Friday I headed up to Killarney with Leanimal to meet Las Chicas for a trek along La Cloche Silhouette Trail - in most cases, this trail takes several days (read:7-9) to travel, but we decided to do it on one....what??? Yup 24.5 hrs.....and my feet were sore!
We headed out on foot at 6:30 Friday night with packs full of food and water, emergency items and lights, and, kudos to Carolyn, some sweet Maple Whisky (can I get the name of that one again?) (oh ya...Sortilege!!) and trekked through the night amidst sounds of moose tromping and deer eyes flashing - no bear sightings on this one.
We had amazing weather for the most part, and got a chance to see the sunrise from high up in La Cloche mountains, near the brilliant blue (but dead) lakes of the park. It amazes me how gorgeous so many parts of Ontario are - so much exploring to do.
The trail finally ended for us at 7:00 Sat. PM; unfortunately in the rain. The weather had turned on us, so we quickly made camp in our dazed state, ate a deelish dinner thanks to Leanimal (recipe to follow; thanks to Lee for the photos too!), watched a dvd presentation of the Ecuador journey (until the laptop died), and then snuggled up in our tents to snore away the night - very cold and wet, but I did crash pretty hard after a full day on the trail. We woke up, packed up, and hit the Killarney Inn for a breakfast Easter celebration, complete with cupcakes for breakfast dessert ;) Then back in the car for the 5 hr. haul home...
Awesome time for sure!!!
Here's our dinner - Lee added quinoa too and it made an excellent warming stew on a rainy night. Yum...
Coconut Chickpea Curry - Slightly adapted from the Vikram Vij Green Onion Coconut Chickpea recipe
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons flavorless oil- grapeseed
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 medium onion, chopped
1 generous inch fresh ginger root, peeled and slivered
4-6 tiny green Thai chiles, chopped with seeds retained* (or hot green chile pepper of your choice) - jalapeno - or none if you like it mild...
1/2 cup canned peeled tomatoes
4 heaping cups cooked chickpeas, drained of their liquid
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Ground black pepper
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons flavorless oil- grapeseed
2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1 medium onion, chopped
1 generous inch fresh ginger root, peeled and slivered
4-6 tiny green Thai chiles, chopped with seeds retained* (or hot green chile pepper of your choice) - jalapeno - or none if you like it mild...
1/2 cup canned peeled tomatoes
4 heaping cups cooked chickpeas, drained of their liquid
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 teaspoon salt
Ground black pepper
Method:
In a large skillet, heat the oil over low heat until thin. Add cumin seeds and fry them until they are slightly toasted and fragrant (less than a minute). Add onion, stirring occasionally until golden and translucent (about 5 minutes.) Add ginger root, chiles and tomatoes, stirring to combine. Cook for about 3 minutes, then add the chickpeas and coconut milk. Stir in salt. Bring to a slow boil, then reduce heat to low, barely simmering until heated through (about 4 minutes). Stir in green onions. Cook another few minutes. Remove from heat. Top with a few cranks of ground pepper. Serve with naan bread or basmati rice. Serves 3-4. --
***One other tasty treat that Carolyn brought along from Que. was Sucre a la Creme - and damn Trish for finding a recipe to duplicate it - evil evil evil chica...
(from Eva's world )
Sucre à la crème is a medium-hard sugary confection that has long been aQuébecois. and french-canadian, tradition.
Sucre à la crème is not fudge. It is similar in concept, but has a very different texture. Sucre à la crème is much more granular than fudge but equally as dense and sweet.
The recipe takes about 30-40 minutes to make, a strong mixing arm and cooling time. Constant stirring is essential and so is keeping your eye on the stove.Boil-overs happen quickly and they are M-E-S-S-Y. If you stop stirring, chances are good that the sugar will stick to the bottom.
4 cups light brown sugar
1 cup, less 2 tablespoons, of 2% milk
a splash of vanilla
1/4 cup or so of butter
a pinch of salt
Put the sugar in a saucepan and pour in the milk. It should be a pretty big pot for the mixture as it rises alot when it bubbles.
Mix the sugar and milk well.
Sucre à la crème is not fudge. It is similar in concept, but has a very different texture. Sucre à la crème is much more granular than fudge but equally as dense and sweet.
The recipe takes about 30-40 minutes to make, a strong mixing arm and cooling time. Constant stirring is essential and so is keeping your eye on the stove.Boil-overs happen quickly and they are M-E-S-S-Y. If you stop stirring, chances are good that the sugar will stick to the bottom.
Sucre à la Crème
4 cups light brown sugar
1 cup, less 2 tablespoons, of 2% milk
a splash of vanilla
1/4 cup or so of butter
a pinch of salt
Put the sugar in a saucepan and pour in the milk. It should be a pretty big pot for the mixture as it rises alot when it bubbles.
Mix the sugar and milk well.
Bring the heat up to medium. It will start to boil slowly after a few minutes.
Raise the heat to HIGH for a minute to get a good boil going, but then lower it to prevent as much sticking as possible.
The mixture will need to boil for a while, until it hangs of the spoon in a drop form.
Once this step is reached, add the salt.
Let the mixture boil a few more minutes. Get yourself a glass of water. The next step is to see if the mixture will form a ball when a drop of the mixture is dropped in water.
Test the mixture every few minutes until this happens.
The mixture should get somewhat solid when it comes in contact with the water. It won't harden like a rock, but should congeal nicely so that you can grab it to remove from the water. The ball may float or not.
Once this this step is achieved, drop the butter in the boiling mixture.
Stir the butter in. The mixture should start thickening a lot and be like a syrup.
Remove the mixture from the heat and pour into a bowl. Mix the mixture vigorously in 'under over' brush strokes. You can place the bowl in water to help thicken the mixture faster.
The mixture must thicken enough but not too much before being poured into the pan. You must mix to the point where you can still pour it out of the bowl and more mixing would prevent you from doing that. It should be like really really thick gravy.
Pour the mixture into a pan. This one was just buttered but you could lined it with parchment paper too.
Cool for a few hours and cut into pieces.
**Sigh...** now to detox the sugar... ;)
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