Steak and potatoes

Honestly, I don’t think this meal is all that interesting. In fact I think it’s quite common but Mike asked if I wanted pictures taken because he was so excited to enjoy it. 
Now we don’t have steak every day. That’s not why I think it’s common. It’s just that there’s no recipe. Anyone could make it. Lots of people do make it. But apparently steak, foil potatoes with bacon, onion and Italian seasoning and skewered mushrooms are worth writing about. This spring beef loins were on sale for less than half price so I picked one up and cut it into steaks and froze them. Every time we have steak Mike tells me I should have bought more. But I’m still learning how to buy meat and can never remember what is tender and what isn’t. Growing up on a farm has lots of advantages and eating the meat you raise is certainly one of them. The disadvantage is that you eat what’s in the freezer. You don’t think about what kind of steak it is. You don’t check to see if you’re buying one that’s nicely marbled. It’s just there. You thaw it and you eat it. This is not a complaint. I am so thankful to have been raised on a farm. It’s just that now I need to buy meat and it always seems so expensive and I’m still learning how to choose a good cut.

The more interesting part of this meal is that we baked cookies on the barbecue to finish it off. We don’t eat a lot of dessert but I want to try a few different things on the barbecue while we’re on vacation so we will be eating dessert most nights much to everyone’s excitement. Before I got pregnant with Abby I pretty much cut sugar out of my diet and I felt sooo much better. I’m careful about how much sugar Abby has too. What this means is that my choice of cookie may not be terribly appealing to anyone who eats Oreos on a regular basis. There is a recipe called healthy cookies going around Facebook and Pinterest. I tried one version that called for mashed banana, oats and chocolate chips and it was surprisingly good. I used quinoa flakes in that recipe and the substitution worked very well.

Today’s recipe has a bit more to it but still has no oil, gluten, sugar, eggs or raising agents. I bought some gluten free oats to try. Abby and I had lots of fun mixing them up. Abby had even more fun ‘having a good taste’.

My cookie sheet is really a bit big for this barbecue so I turned it halfway through cooking and they didn’t seem to get burnt. I preheated the barbecue to 350 using the burner on only one side. I lined the sheet with parchment paper instead of oil because I thought oil might make the cookies more likely to burn. Everyone seemed to think they turned out very well and quite a few of them disappeared before the night was over. I found this was a very forgiving recipe to make on the barbecue. It handled some variation in the temperature without burning or drying out. I had hoped to use my insulated cookie sheet but it ended up being much too big for the houseboat barbecue.

Healthy Cookie

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/3 cup apple sauce

1 tsp. vanilla

3 cups of rolled oats

1/4 cup almond milk

1/2 cup raisins

1 tsp. cinnamon

Mix all the ingredients together and drop them by tablespoonful onto greased or parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

Beer can chicken and other yummy things

Tonight’s meal consisted of beer can chicken, barbecued cabbage with bacon, squash and bean salad. I always love squash with my roasted chicken and tonight was no exception. I didn’t do as well at having everything ready at the same time and Abby and I were both feeling very tired and a bit grumpy so we ate things as they were cooked since Mike was out fishing and had said not to wait for him.

Carefully measuring the spices.

The beer can chicken turned out great. We borrowed a chicken roaster and a can of beer from Mike’s parents. This is not your traditional roasting pan but something that props the chicken up in a ‘standing’ position. It has a tray for catching the drips and holds a beer can. I had one little problem in cooking with it - the chicken was too tall for the barbecue. Being tired and not having my problem solving husband here to help me I put a metal bowl in the barbecue to prop the lid up a bit and tried a couple of things to keep the heat from escaping but none of them worked well. The chicken roaster's instructions actually say to make sure the lid on the barbecue is fully closed. As best as I can tell the only side effect was that it took extra propane to cook supper. I asked Mike about it when he came in and he thought he had taken the rack out of the barbecue on one side and set the chicken directly on the flavour wave plate when he'd done it before. I'm sure that would have worked perfectly.

Beer Roasted Chicken

1 whole chicken 2-4 lbs

1 can of beer

2-3 cloves of fresh garlic

poultry seasoning, fresh or dried rosemary, salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the grill on medium heat.

Rub the outside of the skin with poultry seasoning, lightly covering the entire bird. Add pepper and salt to taste.

Empty 1/2 of the can of beer into a glass or measuring cup.

Place 2-3 small cloves of garlic in beer can along with 2-3 sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Place the beer can on the base and assemble the large holders around the can of beer.

Place the chicken on the assembled roaster and if desired add the leftover beer and any additional garlic and rosemary to suit to the pan of the roaster.

Place the roaster on the grill. Cook the bird 18-20 minutes per pound or until the breast meat has reached an internal temperature of 170C.

The chicken turned out very moist and tender with lots of great flavour. Definitely another make again recipe.

Dinner time!

I cooked the squash in a metal bowl covered with foil but next time I would just wrap it in foil. The bowl seemed to make it take a lot longer to cook. It was the last thing ready to be eaten.

I have made this cabbage recipe once before but with a larger cabbage. The flavour is great and this time it was more thoroughly cooked.

Barbecued Cabbage

1 head cabbage

4 slices bacon

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp. pepper

4 tsp. butter (I didn’t bother with this - there’s enough fat in the bacon in my opinion)

Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage. Divide into four sections, removing the core. Place each on a piece of foil big enough to wrap them in. Add 1 slice of bacon, 1/4 of seasoning mix and 1 tsp. butter if desired.

Preheat oven to medium heat and bake 40 minutes, turning twice.

I let Abby have a real treat and we made S’mores on the barbecue. I know you’re supposed to have a campfire to do that but we just never seem to get around to making one. She loves all of the ingredients and was excited to watch the marshmallows puff up on the barbecue. I set the crackers directly on the grill but it would probably be better if they were on a tray or foil as we almost lost Abby’s marshmallows on the grill and some of my chocolate melted onto the grill. It seemed like such a shame to not be able to lick it off.

Mmmm... chocolatey, marshmallowy goodness.

A rainy day isn't always a bad thing

Aaah, a rainy day on the houseboat. A good book and a long nap with the sound of the rain pittering on the water and pattering on the roof. It sounds like the perfect relaxing day. Maybe I could put a fishing line with a bobber out at the back of the houseboat and catch some supper without getting wet. Maybe I'll get to play a German board game with my sweetie. I'm almost sure to get beaten but it really doesn't matter it's so much fun to have time together doing something relaxing...
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Playdough fun

Aaah, a rainy day on a houseboat with a two and a half year old... Time to scrap the book and the quiet nap.

I had often wondered what we would do with Abby on the houseboat on a rainy day but it had been a busy week and I was tired. A quiet day doing quiet things on the houseboat actually sounded like a lot of fun. I had brought a lot of Abby's favourite things that we hadn't played with yet so we got them out and had a great time. Abby played with playdough and we read all the stories we'd brought. She did some of her puzzles. We don't watch a lot of TV but Mike set Abby up with a smurf cartoon on the laptop. It was a nice treat for her on a wet day and let us have a bit of down time too. The rain slowed down to a drizzle and we let her try some bobber fishing at the back of the houseboat. I had no idea she would get so excited about catching a fish! Each time the bobber went under the water she would start jumping up and down shouting, "It means there's a fish! I've got a fish!" After supper the rain stopped and we were able to go swimming together.

For anyone planning to go houseboating with young children I recommend bringing some different things along for a rainy day. Make them special things that they don't get to do all the time. Plan for it to be some together time that you spend creating moments they'll remember. A rainy day may not be a good day to read a book or take a nap yourself but it's a great day to string necklaces or make a special craft or read some books together. You probably won't get to play the game you'd like to play but you can have some good laughs and make some great memories around a game your little ones enjoy. Abby loves UNO Moo! and any memory game. She's also getting to be quite good at Go Fish and Dominoes for a few fun ideas.
Of course you know your kids and what they love best. Whether it's building towers or painting or stickers or building a fort under the table a rainy day can be a fun day of creating special memories.

My little fisher girl watching for her bobber to go down.

Adventures while Kayaking Eye Lake - July 9/13

Today was a busy day but a fun day. We camped at an unmarked but very well used campsite at the entrance to Eye Lake. Abby was up early so she and I explored our new campsite despite the hordes of mosquitoes. There is a lot of space that has been cleared under the trees and several trails to explore and there's nothing Abby loves more than to go on an adventure. Then I taught her how to play tag and we ran around until 8:30 when I decided we must have some breakfast.

After we had eaten and cleaned up I packed a picnic lunch and some snacks for our kayaking adventure. We had 'camped' here because I was interested in exploring Eye Lake with Abby and more than an hour and a half in the kayak gets to be a bit long for her. I also wanted to hike the portage trail into Devil Bay. My plan was to have our picnic there and I hoped that it might be a nice spot to swim because our campsite had a pretty dirty bottom for wading and splashing in.

We had a nice paddle and I continue to be amazed at how well Abby sits in the kayak. She must really like it since she doesn’t complain at all when she gets the occasional bonk on the head. Of course I can’t see her face either so maybe it bothers her more than I think but she really doesn’t fuss about it all.

Eye Lake isn’t very big and I was surprised to find a cottage hidden on one of the islands. Abby wanted to check out all of the beaver huts along the way to see if there were any minnows at them so that took our adventure to several little bays we might not have explored so closely. There were at least five beaver huts along the way but only one of them seemed to be in use right now.

Some of the giants' stepping stones

Mike wanted us to make sure we saw the giants' stepping stones across the back bay of Eye Lake and they really were quite interesting. The ‘grain’ of the rock is on an angle and it looks as if they were placed in a row by a giant long ago.

We found a bed of white water lilies which was beautiful. They bloom later than the yellow water lilies and these are the first I have seen this year. That may be because the water is warmer in Eye Lake than in the larger, deeper Lake Temagami.

In a sea of water lilies

Abby was fascinated by the wild rice and wanted to paddle through it whenever we could. I saw something unusual flying around as we glided through the rice but didn’t get a good look at it until we were almost back to our houseboat. As we paddled through one last patch of rice I finally saw one at rest on top of a green stalk of rice. It was the most beautiful ruby red dragonfly I’ve ever seen. Once we’d seen one we saw many many more and we spent a while hunting  them down just so we could get a good look at them. Of course Abby wanted to pet them but we were never that close. Unfortunately the Gopro wasn't on anymore when we were dragonfly chasing or I would definitely share pictures of our discovery.

Devil Bay in the background looked beautiful and made me want to explore the lake here too.

Our hike to Devil Bay was nice. It’s a well used trail and the first half of it has no rocks. It’s an easy hike with no steep inclines We saw several groups of canoeists head that way in the short while we camped here. However, I learned a valuable lesson. Don't bring more than can be put into a backpack when hiking with a two year old. I had way too much stuff with me and only a small backpack which contained our long pants in case the bugs tried to carry us away. I also had our small cooler with our picnic in it and a largish waterproof camera case. The portage trail is just over 500 meters long so it wasn’t too long with a two and a half year old Abby except that she had a little tumble early on and was tired and hungry. Soon I was carrying a little girl on my shoulders and had hands full of cases to carry. I will definitely do things differently if we go hiking like that again.

If you just want a trail to hike on to burn some energy this is a nice length for younger kids and not too difficult. Unfortunately there is no clearing at the other end. The bush was hot and buggy and my hopes of swimming once we reached our destination were not realized because the trail ended in a pile of smelly pollen. A bit later in the season or with the wind in a different direction the pollen would not have been an issue and we may have been able to get cooled off a bit. As it was we went just a little way off the trail and had a bit of a picnic lunch because we needed to eat. The bugs knew they were in for a treat as well and feasted on any part of us that wasn’t covered. Abby’s bug jacket worked great. I unzipped it and put it on top of her head so her neck and most of her head were still protected but she could have some food to fill her little tummy . Her ankles and hands didn’t fare so well but she barely complained about her bug bites she was having so much fun.

Getting cooled off!

We had a little splash when we returned to the kayak because we were so hot but there was lots of tree and leaf matter on the bottom that stirred up as soon as you disturbed the water so we didn’t play there long. We had a better swim at our campsite but then needed a ‘bath’ on the back of the houseboat to get really clean. All in all we had a fun day and it was definitely an adventure to remember.

Bread on the barbecue

And now for the taste test.

Because Abby and I are gluten and dairy free most of the things we eat are things we can all enjoy together. However, I really wanted to try baking bread on our houseboat vacation and I’m still more comfortable baking wheat bread than gluten free. Besides I wanted to make something special just for Mike. 

The bread turned out great! I mean it looked fantastic. I was a bit worried when it wasn’t rising very well but that was because I wasn’t sure where to put it. My original plan was to put it on top of the fridge as it’s always hot there. Of course this afternoon when I needed it to be hot it wasn’t. Mike came up with the perfect solution: we put it in the cupboard above the fridge. It was protected from the drafty open window as we traveled down the lake. The fridge eventually kicked in and the heat from the exhaust warmed the cupboard up beautifully.

Beautiful bread baking to perfection.

I chose to make a batter bread instead of the more traditional raised bread simply because it’s less time consuming. There is only one rising of the dough and no kneading. Really, it’s a beautiful thing. Thank you Betty Crocker for another great recipe! We bought the Big Red Betty Crocker cookbook with money from our wedding gifts and we have never regretted it.

So here it is: easy, amazing bread baked on the barbecue:

Oatmeal Molasses Bread

3/4 cup boiling water

1/2 cup old-fashioned or quick-cooking oats

3 TB shortening

1/4 cup mild-flavoured molasses

2 tsp. salt

1 package regular or quick active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp.)

1/4 cup warm water

1 large egg

2 3/4 cup all purpose flour

Grease the bottom and sides of a 9X5 loaf pan with shortening. Mix boiling water, oats, shortening, molasses and salt in a large bowl; cool to lukewarm.

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add yeast mixture, egg and 1 1/2 cups of the flour to the oat mixture. Beat for 2 minutes with and electric mixer on medium speed, scraping bowl frequently. (I didn’t have an electric mixer but it mixes very easily and I mixed for almost five minutes just to make sure I had combined it enough.) Stir in remaining 1 1/4 cups of flour until completely mixed.

Spread batter evenly in pan and pat into shape with floured hands. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place about 1 hour and 30 minutes or until the batter is 1 inch from the top of the pan.

Heat the barbecue to 375. I’ll be honest. I had a hard time finding the right temperature on the barbecue. Sometimes it was 325. Sometimes it was 450. But the bread seemed to cook fine just the same.
Bake 50-55 minutes or until the loaf is brown and sounds hollow when tapped. If the loaf browns too quickly, cover loosely with aluminum foil during the last 15 mnutes of baking. Remove from pan to wire rack to cool. I started checking the bread early because I knew the temperature had been high but it still took the full 50 minutes and I didn’t find it browned too quickly. Now mind you I had the lid open often to check on other things cooking in there at the same time and to take some pictures so that may be why it needed the full cooking time.