Salad

Prosciutto-wrapped, goat-cheese stuffed chicken breasts with roasted pear and walnut arugula salad (phew)

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

This was a very grown-up meal.

When it comes to cooking, making dinner with one component is usually enough for me. You know – just pasta or just chicken or just a kooky vegetarian burger. The side dishes that are normally associated with a well-balanced, three-part meal normally come in terms of me eating a tiny piece of chocolate while dinner is being prepared. Or a fresh pita. Or whatever else is on my countertop.

I’m rambling now, but basically what I’m saying is that a dinner hat trick is something I feel I can humbly boast about.

My good friend and old roommate Ariel came over for dinner a few nights ago, and I decided to spoil us. Though I spent the afternoon drooling over Internet images of pumpkin-stuffed perogies, I remembered at the last minute that I had two chicken breasts that needed to be used (don’t worry, the pumpkin perogies will be made and blogged about someday soon). Thus, this dinner came to be.

Here is what old (pre-learning to cook, circa 2010) Hilary and new (cooking, yay!) Hilary think of chicken:

Old Hilary: Okay, so I have this piece of chicken. Even though I’ve had plain chicken for the past three nights, I think I’ll duplicate those “successes” and again fry this on our George Foreman grill until all the delicious juices are oozed out of it. I’ll also slather it in BBQ for good measures and will probably eat it with lots of extra salt. Side dish: plain rice.

New Hilary: Okay, so I have this piece of chicken. Obviously no piece of chicken is complete unless it is stuffed with smooth goat cheese and oven roasted in its own juices with fresh sprigs of rosemary. Oh right, and I have this prosciutto here – sure, that can be a sweater for the chicken in the oven. Four hundred degrees is a little chilly anyways. Let me consult my beautiful, Things Organized Neatly-style cookbook for ideas. Side dishes: hmm, might as well make a fresh arugula salad and potatoes fried in duck fat while we’re at it. (okay, I get it, this sounds super indulgent and gluttonous, but it doesn’t happen often. Mom, I love duck fat. Accept this. Let it be my vice.)

Wouldn't that be better? Me with nothing to say and you in your prosciutto sweater (song lyrics, updated)

Conclusion: New Hilary is slightly more OCD, and is conscious of how judgmental she is of the girl she once was. New Hilary is also more satisfied with dinner and life on a daily basis.

The roasted tomato juices were delicious with the chicken, and it took all my will power to not tackle Ariel and eat her plateful too. A good, balanced meal, exactly what you want before you spend the rest of your night pigging out on Mayfair Theatre popcorn (whilst crushing on George Clooney), licorice nibs and a really yummy gelato-espresso drink. #girlsnight

Chicken, before and after oven
Arugula = the best

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Black rice sesame salad

~ Hilary ~ 3 Comments

It has been a busy week at school. Wait, let me rephrase that. It has been a busy, third-last week at school. Holy cow. Where has March gone? WHERE HAVE MY FOUR YEARS OF UNIVERSITY GONE? I am now appreciating my days off more than ever before.. my sleeping in until 9:15 a.m. and late, leisurely lunches. My student life is coming to an abrupt end, and I intend to pump the remaining month-and-a-half for all it’s worth.

I had a free morning on Friday, and decided to get up early and bike to the grocery store. It had been too long since I last did groceries, and I relied far too heavily on eating out/Tim Horton’s bagels this past week. Bad Hilary. The week before was so good, too, blogging and eating wise… After carting my bounty home in my purple backpack and handy dandy saddle bags (a half-roast chicken almost exploded in one of the bags: spring-on-bike, take one), I could hardly wait to start cooking. I made this salad for supper. It was healthy and delicious.

It also helped me start doing one very important thing, that being the clearing of my Ottawa cupboard.

Since I’m moving away from my beautiful home in this beautiful city at the end of April, I need to start using up my dry pantry goods. And woah, there’s lots of them. Three different varieties of cute pasta, a couple of cartons of beef stock (must have been on sale), an IKEA storage container filled with quinoa… It all must go. And so begins Operation Clear Cupboard. Over the next few weeks, I will slowly utilize all my random leftover goods, in hopes that nothing will go to waste.

First up was my black rice. I keep trying (and failing) to remember what meal I bought this for in the first place. It is really perplexing me, and I am frustrated that it appears to be a dinner that I never blogged about. Regardless, this salad will be its Hilary Makes claim to fame.

So check it out: we’re now 1/94538459 re: cupboard clearance. More to come.

Aren’t radish slices gorgeous?

PS: It is FINALLY outdoor food photography season again! Thank you, extra hour of sunlight and non-frigid temperatures.

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A wonderfully perfect, manic Monday meal: Red quinoa with salmon and spinach

~ Hilary ~ 10 Comments

Subtitle: Rekindling my love of quinoa. 

With every blogging slump, there must be a delicious and inspiring dish to get me out of it.

So here we are. A delicious meal. And a simple one too. As in beyond simple. So simple that I felt like I was cheating, in fact. Maybe I was. I used canned salmon. SHHH. Can snobs have no place here – not on a student food blog. I wasn’t even breaking any rules of the Food Bible, since the recipe that I adapted this salad-like meal from requested that very canned delicacy.

Also, it used quinoa. And not only that, but quinoa of the coloured variety. Totally rad.

I still consider myself a sheltered food lover, and had never actually tried canned salmon before tonight. As is, I only tried canned tuna a few weeks ago when I was inspired by some other-worldly forces to try my hand at making a tuna fish sandwich. Yes, I know, you’re rolling your eyes at me like I missed out on some integral part of childhood school lunch making. I couldn’t help it, okay? My mom’s a dietician and I was picky, choosing the standard peanut butter and jam as my sandwich topping of choice between grades one and 12.

Anyways… turns out canned salmon is not disastrously disgusting and is, in fact, really quite good. Cracking open a can rather than using the fresh stuff also meant that I cut at least half an hour off of dinner preparation time. That meant this meal was ready in – get this – 10 MINUTES. A dinner revelation. It was delicious.

I’m going to compliment myself furiously for a moment (so bear with me): I really, really like these pictures. I’ve been inspired by my roommate Brittany’s photography style (which is stunning), and want to start setting a scene in my photos. Beautiful food + beautiful setting (i.e. an IKEA table, bowl of spinach and dishtowel) = beautiful photos. I hope.

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Recreating traditional Greek cuisine: Moussaka and Greek salad

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

If there is one food that reminds me of my time spent in Greece, it is eggplant. It was everywhere – in main courses, in dips, … as well as in other places that I just can’t recall. I’m pretty sure I ate enough eggplant to prevent the Greek economy from defaulting for another month. Yes sir, they can thank me for that.

Since I considered moussaka to be a bit of a kitchen challenge, I decided to limit the chance of any potentially devastating results by using a Canadian Living recipe to make mine. Always delicious, always reliable. The recipe was so detailed that it took up two pages of my cookbook.

Prior to my European travels, I had always flipped right past the page, scoffing at what I thought was just some sort of bastardized shepherd’s pie. Now I have to prevent myself from drooling every time I see the picture. Ladylike, I know.

A word for the wise: if you are looking for a quick dinner solution, moussaka is not it. From start to finish, this one dish took about three hours in total. Okay, maybe two and a half. Either way, this is serious business.

Actually, this meal was the bearer of several unexpected delays.

First, the inevitable – eggplant and its high maintenance state that requires it to be salted, dehydrated, rinsed and patted dry before it goes in the oven. Your patience will be tested.

The next delay was thanks to utter disorganization on my part. I didn’t have milk, something that is normally a pretty integral part of any cheese sauce, of which this dish demanded. When I went to the corner store next door, they were out of all large cartons, and so I got several smaller ones to compensate. I only dropped them once on the way home.

Finally, my lack of baking pans (I had used them to bring these cupcakes to the journalism picnic) meant that I needed to borrow one from a neighbour, otherwise spend the next two hours broiling eggplant in rounds on a foil-lined pie plate. I decided to borrow. Here’s how that went:

Hilary walks down the street, sees mother and son out on porch. She decides to ask to borrow their baking sheet.
Kid: Aren’t you that girl with that famous name? Taylor Swift or something?
Me: Haha. Hilary Duff. Nice try.
Kid: I know where you live. I’m Raffi.

New friends are the best.

Another delicious memory of Greece was the, you guessed it, Greek salad.

THE TOMATOES. Amazing. I never truly appreciated tomatoes until I ate them in Greece. I’m not even going to try to explain. I just see them in a completely different light now. Our attempt was a poor Greek man’s Greek salad, but tasty nonetheless. It also utilized some fresh produce from the Lansdowne Farmer’s Market. On top of the eggplant for the moussaka, I got heirloom tomatoes and lovely, crunchy field cucumbers. Just perfect.

Oh yes, and Gord came over for dinner. He brought baklava, which we inhaled the second dinner was through. All I want is a world where someone feeds me honey soaked pastry with a pistachio centre. Is that really too much to ask?

PS: Don’t mind the pictures. Moussaka is about as photogenic as lasagna, which is to say not at all.

Now please, won’t someone just take me back here?

The dinner view in Oia, Santorini

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Summer Salad Series II: Quinoa strawberry salad with balsamic vinaigrette

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

Before I start, may I just say that I CANNOT spell “vinaigrette” to save my life.  I knew I was bad at spelling, but even I am impressed by my ability to spell the damn word wrong every single time.  Once again spell checker, you are a constant source of sanity.

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BREAKING: The rumours surrounding the apparent deliciousness of balsamic vinegar and strawberries are true.  Completely, 100% true.

The other night was the first time I tried this fantastic blend, the likes of which can only be trumped by the combination of chocolate and strawberries.

But that wouldn’t be any good on a salad, now would it?

As you can tell from the blog title, this is the second salad in my new Summer Salad Series (alliterations are truly an underappreciated literary device).

A beautiful picture I saw on Tastespotting last week was what inspired the creation of this salad.  The blog Salad Pride features one new delicious looking salad a day, and will surely be the victim of much idea borrowing as the summer months progress.

Since normal couscous and I have a love-hate relationship (translation: to my dismay my couscous somehow always comes out resembling mashed potatoes), I decided to try out something new: Israeli couscous.

When I saw it in the Bulk Barn, I was intrigued.  It looked like the tiny noodles you used to get in East Side Mario’s Italian wedding soup.  Heck, maybe it was one in the same.

Turns out I didn’t love this couscous.  It had a strange sort of taste to it, and got clumpy when brought as leftovers the next day.  In the future I’ll probably stick to quinoa or just normal couscous, which I will hopefully develop some sort of ability to make.

On top of the couscous I, of course, had to add my favourite food of summer 2011: quinoa.  You can’t tell me I’m not getting my protein intake!  Topping it all off were freshly quartered strawberries, whose soft crunch and succulent juices provided the sweet contrast that only berries can offer.

All of this was piled on top of a bed of fresh baby arugula – a curiously spicy and tasty salad green.  I still have loads of it left, so watch for it making an appearance in upcoming dishes (arugula: I’ll be here till Wednesday!).

Also, I accidentally threw out the recipe I created, so the one you see below the jump is as accurate a rendition as I can remember… Apologies, friends.

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