A very belated Thanksgiving post (in which I do not make turkey, but obviously dessert)

October 23, 2011December 31, 2011 ~ Hilary ~ 3 Comments

Woah, October 23 already? Yeah, I know, we’re now almost closer to American Thanksgiving than we are Canadian. Shame on me.

It has been exactly two weeks since I made these pumpkin toffee tarts with my mom. In fact, it was probably about two weeks ago at this exact time that we were making them – my mom crushing up the Skor bars, me mixing the pumpkin filling and less-than-sleuthly stealing large masses of said chocolate.

The pre-purchased mini pie crusts. That's right, we cheated.

But before I talk about the pumpkin toffee tarts, lets talk Thanksgiving. That was, after all, why I was at home.

I’ve been lucky enough to travel home every year for Thanksgiving since starting university. The past few trips have become much more family-oriented, which is to say that I let my parents spoil me, play more frisbee with my brother and watch more episodes of Criminal Minds with my mom.

This time around, I also gave in to their life long request of daily exercise. My parents have always been (and rightly so, I suppose) huge proponents of daily outdoor time. This made me miserable as a child. Temper tantrums accompanied trips to the cross country ski trails, whining would ensue while hiking,… you get the picture. Child Hilary was probably the exact opposite of child Brittany.

But now that I’m old, wise and mature (read: 21, still naive and more than occasionally a child), I decided a change of attitude was in order. The nagging of outdoor time has become less of a nagging and more of a necessity in my everyday life. I’ve started night jogging again, which is always nice. And I still bike places. Even in the rain (see: embarrassing skunk stripe of wet up my butt as I bike in the downpour).

There was lots of daily outdoor time this Thanksgiving, thanks to Mother Nature who made the entire weekend a beautiful 25°C. It was seriously hot. All the fashionable fall clothing I brought home was laid aside. In its place, my mom’s stretchy workout shorts. Hell yeah.

On Saturday my mom, dad and I went hiking at Onaping Falls, a trail just a short distance out of Sudbury.

Monday was another beautiful day, so we went kayaking as a family on Ramsey Lake. It was beautiful and I only pouted a little bit. I wrapped my iPhone in a plastic ziploc bag and tried to take some artistic shots on the water.

It was a lovely, relaxing weekend and exactly what I needed.

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Autumn defined in one meal: Pumpkin and meatball risotto

October 17, 2011 ~ Hilary ~ 4 Comments

As you have witnessed over the past few posts, Thanksgiving home time gave me the excellent opportunity to reboot and rekindle my dearly beloved blog. This pumpkin and meatball risotto was the final meal I made for my family on the Monday evening before returning to Ottawa.

It, of course, used pumpkin, my favourite food during Thanksgiving and the subsequent October weeks. Like many wonderful things, I found the recipe on Tastespotting, and quickly worked to recreate the masterpiece as best I could.

And as per usual, no dish is made without its challenges. As soon as I saw a mention of meatballs, alarm bells went off. The last time I tried the make the spherical delicacies at home, bad things had happened. Many things could have factored into my previous failure, including a lack of non-stick pan, my mom’s psychotic cycling heat oven, too much egg in the meatballs or all of the above. That batch of meatballs became meatcubes became meat pancakes. Before I knew it, things weren’t looking so hot. Many cautions were taken this time around to avoid duplicating what is now known as the famous Swedish meatball incident.

Swedish meatballs with egg noodles1 — September 2010's failed meatball attempt. Womp womp.

The first of these precautions was to use my mom’s only non-stick pan. I knew from the start that this medium-sized pan was not going to be large enough to make the entire meal, and that transferring the meatballs over at some point would be inevitable.

pumpkinrisotto5 — Happy, cooking meatballs

Luckily, my choice was a good one. Perfectly shaped meatballs bubbled and bounced about in the melted, popping butter. Potential disaster number one: averted.

My second issue: in no way does pumpkin enjoy being grated.

Like, not at all.

Being the sometimes (read: always) unprepared amateur chef that I am, I left the pumpkin preparing until the last second. As in about four minutes before I was to add it to the already cooking, half-completed risotto.

I quickly realized that I had to both hull and peel the pumpkin before going any further. I swear, you have never seen a girl scoop the innards out of a pumpkin so quickly. Then, it was time to grate. You know how sometimes you grate something and more ends up on the front of the grater than in the back, grated pile? Yeah, well that happened. A mess was made and half of the kitchen counter was covered in a light, pumpkin dandruff. I paint an appetizing picture, n’est ce pas?

Anyways, about 15 minutes later, the pumpkin was done, and added to the mix. Finally.

Just for good measure, I added in some nutmeg, which, combined with the white wine, led to an extremely flavourful dish.

Speaking of flavour, my dad paid me a lovely compliment that went something along the lines of how my food is no longer just nice looking, but now also has complex and delicious flavours as well. He says I’ve improved. I am proud.

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The perfect snack: Homemade kettle corn

October 15, 2011December 31, 2011 ~ Hilary ~ 25 Comments

Life has been changed forever.

Probably in a bad way, since my days will now be consumed by popcorn eating.

I’ve always loved popcorn.

Just ask the good folks at the Mayfair who always bare witness to an ecstatic Hilary running towards them as they give away gigantic bags of end-of-the-night popcorn. Ask anyone who goes to the fair with me. Ask Ariel who was nearly trampled to death at Bluesfest this year when I ran through the crowd in search of a popcorn seller.

Fact: I am investing in my health.

Lets look at the positives. Popcorn is better for you than chips. It’s also significantly cheaper. Okay, so I eat it in bed for breakfast sometimes, but really, doesn’t everyone?

…

But okay, if you aren’t currently a popcorn-in-bed eater, this recipe will convert you. I swiped this recipe off my friend and roommate Brittany who, if possible, would create an at-home version of every single snack food. Her blog is full of delicious, homemade concoctions. Go love it.

Anyways, the other night as Britt, Freya and I were settling in to watch Kill Bill, the former decided to whip up a batch of kettle corn. Even though Freya and I were sharing a large bowl (B separated hers to put nutritional yeast on it, typical), our popcorn was gone in an instant. Really, record-breaking time.

We needed to make more popcorn, and ran over to the corner store in desperation, searching for more corn kernels. They were closed, and we were left with only a half-sized, second serving. Probably wise.

Since that fateful night, uh, less than a week ago, I’ve made three more batches of the popcorn. It is sinfully delicious in every way.

Prepare to snack.

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Duplicating Danish design: The colour palette clock

October 13, 2011October 9, 2011 ~ Hilary ~ 5 Comments

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: I adore all things colourful, crafty and creative.

This project combined all three while ALSO tossing in my love of all things European-design. Bonus!

Ever since returning from Europe, I’ve been dying to recreate some of the neat, interior designs I saw. The city that inspired me the most was Copenhagen, and the place was packed with interesting, unaffordable boutiques, design museums and specialty stores.

Photo 11-10-09 3 12 29 PM — Even I became more colourful in Copenhagen! (for the record, this ice cream was delicious)

One of the coolest things I saw was from Illum, a trendy department store found at the heart of Strøget, the city’s pedestrian shopping street. Everything in Illum was stunning and inspiring, from the woven rugs to the chic kid’s furniture. It was like IKEA on drugs.

I wanted it all. But since Denmark is already severely overpriced and I am but a mere, nearly-broke student, I decided that putting my own homemade spin on the store’s products were as good as it was going to get.

Here was my inspiration:

As soon as I got back from EU in September, I started trolling Saturday morning yard sales and Value Village aisles in search of a cheap, decrepit clock. Success came on the morning of the Old Ottawa South porch sale.

Two dollars for this baby.

Ah yes, keeping the price low was key, and this project cost all of $3 to complete. I used a plastic container of black paint I had purchased last summer at IKEA and carefully cut out coloured rounds (using a glue stick as a stencil) from my very extensive collection of paper.

The end result was, I think, even nicer and more sleek than the original. I’m proud.

colourclock2 — Make sure you force your roommate to hold the clock and make funny faces at the camera

Kicking off my self-taught German lessons with a French-German flammkuchen

October 11, 2011December 31, 2011 ~ Hilary ~ 11 Comments

I want to learn German. ICH MÖCHTE SCHRECKLICH GERNE DEUTSCH LERNEN.

(That’s German for “I want to learn German so badly”)

I know it might not be the most practical language, but it is definitely the most fun. And by fun, I mean expressive, angry and passionate. You could be telling your puppy how cute it is and it would still sound like you were furious.

flammkuchen1 — The flammkuchen and fall colours

When in Austria this past summer, I was surrounded by everything German (including delicious bratwurst hot dogs). I found myself able to understand a few of the signs, since English is like bastardized German. Seriously, take an English word, tack about 10 letters on to the front and/or back and mess it around a bit and you have the original German term.

Take for example my two favourites:
– Apfelstrudel = apple strudel
– Schokolade = chocolate

Cool, right? I swear the translation rule also applies to words outside the realms of food, but you know me. It’s all about the dessert.

Anyways, my Austrian adventures were only my first inspiration for this meal.

My second inspiration can be credited to a meal I had at The Lindenhof, a German restaurant in Ottawa’s Little Italy neighbourhood. The trip was just one stop on a moveable feast I attended and wrote about for the blog Local Tourist Ottawa. I could explain all about the gluttonous eve that transpired, but just click the link instead. One thousand words detailing a night of culinary wonder.

Anyways, at The Lindenhof we were served flammkuchen, the very meal that inspired the creation of this pizza-like dinner. According to Alison, the owner of the restaurant, flammkuchen literally translates to mean “flaming tarte.” Another thing I learned was that the tarte is technically a French specialty, originating in the Alsace region of the country. To be fair, the area used to belong to Germany before the end of WWI. Close enough.

Alison’s thin-crust flammkuchen had a special smoked cheese, bacon and caramelized onions.

And so, rather than trying to create some sort of spin-off adaptation of The Lindenhof’s flammkuchen (why fix something that isn’t broken?), I decided to use the toppings on their pizza to create my own. I’m also at home this weekend, and wanted to make a meal that was familiar enough that my family would still eat it. A pizza dinner is always a safe bet.

After frantically searching the interwebs for a recipe for crème fraiche (which was sold everywhere in Europe, but is nowhere to be found here) and flammkuchen, I was relieved to stumble on Smitten Kitchen’s recipe. Not only is the blog one of my favourites, but it finally offered an alternative to the impossible-to-find creme fraiche. The answer? Half ricotta and half sour cream. Brilliant.

This was a great dinner and super fast to make. It got rave reviews from my family. Even though my dad kept called pancetta “principessa” (the Italian word for princess), I knew he enjoyed it. He did steal lots of princesses off my plate, after all.

PS: I also blame Inglorious Basterds and a fierce Diane Kruger/Melanie Laurent for fuelling my desire to learn German. Thanks a lot, Tarantino.

PPS: if using this recipe, you should note that it made a hell of a lot of pizza. How much? One rectangular cookie sheet and one 9-inch round pizza worth. I recommend you go halfsies if making this just for yourself.