creegirlinalonelyworld

Now, that’s a moose roast!

Okay. I just couldn’t help myself and had to photo document another Moose recipe

The thing for me is that most of the time when I am looking up a new recipe online, I just want some instruction. But, once I get to the recipe, they have tricked me! I have to scroll through screens of writing! I feel so betrayed! So for this recipe, I took a bunch of pictures to avoid boring you with too much writing and to get right to the meat and potatoes.

Let the recipe begin…

Whether you thaw out the meat or take directly from the moose, you might have to clean it and trim – do this as you like. For this particular piece of meat, I didn’t cut too much off and left a lot of fat, and I squared it off as much as I could.

Next, get your spices together…

Now let’s pour and rub and slather those spices all over the roast. “Mix up the rub and rub it into the meat!” as Martha Stewart once said.

Olive oil in pan, roast in pan.

Sear it to your perfection! Render that fat because the taste is worth it.

I put about a quarter inch of water in the roaster and add half a package of onion soup mix.

And in the oven at 300 degrees it goes.

Prep the potatoes!

Cut, soak and add them to the roaster after about an hour of cooking.

Just a bit of a recap – 300 degrees for about an hour and add potatoes. Drop it to 275 degrees and continue for about another hour and a half. By then the potatoes will be nice and soft and your roast is almost there…

Once the moose roast is about 10-15 minutes away from being done, you can remove the potatoes and put them in a baking pan (will show you why in a few pictures), and now you can start on your roux! which is fancy way of saying a thickened sauce or gravy.

That is, if it’s something you want.

My hubby prefers a natural ‘au jus’ type of gravy, which doesn’t have the thickness of a roux, but basically it’s what your preference is.

For this moose roast roux, I melt a healthy tablespoon of butter in the pan and add a bit of salt and pepper, then a teaspoon of flour, as you see in the picture below.

Whisk and whisk and whisk on medium heat.

To finish off – pour drippings from the roaster through a strainer, and add your (cup-ish) of drippings to the frying pan and keep on whiskin’

until it starts to thicken.

Next, you can put your topless moose roast and potats in the oven for the final cook for about 10 minutes on a HI broil.

Once the moose roast is done in the oven, remove and wrap in foil and let it sit for about 10 minutes

And now, your magnificent moose roast, roux or au jus and potatoes are done!

And voila! The natural plate:

or the Roux:

Both taste good. Both are great with some cranberry sauce. And both are very great with whatever vegetable you want to add. I kept it simple for this meal but any kind of veggie works with this as does wild rice – which is another favourite of ours.

I see my cooking as a foundation only, and your way of cooking is all yours – all you and I’m very sure that all your dishes are scrumptious!

Miigwetch, miigwetch once again, for checking out my post.

Moose Burgers, wha…?!

Well folks, it’s been a minute.

So I am back and I have yet another simple, wild meat recipe for you!

Moose hunting season is upon us, and you can feel it in the air! From the moose calls and patiently waiting, to the adrenaline high from seeing the moose and taking that first (or second, or third) shot… to the gratefulness you feel, and the tobacco you put down to show your respect for this creature giving their life to you. And this fall my husband and his hunting partners harvested a moose.

**I want to add that this was the first year my youngest daughter was able to harvest a moose on her own and we were all truly grateful.

Next comes the hard part.

You may think I’m going to talk about the preparation and packaging of all the front and hind quarters, the moose nose, the hide, but it’s actually deciding on how will we make some delectable dishes that compliment the wild taste of this amazing moose.

So after the skinning, quartering and hanging, one of our “go-to’s” is to grind up the rump and neck meat, which is perfect for turning into ground moose. This year the moose had a lot of fat, so that was also ground up and put into the mix.

This recipe is my take on Moose Burgers. I do it up simple with some spices, but not enough to mask the wild moose taste.

First, I take about 1.5 lbs of ground moose. The white pieces are the natural fat fyi.

Next I add spice.

Now, I don’t add too much but just enough to enhance the taste.

I add in about half a cup of onion flakes, a tablespoon of garlic, a teaspoon of Kinder’s* Buttery Steakhouse rub, a whole egg, and I grind up about a cup of plain soda crackers. Note that fresh onion is best, but my allergic tastebuds can’t handle it so onion flakes are a good substitute.

Then, you mix everything up.

Next, you take a good handful of meat and shape the moose meat into over sized burgers. You will see how big they are when I put them on regular sized buns! I also poke the centres to stop the ballooning process during cooking.

Now the burgers are ready for the pan!

So, once I see that the edges are looking nice and cooked, I do the flip. And it’s okay if they look a bit charred, they are still juicy!

Once everything is cooked, I wrap the burgers in tin foil and let them rest for about 10 minutes, as it keeps the moisture in. I do this with all my wild meat, as well as with domesticated beef and chicken also.

Once they have sat for a bit, voila! A nice juicy moose burger, or moose cheeseburger!

You can serve your moose burger with or without toppings, or cheese. My personal preference is a more simplistic moose burger with cheese, ketchup, mayo and mustard. But it still tastes great with the works. The picture below is my husband’s very uncomplicated supper, moose burger with ketchup and fries!

The real test is my husband’s palate as he is a wild meat aficionado. But last night he had more than one helping so I know I knocked it out of the park!

Miigwetch for checking out my post. I love to share (when I have time) all my recipes for wild meat and I am certain your variations are just as scrumptious!

Killing in the name of…

Last night, and for the first time, I watched the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame live on Disney. (Side note: I know Disney doesn’t sound badass, but you can watch a lot of great shows.) But from greats like Willie Nelson, the Late George Micheal, Missy Elliot, The Spinners, Sheryl Crow, Chaka Khan and others, it was both entertaining and captivating to hear the music and to understand the background stories of the artists themselves.

But it was 4 hours long. And as I attempted to watch intently, the eyelids started getting heavy.

When I finally gave into my body begging for sleep, I turned the TV off and went to my bedroom. Now, normally I fall asleep watching the Golden Girls, but curiosity got the best of me and I turned on the Live show just one more time. I turned it on just as Ice-T was intro-ing Rage Against the Machine.

I watched a little longer.

Rewind to my first memory of hearing Rage in the 1990’s while in high school. It was at an arcade called Top Hat a.k.a. The Gathering Place. It was situated in the heart of the City of Gold and was home to a mixture of arcade games, jukebox music, a pool table right smack dab in the middle, and about 20 to 30 of us Native kids hanging out daily.

And I must have heard Rage Against Machine’s “Killing In The Name Of” run through the speaker system on average about 6 or 7 times a night.

It wasn’t the first protest song I had ever heard, but to this day when I hear it or play it, it brings me back to a time in my high school years and just jamming out to that song over and over again. The songs didn’t just have the heavy guitar and captivating riffs and heart-pounding drums that caught us up in the flow of musical brilliance. It was the lyrics that slapped you in the face and subsequently you found yourself repeating, chanting, yelling – disrupting.

And then there was Freedom… but that’s an article within itself.

While it’s not my go-to genre, but because of who I am, and where I come from, I was born with rebellious roots and I naturally gravitate to protest music. I am a woman, an Indigenous woman, and this band got the hairs on the back of my head standing at attention every time I hear the music. And last night, while watching the show, the hairs stood way up when Ice-T said “…and I think Rage has the best rock lyric of all time —‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’.”

And I know you all read that line with it screaming and playing in your head.

But I digress.

If you do get a chance to watch last night’s inductee show, and hear Tom Morello’s speak, it does not disappoint.

Just to entice you a little, here’s an excerpt from his very impactful speech:

“The lesson I learn from Rage fans is that music can change the world. Daily, I hear from fans who have been affected by our music and in turn have affected the world in significant ways. Organizers, activists, public defenders, teachers, the presidents of Chile and Finland have all spent time in our mosh pit. When protest music is done right, you can hear a new world emerging in the songs skewering the oppressors of the day and hinting that there might be more to life than what was handed to us. Can music change the world? The whole aim is to change the world or at a bare minimum, to stir up a shit load of trouble.”

End scene.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm_W_hbwbzJE8w52jZ2NO0A

If I Could Turn Back Time

So there I was tonight, working in my garage listening to the 80’s station. Peter Gabriel, Cinderella, Bruce Springsteen, Heart, I love them all!

And then my ever churning brain was ever churning, and thinking. And churning. And more thinking. The question that lingered in my mind was, “why did I love 80’s music so much?”

As I continued to work, doing my thing, I started paying attention to some of the songs. No. I started paying attention to the way the songs made me feel. They brought me back to a place in my life where I was too young to be old but old enough to remember.

Have you ever had a bad-memory-moment and a song sparks those same feelings?

Yes, me too.

Do you suddenly change the station, forward to the next song or just simply turn the music off?

Happens more often than I like.

The only problem for me is, sometimes I really like those songs.

A few years back, I don’t remember exactly when, but a few years back a song came on and I remember the feeling I had.

It was not good.

But I didn’t change the station. I sat and listened to the whole song. Once it was over I said to myself, “Self. Why are you going to let a shitty person, shitty situation or shitty time in your life ruin a perfectly wonderful song?”

It was that day that I reclaimed my music!

Fast forward to this evening, where the 80’s songs were flowing like a river. It took me back in time. I was young and living at home with my grandparents.

Fashion wasn’t really my thing but I tried. Only 4 channels on our TV and no VCR (emphasis on the ‘no’). I was isolated from the big world beyond our little town most of the year, other than when we journeyed back home, or took the bus to The Victory Theatre to watch the latest movie (PG – AA only, no R-rated), or venturing to the the carnival for the day.

I can hear my Grandmother shuffling about the house in her slippers. And I can still hear my Grandmother and my Grandfather calling for me at 8:00pm because it was time for me to come home.

I remember wanting to explore and know more about life beyond the ‘gates’. And now, I would do anything to turn back the clock and be there snuggling up in my bed with my dolls and stuffed toys and waking up to what I thought at the time was a bit of a lonely childhood.

Now I see that I was given a gift.

And I can still smell, hear, and see the surroundings, my house and the safety of it all. So when I hear that 80’s sound, as both corny and groundbreaking at the time, it really truly does bring me back.

Is this what happens when you get old?

Resistance

I wrote this last night thinking about my Dad, on the eve of his birthday. These aren’t his thoughts but mine, from my own life journey. We all have our own journeys to take, but some of the things I learned from him and others are captured in my writing.

In memory of Gilbert Cheechoo Sr, and his unwavering journey of RESISTANCE. June 9, 1958-January 4. 2018

This is what we were taught- to be subservient, to be quiet, to assimilate into the rest of “normal” society, to take what we were given and to take it all lying on our backs… or on our knees, or as a corpse.

We were taught that our way of life was less than, our languages were going to be extinct, and that our spirits were damaged by our beliefs, while our history was a mere passing thought in our textbooks.

We were taught that our stories were folklore, myths, our medicines were inconsequential, our foods were incapable, and that belonging to the greater society of our lands and discarding what we had, was the only way.

We were taught that our ancestors were gone and that we should forget them. We were taught that our words meant nothing. We were taught that we deserved everything bad we’ve ever received.

We were taught to cast out. We were taught every man for himself, and we were taught that it was futile to go against the colonial grain.

But while all that was taught to us by “society”, we simultaneously felt conflict, with what is flowing through our bodies, our minds, but more importantly, our hearts and spirit. And through being “taught”, we learned that all these things that were completely ingrained in us, that were a part of us, endured, will always endure and will be passed on through our generations. This is where our beauty lies.