Shooing the Blahs Away!

"Shooing the Blahs Away"... I think that was a popular song from a bygone day. It's sentiment is still the same, though. Sometimes in January, after the excitement of all the Fall and Winter holidays, there's a little bit of a let down. We all start thinking about our New Years Resolutions (and I'm sure one of them is to put more low fat, low sodium peameal from Gord's in you diet! :-)), the weather continues to be cold ( and cloudy here in Michigan) and that food fest football game is still a month away!

Gord and I know our answer to the BLAHS...we go to southern Florida for a break...lots of sun, warm weather...and that sparked an interesting conversation about
temperatures...from the sun and from the oven.


Living here on a US/Canada border, we get used to radio and TV stations that post temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit. Say, it's a REALLY cold day...it might be 0 degrees C or 32 degrees F. That makes sense to us here in the US. But when we started talking about hot weather, the correlation is not quite so easy. I'm guessing many of you are not much better than I am about converting temperatures, so I've posted a conversion site for you in case you're talking to a Canadian about their weather: http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/conversions.html

And, of course, temperature is VERRRRRYYY, VERRRYYY important for peameal. No doubt there are some of you who cook meats like I do: following the time listed in the recipe. Well, you can join me in the Overcooked Meat Cooker's Anonymous Club. There's a reason they say things like "Cook this until 125 degrees." It's because we're supposed to use a meat thermometer (like you see in the upper left hand corner) and stick it into the center of the cut of meat to ensure it's superbly done and not over done! Yes, you guessed it...if you use a Canadian meat thermometer, it'll read Celsius degrees and if you use one from the US, it'll read in Fahrenheit.


When you're shopping for a meat thermometer, you'll notice they look like old fashioned tire gauges. Don't confuse them or you'll punch a hole in your tire or figure out the psi of your peameal! So go out and buy yourself a meat thermometer and use it. Great tasting peameal will be your reward.

What's been cookin' in the kitchen:

We adapted a recipe from the Iowa State Fair into a really tasty peameal dish. The combination of black beans and pork is GREAT! Everyone has leftovers from a peameal roast and here's a nice way to use them

• In a saucepan, combine: 1c. milk, 1c. cheddar cheese, 1/4 c. shredded jack cheese and stir until melted. To the saucepan, add 1/4c. plain yogurt, a 15oz. can of black beans, 1/4 c. salsa, 1/2 to 1 lb. of cooked peameal, 1/4c. chopped peppers and 1/4c. chopped spinach. Meanwhile, cook 1 16oz pkg of egg noodles. Add sauce to past and stir. Layer the pasta, 1/2 c. shredded cheddar and 1/2c. crushed tortilla chips. Bake in a 350 degree oven (no meat thermometer needed!) for 25 minutes.

Hope you caught our Impossible Pie recipe in the newsletter using peameal. What a tasty combination!

Happy February! Comments are always welcome at Gord’s. See you next month!


Gordette