Toronto Birthday!

march 9-10th, 2012.

location: Toronto.

My sister and I recently went to Toronto to celebrate her Birthday at the Renaissance Hotel. There, we awed in the presence of the CN Tower, having lived in Canada all of my life, I still seem to be breathless when looking up at it, daytime or night. It still to this day has the effect on me.

We ventured off to many restaurants and Loblaw's. Amazing grocery store. The night was young, our stomachs were full and we were ready to party!

Accidental Curry Spill.. :O

March 21/2012.

I was cooking rice and making a thin creamy garlic sauce to accompany it, when I went to grab the salt and the container of curry powder spilt into the sauce! I was surprised when I tasted it with a spoon that it was delicious!

I mixed it with a little bit of honey, added the cooked rice and some canned beans finished it with freshly chopped cilantro and Voila! delicious! Marvelloso..

I also had some pork marinated overnight and grilled it, finished it with a blackberry and fig reduction. I must say.. if I had to wait for this..... I'd be drooling. =)

Sushi today, tomorrow, everyday!!!!

Sushi..

If the world ended tomorrow, I'd want to spend it eating sushi with Daniel. It is the most delicious food I've had ever in my life.. growing up I never got to experience but as I got older, my palate became more mature with foods that were raw, especially fish and eggplant. Never really liked that much.

There's this Sushi restaurant that I go to since it's opened 5 years ago, Ye's Sushi. It was always an "all you can eat" buffet. Which seems to more of a trendy thing nowadays. The food there never seems to disappoint. That's the restaurant I even bring my dates to, at least when it's a bad date, you won't leave disappointed because of such a great meal. :) I've brought all my foodie friends there and chefs. It's really uncomparable to any other sushi place I've been to. Maybe except the ones in Japan.

I want to go again soon!





J.

Midnight Birthday Cake for Esteban

I was looking at these very ripe bananas in my kitchen basket and kept wondering what I should do with them. Everyone kept telling me to make banana bread but I don't know anyone who actually eats that so I took them and dug up a banana cake recipe. Turns out banane cake isn't so bad. So I put that together with some peanut buttter ganache and roasted hazelnut simple syrup and fresh fruit with glaze and made my friend, Esteban a cake for his birthday. He's only 24.. no one ever is too old for birthday cake!

Feliz Cumpleaños Viejo Esteban! jajaja

Lazy Day Baking.. Boost of inspiration?

Recently I had been feeling a bit blue.. being sick sucks! Anyway, I decided to do some baking. I made these delicious marble cupcakes with deep chocolate fudge and french vanilla sponge. It had a creamy cream cheese frosting. It tasted pretty good. The frosting turned out more blue than I expected! So I put a cookie on it to contrast the two. It looks yummy!

Discovered Chef Culinary Competition

Discovered Chef Culinary Competition

Nella Cucina was hosting a Discovered Chef Culinary Competition in Toronto for a chance to compete in the CFRA Show in March, whoever won that wins a trip to Northern Spain and works under a Michelin Star Chef. YAY!

Four chefs competed in black box challenges. These were Dave, Dan, George and I. We had to create each course and the judges decided who was "bladed" as they would say, in other terms it meant eliminated.

Out of all the competitions I've done, I can say this one by far is the hardest one I've done. Out of all the ones I have done. Hands down.

Great experience, would definitely do it again. Competitions like these are the ones that teach you, learn from and expose you as a chef. It really tests your creative mind and pushes you to your limit.

Amazing.. can't wait to see the finals in March 4-6th at the Metro convention centre in Toronto.

-Jessica

La Matin Bakery!

One of my favourite Chocolatiers and professors at the Chocolate Academy is Jean Pierre Challet.

He recently opened up a retail bakery called, "La Matin" which means the morning in French.

I had meaning to go check it out and on my way to another competition I walked passed his bakery and couldn't resist but went in and was greeted with such friendliness and bought a croissant and a complimentary broiche. YUM!

The croissant had an amazing flakiness, soft but suttle crunch to it as you bit into heaven. Now, I try not to eat too many of them because of the loads of fat in it but every now and then you should indulge in one.

In conclusion, croissants are one of the best French pastries I've had..

-Jessica