Canadian foodporn Pt. 1

There is one thing I don't want to withhold from you.

The Canadian food! 

Unfortunately technology isn't so far developed that I can share  smell and taste with you, so you have to be satisfied with only the pics and just imagine the delicious flavor in your mouth :D

So far we experienced so many yummy and different dishes and collected many recipes and actually I never had a not tasty cuisine until yesterday.... Well it was just a sandwich from Safeway but it was just not good xD 

Insead of starting with the Starters I jump right into it and begin with the Desserts :D
 

I haven`t weight myself since I came here and I definetly don`t want to but I`m pretty sure, that I already gained a few Kilos, even the Food is mostly healthy and organic but Canadians and Dessert......its a never ending Lovestory! ;) I never have eaten as much Dessert as here.
Almost every night we have a different cake or Cookies or ice cream or pie or .... I can continue the list but I guess you got that we eat A LOT of dessert^^
Here are my TOP 3 :D

 

Number 3 : is actually a german recipe, which we make! ( at this Point Focus on the cake not on us xD ) Fantacake......yummy!  it was nice to taste a Little bit of home ^^

Number 2 : the enormus duoble, tripple chocolate cake @ the second farm! Seriously I never had a more chocolaty cake than that!! it was almos too much.

and Number 1: The most delicious peach Fritters EVER!!! We ate them at Nigara on the lake and its just  a peach in a dough frite but its so so SO yummy omg!!!! 

But the part I like the most is, to share recipes and try some new cuisines. We got introduced to Poutine ( THE typical canadaian Food. French fries with Gravy and Cheese). I don`t know what is so Special about it, ist just French fries but every Canadian loves it! It taste good but I think its not worth the Hype!
Than Perogeis. This stuff is so good!! Ist like Tortellini but made out of potato dough with Cheese in it. You usually eat it with Yoguhrt and its addictive, I Promise ;) easy Food but thats usually the best^^
At the summerfolk Festival in Ontario were lots of Food  stands and of course our aim was to taste a lot of different cuisines and there we came across the Beavertails! Also typical for Canada and again so yummy. Its fried dough, a Little like Langos and you have different sweet topings. We ate it with chocolate, Smarties and one with Oreo Cookies!! *-* I really recommand, when you`ll be in Canada one day you HAVE to try them ;)
and then there`s fudge! Every Canadian is surpised when he asked us if we know it and we say no xD They think its a European Thing but i never heard about it before! 2 weeks ago we where at a hunting store and one employer took us with him (cause we were german :P) and got us some free fudge!!! its basically chocolate squares with some different flavours in it. Ist good but again, its just chocolate :D


Also since we`re mostly staying on organic farms, the Food we eat is ......organic(suprise ^^). Nevertheless you can actually taste the difference between organically grown Food and crap Food from the grocery store! The vegetables are more tasteful, with more nutritions and they are more filling. oh and another vegetable we got introduced to is Squash! I love it! Pumkins belong to the Squash Family and just cooked in the oven ....they are so good! I cant describe the taste , maybe because I never ate it before but it got one of my favorite vegetables!

And then we share some of our local or more german Food with our Hosts! like the Fantacake you saw on the Picture. I made the red wine cake from my mom and my "famous" noodlesalat and tomorrow I`ll propably make the eggnoggcake if we`re not busy butchering chickens!

So but now its time to give your eyes something to look at^^

A black bean burrito we made and sold at the Summerfolk Festival in Owen Sound

Beaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaavertail :)

Top left: Pizza in Toronto - Top right: Poutine, it doesn`t look good either!! - middle: vegetable plate at the first farm. everything was fresh from the garden! - Bottom left : Torontofood again^^ - bottom right : Rachels breakfast for us :)

Slushies with vanilla ice cream ( haha not the best Picture of us :D haha omg its sooo bad!!)

veggie Lasagne

Some gluten free cake...I forgot the Name xD

Justins Partycookie :D

na.......hungry?? ;))

 

Welcome to Paradise // changing plans

Last week we arrived in paradise !
I love it here :D Laureen and her son Justin picked us up at the busstop  in Regina, Saskatchewan and we went to his Austrian Dance lesson which is Stepptanz in german! So pretty soon we found out that he loves Germany and he often replies in the very few german words he can speak.
But yeah when we arrived at the farm it was already dark and we didn`t see much from the property but the house was enough to handle at this Point! its incredible, big and clean!!
They have an indoorpool and a hot tube. We could choose between 4 beds and we have 3 bathrooms for us.......its kinda like a Holiday :)
But what was so magical when we came here was, that we could see the northern lights here!!!!! They were really faded but it was just so....I have no words for it, sry^^. I always wanted to see them and when Justin said "oh look there the northern lights" I was so captured by this I didn`t want to go inside!!!
We were so bombed by all this here. I think we were the happiest Woofers in Canada in this night :)
The next day was Justins bday and we drove to the Grandparents, who also have a farm and they were in the middle of harvesting grain and we could drive the Combine with Grandfather, which was really cool! haha I can`t believe that I write this :D But Agriculture is actually interesting^^

We also met the nice but hyperactive dog Nuzzle, the three black cats and finally Wes, the father at this day. He works at Sasktel, a big communication company, which you can obvious tell by the name :D he is super nice and knows so much about the history and geography of Canada and he is funny as well. The whole Family is super nice and we all get along very well. Usually we hang  around (work :D) with Justin, the son, who is acutally 14 but he knows really much and teaches us things about language and pronunciation and he acts quite like a grown up but if you hang around with him for a while, he`s still a Teenager :D
Usually we doing chores with him in the morning ( they have 500 chickens and some Turkeys) and I`m doing it sometimes at night with him! Usually the chickens go into their houses to sleep when the sun sets but 2 days ago, when we came back from the City one of the doors was closed and all the chickens were sleeping in front of the door :D So we had to catch them in the darkness and put them back into the house! Real fun I tell you xD
The other tasks we have to do aren`t really hard. Today we baked a cake and peeled some beans xD
The first days we harvested carrots, potatoes and corn.
They are organic certificated and delivering twice a week vegetable baskets to their clients and now we put the baskets together! We always have to weigh in the vegatables cause they have to report how much they harvested. thats pretty much what we do here except the Weekends are not horrible but for the vegetarian in me they are! Because its butchering season at the Moment and they`re butchering their chickens! So the last Weekend we had to dig a "grave" for the "leftovers" of the chickens! And that was all I was helping them in this field.
The butchering is kind of a Family event for them, I have the feeling. The Grantparents stayed with us and all helped except us! Well we went out cause Valerie was interested how they do it! They told us that they do it in the most human way ( which is cutting their heads off). So the end of the Story was that we were standting there, Justin ( did I mentioned that he`s 14??) cut the heads off and I couldn`t watch it. I faced the landscape instead but I could still hear them!! But I actually saw the dead chickens hanging there without their heads.
And this weekend is the next round!! I already volunteered for cooking :D

At this Farm we really feel like we're a Part of the Family. They Take us Out to Restaurants and Treat us Kind of like they adopted us :) they' re really accommodating to our needs and show us around their valley. I think we saw more of the surrounding here than on all the other farms together! We went to Saskatoon and we saw quite much of Regina so far! 

Today Justin showed us how to shot with bow and arrow and an air gun , which was fun^^ 

Sunset in Saskatoon

A vegetable basket

Me and Midnight :)

The Combine

The Pool

The Valley belongs to the Property

The Family

 

Feeding Time :D
 

In fact we like it here so much, that we want to stay longer and want to cancel our next farmstay in Alberta! We would actually go to a farm near Red Deer next but now we're thinking about staying one week longer here and searching for another farm in Alberta at the moment. But we also have no problem to stay here for the next month  :) 

Also we have another new stop in our journey! On the 12th of November we'll fly to NEW YORK CITY!!! :))) 

Yehjaaaa.... Friends of Valerie's parents invited us to stay with them. So we'll spent 10 days there and than we'll fly straight to Vancouver, where we also have a friend with whom we'll stay one week before we're heading to the Rocky mountains . There we'll stay at a lodge near Golden for a month and celebrate Christmas there as well. 

I can't even believe what we've already experienced and what is laying in front of us. Seriously, I can't handle what great places, people and opportunities we get to know here . I think we'll learn and see so much in this half a year, it's unbelievable!!! 

The sunset yesterday

Manitoba Adventure and my birthday!

Time is running so fast and shwuups, Im 20 now! dammit....
But everything from the beginning :
When we arrived at the airport in Winnipeg, John ,our host, picked us up and we drove 2 hours to the farm. Its a strawberry farm owend by John and his wife Pam. They are so nice people and always have to tell something out of their lives, cause they traveled 5 month through middle America, where they also bought a property in Costa Rica. Their stories are usually about their time there, about giant spiders, the rainforest and the things they discoverd along the way.
Now they have this nice, small ( well when you consider 14 hectares as small. but compared to the last farm, 100 hectares(!), it is ...kinda ^^) and have three cute children, aged 8,4 and 2. And some geese, which are always escaping from their cage xD
At the first night there was the harvestmoon festival, which we attended. Its a very small festival, organized by the harvestmoon community, which supports local food.
This is where we also met Jon, the other wwoofer! He's from Victoria, BC and we gonna Visit him in january :)

Jeah so the beginning was pretty exciting but the first week we did pretty much the same work every day! Moving runners in the strawberry fields. It was actually pretty cool when the weather was nice. I even got a sunburn but after a while it gets boring and your back and knees start to hurt! So we were pretty relieved when the weather chanced and didn't allowed it to work on the field anymore. So instead we made apple sauce , black currant jam, grape juice,pickles and we baked our first (apple raspberry) pie! Yummy :) it was so cool to learn all These Stuff and we collected so many GOOD Recipes so far! I really get into cooking here!!

Row undone and done

The Kids playing "dog"



The Farm

The Fields

some pickles we made

 

The birthday :D

On the 20th September was my Birthday. In the Morning i wasn't allowed to Come downstairs till they were singing happy birthday ...and it was so cute. They decorated the kitchen and a day before we baked a cake. Anna, the oldest daughter had her nicest dress on and there where flowers on the table! I got letters from everybody and than suddenly Pam got inside with a huge package from Germany ! Thank you mom :)

It was a nice surprise and now we have lots of German sweets :D 

In the evening we went to the cinema, which is pretty cool in glenboro. It looks like its straight out of a western movie :D and actually we wanted to go to a bar after but we only staid for a shot and  bought some beer cause the bar was more like a community meeting for seniors ^^ so we walked back to the farm, which is about half an hour outside the city on the highway. When we worked on the field we saw so many big trucks , which were transporting complete houses!!! I never saw this before. I guess it's an American thing xD 

Luckily our host had tequila, so the evening was rescued !

Ja that was pretty much my birthday here in Canada. Not A big party but I didn't expect it and I was lucky to spend it with such a heart warmth family! 





The Cinema in Glenboro :D

my birthday :)

The adventures :

On our fitst day off Jon, Valerie and me took the car to the spruce woods provincial park , near glenboro to go on a hike in the dunes. It was pretty awesome and so different . You could see the typical Canadian landscape while you were standing on a dune! Yeah mind blowing ...:D haha

We also visited a donkey farm ( what an adventure haha:D). We could pet them and they were not shy at all, actually a little bit sassy to each other and the fur was so soft plus they had babies ajkslajdhaldjei...jap I wanted to say cute xD I also found out that I have a donkey allergy -.- so after a while I had to get away from them but it was worth it to cuddle them !!

But now to the biggest adventure so far. 

The day after we visited the donkeys , Pam got out to us on the fields to pick us up and told us that we now go on a plane ride ! First we were "wtf" but then we realized that she was serious about it! We jumped into the car and drove to the brother of a friend of hers , who's  job is the spray pesticides on fields by plane and he invited the family for a ride over the area! And just to let you know I'm a little flying sick and it wasn't just any plane , it was a small airscrew machine , in which only 4 people fit in! Jep I was pretty scared but ,oh hell it was so worth it to Jump Over my fears! 

The view was incredible !!!! Manitoba is really flat and you could see pretty far ! Also the take off and landing were so smooth, nicer than on a big plane ....I was so bombed after it and proud that I did it!! I can't put it into words how I felt after it :) it was just so awesome. 

the donkeys :)

in the plane

The goodbye :

After the magical plane ride , we had only two days left , which were flying by so fast and on Tuesday this week we had to left the Griffins family. It was by far the hardest goodbye cause the family took a place in my heart , especially the children. They were always around (homeschooling , which was kinda weird , cause the daughter learned soap carving and how to make donuts ...no real subjects if you ask me) but anywhere  all three were so cute kids and even they sometimes annoyed me you just have to love them! Anna  even cried when we had to leave , which was heart breaking and I really miss them. I guess we were kind of her bigger sisters and role models . Anyway we had a 5 hours busride to Regina ahead and the border to Saskatchewan . This is now the third province in our journey and even it's looking kinds like Manitoba , I like it here more . But that could also be connected with the really Big, CLEAN actually really rich house, we're staying at :) 

Evan, Pam, Anna , me, John, Jon, Valerie and Little Lucy sleeping :)

But more about it later ;) 

Xoxo änni