In The Aftermath of Strange Weather, and Some Wimsy From The Vermilon River.

This week was probably the strangest of all, with lots of snow, rising temperatures that brought freezing rain, rain, and then a temperature drop bringing lots of snow again. In fact, all roads into the area were closed as the result of accidents or ice. And, there were flooding watches out for all the low lying areas. All the weather forecasts for the week were red banded warnings of whatever the condition was. You'll be able to tell what type of weather the photos are taken in from the background. The weather was so heavy duty that I'm inclined to be whimsical rather than dwell on it. But first a few answers to questions. How do I manipulate a camera in -40 weather. Simple, I wear a pair of well worn fleece gloves inside my heavy duty mitts that are thin enough to operate the camera.The mitts are thonged together so I don't lose them. If my hands get really cold through exposure I use a chemical hand warmer.The camera case is on my chest; the same way you carry a baby,so you simply draw it for a shot. Before I come in I put the camera back into the case and zip it closed, leaving it for a couple of hours ;thus, avoiding condensation, and camera casing damage. When I went to one post per week, I said it was because of time that I wanted to devote to my other hobbies.Someone asked what those other hobbies were. In addition to an amateur photographer, I'm an amateur cook, although neither Boom, nor I are amateur eaters. I got interested in cooking after my accident partially to survive, and partially as therapy. Kneading bread dough is a perfect way to build muscle, and after you've exercised, you can eat the bread. Try that with a set of weights.

Now when I went to elementary school just after the war, that's WW Two, the teachers were returning soldiers, and the female teachers were ones who had stepped into replace the soldiers during the war. The building was a two story brick building with a bell tower. It had three entrances, the boy's, the girl's, and half way between the teachers, right next to the principal's office. The boys played on one side, and the girls on the other. It wasn't that we weren't interested in visiting the girls, it was just too hard to avoid the proctor on our side or on the girls' side, and then sneak past the principal's office.

It was also rumored that if you entered the girls entrance something horrible would happen to you. We weren't sure what, but horrible it was.
The teachers were dedicated, and wonderful. I still recall almost all of them. They flooded rinks for us to play hockey, drove us to soccer games, and baseball games. We shared one set of jerseys for all those sports,so they must have washed the sweaters too. They took us on trips,and arranged field days.But most of all they taught us well. They even knew our parents on a first name basis. Now discipline was a little stiff, for they were quick with the ruler or strap. After receiving the strap one day I remember one of my friends asking if I was going to tell my father on the teacher. My reply:" Do I look that stupid.? I'll get another walloping if I do."

"Now what's this got to do with anything?", you're asking. Well it wasn't just the entrances that were divided by gender,but so were the life skill's classes Boys went to shop, and girls to home economics.We had to commute for the classes, which gave us a whole morning at another school which was about ten blocks away,with lots of chances to get into trouble. In the classes, we learned to make wooden tea trivets, sheet metal scoops, and other assorted junk that our parents praised, and then secreted away, probably living in fear that we'd remember them sometime.

Now I find myself at an advanced age living with a furry companion, who can't operate the vacuum, needing to eat, bake, clean and wash clothes. Because of the accident, I'm shorter on one side by about an inch. So all my pants have to be altered. One day I bought a pair of sweat pants on sale for ten dollars. It cost twenty dollars to alter them, and the inconvenience of picking them up. All this is, of course, "home ec" stuff, isn't it? Now I could eat out, but every small town in the north has the same three eating emporiums:  a Chinese-Canadian restaurant, a greasy spoon. and a tavern. I'd already eaten at them during my convalescence. Or I could go into the nearest city, but that takes too much time, and dogs can't eat in restaurants here as they do in Europe. So I became an amateur cook and baker, and really enjoy it.

But first some important things to me. I like sauces,especially cooking with honey,spices, and fruits,although not hot sauces because I split with Boom as a supplement to his kibble. I like recipes that are flexible as to the choice of meat, and substitution is easy, so I can buy what's on sale as food costs are rising. With that in mind here we go.

Sweet and Sour Honey Sauce.
1/2 cup of ketchup
1/3 cup of honey, although I use more so that the sauce has the consistency of honey,but the colour of ketchup.
2 teaspoons of corn starch.
2 teaspoons of lemon.
Bring to a boil in a small sauce pan for 6-7 minutes stirring all the time.
Take off the heat and cover with a lid and let thicken.

The Meat.
Cube a chicken thigh( boneless), or a pork chop, or beef steak whatever.
Dice a sweet,or Spanish onion, but not a cooking onion; add mushrooms sliced. Add a bell pepper, any colour, sliced, to a frying pan after adding oil, and brown.
When the peppers, onions and mushrooms are browned, add the meat cubes.
Add to frying pan,a tablespoon of prepared horseradish, a tablespoon of pureed garlic, a table spoon of Dijon mustard, and some salt free soy sauce. You can add some chili peppers to heat it up if you want.Make sure to mix in the additions well.

Serve over rice, egg noodles, or rotini wheat noodles. If you count up the ways of serving, and the number of meats you can use, you've got a number of meals. I make the sauce then keep it in the fridge. I also make up the meat and keep it in the fridge, so that I can come in from a hike, make the rice, add the meat and sauce and nuke it, and pour a glass of white table wine. Boom gets some meat, plus some of the noodles or rice for his share.

Now for dessert: If I haven't baked I have grapes and a banana. The photo opposite is sun on the trail
 But what I really like are Streusel Butter tarts.
First the Streusel:1/2 cup of all purpose flour,1/2 cup brown sugar packed
1/4 cup salt free butter
1/3 cup ground walnuts or pecans.
Combine flour and brown
sugar in a bowl, cut in the butter and add nuts when the mixture looks like coarse
crumbs.

 (Opposite the light breaking through the trees.) Make enough pastry for 18 tarts,about the same as the standard pie. Prepare the tart trays with the paper cupcakes and the dough.

Filling:
In a small pot melt 1/3 cup of unsalted butter.
Add 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/3 of a cup of honey,11/2 tsp of white vinegar, and 1/2 tsp of salt. Whisk together until melted and combined.  Allow to cool to room temperature. In a separate bowl combine 1 egg beaten and 1/2 tsp of vanilla, and add to the pot when cool.
Now I put the mixture in a jar for easy pouring. The mixture will make about 15 tarts. Spread the Streusel, adding more crushed nuts if necessary, over the tarts and cook for 15-17 minutes at 350 to 400 in the oven, or until the pastry is brown and the filling is bubbling. Allow to cool and put in fridge to set for about an hour before eating.
In the fridge I always have other fillings because I use fruit as a meat sauce,which I'll post about later. Right now I have pin cherry jelly wild plum sauce, and wild blueberry sauce. The sauce is just thickened fruit that I picked last summer,so I use it as a filler for the remaining tarts.

Now the tarts have no food value at all. But using honey instead of corn syrup gives the illusion of healthiness, although I understood that corn syrup was glucose as opposed to sucrose (white sugar). In fact I grew up on corn syrup because all the early hockey players used it as an energy drink.The real rub is that hiking in the cold requires more calories to maintain your core temperature, carry the increased weight of warm  clothes, and to walk in deep snow. So sorry to all you southerners who hike the prepared nature trails, the tarts are a no, no. HMM they're good. Boom just pass me another one will you. If you're wondering about the quantity, I share the baked goodies with some others in the building.

A patch of blue

Northern Crow

Click any photo to see the slideshow.
A post to Id Rather Be Birdin,Our World Tuesday, and WBW

More blue sky

Dove

Formal portrait

Winter moon

F Pine Grosbeak

Seed pods

Crow

Two doves in the snow

Crow

Jay with peanut

Male Pine Grosbeak

Blue sky

Sun dappled trail

Redpoll

Sun on trail

Strange skies.

Strange skies

Snow shoe tracks another great way to hike.

Snowy cone.

Snowy dove.

Another sunny trail

Close up

Strange light.

Sun peeking through spruce trees.

Same

Sun in a clearing

Impending storm

Two snowy doves.

Two Redpolls

Upper trail

This is another shot of the squirrel waving goodbye. Last time I showed a similar picture most of you missed his paw.

Doves 

Snow ice and frost on branches

Sunny trail

I stopped to talk, or at least Boomer did, to a guy about my age. He had been raised north of here, and had used dogs when he was young to pull freight, wood etc in the winter around home. I had said that any deep chested and heavy rear ended dog could pull a sled, as long as you covered the short haired ones with a coat for warmth. He said that he thought malamutes were no longer used as much because they over heated. There was a guy here who had giant malamutes, 120 lbs. Regular malamutes weigh like Boom in the range of 80-90 lbs.When you scale up a dog you do the dog no favour as the heart, lungs and joints do not scale up and you a have weakened dog, that does overheat, and dies young. I told the guy this and said the reason that you did not see many malamutes here was the cost of a puppy, about 900 cdn$. And that people here preferred to sit on their ass and drive a snowmobile, or ATV. He was by the way sitting on a snowmobile. When I checked the cost of unborn malamute pups on the web I was shocked. 2500 USD unborn in the US ,and 850 pounds sterling in the UK. Wow.