a dish with an impressive pedigree...

we joke a lot about recipes that require you to have previously cooked a whole different meal in order to obtain one (or more) ingredient for whatever dish you happen to be making at present. something like...

me: the first step of this recipe says to heat duck fat in a skillet over medium heat. 

him: is there a step zero-point-five telling you to cook a duck and save the fat?

me: that would have been helpful.

pretty much.

that being said, it is not uncommon to find us making a meal that includes parts of an earlier meal. not because we like to make life complicated, but because we try our best to avoid waste. beyond that, there is a world of flavor in previously-cooked foods. a bone from a roast or the carcass of a chicken can be the start of a phenomenal pot of soup (like our fridge-cleaning soup from last Winter). if there is flavor to be had, we put it to good use.

then there are times when things get taken a bit too far, as was the case with the delicious salmon i had for lunch.

said dish began earlier in the week, when the animator removed a piece of pork shoulder from the freezer and announced that he would be making char siu. now, i can hear you wondering what pork shoulder has to do with salmon. that is the point. it is a story about how something that should be relatively simple becomes completely absurd. 

char siu pork is one of those magical foods that we would enjoy once in a while, usually when it is prepared by someone who we assumed had to undergo many years of special training to produce the elusive combination of flavor that defines the dish. turns out you can get the same results at home (thank you, Google!), and it is laughable how ridiculously simple it is to make. so now, this once-special dish is part of the effortless lineup we like to refer to as "Wednesday food". 

so, he made char siu pork, and it was amazing (as always). he skipped roasting the meat on the metal rack this time around, and just dumped it (and all the marinade) into the baking pan, turning the meat frequently during the cooking time. the resulting dish had all the flavor of char siu, but a thicker, stickier surface that was closer to classic American bbq, it was sooooooo good. 

this is when the crazy began. 

we were putting away the leftovers, and i was lamenting getting rid of all the super-sticky sauce clinging to the bottom and sides of the pan. so, i added a splash of hot water to deglaze it, let that liquid cool back to room temperature, then dumped it over some (frozen) pieces of chicken and left them in the fridge to defrost/marinate for a day.... or two, as they were still half-frozen the next day. then we proceeded to have an amazing meal that featured char-siu-pork-flavored roasted chicken.

and, as we were cleaning up from that meal, i joked that there was still enough sauce clinging to the roasting pan to use as a marinade for some other thing.

him: it's like a turducken. you can add another animal and make it pork-flavored-chicken-flavored. 

he was too busy laughing to realize that i had removed the two pieces of salmon that were lurking somewhere in the back of the freezer. i did the same thing as before: deglazed, cooled, then poured the marinade over the (frozen) fish.

thus was born char-siu-pork-flavored-roasted-chicken-flavored salmon... a dish that (literally) requires that you first prepare two other meals. talk about a dish with an impressive pedigree! and—absurdity aside—it was incredibly delicious. 

the flavor of salmon can be a bit... well... assertive (a fact which is off-putting to a certain animator). however, this... uhm.... strength of character is what makes it a perfect canvas for such a powerful marinade. [random aside: my maternal grandfather owned a fishing vessel, so everyone on that side of the family was more or less raised on a steady diet of things from the sea. the phrase "it tastes too fishy" is incompatible with my DNA.]

i cooked the salmon at 375°F for about five minutes, then switched the oven to broil for another couple minutes, brushing the last bits of that precious sauce over the top to encourage a lovely, toasty surface. 

naturally, i served it up with some rice that was left over from last night's dinner.

best part is, he hates salmon... which means i have that second piece left over for yet another meal.  

and, yes... i am officially declaring the thrice-previously-used marinade (finally) done! 

a little place called "What If"...

i am sat up in bed, with an animator snoring away next to me and a cat curled up between us under the blanket, also sleeping peacefully. it is a slice of something resembling domestic bliss, and i am cherishing the moment. 

every now and then i peer out though a tunnel of leafy limbs to a tree about half a city block away from here. it has gone a deep shade of fluorescent-pink that puts me in mind of Cyndi Lauper's hair back in the day. trust me, the photo does not do it justice, as my camera seems reluctant to believe that anything that color really does exist. 

there is also a little squirrel taking a nap just a few feet away from the window, with his tail wrapped around his body like a cozy blanket. even the local wildlife seems to be feeling the effect of the advancing cold. 

we have arrived (yet again) at the time of year when my so-not-Canadian-ness is on full display. like when i climbed out of bed Sunday morning to discover that my bedroom had been transformed into a walk-in freezer...

me: it's so cold. 

him: (pausing briefly to "test" the air) i guess it's a bit fresh.

me: you Canadians with your "fresh". it is freezing! i'm cold, so i'm turning on the heat.

him: really???

that last bit was said like i had just announced my plan to jump out an airplane using a bra-cup for a parachute. his Canadian-ness may be keeping him insulated against the rapidly-advancing frost, but it is the blood of the tropics that flows through my veins. it may (only) be the first week of October, but the heat is on! i have zero regrets. 

the highlight of this past weekend was the removal of the bug screens from the windows (and the balcony door) so that we can spend the Winter months enjoying unobstructed views of... well... snow. yes, life really is terribly exciting around here. 

the balcony garden project has similarly been put to rest for the season. there are two large heads of celery waiting to be harvested, but all the other containers have been covered up for the year. it is always surreal to look out at the space that just a few weeks ago was a near-impregnable mini-jungle, and all that remains now is a lifeless row of double-stacked containers waiting to be covered in... well... snow. 

on the more serious side of life, the city of Montreal has (once again) tightened restrictions in light of the ongoing emergency, so we are fully prepared for a long Winter of little-to-no contact with the outside world.... more of the same really. the social isolation is not proving to be a problem for either of us, as we tend to be loners (together). however, i have to admit that i have had quite a few sleepless nights of late, and i spend many a waking hour struggling to keep my mind from wandering down the path to a little place called "What If". 

the one glimmer of joy that has emerged from the constant search for distractions is that i have returned (tentatively) to my crafting of things. i am still not ready to pull the cover off the sewing machine, but i have purchased a few new patterns in the recent weeks and i plan hope to put them to use in the near future. in the meantime, i have been knitting. 

that gold yarn i was so in love with last time around is well on its way to becoming a new sweater for self. i cast this on literally right after i hit "publish" on the previous post, and i really wanted to have it done before the end of September, but... distractions. it will be finished one of these days.

the pair of socks that i had spent all Spring/Summer mostly ignoring were finally finished and passed along to the animator. this is the Bavarian Cable Socks from the Socks From the Toe Up book by Wendy D. Johnson. i knit this pair in some yarn i dyed in a colorway i am calling "koi pond"...because it is!

the design features all-over traveling cables that have the effect of leaving the socks all scrunched up right off the needles.

so i gave them a soak, and left them to dry on sock-blockers, which i purchased expressly for this ridiculous pair of socks. they looked fantastic the next day.

i cannot begin to explain how much i (still) despise knitting socks, especially when there are cables involved. naturally, he loves the bloody things. they were on his feet seconds after i handed them over. good grief! [random aside: he is blaming my camera for the paleness of his legs in this photo. i am not sure how to break the unfortunate news to him.] 

i vowed never to knit another pair of socks, then i sat down to watch a podcast on the You Tubes in which the host mentioned that she was participating in something called "socktober" (which is exactly what it sounds like). problem is, she happened to mention this just as he was walking by. you could hear him screech to a cartoon-like halt at the mention of that word. 

him: did she just say "socktober"?

me: i think you're hearing things.

him: nope. i heard it. it's a thing. you are making me socks for socktober.

all of the protest that followed was for naught, as he was already busy selecting his next pair of hand-knit socks. he settled on a pattern called Sea Oats, and i was given the immense responsibility of selecting the yarn from my stash. 

i had dyed a couple skeins of sock yarn in one of my desperate attempts at distraction, so i narrowed it down to those two. one colorway is "Grand Bay" and the other is "Zombie Apocalypse". ten points if you can guess which is which.

having made my final choice, i divided the yarn into two even (by weight) balls. now i just need to muster something resembling enthusiasm to get started on his next pair of custom-made socks... any day now.