Friday, May 30, 2008

Not very good Tiramisu


What you see in this picture is a partially eaten "tiramisu". At least it was labeled as such at the Spot Coffee on the corner of Bremner & Navy Wharf Crt. I knew something was suspicious when my husband opened the box that he brought home. It had fallen apart and was a glob, goob and ooze of white. No, it wasn't hot outside and no it hadn't been sitting out in any heat. I think tiramisu is supposed to be made of mascarpone cheese. It lacked this key ingredient, it was just full of a whipped cream filler. No wonder why the piece was so large. A small tub of marscapone costs approximately $13 at the supermarket. yukkkk!!! That's what I say about eating just whipped cream....

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Art Square Gallery Cafe

This is definitely not another Tim Horton's coffee shop.  The Art Square Gallery Cafe is located on 334 Dundas St. W, directly across from the Art Gallery of Ontario.  The cafe situated in the back of this little gallery.  There used to be sofa chairs in the gallery itself where you could sit but those are no longer there.  The art is (in my opinion) "so so - ehh"...  The menu is good though.  We once went there for breakfast.  If you are looking for a hearty breakfast, I wouldn't suggest eating here.  There is a wide selection of crepes, both sweet and savoury.  Good Illy coffee and good teas.  We would go more often if it were not for the babies.  The gallery and cafe are not wheelchair accessible so, we had to carry the stroller up the steps.

Aji Sai

Restaurant:  Aji Sai
Where:  467 Queen St. W, Toronto, ON.   416.603.3366

We have finally found a casual sushi resto that we can go to with the whole family.  They have a high chair for baby1 and roomy enough for baby2's stroller.  Their delivery service is what we usually order from in the evenings.  Pretty good quality for the price.  Today though, we went to the restaurant for the 1st time.  They have an all-you-can-eat option and that's what we opted for.  The selection on the AYCE menu is quite extensive but some items on their a la carte menu, you will not find.  The staff is friendly too.  I hope this restaurant finds more success than the two that were there before it, one offering Chinese food (it probably went out of business because it was old) and a Thai restaurant.

A MODERN REFURBISHED INTERIOR


SOME OF OUR FOOD WE ORDERED.  (BABY1 LOVES HER TOFU.)

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Chocolate Cranberry Blondies

Not really a cake and not really a cookie, that's what's so rustic about bar bake goods.  I find the subtle taste of a blondie much more satisfying than a brownie.  To me, brownies are always much too dense for my liking.  Plus, you can insert other flavours into and blondie and not have it get drowned out by the heavy buttery chocolate flavour.  Not that I don't love chocolate, I do but the intenseness of the butter and eggs just makes me want to put down a brownie after just one bite.


It is an easy one bowl recipe, fast and easy.  The original recipe came from the baking bites web site.  I tend to like my sweets much less sweet than prescribed in most recipes and I try to use whole wheat pastry flour wherever possible as well as substituting in some oil for butter.

Ingredients:
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted
  • 1/4 cup grape seed oil
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 3/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 cup each semi-sweet choc chips, white choc chips, cranberries
Mix sugar and butter/oils.  Add eggs one at a time and vanilla.  Stir in half of the flour.  Stir in remainder of the flour with the chocolate chips and cranberries.

Bake in 350F oven for 30 minutes in a 9x9 pan.  Let cool in pan and cut into desired portions.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Grilled Chipotle Chicken with Mango Avocado Spinach Salad

This meal actually takes very little time to prepare.  I only wish we had a really grill - the ones that cook with fire and not pans that have ridges on it that mimic grill marks.  One can only dream...

Ingredients:
  • 2 chilies - chipotle in adobo sauce (won't be able to use the whole can or your face with burn off - I froze the remainder)
  • 5/6 tblspns - malt syrup (I only used malt syrup because I have a lot of it from my bagel making.  It cuts the spicy chipotles.  Honey or maple syrup would probably be good too.)
  • chicken (I used deboned leg but any chicken would be fine)
  • baby spinach
  • 2 mango (adulfo)
  • 2 avocado

Chop 2 chiptole chilies finely and mix with the malt syrup and use this to marinate the chicken.  I marinated it for a couple of hours.  When taking the chicken out of the marinade, let some of the excess drip off.  Grill until chicken is done.  While the chicken is cooking, cut the mango and avocado into bite size cubes and lay on top of baby spinach.  When chicken is done, cut into desired pieces.  I had an extra piece of chicken with no marinade.  I don't think baby1 would appreciate the chipotles.



Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Whole Wheat Bagels

Lately we've been having toast once in awhile with Philadelphia Strawberry cream cheese (the light version).  It's a nice alternative to an overly sweet and fat ladened dessert.  Instead of the store bought breads, I thought I'd try and make my own type of bread - much healthier, without the unknown ingredients.  I saw this bagel recipe/article on Chow's website weeks ago.  Before I could start, I was in search of malt syrup - found it at whole foods.  A little expensive but I didn't want to wait any longer.  Don't have the time.  There's something satisfying about creating your own baked good - especially bread.


The process was actually pretty simple.  I would definitely do this again.  Plus, bagels freeze very well.  I did modify the recipe with some whole wheat flour and with less salt as some of the comments suggest.  A pastry whole wheat flour must be used - the plain old whole wheat flour would just make it too heavy and dry.  Pastry whole wheat flour is great for a lot of other baked goods.  I like the one that Whole Foods sells under their brand - again, a bit pricey so I'll have to research some more on where I can get some cheaper pastry wwf.

Lunch: Beef Brisket & Tendon with Mung Bean noodle


Stewed beef brisket & tendon was pre-made months ago by my mom.  A quick defrost and heated up in a pot and spooned over some noodles with some green onions sprinkled on top.  Another great noodle meal.  Unfortunately, this was the last of the reserve.

I must get the recipe from my mom on how to stew a big batch of this.  She taught me once before but she has no set measurements.  She'd say, "Just put some of this in and some of that and more if you don't think it tastes right."

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Lunch: Ramen

Another yummy find at the T&T supermarket.  One cannot have too many noodles.  It takes no time to make.  Just a frying pan, very little oil (if you wish) and  a few splashes of water and poof, in approximately 5 minutes some good eats.  Yes, not the healthiest but oh well...

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Dim Sum Dynasty

Restaurant: Dynasty
Where: 131 Bloor W., Toronto, ON M5S 1R1, Canada

This Sunday, we tried out this Chinese restaurant that we've walked past many times on Bloor St. I've always looked up to it's 2nd floor location with people sitting at the window seats. I knew they served Chinese food. I assumed they served the "not authentic" type of Chinese food due to its location and just by the way it looked from the street. So dim sum wouldn't be something I thought they served there but after reading the Chowhound message board on the merits of Dynasty's dim sum versus its pricing, I thought we should give it a try. I only thought we'd try it out because I felt it would be spacious enough to fit the babies and so it did. We were comfortably seated at a four person table; stroller replaced a chair and our portable high chair fit on top of another chair. Our table was right next to a stack of fish tanks. No fish in the tanks but a few lonely lobsters and BC crabs.

There was no trolley service at Dynasty, it had the tick off your choices from the carbon copy listing of dim sum.  I found the price to be expensive but the quality was good.  Although I have had the same quality of dim sum at other restaurants for a fraction of the price we paid here.  This may be the trade off for the cleanliness and the amount of space we need for the babies.  There was a premium dish that a waiter came by with that a regular dim sum resto would not have and that was the roasted suckling pork.  YUMMMM!!!!  It was worth the extra $$$.  The skin was a crispy perfection and the meat was oh so tender.  We just hope that on our next visit, the roasted suckling pork is offered again!

Two other items to highlight were the scallop wrapped in egg tofu and the scallop dumplings.  The first, beautifully natural and steamed.  The hollowed out piece of tofu was deep fried oh so lightly.  It's appearance resembled a tator tot.  The dumpling's skin was the perfect chewy consistency that you look for in this type of dim sum dumpling.


Friday, May 16, 2008

Birthday Cookies



A birthday was celebrated in our family this past week. I decided to bake cookies as a surprise. Patriarch requested some cookies earlier in the month, so I thought I would oblige. As you can see, I produced a small variety - 4 to be exact. The cookie recipes came from Martha Stewart's and Baking Bites websites (with some small modifications). Only one cookie was adapted form Martha's site and it was adapted from two different recipes. All the other cookies came from Baking Bites. I had to half all the recipes because there are just the two of us adults eating the cookies. The babies are too young to consume unnecessary sugars, so we do not feed them cookies.

List of cookies:

  1. Jam Thumprints - I used blueberry jam (cookie dough was from the iced thumbprint recipe)

  2. Banana Oatmeal - added chocolate chips

  3. Peanut Butter - added chocolate chips

  4. Cocoa Fudge - used white chocolate chips




1 2

3 4

My homemade packaging.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

My Mother's Day Meal: Intercontinental Hotel, Azure Restaurant

My mother's day feast took place at the Intercontinental Hotel's restaurnat Azure. We had been there for breakfast once before and that meal was decent. It is convenient for us because it is a short distance from our home. The restaurant is spacious, especially on the weekends. It is probably busier during the weekdays with business people wheeling and dealing. Oh, it also has good high chairs. I didn't expect many people there because when we went there a few weeks back, the restaurant was practically empty. We might have been the only people there. Anyway, I thought we'd be ordering off the same brunch a la carte menu but....no! Azure was offering a mother's day brunch buffet. On this visit, the restaurant had people in it - mommies and their families.

There was a lot of food and a great selection. There were breakfast foods, eggs benedict, sausages, waffles, made to order omellettes; hot foods - vegetables, fish, chicken, potatoes, roast lamb; antipasto platter; fruit platter; cheese platters; variety of breads; soup; seafood table - mussels, shrimps, oysters & clams; sushi; and a separate dessert area. I have probably left something out and don't remember some of the special names of the food items. I concentrated mostly on the seafood and didn't stuff myself with anything ordinary.

Here are the mouth watering visuals of most of plates...







Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Weekend in Review

This was an extended weekend for us, not just Saturday & Sunday, it included Thursday, Friday and Monday. We inevitably go out on weekends because I hardly get out much during the week. The babies are a difficult bunch by myself (they are so young right now). A tag team effort eases the pain. While out in the city, we always eat.

Here is a weekend review of my food life...

Asian Legend, Chinatown: Northern Chinese
What we ordered: Chinese Silver Bun (fried), Xiao Long Bao (steamed soup filled pork/scallop dumplings), Rolled Onion Pancake with Sliced Beef, Hot & Sour Soup and Pork Chop Fried Noodle





Over Easy: A breakfast place (There's non-breakfast items on the menu too.)
What we ordered: I ordered the complete healthy breakfast which included egg whites, oatmeal, multi-grain toast & a bowl of fruit. I forget what the other order across the table was. Something with cheese, egg and bacon mixed together and baked (can see the small casserole dish) plus, hash brown. Also, an order of extra toast for baby1. ...coffee & grapefruit juice too.


John's Italian Cafe, on Baldwin St. (Lots of restaurants on this stretch of the street.)
A little rest and drink after a long walk. Our original destination was an organic farmer's market on John St., but it was nowhere to be found. So we kept on walking and ended up here. We only wanted a bowl of latte and a decaf cappuccino. The cafe has a full menu as well.



The mother's day meal will be posted after this. It deserving of its own entry.


Manpuku, Village on the Grange
What we ordered: kake udon, curry don & takosen
This is a new discovery from the Chowhound. Not the usual Japanese place that everyone is accustomed to around here, no sushi. Will have to go again to try some of the other items, particularly the onigiri and yakionigiri. I really enjoyed the takosen. It's not something I've had before so I don't know if that's how it's supposed to be but I loved it anyway. It's this orb of goodness all wrapped into one - fried outside and chewy & soft on the inside, with just the right amount of mayo on top. yummmm...