All-Canadian Moose Chili

Canada might not be the first thing that comes to mind when think of chili, but it was a staple when I was growing up. My grandmother, Jean, made an all-day production of it, chopping and simmering away until the smell found its way into every nook and cranny of the rambling house my father built on the shore of Georgian Bay. 

It has been a long, grey winter, and we've been craving chili but haven't quite gotten around to making it. Then the opportunity presented itself. One of the advantages of being friends with your butcher is sometimes something special finds its way to you. George Laganas of Ellas Meat Market fits the bill, and he recently gave us a nice cut from the moose he brought down this hunting season. "Moose Chili," we said, "Why not!"

Our recipe is a blend of my grandmother's low and slow approach and a series of tips and tricks from recipes we've tried over the years, including the Joy of Cooking's Ohio Farmhouse Sausage Chili and America Test Kitchen's Ultimate Vegetarian Chili. Rather than switching meats as we changed recipes, we just kept adding them as well! 

n.b. This is an all-day recipe, start early, around 10am!

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and toast (If you like things hot check out some other options at the Guide to Mexican Chili Peppers):

• 3 whole ancho chili peppers
• 3 whole guajillo chili peppers
• 3 whole pasillo chili peppers

Remove the peppers from the oven to a plate to cool for 10 minutes, remove the stems and seeds, and grind them to powder using a spice mill, mortar and pestle, or Cuisinart.

In an InstantPot on high, cook for 13 minutes and allow 10 minutes before releasing pressure with:

• 2 cups dried black-eyed peas
• 6 cups of water

and remove to a bowl. Repeat for 30 minutes and allow 10 minutes before releasing pressure with:

• 3 cups dried black beans
• 6 cups of water

Saute in a saucepan over medium heat 

• 8 thick slices of smoky bacon cut into lardons 

until they have rendered their fat and are crispy. Remove the lardons from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside in a bowl. Divide the fat between the saucepan and a large Dutch oven. In the saucepan sear the following in the remaining bacon fat:

• 1.5 pounds of moose meat, cut into small cubes
• 1.5 pounds of mild Italian sausage, uncased and crumbled
• 4 pounds of short ribs, cut into chunks between the bones

and remove to the bowl with the bacon. In the Dutch oven sautee:

• 4 large sweet onions, chopped,
• 3 large green peppers, chopped,

Add:

• 1 head of garlic, peeled and crushed

until cooked and then add:

• Ground chilis
• 3 tablespoons of oregano
• 2 tablespoons of cumin

Until the spices bloom (or the heady scents of southwestern cooking fill our northern kitchen) and add:

• 6 tablespoons of tomato paste

and saute for a couple of minutes more. Puree in the Cuisinart:

• 3 28 oz tins of diced tomatoes 

and add to the Dutch oven then add:

• The cooked meat
• The cooked beans
• 2 12oz cans of dark beer or stout
• 1 litre of beef stock

Bring to a low simmer partially covered for the rest of the day, topping up the liquid with beef stock if it gets too thick for your taste, or remove the lid and let some of the liquid evaporate if it is too soupy. Add:

• Salt and Pepper to taste
• And serve with:
• Sour cream
• Chopped cilantro
• Grated queso

And serve on the side

• Tortilla chips
• Guacamole 
• Salsa

Like all of our recipes this will feed a crowd, or give you plenty to put up in stores as it freezes wonderfully. Enjoy!

100 Foot Diet Gazpacho

One of my friends mentioned they were drowning in tomatoes recently. We've been having the same problem, and have harvested 10 pounds or more in the last couple of days since the heat came in. We have made short work of them, and I said, "What about gazpacho?"

He asked for a recipe, so here is ours. We hope you have a chance to try it if you ever find yourself in the enviable predicament of having too many tomatoes in your garden!

Take:

2 1/2 lbs of fresh-picked tomatoes
and divide in half. Put half in a blender with
1 red or green pepper, coarsely chopped
1-2 mildly spicy peppers such as a japalpeno or shishito, seeded
1/2 of a medium cucumber, peeled and seeded
1/4 cup of fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup of olive oil
1 tsp of salt
Fresh ground pepper
And puree until smooth. Take the remaining:
1 1/4 lbs of tomatoes, finely chopped
1/2 of a medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
And mix with the puree. Put in the refrigerator for at least an hour to chill, and serve with a fresh baguette.

If you're in a rush you can skip the finely chopped tomatoes and cucumbers and just puree the lot. Add them after you've pureed the first batch as there won't be enough room in the blender until you do. 

Also, if you want to eat sooner put some in 1 cup mason jars in the freezer for a half-hour, they will chill faster. Just don't forget they are there or you will have a bit of a mess to clean up!

Ontario Boeuf Beerginon

We've been mashing up beef stew recipes for years until our recipe is a little bit Julia Child, part Joy

of Cooking, a taste of Irish Stew, a trick from here and there, and part whatever happens to be in the refrigerator. Two tricks that we don't often see elsewhere are frying the onions in tomato paste to enhance the and grating an extra potato in as a thickener. Try it for yourself, I suspect you'll like the results!

Fry:
3/4 lb of whole bacon cut into lardons
in a large dutch oven over medium heat until crispy and the fat has been rendered. Remove with a slotted spoon and save the fat. Toss:
4 lbs of stewing beef cut into 1 1/2" cubes
in a large bowl with:
4 tbsps of flour
1/2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of fresh ground pepper
and brown in the dutch oven in small batches then remove to a bowl. Add additional oil if neccessary and saute:

6 small onions chopped fine
1 head of garlic, crushed
until lightly browned, 5 minutes. Add:
1/4 cup of tomato paste 
and saute for 5 more minutes.  Add
4 large carrots cut into bite sized rounds or halves
2 large parsnips cut into bite sized rounds or halves
3 large stalks of celery halved lengthwise and sliced 
and saute for 5 more minutes. Add some of
2 16 oz bottles or cans of stout or dark beer (preferably local)
and scrape the bottom of the dutch oven to remove any crusty bits before adding the rest of the beer. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes, then add back in the beef, bacon, and add:
8 large yellow fleshed potatoes, peeled and cut into one inch cubes
4 bay leaves
2 tsp of thyme
2 tsp of rosemary
2 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of pepper
Return to a boil then reduce to a slow simmer. Simmer partially covered for two hours, stirring every fifteen minutes.  In a frying pan over medium heat melt:

2 tbsp of unsalted butter
2 tbsp of olive oil
and wait until it clarifies.  Add:
1 pound of cremini mushrooms (quartered if they are large)
a little salt and pepper
and saute until they give up their water and the mushrooms have browned. Remove from the heat. Wait until fifteen minutes before the end and add the mushrooms back in and add:
1 cup of frozen peas
Serve hot over mashed potatoes!

While you may not need another beef stew recipe, I had so much fun making today's batch I had to share, particularly as I made it with The Muddy York Brewing Company's award winning Stork Derby Stout. Enjoy!

The Story of the Hotel Cavell

Suzy and I didn't know the story of the Hotel Cavell when we bought it fifteen years ago. We just knew we loved it. I remember how delighted I felt when I first saw the original wood trim and back yard shaded by a giant maple. Suzy was at work and I called right away to say she needed to come and see it. She came with her father the next day and they agreed. This was the one. Admittedly our hopes weren't high. Our budget was limited. This was well before the insane bidding wars common in Toronto today, but there were still seven bids on the house, and ours wasn't the highest offer. When our realtor asked if we wanted to offer more I said, "That's as high as we can  go." The expression on her face told me we'd already lost. We left for work the next morning sad, but resigned.

We won!

1890 Fire Map of St. Matthew's Ward
showing the proposed plan for the neighbourhood

Imagine our surprise when she called us back the next day and said, "You've won!" While our bid wasn't the highest offer, it was the only one without any conditions. That was the deal maker for the owners who just wanted shut of it after their divorce. The seeds of the story were planted the day we did our first preparatory visit. I took the bait when the tenant mentioned that everyone called the house the Hotel Cavell. Our friend Sarah Watt, daughter of the Robinson family that had originally been granted the land in Riverdale at the beginning of the 19th century, helped us move in. Sarah set the hook when she opined that the house might be the original farmhouse on the plot. This launched an investigation that would take 15 years to untangle. Fortunately the last link in the chain was forged this weekend, and I can now tell the whole story of the house and the people who lived in it.

St. Matthew's Ward in the 1880s.

St. Matthew's Ward - formerly Riverside, Riverdale,
and Leslieville beforethey were annexed in 1884

St Matthew's Ward, was the original name for what is now Riverdale and Leslieville. On the far side of the Don River Valley from the city, it was destined to be the first suburb in what is today a city of millions. Annexed into the city proper in 1884, there was virtually nothing in the area north of the railway line that cuts diagonally across the area except a few market gardens and Bain's Georgian country house on what is now Dingwall Ave.

The House is Built - 1890

Thomas Haining was a Scottish immigrant who moved to Canada in the 1880's to make a new life for his family. He came alone, and spent several years in a clapboard rooming house in what is now Leslieville. Thomas had found good work as a clerk at Carroll and Dunspaugh, the largest building supply company in the east end of the city. This gave him access to everything he needed - good bricks and sturdy cedar timber; true 8" x 8" posts, 4"x 8" joists, and 2" x 4" studs for the walls. All he needed was a plot of land, which he found in the wilds of what is now Riverdale on a dirt track named Maplewood Avenue in the dreams of Toronto's earliest planners. As he laboured over the books his dream house went up. It was a generous house with a big kitchen, a parlour and dining room, a master and three bedrooms on the second floor, and stairs up to a roomy, unfinished attic, all built on a sturdy brick foundation. A honeysuckle was planted in the front and lilacs in the back. It was a big house because Thomas and his wife, Mary McMurdo Haining, needed a lot of room. They had seven children. Francea (b. 1871), Fanny (1872), Dorothea (1876, and called Dora), Elijah (1878), Jennet (1885), and Mary (1882) waited for their father's word to come back in Scotland. 

1893 lithograph of the City of Toronto

If you look to the east end of town in this 1893 lithograph of the city you can see see Thomas Haining's house standing all alone with an inviting curlicue of smoke wafting from its chimney. X marks the spot! 

The Hotel comes to Life 1890 - 1905

Detail of the 1893 lithograph

Thomas Haining's house was ready in the summer of 1890, so he sent for Mary and the children. It was time to move in. With typical Scottish industry their eldest daughters went to work immediately: Dora as a saleslady and Fanny as a stenographer at Ames, Holden, and Co, a Montreal shoe company.  Thomas continued at Carroll and Dunspaugh even after they were bought by Wm McGuire and Co. The family enjoyed over a decade in the house before Thomas' death in 1901, and Mary and the children continued to live there until disaster struck in 1905. 

Fire and a New Family 1905-1906

Fire damage on the original wall boards
uncovered during the kitchen renovation

Sometime late in the winter of 1905 a chimney fire broke out in the kitchen in the back of the house. Mary and the children were able to put it out, but not before it damaged the walls and beams in the kitchen and spread to the second floor. The damage was too much, and Mary was faced with the hard decision to sell the house her husband had built her. It was purchased by two speculators, Thomas Beck and Charles Mead. Despite the fire the beams were still sturdy. Over the next year Beck and Mead put up new plaster and lathe and wallpaper over the damaged walls. In 1906 they sold the house 

1905 wallpaper uncovered during the
kitchen renovations

to Edward G. Evans, a concreter and his wife, Elizabeth (Bessie) Pengelly Evans. Evans provided well for his family, his wife, and his sister Ada. Their eldest daughter, Anne was born there, and they had two sons who would go on to become policemen. Anne was the girl next door to her childhood sweetheart, George Russell, from the brick house at 47 Cavell. George was a dashing man who had been a signalman in the Canadian Corps in WW1, and they married and moved into the Evans home during the roaring twenties. The entire family did very well despite Edward's death, and the future looked bright.

The Depression and WW2 1931 - 1939

Hazelwood Avenue is two streets up and shows what the neighbourhood
looked like at the time. Notice there isn't a tree in sight! 

George and Anne's daughter Elizabeth (Betty) Russell was born in the house in 1931 just after the stock market crash. She recounted to me the the Depression and WW2. George lost his job, and had to give back his new car because he couldn’t afford the payments.  He grew vegetables in the back. During the Depression Betty’s grandmother insisted the family get together weekly, and there were always lots of kids in the house.  She recalls it being a happy time. Two of her uncles were on the police force, and kept their jobs, and she remembers them always arriving with bags of groceries.  When the war started he signed up for the air force to train radiomen in Morse code.  Betty recalls her mother never swore until then.  One night at dinner he said, “What would you think if I signed up for the air force?”  Anne replied, “You’d be a damn fool!”  He said, “I’ve signed up, and I leave for Brandon, Manitoba in three days.”  Her mother went upstairs and wept.  

The War Years 1939 - 1945

Most homes in Toronto put in a Victory Garden during the war.
Ann took hers out.

While George was away Betty' mother took up the vegetable garden and planted flowers. It was difficult with him being away with the four children in it, but they managed, and it remained a happy house. They had a dog which couldn’t go into the house because of their mother’s asthma, so he lived in a insulbrick dog house all year round.  He was a nice dog, and her brothers loved him. Her grandmother, Aunt Ada, and her family all lived in the house.  Her brothers slept in the freezing unfinished attic in one bed to stay warm, and Betty remembers one of them falling through the roof into the room below. Her aunt Ada and grandmother lived in the same room at the top of the stairs and had a small kitchen in it where they used to bake cookies.  Her grandmother would say to her Aunt Ada, “You didn’t make enough,” because they could go so quickly with all the kids in the house. 

Betty's grandmother passed away during the war, but the family stayed on. Finally, in 1945 her father came home. The first thing he did was take out the flower garden and replant vegetables.

After the War 1945 - 1980

You can just see the Hotel Cavell on the right edge of
this picture from the post war period.

After Betty moved out with her new husband it was just her parents and Aunt Ada in the house.  Her mother developed Alzheimers, and became forgetful.  She recalls her father complaining, “First she made breakfast, then an hour later we would have lunch, and then an hour later dinner.”  It was a difficult time for Betty as her parents fought often, and Anne used to complain that her husband was stealing her money, though she was hiding it all around the house.  They had to be very careful when they were cleaning the house not to miss any. George died first, and then Ada died in 1977, and they had to take her mother in, and then put her in a home. The house was in rough shape. When they were emptying it out one of her brothers pulled the cabinet in the mudroom in the back right off the wall. It sat vacant for two years before they finally broke down and sold the house in 1980.

Renaissance 1980 - 1982

The house was bought by John T. Morgan, an engineering student,

The stairs today thanks to the 1980 restoration

 in 1980. He spent the next two years restoring the house. The Arts and Crafts interior doors, stairwell, banister and stiles, all the trim, and the window frames were all refinished to their original pine splendour. The kitchen was updated, the front porch was redone and the whole building was clad in new aluminum siding, and the roof re-shingled. John's work was so good that much of it has lasted untouched to this day. It was also a start of a career, and John now lives in the Maritimes where he runs a business restoring historical homes!

The Hotel is Born 1982 - 2003

John Morgan sold the house to another John, John Zaritsky, and his wife Virgina Storring. John and Virgina were film-makers, and frequently away. In their absence the house became a home away from home for many of their friends in the Toronto film community. There were so many people coming and going that their neighbours began to refer to the house as the Hotel Cavell. The name stuck.

It was while they lived here that Zaritsky won the Oscar for his documentary The Fifth Estate: Just Another Missing Kid and would have the inspiration for other award-winning documentaries, such as Tears are Not Enough, Broken Promises, and Romeo and Juliet in Sarajevo. His successes paid for an updated the kitchen, put in a proper basement under the sagging back end, finished the attic, and they also made an alcove in the dining room that would host the Oscar until they moved out after their divorce.

The Hotel Lives On 2003 - Present

It's hard to believe we've lived here for 15 years, and in that time we've done our share of upkeep and updating to the house. The carpet installed on the second floor and attic was replaced with hardwood (though there is still a soft spot where Betty Evans Russell's brother, Lorne, fell through the floor). The original 1890 windows finally had to go, though we kept the original wood trim around them. The roof and eaves have been redone, a new furnace and air conditioner installed, and various coats of paint have been splashed about. Most recently we completely opened up the original kitchen, and removed the last of the fire damaged beams to give us a whole new kitchen.

More importantly, in keeping with tradition our doors have always been open, there has always been plenty to eat, and we've hosted friends, family, and even strangers from around the world. Students from Mexico, Columbia, Spain and Canada lived with us after we moved in. It has been the only home our children, Aija and Nyls, have ever known. Mary Jane Magat moved in to help us with baby Aija in 2009 and is still here almost every day. Her sons have joined her and were indispensable during the renovations.

The Heart of the Hotel Cavell

The Chruszcz family (well, some of them...) gathered
in the new kitchen for Christmas 2017

Last, and not least, we have finally realized a  dream Suzy had the day we moved in. Her grandmother, Stella Chruszcz, gathered her family every night around her kitchen table. That table finally fits in our kitchen. Today we bring people together around it just as three generations of her family did; to share a meal, to talk about their day, and build the bonds that keep a family and friends together. These traditions bridge our families and all of those that have lived here with the most important things we have to offer, our hospitality and generosity. 

We hope to see you again soon!

Trying Something New in our French Onion Soup

One of Suzy's favourite things is French Onion Soup. With beef broth as the base it has sadly been off the menu since she became a vegetarian last spring. However, this past winter her mother, Marilyn, mistook our vegetable stock for beef stock and the thought occurred... Why not make it with vegetable stock? Even an ancient recipe (it features in Apicus' 4th century treatise De Re Cucinare) can be fiddled with! Good Friday seemed to be just the right occasion to try it out as part of a meatless feast with the usual suspects. Their verdict? So delicious that everyone has asked for recipe. Without further ado here it is!

Peel, halve, and finely slice:
16 medium onions (about three pounds)
In a large dutch oven over medium-low heat add:
4 tbsp of butter
4 tbsp of olive oil
When the butter and oil is hot add the onions and stir to coat them. Cover the pot and allow to cook for 15 minutes. Uncover, increase the heat to medium, and add:
2 tsp of salt 
1/2 tsp of sugar
Continue to cook until the onions are a rich golden-brown, stirring frequently, about one hour.  When the onions are ready add:
1/4 cup of all purpose flour
and stir constantly for 3 minutes. Add:
3 liters of vegetable stock made from roasted vegatables
1 cup of dry french white wine
1/4 cup of cognac
Pinch of thyme
Bring the soup to a simmer, cover partially, and reduce heat and cook for another 30 minutes, stirring and skimming periodically.While the soup is simmering Preheat the oven to 325 dgerees and cut:
1 baguette into 1/2" rounds
Arrange them on a parchment covered baking sheet and toast them for 15 minutes in the oven. Take them out and brush both sides with:
Olive oil
and rub them with
1 clove of garlic, cut in half.
Toast them for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and switch it to broil. Distribute the soup into oven-proof ramekins or french onion soup bowls (use a canning funnel to keep the bowls clean) and add
2 toasted rounds of baguette 
to each bowl.  Arrange the bows on a baking sheet and distribute
8 oz Gruyere, grated
across the bowls. Place the sheet under the broiler and cook until the cheese is bubbling and just beginning to brown. Carefully serve the hot bowls!


P.S. We use very little salt when we make our stock. If you use salted stock please check before you add any more salt!

The Secret to Great Vegetable Stock

The last time my mother-in-law, Marilyn, came for dinner we served a homemade barley stew. She thought it was great and said to my vegetarian wife, Suzy, "But you used beef stock!" 

"No, its vegetable stock!" Suzy replied. 

The best news of all is that it is easy to make stock that will keep everyone guessing. Start to finish a batch of vegetable stock takes two hours. Meat and bone broths can take the better part of a day. The secret to giving your vegetable stock the same richness as its meaty counterparts is roasting the vegetables. A little bit of oven imbued caramelization is all it takes. It is also important to make a big batch. Eight liters of stock takes just as long to make as one, so go big!

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Take:
24 stalks of celery (about 2 stalks)
24 medium carrots 
24 small onions, skin on
2 heads of garlic, skin on
and chop into roughly equally sized chunks. Toss in a large bowl with
1/4 cup of olive oil
Salt
Fresh ground pepper
Spread the vegetables on two 3/4 sheet pans and roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Stir and swap the sheet pans and roast for approximately another 20 minutes. The vegetables will be fragrant and brown at the edges, and the onion and garlic skins crispy when they are ready. Transfer the vegetables from the pans to a large stock pot one at a time. Deglaze the sheet pans with some:
Boiling water
And scrape the brown bits from the pan into the stock pot and add:
6 bay leaves
48 peppercorns (or therabouts)
A bunch of parsley or a half cup of dry parsely 
Boiling water to cover
And bring to a simmer (never a boil!) for one hour. Decant the pot through a sturdy strainer into a large bowl.  Mash the vegetables in the strainer to get as much richness into the stock as possible. Decant the stock from the bowl into liter mason jars through a fine mesh strainer to remove any grit. Use immediately or let them cool and you can store the jars in the fridge for up to a month. The jars also make it easy to decant into a one liter freezer bag for long storage!

We also keep a stock bag in the freezer with the trimmings from our day to day cooking and add them to the pot when we make stock. Waste not, want not!

Drawing Down Stores: Wild Mushroom and Rice Casserole

It is amazing how buying food in bulk, drying, and preserving can catch up with you. We realized recently we were running out of room in the pantry, cupboards, and cold cellar. Time to draw down on stores, and when better than the heart of winter? The most enjoyable part is figuring out what to make out of the accumulation of things in jars, boxes, and bags.  Most recently it was a large jar of dried wild mushrooms that was hiding in the spice cupboard. Every time we had a few mushrooms left over we would slice and dry them.  Before long we had  seven ounces of chantarelles, shitakes, hedgehogs, lion's manes, morels, and so forth. That might not seem like much until you consider a pound of fresh mushrooms dries down to 3 ounces. It was a lot of mushrooms! A little Google-fu and a few options presented themselves: soups, stews, and so forth. Then I saw a wild mushroom and rice casserole.  I cannot remember when or even if we have ever made a casserole. We also had a 2 liter jar of wild rice in the pantry. before long a few random ingredients and an idea unfolded into this recipe!

Wild Mushroom and Rice Casserole

10-12 servings

Soak:
7 ounces of assorted dried wild mushrooms 
in hot (but not boiling water) for 45 minutes. While the mushrooms are soaking combine:
3 cups of vegetable or chicken stock
1.5 cups of wild rice
1/2 tsp of basil
1/2 tsp of thyme
12 tsp of salt 
in a medium dutch oven and bring to a boil. Immediately reduce to a simmer and simmer covered for 40 minutes. After 20 minutes preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Melt
1/2 cup of butter
In a medium casserole over medium-high heat on the stove top. Add
2 medium onions, finely diced
and saute until they are golden brown (about 10 minutes). Drain the mushrooms and add them to the casserole. Saute the mushrooms and onions until they are tender (about 10 minutes). Add the rice, any remaining liquid, and:
1 cup of table cream
2 cups of cooked brown rice
1/4 tsp of fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp of salt
To the casserole and mix them evenly. Cover the casserole and put in the oven.  Cook in the oven for thirty minutes.  Remove it and add:
1/2 cup of fresh parsley, chopped
and serve!

Serve it with a chick pea or bean salad to make for a whole protein vegetarian meal as well. Remember to save the water the mushrooms soaked in. The make a good base for stock or pea soup.