Sweet Fanny Adams, Square Root of

Roast beef, mashed potatoes, carrots and a green salad for supper.  The roast even had sufficient redness in parts to appeal to me and grayness in other parts to appeal to Lina and Tanya.  I like it badly wounded; they like it long dead. One needed ones own teeth to eat it but it was still beef. And it was good!

Beef in Ukraine has traditionally been a by-product of the dairy industry since time began.  I think today there are all of 30 thousand beef cattle in Ukraine.  Much of the beef is eaten ground as cutleta (hamburger cutlets) or pelmeni (ravioli).  There is no grading system so you pays your money and takes your chances.  It might be "youthful" intact males (under four years of age) or aged cow, no longer useful for milking.

Not only is there no grading system, there is no real established feedlot system though there are a few modern feedlots using North American technology.  Their beef goes mainly to the HRI trade and upper end retail chains, I think.

Since there is no feedlot system as such, there is really no pricing system other than the live slaughter price paid by the abattoirs.  If they pay $1.00 per kg live then any animal large or small sells for $1.00 per kg.  Successful feedlots buy the calves as young as possible, under a week, then raise them like dairy calves until they can go to pasture or go to the drylot.  If they buy them much older, their growth will be so stunted from poor nutrition that they will never be profitable.

We pay about $5 per kg for ground beef.  it is so LEAN that it is mixed with ground pork to make cutleta so you can actually eat it.   We pay about $7.50 for roasts or steaks of indeterminate carcass location origin, age, and tenderness.

Since getting back from Kyiv, I have done the Square Root of Sweet Fanny Adams.  Wrote up my notes from meetings, thought about the proposal and took naps between trying to catch up on blogs.  It feels good to relax.  Still some serious stuff to sort out, more on that later, but for the moment I am relaxing.

Upper Crust; Lower Crust

Tanya was bored because it is too miserable to work outside and finish off her garden for the winter by putting dirt around the roots of her rose bushes.  She is already perusing the gardening websites on the internet.  So she phoned Lina to meet her and I drove her into Zhovti Vody to go shopping.

The two of them wandered from store to store for a couple or three hours.  Lina needed new winter boots so it gave them something definite to look for.

I went home and continued turning numbers into pictures.  I have about 30 pages of charts and tables and other information for my report but can't get a story line clear in my head to write it up which is frustrating.

On my way home from town, I stopped to buy bread.  It was still warm from the bakery oven and is home-made just like "mother used to make".  Not really.  My mother made wonderful brown bread from home ground whole wheat flour.  I wouldn't say the loaves were heavy but you could fire one through the side of a wooden ship with a small cannon.

Tanya loves the bread crust.  If I buy two loaves of bread it is not unusual for find the ends missing from both loaves if she has made herself some lunch.  And sometimes not only the ends are missing but the top, sides and bottom too.  I get to eat the middle of the loaf.  Tanya says she does this out of thoughtfulness for me because I am old and have not good teeth.

Family Dinner

Yesterday we took a chance and invited the boys for supper, hoping we could have one more feed of shashlik before it got too cold.  The wind howled all night.  This morning it was +20C, though misty and drizzly.   A warm enough day for shashlik if the BBQ could be kept in the shelter.

Tanya made chicken salad this morning and cutleta (fried hamburger patties), chopped up the pork and put it to marinate. I drove Tanya to vote about 2:00 pm, then picked up Roman and Lina about 3:00 to start the BBQ.  Roman is THE cook when it comes to perfect shashlik.  Masha was in dance class until after 4:00 so I drove back into town at 4:30 to pick up Andrei, Tania and Masha.  School is out next week so Masha is staying over (and I get to sleep on the divan).

We all seven of us crowded around the table, ate and drank our fill and had a good visit.  How Sunday nights should be; filled with family, food, fun and love.  I wish the rest of our family could someday join us so we could all be one family.

Cookie Monster

We have been on a cooking spree this week.  It is something we totally enjoy doing together.  It is our quality time.

Monday was Borshch and potato salad; Tuesday Tanya made a yellow cake and I made Mexican cornbread, of which most went to her boys.  Cooking for two is no fun so we send stuff home to the family all the time.

Wednesday we made 8 pizzas.  Once I found out Tanya could make the dough and she found out I knew what to put on them, we were set.  This is the third time for us.  Tanya started the dough about noon and from 2 to 4 we cranked them out one every 15 minutes.  Our oven will only hold one 12" pizza pan at a time.  We sent five home with the boys.

Thursday Tanya made pumpkin-rice "casha" which means "mush" but we might translate it as porridge.  Pumpkin, rice, honey and milk. I don't know the name of the squash, but do know it is not pumpkin per se.  The hide is hard and the flesh thick, hard and bright orange.  It can be eaten hot as vegetable, or as breakfast porridge or cold as dessert.  I love it.

We had roast beef for supper Thursday night and lucked out on quality.  Mostly I never complain as beef is beef and a treat to me, tough or tender.  This roast was cuttable with a fork!  With beef supplied by the dairy industry and no grading system, mostly we eat it as ground beef.  A roast is a rare privilege, so to speak.

Today was cookie baking day.  Tomorrow Tanya is going with Masha and her school class to Krivii Rih to the circus and a museum.  Masha requested oatmeal raisin cookies.  For 27 kids, two teachers and Tanya.  So we made two recipes today.  When I put the cookies in the pans I am lucky to get 40 from a batch, so I asked Tanya to do that part.  She got 60 cookies from the first batch and 48 from the  second.  We lined a new shoebox (apparently I wear large shoes) with serviettes and filled it with cookies and still sent home a dozen to both Andrei's and Roman's.

Did you ever notice when a recipe MUST turn out good, it presents all sorts of problems you never experienced before.  So it was with the cookies.  But they taste pretty good and the kids will love them.  Tanya figures Masha is thrilled because it is HER Babushka bringing them.

Tomorrow I make chili.  Yeesssss!  Tanya can't eat it, too spicy, so I make it when she is away.

Lean Fine Textured Beef

The anti-beef, anti-meat crowd has been having a field day with Lean Fine Textured Beef (LFTB). I had hoped that it would all go away while Tanya and I were in Prague but apparently not. It is quite amazing how much damage can be done to an industry by those with an agenda to harm it whenever and however possible.

Since I have been involved in the beef industry all my life, I thought a bit of background information on ground beef might be useful.

Over 40% of the value of a beef carcass is in about 25% of the high end cuts. These are the cuts along the longissimus dorsi or rib-eye muscle; Porterhouse, T-bones, and Rib steaks or variations there of. To achieve the desired tenderness and flavour a certain amount of intramuscular fat, called marbling, is required In general, the more marbling it contains, the better a cut of meat is; USDA Choice or Canada AAA has more marbling in the rib-eye than USDA Select or Canada AA.

Beef cattle fatten from the outside in and marbling is the last fat laid down. Steers and heifers (youthful, feedlot finished) going to slaughter carry a lot of exterior fat, though much less than in the past as genetic selection for faster marbling and better feeding regimes have greatly reduced the amount of exterior fat necessary to achieve the same desired level of marbling.

If you can remember back 30 years, that outside fat along with a lot of bone went onto the supermarket shelf with the cut of beef. I recall T-bone steaks with an inch of backfat. Consumers did not want either the fat or the bones. Eventually by the mid-80’s the industry got the message. Since that time, external fat was closely trimmed at the plant and at the time of processing into retail cuts, visible fat was again trimmed. Other than standing rib roasts and T-bone steaks all cuts were boneless.

About 50% of all beef in USA and Canada is consumed as ground beef. As much beef as possible is sold as various cuts (type and volume of cuts varies with season) and the rest is ground. According to Canadian regulations ground beef can be labeled as follows with the maximum fat contents specified (note that most supermarkets and meat stores have their own in-house standards which are actually lower in fat content than the allowed maximum):
Extra-lean: a maximum fat content of 10%
Lean: a maximum fat content of 17%
Medium: a maximum fat content of 23%
Regular: a maximum fat content of 30%

As you can imagine, grinding meat from youthful cattle “finished” to the degree of fatness required to meet USDA Choice or Canada AAA grades, results in some expensive and no matter how carefully trimmed, some higher fat ground beef. Cow beef which is leaner and cheaper is also ground and may be mixed with beef from feedlot finished animals. Lean trim from other cuts is also included in the grind.

Carefully and closely trimming cuts of beef results in “trim” made up of fat and lean meat. As much lean as possible is separated manually and included in ground beef. But it impossible to get it all. A couple of decades ago, a process was developed where the remaining high fat, low lean content trim was finely ground, heated to about 100°F and spun in a centrifuge to separate the lean from the fat, (much the same as a cream separator for anyone raised on a farm).

 The result is a product that may not look very appetizing in its raw form but is 90% to 95% lean beef. About 14 to 16 lbs (6 to 7 kg) per carcass of perfectly good beef are recovered that otherwise would go to the rendering plant. One of the pluses of this product is that when it is included in lean or extra lean ground beef and made into patties, you can actually eat the hamburgers. Otherwise lean or extra lean ground beef hamburgers are about as edible as rubber tire, only they smell better on the BBQ.

Now comes the issue of food safety. Going from live animal to meat requires a great deal of care to prevent contamination at every point along the chain because of course all living animals carry bacteria. Food safety is the number one priority of any meat processing plant and very stringent procedures (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point or HACCP) are in place to ensure so far as is humanly possible that the meat that leaves the plant is safe to eat. The plant has its own inspectors and they are backed up by government inspectors. And because no system is fool proof, every couple of weeks across North America, if you follow the websites, there is a recall of something that didn’t check out

Bacterial growth is a function of surface area. You can take a pound of sirloin steak home and eat it raw with a very large margin of safety because it has a small surface area: top, bottom, edges. Now think about ground beef. I have no idea the surface area of a pound of ground beef, though I expect someone figured it out. It is a huge number which is why recommendations are to cook ground beef thoroughly “until it is dead”.

Lean fine textured beef would have several times the surface area of ground beef so controlling bacteria was critical. Citric acid has been used. In 2001, I believe, Beef Products Inc. developed a process to control E. coli using ammonium hydroxide to raise the pH of the product. Ammonium hydroxide has been used in food production since 1974 and was approved by USDA and FDA for use with LFTB.

The American Meat Institute says that “USDA data show that the incidence of E. coli in fresh ground beef has been declining significantly over the past decade. The number of USDA ground beef samples testing positive for E. coli O157:H7 dropped 55 percent between 2000 and 2010”. And further that “all forms of lean finely textured beef are safe when produced in compliance with USDA regulations”.

Of course there is a system to totally control bacterial growth and make all foods safe to eat, which we have had for over 30 years. It is called irradiation. But you already know what the Luddites have to say about that.

Which brings up an interesting conundrum for someone who considers himself a progressive and a liberal. The Left believe in justice and equality of opportunity for all, that safety nets should ensure poor have money to buy food. The Right is dedicated to production of abundant, affordable, nutritious, wholesome food. One would think there might be some synergies here. But no. The right prefers to see the poor starve in the streets, while the Left’s food strategy seems to be:
1. prevent as much food production as possible
2. if food is produced it should be so expensive only Latte Liberals and Chardonnay Socialists can afford it.
3. if it is affordable, people should be too frightened to eat it.

From what I have gathered from reading the newsletters and comments on the internet these past several years:
The anti-women, anti-health care, anti-poor, anti-labour Right is trying to set social progress back some 200 years to save the earth.
The anti-food, anti-modern, anti-technolgy, anti-business Left is trying to set economic progress back some 200 years to save the earth.

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us” Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes

Another hard day at the office

Normal rising time is 9:00 am in winter. By 10:00 I was showered and dressed. No idea why - sometimes that doesn't happen until 4:00 pm. Tanya made a pot of tea and I did up yesterday's dishes. There weren't many.

Looked outside and my dogs were on the street. The two dogs live to run on the street for a while, go and visit other dogs in the neighbourhood and then come home and be duly bribed back into their yard. Three days ago Volk discovered how to escape over their high yard fence. Next day Bobik figured it out too. He is a bit slow on the uptake. Not the first escapes. We had to knock down a couple of piles of things that they learned to use to escape over the fence. Last escape was over a year ago.

I tried to find the escape route but no obvious places. Fresh snow yielded no tracks along the fence. Snow along the top of the fence had not been disturbed. There was some old steel fencing leaning against the old outdoor privy about a meter from the fence. No tracks to it but I moved it anyway. If they are still in their yard tomorrow morning, I will know the escape route but not the methodology for covering tracks. Are they reading Westerns?

We went into the city (sometimes I say into town, sometimes into the city, same thing) for dog food, groceries and to pick up a dress Tanya had at the sewing shop. Tanya says she needs a simple sewing machine. Simple. Like her ideal microwave: two buttons - Make Hot; Open Door.

White sugar was $1 per kg. Brown sugar was $10 per kg. I declined the honour until next month. No brown sugar, no desserts. Don't need them anyhow. Anyone coming to visit? Bring brown sugar.

So tonight Tanya is downstairs watching TV and I am upstairs on the computer. Decide it is time for another coffee and start thumpingly down the stairs. Thumpingly because our floors are cold and I have to wear old man slippers aka mules, which I have not yet mastered. Tanya catches my eye and quietly goes "Sssshhh"...long pause...points to sleeping cat and cracks up laughing. Groan.

Minding my own beeswax

Number ONE son worked on a honey farm for 13 summers and a few winters too.  The boss's wife,  Queen Bee, was and still is a second mother to him.  He was no drone, heading up the outdoor crew for most of those years.  I never cared much for bees, not that I am allergic and break out in hives or anything, but I am fond of honey.

We buy it in 3 liter jars and go through about three or four a year.  Someone had given us a large chunk of honeycomb which for some reason we didn't eat and it sat in a dish in the pantry for six months or more.  today I decided to do something with it.  Tanya said throw it out.  The comb was all darkened and it looked unappetizing. 

I stuck it in the microwave to see if I could melt the honey out of the comb.  It melted all right.  The comb turned really black and smelled disgusting.  Like the inside of the extractor house.  The wax floated on top of the honey but there was no way I could skim it off without taking most of the honey with it.

We compromised.  I took off most of the wax and the honey will be added to the dogs' porridge.  Tanya makes porridge (kasha) for us and the dogs every day in this cold weather. 

I got wax all over two plates and a large soup dish in the procedure.  Trying to clean beeswax off the dishes was not fun at all.  Sticks like glue.  Tried heating it in the microwave again.  Helped a little but I was quite a while cleaning up the mess.

Do you think I will EVER learn just to listen to my wife?

March of the Penguins

Tanya saw these on a TV cooking show so made a bunch for our party on Saturday.  You need large pitted black olives for the body and small ones for the head.  Carrot serves as feet and beak while cream cheese and Mayo make the body stuffing for the white vest (split the body olive to stuff it).

Celebrating Five Years of Marriage

Tanya and I celebrated five years of marriage on Dec 23rd. We found it hard to believe that time had flown by that quickly but I guess with age time speeds up. For supper, Tanya made Chicken _?_*  that she saw on TV and we drained a bottle of bubbly between us.

On the 24th (yesterday) we had a dinner party for 16 friends at a local restaurant owned by a friend of Andrei's whose son is in Masha's class. We ate, drank, danced and sang and had a great time.  Since we had been married in Canada, this was the celebration in Ukraine we didn't have then.

It has been a good five years, we both agree.  Filled with love, filled with fun, filled with happiness.  We suit each other in so many ways.  And our families get along.  Tanya loves my kids and they love her.  I love Tanya's kids and they love me.  Someday we would like to have the whole family together in one place, even for a week, just to say we did it.

We are not without our differences (viva la différence) and misunderstandings. Some is personality, some is family tradition and some is cultural, I am certain, but they are all mixed together and hard to sort out.  Men and women never speak the same "language" anyhow but we really do speak different languages and have different cultures so it makes us doubly aware that we need to be careful and let things slide many times.  Both of us, I am sure, feel we give more than we take so it is likely pretty well fifty:fifty, as it should be.

Speaking for myself, I am happy and contented.  Many years ago I named my consulting company Odyssey because I felt like Odysseus wandering the planet trying to find "home".  I think my quest is over and while I will still wander the planet (as long as someone else pays) I know where home is.  It is wherever Tanya is.

The anniversary couple

The anniversary cake

A few of the guests, (while we waited for the rest)

*Chicken breast sliced thin, a layer of ham and a layer of cheese with another layer of chicken breast on top, dipped in egg, rolled in bread crumbs and fried (could have been roasted) and took her all of 10 minutes to make.  She said it is NOT Chicken Kiev; anyone know what it is called?

Turkish Pizza

The Turks make a very nice thin crust pizza.  For teh first week we were on vacation, the resort would serve fresh pizza at the outside bar between 10:30 and 12:00 for those of us who were too lazy to go to breakfast or wanted a snack after swimming.

The pizza is baked in a wood fired oven.  The coals are pushed to the back and the surface dusted relatively free of ashes, then the pizzas placed in the oven using a traditional long handled paddle; turned once during baking and retrieved, cut up and served hot.

The second week there were too few people there and the practice was discontinued.  There is a reason for lower rates late in the season. But it was good while it lasted.

Food mostly GiST #19

1. Ryya and Vladik came for supper last night so I have another granddaughter story.  She is 5.  Mother: "Why aren't you learning to read?"  Girl: "I don't have to; my friend Iliya can read". Late at night, her mother can hear her tossing and turning in her bed. "Why aren't you asleep?" "Mama, who first decided the world was round?" And mother had to go to Google and find out before the kid would settle down.

2. Tanya went to the market today and I didn't have to go.


3. When she got home we made three litres of Adzhika sauce.  Tomatoes, bell peppers, red chili peppers, fresh horseradish root and garlic all run through the food grinder.  24 cloves of garlic turned out to be too many and next time we will use just 12. The sauce can be cooked and bottled or just bottled and kept in the fridge which is what we did. Apparently you can eat it with anything though it seems to me it would go best on beef.  it is good on bread and butter too.

4. Tanya made vereniki (perogies to some of you) for supper and put a bunch in the freezer too.  Vereniki is first boiled of course. Potato stuffed vereniki are then fried in butter with onions.  Cottage cheese vereniki are basted with melted butter and eaten with sour cream.

5. Number ONE son and DIL bought a new to them car, a 2008 Ford Escape.  They needed a new car so badly as their Toyota had seen better days. I am glad.

The Remains of the Day

Worked most of today getting my notes all caught up from my Kazakhstan trip so we can prioritize our follow ups.  Not as easy as it sounds though most of it is already in email form, keeping my team informed.  Yesterday was catching up on expenses accounting, making sure everything was tallied and tabbed.  Cannot for the life of me remember what I did on Saturday.  Catch up on emails and napped most likely.

Took time out to make chili con carne or at least my version of it. Usually make it with a pound of beef and two cans of kidney beans at about $1.25 per can.  We were in Metro a while back and saw a big can (2 or 3 liters??) for $4 so Tanya said I could make a big batch, freeze it and save money.  Five lbs of lean ground, 6 onions and this can of kidney beans filled out biggest cooking pot.  Two 500 ml jars of tomato paste and a dozen fresh tomatoes went in too.  And two heaping soup spoons of all the hot stuff in the house.  Chili powder, chipotle (sp?) powder, cumin, etc etc.  Simmered it for a couple hours and it was awesome. Had a huge bowl of it for lunch. The rest is now boxed in plastic happiness and will go in the freezer tonight.

This was after I had eaten a bowl of it for lunch.  The pot was FULL.

Tanya had a couple of spoons full and inhaled a glass of water.  She figured I would be cleaning the toilet quite a few times before the chili was gone.

Masha has been here the past two days (home at night).  Maxim is next door for the summer and they get on so well.  Water colour painting has taken much of their time as both enjoy it.  Tanya says they will be friends for life but doubts there will even be romance.  (As SOMEONE who shall remain nameless once remarked "It would be like marrying my brother".  OK, so I am a lousy matchmaker.)

Tanya and Lena are out in the garden, which is pretty much finished.  Peas and beans long finished. Tomatoes and cucs still coming in.  Beets and carrots all processed.  Corn came and went while I was away.  Tanya didn't freeze any this year.  Onions are dug, dried and boxed; not sure about the garlic.  Purslain is a terrible weed.  My mother fought it all her life in one of her gardens and it has totally infested our garden.  You can't kill it.  It will set seed hanging on the fence.

There is a family of five kids that we act as food bank for about once a month or so.  Father is in and out of hospital all the time, too sick to work, maybe diabetes which is a real curse as it is not controlled very well - no one can afford the test strips and the free insulin is terrible quality.  Not sure about the mother's problem, could be alcohol. The oldest girl about 15 and a boy about 10 were here today.  Usually it is a 12 year old boy. The mother, in her early 40's, is in hospital.  She is pregnant and having difficulty so the doctor stuck her in hospital. Tanya was furious when she heard the woman was pregnant again.  She wonders if the kids even go to school as they have no money for clothes or books or anything.  Not sure where the state sits on not attending school but expect it is illegal - so what are they going to do about it?  Well, if it costs the state money, nothing.  And another generation falls through the cracks.

When we were filling a bag of food, Tanya suggested some of my chili but I said no, they would not thank us for that.  It is a learned taste.

Biscuit Recipe for Dana

Everyone has their own biscuit recipe but basically there isn't any difference between the recipes. The lightness of the biscuits, like the flakiness of pie crust, is in the flour and the skill of the cook. On a bad day mine double as pale hockey pucks. Two weeks ago, I was baking on autopilot, which is to say, half asleep.  I threw the first pan in the oven and instead of turning on the timer, turned off the oven.  They rose nicely when I checked in 10 minutes.  Turned the oven back on and they were still edible.

This is the family recipe, from a Robin Hood Cookbook that my Aunt Eva gave Ella and I as a wedding gift more than 37 years ago.  Best cookbook ever and out of print.  I contacted Robin Hood a few years back but they said no plans to reprint it.  It was WELL used, while every one of her other two dozen cook books gathered dust somewhere in the house.

Tanya doesn't use recipes, in the grand tradition of Ukrainian cooks everywhere. But she does experiment.

Baking Powder Biscuits

3 1/2 cups flour.

2 tbs baking powder

2 tsp salt 

1/2 cup shortening (I use cooking oil or butter)

1 1/2 cup milk (preferably sour).

Spoon or pour flour into dry measuring cup. Level off and pour into mixing bowl. Add baking powder and salt. (I add a hand full of sugar so the biscuits brown nicely). Stir well to blend. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender (I use a fork) until mixture resembles coarse meal.  Add milk all at once and stir with fork until all ingredients are moistened. Turn out onto lightly floured surface. Round up and knead gently about 20 times. (It is nice to be kneaded). Roll out dough (the rest of the paragraph is missing or illegible).

Bake at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

sunday Biscuit Brunch

Sunday morning Victor delivers three liter jar of fresh farm milk.  The left over milk from last Sunday is pretty sour but perfect for baking-powder biscuits so I usually throw a couple pans in the oven for brunch. That is when I miss Roger's Golden Syrup (sugar cane syrup).

Today's biscuits were pretty good so I took some to Lena and Roman. Lena's eyes lit up when she saw them.  Once their kitchen is renovated and she gets an oven, she wants to learn how to make them.  Tanya's Babushka used to make them when Tanya was young and she would eat them with fresh cream.

Since we have fresh green beans from our garden, Tanya stir fried green beans and onions (also from our garden) and then threw in a couple of eggs and scrambled the works.  It is good and can be doctored up any way you like.  If we have mushrooms they go into the pan.  I suppose if we had rice we could make bean friend rice (I don't care if it has BEEN fried rice, what is it NOW?... but I digress).

The revised presentation is finished and emailed to all and sundry.  Including a friend of mine in Canada who will read it for accuracy.  I called Ken to warn him.  He was on his way back from the North American Livestock Auctioneer Championships in Calgary where he finished a respectable "in the top two-thirds". I understood that perfectly and congratulated him for taking a run at it.  Next year...

Tanya sorted through all my clothes today and we decided what I needed or don't need to take.  My suitcase is semi-packed packed and I still don't have my air ticket.  Good thing they aren't organizing a drunken brawl at a brewery or we'd be in real trouble.

Now I can get caught up on all the other stuff that has been left undone.  Like read a few blogs from other people.  If I haven't left a comment lately on your blog, Don't worry (or worry, whichever) I will catch up eventually.

Three Saint's Day

Today is an important day in the Russian Orthodox Church.  It is the feast day of three major saints Peter, Michael and Nicholas, pictures of the three of whom are carried in people's cars quite frequently, somewhat similar to St Christopher's medals, I think.

At any rate we had shashlik to celebrate. Roman found a new Georgian marinade recipe on the internet. He put 5 lbs of pork chunks to soak yesterday.  He is our chef, when it comes to wood fired BBQ cooking.  The shashlik was awesome.

Andrei and Tanya were invited but went to Krivii Rih instead but did drop Masha off.  Volodya and Valya from P'yatikhatki came over, so we had six adults and lots of meat and veggies.  I made a Cinnamon Coffee Cake for desert and along with strawberries and ice cream, we all ate too much of everything.  A good day.

Done to perfection

I can't get the colour right.  These roses are dark red with almost black stripes

Ma, he's making eyes at me.

Masha and her Uncle Roman get along well.

A Quiet Easter Sunday

Saturday morning three guys from the gas department were going door to door along our street telling everyone they needed an inspection certificate for their gas furnaces and chimneys every two years or they would be cut off. New regulation, I guess, but Easter weekend???

Tanya called our gas man who couldn't come on Saturday but was Sunday morning at 9:00 OK?  Sure, why not?  He was here for three hours.  Our furnace had not had regular maintenance for a year or so.  It didn't work well most of last winter and we had no hot water, no matter how hard we DEMANDED it for several days.  We need a new connection pipe to the chimney and we may need a new furnace or a very expensive repair to get the hot water heating to work right.  But we don't have to heat water on the stove for dishes, at least.

I had two naps, which is a good Sunday in my books.  Tanya had one long nap.  No gardening yesterday and no business plan writing. We took the dogs and the next door kids for a long walk up to the lake and then had Easter dinner of poached salmon and Salad Olivier.

Today Tanya was up at 6:30 setting out bedding plants.  Over 100 Astors, I think she said.  It is warm and looks like rain so she is anxious to get things in the ground. Two days until we leave does not give us much time. She came in at 9:00 to hot biscuits, fresh coffee and a clean kitchen.  I can do some things.

Kuchma is all happy.  Our neighbour Victor has a new cow so we have farm milk again.  With lots of cream.  There was a litre of store-bought milk in the fridge.  I gave it to the dogs.  They are too dumb to know the difference anyhow.

Here is the picture of the Easter baskets Tanya and Masha made.  I didn't think the picture turned out very good but Tanya said post it anyhow.

It has Bean One of Those Days

Yesterday and today were the kind of days Tanya lives for.  She is, to say the least, radiantly happy, which makes me happy.  She has been in her garden from morning to night and I've done the running around, shopping and cooking.   It has been +20C both days.  Shirt sleeve weather.  she has been putting out a few flowers that were started indoors but mostly cleaning up weeds and moving flowers from clumps to their own beds.  Photos to follow soon, I hope. 

The crocuses are done blooming, the daffodils have started, the hyacinth large and small are blooming and there are tulips coming up EVERYWHERE. She has 96 gladiola bulbs soaking in potassium permanganate solution to plant later this week.  She claims she has 150 bulbs so I don't know where the others are.

Lena came after work today and they planted all the peas, beets and onions. So along with lettuce, carrots and radish, planted previously, the garden is taking shape.  Tanya says she will plant white and pinto beans for me to dry. for pork and beans.  I guess she liked my first try at it here.

Tanya had been to the market on Sunday and brought me a kilogram of white beans, so I put them on to soak and Monday went and bought a kilogram of pork.  Not having a slow-cooker was a bit of a nuisance as I had to learn all over again how to cook them.  I boiled the beans for an hour till they were soft, browned the pork and threw them all into a huge pot and added the usual suspects including molasses, brought from Canada for that purpose (and for ginger cookies). 

The recipe I found on the internet said bake at 400F for 75 minutes.  That made no sense to me so I baked it for 2 hours at about 300F.  Delicious, if I do say so myself.  But the beans were slightly crunchy.  Now I know that cooking beans with sugar makes them hard again but I have no idea what to do about it.  Any has-bean cooks out there with experience please help.

The cat is absolutely at loose ends in this nice weather.  He wanders in and out of the house, meowing about something but what?  Tanya says he needs a wife.  I dunno.  This morning he went into the downstairs bedroom and was sleeping on the bed in the bright warm sun.  I had put a towel there but Tanya objected anyhow and booted him out.  He was mad and came up stairs to complain to me, meowing loudly at me as though I cared, then fell asleep on my foot.

He is always getting into trouble with Tanya who loves him anyhow but he isn't sure about that.  When we had several days of rain, he would come in muddy and get his feet wiped before proceeding.  One day Tanya went out to speak to a neighbour and Kuchma came in unnoticed, as she left.  He was mud to the hocks but sat in the entry and picked the mud out of his feet.  When Tanya returned there was this pile of lumps of mud on the front entry floor. Out he went.

Which is why I tread carefully around here too.

Coffee

Europeans are pretty clueless about coffee regardless of what they think. They make not bad coffee but try and get a cup full?  Impossible.  You have a choice of something called Expresso which is very good coffee served in a thimble which I can toss back like vodka or Coffee Americana which is Expresso with an equal volume of boiling water in it.  Served in a small cup.  About two good gulps.  There is also something called Cappuccino which is the same as coffee with cream and sugar but costs three times as much.

Historian-Nan at All The Good Names Were Taken posted a picture of a kitten head down in a coffee cup that pretty much sums up my relationship with the stuff.  When I am working at my computer, I like to have a hot cuppa on my desk at all times.  This can lead to consumption of large volumes.

Since I got my Melita coffee maker  I have been able to keep track of just how much that can be at times.  Filters are 40 to a pack (oh, did I mention I like statistics and numbers and graphs and such?) and a pack lasts two weeks.  The pot makes, if I fill it to the brim with water, two mugs of coffee.  400 mls per mug. I measured.

Forty mugs per week minus five that Tanya drinks (one cup in the morning about five days a week) leaving me with 35 cups per week or five cups per day.  Two litres per day.  Some days I drink three cups, other days seven but I start to vibrate a bit after seven cups.  Tanya is always after me to stop drinking coffee, blaming it for all ailments real and imagined.

I did stop cold turkey maybe 15 years ago.  Home sick two days then on Tylenol for three until the caffeine dependency wore off.  I drank herbal tea for several months. It comes in two flavours, regardless of what the box says. Boiled grass and Feedlot runoff.  I do drink real tea.  Earl Grey being my favourite black tea and sometimes I even drink green tea but it will never be habit forming.

The other day Tanya took my blood pressure.  135/90 which she said was high and I should stop drinking coffee.  I did for 48 hours.  Longest two months of my life. 

I've had this cartoon since pre-internet days; scanned it from a Xerox copy I got decades ago.

Mexican Cornbread

My friend Ross is a bass player with a great jazz band, 'round midnight*, and an accomplished cook, among other things.  Anyone who can whip up escargot on mushroom caps with garlic butter on a portable BBQ at a grade 7 school camping trip is a chef to be reckoned with. 

Ross sent me this recipe because he knew I missed food with some bite in it.  As adapted, I have made it every week since.Tanya loves it.  Her family love it.  Ukrainians are usually not much on spicy food but I am working on changing that.  Here is the recipe Ross sent me:

 Mexican Corn Bread

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 (14 ounce) can cream-style corn
• 1/2 (4 ounce) can chopped green chili peppers, drained
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in cream corn, chilies, Monterrey Jack and Cheddar cheese.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to corn mixture; stir until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted into center of the pan comes out clean.

Since I was missing some of the ingredients, I had to adapt it a bit.  This is my version:

Mexican Corn Bread – Ukrainian style

Ingredients

• 1/3 lb butter, soft
• 1 cup white sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 350 ml (10 oz) can kernal corn
• 3 10-12 cm (4-5") hot red chili peppers
• 1/2 cup sour cream (Well, of course.  It is Ukraine, isn't it?)
• 2 cups shredded cheese
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (I may add another 1/3 cup next go)
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 6 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (350F). Lightly grease a 20x35 cm (8x14") baking dish.
2. Clean and chop up the peppers, put corn, peppers and sour cream in blender, blend until coarsely mixed, (not until smooth).
3. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in corn/chili/sour cream and cheese.
4. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Add dry mixture to wet mixture; stir until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan.
5. Bake  for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until a knife inserted into center of the pan comes out clean.

* next gig
Regina Public Library Sunday Concert Series  
Sunday, March 27 · 2:30pm - 4:30pm

Sherwood Village Branch, Regina Public Library

6121 Rochdale Blvd., Regina, SK

Out of the Frying Pan

BG-6621

We bought a new frying pan.  I wanted so badly to claim it was my Valentine's gift to Tanya. She bought me a coffee pot.  But since I am in some trouble already with a couple of my relatives, it is far safer to admit I dropped the lid on the old one and a new lid was half price of a new frying pan.

This pan is totally non-stick so little oil is needed.  It says do NOT cook on high heat and cooks on low heat very rapidly.  Veggies come out crisp and green.  I don't have to add oil to cook ground beef any more.  Our beef gives a whole new meaning to LEAN ground.  Best $50 we spent in a long time.

The brand is Bergner and you can find it here.  They should really pay me for this, don't you think?

And Tanya's Valentine's gift is a dressing table (is that the right name?) for our bedroom, which she has wanted for a long time.