m♥m

may 2 003, originally uploaded by eh-mi.

Breakfast of Champions

Coco/nut Waffles
Makes 4 medium-sized waffles. A good dose of fibre disguised as a decadent breakfast treat; goes well with eggs and peameal!

The Waffles
1 C whole wheat flour
1/2 C slivered almonds
1/2 C shredded coconut (omit maple syrup if sweetened)
1/2 C oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tbsp maple syrup (or other sweet stuff of your choosing)
2 large eggs
1 1/2 C milk
1 tsp vanilla/almond extract

Method
Heat waffle iron. Combine & mix dry ingredients. Whisk together milk, eggs, extracts. Whisk dry and wet ingredients to combine, batter will be lumpy.
Ladle batter onto waffle iron, help batter spread out to edges. Close iron and wait for the magic to happen.

Notes: for more flavour, toast coconut and almonds slightly in dry skillet and if you don't have a waffle iron don't hesitate to pancake-ize these suckers. They're super hearty, really high in fibre and make superbly satisfying, on-the-small-side pancakes.

spring's sprung

Oh, finishing the school year was kinda distracting, but it's over, i'm back and so on. This week, I promise to share a coconut-y recipe and some photos of the lentil loaf i'm working on with some classmates for a Canada-wide PULSE competition!
I was feeling disinterested due to some setbacks at the garden but I'm definitely back in the growing ZONE, feeling really excited about planning my plot and nurturing tiny plantlets into nourishing and delicious edibles! More on that to come, too.

Now, I leave you with a selection of recent snaps.

A seemingly male tomato


Not sure what these are, some kind of little succulent growing in near Woodbine & Gerrard in a really arid, prairie like spot! If you know what they are, please tell me.


I really, really wanted to just lie down under these lovely blossoms, but as evidenced by the powerlines also overhead, it wasn't a a great spot for lying down.


Here's my favourite little weirdo, licking her chops in excitement over a stick being thrown in the water. I save that manner of lip-licking for much more delicious treats, but hey, she only has a pea brain. She really makes me laugh!


Sweet dreams!

this pleases me.

"healthier" junk food in our future? make it now, pepsico!

Pizza Huts

I'm in Eastern Ontario and tonight Graham comes on the train to meet me here. We'll be having a pizza party upon arrival! But, where to order from? Olympia, North End, Napoleon's, A-1 or one of these two fine establishments?

The first pizza mentioned on this blog is from Riverside.


Louis' was a teen-fav, their poutine with meat sauce is a real standout!

Classy-lookin' joints, hey?

PB cups

This peanut butter cup recipe is based on one from thekindlife.com. I am totally into subbing in whole grains and toning down the excessive sugariness of sweet snacks, so I've upped the fibre and protein content of the humble PB cup while lowering the glycemic load with the addition of wheatgerm, maple syrup and chocolate with high cocoa content. Apologies to those with wheat sensitivities, this treat won't do you well.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bites
Makes 24 cups. Peanut butter goodness topped with a rich dollop of dark chocolate, guaranteed to satisfy a PBC craving!

The Cups
3/4 C peanut butter (I mean the real deal. Grind your own!)
1/8 C butter
1/4 C maple syrup
1 C wheatgerm
3 oz semi-sweet Baker's chocolate
1 oz unsweetened Baker's chocolate
1/4 C 2% milk
15 peanuts, coarsely chopped

Method
Combine butter, peanut butter and maple syrup in a small heavy bottomed saucepan over low heat, stirring to combine as ingredients soften. Once melted, stir in wheatgerm until combined and remove from heat. While peanut butter mixture cools, set out 24 mini paper cupcake liners on a cookie sheet. When peanut butter is cooled enough to be handled, scoop about a tablespoon's worth into each liner, patting down so the tops are more or less smooth. Now, in another heavy bottomed saucepan over low heat, warm milk and add chocolate squares, stirring gently until chocolate is melted and combined with milk. While still warm, spoon chocolate over each peanut butter cup. Sprinkle with chopped peanuts and set in fridge to cool. Once cool, eat 'em up!

Below is a handy-dandy nutrition label reflecting the contents of each PB cup. I wouldn't recommend gorging on them, but chowing on a couple of these is a better alternative to their packaged candy bar-like cousins.

Hanging onto the theme by a thread!

This post is oh so tenuously connected to thoughts of food: this past Sunday (truly a Mythological Sundae, a small taste of spring in February!), Graham and I took Ivy on a very long walk up to the Wychwood Barns so I could check out Seedy Sunday. Gardening events are food related, right? What I choose to plant in the early season will forecast some harvest time writings for sure!
I am broke and already in possession of far too many seeds so I limited myself to a packet of a particularly prolific bush bean, a packet of dinosaur kale seeds and a couple other little things. Most of my time at Seedy Sunday was spent at the Perth-Dupont Community Garden table, talking about gardening with folks shuffling by in the waves of crowds in attendance.
Before going into the Barns to the event, we brought Ivy to the Wychwood off-leash area and let her hang out with some buddies. This brings me to the real inspiration for this post. Here's a really great little clip of a pug and golden retriever wrestling! You can even catch a glimpse of the Ivermonster checkin' out the tussle.

St. Lawrence Pizza and Pasta

I finally got up close and personal with the pizza at St. Lawrence Market. I ordered a pizza with green peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni and onions, the standard toppings for the comparison purposes of this hunt.

Graham and I are at odds: I am of the opinion that this pizza most closely tasted like "Cornwall Pizza". He is of the "Prairie Pizza" school and thought it was very good pizza, for Toronto, but refused to say it came close to what he is looking for.

If I'd requested double cheese (I just couldn't!) I'm sure it would have been the closest we've found so far. So, it didn't have the truly obscene amount of cheese required to hit the mark, but the pepperoni had the right seasoning and flavour and the crust was just the right sort of chewy.

They're only open until 6pm and they don't do delivery. An XL pizza is the only size available as they specialize in selling by-the-slice. A huge pizza with four toppings will set you back $22 and getting it home on the streetcar will be an experience you won't soon forget.

St. Lawrence Pizza and Pasta 416.368.3479
in the south-west corner of the south building

Danforth Pizza House

The man who makes this pizza is at least one hundred years old.
I called ahead and the pizza was ready for me in under 30 minutes.
It was really, really good and I'd easily recommend it to anyone looking for an old school-style pizza pie. The pizza was nicely charred and the cheese was golden brown in spots. The whole pizza was a bit thin, not like a thin crust in the Amato's way but still a svelte-crusted pizza. I just can't say it meets the gold standard we're working with here but it's damn good pizza.
AND THE PIZZA MAKER IS ONE HUNDRED. More thorough review forthcoming!

Danforth Pizza House 416.463.4927

pizza hunt begins

New York Cafe


a friend suggested we try a pizza from new york cafe on broadview at danforth, just a short streetcar ride from home.



okay, so this pizza is probably the closest we've come to the pizzas we love and miss so much! i ordered a large with pepperoni, onion, mushrooms and green pepper for $20.26! dealz!

the crust is a bit on the thin side, i could hold my first piece up without droop but the second is flaccid toward the point! i streetcar-ed it home to bath and dundas so we popped it in the oven on a hot pizza stone for a few minutes, so now i'm not totally sure if the crispy parts are because of the slight reheating or if the crust is just a little uneven. the crust is good, but like i said, a little on the thin side and i think my hometown pizza dough is just all around BREADIER. like, the gluten is more developed and it should ideally be a bit sweeter and chewier with a crip bottom. i'm happy with this crust, though. graham, the prairie representative, is really not into this crust. i will assert that it's totally great pizza crust and i'd be very happy with it if i weren't comparing it to something else.

onto the toppings. there is a good amount of cheese, more than you'd find at most other places but it's not a thick blanket of cheese like you might be hoping for. the pepperoni is pretty close! it's round, but larger than the small disks most places in toronto use, so it isn't like big rectangular slices but the flavour is just about right and it is UNDER THE CHEESE! the green pep, onion are in a small dice, the shrooms are thinly sliced. it seems like they were mixed up WITH the cheese so they're not underneath but they're not really on top either. a c-wall pie would have had green pep rings all over it, not a small dice, but that is getting pretty nitpicky.

the sauce is good... tomato-y but lacks the kinda spicy flav you mention, parkade. i always think the sauce seems pepper-y rather than any other kind of heat, but i'm not sure what that is.

overall, i'm happy with this pie and i'd probably travel out there again to pick it up but the hunt goes on!

i think my next investigation will occur at danforth pizza house.

pizza egg hunt

in my hometown (cornwall, on), there are numerous local pizzerias run by greek families.
the pizza is unlike any i have uncovered in toronto in ten years. does anyone have any leads on pizza like this?

it's got a kind of thick crust, SO MUCH mozz, toppings go UNDER the cheese and the pepperoni slices are huge, not little disks.


now and then threads like this pop up on chowhound... some people refer to it was OTTAWA pizza, others as WINDSOR PIZZA, and i am pretty sure pizza from nouveau palais in montreal would fit the bill. i call it CORNWALL PIZZA and my boyfriend thinks of it as REGINA PIZZA. my parents claim this pizza oversight has been a problem here since the early 70s when they would bring pizza from cornwall and freeze it!