Canadian Living

Corn and Bacon Quiche (featuring the utilization of our new and wonderful deep freeze)

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

To end off the month, I knew I had to get around making this one last recipefrom the September issue of Canadian Living.  I’ve really been meaning to make this one for awhile, but the fact that I had to make my own quiche crust kind of deterred me up until now.  Yesterday evening I finally decided that I could wait no longer and, since I had been having a kitchen marathon in preparation for CAPITAL CUPCAKE CAMP (pictures of my top secret cupcake will be posted soon!), I decided to extend my kitchen stay for awhile longer.

Making this cornmeal-based dough was pretty basic, but I found I had to add a little more water than requested, to make the blob of stuff surrounding my fingers stick together.  The result was this delicious doughy ball, off which I snatched at least a handful of dough to eat before the pie assembling even began.  Must I always eat raw dough?  Yes.  At least there weren’t any raw eggs in this one…

The rest of this dinner was sheer chaos.  This supper saw THREE of us in our cramped, student home kitchen attempting to make three different dishes.  Needless the say, there were bowls, cutlery and crumbs everywhere.  After miraculously managing to fit my quiche into the oven beside Britt’s biscuits, the rest went fairly smoothly.  I only mildly freaked out with how early the sun is setting.  MUST figure out new photographing method, or I may cry.

In the end, the quiche was yummy… bacon can always be counted on to make things better!  The homemade crust was delicious and has made me never want to buy those pre-made Pillsbury crusts ever again!  Grocery store, I am defeating you.  Oh right, and the deep freeze: well our smart Costco purchase allowed me to freeze my meal away for a night when I have nothing to make and am drawn to soup noodles.  Lazy but balanced dinners?  Win!

A Pre-Night Class Feast! (Maple-glazed pork chops and spinach pilaf)

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

This may have been the best meal I’ve ever eaten.  No joke, I was so happy with the way this entire thing turned out, that I came home from my night class and started to snack on the cold, refrigerated leftovers.  I have absolutely no shame.

My concerned parents have recently been questioning my protein intake, and I was interrogated by both my mom and dad a few days ago on the phone, about whether I was eating eggs, peanut butter, cheese, ANYTHING.  My answer: a hesitant “sort of.”  To convince my dearest parents that I was, in fact, not going to shrivel away from a protein deficiency, I decided to splurge on some meat.  Kind of craving pork chops, I bought a package of four from the grocery store, for about $8.  Eight dollars may not seem like much to the average spender, but considering I bought the cheap, almost expired $2 meat last year, this is a definite step up.

I also wanted to get rid of the extra spinach I had from my salad a few days ago, and was desperate to find a recipe that was not some sort of pasta dish.  I struck gold when I found this Spinach Pilaf recipe on the Canadian Living website.  Having never made a pilaf with rice before, I was kind of nervous as to how this one would turn out.  I halved the recipe (to make 2 servings) and the only alteration I had to make was to add an extra 1/4 cup of vegetable stock.  My roommates will vouch for me in saying it was delicious!!  Mmm, just typing this post I am tempted to sneak upstairs and grab a spoonful (I wrote this at night, at which time I had already brushed my teeth, major logistics fail).

For the pork I used CL’s Maple-Glazed Pork Chops recipe, since I needed a fast garnish so I wouldn’t be late for my night class.  Finally, I attempted to make some sort of vegetable packet with farmer’s market carrots and zucchini.  Due to poor planning and my impatience, the carrots were still a little crunchy, but the rest was amazing!

I definitely suggest the two recipes listed above for students!  Such an easy meal, yet super impressive once plated and served (yes, the “bed of spinach” is for decoration, don’t roll your eyes at me).

Gruyere and Ham Pasta (Gruyere = the king of all cheese)

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

The insanity of what is my third year of university has finally begun in full force.  Rushing home from class and work today, Brittany (roomie) and I trekked down to the Byward Market in hunt of leather bracelets (Britt wants to be a rock star) and gruyere cheese.  Unable to find either of these two items (well this is a bit of a lie…the gruyere cheese at the International House of Cheese was, what I thought, super overpriced = not good), we sped off in Britt’s little hatchback and over to the trusty neighbourhood grocery store.

It was at this location that I found out buying a brick of gruyere cheese is nearly as expensive as buying a brick of solid gold.  Apparently the price of gruyere in the Market was actually reasonably priced, and I found myself paying $7.99 for a 195 gram piece of gruyere at the grocery store.  Refusing to accept any sort of cheese alternative for this recipe (although my iPhone tells me a cheaper alternative is emmental), I charged forth with my golden purchase, being sure to appreciate every delicious morsel of that damned cheese brick.

Preparing this Gruyere and Ham Pasta, I was faced with my largest “oh my god I need to cook so quickly” challenge to date.  THANK GOD this recipe was in the “make it in 30 minutes or less” section of my Canadian Living Make it Tonight cookbook.  If I had taken a minute longer to cook this meal, I would have made myself and all of my roommates late fora movie we were seeing.  As is I was forced to pack up my steaming dinner into a tupperware (post-food photographs, obviously) and charge off to the theatre, plastic Ikea fork in hand.  So everyone around me in the theatre could smell onions.. no big deal.

Also, this recipe called for chopped spinach, something I completely forgot to to add in at the last minute.  This being said, everything still tasted great (add lots of pepper though).  Thanks to my forgetful and rushed mind, I can look forward to a delicious baby spinach salad sometime later this week.  Perhaps it will involve strawberries.

Oooo, also this recipe made use of these fun little “Scoobi-doo” noodles, which I was disappointed to see did not resemble the cartoon character whatsoever.  Oh well, life goes on for those of us who are eternally young at heart.

PS: In case you are still rattled by how much I paid for the cheese (yes mom, I’m thinking you), this recipe actually made four servings, making the price for each serving be about $2.50.  Not the best, but not too shabby either.

Carrot and Red Lentil Soup / The Best Cornbread in the Universe

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

I am currently in the midst of the most strange situation of my life.  Three of my roommates and I are sitting in the dark (our light is 15 feet up in the air and burnt out yesterday) talking to our landlord about how we can give our kitchen more counter space.  He is now hovering over my roommate Brittany‘s shoulder, interrogating her about apps for her iPad.  There are awkward jokes flying left, right and centre and he has started to tell us stories about his wife and children.  Heavenly.

Since the weather here in Ottawa has cooled right down, I decided it was time to make my first warm soup of the chilly season.  I’ve been waiting the entire summer to make this carrot and red lentil soup, one of the very first entries in my Canadian Living Everyday Favourites cookbook.  Contrary to the cookbook, which said I only needed to stew this soup for about 20 minutes, I had this soup on for nearly an hour and a half, as I quickly and messily rushed to make the cornbread which I can so easily describe as the best in the world.  Definitely worth waiting for.

This dinner also marked the start of my “indoor photo season” trials.  For reasons you will see below, I am less than satisfied with the results of this little experiment, and am quite concerned as to how winter foodie pictures are going to turn out.  I took these few pictures in my kitchen as well as my roommate Ariel’s room (only because she has more lamps than any reasonable person should have).  Despite what my roommates said (“soup is a cozy food, you want the lighting to be darker!”),  I was so disappointed with my pictures that I plated a whole other meal the next day and took pictures in the mid-afternoon sun.  I am quite confident I have some strange case of OCD.

And now for the re-plating…

Perhaps next time I will set up a little photo studio in my kitchen.  More to come.

Sour Cream Chocolate Crumb Cake

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

Pre-blog post statement: My roommate Ariel and I just finished a glorious afternoon of “shaking it like a polaroid,” Outkast style.  If anyone is ever looking for some sort of rainy afternoon activity, I highly suggest a dance off.

Okay, cake post…

I must admit, it is certainly nice to have 4 out of my 5 roommates back in the house.  Their arrival meant that I did not have to carry this cake on my bicycle to work nor did I have to sit in my pjs watching Rogers on Demand and eating the entire thing myself.  I made this cake on Friday afternoon and, by the time Saturday morning rolled around, there was hardly any cake left in sight.  Turns out a few of my roommates get quite ravenous after a night out and speedy cake ingestion is the result.

Now, for some inexplicable reason I appear to be drawn to two types of cakes.  Inadvertently, my past two cakes have both involved sour cream and chocolate, ingredients which one would think would be fairly easy to avoid while baking.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not falling into some sort of rut…it’s just that sour cream chocolate cakes happen to be ridiculously delicious!!  In all fairness, I very easily could have left the chocolate out of this one since it was just mixed in at the last minute (keep that in mind if you’re not a huge chocoholic like myself!).  Also, anything that has “crumb” in the title always seems to attract me, so perhaps that is another thing that drew me to this dessert.  The only thing that potentially could have been improved on this cake was the moistness level – I am a huge fan of moist and undercooked things, so that was my only issue.  No big deal though!

Oh, PS this cake was from the September issue of Canadian Living and, once again, the recipe isn’t yet posted on their website, so I’ll post it on my recipes page as soon as I get a second to breath (school = slightly overwhelming already).