Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Muslim Demonstrations, Canadian Food Recall

I have been getting emails which I thought were spam or hate mail. It turns out they are all too disturbingly true. I checked with Snopes.com. For some reason these pictures of demonstrations in London have not been shown in North America so someone started circulating them by email. If you would like to read about it and see the rest of the pictures click here and see what Snopes has to say about it all. I don't understand this. If you ever read the Koran, which I did many years ago, its message isn't really that much different to the Bible. It does seem to me that maybe Immigration people should think twice about letting such people into our countries if this is the kind of attitude they bring with them. The pictures are really quite scary. Some of them show messages saying Islam will take over the world starting with Britain. We watched a good movie last night, Just Cause which starred Sean Connery. In fact we had seen it before but had forgotten the ending. On Glenda Larke's page (Tropic Temper this page) we have been discussing villains and I would certainly select Ed Harris playing Blair Sullivan as a good villain - he was the mass murderer already on death row. You begin the movie by feeling sorry for Bobby Earl and hating the two southern cops. Sean Connery is a lawyer turned professor who is asked by Bobby Earl to help him because he is about to be executed. Lawrence Fishburne plays one of the cops we hated right from the beginning. Old movie but still a good one. We ate marinated pork tenderloin from M & M's Meat Shops last night. Can't give you a recipe and if you don't have an M & M's in your area, sorry, but it is good. This is the second one we have had and we will be buying some more. Makes a nice easy meal with a few veg. We don't usually bother with potato, rice or pasta, unless the dish really cries out for it. The only potatoes I really feel are worth eating were the ones grown on the island of Malta. European potatoes aren't bad, North American potatoes are the pits. In my opinion of course. The nearest we can find to a good potato is a Yukon Gold which has a golden tinged flesh, but they are not as good as some of the potatoes of Europe. My opinion of course. We have a big scare on in Canada at the moment, one of our deli meat producers, Maple Leaf, have recalled hundreds of their ready to eat products due to some of them being infected with listeriosis (often called just listeria) which can make you very ill and has already caused six deaths which have been confirmed. This is going to really hurt the company, they are already losing millions of dollars and of course the trust they have built up over the years has all been blown away. There are more suspect deaths but they are not yet confirmed as part of the listeria problem. Having done a bit of reading last night, it appears my packet of Canadian bacon is OK as it isn't being recalled, nor is it something one eats straight from the packet - it has to be cooked. Matt says I should ditch it anyway, but why waste money if it isn't necessary, besides, I enjoy my Canadian bacon for breakfast. The picture shows one of the many lunch meats processed by Maple Leaf Co. If you are interested, and particularly if you are a Canadian buyer of Maple Leaf processed foods, there is an extensive list in PDF form on the Maple Leaf website. Now how about a recipe with nice processed meats in it? LOL. I basically don't use them anyway so you're OK. Anyway, I'd better get cracking, its my afternoon at the Canadian Diabetes Association today so I had better stop rabbiting on. I have a third filling for crèpes which came with the original recipes I posted the other day, so I thought you would like to have it. Soufflèed Spinach Crepes Serves: 6 Source: Cooking Light - May 1994 1/4 cup plus 1 tbs grated Parmesan, divided 3 tbs fine dry breadcrumbs 1 tbs margarine or butter, melted 2 tsp margarine 1/2 cup minced onion 1-1/2 tbs flour 2/3 cup skim milk 1/4 tsp salt 1/8 tsp white pepper 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg 1/2 10 oz package frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained. 1 egg yolk 3 egg whites 1/3 tsp cream of tartar 12 Parmesan crepes Pam Combine 3 tbs of Parmesan, breadcrumbs and 1 tbs margarine; stir well and set aside. Melt 2 tsps margarine in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and saute 2 mins, or until tender. Add flour and cook 1 min stirring constantly with a wire whisk. Gradually add skim milk, stirring constantly. Cook 1 min or until thickened. Stirring. Add remaining parmesan, salt, white pepper and nutmeg. In a food processor put sauce and spinach, process until smooth. Add egg yolk; process til smooth. Beat egg whites (at room temp) and cream of tartar at high speed until stiff peaks form. Gently stir in a quarter of the egg white into the spinach. Gently fold remaining egg white into spinach. Spoon 1/4 cup mixture into each crepe, fold in quarters. Arrange in baking dish coated with pam. Spread breadcrumb mixture over evenly. Bake uncovered at 375 for 20 mins. Serve with sliced tomatoes. Have a great day.

7 comments:

  1. Jo --

    I think these pix are old. Look at the clothes they're wearing; all winter clothes. I watch BBCWorld, SkyNews, CNN and all our French tv news channels, and there have been no recent demos in London or anywhere in the UK.

    I forgot to comment on the white onions - or "white onions" as I call them. We get them here in Paris all year roun, sold in strings (if that's the word). They are delicious and much easier and less "teary" to peel than the other types of onion. They also look good as a deco in the kitchen ...

    I love the crepe recipes. I didn't know there was that much to a crepe.

    Marilyn

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  2. i'm sure we could find exactly something of the kind from Integrsit catholics, Ecologists or Nazis !

    Sadly Extremes and Non Tolerant people are from everywhere.

    But that it's quite funny and oxymoronic a public demonstration Which says Threat of War, and barbarian war behaviours !

    I've read the koran too and it was like Catholics in their worse way, but it has few books of it and few way to understand it ^^

    I loooove Maple syrup on Pancakes, on cakes, on Crepes ! But it's so expansive that i rarely buy some.
    I prefer Honey instead , that i love too so much ! My favourite is the Heather honey from South west of France. it's collected by the end of summer in 'les landes de Gascogne' ^^ miam miam miam !

    Hope it's going to be ok for the Maple canadian trees !

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  3. Marilyn - no, Vidalias are NOT white onions. We have them too. They are quite a different onion, I have never seen them anywhere before. You may have them in France, but they are not the white onion I think you are talking about.

    Gynie, it is not the Maple Trees in trouble, it is a processed meat company which is called Maple Leaf. A lot of their ready to eat meats are contaminated with Listeria.

    If I ever get back to la belle France, I promise I will bring you some Syrop d'Erable

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  4. It's a sad fact that there is a minority of people in all religions (and -isms of any kind) who are angry bigots. Most Muslims are decent people who dislike and fear terrorism as much as anyone else. It distresses me when I get one of those forwards, since sending such things on just brings the sender down to the level of the bigots and helps perpetuate intolerance. I do agree that governments should deport foreign nationals who take part in such demonstrations and impose hefty gaol terms on locals who do, even if it means using e.g. tear gas and tasers to break up the protest and make the necessary arrests. We simply should not let violent minorities intimidate us.

    Prepared meats - I gave up eating them even before I became a vegetarian. Not only are they full of chemicals; they are also prone to causing the sort of outbreak you've had in Canada. I'd say we get one about once every five years or so here in Oz and sometimes people die. It's just not worth the risk when there are so many other nice things to eat.

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  5. I agree about not using prepared meats. Didn't know you were a vegetarian Satima. By persuasion I assume. Don't think I could do that despite the way I feel about animals.

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  6. I guess I'm a vegetarian mainly because I believe we should be eating lower down the food chain due to the chopping down of forests to grow pastures for animals. I also have moral reservations about using other species for food, although I do admit that we are naturally omnivores and have the dentition to go with it!

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  7. I have some reservations about using our own species for food (though some members are arguably lower down the food chain, heh).

    I haven't seen recent demonstrations on our news either, so I think Marilyn is right.

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