Editor’s Note:
Residents of Dawson City are known to enjoy a good get-together with friends, especially in the long months of winter. So we asked a few Dawson “foodies” and party hosts to share some distinctive snack or beverage ideas they enjoy offering their guests during the festive season.
Two-Ingredient Coconut Macaroons
by Karen Thomas
Throw these cookies together in a snap! (Cookie dough fan alert: the dough is totally edible and yummy!)
Extra dough (rolled into a log) freezes well too. Feel free to add dried fruit, nuts, cherries and extracts of choice to change them up.
INGREDIENTS
16 oz. sweetened condensed milk
14 oz. unsweetened shredded coconut
METHOD
Preheat oven to 350F.
In a large bowl, thoroughly mix shredded coconut and condensed milk until the milk is absorbed. Add more coconut if needed.
By the spoonful, drop batter onto a baking pan lined with wax paper.
Bake for 10 minutes or until the cookies start to lightly brown. When cooled, they will be moist and chewy on the inside.
Karen Thomas finds ways to use the ingredients in her cupboard and this is a winner!
Mongolian Moose
by Gordon MacRae
Serve with basmati rice to soak up the juices, and a salad (try grilled squash and arugula, or a spinach salad).
INGREDIENTS
6 tbsp vegetable oil
2 lbs stew moose meat (alternatively bison or caribou)
6 cloves garlic
8 oz onion chopped
1/2 tsp powdered ginger
1/8 to 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp paprika
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
10 oz plain yogurt
METHOD
Brown meat in large pot, then set meat and meat juices aside.
Brown onions and garlic in the same pot, then put the meat back in.
Add the spices and stir. Add the yogurt and stir.
Place tinfoil over pot then squeeze lid onto the pot. Bake at 350F for an hour.
Check to make sure meat is not drying out. If the meat is drying out, add five to six oz boiling water and bake for another half hour. If the meat isn’t tender, bake an additional half hour.
Gordon MacRae is a regional parks superintendent and an aficionado of fine food and beverage – especially a good single malt.
Lavender Shortbread
by Meg Walker
In the childhood days of being three feet tall or shorter, my younger sister and I often enjoyed the weekend activity of hanging around the dessert table when our parents and their adult friends gathered for coffee, tea and conversation.
We would sneak our hands up onto the table and grab a cookie or three, without seeing what was there.
The results were always delicious: a mix of store-bought and homemade baking to steal off with and eat under the front stairs.
May Blair was one of the white-haired ladies in the group, famous for her ability to recite poetry and for her shortbread recipe.
There are hundreds of shortbread recipes out there. But since May Blair was born in Edinburgh, when I got older, I asked for it and stuck to her methods.
Last year, a jar of lavender my younger sis brought from Provence prompted me to try and recreate a delicious lavender shortbread I once tried in Victoria, B.C.
I altered the Scottish wisdom and lived to savour the tale.
If you like the peppery taste of this fragrant flower you can add a little more than what’s listed below. But start gently or you may end up with cookies whose fragrance triggers your sensory memories of soap.
INGREDIENTS
1 lb butter
1 cup icing sugar
4 cups flour
3 tbsp lavender blossoms
METHOD
Warm butter to room temperature, then beat in icing sugar and one cup of flour.
Grind lavender in mortar and pestle or food processor until very fine. Surprisingly, all the purple will disappear and it will look peppery. If there are any bits of stems in the ground bits, you’ll see them easily – pick them out. Add the ground goodness to the batter.
Blend in the rest of the flour gradually, or get your lazy on and use a food processor! The last cup will seem hard to add but don’t decrease the flour.
When the dough forms a ball, roll out and knead for about five minutes (you’ll probably have to add more flour).
Roll to a quarter-inch thickness, cut into desired shapes and bake for 15-20 minutes at 300F. Remove when cookies are just a touch golden.
Meg Walker is a Dawson City writer and artist who wonders if anyone knows a good lavender field in the Yukon.
Tintina Toddy
by Jeffery Mickleson
INGREDIENTS
2oz dark rum (ideally overproof)
1/2 oz Kahlua
1 tbsp butter
1oz birch syrup
Boiling water to fill coffee mug
METHOD
Mix water, butter and birch syrup your favourite mug. (Alternatively, heat first three items in the microwave.) Leave room for the booze!
Add Kahlua and rum
Enjoy! Ohh ya!
Jeffery Mickelson is a professional chef and food blogger whose column, The Cutting Board, appears regularly in What’s Up Yukon.
Xmas Wassail
by Laurie Sokolowski
The nice thing about this drink is it tastes wonderful as a non-alcoholic drink. However, if your guests wish, they can add spiced rum, nut liqueur or spirit of choice.
Hope this warms up your winter nights!
INGREDIENTS
2 Royal Gala apples
4 cups apple-orange-peach juice
4 cups water?
1 can club soda?
1/3 cup maple syrup
*1 tbsp brown sugar
*1 tsp pumpkin spice or allspice
*1 tsp cinnamon?
(* adjust to your own taste)
METHOD
Bring all ingredients to a hard boil, then simmer for a half hour or so.
Strain the apples (I put them aside to puree and include in vegan baking recipes).
Turn down to low and serve warm at your party. (You could have it in a slow cooker for guests to serve themselves.)
