to the pan.

My final recipe came from a fun book "Wartime Recipes from the Maritimes, 1939-1945". This little book has some social history, nice historical artwork, and some truly funky recipes. This is the same book where I found the excellent Spiced Molasses Cake I made just before Christmas. Tonight's experiment was Hamburger Muffins - basically two layers of hamburger meat with a bread crumb stuffing in the middle, cooked in a muffin tin. It made 8 good-sized muffins with 1 lb of ground beef, so it is definitely economical!

I have been reading "Wartime Recipes From the Maritimes, 1939-1945" by Devonna Edwards. I wonder if I could follow it for a month.

4 pats of butter per week (British ration, as the book doesn't give the Canadian ration)
Bacon or other meat drippings (though most should be collected to make glycerine for explosives)
No margarine (not allowed for sale until the late 1940s)
Eggs - not rationed but sometimes in short supply
Cheese from Canada - not rationed, but European cheeses disappeared and the Canadian cheese industry was in its infancy
Meat and poultry - 2 lb per week, with cheaper cuts of meat encouraged. Variety meats such as liver and kidneys were not rationed.
Lots of lobster, plus mackerel, flounder, some salmon. Other fish such as haddock, halibut cod, shrimp, oysters and clams also appear in recipes. There does not appear to have been any fish rationing, though canned tuna and salmon disappeared from shelves.
Whatever vegetables I can grow in my garden, plus things like rose hips, dandelion greens, and braised cauliflower leaves (tastes like Brussels sprouts and cabbage - yum!). That would mean corn, tomatoes, potatoes, turnips, mushrooms, cabbage, onions, squash, beans, beets, celery, cucumber and radishes
Gelatin - for salads, pies, as filler to stretch my butter ration (or not).
Pasta and beans (though not terribly popular until the 1960s), oatmeal, barley
12 oz sugar (must be used for all cookies, salad dressings, mayonnaise, jams) but extra sugar for canning season. Molasses, honey, and sweetened condensed milk was available; molasses and honey don't appear to have been rationed, and the milk may not have been. Maple syrup was not rationed.
Apples, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb.
Flour
1 pint of hard spirits, 1 quart of wine or 12 quarts of beer every two weeks (I think for adults only).
1 oz of tea or 4 oz of coffee per week (teenagers and adults only).

I would need to cook larger dishes and reuse all my leftovers, which wouldn't be a hardship as I do that already.

I think I could live with this diet. Well, maybe not the wouthern rice and peanut loaf, topped with hardboiled eggs and cheese sauce...

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Today I learned that if I want a really good circle with a bendy horse, I need to put my outside leg on like I'm about to canter. Once I was told, I magically made Mercedes bend every time. It feels wonderful, and I have occasionally gotten it in the past, but I didn't know what I had done to make it happen consistently. When cantering, I needed to put my outside leg even further back than before. That kept her from leaning in in or cutting her courners. This is counterintuitive, but apparently the pressure behind the girth keeps her rear end from bulging out, so her front end doesn't get pushed. in to the centre.

My friend Rebecca from work had a potato soup that smelled amazing last week, so I asked her for the recipe. Here it is, in her highly technical, I love to cook, language:

Potato soup

Buy one of those little half hams and cut it up. Cut up some potatoes and celery and maybe some onion or whatever. Bung it all into a pot. Throw in some chicken broth. Cook it all up for a while and tadaah.

I used 5 potatoes, 1 onion, 3 stalks of celery, most of the ham, and enough chicken broth to cover. I boiled until the potatoes were soft, then mashed the potatoes up a bit to give a creamier texture. It is as delicious as it smelled.

Update - Rebecca said I should have added a roux at the end to make it creamier. Then she gave me heck for not paying attention. Her cooking instructions and her work style are eerily similar.

Sor far today:

- curried chicken muffins (delicious)
- poverty meal (a 1930's version of Hamburger Helper)
- cheesy bread pudding (an old stand-by from the 2nd edition of Laurel's Kitchen)
- Swedish meatballs

Still to go:
- roasted root vegetables with maple syrup (and this time, I am NOT sharing with the dog!)
- tacos
- brownies

That should put me in good shape for lunches, at least until Geoff gets back from his ski trip. I wish I had a live-in maid on days when I do this to my kitchen.