Remember restaurants, you guys? Perusing the menu, pairing your meal of choice with a cocktail, ambient music and people watching?
While many restaurants are still open for takeout and delivery since social isolation began, I find myself craving specific dishes, treats, drinks from different places around the city. You probably feel the same. With some extra time on your hands and a wee bit of gumption, why not recreate some classic Toronto restaurant staples at home? Here is a list of our faves that we dearly miss, and how you can make them for yourself.
Fat Pasha Roasted Cauliflower
Anthony Rose, eat your heart out! This famous middle-eastern roasted cauliflower recipe is everything you want and more. It’s flavourful, healthy, hearty, colourful, full of texture and will even leave meat lovers wanting more. For an impressive night-in, here’s what you need to recreate this dish
Mother’s Dumplings Pork and Chive Dumplings
Albeit an ambitious choice, making dumplings from scratch is rather therapeutic, and yields nothing but delicious results.
Momofuku Milk Bar Corn Cookies
The Cadillac of cookies, Christina Tosi, the chef, founder, and owner of Milk Bar, (the sister bakery to the Momofuku restaurant group) has so graciously shared her beloved cookie recipes online so that the sweet addicts out there can recreate them.
The Bake Shoppe Ruffles Marshmallow Square
I dreamt about these the other night. So I made them. A unique twist on a 90s classic, Ruffles Marshmallow squares satisfy both salty and sweet cravings, and make for a really nice curb-side drop off gift for friends and family. And, if you’re feeling a little extra special, throw some crushed Cadbury Mini Eggs in the mix, it’s delicious, I promise.
Recipe Courtesy of Lauren’s Latest
Tabule From Beirut with Passion Cocktail
The signature cocktail at all three Tabule locations, this is a good addition to your happy hour rotation during this time. Fruity but not too sweet, refreshing with a touch of sparkle, it’s the perfect spring cocktail. P.S., this recipe yields a pitcher, because, why not?
3 oz bacardi rum
5 oz malibu passion rum,
1 cup fresh watermelon juice
1 cup passionfruit juice
Juice of 2 limes
12 leaves of muddled mint
1 Cup Simple Syrup – 1 part water, 1 part sugar
Pour into a pitcher with lots of ice
Garnish with some mint leaves and enjoy!
La Banane Mignonette for Oysters
For a shucking good time, you can Instacart a pound of oysters right to your front door, and make this amazing mignonette to zhuzh them up a little more than a slice of lemon and tabasco would. I promise the shucking will be the most difficult part of this recipe, but please don’t take your chances and check out a YouTube on how to shuck your own oysters if you don’t already know how to do so.
Recipe Courtesy of Bon Appetit
Grand Electric Smoked Mushroom Taco
Memories of eating one of these on a blanket at Trinity Bellwoods Park seem so far away, but not any longer. For the vegetarians out there, here’s a yummy recipe taco for you:
Jimmy’s Coffee Oat Milk Hot Chocolate
What can we say, we love our oat milk. But have you ever had the oat milk hot chocolate from Jimmy’s Coffee? Okay, even if you haven’t, you might not need to because you’ll be making your own from home. Here’s the recipe:
Recipe Courtesy of A Cozy Kitchen
Gusto 101 Cavolo Nero Kale Salad
This kale salad is to the Toronto food scene what Drake is to the Toronto music scene, and here it is just in time for salad season to begin. Add a seared flank steak or some grilled salmon for some extra protein if you please.
Recipe Courtesy of Sabrina Smelko
A quick word to the wise, if you love a dish and miss it dearly, chances are that someone else – with a bit more culinary expertise – does too and you can very likely find a recipe for something similar online. Google search really is a thing of beauty. Happy cooking!