Category: Recipes

Canning Cabbage Part 2 – Sauerkraut

Shawn 1 Comment

A full three quarters of a mightily dense cabbage head remains in the fridge so my Mason jar odyssey continues. First came the Korean kimchee, then the Mexican curtido and now I’m going to finish off this great green beast by hacking it up, salting and fermenting it as a classic Northern European sauerkraut.

Now what we in America refer to with the blanket term of “sauerkraut” actually is part of a great Germanic-Scandanavian tradition of fermenting vegetables to keep during hard times thought to have originated in the Eurasian Steppes and spread by marauding tribes such as the Huns, Tartars and Mongols. Nowadays the name is synonymous with Germany, its culture and culinary traditions. Read More

Canning Cabbage Part 1 – Curtido

Shawn 4 Comments

I found another post-Halloween head in my fridge. Unlike last time this particular head was never part of a large fish, it was pulled from the loamy back yard of my friends ‘n co-workers Cara and Karlee and gifted to me. It is a head of cabbage, and it’s not alone. I still had half a head in there from our last trip to the Willows Market. That’s over ten pounds of cabbage total!

Now I’m more used to cooking with members of the Chinese cabbage family, which are on average much more delicate, sweet and melt away at the hint of heat and salt. I can steam or stir fry pretty much any Choy in big chunks, but not so with these two bowling balls… These Celtic cabbages need to be sliced super fine and require time ‘n technique to get ‘em soft ‘n sweet. Read More

Beef Stew!

Shawn Leave a comment

[This is a very special guest recipe that my good buddy, fellow cook and hilarious Podcaster Jess shared way back in October of 2016 for our now-defunct Brotherhood of Bacon website. Though that concept now lies in the ditch of the information superhighway it produced this great recipe, one that I followed last night with phenomenal results! It’s the perfect one-pot-wonder to cook on a chilly Autumn night.]

Hey there, I’ve recently moved! Therefore I get the fantastic task of building a new kitchen from the ground up! (I discovered I didn’t have much in the way of essentials) So here’s a guide to one of the first recipes I cranked out in my new tiny kitchen wonderland! I’m a big fan of soups, stews, curries, or anything that sits on the stove top for a while, they warm the house up, and makes it seem like you’ve done more work than you actually have.

OH! It also makes your house smell great too! Now, one day, I’ll figure out how to put pictures up with these word, but until then I want you all to imagine the food in your mind. It will be fun! I promise. Read More

The Cascadian Smash Cocktail

Shawn Leave a comment

It didn’t take long for summer to pack it up. It went from T-Shirts to raincoats practically overnight, the temperature dipped into the long pants zone and no-one is still wearing flip flops in all this muck. *sigh*It’s time for me to stay inside and organize all the late summer fruit ‘n veg harvested from our garden and out in the wild.

The latest bit of foraging I did yielded three large mason jars full of Oregon Grape Syrup, which retains much of the wild berry’s natural sourness tempered with just a hint of cane sugar. It’s very similar in taste to a Blackberry-Balsamic Shrub which is a type of fruit and vinegar syrup or cordial used to give cocktails a sexy sweet ‘n sour kick. Read More

Spot Prawn Tortelloni

Shawn Leave a comment

My parents are coming from Ontario to visit so we’ve been busy this week cleaning up the yard, trimming back the encroaching  forest and sowing the last crop from the garden so when they arrive they’ll have a place to lounge in the sun and something to snack on. I intend to do quite a bit of grilling for them, but not every meal. Here and there I’ve packed away freezer bags full of pre-made nibblets for the nights when we’ve had a bit too much adventure.

One of these instant meals includes a heaping helping of our local Spot Prawns, which I’ve still got frozen in water-filled bags from back in June. I mentioned that spot prawn makes a fine stuffing for dumplings of all shapes ‘n sizes and that goes for stuffed pastas as well!

Read More