You are probably wondering why I am showing you a fish recipe on a Monday.  Two reasons really.  First, as it is Canada Day back home I wanted to cook a typically Canadian dish, and not just Canadian, but a Maritime type of dish.

Secondly  . . . it will take you a few days of preparation to get this dish put together, so I am giving you a heads up!

  

Down East Fish Cakes.  There isn't a Canadian Maritimer worth their salt that doesn't love or know how to cook these fish cakes.  They have been a Maritime staple for many years.  These delicious potato and fish cakes use a traditional down east kitchen staple, Salt Cod.  

It hails back to the years when the fishing industry was really big in the Maritime Provinces. Humble people are the Maritimers, and in years before refrigeration they would salt their cod to use in the off season.  This was a great way to keep the cod. All they had to do was soak it to regenerate it and it was fit to eat. 

Funny Story:  It is said that during the Dust Bowl in the 1930's many Western Canadians risked starvation so the generous people of Eastern Canada sent  them trains filled with Barrels of Salt Cod, which they knew would not only survive the long journey to the West, but could be easily stored and kept.  Having no idea what it was, the Westerners used the slabs of salt cod to shingle their roofs.  

 

The Salt Cod I used today does not come from Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, but from Scotland, Shetland to be exact, and it is famous!  Mine came from The Fish Society, which is an online fish monger here in the UK. 

They offer a really vast variety of fish and seafood to choose from, from A to Z, smoked, dried, over 200 kinds.  They deliver across Western Europe but can also deliver further afield if you are looking for good fish to be delivered right to your door.  Frozen fresh it is as fresh as it is right from the ocean when thawed.  I just love their fish. 

I was really excited when I discovered that they had Salt Cod.  A little taste from home, Nova Scotia, which  means New Scotland. This was singing to my Nova Scotian heart. This Salt Air-Dried Cod is considered to be the single Malt of the fish world. This is the best Salt Cod that you can buy here in the UK. Sustainably fished from MSC accredited Shetland stocks, this is a handcrafted premium product! 

You do need to soak it in cold water before you can use it however.  I soaked mine for 48 hours, changing the water 3 times, which is what was recommended to me.  After that I simmered it in hot water for about 15 minutes, and then let it cool, whereupon I flaked it and used it in my recipe.

 

Some people cook their fish cakes right away, and you certainly could do that, but I like to mix them up one day and then shape them into a roll, wrap and chill, ready for me to cut into slices for frying the next day.

 

They are really easy to make.  You just mix equal amounts of reconstituted, cooked and flaked salt cod with mashed potatoes.  Don't add any milk or seasoning to the potatoes.  Just peel, mash and use.

 

Into this goes a beaten egg, and some seasoning . . . 

 

As a Maritimer I highly recommend Summer Savoury. Back home this is a staple of every kitchen larder.  You will find it added to lots of dishes.  Summer Savoury is the cousin of Winter Savoury, and adds incredible flavour to lots of dishes. 

Summer Savoury is very aromatic and has an appetizing-enhancing, expectorant, digestive-regulating and sudorific effect.

  

I cooked my husband a Roast Beef Dinner for Father's Day at the weekend, with all the trimmings.  Even Yorkshire Puddings.  He was in Man-Food Heaven!   

 

He loves my roast beef and my Yorkshires!  These are recipes I learnt from my late FIL who was a cook in the Canadian Forces.  As you know an army marches on it's stomach, so as you can imagine he was an excellent cook!

 

Normally with a Roast Dinner over here they will serve cabbage of some sort, or Brussels sprouts. Usually the crinkle leafed Savoy Cabbage (lower left above).   I never realised there were so many kinds of cabbage until I moved here to the UK. 

 

 They love their cabbage. In the photo above, going clockwise from the Savoy you will see Sweetheart Cabbage, Chinese Cabbage, Red Cabbage and White Cabbage, which is the type I was used to cooking with from home.

 

I didn't have any other kind or even any Brussels Sprouts to cook for Todd, just a white cabbage.  It is lovely fried, and in cabbage rolls, or coleslaw  . . .  but it just doesn't shine when it is boiled or steamed.  

 

Then I realised I had never shown you my favourite recipe for Creamed Cabbage and so I decided to make that as a side dish!  

What this recipe may lack in bells and whistles, it more than makes up for in taste!

 

Creamed Cabbage might look and sound quite unremarkable, but I can assure you, it is anything BUT unremarkable! 

 

Its just cold cooked cabbage, mixed with a rich cream sauce, covered with buttered cracker crumbs and baked until bubbling and golden brown. 

 

The cream sauce is rich and flavoured with salt, pepper and nutmeg. 

 

You could add some hot pepper sauce or dried mustard powder if you want it to have a bit of a bite. 

 

Taste and make sure you have enough salt.  The cabbage won't be very salty, and it will need the lift.

  

I know we are not supposed to eat too much salt, and we try not to, but some things just need it I find.  This does.  

 

Once you have it mixed with the cream sauce, you simply pour it into a buttered baking dish and cover it with buttered cracker crumbs.

  

Into the oven it goes until it is golden brown . . .  those cracker crumbs all crisp and buttery . . .  and the cabbage and sauce are bubbling away.  

 

Oh boy, but this is some good.  This is a dish I really love and it makes an excellent side dish for roast dinners!!!

 

I don't know why I don't make this more often  . . . .  wait . . .  yes I do  . . . its because I could eat the whole thing all by myself!  Yes, I could possibly be that greedy when it comes to things I really like!  Oh, and if anything, this tastes even better the day after!  Oh boy  . . .

 

 

 

I think it was the other week that I heard on the television that people who consume a diet which largely consists of highly processed foods do not live as long as people who don't.  This makes sense in many ways.  When I was a child we only ever rarely ate processed food, unless you counted processed cheese slices.  I went many years considering cheese slices to be, well . . . "Cheese!"  Once a year my mother would buy a brick of Cracker Barrel cheese, for Christmas . . . as a treat.  Other than that our diet consisted basically of simple food, cooked simply, and from scratch.  Anything which might have been processed such as a frozen pot pie was a rarity and considered to be a treat. 

Food was pretty basic and seasonal for the most part. We had fresh carrots and turnips, potatoes, cabbage and tinned peas and beans  . . . and once in a blue moon tinned corn.  In the summer months we would have corn on the cob during corn season and we would fill up on that, and there was always plenty of sliced fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. 

Meat was also pretty simple. Once a year our parents would purchase a hind of beef and that was our red meat.  Chicken was a very occasional treat, and maybe pork chops every now and then. At Thanksgiving and Christmas we would have a turkey. New Years and Easter brought a ham.  Sundays we always had a roast of some kind . . .  pork, or beef for the most part.  The pork was always cooked the day before and served cold, sliced into very thin slices and there would be mustard on the table to have with it. Sometimes we had pork sausages, which we enjoyed with dollops of mayonnaise, something which I still enjoy to this day.  Occasionally we would have fish, but it was not battered fish, or fish fingers  . . . my mother would buy a block of Captain Highliners Frozen Fish and it would be cut into portions to feed the family.  In the summer we sometimes had tinned salmon served cold on a plate with perhaps some potato salad and coleslaw. Always homemade.  Mushrooms came in cans, and my mother made her own soups.

Dessert was a rare treat, served for special occasions, like birthdays or holidays meals.  On Fridays we always had hot dogs for supper, I know processed . . .  but they would be followed by a dish of ice cream and sometimes we were allowed to spoon jam over top of the ice cream.  

We were not allowed to fill up on things like cookies or cakes . . .  occasionally my mom would bake an apple pie or a lemon meringue or coconut cream.  Sometimes she would buy cake donuts which she would reheat in a paper bag in a low oven.  They were delicious, but again a rare treat. 

Everything was pretty basic. My father didn't like strange food, or exotic flavours.  He liked his food seasoned simply, with salt and with pepper.  The only time we ate out in restaurants was when we were moving house. 

 

We picked wild blueberries in the summer and strawberries, which my mother froze to make into pies and such in the winter or strawberry jam.  We hardly ever had store bought jam. We had bananas and apples to eat, but otherwise we had mostly tinned fruit.  Potato chips were a Saturday night treat, something to eat while Hockey Night in Canada was on.  We each got a tiny fruit nappy sized bowl with some chips in it.  At Christmas there would be treats like my mother's homemade War Cake and Date Squares, maybe some gumdrop cake, some homemade fudge, a bit of hard candy and barley sugar toys.  At Easter we got spoiled with chocolate rabbits and marshmallow eggs.  We didn't have soda pop or even cool-aid to drink really, except as an occasional rare treat. We had water and were allowed a glass of milk with our meals and a glass of juice with our breakfast and milk on our cereal. None of us were overweight, and I don't think we ever really felt deprived.   At least I didn't.

 

We in the Western world are really spoilt for choice when it comes to food.  I don't think many of us are what you would call starving and very few of us know what it is like to go well and truly hungry. If we want strawberries in December, we can get them.  We have access to some of the most exotic produce from around the world 365 days a year.  Eating seasonally is almost a thing of the past, and we are fatter than ever.  A lot of families rely on processed foods or takeaways.  With both parents working, time is of the essence and nobody really wants to spend hours in the kitchen cooking a meal after working hard all day. Most people just want to relax and quite rightly so.  But it's killing us. 

Some families rely on box meal plans like Hello Fresh or Gusto where all the pre-packed/planned recipes/ingredients are delivered to your home ready for you to cook up healthy meals quickly and tastily.  They are not a bad thing and for the most part pretty healthy, but they come at a premium price.  

I will be honest.  I don't know how family's manage these days.  Good, healthy food, is expensive and becoming more so all the time. It should really be the other way around.  Junk food should be expensive and healthy food should be affordable.

 

I've been really thinking a lot about how we can eat healthier in this house lately.  I am a diabetic and I need to watch my carb count and my sugars.  Sugar just doesn't come as something white and powdered that you sprinkle on your cereal and bake into your cakes.  It is hidden in just about everything, truth be told, and especially in processed foods.   They are high in salt, fats and sugars.  Low fat goodies are also not so good for you.  When they take the fat out of things, they put the flavour back in somehow . . .  and it usually comes in the form of sugars. 

I baked some really nice little muffins the other morning.  They were delicious and had no fat, refined sugars or even flour in them.  They were the exception to the rule.  I also baked a cake this weekend.  I got the recipe from Sugar Free Londoner for a low carb, sugar free, gluten free almond cake.  It looked really good, and as you can see from the photograph, even the one I baked looked really good . . . 

  

It cut like a cake . . .  as you can see . . .  but that is where any resemblance to a real cake ended.  It was blah.  Blah. Blah.  Seriously BLAH!  Even Todd, who is my biggest fan ever and thinks I walk on water when it comes to cooking, even he said it was blah.  I can't even begin to describe it.  The consistency was like a thick almond omelet. 

 

I tried dusting it with some sugar free icing sugar, and serving it with some sliced pears and  a dollop of yogurt . . .  there is no redeeming it in my opinion.  This was totally disappointing.  I was expecting cake. I did not get it.  I guess the lesson here is clear.  Cake is cake.  This is not cake, no matter how much you try to dress it up as a cake.    More's the pity.  And it used a crap load of ground almonds, which aren't cheap and 5 large eggs.  (No wonder it tasted like a stodgy almond omelet.) 

I think from now on if I want to eat a cake, I will bake and eat a proper cake.   No more monkeying around. No more playing around with impostors.  I am not ready to give up cake altogether. I like cake.  A cup of tea and a slice of cake is one of life's little pleasures. 

 Now I am wondering about bread.  I had clipped some recipes on keto type of breads and even went so far as to buy almond and coconut flours  . . .  but after this cake experience . . .  I am thinking that I am only going to get more of the same eggy omelet things, but in a different shape, something masquerading as bread, but not really bread at all. 

 

Oh, and further in my quest towards healthy eating I recently purchased some turkey sausages the other day.  HUGE disappointment.  They were pasty  and flavourless . . . we did not like them at all.  And they were in beef casings.  What's up with that?  Read the fine print people.  You are not always getting what you think you are getting.  So for now at least . . .  its back to the drawing board.  

Perhaps if we just eat plain and simple, REAL food with the occasional treat we would be a lot better off and healthier.  People who were living on rationing during WW2 and afterwards were some of the healthiest people ever, despite school dinners.  Just my two cents worth.  What do you think??  I really want to know.

 

 

Perfection salad . . .  my first memory of what I think is a most delicious salad comes from the early 1960's. My father and his friend Louis used to go hunting and fishing together.  

On one particular foray my mother took the three of us and we spent the weekend with Louis's wife Irene, while the men were off doing man-things.

 

Irene had been one of my mother's friends since her early working days as a secretary and I believe they had roomed together in Truro, Nova Scotia.  This whole weekend had almost a holiday feel to it . . .  at least to me it did. 

We did not often go anywhere as a family.  Mom was not a fan of the Great-Outdoors, so in the summer we might spend one day at the beach. That was it.

 

Getting to stay for a few days at someone else's home was a really big deal.  

I remember Irene and Louis had a huge vegetable garden and we were allowed to help them pick peas and beans and lettuces for supper on the first night.

 

There was also an element of danger involved as several bears had been seen in the area (which was quite remote) and so we were well aware of the need to keep a watchful eye out. On the first night I was sleeping in a small bedroom off to the side of the house.  

There was a box of Muffets cereal on the dresser and I remember being awakened by noise and what I felt was a bear trying to get in the open window to get at the Muffets.  

I screamed blue murder of course and refused to sleep there the remainder of our stay.  My mother's bed was very crowded after that! 

 

Another thing I remember, with much more clarity  . . .  is that Irene made Perfection Salad as a part of one of our meals, and it was delicious.  

So much so that it has stayed in the annals of my favourite food memories ever since.

 

It isn't perfect . . .  its a coleslaw of sorts and has a history that goes back to the beginnings of powdered gelatin way back when.  The original recipe was devised by a woman named Mrs. John E Cooke of New Castle, Pennsylvania.  

She entered her recipe in a contest sponsored by Charles Knox in 1905 (the major gelatin producer in the US at that time). Interestingly enough one of the judges was the Fanny Farmer of the Fanny Farmer Cooking School fame. (One of my all time favourite cookery books. I have worn out three copies in my lifetime.)

 

Mrs Cooke won third prize (a sewing machine) and people have been enjoying Perfection Salad ever since that time!

 

I have seen it created in many versions, most using boxed Jello (another American invention, fruity flavoured gelatin), normally lemon or lime, and they are good.  

My favourite version however is this one.  The made from scratch one, using all natural ingredients.

 

The gelatin mixture is fairly simple.  Its just some powdered gelatin softened in cold water and then mixed together with a bit of boiling water, sugar, fresh lemon juice and vinegar, along with some seasoning.

  

That gets chilled in the refrigerator until it thickens somewhat, about the time it takes you to chop all the vegetables  . . . .

 

I like to hand shred and chop my vegetables.  Its not that hard and I actually find it quite relaxing standing at the counter with my knife cutting the cabbage into thin shreds.  

I think if you were to grate it, it would be too fine and you want a bit of texture . . .

 

There are also celery and some red and green bell peppers.  I also chop these by hand and they are actually chopped quite fine.  Minced. Again, I fine this a very relaxing enterprise. 

 

Once I have the vegetables all done the gelatin has usually thickened enough so that I know that when I stir them into it they will be evenly distributed and not end up floating on the top. I also add some coarse black pepper.

  

You can either put the mixture into a mold to chill for several hours or into a square cake dish/casserole to chill. Either way is very nice.

 

I did some in a mold and some in a square dish.  I have to say I prefer the look of the squares rather than the mold.  

The mold had little raised bumps around the top and when I dipped the mold into hot water to unmold the salad they kind of melted so my presentation was not as perfect as I had expected.  It still tasted delicious.  

Tangy, with a touch of sweet and plenty of crunch.  Perfect served with a dollop of mayonnaise. YUM!!!  I love revisiting my happy food memories.