She's crafty

I love Halloween. I'm not really into dressing up these days, or gore, or spooky stuff, but I am into October and Halloween is in October so in turn, I like Halloween. There is one thing I absolutely HATE and that is carving pumpkins. It's messy, and frustrating, and stupid...because of the frustration. So, I'm I selling my case of loving Halloween or what?

For the past couple of years I have been invited to my sister-in-law Kelsey’s house for and annual pumpkin decorating party. It's pretty much awesome! I guess her aunt started this tradition YEARS before you would see it in a Martha Stewart magazine and it has just stuck around. Aunt Suzie (Kelsey's aunt) is a talented florist and lives on a large piece of land in Oregon. This time of year everything she has tended to in the yard starts to die which makes for perfect pumpkin decorating. We use staples from a staple gun...both short and long to keep the vegetation in place by pushing the staple directly into the pumpkin. How easy is that? The hard part is trying to be creative....this year I did pretty good.
 

I always make two.  One for Steve and one for me.

Old meat, new meat, one meat, two meat

Mid October has snuck up on me like a court date (kidding..never been to court). I couldn't think of anything else that sneaks up on me that is fit to print so a "court date" will have to do. Steve (he's my husband) has already been deer hunting in our area of the world and finished up a successful hunt for Antelope in Montana and will be well on his way to Washington to hunt deer. This usually is the time of year to start making room in our chest freezer in the garage. We still have some meat from last year that will need to move over to one side to allow the meat from this year start the freezing process. Thanks to my website http://www.recipesfromthewild.com/ and my testing of recipes I have used up so much meat this year that the whole "making room" process won't be a headache.

A few weeks ago when hunting season actually sunk in and Steve's rifle began greating me at the front door I started thinking about what sort of meat will show up to fill our chest freezer this year. That thought stimulated a few other brain cells to come alive and I found myself reminiscing about my culinary school days. I had remembered a few important things I learned about thawing and storing meat while attending Western Culinary Institute in Portland Oregon. I thought I might share those things with you and maybe make sure I write it down in case those brains cells that stimulated me to remember what I learned don't disappear after age...... or too many beers.

1

Properly package your meat to prevent freezer burn. Freezer burn can compromise the quality of the meat. If you wrap with butcher paper I suggest to over wrap it. Let's use an elk roast as an example....wrap your roast once in paper, then wrap what you just wrapped, and maybe do it one more time, tape it firmly closed and then label it properly. If you have time and a scale I also suggest weighing your roast, ground meat, or cube steaks, before rapping them. I suggest 1 pound each. It makes it so easy when cooking with a recipe that calls for 1 pound of ground venison to have it ready to cook.

2

Always clearly date and identify each item you are going to lay to rest in the freezer. Example: Steve's Elk 10/8/2009 Backstrap 1lb.

3

The FIFO method. This acronym means "First In, First Out". It's suggested to use older (dated, like last year) items first then start using the new stuff however, I don't always follow that rule. I get pretty excited when a new animal is brought home and I just might cook up some of the backstrap. It's just "suggested" so no harm, right???

4

Defrosting: There are a couple ways to do this. If you plan a meal for the weekend remove your meat from the freezer, place in a bowl or dish to catch any blood, and put it in the fridge for 1-2 days, depending on size. Sometimes when I take a 1 pound package of steaks out the night before I'm going to cook it, it's not thawed entirely and I get really frustrated cause I'M HUNGRY, and that is why I suggest 2 days. If you are cooking in a hurry (another one of my classic moves) defrost in the microwave and ALWAYS use it right away. Bacteria will be inactive when frozen at 0 degrees but once you expose that meat to a warmer temperature you are asking for a nice case of the runs....or even worse.

5

Make sure your freezers temperature is at 0 degrees at all times.

6

When in doubt, throw it out. If something doesn't look or smell right seriously, just throw it out.

Now that you took a little time machine back with me to culinary school let's talk about some recipe ideas.

If anyone out there is like my husband and myself you have probably already devoured the good stuff and all that is left at the bottom of that freezer is ground venison or cube steaks. We have to eat it, it can't go to waste but man, I really don't like chewing through cube steak and ground venison can be so boring. Thanks to http://www.recipesfromthewild.com/ I can go online and check out some recipes that inspire me to cook those boring, chewy, cube steaks. When it comes to cooking I am inspired by others and their innovative ideas. It's not like we can grab a fancy cooking magazine and follow a recipe for steak and use venison instead. It just doesn't come out the same, let's face it, we have to be a little more ingenious then the everyday carnivore.

Here are a few of my personal recipes and fan favorites, by fan I mean my husband (number 1 fan) and a few other recipes members from http://www.recipesfromthewild.com/ submitted. These may inspire you to cook what's on the bottom of your chest freezer.


Ground Venison Recipes:


Lasagna with ground elk or deer
Submitted by: BHonan (yours truly)
click on this link for the recipe: http://www.recipesfromthewild.com/single_recipe.php?id=86&cur_cat_id=2

Venison Chili-New Mexican Style
Submitted by: BHonan (yours truly)click on this link for the recipe: http://www.recipesfromthewild.com/single_recipe.php?id=37&cur_cat_id=2

Game Meatballs
Submitted by: BHonan (yours truly)
click on this link for the recipe:http://www.recipesfromthewild.com/single_recipe.php?id=85&cur_cat_id=2

Venison Sausage
Submitted by: msimila
click on this link for the recipe:http://www.recipesfromthewild.com/single_recipe.php?id=57&cur_cat_id=2
Venison Breakfast Bowl
Submitted by: eequinn
click on this link for the recipe:http://www.recipesfromthewild.com/single_recipe.php?id=143&cur_cat_id=2


Cube Steak Recipes:

Humble Pie: No, not really. I'm sorry but I don't have any great cube steak recipes because I try to avoid it at all costs. Is there any recipes out there that someone can submit and share on http://www.recipesfromthewild.com/ that might change my mind? I think you all should take that as a challenge, submit your best cube steak recipe in order to persuade my taste buds.....GAME ON!

Ego wrapped salmon fillet

For those of you who fish, have husbands that fish, or live and work in an area that revolves around fishing you may have known, or read somewhere that we here in the Pacific Northwest have had a kick butt season. My husband had gone out almost every weekend salmon fishing in the Pacific Ocean since the day the season opened. This year had been pretty bountiful and if you do the math his limit is two a day, twice a week, four fish a week, for weeks and weeks (give or take), that's a lot of freakin' fish (I don't do math)! I feel a little guilty complaining about "all the amazing fresh salmon". I should remember to feel blessed that I have all this fresh fish but really, when two large salmon arrive at our house ready to be cut and vacuum sealed each day of the weekend, I get this tired feeling all over my body. We don't have a fancy fish cleaning station, and my hands will smell for hours afterwards and I even might find a scale or two located in a strange place on my body. Does anyone feel this way, or is it just me?

One night a few months ago I was eating a salmon steak Steve grilled and I found myself carefully chewing my mouthful afraid my tongue might get stabbed by a bone. I thought, why don't I just fillet the next salmon before vacuum sealing them up so cooking and eating can be a little more enjoyable? What a great idea, I'm a genius!

So, the week after my brilliant revelation Steve brings home a few salmon and sticks them in the fridge. I set aside some time to diligently fillet and vacuum seal our bounty. I sharpen the knives, set the cutting board out, got a small bag ready for bones and other scraps, turned on some good fish filleting music (Gloria Estefan) place the salmon on the sacrificing block, and then I just stood there, looking at this headless, tailless fish...................I just realized that I didn't know how to fillet a salmon. You have to understand that I'm a culinary school graduate and that very moment made me question why I'm still paying off my loan. I remember seeing a salmon being filleted but I don't think I ever did it myself being that my ghetto culinary school had 40 students to one teacher. Plus, I went into pastries and worked mainly in the bakery. After a few minutes telling my ego it was going to be okay I called Steve's mother on the phone to ask if she could help me. That woman knows how to do everything....seriously, she does.

So she arrives with her own knife and cutting board ands walks me through the steps. The whole time dismissing her own amazing capabilities. She does a great job and I give it a shot after her demonstration. I struggled a little and hacked that fillet of fish into a sad crumbly mess, it was like pouring lemon juice on a cut, "Chef Bethel didn't know how to fillet a salmon" and when she tries it looked like a blind person with one arm did it (I have nothing against blind people, FYI. Some of my best friends are blind! or amputees). I knew very well that this fillet method was not "professional" by all means but guess what, half the boats out in the ocean don't go home to gourmet kitchens. They go home to dogs running around, pushing stuff off the counter to make room, chopping and freezer bagging, and then they lay the fish to rest in a big chest freezer in the garage, am I right?

Here is my own mini picture demonstration with written directions so I will never forget. When you view this demo the directions are located below the pictures.

1. First you need to have your husband clean it, then very carefully remove all the fins.

2. Make a shallow slice with your (very sharp) knife down the back of the Salmon, following the backbones. This cut will act as a guide so you don't need to make it very deep.

3. Once the initial "guide" cut has been created go back to where you started and slice a little deeper pulling back the fish fillet as you slice away the meat from that middle bone (not sure what it is, maybe a backbone, or a spine bone thing...whatever).

4. See that round bone thing in the middle of the fish? That is what you are to follow with your knife. Just keep cutting, following the bones and pulling the fish away as you do so.

6. Take the knife and slice under the bones you just sliced over and along with the first fillet.

7. As you slice under the bones pull up on the bone flap. Eventually the whole bone flap (technical word) will be completely removed.

Here are the finished fillets. The directions may not be very clear or helpful but the pictures will at least give you a visual.

The blackberries are coming!

When I was born and up to the age of 8 years old I grew up in Olympia Washington. Back then it was much different then now. Yard Birds and Kmart were the only super stores I remember and now it's jammed with Targets and Walmarts on every corner. We lived on 5 acres with lots of room to play, a large garden tended by my mother and her friend who shared the bounty it produced, a few chickens, hazelnuts, strawberries, raspberries, and lots and lots of blackberries. Unlike the raspberries and strawberries the blackberries grew wild and I remember picking and filling 5 gallon buckets. My dad said I was the best blackberry picker in the world and silly me, I bought it and man did I pick a lot of berries. My mom canned almost everything out of our backyard and we had a cool dark pantry in the garage filled with everything you could imagine in large mason jars. Canning was just a part of my life growing up so it was only natural that it rubbed off on me a little.

The past few years I have been picking blackberries and canning jam. The first year I made a batch I was surprisingly successful, thank God or I would have been to discourage to attempt another batch the following year. I now get the jam jitters towards the end of July.
Steve and I will sometimes climb a logging road just outside of Cannon Beach Oregon around August. He of course is bear hunting and I'm busy picking blackberries. Steve basically hikes with a gun and honestly we have never seen a bear. We do however see a few signs of bear, especially around the blackberry bushes.

I was just gazing at our backyard this evening and to my surprise I noticed our blackberry bushes are starting to lose their blossoms and that tiny form of a green berry is popping through. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

Saturday July 4, 2009

I have so many childhood memories linked to the July 4th. It was yet another excuse to get together as a family cook, eat, and celebrate. Our small little town would celebrate with a walking parade, a pancake feed at the Legion, and lots of lots of bonfires on the beach.

Due to some changing in the family dynamics, a few economic setbacks, and my brother and I both starting our own family we have slowly started to change up the 4th of July traditions.

The traditions are changing but the food and family is still there. Yesterday morning my husband woke up way early to go fishing for salmon in the ocean and I woke up much later to have an open house on one of my listing (selling real estate is just one of my many jobs). The conditions were perfect. Blue sky, lots of hustle and bustle, and almost no wind. Steve rolled home with a truck full of happy fisherman and each got their limit.

I managed to work a little and then finished icing some cupcakes I made for the 4th of July.

The recipe I used was a red velvet cake, cream cheese frosting and fresh blueberries.

Now, I had never made a red velvet cake before and honestly never looked at a recipe. All I remember was the movie Steel Magnolias with that red armadillo grooms cake. To my surprise it was so flavorful and rich. I made a simple cream cheese frosting and finished with a cluster of big plump blueberries.

Around dinner time I headed to my brothers where we made alder smoked, cedar planked salmon he caught earlier that morning. All in all it was a great day filled with family and food, just a little different but I guess it's part of life, creating new traditions.

Another summer night at the Honan's

Summer has arrived and man is it amazing this year. The coast in Oregon always has unpredictable weather and each summer that goes by is different then the last. Some summers are sunny and warm, some are sunny and chilly, or some are cloudy and rainy. This summer just happens to be nice and warm and sunny with a slight breeze to cool off the heat of the day. Keep in mind warm by Oregon coast standards are much cooler then what people might expect.

With all the sun and warmth and looooong nights Steve and I have been mountain bike riding on some of the logging roads close to our home. I enjoy climbing a hill and admiring the foxgloves and Steve is busy scouting for animals. We have gone twice in about a week and have had spotted two bucks and one bull with a bunch of cows. I love that Steve and I can share time doing something we love (mountain biking) and each gaining our own personal experience.

Our rides are so beautiful and at the top of the hills we climb Steve and I get to enjoy a panoramic view of the ocean and town below.

Aaahhhhhh Oregon.

Fathers day and a minus tide

Living on the Oregon Coast sure does lend itself to give me a bounty of foods to cook with. Just this morning there was a clam tide and my husband jumped out of bed at 5am to pick up his mom and dig a limit of razor clams. I of course slept very nicely in the middle of the bed while Steve was on the beach digging his heart out. I wake up to him cleaning razors in the sink and my mind starts to race on what recipe I want to try to create with this limit. The usual breaded and deep fried is our favorite but we are both trying to eat just a little better this summer and as we get older have to really watch how much fried food goes in our diet and exercise just a little more.

Steve has a great idea to bread them with ritz crackers and then bake them instead of frying em'. I think I may try egg whites, maybe rice flour, and panko, then baking.

Ooooh, I can't wait to see which one comes out the tastiest (probably mine).

That.....is just another look into a normal day at the Honans. Next weekend it might be sturgeon (I hope!).

Unnatural in my natural state

With direction from the gals at Outside Media I was pulled in front of a camera on Wednesday to shoot a few cooking demos for the website. Honestly, it wasn't the direction I ever thought I would go but the opportunity arose and everything came together smoothly, I guess it was just meant to be. I was able to use an amazing kitchen in what is my future dream home. The Seasprite Hotel in Cannon Beach, Oregon owns and operates it as a vacation rental and they were so kind to let me use it. Hilary and Kirsten from Outside Media came early on Wednesday and set up shop while I got busy getting my ingredients together.

We started with Biscuits and Gravy and ended with Salmon. I wasn't nervous before but once I was suppose to be "on" I found that I stumbled for words and it felt really unnatural. Normally, cooking and talking and being loud comes easy for me but when I need to be for a shot it was more difficult then I could ever imagine. By the end of the day it started to feel smooth and if I ever get to do this again I will be more prepared.

Stay tuned to the website for them and check out the Seasprite in Cannon Beach Oregon if you ever want to host a huge family weekend, http://www.seasprite.com/.

Bruce's Candy Kitchen

As Easter draws near I find myself spending more time in the "holiday" isle at Fred Meyer then a 29 year old woman with no children needs to. I'm not letting that stop me because I LOVE EASTER and I'm putting together and Easter basket for my husband Steve and Little does he know, he's going to wake up on Easter morning with a little something from the Easter bunny.
I have such great memories of the baskets my mother would put together for my brother and I. My mother never glorified the Easter bunny because Easter Sunday was about going to church in a new dress and hat and having a meal with the family. My mother wasn't big on giving us candy but she always made those baskets so special with silly putty, or sparkly hair clips, maybe a stuffed bunny, and something like a box of raisins.
I'm taking a little of my mother's creativity today and I'm working on filling a basket of sorts for my husband Steve. Steve has been spending most of his free time salmon fishing this Spring and I'm working on incorporating a few items he could take with him on the boat for his basket.
Just the other day I went to Bruce's Candy Kitchen in Cannon Beach to pick up a few Easter themed pieces of candy. Now, when I moved to Cannon Beach at the age of 8 Bruce's was a staple. I was in the same class as the owners granddaughter and we even got to walk there on a field trip in the second grade. Oh, I was so envious of that girl. She got to hang out at a candy store all the time and eat all the candy she wanted. Heck, my mother would can our jams with honey instead of sugar let alone let me eat a piece of candy! I mean now looking back I couldn't have eaten any better but at the time I would see other friends gnawing at large solid chocolate Easter bunnies while I sat back and ate my box of raisins, poor me.
Bruce's Candy Kitchen has just recently been renovated and it looks better then ever. Growing up and walking into that pink and white striped building was pretty cool. The sound of their wooden screen doors creaking and clanging shut, the salt water taffy machine humming in the background, the sweet smell of whatever flavor was being pulled, and the rustling of candy bags being filled will always bring a youthful smile to my face. They have everything from taffy, jelly beans, chocolates, hard candies, sour candies, suckers, gummy candies, and lots of fun non-candy items.

I walked away the other day with small dark chocolate, and a milk chocolate baby chick, some gummy worms, a few chocolate covered candied pecans, and some chocolate eggs. I had a hard time choosing but I think I have a few good items to pull together a very clever and tasty basket for Steve.

Those on the Oregon Coast looking for great candy visit http://www.brucescandy.com/.

Spring Alert

Yesterday being the first day of Spring has set my mind into a different thought pattern. I stopped thinking about stew and chili and now seem to be focusing more on salmon and quiche.
I'm working on the April features for the website and have some great ideas to start making recipes for.
Today, Steve (my husband of almost 2 years) and my brother are fishing for Spring Chinook and I'm so jealous. It's so nice today, perfect conditions for fishing and theres something about Spring Chinook that my tastebuds tingle for. Seriously, it's the best salmon ever. It doesn't taste like the salmon we get in the ocean in the late spring and early summer months. Steve thinks it's because they have more fat but I don't know for sure and personally don't care. All I know is they taste good and I like. I'm crossing my fingers for that fish today. I guess that Spring Chinook is going for $24 a pound at the fish markets here, can you believe it? How lucky am I to get to have fish brought home (crossing fingers still) that anyone else would pay an arm and a leg for! I feel the same way about razor clams. It's really hard to get the at restaurants because I make them perfectly the way I like them at home and they didn't coast $14 for 3 on a plate.
God, I love living in Oregon!
Being married to Steve has also given me this new found respect for my environment. He loves spending his days on a boat in the river or ocean, in the woods scouting for something, or on the beach digging for clams. I've had the opportunity to see parts of Oregon I would never have seen on my own. His passion for what he does inspires me. He's on the quiet side and almost prefers to be by himself and he doesn't like a lot of attention brought to him. We are opposite in almost every way. I think that's why it works.

e-stuff

I'm not sure why I started this blog because since I started Facebook I rarely go to Myspace and checking my email can seem to be time consuming. However, the website is my passion and apparently I need to keep updated on all this stuff. Oh, I forgot Twitter, I have a Twitter account. Now, I juggle a few jobs trying to pay bills, keep my head above water, and find time to market the website (aka:my passion) via Internet. I could see how just doing this could be a full time job. I want to keep it fresh and interesting and in order to bring new members to the site this is a must.
I'll get a groove, maybe manage my time better, but in the meantime I must complain about how hard it is. Heck, I was just talking to someone today about how we get all this computer stuff but we are just old enough to not be as savvy as the kids in their early 20's. I learned all about computers while playing The Oregon Trail game. The computer was huge and the screen was green and the shapes were yellowish...that's how I got started. Now, kids are twittering, downloading, ipoding, blogging, texting, and darn it, I'm starting to feel a little (just a tiny bit) old.
Poor me :(

First time for everything......

Today I decided to create my own blog. I was inspired by one of my friends Alisa Burke who also has a blog on blogspot. We both are held up by a creative backbone and even though she focuses on art and mixed media and I on food and my home, we get it.
It seemed like yesterday we were huddled into a booth for happy hour in Portland penciling out our future and how we were going to do wonderful things. It was so fun to toss ideas back and forth and "daydream" if you will. The great thing is we both are pretty much doing what we "daydreamed" so long ago.
Alisa has really focused hard on her craft (pun in tented) and I have happen fall into my passion by marriage. I never had such passion for anything until now. Every moment of every day I think about it. I have created a website called www.recipesfromthewild.com. It's a community based, recipe sharing website bringing people like me together. I guess I should probably elaborate on people like me.
Here goes.....I moved away from my home town of Cannon Beach at 17 and found my way back to the coast around 25. I never thought I would ever live here again but I guess some living, making wrong choices, and fine tuning myself as a person I have developed a great love for the Oregon coast and now can't really see myself anywhere else. I met my husband and we married in 2007. Oh, his name is Steve. He was born and raised in Gearhart Oregon and has a mild obsession with hunting and fishing. Oh, who am I kidding, it's a pretty major obsession.
So, we marry and he not only comes with an old black dog, a boat, but a freezer full of fish, elk, deer, etc. I have a culinary background and love to cook so cooking this stuff seems so easy, right? Well, it's not. The meat is very lean, the fish (especially sturgeon) can be tricky, and I'm tired of cooking razor clams the same way. I would sit at work and go online to find a recipe for dinner that night using the ground venison thawing in the fridge. This task should take a few minutes but there really aren't many websites dedicated to such things so I would search for hours to find the right recipe. I really shouldn't say that. There are plenty of websites geared towards wild game and fish but they don't look very pretty. I need to see pretty pages, and pretty words to stimulate my creativity in the kitchen. With all that said I created the website www.recipesfromthewild.com. It pretty much rocks and I'm really excited about it's future. I have decided to take it to the next level with a marketing company, facebook group, and shaking lots of hands and telling lots of people about it. I guess this blog is also another attempt to take it to the next level.