Student Cooking

Chicken Squash Curry

~ Hilary ~ 3 Comments

Alright, I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t been eating 100 per cent well lately.  It is absolutely crazy at school right now (I feel like all the other university students out there can feel my pain) and I just haven’t had time to take care of myself at all.  For example, this past Monday the only thing I ate was a bagel (sesame seed toasted with strawberry cream cheese, the only way to go), a piece of lemon poppy seed loaf from Starbucks, a Vitamin water and a piece of leftover brownie cake.  I managed to get in all four food groups, right?

WELL, by the time Tuesday rolled around, I was craving actual food.  I’m sorry that this is another post featuring squash as the main-ish ingredient but lets face it, I am one person, with one squash.  No matter how many times I feed my roommates (Ariel has been benefitting quite greatly from my cooking lately), it still takes me three times as long to finish one thing.  This being said, you can expect some sort of “stuffed squash” dish over the next few days, unless I follow Brittany’s suggestions and bake something.

Okay, so this Chicken Squash Curry was something I found when browsing the Canadian Living website the other day, in search of a way to use up my inhuman amount of squash.  Since this recipe also allowed me to use the mild Indian curry sauce that has been sitting in our fridge for months, I decided to go for it.  Mmmm, I forgot how good curry sauce smells when you cook it.  I was happy to smell like a little Indian food restaurant for the rest of the day.  To pay tribute to how crazy even this day was, my cooking was interrupted halfway through by a telephone interview I needed to perform for journalism.  Luckily for me, onion and green peppers don’t mind sitting in a pan half cooked…

Anyways, before you motor on over to your kitchen to cook this, I must add that I used (a) green peppers instead of chili green peppers and (b) didn’t add in as much cilantro because I think it is kind of yucky.  So be cautious.  Also, leftover curry makes some delicious rice wraps (especially when mixed with leftover couscous from the roommates).  Now that I have said that, go forth and eat.

Chocolate Brownie Turtle Cake

~ Hilary ~ 4 Comments

Mom: if you’re worried as to why I’m posting this at 11:30 at night, it’s because this is the only free second I have had today.  As much as you say blogging should not be my priority, I can’t help it, and this cake needed to be shared with the world.  I will sleep soon, green tea is making me drowsy.

This past Sunday night I was all prepared to make a nice end-of-the-weekend dinner for myself, and was pleasantly surprised when I found out that Natalie’s dad was in town and was making all the roomies supper!  Seeing that I could no longer make dinner, and obviously wanting to show off my culinary skills to an outside audience, I knew I had no choice but to make dessert.

I had post-it noted this recipe from way back in the summer.  It is from my 1980’s Canadian Living family cookbook and is so old that it can’t even be found on the website’s recipe index.  With no picture to go off of and the request for loads of chocolate, I went into this one blind-sighted, on nothing but a wing and a prayer.  I don’t think I’ve ever bought so many packages of Baker’s chocolate squares (two boxes of semi-sweet and an unsweetened box).  The amount of chocolate I had at my check-out could only be matched by the amount I once bought to make my gluten-free chocolate cake. Mind blowing.  This recipe also incorporated a beloved Duff family chocolate: the turtle.  For as long as I can remember my parents have shipped over boxes of turtles to my relatives in Ireland for Christmas (can you believe they don’t have them?!), and this cake was just like a walk down memory lane.

Now I don’t know why, but I always seem to insist on making some sort of complicated layer cake, which requires baking, chilling, heating and freezing.  This being said, this cake was under progress the entire day.

Anatomy of the Cake:
Layer 1: delicious brownie
Layer 2: crushed pecans (only because I totally forgot to mix them in with the brownies, my bad!)
Layer 3: melted caramels
Layer 4: chocolate glaze garnished with pecan halves

The result of this dessert was chocolate comas all around the table and an overall hyper state of mind.  To put things into perspective, this is how high on sugar some of us were:

Overall rating: delicious, but in SMALL quantities.  I could take the chocolate rush because I am used to frequent sugar fixes, but poor Brittany (amateur!) was suffering from a chocolate hangover for a full day.  Be wary, non-chocoholics.

Squash Risotto (and a new vegetable friend)

~ Hilary ~ 5 Comments

This was a day of trying new things!  Being in an abnormally daring mood (this can probably be attributed to the fact that I’m now rollerblading to school and feeling significantly more badass), I decided to try TWO new things: risotto and squash.  Yes, I know what you’re all thinking.  “Has this girl lived in a hole!?  How can she never have possibly eaten these two things?!”  Well it’s the truth.  The only exposure I’ve had to risotto has been when my roommate Alex makes it and I grab the occasional spoonful (secret’s out!) from the pot when she’s not looking.  Ooo, I also know risotto as the food that the contestants on Hells Kitchen always mess up.  See below for dear Gordon Ramsay’s description of this seemingly easy, but apparently very complicated dish…

Now that we’ve been distracted momentarily by Ramsay’s dreamy British accent, let me resume discussing this squash.  When I went to the grocery store in search of a butternut squash, I wandered around the produce section eventually realizing that I have no idea what it actually looks like.  Once again, my wonderful iPhone saved the day, as I was able to quickly google pictures of this strange vegetable (or is it a fruit because it has seeds?  The verdict is still out).  Once I got home, I had this gigantic desire to draw a face on the squash.  I do not know why…these bizarre thoughts just sort of come to me sometimes.  Anyways, the result was the picture below.  I almost drew a face on Brittany’s to make my squash a husband, but I don’t think that would have bode too well for me…

Anyways, the risotto was yummy!  I also discovered the definition of a miracle while making this meal: there was somehow magically chicken stock, white wine and – this is the best part – FRESH SAGE in our kitchen.  This made my day.  I was super sketched out with adding white wine to the mix at first, but after much convincing from Ariel, I finally caved.  Speaking of the recipe, this one was from the October edition of Canadian Living.  It’s a great way to make use of fall’s wonderful harvest, and I definitely recommend it.  The only thing is, it makes LOADS!  I halved the recipe (thank god) and still ended up with enough for four servings.  Make your measurements wisely blogosphere…

Snickerdoodles: the perfect road trip companion

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

For those of you who were maybe hoping this was some sort of Thanksgiving post, then I must apologize (however one of those will come in the very near future!!).  These cookies were actually made for a road trip that my friends Iman, Kristina, Jase-Face (okay, his actual name is Jasen) and I took to Montreal last weekend.  I wasn’t originally even supposed to go on this little trip, but after I found out that cutest couple in the universe, K & J, were popping over to our neighbouring province, I knew I had to pester them into letting me go.  This being said, I felt semi-guilty for bumming a ride in the car just so I could shop, so I decided I needed to bake something to apologize for my absurd inviting abilities.

Normally when I decide to bake something, I usually lean towards cheesecakes or cupcakes.  Knowing that the first would be rather difficult to cut in a moving vehicle and since I just made the latter, I decided to switch it up a little and try out a new cookie recipe.

This Snickerdoodle recipe came from one of my favourite blogs, Annie’s Eats.  Now in case you’re just as curious as me as to where this silly name comes from (it sounds like it should be followed by a singing of “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious“), I did a little bit of searching on my favourite research site (Wikipedia) and came up with this…

“Snickerdoodles are probably German in origin. … The name is probably a corruption of the German word Schneckennudeln, which means “snail cookies.” … Yet another hypothesis suggests that the name has no particular meaning or purpose and is simply a whimsically named cookie that originated from a New England tradition of fanciful cookie names.  There is also a series of tall tales about a hero named “Snickerdoodle” from the early 1900s which may be related to the name of the cookie.”

Anyways, kind of cool!

Baking these cookies for half the time and at 75 degrees less in our oven meant that they were perfect and soft on the inside, with a crunchy, sugary crisp on the outside.  ALSO, look at Annie’s Eats, she actually makes baked goods every single day.  If I were her kids I would LOVE homemade lunches.

Spinach Alfredo con Pollo

~ Hilary ~ 2 Comments

I am currently sitting on a semi-comfortable metal bench at the Ottawa Greyhound Station waiting for the midnight bus home.  Little Iman is sitting next to me, watching My Fair Lady with a look pasted on her face that can only be described as sheer innocence.  At this point, I realize I have absolutely nothing better to do with my time than update this blog, so here we go.  Now that you know my exact location, the fun begins!  Oh, one more thing before I start: I love that my iPhone allows me to tether internet to my laptop.  The magic of technology, right?

In case some of you were thrown by the fancy name of this post, I apologize.  Since this was a recipe that I sort of partially invented myself, I didn’t have the standard copying-and-pasting of the Canadian Living recipe to rely upon.  This being said, I sat on our futon for about 10 minutes this evening, half watching Hells Kitchen (that guy Louis is kind of cute) and half trying to figure out what the formal name for white cream pasta sauce was.  Thank god my fabulous roommate Natalie came along.  She quickly fed me the words “alfredo” and “con pollo,” the second of which apparently means “with chicken.”  Who would have known?

Considering this was something I just whipped up quickly the other night, it was super delicious and filling.  I was dying for a major carb fix and knew that only spaghetti could satisfy this endless craving.  I also had lots of whipped cream leftover from Capital Cupcake Camp, so I decided to make and try my first white pasta sauce ever.  The sauce was adapted from Canadian Living’s Basic White Sauce recipe with a few tiny alternations made here and there to allow for the thickening properties of flour to kick some ass.

Inside the sauce was chopped red pepper, baby spinach, onion, garlic and chicken (hence the con pollo).  Overall, this pasta dish was really easy to make and produced some extremely satisfying leftovers (seriously, all I’ve eaten in the past 24 hours has been this pasta, it makes about four servings).

Since this is my own creation, here are the instructions!

Recipe:
Use the Canadian Living recipe listed above to make the basic white sauce, stirring in an additional tablespoon of flour when sauce is simmering, to allow for a thicker consistency.  After sauce has simmered for 15 minutes, add it to:

– 2 cooked chicken breasts, sliced
– 1 onion, chopped
– 2 cloves of garlic
– 1 thinly sliced red pepper
– 1 cup of baby spinach, whole

(all of these things should be fried on a non-stick pan in the order listed above with 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil prior to sauce-adding, about 15 minutes)

While the sauce and vegetables are cooking, add 200 g. of spaghetti (about two big handfulls) to a pot of boiling water.

Mix spaghetti and sauce mixture together to combine awesome tastes.

Final step?  ENJOY!

Wish me luck on the bus!