Virtue Mine Honour
These sweet children just ate, and actually enjoyed, elk steak for the first time! Ewan stuffed the meat into his mouth and Eileen chewed it for a long time before splitting out what was left in her mouth.
They have eaten meat lots before in stews and casserole etc, but never just a piece of meat on its own. Needless to say Kyle is thrilled!!!
Ewan and Eileen had eggs and halibut yesterday. They did not like the taste of either. Ewan reluctantly ate it but Eileen flat out refused. As soon as it touched her lips she had a big dramatic reaction spitting, scrunching her face and shivering! She is definitely a pickier eater than Ewan.
Their eating skills are improving. They are handling bigger chunks of food. They’ve been feasting on home made sourdough bread dipped in soup for lunch. We just added lunch time meals this week.
Last year our friend Levi showed me how to make sausage so this year Davis and I thought we would give it a shot on our own using the sausage stuffer that Janet bought me for my first father’s day.
Fortunately for us, Levi lent us his heavy duty grinder and mixing tub which definitely saved us some time and effort.
Step one was pulling 55 pounds of elk and whitetail deer trim and pork fat from the freezer to thaw.
Click on images to enlarge.
On our 2017 hunting trip my brother Loren snared enough hares to share a couple with Dad and a couple with me.
Snowshoe hares are a little bit more flavourful and tougher than their cousins cotton tail rabbits, as such they are very well suited to stews and braises.
I decided to use the snowshoe hares that Loren snared and subsequently shared with me to make a hare stew inspired by Theo’s Restaurant in Penticton, British Columbia. Theo’s has long been a family favourite and every time we go I can’t help but order their Lagos Stifatho which is the most delicious Greek rabbit stew with lots of onions and tomatoes and cinnamon and the most incredible depth and complexity of flavour.
Below is a rough recipe;
In the interests of utilizing as much of our kills as possible, and because we love a good homemade stock, I decided to use the bones from our deer and elk this year to make bone broth. Dad used to do this when we were growing up but for whatever reason, it’s something I have never bothered with. I guess having dogs to give the bones to gave me an easy out but dogs can only chew so many bones and there are enough buried in the back yard as it is.
Step one (after removing most of the meat from the bones) was breaking down the bones into smaller pieces so that they could be tightly packed into a stock pot, especially the elk which is a large animal with large bones. This was accomplished by separating all of the joints with a knife, then using a reciprocating saw to cut the larger bones into smaller pieces and exposing the bone marrow.
Click on images to enlarge.
Earlier this summer we were lucky enough to spend some time at the Shivas family floating cabin where we caught a bunch of Chinook salmon thanks to Jim and Nancy’s expert guiding.
Every year my two brothers and our Dad head up to a hunting camp a little bit north of Valleyview Alberta in an effort to fill our freezers with delicious wild game meat. This year we called in support from Janet’s parents so that I could head up north for a week without feeling too guilty about leaving Janet alone with seven month old twins.
As this is a post about hunting, expect to see some graphic images, if that’s not for you, you may not want to proceed. You may not want to eat meat either if you can’t handle where it comes from, but that’s another subject. 😉 Continue reading “2017 Hunting Trip”
Tonight we put pieces of banana on Ewan and Eileen’s highchair trays. At first neither was interested in the banana, they were more interested in watching Kyle and I eat our dinner. After showing them the banana Ewan did pick it up and bring it to his mouth and lick it. I had to hold it to Eileen mouth, and then she licked it.
So, tonight they both had their first taste of Banana!
Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of Eileen because I was holding her and the banana! Sorry baby girl!!
The next morning (October 25) we tired bananas again. This time I got a picture of Eileen. They basically just suck on and lick their fingers after squishing the banana with their hands
For Thanksgiving, we braved the longest drive with the twins yet and made our way to my parents vineyard in the community of Kaleden in the Okanagan valley in British Columbia. What is normally an eight hour drive became a nine hour drive with the twins but all things considered it went remarkably well with only two feeding breaks and minimal crying and the fall foliage made for a very scenic drive through the Rockies and then the valley.
Click on images to enlarge.
Kyle, babies and I ran errands together yesterday, making it our first official family outing that didn’t involve a medical appointment ?
The babes also turned 3 weeks old yesterday. This picture was taken a couple days ago, but I just love it!
Kyle prepared a wonderful Mother’s Day Brunch for his family and my family, 9 people in total, 3 mothers- 2 of which are grandmothers! He made smoked salmon cream cheese cake/spread for bagels, a beautiful multi layered fruit salad, blueberry muffins and homemade bread. Diana brought Prosecco and juice and chocolate peanut butter banana cake. It was quite the feast!
