Flourless Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Scott wanted a sweet treat, but we had no flour. The solution: Flourless Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies (here)! These cookies had such a surprisingly good chewy texture that I cannot explain. They also only required one egg, which happened to be all we had. As delicious as they were, I must share them with you. They were quick, easy, and perfectly tasty.

To make them, you will only need 7 things:

• 2/3 cup oats
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 egg
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 6 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (okay, 3/4 cups... it was heaping)

1. Toss oats, cinnamon, and baking soda together in a small bowl
2. In a medium bowl, beat the egg. Mix in peanut butter and brown sugar until combined. Add oat mix and combine. Fold in the chocolate chips.
3. Chill the mix in the fridge for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Make balls from the dough (~1.5 tbsp in size) and spread evenly across the baking sheet. Press balls down to make cookie shapes.
5. Bake for 10 minutes. They will seem under baked... but take them out! After cooling on the sheet for 10 minutes, they will be perfect. Eat them all!

Strawberry Oat Bars & Strawberry Brie Crostini

Last week we took some time away from the city and went strawberry picking at Ego's in Oro-Medonte. Fresh-picked Ontario strawberries are so much sweeter and juicier than anything you will find in the store here! With more berries than we know what to do with, now comes the kitchen fun. I decided to try to make Strawberry Oat Bars (originally found here). In the original recipe, there is some attempt at pretending they could be healthy, which I don't really believe with all the butter and sugar involved. I doubled the recipe and still had tons of berries to spare, it just meant I used two baking dishes. The timing was also kind of strange, as they didn't look anywhere near done after only 35 minutes in the oven. I ended up leaving them in for over an hour, they are still pretty moist in the middle and crisp on the bottom, with no burnt bits, although some of the edge exposed berries dried out a little.

The final product is delicious, and I am trying to limit myself to under 4 squares a day... hard work. They make a nice breakfast treat, or dessert, or snack - okay, eat them whenever you want! To make them, you will need:

• 2 cups of rolled oats
• 1 1/2 cups of flour
• 2/3 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cups of unsalted butter
• 2 tsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 4 cups chopped strawberries
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp milk

1. Preheat oven to 375 F and line two 8 x 8 (or one 9 x 13) baking pans with parchment paper, with excess paper sticking out of the pans for easy removal.
2. In a large bowl, combine oats, flour, brown sugar, ginger & salt.
3. Melt the butter, and pour into the mix. Stir until everything is evenly combined.
4. Set aside 1 cup of the oat mix for later. Press the remaining oat mix evenly into the bottom of each baking dish. Use your hands, or a spatula, but make sure it is pressed down well to form the base of the bar.
5. In a small dish, mix the cornstarch and 1 tbsp of the sugar (leaving 1 tbsp for later).
6. Scatter about half of the berries over each base. Sprinkle cornstarch sugar mix over the berries evenly. Sprinkle the lemon juice evenly on top. Scatter the remaining berries, followed by the remaining 1 tbsp of sugar.
7. Cover with the reserved oat mix and press down, with berries peaking through all over the place.
8. Bake the bars until you feel good about it. The original recipe said 40 minutes, I went for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, checking on them regularly. The berries bubbled, but nothing ever set in the oven to resemble a solid bar.
9. After cooling in the dish for 20 minutes, move to the fridge to get cooled completely. It is in this stage that they actually start to harden up and it all makes sense.
10. While cooling, in a medium bowl whisk together the icing sugar, vanilla and milk to make a glaze.
11. Pour the glaze over completely cooled bars and return to the fridge overnight. I waited about 8 hours before cutting into squares.

There were of course many more berries we needed to make use of, so we also made a tasty crostini (originally found here):

On slices of French baguette, we melted some sliced brie at 350 F, then topped with sliced strawberries, sliced basil, and drizzled honey over each slice. This was actually our entire dinner for 2, and I was so, so satisfied. Oh, brie...

Sunfest & Gelato

Yesterday was a gorgeous day here in London, Ontario. We headed out to Sunfest - a music festival in Victoria Park downtown - and true to form, I got way too much sun. We ate our way across the park, particularly excited to try what Kosmos had on offer. There was a guy holding delicious looking food out in front of the booth that made it impossible to skip. The line was long, and the sun was hot. After waiting way longer than we anticipated, we were presented with an amazing looking Crispy Chicken:

Crispy Chicken - chipotle aoli, lettuce, jalapeno, onion, honey mustard, pickles

The chicken breast was HUGE, and freshly fried to crispy perfection while we waited. It was so, so crispy. Everything seemed to have its place in each bite. The most unfortunate part of this enormous sandwich was how much it fell apart when I tried to eat it. That little dish did not catch it all, but it tried. Overall, I am excited to try Kosmos in the future, as everything we saw come out looked delicious (I'm looking at you, Fish Tacos).

After crisping up in the sunourselves, we headed up closer to home for some of the city's best gelato at Angelo's Italian Bakery and Market. When Scott and I first started dating, we frequented Angelo's a little too often. This was our first gelato trip of the year, and I was so ready!

Gelato - Mango & Mixed Berry, Pomegranate & Chocolate

We both made great choices. Scott picked one the all-time favourites: Mango. It has little pieces of mango throughout the gelato and is so refreshing. The mixed berry was a new one for us, and it was very nice. I tend to also go chocolate in some way or another. Pomegranate made a nice sharp and sweet addition to the semi-sweet chocolate gelato. If you haven't been for gelato at Angelo's, get out there!

Eva's Original Chimneys

For our 2 year anniversary, Scott bought tickets to see Kinky Boots in their final performance in Toronto. Of course that means we needed to find food first! We decided to visit Evergreen Brick Works in the hopes of food trucks and a nice stroll. Although we were a little disappointed to see only two food trucks and another truck selling Harem Pants, there was one we were excited to try. For a couple weeks, Eva's Original Chimneys was mainly located at Brick Works, catching a lot of attention on social media. When we arrived, the sky was pretty overcast and the park wasn't too busy. We were able to walk directly up to the truck without a line and order the Sweet Apple Pie:

It's an ice cream cone made of a Hungarian pastry, known as a chimney cake. If you have never had one, its a lot like a doughnut, covered in sugar and cinnamon. The cone was filled with vanilla soft-serve with some apple pie filling. It was a pretty good sweet treat, but there was a secret surprise at the end...at the bottom of the cone there was a chocolate truffle. This little chocolate nugget was unexpected, and not all that welcome, it was really kind of strange to have. The pastry itself was crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, tasty but not too sweet.

Likes: perfect vanilla soft serve, nice soft pastry

Dislikes: the chocolate truffle was unwelcome
Food: 4/5
Service: 5/5
Would I go again?: Maybe, but there are so many other food trucks and desserts to try that it doesn't really need to be revisited

Hollywood Cone

In May I had the distinct displeasure of have a wisdom tooth removed that had been making its way into my mouth despite there being no space for it. What this really meant was... ICE CREAM! In my hometown of Oshawa, ON, Hollywood Cone has become ridiculously popular, and I was ready to get in on the action. Starting as a food truck, they have recently announced the addition of 3 more locations (including downtown Toronto). I went on two separate occasions - May 8 & 22, the second to make sure it wasn't just a codeine-fueled delusion. My brother and I went in the afternoon, when I can only assume they are at their busiest. The line was around the small restaurant and many people seated had no desserts in front of them yet. We waited the 40 minutes, debated going out to feed the parking meter, then were rewarded with the most insane milkshakes I have ever seen. He ordered the Funnel Cake Shake:

While my brother is not a small guy, he was still unable to finish the whole thing. He made his way through the Funnel Cake and maybe half of the actual soft-serve vanilla milkshake. Every bit as delicious at it looks. I ordered The Cloud Nine ($14.99), one of the pricier menu items:

There was a peanut butter cup, a whole slice of plain cheese cake, a dense chocolate brownie, then an actual milkshake surrounded by peanut butter minis stuck in place with peanut butter. My eyes were way bigger than my stomach. The cake and brownie were both perfect, but the milkshake itself had many little bits and crumbles inside the glass lined with peanut butter. Trying to get it all out into a takeaway container was a real challenge. All of the Mutant Shakes are dine-in only, while they also serve many more manageable shakes. I am sure they taste good, but the novelty factor is what drew me in to begin with. The restaurant space was completely packed and we were lucky to score seating in the front window. It was impossible for the staff to keep up with the demand, or to clean up with the speed children can smear ice cream and toppings around the space. We weren't disappointed, but so uncomfortable with how much sugar we had just consumed.

After showing these pictures to my boyfriend, he insisted we return at the first chance we got. We we went two weeks later, we arrived just a half hour after opening and the restaurant had only 3 other guests. Ordering and securing seating was a complete breeze. This time, we decided to try one of their banana splits - the Cherry Cheese Cake:

With two full bananas, cherries, and cheesecake pieces all covered with vanilla soft-serve and whipped cream, this banana split was enormous. Again, I was impressed with the cheesecake. While it was simple to execute, it still took the staff about 10 minutes to produce.

I think it would be difficult to be too disappointed in the food itself at Hollywood Cone, it is exactly what you expect for massive amount of ice cream and sugar. It just isn't anything special except volume, which you are definitely paying for. Any of the Mutant Shakes or Banana Splits should probably be shared, although feel free to take it on yourself!

Likes: The food is what you want, assuming you know what you're getting into
Dislikes: Too busy for the staff and current style of service to keep up, this includes cleaning up the dining room
Food: 4/5
Service: 3/5
Would I go again?: Probably, but I would try to make sure it isn't a peak time