zoup!

I was driving down Yonge on my way to Sunday Brunch at the Royal York, when I saw a restaurant of sweetspot.ca fame called “Simply Zoup!”, and it reminded me of Thursday’s delicious exploits!

We all got together and cooked up delicious things. We were making ginger snaps, but the piece de resistance was definitely a potato leek soup made by Scott, recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com

Unfortunately, since Jen is away in South Carolina, I guess pictures will have to come later, but it was amazing! <Edit> Here they are!!!!

Caution: Big pots are necessary, or else you will have to do what we did, and make it in separate batches.

Potato Leek Soup

1 cup butter

2 leeks, sliced

1tbsp cornstarch

4 cups potatoes, peeled + diced (we ran into lots of trouble here since my potato peeler was severely out of commission!)

1 quart chicken broth

2 cups heavy cream

melt butter + cook leeks in a pan with the butter until tender.

stir in cornstarch and potatoes, bring to a boil. Pour in the cream and simmer 30 minutes.

scott also made us a delicious chicken in cream sauce (without cream!) This was accomplished, however, through the use of an unorthodox amount of butter.

Chicken in cream Sauce:

Easy Cream Sauce (improvised from allrecipes.com, from what I can gather).

3/4 cup butter

1 cup milk

2 tbsp flour

Stir until thickened, add salt + pepper to taste.

It was delicious!, and I will upload pictures as soon as Jen comes back with them!

The ginger snaps were also delightful! I obtained the recipe from Ariel, before she went away to Yale, and for this I will always be eternally grateful!

I didn’t manage to get a better picture, but trust me, they are scrumptious!

Ginger Snaps:

Cream together:
3/4 c butter/shortening
1/2 c white sugar
3/4 c brown sugar

Beat into sugar mixture:
1/2 c molasses
1 egg

Sift together and blend with other mixture:
2 c flour
1 Tbs ginger
1/2 tsp cloves (ground)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon

Form small balls (~2cm in diameter) and roll in sugar. Place 2″ apart, bake at 350 F for c. 12 min.

they were scarfed down as soon as they came out of the oven, so we ended up baking several batches with no visible results because we’d eat them as fast as we could bake them!

Here is evidence of them next to Alyssa’s superb dip!

Incidentally, brunch at the Royal York (at Epic) was amazing. We both had the breakfast buffet option, and it was absolutely delicious. A must-try.

The ambience was superb with comfy sink-deeper-why-don’t-you chairs, and lovely atmosphere. The service, excellent with professional waiters etc… and obviously I’m saving the best for last.

The food was incredible. Everything was simple, and well done. Eggs benedict were delicious, the sauteed mushrooms were done in a to-die-for garlic butter reduction, the smoked salmon was quality, the croissant with butter and Hero Swiss preserves was to DIE for. Even the cottage cheese seemed to taste better there!

5 stars, seriously. Gogogogogo!

We’re receiving lots of yummy presents, what with Christmas being well, okay, it’s now Christmas eve, whaddya know, and my personal favorite is this box of Turkish desserts that we received from Peter!

The baklava is SO good, and I feel embarassed because I’m not sure what the other desserts are called but they are so yummy! I must learn how to make these!

Incidentally, I took it upon myself to try and make a chocolate gingerbread cake from Williams Sonoma that I saw as I was peering around the website a couple weeks ago.

I changed it up a little bit though:

Chocolate Ginger Cake:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper
1 supersize package semisweet chocolate chips
12 Tbs.unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups Splenda (we’re making too many baked goods….)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup Grandma’s molasses
1 cup boiling water

Icing:
1/2 cup milk
1 cup butter
4 cups confectioners sugar (more, as needed).
dash mint extract (if desired, vanilla will do good things as well).
Red food colouring
Green food colouring

Assorted sprinkles, chocolate chips, to decorate.

Preheat to 350. Butter and flour a 9 ” cake pan.

Whisk together dry ingredients to aerate.

Cream together butter + sugar, add in eggs one at a time.

Mix together molasses and hot water. Pour flour mixture and molasses mixture into butter mixture with alternate spoonfuls.

Stir well.

Bake 55-60 minutes, until cake pulls away from sides of the pan.

Combine all ingredients for icing, and add green food colouring or red food colouring to decorate!

Even though it wasn’t christmas yet, after it was decorated, we dove in….

I think the only thing I would do differently (It was delicious and moist and gingery and not-too-sweet) would be to make it into a layer cake next time, with maybe some fresh whipped cream inside.

It was very rich for such a tall cake unto itself. But it did serve up handsomely!