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!

Beans, Pears and Bacon

Just a quick post because me and my husband are currently busy getting everything ready for moving across the world. Between painting, packing and bureaucracy stuff there is almost no time and motivation to cook. Therefore we mainly eat pizza and asian food these days.

This Northern German speciality I made a couple of days ago. It's a quick meal or a nice side dish.
Just cut off the ends of about 500g of beans cut them in 3-4cm sized pieces and boil them in salted water for about 12 minutes. You can add some dried savory, as well, for more flavor.

In the meantime fry bacon cubes (approx. 200-250g) in a big pan. Once they are nicely browned and crispy, take one or two pears, remove the cores and cut the pears in cubes as well. Add them to the bacon. Spice with salt pepper and a dash of brown sugar, maple syrup or honey. If you like you can douse with a bit of whisky or brandy.

Throw in the beans, mix everything and serve.

I know it's not the original recipe for Pears, beans and bacon. It's just a quick alternative.
But it tastes great!

Tarte Tatin with Whisky Apples and Blackberries

Our last trip to the woods didn't really work out the way we thought. 
Due to a lack of rain and high temperatures we hardly found any mushrooms. 
What seemed to become a rather disappointing trip turned into a quite successful day otherwise.

We went home with a basket full of wild carrots, Canadian golden rut, sea buckthorn, blackberries 
(so sweet, and definitely the best blackberries I ever had!) and apples, 
that we stole picked from trees near the forest...and at least a few mushrooms.

Wil made a weirdly delicious cold carrot dill soup for which he used the wild carrots 
and our homegrown dill seeds for flavoring 
(the carrots we picked were to hard and chewy to eat, but very aromatic!). 
We used the golden rut for tea. Not sure what to do with the sea buckthorn, yet. 
It's still sitting in the fridge waiting for something to happen...

But with the apples and the blackberries I decided to make my first Tarte Tatin. 
And let me tell you, that was not that easy. 
I probably didn't choose the best recipe... 
But I'll do it again. It turned out pretty well!

Ingredients 

200g flour

50g sugar 

100g cold butter (cut in small cubes/flakes)

1 dash of salt

1 dash of cinnamon

plain flour for dusting

150-200g blackberries

1,25-1,5 kg apples (e.g. Cox orange or Granny Smith)

2 Tbsp Whisky

2-3 Tbsp lemon juice

150 g sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

75 g cold butter (cut in small cubes/flakes)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 200°C.

For the shortcrust quickly mix flour, sugar,butter flakes salt and cinnamon until it comes together in a dough. 
Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Peel apples, remove the cores and cut each into 8-12 wedges. 
Put the wedges in a bowl and sprinkle with lemon juice. 
Add whisky and cinnamon.

Take a heavy-bottomed pan and evenly sprinkle the bottom with sugar. 
Place on the hob over medium heat, turning the pan frequently and making sure the sugar doesn't burn. 
Let the sugar caramelize. It's about right when it turns golden brown. 

Remove from heat and place one half of the blackberries over the bottom of the pan. 
Arrange the apple wedges on top of them and place the other half of the blackberries on top of the apple wedges. 

Dot the butter flakes on top.

Dust a clean surface and a rolling pin with flour and roll out your shortcrust until it's big enough to cover your tarte pan. 
Carefully lay the shortcrust over the top of the pan.

Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes or until the crust turns golden brown.

Using oven gloves take a plate that is larger than the tarte pan and place it on top of the pan.

Holding the plate and the pan firmly together, quickly and carefully flip both, so that the pan is on top and the plate is on the bottom. Slowly remove the pan. The tarte should be left on the serving place with the fruits on top.

Let cool down for a few minutes.

Serve warm with vanilla ice or custard.

PS: 

I will try a different shortcrust recipe next time. The dough was really hard to roll out. It was very crumbly, which is a common problem with shortcrust, I know. But still, I had better ones before. Even though it tasted really good.

The reason could also be that I used whole wheat flour with the regular flour as well...

I saw on some websites that you can also just use a cast iron pan for it. I'll do that next time, as well!

You don't necessary need to marinate the apple wedges in whisky. It still tastes really good without it.

ZULA Hummus Café

The best hummus in Berlin for good and reasonable prices.

Authentic Israeli cuisine served by super friendly folks who, if you wish, will explain how to best enjoy the different dishes.

Everything is fresh and homemade. 

The pita bread is warm and soft and the garlic lemon dressing rounds out the hummus' flavors perfectly.

Also try the homemade lemonade with fresh red beets. It's very refreshing!

That was our late breakfast...

ZULA Hummus Café, located on Husemannstr. 10 in 10435 Berlin.

Tomato, Fresh Fig and Blue Cheese Salad

So for the past days we've been busy harvesting tons of balcony tomatoes and figuring out what to do with them. Every day there are just more and more of them.

Ok, the classics Greek or Caprese salad are great, but can get a little boring after a while.

So I looked through my cook books and searched the internet for a delicious alternative.

One of my favourite sources for food related news and recipes certainly is the New York Times Dining&Wine section. And that's where I found this Tomato, Fresh Fig and Blue Cheese Salad.

We've been eating this salad for the last couple of days. It is SOOOO GOOD!

Really easy to prepare and all those different ingredients are in perfect balance with each other. 

The figs add a subtle sweetness that balances the stronger flavor of the blue cheese. 

Together with ripe sweet but slightly acidic tomatoes, thyme, roasted pine nuts and a vinaigrette of olive oil, sea salt and balsamico, it's heavenly!

Seriously, try it yourself. 

You'll be surpirsed how good it is and how quick and easy it is prepared!

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons pine nuts
• 1 large or 2 small ripe tomatoes, about 8 ounces, thinly sliced
• 1/2 pound fresh figs, cut into quarters
• 1 ounce crumbled blue cheese, like Fourme d’Ambert, more to taste
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
• Black pepper.

Preparation

1.       In a small bowl, whisk together vinegar and salt. Whisk in oil. 

2.       In a small skillet over medium-low heat, toast pine nuts, shaking the pan occasionally, until light golden, about 2 minutes.

3.       Spread tomato slices on a large plate. Scatter fig quarters and pine nuts over tomatoes. Sprinkle with cheese and thyme, drizzle with dressing and finish with pepper.

 Bon appetit!