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DAMN! Look at that! LOOK AT IT! No time to waste.

What you need:

4 Ramekins
Electric Egg beater
4 Eggs
Pinch of Creme Tartar
Pinch of Salt
Pinch of Pepper
2 Tablespoons Grated Smoked Cheddar Cheese
1 Green Onion
2 Tablespoons Ricotta
Butter

-Preheat oven to 350.
-Coat the walls & bottoms of the Ramekins with Butter, set aside
-Separate out the egg whites into a large bowl, and carefully place the yolks on a bowl filled with cool water
-Add the Creme Tartar to the whites and Beat them to stiff peaks
-Fold in the salt, pepper, and cheese into the egg whites
-Spoon into the ramekins, don’t over heap them to much as they will rise like phoenixes
-Make a small yolk size indentation in the whites.
-Carefully take the yolks out of the water, using your fingers, and nestle them into the indentations.
-Spoon a 1/2 tablespoon of ricotta next to the yolks
-Put them in the oven for ~11 minutes.
-Cut up the green onion
-Pull out your Souffles, and garnish with onion
-Serve POSTE HASTE.

This is the best breakfast you can have. This is adapted from a recipe in the Gourmet Magazine which can be found on Epicurious .

In my home in Provence, we have a saying “Prenez la Salade Niçoise, et faites-lui le vôtre.”  Which can be roughly translated into “Love is the Ice Cream of the Soul”.   Provencal France is so romantic. And that is why I made this salad. It is perfect for you fresh Garden Greens, that should be in abundance right about now. The Key Ingredient, the Tuna in Olive Oil, is dreadfully hard to come by around Saskatchewan but should you sink to desperate levels Clover Leaf has your back sorta.

Salade Terise (for 2)

1 can Tuna packed in Olive Oil
3 Cups Garden Greens
4 small ripe red tomatoes
2 tbsp. of Large Capers
2 eggs
1 Red Bell pepper
1 Clove of Garlic
3 tbsp. Olive Oil
1 1/2 tbsp. Red Wine Vinegar

To kick it off get a salad bowl put in it the olive oil, and the red wine vinegar. Crush the clove of garlic then jab it with a fork. Use this garlic fork to mix up your olive oil and vinegar. Then let the garlic sit in the mixture and put it aside.

Now put the eggs on to boil. 12 minutes if you drop them straight into the boiling water, 15 if you let them heat up.

While the eggs are boiling, cut the tomatoes into nice bite size wedges, and the pepper into tiny thin strips.

Once the eggs are done dump out the hot water and put them into a cold water bath.

Now you can take the garlic fork, and any garlic bits in your olive oil and vinegar. Tear up your fresh greens into the bowl, add in the peppers, tomatoes, and capers. give everything a nice toss and pdivide up the salad onto plates.

Slice a cooled hard boiled egg up and place it on the salad. And divide up the Tuna and place it on top of the salad Et Voila! Salade Terise!

A Note on Tuna: You will never be able to get good enough Tuna in Olive Oil, but Rio Mare is pretty good. Everywhere I have found it, it has been pricey ($7 for three 80 gram cans), but worth it. Enjoy in moderation.

Ahhhhh. Breakfast in the woods. Few things can rival it. For many years I have been doing the old cast-iron skillet bacon & eggs, or scrambler. While this was always a treat I was always a little disappointed in the eggs, as they would always turn out a bit burned, especially after the bacon had been in there. Or worse if you premake a scrambler you have to haul around a ziplock bag full of uncooked eggs, which is liable to tear/spill and turn everything in your cooler into a mess. But late last year I caught on to an idea that was so ingenious it made me sick with joy.

The Bush Pie Maker can be used for much more than sweet treats. It can be used for Breakfast.

Bush Pie Makers are available from most camping stores, and Canadian Tire. I did not purchase the Coghlan’s brand one from the link, but you get the idea. I’m sure Coghlan’s makes an ill pie maker. Anyways it is basically 2 cast iron plates, that clamp together, fastened to sticks, in which magic can happen when placed over a camp fire. The basic Idea is you make a grilled cheese sandwich but instead of grilled cheese you toss in pie filling, and if you are decadent, cream cheese. The breakfast version will require a bit more preparation but the basic steps are the same. Last weekend I had the opportunity to do some testing, so without further ado…

Breakfast Bush Pies:

Equipment:
1 - Bush Pie Maker
1 - Cast Iron Skillet
1 - Hot Low burning fire

Ingredients:

Whole Grain Bread
Butter
Bacon
Eggs
Bear Spray.

Step 1 ) Cook the bacon in the skillet, there is no way it will cook in the pie maker.
Step 2 ) Save the hot bacon fat
Step 3 ) Make a hot butter/bacon fat slurry
Step 4 ) Take 2 slices of the bread and paint both sides of them with the slurry
Step 5 ) Place the slices of bread in the bush pie maker, make sure to press one side down a bit, so as to make a little nest for your egg as it were
Step 6 ) Tear apart some of your cooked bacon & put it in the nest
Step 7 ) Crack an egg into the nest.
Step 8 ) Seal the deal and cook until nicely toasted.
Step 9 ) Eat and spray any approaching bears

Outtards:

Innards:

Tips:

-If you like your eggs cooked hard, be sure to start off with a cold pie maker.
-If you like your eggs a little runny, warm up the pie maker first.
-Do not ( no matter how tempting ) introduce cheese into the formula. It will end badly.
-Medium/Small size eggs may give you greater success/less overflow on the seal.
-To avoid the Bacon cooking step, you could try a Back Bacon, or Ham
-Do NOT buy artisan/fancy breads for this. You pretty much want you most over processed, manufactured, industrial bread you can get. One with a consistent slice area and teeny tiny little air pockets. Big fluffy sourdoughs are out.

The best soup I have ever tasted was from Calories. It was “Whole Beet Soup” and since then have been trying to emulate it to the best of my abilities. My current incarnation of this recipe is at about 65% of the Calories version, making it reasonable enough to share. Big HOIIIYOOO! has to go out to my Grandma for supplying the Beets, Dill, and Onions.

Read on! (more…)

 

Mmmmm Pesto. Tasty as it comes, and easy to make, no measurements just  ratios:

-As much basil as humanly possibly

-Pistachios to Pine Nuts, 6:1 ratio, 1:1 ratio with basil

-Garlic cloves to taste, I like about a 1:10 ratio to the Basil Nut mix

-1:8 of total mixture of Olive Oil

Food process it and mix it with pasta, or freeze for a later date.

Summertime! And what could be better than an Icy Smooth Refreshing Booze Beverage. Nothing! Problem is blenders have NEVER EVER been able to make a good “blender” drink. While they will usually do the trick, they seldom deliver a Slurpee like texture. Enter our cure-all kitchen device, the Ice Cream Machine! Follow the recipe and you’ll have a killer drink for you and your gal to enjoy on a Hot Summers Day/Night.

Frozen Lime All The Time!

1 Cup Fresh squeezed Lime Juice (you will need like 8 limes to get this)
1 Cup Sugar
2 Cups Water
1 Tbsp Lime Zest
1 Pinch of Salt
1 Cup Smirnoff “Lime” Vodka
1 Ice Cream Machine

1. Put Water and sugar in a saucepan, and bring to a boil. Always stirring.
2. Remove from heat and stir in salt & Lime juice
3. Let Cool
4. Add in Vodka and Zests
5. Let that sit for another couple hours in the fridge.
6. Put it in the Ice Cream Maker
7. Take it out, get hyp-ah.

When Kenny Roger’s Roasters closed its doors a nation wept, and with good reason. Easy access rotisserie was lost for the rest of time. Hoping to rekindle a bit of that magic, I set out to rotisserie a fine bird which I hoped to enjoy while Kenny belted out a beautiful rendition of”Ruben James” in the background.

ROUND 1 - Somethins Burnin’ (I think it’s my love…)

Well things started off just fine, I was thoroughly pumped, my chicken was peppered an stuffed with garlic. To make it tasty. I set it on the spit and let it roar along. Things were looking good so I went inside to finish up supper. 30 minutes later I went out to check on the bird, and much to my chagrin it had sprung loose of the motor and was resembling Tommy-Lee Jones in Batman Forever. Disappointing at best, but ever resourceful, I had a backup chicken should such a situation arise.

ROUND 2 - Always Leaving, Always Gone

There is Chicken Number #2 all spitted up and ready to go. This time I implemented the Mission critical “spit guard” (pic2) preventing any slippage out of the motor. Things were looking encouraging. I was checking often to ensure even cooking, and everything was going as planned. But about another 20 minutes into the cooking process the propane ran out… dag. So rotisserie turned to roast, and it was supper like any other night.

So the take home lesson is one does not just casually wade into rotisserie cooking, it requires planning, triple checking of all possible failure points, and a near limitless supply of resources. It is a style of cooking well suited to architects & astronauts, nary the common man. Perhaps this was the reason Kenny Roger’s Roasters wasn’t able to pull through.

This is how you make the best thing of all time. You’ll need an ice cream maker. It will cost about $16. Ingredients: 1/2 Cup Bernard Callebaut Cocoa Powder 2 Bernard Callebaut Dark Chocolate Bars 1/2 Cup Sugar 1 1/2 Cup Heavy Cream (Don’t be scared to go Devonshire here) 1 Cup Whole Milk (Devonshire again????) 3 Egg Yolks 1/4 teaspoon salt Makes about 750 mL , depending on how much you sample during the process. Start by mixing Cocoa Powder, Sugar, and Salt in saucepan. Add cream and turn on heat to about medium, while it heats stir in milk(cream).As it warms up the cocoa will break down and the mixture will become homogeneous and dark. As soon as it starts to boil turn down the heat to low. Now at this point you could pour that into a cup and drink it. AZTEC STYLE! That would be good. Or you could press on. In a big bowl whisk up those egg yolks. Then take your awesome hot chocolate off the stove and whisk it into yolks slowly (if you do it too fast you might cook the yolks, that would ruin everything). Then pour the mixture back in the saucepan on the stove on low heat. Grab whatever is left from those two dark chocolate bars (like you won’t eat some) and toss them into saucepan. As they begin to melt you can take the sauce pan off the stove and keep stirring until the bars are all the way melted. Then let the mixture cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally Pour that into a casserole type bowl with a lid and put in in the fridge. Wait 3-24 hours. Take it out of the fridge. If you did everything right you will have a super thick pudding type mixture. Some may call it a custard. Eat a spoonful of it, and break out the electric mixer. Whip that pudding until it is softer, and lighter you’ll want to go for a mousse-like consistency, but don’t worry if it is a little thick. Eat another spoonful of it. Spoon it into the ice cream maker and let it run for 30-45 minutes. You can then either transfer to the deep freeze for an hour to have it hardern up, or eat it Soft Serve style. Either way you’ll be overwhelmed with majestic chocolate euphoria, then you might get the gout. Enjoy!