What's up my busy bees!!!
I'm sure all of you are getting hungry with all this trail hiking, gardening, blogging and whatever else you do and I'm about to make that a whole lot worse and you might be tempted to lick the screen!! You probably shouldn't tho, I promise it wont taste the same and it will leave some hard to clean streaks 😛😋. Feel free to go get your stretchy thanksgiving pants on, you might gain a few pounds just looking at this post. On the weekend engagement posts, I came across a fine Gentlemen, @ShawnNFT and his steak. I asked him for a bite and he said...NAH I love steak and I ain't sharin! I can't blame him. when I come across my delish eats, I don't want to share them either...Well maybe the pictures I can share 😂😁😆
Smoked brisket nachos made with leftover meat from Memphis Blues BBQ house.
This sort of classy dishes deserves some classy tunes to go along with it so just press play and follow along!
Here in Alberta, we are the land of the cow and we love it so much we have a world renowned festival about it, the Calgary Stampeed where cowboys share their wrangling skills. I haven't been yet, I have my reservations about roping calves for fun. To eat is another, I understand we are the top of the food chain and our delicacies have to make it onto our plate in some way. To be honest, we eat more than cows. If it moves, we want it on our plates too. This will be a mix of local traditional eats turned into magnificent looking and gourmet dishes most of them prepared by trained chefs with care into some beautiful edible art pieces.
Loving all animals, photographing and learning about their habits in their natural setting, you would think I feel guilty to have them on my plate but I actually don't that much but I do appreciate every bite and thankful to the animal for it's sacrifice for the sake of my nourishment. We all gotta eat! Some of these may just be some of my own favorites home dishes as well. I'm hungry already!! Are you? Lets dig in!
Lets start with one of my favorites! ELK!! This first dish is bathing in a Port reduction hanging out with their little vegetable friends, prepared by Emerald Lake Lodge located in Yoho National Park, this tasty fluffy is part of our traditional diet with their abundant numbers along with it being farmed in southern Alberta. Elk hunting is certainly done for sport and to fill the freezer with a bountiful harvest of meat for winter sustenance, those we eat in restaurants are normally farmed to adhere with food safety standards. For those of you who don't know what it is, here is a picture of one in it's full fluffyness (not the one on the plate). Ok, I might feel a little guilty eating such a majestic creature but it doesn't stop me from enjoying every bite, thank you for your sacrifice Mr. Elk spirit.
Taken along Maligne Lake Road in Jasper National Park
Big Brother G-Dog and I often speak of EMA and we managed to confuse a good part of the blockchain with my Ladybug account leaving them wondering ... what is that? Well this is where the joke comes from, I'm sure it might raise a question or two under Lady Rainbow too. It stands for Elk Martial Art. In the fall and rut season they fight each other horn to horn, skull to skull, it can get violent and bloody and the victor gets the ladies and the land. Here I go giving away our secrets 😝.
Next on the list of delish eats, DUCK!! I'm sure most of the world has them and can go enjoys this delicacy. Here in Alberta, we certainly have an overabundance of this delicious wild birdie and is the victim of sport hunting and ending up on our plates in beautifully crafted dishes. This one is, once again from Emerald Lake Lodge in British-Columbia. Smoked and topped with a berry coulee and gravy on a bed of stuffing and seasonal vegetables. For those of you who may not have tried duck yet, the meat is a little fatty and greasy but soooo tender it melts in your mouth like butter if prepared correctly. Emerald Lake Lodge is a mecca of wild meat eats, if you get the chance to go, everything on the menu is top notch!
Oops, no we don't eat the little ones but this came across my photos and they were cute. With spring being here, it's almost time for nesting season and baby photographs...Here is the more mature ones, we do have a tiny shred of compassion and allow the to live a little and just eat the big ones.
Outside of the food, the table side view from the dinning room is magnificent and takes the wild eats experience to a whole new level. Emerald Lake lodge is a remote historic lodge nestled in the Rockies and packaged with a pretty bow on a high scale relaxing resort hiking experience, you have to actually stay there to taste the treats. But more on that at a later point.
Breakfast view since it gets a little dark early in fall/winter
All these wild eats can get a little heavy to digest, lets take a break and go to the more traditional favorite beef eats. This next one is not quite a piece of art on a plate but it's still some worthy hearty home cooked goodness out of my own kitchen. Prime Rib has to be on the top of my list of cuts. Many get intimidated to cook it because of it's price, you would certainly be disappointed to ruin it. It's actually one of the easiest to cook, it cooks itself, literally. It's just a matter of cooking it at a high temperature for a little while then shutting off the oven and letting it rest in the warm oven to finish itself off for an hour or two (I don't remember specifically but lots of recipes available online). YUM YUM! Get in my belly!
The next tasty treat is from a small Canadian franchise with a few locations across the country, my city is the proud owner of a few of them, Memphis Blues BBQ house. Specializing in smoked meat, they have most common meats tenderly smoked on their menus including delicious brisket and sausage.
More from Memphis Blues BBQ house, most major turkey holidays, they offer fall off the bone smoked turkeys with advance order. With my food allergies, we just get the turkey and smoke gravy made from delicious drippings and make our own sides. With Easter just a week away, this photo reminded me to order this household favorite. Done, turkey deliciousness on the way for next sunday!
Now this tends to create a lot of leftovers and most of us get turkey'ed out after a few meals, don't worry, Lady Rainbow has your back. Once we run out of stuffing, we freeze the rest to turn into some easy to make homemade soup. Back to my kitchen, here is a warm bowl of turkey with sausage tortellini (store bought). Made similar to chicken noodle with broth and various vegetables served with homemade breadsticks.
You don't really need a picture of a cow do you? We all know what they are! To make up for it, lets go back to the Canadian Rockies to Jasper National Park where the Wilderness Caffe dwells well hidden on Maligne Lake Road, they too are a smokehouse and serve more common meats alongside our local delicacies. On the menu, more smoked brisket! Their smoked brisket sandwich is topped with Oka cheese and a delicious home made apple and red slaw, sitting next to it, journeying back to the wilderness with a bison burger toped with Saskatoon berry jam, a local abundant berry.
Speaking of Bison and Jasper, Fiddle River kitchen has a plethora of delish wild eats including this meatball appetizer served with once again, saskatoon berry jam. Yes these two go well hand in hand like BFF's and very popular here in Alberta. The meatballs are served in gravy with a side of Bannock (a traditional Indigenous no rise/yeast fry bread)
Still from the Fiddle River menu, this classic pasta and meat sauce dish is elevated with an array of wild meat including Bison sausage and ground Elk. Bison is quite a heavy meat and very lean on fat content compared to it's cow cousin so if you eat too much of it, this one will fight back in your stomach with a vengeance and your fat thanksgiving turkey pants wont be able to save you!
Since I posted some of the other live critters that was on the plate, I will do the same. One of my favorite animals, this furry giant dwells in Elk Island National Park, so lucky for him, he didn't end up on my plate but we do have various farms across the province who raise these magnificent giants in the bovine family like they are cows. Thank you Buffalo spirit for this bounty!
The Bison is deep rooted into our western Canadian culture since the pioneer days going even further to the ancestral Indigenous tribes, being the most eaten meat of the ancestors of the land along with the use of it's fur and leather for clothing in this cold climate. Once upon a time, there were millions of them roaming the plains but with overhunting and wasteful practices called Buffalo Jumps, these woolly critters almost went instinct but luckily a herd was found and Elk Island National Park took on the task of bringing their numbers to a more healthy headcount. They don't roam the plains as freely as they once did, only in protected fenced locations and not available for sport hunting, farmers have permission to raise them to continue our traditions and I'm happy to say, the species was saved with both the help of the park and local farmers.
All these high-end fancy restaurant like to put fancy sprouts and bushes as a garnish, this dude said...I come pre-bushed, am I pretty? save your sprouts for the Elk!
Alright my Hive brothers and sisters, I'm all meat'ed out I don't even have room for desert, save some left overs for next time. Feel free to leave me a photo of your favorite dish in the comments, if you have a posts full of meat, then feel free to post the link if you wish...no spam...save that for the experts at Hormel foods.
Peace out! xox
