Student Cooking

Happy Birthday Doug (what better way to express birthday wishes than through a cookie pizza?)

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

When my co-worker and good friend Kristina approached me a few weeks ago to help her make cookies for her boyfriend Jasen’s dad, I knew this couldn’t just be any normal baking session.  What Kristina proposed was that, since Doug loved cookies, we make him a plethora of different varieties, in hopes of satisfying his apparent sweet tooth.  Of course, I saw this as an opportunity to do something creative and different – the cookie pizza was born!

Now I must admit I cannot take complete credit for this cookie pizza idea.  Ever since I was an 11 and ate cookie dough by the bowlful, I have known about cookies and their remarkable ability to double as pretty awesome birthday cakes.  The idea for this cookie pizza was actually inspired by two sources.  The first was Ariel, one of my beloved, school-year roommates.  Ariel had made a cookie pizza back in March, and could not stop bragging about how good it was (I unfortunately did not get a piece, which makes me extremely upset, considering I heard about it for weeks on end). The second was a search through trusty google images, to find this gorgeous picture and recipe for a dessert pizza.  Drawing a little inspiration from each, Kristina, Elisabeth (my super cool friend from Norway!) and I managed to churn out something which I think is pretty wonderful.  Ridiculous thing that never happens in my kitchen: somehow Kristina does not own dry ingredient measuring cups, so things like flour and brown sugar were measured in a gravy mixer.

Anatomy of the Cookie Pizza:
– Chocolate chip cookie (using mom’s recipe, of course – mom, I know you love it when I give you shout-outs, so here we are)
– Buttercream icing
– Red sprinkles (to make up for the fact that we completely forgot to dye the icing red…)
– Shredded coconut
– Red chocolate moulding wafers
– M&M’s, star sprinkles, baking gums and whatever your heart desires.
– Chocolate glaze piped through a sandwich-size Ziploc bag (try not to make your letters obese like my “H”)

Result: sugary birthday treat, perfect for a grown up sweet tooth.  Hope he liked it!

I realize that reading my blog right now is like looking into a candy store.  As of tomorrow, this sugar-streak will end and I will once again return to my attempts at healthy-almost-including-vegetables meals.  Apologies.

Candy Sushi (and my ultimate demise by sugar coma)

~ Hilary ~ 1 Comment

There is one thing I dislike about my job.  No, it’s not my co-workers, Summer Orientation days or designing parent newsletters.  I positively adore all of the above.  It is something substantially more ridiculous and avoidable: the amount of CANDY in our office, and my extreme effectiveness in eating all of it.  Be it at the front reception desk or in my supervisor’s office drawer, there is no shortage of sugar.  As all my co-workers know, I can often be found shamelessly sneaking into someone’s office to get Riesens, jubjubs, licorice or, most often, all of the above.

This being said, eating candy sushi after a full day of pigging out on office treats was not that enjoyable of an experience.  Making this sushi on Thursday night, I found myself surrounded by a pile of fruit roll-up wrappers, Bulk Barn bags and Rice Krispies squares.  Under normal circumstances, I would have been in heaven.  This night, however, found my stomach lurching into an unpleasant rollarcoaster.  Please do not get me wrong, these were good, but unless you would like to have a major sugar crash, I sincerely recommend you eat them one at a time.

So why in the world did I made this candy sushi?  WELL, since we do everything together, my co-worker’s and I decided to throw a sushi party.  After the great success of Gord and LJ’s sushi making adventures a few weeks ago, we all decided that these Japanese delicacies needed to be replicated in mass quantity.

Never one to conform to basic standards and bring something easy like cucumber or avocado to the night, I decided I needed to make something cool.  This was where the website Mommy Knows (awkward site for a 20-year-old girl) came in.  She posted a fantastic candy sushi recipe on her site, and it contained the best and most simple instructions on how to complete this treat.  Basically, all you needed to make these sushi were fruit roll-ups (to double as seaweed), thinly-made Rice Krispie square sheets and some more sugary candy for the inside filling.  Super easy to make and, I think, super realistic.  Try it at home for your next sushi party!

I put my sushi on a cake, which may not have helped with the sugar overload…

So how did the regular sushi work out?  Well it was just GREAT!  As per usual, I ate way too much, but it was totally worth it.  My personal favourite – avocado, strawberry and banana rolls – can only be described in one word: amazing.

Me, pre-sugar coma, happy as a clam.

Grilled Chicken Barley Salad

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

I made this salad exactly one week ago to this day.  The reason I am just posting it now can probably only be attributed to sheer laziness and my extreme backlog of blog posts.  Get ready for some frequent (I’m talking maybe everyday) updates for the next week or so!

ANYWAYS, back to this Grilled Chicken Barley Salad.  Surprisingly (or maybe not), this dish reminded me so much of the Mediterranean Barley Rice Salad I made back at the beginning of July.  That being said, they were both delicious, and perhaps in the end the only similarities were my extremely poor palette and the fact that both dinners contained barley.  Since I have been majorly lacking chicken in my diet lately (considering I ate plain chicken three times a week this school year – I’m in withdrawls), I decided I needed to find a recipe that incorporated both summer flavours and this favourite protein.  Once again, Canadian Living pulled through for me, and this dish ended up being extremely easy to make as well as super effective as a work lunch for the next two days.  Could a student ask for anything else?

Also, no matter how hard I try, I cannot bring myself to like raw tomatoes.  I used grape tomatoes in this recipe, and I thought the sweetness of them would make me fall in love.  How wrong I was.  I will need to find another way to conquer this ever-expanding tomato hatred.

ALSO PART TWO: My friend Gord at the Savoury Starving Studenthas once again blog challenged me!  This time, I need to make one of the recipes that he has posted on his site.  Like a true journalism student, he gave me a deadline (August 26).  I’ll keep you posted with what I choose, and will obviously post an absurd amount of pictures once the challenge is complete.

White Chocolate Cheesecake with Fruit and Raspberry Coulis (Dinner Party, Part III)

~ Hilary ~ Leave a comment

Random intro line: The commercial for “Eat, Pray, Love” is on – I want to see it SO badly.  Plus the song in the trailer is super catchy.

…

I knew that my dinner party encore had to be decadent and impressive.  With these two requirements in mind, I narrowed my dessert search down to two dishes, this cheesecake, and a Chocolate Brownie Turtle Cake (from my Canadian Living Family Cookbook).  Leaving the latter until another (very soon) occasion, I went forth with preparations for the cheesecake.

Having this be only the second cheesecake I’ve ever made, I was once more concerned about my lack of water-bath for cooking the cake.  I cranked my oven down to a mere 275° F, and cooked the cheesecake for 3/4 of the required time.  Perhaps I should be more modest, but the cake turned out perfectly.  There was not a SINGLE crack, nor bubble in the top of the cheesecake.  I am extremely pleased.  Also, it didn’t taste too much like white chocolate, which pleasantly surprised me, since I’m more of a milk chocolate girl.  With patience on my side for once, I let the cheesecake cool completely before lovingly cutting into the cake to prepare it for pictures.  The results, I think, are quite pretty…

Needless to say, I had cheesecake for three major meals the next day.  Nom, nom, nom, nom!

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!