Adventures in Chicken Fried Steak

My boyfriend requested chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and carrots for his birthday, and despite feeling like I was really giving him a heart attack as a present, I whipped up the Southern dinner he wanted.  It turns out that chicken fried steak doesn't involve any chicken at all--it simply means steak cooked in the style of chicken.  I used the recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook for the most part; my comments are in square brackets.

1 1/2 lbs top round steak [I used two New York strip steaks]

1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons flour

Salt and freshly ground pepper

3 tablespoons vegetable shortening [I did use shortening, but the nutitrional info is appalling; a cook friend recommended vegetable oil instead]

1 large onion, coarsely chopped

1 1/2 cups milk [this made a lot of gravy for two people; this recipe is supposed to serve four to six.  But who's going to complain about too much gravy?]

Cut the steak into 4 to 6 serving pieces [or trim the icky bits off of your NY strips like I did].  Pound 1/4 cup flour into the steaks using a meat pounder or the rim of a sturdy plate [I rocked it Yukon-style and used the butt-end of my hatchett, and it worked like a charm].  Pound in as much flour as you can until the steaks are saturated and quite thin.  Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.  Heat the shortening in a large skillet over high heat.  Cook the steaks very quickly, about 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown.  Remove to a platter and keep warm [a plate overturned on top of another plate on the back of the stove worked great for me].  Remove all but 2 tablespoons of fat.  Add the onion and sautee, over medium heat, for about two minutes, or until soft.  Stir the remaining flour into the onion, continuing to stir, and let it cook for 2 or 3 minutes.  Slowly add the milk, constantly stirring, and cook until the gravy is thickened.  Serve with mashed potatoes and pass the gravy.

Meat & Potatoes #8

A rather more successful show than last week.  I didn't prep my playlist in advance, and flying by the seat of my pants worked out better than expected.  I also described how to make chicken fried steak; find the recipe here.

1. Sufjan Stevens--All Delighted People
2. Jeff Buckley--Ulalume
3. Florence + the Machine--Girl With One Eye (Bayou Percussion Version)
4. The XX--Hot Like Fire
5. No Kids--For Halloween
6. OK Go--It's Tough to Have a Crush
7. Cat Power--Breathless
8. Okkervil River--A Stone
9. Neko Case--Lion's Jaws
10. Jenn Grant--Britt 'n Kipp
11. Rocky Horror Picture Show--There's a Light
12. Rocky Horror Picture Show--Hot Patootie Bless My Soul
13. Rocky Horror Picture Show--Eddie
14. The Like--You Belong to Me
15. Belle and Sebastian--Funny Little Frog
16. Metric--The Police and the Private
17. Hayden--Dynamite Walls
18. The Consecos--Beyond the River
19. Angus and Julia Stone--Mango Tree
20. Bob Dylan--Jolene
21. Hamilton Camp--Pride of Man
22. Tim Buckley--I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain
23. Dave Rawlings Machine--Monkey and the Engineer
24. The Little Willies--I'll Never Get Out of this World Alive
25. Of Montreal--Hydra Fancies

Meat & Potatoes #7

I branched out this week and instead of just playing mp3s off of my laptop, I skimmed through the record collection at the station and played a few vinyl cuts (sort of--once I forgot to hit the cue button again and played about two minutes dead air by accident [I almost cried]).  Here's the playlist, with the vinyl tracks marked with an asterisk:

1. Hefner--Trouble Kid
2. Marvin Gaye--Stubborn Kind of Fellow
3. Aretha Franklin--Do Right Woman, Do Right Man
4. The O'Jays--Love Train
5. Willie Bobo--Fried Neckbones and Some Home Fries (Dan the Automator Remix)
6. Tim Buckley--Move With Me*
7. Roberta Flack--Compared to What*
8. Billie Holiday--Crazy He Calls Me*
9. Etta James--You Can Keep Your Hat On
10. Gladys Knight & the Pips--I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Sympathy for the Grapes Mix by The Randy Watson Experience)
11. Bill Withers--Use Me
12. The Band--Long Black Veil*
13. Crosby & Nash--Cowboy of Dreams*
14. Del Wood--Where the Blue of Night Meets the Gold of Day*
15. Ohio Players--Love Rollercoaster
16. Young Rascals--In the Midnight Hour
17. Deep Cotton--Self!
18. Me'Shell Ndegeocello--If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)
19. Spoon--I Turn My Camera On
20. Scissor Sisters--Do the Strand
21. TV on the Radio--Golden Age
22. George 2.0--Turn Off the TV
23. The Rapture--Whoo!  Alright Yeah...Uh Huh
24. Roberta Flack--Angelitos Negros

Meat & Potatoes #6

Round two of the sort-of-kind-of-a-bit-countryish show:

1. Jefferson Airplane--The Farm
2. Constantines & Feist--Islands in the Stream
3. Dave Rawlins Machine--Sweet Tooth
4. Neil Young--Unknown Legend
5. Conor Oberst--I Don't Want to Die in the Hospital
6. Jimmy Buffet--Margaritaville
7. Buckwheat Zydeco--Hey Good Lookin'
8. John Fogerty--Jambalaya
9. Robert Wilkins--That's No Way to Get Along
10. Emmylou Harris--Boulder to Birmingham
11. Norah Jones & Willie Nelson--I Don't Want to Get Over You
12. Lynrd Skynrd--What's Your Name
13. Dwight Yokam--Crazy Little Thing Called Love
14. Rae Spoon--Your Trailer Door
15. Joni Mitchell--You Turn Me On I'm a Radio
16. Billy Bragg & Wilco--Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key
17. Vern Williams Band--Oh Susannah
18. Petunia & the Loons--Cold Heart Breaker
19. The Little Willies--Lou Reed
20. The .357 String Band--High Lonesome Blues
21. Sufjan Stevens--Decatur
22. Elvis Perkins--Shampoo
23. Paul Simon--Graceland
24. Justin Rutledge--The Suffering of Pepe O'Malley, Pt IV
25. Grateful Dead--When Push Comes to Shove
26. Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir--Buried Them in Water
27. Alison Krauss--Every Time You Say Goodbye
28. Great Lake Swimmers--Catcher Song
29. Joey Allcorn--Son of a Ramblin' Man
30. Melissa McClelland--Glenrio
31. Johnny Cash--Ring of Fire
32. George Jones--I'm Gonna Burn Your Playhouse Down
33. June Carter Cash--Will The Circle Be Unbroken
34. Those Poor Bastards--In the Pines
35. John Denver--Thank God I'm a Country Boy

Meat & Potatoes #5

A little belated, but here's the playlist from last weekend's kinda-sorta-countryish-show.

1. Blues Brothers--Rawhide Theme
2. The Be Good Tanyas--The Littlest Birds
3. Devendra Banhart--I Feel Like A Child
4. Dave Rawlings Machine--To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, Is to Be High)
5. Wilco--Forget the Flowers
6. Honky Tonk Hustlas--Hallways of the Always
7. Luther Wright and the Wrongs--Comfortably Numb
8. Jypsi--Shame on Me
9. Luke Doucet & the White Falcon--Long Haul Driver
10. Calexico--Stray
11. Monsters of Folk--Goodway
12. Gram Parsons--Still Feeling Blue
13. Cat Power--Rambling (Wo)man
14. Hank Williams III--The Grand Ole Opry (Ain't So Gran)
15. Hank Williams, Jr.--Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound
16. Hank Williams--Hey Good Lookin'
17. The Band--The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
18. Gillian Welch--Look at Miss Ohio
19. Iron & Wine--Flightless Bird, American Mouth
20. Dolly Parton & Kenny Roger--Islands in the Stream
21. Helen Reddy--Delta Dawn
22. Patsy Cline--Walkin' After Midnight
23. Maria McKee--Drinkin' in my Sunday Dress
24. Elvis Presley--Hound Dog
25. Burl Ives--Froggy Went A-Courtin'
26. Michael J. Sheehy--Twisted Little Man
27. k.d. lang & The Reclines--Rose Garden
28. Dave Matthews Band--If I Had a Boat
29. The Sadies--1000 Cities Falling, Pt. 1
30. Josh Ritter--Lillian, Egypt
31. Neko Case--Stinging Velvet
32. The Whites--Keep On the Sunny Side

Hank Williams III at Layla's, December '09

Happy Birthday to Me

Last week, shortly after my birthday, I received two great packages in the mail.  My purchases from Purl Soho arrived (finally).  Mail always takes a long time to get to Dawson, and things from the States can be quite bad.  I was quite impatient for this bundle of joy by the time it arrived.

That's my two skeins of Cascade Alpaca Lace, the contents of my Lovely Liberty Coin Purse Kit and the spare purse clasp.  The colour of the photo isn't great--everything is much prettier in real life.  The yarn is particularly lovely.  It's not a heathered or variegated yarn, but the alpaca fibres haven't absorbed the dye entirely evenly, which gives the blue-green colour a particular depth and interest.

I am using the yarn for a Laminaria shawl (Ravelry link).  I had mixed feelings about the pattern at first--as written, the Star chart isn't symmetrical on either side of the centre stitch, and while it was easy to fix this problem, the fact that it wasn't addressed in the pattern felt like a red flag for me.  It seems to me to be a fairly significant lack of attention to detail, and I worried that I would run into more trouble later on.  But having worked 4 repeats of the Star chart and moved onto the Blossom chart, I am much happier with the pattern.

The coin purse is on hold--not for any particular reason, except that maybe that work these days has left me unenthusiastic for much beyond sleeping.  Even my Laminaria is tough going sometimes, just because I'm too tired to remember the repeats properly.

The other package that arrived last week was my birthday present from my parents--the first exception ever to the usual long wait for mail.  Somehow a normal letter can take two weeks to get here from Salt Spring but a giant box (so big I could sit in it once it was empty [yes, I did]) takes only four business days.  My theory is that it was so big they sent it on quickly just to get it out of the way.  The real gift part of it was new sheets, with chocolates to go on the pillows.

Not terribly exciting to look at, but so comfy to sleep on.  They're hand made on Salt Spring and have a wonderful texture.

The sheets didn't need such a big box as my parents sent, but they just bought a new washer and dryer and since they had such good sturdy boxes, they decided to "fill the corners."  They did cut down the dryer box, to about ten inches high, but it was still massive and full of awesome things that I have been storing in the barn for a few years.

There's my muffin tins, old sheets for more rag rugs, my iron, and a chair cushion from the days when I decorated in purples--all tucked into my giant basket, which I will use to house works-in-progress.  Most of this stuff I had requested, but the basket was a great surprise.  I had wished for it but didn't think it could get sent because it's so big.  Now I just need to get around to sitting down to sew and make more rugs and whip up some muffins...

Meat & Potatoes #4

I worked on a theme this week--a trip down memory lane in honour of my recent birthday--and played music by bands that I have seen live (Fred Penner, at the 2010 DCMF, is pictured above [in case you didn't recognize that silver fox]):

From two shows last winter here in Dawson:
1.  Rich Aucoin--At War With the Cynics

From Layla's Bluegrass and Country Inn in Nashville, TN:
2.  Hank Williams III--Six Pack of Beer
3.  Jypsi--House of the Rising Sun

From shows at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver, BC:
4.  TV on the Radio--Ambulance
5.  Medeski, Martin and Wood--Bubble House
6.  Bullfrog--Slow Down

From other shows in Vancouver:
7.  Cat Power--Metal Heart (version from Jukebox)
8.  Primus--Southbound Pachyderm
9.  Lyrics Born--Do That There

From the Dawson City Music Festival in 2005:
10.  Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir--Stop and Listen
11.  Joel Plasket Emergency--Make a Little Noise
12.  Rae Spoon--Living a Country Song

From my time in Australia:
13.  Kid Koala--Emperor's Main Course
14.  Amon Tobin--(yikes--can't figure out what this one's called)
15.  Simply Red--If You Don't Know Me By Now

From DCMF 08 (Saturday evening Palace Grand show):
16.  Justin Rutledge--I'm Your Man, You're My Radio
17.  Bell Orchestre--Stripes
18.  Basia Bulat--In the Night

From DCMF 09:
19.  Luke Doucet--Beacon on the Southpaw
20.  Mother Mother--Body of Years
21.  Chad VanGaalen--Willow Tree

And from DCMF 2010:
22.  Fred Penner--The Cat Came Back
23.  The Burning Hell--The Berlin Conference
24.  JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound--I am Trying to Break Your Heart

From the very first show I ever went to back in grade 11:
25.  Wide Mouth Mason--This Mourning

And as per my brother Colin's request*:
26.  The Rheostatics--Saskatchewan

*I haven't actually seen the Rheostatics live, but have met Dave Bidini, so it sort of counts (and I wanted to give a shout-out to Colin--he actually opened for Wide Mouth Mason at that show a million years ago).