Ask a chef

[lindalouly]

Thanks deb! I suspected that.

Oops. Yes, I meant day old or any already cooked rice. We use jasmine here everyday so we always have left overs.

 

[Akrnaf2]

Thanks deb! I suspected that.

Oops. Yes, I meant day old or any already cooked rice. We use jasmine here everyday so we always have left overs.

 

[CanuckBock]

I envy you with the meat variety you have, but here because the very strict dietary low in Judaism, and because ouer country is as it is, we dont have even 10% of it. We ( the one that cares )can't eat a lot of animals and the one that we can they need to be killed and prepared by the cosher whay! So no hunting!
To comper home grown and hom made food to comercial food is like comparing Mazda to Ferrari! You can't!
And about the ones that can't eat your fresh egg become their tast, you should send them to junk rehab!

They farm deer here and cloven foot with cud chewing (oxen, sheep, goats, deer, gazelles, roebuck, wild goats, ibex, antelopes, and mountain sheep) means you could purchase a whole animal live like a deer and have it slaughtered properly the kosher way. I see both kosher and Halal meats for sale and always check prices on them too because sometimes the packages are more reasonably priced that other fresh meats on offer. Always delicious and healthy humanely methods used.

Mazda to Ferrari...that is a great comparison Benny!

Until I began growing and processing our own poultry...I truly thought my taste buds had gotten OLD...no joking! I thought, "Well this is old age...the good old days when a chicken tasted firm with lots of chickenly flavour...turkey dinner was tremendously flavourful, gravy was sinfully delicious!"...I became this way because we happened to live though what is thought to be commercial food advancements...when a chicken went from taking a long time to grow to a decent size...to where they are being slaughtered in under 47 days. There is simply NO time to develop real chicken flavours. Quality takes time...just like fine wine. You need to invest time and time, well that costs money... You can BUY time by trading off resources...by raising heritage breeds and producing slow foods.

​

We humans have now created endless eating Frankenstein chickens...the poor things have lost the ability to feel full and will eat themselves to death if we allow them. I feel bad for them. Many raised in darkness, get crippled when their bones break under the weigh of their excessive flesh...have no life and you can really taste the unhappiness in the meat. here are poultry producers that quit the industry because they cannot stand what the big corps demand they do to make a living. I talked with one poultry inspector and he says he is powerless...he could do proper reports on the conditions he finds but it all goes on deaf ears because it is the companies that run the show, not the regulations that are suppose to be kind and good for all the animals involved. We consumers DO have what we want...cheap food, but somewhere along the way, we also traded in good taste and decent animal husbandry methods. Glory be to those with a flock of chickens able to run free in their yards! The backyard flockers that have real birds that put real goodness in their outputs...a homegrown egg has more value in the good parts like the minerals and vitamins than any factory farmed product!

Marketing products for consumption...getting the masses to buy anything put in front of them...they WANT people to accept tasteless mush foods. Then people can think it is such a great DEAL to buy food that is cheap...cheap food, bigger is better, need to super size that! Large quantities of food on cheap have to compromise something and what you cannot judge so well in those perfectly displayed foods is the TASTE and that should be the first determiner of what and why we buy the food. Oh well. I have a friend I grew up with...always makes me embarrassed, because before buying a bunch of grapes, she will taste one. She had started work in a grocery store and felt right at home...she laughed at my paling face and said, "Not buying this if the taste is not good!" Ha ha ha...can you imaging chewing on a piece of meat before buying it...bad enough I pick the package up and look at the meat for freshness, good colour, how much marbled fat, how much is bone and good only for making soup stock...have they put the price label over a huge piece of sinew or heavy bone to hide it. I remember one time buying some chops to find the butcher had disguised the bad side of the chops by facing them down. I was so mad to have been fooled, I put the meat back in my fridge and marched into the grocery for a refund...BAD meat...I was so unhappy! Another trick is them to advertise a price for meat and you go to find half the meat is fat...no wonder the price per pound seems reasonable.

I do know my family (generations of them from Northern Europe) was in shock when they escaped the war to come to North America. All the fatty meat was less money than the lean cuts. From where they came, you paid premium for meat with fat...fat put on an animal was hard to accomplish. I know one friend brought a relative over from Europe and could not get him out of the pet food aisle when she stopped to pick up some food for supper. He stood in that whole aisle just in shock. He said there was more choices for food for the cats and dogs than his stores had for meat choices for humans. We are spoilt and our food is subsidized but we still do not have GOOD food like we can raise for ourselves...costs more to raise our own, but I still feel so much better to do this.

We are now being warned because ONE steak can cost what five use to cost a year ago (like $25/steak when I use to buy them for $5) that out of dated "fresh" meat is now repackaged at the grocery and marinaded...to disguise the bad and off taste with seasonings! I refuse to buy "prepared" meals because you do pay more for something I can do myself and you could well be paying for less than fresh meats...

. Homemade fried rice for those that don't have a lot of money. I start buy frying the slice ham steaks into small cube until golden. I mix eggs and small diced tomatoes next and add to pan withday off jasmine rice. I season with salt and pepper, soy sauce. Maybe a swirl of fish sauce if its not salty enough and a pinch of sugar to replace the the horrible accent that most Asian food has. I usually add onions green or white if I have them available in the saute process. I serve with fried eggs and sliced cucumbers... I just happen to be out of cucumbers so they are missing tonight. Soooo good!

A delicious meal indeed.

My spouse came his own dowry of cooking ware--expensive knives/pots & pans, and even a special set of Chinese dinnerware...yes, he cooks (studied at a bakery for a time too!) but happily submitted to letting me make the daily meals...oh goody--if dinner goes up in smoke, that be my fault! LMBO

He is the one that insists you have a sink fulla hot soapy waters on the go at all times to clean as you go. My Aunt use to have dinner parties and the invited children's jobs were to do the dishes...I swear she used every pot, pan and dish she owned...because the kids would clean up AFTER the meal (not allowed near the kitchen while she worked!), so good time to spring clean?

There are lots of recipes for what is called "dirty rice" (Cajun and Creole dishes) where cold rice has lovely little bits of tasty things added to it...my Hero would fry up some mushrooms (or drain a can of mushrooms), fry up a pound of hamburger (drain it of fat) and toss that in the rice in a big wok he had the rice being warmed up in--that was his food for the major part of a work week. In dirty rice you can add bits of chopped celery and green bell peppers; season with salt, pepper and parsley--the meat is often fried chicken giblets. Very economical but fills your guts with goodness! Beans and Rice...that is how Canadian country singer diva Shania Twain maintains that body of hers!

I always have green onions and fresh mushrooms in my house...not so sure why it is just what I have always...oh yes and celery. I start whining it is time to go shopping if I run out of any of those three in the week. LOL

So cold rice, mixed egg fried with a dash of salt and slivered, diced green onions tossed in last...something like that lovely fried ham cubed, cooked diced chicken too...in Chinese Fried recipes, the flavours used are soy sauce and Chinese cooking wine, peanut oil and sometimes a few drops of sesame oil. The tomatoes would add some lovely colour! We eat with our eyes first, eh!

My spouse is like myself, we started life off very poor. When they moved out, the house my husband started life in was turned into a chicken coop because it was not "fit" for human occupation. One of my first memories is that my father owed three months rent to the owners of Kidd Brother's Honey and they never kicked our fam out on the streets...my father eventually caught up but the kindness of these people are forever ingrained in my memories as a child! Not too long ago I e-mailed the company and thanked them for their generosity...the fella that looked after rent collection had passed on but the relative said he was like that! My grandparents came to visit and brought a black & white TV as a gift...my father was too proud to take charity but we were obviously unable to afford such a luxury as a TV so he was gracious and accepted the "gift." Because you know the bottom rung, you learn to be thankful always for your good fortunes and never to forget how to survive, how to eat well and streeeetch a dollar. Like the fishes and loaves of bread story...you can be blessed to see miracles, eh.


Some very easy dishes...with readily available ingredients for many of us...

Chinese Egg Drop soup...

​

Split up a chicken or use a cheaper cut like legs (thighs and drums) as I have above...looks like I used three full legs (hmmm...where's the other leg gone to?)

Put in chicken pieces in a stock pot with water and boil for soup base. You can debone chook and fry the meat up separate but I am a lazy sop looking for more time outside...so all chicken in pot with water on simmer and go back to visit it all day adding top up with water. Bunch of green onions, diced for sprinkling on top of the finished soup. Frozen (or fresh when you can grow them) peas. You make soup stock, fish out chicken, cut out meat parts from bone, dice meat up to small pieces (in true Egg Drop Soup recipes, no meat...but I cheat and add the meat back). You take the soup stock and bring it to a rolling full boil. Meanwhile you crack eggs and stir up in a bowl as you would for scrambled eggs. When soup is back to boiling, you get the broth swirling round the pot by stirring it and ever so slowly as to not cause the boiling to stop, pour a stream of eggs in; you are cooking ribbons of eggs. Keep at a boil so you can add frozen peas, when back to a boil, yell FOOD to your better half (and family if you have more still lingering around the home...not scared them off quite yet!) and sprinkle green onion diced on top of each bowl of soup. Warn them it is hot...boiling HOT! I do this soup when making a big Chinese meal as planned to keep the starving hordes all pawing at the kitchen to get away from the OTHER courses of food I am making. LOL


Chinese Chicken Wings
If you grow your own chickens for consumption, sometimes you can cut up your processed birds for pieces...save up the wings for a special meal. Have a freezer bag on the go where you add wings till you have enough for a feast!

More an appetizer if you have only two wing a dings...a whole meal if more and you are greedy guts!

​

As the photo shows...four ingredients...soy sauce to marinade the wings in (you can do this in the morning, toss wings ever so often...or can be done for half an hour if you did not plan your day well... Drain wings of soy sauce...toss in corn starch whilst lard is heating in a deep pot or deep fryer (you will not keep this lard as it will become tainted with residues).

​

Deep fry wings till brown, turning once so all sides are browned. I do about five to six wings at a time and put them to drain in oven on moderate heat. I hate deep frying oil and kick my dogs outta my kitchen so no distractions...otherwise this Swedish Chef cook (why the dogs are there...food is flying around and needs clean up, aisle nine!)...burns herself...

Coupla these wings are a tad over done but I was making OTHER foods
and got myself distracted - that's MY story, sticking to it!

Chinese Fried Rice

Cold rice, diced fried egg, minced green onion, frozen green peas,
diced ham, Chinese Cooking Wine and Soy Sauce - missing oil for cooking ​

Meal of Fried rice, deep fried shrimp, and meat and vegetable "goop" mixture
​

Heat some oil in wok, toss in cold rice (Basmati, Jasmine, brown, wild rice tastes nice but usually makes ALL the rice PURPLE) and stir so it does not stick, add 1.5 tsp wine, 1 to 2 tablespoon soy, add peas, fried egg, diced ham...toss till steaming hot--top with green onion. Done like dinner.


And usually before (we are odd) and not AFTER a meal...the dessert (while you still have room to stuff your pie hole!)...

Chocolate Mousse

Swedish Chef and his soon to be chocolateD moose - Spouse's pet name pour moi...MOOSE...big person, tiny feet, crashes around = moose, can't argue that...makes sense if you are NOT a "Mon Petit Chou Chou..."

Putting CHOCOLATE on the MOOSE​

Good GACK! I am now HUNGRY for dinner and should be having a late breakfast...going to be a loooong day, eh.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Akrnaf2]

Whoo that was a short post!
I agree with you completely!
I wished That we could have some dear and other exotic Chosher aninals, I have never had venison or Bison!
When I was young, my parents and all my freinds parents could not afford eating meat mor than twice a week so it was precious
Touday the the manufacturing process is so chip that it is more available, but it comes on the quality levels of the products!
Basically the comercial chicken that it is slmost 100% some Cornish cross, is a chick! After 52 dayes of fattening! And I agree that it couldn't bilt its taste, it is like a piece of soap. Did you know that a Cornish cross if it isn't processed in time could brake it shanks due the massive whigt of it's brest?
What about wild fish in Canada? Nice fresh wild salmon or Halibut sounds terrific! Do uou use them?

 

[CanuckBock]

Whoo that was a short post!

I agree with you completely!
I wished That we could have some dear and other exotic Chosher aninals, I have never had venison or Bison!
When I was young, my parents and all my freinds parents could not afford eating meat mor than twice a week so it was precious
Touday the the manufacturing process is so chip that it is more available, but it comes on the quality levels of the products!
Basically the comercial chicken that it is slmost 100% some Cornish cross, is a chick! After 52 dayes of fattening! And I agree that it couldn't bilt its taste, it is like a piece of soap. Did you know that a Cornish cross if it isn't processed in time could brake it shanks due the massive whigt of it's brest?
What about wild fish in Canada? Nice fresh wild salmon or Halibut sounds terrific! Do uou use them?

I type faster than I can think (flicked off keys on TWO lap tops, so went back to desk top computers...new keyboard replaced quicker & cheaper!). Means I may write something out quickly...quicker than most but does it make sense...maybe not?

Ah yes, forgot about our buffalos...bison is the correct term that you have used...good on you! Good meat...in the hamburger, you may have to add some fat to get more flavour but very much like beef but said to be better for you. Sustained the original peoples of North America well. I am told that meat from elk, they would not hunt it because it takes up more energy/calories to digest it than it gives back...so many would not bother with elk...same I am told of mushrooms and yet, if I had to give up meat, mushrooms would be my "meat" substitute.


Meat WAS a precious commodity and we are very spoilt to be able to plan for part of it in each meal. At one time, a chicken held great value and to avoid them being stolen, they roosted in your house to keep them from being taken at night but humans and other predators...precious chickens. The North American Canadian cook is likely to choose the meat and build the meal around that part, being the main course. I see now some diets are pushing meat as only a rare special part of human eating. We should be eating more like human ancestors like chimpanzees...a diet in fruits and veg being what we are more genetically geared to be on. Cave persons as hunter/gatherers, fumbling around throwing rocks and spears...more like we were less likely to bring home the "Butterball" turkey than find some wild roots to stave off starvation...oh well. Advancing our evolutions but maybe not improving our quality of living.

Wild fish...yes, lots of choices and farmed fish (not so good as wild simply because fish would be expected to move about, not be captive in larger than natural schools and potential polluted).

Wild salmon, well on the WEST coast...I am being told the radiation from Japan's nuclear issue is now on the West Coast. All the rave about eating more fish as it is healthy is not so true, sad, sad. As a youth, I worked at a cannery cleaning salmon for canning. I would eat my own canned salmon sandwiches on the docks at lunch time. I mean I use to go to grab a fish on the conveyer belt and come away with only me holding the back bone...that was on the Pink salmon...yes, many who have worked at meat plants will not EAT meat...but I grossed the other workers out, munching on salmon sandwiches because I had caught it, I had canned it. I am a bad person for teasing...

I did note that any of the huge salmon...fisheries persons came and recorded information on the big fish (huge monsters--Chinook salmon), all were destined for the Asian markets for the center piece for weddings and other celebrations. The local people could not afford big fish like that unless we caught it ourselves...

Halibut...oh yes...but it was us humans again that ruined that. Halibut is a ground fish and one of the rushes to settle the WEsT Coast of Canada was the discovery of gold. What use to be use to extract gold...but mercury. Mercury sinks in water...so the ground fish would get in with that and the big breeder fish that live for a long time, would consume more and more to poison their very flesh. I remember there were 250 to 300 pound Halibut that were massive in size...very imposing...but we never kept those or wanted to hook on one (all muscle, not to be brought ON your small boat without first removing its head, some shot it with small rifle to remove brain). A halibut alive could smash your boat to pieces...break your arm easily. We did catch 80 pounders and keep those ones...we drug that to shore backwards (tail tied to the back of the boat) in the water and removed the head on the beach...it is one of the very best tasting fishes. I know, I know...why do the rare ones taste SO good...maybe why they are uncommon?

My spouse and I, we lived on the WEsT Coast for 25+ years. I know you are not to eat shellfish but when we moved to the northern end of Vancouver Island it was not too populated...at low tides you could use a stick with a point on it to harvest Abalone off the rocks ...that is my death bed meal of choice--fried abalone--BUT since it takes 25 years for an Abalone (mother of pearl is the shell...beautiful creature that deserves to be left to live) to replicate...the abalone fishery was abolished...divers could not harvest them when we left the area decades ago. Virtually wiped them out...does not do a species well to taste good to humans... We also harvested mussels off the rocks...so long as it was not a red tide time (poison yourself), just boiled and with butter. Another favourite, prawns...again a taboo for you as in shellfish. I only miss the prawns thinking back to all we could eat on the Coast. I may purchase it flash frozen, so oft times better than fresh as you never did know how long the prawn boats were out to sea and if fresh but not alive, sitting in the sun could turn bad. Frozen for us is good enough. What I miss was a child, my father would put down his own prawn traps, come back after one tide change and we would put out newpapers on the tables, boil butter with cloves of garlic and there were five gallon pails of prawns...eat them till any cuts on your hands screamed from the salt. Prawns as big as small crayfish with eggs. But as with all things...we feasted until there was no more... Another thing that changed...people would lift up your traps for crab or prawns if you were not there at tide change...always the locals out checking their own traps...helping themselves laughing because YOU missed tide change. When we left, they were not helping themselves to the unguarded catch...they were stealing the traps too. Sigh...times a changing.

My husband and I would go out in our little boat on a calm day...troll for salmon, jig in deep holes for halibut and red snapper (best part...cheeks, you get enough snapper cheeks to make fish and chips--that was the tenderloin of the sea!). I would clean fish as it was caught right off the boat. Our favourite salmon was Sockeye (the brilliant red fleshed one) which we stock piled in the freezers at home, I canned in the fall time in glass jars for sandwiches. Oh my, lovely fish. Again, overfished and now with the radiation...you do not have to be envious because you would not want to be eating fishes on that Coast. Sigh.

We have messed in our own nests...polluted our seas and I just wonder, how many 100's of years for cheap power must pass before fishes of the sea are safe again?

I did hear a funny proposition the other day...they are now saying the oceans are alive and a being themselves...a creature that thinks and can act--slowly but an actual living being. Scientists are saying that if that being the Sea, tho large and slow and not a being we are use to dealing with...ever acts up against mankind...we truly are in trouble.

I remember the East Coast, the Grand Banks...they said the fish in that ocean would never run out...HA! We reap what we sow and we seem not to give back or replenish....and indeed, know when we should stop and wait for it to come back again.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Akrnaf2]

It sounds terrific! I just can imagine that.
Food that come from natural source ( clean and helty ofcors!) Is in my aye the best food, I just think about all the dishes I could have preper for them. Wild fish, and meat, al sorts of berries and mushrooms, herbs, ect ect! In another trade I imagined what will be the menu of a meal that I will preper if I would come for a visit! It could be an magnificent one.

 

[perchie.girl]

Whoo that was a short post!

I agree with you completely!
I wished That we could have some dear and other exotic Chosher aninals, I have never had venison or Bison!
When I was young, my parents and all my freinds parents could not afford eating meat mor than twice a week so it was precious
Touday the the manufacturing process is so chip that it is more available, but it comes on the quality levels of the products!
Basically the comercial chicken that it is slmost 100% some Cornish cross, is a chick! After 52 dayes of fattening! And I agree that it couldn't bilt its taste, it is like a piece of soap. Did you know that a Cornish cross if it isn't processed in time could brake it shanks due the massive whigt of it's brest?
What about wild fish in Canada? Nice fresh wild salmon or Halibut sounds terrific! Do uou use them?

I know people who raise them just as plain old chickens allowing them to free range and forage and feed them fermented feed rather than the prescribed high protien diet. They grow slower but healthier....

But yeah they are like FrankenChickens.... (a play on the word Frankenstein)

deb

 

[lindalouly]

I type faster than I can think (flicked off keys on TWO lap tops, so went back to desk top computers...new keyboard replaced quicker & cheaper!).  Means I may write something out quickly...quicker than most but does it make sense...maybe not? 

​

Ah yes, forgot about our buffalos...bison is the correct term that you have used...good on you!  Good meat...in the hamburger, you may have to add some fat to get more flavour but very much like beef but said to be better for you.  Sustained the original peoples of North America well.  I am told that meat from elk, they would not hunt it because it takes up more energy/calories to digest it than it gives back...so many would not bother with elk...same I am told of mushrooms and yet, if I had to give up meat, mushrooms would be my "meat" substitute.    


Meat WAS a precious commodity and we are very spoilt to be able to plan for part of it in each meal.  At one time, a chicken held great value and to avoid them being stolen, they roosted in your house to keep them from being taken at night but humans and other predators...precious chickens.  The North American Canadian cook is likely to choose the meat and build the meal around that part, being the main course.  I see now some diets are pushing meat as only a rare special part of human eating.  We should be eating more like human ancestors like chimpanzees...a diet in fruits and veg being what we are more genetically geared to be on.  Cave persons as hunter/gatherers, fumbling around throwing rocks and spears...more like we were less likely to bring home the "Butterball" turkey than find some wild roots to stave off starvation...oh well.  Advancing our evolutions but maybe not improving our quality of living.

Wild fish...yes, lots of choices and farmed fish (not so good as wild simply because fish would be expected to move about, not be captive in larger than natural schools and potential polluted).

Wild salmon, well on the WEST coast...I am being told the radiation from Japan's nuclear issue is now on the West Coast.  All the rave about eating more fish as it is healthy is not so true, sad, sad.  As a youth, I worked at a cannery cleaning salmon for canning.  I would eat my own canned salmon sandwiches on the docks at lunch time.  I mean I use to go to grab a fish on the conveyer belt and come away with only me holding the back bone...that was on the Pink salmon...yes, many who have worked at meat plants will not EAT meat...but I grossed the other workers out, munching on salmon sandwiches because I had caught it, I had canned it.  I am a bad person for teasing...   :/

I did note that any of the huge salmon...fisheries persons came and recorded information on the big fish (huge monsters--Chinook salmon), all were destined for the Asian markets for the center piece for weddings and other celebrations.  The local people could not afford big fish like that unless we caught it ourselves...   

Halibut...oh yes...but it was us humans again that ruined that.  Halibut is a ground fish and one of the rushes to settle the WEsT Coast of Canada was the discovery of gold.  What use to be use to extract gold...but mercury.  Mercury sinks in water...so the ground fish would get in with that and the big breeder fish that live for a long time, would consume more and more to poison their very flesh.  I remember there were 250 to 300 pound Halibut that were massive in size...very imposing...but we never kept those or wanted to hook on one (all muscle, not to be brought ON your small boat without first removing its head, some shot it with small rifle to remove brain).  A halibut alive could smash your boat to pieces...break your arm easily.  We did catch 80 pounders and keep those ones...we drug that to shore backwards (tail tied to the back of the boat) in the water and removed the head on the beach...it is one of the very best tasting fishes.  I know, I know...why do the rare ones taste SO good...maybe why they are uncommon?   

My spouse and I, we lived on the WEsT Coast for 25+ years.  I know you are not to eat shellfish but when we moved to the northern end of Vancouver Island it was not too populated...at low tides you could use a stick with a point on it to harvest Abalone off the rocks ...that is my death bed meal of choice--fried abalone--BUT since it takes 25 years for an Abalone (mother of pearl is the shell...beautiful creature that deserves to be left to live) to replicate...the abalone fishery was abolished...divers could not harvest them when we left the area decades ago.  Virtually wiped them out...does not do a species well to taste good to humans...  We also harvested mussels off the rocks...so long as it was not a red tide time (poison yourself), just boiled and with butter.  Another favourite, prawns...again a taboo for you as in shellfish.  I only miss the prawns thinking back to all we could eat on the Coast.  I may purchase it flash frozen, so oft times better than fresh as you never did know how long the prawn boats were out to sea and if fresh but not alive, sitting in the sun could turn bad.  Frozen for us is good enough.  What I miss was a child, my father would put down his own prawn traps, come back after one tide change and we would put out newpapers on the tables, boil butter with cloves of garlic and there were five gallon pails of prawns...eat them till any cuts on your  hands screamed from the salt.  Prawns as big as small crayfish with eggs.  But as with all things...we feasted until there was no more...  Another thing that changed...people would lift up your traps for crab or prawns if you were not there at tide change...always the locals out checking their own traps...helping themselves laughing because YOU missed tide change.  When we left, they were not helping themselves to the unguarded catch...they were stealing the traps too.  Sigh...times a changing.   :/
     
My husband and I would go out in our little boat on a calm day...troll for salmon, jig in deep holes for halibut and red snapper (best part...cheeks, you get enough snapper cheeks to make fish and chips--that was the tenderloin of the sea!).  I would clean fish as it was caught right off the boat.  Our favourite salmon was Sockeye (the brilliant red fleshed one) which we stock piled in the freezers at home, I canned in the fall time in glass jars for sandwiches.  Oh my, lovely fish.  Again, overfished and now with the radiation...you do not have to be envious because you would not want to be eating fishes on that Coast.  Sigh. 

We have messed in our own nests...polluted our seas and I just wonder, how many 100's of years for cheap power must pass before fishes of the sea are safe again?

I did hear a funny proposition the other day...they are now saying the oceans are alive and a being themselves...a creature that thinks and can act--slowly but an actual living being.  Scientists are saying that if that being the Sea, tho large and slow and not a being we are use to dealing with...ever acts up against mankind...we truly are in trouble.

I remember the East Coast, the Grand Banks...they said the fish in that ocean would never run out...HA!      We reap what we sow and we seem not to give back or replenish....and indeed, know when we should stop and wait for it to come back again.

Doggone & Chicken UP!


Tara Lee Higgins

Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada 

I live in the great northwest and there really isn't much better than freshly drugged clams and baby geoducks.

 

[lindalouly]

Its that time of the month again when the paycheck is spent and all we have are the freezer items and dry goods to cook dinner with. Tonight is chicken divan.

Frozen chicken breast boiled and diced and well drained. Defrosted and well drained frozen brocolli. Try to dry as much of both as you can. Layer in a 9 by 13.
Mix sauce.. I can of cream of chicken with I cup of mayo. Curry powder.. Not a lot cause it is strong. Lemon juice salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the chicken and brocolii. Top with shredded cheddar and bread crumbs and bake 350 until bubbly. Serve over rice.

 

[attimus]

Thanks everyone, still no baby yet.
Looks like you all are staying busy tho. Some good looking food out there ad some wonderful points about the quality of food. The hands on experience does make all the difference. I remember a while back living on the coast in northern California you could buy a live cow and have them raise it with your choice of feeds and space until slaughter, for a nominal fee of course. This year will be the first I'll be looking into buying livestock from some 4-H'rs at the county fair and I whole hearted agree about the taste of homegrown chicken and eggs compared to that of their store bought kin, we don't really eat chicken as a meal anymore unless it's one of ours. The very reason I decided to raise my own turkeys for the holiday.
Linda that's a great penny saving meal, sounds delicious. If you need to stretch it a little further add some pasta. Tou can also but it up a notch(hope i don't get sued)with some cooked bacon. This is essentially something I make at home although I use heavy cream instead of a can of soup.
Replace the chedder with smoked Gouda and you have a resemblance of a dish we make at work.

A.