Posts tagged breakfast
Posts tagged breakfast
Brunch at Ben & Florentine
In looking for something fun to do one recent weekend, we decided to take a drive over to the Quebec side to check out the brand new Simons department store at the shopping mall in Gatineau. On our way, we stopped to try some brunch at Ben & Florentine, a cute spot that neither of us had heard of or eaten at before.
This mostly Quebec-based chain (they have one location in Ontario - in the GTA - and one in Manitoba) focuses completely on breakfast and brunch: they are open until just 3 p.m. daily. There is a ton to choose from on this menu, from classic two-egg breakfasts to eggs Benedicts, skillets, pancakes, waffles, crepes (both sweet and savoury) and even breakfast burgers!
It had been forever since I’d had an eggs Benedict, so I decided to go for their traditional Benedict with bacon. The husband loves a good breakfast skillet, so he chose their gourmet skillet, which is a mixture of hasbrowns, red onions, baked beans and sausage, with your choice of egg on top (he chose scrambled). Everything was delicious! My breakfast came with a side of apple sauce, which was something different and a nice touch.
We also shared one of their many smoothie options which was very tasty. We’d go back to Ben & Florentine any time! Here’s hoping they open up some new locations in Ontario!
Sunday waffling!
Our recent purchase of a waffle maker was either the best thing ever or a huge mistake, depending on how you look at it.
We’ve had some fun with it, like using a basic waffle recipe to make waffle breakfast sandwiches. More waffle adventures to come!
Long weekend experiments: breakfast calzones
What did you get up to this past Victoria Day weekend? After seeing this delicious looking calzone on this episode of the Food Network’s “You Gotta Eat Here,” the husband decided he wanted to try to make it, and so we got to work.
I made my quick and easy pizza dough (I use this), and as we let it rest for a little bit, we fried up some pancetta, made scrambled eggs, chopped some green onions and grated some Gouda cheese. We crammed all of that into the pizza dough, folded it over, pinched the edges, brushed it with some olive oil and sprinkled it with fresh Parmesan cheese and garlic powder.
After baking for about 12 minutes at 450 degrees, it was golden brown and delicious looking! We topped it with a bit more Parmesan and some chopped fresh Italian parsley. It was super delicious, and each bite was even better with a little bit of sriracha drizzled on top!
Interesting grocery find at our local Loblaws today: maple French toast and banana bread flavoured English muffins!
Brunch at Union Local 613
OH CANADA! How about those election results? I mean, what a night! But that’s all I will say on that!
Oh brunch, brunchy brunchy brunch, my favourite! Brunching at Union Local 613 has been on my to-do list for a very long time, and we finally made it there late this past summer.
The restaurant space is really quirky and rustic, and a lot more spacious than I expected. I noticed right away that there were very few small tables; that’s when I saw the long tables at the back of the restaurant, and I knew what was going on. Call me old fashioned, but I am still not used to this new family-style seating arrangement that many hip new restaurants are using. Long tables that seat 8 or 10 can either be used by parties of that size, or are shared between smaller groups. Luckily, we got there a bit early so we were able to avoid having to share the large table at which we sat. I mean, I’m sure it is fine, and sometimes you get to meet interesting strangers. But it’s just not for my personal taste.
Despite the not-so-ideal seating arrangement, I will say right away that the service was fantastic! Attentive, fast and friendly, with many coffee refills, which is of high importance to me! haha Our server took our order right away, and soon we were digging in to the beignets of the day, three little scrumptious bites of homemade goodness. Our server even thoughtfully brought us a knife so we could cut them in half to share!
A short while later, our main plates arrived, and we were in brunch heaven. My ‘benny’ of sausage and biscuit with red eye gravy was so flavourful and plentiful, and my eggs were perfectly poached. The husband’s fried chicken was moist and tender, and the waffle was fluffy and rich.
Overall, we had a great brunch at Union Local 613, and can’t wait to return!
Summer breakfast at its best.
Relaxing rainy Canada Day brunch at home for the win.
Easy weekend brunch: everything-you-have-quiche
Whenever my sister and I get together for a visit, you know there will be lots of delicious food, and her most recent visit was no exception.
Using this Dairy Farmers of Canada quiche recipe as our inspiration, we made this lovely little quiche for our breakfast. It was seriously easy and even more seriously delicious! We enjoyed our slices of quiche with fresh fruit and endless freshly ground and brewed coffee. Now that’s a brunch!
I have been in pure winter survival mode when it comes to cooking lately. It has been relentlessly cold. Ottawa has even broken some cold temperature records. We haven’t been very creative in the kitchen; the slow cooker has been our go-to all winter. We have made a lot of stews and roasts. I have also been working my way through this giant sack of steel cut oats from Costco. I don’t know what I would do without it! How have you been surviving winter?
His and hers Saturday morning rituals.
Brunch/breakfast at Wilf and Ada’s
I think I have said this before, but I will say it again: I love brunch, and I don’t care what everyone else thinks! There is quite a controversy about brunch out there (have you read this?), and, while I can see and understand the points made by some about the negative aspects of brunch, I simply don’t care. I don’t think I am negatively impacting anyone’s life by partaking in brunch, and Ottawa has some amazing spots in which to enjoy a fine late or early morning meal and a few cups of coffee. Rant complete!
This brings me to Wilf and Ada’s. A friend with whom I have many restaurant chats came back from Wilf and Ada’s last fall raving about her experience, so I had added it to my list of places to try. I was sorry I waited as long as I did!
The tiny restaurant, which has only been open for a year as of the beginning of January 2015, was previously a diner called Ada’s (named after the owner) which was open for many, many years. The new owners (who among them have a great deal of restaurant experience in Ottawa) have kept the same tradition but added the previous owner’s husband’s name (Wilf) to make Wilf and Ada’s Scratch Diner. There is very limited seating in this place, so you have to get there early or be willing to wait, but it is worth it!
As it happened, the husband and I got there really early on a Saturday morning, and easily nabbed a table for two. I knew from a bit of poking around on the internet that I wanted to try their dirty coconut chai, which is a mixture of chai, espresso and milk, with a cinnamon and coconut syrup for a bit of sweetness. I added an extra shot of espresso and it was amazing! Not too sweet, spicy from the chai but with that great coffee flavour from my two espresso shots. The husband ordered a glass of their freshly squeezed orange juice, and he loved it.
For our meals, I ordered the Blackstone eggs benny, which comes with bacon, a roasted tomato mixture and mayo, and is served on their in-house made English muffins with Hollandaise. I don’t know why, but this is the best eggs benny I have ever eaten! There was so much flavour in the tomato mixture and the Hollandaise - every bite was so good. The husband ordered the hungryman breakfast, which came with two eggs (he got scrambled), bacon, baked beans, toast, homefries and a side of their french toast with fruit compote. The husband said that literally every bite was so flavourful, starting with the most perfect scrambled eggs right down to the rich baked beans, which were sweet with a maple flavour and savoury from the chunks of bacon. And the french toast: a ridiculously thick slice of their in-house made bread dipped and fried to golden brown perfection, then topped with an incredible tangy fruit compote and fresh whipped cream.
Every item at Wilf and Ada’s is freshly prepared, and many things are made in-house, which is fantastic. You can taste the love that the owners and the chef put into making everything at Wilf and Ada’s delicious! Go NOW and get your breakfast or brunch on!
The Tower of Power and Happy New Year!
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! The husband and I traveled to visit with our families over the last week, and we had a great time except for that we both started coming down with bad colds and even a bit of the flu on December 24th. Yeah, not cool! It is kind of comical because we had been stressed out about the weather leading up to the holidays: we were certain some kind of giant snowstorm would thwart our plans. But, in the end, the weather was clear and instead we both got sick! But what can you do?
During our visit with my family, my sister, ever the genius, found a recipe for this masterpiece, of the Tower of Power as we were all calling it, and made it for our Boxing Day brunch. She found the recipe here, and it is actually called a panettone brie tower, and it is fantastically delicious! She used an orange and raisin flavoured panettone to make this, and she also used a chocolate chip panettone to make another one for dessert with her in-laws. The combination of the brie and dulce de leche is mind blowingly amazing. This is one decadent brunch/dessert item, and you should go and make it right NOW!
Here is the recipe as found on the All You Need is Cheese website. Enjoy!
Panettone Brie tower - serves 10-12
Ingredients
- 1 panettone (Christmas dessert bread), about 1.5 lb (675 g)
- 8 eggs
- 2 cups (500 mL) milk
- 1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract
- Butter, for cooking
- 8 oz (225 g) Canadian Brie, sliced
- ½ cup (125 mL) dulce de leche, homemade or store-bought
Directions
Cut panettone into 6 round slices about 1˝ (2.5 cm) thick.
In a bowl, beat eggs with milk and vanilla.
Preheat oven to 250ºF (120ºC). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Heat 1 or 2 large skillet(s) over medium heat and melt a little butter. Soak a slice of panettone in the milk mixture. Drain and place in hot skillet(s). Cook 4–5 minutes on each side. Place on baking sheet, reserve in hot oven and repeat with the remaining slices.
Assemble browned panettone slices on a serving plate: top bottom slice with Brie. Add a second slice of panettone and spread it with some dulce de leche. Add a third slice and top with Brie and so on.
Place at the centre of the table and cut into wedges to serve.
Weekend experiments: crepes!
Oh my gosh: I made crepes! Crepes have always been something that I wanted to make, but I was worried that they would turn out to be a huge failure. I never felt that I had the right tools to successfully make crepes, but ever since we bought our Blendtec, I have been inspired to go ahead and try new things. The Blendtec comes with a recipe book, and it contains a very simple basic sweet or savoury crepe recipe, so I decided to finally go out of my way to pick up the rest of the tools I thought I needed to be successful in making crepes (a proper flat pan and a wooden spreader) and give it a try. It was a total success!
No longer am I scared of crepes; in fact, they were so easy! Perhaps they were not perfectly round for my first try, but practice will make perfect. Blendtec’s sweet crepe recipe was simple and delicious, and not too sweet. We dressed ours simply for the first time, mixing some cinnamon and sugar and sprinkling it on the inside before rolling them up, then topping them with a bit of maple syrup. Go ahead and make crepes: it is a lot easier than you might think!
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Blendtec’s sweet crepes recipe - makes about 12 crepes
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 1 Tbsp butter, melted
- 1 ¼ cup 1% milk
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 Tbsp of sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions
Add ingredients to your blender in the order listed. Blend (use batters button if using a Blendtec). Put the batter in the fridge for an hour. Use ¼ cup batter per crepe. If keeping warm in the oven, place a piece of parchment paper in between each crepe to prevent sticking. Fill with desired fillings/toppings. Leftover crepes could easily be frozen layered in between pieces of parchment paper.
Weekend baking project: one hour (ish) bread
Making bread is a rare thing in my house. Well, any yeasted bread-type recipe really! (Save for my quick rising pizza dough recipe). Most days I just don’t have the time to wait for the dough to rise multiple times. Its not that I don’t have the patience (because I do), it is more the waiting and timing and scheduling of the rising of the dough. I like to enjoy my weekends, people!
So when I came across this recipe for a supposedly “one hour” bread, I was intrigued. Could a tasty, good quality loaf of bread really be made in about an hour? I decided to find out for myself.
After assembling all of my ingredients, I got to work. I decided to make this manually (i.e., to not use my stand mixer) for my first try, but I would definitely use the mixer next time. Kneading is tiring for the arms! The dough came together fairly easily and quickly, then it was time to rest for a mere 30 minutes in a warm spot.
After a mere 25 minutes in the oven, I had bread! We waited as long as we could to let it cool before cutting into it, which was tough! This is definitely a dense bread, with an excellent crisp crust. We thought it was great for such little effort and rise time.
You can click here to see the recipe, which I found on the funny Cravings of a Lunatic blog.I followed the recipe and the directions as best as I could, with the only difference being that I added about a tablespoon of olive oil to the liquid mixture before adding in the flour. I believe the key to what enables you to make this bread so quickly is the instant/quick-rise yeast (I used Fleischmann’s). This yeast basically eliminates the need for the first rise according to Fleischmann’s website, which makes sense in terms of how quickly this bread comes together in this recipe.
I would definitely make this again! We gobbled ours up within a few days and it stayed fairly fresh after the first day, which was good. It was also nice toasted when we ate it with some homemade soup. If you’ve ever wanted a quick bread recipe, look no further!