The Haggis and the Herring

12/30/2012 09:42 AM

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New at the Haggis and Herring

Please welcome J3 Jonathan Morgan Saraga Born Dec 29 Everyone is great now that Mom is over the shock of having three sons!!! I was seriously thinking girl. My apologies to Jonathan for calling him Stella for the last 9 months. J1 is thrilled to have another brother. J2 had no idea what to make of things but kept pointing at him saying "baby" so that see

The Haggis and the Herring

10/05/2012 07:00 AM

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Rickard's Cardigan Beer-braised Ribs

NOTE: This post was scheduled by Daniel Saraga of Haggis and Herring before he suddenly passed away. We have decided to ensure his scheduled posts continue. Daniel's wife Meredith posted her eulogy to him. Please read more about our wonderful Daniel. When I was at the Rickard's Cardigan launch, Brewmaster Matthews was telling me about beer-braised ribs that his wif

The Haggis and the Herring

09/28/2012 07:00 AM

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Swiss Chard and Cheddar Soup

NOTE: This post was scheduled by Daniel Saraga of Haggis and Herring before he suddenly passed away. We have decided to ensure his scheduled posts continue. Daniel's wife Meredith posted her eulogy. Please read more about our wonderful Daniel. September cooled down right away, just the way I like it. I dislike hot-and-sticky August. Cool nights, warm soup, some hea

The Haggis and the Herring

09/21/2012 07:00 AM

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Vermouth Chicken

I guess my friends and I are at that age when our parents are starting to get older and are moving out of houses they've occupied for 30+ years and into smaller places – apartments, condos or otherwise. You can imagine the fun of emptying a lifetime of accumulated stuff from basements. I'm not looking forward to helping out with that task when the time comes. Our good friend, Dr. Karen, h

The Haggis and the Herring

09/17/2012 11:06 AM

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Daniel Saraga - the Herring at the Haggis and Herring

It is with a broken heart that I write this. My beloved Daniel passed away suddenly on Friday night, surrounded by his family. In true Daniel style he had just finished barbecuing dinner for everyone. I wanted to share the eulogy that gave at his service yesterday. There is a hole in my heart. I have to apologies to Daniel for the COMPLETE lack of editi

The Haggis and the Herring

09/14/2012 07:00 AM

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Ultimate Bacon Sarnie (Sandwich)

At the end of August, I read an article about an ongoing debate on the ultimate bacon sarnie (sandwich) in The Register, a UK-based technology magazine. The author, Lester Haines, welcomed readers to email in their photos by Friday, September 14, so here it is. To prepare, Meredith and I had a deep discussion about how we'd make our ultimate bacon sarnie: Bread: bread can be a cont

The Haggis and the Herring

09/10/2012 12:00 PM

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Secret Recipe Club: Felafel

It's time for the September edition of Secret Recipe Club, where a group of dedicated food bloggers try out each others recipes. This month, I was assigned Corina of Searching for Spice. Corina blogs to keep a record of the new things she tries. I immediately decided to try out her felafel recipe, just because I've been itching to make felafel for a very long time. I've only made felafel onc

The Haggis and the Herring

09/07/2012 05:00 PM

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Rickard's Cardigan: Get it While it Lasts

Earlier this week, my friends at MolsonCoors invited me to the launch of their first seasonal beer: Rickard's Cardigan. Meredith was unable to attend (and was quite upset about it), so I was accompanied by my close friend Kristian instead. After our first sip, we were both sold. Cardigan was developed by Brewmaster Gary Matthews who drew inspiration from what fall means to him – pr

The Haggis and the Herring

09/07/2012 07:00 AM

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White Bread

Meredith wanted to make bread for some friends who were coming over for dinner one evening, and she had all day to make it. It was pouring outside and Jeremy was feeling a bit under the weather as well. For Christmas, Meredith's mother gave her a copy of the Five Roses cookbook, knowing it's the same book that her grandmother used (an earlier version, at least). In my opinion, the rec

The Haggis and the Herring

08/31/2012 07:00 AM

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Cucumber Dill Dressing

During cucumber season in July, everything cucumber was on sale. I made some batches of my microwave sweet pickles and tried to look for something new as well. Meredith wanted me to change the salad dressing up for a bit - getting bored with some of my standards), and Judee's Cucumber Dill Dressing recipe was perfect timing. I didn't stumble across Judee's recipe by accident - I follow

The Haggis and the Herring

08/24/2012 07:00 AM

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Strawberry Muffins

Well, strawberry season has come and gone again, and Meredith was very busy making all sorts of stuff. There were several evenings where dessert was strawberries and cream, and there was, of course, pie. Meredith took the little guy strawberry picking as well, and he had quite a good time. You can see him surveying the area during coffee break here. ...and sampling the haul. I th

The Haggis and the Herring

08/17/2012 07:00 AM

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Mama's Pastel (Moroccan Shepherd's Pie)

My aunt sent me another of my grandmother's recipes in earlier June, for a Moroccan shepherd's pie called pastel. This is another dish that I haven't eaten in roughly 12 years - since my grandmother passed away. Many of the measurements weren't exact, so I did need to use mu judgement along the way, and I think I'm getting better at guessing these type of things. It turned out exactl

The Haggis and the Herring

08/13/2012 12:00 PM

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Secret Recipe Club: Donut Muffins

Note to self: do not use the camera on a loaner phone when your phone is in the shop :-( It's the August edition of Secret Recipe Club and my assignment for this month is Danielle from Nashville who writes Mostly Food and Crafts. There are a ton of great recipes under the "mostly food" category to choose from. I really wanted to make her Chicken Paprikash, however, the latter-end of July

The Haggis and the Herring

08/10/2012 07:00 AM

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Rhubarb Pie

We had devoured most of the pie by the time I rememberedto snap a photo. It was very, very tasty. Rhubarb season has started in late May, and Meredith got her hands on some. She was quite excited. What she didn't know was that there wasn't enough rhubarb for the pie she wanted to make, so she winged in and threw in an apple as well. Very creative (and super tasty, of course!). The

The Haggis and the Herring

08/03/2012 07:00 AM

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Chicken Tikka Pie

A Friday in May ended up being a long day. By the afternoon, I was ready to get the heck out of the office and get moving on dinner. My original plan was to make a chicken dish using some leftover white wine, however, my friend Hungry Jenny changed my mind. Jenny had published a porky tikka pie for her regular Friday Pie Day feature, and I loved the idea. It's just what we needed for dinn

The Haggis and the Herring

07/27/2012 01:52 PM

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Red Onion Sauce

I wanted to try something new for a family barbecue, but we didn't have very much time to do anything very different. Back in May, I saw a recipe on CES for a red onion sauce popular on hotdogs in New York City, so I ran with that (with a few changes of course). The sauce isn't made of onions, it's a red sauce with onions in it. Or, more accurately, onions covered in a reddish sauce. The

The Haggis and the Herring

07/20/2012 07:00 AM

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Chicken Marbella

Our neighbour, Olivia, frequently invites us over for dinner when certain dishes are on the menu. One of our favourite dishes is her Chicken Marbella. It's a dish I have yet to make myself because, for some reason, I can stand in front of the stove and stir a pot for an hour, but I can't bring myself to baste something in the oven. I've got to get over that. In the meantime, Olivia was ge

The Haggis and the Herring

07/16/2012 12:00 PM

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Secret Recipe Club: Cuban Sandwich

It's Secret Recipe Club time again, and this month's assignment is Wendy from La Phemme Foodie. Wendy blogs from Philledelphia, where she's a lawyer by day and a food blogger and photographer by night. For the assignment, we considered several recipes, including slow cooker ribs in a root beer barbecue sauce, as buffalo wing macaroni and cheese, but in the end, I had a craving for a san

The Haggis and the Herring

07/13/2012 07:00 AM

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Chickpea Stew

At the end of a week where we ate a lot of meat, I was happy to cook a meal that was vegetable-heavy and easy to prepare. I had recently read a couple of vegetarian recipes involving chickpeas and this was the result of combining bits and pieces from each. I went easy on the spices, so the stew was pretty mild. I think you could easily double the garlic, chili powder, cumin and ca

The Haggis and the Herring

07/06/2012 07:00 AM

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Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies

We don't make bacon often, but when we do, we occasionally save the rendered fat in a jar and store it in the back of the fridge. I'd joke about using it to make fried bread once in a while, but I never do. Putting bacon in everything has been a trend for some time. I think it's part of the sweet and salty combination that makes the flavours attractive. I've seen bacon with chocolate and

The Haggis and the Herring

06/29/2012 07:00 AM

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Miffy's Baked Beans

This large casserole dish was maybe two-thirds of the batch. This particular batch didn't use beer, however, it tastes even better with the beer. When my mother-in-law told me that she had made baked beans from scratch, Meredith and I were excited to try it. We were equally disappointed to find that they were already gone. Fortunately, it didn't take much pleading for her to make a bat

The Haggis and the Herring

06/22/2012 07:44 PM

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Yogurt Cereal Bars

Meredith was looking for something relatively healthy to give Jeremy as a snack - preferably something not terribly messy. We're still working on it, but these yogurt bars still hit the spot. Meredith first attempt used oats the first time and although they tasted great, it was more of a falling-apart crumble. And Jeremy found them a little dry. He stuck his tongue out until the bits fell

The Haggis and the Herring

06/11/2012 12:00 PM

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Secret Recipe Club: Soft Pretzels

It's Secret Recipe Club time again, and June's assignment is Karen Cooks. Karen blogs from Montana and has all sorts of great recipes that we'd love to try, including chicken marsala, grilled pineapple guacamole, venison stew, and a really tasty looking cheesecake. After reviewing Karen's recipe index, I knew exactly what we were going to make right away. Soft pretzels. We'd conquered ba

The Haggis and the Herring

06/08/2012 07:00 AM

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Cincinnati-style Buffalo Chicken Chili

Yes, another chili recipe. This one is mostly from scratch, tho. Inspired by a combination of different recipe concepts and what I happened to have available. My original plan was to make buffalo chicken chili. However, we didn't have any bleu cheese. Not completely foiled, cheddar would still do. I also didn't have a proper wing sauce, so I used hot pepper sauce and compensated by fryin

The Haggis and the Herring

06/01/2012 07:00 AM

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Muffin Tin Dinner Rolls

Clearly, Meredith was inspired by The Muffin Tin Cookbook, by Brette Sember. She decided to adapt a recipe for muffin tins on her own when we were going to a family dinner. Not wanting to bring another dessert, she tried a bread recipe instead. Much of the recipe is based on the Better Homes and Gardens dinner rolls recipe, however, these rolls are much bigger. The original recipe qu

The Haggis and the Herring

05/25/2012 07:00 AM

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Moroccan Sausage and Chickpeas

When I saw Food Floozie's chickpeas with chorizo, I knew that I had to make my own version of the dish. I had Moroccan sausages in the freezer, so I was pretty much ready to go. This version wasn't going to be vegetarian or using pork. I don't associate the flavour of pork with Moroccan cuisine - probably because most Moroccans I've met are either Jewish or Muslim. I had originally though

The Haggis and the Herring

05/21/2012 07:00 AM

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Beer Cocktails from Miller and Corona

Recently, my friends at Miller told me about a new trend in beer: beer cocktails. Since I've already used beer in cooking, I was more than willing to give beer in cocktails a try, and I'm so glad I did! The beer arrived just in time for the Victoria Day long weekend and we tried out the cocktails at a small family barbecue. My mother-in-law had also recently heard of beer being used in cocktail

The Haggis and the Herring

05/14/2012 12:00 PM

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Secret Recipe Club: Vidalia Onion Pie

It's Secret Recipe Club time again, and Meredith and were really excited about May's assignment: Ellie from The Bitchin' Kitchin'. Ellie is from Hoboken New Jersey, birthplace of Baseball and Frank Sinatra. It was difficult to decide which of Ellie's recipes to make. Not because her blog was difficult to navigate, or because she didn't have a wonderfully easy-to-follow list of recipes, bu

The Haggis and the Herring

05/11/2012 07:00 AM

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Berry Crumble Pie

With friends coming over for dinner on a Friday in March, and the dinner being one of our standards, Meredith felt that it was time to try out an experiment she had been mulling over for a while. She had the basics for a graham cracker pie crust and was working an idea for a berry filling as well. It came together, and stayed together incredibly well, and tasted amazing, of course. Unfort

The Haggis and the Herring

05/04/2012 07:00 AM

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Meatballs in Amaretto Barbecue Sauce

It all started out with a Guinness barbecue sauce recipe I saw, however, the recipe called for far too much sugar. That got me thinking that I wanted to make meatballs with some kind of barbecue sauce. The researching started. I eventually found a recipe for Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce and went from there. I know that Dr. Pepper tastes like amaretto, and I figured meatballs in amaretto sauc

The Haggis and the Herring

04/27/2012 07:00 AM

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Yorkshire Pudding

In March, we were asked to review a cookbook and the title really caught Meredith's attention. The Muffin Tin Cookbook, by Brette Sember (Amazon link for our readers from the USA), published by Adams Media is a straight-to-business cookbook. If you're looking for great ideas about how to make single-serving food using muffin tins, this is the book for you. There are 200 recipes to ch

The Haggis and the Herring

04/16/2012 12:00 PM

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Secret Recipe Club: Haymishe Bagels

It's time for the April edition of Secret Recipe Club, and this month I was assigned Laura Rees of This is How We Eat. Laura started to blog as a way to keep a journal of recipes she enjoyed and recipes that she created. We chose to make her bagels because we've never made bagels before. I've always been intimidated by the idea, but I think it's because it's baking, and I'm not a big

The Haggis and the Herring

04/13/2012 07:00 AM

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Colcannon (potatoes, cabbage, leeks and kale)

Another St. Patrick's Day has passed and this year I tried another new recipe. St. Patrick's Day is special for us because it was my late brother-in-law's birthday. He passed away from a skiing accident a week before he turned 15. We always have a nice meal with friends and family and toast Jeremy on St. Patrick's Day. He would've been 35 this year. Our son Jeremy is named after him

The Haggis and the Herring

04/06/2012 07:00 AM

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Cornie's Home Made Chicken

The story of Cornie's is an old one for us. On our first cruise, Meredith and I ended up hanging around a beach in St. Maarten for much of the day sitting in beach loungers, reading, drinking beer and eating chicken. Cornie's was a little shack with a patio near where we rented our loungers and beach umbrella. The initial attraction was the two-for-$3 bottles of beer, but lunch was a

The Haggis and the Herring

03/30/2012 07:00 AM

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Cheese Antojitos

The cheese antojitos story started back in the mid-1990s. The Peterborough Arms, a pub from my university days. One of my favourite snacks from the Arms were their cheese antojitos served by an eccentric server who walked around with PEZ dispensers stuffed in his belt like guns in holsters. Being on a student budget, I quickly figured out how to make them myself and continued to make them

The Haggis and the Herring

03/23/2012 07:00 AM

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Mustard and Garlic Roasted Potatoes

The last few months were very busy for us, and cooking and baking new things didn't happen very often, if at all. In the middle of February, we had to catch up so we wouldn't run out of new recipes to share with everyone. Fortunately, a cold snap hit and we had a good reason to stay indoors and make comforting food. At the end of that weekend, pretty stuffed with the weekend's leftovers f

The Haggis and the Herring

03/12/2012 12:00 PM

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Secret Recipe Club: Mango Chicken Curry

It's time again for The Secret Recipe Club (SRC) again, hosted by Suzanne from The Bugs on my Windshield. Because SRC's reveal date is Monday, there won't be a Friday recipe this week. This month I was assigned Angela's Kitchen. Angela's blog caters to the gluten- and dairy-free crowd. While some people might groan thinking: great, there won't be anything interesting here, I alr

The Haggis and the Herring

03/09/2012 07:00 AM

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Potato Pizza

Having recently discovered that our local grocery store carries prepared pizza dough (although it's practically hidden in a corner), Meredith decided it was time for us to slow down on our occasional frozen pizzas. Well, if we weren't going to have frozen pizzas, I didn't want us to stick to a standard pizza. My mother's friend used to make us a great tasting potato pizza, and I wanted us

The Haggis and the Herring

03/02/2012 07:00 AM

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Blueberry Coffee Cake

February didn't strike me as blueberry season, but there they were. Three pints for $5. I guess I was buying blueberries! My mistake was not having something in mind for them before bringing them home. I'm not a baker, so this would be Meredith's decision. She looked through her favourite baking books at all of her choices until she realized that she wanted something easy. No phylo. Nothing

The Haggis and the Herring

02/24/2012 07:00 AM

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Peanut Salad Dressing

I forgot to take a photo of the salad before we ate, however, we used the dressing as a dip as well. A short while ago was National Peanut Butter Day. While my son decided to have a fluffernutter sandwich for dinner (that's marshmallow fluff and peanut butter for the un-initiated), we decided to use the peanut butter elsewhere in our meal. I prepared a salad with shredded carrot, sno

The Haggis and the Herring

02/13/2012 12:00 PM

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Secret Recipe Club: Ginger Chicken

It's time again for The Secret Recipe Club (SRC), and we have a new host: Suzanne from The Bugs on my Windshield. Because SRC's reveal date is Monday, there won't be a Friday recipe this week. This month, I've been assigned Robin from Penny Pinching Provisions who, like me, would rather make tasty, affordable meals from scratch, than buy prepared processed food. There were

The Haggis and the Herring

02/10/2012 07:00 AM

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Baked Aloo Kofta Curry (Baked Potato Ball Curry)

Back in January I got an email from one of my favourite Indian food bloggers - Niya. She remembered a comment I made nearly a year ago about wanting to make a potato-ball curry that didn't involve deep-frying. Well, Niya came through and created one! As soon as I saw Niya's Baked Aloo Kofta Curry, I knew I had to make it. Immediately. For dinner that very evening. With a few variations, I mo

The Haggis and the Herring

02/03/2012 07:00 AM

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Just before the new year, I asked Jacob what his favourite cookie was. To my surprise, he told me it was the peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie I used to make him, (and later Meredith made for him) based on the Cookies for Rookies recipe from Crazy Plates by Janet and Greta Podleski. When Jacob asked why Meredith's cookies turned out better than mine, Meredith pointed out to him

The Haggis and the Herring

01/27/2012 04:37 PM

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S'mores Squares

I've never bought marshmallow fluff before, however, I bought two jars of it the week before Christmas. One jar was for a dessert Meredith was making for a get-together. When I found out that she was buying fluff I immediately wanted to make a fluffernutter sandwich, but I was told that the entire jar was already called for. So I bought myself a second jar as well and made myself the fame

The Haggis and the Herring

01/20/2012 07:00 AM

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Moroccan Dijon Chicken

I only read a couple of Moroccan cooking blogs since there aren't that many, however, I enjoy reading both immensely. Recently, one of the bloggers, Nisrine from Dinner and Dreams, announced that she was being published in the Boston Globe, so, of course, I had to read the story. Her recipe was a spicy Moroccan chicken recipe, and it used Dijon mustard. Dijon? That's clearly French, howev

The Haggis and the Herring

01/13/2012 07:00 AM

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Review: Vietnamese Delight

The soup pictured is one of two bowls made from the large order of take-out soup. Thank goodness for smartphones. Snap a picture, dictate a note, and actually write about it weeks later :-) That's what happened during the one-week-plus while I was fighting a cold. There wasn't much happening with food. Most of it was canned, or leftovers from the rare time we didn't eat something prepar

The Haggis and the Herring

01/06/2012 07:00 AM

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Chocolate Chip Bran Muffins

The cold I had in November was pretty major - I was at home sick for an entire week. Coughing so frequently didn't make my stomach feel great either, so my breakfast/lunch usually consisted of a soft-boiled egg and toast and maybe some canned soup (yuck!). by day seven, I wasn't exactly hungry, but I wanted to eat something relatively healthy and filling. I was suddenly craving bran muffi

The Haggis and the Herring

12/30/2011 07:00 AM

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Baba's Pan-fried Burgers with Onions and Mashed Potatoes

I couldn't tell the story of my favourite dessert from my paternal grandmother, without talking about my favourite comfort food from my maternal grandmother, Baba. From the time my grandmother retired, she would visit pretty much every weekend, and whenever I was sick. Sometimes, I'd be whisked to her place when my parents were on the way to work and I was too sick to go to school.

The Haggis and the Herring

12/24/2011 10:47 PM

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Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas from the Haggis and the Herring Recipes by the Haggis and the Herring: tasty world recipes tested in our kitchen Try other tasty recipes var __fbr_pid = "1719"; var __fbr_bid = "6883"; var __fbr_sid = "659"; var __fbr_size = "728x90"; var __fbr_auid = "9416"; var __fbr_zone = "";

The Haggis and the Herring

12/23/2011 07:00 AM

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Review: Johnny's Charcoal Broiled Hamburgers

Photo from Wikimedia Commons On a sick Friday (meaning ALL of us were sick), we opted to get some take-out for dinner. Neither of us wanted to cook. We were getting Johnny's. Johnny's Charcoal Broiled Hamburgers is an institution in North York and Scarborough. It has been around since I was a kid and, frankly, hasn't changed since it was established in the mid-late 1970s. It's still know

	The Haggis and the Herring
	The Haggis and the Herring started out as the website for our wedding, bringing our families and friends together for a big night of celebration and good food. When it was all over, we wanted to continue the good times and the good food and this food blog was born. Many of the recipes on this blog have been tested by our friends and family at Friday night dinners.

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