I've got the big wok out today, going to smash up some sort of pork stirfry and rice.

It's Taco Tuesday and I've been listening to Freddie Fender and eating tacos and drinking beer for about an hour.

I had pork chops and green beans and mashed potatoes and gravy. No whiskey in the mashed potatoes, just butter, salt and a splash of cream. While the meat was resting I threw some butter in the skillet, shook up flour and water in the "gravy jar", added a few blotches of liquid beef Bovril, salt and pepper, dash of wine, and scraped all the goodies off the bottom of the pan. Bonus, I have leftover gravy and potatoes.

Chicken and some arugula with poppyseed dressing.

Burgers (bacon cheese with dill pickles and arugula)- the meat came all the way from Australia! Exotic.

kangaroo or crocodile?

Grass Fed Australian Angus Lean Ground Beef. I didn't even know until I thawed it out, it's not like we don't have cattle here.

doesn’t seem to be much mention of food miles in the latest uk/Australia trade deal either

rhubarb fool for pud tonight with rhubarb from the ‘garden’. Delish.
strawberry and rhubarb pie is a Canadian thing I am totally on board with, but the rhubarb will need to grow a bit more... just need to get within conversation distance of those horse owning neighbours later in the year

Fried oysters.

I should stay away from this thread.

Shrimp cocktail for starters.

I had finnan haddie with onions and peas on pumpernickel toast; thought about seconds but decided to put it in the fridge for now. It can always be microwaved later for a treat.

Yum. I absolutely love Finnan haddie. Was it the genuine article or a local version?

What makes it genuine? I learned how to make it from my mother, who learned to make it as a girl growing up on the prairies during the Depression. The Relief trains brought potatoes and salt cod out to the west where hardly anything could grow. Grandpa was too proud to take relief (Mom said his excuse was they only offered potatoes anyway) but he would buy a barrel of smoked mullets from Lake Winnipeg every year for $10 and that (and shooting and snaring rabbits) would get them through the winter. I always considered finnan haddie to be traditional Canadian prairie Depression-era cuisine. Is it Scottish as well? I made it with smoked burbot tails when I lived at the lake but here I use smoked yellow cod which I buy on the flashfood app.


Bring the fish to a boil and simmer for 10 - 12 min then drain. Add butter, thin sliced onions and cooked peas and flake the fish. You can either make a roux in the pan or add the milk/cream first and mix a spoon of flour in a few oz of milk then add that to thicken it. It's one of the "feel good" dishes from my childhood. The other recipes from Grandma's kitchen are all German or Russian or Ukrainian so I don't know who taught them finnan haddie... maybe there was a Scottish neighbour.