The joys of a pantry
Last night`s dinner plan was simple, yet special. Two small moose steaks, pickled wild leeks and crab were the focus – our family had harvested all 3 ingredients. We were going to match that with peas and pickled beets that we preserved. It would also be the first test of our own canned peas.
Once the small package of steak defrosted, I opened the package. The butcher butchered the cut of meat. It was a single cut, folded in two and the width varied from less than half an inch to more than 2 inches. There was no question – the plan for dinner had to change fast.
It`s times like this that having more than 100 flavors of preserves of different types is an absolute joy (we`ve made about 60 of the current flavors). We didn`t have a lot of other ingredients in the fridge so a bit of creativity and a lot of options help out.
I resigned myself to a stir fry of sorts – the only fresh veggie we had was an onion. I recalled that we had a comment (from Ferdzy of Seasonal Ontario Food) on our blog suggesting that we could use our dehydrated oranges for a chinese recipe called orange beef. Most of the recipes I found called for deep frying the meat; I varied a fair distance from the suggested technique but decided that orange moose was the way to go.
The beets and leeks went back into the pantry and out came the dehydrated mandarin slices from Christmas.
Our stiry fry was served on fried rice which featured Ontario pressure canned peas. For those new to pressure canning, it is simply a way to presserve low acid foods (pickles and fruits are high acid) such as most vegetables. I hadn`t tried our peas before and almost melted when I did – though they are soft (they were cooked for 15 minutes at high heat in the jar), they taste like a summer pea.
The meal was fabulous – a combination of so many flavors that came together from the great wall of preserves.
Winter is a great time to learn how to preserved and to discover that it`s not complicated and that it`s easier than you may think. It`s a great time to practice and hone your technique and experiment with ingredients from further away (marmalade is great to make in winter).
Soon we will have an abundant crop of options (more than 30 fresh and local ingredients can be preserved in the Spring of Ontario). The work that we did last year feels so little in comparison to our options and flavors now.