Chicken and Waffles Anyone?

I have had chicken and waffles three times in my life.

The first time was at an classy Beverly Hills restaurant called Bouchon.  The second time was when I made some good old fashioned buttermilk fried chicken and decided to jump on the C & W bandwagon to see if I could pull it off at home (I sorta did...but the sauce was not quite right!).  And, just like the saying goes...third time's the charm!  It was just last weekend for our seventeenth wedding anniversary.  I had heard so much about Calgary restaurant Model Milk, specifically about about their chicken and waffles for two, I HAD to have them.

Crispy fried (and not greasy) tender chicken, waffles (more like squished Yorkshire puddings...but they were delicious) served on top of a chicken maple gravy (and a side salad with fresh greens and radishes in a light lemony dressing).   Of course we also had the foie gras for our appie,  which they made twice by mistake...lucky us!

 It. Was. Heaven.

Foie gras with cornbread toast to start (twice....)

Followed by chicken and waffles for 2....

Lets load up my plate!!!!

Ah yes...pass the salad please!!!!

So what is the history of this unique combo, that has crispy savoury chicken and delicious fluffy waffles served with a maple gravy?

The Chicken Story...

• 1300's: Chicken Fricassee popular in French Cuisine...fried chicken braised in a sauce.  By the 17th Century, it evolved to a more traditional fried chicken, coated in egg and breadcrumbs and fried in butter....
• 1800's:  Fried chicken evolves by the African slaves in Southern kitchens
• 1940's:  Harlan Sanders (aka Colonel Sanders) developed his signature fried chicken

The Waffle Story....(and how these two foods got together)

• Waffles were seen in the middle ages and made by bakeries that also made communion wafers
• 1600's: Pilgrams brought waffles to America after seeing them during a brief stop in Holland.  The earliest combination of chicken and waffles was seen in Pennsylvania Dutch country..waffles topped with pulled chicken and gravy
• As with everything...the combination evolved...soul-food inspired versions were seen at jazz clubs in America in the 1930's. 
• 1976:  A restaurant in America opens called Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles.  
• The dish continues to gain in popularity today, being recreated and reinvented from a fast food style to a high end restaurant style C & W dish. 

Happy Anniversary!   

I for one am a fan, and will definitely be going back to Model Milk for more!

HMD 2014!

Some pictures from today!  Happy Mother's Day!

My Traditional Mother's Day Brunch
with my favourite things!

What a wonderful Mother's Day!   It is so great to have traditions...no matter what they are.  Our tradition for quite a long time has been for the kids and my husband to make me a delicious brunch, followed by "Whatever-Mommy-Wants-To-Do" today.  Brunch was as usual, a brilliant collection of my favourite things...smoked salmon with caper berries, a selection of fine cheeses and bread, fresh berries, chocolate croissant, sausage, scrambled eggs served with coffee and orange juice.  It was magnificent!  Later on, we walked through Nosehill park, relaxed at home, went to Without Papers for dinner (totally yummy and trendy pizza) followed by a family movie.


As for gifts,  I asked for no complaining no matter how many pictures I took today...and I took A LOT of pictures! Though I also got the perfect tea mug from David's Tea (thank you!!!) and a homemade collage from my daughter, complete with coupons for hugs and kisses.

And there were no complaints for the 40 pictures that I took!

Ahhhh....Nova Scotia
Smoked Salmon....

Thank you for a fabulous day!

Pomegranate Granola with Vanilla Yogurt

A picture is worth a thousand words....and just look at how pretty this looks!   A delicious and easy weekday breakfast (weekends are reserved for bacon and eggs!).

I bought the pomegranate seeds at Costco for $7.99 for a double container...all ready to sprinkle on whatever...be it salad or breakfast!

What to do:

• Scoop your favourite vanilla yogurt in a bowl...mine is the Oikos 2 % vanilla
• Sprinkle on 1/3 - 1/2 cup of granola (I used Nature's Path Pumpkin Granola)
• Top with pomegranate seeds

It is refreshing, and has a source of protein, fruit and grain combined in one bowl.  

Pomegranate seeds may be small, but they are mighty!  Take a look at what the some of the health benefits are:

• rich in vitamin C
• rich in antioxidants that have heart health and anti-cancer benefits
• source of vitamin K (essential in proper blood clotting and also helps maintain healthy bones)

So next time you are at Costco, buy those pomegranate seeds!  Throw them in your salad, have them for a snack, toss them on top of your granola!  Your heart (and the rest of you) will love you for it!

Delicious Morning Oatmeal

As you know, I love food (no, really, I do), and a lot of the time, I like to know what everyone is eating.  A co-worker of mine has her breakfast at work, and it always smells so delicious, and looks so hearty, and pure and good....I had to ask her about it, and then had to make it. It is easy, versatile, and has everything you need in a breakfast...hearty grain to get the brain moving, protein and calcium and some berries to boot!

All you do....is make a bowl of oatmeal..any oatmeal!  I used what I had...which was Bob's Red Mill 5 grain rolled hot cereal.  I nuked it for 5 minutes with a bit of milk (hence more calcium!).  Note...when nuking oatmeal....ensure you have a deep enough bowl (had a bit of a boil-over mishap!).  Once the oatmeal is done, throw on some vanilla yogurt (or plain...but I like the vanilla) and then top with frozen blueberries.  What a great way to kick start your day!

Hearty...yummy...pure...just right for the morning!

Waffle Bacon Sandwich (dipped in home-made syrup)

Last night, the kids and I were on our own for supper since hubby had a hockey game.  I did not feel like cooking, and would have been fine with a piece of brie and a baguette, but the kids had other plans.  While I don't usually  let them dictate the menu, we had no brie and no baguette..so I was willing to listen.  They wanted to have breakfast for supper...a common meal in our house on days where we don't know what the heck to prepare.  Waffles.  Sounds delish.  Then, the icing on the cake...a full pack of thick sliced gourmet bacon waiting in the fridge.  Waffles and bacon.  Throw in some fresh strawberries and a glass of milk and you've got a full meal deal with the essentials...source of protein (milk); source of carbohydrate (waffle), source of fruit/vegetable (strawberries) and a fun food (BACON!!!!).

Then an idea struck...The Waffle Bacon Sandwich dipped in home made syrup.  What could be better than that?   And yes, home made syrup...easy and delicious.

From start to finish it really was a fantastic meal.  The kids and I prepared the meal together and chatted about school, friends, and just life in general.

There were even leftover waffles for breakfast the next morning...but sadly, no bacon.  We ate the whole pound on our own!


Recipe for home made syrup

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup Golden Syrup (not to be confused with corn syrup!)
1/2 cup of water

Bring above to a gentle boil, let cool and then add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.  

Yummy Breakie!

Melted cheese on a bagel with home-made apple butter......ahhhhh....

So this morning's breakfast was so blog-worthy!!!!  And yes, I know I probably should have had half of the damn bagel, but it was just too delish.

What did I have?   A multi-grain bagel with melted Balderson 5-year aged cheddar (are you salivating yet?) and then...I added something amazing....home-made apple butter!  One of my hockey friends gave me a jar of this bliss yesterday, and I think I am going to hide it in my fridge for just me.

The combination of flavours was exquisite.   I had my grain (bagel), I had my protein (cheese) and I am counting the apple butter as part of a fruit (I ended up smearing more on than the above pic shows!).

So yummy, just had to share!  

Happy Birthday To Me!

Happy Birthday Sherene!

Last week was my 43 birthday, and for those who know me, you know I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY!  I think that most July people would agree that they too love love LOVE their birthdays, especially if have been blessed with being both July AND Leo!  Thank you to my family (who live quite far from me) for all the birthday wishes that were emailed, phoned, facebooked, texted, etc...  LOVE IT!   My aunt sent me my birthday horoscope, which I also loved:  Your birthday resolutions will have more power than usual this year, so think hard about what it is you most wish to accomplish then promise yourself that you will make it happen. Do something special every single day.

To celebrate my birthday week, we went camping last week with the kids, and 2 other families as well (both from my hubby's side of the fam).  We camped at Kikomun Creek Provincial Park, which is absolutely one of the most beautiful and clean and well kept campgrounds I have ever been to.  It's just outside of Fernie, BC, and the weather could not have been more spectacular.  It really was a great birthday week!  We had great food, happy hour drinks and happy hour appies, time to relax and visit, spent time reading (for me that was the second instalment of Fifty Shades), swam, visited friends of ours who have a place on Lake Kookanusa, spent a day on their boat (thanks!!), hiked around Surveyors Lake and ate the BEST home-made beef jerky ever, thanks to my fave brother in-law :-)

A beautiful, healthy and delicious
breakfast featuring my new fave
Oikos Yogurt!  Tres Yummy!

For my actual birthday (July 24th), I had an amazing continental breakfast presented to me (thanks to my "cousin-in-law"...who was also intertwined in Fifty Shades!) and got to relax in my gravity chair drinking my coffee and eating my delicious breakie (while my daughter gave me a foot massage!).

Breakfast AND a foot massage!

Cheers sis!! (wish my eyes were open!!)

My fave sister-in-law (also furiously reading Fifty Shades) gave me a beautiful scarf from Switzerland, which I LOVE, and Swiss chocolate!  Yum!!!







My son gave me a Pandora charm (my fave animal....a giraffe) and my daughter gave me some beautiful earrings along with some home-made gifts that included some Spa-coupons (her room for a massage), a home-made jewellery box, and other treasures that she created for me.  Hubby's gift....of course....it was Neil Diamond himself, singing in concert (awesome!).

Happy Birthday To Me!  What a great day
and a terrific family pic!

6 different kinds of jerky,
all meticulously labelled
and incredibly delicious!

My brother-in-law gave me the assortment of beef jerky that he made and it was really the best beef jerky ever (worthy of its own posting once I get all his ingredients and the brand of his food deyhydrator!).  Dinner that night was of course appies:  ribs, wings, and dessert was a delicious chocolate cake (made by my husband) but it was the black-bean cake recipe, which I know does not sound that good but truly, it was DELICIOUS!  It had a full can of black beans, no flour, and was so moist and fantastic and by the way...freezes beautifully!!!    The recipe and link for that is posted below!





I will be posting some of the foodie pics, and other camping pics, but for now, really just wanted to say thank you to everyone who made my day so special and memorable, and also need to say thank you to E. L. James (author of...you guessed it the "Fifty Shades" series), who provided some great entertainment during the camping trip!

Black Bean Brownies

Ingredients

• 1 (15.5 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 3 eggs
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee (optional)
• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease an 8x8 square baking dish.
2. Combine the black beans, eggs, oil, cocoa powder, salt, vanilla extract, sugar, and instant coffee in a blender; blend until smooth; pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top of the mixture.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until the top is dry and the edges start to pull away from the sides of the pan, about 30 minutes.

Nutritional Information per serving:  Calories:  126   Total Fat:  5.3 grams  

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/black-bean-brownies/

Happy Mother's Day!

The first Mother's Day I ever had was with our son, and he was about 11 months old at the time.  I  of course wanted to go for brunch.  Looking back, it was probably not a great idea to go for brunch on the busiest day of the year. And just so you know, I am not saying anything bad about brunch.  I generally love brunch, but Mother's Day brunch is not for me.


I had chosen to go to La Caille on the Bow here in Calgary.  We were very organized, and called ahead to reserve a table and a high chair.  I even took it a step further and called to confirm our reservation the day before!  What was this, a flight to Mexico or brunch???  But I called because I am a bit of a control freak about things like that. Again, they said they had our reservation, and a high chair, and not to worry.  When we arrived, yes, they had our reservation, but alas, no high chair, as someone else had used their last one.  Some of you may not know this about me, but I don't handle things like this very well.  But in we went, wheeling our son in his Graco stroller like we were on an obstacle course.  Finally we arrived at our table...I leaned on it ever so slightly, and it came CRASHING down (who makes a table on a flimsy pedestal anyway??).  The staff quickly shuffled us off to another table and I seem to remember it being quite far from the buffet.  The bunch came and went, and ever since then, we still enjoy the occasional brunch, but just not on Mother's Day.


Our tradition is that I put my order in for brunch, and the kids and hubby make it for me at home.  I get to have my coffee upstairs in our bonus room while it is being prepared.  Today I had my coffee while watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy.  The menu for today? Smoked salmon, a variety of cheeses, baguette, and the traditional hashbrowns, eggs, bacon and fruit, served with coffee and orange juice.  Combine all that with a brilliant sunny day, and it was excellent.  The kids made me gifts, consisting of cards, photo albums, and they even made me a movie about why they love me (with Red Red Wine playing in the background!  Do they know me, or what??).  These are the gifts I love best...ones filled with so much thought!  

We ended our great day with our other Mother's Day tradition...going out for dinner (my choice).  We went to Big T's BBQ and Smokehouse, and it was, as usual, delicious, right down to the last rib and pickle!

Happy Mother's Day!

Best French Toast Ever!

Whenever we can, we make a nice brunch on a Sunday...love the concept of brunch! For me it means that you only have to cook twice that day and while I do enjoy cooking, its nice to have a break once in a while! Yesterday we had French toast, sausage, and fresh cut up fruit. Easy and simply delicious. In the past, French toast has not been a kids favourite in our house, but now we found the perfect and most delicious bread and it is sure-thing every time. The cinnamon loaf from Cobs is really the best bread to use in French toast. For starters, their bread has no preservatives and no additives. Its just real bread. Its as close to home made as you can get without making it yourself. Add in the slight sweetness in the bread and the swirls of cinnamon and it is mouth watering deliciousness. And as with most things I make, leftovers can be frozen for a quick breakfast before school.

This is totally not a plug for Cobs, but they have a pretty good website where you can find info on all of their products, and conveniently, they have a bakery-locater on their site! They even have a "frequent flyer" card where you can earn free loaves of bread! I don't work for them....but maybe I should! Check out their site, and for goodness sakes, next time you want to make French toast....buy the cinnamon loaf from Cobs!

http://www.cobsbread.com/home/