Archive for the 'bison' Category
Yes, I know, I am an extraordinarily boring person this week. Sorry about that. Sorry too for the hideously blue bowl I decided in haste to dish my boring chili up in, not even thinking (after 170 days) that I would be required to take a photo of it. I’m particularly proud of my buttered sliced bread garnish - it reminds me of dinnertime images of the 50s when they’d put out a section of Wonder Bread slices in a serving bowl on the kitchen table. (This is not Wonder Bread. It is grocery store sliced bread, but at least it’s whole wheat. Honest. When I see Wonder Bread I can’t not think about Clarissa Dickson Wright’s reference to “slimy white slice”.) Tomorrow promises to get more interesting, as I’m cooking for my Dad’s birthday on Saturday and Ramsay Rocks on Sunday, an event I’m emceeing (and cooking for the volunteers - there will be plenty of food for everyone else though). You should come.
I do have a confession to make: I love anything tomato-saucy with buttered bread. I have been known to make a spaghetti sandwich, just to create a vehicle for the tomato sauce. Sometimes I just scoop up chunky tomato sauce leftovers with bread. W tried to mimic me tonight and made quite a mess of the patio. Lou was happy though. (I mean John Cusack.)
Again, chili isn’t even particularly summery. But it is cowboyish, and Stampede is coming up faster than I care to acknowledge. When I was 12, I won the Calgary Stampede Chili Cook-off. (The adult one, not a special cook-off for kids; let me tell you, there were some mighty unhappy contestants who took their chili very seriously and were not at all pleased to be whupped by a 12 year old girl who sort of threw a bit of this and that in the pot and then didn’t even particularly remember her recipe.) This year, I’m hosting the second annual kids’ chili cook-off at the Stampede on Kids’ Day. We don’t have enough contestants yet, so if you have kids under 14 who are interested in entering their chili - the winner then gets to make their recipe on the ATCO cooking stage and be on TV, if they want to - email me!
I have never used a recipe for chili. There is no reason to. I cook up some lean ground beef or bison with a chopped onion, maybe a red pepper, in a drizzle of canola oil, then add a couple cans of beans, drained to get rid of the salty bean sludge (I like things beany - red kidney beans for sure, sometimes baked beans in tomato sauce, sometimes white kidney or black beans) a big can or two of diced tomatoes (whole is fine too), and about a cup of salsa if I have some. A good heaping tablespoon or so of chili powder - which is really high in fiber, being simply ground up dried chiles - and sometimes a small spoonful of cocoa and/or instant coffee or espresso, just to give it some depth and colour. Coffee is the cowboy way, after all. Decaf works just as well. Simmer it all for about an hour to break down the tomatoes. That’s pretty much it. If you want to add a can of tomato paste, that’s always a good idea - tomato paste is such a great source of lypocene - much higher than fresh tomatoes, as they have been cooked down and condensed. Tomato paste is also great as pizza sauce. It’s nice and thick, and quite sweet tasting, being just pure tomatoes. Kids love it.
The biggest flavour factor when it comes to chili is time - I always let it sit in the fridge for a day or two before we eat it. It’s edible of course the day you make it, but always better after a day or so. It also freezes very well.
For some reason, yesterday’s spaghetti and today’s chili tasted fantastic. No thanks to any particularly stellar culinary skills, but more likely due to the fact that I spent a good 4 hours completely secluded from anything edible in the CBC newsroom beforehand. They are really onto something with this concept of bon appetit.
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June 19 2008 | beans and bison and freezable and one dish | 6 Comments »
Sorry. I know, spaghetti ranks right up there with Cheerios when it comes to interesting dinners. It’s what Mike suggests when we’re tired and can’t think of anything else to eat: as in, “why don’t we just have spaghetti?” But it’s so boring! I always whine. I’m not sure why - I do like the stuff. And clearly it’s not something we eat five nights a week.
I’m working afternoons today until Friday, filling in for Jenny Howe doing the afternoon traffic on the Homestretch on CBC Radio One. Today we had a baby moose on Springbank Road, a fleet of chicks trying to cross Deerfoot, a deer, a fire, and I don’t know how many collisions. It was insane to keep on top of. So Mike made dinner. Spaghetti with the plainest of sauces; sauteed onion, red pepper, and about half a pound of ground bison, which I know I’ve mentioned before has less than half the fat of ground beef, and is leaner even than skinless chicken, turkey or even halibut. The problem with bison is that it typically gets treated like beef, thus overcooked and dried out, and then people think they don’t like it. It’s not at all gamey; if you’re hesitant to give it a try, ground bison in spaghetti sauce or chili is a safe first step. Half the cooked up onion-pepper-bison combo went into a jar of President’s Choice Extra Garlic tomato sauce (our current favorite, and superb as a pizza sauce) for the spaghetti, and the rest got turned into chili with the rest of the can of black beans from yesterday. (Chili is always better after a day or two in the fridge, so tomorrow night is already taken care of.)
Apparently the pasta got overcooked when he had a bit of a crisis, realizing the movie (the new Bob Dylan one with Cate Blanchett - very excellent if not a little cryptic, except that I fell asleep halfway through) was due back like right now and the pasta was on the stove, and he had to gather up the dog and kid and make a run for it. But when I got home hungry and all trafficked out there was a pot of spaghetti on the stove, it was absolutely delicious.
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June 19 2008 | bison and pasta | 1 Comment »
It’s a boy!
We planned to get a new washer and dryer this weekend; instead we got a dog. A border collie-husky cross, 10 weeks old, about the same size as W. So, two toddlers. My sister has been on a mission to find the perfect dog, and brought him home for a trial run on Saturday to ensure she wasn’t allergic. She was, but her allergies didn’t kick in until we spent several hours discovering how mellow and awesome he was, and so this morning we couldn’t bring ourselves to send him back. He is as yet unnamed - we are open to any and all suggestions. I want to name him John Cusack, but Mike won’t go for it.
So between the chaos of suddenly getting a dog (!!) and scrambling to finish Animal, Vegetable, Miracle before I interview Barbara Kingsolver tomorrow morning, there wasn’t a lot of time to make dinner. Luckily, my mom brought over some fresh bison burger patties from Sunterra, which we tossed on the grill alongside a couple Portobello mushrooms. Grilled Portobellos make great burgers on their own, but Mike has always fantastized about topping another burger with one. I must admit, it was far easier and meatier than sautéing a panload of sliced button mushrooms, and fit snugly on top of the burger. To grill a Portobello mushroom, pull out the stem and scrape out the gills with the side of a spoon - the gills tend to be bitter - brush with oil and grill. If you like, marinate it in balsamic vinaigrette first - mushrooms are like sponges and will quickly absorb any flavours they meet.
And that’s it. One of the mushrooms broke into several pieces as W pretended it was his umbrella, but they are meaty enough that we grilled the pieces and it worked out fine. I realize the burger photographed above is lacking anything green; to be truthful I’d far rather have a salad on the side than adorn my burger with a couple measly leaves and a slippery slice of anaemic tomato. (To be even more truthful, I didn’t bother with a salad, just ate the burger. On the couch.)
We have a dog. What have I done??
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May 25 2008 | bison and on the grill and sandwiches | 19 Comments »
My mother and sister-in-law came for dinner tonight. (Or more accurately this afternoon… they arrived at 3:55, presumably on time for the blue plate special?)
For Mike’s family, the absolute fanciest dinner you can have (with the exception of turkey at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas) is steak. (Or cornish hens circa 1982.) So when I was at my sister’s for Mother’s Day brunch this morning, I ran across the street to Sobey’s, one of few grocery chains that sells fresh bison in their meat case, and picked up some steaks.
I know I’ve talked about bison before, but just a reminder: because it’s so lean (containing half the fat of beef, and even less fat than skinless turkey or chicken, or even halibut) cuts like steak need to be given about a third less cooking time than a similar cut of beef. Because it looks and tastes like beef, people tend to treat it the same way in the kitchen, often drying it out. If you’re a beginner, try using ground bison first - it’s foolproof in chilis, meatballs, pasta sauces, etc.
When I did some foodstyling for Trish Magwood a few months ago, while she was in town promoting the 100th birthday of Melitta coffee, she taught me a quick spice rub that included actual coffee grounds. I’ve revised it a little.
Mike: “I can’t imagine ever having steak without this rub on it now!”
Coffee Rubbed Steak
steaks of your choice
Rub:
2 Tbsp. dark Mexican chili powder (or any good quality chili powder)
1 Tbsp. cocoa
1 Tbsp. finely ground coffee or espresso
1 tsp. coarse salt
1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
Make sure your steak is at room temperature. Combine all the rub ingredients and rub it all over both sides of the steak(s); let them sit for about 10 minutes.
Heat your grill, a cast iron skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat until it’s hot but not smoking. (If you don’t have cast iron, use a regular skillet and drizzle with canola oil.) Put the steak onto the grill or into the pan and cook for 4-5 minutes per side (2-3 minutes for bison steaks) for medium-rare. Let them rest, tented with foil so that they don’t cool down, for 10 minutes before slicing.
The smashed potatoes were simply my easiest option. My in-laws are very much the type to construct dinner out of 1) meat. 2) potato. 3) vegetable, preferably boiled. Mashed potatoes I love, but they are more tedious and require peeling, something I’d prefer not to do. Baked potatoes seemed far too steakhouse; I pondered going the twice-baked route with chives from the garden, but Yukon golds tend to have flimsy skins for that sort of thing. They are ideal, however, for a rough mash. To shake things up a bit, try throwing a small sweet potato into the mix as well; the mashing is so quick that they aren’t completely incorporated into each other, which keeps things interesting.
You don’t need a recipe for this; just like traditional mashed potatoes, add low fat sour cream, buttermilk, oil and Parmesan until you have the consistency you like. Leftovers are sturdy enough to be easily shaped into small patties (with or without the addition of a drained can of salmon or leftover flaked fish) and fried until crisp. (Stay tuned for Day 133.)
Smashed Potatoes
If you ever happen to have a head of roasted garlic on hand, squeeze it into the potato mixture. Or to infuse your potatoes with garlic, toss a few cloves into the water as they boil.
Yukon gold potatoes (I used 5, and have leftovers)
grated Parmesan cheese (a handful)
low fat sour cream and/or olive or canola oil and/or buttermilk
salt and pepper
Cut the unpeeled potatoes into 4-6 pieces and boil in plenty of water until very tender. Drain and return to the pot. Add the Parmesan cheese, sour cream, oil and buttermilk (or any combination of them) along with some salt and pepper, and roughly mash with a potato masher or fork.
The Ichiban salad is a throwback to the 80s, when my Mom made it a lot. It’s made with ramen noodles (but sorry, I can’t bring myself to call it ramen noodle salad) - the kind that come in the little packets of instant soup, not deep fried chow mein noodles. I haven’t had it for probably two decades, but thought of it as I wondered how to use up the last of the head of cabbage I’ve been chipping away at for the past two weeks. I’m glad I rediscovered this; to be honest it was my favorite part of the meal, and I finished it off straight from the bowl. (Hey, the noodles are just going to get soggy by tomorrow anyway.)
Ichiban Salad
This salad is great with shredded leftover roast chicken.
1 pkg. Ichiban or other ramen noodles
1/4 cup sliced or slivered almonds, and/or sesame seeds
2 cups thinly sliced cabbage
1/4 small purple onion, thinly sliced (optional)
1 carrot, grated
Dressing:
1/4 cup rice vinegar
2 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup oil - I use about 1 Tbsp. sesame oil and 3 Tbsp. canola oil
the packet from the noodles
Crumble the ichiban noodles onto a baking sheet, sprinkle with the almonds and/or sesame seeds and toast in the oven or under the broiler until golden and fragrant.
Toss the salad ingredients in a bowl. Shake all the dressing ingredients up in a jar. Toss them together.
Because I completely burned my first batch of noodles and sesame seeds, I had to open a second package, which meant an extra seasoning packet, and you know how much I hate throwing stuff away, so I mixed up a second batch of dressing to keep in a jar in the fridge. It will go very well with any sort of Asian noodle salad.
The pavlovas I made so that I could bring half to brunch this morning and use the rest at dinner. They seem fancy, but are one of the easiest things you can make. All you do is beat egg whites with sugar until you have a stiff mixture you can spoon onto a cookie sheet and scoop a divet into the middle of; they can be any size you want. Then bake them at 250F for a little over an hour, until they are dry on the outside but still chewy and marshmallowy on the inside. As a bonus, they will take care of dessert anytime you need to feed someone who has an intolerance to wheat or lactose or fat. And you can top them with cream, custard, ice cream, and any kind of juicy fruit that’s in season.
This recipe will make about 40 small (two or three bite) pavlovas, which could not be more perfect for a summer party. One passionfruit will pretty much do the lot of them. I adore passionfruit with pavlova - the sweetness, crunch and cream offsets the intense flavor, juiciness and incredible tang of the passionfruit.
(This is what to look for. I got mine from More than Mangos, at the Canyon Meadows Community Hall every Friday from 2-8pm.)
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May 11 2008 | bison and salads and veg | 3 Comments »
Mike and his gut are not getting along tonight, so when W and I walked back to the corner store to return The Darjeeling Limited (worth a rent) we stopped in at Valta Bison (their Ramsay locati0n) and picked up a log of bison pepperoni. W, carnivore that he is, ate a good third of it on the way home, peeling back the paper and chewing on it as if it were an ice cream bar, and then we sliced it thinly onto pizzas built on whole wheat pitas with garlicky tomato sauce and part-skim mozzarella. Baked at 400F for about 10 minutes. With a bit of salad and the last of the lentil-sweet potato soup from last night.
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April 12 2008 | bison | No Comments »
It wasn’t intentional, the vanilla part.
My family is in a state of stress and upheaval this week; one sister sick and mothering 2 toddlers while her husband writes his medical exams today, my other sister always busy as a single mum of 3 and full time teacher with extra heaped on her plate right now, and my parents have decided to move, which requires a mass exodus of the contents of their house as well as assorted repairs in preparation to list it.
I decided that everyones’ lives could be made easier by the arrival of dinner on their doorstep, and I needed to spend some time with W. I pulled some ground bison out of the freezer and we made a big pot of chili.
As you have likely witnessed, Willem loves to cook. He pulls up his stool and helps me chop, and leans in to stir the pot. This time, while I was at the sink ridding my hands of their garlic smell (rub your fingers over the bowl of a stainless steel spoon while running it under cool water), W pulled a 1L jug of vanilla (yes, I sometimes use the artificial stuff; I do a lot of experimenting and need to ration my Madagascar vanilla bean paste and the fancy bottles my friends bring back from Mexico. Also, sometimes it just doesn’t matter that much) out of the cupboard and upended the whole thing into the pot. A full jug of vanilla.
Fortunately, we were still at the browning the onions and bison stage, so I dumped the lot into a colander, rinsed it, and put it back on the stove to finish cooking. My damage control seems to have worked, save for a lingering hint of vanilla on the finish.
Chili is easy; I never measure the stuff that goes in. First, brown a pound or so of ground bison (far leaner than beef, with more protein and half the fat) and a chopped onion in a drizzle of canola oil until the bison is no longer pink and the onion is soft. Throw in a few crushed cloves of garlic for a minute.
Dump in a large can of diced, stewed or plum tomatoes, a drained can of kidney beans, a can of brown beans in tomato sauce, a tin of tomato paste, a few glugs of salsa, a couple heaping spoonfuls of chili powder and one of cumin. Salt and pepper, maybe a small spoonful of cocoa or pinch of instant coffee, to add color and depth. I think that was it. Simmer for a couple hours; it’s always better the next day.
The quinoa cookies were a test for an article on camping food I’ve been working on for Alberta Food for Thought magazine, and they turned out quite wonderfully, actually. I have a few gluten-free friends who might be thrilled with them. Quinoa flour (available in bulk at Community Natural Foods) is grittier than wheat, rice or oat flours, but bakes up into a nicely crunchy cookie that is higher in protein than other grainy cookies. Expect them, obviously, to taste like quinoa.
Chocolate Chunk Quinoa Cookies
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups quinoa flour
1 cup oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2-1 cup chocolate chunks or chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
1/4 cup dried cranberries or chopped dried apricots
Preheat oven to 325°F.
In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla and until smooth. In a medium bowl, stir together the quinoa flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture and stir by hand until almost combined; add the chocolate, nuts and dried fruit and stir just until blended.
Roll the mixture into balls a bit larger than a walnut, and place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with nonstick spray. Flatten each a little with your hand. Bake for 14-16 minutes, until barely golden around the edges, and set. Let cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet before carefully transferring to a wire rack to cool – they tend to be crumbly while still warm, but firm up as they cool.
Makes about 1 1/2 dozen cookies.
Per cookie: 190 calories, 6.5 g fat (3.4 g saturated fat, 1.7 g monounsaturated fat, 0.5 g polyunsaturated fat), 29.8 g carbohydrates, 21.6 mg cholesterol, 3.3 g protein, 2.4 g fiber. 31% calories from fat
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April 08 2008 | bison and cookies & squares and grains | 3 Comments »
Ben and Emily are over for dinner and a sleepover tonight. When I picked them up from school, I asked what they wanted to make for dinner. Emily asked for corn dogs and deep-fried marshmallows; Ben asked for gaspetti and meatballs and bananas. Guess who won.
Luckily I bought ground bison yesterday. I am so glad that Sobey’s is carrying it fresh, right beside the ground beef! Bison has more protein than beef, and half the fat. In fact, bison has less fat than skinless turkey or chicken, and (with the exception of a few fattier cuts) even less fat than halibut.
The problem is, because it’s so lean bison dries out if you cook it for as long as you cook beef. Because it looks and tastes like beef, it’s hard not to treat it the same way in the kitchen. As a general rule, you need about 1/3 less time when cooking steaks, roasts and burgers. Using ground bison in chili, spaghetti sauce, meatballs and the like is easy though. Tonight I added an egg and a handful of quick oats to the bison (about a pound and a half), squished it up with my hands and we rolled it into balls and put them all out on a cookie sheet. While the pasta boiled I baked the meatballs in the oven - 350 F for 20 minutes or so - then transferred them to a pot of simmering tomato sauce. (I actually ran out of spaghetti, but used these long curly noodles I found at the Italian market that turned out to be hollow inside, like long, thin, uncut macaroni. They were much more worm-like than spaghetti - perfect for five-year-olds.) The kids adored them - Emily said they were the best meatballs she had ever had. She thought it was even cooler when she heard they had been made out of bison.
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March 06 2008 | bison and dessert and sweet stuff | 2 Comments »
I admit I spent most of the past 24 hours fantasizing about what I would have for dinner tonight. Inglewood pizza? Mu Shu pork from KamHan? Ooooh - butter chicken and fresh garlic-butter naan from the Taj Mahal!
Unfortunately, it being -300 degrees outside, our car froze solid and so all of those options flew out the window. But really, it occurred to me that after 24 hours without food, anything I eat will taste bloody fantastic, so I might as well make it something healthy. And because I was still a little dopey, Mike took over dinner duties and made spaghetti and meatballs.
The meatballs came from a stash we threw into the fridge over the holidays - once in awhile we’ll mix up a big batch, roll cookie sheet loads of meatballs, freeze them and then transfer them to freezer bags for dinner emergencies such as this. As the pasta is cooking, brown the frozen meatballs in a hot skillet, then pour the sauce overtop and simmer to warm the sauce and cook the meatballs though, while infusing the sauce with a beefy/bisony/sausagey flavor (depending on your choice of meat). These were actually bison balls - not in the prairie oyster sense, but made from ground bison, which has less than half the fat of beef. In fact, bison contains less fat than skinless chicken, turkey, or even halibut. Because it’s so lean, make sure you cook it for about a third less time than you would beef - otherwise it tends to be dry, which is the biggest issue people tend to have with it. If you’re a carnivore and think you don’t like bison, try it again.
Bison Meatballs
1 lb. ground bison
1 egg
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup bread or cracker crumbs
a bit of grated onion (optional)
a squirt of tomato paste, ketchup or barbecue sauce (about a tablespoon)
salt & pepper to taste
Mix everything together in a bowl, making sure you don’t work it too hard. Shape into 1” balls. Place on a cookie sheet and freeze, then transfer to freezer bags to store for up to 4 months, or bake at 350F for 10-15 minutes, until cooked through. To make spaghetti sauce, brown the fresh or frozen meatballs in a drizzle of oil in a hot skillet, rolling them around to brown on all sides, then pour tomato sauce over top and simmer until they are cooked through.
Makes about 3 dozen.
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January 28 2008 | bison and pasta | 3 Comments »
I don’t make burgers at home often. They belong to a class of food that tastes better when someone else makes them - like Pad Thai or Butter Chicken. (Butter Chicken in particular, because when you haven’t made it you can’t be held accountable for the entire carton of whipping cream that went into it, right?)
When I need a big, beefy burger I usually go to Rocky’s Burger Bus for hand-made burgers about as thick as they are wide, and almost baseball-shaped, and hand-cut fries. (No, cutting them by hand doesn’t make them much more nutritious, but at least they aren’t par-fried in trans fatty oil, and they still have their skins on.) Mike and I share one, burger and fries - we never go and order two burgers and two fries, or two meals. That practice left with the 90s.
If the option is there, I’ll have a bison burger, and it’s the kind I most often make at home, because bison contains half the fat of beef, and is even leaner than skinless chicken, turkey, and even halibut. The important thing to remember when cooking with bison is that because it’s so lean, it requires about a third less cooking time than beef. People are used to cooking with beef, and because it looks (and tastes) the same, people tend to treat it the same way in the kitchen, often drying it out. So if you think you don’t like bison because it’s too dry - try it again.
Oven fries are something everyone should be able to make - particularly if you have offspring - they are truly the easiest thing in the world, once you get the hang of it. Cut your potatoes (yams will cook more quickly) into fairly even wedges, and while you’re chopping, drizzle some canola oil on a rimmed cookie sheet and pop it into a 450 oven to heat up, just like you would if you were making Yorkshire puddings. The combination of hot oil, hot pan, will keep the wedges from sticking. If you use one of your old cookie sheets that’s so beaten up it’s black, the darker color will brown anything you cook on it even better. Great for roasting veg or making crostini - not so much for cookies.
Some like to soak the potatoes in a bowl of cold water first, to draw out some extra starch: this isn’t necessary, but if you do, make sure you dry them well on paper or dishtowels so that they will brown well. Either way, lay the wedges on the sheet and flip them around to coat with oil (tongs work well for this) and then pop them back into the oven. Bake for 15 minutes or so, flipping them once, until golden. Sprinkle with coarse salt.
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January 14 2008 | bison and veg | No Comments »
