“Champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.” ~ Tom Waits
A New Year celebration naturally calls for sparkling wine, so let me help you find some great deals.
Natalie MacLean of NatalieMacLean.com specializes in finding the best wines for the best prices here in Ontario. This year for New Years, three of her recommendations are:
A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future. ~ Author Unknown
Joanne Papple Flanagan started making rum butterscotch bananas about ten years ago. She was hesitant to use it with the children as she didn’t know about the alcohol, but now they are all older her daughter Morgan has started to request it. She just loves it. It is easy to make, so now that Morgan makes it herself, they have it fairly often.
Joanne and her family
Recently Morgan requested it for her birthday supper. She is lactose intolerant so it goes well with lactose free ice-cream. Joanne’s other daughter must eat gluten free so butterscotch bananas was a really good choice.
Joanne and I met through a mutual friend and the first thing she asked me was if I knew just how much alcohol remained when you cooked with it. It is a range and there is a burn-off guide in the book to help you gauge. I’m a mom too and a lot of people ask the same question. I have learned it takes a lot longer to actually burn off the alcohol than we think, but a lot less remains than we think.
For example, with this recipe, if you let the rum simmer for 15 minutes, 40% of the alcohol remains. Rum starts of at 40% alc. and after15 minutes of cooking is down to 16% alc. If you look at the dish as a whole, the rum is probably only 5% of an entire serving, so the actual alcohol content, at 16%, is a minuscule amount.
A little math helps. Most rum is 40% alc. You boil it down to 16%. Once served, the rum is approx 5% of each dish. 16% of that 5% equals less than 1%, so the alcohol content of an entire serving of butterscotch bananas is less than 1%. (I hope that’s not too confusing!) To compare, cough syrup ranges between 5-14% alc.
Go ahead, enjoy butterscotch bananas guilt-free with your kids. If you want to have a little more fun and take a wee bit more off, you could flambé it with them too.
Morgan and their dog Honey at the beach
Mother-Daughter Butterscotch Bananas
Serves 4
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed1/8 cup dark rum1/4 cup butter2 large ripe, firm bananas
1. In 1 1/2-qt. casserole stir together brown sugar and rum. Add butter. Cover. Microwave at High 4 to 5 Minutes, stirring after 2 minutes, until sugar is dissolved.
2. Cut bananas lengthwise, then crosswise so there are 8 pieces. Add to syrup, stirring to coat each piece.
3. Microwave at High 1 to 2 Minutes, until hot. Serve over ice cream.
Options: chopped pecans or 1/4 tsp cinnamon
This summer, Joanne’s town of Goderich Ontario was hit by a horrible tornado. Many homes and other buildings were completely destroyed, This tree was right in front of Joanne’s place and fell onto the road. They were lucky it didn’t fall on the house! Goderich is a truly beautiful part of the world and the loss of homes, historic buildings and old trees has devastated everyone. With an estimated damage of $185 million, The people of Goderich will be rebuilding for a long time and would truly appreciate your support. Please go to http://edgefund.org/
Here is Goderich before, during and after the storm.
“Here’s a toast to the roast that good fellowship lends,With the sparkle of beer and wine; May its sentiment always be deeper, my friends, Than the foam at the top of the stein” ~ Anonymous
Take a chef who loves pork, make him a die hard fan of the TV show Iron Chef, then give him a BBQ team with off-beat humour and an unmatched flare for the grill. What could you possibly name that BBQ team? …“Pork Ninjas!”
Jason Rees is loved by his fans for his extraordinary panache for all things culinary. His BBQ team “Pork Ninjas” competes all over the country and wows every crowd with their smokin’ grillin’ expertise. When Jason turned 30 he commemorated it with a very fine flying pig tattoo.
1/4 lb. bacon, cooked and crumbled1 cup blue cheese, crumbled 1/2 raw red onion, sliced thin1/2 cup cream ale 2 tablespoons mayonnaise1 teaspoon granulated garlic 1/2 teaspoon mustard powder pinch salt ground white pepper to taste 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard splash of hot sauce
1. Loosely toss the bacon, blue cheese and onions.
2. In a separate bowl make the beer dressing by combining the rest of the ingredients, and whisk briskly until the beers flattens out.
3. Crumble the cheese-bacon-onion mixture over your favorite potato salad or cobb salad, then drizzle the beer dressing over top of the entire thing.
4. This dressing is truly rocking when served super fresh, so you don’t want to store it to use later.
*G-F Tip! Make this dressing with gluten-free beer and voila!
“This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption… Beer!”– Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Friar Tuck
Recently I was at a trade show and a woman walked up to me startled by my height. I’m 6’2” and I love it. She had a really good sense of humour and made me laugh when she said, “You don’t look so tall on your blog!”
My blood line is a mix of Dutch and Norwegian. As you may know from my first post, the maternal line of my family is Mennonite (100% Dutch descent). The paternal side – the Johnson side of my family – is Norwegian, so I decided there has to be some Viking blood in me.
Vikings were not the barbarians that legend has implied. By the 9th century, Vikings had started settling into England and it has been said that English women preferred Norse husbands because they were very well read, plus they bathed and used combs.
Porridge comes with many different names from different parts of the world, but the recipe remains really simple. Porridge is a dish made from boiling a grain in water or milk.
In 1854, Hanna Winsnes (1789-1872) published the first Norwegian cookbook. “Lærebog i de forskjellige Grene af Husholdningen”which basically translates to “Teaching book in the different sections of the household”.
One of Hanna’s recipes is “Beer Porridge.” The instructions she wrote were awkward to intrepret, so I did some searching and reworked it in 21st century English. My version is different, but more workable, I believe.
On page 155 of Hanna Winsnes’ cook book:
The beer is mixed with water according to taste; normal home-brew beer can be used undiluted. For each pot of mix take two egg yokes and one half pægel (1.2dl) of full fat cream, or three egg yokes without cream. Beat well. When the beer is boiling and has been mixed cooked with sugar (to taste), take the pot off the heat, and pour in the eggs while beating vigorously, to form a froth.
The dish does not keep but must be eaten immediately.
Dice fine rye bread and brown it in butter; when it has been well mixed with the butter sprinkle a little powdered sugar (icing sugar) over, keep stirring, like when you are roasting coffee. This is eaten with the beer porridge, and can be made before the beer is started.
2 cups rye bread, dried and finely crumbled4 cups beer1 egg, well beaten1/2 cup brown sugarCold skimmed milk
1. Mix the rye bread, beer, egg and sugar in a pot.
2. Bring to a boil then reduce and simmer, stirring constantly, until it thickens.
3. Serve warm with cold skimmed milk.
*TipsCan be served as a dessert with whipped cream.For a sweeter porridge, substitute dried spice cake crumbs for the rye bread and spice with cinnamon and nutmeg
Let me take this opportunity to introduce you to Mads Refslund, a brilliant Danish chef. Here is a description of his beer porridge.
Old rye bread softened with beer and then submerged under white chocolate foam and salted milk ice cream. This must be the breakfast that fuels grizzled fishermen as they hunker down against wild North Sea winds. It was out of this world and completely unique to my palate.
