A Stockyard's Brunch

A Stockyard's Brunch

woo! this was a whiles back.. but its a good one.  We finally made our way to the Stockyards earlier this summer.  Clearly a neighbourhood hot spot, we had a short wait just as more people came in behind us.






Known as a smokehouse and bbq joint, the Stockyards serves up meat in all fashions and in plenty, so vegetarians beware.  We heard a lot of great things about this place and made a visit for our favourite meal.

May had the chicken and waffles.  It had a spicey crispy skin and a sweet citrus-y glaze poured all over.  The chicken was very tasty with a unique bold characteristic.  I had the Shirred Eggs which is basically eggs baked in a dish with creamy collard greens, white cheddar and smoked lardons.  Yes, lardons are indeed the fatty parts of bacon and I promise you, it added an amazing richness and saltyness to the dish.  Although a bit decadant, the serving size was appropriate, it was the perfect dish to dip my crusty rye toast into.

We loved the homestyle - open kitchen - neighbourhoody feel of the stockyards, and of course the smokey meaty aroma throughout.  We'll be back very soon!

The Last Supper

The Last Supper

You all know how much we love the Hoof Cafe, It's sad to see it go.

We've written two reviews of their brunch here and here, but have not mentioned their dinner menu, so before The Hoof Cafe closed its doors two weeks ago, we went to try out their fried chicken.

Although you might not be able to have these mouth watering dishes again, fear not, we're optimistic about what BHCO will bring to us this spring!

The dinner is tapa style and the dishes are meant to be shared. First we had the Deep fried chickpeas. I've never had chickpeas this way, but I loved it. It's a light appetizer to start with. Then, there came the gnudi, which is essentially a naked ravioli, and the deep fried pork belly (I think). Both were tasty.

Now, the fried chicken came with four biscuits gravy and hot sauce. The biscuits were charred on the grill, and went great with the fried chicken. The chicken itself was well made. The amount of batter was just right, and they were deep fried to perfection. The only thing is, we thought the chicken lacked a bit of character. Adding a bit more unique spice in the batter would add a lot to the taste of the chicken.

Let me say, we were very impressed with the desserts. We had the banana split and the Hazelnut ice-cream with caramel glazed apple cake. The moist apple cake and hazelnut combination was the winner on the table, but the banana split was also very good.

This is our last post of the Hoof Cafe, although we will miss it so dearly, we're excited to try out the black hoof and BHCO soon!

Bastilla

Bastilla

Today, we're going to talk about a chicken pie that's so delicious, in fact, I think it's the best thing we've ever made!

This dish was inspired by our friend Mike and Lindsey's recent trip to Morocco and the President Choice's frozen version, but we believe our homemade version is 1000 times better.

Gabe was the chef behind all of this, I was the helper plus the photo-taker.




flipping action..

Gabe said he didn't follow a specific recipe, and kind of just made reference from a couple recipes online and improvised, which is what he's good at doing when it comes to cooking.

The ingredients are as follows: onions, sweet potatoes, chicken thighs, chopped prunes, golden raisins, cinnamon, yellow curry and some chicken stock for the filling; and phyllo pastry, almond slices, butter and confectioner's sugar for the shell.

We cooked the chicken thighs and onions first to get the flavours out, and then added in the rest of the ingredients for the filling. The sweet potatoes needed to be boiled and peeled before putting into the filling mixture. the sweet poatoes gives the filling more body and the golden raisins and prunes gives it a sweet flare.

The phyllo pastry was laid in the baking dish in layers with butter,crushed almond slices and confectioner's sugar in between the layers. Once the fillings are put in the baking dish, the pie should be wrapped up by the phyllo layers with the same ingredients layered in between.

Now pop it into the oven at 375F for about 30-45 mins or until the shell is golden brown.

not so recent meals

not so recent meals

I meant to post these a while ago, but totally forgot!

First dish up is a dish I made from a Jamie Oliver recipe. I happened to flip through the Jamie book that Gabe left here for me, and found this super simple chicken breast recipe. All you need to do is to mix the leek and thyme with olive oil and salt (I didn't have any thyme, so I used a bit of sage), wrap the chicken breast with a few pieces of bacon, and then place them all on a tray so you can cook them in the oven for 30 minutes. I also made a side of sweet potato fries to go with the chicken, but it didn't turn out so crispy. If you have a better recipe that makes good and crispy sweet potato fries, please let me know!

I don't have too much to say about this one, except to say that tomatoes and ham with cheddar is my favourite sandwich combo!

Normally, if I have some tortellini, I'd make it into a pasta, but after I came back from Rome, I made way less pastas. I'm not sure if it's cuz I ate too much of it in Rome, or that my standard of pasta has gotten higher and my pastas can never measure up to those I've had in Rome. Anyway, I made the tortellini into a soup this time. I looked up this, and substituted a few things that I don't have. It turned out delicious. The leek added in so much flavour in the soup.

drumsticks

drumsticks

I think planning our meals according to grocery sale flyers is a great idea. Your meals can be decided quickly and it saves you money!

Loblaw's had drumsticks on sale, so we decided to have drums sticks for dinner one night. Gabe marinated the drumsticks with some secrete ingredients (i'm not sure what's in it, but maybe he'll tell you!) and then breaded them with panko flakes. The panko flakes made the chicken so tasty! I think we just love everything with a crunch to it.

On the side is a potato stuffed with blue cheese, cream cheese and caramelized onions, and pan fried asparagus as a vegetable.

oh mildred, we love you so

oh mildred, we love you so

whatta weekend we had! we recently had the opportunity to have a little vacation in "toronto" for the weekend.. haha.. and it involved a trip to one of our favourites, Mildred's Temple Kitchen in Liberty Village. This time, for dinner. Thanks D


Golden Beet Tatin w/ Chevre. i think this was easily our table's favourite dish


Georgian Bay smoked whitefish fritters


Short Rib Pot Roast w/ mushroom chips. Super tasty and filling!


Chef's Salad w/ hot smoked salmon, quail eggs, potatoes, goat milk's yoghurt dill dressing. best value and probably healthiest dish


Hubbard Squash, Pearl Onion, Swissh Chard, Gruyere flatbread. oh and 15 yr balsamic


Saffron Curry Fried Chicken. by far, the best fried chicken i ever had.


Baked Alaska + some chocolate ice cream puff thing. that ice cream puff was sooooooooo goood!


some kinda berry pie with sweet potato ice cream. sorry forgot the name...

Gabe's improvised Chicken Fricassee

Gabe's improvised Chicken Fricassee

Hello friends! How have you been? We've been pretty busy spending time with families and friends celebrating Chinese new year and birthdays, but now we're getting back into our normal routines again.

Last week, we made chicken. When Gabe, Will and I met up with Celine and Jin for dinner at the Drake Cafe a couple of weeks ago, I had this Chicken Fricassee that's really tasty, so Gabe brought up the idea of making it on our own. Coincidentally, chicken thighs were on sale in Foody Mart that week for $1.69/lb, how perfect!

For the Chicken Fricassee, Gabe didn't follow a particular recipe. He often doesn't. I think it's pretty cool that he can improvise on almost every dish. It's not something i can do, unless I'm cooking simple Chinese food.

We put in celery, mushroom and carrots in the pot to cook up with the chicken, you need a bit of white wine for the liquid and flavour, we chose to use some fresh oregano too.

On the side, we had baked potatoes, and Caesar salad. Gabe made the Caesar dressing from scratch.



We're going to make chili tomorrow. I'm excited!


What do you have cooking up?

dinner+breakfast

dinner+breakfast

My housemates and I have decided to take turns to make dinner. It was my turn last night, so I made chicken, potatoes and carrots. I was craving for some serious meat. My housemates are pretty much vegetarians, so I can only get my meat fix when it's my turn to cook!

The thing I don't like Rome so much is that I can't get brunch so easily. It's a hard thing to adjust to, since Gabe and I used to have brunch almost every other day. Time is limited when I'm in school as well, so for a quick fix, I made french toasts. It's a good way to start the day!

Yums.