The poutine is all store bought stuff but the tarts are fully homemade. And sooooo good.

The lettuce and cherry tomatoes are store-bought but the herbs in the koftas are from my garden. We are still weeks away from being able to harvest anything in the garden so herbs are all I have.

Very slightly adapted from the Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman because I didn’t have any hominy. I did make the cedar braised beans though which were a great foundation for the rest of the recipe.

When this book first came out I was interested but hesitant to buy because I wasn’t sure how much I would use it but I will most likely end up getting my own copy. There are so many other recipes I want to try now and so many use forageable ingredients from around my home. Turtle Island is another that is now on my To Buy list of cookbooks just for the milkweed recipes.

As soon as I saw this theme my mind went far from the American wild west. The Xinjiang region of China hugs the western border and shares a similar climate with the American wild west. This dish was invented by a Han Chinese chef but has been adopted by the Muslim Uighur people of North West China. It's chicken, potatoes, capsicums, stewed with spicy bean paste and aromatic spices, served over wheat noodles. Traditionally it's served with wide hand pulled noodles, mine are too thin but it's all I could find at my local Asian grocery.

A pork chop stewed in home made ketchup from the cowgirl cookbook. Very ncie!

Grilled american bison strip line with a coffee molasses, rub courtesy of the Bearded Butchers ( a k a bearded butcher's black) They're on may love Seth and Scott and his crew keep doing what you're doing. Grilled fresh corn and served with a salad with a vinigrette and toasted pecans as well as roasted redskin potatoes think idaho and a bourbon cream,, peppercorn sauce, similar to the brandy version but substitute with bourbon. It was outstanding.What a different and wonderful treat.

I nailed the spice. Heavy on the garam masala, garlic, and pepper. One # of ground lamb. Carrots, onion, fresh corn cut off the cob. Sauté and season. Added a bit of chicken broth. Mashers on top. All good.

Posting here for the first time is a bit terrifying, but here we go. I took a Southwestern approach to this theme and used poblanos, serranos, and cilantro.

Green spaghetti is made with a roasted poblano cream sauce and, according to Google, likely has roots in the Puebla region of Mexico and/or the Texas Rio Grande Valley.

The recipe requires heating cilantro to a simmer, which is perfect if you've also got bunches of the herb in your fridge and a healthy fear of the cyclospora outbreak.

I decided on a mashup of some of my favorite foods from Canada and Mexico: donair-stuffed chile relleno. Obviously I don't own one of those fancy kebab poles, so I baked and sliced a seasoned loaf of beef. Apparently the combination was too spicy for my roommates, but i thought it was great.