Be Back Soon, Ol' Saskatoon!

Saskatoon: The Sunniest City in Canada; Saskatchewan's biggest city but not its capital; Only mentioned (as far as I could find) in 1 Stompin' Tom song, although with a name like that you'd think it'd be a title track; A town I had never really considered before moving Up North; The city that changed my dogs forever.

That's right. This week we went down our long, winding road, turned onto a less winding but even longer road, and eventually made it to the Big City. Saskatoon. Upon arrival we stopped by the vet clinic and handed our puppies over to the veterinarian assistant. We were a little sad when they happily trotted away on their leashes, not even looking back at us. The experience was akin to the feeling that some parents get when they take their kid to school for the first time and find that they are not so sad to leave mommy and daddy's side and prefer to play with the other children. It was a bittersweet moment; we were happy that they were not so fearful of the big, wide world, but also a bit forlorn that they were not more concerned about leaving us behind. I like to think that the moment they did turn around and find us gone, there was a bit of panic. Either way, we had two puppy-free nights in Saskatoon!

I don't know about you, but the first thing I do before visiting a new city is to go online and check out restaurants. I like eating, and I love eating out, but I am kinda picky about what I'm actually going to pay for when I go out. I hate paying for a meal that isn't very good (obviously) or that is only mediocre or even just pretty good. When I go out to eat, I want my food to be great! fabulous! delicious! If you feel the same way, then the next time you find yourself in Saskatoon you have to go to Weczeria Food and Wine. The best thing about the place is that it focuses on fresh, local food; in fact, their menu is on a chalkboard because it changes that often. It was the first time that I was seated at a restaurant and didn't get a menu to hold. The dish above is the oxtail ravioli, which was great 'til the last drop, literally: we ordered a bit more bread so that we could soak up all of the amazing jus. Real comfort food.

Our other appetizer was the roasted carrot salad, which was lovely as well. It came with an apple compote and hazelnuts, as well as a fabulous vinaigrette that seemed to have a hint of ginger in it. The best thing about this dish was the fun contrast of the softened, earthy carrots with the crunchy, woody hazelnuts. Also, it's quite colourful and I like the stacked presentation.

My partner's dinner was chicken supreme with mustard buttermilk mashed potatoes and a slaw. He ate every bite, despite complaining about the cilantro in the slaw, a.k.a. "that green stuff that overpowers everything else".  I tried it and I also wasn't sure that so much cilantro was right for the dish, but everything else was lovely. I'm trying to remember exactly what that brown sauce is but at the moment it escapes me. Not the most colourful dish, but delicious nonetheless.

My entree was the pork tenderloin with caramelized onions and polenta.The pork was nicely cooked; they source all of their meat locally, and cook it all as rare as they can get away with. I found the best way to go with this dish was to put everything together in each bite. On their own, the polenta and pork were a little bland, but with the onions it all became a big party in my mouth! 

On a side note, Weczeria almost made me forget that I was in Mid-Western Canada, except for the fact that our server kept over-explaining everything, or in some cases defending the food before we even ordered. She explained each culinary word (which for a loyal Food Network watcher like me isn't necessary, although I had forgotten what a ragout is), and very early in the evening she added the disclaimer that the portions are smaller than other restaurants, although for my own stomach they were perfect (I could only eat one of the tenderloin slices; there are two on the plate above). I don't say this as a criticism, because she was an awesome server, but just an observation.

Dessert was a decadent but not overpoweringly rich flourless chocolate cake. It was kind of like a dense fudge brownie slice, even close to a chocolate pate. Floating near the bottom of the cake were a few raspberries and on top was a homemade vanilla bean whipped cream. Like I said, it was a delectable and satisfying dessert without being overly heavy. I enjoyed it with a second glass of Cabernet Sauvignon (they only have Canadian wines, to warn anyone who hasn't the palate for our finest) and the chocolate paired extremely well with the cherry and red currant tones in the drink.

Dinner was fantastic, and after tax and tip came out to about $150, which I think is pretty great for two people. We had 5 drinks between us, 2 appetizers, 2 entrees, 1 dessert and 1 tea. Not for everyday, but certainly a nice treat when on the road Down South. The only negative thing that I will say is that, while all delicious, no dish (with the exception of the oxtail ravioli) had that "wow" factor that made it jump off the menu (in this case, chalkboard) for me. You know how sometimes you go out and there's a dish that seems to have everything that you love in it, as though it was specifically designed for you? I didn't have that here, but the nice thing about the menu changing with the seasons is that the next time we go, there will be a whole new list of creative and exquisite meals to choose from. Can't wait to visit in the summertime!

Back to reality. The morning after our culinary adventure we went to pick up the pooches. Remember when I said that they didn't seem to mind leaving us? Well, they sure were fed up with that little back room at the clinic by the time we arrived. They were beyond excited to see us. Phew, they do love us after all! They fit in the back of the truck alright, and aside from the couple times that Reina stepped on Nanuq's recently departed balls, we got home without mishap.

The girls at the clinic had warned us that Nanuq would not keep his cone on, but for us it has not been an issue so far. He hates it, clearly, and what dog wouldn't, but he doesn't pull on it like he was in Saskatoon. Somehow it makes him look even cuter.

Reina merely suffers the indignity of it all with one big, continuous miserable look. You can see her incision here, along with the two places on her right legs where they shaved her for the IV lines. Poor, poor dear. Not quite the crown that my little Queen had anticipated, I bet.

The only mishap since coming home was the afternoon when I went to work and left the little ones in their cages. I'm concerned that they will figure out that they can lick each others' wounds, so we're keeping them apart as much as possible over the next week or so. I was gone for 4 hours and the whole time I was anxious that Nanuq may have gotten his cone off and spent the afternoon licking or tearing at his stitches. I returned home to the above scene. He must have been so indignant about the cone that he decided to rip up his beloved cushion. I can only imagine how much stuffing he ate. On the bright side, I was relieved to see that he was still in the cone and his stitches were intact.

Sadly the joke is on Nanuq, since he doesn't get to sleep on a comfy pillow anymore. His cone is looking worse for the wear as well, although it is not his fault. The dogs have not been able to understand the parameters of the cones, and they knock them on everything in the house, including the backs of our legs constantly (which hurts!). Last night he went out to pee in -25 degree weather, and when he ran back to the house he knocked the cone against the metal railing and it shattered. Reina's done something similar this morning, so now the cones are nicely decorated with lines of duct tape. Oh, the shame!

All in all it was a fine trip to Saskatoon and back. I didn't take any pictures of the city because we didn't really have time to sight-see. When we go South there is always lots of shopping to do and we really only had 1 day in which to do it. Next time I'll make more of an effort, I promise. Until then, you'll have to get by on the immortal lyrics of Stompin' Tom:

A scout from the flames came down from Saskatoon
Said, "There's always room on our team for a goon
Son, we've always got room for a goon"

Deep Freeze Part III

Remember what I said about the unseasonably warm weather being had in The North so far this month? Well, forget about it. It has gotten cold. Very cold. I would know, since the heater in our truck has decided to quit its full time job and will only work on certain days.

I drove the truck down to town to get it fixed on a lovely and sunny winter's morning. Luckily, the heater showed up for work, as the temperature on the dashboard showed -38, and that's before the wind chill.

When you're comfortable in a warm truck it's easy to be deceived by the sun. The thick frost on the branches, however, could never be misleading. It's freezing out there!

I wonder if these charred remains are longing for the return of the forest fire that burnt them, or if the icy coating is a welcome relief.

The day before my trip to town was a less sunny but a bit warmer; only -25 degrees. On days like this it takes a lot of willpower (not to mention layers) to take the dogs for a walk. When we do go out it`s for an abbreviated version of the normal 1-2 hour walks, as I don`t relish the sensation of my jaw freezing so badly that I am unable to speak properly. Or at all.

It may be cold, but it sure is beautiful. It's not always comfortable, but I'm happy to embrace the cold because it makes my world a winter wonderland.

Luckily the shorter walks mean that we don't have to go through the "Snare Zone". As I stated in an earlier post, the wire snares are meant for smaller animals like rabbits, and would unlikely hurt my dogs as long as I am there to help them out quickly, but I'd rather not take the chance. It's hard to make out the wire loop in the above picture, but it's there in the middle of the rabbit trail. When the wind is biting we turn to go back before we get to this part of the lane.

Generally I like to add a warm and hearty recipe that makes me feel good on a cold day, but I really wanted to share this salad, and it has become evident to me that if I'm waiting for a warm day to share a salad, it's not gonna happen for awhile. The Beet Salad was inspired by a meal that I ate while at a restaurant in Ontario, specifically one in Kitchener called Borealis. It's a relatively new place that specializes in great and local food at a fair price (at least that's my take on it). I went with my girlfriends for our annual Christmas Dinner Out and we were really impressed, not only with the food, but that we had unwittingly scheduled our dinner on $4.99 cocktail night, a.k.a Thursday. I happily sipped the best drink I've ever had: the Lemon Ice Wine Martini was absolutely heavenly!

I had eaten a heavy lunch earlier, so I didn't feel like having a large meal despite the delectable options. I chose the Roasted Beet Salad, and not only was it delicious, but it was also pretty easy to reproduce, with a few changes. Instead of roasting, I boiled some beets, then peeled and sliced two (in hindsight, maybe a half a beet too many) and laid them on the plate. The restaurant served mixed greens, but I only had romaine so that's what I piled on top of the beets, then crumbled some goat cheese and sprinkled the mix with toasted pumpkin seeds. The dressing at Borealis is a Niagara red wine vinaigrette, but I chose to make a balsamic reduction instead which I didn't reduce quite enough but I was tired of having my entire kitchen smell like vinegar so I pulled it off the element a bit early. Then I added some honey, garlic powder, cracked pepper and a bit of soya sauce and drizzled it on top. Lovely.

Even better than eating the salad is making art from the leftover beet juice, vinaigrette and goat cheese. I probably couldn't make a more attractive tableau with paint if I tried. Something to do on a frigidly cold afternoon, I guess. Have fun with it!

The Mercury Rises and I Try not to Sink

Another post from the Great Out-of-Doors.

We've had a bit of a heat wave Up Here, with several days climbing above zero degrees for an hour or so in the afternoon. I've been told by some of the locals that by now we should be seeing many days at -30, but currently the average daytime temperature seems to hover at around -10.

My ice wreath has taken a bit of a beating due to the strong winter sun and is only about half the thickness it was when I made it, although all of the berries and branches are still embedded in the icy circle so it still looks pretty, minus the icicles.

I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather by, what else, taking the dogs for a nice long walk. This time I pulled some snowshoes out of the basement that we had received as a gift last Christmas. They're made by Yukon Charlie Winter Systems. I have no idea whether they're good snowshoes or not, as I had never snowshoed before, and was anxious to give it a go and see how they worked.

We've had about two feet of snow fall since winter has set in which, despite the warmer days lately, has refrained from melting. I was curious to see how the snowshoes would stand up to the powdery covering. They were easy to put on, simply sliding my shoe into the bindings and pulling the buckles until tight. They were also pretty comfortable to walk in; I really didn't have to take exaggeratedly wide steps, which was nice since I had to walk at a decent pace to keep up with the puppies.

I didn't really think that I would stay on top of the snow, as like I said, it's pretty loose and fluffy as opposed to wet packing snow, so I knew that no matter what I would sink a little. Still, I was surprised at how much I did sink. I was a bit disheartened by my first attempts at stepping through the deepest stuff I could find down by the beach. 

It wasn't until I took them off that I was made aware of how much they actually had been helping. Without the snowshoes I sank even deeper, in certain places up to my knee (I hadn't dropped lower than my mid-calf with the shoes on). Also, the snow caved in on my foot and made it harder to take the next step, whereas the snowshoes kept that from happening. Also, the grips (called crampons) on the bottom made sure that I didn't slip and slide in the snow. I was walking quite comfortably, in fact. I'll definitely use them again.

I was also excited to go for a walk with my new gloves, a Christmas present to myself. As I've said before, I use my iPhone to take all of my pictures, lacking a better quality camera that would me more suited to blogging. The iPhone has a surprisingly good camera that can result in pretty good photos, or great ones after a few touch ups. The problem with the iPhone camera is that it doesn't deal well with low light or motion, so I do hope to get a "real" camera someday. Please bear with me until then.

Anyway, the iPhone, as you all know, requires the touch of a finger which, in the cold, is not the easiest feat. Back in December I was often experiencing a burning sensation in my fingers when I had my gloves off for even just a few seconds due to the -20 and below weather. Now, with these gloves from The North Face, I can keep my fingers relatively warm as I snap away on a walk.

The reason that my fingers can stay warm is that the tips of the gloves, or the E-Tips, are made of X-Static fabric, which is able to activate the touch screen buttons. As per The North Face's website, "X-Static fabric has a layer of all natural pure silver permanently bonded to the fiber face. This inhibits the growth of bacteria, and helps manage moisture and regulate temperature, allowing the high speed user to stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter." These gloves are quite thin, I imagine that they're more for joggers in the fall or early spring, or for those in more temperate winter climates, but for me they're tight fitting so I can wear them under larger mittens and simply take those off when I want to take a picture.The pads work really well; I'm relieved that I don't have to expose digits to the cold anymore when I take pictures like this...

When the sun is shining and the air is free, 'tis the Northern Life for me!

There's a First Time for Everything

Well it's the New Year and I'm back Up North for whatever this land has to throw at me, including many "first" experiences! My stay in Ontario with family and friends was lovely, but truthfully I'm glad to be home. 

No more nostalgic trips to Christmas' Past; the decorations have been stored for another year and my sight is squarely focused on things to come. My resolutions? To be more organized, save money and eat healthier. Original, I know. Truthfully, I don't really subscribe to the New Years Resolution game, these are always my goals! But maybe this is the year to make them stick...maybe.

Warning: before you go further into this post, know that there will be a picture that you may not like. I'll tell you what it is so that you don't go there just to see: it's a dead rabbit. So if you don't want to see that, don't scroll past the puppies. If you'd like a nice Chicken Pot Pie recipe, then scroll down quickly to that part.

In my two week absence the dogs have grown so much! They no longer look like puppies, but they still act like them. It was such a joy to take them on our afternoon walk, how I missed it! The fresh air, the prancing pups and the beautiful snowy scenes! 

These wintry days we have to be careful because while I was gone, Nanuq got his paw caught in a snare. He wasn't really hurt, just pinched a little, but we now tie the dogs up when we're getting to the area where the traps are. They're just made of wire and are designed to catch small game like rabbits, so they wouldn't be harmful to my dogs unless they were to be caught for some time, or seriously panic and cause the wire to dig into their skin. I was glad to have the pups on their leashes yesterday because we came upon a gruesome scene that got them straining to get a closer look (and perhaps a taste).

Yes, there was a bunny caught in one of the snares...well, part of one. You can see it's little head dangling from the wire snare. I figure that a wild animal got to it before whoever set the trap, because it seems like an awful lot of fur ended up on the ground, and also the snare isn't reset. Sorry if I ruined your day, but it's my first run-in with this reality Up Here so I had to share. Hopefully I didn't turn anyone off of their moccasins!

On a lighter note, I was walking by a tree I've walked by many times before and noticed what appeared to be huge caterpillars sitting on the branches. Of course they weren't caterpillars, they were pine cones, but it took me a second look to confirm it.

After a walk is when I start to think about what to  make for supper, and what is more welcome on a cold winter's day than a warm casserole dish? I decided to make Chicken Pot Pie, and since I'm wanting to save money I made the crust myself. If you buy the crust pre-made, it's also a pretty easy and delicious dinner. 

Chicken Pot Pie

Crust:

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup icy water

Filling:

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 celery stalk

2 carrot sticks

2 small potatoes

1 cup frozen peas

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

salt and pepper

Sauce:

1 medium onion, diced

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup flour

1 1/2 cup chicken stock

1 cup milk

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

To make the crust, mix the flour and salt together, then cut the butter into the flour mixture until it is mixed in but there are still small pea-sized butter chunks. I learned a great trick, which is to keep the butter frozen and grate it with a cheese grater, that was it's already in little pieces. Add the water 1 Tablespoon at a time, mixing the dough until you can form a ball. Then cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour or two, or overnight. Roll the dough on a floured surface pretty thin. I found that the dough made just enough for the base and top crust, so if you want some extra to play around with add a bit more flour and water. 

To make the filling, cube the carrots, celery, potatoes and chicken into bite-sized pieces and boil in a pot for about 15 minutes (make the potato pieces smaller so that they are sure to cook through). Strain the water (keep 1 1/2 cups for the chicken stock) and if you wish, break up the chicken pieces into smaller shreds. Add the peas. Season with garlic powder and salt and pepper, mix, and place in a pie dish on top of the bottom crust. 

To make the sauce, cook the onion in butter until translucent, not browning. Then add the flour and stir. SLOWLY add the chicken stock and milk while stirring constantly. If you add it too quickly, the floured onions will clump up (ask me how I know this!). Add the bay leaf and nutmeg and allow to simmer on medium-low heat until the sauce has thickened. Remove bay leaf and pour over the vegetables.

Top with the remaining crust and cut holes so that steam can escape. I made mine quickly because I was hungry, so I didn't make it pretty but it's nice to use small cookie cutters (or a knife, if you're artsy) and make a neat design in the top crust. 

Bake in a 425 degree oven for 30 minutes.

I don't know if this is healthier eating or not. The recipe doesn't call for any cream, which many do, and it's got veggies in it, but it also contains a lot of butter. It likely doesn't help that I served it with cheddar cheese and onion bread (with more butter, of course!) but hey, no one's perfect! 

I was concerned that the sauce would run when I cut and served the slices, but it was perfect! Nice and creamy, but not all over the plate. I had never made this before, so I consulted a few recipes on the internet and then did my own thing. For my first home-cooked meal of the New Year, I feel that this was a pretty great start. And hey, at least I didn't make rabbit stew!