Reprize

Whenever we embark on a new endeavor it seems a little crazy. We never do quite as good of job as we want on keeping up with the basic details of home, work, school and parenting, so adding something new always seems a bit illogical. But setting logic aside and going for it can be pretty rewarding.

This project, and the blog associated with it, has been a lot of fun. By collecting for all the recipes in a year, we were pushed to do things we otherwise wouldn’t have done, practically every step of the way.

One of our very first endeavors was collecting elderberries on the MKT trail, on our bikes, right after church, on a blazing hot day. We wouldn’t have done it that day normally, but we made time to do it because elderberries were almost out of season, and we needed it for the recipe. The same story was repeated time and time again throughout the year – for rabbits, squirrels, mushrooms, fish, nuts, berries – we forced ourselves to take time to do things when we were otherwise busy because we had our deadline.

While this typically turned into a positive on the hunting and gathering things, it wasn’t always so for the cook. Many times Ann found herself cooking a weekday night after school, after work meal that was too gourmet for our schedule. But she’s fast in the kitchen, and she made it through it. I felt sorry for her for the stress it was putting her under at times, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying the meals. I think for next year we might want to give Ann a break, and take on a challenge like eating our way through everything in the frozen food isle at Schnucks.

When people ask me about the highlights, the biggest plus for me was doing things in the Missouri wild that I hadn’t done before. Duck hunting was a big one. I live about nine miles from what has to be one of the best duck hunting places in the state, and I had never even considered duck hunting before this. Trout fishing was also something new for us, and all of four of us enjoyed that together.

Having an excuse to make time for all the hunting and fishing that I haven’t been doing in recent years was also a huge benefit of doing the project. The pressure to be successful was a little trying, but when I take time to hunt or fish I usually put that pressure on myself anyway, whether or not we have specific meal plans depending on my success.

The downside about self-imposed challenges is the lack of a huge payoff at the end. The completion was a big anti-climatic for us – there wasn’t a final prize or reward. After a year interest had waned in the blog, in both the reading and writing of it. But when we consider everything that we experienced in the past year that we wouldn’t have, had we not had this project pushing us along, it renews my hope for going for it rather than just taking things as they come. There was no big prize at the end, but the payoff was in the process.

Crawfish Vol-Au-Vent, page 112

From Fred:

Things I learned from this recipe:

You can buy frozen crawdad tails in a flat package of the frozen fish section in our grocery store.

They cost $20 per pound.

I have a hard time paying $20 a pound for anything, even though I know the money I sink in pursuing fish or game usually results in spending far more than that.

This recipe put those tails to good use. I have no idea what it was like to make the recipe, as Ann did it while I was at work. But I can tell you that eating it was divine. The meal was better than you would get at any restaurant, even those with the $50 entrée. So the $20 per pound crawfish tails  were a real bargain.

As you can tell from the pictures, Ann put on an elegant spread for the final recipe. This was a good one to end on.

Swedish-style boiled crayfish (kokta kraftor), page 113

This recipe was even simpler than the previous one. There are only two ingredients: crayfish and dill (I’m not going to count water and salt as ingredients). We made it the day after the island party, after we put away all of our stuff.

The boys and I had collected enough crayfish to try out this recipe, but not really enough to make a big meal out of it. So we bought some more at Schnucks. The only way you can buy them there is fully cooked, so the Schnucks crayfish weren’t part of the recipe.

We never did make it down to Table Rock Lake in pursuit of the big crayfish, so we just had the small mid-Missouri ones to work with. They were tasty, and the boys and I consumed and enjoyed a few, but we were all a bit more drawn to the big ones from the store. They certainly weren’t better, but they were so much bigger it was hard to pay much attention to our catch. The ones we caught were so small, they were fun to try, but not really worth the shucking if you were trying to make a meal of them.

Summer Black-and-Blue Pudding, Page 150

It’s not a coincidence that this recipe was almost the last one made. Ann didn’t think it was going to be very good. I can’t blame her, it only has four ingredients, and one is a loaf of bread, if you can call that an ingredient. The other four are blackberries, blueberries, sugar and a teaspoon of lemon Juice. It only calls for a cup of sugar, which doesn’t sound like much if you’ve ever made a blackberry cobbler or cherry pie.

A Pringles can with a speaker hooked up to my Android
 rocks the island during the dessert course.

But we should have known by now to have confidence in any recipe in Cooking Wild in Missouri. Ann made the dessert Saturday morning, put it in the fridge, then the cooler, and brought it out at  the island party Saturday night. It was gorgeous, and well received by both the kids and the adults. Ann whipped cream and served the pudding with a ring of cream around it, which was the icing on the cake. There was no part of this dessert left over.

The Munos in the moonshine (supplemental lighting provided by campfire).