Canadian Living

Chick Pea Burgers and VEGETARIAN WEEK

~ Hilary ~ 3 Comments

You know how in the last post I mentioned something about converting to vegetarianism?  Well it’s happening…for a week anyways.  Being a newbie at this whole vegetable eating thing, you might think this is a shocking statement.  For the next seven days I will be exploring all things non-meat-like in an adventure that will hopefully prove to be quite enlightening.  I have always been a lover of burgers, chili and (of course) pogos, but this week I am battling my inner carnivore instinct and keeping it green.

SPEAKING OF BURGERS…As my second “vegetarian stint” meal, I decided to make a chick pea-inspired burger.  I really only tried chick peas for the first time last year and have since fallen in love with their meaty and delicious texture.  Also, hummus is just really, really good.  This chick pea burger recipe came from Canadian Living and allowed me to use up the half can of chick peas that I had chilling out in our fridge.  Even though I cut down the ingredients into a third of what was originally required, I still got three decently sized burgers out of the mix, one which I ate for breakfast this morning (hooray for early morning protein).  Since there is really nothing in the patty other than chick peas, rice, grated zucchini/carrot and bread crumbs, I’d say that the cost per burger ended up at probably around 75 cents.  Pretty dece, right?  Vegetarianism: making me more healthy AND more rich.  Love it!

Alright so keep checking back over the next week as I continue to share my “Vegetarian Week” menu with the blogging world.  Perhaps this will one day turn into vegetarian month…

Ratatouille with Pesto Crumble

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

I’m baaaaaaaaaack!  Two week hiatus?  Officially over.

This ratatouille was good enough to almost convert me to vegetarianism.  Get this: the only thing in this dish was zucchini, tomatoes, red pepper, eggplant, onion, and feta cheese (Mmmmm).  I hope you’re impressed mom.  Considering I haven’t had time to really eat anything in the past week, this ratatouille was a wonderful vacation away from the occasional bowl of Cheerios and leftovers to which I have lately become accustomed.  For anyone wanting a cheap and easy winter meal, this is the recipe for you.

Ahh, but of course there is an inspiration behind this meal…

I’ve been wanting to make this recipe ever since watching the animated movie Ratatouille a few weeks ago.  For anyone who hasn’t seen the film, it is the adorable tale of Remy the rat, a culinary connoisseur living in Paris.  Throughout the movie Remy, and his helpless-in-the-kitchen human friend Alfredo, dazzle the kitchen of a French restaurant.  At the end of the movie, Remy and Alfredo make ratatouille and melt the heart of a stone cold food critic.  Probably my favourite animated movie ever.  The clip below is from when Ego (the appropriately named food critic) is served Remy’s final dish.  Also, don’t you just love how perfect everything looks in Pixar movies?  Vegetables without a single blemish, the cutest little people, and bubbling soups that look like lava.

Also notable: this is my first time EVER trying eggplant.  Prior to this meal, I only knew it as that fairly attractive purple squash-shaped thing that sat atop the zucchini section.  Now I know it as a spongy piece of heaven with a chewy consistency.  Quite a wonderful discovery if I do say so myself.

PS: Feta is the most delicious thing in the universe.
PPS: I wasn’t sure how this pesto crumble thing would turn out, but the basil complimented the flavours of the vegetables and added a nice texture to the whole thing.  Good call Canadian Living.

Beef and Bean Chili in a Bread Bowl

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

I’m one of those people who can vividly remember several moments from her childhood.  While most of these memories often just swim around in the archives of my brain waiting to give me a major shot of déjà vu when I’m least expecting it, some of them sit in a more fond spot.  Perhaps in the more exclusive brain archives section – the “Reserve” section, if you may…

Here is one of those memories: When I was young and living in Timmins, my dad and I always used to go out to Tim Hortons.  These trips came pretty often, since my dad was a huge fan of Timmie’s coffee (things have changed since we got our new coffee maker at home) and I always insisted on coming along in hopes of getting a doughnut.  Some of my fondest memories of these little Tim Hortons trips came when the shop was having its “chili in a bread bowl” promotion.  My dad and I would absolutely lose our minds for this.  I think I ate a record-breaking amount of chili when I was young, simply because I loved the combination of crusty bread and mouthwatering chili so much.  Anyways, for some reason Timmie’s stopped having this chili in a bread bowl promotion and the chili has since never tasted as good.  Mom, you get a lot of shout outs on this blog but dad, this one is for you.

Feeling nostalgic and craving chili, I knew that this was a completely necessary meal to make.  The recipe I used was pretty traditional in the chili sense, and came from Canadian Living.  The title they used for the chili had the words “really good” in it, so I figured I would give them the benefit of the doubt and whip myself up a batch.  Ugggghhhh, as I type I am so full of delicious chili that all I want to do is hibernate for the whole winter through.  This recipe was great, since the only thing I needed to buy at the grocery store was crushed tomatoes.  Don’t you just love having all the other ingredients on hand?  I even got to use up most of my pesky stalk of celery, a vegetable which looks cute slopped with peanut butter and raisins, but unfortunately lacks taste unless combined in something so delicious as this chili.  Since the recipe doesn’t call for too much celery and carrots, I just tripled the amount that they requested, to make a meal that was just as healthy as it was hearty.  I also added way more hot pepper sauce than requested, for an extra spicy kick.

Although the recipe says it only makes four servings, I discovered it made around six.  With these leftovers as well as leftover stew, I will guaranteed never go hungry again.  Such a shame since I want to try out a ratatouille recipe soon…

Chicken Chorizo Paella

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

I am embarrassed to admit that it took me two solid days to learn how to say “chorizo.”  I know what you’re thinking: “Hilary is so stupid, it’s pronounced exactly how it sounds!”  This is a valid point.  I compare my difficulties with chorizo to the full week it took me to pronounce and spell Milla Jovovich’s name.  She is the actress who plays Alice in Resident Evil, and also the female I have the biggest girl crush on.  Regardless of my zombie-killing admiration towards her, I insisted on spelling and saying her name like this: Jokovich.  This error caused my roommate Brittany, another huge Milla fan, to sigh in irritation.  However, just as in chorizo, I finally learned.  This is why radio scripts have pronunciations, my friends.

Alright, so that was a little off topic…

This Chicken Chorizo Paella recipe was from the November issue of Canadian Living.  To be honest, I was actually a little disappointed in this one.  The flavours were very similar to that of the squash risotto I made a few weeks ago (to be fair both recipes did use white wine, arborio rice and chicken broth).  Also, I’m not 100 per cent sure I like chorizo.  After all the trouble I spent learning how to pronounce the damn thing, you think it would be super tasty, right?  Unfortunately it left some sort of cross between pepperoni and kielbasa taste in my mouth, a flavour to which I would rather have been unexposed.  The consistency of the rice was good, and I controlled my irrational desire to add more than the required cup, a restraint which I wish I had when I made my soup a few weeks ago.  I am confident in saying that this dish would have been way better with just the chicken, but that’s just me.

Also, this recipe represents the first time I’ve actually bought wine to add in to a dish.  I stole some of my roommate’s before (sorry Alex if you’re reading this, it was only 1/4 cup I swear!) and decided it was finally time to invest in my own bottle.  The bottle is now sitting staring at me from atop my dresser, begging me to use it again.  We’ll see.

Hmmm, now what do I do with the other half of my chorizo…

Chunky Rice and Bean Soup

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

This day shall be known from here on in as “Soupy Saturday.”  The reason?  I made the most amazing soup in the universe!  Unlike my past soups which have focused on some sort of vegetable (pea soup, carrot soup) or on recreating a fiesta-in-a-bowl, I wanted to make a soup that just had EVERYTHING.  This Canadian Living soup recipe was perfect to achieve said goal  Also, since our house is absolutely freezing (we are students who are way too cheap to turn on the heat until snow hits the ground), I needed something other than my Snuggie to keep me warm.

This soup was soup-er (HA, get it?) easy to make, and took less than an hour in total to cook.  The only difficulty occurred when I decided to scoff at Canadian Living’s “tested till perfect” mantra, and add three times the amount of rice that the recipe called for.  This was a major mistake, and I had to add about a cup more water to compensate for my ingredient adding through over-excitement.  Due to this extra H2O, I now have enough soup to probably last me until the end of the winter season.  I’ll be keeping a large tupperware of it out (wish me luck trying to fit it in our fridge!) and packaging the leftover soup in cute little single-serving Ziploc bag packages to be eaten on overly lazy days.  Also, I need a thermos to bring things to school, anyone want to buy me one (preferably this or this). :)

Oh wait, one more thing.  I bought this new app for my iPhone (yes, I paid a whole 99 cents for it) that turns my phone into a pinhole camera.  Isn’t that the most wonderful thing you’ve ever heard?!  I took a few pictures of my lunch using that camera as well, and loved the result so much I thought it needed to be shared with you…