In any case, I’m pleased to report
that I’m still embracing the ethical omnivore lifestyle. I just haven’t had the
chance lately to report on it. It seems like going back to tell you about my birthday menu might be a
little too far in the past but I will anyways because we had some great food!
At
the party were 15 or so good friends. It was pretty casual. It was
supposed to be a BBQ and although we used the BBQ to prepare some of the food,
we were confined to house because it was snowing! Yes, snow on May 18th.
It was first in my life time!
Here was the menu :
Appetizers
Hummus with Organic Que Pasa tortilla chips
Goat Cheese & Sun-dried Tomato Terrine served with crackers
Main Course
Marinated Moose& Veggie Kebabs
Moose Burgers with all the fixings
Alaskan Scallop Skewers
Tabbouleh & Chickpea Salad
Spinach Salad with strawberries, almonds and a poppyseed dressing
Vegan Potato Salad
Dessert
Pineapple Upside Down Cake
 |
| Goat Cheese & Sun-dried Tomato Terrine or as I like to call it: Delish! |
Not a bad spread… So you may be thinking, why on earth would you want to go
through the trouble of preparing all that food on your own birthday? Just to be
ethical? No actually, I have often prepared dinners for friends on my birthday
because one of the things I love about cooking is making things for others and
giving them joy. Many of my friends who are avid cooks do the same. Plus, you
can be guaranteed you’re going to eat well! Being ethical was just an added advantage.
I did mention to dinner guests who I know have been following the blog that it
was ethical but most of them were none the wiser and would not have been able to
tell the difference anyways! One particular guest, who has an aversion to eggs,
was delighted to finally be able to eat a potato salad because it did not
contain eggs.
So, going through the menu, I fully admit that I took lots of short cuts
with this meal. I’m a normally “from scratch” kinda girl but I did not want to
work too hard! It was my birthday afterall! So yes, the hummus was store bought although I jazzed up the
presentation by transferring it to another dish and adding some garnish.
The goat cheese appetizer is a fabulous dish that can be made the day
before. It comes from the Whitewater Cookbook series. I will add these books to
my book listing in the Food for Thought post. There are several wonderful
dishes in all three of these books. This particular recipe is found on page 28
of Whitewater Cooks At Home. You line a dish with plastic wrap and put
down a layer of softened goat cheese-unripened. It says in the recipe to beat
until fluffy and smooth. What I did was soften the cheese slightly in the microwave,
which made it easily spreadable. After putting down the first layer, put on a
layer of pesto (I used store bought), chopped up sundried tomatoes, some
chopped, fresh basil and parsley then add another layer of the goat cheese.
Wrap it in the plastic and refrigerate to firm up. When firm, unwrap and place it
on a serving plate, garnish with a balsamic vinegar reduction, toasted pine
nuts, capers, a basil chiffonade, kalamata olives and cherry tomatoes. Simple!
See, you don’t even need the recipe. Serve with baguette, toasted pita,
crackers, etc.
For the main course, we marinated cut pieces of moose steak several days in
advance. We just used a random kebab recipe from the internet and threw in a
few extra ingredients. I wish I had kept it because it was a gooder… Loaded up
some skewers with the meat, peppers, onions, mushrooms, etc. and cooked them on the BBQ along with some moose burgers. I don’t tend to keep recipes for burger
seasonings so sorry, nothing to share. For the burgers, we got the local bakery
to make up some fresh buns, which made them extra nice.
The scallops were purchased from Frisky Fish in Whitehorse and came from a small bay in Alaska. I tossed them in olive oil, lemon zest, garlic and s/p. Much like the mozzarella cheese from the cheese making workshop actually. Then I skewered them and cooked them on the BBQ. Yummy!
The Tabbouleh and Chickpea Salad was a new recipe. It came from page 43 of
the Whitewater Cooks book. It’s the first time I’ve ever used bulgur and I was very
pleased with the results. It's a yummy recipe full of flavour with ingredients like chickpeas, green olives, feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, red onion and herbs and spices. I used a The Farmstead Feta from Moonstruck Organic Cheeses from Salt Spring Island. The only change I made from the original recipe with
that I reduced the amount of vinegar by about half as I was worried it would be too
acidic with the lemon juice and vinegar. It was great!
The spinach salad was very straight forward: spinach leaves, sliced
strawberries, toast almond slivers and a homemade vinaigrette with dijon
mustard, white wine vinegar, maple syrup, s/p, poppyseeds and grapeseed oil.
The vegan potato salad was from this website:
Check it out! It’s called Creamy Fingerling Potato Salad. However, I didn’t
use fingerlings. I just used baby potatoes. I also didn’t use quite as much
shallot as in the recipe. The other change was that I didn’t use Yukon Gold
potatoes for the dressing. I just took a few of the baby potatoes and mashed
them up, skin and all. It was very good.
Now for dessert: Pineapple Upside Down Cake -one of my
favorite childhood cakes. This recipe is from my momma. I figured that this
cake would be good because you don’t necessarily need ice cream to go with it. Luckily I had some organic butter from Avalon dairy. When you need a buttery
taste, margarine just won’t do. I ran out of regular flour so I substituted in
some spelt flour, which made it soft and dense. I used local eggs and
unsweetened almond milk instead of regular milk. It was delish!
Pineapple Upside
Down Cake
Melt 1/3 cup butter into a 9 to 10 inch pan. Sprinkle ¾ cup
of brown sugar over the melted butter. Place drained, canned pineapple slices
on sugar mixture. Maraschino cherries may be placed in centres of pineapple
slices, if desired.
Mix together:
1 ½ cups
all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon
salt
2
teaspoons baking powder
Cream:
2/3
cup butter
Gradually blend into butter:
¾ sugar
2
eggs
1
teaspoon vanilla
Beat until fluffy.
Add dry ingredients alternately with:
2/3
cup milk
Spoon onto pineapples in pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40
to 50 minutes. Invert on serving platter. Remove pan after a couple minutes.
It was a great night. In fact, I was so busy having fun
that I only took one photo. It's all I have to accompany this post. Oopsy!
Until next time, which hopefully won't be too far away!
