Showing posts with label calgary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label calgary. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Work Morning Moose

On my daily way to work, I met Mrs. Moose (again).


She just crossed "Eagle Road" while I was being hysterically excited, trying to get a good shot...


I love where we live!



Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Pumpkin Pie and Northern Lights

As you all know from one of my earlier posts I made a ton of pumpkin puree the other day.
In order to give all that left-over puree a good home I decided to be a good North american immigrant and bake a classic pumpkin pie.
Therefore I dug out a pretty good recipe on the internet, for both, a crunchy pie crust that won't get soggy and a delicious pie filling and topping.
I altered the pie filling and topping a tiny little bit, and it turned out delicious!








































For the pie crust you'll need:
(the pie crust can be made two weeks ahead)



  • 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
  • 1/4 cup (or more) ice water


  • Combine first 3 ingredients. Add butter. Using your hands, knead everything until crumbly. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup ice water; mix until dough is even, adding more ice water by teaspoonfuls if dough is dry. For two 12-inch round crusts, divide dough in half. Roll out each dough half on floured surface to 12-inch round. Wrap each crust in plastic, then foil, and freeze. Thaw in refrigerator overnight before using.

    When preparing the crust, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Transfer crust to 9-inch pie dish. Fold edges under and crimp decoratively. Evenly prick crust with a fork several times. Freeze crust 20 minutes. 




















    Line crust with nonstick foil and fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake until crust is set, about 20 minutes. Gently remove foil and beans. Return crust to oven and bake until partially cooked and golden brown around edges, pressing down on crust with back of spoon if bubbles form, about 15 minutes. Cool crust on rack. Maintain oven temperature.


    For the pie filling of one 30cm/12inch pie crust (which will fit into a 20-24cm/9inch pie dish) you'll need:

    1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
    • 2 large eggs
    • 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
    • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    • 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
    • 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
    • a dash of allspice
    • a dash of ground nutmeg
    • a squeeze of lemon juice
    • 1 cup pumpkin puree
    • 1 cup heavy whipping cream















    Whisk brown sugar, eggs, sea salt, cinnamon, vanilla extract, allspice, nutmeg, lemon juice and cloves in medium bowl. 
    Add pumpkin and cream and whisk until well blended and smooth.
    Pour filling into crust. Bake pie until filling is firm, covering crust with foil collar if browning too quickly, about 30 minutes.


    For the topping I used roasted and ground pumpkin seeds and some leftover dough for decoration.
    But as the original recipe suggests you can also use walnut pieces or any other nuts...



















    Sprinkle topping evenly over top of pie. Reduce oven temperature to 160°C/325°F; continue to bake pie until filling is set and slightly puffed in center, about 15 minutes longer. Transfer pie to rack and cool completely. 

    Serve!

















    Note:

    I know it's not as orange and bright colored as the pumpkin pie fillings you get when using canned pumpkin puree. But it tastes way better, and you actually know what you're eating...

    PS:

    We saw Northern Lights over Calgary last night! So beautiful...




    Friday, November 2, 2012

    Meanwhile In Our Garden...




    This morning we had a visitor in our garden. It's not the first time him or his other friends popped by. 
    But today I was actually able to capture him with my camera.


    Him and his buddies are after the last crabapples hanging in our tree. 
    For the winter we decided to tolerate the visits. 
    But in spring we'll need to figure out how to keep them from eating our veggies...


    If he only knew how much we like deer...for dinner...

    Thursday, October 25, 2012

    Welcome to the prairie!


    Yes, meat&chocolate is still alive. It just went through a hibernation and metamorphosis process.
    New home, new plans, new name!

    A little more than one month ago Wil, my pet rabbit Beule and I moved from Berlin to the Canadian prairies. We traded our little tiny apartment in the vibrant capital city of Germany for a life on the countryside south of Calgary.



    As you can probably imagine, this is a huge change for us, and quite an adventure.
    There are tons of things we need to learn and have to get used to.
    For example, we are now completely dependent on a car. The town of Okotoks is 5km away and it takes us about 45 minutes to get to downtown Calgary. I didn't drive for over 12 years  because I always lived in big cities with a good public transport system. Now I have to drive in order to buy groceries or to get to work, and I have to practice being a hoarder buying enough food in advance.
    So that's definitely a little challenge, because I'm used to just popping downstairs to the grocery store next door for some spontaneous wine, chocolate etc.

    But there are also a lot of good things about living on the countryside. Rather than listening to drunk party folks yelling in front of our house at 4am in the morning, we get to fall asleep to coyotes howling in the fields, and wake up to deer eating the crabapples in our garden. And then there is wide-open space, beautiful sunsets and a breathtaking view of the Rocky Mountains.

    Here are some impressions of our new home:

    Our little house on the prairies, including our temporary
    but mandatory pick-up truck. 


    Our property with the big red barn!

    Our future vegetable garden - photo taken from our kitchen window

    The view we wake up to every morning. I love the rockies!

    We even got a little barn cat. We named her Schröder, after my maiden name.
    She is still a kitten, but very hungry and growing quickly.


     Schröder, the kitten

    And yes, before you ask, my rabbit Beule arrived safe and sound and is enjoying his Canadian home....


    The rabbit loves Canada!

    ...especially his new favourite spot in front of the fireplace.

    With so much space and freedom we made tons of (food-) related plans. 

    But first of all we need to build up our lives here. 
    A few days after our arrival I took on a part-time position at the Kensington Wine Market to learn more about wine, beer and whisky. I've also been helping out as a production assistant at photo shootings for HeroImages. The last time I worked for them I was asked to do some spontaneous food styling for one of their "Christmas"-shoots.


    Food styling for HeroImages...The Christmas Ham

    So two jobs within the first two weeks of being here...I guess that's not that bad!

    You see, I've been quite busy the last couple of weeks and I'm still pretty overwhelmed. Therefore cooking and blogging didn't really happen, also because we didn't have well-functioning internet.
    Well, we cooked, but not really anything new...

    One of our standard meals for the past four weeks:
    scrambled eggs from hutterite eggs with tomatoes, chive from our garden
    and maple bacon.

    This is going to change very soon! I'm so excited and motivated to try out new recipes and get to know our new kitchen a bit better. But I also want to focus more on the self-sufficient aspect of living on the country side. Wil and I want grow our own fruits and vegetables, hunt, forage, make cheese, smoke meat and maybe have livestock of some sort.

    Hibernation is over, my friends. I'm awake and ready to throw myself into new food adventures!
    Welcome to Our Little House On the Prairie!



    Wednesday, July 11, 2012

    Back and MURRied!

    I spent the last weeks in Calgary, Alberta to get married to my wonderful husband Wil Murray.
    Yes, I'm part of the Murray-Clan now, which makes me really proud and happy. Everything was perfect. The weather was great, the location was beautiful and everyone has been so lovely and generous. We are so blessed having such wonderful friends and loving family.

    Photo by the wonderful Anna Coe!


    And best part of all this is: I don't need to refer to Wil as to my fiancé ever again! Thank God, I hated this word. Husband sounds so much more solid...

    For my hen party the ladies took me to Bistro 2210, a really nice little French place
    with amazing vintage cocktails like "St. Germain Royale" or "French 75"


    I've also been eating and drinking my way through Cowtown, and still managed to fit into my wedding dress (wohooo!). As a European I definitely missed the reasonable portion sizes and prizes for alcoholic beverages, but, hey! "Life ist not a pony farm", as we like to say in Germany, and this should not keep you from making amazing discoveries and having a good time.

    delicious pulled pork sandwich from the Cowtown Beef Shack, a little tiny hut ,
    or "Imbiss" as we like to call it in Germany, on the side of one of the main roads...

    And yes, sometimes you simply cannot resist greasy American fast food chains...

    I ate fantastic mangos (yeah, that's right...in Calgary), drank really good micro-brew beer, was served delicious beef and discovered how amazingly good portwine is
    (especially with dark chocolate pecan pie, OMG).

    Oh, and I almost forgot: WE FOUND MORELS IN CALGARY!!!!

    They were just sitting there, begging us to pick them...

    That's the area where we found the mushrooms...right before we found the mushrooms.
    And no, I won't tell you where exactly. A mushroom picker never reveals their spots!

    After searching for them by pretty much turning the nearby German forests upside down, without luck, I almost stumbled over them during a pre-lunch walk in Calgary's nature...
    A couple days later we decided to go on an official morel mushroom hunt.



    We simply fried them in butter with some wild sage we found in the same area,
     added some salt, pepper and squeezed some lemon over it.
    They strangely didn't taste all that mushroomy.
    More like a savory omelette with an almost meaty flavor to it. 

    The biggest news that I'm dying to share with you is that Wil and I will be moving to Canada in the fall.
    And it even looks like we'll be trading our super-urban city life for living on the prairies!
    I'll keep you updated on this. But I cannot tell you how excited I am.
    Oh Canada!

    In other news: I will have a new camera by the end of this week and that means I will finally be able to take good (or at least better than cell phone) photos again! And this will mean more posts, unless I get buried underneath moving-across-the-world stuff...