Author: Hilary

S’mores Cupcakes

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

I’ve started this thing where every Friday (this was my second Friday, it’s not quite a pattern yet..) I bring in a delicious baked treat for my wonderful co-workers.  Last week’s baked good was the cheesecake, so I knew I had to do something dramatically different for this week’s surprise.  I asked our team leader Kristina on Thursday what she would like me to bring in for the next day, and she eagerly suggested that I make the s’mores cookies I photographed earlier for this blog.  Since I didn’t want to start with food re-runs already, I knew I needed to find a new way to incorporate s’mores into a delicious recipe.

Just when I thought all was lost, my favourite dessert blog Bakerellasaved the day!  I was just scanning through the pages looking for a white cake recipe when I stumbled on her recipe for “s’more-or-less cupcakes.”  The second I saw them, I knew I needed to make them.  Two hours later, voila!  These cupcakes were decadent, and the recipe made the perfect amount for all the staff in our office.

Just so you all know, I still have leftover s’mores ingredients, so expect a s’mores cheesecake sometime in the near future.

As for tonight’s dinner?  I’m going back to my “can’t cook” roots and having soup noodles.


Red onion, grated zucchini and shaved ham pizza

~ Hilary ~ 4 Comments

Alright, so this recipe is of my own little creation (which is probably why it looks and sounds so amateur), and mostly came about for three of the following reasons:

1. I had zucchini leftover from last night’s dinner and have always wondered what it would be like to grate it (it’s really quite fun, if you’ve never tried it, I recommend it!);
2. I accidentally ended up with three red onions in my cooking arsenal, and had nothing to do with them;
3. I was REALLY craving pizza

With the above reasons in mind, I made this “red onion, grated zucchini and shaved ham pizza.”  Yes, it’s a mouthful, but it is difficult to think of appetizing food names at 12:30 in the morning!  Give me a break.  Must stop blogging into the wee hours of the night.

Also important to note: this is the first time EVER I have eaten pizza with any sort of vegetable on it.  I know what you’re thinking… “that Hilary is such a daring rule-breaker!”  Try to refrain from the praise, please.  Okay, so if the pictures look kind of lame, as in it looks like there are very few vegetables – please just take a step back and remember that I am new with the whole veggie loving thing.  I promise to include more next time.

In the meantime, I’m upgrading from my usual ham and cheese sandwiches and taking leftovers for work.  Yes, all 3/4 of the remaining pizza.  Co-workers, you will be fed.

Chicken Couscous wraps with red pepper mayonnaise

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Since I haven’t been home long enough in the past few days to craft up an elaborate meal, I decided that nothing screams “make your own dinner” like a Tuesday night.  Like pretty much every other food post on this blog, the recipe for this wrap came from my Canadian Living cookbook.

Most valuable player in tonight’s dinner adeventure?  Our wonderful Magic Bullet blender, that whipped up the most perfect, smooth red pepper mayonnaise.  The pictures for this one are a little plain – apparently wraps are the toddlers of food: very messy and difficult to photograph.  Will know better for next time.  I packaged up a delicious extra-portion of this meal for lunch tomorrow.  With that, and homemade chocolate cake (which I hopefully won’t eat before 9 a.m. this time), I will be the envy of all my fellow lunch munchers.

Today’s snippet of self-discovery: I like zucchini!

New York Cheesecake with Strawberry Sauce

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

Since I’ve been promising myself for about a week that I would make a cheesecake, I finally got around to doing so last night.  Let me tell you, it is quite the time-consuming process.  The ingredient mixing is the fun part…then comes four hours worth of baking, cooling, chilling and stressing out about whether or not your cake will be destroyed by the base of the spring-form pan.  Luckily, after watching a helpful, random video on topic, I was successful, and the rest is baking history!  I pretty much whipped up the strawberry sauce so the cheesecake wouldn’t look boring.  You know me, I’m all about colour!

Cheesecake verdict: my first time making this wonderful dessert was a huge SUCCESS!!!  Other than a few minor challenges served up by our psychotically hot stove, this was a rewarding experience.  Rewarding in the sense that I got three pieces of cake…

Ground beef curry

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

Today when I got off work I was almost absolutely positively sure I was going to bike over to the nearby-ish chinese food restaurant and pick myself up a delicious combo number 10.  After realizing I was far too poor and far too lazy to bike all the way to Hog’s Back (really not that far, but Wednesdays are exhausting, are they not?) I decided I would attempt to recreate another one of Canadian Living’s cookbook specialties.  I had some extra ground beef hanging around the freezer, and had been craving indian food almost as badly as chinese, so I decided this would be the perfect recipe for today!

And so, after dragging my tired, working butt down to the grocery store to buy curry paste, I created this… there was enough food for me, my friend Mike and lunch AND supper tomorrow night.  Oh man, I will be curry-ed out.

Interesting story involving the origins of the peas: I only had a frozen bag of mixed peas and carrots, so I patiently picked through the entire bag until I had a the required one cup of peas.  Just perhaps, this is a sign I have too much time on my hands.  Special thanks goes out to the random mint plant chilling on our kitchen counter: you added the beautiful green colour at a time when the peas turned a not-so-nice shade of curry brown.