This Little Life

Photo courtesy of This Little Life

My friend Rye has a lovely blog, This Little Life, where she posts beautiful photographs and writes little tidbits about her life. 

I had a brunch this past weekend (photos to follow) and I was lucky enough to have Rye join me all the way from Vancouver (Yes, she came all the way JUST for my brunch). She's featured some pictures of the food on her blog, which is very exciting for me! You can check out her blog and the photographs here.  Thanks Rye!

Monday Morning Food Porn

What better way to start this Monday morning than drooling over a little food porn. In this case it's the Mcbeastwich from Beast Restaurant in Toronto.

buttermilk biscuit, fried chicken thigh, pimiento cheese, 2 fried eggs, pork sausage gravy and house potatoes... Not bad.

Beast Restaurant

http://thebeastrestaurant.com/

96 Tecumseth St.

Weekend Cravings

Right now I’m SERIOUSLY craving some homemade fish tacos. I’ve had so many good ones while I’ve been out to eat lately that I’m ready to try and personally conquer them in the kitchen. 

I want the fish battered and fried, I want warm authentic corn tortillas. On top;  I want purple shredded cabbage, I want Whole Foods Lime & Avocado dressing, I want thinly sliced raddish, I want creamy crema, and I want a sprinkle of cilantro. And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t mind some mango salsa too. IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? I also want to eat them with a big heaping side of homemade guacamole and chips. 

To get some inspiration and encouragement to make all the things I want this weekend…I’ve put together some drool worthy photos with recipes of fish tacos. Enjoy!

Recipe and Photo from the Blog "Drizzle and Dip".

Recipe and Photo from the Blog 'What's On My Plate'.

Recipe and Photo from the Blog "Patio Daddio BBQ".

Recipe and Photo from the Blog "There's a Newf in my Soup!".

The Ultimate Comfort Food

On V-day my man was out of the country, so instead my sister and I celebrated our parents love and the love in our family by cooking a massive, and totally delicious, feast. The recipes were some that have been on my “must make for dinner” list for awhile now so I was so excited to try them out. And wow, they definitely dazzled and impressed!

The perfect comfort food for a chilly winter’s evening: Steak with a Chianti butter sauce served over olive oil mashed potatoes with a side of creamy endive gratin. Enjoy it with a massive glass of red wine and you’re all set for a comfy night spent indoors.

The Chianti butter sauce was so lovely and had a bit of a sweet accent from the shallots. We really couldn’t get enough and pretty much drenched our potatoes with it. I mean…why not? The endive gratin was a hit (you can never go wrong with something baked in cream, Gruyere and bread crumbs!) and can be made with so many different vegetables- definitely going to try some different varieties before the winter is over.

 

Creamy, cheesy, breadcrumy, bubbly delicious Endive Gratin

Yumm...to me this is a perfectly cooked medium-rare steak

...Why not gaze at it from another angle?

Jamie Oliver's Pan-fried Steak with Chianti Butter Sauce and Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:

For the olive oil mash:

4 potatoes, peeled and halved 
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil 
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon butter

For the steak:

2 7 oz sirloin steaks, 1 inch thick, fat scored 
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil

For the sauce:

3 tablespoons butter 
2 shallots, peeled and finely diced 
2 sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves picked
1 cup chianti

a few sprigs watercress 
good quality extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Put the potatoes in a large pot of salted water. Bring to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are tender. Drain them in a colander and allow to sit for 5 minutes to steam away any excess moisture. Return the potatoes to the pan and mash, stirring in a large glug of olive oil, the cheese, and butter. Taste, season with the salt and pepper. Cover to keep warm.

Heat a heavy frying pan, large enough to cook both steaks at once without them touching. Season steaks with salt and pepper. Massage with olive oil. Using a pair of tongs, hold the steaks fatty-edge down in the frying pan to render and colour the fat. When the fat is golden, fry the steaks for eight minutes in total for medium-rare, turning them every minute. Remove from pan to rest and tent with tin foil.

Turn the heat down and add 1 tablespoon of butter to the pan. Fry the shallots and thyme for 4 minutes. Pour the wine in and reduce it by half. Pour in the juices from the resting steaks. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and remove the pan from the heat. Stir briskly to emulsify the sauce. This will make a simple red wine sauce.  Taste and season.

NYFW

It's New York Fashion week and I've truly been enjoying drooling over the Fall 2012 collections on the runway. 

One of my favorite things about Fashion Week anywhere is checking out the street style that occurs outside on the 'real-world' runway. In my opinion Tommy Ton (of Jak&Jil blog) never dissapoints, and takes such vibrant photographs of the totally wacky to the absolutely gorgeous. Here's a few of my favorites that I wanted to share. Loving all the colours and patterns!

All Pictures by Tommy Ton and featured on Style.com, found here.

Sweet Treats

My friend Steph and I have a long history of sharing Valentine's Day together. To continue on the tradition this year we met for lunch and I picked up some sweet treats from the Holt Renfew Cafe at Yonge and Bloor.

Sweets for my Sweets: Chocolate Mousse with Pistachio Macaroon, Raspberry Tart

Holts Cafe

50 Bloor St. West

Toronto

Happy Valentine's Day!

To all my lovely readers, I wish you a Happy Valentine's Day full of love, more love and lots of sweet things. 

Although I'm often a Valentine's Day 'skeptic'... there really is something wonderful about a day to remind all the special people in your life that you love them. So go on, tell your family you love them, tell your friends you love them and if you have a special someone- tell them you love them too!

Now, go treat yourself to something sweet! I know I'm going to.
XOXO

All pictures found on my Pinterest here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sushi Master

So, the other day I experienced a 'Game Changer'. I learned how to make my own sushi. HUGE NEWS. 

Can you believe it? This was made with my own two hands...YUM

Over the last year I have developed quite an appetite for sushi. Now this isn't to say I didn't loveee sushi before (because I did) but it's sort of turned in to a full blown addiction. Like-need-it-three-times-a-week-at-least- kind of thing. And I know for a fact I am not alone in this. Actually, I would say that most of my friends also suffer from said addiction.

My friend Stephanie found about about these little cooking/ drinking classes they have at the LCBO and immediately signed us up. It was such a fun experience and I would really recommend it to anyone and EVERYONE. We learned how to make sushi from the sushi master himself (chef David Chung of Akasaka), we sampled a variety of booze, and we laughed a ton. Really a win-win-win. 

Chef David preparing all of the ingredients we used

I can't wait to try this out at home and impress all my friends. We pretty much won't ever need to go to a sushi restaurant again!....well that's a blatant lie...can't let the restaurants go out of business now can we.

Almost everything we needed to prepare our sushi

First things first: Grilled Spicy Salmon Hand Roll. So amazing and the seaweed had such a nice crunch to it!

The Sake, White Wine and Sparkling Wine we sampled throughout the class. We also got to taste some lovely Japanese beer. My one complaint: the portion sizes should have been bigger...

Miss Stephanie with her completed sushi!

Look how beautiful the California roll is! If I do say so myself...

Smoked Salmon and Avocado Hand roll... I love me the Hand Rolls

Check out a class for yourself! Go the LCBO website here.

Simple Appetizer Idea

When I have people over for dinner I go a little (completely) crazy and love planning out a whole menu weeks in advance. I usually have five different options swirling in my head until a few days before I make some concrete decisions.... it really is "my kind of fun". 

My issue arises once I realize that I've completely forgotten to think of an appetizer. My meals are usually so thought out that I want it to be something simple, light, and flavourful but most importantly can just be put out in minutes once everyone shows up. I read a recipe for Marinated Feta and knew that it fit into that category of appetizer immediately. You can make it days in advance (it's better if you do) and you can really throw in anything you want and it tastes fabulous. When people show up you whip it out of the fridge, cut up some fresh bread and dig in!

  Marinated Feta 

Ingredients:

400 g of feta

Handful of mixed olives

Zest of half a lemon

Juice of 1 lemon

A few thyme sprigs

Sun dried tomatoes

Salt and Pepper

Olive oil

Directions:

Cut up feta into bite sizes cubes. Place all dry ingredients (including feta cubes) in a bowl, pour in olive oil (enough to just cover feta). Cover bowl with saran wrap and put in the fridge for 1 hour- up to 3 days. When you're ready to serve, take it out of the fridge. Serve with warm fresh bread. You can dunk the bread in the flavoured olive oil, put the feta on the bread, eat the olives and other goodies in there....really the possibility are endless!

Eat Fest

The wing order has been placed. The beer has been bought. My stomach has been prepared. I'm ready for the Superbowl. I've actually gotten in to football this year (slightly addictive) and I'm really excited to cheer the Giants all the way to victory on Sunday. Obviously my favorite part of the Superbowl is the all day eating fest that goes down...with the opportunity to eat every food you could ever crave without thinking twice. 

I've started planning what I'm going to be making for this glorious event and I thought I would share with you some of my ideas. Who wants to join me?

7 Layer dip (my favvvorite). I do my best to recreate "So Delicious 7-Layer Dip". Photo found here.

Pizza Rolls with Marinara Dipping sauce: a bite size way to enjoy pizza! I figured it would be pretty fun...though I might just give up and make a pizza. Photo found here.

Creamy Mac N' Cheese: this will be crispy on top, oh-so-creamy and probably stuffed with mushrooms and bacon. YUM. Photo Found here.

Roasted Jalapenos Stuffed with Cheese and wrapped in Bacon: Have been wanting to make these for awhile. I mean....how delicious do they look? Photo Found here.