Storm, Triathlon, Hot and Sour Soup

It was just about 8 p.m. last night when we suddenly saw black clouds forming in the sky. It was really quite frightening, I was certainly thinking of tornadoes. I took a couple of pictures to share with you. In the end, the black clouds seemed to descend over everything and we then got rain, lightening and lots of long rolling thunder. We never did see the lighter sky again, by the time it was all over, it was well and truly dark. We actually didn't get as much rain as we thought, it kept stopping and starting. Most peculiar weather. The whole landscape was just completely blacked out. This afternoon I am off to Canadian Diabetes again, they now have me properly set up on their computer so I can work away without interfering with anyone else's access. Needless to say, we were watching more Olympics yesterday, Usain Bolt ran his heat in the 200 metre as though he were out on a Sunday afternoon jog. One of the Canadian runners said he thought Bolt came from another planet, he also said Bolt could turn cartwheels and still win. I think the final is run today. Canada was excited to pick up two more silvers yesterday, one in equestrian and one in trampoline. The picture is from CBC showing Canada's Karen Cockburn the trampoline silver medalist. We also watched the individual performances on the rings and Matt was oohing in pain, I think. He knows that what they do these days just cannot be done even while he is watching them do it. The Chinese are very good. We watched the women on the uneven bars and I do so agree, I don't think the Chinese girl who won can have been much above 12. She sure didn't look even vaguely like a 16 yr. old. The TV programme introductions have a super dragon in them, you know me and dragons. I wish I could get a copy of it. It swirls and swoops on the screen as the programme starts. Canada, by the way, seems to be doing pretty well in rowing and kayaking although these events haven't finished yet. Then, there was the triathlon. One of the best finishes I have ever seen, I was jumping up and down in my seat. The Canadian, Simon Whitfield, was keeping up with the pack the whole way through, but never seemed to be really in medal contention. A young British guy was also well up in the pack too, his first ever triathlon and he ended up in 12th place. Very good. He was even leading the pack for a while. Right at the end, Whitfield dropped back a little, then caught up, then dropped back a bit more and still caught up. Finally he dropped back so far we figured he was out of it but suddenly he started to sprint, talk about exciting. He passed everyone and was almost at the finish line when the German Jan Frodeno sprinted past him and took the gold. What a finish though. One of the best I've seen. Picture taken from the CBC Olympics pages. CBC called it a furious rally. It certainly was. If you would enjoy the video, it is here Matt, right now, is watching gymnastics and I am waiting for the men's 200 metre as I want to see what Bolt does in the finals. Don't know if its this morning or we will see it tonight. I thought I would give you another Chinese recipe. Hot and Sour Soup, which is one of my favourites. The local Mandarins (a chain of restaurants here) does an absolutely wonderful one. I decided to find one on the internet and came across this one which is a heart healthy version from the Heart and Stroke Foundation. I've even included their nutritional information. Obviously I have no idea what this recipe tastes like, I might give it a go later this week.

Chinese Hot and Sour Soup

Makes 6 servings

This traditional soup usually contains a lot of salt. Try this low-sodium version at your Chinese New Year celebration.

Ingredients

• ¼ cup (50 mL) dried shiitaki mushrooms
• ¼ cup (50 mL) dried oyster mushrooms
• 2 cups (500 mL) boiling water
• 8 oz (250 g) uncooked pork tenderloin, cut into thin strips, 2” (5 cm) long
• 1 cup (250 mL) extra firm tofu, cubed
• 2 cups (500 mL) sodium reduced chicken stock
• 4 cups (1 L) water
• 1 inch cube of fresh ginger root, peeled
• 1 can (8 oz/227 mL) sliced bamboo shoots, drained and rinsed
• 1/3 cup (75 mL) apple cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp (15 mL) sodium-reduced soy sauce
• ½ tsp (2 mL) Chinese 5 Spice (available in most grocery stores)
• 1 tsp (5 mL) black pepper
• 3 green onions, finely sliced
• 2 tsp (10 mL) sesame oil
• 2 egg whites
• ½ tsp (2 mL) chili oil (optional) * this makes it hot

Directions

1. Place dried mushrooms in a small bowl and add 2 cups of boiling water. Let soak for 15 minutes. Remove mushrooms and add the water to the soup pot. Finely dice the mushrooms and add to the soup pot.
2. Add pork, tofu, stock, water, ginger root, bamboo shoots, vinegar, soy sauce, Chinese 5 Spice and black pepper to the soup pot. Cook over medium heat for 25 minutes.
3. Reduce heat to low. Discard the ginger root and add the green onions and sesame oil.
4. Slowly add the egg whites while stirring. Add chili oil (if using) and serve immediately.

Nutritional information per serving (1 ½ cup/375 mL)

• Calories: 150
• Protein: 17 g
• Fat: 6 g
  • Saturated fat: 1 g
  • Dietary cholesterol: 21 mg
• Carbohydrate: 9 g
  • Dietary fibre: 2 g
• Sodium: 251 mg
• Potassium: 388 mg

Developed by Nadine Day. ©The Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Have a great day.

Lightning Bolt, Dinner Party and Fanny Cradock

Over the weekend we watched Usain Bolt "stroll" the 100 metres. The Jamaicans have got these races sewn up this year, quite incredible they way they are running. The female runner in the 100 metre did the same thing as Bolt, stopped trying before they got to the end. They could see they had the race wrapped up. Bolt still got a new world record out of it though. I don't know what any of you have available, but if you click here you can find videos of the events. This picture from the International Herald Tribune shows him already relaxing close to the finish line. His specialty is supposed to be the 200 metre which I believe is on TV today. Canada has finally picked up a few more medals and I see the UK have picked up a few too. We are curious at how many British swimmers are actually from Scotland with one from Wales. Don't the English swim any more? We had friends to dinner last night and they brought a bottle of Sangria which we chilled, then poured into a bowl (seem to have lost my pitcher) and added a load of fruit and a dollop of brandy. We drank/ate it with the orange cake which I had made. It was a very good Sangria. My head is aching a bit this morning, I wonder why? I was really pleased with my Turkish Orange Cake, it was one of the best I have made. I even took a picture of it for you all to see. We started with a shrimp cocktail, had a North Carolina type London Broil with goat cheese potato purée and French cut green beans. I have posted all these recipes at one time or another. Over the weekend I started thinking about another dessert cake I used to make many years ago. Don't know if any of my English readers will remember Fanny Cradock, she was one of the first TV cooks and her husband, Johnny, recommended the wines. (Mind you she treated him like dirt). She was always dressed up when she cooked never wore an apron or anything. Obviously most of the prep work was done for her, but she cooked and handled things that I would have wanted to wear an apron for. This picture was from the Daily Mail. Looking for it, I discovered quite a few scathing comments about her, I gather she was not very popular with the people she worked with. Someone also wrote that her cooking was impossible for a home cook. Sorry, I disagree, I made a lot of her recipes. Once you had watched them, it was usually pretty easy to do the same things. I find that with most cooking shows, I might not want to do some of their recipes if I just read them, but seeing it made makes it so much simpler to follow. I made marzipan roses having seen her do it, they are actually very easy and once you have them, you can keep them for a long time properly stored. I used to keep a whole bunch of them and use them for decorating all kinds of desserts. I must admit I haven't made any for years, I read the recipe yesterday and it isn't difficult. Fanny Cradock used to make the marzipan too, but I bought mine, coloured it and then shaped it. I would often make her Gateau L'Ambassadeur (Ambassador's Cake) and decorate the cake with the marzipan roses. The picture shown doesn't have the roses although it does have some around the base of the cake. The picture was borrowed from byhecks.info/Cookies.html Gateau l'Ambassadeur Fanny Cradock 1/2 lb best possible chocolate (70% or higher if you can get it) 3 1/2 oz. sifted icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) 3 tbs double cream (heaviest cream you can get in North America, probably whipping cream) 2 eggs, separated 2 oz peeled grapes 3 tbs kirsch 1 tbs water 3 1/2 oz unsalted butter 3 1/2 oz crumbled petit beurre biscuits (cookies) Place biscuits in a small bowl, add kirsch and leave to infuse. Place water and chocolate in a small, thick pan and dissolve over a low heat. Stir well until quite smooth, then remove from heat. Cut the butter into small flakes and stir into the chocolate until completely dissolved. Add the egg yolks and beat until mixture is again smooth. Stir in the sugar, blend thoroughly, add stiffly whipped egg whites and beat (I would have thought fold, but she says beat) them in until they vanish. Add the soaked biscuits and grapes. Finally add the cream. Turn into a 5" oiled, sliding-based cake tin, being careful to line the base with a fitting circle of oiled greaseproof (waxed) paper. Refrigerate until set, turn out, remove paper and garnish. Have a great day.

Beijing

Saturday night we watched some of the swimming and the volley ball. I must admit I was a bit sleepy and didn't see a lot. However, Sunday, I was up early and we watched some rowing and synchronised diving. I was very proud to see the Canadian rowing teams doing so well. Three groups have qualified for the finals which is great. Unfortunately Canada didn't make it into the synchronised diving. The Chinese team took the gold medal. They really are good. The picture on the left is from the National Post and is of the Canadian four man rowing team which came in second in their heat, as did the two other Canadian rowing teams. The picture on the right is the CBC news picture of the Chinese synchronised swimming team, Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia on the podium. Sunday night we watched more swimming but had to go to bed before the end. I find that I can no longer stay up til all hours of the night like I once did. One can catch up on the Olympics the next day, but its not as much fun as watching it actually happen, but my bed calls me so that's that. I see that Michael Phelps has got two of his expected eight medals. This morning on GMA there was a segment on moonlighting and a woman on the Outer Banks in North Carolina (how well I know that area) is taking care of people's dogs when they are on vacation. It made me think of EZ a dog I used to take care of regularly when her mistress was off being a flight attendant. Unfortunately Zee, as she was known, is no longer with us, but she was almost pure hound and would spend hours hunting if left to her own devices. She was a very well behaved dog and just turned up out of the blue. They tried to find an owner for her, but couldn't do so, so she took up residence with my friend where she lived many years. In those days I used to walk about 4 miles a day so walking with Zee was very easy except for one time when I walked past a home where their dog was not fenced or leashed and came dashing out onto the road, Zee thought it was attacking me and went for the dog, I am hanging on to her leash like grim death and ended up on my knees, on the road, hurting like hell and yelling obscenities at the owner of the other dog. My knees were quite badly scraped and I was not a happy camper. I can't find a picture of Easy at the moment, but she would have fit into the picture here. I hope you can enlarge the picture, it is quite funny. In honour of the Olympics being in Beijing, I figured I should post some Chinese recipes. This is the first one for the ever popular Peking Duck. It is a lot of effort and I can't really see anyone having a go at it, but for interest, if nothing else, here is the recipe. I don't know how authentic this is, I only ever ate it once and we had a kind of crèpe with it. However, I have a Chinese Cookbook as part of one of my computer cookbooks and this was the recipe.

Peking Duck (picture from National Food Industry)

Serves: 4

Source: Madame Wu's Garden

1 (4-1/2 to 5 lb.) duck 1 tsp. salt 8 green onions 2 (1/4 in.) sliced gingeroot 3 tbs. honey 2 tbs. cornstarch 1 can oven-ready biscuits 1 small can plum sauce

A day in advance, clean duck inside & out, dry thoroughly. Season inside w/ salt. Tie together stem ends of 2 green onions, place inside duck cavity w/ gingeroot. Bring edges of tail opening together, stitch w/ a length of fine wire. Attach another wire to neck as a handle. Mix 1 qt. water w/ honey in large wok or small turkey roasting pan, bring to boil. When boiling, stir in cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 cup cold water. Continue to stir to consistency of a thin stream. Lower heat. Holding duck by neck wire, dip into honey mixture 3-4 times to coat on all sides. Remove duck, suspend over container in cool place. Set an electric fan towards duck to help dry the skin. Let duck drip-dry over- night. Next day: preheat oven to 450. Place duck breast side up on flat rack in roasting pan. Roast 30 min.

Reduce heat to 300, turn duck over. Roast 30 more min. Turn duck breast side up again, roast for final 30 min. Remove biscuits from can, divide each biscuit in 1/2. Bring 2 in. water to boil in bottom of steamer. Place biscuits in container above water, cover, & steam 5 min. Thinly slice stems of remaining 6 onions into 2-in. diagonal strips. Divide sliced onion between 4 butter plates, place 1 tsp. plum sauce on each plate. Prepare duck for serving by cutting off drumsticks & wings & placing on platter in position whole duck should be. Carefully slice off all skin pieces of about 1 and 2 inches, lay them aside. Slice same size pieces of meat from bone. Place all carved meat on platter, cover w/ skin pieces on outside to make presentation look like a whole duck. Eat by making sandwich of onion, plum sauce, duck, and skin.

Have a great day.