Trim out the beef and enjoy some Prime cut, Grade-A Calgary without having a cow.

Calgary Rarebit

1 Tbsp butter

1 Tbsp flour

1 cup of any Wild Rose beer or Milk

½ cup grated Sylvan Star Gouda

1 Tbsp Brassica grainy mustard (Prairie Caviar)

1 free-range local egg

8 thick slices of Aviv’s bread

8 grape tomatoes, halved

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Place the bread on a parchment lined baking sheet. Toast the bread on one side until the top is crispy and lightly toasted.

Get a pot on medium-high heat. Drop in the butter right away and sprinkle in the flour. Now use a whisk to mix the melting butter and the flour. They will bunch up pretty quick, which is cool. Keep whisking and pour in a splash of beer. Holy crap, it looks like gross goo, that’s cool, keep stirring. Pour in some more beer. Holy crap, still gross, it’s cool, keep stirring and make sure it stays smooth. Go a little more on the beer and keep stirring . . . Still looks like pus, but that’s fine as long as it’s smooth. Now you can dump in the rest of the beer and keep stirring until it comes to a boil.

When it boils, turn off the heat and switch to a wooden a spoon. Stir in the cheese until it’s smooth. Then plus it with the mustard. It should be cool enough to add the egg. But make sure you stir it in quickly before it starts to cook.

Pour or spoon the gooey cheese sauce over the pieces of bread. Blap the whole mess into the oven until the top puffs up a bit and gets nicely golden and bubbly. Watch it carefully, it can go from nice and toasty to burnt in the blink of an eye.

Serve it with nice juicy tomatoes on top. And look there’s some beer left in that bottle.

Beer

Wild Rose Brewery has seasonal beers, tap room tours and party pigs. You don’t need a Golden Ticket to get into the Beer Brewery and enjoy the flowing pints of happiness.

Bldg AF23, #2 – 4580 Quesnay Wood Drive SW, in Currie Barracks. wildrosebrewery.com, 403-720-2733

Cheese

Award winning full flavoured old Grizzly Gouda is so good it makes other cheeses seem cheesey. Pick up a slab at any Calgary cheese monger Janice Beaton Fine Cheese, Springbank Cheese Company and Say Cheese Fromagerie.

Sylvanstarcheesefarm.ca

Mustard

Get some whole grain prairie caviar from Brassica in a variety of flavours. Find all kinds at The Cookbook Co., Savour Fine Foods & Kitchenwares and Community Natural Foods.

brassicamustard.com

Bread

Genius baker Aviv makes the best bread in town. Grab a loaf at his bakery (5524 1 A St SW) Friday, Saturday from 10am-2pm or around town at Market 17, Fresh Kitchen and Sunnyside Market.

sidewalkcitizenbakery.com

Remembrance cake with lemon curd

Lemon Loaf

1½ sticks of butter, room temperature

½ stick of butter for greasing

zest 4 lemons

1 cup of sugar

1 whole egg

3 egg whites

2 cups of all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp of salt

½ cup milk

1 Tbsp poppyseeds

1 Tbsp Fresh rosemary leaves, finely minced

Lemon curd

3 eggs yolks

juice of 4 lemons

½ pound (2 sticks) cold butter, cubed

½ cup sugar

PROCEDURE

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

Grease up a loaf pan with lots of butter. Lay a long strip of parchment paper the width of the pan so there are flaps hanging over sides. Grease up the parchment too.

In a stand up mixer using the whisk attachment or using a hand-held electric mixer combine softened butter, sugar, whole egg and egg whites into a fluffy batter.

In another bowl combine the flour, baking powder, poppyseeds, lemon zest, rosemary and salt.

Add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients and stop mixing as soon as they are smoothly incorporated, about 30 seconds of fast mixing. Then add the milk to the mix and beat until smooth.

Scoop into the buttered loaf pan and bake until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

Let the loaf cool in the pan, then use the parchment flap to liberate it.

Cut into slices and smear on lots of lemon curd. Serve with a cuppa.

For the curd

Put the yolks, lemon juice, sugar, and butter into a cold medium-sized pot. Get out your whisk and put the pot over medium heat. Stir—you don’t have to stir quickly, you just have to stir constantly. Don’t think you can walk away for a second. Keep going until the butter melts. You’ll notice the sauce starting to get smooth and creamy, but not as thick as curd should be. Just be patient and keep stirring. It will start to thicken up.

When it is the nice, rich, and velvety consistency of hollandaise, remove it (and keep it away) from the heat source. Pour the curd into a bowl or jar. Allow it to cool at room temperature before covering and refrigerating.

Potato French fries are too old school to be cool. Sweet potato fries are selling out like a Britney Spears concert.

If you’re looking for the next Bohemian, fry craze it’s right here.

Bohemian Squash, (aka Delicata Squash) is a Harlequin printed winter squash with a thin skin that does not require peeling. It has some of the sweet jammy notes of a sweet potato and a really lovely speckled skin.

Cut the squash into long strips or crescents and toss in any combination of spices before baking them to golden perfection. This is where you get to showcase your Bohemian uniqueness by creating spice rubs to flavour your fries.

A stop at the trés bohéme Silk Road Spice Merchant in Inglewood will give you plenty of inspiration for spice blends.

CLICK HERE for another post on Squash including a video.

DELICATA FRIES

Ingredients

1 Delicata (Bohemian) Squash

1 Tbsp sugar

2 Tbsp oil

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

Have a yabba daba doo time at the next week’s Paleo Cooking Class.

Monday September 26, 6:30-9:00 at the CookBook Co. in Calgary. It’s pretty full but since it’s demonstration and not hands-on, we can accommodate a few more cavemen and women. Class is $85 and you will learn and eat lots. Call 403-265-6066 to book now.

For those of you who missed the last issue of Impact Magazine or accidentally had it recycled prematurely by an unnamed family member, here is the muffin recipe you’ve been asking for.

Chocolate Banana Paleo Muffins

Foraging can get a little frustrating, especially when modern obligations get in the way of eating convenient food. Plan ahead and make paleo muffins that will keep beautifully in the freezer and are super handy when you’re on the move.

You get the familiar sweet taste and handy convenience of a handheld snack. These muffins are best baked a little under and kept frozen in handy little baggies for when you’re on the go.

MAKES 12 MINI MUFFINS

ingredients

1¼ cup of Almond flour

1 banana, preferably looking like leopard print

¼ cup almond oil

2 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

¼ cup cocoa

big pinch of ground clove

big pinch of ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350˚ F.

In a food processor place the banana, almond oil and eggs. Blend on high speed until totally smooth. Scrape down the sides as needed.

Add the almond flour and continue blending until totally smooth. Transfer to a bowl and add baking powder.

Mix together the wet and dry ingredients and quickly scoop some into a mini muffin tin.

Bake for 7 minutes and check for doneness by poking a toothpick into the muffin. If the toothpick comes out clean, the muffins are ready.

Underbake them slightly so they stay moist. They can get a little dry if you don’t keep an eye on them.

Don’t miss…. Monday September 26, 6:30-9:00 there will be a Paleo Cooking class at the CookBook Co. in Calgary. It’s pretty full but since it’s demonstration and not hands-on, we can accommodate a few more cavemen and women. Class is $85 and you will learn and eat lots. Call 403-265-6066 to book now.

Life isn’t all peaches and cream, but sometimes it can be.

It’s the truly perfect peachy micro-moments of unquantifiable bliss that make life worth living. Don’t get caught up in trying to beat the monotony of life with canned peach-attempts at happiness, pick the perfect moments and savour the sweetness while it lasts. Enjoy those juicy bursts of peachy perfection that give us the real warm, fuzzy navel feeling inside.

Peaches and cream chilled soup perfection

6 very ripe peaches (can also be over ripe, or slightly bruised for this recipe)

1 Tbsp freshly grated ginger

2 Tbsp runny honey

500 ml 2% or homogenized milk

250 ml of whipping cream

pinch of salt

honey as needed

Get a large pot of water on to boil.

Meanwhile fill a large bowl halfway with ice and add enough cold water to fill the rest of the bowl ¾ of the way up. Leaving enough room for the peaches to fit in the bowl.

When the water is boiling rapidly, drop all the peaches in at once. Careful not to get splashed with hot water.

Boil the peaches for 30-60 seconds to loosen the skin and then  scoop them out with a slotted spoon and dunk immediately into the ice bath to cool for 1 minute.

Use your fingers to peel away the loosened skin and discard. If the skin does not come away easily simply pop it in the boiling water for another 30 seconds and back into the ice bath to cool.

Now you can tear open the peaches using your fingers and discard the pits. Pile all the peaches in a medium pot and add the milk, honey, pinch of salt and fresh grated ginger. The whipping cream goes in much later.

Over medium heat bring the pot to a bare simmer. When you see little bubbles forming quickly around the edges of the pot and some steam rising from the middle you can remove it from the heat and get ready to purée the soup.

Using a stand up blender and blending while hot makes your soup super smooth, much better than a hand blender. However, puréeing hot soup in a stand up blender requires kitchen know-how so you don’t end up splatter painting your kitchen and face with the hard to colour match “peach explosion”.

Remove the little plastic thingy center hole from the lid of your stand up mixer, and cover the hole with a folded dry tea towel. (This stops it from being airtight, which would cause an ugly kick at the start—although the steam can sometimes get slightly warm on your hand.) Fill up your blender only half way and do batches. Start on low, and build up the speed incrementally.

When the soup is looking smooth, turn it off.

Pour the soup into a container, wrap the top tightly with plastic wrap and get it into the fridge to cool for at least 2 hours.

When you are ready to serve get a large bowl and a big whisk and beat the whipping cream until it is nice and thick. Soft peaks if you want to get technical.

Add 1/3 of the whipped cream to the peach purée and mix it in until smooth. Add another 1/3 of the whipping cream and mix in. Now add the last of the whipped cream and stir it all until smooth.

To serve, simply pour the thick creamy soup into lovely chilled bowls or teacups. You could also add a splash of champagne to each serving or dig out that bottle of peaches schnapps.

As seen in Swerve Magazine…

This corn mutt goes up against the big dogs…

Today at the CBC Stampede pancake breakfast, I will strut along side some top pedigree chefs in the first annual CBC Radio Corn Dog Competition.  I will have to compete against proper chefs like Chef Mike Dekker from Rouge Restaurant, winner of the San Pellegrino #60 restaurant in the world and Chef Grant from Wurst who has no shortage of beer and sausage. It will be an honour to cross sausages with such distinguished gentlemen.

But this cornmutt will give the big dogs a run for their money. The twist is an assortment of Spragg Meat sausages skewered, tossed into the same beer batter and fried to golden perfection. The small rounds of surprise sausage encased in crispy batter make it easy to bite without having to gnaw it like a chew toy.

The judges, distinguished food critic John Gilchrist and food writer extraordinaire Julie Van Rosendaal will sample the corn dogs to determine the winner.

I will announce the winner when the results come in…

Corn mutt with Heinz 57

INGREDIENTS

4 assorted uncooked sausages from Spragg Meats

Ideally your sausages are all the same size, but don’t stress if they are not

-       Bratwurst

-       breakfast sausage

-       smokie

-       garlic sausage

-       chorizo

-       Luinguica

-       Weisswurst

Batter

1 cup all-purpose flour

¼ cup yellow cornmeal

1 egg

1 cup beer, Wild Rose SOB

1 tsp baking powder

oil for frying, preferably cheap canola or corn oil

serve with Heinz 57

You’ll need 4 large wooden skewers

Procedure

Preheat the oven to 450˚F.

Place the sausages on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and plenty of space between the wieners.

Bake sausages for 12-15 minutes until they are cooked through. You can check to see if they are done by cutting one open and checking inside to see if it’s cooked.

Transfer the cooked sausages to a plate and chill in the fridge for 1 hour.

When the wieners are chilled you can start preheating your oil in a deepfryer or a deep pot.

Bring the oil to 350-375˚F.

Cut the cooked and chilled sausages into 1-inch rounds.

Alternating between sausages, place rounds of each sausage onto long skewers. It should look like a rainbow sausage kebab. Pack the rounds closely together so they form a tight bunching. Now make the batter.

For the batter combine the ingredients in a tall deep, vessels like a beer mug or a jug. You may need to double or triple the recipe in order to fully submerge the corn dog. In the vessel combine all the dry ingredients. Add the egg and beer while whisking to incorporate. If you are being picky you may want to strain out the lumps, but don’t get too finicky, it’s a corndog afterall.

Let the batter rest for 10 minutes, then dip the skewered sausage into the batter making sure it is super thoroughly coated in batter. Remove the sausage and let the last few drop drip off. Give it a little twirl to make sure it all stay on and to add a little flourish to the proceedings.

Submerge the corn dog  completely into the hot oil and hold it by the wooden skewer. Cook until the outside forms a nice golden crust, about 5 minutes

Let the corndog cool before chomping it down with some Heinz 57.

Each bite will be a tasty surprise and you’ll be sure to win best in show…

If your mom irons your undies, lets you win at arm wrestling and bakes you cookies you too are a lucky son-of-a-mom. Disconnect the umbilical cord and show some love by baking these easy and delicious shortbread cookies. They make a really nice treat with a cuppa tea and a pedicure… and for Mother’s day you can return the favour.

My mom’s shortbread cookies

1 cup of all-purpose flour

½ cup (aka: 1 stick, ¼ pound) butter (room temperature)

¼ cup packed brown sugar

Icing glaze

1 cup of icing sugar, sifted

2 Tbsp lemon juice

3 Tbsp boiling water

Preheat your oven to 350˚ F.

Get yourself a medium sized bowl and place the butter, flour and brown sugar in the bowl.
Go wash your hands with warm soapy water and dry them before you shake the water all over the floor.

Using your thumbs and fingertips work the flour with the butter to form small granular bits of dough.

When all the flour has been worked into the butter and you have a nice pile of crumbly bits you can start forming a big dough ball. Unlike most butter doughs, you can use the warmth of your hands to warm the butter to help it all form together. If the dough is crumbly, that’s called ‘short’.

Make one big dough ball and place it onto a clean, lightly floured counter. Dust your rolling pin (or empty wine bottle) with flour and roll the dough out. If it is super crumbly and falling apart just press it all back together to form a tighter dough ball. Roll the dough into any shape as long as it is an even ¼ inch thick. Now cut out all the cookies using a 1 inch round cookie cutter. You just want little cookies because they are quite rich and you only need a 2 bite cookie. Carefully pick up the cookies and transfer them to a parchment lined baking sheet. Amass the remaining scraps and make another dough ball. Roll it out and cut out some more cookies.

When all the cookies are cut out, use a 4-pronged fork to make 3 little marks on top. It’s called docking, and momma said dock them out.

Bake the cookies for 8 minutes. The cookies won’t go very brown, they stay quite light coloured. But you can bake them a little longer if you want them to get a little more brown.

Meanwhile sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the liquids all at once. Stir it all up with a whisk until there are no more lumps. You may want to strain out the lumps or some of your cookies will appear to have zits.

Place a wire cooling rack over a piece of parchment paper or a plate. When the cookies are done transfer them to the cooling rack and spoon the icing over the cookies while they are still warm. If you wait until they are cool, the butter forms a sort of repellent surface that the icing doesn’t stick to.

Makes 24 1-inch round shortbread cookies.

* Do not double this recipe. If you want twice as much, make 2 batches. For some reason it’s the only way it works.

MORE Mom stuff at SwerveCalgary.com

Mom blogs

Here is a little shout out to the local Calgary mommy bloggers. Hopefully someone is baking for you guys today.

www.dinnerwithjulie.com

www.backseatgourmet.blogspot.com

www.thepinkpeppercorn.blogspot.com

www.foodmamma.blogspot.com

The grown up hippies are thinking less about scoring and more about cholestrol. Here’s some real flower-powered savoury granola made with heart-friendly canola oil that will get your motor humming along to the song. Live longer and stick it to the ‘man’ by using Highwood Crossing local, organic, non-gmo canola oil. Canola is also used to make bio-diesel so you can finally dust off the old shaggin’ wagon to offset your carbon footprint.

Savoury Canola Granola

Dry stuff

2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal

3/4 cup whole raw almonds

2 Tbsp canola seeds

1 Tbsp mustard powder

1 tsp paprika

¼ tsp cayenne

Wet stuff

3/4 cup tomato, V8 or carrot juice

¼ cup honey or maple syrup

Preheat the oven to 275°F.

In a big bowl, mix all the dry stuff together, then add the wet stuff, and mix with your hand. Don’t freak out because it looks like slop. The liquid will all evaporate during baking.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Plop little globs freely all over the baking sheet. Just let it plop, and don’t muck with it—the more you muck with it, the more it will glom together.

Blap it in the oven. Every 20 minutes, take the tray out and with a spatula flip the granola while breaking it up into slightly smaller pieces. By the third flip (60 minutes of baking), the pieces should be ever so slightly damp and bite-sized. Then blap it back into the oven for the last time, baking for 20 more minutes. Without opening the oven door, turn the oven off, and leave the tray in the oven for 2 hours. Cooling it this way is crucial to get the granola crunchy.

Once cooled completely put the granola in a sealable container, and add your nut medley. Shake it all up and you’ve got savoury granola.

Serve it on plain yogurt, or sprinkled on a fresh salad, or munch it straight from the container.

Makes about 3 cups of granola.

For more info about Canola,

go check out the rest of my article at  SWERVE.

The multifaceted sweet potato can easily turn the tables on taste because it is delicious and healthy. The dark orange flesh is lusciously jammy and chock full of nutrients like beta carotene, calcium and loads of good stuff. Also, it can be enhanced with marshmallows, brown sugar or maple syrup they make a great side dish… or even a tasty dessert. This batata* tatin is a clever new look at a sweet potato pie that you can enjoy as a side dish for dinner with roast chicken or as dessert with whipped cream. Makes you wish you had an extra mouth.

batata* tatin

1 package of frozen puff pastry

½ cup maple syrup

½ cup butter

2-3 large sweet potatoes

really big pinch of cinnamon to taste

Check the package directions for the puff pastry, as it may require a couple hours of defrosting. Thaw the dough before starting the sweet potatoes.

Peel and cut the sweet potatoes into 4 rounds. Place the rounds on their flat side and quarter them.

Whip out a good 10—12 inch oven proof pan (all metal, no plastic). A cast iron would be ideal.

Get the pan over medium heat and melt the butter with the maple syrup.

Once everything is melted start filling the pan with chunks of sweet potato. Make sure all the sweet potatoes are snuggly fit into the pan. Cook the sweet potatoes over medium heat for 15 minutes, flip them over and continue cooking while you roll out the puff pastry.

Dust the top of the potatoes with plenty of cinnamon.

On a well floured surface, roll out the pastry into a 13 inch (approximate) circle, can be trimmed using a sharp pairing knife. Fold the circle of pastry in half and half again to make it easy to pick up and lift onto the pan. Place the dough point in the center and unfold the pastry so it covers the pan. Fold the over-hanging sides in like you’re tucking the sweet potatoes into bed.

Get it into the oven quickly and bake at 400˚F for 45 minutes.

When it is done, let it rest for 10 minutes before holding a cutting board tightly on top and flipping the whole thing over as fast as you can.

Knock on the pan three times for good luck, then take the pan away and cut into wedges. If any bits stick to the pan, pick them off and put them back in their spot.

Serve as a side dish with roast chicken and sautéed spinach or for dessert with toasted pecans and some sweetened vanilla whipped cream.

* A potato by any other name would not taste as sahweeeeet! European botanists made some misnomers with plants coming from the New World. Sweet potatoes (indigenously called batatas in Barbados) were introduced to Europe by Chris Columbus on his first voyage. 200 years later potatoes (indigenously called papas in Peru) came over and started getting called patata, which led to potato and subsequently sweet potato.

Homemade butter! It’s an old school skill but its not beyond modern understanding and appreciation.

Homemade Butter

2 cups heavy whipping cream (to make butter)

To make butter, pour the cream into a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. Shake the jar until you have butter (this can take 5 minutes and it helps to share the shaking with a partner. Hold the jar near the lid, holding the jar on the glass will warm up the cream. Butter forms between 12-18˚C.

First stage: the cream becomes whipping cream.

Second stage: the whipping cream gets lumpy

Third stage: the fat globules separate from the liquid and start to form butter clusters.

Fourth stage: the clusters amass and form one large lump of butter.

Remove the lump of butter from the jar and run it under cold water for 3 minutes while you knead the lump. This helps remove the buttermilk which ensures a longer lasting butter that won’t spoil quickly.

Boter koek, Dutch Butter cake

Bonus Butter Cake recipe from Caren and Patrick who took cooking class called Better with Butter at the cookbook Co. way back in November. Thanks to my co-chef Kevin Kent from Knifewear and the 10 fearless attendees who ate 12 course of butter kissed food the class could not have been better.

Botterkoek, Dutch Butter cake

2/3 cup soft, room temperature butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp almond extract

1 egg, beaten

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

topping

1 egg

1 tsp milk

slices of blanched almonds

PROCEDURE

Preheat your oven to 325˚F.

Grease a 9-inch cake or pie pan.

In a Stand up mixer with a paddle attachment cream butter and sugar. Creaming means whip em around on high speed until the butter gets all fluffy and the whole mess turns a couple shades lighter. Scrap the chunky bits off the sides if necessary.

Turn off the mixer and add the egg and the almond extract. Fire up the mixer slowly until the egg’s all mixed in.

Using a spoon or a spatula, add the flour and baking powder. Stir it all until smooth and transfer the mess to your pre-greased baking pan.

Mix together the egg and milk with a pastry brush.