Banana Brie French Toast

Now i don't usually make french toast, i'm not a big sweet breakfast kinda person, but occasionally i like to make something a little challenging and just different. I had some of the brie left over from the Cheese Dinner Feast, and thought it would make a nice addition to "stuffed" french toast.

La Hacienda (which i'm sure you're all sick of reading about) has a french toast i've mentioned before that uses croissants and has brie and various fruits inside. I took that as a inspiration and made a banana french toast with brie and candied walnuts.

For the egg mixture i did eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon and maple syrup. Before i put the french toast together i heated up some butter and added the walnuts and some more maple syrup, cooking them until they were browned and crispy with the sugar.

I made this french toast both on the stove top and the oven. I did the bread in the egg mixture, cooking both sides. I then lay four pieces out, added sliced bananas, brie, walnuts and a bit of syrup.


I then topped them with another piece of the french toast, poured some of the left over egg mixture and walnuts and baked it for about 7 minutes. When they were done i put them on a platter, added the rest of the nuts, some more syrup and butter. (yeah i love maple syrup).

A decedent brunch on a rainy sunday.

Fancy Pants Grilled Cheese

I have been finishing off this blue cheese for a few days now. I also had a little of the st. John's bread, along with some olives - blue cheese and spicy olive grilled cheese? Yes please!

Cheese Dinner

In celebration of my finishing my final stats exam i spent the day wandering the city. We must have walked 7 km, but got to see a bunch of different neighbourhoods, plus we picked up things as we wandered. Bread from St. John's bakery - where we got the very last stuff (other than the olive bread). We went to the epicure shop on Parliament and got crackers, some sliced meats and these amazing spiced black olives.

It knew it was a special occasion so i also broke out a bottle of wine i had been saving that i purchased when we went to the Foreign Affairs/Treadwell wine/food tasting.

The cheeses came from a new spot in the Junction really close to me called Junction Fromagerie. I love cheese, and really enjoy supporting stores in my neighbourhood. We got a great blue cheese, a brie and a old cheddar that i found a little bland.

I also had some Branksome pickle and sundried tomato pesto, cheddar crackers and spinach dip.

Bacon on the Dock

My parents always say we are lucky ducks when we're toasting at the cottage, and sitting on the dock eating breakfast (with bacon) makes me realize how true it is. This visit eric and i took turns making our own version of eggs - both were a slow scramble version. I also took my new bacon cooking technique to the test and it did produce some amazing bacon.

Heating the butter for the eggs

Slow and steady for cooking bacon

Waiting for breakfast

Bacon and Eggs

Breakfast 2 - with leftover steak and eggplant

Fish Tacos and Nachos

At the cottage with eric, we of course had to make fish tacos. We did these with the fish of the vacation - mahi mahi and grilled it on the bbq. The tacos were great as usual, but for some reason i couldn't find corn tortillas at any of the usual spots i get them, and not surprisingly there were none in Haliburton, so we had to make do with some whole wheat flour ones. I didn't realize how much i prefered the corn ones - definitely better.

We made a bunch of dips in advance, but ended up snacking on most of them over the afternoon. I made my corn, feta and tomato dip (with bbq-ed corn), guacamole and salsa.

I seasoned the fish with cumin, chili peppers and salt and pepper

Once the fish was done i broke it apart and dressed it with a mixture of salsa, sour cream and lime juice

All of the standard fish taco toppings - guac, cabbage, onions, salsa

Later that night we were playing Cranium and were hungry again. I decided to take the left over fish and taco ingredients and use them as toppings on nachos. This was in part inspired by my pork nacho experiment. I also grated a lot of cheese and baked them up.

Steak and Eggplant

It really wouldn't be a trip to the cottage if i didn't eat red meat. We hadn't picked anything up in advance, but the grocery store had a couple of nice tenderloins that looked like the good basis of a meal.

I let them get to room temperature, rubbed them with olive oil and my special meat rub that i make. (pretty much every spice at the cottage)

I also made this awesome eggplant recipe that my mother does. Its great for vegetarians, its done on the bbq and makes a great healthy side. You simply slice eggplant, lightly oil and bbq both sides. When you're meal is almost ready but back on the grill, add a slice of tomato (ideally one the same side as the eggplant, a couple rings of red onion and top with a dollop of goat cheese. (again, try to make the amount sort of match the size of the eggplant).

Here is everything on the grill
(in the packet is small potatoes)

The sides

Mahi mahi melts

When we were in Haliburton, the President's Choice mahi mahi was on sale, so we picked up a couple of them, knowing how much we like to eat fish. Although Fish Tacos were of course on the menu, i had been intending to make tuna melts at some point, i thought perhaps i would make it with mahi mahi instead.

This was also on the last day so we wanted to use up as many of the ingredients as we could. Eric made a greek salad as an accompaniment.

I bbq-ed the fish, and added many of the topping i would normally for a tuna melt; onions, jalapenos, green apples. I also put tomato and avocado on the sandwiches.

Once i had the mix done i added them to whole wheat baguettes and topped them with extra old cheddar. I will admit they were not as good as tuna melts - the fish was too mild, but i am not done with the challenge of fish sandwiches.

Toasty.

Egg sandwiches

Lately i have been really busy with school/work, so my cooking has taken a real hit. I also don't have a whole lot of money so simple, quick and cheap meals have been on the agenda - hence a whole lot of egg sandwiches. I like egg sandwiches so this isn't really a problem, and there are a variety of ways you can make them.



In this blt with scrambled eggs i got to use up the last three pieces of maple bacon from the cottage (to be featured in a future post) along with some great veggies (i love this time of year)

Assembly

Two blt with scrambled eggs on marble rye

I also think a good fried egg sandwich is always a treat - and so as i had eggs and bread, i thought a simple one might also do me a quick dinner. Since it was dinner i served this with a greek salad, but since i didn't have too many tomatoes i added some romaine lettuce. I really think that lettuce does not belong in greek salad, but this was pretty tasty and made it look like there was more on the plate.

Top:

Another fried egg sandwich, this one with cheddar and some left over salad

Birthday Dinner at Asian Legend

For eric's bday about 15 of us got together and went to the Dundas street location of Asian Legend. If you have a group of over 10 you can get a private room - which we did. We all just ordered a whole bunch of things and spun the lazy susan in the centre and ate what came our way. My personal favorite was the fish in chilie sauce (i think the fish was grouper) and these weird beef crepe things and the chinese broccoli was excellent.

Here is our meal in all its glory...

beef, noodles, soup, dumplings

fried birthday bananas

Fish with chili sauce

(my fav)

Crispy chicken

(or what's left)

Big hot and sour soup

Plate number... who knows!

Veggie Dumpling

dry fried veggie noodles

hot and sour soup and beef crepe

Lazy susan full of food

Chinese broccoli in chili-garlic sauce

whole lot of dirty plates