Money was tight when I was a kid–for several years my mom was raising three of us on a waitress’s salary and you’ve gotta know that wasn’t easy (I talked about it a bit here). Things are better for me these days, but not everyone is so lucky:
“In the wake of the plunging global price of oil, Edmonton’s unemployment rate grew from 4.9% in March 2014 to 6.9% in March 2016. This translated to a massive 31% increase in food bank use in the city. Edmonton is not alone… What sets Edmonton apart is the thousands of people who flocked to the city in May to escape the wildfires further north. This short-term crisis and dislocation, combined with a severe lack of affordable housing and an inadequate safety net for jobless Albertans, have pushed the city’s charitable sector to the limits.”
[Source: http://bit.ly/2gdzODj ]
I want to help. So this year my annual Giftmas Blog Tour is going to be food-centric and raise money to help the Edmonton food bank. Myself and a handful of awesome women have come together to share recipes and raise money to help feed hungry families this season.
Please click here or on the image below and donate to help feed a family this month — whether it’s a dollar, ten or more every little bit helps! And, as a bonus, all these donations are in Canadian dollars so if you are American, for example, your $10 donation might only cost you $8 (I don’t know the exact exchange rate). Also, if you use PayPal to donate they will add 1% to your donation. Once you’ve donated come back to enjoy the recipe I have to share and enter my rafflecopter to win a cozy prize!
Thank you so much for helping!
And if you can’t help monetarily, there is still something you can do — help us spread the word about this fundraiser. As with donations, every little bit — every tweet or Facebook share — helps. We can’t reach our fundraising goal without you!
To thank you for all your help I’m also hosting a giveaway. The winner will get a cozy crocheted throw (homemade by me!) in whatever colour(s) they choose. I will ship it anywhere in the world, and though the odds favour those people who donate to the fundraiser (even $1!), you can also earn entries by tweeting about the giveaway or just by showing up because everyone gets one free entry as my gift to you 🙂
And now, the recipe 🙂
Butter tarts are a thing my family takes very seriously. My grandmother’s in particular are kinda famous — no really. My grandmother used to run a the Northside Restaurant in Nanton, which is a small town about an hour out of Calgary.
Once, when my mother was in the hospital in Calgary my grandmother came up to visit her and brought her butter tarts. After my grandmother had left the nurse came in to check on my mother, saw the butter tarts and said, “Oh, those look just like the butter tarts from the Northside Restaurant in Nanton — have you ever had them?”
After Mom stopped laughing she and the nurse chatted about them — it seemed the nurse and her husband would always stop at the Northside anytime they went anywhere near Nanton just for the butter tarts.
…or so the family legend says 😉
This recipe isn’t my grandmother’s, it’s my mother’s. I thought about sharing Grammy’s but figured that might be more than my life is worth… and besides, Christmas really makes me think a lot about my mom (who died a few years ago now). She was never actually a big fan of Christmas, but she faked it pretty well for the sake of us kids LOL And she liked the family aspect that saw us all come back “home” and spend time together. More or less 😉
…back to the recipe!
For the pastry, both my mother and grandmother tweaked their recipes a few times over the years, but for the most part they always seemed to come back to the same one — the standard pastry recipe from the side of the Tenderflake container so if you’re not sure where to start, that’s a great jumping off point 🙂
I hope you enjoy this recipe and check out the rest of the blog tour to see what everyone else is offering — it’s gonna be something special, I can tell 🙂
Tour Schedule:
