Mushroom Soup for the Solitary Soul

Left to her own devices, caribougrrl looks around at her life and takes stock... duck stock, that is.  And makes the best mushroom soup Fefe Noir never ate.

This mushroom soup has a mixture of sauteed and roasted mushrooms.  It has the classic Hungarian mushroom soup flavours of paprika and dill, but without the cream.  Don't worry though, it's got some duck fat in there to fill you up.

This-Ain't-No-Cream-of Hungarian Mushroom Soup

loosely adapted from Mollie Katzen's The Moosewood Cookbook (with duck fat apologies to Mollie Katzen)

Whenever you roast a duck, hang on to
the rendered fat.  Less waste and
more taste!

3 c. duck broth* (or chicken broth or vegetable broth)
a handful of dried chanterelles (or other dried mushrooms, or none at all)
1-1/2 lbs fresh mushrooms**
5 shallots, very thinly sliced
3 tbsp duck fat* (or chicken fat, or goose fat, or other lovely fat dripped from a roast, or olive oil)
2 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp smoked hot paprika
a sprig or more of fresh dill, finely chopped
2 c. water (or if you are feeling fancy, 1 cup white wine + 1 cup water)
juice of 1/2 Meyer lemon (or other lemon or a splash of cider vinegar)

*On Boxing Day, we made Jamie Oliver's Citrus Roast Duck, reserving the fat for later. After a meal of roast duck, then a meal of duck tacos and a lunch of duck on leafy salad, Fefe Noir used the remaining carcass to make a big pot of broth.  I found it in the freezer then remembered the duck fat in the fridge, so that's what I used.  Feel free to use chicken broth, but I can't vouch for the results (it will probably be awesome, but not as awesome as duck broth).  If you've been looking for an excuse to roast a duck, duck tacos and mushroom soup are reason enough.

**Any kind of fresh mushroom.  Or a mixture.  White, brown, cremini, portabello, baby bello, etc.

In a small sauce pan, heat the broth to a boil then remove from heat.  Crush up the dried chanterelles or other dried mushroom and add them to the hot broth to rehydrate.  If you aren't using dried mushrooms, which is perfectly acceptable too, then just skip this step.

Pre-heat the oven to 400F.

Fefe is always telling me, when she is taking photos, that everything is
information. Clearly, she is better at seeing the information in-camera than
I am.  So here's the information: the counter is crowded, the espresso machine
is under-utilized, we have a lot of vinegars, the curtains could use a wash...

Clean your mushrooms as needed and slice about half a pound of them.  If you bought them pre-sliced, you are done, move on to the next step.  If you bought your mushrooms whole, then halve or quarter the remaining mushrooms rather than slicing, just for a variety of shapes.  If you do slice these ones though, slice them thickly.

Take the halved and quartered mushrooms (or two-thirds of your pre-sliced mushrooms)  and, using your hands, coat them well in 1 tbsp of the fat.  Spread them over a shallow baking pan and put them in the oven to roast.  Roast until they are shriveled and have lovely browned edges.  This will take 10-20 minutes depending on the mushrooms.  Don't interfere with them until at least 10 minutes are passed, then you can check them, maybe stir them around, and either remove from the oven because they are done, or stick them back in for a bit.

While the mushrooms are roasting, heat the remaining fat in a large heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat.  Add shallots and cook, stirring frequently but not constantly, until they are soft and browned.  Add the remaining mushrooms stirring only occasionally until they are soft (3-5 minutes).

Add paprika and dill, stir to coat the shallots and mushrooms.  Cook, stirring, for another 2-3 minutes.

Pour the broth with rehydrated mushrooom bits and the water into the pan.  Bring to a boil then reduce heat to low.  Add the roasted mushrooms to the pot and simmer, covered, until you are ready to eat.  (Really, it's probably fine right away, but I have this idea that soup should simmer for a while.  So I took the opportunity to wash the kitchen floor and wait for it to dry.  I inadvertently separated myself from a glass of wine on the counter but luckily I found more glasses and more wine in the dining room...)

Just before serving, squeeze the lemon juice into the soup and give it a good stir. 

Fefe Noir usually takes the photos for this blog.  Here is a shining example of why... I would have left it out entirely except I feel like there has to be a photo of the finished non-cream version of Hungarian mushroom soup.  I swear, it looks better than it looks, and tastes even better than that.

~~~

I've been abandoned.  Left to fend for myself.

For two weeks.

Two eternal weeks.

I have learned a few things about myself.  Primarily that I am spoiled.

Since Fefe Noir left, I have had to do the following things: wash all the dishes (not just the ones that go in the dishwasher), sweep, vacuum and wash floors, carry mugs back to the kitchen from the various bizarre places they materialize (like the window sill in the front hall... who leaves a mug in a place like that?), feed the dogs TWICE during the day including remembering the appropriate medications on the appropriate days, feed the cats, clean the litter boxes, do my own laundry (do my own laundry!), empty garbage cans, take the overflowing compost bucket out to the composter, prep AND cook meals, remember all the stuff I am supposed to remember without being reminded, make the bed, let dogs out to pee, let them back in, take my coat off the back of the chair and hang it up, put the shoes I left in the middle of the hallway away, take my own photos for the blog***... PLUS all the things I usually do (which, admittedly, are not much of anything at all)...

***you may have noticed the general decline in quality in the photos, my apologies, I have no patience

...it's exhausting.

I realize that most people have to do all that stuff all the time, with or without help from anyone else.  Good lord, some of you even have children to sort out in the midst of all of that.  My hat is off.  I don't know how you keep it up.

So I am not looking for sympathy, just trying to say that I get it.  You're tired, I'm tired.  None of us knows what to make for dinner because all of it seems too difficult.

Which brings me to the prepping (usually Fefe does this before I get home) and cooking of meals.  It turns out that left to my own devices with no one but me to impress, mostly I'm lazy.  Since Fefe's been gone, there have been a lot of salads using pre-washed lettuce and cold leftover things.  As in, all of the leftover things that were already in the fridge before I began this solitary life.  Eventually I ran out though.  Then I ran out of canned tuna too.

So I made soup.  Good nutritious comforting stuff, soup is, and even though it takes a bit of work (but not a lot of work) to prepare, you can make it in great big quantities, saving yourself the bother of cooking tomorrow, and maybe even the day after that.  Or you can freeze it, saving yourself the bother of cooking some day in the future.  

Here's the other thing about eating when Fefe is away: I make a point of eating things she doesn't like to eat because, well, here's my chance.  I've made popcorn five times in the last couple of weeks.  I ate tuna fish directly out of the can once.  I made banana muffins and sweetened them with date syrup and did not use one bit of chocolate in them... all the dessert sins in one dish.

Fefe does not like mushroom soup.  I love mushroom soup.  I made a point of buying a lot of mushrooms in order to make the Moosewood Hungarian Mushroom Soup because I wanted to make a mushroom soup that was not creamy.  I wanted broth and big pieces of mushroom swimming around in a rich but thin broth.  I hadn't made that soup for nearly 20 years (see introductory statement of this paragraph).  So I got home and fed the dogs and let them out and unloaded the dishwasher and moved laundry around and opened up the Moosewood Cookbook to discover that my memory of the soup was nearly completely wrong.  The recipe makes a thickened milky sour-creamy soup, which is undoubtedly lovely if that's what you are looking for.  But I had my heart set by now.  So I made the soup I wanted instead.  

(I ate it for dinner and lunch for three days running, brought some into work for a colleague, and froze a lunch portion.  I got a lot of not-cooking out of this one.)

Smokes Like a Fish, Drinks Like a Chimney

There is something of a poetic northern-ness in a sauce made with smoked fish and vodka. Skål! 

Rose pasta sauce with smoked fish on homemade pasta.  Other than vodka, without the trimmings, is there a better way to get through the end of pantry and freezer season?

Smoked Fish Vodka Sauce with Fettuccine

2 tbsp olive oil

Use a vodka with some flavour in it, none of that invisible
stuff you bought in your teens early 20s.

10 cloves garlic, smashed (or less if you are afraid of garlic, but this really isn't overly garlicky)
2 dried red chili peppers
6 plum tomatoes, peeled and diced
4 tbsp vodka
1/4 lb of smoked char (or substitute with smoked salmon or trout), torn or crumbled into small bits
4 tbsp heavy cream
1 tbsp butter

a three-egg batch of hand-made pasta, cut in fettuccine (or wider) size


In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium.  Add smashed garlic and chilies.  Cook, stirring, until the garlic is softened.  Increase heat to med-high and add chopped tomatoes.  Bring to a boil and reduce heat to med-low.  Stir occasionally until reduced by about a third.  Add vodka, and continue to let the sauce reduce.

Don't worry about precise chopping or mincing of
ingredients, not only will it all cook down to mush, but
you're going to blend it up anyway.

Put a big pot of water on for your pasta. (If it boils before you are ready for it, turn it down to a simmer until you are ready.)

When the tomatoes are mostly broken down and the sauce looks thick, remove from heat.  Allow to cool enough to puree in a blender.  If you are fastidious, wipe your pan clean and pour sauce back into it through a sieve.  If you can tolerate a more rustic sauce, just return the blended sauce to your skillet.

Bring back to a slow boil after adding the smoked fish, then
reduce the heat and stir in the cream and butter.  Once the
butter is melted and it's all nice and evenly combined the
sauce is ready.

Re-heat the sauce over medium. When it starts bubbling, stir in the smoked char. Cook the pasta now.  When the sauce to returns to a consistent bubble, reduce heat to low and stir in the cream and butter.  When the butter is melted and the cream is combined remove from heat.  This should happen about the same time your pasta is cooked.  Stir a wee bit of the pasta water into the sauce for good measure.  Drain the pasta and serve with sauce.

Makes 4 large or 6 moderate servings.

~~~

I like this sauce for poetic reasons as well as gustatory ones.  Although it's roots are admittedly in penne alla vodka, it's a great pasta for northern latitudes: smoked fish and vodka.  This is not a light meal, but it's not so heavy it will put you into a coma either. Good comfort food for the distressingly cold evenings we're still experiencing here.  In May.

You can almost smell the smoked char through the computer screen, can't you?  To serve, garnish with chive (admittedly, chive is, in fact, growing already) and some old hard Italian cheese like Sovrano.

We emerged from a few weeks of fog into a stretch of sunshine, so at least we're starting to build stores of vitamin D again.  Back to fog for a few days, but sun promised in the long-range forecast.  It's all a bit maddening even when the sun is shining because it looks like summer... as long as you are looking at the sky and the sea, and not at the brown hills and the leafless trees.  Yet, ridiculously, I may need to mow the lawn tomorrow for crabgrass control, but none of the desirables are out yet.*  Definitely still pantry, freezer and booze season.

*Okay, that's not technically true. The garlic is coming up nicely and just this morning our rhubarb started to leaf out.  Early flowers like snowdrops, crocus and alpine primrose are out.  But seriously, it's mid-May already.

Make hay and all that.  We'll still head out into that brilliant light, completely under-dressed for what turns out to be a very frigid coastal hike.  We'll blame the icebergs for this instead of poor planning, but we all know the ocean will be cold for months still and the chilly onshore breeze will be welcome in July.  We'll go out to garden, and be too hot with the sun on our backs, stripping down to t-shirts... until we stop moving anyway and need to pile sweaters and gloves back on.  We'll wear our sandals, even though our toes are frozen, because for two full hours one afternoon sometime last week it was warm enough to get them out and now, dammit, it's sandal season.  We'll sit out on the porch wrapped in blankets because we want to have just one beer outside.

They make really good smoked char up in Nain, Labrador.

The only real proper evidence of spring is that trout season opened on the weekend.  And although I swear the best fish for this recipe is smoked char from the Torngat Fish Producers Co-op of northern Labrador I suppose some of your home-smoked trout** would work too.

**If you want to send us some of that home-smoked trout, we'd be happy to try it out for you before you make it... you know, just in case I'm wrong...

Worth Its Salt Fish

The classic pairing of salt cod and parsnip... turned pub grub.

The classic coupling of salt cod and parsnip becomes a variation on the much-loved meal of fish & chips.

Seed-Crusted Salt Fish with Parsnip & Carrot Chips

for the fish:

salted cod, center loin section, skinned (for each person, a piece about the size of a pack of cards, give or take)
all-purpose flour
egg, beaten
about 1/4 c. each sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds (hulled) for every 2-3 pieces of fish


for the chips:

1 carrot per person
2 parsnips per person
ice cubes


oil for frying (peanut and/or sunflower)


for the vinaigrette/ dipping sauce:

1 small shallot
a generous pinch of salt
4 anchovy fillets
1/3 c. balsamic vinegar
juice of 1/2 lemon
3/4 c. good olive oil


TWO OR THREE DAYS BEFORE COOKING

Soak the salt cod in a large bowl of cold water.  Change the water twice a day (more if you think about it more often).  You may have heard that you can speed up the removal of excess salt by boiling the fish, which is true, but it will fall apart... that's okay for fish cakes or brandade, but you want to keep this fish intact; take the time for a cold soak.


A COUPLE OF HOURS BEFORE COOKING

Drain the salt fish and let it sit in a colander or sieve to drain and allow the surface to dry somewhat.

Cut your carrots and parsnips into long, thin sticks (about 5-6 mm wide; closer to an allumette than a julienne).  You want them to be fairly even, but don't get bent out of shape about it; a little variation is good, it means your food will look hand-made.  Anything really badly misshapen can be fed to your dogs as treats.  Put the cut vegetables in a bowl of ice water (mostly ice), and let them sit long enough to curl up a bit.

Cut the carrots and parsnips into sticks, a bit thinner than a snacking carrot stick, but thicker than a julienne.  Soaking them in ice water will give them a bit of a curl. 

Now is a good time to make your vinaigrette.  This will make way more than you need for your salt fish but don't worry about leftovers, you'll use them (salad dressing, drizzle for lamb chops, mixed into lean ground meat for burgers, sauce for steamed or poached fish, dip for fresh bread...). 

Roughly mince the shallot.  Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and use the blade or handle of your knife to press or grind the shallot into a paste on your chopping board.  (If you have a mortar and pestle, feel free to use that fancy high-tech equipment instead.)  Roughly cut anchovy and then work the fish into the shallot paste.  Scrape the paste into a small mixing bowl and whisk in remaining ingredients.  I like vinaigrette to remain separated so I don't whisk to emulsification, just enough to combine well (it looks nicer if you don't mind stirring it up every time you use it).  Let sit at room temperature until serving, allowing the flavours to mingle.


WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY

Crusting the salt cod with pumpkin and
sunflower seeds is messy, but definitely
worth the effort.

Drain your carrots and parsnips.  

Get out three shallow bowls and a plate.  Line them up on your counter.  Put flour in the first bowl, beat an egg in the second bowl and mix the seeds in the third bowl.

For deep frying, you need the oil deep enough to submerge your food, but you also need to leave a 3-5 cm gap at the top of the pan to accommodate the volume of your food and some bubbling-up.  Choose a pan with this in mind (also paying attention to how much oil you have).  

Heat oil over medium to med-high heat.  The oil is hot when you can see long streaks in it and when bubbles rise up swiftly but not vigorously when you press a wooden spoon handle against the bottom of the pan.  If you refuse to fry without a thermometer, aim for about 365-370F.

Working in batches as necessary, gently lower your carrots and parsnips into the oil and cook until they are a light golden brown (about 6-8 minutes).  (Don't over do it, these are going back in the oil just before eating.) Remove and let them drain in a metal sieve over a heat-proof bowl or spread across brown paper.

While the carrot-parsnip-fries are cooking, crust your fish.  Dredge in flour, then coat with egg.  Let the excess egg drip off, then press the fish firmly into the seeds.  Crust all sides with as much seed as will stick.  Lay flat on the plate.  Crusting the fish is messy and your fingers will feel gross from being stuck with egg and seeds.  If you have someone willing to help, delegate this job to them and be prepared with a bunch of encouraging things to say.  (Don't forget to check your fries once in a while.)

While the carrots and parsnips are draining, cook your fish.  Submerge in the hot oil and cook until the seed crust looks well toasted, about 4 minutes.  Remove to a metal sieve over a heat-proof bowl or drain on brown paper.

While the fish is draining, return the carrots and parsnips to the oil for about 2 minutes.  The golden brown colour should intensify.  Remove to drain.   Salt while they are still piping-hot and toss to coat.

TO SERVE

I am convinced that fish and chips is a meal best shared from a common plate and eaten with your fingers. So cover your table with a few layers of newspaper (lots of layers for this meal, see note) and tip the fries and fish onto the surface.  Whisk your vinaigrette and serve on the side for dipping or use a spoon to drizzle over the fish & chips.

(If you decide to serve on individual plates, put a couple of layers of newsprint or brown paper on the plate.)


NOTES

Salt cod does not taste like fresh cod.  It has more presence.  This fish is fantastically delicious with the earthy crunchy seed crust matching the intensity of the fish... but if you are expecting something like fresh or frozen cod, you'll be too surprised to fully appreciate the dish.

The carrots and parsnips are sweet and punchy with flavour, but oily.  Totally moreish, but be sure to have a thick layer of paper under them.  

~~~

A few years ago, an issue of La Cucina Italiana had a recipe for a seed-crusted salt cod appetizer.  There seemed to be a million different kinds of seeds that we didn't have in the house at the time.  We didn't have salt cod in the house either... it's possible I still thought salt cod was only good for fishcakes then. 

But I loved the idea of it.  I've been thinking about that fish for three years.

Salt cod has a particular cultural importance here in Newfoundland (I might bore you with the history another time, but not now), and you can buy it anywhere.  It's for sale in grocery stores, road side fish trucks, vegetable stands... I've even seen salt cod for sale at gas stations and craft shows.  When we first moved here I couldn't understand why anyone would purposefully choose salted fish over fresh or frozen cod.  It took me a ridiculously long time to overcome my baseless mainlander snobbery around salt fish, but I'm glad I did.

Here's the thing about salt cod: it's not fresh cod.  You can't expect to use them same way.  It's not a choice of salted or fresh, you pick the one you need for the task at hand.  Salt cod is dense and concentrated, and even well-soaked, it bites back; but that's precisely the beauty of it, not the problem.  Making that psychological leap changed everything.   

A couple weeks ago, Fefe Noir heard a radio program mentioning that Romans traditionally paired salt cod with parsnip.  You know that lovely feeling of epiphany, that moment when suddenly everything seems to make sense?  It was like that.  Salty and intense fish matched with the ethereal sweetness of winter parsnip... of course.  Which brings us the second plate in our fish and chips project.

The Sherry Thief's Stew

You don't want to waste that last packet of moose from the back of the freezer on a recipe that could go wrong, so don't.  Stick to the basics: moose, booze, berries, root vegetables, and a slow oven.

Sherried Moose Stew

2 tbsp bacon fat

Moose, berries and jelly from the wild.  Root vegetables
are about the only local veg available this time of year,
but still in great shape.

4 cups* moose meat, whatever cut is left in the freezer, thawed, cut into stewing chunks
2 tbsp unbleached all purpose flour
3 shallots, finely chopped
a few sprigs of thyme, dug out from under the snow (or perhaps growing or hanging to dry in your kitchen window because you are smarter than we are)
1 bay leaf
5 black peppercorns
5 parsnips, cut in half lengthwise then sliced

The sweet from the sherry and apple jelly, and the tart of the
cranberries are simple ways to add depth.

3 carrots, prepare 2 of these like the parsnips and divvy the third one up amongst your dogs
4 cloves crushed garlic
1/2 c. sweet sherry, stolen from that nice British lady down the street**
1/4 c. apple jelly (or use red currant or rose hip)
3 c. water
1/2 c. frozen wild cranberries

*Fefe would normally weigh this for you but someone (someone of the feline variety for sure, never ever someone of the caribougrrl variety), broke the scale by dropping it pushing it off the counter
**in this case, Fefe's mother... she also might have known we were taking it, but we haven't yet returned the remainder of the bottle so it still counts as stolen...

Comfort Cove parsnips for comfort food.

Preheat oven to 325F.

In a large cast iron dutch oven over medium heat, melt the bacon fat.  Season moose with salt and pepper and toss with flour.  Brown moose, in batches if necessary, and set aside.

Add a bit more bacon fat if needed to saute shallots, thyme, bay leaf and peppercorns in moose juice for about 5 minutes.  Add parsnips, carrots and garlic, stirring regularly for 10 minutes.  Don't let the garlic burn: adjust your heat and/or fat as necessary.

Deglaze with sherry.  Add jelly, browned moose, water and cranberries to the pot.  Bring to a simmery-boil, stirring occasionally.  Don't worry about hunks of jelly, these will meld into the stew before you eat it.

Put lid on the dutch oven and transfer to oven.  Check every 45 minutes or so to make sure there's sufficient liquid; add more water if you need it.  Cook for 2 hours (or more or less; test the moose with a fork for doneness every once in a while... it's done when the moose is tender and the liquid is thickened).

We served it with roasted turnip (rutabaga, swede).  

~~~

Fefe made this stew during the last major deep freeze.
 

It's difficult to gauge the weather by looking outside... 

So cold, the dishwasher has been clogged with ice nearly every morning.

Our thyme, when we can find it, is holding up rather well despite the winter.

So cold, the cats have taken to sleeping under the covers.

Not only were there cats under the covers, but they refused to get out of bed.

So cold, we are supplying our neighbours with water via garden hose, because they forgot, just one night, to leave a drip and the wait list for water line repairs is weeks long.

So cold, the frost is clawing at the windows to get in.

Okay, maybe the windows hint at the weather outside even if you can't see it.

So cold, the only way to keep the kitchen warm is with the baseboard heaters and the oven.  So cold, we need a low and slow cooked meal. 

Raid your freezer, your root cellar, your pantry, your liquor cabinet... do whatever you have to do to minimize the time you spend out in the bitter cold.  Steal sherry from your mom mum if it means you can avoid a trip to the store.

I got up for this?

(In the interest of full disclosure, as I'm typing, it's raining outside -- such is March, or perhaps such is Newfoundland -- but guaranteed we've got some more too-cold-to-eat-salad weather to get through.  Perhaps the most comforting of comfort foods, a slightly sweet moose stew, can get us through.)

A Band-Aid Solution for Winter (but a solution nonetheless)

Not for the feint of heart: two of the most dangerous foods in existence* together in one dish.  Yeah, okay, the danger might be abstract for most of us, but the magic of peanut butter with shrimp is very tangible.

*peanuts and shellfish, just ask any grade-schooler...

Shrimp Tacos

Roast garlic and peppers in a dry cast iron skillet, turning
regularly for even cooking.

for the peanut salsa:

10 cloves garlic
10 dried arbol chilies
1 dried pasilla chili
4 dried morita chilies
6 black peppercorns
1 star of star anise (broken up)
1/2 c. natural peanut butter (the ingredients should read: peanuts; avoid anything with a longer list)
4 tbsp cider vinegar
salt to taste
2 tbsp water

for the shrimp:

1-2 fresh serrano peppers (optionally roasted, see instructions)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp avocado oil
2 trays** of Labrador ice shrimp*** 
1/4 fresh lemon

**$5-worth, locally. I forgot to weigh it before we ate it.  Let's just say cook enough for the number of people you are serving and adjust the peppers and garlic to taste.

***also known as coldwater shrimp, north atlantic shrimp, northern shrimp, northern prawn, or salad shrimp... they're the really little ones.  If you don't have a local salad shrimp fishery, substitute with your most sustainable shrimp or prawn option.

A note for Newfoundlanders about the dried peppers:  I have no idea where you can buy these other than ordering them through the miracle of the internet.  I buy them at Mexican groceries when I'm in Ontario visiting family (a large portion of my return luggage is always dedicated to food).  Dried peppers are very light and travel well, so keep your eyes out when you're away.  In the meantime, the whole long red dried chili peppers are a good substitute for arbol chilies.  I have heard a rumour recently that chipotle peppers in adobo sauce can now be purchased at the Dominion on Stavanger Drive in town... having never tried them, I don't know how they would do, but could work as a substitute for the other peppers which lend a subtle smoky flavour to the salsa (probably use fewer peppers, but taste as you go).


Make the peanut sauce: Roast garlic (and, optionally, fresh hot peppers for the shrimp) by putting separated cloves, leaving the paper on, in a dry cast iron skillet over med-high heat.  Turn garlic periodically to roast evenly.  It's alright to let it get singed; the garlic is done once it's soft.  If you are doing fresh peppers for your shrimp, let the pepper singe and blister before removing from the pan. 

While the garlic is roasting, toss the dried peppers, peppercorns and star anise into the pan.  Once the peppers are hot and limp, but before they burn, remove all the dried spices and put into a heat-proof bowl.  Pour boiling water over them to cover and weigh the peppers down with a plate or bowl to keep them submerged.  Let them soak for at least 20 minutes.

Pour off the liquid and reserve (this will be nicely scented with the star anise and peppercorn).  If you want a scorching hot sauce, scrape the seeds and flesh from the pepper skins with a flat knife.  If you want a less hot sauce, run the soaked pepper and spices through a food mill to separate the seeds and skin from the flesh.  I used the seeds from the pasilla and morita peppers but not from the arbol (I'm a middle kid thus prone to compromise.  Fefe would have used all the seeds.).  Squeeze the now cool roasted garlic from it's paper and mash in a mixing bowl with the pepper.  Use the reserved liquid to thin the pepper and garlic paste to an applesauce-like consistency.

Refrigerate leftover peanut sauce: you can use it on snack crackers or sandwiches (particularly good with cucumbers), or thin it a bit more and use it as a dipping sauce for raw vegetables or fried plantain.

Add the peanut butter and half the vinegar and stir to combine.  Taste the sauce and add more vinegar and salt to taste... you want an acidic and salty sauce, but not overwhelmed by either.  Thin with water (or more reserved liquid from the soaked peppers) to desired consistency.  For use in tacos you want it to be easily spreadable, but not pour-able.  The sauce will thicken if refrigerated, so cover and leave at room temperature until serving. 


Sautee the shrimp:  Heat oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high, erring on the high side.  Soften the garlic and serrano peppers (roasted or fresh) in the oil then add shrimp.  Toss frequently until just cooked.  Remove pan from heat, squeeze lemon over shrimp and toss to coat. 

Serve in hand made corn tortillas.  Spread with peanut salsa, then fill with shredded cabbage and shrimp.

~~~

February is always a difficult month, but we are in the midst of what I believe is the stupidest winter ever.  Now it's snowing so you can't see across the road.  Now it's so cold that every time someone moves outside, it sounds like rubbing stryofoam.  Now it's rainy and the snow is gone and your socks are wet.  Now there's a deep freeze.  Now it's rainy again.  Wait, no, it's ice pellets.  Snow.  Ice.  Rain.  One day, muddy footprints tracked across the kitchen floor.  The next day, half an hour of removing compacted snow balls from between the dogs' toes, just so that they'll agree to walk the final three steps to the house and come in.

And we should be so lucky if there's only 6 weeks left to it.  I know I'm a week and a half past Groundhog's Day already, but really, if winter is behind us in 6 weeks from now, I'll eat a tin of vienna sausages.

February is that weird month too, where it's too early to open the last jar of bakeapples or cook the end of the rhubarb in the freezer, but it's too late to expect cabbages to still be bright green.  Every week, more and more of the outer leaves are pulled back to trim the wilted bits and we seem, by now, to be down to pale cabbage core.  But never mind, that cabbage inside is still crunchy and sweet.

For those of us not flocking down south for a winter holiday in the sun and surf, February is a good month to pretend.  Make a pitcher of margaritas, put on a sundress under your cozy sweaters, stuff your wool-socked feet into sandals, and feast on shrimp tacos with peanut sauce****.  It's just like being in Baja*****. 

****you know, unless you have those fatal allergies

*****don't argue with me on this:  I've never been to Baja (I may have never been further south than Put-In-Bay, Ohio, actually) but I need to imagine I can recreate it in my drafty old house so I don't go completely insane this year...

The Island. The Winter.

In which Fefe Noir and caribougrrl are reminded what winter on an island in the North Atlantic Ocean can be like.  Plus, instructions for making corn tortillas whether the power is on or not.

Even the boats outside our kitchen window were feeling the cold during the polar vortex.

When you live on a large island with highways and cities*, cheap long distance phone rates, television, radio, and the miracle of the internet, it can be easy to forget you live on an island.  Not forget, exactly, just not think much about it.  Then, out of the blue, a series of events can stick you in the eye with how very much indeed you live on an island.

*well, one city anyway... er, with a bit more than 100,000 people - twice that if you count the sprawling suburban/ superural area around the city



The Deep Freeze

Winter happens every year, it's no surprise.  Contrary to popular belief, a vast expanse of Canada gets much harsher winters than Newfoundland does.  Sure, the Labrador current is like a refrigerator for the island, but we're still surrounded by water, so we aren't used to the extreme cold of a continental winter. 

But, hoo boy, did we get cold.  Laugh if you will (I probably would before I was acclimatized), but we were well below freezing for days (double digits Celsius below freezing! during the day!)... with wind chill temps that made you look around for Dementors, just in case.  Unfairly, we also got snow.  (We labour under the illusion here that it can either be bitterly cold or it can snow, but not both.)  Massive amounts of snow fell over several days...10 cm here, 35 cm there... and it added up. and it piled up.  We shoveled ourselves into fatigue. 

The snow was pushed up level with the eight-foot
retaining wall that runs along the side of our property.

So we hunkered down and stayed inside.  Perhaps we let our cupboards deplete in an attempt to add more insulation to our frames and, let's face it, to avoid the cold 14-second walk between the house and the car.  Besides, we were still leftover-turkey-complacent and steamed-pudding-sluggish.

Our thermostats fought against the deep freeze.  'Twas the season that many were home rather than at work or school, so our thermostats didn't get a break during the day.  Feeling like we could never get warm, we might have even turned up the heat because you can only put on so many layers of wool socks before you can't actually walk.    


The Wind

Along with the snow and the cold, it was windy, making both seem worse.  It's no surprise though, Newfoundland is a windy place: gusts in the 60-100 km/hr range are not all that unusual.  The thing is, our connection to the rest of the world relies heavily on our ferry system.  Stormy weather leaves those ferries tied up at the docks instead of making the crossing.  Which leaves produce sitting in trucks, going nowhere and feeding no one, as it continues to approach it's sell-by date.  Then when it does get here, blowing snow slows traffic to a crawl, causes accidents, closes highways, and generally creates further delay.

The province only produces a fraction of the vegetables and fruit we consume. In the mid-late summer and through the fall, getting a variety of local produce from the garden, from farm markets and from roadside stalls is fairly easy with little effort. By late December, the garden has long stopped producing and the markets are shut down until the new season. We are more reliant than any other time of year on supplies from the mainland, at precisely the time when transit is most unpredictable.

The more disruptions to the ferry schedule, the emptier our shelves and refrigerators got.  Normally common items became rare.  Coming up to New Year's Eve, it took stopping at 5 stores in 3 different towns before finding a bunch of green onions. 

All that snow we were shoveling in the frigid air was blowing back in our faces anyway.  More motivation to retreat to our houses, turn our electric fire places on and watch a marathon of Glee.


The Power Outage

The lights went out.  The lights, the heat, the stove, the hot water.

The refrigerator and freezer cases in the shops. 

Toasting orange-almond flavoured marshmallows over
an open candle fire was a good replacement for screen-time.

Rolling blackouts had been going on for days, no big deal: an hour to two without power.  We were vaguely aware that there was some sort of scheduled or unscheduled maintenance at a generating station, and what with all that heat being turned up it was no big surprise when the cordless phone beeped its protest at suddenly and unceremoniously being shut off.  What was a surprise was finding out it wasn't a planned outage.  The entire island was in the dark. 

The entire 110,000 km2 island.  Because of a transformer fire.  Okay, a big important transformer by the sounds of it, but still, what a way to find out we're wired up in series instead of parallel. 

But the power companies and the Powers That Be reassured us. 

Not to worry, the light and power b'ys were hard at it (and they really were, I'm not being saucy) and additional help was on its way.  From the mainland.  They could get here in two days.  As long as the weather cooperated...

Not to worry, this was all perfectly normal: if you stress the system, things go wrong. Electrical doohickey bits and pieces trip to prevent problems. Large bangs and blue-green flashes and fires are just part of doing business.

Not to worry, some minor overcapacity issues.  The only thing that's wrong here is that we're on an island.  By 2017, we'll be all geared up to tap into the continental power grid if we need some extra juice once in a while. 

Nothing to see.  Move along.

In the meantime, in the cold and dark, we began to regret staying at home eating our way through our pantries...

Why (a) you shouldn't throw out the burnt batch of pork
buns and (b) maybe you shouldn't bother putting away
your barbecue for the winter: you may need to produce a
feast during a power outage.

Chez The Moose Curry Experience, we were luckier than many.  A 20-ish hour blackout followed by power for most of the day, then a 14 hour black out.  I'm not sure if our house guests saw how lucky they were, but we managed alright.  What was probably the best cup of coffee in the history of time (or tea, or hot chocolate depending who's mug you sipped from) was produced with water boiled up on a campstove.  Sure, we looked a bit kooky, playing Doctor Who Yahtzee by candlelight, wearing an assortment of mix and match hats and scarves and socks and robes, but we were warm enough.  And there were left over slightly burnt New Year's Eve pork buns in the freezer which, wrapped up in aluminum foil, heated up rather nicely on the barbecue I had serendipitously not managed to put away for the winter yet.  And we learned that home made marshmallows toast up nicely with a fork, an unscented candle and a bit of patience.


Post-Apocalypse Shopping

I made the mistake of going into a grocery store the day the power came back on.  I was over-tired, not because of hardship, but because of an early morning trip to the airport of deliver house guests into Air Travel in the Canadian Winter, which would subsequently turn their 3 hour flight into a 36 hours adventure of delays, cancellations, re-bookings, more delays and misdirected luggage.  But I digress...  

The supermarket was complete and absolute madness.  The battery displays were stripped bare, bottled water shelves were practically empty... nary a candle, flashlight, propane cylinder, or Sterno can to be had. 

I got swept up in all the panic.  I know full well that it's obscene to buy canned salmon when you live in a place that produces fresh salmon year round.  Yet there I was, standing in line with 2 cans of baked beans, a tin of salmon and what might, for all I knew, be the last bag of masa harina on the island.  It was certainly the last bag on the shelves of one of the largest grocery stores and although I walked by it initially, I practically ran back when I started to worry that might be my last chance ever to buy masa harina.  (Ridiculous, I admit, but the atmosphere was heavy with foreboding, it's amazing I didn't buy every olive in the store, just in case...)

Besides, tortillas are cooked on dry cast iron, which means they can be done with a skillet and a single-burner camp stove.  And the dough doesn't require precise measurement, as long as you know what it should feel like.  You can make them in the dark, more or less.  Perfect bread for a power outage.  And 2017 is still a few years away.

Lettuce could not be got for love nor money...

But never mind the mad-rush-anxiety-shopping that happened in those brief interludes between power outages.  A full week after our last blackout, the shelves in the grocery stores still hadn't recovered.  I can only hope this is because the delays at the ferry docks are still causing slow downs in deliveries, but I can't discount the possibility that what arrived was in such poor shape it never made it to the shelves.  And if that's the case, it's frightening if the best of the shipment was put out.  What little fresh produce could be found was in sad, sad shape.  Tomatoes that were flat on one side and held your finger prints if you dared pick them up.  Lettuce that looked like it was dug out of our composter.  Wax beans better suited as kindling than as food. 

Or is this just the state of Newfoundland in the winter?  Do I forget year to year as a defense mechanism against fear and dread?

Not to worry, there's always root vegetables.  Guaranteed Fefe Noir can find some devious way to serve turnip up in a tortilla. 

~~~

How to Make Corn Tortillas

for 8 small or 6 medium tortillas:

1 c. masa harina
a good pinch of salt
3/4 c. water

In a mixing bowl, combine masa harina and salt.  Add water in mix with a fork or your fingers until thoroughly combined.  The dough will form large clumps and crumbles but will stick together easily with a bit of pressure.  If it doesn't stick easily, add water, a bit at a time until it does.  If it feels like it's actually wet, add masa harina a bit at a time until it feels like fresh playdough.  Knead lightly a few times in the bowl until it forms a ball.

Don't worry if some of the balls of dough are smaller or
larger than the others.  Unless you are obsessive that way.

Break dough into 6 or 8 pieces about equal in size, but don't get hung up about even-sized pieces.  Worst case scenario, you have a tortilla or two bigger or smaller than the rest.  Roll the pieces into round balls.

If you have a tortilla press, get it out.  Put your cast iron skillet, dry, on med-high heat.  Tear off a sheet of plastic wrap big enough to lay over the top and bottom parts of the press.  (In my ideological fight against plastic wrap, I have tried waxed paper, parchment paper, and used plastic bags, but have had to admit that plastic wrap works best here.  I am, however, open to suggestions for things I haven't tried yet.)  Place a ball of dough on the press, just above center (toward the hinge).  Lower the top, press with the lever and, voila, beautiful round tortilla.

Top left: Plastic wrap is draped over both sides of the press.  Place the ball just above center, toward the hinge.  Top right: Drop the upper plate, then press down with the lever.  Bottom left: Nearly effortless round tortilla.  Bottom right: Cook tortillas in a dry cast iron skillet.  Or if you are so lucky to have one, more than one at a time on a griddle.

If you don't have a tortilla press, you can roll these out with a rolling pin, but you should consider buying a press.  It might be the best $15 I ever spent. 

Place the tortilla on your hot skillet cooking for about 1 minute on each side.  Adjust the heat as needed to cook through in the two minutes, but not so high as to burn it.   You have time to press the next tortilla while this one cooks.

Cover cooked tortillas with a cloth to slow the escape of
steam and soften the tortillas.

As the tortillas are cooked, put them on a heat proof plate and cover with a cloth napkin or tea towel.  The cloth will slow the escape of steam, and this is what makes the tortillas soft and flexible.  Stack them up under the cloth and leave them there until you are ready to eat. 

If you won't be using them right away, allow them to cool completely, then wrap and store in an airtight container at room temp (if you are using in the next couple days) or in the freezer (thaw before use).  To soften them up, you can reheat on a hot dry cast iron skillet, one at a time, or you can wrap the whole stack in aluminium foil and heat in a 350 F oven for about 10 minutes.