Great day, great people, great sweets! Food Blooger's Bake Sale Holiday Edition.

20 bloggers, tons of sweets and one idea to support Calgary Meals on Wheels.

Last weekend at the Casel Marche Calgary Food Bloggers were selling home-made sweet goodies.

The founder of the event Vinnci also inivted POLKA girl. I had a chance to meet great people, exchange experiences and of course support Meals on Wheels.

We raised an unbelievable amount of $2,050.31!!!

It was one day of ingredients shopping and four days of baking for me. I made faworki, traditional Polish pastry, rugelach with pecans and appricots (my favourtie) and also mini apple orange and coconut pies and mini chcocolate rasberry muffins. I hope all of you who bought them really enjoyed them :) There were some people for whom faworki brought up their childhood memories. It was really great to hear.

I also had an occassion to get some tips on food photography from Rafal Wegiel. He taught me about the importance of light and my camera seetings.

So it was wonderful day!

I am really looking forward to the Bake Sale Spring Edition!

The night before the Bake Sale I was making faworki :)

Food Blogger Bake Sale, Holiday Edition

Do You like home made baking? Then you can’t miss this event, the Food Blogger Bake Sale, Holiday Edition! Saturday December 8th from 10 am till 4 pm in Casel Marche. Come by to get some delicious cookies, cakes, cupcakes and more. Great Polish goodies made by POLKA girl will be there too :) All the money from the sale goes to Calgary Meals on Wheels.

I would like to thank Vincci, the founder of the Food Blogger Bake Sale, for inviting me for the event! I am really happy to meet Calgary bloggers while also helping others in need.

Rugelach with pecan and apricot stuffing

It took me a little bit longer than I promised but here it is, the recipe for Rugelach, traditional Jewish pastry that can be made with sour cream or cream cheese. They don’t look that exciting but they are delicious! You will not regret it when you try out this recipe. They were gone immediately. The amazing dough with its flavorful stuffing will melt in your mouth.

To make the dough use:
200 g unsalted butter
200 g cream cheese (I used Philadelphia)
2 cups flour

To make the stuffing use:
200 g pecans
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
50 g dry apricots
½ cup icing sugar
lightly whipped egg white

Use a mixer to mix the butter and cream cheese. When it becomes smooth add the flour. Put the dough in the fridge for an hour. Blend the pecans, cinnamon and icing sugar. You would then the add chopped apricots and melted butter while adding the egg white at the end. Roll the dough 3 mm thick, cut into circles with around a 20 cm diameter (you can use a bowl or I used a pot lid with sharp edge). Divide the circle into 8 triangles, put stuffing on each of them and roll. Bake at 180 Celsius degrees for around 25 minutes, until they are golden brown.
Enjoy!

Goodies from the Polish shop

There are a few Polish shops in Calgary and recently I have visited one of them. I got some great Polish sweets like Ptasie Mleczko or Pierniki Toruńskie (Toruń gingerbread). The first one is a soft chocolate covered candy with a filling that is hard to describe, some say it is chocolate covered vanilla marshmallow but I wouldn’t agree because it has a different texture than marshmallow.

And Pierniki Torunskie is something I must have every Christmas. They come from the city of Torun where Nicolaus Copernicus was born. They are handmade in Torun and are either covered with chocolate or icing, some are stuffed with jam and come in different shapes. I love these cookies!

You should try it :)

Fashion Calgary Portrait Campaign Gala

I was thinking to make a post on my blog and add couple pictures from the Portrait Campaign Gala.

I met Anna Basak at the beginning of my Canadian journay. She and her husband Rafal Wegiel are owners of Fashion Calgary.

Thanks to them had chance to be part of really amazing event Fashion Calgary Portrait Campaign. The Campaign was organized to celebrate the fact that Calgary was chosen for city of culture this year.

Thank you guys for such a wonderful night. It was a great experience! I saw an amazing performances of Oscar Lopez, Sophie Serafino and Justine Tyrell Leach and met many great people.

Pumpkin soup with orange and ginger

Fall is over. The first snow fall of the season has arrived and it got pretty cold outside. If you want to warm yourself up, you should try this recipe for pumpkin soup with orange and ginger, especially when there are so many pumpkins around :) A perfect treat for such cold days.

To make the soup, you will need:
600 g of pumpkin cut into big pieces
1 tablespoon of butter
1 tablespoon of fresh grated ginger
half of an orange
100 g almond flakes
salt and freshly grind pepper

First place the butter and ginger in a pot. Add the cut pieces of pumpkin (I left the skin on). Squeeze out the juice from the orange half and pour it into the pot, you can put the orange skin as well, as it will give more flavor. Keep it on medium heat for about 20 minutes until the pumpkin is soft.
In the meantime brown the almond flakes on a pan.
When the pumpkin is soft, take it out and let it cool then pill the skin off. Blend everything and add salt to taste. Finally, pour the soup in a bowl, sprinkle with browned almond flakes and freshly grind pepper.

Canada here I come!

I arrived safely in Canada but also a little bit sick. Feeling a lot better right now though.

It has been a while since my last post but it's because I have been quite busy recently.

I am focused on my job searching, having a temporary part time job, and also being engaged in Fashion Calgary project, Portrait Campaign 2012 (http://www.fashioncalgary.ca/). So very busy!!!

Despite all this work, I also had moments of pleasure. I went to Lake Louise, where I could see a stunning landscape of the National Park. I did a 6 km hike (I made it, barely but I did :D ), cannoed on the lake and had a wonderful tea break with a glass of ice wine, lots of different cookies and scones with amazing view of the lake.

September was really warm in Calgary. Fall revealed different kinds of beautiful colours and sun was giving lots of positive energy.

I celebrated my first Thanksgiving, with amazing turkey baked by a friend. And now waiting for Haloween. The event that we don’t really celebrate in Poland. But here it is a quite big thing. People dress up, carve pumpkins, decorate their houses.

And speaking about pumpkins...wherever you go, there are pumpkins everywhere. And because it became bit colder in Calgary I thought that delicious pumpkin soup with ginger and almond flakes would be a great idea. Recipe coming soon :) !!!