Caribou head soup: 'You don't want to waste anything'

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It was a meal Millie Kuliktanahad been dreaming of for three long months while in hospital: Caribou head soup.

It's not a meal you'll easily find in a southern citylike Edmonton but that's where Millie Kuliktana went fora double lung transplant.

"The only country food you get is what people send you from home," Kuliktana said in an interview with CBC Northwind host Wanda McLeod.

"After I finally came out of the hospital, I had been treasuring this one caribou head that my husband had sent down from our freezer at home," she said.

"I was looking forward to having that broth after getting home from three months living in hospital."

Kuliktana's still recovering in Edmonton, and says trying to eat healthy ispart of her recovery. Caribou head soup is the perfect recipe for that.

"The caribou head soup started out with the traditional way that grandma and my mom would boil the caribou head and drink the rich broth," she said. "You don't want to waste anything."

Kuliktana says she takes all the meat off of the bones, dices it up and boils it again with her ingredients.

For this batch of caribou head soup she used what she had in her fridge; kale based coleslaw mix.

Kuliktana shared it with her sisters and friends from the hospital.

Then she shared the recipe CBC North's Facebook group, The Arctic Kitchen: Recipes of the North.

"Being called the Arctic Kitchen, the caribou truly represents the Arctic."

And for Kuliktana, caribou represents even more than that.

"It was so nourishing.It was healthy too."