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

Everybody knows that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles love pizza…

It was a totally bodacious surprise when the tubuloso eatery UNA Pizza + Wine approved the TMNT over the other two pitches of Commedia Dell Arte and the classic renaissance artists. You can check out your four fav turtles, Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Raphael and Donatello at UNA for as long as they stay up.

Here is the mural up on the wall at UNA. It goes nicely with the far-out 4-Maggi Pizza and maybe some righteous patatas bravas! Party on dudes!

I’ve been to Una a few times since the mural went up and I’ve even made attempts to get the servers to make disparaging remarks, but overall the mural seems to have been well received.

The big question I’ve had is “Why do the ninja turtles all have the same coloured head bands?”

For those TMNT nerds who can remember way back to the comic book origins of the characters you’ll recall that the original Eastman and Laird foursome all wore the same red bands… but their weapons were enough to tell them apart. Leonardo swings katanas, Raphael sports a pair of sai, Donatello has the reach with his bo staff and Michelangelo gets funky with his nunchaku. Cowanbunga dudes!

Give me a home where the bison roam and the water buffalo make mozzarella. Bison bison are the big brown beasts of the open prairie plains, but they are often called Buffalo. A true Buffalo (or water buffalo) Bubalus Bubalis is also a member of the Bovinae family indigenous to Asia, but best known in Europe for producing fatty milk used to make creamy mozzarella cheese. We can blame the French fur trappers for mislabeling the Bison, a misnomer that still to this day has folks using Bison and Buffalo interchangeably. To alleviate any naming confusion and showcase the difference between these two bohemeth bovinae here is a pizza topped with the distinctly delicious Bison pepperoni and Buffalo mozzarella.

BISON and BUFFALO PIZZA

INGREDIENTS

1 package of sliced Bison pepperoni

from Olson’s High Country Free-Range Bison or Valta Bison

2 large balls of Buffalo Mozzarella

from Lina’s Italian Market or Janice Beaton Fine Cheese

1 package of pizza dough*

from Lina’s Italian Market

500ml container of Lina’s Bruschetta or 1 cup of tomato sauce of choice

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese

PROCEDURE

If you are using the frozen dough, allow it to thaw on a parchment paper lined baking sheet for 30 minutes before topping.

Preheat oven to maximum power. Try 600˚F. If that doesn’t compute your max temperature is likely 550˚F. Either way, crank it up. Making a good pizza requires high temperatures.

If you are using the fresh dough, dust your counter top before dropping your blob down with a gentle thud. Dust with more flour and roll out your dough in to some semblance of a circle using a rolling pin or wine bottle. I try not to worry if it ends up looking like the shape of African, just make sure it is an even thickness.

Get the dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet before adding toppings.

Evenly top your pizza with either bruschetta or your favourite tomato sauce. Distribute the bison pepperoni all over the pizza. Use your fingers to tear the buffalo mozzarella into small pieces and distribute evenly all over the pepperoni. Grate the parmesan directly on top of everything, making sure everything is evenly covered.

If the oven is up to temperature, chuck the pie in the oven quickly so you don’t lose heat and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the top is beautiful and golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave it in the baking sheet for 5 minutes to cool slightly before cutting it into wedges with a pizza cutter or a long knife.

Enjoy while the mozzarella is nice and stringy and the crispy pepperoni is pipping hot.

Try it once with this simple recipe, but next time feel free to customize with your own spin on toppings.

fresh pick

The ingredient list today requires a bit of roaming. But if you follow the Bison philosophy of roaming to eat you can start off with breakfast at the Calgary Farmer’s Market  (510 77^th Avenue S.E.) or Valta Bison (703- 23^rd Avenue S.E.) while you get Bison Pepperoni. Then hoof it up to Lina’s for lunch while you pick up pizza dough, bruschetta and mozzarella at Lina’s Italian Market (2202 Centre Street N.E.). Finally you can meander to the best pizza joint in the city for dinner (insert your address here).

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.

Scarborough Fair was an annual raucous medieval festival of merriment organized to conduct a little bartering. This pleasant peasant party lasted from The Feast of the Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary (Aug 15) until the Feast of St.Michael (Sept 29). Raise thine flagons of good-cheer beer and snarffle down a herby minced meat hand-pie whilst thou sing a classic ballad in honour of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme.

Scarborough hand pies

Makes 4 handpies, the recipe is easily doubled

Hot water crust

1 ½ cups flour

pinch of salt

1 egg

1/3 cup water

1 stick of butter, cubed

filling

150g (approx ½ cup) Spragg Meats Ground pork

150g (approx ½ cup) Spragg Meats breakfast Pork sausage

¼ cup of raisins or currants

2 sprigs each of parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (leaves only)

egg-wash

1 beaten egg for brushing and sealing

Sift flour into a large bowl.  Make a hole in the middle and toss in the egg, cover it with some flour.

In a small pot combine the water, salt and butter, bring to a boil until the butter is completely melted.

Pour the hot water into the dry ingredients and use a table knife to mix it all together until you form a dough ball.

Gather the dough into a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and blap it all into the fridge to chill for 1 hour.

Meanwhile prepare your meatballs.

Combine the finely chopped herbs with the meat and divide the meat into 4 equal balls. Roll them tightly.

Cut off 1/3 of the dough ball and set aside for the lids. Roll out the remaining dough until it is ¼ inch thick. Cut out 4 5-inch circles using a bowl as a cutting guide.

Roll out the remaining 1/3 of the dough ball to ¼ inch thick. Cut out 4 3-inch lids using a smaller bowl as a cutting guide.

Brush beaten egg around the edge of the 5-inch disk of dough.

Place a meatball in the center of the disk of dough and pull up the sides to form an open pocket around the meatball. Now place a lid on top and crimp the edges to seal, pinching and crimping all around to form a seal. Now poke a small hole in the top to vent and brush the tops with the remaining egg wash. If you like you can cut out some little leaf shapes from the remaining dough to place on the top of the pie. So ornate!

Pop them back into the fridge for 20 minutes to firm up.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375˚F.

Place the pies an inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake at 375˚ for 15 minutes, take out the pies and reduce the heat down to 325˚F for 15 minutes or until golden brown and beautiful.

Set them on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes before eating one with a nice flagon of ale.

For some pictures on shaping handpies, check out an older post for Plumpies

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…

Phew! The pig is finally out of the bag!

Charcut is famous for, amongst other things, their Alley Burger. That elusive late night back alley treat that gets randomly announced via twitter and facebook. Well things just got a lot more random…

Those Alley Burgers will now be popping up all over Calgary in their very own food truck. Follow the Alley Burger Truck on twitter and facebook to find out where they will be flipping burgers.

The juicy burger is still made with Spring Creek Beef Chuck and served with hand-cut duck fat-fried potatoes or plus hit the gas with poutine.

Chef Mike Batke, former Executive Chef at the Westin Bayshore is stoked to rev up his road grill machine and park it randomly around the city.

By the way I got the opportunity to design the Alley Burger logo, but the real outstanding artwork will come from Graffitti artist David Brunning AKA WWW.THEKIDBELO.COM …. man this dude can tag it.

Don’t get corralled with the rest of the herd and buy frozen lamb from New Zealand. The Kiwis rear nice lamb, but that doesn’t mean the grass is greener on the other side of the world. It’s a long flight to Calgary so keep our local free-ranging lamb grounded and don’t get fleeced on the import markup.

Support the local shepherds, it’s exhausting work watching sheep jump over fences…

lamburger

600g ground Ewenique Farms lamb, divided in 4 balls

200g St. Agur Blue cheese (or French blue cheese of choice)

1 Red pepper, sliced into strips

1 Onions, sliced

oil for frying

2 crusty hamburger buns of choice, toasted

1 ripe tomato, sliced

1 little bunch of arugula

rusty mayonnaise

½ cup mayonnaise

½ tsp smoked paprika

1 clove of garlic, grated

salt, to taste

Get started on the sautéed peppers and onions. Pop a frying pan onto the stove over medium high heat to heat up for 5 minutes. When the pan is hot, add the oil and immediately toss in the onions and peppers. Sautee until they are softened and with some nice colouring. If any part of the frying pan starts to get a prematurely burnt, just pour a little splash of water on that spot and scrape up the dark bits as they’ll mix happily in with the onions. When they are soft and lovely, transfer to a bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, make the mayonnaise. Just mix the mayonnaise with paprika, grated garlic. Stir out any paprika lumps and give it a taste. You can add more paprika and salt if you like.

If you’re into the ol’ barbecue, have at ‘er.

If you have a cast-iron pan, it’s actually a better choice than a barbecue. Get the pan on the stove over high heat and let it preheat for at least 8 minutes to get crazy hot. You won’t need added fat if it’s blazing hot.

Flatten the meat into patties that are ½ inch larger than the bun. The patties will likely be very thin. But don’t worry you’re doing a double patty for each burger.

Toast the buns at 425˚F in the oven while you fry the burgers… watch them closely so they don’t burn!

Get the first 2 patties in the pan and cook until the blood pools on top, flip and continue cooking until done. Transfer to a clean plate.

Fry the next two patties and as soon as you flip them pile on the blue cheese and pepper/onion mixture and top with the cooked patty. Cook until the cheese just softens and the bottom burger cooks through.

Mayo-up your buns and get the hot meat in there quick. Top with a slice of tomato, some more mayo, some arugula and the top of the bun. Get some napkins and get into it.

Check out Swerve online for everything relevant, resonant, relentlessly local.