Hilary makes food

Steakhouse pizza with caramelized red onions and a balsamic marinara sauce

~ Hilary ~ 6 Comments

When I decide to cook with meat, I go all out. I’m talking monster carnivore.

An aside: Reflecting on the past four days of dinner, I have had a different kind of protein every single night. I have eaten a small farm. Coming home and having your mom pay for groceries (AKA me not being cheap and making quinoa-based meals everyday) really does make a difference in terms of my diet.

As soon as my parents told me they were going out for supper on Saturday night, I knew I wanted to treat the youngest Duff to a brother-sister dinner. Since I have a never ending need to impress him, I decided to unleash the power of pizza. But it couldn’t just be any pizza. Or any meal, for that matter. After googling several different combinations of “food to serve to your teenage brother,” I went to the land of all things wholesome and delicious: The Pioneer Woman Cooks. I finally decided her Steakhouse Pizza was a creation worthy of being inhaled by a semi-appreciative, grunt-if-he-approves brother.

After a trip to the grocery store with my mom where I insisted that yes, a ball of good mozzarella was extremely necessary, and that a $12 flank steak was what needed to top this pizza, I got home and got cookin’.

The smells that came from the kitchen when this was being prepared were gasp-inducing. Within minutes of sautéing, the red onions became translucent strands, their shiny purple backs absorbing the the balsamic that was slowly reducing in the pan. Then there was the marinara sauce combined with even more balsamic and a hint of Worcestershire Sauce. When baking, the smell of it bubbling on the crust made me stick my head in the oven even more than usual to absorb the aroma.

Since no picture of the finished product can even begin to do the intricacy of this pizza justice, I thought I would stand on a kitchen chair and give you a bird’s eye view of the different layers.

And because photos like this always lend themselves well to gif animations, here you go! Knock yourself out with excitement. I know it’s not as good as the one of Oprah and bees, but it will have to do.

Garrett and I ate this in the family room while watching the Big Bang Theory. He said it was “actually good,” which in 18-year-old boy language means that he approves. I’m thrilled.

We all enjoyed the leftover 1.5 pizzas as a family the next day and I wish there had been more.

I swear he's happier than he looks!

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Mushroom and barley risotto (a craving cured)

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

In past posts, I’ve admitted to several food cravings that I’m not so proud of. Be it five-minute cupcakes, half a bowl of unused cream cheese icing, or cold Kraft Dinner eaten straight from the fridge, these are the cravings that make me wonder how it is that I’m supposed to be a 20-something-year-old.

Then there’s the weird, but positive cravings. Like how I lose my mind for Magic Bullet smoothies after I go for a run. Or like how sometimes I cannot stop eating raspberries. You get the point.

This week’s bizarre and healthy choice came in the form of barley, that delicious grain that resembles the cutest of tiny beads. Barley is just the latest of the super grain family to catch my attention (its extended family tree includes my beloved quinoa and the elusive wheat berry). You can only imagine how thrilled I was when I received my latest issue of Canadian Living, flipped straight to the food section and discovered – low and behold – a brilliant series on Super Grains.

I did a flailing, happy food dance in my dining room.

My favourite of the recipes was one for mushroom and barley risotto. Mushrooms! Barley! Easily two of the best things in the universe. I set out to make this my Thursday night mission. I have a long day of classes on Friday, and said day is severely improved upon if I bring a delicious lunch of leftovers.

Since I didn’t have all the same ingredients as the recipe requested and since I am more frequently throwing caution to the wind and experimenting, my creation turned out a little differently than what you’ll see in the glossy pages of CL. Still, they get 100 per cent of the inspiration credit for this meal.

I added frozen peas and used fresh mushrooms rather than dry. I also made some other minor tweaks. This was yummy and reminded me of the rice risotto that Gord and I once made in Amsterdam.

Finally, winter photo season isn’t working out half as badly as I thought it would! I am totally digging these photos, and have fully delved into the wonderful world of Photoshop in order to make any lighting/colour adjustments that may be necessary. I may have gone a little overboard with the pine cones and oven rack props (fact: the latter was picked up off the side of the road, washed promptly and is now a multi-function house piece!), but hey, for someone who is used to standing on a chair on her outdoor patio to get a good shot, this is nothing. UPDATE: Okay, I just realized that you can’t see the pine cones in the photos I picked, but I promise you that they’re there. I’ll just have to include them in future photos. Aside: isn’t this bowl perfect for these photos?!

PPS: I imagine that this could easily be made vegetarian, should you choose to substitute the chicken stock with veggie stock.

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Cheddar and broccoli macaroni and cheese

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

Lately, I’ve been experiencing an irrevocable craving for Kraft Dinner. Those who know me well, will know that I’m always craving cheese and pasta. Always. This didn’t help my cause.

An attempt to create the anti-KD

Nor did it help when one of my roommates had a bowl of uncovered, day-old Kraft Dinner sitting at the front of the fridge. If there is anything I love more than the cheesy, freshly made KD, it is slightly crusty, old pasta. Seriously. Judge me now and never read this blog again. Regardless of how much my culinary horizons have expanded through this blog, I will always enjoy cowering in the corner of my dining room picking away at clumpy noodles.

That’s one thing I’ve noticed over the past few weeks. As much as I love good food, I also love the guilty pleasure bad stuff. Like Kraft Dinner. Likely poorly grilled chicken nuggets. Like pizza that is just greasy enough that the weight of the oil forms deep trenches across the melted cheese.

I will eat soup noodles in my bedroom until the day I die.

To try and change my habits, I wanted to take one of my guilty pleasure foods – KD in this case – and make something healthy (yet just as satisfying) out of it. Hence this cheddar and broccoli macaroni and cheese, inspired originally by some random recipe I found on my Epicurious iPhone app. My dinner quickly became an improvised mac and cheese recipe, and I was melting butter, grating cheese and preparing cute little broccoli florets (okay, this is a lie, I bought the frozen, pre-cut ones…).

And tada – there you have it. An easy substitute to KD, featuring a vegetable that I gave the nastiest stink eye to as a kid. Turns out that when covered in melted cheese, broccoli can actually be something quite wonderful.

Mr. Elephant approved.

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The best black bean burgers

~ Hilary ~ 6 Comments

Try saying that 10 times fast.

Okay, so technically I haven’t tried that many black bean burgers in my life, so to call these “the best” may be a minor exaggeration. Regardless, tonight – a mild Wednesday evening in January – they were all I wanted.

I’ve been wanting to make black bean burgers for awhile, and, as a result, have been trolling food blog after food blog, continuously bookmarking recipes that I’d like to try. The irony here is that I ended up not using any of these recipes. In fact, I used no recipe at all.

What up, improvisation?

But okay, I’ll admit that I cheated slightly in my creation, since reading so many other black bean burger recipes gave me a pretty good grasp of what had to go into my own. Still, I was pleased when the mixture I created actually managed to form a patty and actually managed to taste delicious. I am so proud.

Our Magic Bullet – bless its little mechanized heart – was an integral part of the burger making process, and was the perfect device the mash and blend the black beans, corn, cilantro and egg whites. Everything else just kind of worked out after that lucky streak, and the result was a filling, high-in-protein meal that even the most ardent of carnivores wouldn’t turn down.

And I have leftovers for in between class on Thursday. #blackbeanburgerhappydance

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Gord and I make dumplings, take two (Chinese New Year 2012)

~ Hilary ~ 14 Comments

Remember how last year Gord and I made potstickers and shrimp shumai to celebrate Chinese New Year? Well we did it again (with the dumplings, anyways)! This year, said dumplings/pot-stickers didn’t come out looking like turds. I thought it was an improvement, but you can decide that for yourself.

2011 (though I still like the plating)
Uncooked, 2012 (perfectly crimped, probably Gord's)

Having never made dumplings before last year’s day-long food fest, Gord and I spent much of our 2011 time perplexed over the best way to seal one side of the wonton wrapper to the other, while still creating something that looked even vaguely appetizing. This year, we were pros (well Gord was a pro, I was still crimping them closed incorrectly and eating wonton wrappers like raw pasta). The picture above illustrates how the finished, raw dumplings looked like cute little stegosaurus.

Of course, simplicity must come with another new challenge. This year’s challenge was uncontrollable, and not due to my lack of neat food origami skills.

Just as Gord and I were about to get our hands all up in the raw ground pork to make the dumpling filling, the water along his entire street went out. Water is kind of a crucial part of the whole cooking and cleaning process. So we decided Gord would be the solo mixer. After, his hands looked like he had just run them through a vat of zombie brains (seasoned with green onions). Much paper towel was utilized and a careful cooking process followed to avoid sickness.

Dumpling innards, pre-zombie brain mix-fest

Thank heavens I had brought along my trusty Carleton water bottle. It was filled to the brim with the great elixir of life, and leftover water doubled as our steaming and post-dumpling party cleaning fluid.

Take that, forces beyond my control – I have now successfully made bruschetta without power and dumplings without water.

PS: last year when I brought the dumplings home, we were stupid and packaged the soft, stuffed wonton membranes into a Ziploc bag. They promptly froze into one giant clump in the freezer, making the resulting photos of the defrosted dumplings (see above, again) even less appetizing. This year, we froze first, packaged after. There is now a bag of dumpling happiness sitting in my freezer which I will be steaming up on January 23.

PPS: Like last year, I will again use a shot glass to hold my soya sauce. Some things never change.

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