Corn Muffins

Well the good news is I'm back in the kitchen cooking up a storm.  My gosh that move really disrupted my cooking style but it was worth it.  I've been getting used to cooking with natural gas while my husband has been fine tuning his skills on the dual fuel (propane/charcoal) grill.  We are having a lot of fun and I must say I feel so much better just being able to do a bit of cooking!

I knew I would be making moose meat chili for my husband to take to hunt camp.  If you order chili here (Southern Ontario) it comes with crackers or nacho chips but in the southern states that we travel through it comes with corn bread.  I decided it would be nice to make a batch of corn muffins for the guys to enjoy with their chile which of course meant I had to make a test batch first.

Jean Paré is my favorite Canadian cookbook author.  I have quite a collection of her books.  The ingredients are simple and to the point so I know I don't have to go running out to the store for some exotic ingredient that given our area I wouldn't be able to find anyway.  So I turned to her for the corn muffins and was not disappointed.  The recipe is nice that it uses basic staples and the muffins are delicious!  I modified the recipe slightly but it is still her recipe.

Corn Muffins
recipe by: Jean Paré, Company's Coming Muffins & More, 1983. Pp. 21

1¼ c unbleached flour
1 c corn meal
¼c organic granulated sugar
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 egg
¼ c vegetable oil
1 c milk

Preheat oven to 400ºF (200ºC).  Whisk egg then stir in milk and oil, set aside.  Combine dry ingredients then make a well in the middle.  Pour the wet ingredients into the wll and mix just until moistened.  The batter will be lumpy.  Spoon into prepared muffin tin.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Serve hot or remove from pan for later use.*

*to warm - Cover the muffins and microwave 30 seconds on high.

Kitchen Quick Tips - Cleaning the Microwave Oven

Place one cup half full of water in the microwave and run on high power for 60 seconds.  Let stand 5 minutes.  Open microwave oven, remove tray and wipe down the interior.  Wash tray and replace.  Your microwave oven is now ready for use.

Preparing a Pork Loin for Three Kinds Cuts

Larger pieces of meat are available in the grocery stores or through your butcher.  Many don't realize that by buying a larger piece of meat then cutting as desired they can actually save overall because some specialty cuts cost more per pound than the large piece.  For example, peameal bacon consistently costs about $5 per lb, cured and ready to use.  A pork loin, the meat the peameal bacon is made from costs $2.30 per lb or less meaning curing the bacon at home is less than half the price of store bought.  I have shown various ways to cut a pork loin on this blog with our two favourite cuts being chops and roasts but here are a few more comments and the reasoning behind it.

My husband is gearing up for hunt camp so I always cure a chunk of peameal bacon for the guys to enjoy there.  I bought an 11.33 lb pork loin at $2.28/lb at Sam's Club for a total of $25.83.  Now, my philosophy is if I'm going to do something like this I might as well get a few extras out of that large piece of meat.  The goal is always to get as many meals and variety as possible.  I usually start with the end in mind as well because I wanted two pieces of peameal bacon and I showed how cutting the loin chops ourselves would save about 70¢ per lb.  I gathered all of the necessary equipment as pictured.  There is organic granulated sugar in the older canning jar and Morton's Tenderquick in the other.  Not pictured is my large cutting board, knives, measuring spoons.

I cut the pork loin into three distinct cuts.  A pork loin is cut from the rib section of the pig so there is directionality.  Starting at the wider end (closest to the tail end) I cut straight across to even the meat for cutting pork loin chops.  That piece of meat in front of the scale is a bit smaller than a chop.  There is a bit of the trimmings (whitish) in front of it.  I will use this meat and the trimmings for a hearty soup.  I cut eight 1 - inch thick loin chops.  There are six to the right of the trimmings for hunt camp and two to the left for a meal for ourselves.  If I were doing this loin entirely for ourselves, I would have cut four of the loins chops into 1 - inch cubes to be used later for kabobs.  I cut the remaining piece in almost half.  The smaller end piece was 2½ lb and the larger piece 3½ lb.  The weight is important because that determines the amount of cure needed for the peameal bacon.  If I were doing this pork loin just for ourselves I would have left one of the roasts as is without curing.

Aside of the cured meat the rest of the meat was packaged for freezing.  The meat for curing was prepared in zipper style freezer bags then allowed to cure for five days before rinsing and rolling in cornmeal.  The peameal bacon will keep for about a week after curing or it can be froze for longer storage.  It will be sliced for use at hunt camp and either sliced or baked whole for home use.

A Mini Bulk Cooking Session

My husband is gearing up for his annual trip to hunt camp.  Although he doesn't hunt himself, enjoys helping to organize and cook the food for the camp.  It has become tradition for me to make a batch of chili, a tray of lasagna and a piece of peameal bacon for the guys to enjoy at hunt camp.  I decided to do a mini bulk cooking session on Sunday since both the chili and lasagna are cooked from scratch then frozen to keep well during the long drive to where the hunt camp is.

Traditionally some of the previous year's catch is taken to the current year's hunt camp but they guys were unsuccessful last year.  One of our friends is a avid hunter who seldom eats any domestic meat. He brought in a very generous amount of ground  moose meat for a chili.  I like working with moose meat.  It is leaner than beef, with a deeper colour and richer flavour but lacking the gameness of venison. 

I used my largest stock pot (10" high, 11" diameter) to make a nice sized batch of moose meat chili.  As with venison, I added a little ground pork to the meat mixture.  All of my chilies take a bit of pre-planning as the dried beans need to soak overnight.  This is one time that while the quick soak method could be used, the time is needed for the long, slow simmer of the chili.  I really need to do up few cases of home canned beans!

Once the moose meat chili was finished, I removed it from the heat then allowed to cool on the deck before moving the pot to the refrigerator for the night.  We've had frost a few mornings so the air is quite chilly in the evening making the deck a perfect cooling spot.

The next day I ladled the moose meat chili into containers for freezing.  The two larger containers are 12¾" x 10¾" x 2½".  Each tray is enough for 10 to 12 servings of chili.  One will be used for hunt camp while the other will be used one of our larger events this winter.  The two smaller rectangular containers hold 9½ cups.  Each container is enough for 6 good sized servings.  One went into the freezer for ourselves while the other went to one of our kids who was elated to get homemade moose meat chili.  The smaller bowl was put into the refrigerator for my husband's lunch.

Before I start talking about the lasagne, check out one of our new outlets.  My husband and I spent almost the entire day on Saturday replacing electrical receptacles and switches on the main level.  It was a chore and we still have part of the master bedroom and guest room to do.  The ones on the back splash are a bit fancier with larger than standard cover plates and the outlets have a safety feature to prevent foreign objects from being inserted.  The three kitchen outlets on the back splash are split receptacles so I can run more than one small appliance at a time without worrying about blowing a fuse!

My lasagne starts with homemade spaghetti with meat sauce made from scratch using fresh tomatoes (in season) or home canned tomatoes.  Once the sauce is put together with everything but the seasonings and secret ingredients, the cooking begins.  When the sauce gets to the right point I stir in the the remaining ingredients and continue with a low, slow simmer tweaking the flavour as the sauce cooks.  Nothing is measured!  After the sauce is cooled it is ready to make the lasagne.

My record number of lasagne made during one bulk cooking session is 19.  Yes, that is 19!  This was a rather tame session making two large trays and one small tray with the remaining sauce left plain for a later meal of spaghetti with meat sauce.  I used a blend of 8 cheeses in this lasagne with the remaining cheese divided into two zipper freezer bags.  One lasagne and bag of cheese will go to hunt camp.  The cheese is destined for ranch sticks there [I'll post about those later this week.]  The other large tray and sauce went into the freezer, the remaining cheese into the refrigerator and I baked the smaller lasagna for dinner.

Lasgne (plural) when made from scratch is rather labour intensive but it freezes nicely which is why anytime I make lasagna (singular), I make more than one tray.  I use my homemade meat sauce, cheese blend and regular lasagna noodles made with 100% duram semolina flour.  I don't care for the no-cook lasagna noodles at all.  The bottom layer is always meat sauce followed by cheese and the first layer of noodles.  That noodle layer is topped lightly with the cheese blend, cottage cheese and spinach, then the rest of the layers follow as sauce, cheese, noodles, sauce and ending with a cheese layer.  There are usually 2 noodle layers in the shallow trays (pictured) and 3 or 4 noodle layers in the deeper trays.  I bake at 350ºF with the top tented with tin foil removing the foil for the last 15 minutes of baking.  I increase the baking time if baking from frozen as there's no need to thaw first.