Allyson

Tourtière is one of those iconic dishes that gets served in Northern areas. While it hales originally from France, it was popularized in Quebec, Canada. Early settlers made Tourtière frequently, and it’s a filling and very tasty pie. I don’t normally like French Canadian stuff, but Tourtière and Poutine are acceptable.

Ingredients:

• pie crust
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 0.5 teaspoon dried sage
• 0.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 0.5 teaspoon ground ginger
• 0.25 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 0.25 teaspoon ground allspice
• 0.25 teaspoon ground mustard
• 0.125 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 pinch cayenne pepper
• 1 large russet potato, peeled, quartered
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 1 pinch salt
• 0.5 cup finely diced celery
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 cup potato cooking water, plus more as needed
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon water

First, make the spice blend. Mix together the salt, black pepper, thyme, sage, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, mustard, clove, and cayenne in a small bowl. Set it aside.

Next, make the filling. Place potatoes and 1 teaspoon kosher salt in a saucepan; cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to transfer potatoes to a bowl, reserving potato cooking water in the saucepan. Mash potatoes with a potato masher until smooth; set aside.

Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add chopped onion and a pinch of salt. Cook and stir until onions turn golden, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir celery, garlic, and spice blend into the skillet with onions. Stir until onion mixture is evenly coated with spices, about 30 seconds.

Add ground pork, ground beef, and about ¾ cup potato cooking water to the skillet. Cook, stirring occasionally, until meat is brown and tender and most of the liquid has evaporated, about 45 minutes. Stir in mashed potatoes , turn off heat, and let cool to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 375*F.

Place your dough in a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate. Have the top crust rolled out into an 11-inch circle, and keep it for later.

Fill bottom crust with meat mixture. Smooth out the surface. Whisk together egg and water in a small bowl to make an egg wash. Brush egg wash over the edges of the bottom crust. Cover with top crust; press lightly around the edges to seal. Trim excess dough and crimp the edges. Cut small slits in the top crust to allow steam to escape. Brush entire surface of pie with egg wash.

Bake in the preheated oven until crust is well browned, about 1 hour. Let cool to almost room temperature before serving.

Notes:

I have a vegan version of this, where I replace butter with margarine, and the meat with a Beyond Beef “ground pork” sausage. It turns out very well, and has been enjoyed by many friends who were surprised to find it was not real meat!

I know I harp on about practicing all the time, but it is THAT important. I do that on a fairly regular basis, more and more so as I pick up events as an author. When I go to an event, I’m cooking over an open flame at the very least, and sometimes living on site with limited access to water, food, and shelter.

Yes, I pack in food and water with me. If an emergency happens, friends and family are a mere phone call away. I’m in a fort that does have electricity if I need it, even if it’s a bit less than convenient to get at it. Heck, I could walk to the grocery store if I wanted; it’s a mere mile away.

While I’m there, though, I do my best to learn more about survival and prepping skills. I learn more about how our ancestors lived, knowing nothing about dishwashers, cell phones, televisions, and print on demand books. I always approach fort weekends (or an entire week, as in this case) with a goal in mind. I want to learn something that I don’t know much about yet, or have only book knowledge of. Or I go to practice a skill I already know, but am not comfortable with yet.

This trip, I’m working on pie crust. You might ask, why pie crust? It’s not particularly necessary, not a skill that’s high on the list of things to help you survive. On the other hand, being able to whip up a hand pie for a journey IS a handy skill. Modern me might go buy a pasty, but here at the fort, I get the opportunity to work and make my own.

So this week is all about Cheshire Pork Pies, Tourtière, Apple Pie, and baking bread. I consider myself a subject matter expert about basic breads at this point, but I am adding something new to my skillset. This week, I’m firing up the big outdoor beehive oven. It’s large enough to bake many loaves of bread and pies, all at the same time.

I know that the basics are just like firing up the miniature one in my cabin. But this will be production cooking. See, there’s a primitive rendezvous going on in the lower field, and I’m going to be attempting to bake bread and pies for sale. Or rather, for trade, because while money is nice, I have several things I need that I can get at the rendezvous. I look forward to enjoying morning coffee with the folks in the field, then going “shopping” among the various vendors that attend.

After, I get to go back to my comfortable cabin with the fireplace roaring to keep the chill out. Temperatures during the day aren’t supposed to get much above 65*F, and the evenings will be in the low 40s, so having dry wood and the ability to be comfortable and warm (and dry, on the days it’s likely to rain) will be wonderful.

What skills are you working on this summer?

I’m up at the fort from today until next Wednesday, so I’m writing up some canned words for you, to tide you all over ’til I’m home again. Of course if you want to come visit me at the Fort this weekend (it’s open Friday through Monday because of the holiday), I’d be pleased to meet ya! 😉

One of the things that has gotten to me of late is the use of clickbait titles on articles. While the Left is definitely using them for everything and anything, the Right also uses them. I find it not only annoying, but disingenuous. It leads you down a path and you really don’t know what you’re going to find at the end.

Headlines in my current Google news feed:

• The over-the-counter medicine scientists say may raise your dementia risk.
• Is there a least-bad alcohol?
• Queen Camilla welcomes a new member to the Royal Family.

Yes, there are still some decent headlines. More and more, though, even the more standard headlines are misleading. Some are that way because they are Left leaning. As an example, the ones suggesting Vance was “waved away” by the new Pope. The actual “news” is in there, but you have to read to the bottom of the article to find it. There’s definitely no BLUF, as Chris calls it.

All of these headlines are about exactly the same thing. They each read differently. They contradict one another. Yet the information inside them is largely the same.

The all powerful media is using headlines to alter how people think. It’s a bit disturbing. It’s something to keep an eye on, by the by, especially in your own news feeds. Especially in your own news feeds.

I wanted to make a birthday cake for my vegan friend, and that meant no milk, no butter, and no eggs. I decided to search for vegan alternatives, and came up with several awesome looking ones. As a side note, chocolate is easy to make vegan. However, I didn’t have the ingredients for most of the cakes I found. I did what I usually do, however, and I took an existing recipe and re-made it in my own image. That’s right, I am a Food Goddess! This is my lovely sweet treat: Orange Cake

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 5 tbsp canola or vegetable oil
• 1-1/2 tsp orange extract
• 1 cup orange juice

Preheat your oven to 350*F. Line a 9×9″ pan with parchment paper, leaving an inch over each side overhanging, for easy removal.**

In a large mixing bowl, add your dry ingredients and mix well. Form three depressions in the dry mixture. In one, add the vinegar . In the second, add the orange extract , and in the final one, add the oil. Pour the orange juice over the top and, using a whisk or wooden spoon, mix together until fully combined.

Transfer your cake batter, which will be quite runny, to the lined baking pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes and then check. It will probably take close to 45 minutes to bake entirely, but you need to start checking every five or ten minutes after the 30 minute mark. Continue to bake until a skewer comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack to cool completely. If desired, frost the cooled cake.

** I used a round springform baking pan, fully lined with no-stick-sprayed parchment paper. You do have to allow the cake to cool completely before removing the parchment paper, but it works very well. I used a 9 inch diameter pan that was about 1-1/2 inches deep.

I had frosting for this cake. We didn’t use it. We literally ate hunks of it with our hands. It was moist, sweet but not unbearably, and delicious. I would recommend removing 2 tbsp of orange juice from the cup, if you plan to frost the cake. It was so moist, if I had tried to frost it, it would have fallen apart despite having good crumb.

We are a rich people, here in America. Even our poorest has enough food (or could if they applied). We just don’t see people in the US starving. It doesn’t happen. There are no swollen bellies here.

That doesn’t mean people aren’t hungry. As someone who’s lived on food stamps and charity at one point, I can tell you that the pickin’s are slim and you don’t get a lot of veggies. I had to be creative to keep myself and my family fed. But I managed.

This is an art that too many people just don’t get. I covered it briefly in my last article about food, but it bears repeating. There are too many people in our country who have such a sense of entitlement that they think everyone should have “great food.” While I’m liberal enough to believe that we should be providing just enough food for people to survive on, even if they’re poor, I’m not of the opinion that it should come in the form of filet mignon or lobster tails. If you are poor (when I was poor), you have to learn to budget.

And therein lies the problem. This generation has a terrible time with budgeting. They can’t seem to budget time, money, credit… and who can blame them, with the various people who’ve been in office over the last couple of decades. “Budget” has not been much in the vocabulary of any of our leaders. It definitely doesn’t seem to be in that of the parents of today’s generation.

I remember a time, about ten years or so ago, when I was picking up supplies in a bump and dent store. We were tight, and I wanted to make my grocery dollars stretch. I walked past a gentleman with his very young daughter, staring forlornly at the dried beans. I paused, and asked if he had a favorite bean, and he looked at me with tears in his eyes and explained. Seems his wife had left him, and he was trying to work, care for his daughter, and feed her. Money was too tight, and he couldn’t afford meat. He knew beans were a way of getting protein, but he had no idea how to cook them from dry. He’d only ever had canned. I sat and explained to him several really tasty recipes that I thought would go over well with a toddler, and he bought up bags of beans with a grateful thank you over his shoulder. After that, I actually printed out several bean recipes and with the store’s permission, posted them in the beans aisle. They would be picked up every single week. I got a lot of thank yous.

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I am well and truly confused over the panic that’s currently occurring over the use of tariffs. An acquaintance of mine just posted the following (changed slightly to protect the author, who I didn’t ask before posting this):

“We have to reconstruct the exterior stairs that were ripped off this house before we moved in, so there is a second exit during an emergency. This requires wood. Which comes from Canada. I also sell books, otherwise known as printed paper. Which comes from China. Tariffs, that’s where my money goes.”

I had to ask said person, where are they printing their books? The last price hike I had, via Amazon KDP, was a couple or three years ago, and came to a grand total of about four cents on each of my books. I chose to eat the cost; it wasn’t enough to bother the customers. There doesn’t appear to be any kind of price hike going on at KDP for print-on-demand, and while there’s no definitive answer available (as with all things Amazon related), it appears as if about half their paper is recycled (meaning we recycle it and turn it into more paper here in America), and the other half is “sourced from the cheapest domestic available,” which to me means whatever they have on hand but local if it’s not prohibitive. At the very least, it’s not enough to cost me more per book to print.

Obviously I can’t speak for other companies, but I have to say… if Amazon, the Great Gouger, isn’t raising prices… well, I am going to guess no one else is either.

When it comes to wood, I can speak a bit more authoritatively. In 2024, about 72% of our wood for building (lumber) came from domestic sources. That means it was sourced here in the good ol’ United States. That’s about to change, because of the tariffs on Canadian imports. The cost of new homes will go up. Currently, that cost is NOT up. And it is entirely possible to buy American lumber for making exterior stairs or other small projects. Does American lumber cost more? For the moment, that’s possible, though I couldn’t find an example of it. Once the tariffs kick in, American lumber will go up slightly in price (because we don’t have the huge forests that Canada does, and so we can’t be cutting down as many trees as they do and have it be sustainable), but it’ll still be less than wood from Canada.

I just don’t get it.

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I haven’t touched on the topic of what to drink when you’re enjoying your post-apocalyptic spam, so I think today I’ll go there. 😉

There are several really tasty, easy to make drinks for when you’re doing a lot of labor or it’s extremely hot, but you don’t have access to Gatorade or its equivalents. I would hazard to say that they’re much better for you, as well.

Sekanjabin

This is what we refer to as “Viking gatorade” because it was popularized by the Vikings. It originated in Persia as a mint based drink, but the Vikings played with it, and I played with it more. It is basically a simple syrup that you add to water to make it more palatable. The vinegar and sugar help balance your electrolytes, and the ginger makes it just “warm” enough (from your body’s standard) to drink even in very hot weather without causing yourself cramps. Just a note, the Vikings and Persians both added crushed mint to this. I don’t, so it isn’t included in my recipe. Feel free to add it to yours!

Ingredients

• 4 cups red wine or apple cider vinegar
• 4 to 8 cups sugar/honey/sweetener/blend of choice
• 2 tbsp minced or grated ginger
• fruit of choice (I like lemon, strawberry, and blackberry, or a mix, but you do you)

In a pot, add the vinegar. You can even mix red wine and apple cider vinegars for a different flavor if you like. Get the cheap stuff, by the by. This is not something where the vinegar has to be bougie. Bring the vinegar to a low boil, then begin to add the sugar, a cup at a time. I usually use four cups of a mix of sweeteners, but always use at least one cup of real sugar to help it become syrup. Stir in between, preferably with a wooden spoon. When all the sugar is in and has dissolved, add in your ginger, and your fruit. When it comes to fruit, you can use fresh, but frozen works better because it sort of dissolves in the vinegar. I’ve done it with fresh, though; just cut it up into chunks so the “meat” of the fruit is exposed.

Simmer your fruit stew for a minimum of 20 minutes, and likely much longer.  You should reduce the amount of liquid in the pot by AT LEAST one third. It’s usually easy to tell, because it leaves a sugary ring on the edge of your pot. What you want is a syrup, not a liquid, so wait for it to really begin to thicken up. You want it to have the texture of a light corn syrup or maple syrup, but not be as thick as molasses. Allow your syrup to cool for several hours.

Once it’s cool, strain the sekanjabin through cheesecloth or a lint-free towel, and store in jars. I usually purchase the apple cider vinegar that comes in a glass bottle (it’s cheap), and so I pour it right back into the bottle and put the diffuser thingie back in. That way I can easily shake out just enough to sweeten my water.

To use, add about a tablespoon of syrup to 8 oz of water, stir, and enjoy. You may want to add a bit more or a bit less depending on both your tastes and the intensity of your sekanjabin. Store your sekanjabin at room temperature for up to a week, or in the fridge pretty much forever (I’ve never had it go off).

Note: it’s pronounced seh-KAHN-ja-bin

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There’s a mindset, these days, that everything is disposable. If something breaks, just get another one. Toss the old one in land fill and ignore it. This is not a sustainable practice.

Why did we become the strongest country in the world? We made do. We took everyone else’s outcasts, people who wanted to work and were motivated to become citizens, and we said “let’s do this.” Those people, coming into America, were coming here to become AMERICANS. They didn’t come to be African Americans or Cuban Americans or Chinese Americans or Polish Americans. They came here to be Americans, plain and simple. They came here because America provided (and still provides) a place for hard work and sacrifice to pay off in the creation of strong family and safe home.

Use It Up

If you buy something, use it up. It seems simple when you say it that way, but I have to ask you, how many times have you allowed that cabbage or bit of leftover stew in the back of the fridge until it turned into something approaching sentience? Too often, I’d wager. I’m bad at it myself, frankly. This is a basic thing that Grandma would have wanted you to know, though. If you’re in doubt, ask yourself: would Grandma be disappointed in me for doing this (or not doing it, as the case may be)?

Learn to turn little bits of leftover vegetables into something new. Learn how to make stews and soups. Learn how to dehydrate and can. Learn how to compost, too. If you have animals like chickens or goats or pigs, feed things to them rather than putting them in the trash. Make certain that every bit of food you purchase is actually eaten or preserved in some way.

This is how we end up with scrap quilts, by the way. When you buy (or thrift) fabric for clothing (or sheets or towels, or whatever), you will almost always be left with a handful of scraps. Sometimes they may be tiny, because you’ve patterned extremely well, and you can congratulate yourself. Still, stash away those scraps. They can be used to patch up clothing or sheets, or to fill holes in jeans. When you have enough scraps of whatever size, you cut them into a lovely pattern of squares or hexes or triangles, and now you have a quilt. Our grandmothers turned their leftover bits and pieces into huge sheets of stitched love that are now passed down from generation to generation. You, too, can do that.

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Right now, as we all know, the media is in a tizzy. At one time, they owned the airwaves, and everyone had to report whatever it was that the letter agencies (ABC, NBC, AP, etc) found out at the White House press room. All the “little people” were forced to get their news from the NEWS agencies. That’s not the case, these days. Leavitt has opened the press room to other media platforms, and routinely makes certain that people other than the letter agencies get to ask their questions. This makes Big Media very angry.

We can speculate about who owns Big Media, but it seems fairly obvious to most of us, I believe. In the end, it doesn’t really matter who owns them; what matters is that the “standard” news is being used to wage war. For those who’ve known this for a long time, you  may not realize just how difficult that is to swallow, especially if you’re generally a thinking person.

I grew up with news being the place to turn to for up to date, factual information. I could look at news on the television at 6pm, or I could look in one of the newspapers local to me. Sure, there were some less than savory newspapers, but we all knew they were only good for their page two girlie of the week. It was easy to know what was good news and what wasn’t. It was obvious for a number of reasons, and there wasn’t any confusion over it.

I consider myself a thinking person. I am not traditionally educated, but I have put a lot of effort into keeping myself educated. I’ve attended classes, both formal and informal, I’ve gotten certificates, I’ve always achieved good grades. I can think my way through most problems, even if I do still struggle with the math**. When Chris started telling me that the media was lying to me, I was disbelieving. Sure, Weekly World News was all made up, but ABC nightly news? That was just the facts. How did I know this? Because all of the news agencies reported the same thing. Statistically speaking, it is quite silly to think that the entirety of every news agency out there would be lying, and lying in much the same (or sometimes exactly the same) way. That would be a statistical anomaly the size of New Jersey.

It’s a hard mouthful to chew, the idea that ALL of the news agencies are telling whoppers every day. The problem, of course, is that anything they say could be true, or might not be. There must be a balance of actual facts thrown in there. It allows newscasters and stations to say, “Hey, look, we covered that thing at the library, all that was factual. What makes you think the rest of it isn’t?” Plausible deniability, I think it’s called. Regardless, it’s been quite the eye opener realizing that basically none of the news stations I’d counted on (even ones like AP) were accurate or to be trusted.

This brings me to the concept of capturing minds.

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Each summer, I spend an inordinate amount of time dressed up as a medieval kitchen drudge, cooking feast foods over an open fire in a cow field. Beside me, knights and dames fight with sword, pole arm, axe, and shield to display their prowess to huge crowds. I’m not much noticed during the fights, but before and after I always have a bevy of fair patrons coming by to ask questions and see what I’m up to. They’re always amazed to see the foods I produce, from pies to salads to stews and soups.

Last summer, it was beastly hot, and I didn’t want to do much cooking at one particular event. The heat was too oppressive to think of spending hours kneeling by the flames, tending to whatever morsel I felt like making. Instead, I retreated to the shade of the kitchen tent, and put together a cold meal for our fair knights and gentle ladies. This dish is deceptively simple, but incredibly tasty and pretty to boot.

Based on A Sallet for Fish Daies, aka a cold shrimp salad:

Ingredients:

• 1 lb carrots, minced or shredded
• 2 cups small shrimp, cleaned, cooked, & cooled
• 1/2 cup finely minced red onion or green onion
• 1 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 cup olive oil
• salt to taste

Mince your carrots with a knife or food processor, or do what I did and cheat: purchase the finely shredded carrots in a bag. In a bowl, combine the oil, vinegar, and salt, and whisk until thoroughly mixed. Drizzle the carrots with just enough of the dressing to lightly coat them, and then use a mold to shape the carrots. This could be a circle biscuit cutter, a fancy and large cookie cutter, or whatever you have on hand.

If you want a heavier onion flavor, use the red onion. Otherwise, use the green onion (whites and greens together). Mix together the onion and shrimp, then toss with just enough of the dressing to lightly coat them, and arrange them gently on top of the carrots. Serve chilled.

Notes:

Traditionally, this was made in the shape of a fleur de lys using a gelatin or pudding mold, but I skipped that entirely and just tossed everything together. The first time I made it, I used red onion, and the second time I used green onion. I liked both, but my taste testers (the various knights and dames) preferred the green onion one. I found it definitely looked more “fancy”, for what it’s worth. I also sprinkled some minced parsley over the top of the sallet, and garnished it with a carrot coin carved to look like a Tudor rose and a few sprigs of parsley. It was well received, and I could have made a lot more of it and it would have disappeared.

As we were outdoors (in the aforementioned cow field) with no modern cooling equipment, I made the salad in a metal bowl, and set that into a wooden bowl filled with ice. This kept it lovely and chill for most of the day. It was cool, refreshing, tasty, and the perfect foil for the sliced sausage, cheese, and bread that I served it with.