Author: Hilary

Moroccan chicken salad (& my personal journey conquering couscous)

~ Hilary ~ 11 Comments

I know how to make quite a few different kinds of food, but couscous is not one of them.

Or at least it wasn’t up until Wednesday night. Yes, couscous is known as one of the most simple foods to cook. That is beside the point. And completely FALSE on my part.

In the past, my couscous has always turned out looking quite sad. Perhaps it was a poor water-to-couscous ratio causing drowned over-saturation or because I always “fluff” the resulting starch with a little too much enthusiasm.

See the picture below? What a nice little pile of mashed potatoes, right? WRONG WRONG WRONG. This is me when I was learning to cook two summers ago. The couscous resembled mashed potatoes and the pork “medallions” resembled chicken wings (fun fact: I have never even attempted to make chicken wings…summer mission?). I was so mortified by other similar experiences that I’ve put off trying to make couscous again for some time.

I held my breath when preparing the couscous this time around. And it worked! The couscous did what it was supposed to!! I meant to take a picture of the resulting fluffiness, but I was too hungry and ecstatic and forgot.

This recipe was inspired by one I saw in the most recent issue of Canadian Living. Remember that cooked rotisserie chicken I mentioned in my mac and cheese post? Well I bought it for this meal, and I figured I should probably use it up before I died because of chicken-snack consumption.

Wednesday evening was stiflingly hot, and this salad provided a great, non-cook meal. Though this weather makes you sweat as though you’re running a marathon with every step, it also provides me with a great challenge in the kitchen – get creative, taste fresh and stay cool. Dessert? Popsicles.

Oh yes! And leftovers were brought to a picnic I had in the park with my friend and former first-year roommate, Liz. She brought some delicious iced tea from tea & bloom and it was fun.

Meet Liz!

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Sweet potato and kale macaroni and cheese

~ Hilary ~ 10 Comments

Being at home alone means something different to everyone.

To me, it means absolute post-work freedom. Last night, that freedom took a variety of forms: going vegetarian for dinner, eating chickpeas and strawberries (not together) while making said meal, obsessing over episodes of my new favourite show (Girls on HBO), fantasizing about homemade Popsicle flavours, buying pasta that is shaped like tiny radiators, drinking my favourite craft beer brought back from Ottawa, and dancing to music in the kitchen while picking away parts of the roast chicken I bought at the grocery store.

Radiators, kitchen dancing, Girls (season one: finished), map-hanging, chicken eating

Yes sir, it was a good night.

There’s nothing like a dose of might-as-well-be-Monday macaroni and cheese to chase the post-long weekend blues away. I won’t whine, but I will say that I am always a little bit sad when I return from a few days in my old home, Ottawa. This weekend was absolutely brilliant, and filled with patio word games, human-chain crowd weaving and rental bike cruising. More on that later.

My Tuesday doubts were doused by this delectable dish.

The sweetness of the potato contrasted perfectly with the sharpness of cheddar. Both were balanced by the crunch of the breadcrumbs and the tender, chewy kale. The orange hue and crumby exterior made me feel like I was eating sweet potato tempura and, let’s face it, any healthy dinner that can be compared (visually or in taste) to a sinfully marvellous deep fried appetizer deserves to be applauded.

Also: let’s talk kale for a minute.

To me, kale was an unknown variable, the “x” in the equation that has yet to be solved. Tonight, I finally manned up and solved that problem and was most happy to discover that the answer was: x = awesome. I used a bag of frozen veggies packaged up by this Canadian company called Cookin’ Greens.

Their website says things like “the new fast food” and “from farm to freezer in six hours or less” … both of which seem pretty stellar to me as we continue to live in a society that doesn’t put enough value in local food or healthy eating. God knows we could all use some more dark and leafy greens in our life. The kale was the perfect supplement to this meal and I can’t wait to use my “designer mix” (spinach, collards, rapini, yellow beans and onion) later in the week.

Oh yes, and one more perk to being home alone? So many leftovers!!! Initiate lunchtime excitement.

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The letter F: Fudge flan (introducing letter dinners!)

~ Hilary ~ 14 Comments

My dad had a minor heart attack when I told him I was going to an “F” party.

Let me give you the same explanation I gave to him.

One of my colleagues, Jen, suggested a brilliant new dinner party series for the CBC/Rad-Can colleagues: letter parties. The premise is simple – each week a letter of the alphabet is chosen. Your goal as a dinner party attendee is to bring a dish that has that begins with that letter. The more words that have the letter, the better. Want to know how crazy it can get? Our first letter party featured the letter “S.” I have never seen so many strawberry spinach salads with sesame and sunflower seeds in my life.

This week, it was F’s turn. Are you feeling like we’re in an episode of Sesame Street yet?

F is a decidedly simple letter to tailor dinner and dessert around. Fruit, filet of fish, foie gras, finger foods, fennel, food for goddsake. I, however, needed an excuse to make flan. But not just any flan – a fudge flan! Double F’s for the win. Flan has a few different food meanings, but for the purpose of this blog post, please know that it is a cooked egg custard that is like an extra jiggly, not-too-sweet, half cheesecake. Read: it is awesome.

When I first saw the recipe on Tastespotting, my jaw dropped and my mouth drooled.

Making this chocolate fudge flan was a flurry of fun (see what I did there? Whether I mean to or not, the week’s chosen letter always shoves its way into my everyday conversation. I really do think my brain subconsciously looks for a way to create as many alliterations as possible).

The baking process is actually quite exciting. The cake and flan layer do a little flippity flip in the oven, with the lighter cake floating to the top and the condensed mixture sinking to the bottom.

The cake goes into the oven as a murky mess

This flan is very dense and takes its sweet time sitting in its water bath baking. I advise you to eat leftover cake batter and take sugar-induced self portraits at this time. (OKAY I’ll stop pretending it’s 2007 and I’m on Myspace)

After much breath-holding and bongo-playing on the bottom of the bundt pan, the cake came out in one piece. And that, my friends, is just Fantastic.

(but really, this was UNREAL)

Unimpressed baby brother; leaning tower of cake

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Outside

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

Happy Saturday! Now go outside!

–

I haven’t lived in a house with a backyard for three years. Now I’m taking advantage of it.

Can you spot the baby red pine that I planted in my backyard?
Like mandrakes from Harry Potter (you know, the screeching plants!) / chives

Mandrakes – 10 points for Gryffindor!

My new herb garden
Sudbury sunset

Father’s Day 2012: Mustard turkey burgers

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

If there’s one thing my dad dislikes, it’s leftover holiday turkey. In fact, there is an infamous Duff family story involving my exasperated dad and a plate of turkey pot pie…but we won’t go there.

This context in mind, it was totally logical that I make him turkey burgers for father’s day, the one day of the year that is supposed to be all about him. Before you start crying injustice and boycotting my blog, let me explain. Because I love my dad, I want to expand his horizons. I intend to do that by presenting him with things – turkey burgers, say – of which he may be a little wary. By making dinner delicious and thus somewhat reversing his hatred of all things turkey-related, I’ve helped him out in my own special way. BAM – the gift of enlightenment. What did you guys get your dad..golf clubs? Pfft, whatever!

Even if these were turkey, they were still burgers which I thought fit into the theme of “dads” quite well. Plus, my dad taught me to barbeque a few weeks ago, so I thought he might appreciate me showing off this newfound ability.

When I saw the recipe for these burgers, it automatically reminded me of my dad, just because of the Dijon mustard use. Back story: there was a stint in grade seven or eight when I would make my dad a sandwich every night to bring to work the next day. This sandwich would always have the same innards – margarine, sliced ham and a generous spoonful of Dijon mustard. The smell, texture and taste of said condiment now reminds me of him. Go figure.

Oh right, and I also decided to make homemade sesame seed hamburger buns after seeing this beautiful recipe on the interwebs. We have a breadmaker at home, but I wanted to get all Betty Crocker and knead everything by hand. Plus I get to eat more dough that way…

Anyways, these ended up being a hit and I loved the avocado and roasted red pepper as toppings.

PS: if you haven’t already, go read this stellar personal essay by the Globe and Mail’s Ian Brown. It is father-themed, and therefore appropriate for this post. It made me cry like a baby and write an emotional letter to my dad, which I inappropriately called “The First Draft of your Eulogy.”

Oh god, I suck at father’s day, don’t I?

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