Restore to external hard drive

My iMac 24 with a 1 TB drive was just wiped out in a power surge. (OS 10.7.5) A 1 TV Time Capsule has been making backups, but my 750 GB MacBookPro will not hold a data-wide restore. I have a new 1 TB external harddrive (purchased this morning to hopefully cover the iMac's damage until it was found the power module and probably motherboard were also affected). It is now in a Dynex sled, partitioned, and works with my MacBookPro.

How do I do a RESTORE of my fried iMac's ~920 GB of data that is, hopefully, on the Time Capsule? Do I use my MacBookPro as an interface? (And, can I use it that way without also erroneously wiping it out by a misdirected restore?)

I plan to purchase a new iMac as soon as the new models with the Ivy Bridge processors come out, hopefully in Oct., but I have to access this data before that, and I do not think I can really use the Time Capsule for specific and ongoing photo and document retrieval - especially if the computer that created all of that is no longer functioning.

Thanks for help!