Rich Hobson's trilogy begins our Canadian reading and watching

We have been watching Canadian tv shows this past year - fitting - since this is Canada's 150th birthday. It all started with reading Richmond P. "Rich" Hobson's books. In the 1950's and 1960's Rich Hobson wrote a trilogy of memoirs; "Grass Beyond the Mountains", "Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy" and "The Rancher Takes a Wife" about his and his partner "Pan" Panhandle Phillips experiences pioneering a frontier cattle ranch in the almost completely unexplored at the time interior of British Columbia in the 1930's and 1940's.

They developed the Frontier Cattle Company into the largest cattle ranch in the world - approximately 4 million acres, the most remote ranch in North America. That entity only lasted 9 years because WWII broke out and they became desperately short of manpower and cash as cattle prices were too low for too long. However they both continued ranching on their own on a smaller scale.

Rich was a wonderful author and makes one feel they are actually along for the ride, seeing things through his eyes,  as they battle the elements - 60-70 below temperatures, exploring beautiful, unusual country, the colorful characters who lived in the area, the dangers of illness and injury in an area so remote with no modern transportation or conveniences.

He includes lots of humor and there is romance too as the two cowboys pursue and eventually find wives.

Here is a link to his first book.

 Grass Beyond the Mountains

Crockpot lentil rice stuffed peppers

I am trying lentil rice stuffed peppers in my crockpot today. I had some red lentils I wanted to use up so I cooked them. So there were about 2 cups cooked lentils and I added 1 cup cooked rice, 1 small can tomato sauce, 1 egg, some leftover shredded cheese (somewhere between 1/2 and 1 cup - let's say 3/4), 2 TBSP minced onion flakes (dried), 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, about 1 TBSP homemade taco seasoning. Stuffed it into 5 peppers which had the tops cut off and the seeds removed. Put in crockpot for 6 hours on high.

cold soups

It has been in the 90;s and 100's lately, so early in the year. I am going to try something I've never done before - cold soups. My first try is Jade Garden Soup. It is simmering right now. I'll use chard instead of spinach since that is what I have. Hope we like it.

Jade Garden Soup

Rated: Submitted By: CORWYNN DARKHOLME Photo By: Soup Loving Nicole Prep Time: 25 Minutes Cook Time: 45 Minutes Ready In: 1 Day 1 Hour 10 Minutes Servings: 7

"A savory combination of spinach, lettuce, and parsley are pureed with rice, not cream, in this cool jade green soup. Garnish with sour cream, paprika, and dill."

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1 carrot, sliced 2 stalks celery, sliced 6 cups chicken stock 1/3 cup uncooked white rice 1 1/3 cups fresh spinach, washed

and chopped 1 1/3 cups butter lettuce - rinsed, and torn into small pieces 1 1/3 cups chopped fresh parsley salt to taste ground black pepper to taste 1 pinch cayenne pepper

Directions:

1.	Heat olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in onion, carrot, and celery; cook and stir until the onion has softened and turned translucent and the vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes.
2.	Pour in chicken stock and rice; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer for 35 minutes or until rice is soft.
3.	Stir in spinach, lettuce, and parsley; cook just until wilted. Season with salt, black pepper and cayenne pepper. Use an immersion blender (or blend in batches in a blender) until smooth. The soup may be thinned with more broth, if desired. Refrigerate overnight before serving. Garnish as desired.

swiss chard

This morning I went to the Farmer's Market and bought some Swiss chard. It is one of my favorite vegetables to grow because it is so trouble free -it doesn't mind the heat, doesn't mind the cold, can take a bit of a freeze -  but I do not have any of my own yet. So I was pleased to find some locally grown. I made the following recipes from Marissa Macclellan's Food in jars blog (see link below). The green leafy parts are cut up and put into meat loaf and the stems are made into a quick refrigerator pickle. The stems of one bunch of chard made exactly one pint of pickled chard stems which I am looking forward to eating in a couple of days. The meat loaf was delicious though I would chop up the chard greens finer in my ninja next time and I used ground beef rather than ground turkey since I have wonderful ground beef in my freezer which my nephew raised for me. . Her recipe called for leeks but i used chopped chives and garlic chives because those I have growing in my yard. 

http://foodinjars.com/2015/05/csa-cooking-turkey-meatloaf-and-quick-pickled-chard-stems/

Fresh Mint Tea

My mint bed is pretty lush. I don't know what kind it is because it was already in place when we bought our house. It is growing through an area which is lined with groundcloth and covered with gravel. I think the former homeowner might have done that to suppress the mint but it happily grows right through it.

Making fresh mint tea today.

Sweet Mint Tea
Pack a quart jar with fresh, clean mint leaves. Add 1/2 cup sugar. Run hot water over outside of jar to prevent breakage, the pour in
Boiling water to fill
Agitate jar to dissolve sugar. Cover loosely and let stand several hours or overnight. Strain contents. use resulting concentrate by pouring into ice-filled tall glasses. May freeze concentrate.

Plain Mint Tea
Pack quart jar with fresh, clean mint leaves. Pour in boiling water. Let stand several hours or overnight. Strain contents. Use resulting concentrate by pouring into ice-filled tall glasses. May freeze.

This procedure may be used for any fresh herbal tea such as with lemon balm.

Ukrainian canned winter salad

I heard a lady who moved here from Ukraine give a talk about her country. The whole talk was fascinating and covered all sorts of subjects. One thing she said was that home canning was veeeery popular in Ukraine and they canned winter salads. I found a recipe for that online and here is a link. http://www.valentinascorner.com/canned-vegetable-salad/
I believe I will try this except I will not try oven canning but water bath can it. I noticed that several Ukrainian canning recipes I found online use oven canning and flipping the jars. Don't think I'll try that though.

Perennial vegetables

Since reading Eric Toensmeyer's book "Paradise Lots" - oh such a good book by the way! https://paradiselotblog.wordpress.com/All about how he and his partner made their 1/10th acre city lot into a permaculture garden in a northern climate.



Anyway, I read about perennial vegies and thought I'd try some.



I know, asparagus right?



 But I decided to start with sea kale and sorrel. So far the seeds (from Restoration Seeds http://www.restorationseeds.com/) are just planted in flats and I am waiting for them to come up.

I have them slated for a shady spot where I took out dead juniper.