Got Maple?

Delicious Butter Tarts - (recipe adapted from) Pies and Pastries, Pg. 205 - Mona Rhodenizer (Mrs. H. A.)

What better way to celebrate Canada then with one of Canada's quintessential desserts - The Buttah Tart!  Ooey gooey buttery goodness bundled into a tiny adorable extremely polite Canadian pie.  You can eat at least three in one sitting without feeling the slightest bit of greed or gluttony.  Nausea on the other hand?...binge at your own risk.

Similar in consistency to a pecan pie, the butter tart tends to be bit runnier in consistency due to the absence of corn starch.  While Mona's recipe is indeed "delicious" as the recipe claims in it's title - we decided to kick up the Canadiana factor a bit by swapping the corn syrup for Nova Scotia maple syrup.  We've said if before and we'll say it again - Maple Syrup - you can put that shiz on anything!...and we strongly support making it it's own food group...right along with candy, candy canes and candy corn (thanks Buddy!).

Baby Jan and the Saga of Lettuce & Cream

Lettuce and Sour Cream Salad – Old Lunenburg Dishes, Pg. 20 – Catherine M. Creighton (Mrs. H. A.)


Once upon a time there was an excruciatingly fussy child when it came to mealtime. So much so that the child’s grandmother would often fix a completely separate meal to accommodate the child's discerning palette. Despite this minor flaw, the over-indulged child would gobble up lettuce and cream, a favorite side dish to many a meal. Alright...if you haven’t already guessed - it’s Jan…but in Jan’s defence she suffered some traumatic foodie experiences as a child - from being bamboozled into eating meatballs to being tricked into drinking butter milk. As a result she suffers from PTFD (post traumatic foodie disorder).

Back in the day, vegetable gardens were much more common. Baby Jan would watch in amazement as her elderly relatives (she’s got good genes) – hoes in hand, painstakingly tended to their gardens, abundant with potatoes, corn, rhubarb, beans, leaf lettuce, the list goes on. What now seems like a novelty to grown-up Jan, they would slip outside and pluck a head of lettuce from the garden and then whip up this sweet and tangy side dish.

Thirty years later, the world has come full circle - organic, sustainable, local are all the buzz. Growing your own produce doesn’t have to be difficult. Head out to your local gardening store or farmers’ market, pick up a few seed packs or starter plants, and plant a rewarding and delightful patch of heaven. Then you too can dazzle your family and guests with this tasty and super quick side dish made with fresh ingredients from your own backyard.

Lettuce and Sour Cream Salad

Ingredients:

One head of leaf lettuce (washed and cut in thick shreds)

Make a dressing of:
3 tbsp of vinegar
½ cup sugar (scant)
½ cup sour cream

Instructions:

Mix well and pour over the lettuce; mix slightly. More or less sugar and vinegar may be added to suit the individual taste.

Dutch Oven Tips & Tricks:

We know you’ve been waiting for the right moment to show off your chiffonade skills – well here it is! Don’t just cut the lettuce; slice it with your favorite chef’s knife (a Santoku perhaps – we just like to say the word Santoku in a crazy Iron Chef Japanese accent - try it! We really enjoyed the texture of the shredded lettuce. But, not a requirement whatsoever – but easier to eat we think. The only downside to this salad is that if there are leftovers, the dressing separates and looks, ahh - not so appetizing (coming from the adult version of the over indulged fussy eater) – so we recommend making it fresh to go-go or giving any leftovers to your not so favorite neighbor.

Petah ♥'s Le Creuset!

Last year Peter entered Le Creuset's True Memories Contest. A contest based around the true memories of the many foodies who use and love this french manufactured cookware. Thanks in part to many of your votes - Peter's blog enrty took one of the runner-up prizes - the above beautiful 5.5 Quart Round French Oven. Thanks to all who voted! This pot is sure to see many Dutch Oven recipes in it's future! Read Peter's prize winning blog entry below and visit Le Creuset to read the many other great prize winning entries.

A Hodgepodge of Memories

Hodge Podge, a traditional Nova Scotia Recipe, is a vegetable stew made with fresh new vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, peas and green and wax beans. Many prepare this recipe in a large dutch oven to accomodate the large quantities of fresh vegetables. The vegetables are boiled until tender and then a sauce of heavy cream, butter, onions and salt and pepper is added. Meat is rarely added and considered by some to be blasphemy! This recipe is steeped in tradition that dates back over two centuries and was surely developed by some of Nova Scotia‘s first settlers (or original foodies) to take advantage of the land’s abundant harvest. Those who like this recipe – usually LOVE IT! It is pure Nova Scotia comfort food at its best!

I attribute much of my love for food to the traditional food and recipes I was exposed to growing up in Lunenburg Nova Scotia. Hodge Podge is one of many traditional coveted Nova Scotia recipes - but one that is so unique to our history and culture that most Nova Scotian’s have fond memories related to it. I have such great memories of my grandmother preparing this recipe on her coal stove (which she used until the late 1980’s believe it or not), always in her heavy cast iron Dutch Oven. Today, I think of that memory often and take great comfort in carrying her tradition forward. Just like my grandmother, I always prepare Hodge Podge using my Le Creuset French Oven (minus the coal stove) and I look forward to sharing this time honored tradition with my friends and family for many years...and centuries to come!

A Tale of Two Loaves

Banana All-Bran Nut Bread – Breads & Rolls, Pg. 67 – Hazel Allen (Mrs. Robert)



Ahhh…Banana Bread…nothing says Fall like the smell of quick breads wafting from the oven. Three ripe bananas under siege by an army of fruit flies were the inspiration to try this next test recipe. For some, bananas, spotted and black are destined for the compost bin, for others – they are inspiration for a delicious quick bread!

The Dutch Oven’s Banana All-Bran Nut Bread is a nice enough recipe – all be it a little on the healthy side. We only made a couple of modification to this recipe. The first was the replacement of nuts with chocolate chips. We’re not a fan of nuts in baked goods – this may seem strange to some of you, but we know there are others out there – We’re here! We don’t like nuts in baked goods! Get used to it! Besides, 85% of bakers agree that the addition of chocolate makes everything better (this statistic is totally made up). Secondly we replaced the cup of all-bran with unprocessed bran – we figured this would blend better then the cereal bran. Overall this recipe is short on all the things that make banana bread so delicious – shortening, sugar, eggs, etc. Let’s not forget, this was the 50’s, and ingredients were not as accessible as they are today. As a result some recipes are reserved in their ingredients and often take advantage of ingredients on hand such as all-bran to reduce the amount of flour required. This recipe was good, and if you’re looking for a healthy banana bread recipe, this would be a great one to try.



Unfortunately this recipe left Peter yearning for the Banana bread of his youth. For a light fluffy bread, rich with delicious ingredients and loaded with sugar – Peter’s Mom’s recipe can’t be beat!

½ Cup Shortening
1 Cup White Sugar
2 Eggs (lightly beaten)
3 Medium Bananas (mashed)
2 Cups Flour
4 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Tsp Salt
1 Cup Chocolate Chips (optional)



Cream sugar and shortening, add eggs (whisk until smooth), add mashed bananas. Combine dry ingredient and gently mix with your wet ingredients until combined. Place mixture in 9x5 loaf pan (greased and floured). Bake 45-60 minutes at 325°F. Nuts could be added as well if you're into that sort of thing...

Deconstructing the Dutch Oven

The Dutch Oven Diaries is a blog dedicated to deconstructing the recipes of the Dutch Oven Cookbook. A cookbook of coveted traditional recipes from the Kitchens of Lunenburg originally produced by the Ladies Auxiliary of the Lunenburg Hospital Society and published in 1953 in celebration of the town's bicentennial anniversary. The Dutch Oven Cookbook, a piece of artwork in itself, contains hand-written recipes and illustrations by the recipe authors themselves. This can create a bit of challenge at times depending on the author’s penmanship! These Lunenburg Ladies of the 50’s were pros – most of whom would prepare their recipes from memory, rarely depending on a written recipe. As a result, many of the recipes leave gaps from a directional point of view – temperatures, cooking times and detailed instructions are often omitted. This undoubtably will lead to some trial and error – or if worst comes to worst – you can pick up the phone and call the author for more detail – something we had to do in preparing for our first recipe blog entry “Mama's Little Rhubarb” (to be posted soon). The author wasn’t home, so we had to wing it, but many of the authors are still cookin’ and reside in the town of Lunenburg. The illustration on the cover of the Dutch Oven Cookbook was provided by famous Lunenburg Artist Earl Bailly while other full page illustrations throughout the book were provided by Phillip Backman.


Julie Powell (The Julie/Julia Project) we are not and French cooking this ain't! The authors of the Dutch Oven were/are not Julia Child, in fact, they probably did not even know who Julia Child was as the Dutch Oven Cookbook was published 8 years before the Art of French Cooking. Many of the recipes in the Dutch Oven are quite simple in execution while others are quite complex. While many of the recipes would have been part of our childhood, many we’ve not had the pleasure of experiencing. Eel, Rabbit and beef tongue are not ingredients that we are accustomed to using – and quite frankly never wanted to. However, this adventure is about keeping an open mind and experiencing all the culinary delights of our ancestors. In doing so we commit to preparing all 447 pages worth of recipes in the Dutch Oven Cookbook!

The recipes of the Dutch Oven Cookbook have been passed from generation to generation, and while the cookbook has been modified a bit since its original publishing in 1953 - some of the recipe names and hand drawn illustrations have been revised to reflect a more politically correct era - the recipes remain original, and are steeped in Lunenburg’s long history and traditions!


Jan Young (mild mannered accountant by day) and Peter Johnson (mild mannered Civil Servant by day), are lifelong friends and self proclaimed foodies by night...and just about any other time they're not working...and sometimes when they're working. Originally from Lunenburg (born and raised), they will take on the challenge of cooking and sharing their culinary adventures as they cook and blog their way through the Dutch Oven Cookbook - a commitment to reproduce every recipe - the good, the bad and the Delicious!!

If you have a passion for food, history, tradition and the culinary arts in general -Join us as we flashback to the 1950's and follow in the footsteps of some of Lunenburg's finest original foodies. Join us through our culinary triumphs and defeats as we tackle Lunenburg's oldest and most cherished cookbook.