Author: Hilary

Three-layer cookie jar brownies

~ Hilary ~ 11 Comments

These brownies were completely ridiculous.

When I saw a picture of these brownies online, I couldn’t resist making them myself. I do have a penchant for Oreo-stuffed desserts, after all. And come on… THREE LAYERS, GUYS.

Originally called “slutty brownies” by the Pinterest crowd, I decided against this name since I’m not a super huge fan of throwing the term “slut” around. The “cookie jar” name was inspired by my favourite Dairy Queen blizzard, a customized everything-Hilary-loves ice cream treat with cookie dough chunks, crumbled Oreo cookies and added brownie bits. It’s a treat.

But back to the brownies.

Yesterday’s newsroom bake sale gave me the perfect opportunity to make them. I feel like bake sales beg for over-the-top, sensationalized desserts. The more absurd the better. The inter-office bake sale was just another means to raise money for our Christmas party, an event for which I’m not even sure if I’ll still be around to attend. A few of us submitted a list of items we wanted to make and then people snagged each set of baked items ahead of time. I made these brownies and…wait for it…bacon chocolate chip cookies, a combination that I’ve been wanting to try for more than a year. I’ll post about those early next week.

A word of caution: heavy pre-10 a.m. sugar intake + Friday = not a productive morning. Factor that in with the head cold I’m currently recovering from and you’ve got a sugar buzzed, slightly congested half Asian on your hands. Beware. Also: not to be consumed with a mint chocolate cupcake and three ginger cookies. Or with those garlic-heavy perogies that a morning show guest brought in to celebrate the start of your city’s garlic festival. Yikes.

PS: someone asked me on Instagram how I got the three layers to stick together. This was something that concerned me, too, but they actually baked together extremely well. I think the icing of the Oreos had some sort of binding power over the two outer layers. As for getting these out of the 9×13 pan – I ran out of parchment paper, so I buttered/floured the hell out of the pan. They popped right out!

Oh yes, and have sneaky photo shoots at your desk before delivering the goods. This is key.

Oh hey, blurry Amy Dodge!

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Early autumn risotto (with chicken, roasted cherry tomatoes and rosemary)

~ Hilary ~ 6 Comments

It is near impossible for me to write a blog title without including parentheses. Can someone please hold an intervention for me?

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Last week it got particularly fall-like in Sudbury. The temperature dipped to a chilly 12 degrees in the morning, making my tug my sleeves over my knuckles as I biked to work. My new autumn jacket, jeans and eternity scarf were officially broken in. And if I closed my eyes while biking, it was almost as though I was zooming down Sunnyside Avenue in Ottawa on my way to an 8:30 a.m. journalism class in St. Pat’s.

My first taste of autumn was filled with nostalgia and a slight tinge of sadness. Brisk weather makes me want to wear Toms and big sweaters. It makes me crave the feeling of walking across campus with a tumbler full of tea. It makes me want to wait in line at the bookstore and hug warm, freshly-printed syllabi. This upcoming season will be a strange one, I can feel it already, and last week was simply a prelude to that emotion. As if I wasn’t already writing enough personal “reflective 20-something-year-old” essays, I sense a landslide more to come.

Right, the food. I generally associate risotto with chillier weather and, if risotto were a piece of clothing, it would most certainly be one of my big, grandpa-style knit sweaters. It’s warm and versatile enough that it can be for casual dinners or fancy affairs, dressed up or dressed down.

I still had a few cherry tomatoes leftover from my friend’s garden, and wanted to use them before they went to waste. Oh, just so you know, spontaneously squishing freshly-roasted cherry tomatoes with a fork is a good way to get burning tomato juice in your eye. Don’t try this at home, kids.

I saw a delicious looking recipe for a barley salad with grouse on the interwebs and was inspired to create a simpler, sister dish. As much as I would love to use all that spare grouse I have hanging around my kitchen (…), chicken breasts were a tad easier.

The only criticism I had of this risotto was that I went overboard with the rosemary.

Fresh herbs can be one of those things where I think “oh hey, it can’t actually produce that strong a flavour, let’s just add more for photography sake!” Incorrect. I got too sprinkle happy and it was obvious. I have adjusted the recipe you see below these photos to take into account my mistake (but the pictures look nice, right?).

So, anyone else yearning for a fresh box of black pens or the smell of new textbooks? How about stepping on crunchy leaves? (this last item is truly a universal love, if ever I did encounter one)

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Caramel sea salt brownies (and afternoon snacking confessions)

~ Hilary ~ 11 Comments

Every afternoon our newsroom becomes a porous entity. People pass in and out of the station’s backdoor like it’s nobody’s business, all in pursuit of one thing: a mid-afternoon snack. That snack usually comes in the form of some bagged goodie bought at the Shopper’s Drug Mart across the street from the station (my co-workers and I are convinced that we are the most frequent visitors to this location and are upset that none of the cashiers remember us and say something like “oh yes, I do remember you! You do have an Optimum card!).

The afternoon snacking binge is normally initiated by a single person (this is an alternating role) and then, contagious as a yawn, we are all suddenly in need of Smart Food popcorn, hummus and carrots, seasoned peanuts and Licorice nibbs. The latter is my vice, and on a number of occasions I’ve found myself having inhaled the bag’s contents before even making it back to my desk.

So there…I am a reasonably healthy eater, but I am also an unhealthy snack fiend.

Brownie bokeh

These brownies were inspired by the most recent of my Shopper’s Drug Mart trips in which, having previously managed to fend off the urge to purchase an expensive “Excellence” series Lindt chocolate bar, I finally gave in when my co-worker and friend Jen asked if I wanted to go splitsies on a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. We chose two of our favourites – the dark chocolate sea salt and the milk chocolate crunchy caramel bar – and proceeded to (or at least I did anyways) stuff our faces with a sickening amount of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate. This posed a problem. For anyone who has ever been required to speak into a microphone, you’ll know that eating dairy in any form is not a good idea before doing any sort of recording. This in mind, I had to drink about a gallon of water before I was able to voice my narration for the next day’s news piece. Radio reporting + copious amounts of chocolate = not an excellent combination, sadly.

The idea for these brownies didn’t fall too far from the tree, and are a wonderful marriage of that delicious caramel/sea salt/chocolate threesome. A special thank-you to my co-worker Erik who suggested this week’s dessert be something in square-form (inherently non-photogenic, but I tried).

These did the trick in keeping any afternoon Shopper’s Drug Mart trips at bay BUT did little to quell my daytime eating habits. I may have had five of these on Friday. That’s just how good they were.

Brownie love

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Greek bruschetta (baguette and hummus for dinner)

~ Hilary ~ 6 Comments

Two very, very dangerous things happened last night.

1. I learned how easy it is to make hummus.
2. I made the best bruschetta I’ve ever had (and this is saying something, because there is this restaurant in Sudbury that makes a TRULY delicious mushroom and goat cheese bruschetta…Please know that I do not take this title lightly)

As many meals are, this one was unexpected. After getting off work late Thursday night, I popped over to the grocery store with full intention to only purchase sugary ingredients to use in the caramel sea salt brownies (WOAH good, those are being blogged about next) that I was making for today’s newsroom treat.

When I arrived, it was 7:30 and past my usual dinner time, meaning that a walk through the grocery store was like a walk down temptation lane. I couldn’t just go straight to the baking aisle. I needed to buy dinner items.

I decided my meal would be based around the cherry tomatoes I got from a friend when he returned one of my many Mason jars (these jars are even better when they contain garden-fresh veggies!).

Since my mom had made a very delicious, Greek-style salad the other night and since it has been a year since I was in Greece, I decided on Greek bruschetta. This was one of my better life decisions. In the end, I didn’t actually have to buy that much – just a baguette, in fact. I did, after all, have leftover hummus ingredients to use.

So right, let’s talk hummus. I knew in theory that hummus was very easy to make, but I think I just thought that in application that must be a lie. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Super easy. I had tahini left from my last blog post, as well as a Tupperware of leftover chick peas. Add a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of cayenne and we’re in business.

While waiting for baguette to toast, and in between chopping each of the bruschetta toppings, I ate huge slices of the remaining baguette and hummus. One piece, another, another…just one more. It’s a downward spiral, really. Making homemade tahini was my gateway snacking food.

Normally I write a rough version of my blog posts while eating, but I just couldn’t do that with this bruschetta. I was too busy double fisting the delicately topped baguette, like a savage who hadn’t seen food for ten million years. It was so delicious. Really, really great. The flavours worked together so well…the oilyness of the artichokes, the crunch of the toasted baguette, the juicy sweetness of the tomatoes and the sharp edge of the feta. Food teamwork at its best. Like most bruschetta (or food consumed by me in general), this meal was exceptionally messy. The remaining platter was scattered with tiny chunks of feta and a few slices of red onion that were waywardly cast aside during my barbaric eating session. As it rested on my keyboard, my right hand was slightly oily, a residue that I think must have been marinated artichoke oil.

Speaking of that…it’s not a real dinner with Hilary until a piece of technology and/or technology accessory gets some sort of food on it. My poor iPad case was subject to a bath of this marinated artichoke juice. I’m a disgusting human being, really.

I’m so happy I decided on this rectangular, white serving platter. Thank heavens it was easy to find – wedged in my closet between my saxophone and chest of drawers, underneath my three-tiered cupcake carrier. Typical.

I ended up writing this blog post while hanging out with my baby brother (who is off to university next week!!) and transferring 1,500 iPhone photos from his Macbook to mine via Dropbox. Don’t ask.

PS: NEW 50mm f.18 LENS!!!!! Can you tell!? Will give more info later.

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Hummus-in-a-bowl

~ Hilary ~ 9 Comments

A big thank you to my dear friend Gord who directed me to the recipe that inspired this meal! Also: Gord has started blogging again! Check it out!! In fact, he may be blogging about this exact recipe, which he told me he was making last night.

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When Gord posted this recipe on my wall, he captioned it with a statement regarding my tendency to inhale hummus. It’s a problem. The frequency with which I bought pita dippers with hummus on campus last year should have been recognized by some sort of award.

There were a few ingredients switch outs that made my recipe different than the original. Details:

(A) The grocery store was out of arugula (my own fault considering my time of visit – 6:45 p.m. on a Friday evening) and so I substituted that spicy green for another one of my favourites. KALE. Unpredictable, right?

(B) Tahini = not a thing in Sudbury. So I made my own out of sesame seeds and olive oil.

The finished product

I was in a daze whilst lightly toasting the sesame seeds (toasting is truly one of the world’s most mind-numbing tasks), and decided to keep myself entertained by writing my name in sesame seed swirls. I got to H-I-L before realizing I was nearly burning the seeds and should probably pay more attention to cooking my food rather than playing with it.

(C) Since I use pre-minced, jarred garlic (to avoid sticky fingers, a la Pioneer Woman Cooks), I don’t quite know how much one clove is equivalent to. I know the answer to my question is just a Google search away, but that’s no fun. And so I keep guestimating the amount of garlic for every recipe. I have a sneaking suspicion that I always add too much. But I happen to really like garlic. Besides, there’s nothing like a meal whose primary ingredient produces stinky breath to scare off any potential bus beheaders (I brought the leftovers on the midnight Greyhound to Ottawa where I spent the most lovely weekend).

Rainy day photo shoot

Oh yes, and did I mention that this was a three-course meal? Appetizer: dark chocolate with sea salt. Dessert: the same. I like walking through the grocery store aisles with a thin, 100 gram gourmet chocolate bar in hand, pretending it’s a brochure for some exotic destination. I like tearing back the crinkly silver paper and pretending that I’m Charlie Bucket about to win a trip to the land of my dreams. I also liking eating it. That’s a win-win situation, if I do say so myself.

PS: I’m really sorry for only cooking with kale, quinoa and sweet potato lately. Enough of that. I’ll make a meat-based meal soon, I swear.

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