Love for the Locals: The Bag Lady

I can't express enough how much I love finding quaint, little local places that are so full of character and pizzazz. I'd been hesitant about approaching The Bag Lady at first, but after hearing that one of my London friends actually worked at the place before, I decided to give it a shot. Boy, was that a shot worth taking, or what?

When you visit the website, it looks a little busy and questionable, but when you visit the actual little eatery, it all makes much more sense. The Bag Lady (474 Pall Mall Street, London, ON) is located close to downtown, just at the corner of Pall Mall and Maitland. If you're going from campus, just take the 13 Wellington southbound to the stop at Richmond & Mill, head south until you hit Pall Mall, and turn left, continuing east on Pall Mall until you reach Maitland.

The Bag Lady is open Monday to Friday from 7:30am until 4:00pm, and Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00am until 2:00pm - offering all day breakfast everyday, and lunch only during the week. They offer in-house dining, take-out, and even catering! It reminds me of all the little places I love back home so much :)

And there is a reason why there's a bright pink sign that says "Variety"...

 

Another London friend, Cat joined me for a late lunch at The Bag Lady today.

Thank you for trudging through the slush and puddles with me! :)

Honestly, what do you even look at first? I had to scan the room several times in order to look at everything there. Cat pointed out a leg lamp like the one from A Christmas Story. It's a shame that I didn't snap a picture of it!

The place was so packed when we arrived around 1! And would you look at all of that pizzazz and character?? So much vintage and retro going on! It's fantastic!

I love chalkboard menus, but they must be so much work to clean and keep from smudging!

The shelf was full of vintage Fisher Price toys, boardgames, trinkets, and more! At the other end of the shelf, there were actually DVD's that you can rent for $2.49!

Because it was so busy, we started out by sitting on the couch to order tea while waiting for a table to clear. (But, this picture was taken after the lunch rush.)

The little, blue laminated menus somehow stood out amongst all of the things to look at, and there were a lot of things to look at.

Cat and I shared a pot of the tea recommended to us by our server; Earl Grey Vanilla. It smelled so lovely, and it was so nice and smooth...

At each table, there was a set of little ceramic ornaments. We got little elephants! The tables next to us had pickles (ceramic pickles) and a pair of vintage clothes irons. 

Cat opted for the Roast Turkey sandwich. It had slices of Havarti cheese, slices of green apple, arugula leaves, sweet potato and sage butter, and mayo all on a toasty multigrain ciabatta bun.

I had the pizza special. Every day, they have two specials, where one will be vegetarian. And apparently, on Fridays, it's Pizza Day, because why not? I'd been having a pizza craving for the past while, and it seemed as though the McCain's frozen pizza I got on sale at Loblaws just didn't cut it. This? This definitely hit the spot. I apologize for the blurry photo. I know, I know. It's kind of taboo for a food blog to have such an awfully blurry photo, but this is the only one I took of it. I was so hungry... It was called the Americano Pizza. It had sliced ham, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, basil pesto, and mozzarella cheese on a whole wheat crust. So good. It also came with a side of mixed greens consisting of spinach, arugula, cabbage, cherry tomatoes, carrot, and cucumber, with a light vinaigrette dressing.

The Bag Lady had been touted as having the "best brownies in town", so Cat and I decided to taste for ourselves! It's a dense layer of semi-sweet chocolate fudge brownie, with a sort of toffee/caramel layer, and another layer of marbled milk and white chocolate topping! Because of the layers of harder, denser chocolate, it's a little bit of work to take bite-sized portions of the brownie with your fork, but definitely worth the effort ;)

Really...if you're ever in London, Ontario, you have to go here. I am totally going back.

-M

P.S. I'm finally doing the Urbanspoon thing, so you'll notice that all of the places that I post about with Urbanspoon pages will have a little image that can take you straight there. What's very interesting is the rating that some of them have... for the most part, I would say go with your gut, and take those reviews and ratings (mine included) with a grain of salt!

B-b-b-baking: Real American French Toast (Made in Canada)

My roommate makes amazing bread, and because of that, hardly buys any from stores anymore. It's Reading Week now, so since I actually have time, I decided to redeem myself from my first loaf of bread about 2 summers back. What I took from that experience is that the Internet is not always reliable when it comes to making food for humans. I made a lovely "rustic" loaf of bread from the outside, but the inside was dense and somewhere between being cake and bread. My mom told me that I didn't knead it enough, buuut that's because I didn't knead it. The recipe said I didn't *knead* to (ha ha). Well, the thing is, you need to knead if you want nice, fluffy bread. :(

Family Day is when life runs on a Sunday schedule including the busses, so I didn't dare go out. Instead, I invited some friends (however many I had enough dishes and cutlery and space and food for) over to my humble abode for a Family Day brunch, at which they were my fake family members. It was already decided in my head that there would be pancakes, French toast, and scones, but I also didn't want to go out to get groceries until Tuesday since it's 10% off for students at various grocery stores here on Tuesdays. I don't know about you, but I am kind of protective of my sourdough and rye breads, because they are so delicious for toast. That meant that in order to make the French toast happen, I'd have to make my own loaf of bread, so I did just that. So, here it is - how to actually make "French toast" from scratch (except for milling my own flour and raising my own chickens, because ain't nobody got time for that)!

What I learned this weekend about French toast:

- It is apparently the "champion of brunch".
- Like French fries, French toast isn't really French, but American.

- I am not the hugest fan of scrambled eggs, which is what I felt French toast tasted like most of the time, but French toast can actually be delicious. The toast just needs to be a bit thicker so that it can absorb more of a custard instead of becoming like toast adhered to scrambled eggs.
- www.frenchtoast.com is not a website that tells you all that there is to know about French toast. It is a website for a vendor of school uniforms for children.
- If you have leftovers, you can freeze them! Hurrah for emergency carb stashes!

After all of the kneading. When you're a newbie to making your own bread products, you might think to yourself, "How the heck do bakers get their dough to look so gloriously smooth while mine is sticky?" This question was answered for me by my roommate - "You probably didn't knead it enough". This is true. It's amazing what a difference there is between kneading for 3-5 minutes versus 8-10 minutes. Your dough is ready for proofing when it all stays together, doesn't really stick to your hand anymore, and bounces back when you press the surface with your finger.

I've continued to use this trick for rising dough ever since I made Pumpkin Pie Sweet Rolls - which I just realized I didn't post about yet *blush*. It helps when the air is kind of dry and cold, and not very nice for rising your dough. Place a metal baking tray on top of one of the stove elements, turn on the heat to medium for about 30 seconds, and then turn it off. Then, place your bowl/pan with the dough in it covered with plastic wrap.

Again with the loaf pan upon the second rising. You'll get what I'm talking about if you look at the steps in the recipe. :)

I got far too excited watching the thing rise, so it was way over 1 inch above the edge of the pan. Whoops.

I actually had to "re-rise" the dough for a bit, because I forgot how flimsy silicone pans are. It collapsed when I tried taking it off of the metal pie pan, so I replaced it with the larger baking pan and let it rise again.

Please remember to remove the plastic wrap before putting it in the oven. I almost forgot. I am thankful for my "derp" moment of realization. My bread could have had a very tragic ending.

Voila! My fresh loaf of white sandwich bread sitting by the window to cool. *waft waft*

I need to work on my slicing skills a little bit, but they have the cute little round parts on the bread slices. Bread can be cute too, okay?

French toasts! I kind of forgot to take a picture of the large batch I made, but my guests were waiting ever so patiently...

The comical assortment of dishes and mugs for my guests.

My cousin made his own batch of maple syrup, and this unsealed jar was just sitting in my pantry, but brunch did some decent damage :)

French Toast from Scratch 

Bread (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

*makes 1 loaf of bread*

1/2 cup milk

2/3 cup hot water

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 packet instant yeast

2 Tbsp golden-brown sugar

1 tsp table salt

4 Tbsp oil 

1. Boil a kettle of water. You can use it to have some tea while you're making the bread :)

2. Add flour, instant yeast, sugar, salt into a medium-sized metal or Pyrex mixing bowl. 

3. Add milk and hot water into a cup and stir. Add into bowl of dry ingredients.

4. Add oil, and mix by hand until combined. Continue to knead for about 8 minutes until the dough comes together in a ball and doesn't stick to your hand anymore. Test the dough for readiness by gently pressing on the surface with a finger to see if it bounces back. If not, keep kneading.

5. Lightly oil your mixing bowl, form the dough into a ball, and place it in the mixing bowl. Cover with plastic wrap.

6. Place a small baking pan over a stove elements, turn the heat to medium, and then switch off. Place the bowl with your dough on top of the baking pan, and leave to rise for about 1 1/2 hours.

7. Once the dough has risen, spread a bit of oil on your clean counter top or table, and remove the dough from the bowl. Gently shape the dough into a log and place it into a silicone loaf pan, or a lightly greased or lined loaf pan. Cover with plastic wrap, and rise as in Step 6, but just until the dough has risen to about 1 inch above the edge of the pan (about 45 minutes). Preheat the oven to 350 F.

8. Remove the plastic wrap, and bake the bread in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until the bread surface is a nice golden brown, and the bread makes a hollow sound if you tap the bottom.

9. Gently remove the loaf from the pan, and set aside to cool completely before slicing. 

10. For the purpose of French toast, slice into about 12-14 even(ish) slices. If for regular bread, you may want to slice into more thinner slices. 

French Toast (adapted from Alton Brown, The Kitchn, and Bon Appetit)

8-10 slices of sandwich bread (if you don't soak the slices for too long, you may be able to make more)

4 eggs

1 1/2 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla extract
Cooking oil

1. Whisk eggs, milk, and vanilla together. This can be made the night before.
2. Preheat your oven to 140-170 F with a baking pan to keep things warm.
3. Pour mixture into a baking pan. At least an 8x8 pan would be ideal, so that you can soak a few slices at a time.

4. Soak both sides of a slice of bread in the custard mixture. (Be careful not to soak for too long if using the above-mentioned bread recipe. I learned in the process that it absorbs the custard quite quickly before disintegrating.)

5. Add oil to a pan over medium-low heat (I use about 1 tsp for every 2 slices of bread). Lift the soaked slice of bread to drip off excess custard, and add into pan. Cook for 1-2 minutes on each side until just golden brown.

6. Repeat steps 2-3 until all of your slices of bread have turned into French toast, or you have run out of custard.

7. Serve with your favourite fixings and devour - maple syrup, fruit, ground cinnamon, icing sugar, whipped cream...mmm...

Brunches are great. You should always tell your guests not to bring anything, because regardless of what you tell them, they will still bring muffins, cookies, juice, and fruit anyways. :P A big thank you to my fake family for the lovely company!

-M

B-b-b-baking: Year of the Horse!

I know what you're thinking - Chinese New Year was last weekend. I know, I know. But those lions, lanterns, and red and gold decorations won't be taken down just yet because celebrations actually go on for about 2 weeks! Chinese New Year came quite early this time around on Friday, January 31st! I actually did some baking prior to that day, but decided to wait until after I visited my relatives over the weekend.

What I learned last weekend about Chinese New Year:

- It doesn't have to be Chinese New Year if you want to find a cheap Chinese-looking fan or red and gold things. Just go to Chinatown.
- Merchants of businesses in Chinatown aren't more friendly during Chinese New Year. They're just the same...
- Chinese bakeries smell especially good on Chinese New Year. Especially if you've been deprived of legitimate Chinese food for a month. It gets to you.
- Chinese New Year means eating a lot of black mushrooms, and I am completely okay with that.
- It's common to eat black moss on Chinese New Year because it's called "faat choy" which sounds similar to the word for "prosperity". So, the thought is that if you eat it, you will have prosperity. But, the black moss "faat choy" actually translates to something like "hair vegetable" because of its appearance.
- If you want to bring some CNY sweets with you to visit your relatives and are taking the Greyhound, you probably shouldn't bring dessert soup or anything too fancy. Pineapple cakes and almond cookies are viable choices ;)
- Pineapple cakes might not really be a Chinese New Year snack in Hong Kong. (My uncles and aunties only recognized the almond cookies.)

Cookies can look cute. They just can.

After the first bake. They are fragile, so let them sit for a bit before carefully handling them.

After the second bake. Nice and golden! (Yes, that is a rice paddle. My spatula was in the sink, so I had to improvise.)

Almond Cookies (adapted from Daily Delicious)

*Makes ~20 cookies* (I somehow made 19 D: I usually even it out so that I make an even number, but just didn't notice this time.)

1 1/2 cups ground almonds

~20 whole blanched almonds (I didn't have any so I used slices)

1 cup golden-brown sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp table salt

2 eggs 

1/2 cup all-vegetable shortening

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F.

2. While the oven is preheating, line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. If you don't have ground almonds, just put some sliced and/or blanched almonds in a food processor (or your roommate's Magic Bullet) until you have 1 1/2 cups of it.

3. In a medium-sized bowl, beat and soften shortening.

4. Add sugar and 1 egg until combined.

5. Sift in flour, baking powder, salt, and ground almonds, and mix until just combined.

6. Divide the cookie dough into 20 even balls. Use the back of a 1 tsp round measuring spoon to press each ball, so that they're about 2 cm thick. 

7. Place a whole blanched almond or an almond slice in the middle of the dip you created in the cookies.

8. Bake in the oven for 12 min, and take out to cool. Allow them to set for a couple of minutes before moving them, because they'll be fragile. Reduce the oven heat to 300 F.

9. After cookies are almost completely cooled, use the remaining egg to make an egg wash, and brush the surface of each cookie. Keep the egg wash for more baking later. 

10. Bake in the oven for another 15 min, and take out to cool completely. They should be golden in appearance.
11. Hooray! Almond cookies!

Be careful not to score them too deeply, or you'll hit the pineapple jam. If it's exposed to the heat and air, it'll dry out, and won't be all moist and chewy on the inside.

Tadaa! Usually, pineapple cake/cookies are cube shaped and aren't scored, but I don't have anything to make perfect cubes. Even my "ice cube" tray has rectangles, and they're actually about the same size as my cookies anyways.

Pineapple Cakes (adapted from Rasa Malaysia)

*Makes ~25* (Although, I made 27 from the first batch, and 23 from the second.)

Pastry/Cookie Dough
2 cups flour

4 Tbsp icing sugar

1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbsp cornstarch

2 egg yolks

1 cup shortening

Egg wash (I just used the remaining egg wash from my almond cookies.)

Pineapple "Jam" Filling

1 can (14 oz) crushed pineapple

8 Tbsp golden brown sugar

*Make the pineapple filling ahead of time (e.g. the night before), so that it has time to sit in the fridge. It'll be easier to work with that way :)*

1. Drain the juice from the can of crushed pineapple. Squeeze some juice out with your hands if you can, and add into a medium-sized pot.
2. Over medium heat, add the sugar and stir until most of the remaining moisture has evaporated.
3. Set aside and refrigerate until needed.
4. Preheat the oven to 350 F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
5. Cream shortening in a medium-sized bowl.
6. Add two egg yolks and mix until combined.
7. Add flour, cornstarch, salt, and icing sugar, and mix until combined into a cookie dough texture.
8. Divide the dough into 25 even balls.
9. Take each ball and flatten in the palm of your hand, and add ~1/2 tsp of the pineapple filling in the centre. Roll and envelope the filling so that the cookie resembles a rectangular log. Repeat for remaining balls of dough.
10. Brush the surfaces with egg wash, and lightly score the tops in a criss-cross pattern with a sharp knife (if you want to).
11. Bake for about 25 minutes until slightly golden-brown.
12. Be careful when removing from the cookie sheet after finished baking. They will be very hot and fragile. It's best to wait a couple of minutes for them to set after taking them out from the oven.
13. Enjoy and impress your relatives with delicious snacks for before and/or after dinner!

I visited both sides of the family since it was the first time that I've been on the right side of the country to see them for Chinese New Year. Below are some cellphone pictures of the meals that I enjoyed...

This was at my mom's sister's. She made a beautiful braised duck with taro root and lettuce. It was so moist and delicious.

The spread for Chinese New Year dinner! You can see the duck in the centre. I should have gotten a picture up close of the one to the right of the duck. It's called the "10 treasures" vegetable dish. It had carrots, bean sprouts, baby corn, lotus root, black mushrooms, black fungus, black moss...I don't remember if there was actually 10 vegetables, but it's just called the "10 treasures". Sometimes, it'll be more or less than 10 ingredients. We also had lettuce wraps with shredded pork with mushrooms and other vegetables and rice, chicken, steamed salmon, and another vegetable dish with choy, black mushrooms, and dried baby scallops.

I headed the other direction to see my dad's sister for lunch the next day. We had a plain Chinese soup with tomato, onion, carrot, turnip, and pork bone, and a vegetable dish with choy, black mushroom, and black moss. There were two kinds of steamed "cake". It's not a dessert cake, but it's made out of a paste with either taro or daikon (we had both kinds), flour, Chinese sausage, and baby dried shrimp. There was also braised beef, pigeon, panfried salmon steak. Basically, I had a pretty good fill of real Chinese food.

I hope you all enjoyed some good food too, whether or not you celebrate Chinese New Year, and I wish you all a prosperous Year of the Horse! :)

-M

P.S. Did you know they now have "Angry Birds" red envelopes? My goodness.