What to Do in Vancouver – your favourite fall recipe

So the fall series continues…
Pumpkin spice everything nice 😉 from latte to pie; pumpkin has been added everywhere;)
Food, food, food – todays blogpost is all about an autumn recipe you’ll definitely love.

So let’s start with the famous pumpkin pie, which should not be missed during this season.
Take your time because baking an old-fashioned pumpkin pie will take time (60 minutes) to be perfectly delicious.
Here are the ingredients:
For the filling
– 21 oz (600g) pumpkin puree
– 2 large eggs
– 1/2 cup packed brown sugar and 1/3 cup white sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt
– 2 teaspoons cinnamon (in my opinion; better too much than too little)
– 1 teaspoon ground ginger and 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
– 1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
– 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
– 1 cup (240ml) heavy cream
– 1/4 ground cloves
and for the crust
– 1 1/3 cups (200g) flour
– 1/4 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp sugar
– 1/2 cup (120g) cold butter; 1/4 cup(60ml) cold water
– 1 tsp. apple cider vinegar
First start with the filling.
Beat the eggs in a bowl; add the heavy cream . Then mix the sugars, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cardamon and the lemon zest with the pumpkin puree until everything is well mixed.
If you are done with this step let’s continue with the crust. The pie crust lies around the pie and gives it hold and the delicious solid crust.

1. Start with mixing the apple cider vinegar with the cold water. Place in the fridge. Mix the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Cut the cold butter into even smaller pieces and put it in the bowl. For now gradually add the cold apple cider vinegar water. Be fast so that the dough and the butter do not warm up. Next step: knead everything until the dough starts to stick together. Since the dough should not be too wet, don’t add too much water.
Now it’s time to wait; wrap the dough in a plastic wrap and leave it in the fridge for about 45 minutes.

2. Aaaafter a loong (ok not that long) wait…
roll out the dough to a size somewhat larger than a 9 inch (23cm) pie dish. Put the dough into the dish and press it down on bottom and sides. Use your fingers to create a pattern. After that prick the dough using a folk several times and place everything in the fridge for another 20 minutes.
Now you can preheat the oven to 200 degrees celcius. Put a piece of baking parchment on top of the dough and fill with rice. Bake the crust for about 20 minutes until the edges have got some colour. Remove from the oven and let cool down a bit.
After it’s slightly cooled down lover the temperature of the oven to 180 degree and put the filling into the cooled pie crust. Bake for another 50 minutes. It’s a wrap.
Tip: You really shouldn’t bake the pie any longer than written in the recipe. pay a little attention to your gut feeling. If it looks and smells good – it’s done 🙂
Cool the pumpkin pie for around 2 hours and don’t forget that the cake will come out of the oven puffed up and will deflate as is cools down. If you want feel free to decorate the cake with heavy cream, nuts or some pumpkin pie spice.

Now you’re ready to enjoy the best cake ever 😉
– and don’t forget to share with your friends and family even if it’s that tasty 😉

For those guys staying in Canada right now – hope you had a great Canadian Thanksgiving evening with family and friends:)


Maybe you’ll find the perfect baking buddy at tonights INTERNeX pubnight:)
6pm at the Cambie pub in Gastown.

Enjoy!!

– Tatjana

INTERNeX International Exchange
2005-689 Abbott St., Vancouver, BC, V6B 0J2
Web: http://www.internexcanada.com
Email: pr@internexcanada.com

How was your weekend?

Monday morning: I’m crawling to the office. No, it’s not because it’s a burden to be here, but rather because of the activities from the weekend that really overstrained my legs.

Well, let’s start with Friday: Thanks to several incidents, I could finish work early. So, happy-me leaving the office at 3pm thought it would be a great idea to do some workouts. Well, not the greatest idea if “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster” aka the Grouse Grind is scheduled for Sunday. But everybody makes mistakes and at least I didn’t think of it during my easy Netflix and chill evening at home.

Saturday morning, I woke up with a smile on my face because a beach-day promised a great time. Clever-me put on some sunscreen and headed off to Sunset Beach to meet some of you guys. When I arrived, a few of the Vargas-Gang were already enjoying the sun, playing some beach games and just had some easy and fun conversations. It was a really nice and relaxing day, I definitely enjoyed it. Despite burning my back and neck. 😦 At home I tried to bake some small flatbreads. Yes, “tried”. They turned out to be buns rather than flatbread, but oh well. They’re still edible. 😉

Of course, after Saturday, there is Sunday. This day I woke up quite early to watch the FIFA World Cup final. We met at Malone’s to see France conquer Croatia. It was an exciting match. At 11am it was time to meet at Waterfront for our big hike. I was really happy to see so many of you showing up. So, the 13 of us fought our way up to the summit.

2,830 stairs to take. 853m to gain. 2.9km to leave behind. And we made it!
It was quite exhausting, but the feeling we had when we arrived at the top was just amazing – not to forget the view, of course! We spend some hours on top of Grouse Mountain, saw some bears, had a good lunch (some schnäcks😂), took amazing pictures and had some fun talks. While waiting for the gondola to take us down, we met Cleo, the resident barn owl from Grouse Mountain. Half an hour plus a Gondola ride later, we all collapsed in the Shuttle-Bus heading to Waterfront Station. It was an exhausting day, but it was totally worth it. Thanks for joining our day trip and I hope to see you all soon!

Don’t forget – we are going to see The Lion King in the OpenAir Cinema at Ceperley Meadow in Stanley Park tomorrow!

See you then!

– Elisabeth

INTERNeX International Exchange
International Village,
Suite 2077, 2079 – 88 West Pender Street
Vancouver, Canada -V6B 6N9-
Web: http://www.internexcanada.com
Email: pr@internexcanada.com

Cloverdale Rodeo – Yeeehaw!

If anyone told me that I’d be watching grown men ride wild bulls in Vancouver, I wouldn’t have believed them. Little did I know though, that I would soon be having a great time at the annual Cloverdale Rodeo.

Yesterday I drove to Surrey with a friend to watch the second largest community rodeo in Canada. This rodeo attracts competitors and spectators worldwide, with many of the participants hailing from Alberta. This traditional exhibition brings agricultural and horticultural exhibits, including arts and crafts, home baking and canning, needle work, photography, sewing and flori-culture to the already, fun-filled long weekend. The exhibition, along with a wide assortment of family activities, truly makes the Cloverdale Rodeo & Exhibition “much more than just a rodeo”.

The Cloverdale Rodeo is well known for its bull riding, world-class cowboys and enthusiastic rodeo fans, but it’s also famous for its party scene. At the Rodeo, the party starts before noon and doesn’t stop until well after sundown. Known throughout the rodeo world, the Cloverdale Rodeo & Country Fair’s Longhorn Saloon, featured live music from May 20th until yesterday. To open up the festivities,  Canadian Rock Legend 54-40 kicked-off with a great performance.

Yesterday was the finals, with prizes as much as $50,000! For that much money, heck – even I would hop on the back of a bucking horse! Check out some of my pictures below!

Keep checking back for more exciting events like this one happening in your area!

For those of you in Vancouver, don’t forget about the INTERNeX BBQ Kick-off event happening May 29! Also make sure to sign-up for the 2-Day Whistler trip leaving June 19-20! Limited amount of space available!

Have a great long weekend everyone, and I’ll see you at INTERNeX PuB NiGHT at Malone’s Bar and Grill, May 26!

Cheers,

Laura