Tag Archives: food

Monday’s Munchies: Weekend Leftovers

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When I first started cooking after Nouman’s mom left, I had a hard time figuring out quantities. I still sometimes do. I would often make so much food that it could feed a family of 4 for 2 days. Regardless of the quantity, I think we all sometimes have leftover foods that nobody wants to eat by the end of the week. Right?

Well, one day, I had made so much keemay and aloo walay chawal (rice with ground meat and potatoes) that it seemed like it would never end. Out of desperation, I decided to make a casserole. It turned out really yummy so now I do this every few weeks.

This past weekend, we had numerous odd leftovers: aloo ki tarkari (potato curry), refried beans (I had made these 1 week ago hoping to make nachos but we didn’t get time), ground chicken, plain white rice (we had been eating this batch for 6 days) and 1 pack of mushrooms that would have gone bad if I didn’t use it asap. In order to somehow finish everything before the end of the weekend, I shoved everything into a casserole!

So what do I normally do?

  • Heat up some oil in a pot
  • Dump 1/2 a chopped onion and saute it until its translucent. Now, either add some ginger/garlic paste or a few cloves of garlic (yeay I’m desi!)
  • Salt to taste (if I’m making a casserole with cheese, I usually put 1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon)
  • Add in any raw veggies – i.e. mushrooms this weekend
  • Put any other outstanding items – ground chicken and beans
  • Since the rice will get dry when it’s baked, I add in a sauce. This week, I had some leftover pasta sauce so I included that. I have also used cream of mushroom soup – it tastes so good!
  • Add the rice and any herbs you want to use (I generally use parsley or oregano)
  • Let it simmer for 2 minutes
  • Spoon the mixture into a casserole dish
  • Bake on 400 degrees F until the cheese melts and browns at the top

 

I took this picture at the halfway point – the cheese has started to melt but hasn’t fully melted nor has it browned

 

I took this picture after I put it in my plate. Notice the cheese browned and melted in the back? Oooh yeah, everything tastes better with cheese.

 

What do you do with your leftovers?

Monday’s Munchies: Birthday Eatings

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Remember my claim that I would start eating healthy? Well, at that time, I forgot that it was Nouman’s birthday the coming week. So yes, I flew off the bandwagon even before I really had a chance to start.

Nouman and I both had Thursday off (US Thanksgiving) so we took off Friday and Monday aswell – yeay to extra long weekends! On Tuesday, we finalized our plans to head off to Niagara falls and on Thursday, we were off on our adventure! I like to pre-plan ages in advance, but we both decided to be spontaneous and to go with the flow – I can’t believe how good it felt. On Thursday, we (by we I mean mainly Nouman) did a little bit of shopping on the Canadian side of Niagara falls (ate at Burger King), checked into our hotel in the evening and then vegged out in our room for a few hours. Did you guys know that I LOVE hotel rooms? Especially when they have a king sized bed and a jacuzzi? After resting for a few hours, we went out for dinner to a Halal Middle-Eastern restaurant called Casablanca. Casablanca has all the Arabian delights – shawarma, falafel, shish tawouk, etc – and also an area that has sheesha, fresh juices/shakes and a wood-oven pizza’s!

Service: Attentive. The owner was hands-on and everyone jived together. We had no complaints. It took around 15 minutes for our food to be ready
Taste: Pretty good. The falafel was average – nothing spectacular but definitely better than Villa Madina. Nouman liked his chicken shawarma too
Portion Size: Huge. Comparable to Paramount
Price: On the pricier side – Chicken Shawarma plate was $15.99 and the falafel sandwich was $7.99. The pizza’s (12 inch) ranged from $7.99 to $11.99

Nouman got the chicken shawarma plate and I had the falafel sandwich

After dinner, we had fun at Clifton Hill (my sisters and I call it “Fun Street”) and looked around the casino at our hotel before finally returning to our suite around 1:30am. I had wanted to surprise Nouman with breakfast at the Fallsview Restaurant at our hotel (it has amazing views of the falls) but we were both too tired to get up early in the morning. After checking out, we headed to Denny’s for brunch.

We ordered the vegetarian omelet with fries and rye toast and a custom order of 2 eggs (sunnyside up), 2 English Muffins, hashbrowns and 2 buttermilk pancakes. We took this picture after we had halved our meals

After our yummy brunch, we walked around the falls, checked out the second casino (Casino Niagara) and then randomly decided to cross the border to eat at the Cheesecake Factory! We had thought that the border would be packed because of Black Friday, but we had been viewing the border from out hotel and it was completely deserted.

 

Mine: Nachos
Nouman: Shrimp Jambalaya
… and free bread, ofcourse!

 

Oreo Cheesecake

Did I tell you that I completely overpacked the snacks for our trip? A list of all the food/drink items I took:

  • Ruffles: Sour Cream & Onion (brought it back unopened)
  • Ruffles: All Dressed (we ate almost the entire bag)
  • A container full of assorted nuts – cashews, almonds, salted and limed almonds, walnuts, etc
  • Honey roasted peanuts
  • Bag of sour and sweet twizzlers (I finished this off pretty much on my own)
  • Swedish berries (we had half of the bag)
  • Dairy milk chocolate bar (untouched)
  • Twix – pack of 4 (unopened)
  • Celebration cookies (again, untouched)
  • 4 diet coke cans (I had one)
  • 2 coke cans (Nouman had 1)
  • 1 ginger ale
  • Handful of water bottles (useful)
  • A chocolate cupcake that I surprised Nouman with to kick off his birthday celebrations (we had this the morning after we got back home)

On Saturday, we went to Pizza Hut where we had pizza and a yummy cake! Thankfully, I was able to control myself at Pizza Hut and stopped at 3 slices – after all the overeating, I could resist pizza… a first for me!

I was hoping to eat clean on Sunday but I went over to my parents place and indulged in delicious sushi and spinach pie. FYI, I haven’t had sushi in a LONG time – it was delicious and I definitely overate.

 

And today, Nouman and I both took the day off and are going to indulge in something again. I think I might just go for a salad if we go out somewhere – totally don’t feel like eating anything greasy or fried! Although Birthday Burgers are a tradition, I don’t know if I feel like having it – maybe we’ll share one for old times sake ;)

 

Monday’s Munchies: Food Log # 4

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Oh boy. I don’t know how to tell you guys this.

Ever since the wedding, I have been gorging on food like no tomorrow. You all know that I love food, but I used to eat pretty balanced before – weekdays were almost entirely healthy and on the weekends I would splurge. This worked relatively well for me. However, since the wedding, I have been eating alot of unhealthy junk – totally my own fault. I have gained 7 pounds (last I checked – which was about 2 weeks ago) and a couple of handfuls of stomach rolls. Yup, not a pretty sight.

Whenever I have gained weight in the past, it would either be very slightly visible or not visible to anyone but me. This time, it is SO not the case. I’m super self-conscious and the weight gain is quite obvious – 7 pounds on a short person does not hide well. The last few weekends have been busy and work has been draining so I have rarely had time to work out. Yes, I’m making excuses.

Anyway, as of today, I am going to eat healthier. I don’t think I’ll be able to hit the gym this week but I’m definitely going to clean up my eating. It’s time to get back in shape!

As I’m typing this post, we got these adorable cupcakes delivered to us to announce the birth of a baby. I couldn’t resist. In my defense, I had a teeny tiny piece of each flavour

What do you do to eat healthier with a busy schedule?

Monday’s Munchies: Amica’s Cake (Vendor Review)

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I have gotten ALOT of emails on our wedding vendors so here is a detailed review on our cake person!

Nouman and I had a clear vision of what we wanted for our cake: bling, chic, and ultra modern. I had a list of cake people (yeah, I call them cake people) that I wanted us to meet but cake wasn’t at the top of our priority list. Our venues, makeup artist, photographer, videographer and a decorator were our main focus; so we decided to leave the cake until closer to the wedding.

When we finally decided to figure out our cake, we were both too tired and exhausted to shop around. We have been to 3 weddings where Amica’s Cakes was the cake provider so we decided to go meet with her. If she could give us what we wanted and it tasted good, we could save ourselves time by not meeting other people.

Amica is a sweet lady – she’s soft-spoken and easy to talk to. Once we met her, we described what we wanted and she said we could have a look at her dummy cakes. Although she had many pretty cakes, no one cake was calling out to me. Amica assured us that she could make changes to any of her existing cakes or create a complete custom cake. After having read numerous reviews on Amica, I preferred asking her to replicate one of her existing designs rather than create a custom cake. Finally, tucked away in a corner was the cake we both wanted – it was black and white, had a quilted pattern, lots of bling and it was SO us. The cake was hexagon-shaped; neither one of us had seen that shape before and totally loved it! We decided to make some changes: we added purple satin ribbons to match my dress and added crystal monograms for out initials.

Amica also let us do a cake testing that day from some leftover cake she had. We had a slice of chocolate mousse cake and strawberry shortcake. While I liked the latter cake, I thought the chocolate was too sweet. I asked Amica to change our cake to a dark chocolate cake with a hazelnut filling and chocolate ganache.

Overall, my thoughts based on our cake:

  • Reliability: I met Amica twice and both times she was ready for us and gave us copies of our contract. She also delivered our cake on time
  • Taste: While the cake tasted good, Amica did make a slight mistake. I had asked for a dark chocolate cake with chocolate ganache but we got a chocolate cake with chocolate mousse. I did have a feeling that she would not be able to deliver the flavour I had asked for when I met her the second time. I mentioned a few flavours to Amica (i.e. salted caramel), but she said she wouldn’t be able to provide those flavours. I finally decided to go for a simple dark chocolate cake but Amica’s version of dark chocolate was not dark enough for me. I told her I wanted it to be darker and she said she would do that. I had a feeling that she wouldn’t be able to give me what I wanted but I didn’t care too much. It wasn’t a big deal to either of us so I wouldn’t hold it against her.
  • Design: I loved everything she did – it was exactly what we had asked for and not a single thing looked different. One of the buckles did slide off our cake right before the reception started and was fixed by our sister-in-law. Luckily, it managed to hold through for the rest of the night.
  • Price: Very reasonable for what we asked for

 

 

 

 

 

*All the above images are via Big Al Studios*

Based on our experience, I would recommend Amica. My only words of advice would be not to expect unique flavours from her – she has standard flavours that she cannot customize. After reading other reviews, I would also suggest selecting a design that she already has. We did love our cake – it was so purrttyy!

 

Monday’s Munchies: Chocolate Croissant at Marche

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Those of you celebrating Eid, I hope you had a great weekend celebrating with your family and friends. I had a jam-packed weekend that was full of fun and lots of junk food (ofcourse).

Today, I’m going to share one of my favourite chocolatey indulgences when I’m on the go. If you’ve never had it – you definitely need to try it. This yummy treat is a Chocolate Croissant from Marche – that’s right, a simple croissant. It’s fluffy, light, buttery and has just the right amount of chocolatey goodness.

 

And the best part? After 4:30pm (or 5pm), this delish munchie is 50% off at most Marche locations in the PATH.

Monday’s Munchies: Mrs. Fields Icecream Sandwich

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I don’t know about you but I had a busy weekend. We went to a dawat on Friday, Wonderland on Saturday and a baby shower on Sunday. Best of all though, we got our wedding pictures!! I have been so excited to see them that I contemplated staying up all night to go through the pictures over and over again – unfortunately, Nouman isn’t feeling well so I couldn’t do that. I can’t wait to go through all the pictures and then share them with all of you! Hang in there as I wrap up a busy week and a half.

Back to today’s post – FOOD.

We’ve all had Mrs. Fields cookies, right? This summer, thanks to Noumans brother, I discovered that Mrs. Fields has icecream sandwiches. I know, you’re wondering what the heck is so special about an icecream sandwich that made me want to write about it. Well, if you’re a fan of icecream sandwiches and Mrs. Fields, you should already be salivating by the thought of the sandwich. At Mrs. Fields, you can choose two flavours of cookie to make your sandwich – not one but two! Can you imagine – all that variety of cookies to choose from?! They don’t have a variety of icecream flavours, just basics such as vanilla, double chocolate, chocolate mint and cookies and cream.

Our Order: Cookies and Cream icecream with a macadamia nut cookie on top and a chocolate lover cookie on the bottom.

DIVINE.

Surprisingly, the combination wasn’t too sweet – although we didn’t have one whole sandwich each. The sandwich was soft and crunchy at the same time… yum, yum, yum!

… And then I wonder why I’m getting fatter by the day. Seriously.

Monday’s Munchies: Dosa at The Nilgiris

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On the weekend, Nouman, his mom and I went for dosa. It was my (and Nouman’s) first time trying dosa – I have wanted to try it for a long time but never got around to it. Nouman’s mom has had it before so she suggested The Nilgiris in Scarborough.

Since none of us are dosa experts, we asked our server for suggestions. Nouman’s family likes well-spiced foods so he suggested the Mysore Masala Dosa with Onions. Nouman didn’t think he would get full by eating just one dosa, so he ordered 2. Obviously. Our order: 2 Mysore Masala Dosa’s, 1 cheese Dosa and 1 Rava Onion Dosa. All their dosa’s come with Sambar (vegetable stew with lentils and veggies) and 3 chutneys.

Mysore Masala Dosa with Onions: Thin crepe made of rice and lentils, coated with the Mysore paste and stuffed with potatoes and onions

The Mysore Masala Dosa was yummy but a little bit too spicy for me. The filling was yummy – potato and onions mixed with a spicy masala.The potatoes are stuffed at the center of the dosa – so that the dosa doesn’t get soggy. Although the dosa was crispy, next time I’ll be ordering potatoes on the side.

Cheese Dosa: A regular dosa coated with cheese and stuffed with potato and onions

The cheese dosa was delicious. The filling was the same as the Mysore Masala but the dosa was coated with cheese. I liked eating just the dosa portion – the cheese flavour tasted like the remains of a grilled cheese sandwich. You know what I mean by remains, right? It’s the extra bit of cheese that gets grilled a little bit longer and gets left behind in the pan (I eat it).

Rava Onion Dosa

I think this was everyone’s favourite. The dosa was crispy, light, and very flavourful. The onions were partly cooked so the flavour was bursting. When I asked Nouman why he liked it and he said it reminded him of a dry omelette.

While Nouman, the meat lover, didn’t love dosa’s, I can’t wait to go again!

Monday’s Munchies: Mickey’s Pizza

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I am so excited to share this amazing pizza place with you guys. My mom, sisters, Nouman and I love pizza – it’s my all time favourite thing to eat.

A few years ago, I had deep dish pizza in the Middle East. Since then, the only other time I’ve had deep dish was in Chicago this summer. I love deep dish and have been on a mission to find it in Toronto. For those who don’t know, deep dish pizza is different from regular pizza because the crust is thick and deep (hence the name!).

Guess what? I found a place and it is heavenly! Those of you who eat Halal, they have Halal chicken options.

Mickey’s Pizza is a small pizza joint in Mississauga – it can seat about 10 people in the summer and probably 5-7 in the winter. There isn’t alot of space inside the place but it is screaming of character. Surprisingly, for a small place, they have a very extensive menu. There are options for meat lovers, chicken fanatics and even vegetarians like me!

We got one of the combo specials – 3 deep dish pizza’s for $45. 2 of our pizza’s were vegetarian and the other one had chicken. We ordered The Cheesy Beast, Spinach King and Mango Tango.

  • Crust: Buttery but not greasy, thick but not heavy and overall just perfect.
  • Sauce: I love that the pizza isn’t dripping with sauce but isn’t dry either. The balance of sauce and cheese is just right

Menu

I love it when I can see some of the cooking/baking

2 of our 3 pizza’s – $45 for 3 deep dish pizza

The Cheesy Beast

  • Mozzarella, Goat, Feta, Cheddar, Asiago, Parmesan & Monterey Jack Cheese
  • This pizza is a cheese-lovers dream. I’m not a huge fan of ooey-gooey-cheesey things so this was a bit much for me but overall, I still really liked it. Even for someone who doesn’t love cheese, I still liked the pizza – it just wasn’t my favourite. Of the 2 veggie pizza’s, my mom and Nouman labelled this as their favourite

The Cheesy Beast

Spinach King

  • Sauteed Spinach with Cheddar, Asiago, Parmesan & Monterey Jack
  • This was my favourite – it was very flavourful and all the ingredients complimented each other remarkably.

Mango Tango

  •  Chicken, Carmelized Onion, Mango, Hot Peppers and sprinkled with Garam Masala
  • I can’t say much about this since I didn’t have it. The overall consensus was that this was the best of the 3 – probably because most people like meat

Mango Tango

Chicken Slice

Spinach King Slice

I would absolutely recommend this joint for all deep dish lovers. Comparing this to Chicago, I think Mickey’s Pizza just might be 0.01 better!

Note: If you eat Halal, make sure you check with them each time you go there as their supplier could change anytime.

Monday’s Munchies: Food At CNE

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Every year, for the 18 days leading upto Labour Day, the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE or The Ex) takes place at the Exhibition place in Toronto. In simple words, it’s Canada’s largest fair. There are games, rides, international pavilions, exhibits, shows, a casino and ofcourse, food.

Oh yeah, lots and lots of food. Not just any type of food – there are unique types of food that you have only imagined, never tasted. Yup, I go to The Ex for food.

2 summers ago, deep-fried butter made its debut and the crowd went wild for it. Since then, The Ex has all sorts of deep-fried goodies: Mars, Snickers, Twinkies, Twix, Oreo Cookies, Coke, Colossal Onion and even Mac & Cheese. Last year, debuted the Krispy Kreme Burger: a meat patty and cheese sandwiched between two glazed Krispy Kreme Donuts. What. The. Heck.

In addition to more heart-attack-enducing foods, The Ex also added some variety to the mix

  • Thyme & Olives: a Halal Lebanese bakery selling yummy pies – spinach, cheese, cheese and zataar, meat, and turkey
  • Far East Tacos: A twist on traditional taco’s – you can choose from a variety of Korean inspired toppings
  • Vie Raw Food: For the health conscious, The Ex welcomed raw food this year

Here’s what Nouman and I tried new this time:

  • Steak & Cheese Factory: Nouman loves meat so he tried a sandwich from the Steak & Cheese Factory. He ordered an 8″ chicken and cheese sub but they gave him an 8″ steak and cheese sandwich instead. The line was super long but Nouman didn’t love his sub

 

 

  • Thyme & Olives: We heard that the Turkey and Cheese pie was really good so Nouman’s family tried that. Everyone really liked it

The Turkey pie on the right side

  • Deep Fried Oreos: The concept seems yummy but it wasn’t too great. I would’ve liked it better if there was still a slight crunch to the cookie but there wasn’t. The inside was surprisingly very soft. I’m not a fan of the batter either – it’s too thick and gooey for my liking. Overall, it was just meh.

3 for $5. What a ripoff

A look inside

  • Deep Fried Snickers: We decided to get the snickers bar with icecream and chocolate sauce on top. This was much better than the Oreo. I liked the crunchiness of the peanuts and the stickyness of the caramel. The icecream was also a good idea – the lightness of the icecream balanced the thickness of the batter.

  • Just Cone It: I love pizza and so I had to try this. I opted for the pizza flavour minus the pepperoni – the server even got me a new bowl and spoon since the previous ones all had pepperoni mixed in. While the concept is great, the flavour was definitely lacking.

A closer look

  • Swiss Waffle: Topped with soft serve vanilla icecream and fresh strawberries. We got our waffle dipped in chocolate aswell. Ofcourse. Contrary to the Belgian waffle, the Swiss waffle is crispy which makes it fun to eat.

 

I think next year I’ll try the Kimchi Taco from Far East Taco!

 

Monday’s Munchies: Rocky Mountain’s Chocolate Dipped Brownies

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The last few weeks have been food overload for me. I am absolutely guilty of gaining love weight since we’ve been married – we buy each other treats, go to dawats, and attend weddings. These days, everything in our life revolves around food. It’s so hard to avoid all the sinful goods.

For our 2 month anniversary, we decided not to go out for dinner. Instead, I wanted to get Nouman a sweet treat. I decided that I would go to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory since it had been a while – I am so thankful I did. I looked around for a while and then decided to get some chocolate dipped brownies; Nouman loves brownies and we both love all things dipped in chocolate (who doesn’t?!). Since it was my first time trying these, I decided to go safe: chocolate dipped brownies covered in almonds and M&M covered chocolate dipped brownies (for the kid that Nouman is).

The brownies were divinely delicious. I had thought that it might be too sweet but I’m glad I was wrong. The brownie is melt-in-your-mouth moist and the dipped chocolate adds a nice texture to the mix. The dipped chocolate has a great taste on its own – I asked Nouman to describe it and he said: amazing.

My favourite was the almond because I love anything covered in nuts. Nouman liked the M&Ms more. For Eid, we got a white chocolate drizzled chocolate dipped brownie (not pictured) for Nouman’s brother and he loved it more than the almond.

 

I’ve heard they have chocolate dipped cheesecake and chocolate dipped frozen bananas – I haven’t seen these at any location near me. I’d love to try them though!