Kitchen Parade: Weight Watchers Recipes

Link to WW Recipes at Kitchen Parade

What kind of New Years would it be for me without a diet? I have begun Weight Watchers since last Friday, just following the food lists, menus and recipes until I can get into a group in the coming week. I need the support of a group. At Costco today, I picked up a WW Cookbook of 20 minute recipes with lots of good ideas for quick meals and all the recipes give the points per serving.

I have subscribed to Kitchen Parade newsletters for some time now and only this evening noticed she has a Weight Watcher's section of recipes sorted by WW points. This will be helpful, since WW is a new plan for me, quite unfamiliar.

Gingerbread Latte

Toronto is a city of coffee shops...there is one on almost every corner. Craig was saying yesterday how it amazes him, Toronto is one of the more expensive cities to live in yet everyone has money for coffee in coffee shops. In Montreal (where we come from) most people drink it at home. After almost 15 years, I have adopted the culture here. I recently discovered gingerbread latte at Second Cup and love it SO much I will spend $7 something for two small cups! I must have lost my mind!!! Fortunately, the season will be over soon and the gingerbread latte will disappear before I am bankrupt!!

Persimmon

A fully ripe persimmon peeled, dusted lightly with cinnamon, quartered and sliced, served for desert with a spoonful of home made jam makes a tasty desert. Craig brought this over. He shops at T&T, an Asian grocery store, where the fruit, he says, is top quality and best price.

Vichyssoise and Seafood Lasagne

Easy and elegant. Best part of this meal was the "easy!" Craig sent over a container of Vichyssoise he had made. I was out for a walk yesterday and stopped by Loblaws before going home, where I found their President's Choice Seafood Lasagne on sale and my dinner was made! The vichyssoise was excellent but the lasagne didn't measure up to the promise. I did find a few shrimp but there was no recognizable scallops or pieces of lobster. The cheese and mushroom sauce was pretty good. Even on sale ($2 off the regular price) it was too expensive for what was in the package.

Opa!!

Hungry for Greek food on Sunday I drove over to The Danforth, an area in Toronto sometimes called "Greek Town." After the usual search for a parking spot, I found one reasonably close to the restaurant area and then found a restaurant that served Greek Lemon Rice Soup, well it is actually chicken and rice soup flavoured with a good squeeze of lemon. Wonderful comfort food on a cold day. We ordered Saganaki, fried flaming cheese served with flamboyant panache! Opa! I enjoyed the saganaki with a few crusty slices of bread and mopped up every bit of juice on the tray with my last crust. I am providing a recipe below from Cooks.com

SAGANAKI (FLAMING CHEESE OPA)

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1 lb. soft Kasseri or Kofalotiri cheese
3 tbsp. butter
1/2 lemon (juice)
2 tbsp. brandy

Cut cheese into slices 1/4 inch thick. Place on broiler pan and brush with melted butter. Broil on high 4 to 6 inches from heat until cheese bubbles. Remove from heat. Pour brandy over cheese and ignite immediately.

Sprinkle with lemon juice and serve with bread. Opa!

Stewed Quince

Craig is on a fruit binge, going to the Asian fruit store every few days and selecting all kinds of strange things I never see in the regular grocery store. The latest thing he brought home were a few fresh quinces. Neither of us knew what to do with them so he googled and found that they are best stewed or made into jam. As he peeled and cored the quince we tasted it and found it very dry but pleasantly tangy sweet. The dryness made us understand why you must cook it. The rest of this story you can see in the slide show but . . .sorry, you won't be able to catch the amazing fragrance! The finished dish was simply amazing! So good I had difficulty to stop eating them. Pleasant texture, fragrant, almost perfumed, complex taste. I am looking forward to a dish of stewed quince with vanilla yogurt for breakfast this morning. Will definitely do this one again.I kept some of the seeds...I wonder if they will grow?

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig . . .

Home again, home again, dancing a jig. (or, jiggity jig) ~Mother Goose

Markets charm me, they are exciting places. I love the crowds, the bustle, the sights, the smells. The fruits and vegetables are fresher, the meat better in quality, the coffee more fragrant and there is more variety in everything.

Last Saturday I went to market, St Lawrence Market, downtown Toronto. The north building, a farmer's market, is open Saturdays only, in summer full of local produce but this time of year there are fewer stalls and the produce is imported. The south building, what you see below, is home to hundreds of permanent shops and it is open every day. I made the trip to pick up some Montreal bagels, Kozlik's mustard and a nice thick slice of Cantenar cheese.

It was almost lunchtime when I arrived, the bread bakery shelves were emptying quickly. They would be empty by 1:30 PM.

I walked by the Italian sandwich stand and considered stopping for a bite to eat...no. I knew what I really wanted...bagels.

Eve's Temptations, guess what they sell here? Still not what I wanted though.

I stopped to enjoy some flower and tropical fruit displays. Spring flowers make me feel hopeful!

Next stop, Kozlik's Canadian Mustard, more than 35 varieties. Anton Kozlik was frying and chopping Canadian bacon as fast as he could, people were spearing it with toothpicks and dipping in his wonderful mustards. It was so hard to choose just one, it was hard to choose only four! I bought 4 for $20, settled on the one I made the trip for Niagara Classic (it has ouzo in it), Fig and Date Mustard, Bordeau mustard and Amazing Maple Mustard. All are hot, even the sweet ones, they travel to your nose with a slight burn as soon as they enter your mouth. They loose some of their heat when you store them in the fridge.

Next stop was St Urbain Bagel. They sell the only authentic Montreal bagels in Toronto, from a few locations. They line up (at all locations) for these bagels, and yes they're worth lining up for. Boiled in honey water, then baked in an open wood-fired brick oven, at this location right before your eyes! These bagels are small, dense, slightly sweet and very chewy. I like them best toasted with butter. They are also great cold with lox and cream cheese. I am originally from Montreal and when I moved to Toronto could not find a good bagel for a long time.

Next I moved over to Alex Farm Products, a cheese shop, one of the very best I have come across in this city. I always look forward to a few samples when I come here...I pretend I don't know what I want and they offer me all kinds of things! Finally, I select Cantenar cheese, the one I came for. (naughty hmm?)

We were getting tired, I had what I came for and we pushed on through the people, down the worn stone stairs, but stopping to admire the fish monger's display and the butcher's beautiful standing rib roast...I thought the prices were pretty good on the roast.

Bouilliabaisse anyone?

That was my visit short version. If you would like to see more photos, click on any one of the photos here and you will land at my Webshots album where the rest of them are.