Irish stew made with Moose meat.

Today I made Irish stew with moose meat. My buddy in Ottawa was given moose meat by a lawyer friend who represents a native tribe in some dispute with the federal government. I happen to visit while he had moose and I was given 1 pound.  I've never seem 'game meat' before. All the meat I've seen has been supermarket meat. It was nice to see meat that was red because it was oozing blood as opposed to meat that is red because it has food dye.

I loved the smell of the cooking meat when I browned it in oil before stewing it. It smelled a bit like beef, but not quite. The meat is rather lean in comparison of others meats I've seen.  The aroma of the stew filled our house and made hubby ask every 30 minutes if the stew was ready yet. Generally the stew is ready when the meat is falling apart and is in the process of becoming one with the sauce and vegetables. Until I see that, it needs to simmer. I'm really tempted to sample it. There are plenty of reasons why I shouldn't like I don't eat meat, I don't eat food cooked in alcohol and I stay away from gluten and there is wheat flour in the stew.

The consensus was the stew was awesome. Hubby had to have 2 large servings just to really get a real taste of how good it was :)

What's on the menu this Saturday?

Despite the fact I hate cooking, I often cook on Saturdays. Today was no exception. I made hummus balila. It's a middle eastern dish I discovered and fell in love with in Lebanon. The literal translation means chickpeas in oil. So it's basically chickpeas seasoned with lemon juice, olive oil and spices.  Can be eaten cold like a salad and keeps well in the fridge.  I like to make it using the colourful chickpea mix from Clic, Hubby loves my hummus balila.

The second dish I made is an 8 bean salad, based on the popular 3 bean salad recipe you can easily find. I was looking to give it more flavour since it hardly had any seasoning or spices, and stumbled upon a version where they suggest to add a creole seasoning to give it tang. I decided instead to use a bit the Berbere spice I made 2 weeks ago when I made this hot and spicy Ethiopian lentil dish. I liked the result. Looking forward to hearing what hubby has to say about this salad.

The third dish I made was a form of gluten/casein free pasta dish. I had picked up some gluten free brown rice and spinach spaghetti at Rainbow Foods in Ottawa, and decided to cook it today. As sauce I used a 4 ounce can of tomato sauce, about 1/4 cup of grated of  each Kashkaval cheese and goat mozzarella [that can be found at Loblaws]. a teaspoon of each garlic and onion flakes, and 1/8 of a cup of each black and green sliced olives. It was incredibly good. I just ate half of it.

Later today or tomorrow I'm also making Irish stew, this time with moose meat.  I've made it before with beef, or lamb or goat. Looking forward to seeing how it turns out with moose. Hubby might not believe in moose since he's never seen one but he will be eating moose :)