Hilary makes food

Gord’s Dinner, Part One: Chickpea Tabbouleh Salad

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

(Eeeee, it has been a week since I last posted, apologies!)

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To celebrate the completion of my tofu challenge a few weeks ago, my good friend and fellow blogger Gord made me a delicious dinner of quinoa salad, gazpacho and creme brule (see a few posts back for the scrumptious results).  This meal started a pattern of what I now call “reward dinners,” where each of us cooks for the other when a challenge is completed.  Gord’s very first challenge was to make a pie from scratch, and the result was an amazing strawberry rhubarb pie, a dish whose tastes boggled my mind one afternoon after a long day in the office (I ate it in a record-breaking two minutes).  To honour the completion of his challenge, I knew I had to make Gord a dinner that was just as, if not more delicious than the dinner he made for me.

Knowing that Gord is way more into vegetables than I am, I knew this supper had to incorporate a fair share of legumes.  I also happen to know that Gord likes chickpeas.  With these two checkpoints in mind, I flipped through my Canadian Living Everyday Favourites cookbook, and found the perfect recipe: chickpea tabbouleh salad.  The salad is apparently a Lebanese delicacy, and used bulgur, something that I have been curious to cook with for sometime now.  Since I obviously didn’t know what bulgur was before making this recipe (I simply liked that it rhymed with “vulgur”), I have decided to include the Bulk Barn definition below, should anyone also be confused as to what this strange sounding food is:

Bulgur (noun) – bulgur is made from soft wheat kernels that have been cooked, dried and then cracked; thus “cooking” it is simply a matter of rehydration…

Now that we all know what bulgur is, let me just sum up this post by saying that the salad was great, with a lemon dressing and crunchy cucumber (even if there were a few too many vegetables for my liking).  The only thing I didn’t like were the tomatoes (raw tomatoes are my greatest enemy, next to tofu), but I simply included them for Gord’s benefit.  Alas, they added a gorgeous red colour, which I must admit to loving.

Stay tuned in the next few days as I post parts two and three of Gord’s dinner (appetizer and DESSERT).  It just gets better from here!!!

Thai Mango Salad (and a short vacation hiatus)

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

With my mangoes finally having ripened, I decided to hurriedly prepare a delicious and nutritious meal for today’s lunch.  I say hurriedly because I started making this salad at exactly 11:34 a.m., a short 26 minutes before my family was due to pick me up for my first family vacation in three years.  Summer salads with no cooked ingredients actually make the fastest meal ever- gotta love ’em!  Gord, if you are reading this right now and wondering why the hell I made this salad without you, fret not, I will find something equally (if not more) scrumptious to make for your challenge prize as soon as I get back from vacation.  I promise.

This salad turned out brilliantly, and I got rave reviews from my mom who decided to pack up my leftovers for a picnic lunch later in the day.  Bestowing the ultimate honour on my cooking skills, she even asked me for the recipe (which can be found on the Canadian Living website here) so she could make her own version at home.  PS: mangoes are the best, most tender fruit ever.

So how is my vacation, you ask?  It is quite enjoyable, thank you for wondering!  I am currently typing this from inside a gorgeous Mont Tremblant hotel, nestled at the bottom of a group of seemingly endless mountains.  Arriving late this afternoon after getting lost several times in and around the Tremblant area (trying to navigate our way using my mom’s iPad = unsuccessful), we finally got to our hotel and quickly began exploring the village.

So far I have been on a handful of gondola rides (see above: I giggle like a child from sheer excitement every time I get on one) and have strolled around the vibrant streets of the village with the famjam.  I am proud to say that in true Duff-family fashion, several embarrassing touristy pictures have already been taken:

My favourite part of the day?  Going down a steep slope on a luge track, and waiting at the bottom for my mom who abused the brakes on her cart and arrived a complete five minutes after my brother, dad and I.

See you after my vacation hiatus, Blogosphere!

Mediterranean Barley Rice Salad

~ Hilary ~ 4 Comments

Is it sad that I start brainstorming what I am going to say for these posts before I even return home from the grocery store?

Since it is absolutely scorching here in Ottawa, and because of the fact that I am sitting in a giant house-sauna, it is not necessary to explain why I decided to stay away from any baked/oven-prepared meal today.  Since even just starting to type this very small segment of text, my fingertips and palms have begun to sweat (how ladylike of me), and I find myself wondering how in the world it is that I have not yet passed out due to heat stroke.  This week at work has been incredibly insane so far – we have officially finished 1/3 of the Summer O marathon, with every upcoming session making me fear I may go hysterical.  I know I am whining; please forgive me, I love my job, I really do!!  </whining> Let the positivity and tales of salad cooking begin! ……….

Through today’s cooking adventure, I have discovered several things about myself:

ONE. I adore cucumber, especially that of the English variety.  Cucumber is also incredibly fun to slice (I got a similar satisfaction when I sliced tofu for the first time).
TWO. If planning on using mangoes, said fruit must be bought days in advance, to allow sufficient time for ripening.  I discovered this during a phone call to my mom whilst in the grocery store today (“mom, when they say ‘firm mangoes’ what do they mean?”)
THREE. When your dinner plans for the evening have been completely thrown off by non-ripe mangoes, the best you can do is locate the nearest copy of a Canadian Living magazine and run around the grocery store hysterically trying to collect ingredients for a new meal.
THREE A. This meal is the result of this hysteria.

On that note, this salad could not have turned out any better!  The recipe was from the June issue of Canadian Living, and the recipe can be found right here.  The dish had a perfect balance of grain and vegetables, and the spinach made a really great base for the rest of the salad.  The dressing was light and lemon-flavoured, and was a perfect cool down after a tiring, hot day.  The salad was also super colourful, which I obviously LOVE, so the pictures turned out magnificently!  Even the name sounds exotic!  What more can a little food blogger ask for?  I definitely recommend this salad to anyone and everyone.  Mom, if you’re reading this post, let me tell you that I am making this salad next time I come home.

Thanks again Canadian Living, you’re a lifesaver!

Gord makes dinner (and gets challenged)

~ Hilary ~ 4 Comments

I’ll keep this relatively short and simple: my awesomely talented friendGordmade me dinner as a reward for successfully completing his tofu challenge.  Here are a few pictures of the wonderful meal he made (super impressive)…

Gazpacho (I still have a hard time saying it, I’ll admit)

Quinoa Salad (also can’t pronounce that properly)

And le pièce de résistance?  Crème brûlée…because of course Gord just has a blowtorch casually sitting around in his kitchen (seriously, I laughed so hard).  YUM.

Also, I am going to use this post to announce Gord’s FIRST blog challenge: he has requested that I challenge him to make pie from scratch, a thing he apparently has always wanted to do.  So there you have it Gord…a little less terrifying than death-by-tofu, but what can you do?  Make it photogenic, make it delicious and, most importantly, make it for me!!!!

Parmesan Spinach Penne

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

It is currently sheet raining outside, so I thought this would be an ideal time to update the world on my most recent dinner adventure.  I made this meal on Monday, after a long afternoon of sitting in my gym shorts watching season one of Pushing Daisies in its entirety.  SUCH a charming show!  I would be even more enamored if I didn’t know that it ended in cancellation (boo)…ah well, season two here we come!  I’ll enjoy it while I can.

Right, back to the dinner.  I originally thought I was going to settle on the fall-back student meal of soup noodles for supper, as I was feeling unenergized and lame on Monday.  Then, of course, I went for a bike ride and my entire outlook on life snapped back into perspective.  Suddenly I wanted a delicious carb-filled meal to satisfy my every foodie desire.  This recipe (technically called “lemony chicken pasta” in my Canadian Living cookbook) was perfect, and I didn’t even have to run to the grocery store to buy anything!  I even got to use up my leftover ricotta cheese from my failed attempt at making a cute pot pie.

It was quite the hassle to take the picture you see below.  It was absolutely storming outside, and I thought the wind was going to slowly blow away every morsel of my delicious meal.  Luckily, this was not the case, and Mother Nature kindly held back her gusts for a few seconds while I took this picture.

Ooooo, and look!  I was blog challenged by my friend Carly (read her fantastically sweet blog, Carly Loves).  Her challenge is as follows…

“Okay, I’ve got it.

Yesterday I was snooping around the Interweb for some dessert recipes when I found a brownie recipe that looked amazing. It was brownies made with cocoa and… wait for it… black beans. So I’m going to make that ASAP. Now, here is your challenge:

In light of this cocoa and black bean epiphany, make something that contains an unexpected, out-of-place ingredient.

GO! (And good luck!)”

EXCITING right?!  I will do this as soon as I have a spare minute.  Probably Sunday.