Pasta

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.

Penne with Sweet Peppers and Two Cheeses (& Dinner Party Part II)

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

Intro note: It is an extremely bad idea to type a post on your food blog right before dinner.  Going to eat ice cream after this.

Last week, myself and a few of my fabulous co-workers trekked over to our local Value Village in search of an afternoon treasure hunt.  Other than finding a fantastic red zig-zag blazer, I was disappointed in the clothing segment of the hunt, and thought that my Value Village purchases would remain minimal.  Oh how wrong I was.  Waiting for my friends to finish trying on their finds, I started eyeing up the book section of the store.  Of course, I found the cookbooks, and OF COURSE I bought vintage Canadian Living cookbooks.

Here is my count so far:
Canadian Living cookbooks: 4
– Everyday Favourites
– Make it Tonight: Quick, Simple and Healthy Family Meals
– The Canadian Living Rush Hour Cookbook circa 1989
– Canadian Living’s Family Cookbook circa 1995

The Complete Canadian Living Cookbook? I AM COMING FOR YOU.  As you can see, I am clearly out-of-control, and my addiction will soon lead to my own chubby demise (this as I now eat ice cream for dinner, gosh).

Deciding what to make for my dinner party’s main dish created this scene in my dining room (if you look closely you can see a sneak peek at what I made for dessert):


Anyways, I finally settled on a dish from the oldest of my cookbooks (the Rush Hour one).  This “Penne with Sweet Peppers and Two Cheeses” recipe (since CL wasn’t online in 1989, I can’t find the recipe through google – will post in Recipes tab!) looked simple enough and reinforced the reason why I love cheese so much.  The combination of swiss and parmesan was awesome, and peppers are slowly sneaking up to become one of my favourites foods (yes, a complete shocker I know, but they are just so good when they are soft!).  I was originally hesitant to make this dish, with the cookbook being published in 1989 and all, and with no picture being provided for my visual pleasure.  After much inner-conflict, however, I chose this recipe, and I am so glad I did!  Even more proof that Canadian Living recipes are timeless (but lets be realistic, does a good recipe ever lose credibility?).

Keep checking for my dessert post which will be coming out in the next few days!

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.

Father’s Day Meal

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

Since I went home for Father’s Day weekend, I decided to take full advantage of the occasion and the home food resources to make a meal for my family.  Also, I took a trip to the local Chapters yesterday, where I got a few new cookbooks, including Canadian Living’s Make It Tonight cookbook!!  Oh happy day!  I also got two other new cookbooks, which I’m sure I will be mentioning in future posts, so stay tuned to find out more about those.

In honour of this new cookbook purchase, I decided to take two recipes from it to make tonight’s dinner.  Something noteworthy: I tried black olives tonight for the very first time, as they were an ingredient in the pasta I made.  As you can see below, I entered my quest to try olives optimistically…

…BUT, that smile very rapidly deteriorated into a cringe, when I decided that I wholeheartedly DO NOT like olives.  At least I tried them right?  All that was left on my plate at the end of the night was a sad looking pile of olives.  Apologies Veggie Gods.

Okay, so back to the meal…for the main dish, I made Pasta with Peppers, Tomatoes and Olives(yuck to the olives, YUM to the rest of the meal).  It was kind of odd to have a pasta dish without a semi-dominating sauce, but this was something new that took advantage of some amazing, fresh produce.  Also, I love home-time… we had fresh parsley!!  This never happens!!  It was great.


For dessert, I made a Layered Apple Cake, also from the Canadian Living cookbook.

It had a delicious graham cracker crumb base and top, with a soft, scrumptious apple cake centre.  SO GOOD.  Add some ice cream, and I have officially reached my foodie heaven.  I seem to be starting a trend…whenever I bake at home, it always seems to be a pasta dish and a cake crumble.  Perhaps I will try my hand at BBQ-ing next time?

Back to Ottawa tomorrow, and back to my student house hole-in-the-wall-kitchen.

Lemon Parmesan Linguine

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

I figured since it’s Mother’s Day, I should try to cook a dinner for myself that is at least almost as good as something my mom would make.  I whipped open my fancy schmancy new cooking book and made lemon parmesan linguine, complete with a whole three different types of vegetables.  Best part?  Leftovers!!!

Also, since the lighting in our dining room sucks, I took my plate outside to take these pictures, which is why you see grass/road in my pictures.  Yes, kind of lame I realize, but it worked!  It also cooled my supper off nicely, perfect for immediate face stuffing.