Recipes for "Helpless"

Here are the recipes for the Traditional Native Feast!

Three Sisters Soup

• 3 cans chicken broth
• 2 cups frozen corn, thawed
• 1 cup green beans or yellow wax beans, washed and ends trimmed off
• 1½ cups of butternut squash (or pumpkin)
• 2 bay leaves
• Salt and pepper to taste
• handful of fresh basil leaves, torn and 1/2 -1 tsp dried oregano

1. Pour the chicken broth into a large saucepan or kettle. Heat until the broth begins to boil.
2. Add the corn, beans, squash, and bay leaves.
3. Lower heat and simmer for about an hour.
4. Remove the bay leaves, and transfer the soup in batches to the blender to puree if desired.  Add basil and oregano to taste.  Serve with bannock.

Bannock

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 2 Tablespoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups milk 

1. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a large mixing bowl.
2. Measure the milk and add it to the flour mixture, stirring with a fork to combine. A dough should form. If the mixture seems too dry and crumbly, add more liquid, one Tablespoon at a time.
3. Turn the dough out onto a surface lightly coated with flour. Knead for about 3 minutes. 
4. Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C).
5. Pat the dough into a circle about ¾-inch thick. Transfer the dough to a well-greased cookie sheet. Prick the surface of the dough all over with a fork.
6. Bake about 20 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Roasted Wild Duck
 - there are all kinds of recipes for roasted duck on the internet, but this one sounds so simple, delicious and more authetically native to me.  :-)  

• 10-12 sage leaves
• a few tablespoons of coarse salt
• 1 duck

Preheat the oven to 350.  Bash the sage leaves up in a pestle and mortar with the salt to make a kind of paste.  Rub this paste all over the skin of the duck.  Lay the duck on a roasting tray, breast side down.   If you like, you can cut up some onions and a bulb of garlic and add them to the roasting pan. Roast for 2 hours - turning a few times during cooking.  Make sure that you have the duck breast-side UP for the last 1/2 hours so the skin can get nice and crispy.   Drain and reserve fat when needed.  After 2 hours, check the duck for done-ness (the leg meat should come easily off the bone) and cook for an additional 1/2 hour if necessary.

• Venison Roast with Apples
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•            - here is one version of a venison roast.  Apparently the apples help to cut some of the wild taste of the meat, although some would argue that's what they love about venison.  Again, there are all kinds of versions of this on-line so feel free to find one that appeal to you.
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• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 pounds boneless venison roast
• 1 large apple, cored and quartered
• 2 small onions, sliced
• 4 cloves crushed garlic
• 1 cup beef broth
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1. Spread the olive oil on the inside of a slow cooker. Place the venison roast inside, and cover with apple, onions, and garlic. Turn to Low, and cook until the roast is tender, about 6 to 8 hours.
2. When the roast has cooked, remove it from the slow cooker, and place onto a serving platter. Discard the apple. Stir the water and bouillon into the slow cooker until the bouillon has dissolved. Serve this as a sauce with the roast.

Wild Rice with Mushrooms

   Cook wild rice as directed on the package, using beef broth in place of water and adding a few handfuls of dried wild mushrooms to the water before cooking.  Stir in a few tablespoons of butter right before serving.

Creamy Butternut Squash

• 1 med-lg butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and cut into 1" slices
• 6 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
• salt and pepper - to taste
• 1 cup plus 2 tbsp light cream
• 1/2 - 1 tsp nutmeg
• a wineglass of white wine
• 2 handfuls of freshly grated parmesan cheese

1. Mix the squash chunks with the thyme, salt and pepper and a few tbsp of olive oil to coat.  Lay the squash in a stoneware dish.  Cover and cook for about 30 min at 400F until the square begins to soften.
2. Combine the cream, nutmeg, glass of wine, and one handful of cheese.  
3. Remove the squash from the oven.  Pour the cream mixture over top and sprinkle with the rest of the cheese.  Bake for another 10 min - uncovered - until golden and bubbling.

Feel free to use your favorite crust recipe for your own variation of these pies.  I have included a link to a sample recipe for each pie, but go ahead and make it your own.  Try to avoid processed foods to keep these pies as traditional as possible.


3 Berry Pie
 - try this one

Pumpkin Pie
 - here's a reliable recipe 

Honey and Nut Pie
 - this one uses pecans and looks super good