Photo Excursion December 13th

I just love to get out early in the morning! From early spring to late fall it usually means getting out on golf course or out to the garden but in the off season if the weather is OK I like to get out and shoot some pictures and if the weather is lousy it is either computer or kitchen work. Here are some pictures I took yesterday morning before heading out to London. First three pictures were taken just one minute apart and last two were taken 10 minutes later.

 The Sun is poking through the trees just above number 7.

On the way to London we have spotted and photographed Snowy Owl (previous post) and on the way back driving through Amish settlements we saw two Amish man loading corn on horse drawn wagon and taking it to the barn for storage. The corn was harvested more than 2 months ago and the corn stalks were neatly stacked into a 6 foot high pyramids. All their storage bins were full with corn cobs so it looks like they are set for winter.

Snowy Owl in Our Neighborhood

When I say “neighborhood” I mean anything within 20 minutes’ drive and since location of where we spotted the owl falls into this category then this owl is in our neighborhood. Now that general geographic location of this fairly rare bird for South-Western Ontario is established let’s get down to details.

This morning about 9 o’clock we were driving to London taking a scenic country road route. Nice sunny day, just few clouds on horizon and not a fleck of snow anywhere. The country roads here are quite chopped up so it is constant left turn and few kilometers down the road you do a right turn and so it goes until you zigzag your way in diagonal North-Westerly direction to Highway 401 or all the way to London just 45km away. Shortly after I made one of these direction changes I spotted bright white bird in a plowed corn field and immediately said to Marjo: “We’ve just passed a snowy owl.” I stopped immediately about 70 meters past the spot he was sitting, got out of the car and slowly opened up the trunk where I had all my camera gear from this morning sunrise shoot (yes, another one) including my heavy Manfrotto 500 tripod. I mounted Canon75-300mm zoom paired with 1.4X extender on the camera which was the longest lens in my bag, I left my Vivitar 120-600mm zoom coupled with 2X extender at home (never again!) and started to move towards the owl. I didn’t want to take my tripod because it is big and it would look threatening to the bird. I definitely regret that decision since I use tripod all the time, I like sharp photos. I was astonished how calm that bird was, he did pay attention to me as you can see from his expression but he was too busy getting at his meal that looked like a groundhog or rabbit, it was dark grey brown and fairly large. He lifted it few times but I never caught it on camera. I will go back tomorrow with my long lens and see if I can relocate him again. The location where he was to day is at  42°53'13.69"N, 80°53'53.00"W, which is on north side of Wilson and west of Pigram Rd. in Elgin County, south-east of London.

Most of the time, I was ignored. Too bad I didn’t use my tripod!!!

Interesting Morning Photo Shoot

Yesterday (December 10^th) I have witnessed very rare occurrence when sunrise and full moon set coincided within minute of each other. It was quite coincidental discovery for me. I was driving west to shoot a sunrise over a local wood lot when I have spotted huge moon setting in north-west direction. The moon was full, huge and had a yellowish tint while the ground was almost red because of dramatic sun rise at the same time. I shot about 20 frames of each. For the moon I was lucky to have my 600mm with 2X extender with me, that gave me 1,200mm long tele lens. The Sunrise was even more dramatic, blood red and for about half a minute all the fields were red like Savannah in Africa. Now I have to find out when the sunrise and full moon set will coincide again but I guess that it is quite rare, maybe once in a lifetime occurrence when you factor in the weather.

Celestian information from Garmin MapSelect.

Canon Rebel T1i, 160mm lens, f/5, 1/3,200, ISO 400

Sunrise

Canon Rebel T1i, Vivitar 120-600mm zoom plus 2X extender, f/5.6, 1/60, ISO 400

...and most incredible Full Moon Set. Once in the lifetime chance to see both at the same time!

Note: These are raw and un-altered pictures.

Fresh Wine Sausage and Potato Salad

Traditional Czech Christmas and Easter Meal

Fresh wine sausage actually falls into two categories on my blog: Charcutepalooza and Christmas. Traditionally, this sausage was served before or after Christmas or Easter and was always accompanied by potato salad and mustard and sometimes with freshly grated horseradish. It is a fairly light sausage, as far as sausages go, and is pleasantly tangy with lemon peel and white wine. In some regions of Northern Bohemia it was made with a mix of pork and veal while in other regions pork was the only meat used. I made lean version using 2 parts veal and 1 part pork. As is the case with any fresh or cured sausage one tool that really makes it easy, and I do consider it indispensable, is stand mixer with paddle. Of course, you can use bowl and stiff wooden spoon like our grand-parents, but it is a lot of work to beat the meat and spice mixture into a sticky forcemeat while adding wine at the same time. Even though I have not tried it since I have 8 quart Blakeslee stand mixer, I guess that you could use a food processor fitted with a dough blade to do the mixing. The wine has to be completely absorbed by the meat. Since I got my new vertical sausage stuffer I am definitely on a sausage kick but this sausage, just like any fresh sausage, can be formed into patties or short round sausages, dredged in flour and cooked in a frying pan or baked/roasted in the oven. For such a delicious sausage there are very few ingredients. One ingredient that has to be measured carefully is salt. Always weigh the salt, do not go by table spoon or tea spoon measurements, not all kosher salts (and always use kosher salt) are created equal. I did some tests and one cup of one brand differed from another brand by as much as 30% in weight, and that is a lot of difference! Generally, for sausages the ratio of meat to salt is 10 grams of salt for every 450 grams (1 pound) of meat. Another ingredient that is absolutely critical in this sausage is lemon zest. It is better to use rather more than less, after all it is the lemon zest that gives this sausage such a refreshing taste. One more thing. I never buy ground meat, ever. I have to know what is in my meat and when you buy store bought ground meat it is anybody’s guess as to what kind of crap is in it. Just check number of recalls of ground meat products due to e-coli contamination and other problems. To me it is worth the extra effort to grind my own meat. 

Ingredients

1 lb. veal shoulder

1/2 pork but

1/2 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

15 grams Kosher salt

1/2 tsp. freshly ground white pepper

Lemon zest from 1 lemon

White wine, about 1/2 cup

Sheep casings and skewers (if used)

Flour for coating

Oil for shallow frying

 Remove all sinew from veal and pork. Mix salt, pepper, nutmeg and lemon zest in small bowl. Cut the meat into 1” cubes and rub the spice mixture into the meat. Place in re-sealable bag, flatten the bag while removing as much air as possible and refrigerate overnight.

Next day place the bag with meat in the freezer for half an hour or until the meat starts to get hard. When thin crust develops on the surface of the meat, grind it using die plate with 1/4” or 3/8” holes. Place the ground meat in stand mixer bowl fitted with paddle or food processor with steel dough blade (I think that plastic dough blade would brake), turn the machine on and start adding the chilled wine. Stop when grind starts to look sticky and develops little shine. Meat is now ready for stuffing into sheep casings forming coils that will fit frying pan or formed into patties or sausages. Place bamboo skewer from one end of the sausage coil, through the centre where the other end is and out opposite side. The skewer will hold the coil together and makes it much easier to handle. To cook the sausage, preheat frying pan with about 1/4” of vegetable oil, coat or dust the sausage or patties with flour to give it nice crust and fry till it is golden brown, 3–5 minutes. Turn sausage over and cook another 3-5 minutes. Serve with mustard and Potato Salad.

Vanilla Crescents - Czech Christmas Sweets

Vanilkové Rohlíčky

Vanila crescents is another item that is on every Czech Christmas table. If you don’t make them you just buy them, just like potato salad and open sandwiches (Obložené Chlebíčky) being other “must have“ for Christmas. It is a little bit tedious because of the time it takes to roll all these small crescents but it is well worth it. When you eat them they just melt in your mouth. Hmmm...No wonder, with all that butter!

 Ingredients

1/2 pound (2 sticks) softened butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 cups sifted pastry flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups finely chopped almonds or hazelnuts

Confectioners' sugar 

Cream butter and add sugar then add egg, salt and vanilla extract.

Beat in the flour half the cup at the time, then add almonds and continue mixing until mixture becomes slightly stiff dough.

Shape dough into a log, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line two 12 x 15-inch baking sheets with parchment paper.

Pinch off walnut-size pieces of dough, roll them into ½” thick round strips and shape into crescent shape.

Bake 15-20 minutes or until light golden brown on the bottom.

While still warm, roll in confectioners' sugar or vanilla sugar. Let them cool and store in an airtight container.

These will keep several weeks. Dust with more vanilla sugar before serving.

All shaped and ready for the oven...

They are so brittle that you just can’t dump whole baking sheet into the sugar, they have to be coated one by one.

Goose Feather Pastry Brush

Few weeks ago when I started to make Kolache pastry for Marjo I was faced with a dilemma as to how to separate individual little kolaches from touching each other on the baking sheet as they rise without collapsing them. At first I have tried super thin painter’s spatula but the dough got stuck to the steel blade. Than I had a flashback and saw my grandmother using thin feather brush dipped in butter to do the job. Not only that, I also remembered that my mother brought the brush to me when she visited us in Canada about 15 years ago. This is the original brush, about 80 years old and still works like a charm. The feathers are stiff and soft at the same time so you can run them in between pastry, separating and buttering them all at the same time. When the pastry came out nicely separated I was so thankful to my mom and grandma.

By the way, they are incredibly easy to clean: just dip the brush in near boiling water and it is done. The brush is also great for brushing egg wash on the dough.

Just run buttered brush in between pastry pies and they will not stck to each other in the oven.

The individual kolaches separated without any problem at all.

Another Week of Comfort Food

Actually, way too much of comfort food and way too much pasta for my liking. No less than 4 dishes were pasta and rest had potatoes!  It looks like next week will feature a lot of rice and rice noodle dishes.

Cannelloni.

When I was assembling this great dish I was thinking how closely related it is to Lasagne. In this version I used veal, ricotta and arugula filling with tomato and Béchamel sauce.

Roasted Chicken Legs with oven baked fries.

Crispy chicken skin, moist meat underneath and crunchy potato fries…what a combo!

Chicken breast stuffed with cheese.

Served with buttered noodles, spicy tomato sauce and arugula.

Chicken thighs, tomatoes and red peppers stew with buttered potatoes.

Penne Rigatoni with beef, mushrooms and tomato sauce.

Kassler with fruit sauce.

Traditionally the Kassler (German smoked pork chops) is cooked with sauerkraut but couple years ago I have tried it with pineapple and it tasted great. Since I didn’t have pineapple I tried a can of mandarin and pear compote. Great stuff! I’ll post full recipe later.

Veal and mushrooms ragout with buttered wide noodles.

Henry – The Monarch Butterfly

On the last day of October Marjo found Monarch Butterfly laying almost motionless between our flower pots. I published a post last November 6^th on her find. Well, five weeks later he has a name, his own bedroom and feeding station. I don’t think there is a better name for Monarch Butterfly than Henry, is there? Once a week Marjo buys fresh flowers that serve as his bedroom and this is where he spends most of his time. His day starts around 10:30 when the sunroom warms up, then it is feeding time. He just crawls on hand and with an eye dropper we put few drops of sugar and water solution on his feet that act as sensors. He feeds for about 5 minutes and then it is play time that usually consists of flying and crawling around south window screen. He doesn’t fly too well, part of his wing is missing. I think that he was caught in an air turbulence from a car or truck and he got injured, maybe that’s why he missed the migration window. We have no idea if he will survive the winter but apparently monarchs that come out in late summer, the last generation, live up to 9 months, so, who knows. For now we have a small reminder of summer so we just enjoy this un-usual experience.

From close up he looks like a monster.

Feeding time...

followed by time to play...

...and around 3:30 it is time for bed.