It’s time to put the summer gear away, be prepared to defrost your vehicle in the morning and get ready to rake countless leaves – autumn has found the valley.
Luckily, we have gastronomic oases waiting to fill us with warm fare to help fuel work and play in brisk conditions.
Canmore’s Harvest Café, known for it’s assorted baked goods, steaming coffee and hearty entrees, knows what people need to open their eyes on a cool morning.
“When we make our soups, we’ll make a small batch of soups as well so then we can freeze them, and then people can purchase the frozen soups and take them home to thaw, heat and serve,” said Harvest Café owner Jessie Fonesca. “I know for me and my family it’s perfect for a weeknight if it’s cold or rainy out.”
Fonseca says her popular mulligatawny is a perfect example of a hearty soup that can be prepared ahead of time and saved for a future fall evening. “It freezes great, I usually add a little more coconut milk when heating it up and I think it’s almost as good as when you get it here at Harvest on Tuesdays.”
Fonseca agreed with the age-old notion of chowders, stews and soups always tasting just as good (if not better) after a day or two.
Harvest Cafe Chicken Mulligatawny
Ingredients:
3 cups diced tomatoes
1 celery stalk chopped
1 bunch of cilantro chopped
2 cups diced chicken
2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp cumin
1 jalapeno pepper diced
Ginger root the size of a thumb peeled and diced
8 cups of your favourite vegetable or chicken stock
rice vermicelli noodles
1 can of coconut milk
Combine vegetables, chicken, spices and stock in a large pot. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 35 minutes. Add coconut milk and rice noodles. Simmer for an additional 10 minutes and enjoy.
Banff Avenue Brewing
Banff Ave. Brewing Co. is back at it with an autumn seasonal craft brew, and this time they teamed up with Banff Coffee House to bring the community Unholy Union, a rich coffee porter – with a dollar from each purchase going towards arts events in Banff.
“The porter has a wonderful, malty flavour and not bitter at all, and it’s versatile and can be paired with quite a few things,” said Banff Ave Brewing Co. general manager Pete Grottenberg.
This was Banff Ave. Brewing Co.’s head brewer Kent Paterson’s first attempt at a coffee porter, and he wanted to make sure he had a proper balance for the palate.
“I was worried about how to infuse the coffee flavour into it because you have to watch to make sure you don’t get the bitterness from the coffee,” Paterson said. “We talked with Banff Roasting Company and they supplied the beans for us, and we came up with a bean that would give us a nice, smooth coffee finish and sure enough, it did.”
“We do four of these a year and run them seasonally three months at a time and started doing them last year,” Grottenberg said.
“We have a company motto that we live by that’s not just lip service from a community focused beer culture – I don’t know all of the not-for-profit groups out there, so if there are groups interested and need help, please get hold of me and let me know, we would love to hear from you.”
Banff Ave. Brewing Co.’s Coffee and Marsala Wine Braised Beef Cheek with a Sweet Potato Mash
Preparation time roughly five hours
Ingredients:
2 pound of beef cheek
1 bottle marsala fortified wine
1 large white onion
2 medium carrots
half a bunch of celery
1 large sweet potato
2/3 cup Banff Roasting Company Mexican Dark Beans
3 ounces rich beef gravy mix
100 grams of butter
salt and pepper
1 loaf sliced Wild Flour Black Pilsner Beer Bread
Directions:
Preheat oven to 120 C or 250 F.
Trim and remove all silver skin from beef cheek. Then, in a hot pan, slightly sear outside of beef cheek to seal the meat.
Roughly chop 1 carrot, 3 sticks of celery and 1 white onion.
Add roughly chopped vegetables with coffee beans and beef cheek to a sealing casserole dish (with lid) and add marsala wine, top with water so that all ingredients are submerged.
Seal casserole dish and place in oven for approximately 4.5 hours.
Peel and roughly chop sweet potato, place in pot, submerge with water and bring to a boil, once boiling reduce to a simmer until potato is soft.
Drain water completely with a colander, be sure all liquid is drained, add sweet potato back to pot with butter and mash, add salt and pepper to taste. Keep warm and reheat before serving.
With the remaining carrot and celery, finely dice and keep to the side.
After the beef cheek has finished braising, remove beef cheek from liquid, be very gentle as meat will be tender, do not throw away liquid.
For the braising liquid, strain out all the excess matter so that you have liquid only, discard the vegetables and coffee beans.
To a new pot add the liquid and finely diced carrot and celery, bring back to a boil then reduce to simmer.
While you are heating the braising liquid mix the gravy powder with a cup of cold water so all the powder is dissolved, add to braising liquid, you may add less or more dissolved gravy powder at this stage depending on desired thickness of sauce.
Serve beef cheek on a bed of the sweet potato mash and cover with sauce, toast Wild Flour Black Pilsner Bread and serve on the side.
