Saturday, September 11, 2010

Mystery Meals

This is becoming quite the habit here in our household... we get some random bit of fresh food and have to piece together a meal from whatever is handy in our stored foods. It's not like we can just pop over to the
store and pick up one or two things that would make a certain recipe... you have to improvise.

Yesterday was a huge slab of salmon that one of our neighbors gave us. We snacked a bit on the thickest part shashimi-style with a little soy sauce and wasabi, but the main portion G pan-seared with some garlic, dill and ginger and then lightly poached. Served on top of a psuedo rice pilaf thrown together with brown rice boiled with some rehydrated bell pepper, onion and carrots.  Absolutely delicious!

Today we got a huge cabbage. Actually, half of a huge cabbage that our other neigbors split with us. Really, what else can you do with a cabbage that is twice the size of your head?!  So I'm digging around trying to think what the heck I can make with all this cabbage considering that we haven't been to the store in a while.  Well, we do have a few cans of corned beef, but corned beef and cabbage is better with a brisket. We have a bunch of potatoes, I could make colcannon, if only we had more onions (those dehydrated onions never really get soft enough to mash properly!). Hmmm, what to make, what to make??  G said he had a hankering for chinese...boy, that did not really narrow it down much :)  So I ended up making a sort of sweet-n-sour pork and cabbage with some canned pork chunks, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar (we're out of rice vinegar), a sprinkling of sugar, the last of our fresh garlic, a few pinches of red pepper flakes, a squirt of wasabi paste, and a few dashes of curry and ginger powder.

Not too shabby for a storage pantry meal at the last minute! It might not be served in a 5-star restaurant, but I think even Gordon Ramsey would appreciate it as Alaska Bush haute cuisine... or at least not gag and spit it out on the floor while swearing at me for being a complete gibbon! LOL

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is also known in redneck vernacular as Hunter Stew (you hunt around in the pantry and throw it in the pot and presto "Dinner is served, don't ask.... eat!"

Anonymous said...

I got a chance to 'catch-up' and had to laugh at this post. I have done LOTS of this over the last few years since moving to the 'bush'!!
Even with planning things STILL end up a mesh of things cause some important thing was missing.
Hope you are getting the same nice dry weather most of the state is getting this week. We only have to get three 'high tunnels' up in the next few weeks, so your project is fun to 'watch' !!
UgaAKVic

Anonymous said...

Was this your last meal?
Wondering if the great weather in AK is allowing some serious building and maybe the roof is going on as we speak (listen)?
Hope all is well.