Life Without Lemons: January 2016

LOCAL SHERWOOD: REVIEW

Back in the UK the term “popping down the local” refers to heading to your favorite pub and by favorite it could simply mean the closest one to your house. Your local pub was the hub for your social week. Sunny Saturday afternoon in the beer garden, Wednesday nights for the week’s pub quiz and generally just a meeting point for your group of friends to gather, plan, laugh, chat and drink.

We noticed a lack of that traditional ‘pub’ culture when we moved to Canada and most social interactions here revolve more around a place to eat rather than a place to meet and drink. So when I was asked to attend the opening party of the Sherwood Park LOCAL, I was curious and a little excited that we could finally be getting our very own Canadian ‘local’.

WHAT IS LOCAL?

…kind of like your living room, just with better food and people to serve you beer.

…fanatical about craft beer and rotating new selections every day.

…a pretty good place to grab Fully Loaded Nachos (the Where Magazine said it, not us).

…passionate about great food and the best ingredients.

This was a well-oiled opening party. Friendly, attentive staff wherever you look, food an offer in every corner and a very generous flow of drinks.

LOCAL has a great open kitchen concept where the chefs were highlighting their use of fresh products and even baking their own bread in house.

I loved the Share Plate section of the menu, perfect drinking food;

Hand-made Guacamole & Chips 7
Fresh Tortilla Chips & Salsa Roja 5½
Perogies 8
Chicken Quesadilla 7½
Crispy Calamari 7½
Szechuan Edamame 6½

I love their fishbowl style cask room. Really smart and interesting to be able to see what is going on.

ROTATING TAPS AT LOCAL;

we switch it up. We keep a short, sharp selection of favourites & craft offerings, which means we change our taps often to guarantee the freshest beer possible, every time.

There are large screen TV's wherever you look, a great central bar that gives it a true "Pub" feel and a fabulous patio area that will really shine in the summer months. There are couch's where you can play board games, shuffle board and even a small scale curling rink.
You can feel the fun in every corner of this space. Its bright, cool, buzzing but still relaxed enough to go there wearing your work clothes.

Kids are allowed up until 9 pm and I will certainly be back with the whole family and may even plan to sneak away from my younger boys and even have a grown up date night!!

A very welcome addition to Sherwood Park!

Check out their web site here

#360 - 222 Baseline Road
Sherwood Park
780-417-3182

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, by Elyse Chatterton

Meat

MOOSE PASTYS

Christmas and New Year came and went in the fog of a well-made gin and tonic and the mere blink of an eye. Our family visitors have now left Canada and arrived safely back in a wet and dreary UK and life carries on as normal. It has been a truly amazing three weeks and I am a little sad that my house is now so quiet!

So, 2016! Is it New Year, new you? Is it lists of ambitions to be realized and challenges to be fought? Could it be a leaner, trimmer, fitter you? In 2016 I have decided that I am pretty happy where I am! Yes, I could loose a few pounds, I could have a "dry" January, I could only eat super foods, I could plan to run a marathon and the list could really go on and on!

I liked my life in 2015 and in fact, pretty much every year before that, so why vow to change? I have no intention of doing without my Friday Gin and Tonic- I earn it every week! I will continue to run, eat, cook, bake, build silly things in the garden, grow vegetables (and weeds!), and cut up meat. I will continue to watch movies in the dark with a nice glass of wine and play Lego on the floor with my boys. In 2016 I plan to just add to the awesome, here is my list;

Pick up my saxophone- it really has been too long!
Build a greenhouse out of reclaimed materials (sorry hubby, more silly things in the garden)
Improve the chicken accommodation for more residents- fresh eggs anyone?
Bake more
Get the kids in the kitchen more
Learn to make at least 5 awesome cocktails
Use this little blog space to teach you lovely people how to do more meaty things- time for my profession and my hobby to meet in the middle!

So what better to post for my first recipe of the year than a golden, flaky, juicy, tender, pastry baked delight! I give you Moose Pasties;

One of the new additions to our Canadian life is the hubby has started hunting. Pause for angry comments and the "OH, HOW BARBARIC!" Save it for another blog! We eat meat here and given the choice I would come back as wild animal every day of the week. Just think about it, you have the best life ever and then one bad day. Compare that to that sad chicken you just bought from the store, I know what I choose.

Anyway, I digress; let’s get back to the Pasty;
A pasty is a baked pastry, traditionally associated with Cornwall, in the United Kingdom. It is made by placing an uncooked filling, typically meat and vegetables, on one half of a flat shortcrust pastry circle, folding the pastry in half to wrap the filling in a semicircle and crimping the curved edge to form a seal before baking.

One of the rather challenging things about having a hunter in the house is the massive influx of meat you have if your hunter is successful. This season I have had the pleasure of butchering two deer and one moose. That's a lot of meat! I hope that on the blog I can help the hunter households find good ways of using that meat. This is the perfect place to start.

WHAT YOU NEED

For the pastry

125 g chilled and diced butter
125 g lard
500 g All-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting the board
Fat pinch of salt
1 egg, beaten

For the filling

350 g moose steak, cubed into small pieces (You can easily substitute beef here)
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled, thinly sliced
175 g carrots, peeled, finely diced
100 g peas, defrosted
1 tbsp. freshly ground black pepper

WHAT YOU DO

Rub the butter and lard into the flour with a pinch of salt using your fingertips, then blend in 6 tbsp. cold water to make a firm dough. Cut equally into 4, then cover in plastic wrap and chill for 20 mins.
Heat oven to 220 C / 420 F.
Mix together the filling ingredients with 1 tsp salt.
Roll out each piece of dough on a lightly floured surface until large enough to make a round about 23cm across – you can use a plate to trim it to shape if it helps.
Place a quarter of the filling in the centre of each round, leaving a margin at each end. Brush the pastry all the way round the edge with beaten egg, carefully draw up both sides so that they meet at the top, and then pinch them together to seal.
Lift onto a non-stick baking tray and brush with the remaining egg.
Bake for 10 mins, then lower oven to 180 C/ 350 C and cook for 45 mins more until wonderfully golden. Eat whilst warm if you can, but they are still pretty awesome cold for lunch the day after.