Weekday Eats - A Recipe from my Canadian friends in Blogville

As we get into the colder fall weather

I dust off my "fall/winter" comfort food recipes.  When you wake up and it's in the 30's, you don't look forward to salad for dinner. 

If you are like me you probably have a collection of ground meat in the freezer, beef, veal, pork, venison. Moosellaneous? Easy to thaw and serve, but you can only do meatloaf so many times on these increasingly colder days.

How about a walk on the Canadian side. Pâté chinois is a French Canadian dish similar to English Cottage Pie, Shepherds Pie or the French hachis Parmentier.  Something I learned to cook from a family member, as, there is a Montreal branch of the Range clan through marriage. I'd posted the recipe on the sidebar, and a quick link a while back, but not all of you may have seen it.

I can also teach you some common French Canadian sayings (which I picked up with the cooking and could be useful in both cooking AND in today's election)

Va pèter dans le trèfle.
‘go fart in the clover’.

Baise-moué l’ailKiss my garlic

Il lui manque des bardeaux.
'He’s missing a few tiles'.

Reçu comme un chien dans un jeu de quilles.
'Welcome as a dog in a bowling alley.’

La rondelle ne roule pas pour lui.
'The puck isn’t going his way'.

Grosse Corvette, p’tite quéquette

‘big car, little uh. . . (euphemism here) 

Avoir mal aux cheveux
'To be so sodden with booze and hung-over on the morning after that you are having a ‘hair ache’. (so glad those days are behind me, I haven't had a drink in years).

J’ai vu neiger.

I’m not just off the boat.

Ah, but back to the intent of this post. DINNER!

Pâté chinois

I make this several times a year, especially when I have quite a bit of leftover mashed potatoes. It's a wonderful, easy meal for a chilly, overcast day.

To make from scratch:  Boil chunks of 5-6 peeled potatoes and mash with a little butter and milk Just regular mashed potatoes, make your favorite recipe but you're looking for enough to serve 4-6.

Next, chop and saute a large sweet onion  in a little olive oil until just starting to soften and caramelize. Add in a pound and a half of ground meat and three to four roasted and chopped cloves of garlic (or about 1 full Tablespoon of the jarred minced garlic) and cook. I used ground sirloin as I was out of venison. If you are using cheap cuts of beef, drain off any large amounts of extra fat.

In the last few minutes of cooking, add in 2 pinches (roughly 1/4 teaspoon) of cinnamon (yes, cinnamon), the same amount of black pepper, a dash of white pepper (if you have it), and a few shakes of salt and one small squirt of Srirachi (or Ketchup for the meek). Heat on low/medium for a few minutes as it finishes cooking. Spread the meat in a deep casserole or a pan that's 13 x 9, or the next size smaller.

Then, spread over the top of the meat, about 3 cups of corn mixed together (I used 1 cup of creamed corn and 2 of regular corn). Spread on the meat. Cover with the mashed potatoes and sprinkle generously with Smoked Hungarian Paprika. Bake at 375 F for 35-40 minutes, until bubbly.
I'm not sure how the name was coined as the French version of "Chinese pie", but one popular theory is that it was introduced to Chinese railway workers by Canadian cooks during the building of the North American railroads in the late 19th century. These cooks made it under instruction from the railway bosses (who were mostly of English descent) as a cheap and easy to make version of the popular cottage pie with the sauce in the tinned creamed-corn serving as a substitute for the gravy.

click on pictures to enlarge, if you dare.

Allegedly, The French Canadian railway workers became fond of it and brought the recipe back with them to their home communities

However the name was derived, it's good. It's often served with ketchup on the side and maybe some pickled beets and a maple cookie. Or just plain.
Either way, it's comfort on a plate.  And memories of the good kind of family, whether related by blood, marriage or simply by being a long time friend-- those people you just like and admire.

Weekend Water Dogs

Click on individual pictures to enlarge. 

Need my Reader's Help in Choosing a Book Cover

My publisher submitted 7 covers for me to review. After running them past friends and family, it's narrowed to 2 and I'm having trouble deciding. Which do you prefer? (I took the photos of the trees) 

Back cover book description:  

 In Paolo Sorrentino’s film Youth, an elderly composer observes, with bewilderment, “I’ve become old and I don’t know how I got here.”

Best-selling author, commercial airline pilot, and retired air crash investigator L.B. Johnson knows exactly how she got here. She just never expected to arrive quite so soon.

In The Serenity Chronicles, Johnson turns her attention from wreckage to reflection. A bout of septic shock and its lasting consequences forced her to reconsider not only the future she had imagined after retirement, but the very meaning of time. Rather than measure life by what remained, she chose to live more deliberately in the days she had.

Written as a series of candid, sometimes irreverent vignettes, this literary memoir wanders through subjects that initially seem wonderfully random, yet gradually reveal an unexpected coherence. Johnson considers the changing landscapes of the body, the ghosts of family history, the persistence of faith, the enduring gifts of love, and the peculiar indignities that aging so generously provides.

There is grief here, and an honest reckoning with mortality. But there is also laughter, gratitude, and the recognition that even an imperfect life can contain extraordinary beauty.

Johnson writes frankly about what aging takes away—and what it gives in return. Readers may wince in recognition, laugh at life’s absurdities, and find some part of their own journey reflected in these pages.  Because being alive is an exercise in enduring surprise.

Sometimes, serenity is not found in knowing what comes next.

Sometimes, it is found in being willing to find out.

 

Cover Number ONE

Or Number TWO

This will be my fifth book, the first four all went to #1 on the best seller lists for Amazon for fiction and non fiction.  All proceeds have gone to animal rescue and Search Dog Foundation. 

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

My husband continued his morning walk, but without Sunny.  The first week so many people asked about her and there were a lot of tears at the news.  She was much loved in our little neighborhood.

So I bought him this T shirt to wear on his walks so hopefully people will see it and smile in remembrance.  

Sunnier Days

A small box arried in the mail last week.  It was a Sunny suncatcher from Dr. Maura, the Vet that took care of her in her final hours.  She's cared for all 3 of our last rescues and has a heart bigger than the sun.  That is why Sunny loved her.

Goodbye for Now, Sunny.

Sunny left us yesterday after a short battle with a very aggressive T-Cell Lymphoma.  She had just turned 3.  We adopted her as a puppy when she was released to a shelter with bowed legs that made her "unwanted" in some's eyes.

A Vet from Indy, where Barkley got his care for years, had moved to the Chicago area as her husband got a position with a big hospital here as a doctor.   She took care of Lorelei and Abby Lab at home at the end for us and did the same for Sunny.  In a moment that reminded me that even with this pain, God's watching over me - she told me her husband's new job is at one of the biggest hospitals in Chicago, one known world-wide for it's transplant services.

He's on my Transplant team.

In Memory

Sunny D. Lab

May 11, 2023 - July 29, 2026

Words from my husband:

"Back when we hadn't had her very long, I was just getting her past the overstimulation phase so I could walk her all the way to the tracks and back.  On one of these trips, I ran across a neighbor from the next block.  He and I had spoken before when Lorelei was still happily begging for pets up and down the street.  He liked dogs; he used to have great Danes, and he had fitted his little shoebox SUV with a bulldog hood ornament from a Mack truck.  

That day he was walking with his wife.  They stopped and waited patiently for Sunny to go through the cautious sniffing phase.  After a few minutes Sunny decided they were her new best friends and was happily getting pets and doing little jumps when she wanted more attention.  The wife was particularly enthralled with Sunny and praised her, saying she loved how, "She looks you right in the eye!"  After more pets and wags we went on our way.

You wouldn't notice it from a distance, but if you watched carefully, you could tell the lady was a bit frail.  It was several months later when I saw them both again.  They were going up the steps to their bungalow and she was leaning heavily on her husband.  They apologized for not being able to stop and pet Sunny, but I told them Sunny was just happy to see her friends and she wagged and gave a little woof.

Back in the spring I bumped into the husband on the street.  He stopped me to let me know that his wife had passed.  He didn't say what the illness was, but it had been a long journey.  He said that she had her favorite comfortable chair next to the front window of the house and that she would always smile and remark when she saw Sunny on the street.  It was always a moment of happiness for her.

That's how I would like to remember Sunny the most.  The dog who always brought a smile to a neighbor's face in her dying days."

Pool Party

It's been in the upper 90's all week, unusual for Chicago most years (there are still quite a few people that don't have central ac as the median summer temp is 81)  

So time to drag out the kiddie pool.  Like her Angel Sister, Abby the Landlocked Lab, Sunny is NOT a fan of the pool except for fetching cold and wet toys out of it.  If she can do so without getting completely wet she is happy. 

National Cheese Day

Experts say "don't leave your cheese in the refrigerator, leave it out on the counter".

Holiday Play Dates

 

Road Trips

Oh Boy, a Trip to the Vet for my booster vaccines.  I'll get kisses and scritches and treats!  I love my Vet Techs.

Seriously Dad, 25 mph?  Grandma drives faster than that.

We are NEVER going to get there.

MMM,  I small Burger Barn. 

Dad, you missed the turn off for Burger Barn.

Why are we going a different way?

I hate construction detours.

We're finally at Countryside Vet Center~~

Sunny has arrived.  Where are my adoring fans?

I'm being good Dad, do you have a treat for me.