Italian Wedding Soup + Hilary, Hilary + Italian Wedding Soup. It’s a loving equation like none other. This is my all-time favourite soup.

Like any significant relationship, we have a lengthy history, our ups and downs. But considering we’ve been in love for more than half a decade, I’d say our commitment to each other is something phenomenal.

We first met when I was so young, at East Side Mario’s, one of those restaurant chains that northern Ontario family’s such as my own relied upon for a decent meal out. I’m not sure how we were introduced – maybe it was my mother, always trying to set me up with vegetables, trying to get me to go on just one date with that nice spinach boy. I finally complied with her wishes. It was love at first taste. My soup was dressed in a clean white bowl, its top speckled with a blend of pepper and a load of Parmesan cheese. I was hooked.

As time went on, Italian wedding soup was always with me. It accompanied through my band camp days (three years, fyi), where the cook (conveniently my best friend’s mom), would always sneak me extra meatballs.

Things got shaky when I returned to East Side Mario’s, only to discover that the soup wasn’t how I remembered it. We had grown apart, and it had changed. There was less of it now, less warming love to sooth my hungry heart. We broke up temporarily.

My love was rekindled when my mom started making her own version of the soup. It was simple and fulfilling, everything that a good relationship should be. We started up again, and I haven’t looked back since. Now, this Italian wedding soup is what gets me through the winter. We spend full days together: breakfast, lunch, dinner. Sometimes he even stays over for a midnight snack. What would I do without you, Italian wedding soup?

Alright, I’m done.

Are you creeped out yet? I’m sorry. I just really, really like this soup. It only takes about half an hour to make, and the result is a giant pot of liquid gold that will get you through the next half week. Guests will be pleased, however I recommend that you keep this one all to yourself. If you must share, I enjoy packing it up in Mason jars and giving to your friends as a surprise, middle-of-class lunch.

PS: add freshly grated Parmesan cheese, please. It’s a beautiful threesome.

Continue reading →

One of my favourite things to do on a cold day in Ottawa is eat loads and loads of pho at one of the Vietnamese noodle shops in Chinatown. Lucky for me, a bunch of my old roommates live in the neighbourhood, so nearly every trip to see them involves a meal at one of these restaurants. And trust me, when I say there are no shortage of places to go (seriously, there is a Pho Bo Go La and a Pho Bo Go La 2. It’s like a bad sequel to a classic, but I digress..) I mean it.

For those who don’t know what pho is (like my entire family), let me try and explain. Simply put, pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup, often made with chicken or beef and served with rice noodles, basil and bean sprouts, all swimming about in broth. If you’re like Ariel and I, you’ll often squirt a large amount of two mysterious sauces into said soup (I think one is some sort of hot sauce), mix it about, and enjoy the blossoms of flavour.

Though you can order many different variations of pho, my favourite is one made with well done and rare beef. Number 5 on the menu, I believe.

Anyways, it was this style of pho that I decided to recreate for my family. I found this recipe, which got me started on tonight’s dinner. Turns out I didn’t actually use it very much, and just ended up half hazardly throwing things into the pot when the urge struck me. I was hoping my “it’s hard to screw up soup” mentality wouldn’t let me down.

Luckily it didn’t, and this was lovely. The chopped, fresh ginger really made a difference flavour-wise, and I loved the extra chopped green onions.

Note to people buying beef: You want beef that is thinly sliced, a la beef you would use for a Chinese fondue. They probably won’t have any cut and put out in the meat section, so you will need to find a kindly butcher employee and bat your eyelashes. Seriously, I could get used to freshly cut meat orders.

We ate this pho to the sound of the wind whipping up our backyard cliff and circling the walls of the kitchen. It was winter food bliss.

Moral of the story: homemade pho, pho the win.

PS: I also made these cheddar cheese popovers. In retrospect, they probably weren’t the most culturally appropriate side to accompany my pho (no kidding), but they just looked so damn good. Cheese cheese cheese cheese… After a moment of panic when I thought they were going to be permanently stuck on the bottom of the muffin pan, my mom swooped in and saved the day. Slightly deformed, but delicious nonetheless. Using old cheddar is a must. (Note: have adapted the recipe slightly to hopefully avoid the sticking issue!)

Continue reading →

Pre-blog dance fest: I GOT A KITCHENAID HANDMIXER!!! THIS ONE!!! I WANT TO BAKE EVERY DAY.

–

The glory days are upon us.

After much anticipation, I am now officially home for the holidays, and with welcome arms greet my family and my mother’s endless supply of grocery products.

I got home on December 24. In a weather twist that can only be described as a Christmas miracle, it started snowing exactly 10 minutes before I landed. As I stepped off the plane and onto the tarmac of the Sudbury airport (no, we do not have those fancy tunnels that connect the plane and the terminal), snowflakes came falling onto my nose, eyelashes and scarf. Each individual flake seemed to be grasping onto 10 of its closest friends, creating huge clumps of snow that I tried to catch on my tongue. I was home and it was finally snowing. Christmas in ever sense of the word.

It didn’t stop snowing until midway through Christmas day. The temperature hovered around zero for most of the morning, meaning that it was perfect snowman-making weather. My brother and I took advantage of this, rolling giant boulders of snow through our front yard and down the hill towards our backyard cliff. The finished snowmen ended up being taller than my skyscraper height brother.

After that, we did this. I taught my parents how to hook words and showed them that a Scrabble Dictionary was actually a thing. There was some tension over my use of the word “ar,” which is, in fact, the phonetic spelling of the letter “R.” The Scrabble Bible says so.

Later in the day, we settled into the dining room for the traditional family supper. Unlike some who have their whole extended family over on Christmas day, it has always been just the four of us. We pop Christmas crackers, tell lame jokes and eventually succumb to the tryptophan overload caused by a too-big turkey.

Since stores in Sudbury are closed on Boxing Day, I slept in this morning (in my double bed no less, bliss) and made this for breakfast. This random, not-that-impressive English muffin meal. I was inspired by my favourite new cookbook, What To Cook & How to Cook It. Gord and I first saw it in a kitchen boutique in Amsterdam and fell in love.

Everything in the book is organized neatly, something that appeals to my sickening need for OCD order.

And so, this happened. It was delicious. I never buy salted butter at home, so this was a treat. Recreate in your own household. It’s easy-peasy. OCD not required.

Continue reading →