Yesterday, Jay and I attempted to go ice fishing one last time. We were running perch rigs, but would have been just as happy with bluegills or crappie. We had a few bites, but nothing was caught. Seems it was the same with the other fishermen/women out where we were fishing, no one was catching much, but most were enjoying the weather. It was the last day for inland walleye season, and the ice is deteriorating fast--enough so, that we are deterred from trying to ice fish anymore this season--barring a giant cold snap, which I don't think will happen.
It's still rabbit season until the end of the month, and spring turkey season is also just around the corner. Trout season begins at the end of April, also, so our outdoor pursuits will see a welcome change in a short period of time. You truly can't beat protein that you catch or harvest yourself.
Today, we finished our last two beef steaks in the freezer. We have been out of beef hamburger for quite a while now, and this was the last of our beef steak. We are also out of chicken breasts--aside from what is attached to whole chickens. We still have one or two packages of beef in our big freezer--short ribs or roast of some sort. The rest of our remaining red meat is venison. Aside from that, we have some pork, some chicken thighs, a few whole chickens, some scallops, shrimp, frozen whole trout, and quartered rabbits.
This week brought a couple of AWESOME barters. I finally cashed in on the barter where I gave a large 11"x14" print of that waterfall in the U.P. from two winters ago to my cousin. From the print, we bartered for grocery items. We got a large bag of white sugar, a bunch of bananas, fresh mushrooms, a huge container of salad mix, a big head of romaine-type lettuce, fresh assorted colored bell peppers, broccoli, sour cream, cucumbers, a bag of cheese, a block of cheese, and some croutons. HOW EXCITING! We have been having "big salads" a couple of days this past week, and it has been AWESOME. We still have a few days worth of salads left, and we will surely continue to enjoy it. Also, we bartered a dressed and quartered rabbit for two pounds of asparagus, a gallon of milk, and some bagels.
Tonight, I tried to think ahead to what to make for lunches this week. Last week, I made a big batch of Mexican rice, added a little bit of ground venison, and had a makeshift taco rice dish for lunches last week. A few co-workers said it smelled good, and it did taste good-- I just got a bit tired of it after days 3 and 4. Still, I had a good, homemade lunch, and there's nothing for me to complain about.
In that same, "there's-nothing-wrong-with-leftovers" vein, I set out to make a big pot of soup for this week's lunch.
The options were either homemade tomato, using up a bunch of my canned tomato juice and soup starter, chicken noodle, or something like cream-of-broccoli. Thinking the canned tomato stuff would still be good later on, since it was in glass jars and sealed, I opted to not do tomato. Knowing that I would have to thaw out an entire frozen chicken for chicken noodle, and it was already 8pm at night, ruled out chicken noodle. Broccoli-something-rather it was.
It ended up being a cross between a loaded baked potato soup, beer cheese soup, and broccoli soup.
I figured the soup would be a good way to use up a bunch of wilted-looking vegetables in our crisper drawer. The head of fresh broccoli was trimmed and chopped, half a bag of baby carrots that were dried out, were chopped, save for a few that turned into dog treats (he loves carrots), an onion was chopped, and three of our Yukon Gold potatoes were peeled and diced. Into the pot they went with water until they were fork tender. Then I took them out, drained them, and set them into a bowl on the side.
When in doubt, add cheese, bacon, and beer, right? Check.
Win.
This wasn't exactly a recipe, more of a throw-together soup out of necessity. All in all, it ended up being pretty good.
I made a light roux out of 3 Tbs. of butter, 3 Tbs. of flour, and the bottle of beer. I whisked it all together over low heat until it was bubbling, and starting to thicken. Then I added 6 cups of milk, and a teaspoon of salt, and the shredded cheese. I continued to whisk this all over low heat until the cheese was melted, and it was bubbling again. Then I added the vegetables, and brought to a low simmer for 15 minutes, stirring regularly. At the end of 15 minutes, I decided to blend the veggies into the soup so it wasn't so chunky. A stick immersion blender made quick work of this, but it would have been just as easy to pour it into a standard blender.
It passed the taste test, made use of some ingredients that I may have not otherwise used, and checked a task off of my weekly to-do list. Lunch through Friday is made. Now, here's to hoping I don't get tired of the same lunch by Wednesday!
--SH