1: A semi-artistic (read: blurry) view from the back of a Carleton University tunnel cart. My friend Rosanna and I were trekking across campus carrying our heavy equipment for tv newsroom day. I asked (begged) for a ride and the drivers kindly obliged. I only had to pout a little bit! Also, please note that getting to ride on a tunnel cart should be a Carleton bucket list experience. I’ve been on one twice in two years!! (living the dream)
2: Story line-ups for newsroom day. An explosion of chaotic colour on our classroom’s whiteboard.
3: Cupcakes made by Little Cakes for the 2011 Twestival Ottawa event that I attended tonight. Please note the tiny Twitter birds on some of the cupcakes.
Tuesday is my “chill out and sleep in until 8:30” morning, and I decided to extend the luxury of the morning into a gourmet breakfast.
I’m not one to normally make big breakfasts, so this was a treat for me.
As fancy as this might look, it was really quite a practical meal. Leftover in my fridge I had ricotta cheese, lemons, strawberries and blueberries. The typical university student fare, right? Perhaps not… Anyways, you can imagine my excitement when I found a recipe on Canadian Living that used all four of these ingredients.
Now, since I had no desire to be eating these pancakes for the remainder of the week, I cut the recipe in half and tweaked a few things to make up for my lack of raspberries, etc. I also added twice the amount of lemon rind, mostly because I got overly enthusiastic while zesting. That’s my bad, but I will stick by my guns when I say you can never have too much lemon rind. Also, I didn’t put blueberries in my pancakes as the original recipe requested. I’m not a huge blueberry person. If you are, however, a lover of these petite berries, throw them in. They’ll go nicely with the lemon. (PS: you can find my recipe under the pictures)
The pancakes turned out great. I drizzled them with some real maple syrup and piled my fork high with pancake and berries. I am not even ashamed to admit that I ate five (GLUTTONY). There was actually just the right amount of lemon, and the flavours made me feel like I was sinfully indulging in dessert for breakfast. Morning calorie splurges are well deserved.
I have decided to begin a new feature on Hilary Makes, since I am sick and tired of just blogging about food all the time.
I love my life and I love the awesome things that happen in my day. So I propose to you this: Everyday I will post three pictures that capture three different parts of my day. I will take them with one of my wicked iPhone photography apps (yep, the ones I actually pay money for) and share them with the world. I’ll include a little description for each, just so you get the slightest idea of what the photo is and how it factored into my day.
Also, it just happens to be a coincidence that today’s three pictures involve food. I’m easing into this whole subject expansion…
1: Breakfast. Toast with old cheddar, avocado and a poached egg. I realize it looks like Shrek exploded on my bread, but it was delicious. Don’t judge a breakfast by its icky green colour. 2: A photo shoot I had with the cookies I made for my multimedia journalism class. The post will be up in a few days! 3: One of my roommates, Ariel, and a cupcake from local Ottawa bakery L’Oven.
It may have been the first day of spring in Ottawa yesterday, but apparently Mother Nature didn’t get the message. Every form of precipitation known to mankind fell from the sky Monday, including a strange misty rain and tiny hail pellets. Seriously, if there is something making our mythological season changer angry (Father Time cheated on her, etc., I don’t know), then it needs to stop. I took out my bike on Sunday and it is now buried in snow. My sadness reaches epic proportions.
First day of spring in Ottawa: photo courtesy of The Weather Network
Trudging around in my winter boots again, I decided to defy Mother Nature and begin my spring cooking. Well not quite. I’m not really sure what spring cooking is since this is the final season I must get through before my blog has its first birthday. I figured this dinner recipe had the word “spring” in it and, for now, that was good enough for me.
Also, I just really wanted to cook and eat a real supper. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been eating very well for the past few weeks. I’ve been so busy with school and work that I’m only ever home to sleep. Also, as some of you know I’m currently on the hunt for Ottawa’s best cupcake for the blog Local Tourist Ottawa, so that has been keeping my sugar intake high, and my health content low. Must strive for healthy balance! I biked to pick up cupcakes this past weekend, that sort of cancels out the sugar, right? Maybe not. Fine, I’ll get better.
I saw this recipe on Tastespotting when I was browsing the site at school. At this point I had officially decided I needed to eat real food, and was deciding what meal should mark my re-emergence into the world of health. I found this recipe on the blog Zoom Yummy, and it looked simple and delicious. Petra (blogger) had posted several pictures of the how-to instructions, and the stunning images made it look like a PWC blog post. I truly admire people who can take pictures detailing every step of the cooking process. I would not have the patience. My goal is to minimize the PTM (pan to mouth) time as much as possible.
Anyways, lots of chopping with this one, so make sure you do it before you start cooking your chicken.
Also, have a little fun along the way:
The green onions were just begging to be doodled on. Come on, don’t try and tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing. Also, they’re kind of reminiscent of my squash friend, n’est-ce pas?
(Aside: please don’t think I’m a complete weirdo, I just really like playing with my food).
Other than getting three new vegetable friends out of this recipe, I also got the perfect amount of pasta for last night’s supper and today’s lunch. How dearly I have missed you leftovers! The recipe itself was pretty good. I love parsley so added in about double what the recipe requested…..also, I didn’t have any ground ginger, so that got omitted this time around.
Gosh I’m hungry now. Might eat leftover pasta for breakfast.
Since March is the best month to be born in, it’s no surprise that one of my favourite people is also born during this time. I’ve mentioned Britt several times on my blog in passing, but just to review, she is my roommate, best friend, and motivator extraordinaire. She is also mature beyond her years and, despite her only just turning 20, she has acted as my mother figure in Ottawa since second year. My learning to cook can also be accredited to Britt, who coaxed me out of my safe haven of grilled cheese sandwiches and George Foreman grilled chicken. B, I owe you one.
I tried (and perhaps failed) to make this card as rad as Britt’s personality. She’s into the whole rock and roll thing, and thought that sparkly paper from The Papery would suffice in meshing this musical genre into birthday card form. There’s also some groovy, multi-coloured sparkle paper on the inside, so you’ll just have to trust me when I say it was wicked.
PS: I PROMISE I’m going to start blogging about food again. I’ve basically been eating cupcakes non-stop for the past week, and am dying to eat healthy meals. I made a great dinner tonight and am planning something extra-special for breakfast tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Hilary Makes 