Chili, Scrambled Eggs and Cheese

                                             Make your favorite chili recipe and serve it over scrambled eggs with fresh grated colby jack cheese and whole wheat toast. Top with sour cream.

Meatloaf

     Make your favorite meatloaf recipe and serve it with potato pancakes.

Potato Pancakes

                     Back in the 70's I was a cook at the Black Forest Inn in South Minneapolis. It was a renowned German restaurant, famous for many of it's authentic old world recipes. Soups, sauces and gravies were made from in house stock from beef and chicken bones that were skillet browned and simmered for 24 hours. Fat from sides of beef was ground and bagged and frozen and rendered into deep fat frier oil once a month. House cut french fries were fried in this fat.
                   As were potato pancakes.Grated boiled potatoes, onions, eggs, flour, marjoram,nutmeg.browned like hashbrowns and served with applesauce and sour cream. 
                        

Zucchini Bread

My mom was not much of a cook but I loved what she cooked because I didn't know any better. In hindsight I can say that she nailed about a half dozen plus a few more recipes.Her strength, really, was language and love.
    Her Dad was 2 yrs old in 1881 when he emigrated to the US. Her grandfather Eric Engson was the 1st practising medical doctor in Kittson County in NW Minnesota. Twenty years later he was granted a license. He had been an apprentice doctor in Sweden where he and his doctor/ mentor had specialised in bone fractures in a logging area of Sweden. Logs, axes, loggers, consequent fractures and necesary repair.
       Mom spoke only Swedish when she attended 1st grade. English came quickly and years later she would teach English, French, German and Spanish in Secondary school in Minnetonka,Mn.
       Mom was a single parent to the 3 of us kids after twin brother Jim and I(John) were in 1st grade. Sister Karen was 4 yrs older. Dad had early success as a teacher, principal and coach but booze did him in and he lost his job and his marriage.
        Mom made great banana nut bread.Warm from the oven and spread with fresh butter there was nothing better.

Zucchini Bread - adapted from several sources including Mom and me and Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

                   3 eggs
                   1 cup olive and veg oil or combo
                   1 cup brown sugar
                   1/2 cup maple syrup
                   2 cups grated zucchini or summer squash or combo
                   1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
                   1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
                   1/2 cup oatmeal
                   3 tsp cinnamon
                   1/4 tsp nutmeg
                   1 tsp baking soda
                   1/2 tsp baking powder
                   1 tsp salt
                   1 cup chopped walnuts
                   1 cup chocolate chips

                   Method:
                               Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 8 inch cake pans.
                               Beat eggs, oil and sugar and maple syrup with a whisk, add zucchini.
                              Incorporate  flours, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and
                               add to egg mixture. Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.

                              Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cut like a pie and serve warm with butter.




                  
                





    

Elk Burger Redux And More.

Ross and I cut and hauled and handsplit about 2 cords of wood these last 2 exquisite fall days. We ate meatloaf style elk burgers this time( moist and tender, more flavor than straight elk), breaded zucchini sticks fried in olive oil, sauteed largemouth bass and bluegill topped with with garden fresh pesto and tomatoes , drank Cabernet and Pinot Noir and talked of old times. It was all good.  I'm a chef. He's a winemaker. A shared history of good food, wine and memorable times. We were boy scout camp counselors at Many Point Scout Camp NE of Detroit Lakes, Mn  back in the 60's.
         Prior to that as a scout I had flunked cooking merit badge three times, once after frying pork chops in vaseline because I had forgot to bring cooking oil on the canoe trip. I thought that vaseline would work because it was slippery like cooking oil. It didn't.
        A yr or two later in Detroit Lakes, I would meet and hang out with Jessica Lange the actress,before she was Jessica Lange if you know what I mean, although she did have the same
 name. She was smart, somewhat affected(as if she knew what her future would be; also naive - she did not yet know how to inhale the smoke of a cigarette but did it unknowingly with great style), and strikingly beautiful. The big screen never did her looks justice.

        Cut your zucchini into 3 inch by 1/4 inch strips and dip in eggwash and seasoned flour and place in a half inch of med hot oil. Cook till golden and turn, cooking till golden on the flip side. Drain on paper towels. Season with sea salt, granulated garlic and ground cayenne pepper. Eat. The zucchini is so moist that you do not need a dipping sauce, but if you must you can use red sauce, ranch dressing or pesto( my favorite).

       Dredge your fish filets in seasoned flour and saute' in olive oil for a couple of minutes till golden, turn over, add cherry tomatoes cut in half, spoon pesto on top of filets, add 1/2 cup white wine to pan, cook about 2 minutes till done. Plate filets and pour sauce and tomatoes over filets. The tomatoes( garden fresh) and pesto add a depth, richness and complexity to the fish that doesn't overwhelm the natural freshwater flavor of the fish.

      Elk burgers done meatloaf style - with the addition of eggs, breadcrumbs and seasonings - salt, pepper, garlic, cayenne, worcestershire - produce a burger that is moist and tender . Caramelized onions and a sauce of 2/3  ketchup and 1/3 mustard and tabasco to taste complete this perfect venison burger.    



    

                

Elk Burgers

Gotta love it when your son in law drops off last yrs excess inventory of assorted pkgs of venison sausages and elk burger in anticipation of this yrs take. They've got plenty. They're gonna get more. They know it. They've done it for yrs. It's a done deal. They are cleaning out the freezer.
Lucky me.
It is nearly 2 weeks into September and the sky and the light has changed; today's wind blustry, thrashing the pines and oaks, leaves and branches left on the yard.  A week ago the wild rice tendrills were green with purple tops as I knocked a few into the canoe. A meager yield this season due to to early heavy rains and later strong winds. What was left was laying half down and it was a one side of the canoe half harvest of a quarter crop. Not a lot. Like hobby ricing.
I fried the elk burgers, seasoned w/ salt, pepper, garlic in a black cast iron pan, along with carmelized onions and plenty of garlic,  and at the end added worcestershire sauce and smoked cheddar cheese.
We ate them on whole grain bread w/ketchup and mustard and tabasco to taste.
Luscious, assertive and wild.
October on the palate.