on the rocks

It’s pretty hard getting by as a University student living away from home. You never have the tools or ingredients that you need to get things done, especially when it comes to cooking and baking.

Yesterday, I finally obtained some Baileys, so that I could make some more sugar cookies to share with everyone on my floor, but realised I didn’t have a electric mixer or even batter. After asking about 5 random people in our building, I still came up empty :(.

Butternut Squash Star Ravioli

Today, I still had the incredible craving to make something, so I googled up a recipe for fresh pasta and grabbed some leftover baked butternut squash in the fridge.

No mixing bowl? Use a plastic tub for washing rice.

No blender? Puree with a spoon/knife.

No pastry wheel? Use a cookie cutter. It’s a much interesting shape than cutting straight lines with a knife. And takes advantage of the cookie cutter I bought recently.

No rolling pin? (wait for it…) Use a mug or a cup. This worked fairly well for the pastry dough that I made a few weeks ago.

Probably due to my inability to mix the ingredients properly, I was left with a tough dough and it was incredibly difficult to flatten out, especially without the right tools. It took me about an hour just to make these 4 pieces of ravioli, I just gave up after that and sliced them up into thick pieces of fettuccine.

Butternut Squash Star Ravioli

I cooked them up and lightly coated them in a butter thyme sauce. The pasta dough itself was really thick and tough, but the centre was still light, sweet and creamy. At least they came out looking great =) .

A few weeks late, but I really liked how they turned out.

For the holidays, I decided to make some cookies and wrap them up nicely for my friends as just a little gift. I tried a few different recipes, including trying to make macarons three separate times, all three times resulting in complete failure :(.

COOKIE! omnomnomnomn

I ended up sticking with the sugar cookies recipe that I wrote about last post, but added a little alcoholic twist to it. The remaining bottle of Baileys I had sitting around in my room seemed perfect for the occasion. I replaced the sugar in the recipe with the Bailey’s which adds some extra liquid to the recipe softening up the cookies (since the original recipe cookies were a little hard). Also, about halfway through the baking, I lightly brushed the cookies with Baileys to give them the extra shine and flavour.

Fresh out of the oven, ready to be glazed.

Baileys Sugar Cookies (Preparation)

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup Bailey’s (plus some extra for glazing)
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

Waiting for the cookies to dry after icing.

After the cookies had dried, I placed them in some clear cellophane bags and wrapped it up with some nice fuzzy ribbon. The cookies themselves don’t taste recognizably like Baileys, but add a delicious hint of chocolate to the cookies.

All wrapped up.

Happy New Years!

Christmas is quickly coming up and that means finding presents for everyone! Since I’ve met so many new wonderful friends over the course of this year, I figured I should make a little something for everyone. Since I’ve picked up baking lately, I figured the most appropriate festive gift would be some cookies nicely wrapped up. And who doesn’t like cookies? So over the next week or so, I’ll be looking for a good recipe to use!

I’ve never actually made cookies from scratch before. The last time I remember making cookies is back in elementary school with my mom using instant Pillsbury dough, which I’m sure everyone has done.

First up are some sugar cookies. I used this recipe since it was the only type of cookie that I had all the ingredients for in my house. Also with a lack of a cookie cutter, I just decided to cut them into little bite sized squares. I’ll  have to buy some nice cookie cutters too, before I can make the final products.

Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing

I followed the recipe, replacing the butter + salt with salted butter (since it’s the only kind I had at home). Icing the top with a traditional royal icing (salmonella, oh noes!). The cookies themselves came out pretty well, I thought they tasted pretty good, especially since they weren’t too sweet and the salted butter didn’t cause the cookies to taste salty. These cookies also provide a really good blank canvas to get creative with icing and decorating.

Why does all the red icing I make turn pink/salmon coloured?
Perhaps it’s time to invest in some better food colouring!

After baking the Irish Car Bomb cupcakes and seeing how much everyone enjoyed them, I decided to try my hand at some more cupcakes. This time around, something a little bit healthier, carrot cupcakes!

Shortly after coming out of the oven

I used this Carrot Cupcake recipe and also made the Candied Carrot Curls for a garnish.

Dipped in Icing

The recipe was a lot simpler than the Irish Car Bomb cupcakes. I personally didn’t really like the recipe, since I prefer my carrot cake light and fluffy. The icing also started to separate after a short time, even when refrigerated which left most of the icing on the bottom of the container I was storing them in, perhaps I added too much orange juice? The icing also left an orange taste in my mouth long after I had finished the cupcake, which wasn’t great :(

Leek and Ham Quiche

Quiche is one of my favourite dishes, EVER. The creamy eggy, the strong flavours of cheese and whatever filling is inside, as well as the flaky crust. Irresistable! Since my mom had returned from her vacation, I haven’t had the opportunity to cook. Fueled by the strong desire to cook something up, I dropped by the grocery store and grabbed some leeks and Yves Meatless Ham.

Here’s the recipe I used, based on a recipe from Canadian Living. (The crust recipe is identical, so I’m not going to duplicate it here.)

Ingredients:
1/2 tbsp olive oil
6 slices of Yves Meatless Ham, 1/2 inch pieces
1 large leek, 1/2 inch pieces
1/2 tsp (2 mL) pepper
1/4 tsp (1 mL) salt
4 large eggs
5/8 cup (150 mL) 2% milk
2 tbsp (25 mL) dijon mustard
3/4 cup (175 mL) shredded Gruyère cheese
1 tbsp crumbled Blue Haze cheese

Directions:
In a large skillet on medium heat, add olive oil and fry ham, leek, pepper and salt until softened.

In a large bowl, whisk eggs and milk together. Add ham, leek and bluze haze, mixing all the ingredients together.

Spread mustard over the pastry shell. Sprinkle the Gruyère over the crust and pour in egg mixture.

Bake in oven at 375°F for about 40 minutes, until a knife through the centre comes out clean. Remove from heat, and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy =)

Chana Masala

Chana Masala or Chickpea curry, well I actually don’t know too much about it. I’ve had it a few times from restaurants but all I know is it’s boiled, soft chickpeas in a curry sauce. Alongside it, I had some frozen Paratha which I cooked up. I had some rehydrated chickpeas and kidney beans and prepared them according to this recipe from all recipes. I had some problems with the spices, and probably added too much of something, which caused the dish to be powdery. On top of that, the chickpeas would not soften, no matter how long I boiled it. According to my mom, the trick is to just let it sit overnight (off the heat) and it’ll be soft the day after. It was bad. Pretty strong contrast compared to the wonderful meal I had the night before :(.

Sorry, now that I don’t have anymore entries in queue, I’ve lost the urgency to finish posting these.

Common in presentations for Belgian endives, they can be used as “boats” or little bowls to place food on. As well as steaming the endives, I took a small bundle of enoki mushroom, dipped in egg spiced with some cumin, tumeric and salt. Once the mushrooms have been dipped, I shallow fried them so that the egg cooked, leaving the appearance that the mushrooms were wrapped in an egg blanket.

Endive Boats

Before dinner, on my way home I decided to drop by Whole Foods in Yorkville one of the only two Whole Foods in Ontario. Whole Foods is a large chain of supermarkets from the US, and is always seen on the tv show Top Chef, which is where I heard about the store. I grabbed some Gruyère and Blue Haze cheese as well as some fresh lemon & pepper fettucini.

The second I got home, I set the pot to boil and prepared some fresh alfredo sauce, substituting some of the Parmesan with Gruyère and Blue Haze. Throwing in some sage and portobello mushrooms. It was, the most delicious dish I had ever made.

Fettuccine Alfredo

Fettuccine Alfredo

On my first grocery outing at the beginning of my 28 days, I grabbed a Carnival squash, unfortunately I don’t have any “before” pictures of the squash.

I needed about half the squash for the risotto, which meant I had the other half to use for something else. With plenty of sage left that was starting to go bad, I decided to make some carnival squash chips with sage. After cutting the squash in half and removing the seeds, I thinly sliced the squash with a peeler. I placed the chips on a tray with a baking sheet and brushed them all lightly with some olive oil and sprinkled finely chopped sage and salt on top. I let the squash slices bake until they were dry (probably left them in a little too long). Regardless, the chips were great and I finished them all while I was preparing the squash risotto.

Baked Carnival Squash Chips

I sliced the other half of the squash, removed all the seeds, placed it face down in pan filled with 2 cm of water and baked it at 190°C for about 20 minutes. Once the squash is soft and tender, I cut it up into 1.5 cm cubes and started to make the risotto. I prepared my risotto differently from my usual recipe by sauteing half an onion (diced) and the squash and putting it to the side once the onions have turned clear. I then followed the recipe and added the onions and squash back in when I started to add the broth to the risotto.

Carnival Squash Risotto

This made the risotto flavour much more intense. With the addition of the squash, it made the risotto extremely creamy and buttery and so much more irresistable. I’m definitely making both these dishes again.

It’s nearly impossible to find a nice place in Yorkville for lunch on a Sunday. After walking around for what felt like eternity, Jamie and I ended up in the Village at Cafe California next to where Zelda’s used to be. Definitely a lunch place, browsing through the brunch menu I ordered the pappardelle and shared some bruschetta. The food was mediocre and average — nothing spectacular, but it did the job of filling us up since we were so starved from looking for a spot to eat.

Finally, Saturday means that I get to sleep in and catch up on some rest. It also means that I get to spend plenty of time preparing some delicious food!

For brunch, I followed this recipe for some crepes, I prepared the batter with Baileys instead of Frangelico. After a few failed attempts of creating proper looking crepes, I figured out the trick was to take the pan off the element for a few seconds to let it cool off, then scoop the batter in the centre as quickly as possible and then  rotate the pan to spread the batter around. Lifting the pan off heat lets the pan cool off a little to prevent too much batter getting cooked in the centre, making it too thick in the centre.

Asparagus Crepe

Once I finished preparing all the crepes, I prepared them in two ways and two other ways the day after:

Asparagus & hollandaise sauce – Boiled white asparagus and hollandaise sauce
Dessert crepe – spreading some chocolate sauce in the crepe, filled with berries, dusted with icing sugar and drizzled with Bailey’s
Mushroom & mozzarella – Sauteed some mushrooms and poured it right on top of the mozzarella cheese
Crepe salad – Baking the crepe in a bowl so that it keeps it’s shape. It adds a sweet little chip-like bowl to the salad

Berry Crepe

After a trip to Pacific Mall, my friend Mike and I were up for some Korean food for dinner. After some recommendations, we went to Ga Bin Korean Restaurant at 633 Silver Star Boulevard. The service was amazing, extremely polite and friendly. The portions were extremely generous and the number of side dishes was amazing. As you can see I ordered Bibimbap as usual as well as an appetizer of agedashi tofu. The meal also came with side dishes: noodle soup, soup, kimchi (surprisingly spicy), natto beans, kimchi, seaweed, fish cake, pickled cucumber, candied potatoes and bean sprouts. All the food was delicious and extremely good value as well.

Ga Bin Korean: Before

It was a huge meal, but we definitely finished it all.

Ga Bin Korean: After