It was a fun month full of a few Toronto foodie adventures and a quick trip to Florida! But there was one major thing missing from this month…

  • No Oscars Feast! Gasp! Kristine couldn’t make it this year, so I had a little solo viewing party and made these Turkey & Spinach Stuffed Shells and a Kale Caesar. Perfect just for me!
  • My friend Krishna was away for most of March, so I did a little bit of condo-sitting for her and crossed a few places of my Toronto Eats list. First up was Roselle, which I’ve been to before, but needed to go again for Tropical March Madness. After years of seeing it on Instagram, I had to have their Mango Pavlova, and it was worth the wait. I don’t know what kind of magic they’re putting in their pavlova shell, but it’s light, airy, chewy and perfect. It’s topped with mango curd, whipped cream, fresh mango chunks and lime zest, and is probably the best thing I’ve eaten all year.
  • Next up on my hit list was Romi’s, a cute little place in the Bathurst & St. Clair neighbourhood (which is near and dear to my heart, as my university bestie lived here after we graduated and I hung out there a ton). I ventured up there for lunch and had a falafel sandwich on their famous challah and devoured the entire thing. I also had a nutella rugelach for dessert which was also perfection. Can’t wait to go back!
  • Lastly, I spent some time walking around The Well and mentally prepared myself to spend $25 on a salad at Mandy’s, and I’m sorry to say it was worth it! I had the Peanut Satay Salad which has mixed greens, basil, cilantro, mint, shredded carrots, red cabbage, green onions, mango, wonton strips, peanuts, and the very strange sounding ‘peanut mock chicken’ which turns out is tofu. My co-worker has loaned me the Mandy’s cookbook so I can reverse engineer this at home.
  • A couple months ago, Georgia brought homemade hummus and spicy feta dip to the office for a bunch of us to share at lunch, and DIP DAY was born. We had another one this month, and it was so fun! We had a mix of savoury dips (buffalo chicken dip, mango salsa, labneh with sizzled scallions, Mexican Street Corn dip) and sweet dips (Dunkaroos dip, shortbread with salted caramel dip, and my contribution, Brownie Batter Dip). It was so much fun and we need to do it again soon!
  • I went to Florida for a quick trip to visit my parents, and became immediately obsessed with tall cans of Liquid Death, which is lightly sweetened sparkling water. I tried Mango Chainsaw and Severed Lime and need this to come to Canada immediately!
  • Per my usual Easter tradition, I rewatched Homecoming on Netflix and ate waffles with berries, peanut butter and maple syrup. In an effort to limit the amount of butter in my life (sad), I’ve been trying to find a dairy-free waffle recipe, and this one was pretty good (I also used avocado oil instead of canola oil).
  • My other YEASTER tradition is to tackle a yeasted-dough recipe, and this year I tried the Chocolate Tahini Buns from Smitten Kitchen. They were good, but not as good as this Chocolate Babka, which I think is what I was really craving.
  • Here’s my regular recipe round-up for the month:
  • Stuff I made from the archives: Brown Sugar & Chili-Rubbed Salmon
  • Some of my favourite go-to dishes: Cookie + Kate’s Whole Wheat Cinnamon Oat Pancakes from her cookbook with Skillet Strawberry Jam, Gochujang Salmon (found it again on TikTok, will blog it here soon)
  • New things that I tried and liked: I made a chicken noodle soup with my homemade turkey broth from my Friendsmas Dinner that had been in the freezer and it was UNREAL, a new to me Turkey Chili, Spanakopita Tortilla Egg Bake
  • Homemade Snacks: Peanut Butter Banana Bread

Other non-foodie things I was obsessed with this month:

  • We had a Disconnect Day at work, so Georgia and I went to Thermea Spa Village, which is right near her house. I’ve never been to that kind of outdoor spa before, where you cycle through the hot/cold/rest cycle in a series of steam rooms, saunas, plunge pools and hot tubs, and it was an amazing experience. It was pretty busy as it was the Friday before March Break, so I’d love to go back when it’s a little more chill.
  • I read a ton this month and had some hits and misses. I finished King: A Life, and even though it took me forever, it was worth the read. I took The Heiress with me to the spa and finished it in one day, it was a pretty good little mystery. Somehow I slogged my way through Zadie Smith’s The Fraud, and to be honest, I only read this so I could be ready to discuss it with the Zadie fans in my life (I wouldn’t recommend it). In Florida I read The Daydreams (which I really liked), Love, Theoretically (which I loved) and Who We Are Now (which I feel had potential to be way better).
  • I already finished my re-watch of The OC! Just burned through those 4 seasons in no-time. Season 1 is so perfect, and it kind of goes steadily downhill after that, but still holds up so well. I was going to watch One Tree Hill next, but my fave podcaster Juliet just announced a Felicity re-watch pod, so we’ll see.

Flashback!