Lemon Tart

Crab Bisque and My Crab Adventure

On the heals of another surprise Crab-load, I made a huge batch of crab bisque recently, when DG's brother sent down a bag of crabs caught just the day before. What better way to deal with a sac full of beautiful Dungeness Crab than a bubbly pot of creamy, seafood goodness! I was pleased to have this kind of problem, as I always am when its free! Considering I pay about $25 for a crab, that's "A" crab, I felt almost dirty opening up my industrial mayonnaise bucket turned ice chest, only to lose count of the number of crabs inside due to the sheer number of them! That dirty feeling was replaced by ravenous hunger and a need to crack them all open with a bucket of lemon butter and bottle of wine.

After combing the internet for a decent crab bisque recipe, I came across just one worthy recipe, which I've followed before with great success. The rest were far too complicated. I'm hoping this recipe will help a few of you with your problem of too many crabs. This makes a beautiful soup full of crab flavour that is just the right foil for fresh chunks of fresh picked crab meat, without loads of heavy cream. It's an impressive first course and can stand on its own for a weeknight meal. Best of all, despite its grandeur, this is one simple soup to make and really you just need to get your hands on just a couple crabs, not a sack-ful. Scroll down for the recipe!

While I tackled the heap of crabs in my sink in preparation for this soup, my hands numbing to the repetitive cracking and childlike messiness that endured, my thoughts easily wandered to catching our own last summer.  I always meant to chronicle it here, but was unimpressed by the photos I'd taken, and well you know how summer just sort of gets away from you with the combination of carefree laziness and cram-it-all-in-ness. We had this planned for about a year and it turns out that looking forward to the big Crab Fest meant that when it was finally here, all I cared about was getting them out of the water and into my stomach rather than obsessively photographing each moment! This is something I'm constantly struggling with as a blogger, the needs of my own before the needs of my reader. Or shall I say, the needs of my stomach. As I plucked through those crab shells though I couldn't help but remember that day and thought you might like to see a little of what its like to take to the ocean and grab dinner for yourself. I won't have the chance to revisit this experience again this summer but I'm already planning Crab Fest 2011! But until then...

The great adventure all began in Prince Rupert BC, on Northern BC's (that's Canada, BTW) coast. This is a big time fishing town and of course seafood is all around. Prince Rupert is a lovely town full of history and quaint beauty. I spent 4 years of my childhood there and remember crab sandwiches as more common than peanut butter and jelly. But the story of this small town is for another time. This day was only about one little thing - crab!

When undertaking a day trip such as this one, the right "spot" it essential. This is to be our home base for a few hours, a waiting room if you will, complete with fire pit, plenty of tiny crabs, sea snails and other marine life to entertain the younger members of the party, as well as me. I do love a good beach-comb!

 

 

 

In order to guarantee lunch, we had to give these little critters their "Death Row Meal", if you will. We got quickly to work setting up traps. Some tasty fish heads and other nasty bits are pretty tempting don't you think?

Traps? Check! Nasty bits? Check! All set to go!

A Proper Lemon Tart : 100th Post!

 

I can't believe its here! My 100th post. When I started this blog, it had taken me close to a year to actually do it. I wasn't convinced I had anything new to offer the world FULL of food bloggers, but I was reminded time and again that I did have something to say, to share and to learn for myself and so I decided to call it Lemon Tart, took some pretty pictures, struggled with creating a custom banner and hit "publish" and put it out there. I've learned quite a bit about food photography and writing and how I like to tell a story and hopefully show you a bit of who I am through food. I've discovered that so many of my fellow bloggers are kind, generous and as excited as I am about the world of food and in this experience I've found my community. I've also learned tremendous respect for  those amazing bloggers who've not only been doing this for years, but still manage to post weekly or even daily. I'm still working on that, and I promise those of you who've continued to return to these pages, that the next 100 posts are going to go much faster than the first. I still have so much to share with you!

In the beginning I decided I would do it until it no longer fed me, and that was was my simple goal. Well, its turns out it continues to feed me, and hopefully my readers too, and I can see many more "100" posts to come. Thanks to each of you who have continued to return, thank you for your comments and your interest in what I have to say. While I can say I started this little blog of mine for myself, I continue to do it for you.

So celebrations aside now, I must say its rather shameful of me to call my blog lemon tart with nary a recipe for a lemon tart to be found.  If you are a lover of that sweet and tart, soft and crunchy, most classic of all desserts, look no furthur. Today I'm sharing my most trusted lemon tart recipe. It is the first one I ever made, the first dessert that I made money and fans from, and so many lemon tarts later, still the one I consider a benchmark for my idea of the perfect lemon tart. Its also the easiest lemon tart recipe I've come across. This tart is exactly that, almost mouth puckering. All too often lemon tarts are too sweet and lacking in lemon. This recipe has just the right balance and has a secret ingredient - oranges! Yes, I know it seems sacrilegious, but it simply balances all the ingredients and gives a sweetness in place of sugar. You can't detect the orange, but its essential for the roundness of flavours. You'll be amazed!

And I have others I want to share with you: a tart that grinds up the entire fruit for the filling, a deconstructed filling that adds cold butter to an already cooked lemon egg mixture, a whipped version I learned in Nice, and a trusted recipe sent to me from a reader and fellow fan of a beloved cookbook author. There are just so many lemon tart recipes out there so stay tuned for more lemony goodness! My love of the lemon tart does not waver and it goes down as one of my top three favourite desserts.

Homemade (Raw Milk) Yoghurt

I have a cow. I've never met her, which is kinda sad actually, but she produces some pretty lovely milk. Once a week in a secret location we pick up the milk which is locked up in refrigerators in a dark out of the way spot in the middle of the city. No money changes hands for the milk itself, its simply a by product of our ownership of said cow.  Raw milk is what I'm talking about, which is illegal to sell. We own a share in the cow, but no milk is technically sold. These are quite extreme lengths to go through for milk, which is saying something for the number of people interested in this product. I'm sure you think I'm living on the edge with this raw milk thing. That's okay, while I won't be backpacking in Iraq or base jumping off a high rise anytime soon,  there's a few calculated risks I'm happy to take. And raw milk is so worth it!*

Apparently raw milk is the enemy to all human kind, these days, and often takes a beating in the press, depending on what kind of press I should say. I tend to tune most of it out, mostly because I have some fairly strong opinions about the subject, which you won't hear about here. I've always wanted this site to be a "positive" forum and I've chosen to keep food politics out of it. There's plenty of other places to find that online. However, these farmers have had to go through a lot to make sure our raw milk supply is still safe and available to those of us who want it, and I think they deserve credit for it. Not many of us would voluntarily stack themselves up against constant governmental scrutiny and public misunderstanding while trying to make a living providing a product that, looking at the amount of milk at the milk-depot, has significant demand.

I didn't grow up on a farm. The closest I got to farm animals would have been the dairy cows at D- Dutchmen Dairy or the IPE as a child. I didn't know much beyond 2% milk until well into adulthood, so  raw milk was certainly not something I was familiar to. Homogenized milk was simply "that gross stuff that Gramma drank" - she grew up on a farm, and knew something I wouldn't for years to come. I certainly wasn't accustomed to anything that tasted so decidedly of milk, and I really hated having a glass of milk with dinner, knowing early-on there were better things to drink with a meal - like wine!

This milk is just so lovely. The flavour is as milk should be - fresh, complex and sweet. With it in my fridge I've been enjoying an exciting foray into the world of homemade dairy products, including  yoghurt. Raw milk yoghurt is the most amazing yoghurt you can imagine and it reminds me of the beautiful artisanal yoghurts I've enjoyed in France. Spooning a full fat dairy product out of the cutest little glass bottles with a morning croissant, is pure joy. And until I began making my own, it was difficult to find any yoghurt at home that even came close to the flavour of those dairy dreams.