Month: February 2011

Pink Chocolate Surprise Cookies (also known as the cookies that can’t be “beet”)

~ Hilary ~ 9 Comments

Sorry if the title of this post made you groan, I can never resist the opportunity to insert a bad food pun.

Since Valentine’s Day is officially in…3 minutes, I figured I’d better keep blogging about all my holiday-themed treats in what appears to be a V-Day baking post marathon.

These cookies.  Wow.  Earlier this week I was perusing the pages of Tastespotting trying to get inspired for my Valentine’s Day baking.  I stumbled on a picture of these cookies, and was immediately drawn to the vibrant hue of the dessert.  Now you must understand that in my baking this week I challenged myself to one task: using beets as a natural dye in a dessert.  You see, I’d been considering making red velvet something-or-anothers for a few weeks, but had always been turned off by my memories of awful tasting red artificial colouring.  When I read that beets were a great replacement for all that fake stuff, I was a little hesitant.  Sure, beets are great in borscht and in other main meal things, but could they really be used in a dessert?

The answer was an overwhelming “yes.”

When I found this recipe I decided I was going to go all out with the beet colouring.  Remember, I’m trying to be brave with this food exploration thing, and this was another big step for me.  Since I was going to make my own beet puree to use in the cookies, I decided the easiest thing for me to do would be to buy canned (but NOT pickled, this is very important!!) beets at the grocery store.  This way I could smartly avoid any time wasted chopping, peeling, and dying my hands a bright shade of magenta.  In the end, it was kind of fun to make my own puree in our food processor.  It turned out looking like some sort of blood-red applesauce, and added the best natural colouring to these cookies.

So how did they turn out?

Well they were AWESOME!  Okay, I know cookies are never healthy, but think about it.  These have vegetables in them and no butter (normally a bad thing, but it worked out in this case).  I guess I’m in a “put vegetables in my desserts” phase after my chocolate zucchini cake, but the trend seems to be working out for me.  My cookies actually turned out to have more of a cake-like whoopie pie consistency, which gave them a perfect chewable quality.  Even my roommate Amanda who is the pickiest eater EVER liked them, although she did initially wrinkle her nose when I told her about the “surprise ingredient.”  I found the beets added almost a sweet after taste to the cookie, enough to keep the eater guessing as to where the great flavour came from.  And of course, they were pink, which is all I really wanted in the first place.

PS: I don’t know why I haven’t thought of this before, but isn’t using coloured paper as the backdrop for my food pictures a wonderful idea?!  I have so, so, so much coloured paper, so this gives me an additional place to use it.  To take my pictures I simply line our world atlas with paper, prop it up against the window sill with my hip, and photograph my heart out.

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Pizza l’Amore

~ Hilary ~ 5 Comments

First, please listen to the song below when reading this post.  Thank you.

There is currently a heated debate occurring in my kitchen over the name of this pizza.  Natalie and Ariel are yelling out “PIZZA LOVE, PIZZA LOVE” and Conor, Natalie’s boyfriend, is mumbling something about how there is supposed to be an “a” in between the two words to make it French…or Italian…it’s hard to decipher their arguments.  Anyways, this pizza WAS love, and so the post title is accurate.

Just a warning, this is going to be the first of many Valentine’s Day posts.  As you know, I take advantage of any holiday that comes my way, and use that day/season as an excuse to bake and cook a ridiculous amount of themed foods.  If you are somehow a bitter, love-hating cynic I understand that you might not want to see my cutesy, pink and red foods.  However, here is a plug for all you singletons: I’m exactly like you.  Hell if I’m making all this stuff for some boyfriend who won’t appreciate it (like my boyfriend last year who did not appreciate my charming heart-shaped cakes).  Nope, this Valentine’s Day I’m loving myself and my roommates, and thereby declare that you do not need some person to spoil with these treats – you are good enough to eat them yourself.

Now, sometimes when I make food, I deliberately choose ingredients that will make a dish look better.  It was through this decision-making process that I decided to put pepperoni, red pepper and mushrooms on my pizza.  I don’t even know if I like mushrooms, but they were white, and needed to be included in my V-Day colour scheme.  Since I bought a set of six heart cookie cutters at the Bulk Barn, I decided to use the smallest one for my pizza, carefully cutting out miniature heart-shaped mushroom and pepperoni pieces.  Yeah…I’m kind of cute.

Anyways, this pizza turned out great and I’m still eating the leftovers today.  Not only was the pizza seasonally-appropriate, but also delicious.  Now if you DO have a special Valentine and have procrastinated to the point that you don’t know what to cook for them, I suggest this.  Easy and romantic FTW.

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Mixed Pepper, Salami and Feta Pasta

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

“That smells exactly like bagel bites!”

This was the comment I received from three of my roommates as I cooked this pasta dish.  I blame the salami.  I for one, have never been fortunate (unfortunate?) enough to try a bagel bite, so I quickly had to google the term to find out exactly what it was.  WOW they look good.  Is there anything better than miniature pizzas?  I think not.  It looks like I’m going to need to make my own Hilary-style bagel bites sometime soon.

Like the chalet chicken soup I made a few posts back, this recipe came from the March issue of Canadian Living, which seems to contain several more gems that I plan on making before the actual month rolls around.  This was just a really solid dish that allowed me to use up some more of my huge pasta supply.  Also, I’ve never really tried salami before…is that sad?  Maybe my mom used to occasionally sneak it into my sandwiches when I was young, but I have never knowingly tried this famous sandwich meat.  There we are, another confession from my sad, pre-foodie life.  Buying this salami allowed me to talk to the cute boy in the deli section of the grocery store.  Score!  Also, I left out the olives from the original recipe, since no matter how hard I try, I cannot force myself to enjoy those oily little buggers.  If you are an olive lover, I admire you.  Also, this means that à la How I Met Your Mother, I need to date someone who LOVES olives.  It’s a valuable thing to know.

PS: I can’t believe I once thought that feta cheese smelled like feet.  It is my favourite now.
PPS: Isn’t that woven placemat background the best thing ever?  I bought it at IKEA for $1.
PPPS: The black bowl was also purchased during my last IKEA trip.  I seriously have SO many random dishes lying around the kitchen that I use solely to plate food.  It is a mismatched pottery paradise.
PPPPS: I brought a tupperware container of this to class the other day and had to eat it with a piece of baguette because I forgot cutlery.  Let me tell you, there are definitely worse things in life than bread utensils.

See recipe after the jump!

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“Happy Chinese New Years!” Potstickers

~ Hilary ~ 6 Comments

INSOMNIA.

This is my current condition.  Which is strange, since you think I’d be tired considering I just got home from school after spending what seemed like an eternity editing a television assignment.  I’m really just being whiny, I actually really like all my journalism classes and know that I won’t get anywhere without a few (several) late (attached to my iPhone) nights.  But if I’m going to waste away in an editing suite, I must reward myself by blogging.  So here we are.  Welcome to my online nest of sleep deprivation.

I know I’m a little late off the mark for the whole Chinese New Years thing, but I simply don’t have time to post things in time for actual holidays.  What this means is that my Valentine’s Day posts are very likely going to come popping up sometime around February 17.  You have been warned.

I made these potstickers/Chinese dumplings/whatever you want to call them with my friend Gord (author of the Savoury Starving Student, check it!) this past Sunday.  It turned out to be quite the afternoon adventure, and we trekked through the streets of Chinatown just as the Chinese New Years parade was underway.  It was super cool and I thoroughly enjoyed embracing my half-heritage for a change.  Finding the perfect little Chinese grocers, I was pleasantly pleased to find several boxes of these special chocolate-filled panda cookies that I really like.  I haven’t had them in years, so bought four boxes to compensate (which I am balancing with lots of fruits and vegetables, don’t worry mom).  Very yummy.

Back at Gord’s house, we prepared the filling for the dumplings, which was a combination of ground pork, ginger (SO GOOD), green onion, cabbage, etc. etc.  Gord got the recipe from the blog Use Real Butter, and I was pleased to see that there were detailed photos to guide us along every step of the way.  These detailed photos were especially helpful when it came to shaping the dumplings themselves.  It took Gord and I awhile to get the hang of the technique, and I made several dumplings that looked like that little hat the pope wears (I’m really sorry I don’t know the proper name for it, sorry if I offended anyone!) before finally making something that resembled a dumpling shape.

Now, you will notice by looking at the photos on the original blog that the dumplings in my pictures look kind of different.  This is because I took these pictures two days after we actually made them, and the poor little things did not bode well sitting uncooked in the fridge.  By the time I tried to take them out of their ziplock bag home, the dumpling skin had moulded together and become one mushy tangled membrane.  I tried my best to coax each one out in one piece, cooing at them in a ridiculous way as I tried my hardest to unstick them from each other.  Talk about siamese dumplings.  Anyways, you should know that these looked nicer the day that we made them and that, because of a series of bad food blogger mistakes, I managed to make them look like clumps.  You get the point though, right?

No matter how strange and tumor-like these potstickers looked, they were just as delicious as leftovers.  They tasted exactly like the dumplings my mom used to buy at the local farmer’s market when I was young.  Flashes from the past in food form are the best.

Also, yes, the soya sauce is in a shot glass.  I’m a student, cut me some slack.

PS: okay also just realized that these definitely look like little dumpling turds.  The bottoms are a bit brown, but again I must reassure that they tasted awesome.  Don’t judge a dumpling by its…strange outer shell?

Chalet Chicken Soup

~ Hilary ~ 5 Comments

Yes, the name of this post is swiped straight from the Swiss Chalet menu.  If no one has ever had the amazing soup from this beloved restaurant of my childhood (there was one so close to my house!), then I suggest you drop what you’re doing and shimmy on down to the nearest location.  Especially if you’re in Ottawa and it’s a frigid day like today.

OR you could just read this post in warm comforts of your home.  Writing this post, I’m tempted to brush aside all the work that I have to do today in favour of an afternoon cuddled up with my Snuggie and tea.  There’s a very good chance that this may happen…

I was so excited last week when I got the March edition of Canadian Living in my mailbox.  I was extremely pleased to find the recipe for this cosy chicken and rice soup.  Before I continue, since when does cosy have an “s?”  Does that just not look like some weird attempt at parseltongue?  Nope, I refuse to be anything but co-zeeeee.  Apologies.

Now, you all know how obsessed I am with soup, so when I find a delicious looking recipe for my favourite soup of all, I really have no choice but to make it.  Unlike the traditional chicken noodle soup, this one had rice in it, meaning that it was a tad cheaper (which is always welcome).  Also, even though I really need to try leeks, I didn’t buy them for this recipe, since I feel absolutely awful when I have leftover veggies that I forget about and don’t use.  Must minimize waste.

Mmmm, and chicken thighs, you have changed my life.

PS: these pictures were taken on my friend Gord’s window sill using a bowl that I bought this weekend in Chinatown.  I am super jealous of his rustic window settings.  Also, speaking of Gord (who, if you recall, is the author of another fantastic student-friendly food blog), we cooked up something special this weekend.  Stay tuned to find out more…

PPS: see recipe after the jump.

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