What's cooking?

Brian, that looks very tasty. I've never seen that particular cut of short ribs. I'm guessing its like everything else we produce in this country (Canada) the best bits get exported and can't be had locally at any price. This has gone on for so long that we don't even know the stuff exists so I guess you can't miss what you don't know about. Best cuts and grades of meat, longest straightest lumber, and the real kick in the nads is the smartest people figure it out and leave too.

Enough crying, that meat looks just great and I'm sure you and your wife enjoyed it very much. Thanks for sharing.
Mark

those look great, ShadowsDad

Marko, through the BBQ forum I have an online friend who lives in Nova Scotia and for years she wouldn't touch fish. Well, if I only had access to what she had I might not like fish either. She discovered a fish monger who actually caught the fish and he drove them 5 hours to near where she lives. She buys from him and now loves fish. I can't conceive of what you write about and what she has told us.

Salmon and Broccoli Pasta.

I just found this at Facebook, and it looks delicious.

This is Salmon and Broccoli Pasta.

No pix tonight, but I had to cook a marinated pork loin. So I cut it into medallions and sauteed, then took a few and sliced them. I made some rice and stir fried onion and 4 Hungarian wax peppers, then added some frozen peas, the pork, and then the rice and soy sauce. Of course I made too much, but if I add a stir fried scrambled egg in the morning it'll make a fine breakfast (IMO). Tonight it was really good though and definitely hit the right spot.

The wife and I worked on our winter wood pile today and the dish was definitely welcome. I'll be sore tomorrow. One more day and I'll be done with this years wood, time to begin working on next years. Yes, we can heat our home and my shop for the entire winter with wood but only if it's cold enough. I won't even consider wood heat if the ambient temp' is above 30°F and 20° is much better. For those who don't know, wood heat is continuous and works best when one doesn't have to
play with it continuously to get the output "right". It's a balance of heat in and heat loss and colder is better with the proper woodstove. Too small a stove and when the temp' drops to -30 it's just too small to carry the load. Last year was relatively warm and we used little wood and mostly oil. Good thing since we had very little wood going into the winter.

Marko, through the BBQ forum I have an online friend who lives in Nova Scotia and for years she wouldn't touch fish. Well, if I only had access to what she had I might not like fish either. She discovered a fish monger who actually caught the fish and he drove them 5 hours to near where she lives. She buys from him and now loves fish. I can't conceive of what you write about and what she has told us.

The thing that gets me about the beef is that I live in the heart of beef country - Alberta beef is some of the best in the world and I know that cattle raised here have all the same body parts as cattle raised anywhere else its that certain parts you can't buy here because its exported - I don't mean its expensive I mean its just not available so unless you know somebody who raises and slaughters his own cattle and keeps every bit of it you just aren't going to even know that some of these cuts of beef even exist. Same thing happens with spot prawns off the BC (west) coast. I go out that way a fair bit and I thought I knew most of the edible sea creatures that are fished out there but I hadn't even heard of spot prawns until a few years ago. It turns out the Japanese love them and buy them all. Its a short season and they can't be farmed so there really aren't that many around. Like Bluefin tuna

I understand, and that's the pits. It sounds as though the Japanese are outbidding what your buyers are willing to spend. Seafood is readily available in Maine, but some of the cuts of beef that the western US gets we can't easily get. That's changing for us because we go to a butcher now instead of the supermarket. He gets in cases of things that are normally unavailable. The last special he ran was for Petite Tenders and we bought a mess of 'em for the freezer. Since discovering them a year or so ago it's been one of our fav' cuts.

http://www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com/CMD...Tender.pdf

BTW, I grill, saute, or Sous Vide it. It's just fantastic if it can be found. Strange that one muscle surrounded by tough muscles can be so tender.

Another cut that we never saw before was the Flatiron steak. W love it done Sous Vide and I think I'd have a divorce if I ever suggested cooking it another way.

True and the vendor is perfectly happy to sell everything to one buyer, saves on the logistics hassles. One problem is that if that one buyer ever decides to change things up you can lose your entire market at once and then you have to scramble. When I used to practice law I was told it wasn't good to have only one big client. They get overly demanding, they'll grind you on your invoices looking for discounts and when (not if) they get pissed at you, you lose all your business at once. Better to have several small to medium clients who are grateful for the work you do for them, pay their bills on time and without grinding you and the odds of all of them getting pissed at you at the same time are pretty low so you won't lose all your business at once.

I was reminded of something that happened to me and some friends a number of years ago in Toronto. I was visiting the city to work over the summer in 1986. Toronto has a significant Italian population so you can find some decent Italian foods - restaurants and supermarkets. So we were in a supermarket looking to buy veal cutlets (scaloppini) and we were in the line waiting to be served by the butcher and we're chatting and one of us notices a large stack of veal cutlets and says to the others that we're in luck because they have plenty of veal scaloppini. Well, the obviously Italian woman in line immediately in front of us sort of looks over her shoulder at us and then steps up to the butcher and says "I'll take all the veal scaloppini you have" then turns again with a triumphant look and we just stood there with our mouths hanging open. Lesson learned. Never mention what you're there for until you talk to the butcher because some people are just mean. I mean it had to be over 20 lbs of veal, the entire day's allotment. She probably had a big family to feed.

It's too warm during the summer to bake bread but it was OK today. I missed fresh bread and today I made 3 loaves of the No-Knead bread in loaf form. 2 will go into the freezer.

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Greek Octopus Stew

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