Batter-Splattered

Now that I've settled into summer and everything is all big and green, I've come to the conclusion that my new house ... I still think of it as new -- I've only been here seven months -- that's new, right? I think you have to inhabit a place for a full year and see all four seasons before you can stop calling it new.

My new house is like a little oasis in the trees. My goal in life when I was a kid was to live in a house where, when you looked out the windows, all you would see is trees. A lofty goal, I know -- you guys can go be doctors and lawyers, I just wanna live in a treehouse. No neighbors. No buildings. Just green, green, green.

I've attained my goal. And if everyone would stop all this incessant talk about foreclosures, I might actually be able to sleep through the night without lying awake, worrying about every little penny I spend.

I guess I should be looking around for a new goal. But I don't really feel like pursuing my other childhood goal which was to be a forest ranger. Or a fish and game biologist (I had a thing for fish hatcheries). I didn't pursue those goals. I think there was too much math and mathy-science involved. So in the alternative, I just take lots of hikes and commune with nature in my own way. No math involved there. Unless you need to use a compass. Oh geez, the compass with its true north and magnetic north and adding this and subtracting that. I carry the compass and some instructions on how to use it ... probably wouldn't work for a fish hatchery though, like if suddenly all my fry started to die and I said, Wait! I have the instructions right here in my pack.

My birthday was this week. When I told my husband I wanted a porch swing for our rather sparsely-furnished screened-in back porch, he whined and said, "Oh, don't get a porch swing... I need to replace the heads on my pickup."

He's a peach, isn't he? Not only would he begrudge me a porch swing, but notice how he also expected I would be the one to go get said porch swing. For myself. On my birthday. I told him he'd better come home with a cake or he was a dead man.

Not to worry though -- mom gave me a fat gift certificate to REI and I loaded on frivolous purchases aplenty. Sunglasses. A pair of pants to yoga in. A pair of very frivolously priced pants to live in. I love Patagonia. And ordinarily, I'd be clinging to that gift card, waiting for sales and coupons but I don't know what came over me. I was there in the store and decided to go crazy and buy stuff. FULL PRICE stuff. Unheard of, for a thrifty gal like me. I was livin' large that day.

Recipes, you say? Wait, you come here for food and recipes, not just girl talk?

Well okay then. Let me tell you about camping food.

I spent this past weekend camping at a public use cabin up near Fairbanks. The Glatfelder Cabin on Quartz Lake.

There were raspberry bushes growing from the roof!:

How fabulous is that?

But poor Charlie Glatfelder had a rather dismal story. He was living in California and one day he pulled out a map and drew a circle around a blue dot right in the middle of Alaska. That blue dot was Quartz Lake.

 

He loaded his military surplus jeep and drove up and got a homestead claim on the lake and lived the first winter in a walled tent on stilts (to avoid bears?) The following summer he dug a root cellar and lived in that the next winter. Then the next summer he built himself a cabin. At first, everything went great -- he had a garden and traded fish or worked for other stuff he needed. But then eventually he lived on just the fish he caught in the lake, pike mostly, and became malnourished. In the 50s, some U.S. Marshalls went to Quartz Lake looking for a missing person and found old Charlie crazy as loon, convinced people were trying to poison him, and they shipped him off to an institution in California where he recovered but never returned to the lake.

Grim, huh? Yeah. Luckily it doesn't get dark here at night in the summertime, otherwise I might have been thoroughly spooked by the history of the place. Some of the people who wrote in the cabin log book said they awoke in the middle of the night to find faces pressed up against the windows, staring in at them.

View from one of the windows:

 

I took one look at the inside of that outhouse (only three walls and overlooking a hiking trail, hhmmm) and decided there weren't enough moist towelettes in the world to fight off dirty like that. So I employed the bushes that weekend -- and from the aroma while employing the bushes, I'd say pretty much everyone else did the same. When camping, you just have to yield to the dirty.

Anyway, the window-faces were geocachers apparently. It's a good thing they didn't come around the nights I was there because I'm pretty sure I would have jumped through the glass at them and run into the woods screaming, "Glatfelder's back! Glatfelder's back!"

I felt especially bad for poor malnourished Charlie because, boy, did we ever eat good that weekend. I felt a twinge of guilt every time I sat on a stump and  tucked into yet another wonderful meal, all cooked in foil packets, the king of campfire cooking methods.

The only thing not packeted would be tbone steaks cooked on a grate over that very fire. Otherwise, it was salmon with roasted red bell peppers, red onions, and portobello mushrooms all drizzled with sesame oil. Fresh vegetables and fresh herbs drizzled with olive oil. Scrambled eggs with vegetables and salmon or sausage. My mouth waters just thinking about it.

If you should find yourself planning a camping trip, I promise you can't go wrong with the following recipes. I hope you have as good a time in the great outdoors as I did.

Bundle of Veggies

Serves six

Feel free to use other vegetables and herbs. I added asparagus and sprigs of fresh herbs like thyme and rosemary.

• 8 ounces whole fresh mushrooms
• 8 ounces cherry tomatoes
• 1 cup sliced zucchini
• 1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine, melted
• 1/2 teaspoon salt or salt-free seasoning blend
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 dash pepper

Pile vegetables and herbs on a double thickness of heavy-duty foil (about 18 in. square). Combine the remaining ingredients; drizzle over vegetables. Fold the foil around vegetables and seal tightly. Grill, covered, over medium heat for 20-25 minutes or until tender.

Earth, Sea, and Fire Salmon

Serves eight

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 (8 ounce) salmon fillets
• 4 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
• 2 large red onions, sliced into rings
• 1 jarred roasted red pepper, drained and cut into strips (I did this at home before the camping trip because it's kind of messy and oily) 
• 8 ounces portobello mushrooms
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 teaspoon or more of sesame oil

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. On doubled-up sheets of foil, arrange potato slices in a layer. Season with a little salt and pepper. Place a layer of onions over the potatoes, then a layer of roasted peppers, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper as desired. Place salmon fillets over the vegetables and season with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Place whole mushrooms over the fillets, and drizzle them with sesame oil. Seal foil tightly and roast until fish flakes easily with a fork, and potatoes are tender.

Splat! or in the alternative, pastrami and spinach omelets

It was a very good winter for me as far as slip-and-falls go. The snow. The ice. It all conspires against me to sweep me off my feet at least a time or two each year.

But not this year! It was unprecedented coup for me in the taking-a-tumble department.

So you can understand my shock the other morning when I climbed off my commuter van into fat, swirling snowflakes (thinking to myself, "But I'm wearing my floaty cotton spring top!") that were quickly piling up on the ground from a surprise blizzard that certainly was not blizzarding at my house a mere 40 miles away. I took four steps and...

SPLAT.

I slid sideways, like I always do (in years past, of course, not this year). The sliding sideways is good, in a way. It's quick, like a sneak attack. You're down before you know it and looking around to see who saw and wondering if they'd be willing to come over and check your butt for bruising. It's much better than that backwards fall where you're airborne for what feels like an hour before WHAMMO! landing on your back, maybe cracking your head on the sidewalk (been there, done that) (in years past, of course).

But the bad thing about the sideways slide onto the sidewalk is that I get covered in snow from head to toe. But only on one side. Which is funny looking when you finally peel yourself up off the ground. If I was amused. Which I wasn't.

Luckily I had a civilized breakfast to get to, once I dusted all the snow off my clothes, my hair, and my pride.

A pastrami and spinach omelet. Leftover from the night before's dinner. So simple. So good.

I got some beautiful looking pastrami for sandwiches...

...but then got to wondering what else I could do with it. Not that there's anything wrong with a pastrami sandwich. Then I found this recipe for pastrami and spinach omelets and thought, "Now, doesn't that look like a nice and easy dinner."

I'm not much of a fan of breakfast. It's too much for so early in the morning. Toast and coffee will do it for me. But I am a fan of breakfast food. It makes the perfect dinner, in my opinion.

This recipe makes four big omelets so you need alot of eggs. And alot of spinach. A heapingly piled skilletful. So much spinach it's like a mountain, enough to make you wonder what you've done but don't worry: it'll soften up and cook down. Toss it with chopped pastrami, some salt and pepper, and some cheese. 

And before you know it, you'll have one of these on your plate:

The leftovers are excellent too.

Pastrami and Spinach Omelets

Serves four

5 tablespoons olive oil
2 (5-oz) bags baby spinach
1/4 lb thinly sliced pastrami, coarsely chopped (3/4 cup)
1 oz finely grated parmesan (1/2 cup) (I added some feta cheese too)
12 large eggs
1 teaspoon salt

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Add spinach all at once and cook, stirring, until wilted, about 3 minutes. Transfer to a colander and drain, pressing lightly. Toss spinach with pastrami, 1/4 cup cheese, and salt and pepper to taste in a bowl.

Whisk together 3 eggs and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a bowl until blended. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in an 8-inch nonstick skillet over moderate heat until hot but not smoking. Add whisked eggs and cook, lifting up cooked egg around edge occasionally to let raw egg flow underneath, until omelet is set but top is still slightly moist, about 1 to 2 minutes. Spoon one fourth of spinach mixture over half of omelet and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon cheese. Fold other half of omelet over filling using a heatproof rubber spatula and transfer to a plate. Keep warm, covered with foil.

Make 3 more omelets in same manner with remaining eggs, salt, oil, spinach mixture, and cheese.

April? or in the alternative, Forever Roasted Pork

So one day, a friend is telling me that she packed her skis away for the season, and we're taking the dogs for a little hike in the late afternoon sunshine (are those some happy looking dogs, or what?)...

... and my husband is selecting logs for people to sit on around the firepit this summer, and I'm remarking that finally all the ice has melted in the backyard ...

... and then?

It snowed all weekend long. Look at those forlorn, snow-covered logs around that firepit.

Snowing. All weekend. After months of nary a snowflake.

Will wonders never cease.

I'm not letting it get me down though. This snow is history as soon as the mercury crawls back up on the thermometer. Maybe it will even tamp out some of the fires that have been sparked lately (I was gonna climb that butte the day it caught fire).

Sunday was the perfect day to stay home, get a little painting done, and visit with Mom. She brought along some of her dried tomatoes and red and green bell peppers:

She used these to make a big pot of baked beans for lunch.

She was the queen of the dehydrator when I was little. She even built her own dehydrator -- a big wooden box on stilts with lots of mesh trays that slid out.

There was so much dried fruit and vegetables around back then, to this day I can't even look at a dried banana slice. Take it away.

But some time has passed and I was happy to get the dried tomatoes and bell peppers and will use them with pride.

As if a big pot of baked beans wasn't enough, I also had a big old pork roast roasting away (crocking away?) in the crock pot on the counter. The market had shoulder roasts on sale and I always feel such a sense of accomplishment when buying a huge hunk of meat for a scant $4.

Four dollars!

I modified a recipe for Forever Roasted Pork that I found on Michael Chiarello's website -- I want one of everything that man sells in his online shop.

I sauteed some onions with fresh sage leaves:

And made a rub of pepper, coriander, and fennel seeds.

And rub-a-dub-dubbed the pork all over:

That bone was supposed to be for the dog. I picked this roast out especially with her in mind but when we sliced into the roast we found the bone was a little too small and pointed to give to her.

She'll never know what she missed.

I was so full of beans by the time this roast was falling-apart-tender that I didn't eat too much of it that day, except to nibble a bit here and there. But we really dug in at lunchtime today. I shredded the cold pork, stirred in a little bit of my favorite barbecue sauce and some shredded cheddar cheese, then warmed it up a little and put it between two toasted pieces of bread. I wish I would have had an avocado to slice and add to the mix but I'm avocado-less at the moment.

But I can't complain.

Forever Roasted Pork

Serve six

2 medium onions, peeled and thinly sliced

2 T extra virgin olive oil

1 - 1 1/2 t finely chopped fresh sage leaves

1/2 c chicken broth

4 lb pork shoulder or leg

2 T fennel seeds or ground fennel

2 T dried coriander powder

2 T pepper

Salt and pepper

Preheat the crockpot while you're chopping and slicing and sauteing.

Saute the onions with a pinch of salt and pepper in the olive oil in a large skillet for one minute or so, then add the sage. Saute for about three minutes, then add the onion mixture to the crockpot and pour the broth over the onions.

Stir the fennel, coriander and pepper together to make a rub. Rub the roast generously with the rub ingredients and place the roast on top of the onions in the crockpot. Cook for six hours or more (I switched it back and forth from high to low occasionally) until the roast is falling apart tender.

the Great Alaska clean-out-your-freezer potluck / red currant champagne cocktails

As soon as I saw this post about an all-bacon potluck at Gluten Free Girl, I marched right out to my co-worker Angie's desk to point her in its direction. My god, the photos make my mouth water. All bacon... a potluck featuring bacon recipes. How brilliant an idea is that? Did I mention there was bacon?

Soon thereafter, Angie dreamed up the idea for an All Alaska Clean Out Your Freezer potluck, a chance for people to mix it up and meet new people and cook up some of last year's venison and fish and berries cluttering up their deep freeze (guilty) so they'll have plenty of room for this year's hunting and gathering. I mean, what's the point of living here if you aren't going to tromp out into the woods and pluck some berries or tromp on down to the river and catch yourself a king salmon?

It was to be held at my house. Angie created a charming invitation prominently featuring a photo of old Colonel Muktuk Marston:

 

He was quite the character but you knew that just from looking at his photo.

Lots of people we invited had other plans or were sticken with the flu and couldn't come, as will happen with any gathering. Usually when you invite a person to a party and they can't come, they just politely decline without much emotion, but these people... when they heard the idea behind the party, they were crushed. Whole-heartedly disappointed. One young woman rendered her garments in twain. Another thought about calling her parents in Seattle and telling them they'd have to fly in to visit her some other weekend.

For good reason too, because let me tell you what we had:

Pheasant stew served over caramelized shallot mashed potatoes (Alaska grown potatoes, of course)

Creamy halibut dip with the perfect bite of jalopeno served on blue cheese walnut sourdough bread from a local bakery. I just enjoyed some of the leftovers as a brunch-for-one:

A halibut roll that was sort of like a calzone with biscuit dough and a creamy halibut filling

A cream cheese salmon ball

Blueberry muffins made with berries I picked

Blueberry buttermilk tart made with berries Angie picked...

... the list went on and on. I made my own corned venison roast, soaking it in brine for four or five days before cooking it for the party -- more on it later in the week, but it even had people who didn't like corned beef exclaiming how good it was.

I set aside all day Saturday to prepare the house, cleaning, cooking, arranging flowers. I even had enough time leftover to take a little nap in the sun on the couch.

A hostess needs her rest before the onslaught. And if there's anything better than a nap in the sun, it's a nap in the sun with a puppy:

She would need her rest because three other dogs came over to romp in the yard for a few hours during the potluck, playing ring-around-the-greenhouse until they were all exhausted and a muddy mess.

We needed a fancy drink to serve at the party and Angie found this recipe for Red Currant Champagne Cocktails. I still have tons of red currants in my freezer, waiting for me to work up the energy to make another batch of jelly.

I made the puree on Saturday morning...

The results:

You glug a little of this in a fluted glass then pour champagne over it. Sweet and tart. Delicious. Several people brought bottles of champagne and we found that we liked the red currants best when mixed with sweeter champagne to counterbalance the tartness of the berries.

More on those other dishes later but for now here's our version of those cocktails.

Red Currant Champagne Cocktails

Makes enough puree to go with three or four bottles of champagne

1 1/2 pounds (about 3 pints) red currants, fresh or frozen

1/2 c sugar

Extra dry champagne

Cocktail straws for stirring (the puree tends to settle in the flute)

Place currants, sugar and two tablespoons of water in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir to combine and bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes or so, stirring often, until berries are soft.

Strain mixture through a fine mesh sieve set over a medium bowl, pressing on solids with a spatula or the back of a wooden spoon to extract liquid. Discard solids and chill liquid before using. Red currant puree can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 7 days.

Pour about two tablespoons of puree into a champagne flute. Pour in a bit of champagne and stir gently with a straw. Top off with more champagne.

Ice Fishing Frittata

Our ice fishing class last weekend had us so inspired that a handful of us went right back out on the lake this weekend. There's my gals out on the ice:

 

My pup in the foreground, Angie's in the background:

So beautiful! Four ladies out on the lake, passing a bottle of herring oil to dab on our lures, sharing a bottle of wine, and basking in the warmth of a little heater hooked to a canister of propane. It was a bit of a pain in the ass to turn the propane so we were thinking a lazy susan might do the trick nicely and then we laughed to think what men would think of our posh set-up. 

And did we catch anything? Yeah. Everyone but me. After this jaunt, Angie and I took off to get some Indian take-out food: chicken vindaloo and lamb masala and naan. So spicy and warm -- the perfect thing to thaw out ice-cold fisherwomen. The shot of Jameson's on the side didn't hurt either.

Here's the perfect breakfast to share with a crowd before a wintery outing such as ice fishing. A winter frittata. Packed full of protein and vegetables. I got the recipe here. It was originally a vegetarian recipe from Mollie Katzen but then Self magazine tinkered with it a little and added turkey bacon.

It's excellent! Here's my version:

Ice Fishin' Frittata

5 slices turkey bacon
2 medium red potatoes, very thinly sliced
2 cups sliced red onion
1/2 cup chopped bell pepper (any color)
2 T chopped fresh rosemary or 2 t dried
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
2 cups chopped spinach
2 tsp minced garlic
4 whole eggs
8 egg whites
1/2 tsp black pepper
4 oz reduced-fat feta, crumbled

Cook bacon until crisp. Let cool. Chop and set aside. In a 10-inch skillet, sauté potato, onion, bell pepper, rosemary, and 1/4 tsp salt in 1 tbsp oil for 5 minutes over medium heat. Cover and cook 10 minutes. Stir in spinach and garlic and sauté 1 minute. Remove from heat. Beat eggs and remaining salt in a large bowl. Add vegetables, bacon, black pepper, and feta. Preheat broiler. Add remaining tablespoon of oil to the skillet and heat up on a burner over medium heat. Pour in egg mixture and cook 4 minutes. Move skillet to broiler and broil, uncovered, 3 minutes. Cut into 6 wedges and serve hot or cool.

Ice Fishing 101

Single digit temperatures, clear skies, gale force winds...

That was the weather forecast for the day of our ice fishing workshop. Would they cancel? Should we cancel? But if you cancel outdoor activities because of bad weather here, you might never get to see the outdoors except from your living room window. So we soldiered on down to the lake and I pulled up next to Nikole's truck knowing that the first words out of her mouth would be blame, blame, blame for the high winds and low temperatures. She's been watching the forecast all week and leveling sarcasm at me because I was the one who suggested the class.

Open car door.

Nikole: "REAL NICE day you picked here, Molly!"

We could see the instructors setting up out in the middle of the lake but weren't sure if we were supposed to park our cars out there on the ice or in the parking lot. Angie offered to walk her dog out there and ask. Right after she left, a Fish and Game employee pulled up in a pickup and was telling us we could drive out if we had a pickup but be careful not to get stuck in any snowdrifts and --

"Oh my god! Is she WALKING out there?" the fish and game girl asked imploringly, pointing at Angie as she leaned into the wind, about halfway to the instructor's trucks, her dog dancing around her merrily.

The fish and game girl was in awe of Angie's mental and physical fortitude in the eye of the high winds and the biting snow being whipped up off the lake.

"That's a die-hard!" Fish and Game gal cried out, waving a fist in the air with approval.

We all huddled inside the instructor's rv, sipping coffee and getting cool free stuff like rods and starter tackle boxes, learning some basic knots, trying to avoid melting our outer layer of clothing on the portable heater, and hearing about all the fish that were stocked by the thousands in the lake beneath us. Arctic char, rainbow trout, landlocked king salmon, some too big to fit through the eight inch holes in the ice we would be augering ourselves.

My mouth watered at the thought of our full ice chests. Did I have enough freezer space at home to hold my haul? We headed out into the winter weather and got to fishing and...

Nothing!

Not a bite. But this woman was funnny:

She kept peering down into her hole, orange ice ladle in hand. If you blocked the sunlight you could see the fish swimming around down there in the drink. Notice her in the background of this photo too:

We fished for two hours with nary a nibble then went back inside for some bison chili and moose and lentil stew. Oh and a few shots of adult beverages. God bless you, Sailor Jerry. God bless you and your rum.

A wildlife officer stopped checking fishing licenses long enough to have some chili with us and I listened in horror as one of the women told him a joke involving a cop, a donut, and a monkey. Someone take the Sailor Jerry's away from her. She's had enough.

Then we figured out our tackle might be too large so we all switched to smaller hooks and lures and that's when people really started reeling them in. Well, everyone except me. After two hours out in that blustery cold I'd had enough and the fish that were being caught were just too small to excite my interest. I needed to see at least one HUGE fish be caught before I could muster up the strength to pick up my pole again and try to melt the ice off the line, so thick it looked like icy little jewels.

We parked all the cars to block out at least a little of the wind and there was one ice fishing tent people were taking turns in, shown in the background of this photo:

Notice that that woman is still face-down in her ice-hole, like her face is frozen to the ice. She might have had a few fish in that ice chest next to her if she'd done a little more fishing and a little less peering.

I never actually got a turn inside the tent. Whenever I went over to ask to get inside, it was always full of women who were very very reluctant to leave. They'd unzip a small corner of the door, peer out, and assure me they were almost done. Then I'd lose interest while waiting for them to emerge. Bitches.

Angie got inside at one point though and she came out telling tales about how wonderfully warm it was inside. Everyone had their gloves off and their coats unzipped. No wonder no one wanted to come out. If I'd gotten inside I would have had to have been dragged out by my hair.

My friend and family managed to catch quite a few fish. The fruits of their labors:

A frosty, frosty catch of little king salmon.  The fish would freeze solid almost as soon as they were hauled out of the water. My mom was all for feeding them to the dogs as a snack but fortunately, Angie insisted that they'd be excellent pan-fried in a little breading so we headed on back to my house to fry up some fish.

They were really, really good.