Hilary makes food

A Pre-Night Class Feast! (Maple-glazed pork chops and spinach pilaf)

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

This may have been the best meal I’ve ever eaten.  No joke, I was so happy with the way this entire thing turned out, that I came home from my night class and started to snack on the cold, refrigerated leftovers.  I have absolutely no shame.

My concerned parents have recently been questioning my protein intake, and I was interrogated by both my mom and dad a few days ago on the phone, about whether I was eating eggs, peanut butter, cheese, ANYTHING.  My answer: a hesitant “sort of.”  To convince my dearest parents that I was, in fact, not going to shrivel away from a protein deficiency, I decided to splurge on some meat.  Kind of craving pork chops, I bought a package of four from the grocery store, for about $8.  Eight dollars may not seem like much to the average spender, but considering I bought the cheap, almost expired $2 meat last year, this is a definite step up.

I also wanted to get rid of the extra spinach I had from my salad a few days ago, and was desperate to find a recipe that was not some sort of pasta dish.  I struck gold when I found this Spinach Pilaf recipe on the Canadian Living website.  Having never made a pilaf with rice before, I was kind of nervous as to how this one would turn out.  I halved the recipe (to make 2 servings) and the only alteration I had to make was to add an extra 1/4 cup of vegetable stock.  My roommates will vouch for me in saying it was delicious!!  Mmm, just typing this post I am tempted to sneak upstairs and grab a spoonful (I wrote this at night, at which time I had already brushed my teeth, major logistics fail).

For the pork I used CL’s Maple-Glazed Pork Chops recipe, since I needed a fast garnish so I wouldn’t be late for my night class.  Finally, I attempted to make some sort of vegetable packet with farmer’s market carrots and zucchini.  Due to poor planning and my impatience, the carrots were still a little crunchy, but the rest was amazing!

I definitely suggest the two recipes listed above for students!  Such an easy meal, yet super impressive once plated and served (yes, the “bed of spinach” is for decoration, don’t roll your eyes at me).

Spinach Strawberry and Pear Salad

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

On a warm, reminiscent of summer day, I rejoiced in the fact that I got to eat at a barbeque.  My attendance at this afternoon event meant that I could resist the delicious outdoor supper smells as I returned from my afternoon journalism story covering.  Since I was full of delicious hot dog and cotton candy goodness (I ate the latter on the bus, which is an extremely difficult task), I wasn’t that hungry for supper, so I decided to just make myself a light salad.

As of the late, I have discovered my favourite types of salad always involve baby spinach and some sort of fruit.  With this knowledge in mind, I decided to use these two key elements to whip up a quick and delicious spinach strawberry and pear salad.  The baby spinach I used was the stuff I had sitting in the fridge after I neglected to include it in my last blog post meal.  As for the strawberries, Britt and I went to the local farmer’s market at Lansdowne Park this morning, and had the most wonderful time browsing through the fresh produce and eating AMAZING macarons (the first time I’ve ever tried them).  The strawberries came fresh from the market (I also got peaches and carrots!) and cast a magical “fresh strawberry” spell over me.  I know I’ve been slacking on posting recipes lately, but here is the one for this salad:

Salad
– 1 cup of trimmed baby spinach
– 1/2 cup of strawberries, pitted and halved
–  Half a pear, thinly sliced
– 1/4 cup almonds, toasted (or not, since I burnt my first batch in the toaster oven and decided to settle with them un-toasted)

Dressing
– 1 tbsp vegetable oil
– 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
– 1/2 tsp granulated sugar
– pinch of salt and pepper

Toss and enjoy!

I hope this salad has the same magical effect on you that it had on me!

Oh, one more thing… I took this picture at around 7:17 this evening.  Please note that the sun now sets at 7:05, which meant that this picture was taken in the semi-dark at the end of my street under a streetlight.  People walked by and saw me crouched down beside the sidewalk, photographing my food.  I’m starting to think my entire neighbourhood thinks I’m off my rocker… I may have to think of alternative arrangements for darkened photography.

Gruyere and Ham Pasta (Gruyere = the king of all cheese)

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

The insanity of what is my third year of university has finally begun in full force.  Rushing home from class and work today, Brittany (roomie) and I trekked down to the Byward Market in hunt of leather bracelets (Britt wants to be a rock star) and gruyere cheese.  Unable to find either of these two items (well this is a bit of a lie…the gruyere cheese at the International House of Cheese was, what I thought, super overpriced = not good), we sped off in Britt’s little hatchback and over to the trusty neighbourhood grocery store.

It was at this location that I found out buying a brick of gruyere cheese is nearly as expensive as buying a brick of solid gold.  Apparently the price of gruyere in the Market was actually reasonably priced, and I found myself paying $7.99 for a 195 gram piece of gruyere at the grocery store.  Refusing to accept any sort of cheese alternative for this recipe (although my iPhone tells me a cheaper alternative is emmental), I charged forth with my golden purchase, being sure to appreciate every delicious morsel of that damned cheese brick.

Preparing this Gruyere and Ham Pasta, I was faced with my largest “oh my god I need to cook so quickly” challenge to date.  THANK GOD this recipe was in the “make it in 30 minutes or less” section of my Canadian Living Make it Tonight cookbook.  If I had taken a minute longer to cook this meal, I would have made myself and all of my roommates late fora movie we were seeing.  As is I was forced to pack up my steaming dinner into a tupperware (post-food photographs, obviously) and charge off to the theatre, plastic Ikea fork in hand.  So everyone around me in the theatre could smell onions.. no big deal.

Also, this recipe called for chopped spinach, something I completely forgot to to add in at the last minute.  This being said, everything still tasted great (add lots of pepper though).  Thanks to my forgetful and rushed mind, I can look forward to a delicious baby spinach salad sometime later this week.  Perhaps it will involve strawberries.

Oooo, also this recipe made use of these fun little “Scoobi-doo” noodles, which I was disappointed to see did not resemble the cartoon character whatsoever.  Oh well, life goes on for those of us who are eternally young at heart.

PS: In case you are still rattled by how much I paid for the cheese (yes mom, I’m thinking you), this recipe actually made four servings, making the price for each serving be about $2.50.  Not the best, but not too shabby either.

Carrot and Red Lentil Soup / The Best Cornbread in the Universe

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

I am currently in the midst of the most strange situation of my life.  Three of my roommates and I are sitting in the dark (our light is 15 feet up in the air and burnt out yesterday) talking to our landlord about how we can give our kitchen more counter space.  He is now hovering over my roommate Brittany‘s shoulder, interrogating her about apps for her iPad.  There are awkward jokes flying left, right and centre and he has started to tell us stories about his wife and children.  Heavenly.

Since the weather here in Ottawa has cooled right down, I decided it was time to make my first warm soup of the chilly season.  I’ve been waiting the entire summer to make this carrot and red lentil soup, one of the very first entries in my Canadian Living Everyday Favourites cookbook.  Contrary to the cookbook, which said I only needed to stew this soup for about 20 minutes, I had this soup on for nearly an hour and a half, as I quickly and messily rushed to make the cornbread which I can so easily describe as the best in the world.  Definitely worth waiting for.

This dinner also marked the start of my “indoor photo season” trials.  For reasons you will see below, I am less than satisfied with the results of this little experiment, and am quite concerned as to how winter foodie pictures are going to turn out.  I took these few pictures in my kitchen as well as my roommate Ariel’s room (only because she has more lamps than any reasonable person should have).  Despite what my roommates said (“soup is a cozy food, you want the lighting to be darker!”),  I was so disappointed with my pictures that I plated a whole other meal the next day and took pictures in the mid-afternoon sun.  I am quite confident I have some strange case of OCD.

And now for the re-plating…

Perhaps next time I will set up a little photo studio in my kitchen.  More to come.

Broccoli Mozzarella Pasta Toss

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

Prior to this meal, I was absolutely petrified of broccoli.  After frequent verbal prodding by my roommate Natalie, I finally decided that I could avoid this vegetable no longer, and had to include it in one of my upcoming meals.  When I was young, I used to refuse to eat the flower of the broccoli, forcing my mom to chop off the top in favour of me eating only the stalk.  Since I’m a tad older now, I have decided to embrace (or at least try) the things I disliked when I was younger, and carefully cut florets out of my broccoli, leaving only the flower to be eaten.

Like the salad in my last post, this meal was only partially inspired by a Canadian Living recipe.  The inspiring recipe, which was called Orecchiette with Broccoli and Garlic, was the basis for this meal.  I couldn’t find any orecchiette (a cute little pasta that resembles a small ear) in the grocery store, and settled for another cutesy alternative, lumache.  I personally thought the pasta resembled snails, which I thought was absolutely adorable.  Also, I added a diced red pepper, a cup and a half of grated mozzarella cheese and bacon bits (yum!) to the mix to make the dish my own.

The final verdict on the broccoli?  The chewy tops tasted like delicious little cheese balls.  Absolutely glorious.  My 10-year-old self would be shocked at how far I’ve come.