Foodie Gift Basket

Happy weekend! 

I hope you aren't all dying in this heat wave that's suddenly upon us. I finished my first week back at my office (in the HR department) and it felt so nice to have such a warm welcome back. It's sad that I can't frolic around town biking and doing yoga mid day anymore, but at least I'll be in good company for the rest of the summer. My calendar is bursting with fun stuff for the next couple of weeks too, so I'm sure I'll have a couple stories to tell you.

Today, I have a little gift idea for you guys! For my 19th birthday, I had a bunch of friends over for a grilled cheese bar and games and I really wasn't expecting gifts but some of my friends gave me the best gift: A foodie basket!! It was perfect because they gave me a bunch of things I would never buy in my regular grocery haul but that were delicious and thoughtful. There were yummy cheeses, crusty breads, vegetable pâté, sparkling cider, and a bunch of other little things that left me with a full tummy and happy tastebuds.

For Mother's Day and for my dad's birthday, which just happen to fall within two days of each other, I decided to go to a variety of grocery stores, shops, and bakeries to pick out a couple of things for my parents (and this way I could dig in too...). I headed to Whole Foods, Thyme & Again, The Ottawa Bagelshop, Art is In, and the Real Canadian Superstore for my treats.

Why food baskets are great:

1) You can customize them with your loved one's favourite treats.

2) They can be as extravagant as you want or can be super inexpensive.

3) It's fun to explain to the recipient of your basket where and why you chose each item. 

Happy birthday dad

&

Happy Mother's Day mom

xox

Veggie Sandwich

Hello! I made a really yummy dinner this evening and I can't help but share it here on B@M. This past week, I have been kind of leaning towards more veggie based meals, I'm not saying I've gone full on vegetarian mode, but I'm definitely being more mindful about how much meat I eat. I watched a documentary about salmon recently (prime example of exam procrastination) and it really got me thinking about what we eat. That, paired with the phrase "is this good for my body" that my mom heard at yoga, has got me thinking exactly what am I consuming?
... How cheesy it that ;)

So if anybody has any good documentaries, websites, or advice about eating less meat I'm all ears!!

This is more of a compilation than anything but please enjoy these recipes I've found because they were MOUTHWATERING (and bonus: meatless)!!

Kale Caesar Salad from A Cup of Jo (the only blog I read daily). I've made this caesar vinaigrette countless times but this was the first time I used a food processor to blend it. It honestly made ALL the difference!

Ingredients
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 Tbsp mustard powder
- 1½ Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 3 Tbsp lemon juice
- ½ cup olive oil

✿ Blend all together in a food processor or mix by hand. Toss into washed, relaxed kale.

Chickpea Avocado & Pesto Sandwich from Two Peas & Their Pod. This mix is also great for eating with tortilla chips.

Ingredients
- 1 can of chickpeas, rinsed and drained
- 1 large avocado
- 2 Tbsp pesto
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice

✿ Smash all ingredients together and spread on toast!

Grilled Veggies
My mom just bought one of these as seen on TV Yoshi BBQ mats and they are AMAZING! I could go on for days or you could watch the informercial. Who's ever tried to fry an egg on a barbecue??? That's my question after watching the "before" part of the video clip. Hahaha!

Enjoy your night! xox

Raspberry Scones

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Breakfast at Midnight!!! It was on this fateful day two years ago that I started my blog and I can't believe I'm still at it! Last night we had a couple of friends over for games and some much needed drinks to celebrate the end of exams (for most of us) and we ate a huge pile of chocolate chunk waffles... at midnight. So we had breakfast at midnight to celebrate Breakfast at Midnight!! I'm so lucky to have friends that put up with my wacky ideas :)

Today, I'm going to give you guys the best raspberry scone recipe, which is fitting because my girlfriends and I just came back from an afternoon sipping tea, munching on scones, and chit chatting at a little old heritage house right in Lennoxville! Apparently they have pictures of our house archived at the museum there, so I'm booking an appointment sometime this week to go uncover some hidden gems. Our house is right on the train tracks, so wayyyyyy back when it used to be some sort of rest stop/little train station. I can't wait to find out more about its history!

Raspberry Scones

Straight from my girl Martha.

Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups flour
- ¼ cup sugar, and then 1 Tbsp for topping
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¾ tsp salt
- ½ cold unsalted butter grated 
- ¾ cup buttermilk (I never buy buttermilk, I just use Joy's trick!)
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 ½ cup raspberries. Martha says that you should use fresh, but I used frozen and that was okay)

Directions
✿ Preheat oven to 400ºF.
✿ Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Grate in the cold butter and mix until pea-size pieces form.
✿ In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and egg yolk. Slowly pour the buttermilk mixture into the flour mixture and mix until dough just comes together.
✿ Transfer to a lightly floured surface and sprinkle raspberries on top. Knead three times to fold in the raspberries and then pat down the dough to 1 inch thick. Use a cup to cut circles out of the dough or pull apart pieces. Place scones about 2 inches apart, on a parchment-lined baking sheet and sprinkle tops with one tablespoon of sugar.
✿ Bake until just golden, about 15-18 minutes.

Enjoy!

...and a gif of me blowing out the candles of one giant stack of waffles.

My Dream Smoothie

Hello!

I want to say a BIG happy Easter to all of the people that read this silly little thing!! I am in the middle of exam prep/term paper season but I can honestly not wipe the smile off my face. With the end of the school year approaching faster than a moose in heat I'm spending as much time as I can with my friends. It's so nice to live in a little town where you're a ten minute walk from just about every person you know! Since a lot of my friends are graduating this year, I am giving them extra hugs and convincing them all to just camp out in our spare bedroom for one more year. If I think about it too much I get all sad, so instead of moping around I decided to throw an Easter extravaganza!! If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll know that I absolutely love throwing dinner parties, so that's exactly what I did—a dinner party on steroids. There was a house-wide egg hunt (yes, the basement too...), egg dying, easter trivia, and a photo booth. It was amazing. We didn't have too many people over and it was great because we just sat around our big dinner booth and laughed and ate and laughed and ate. It was exactly where I wanted to be for the holidays. 

Here are a few pictures if you'd like to see:

From waking up in the morning and making myself a dippy egg and soldiers, to going all out preparing for the party and moving the gigantic TV to make room for the photo booth, and then having Al's cake that had about seventeen fire hazards on it, it was a hoot!!!

Now that I have eaten my weight in carbs, cheese, and chocolate I'm more than ready to take a step away from the pile of leftovers in my fridge and eat something a little more low key. In come smoothies!!! 

I love smoothies because they're so pretty and there are hundreds of variations. I never measure out my smoothie ingredients so I get a different flavour and texture every time. Lately, I've been experimenting with toppings and when I was Skyping with my Scottish friend Kate across the pond (hooray for technology!!), she was dying to know what I had done to make the masterpiece in the biggest picture below:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a tropical smoothie topped with homemade rawnola, greek yogurt, and fresh juicy medjool dates. A.k.a. My dream smoothie.

My Dream Smoothie

Smoothie
- Frozen mangoes
- Frozen raspberries
- 1 fresh or frozen banana (don't forget to take the peel off before freezing)
- Couple spoonfuls of greek yogurt or some type of milk if you like it less thick.
- 1 teaspoon of maca powder*
- 1/2 tablespoon of ground flax seed
- 1/2 tablespoon of hemp hearts

✿ Blend all ingredients and consume immediately!

*Okay, confession time. Last Christmas, my sister Brigitte gave me a jar of maca powder to increase my energy levels (I can sleep on any surface) and balance out my hormones. So, like the good sister I am, I used it all the time in my smoothies. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when I was eating banana-only ice cream and trolling the internet for recipes that I came across this quotation "[maca]is known to be 'Nature's Viagra'", the author of Wake the Wolves then proceeded to warn us with immense caution that it is "powerful stuff". So once I realized I had been practically shovelling nature's #1 libido booster into my daily smoothies, I decided to do a little more googling (not a good idea. like ever.) and found out that they sell it in pill form at sex stores *insert shocked emoji face*.  So if you're like me and want a little more balance and want to turn to superfoods to help with your insides, proceed with caution and take it one teaspoon at a time!!!

Rawnola- This stuff is great on soooo many things. Yogurt, smoothie bowls, plain old snacking... you name it! Maggie made it a lot on exchange for day trips and it was so so good AND easy!
- 1/2 cup shredded unsweetened coconut
- 1/2 cups oats
- 7 juicy dates**

✿ Pulse in a food processor and enjoy!

**Dates are my splurge item. I make a special trip into our local health food store—yes, we have a health food store in Lennoxville, but no movie theater or dollar store—and pick up a box of refrigerated dates FOTB. They are so juicy and fresh and they make ALL the difference when compared to the block of dried sugary stuff they call dates at the grocery store.


Other Toppings
- Fresh chopped dates
- Yogurt
- Raw cashews and almonds
- Fresh fruit
- Oats
- Coconut
- Pepita seeds
- Chia seeds
- Goji berries
- Bee pollen
- Raw Cacao nibs
... and many more!

xox G

White Chocolate Pumpkin Cups

Hi!

I'm so excited to report back from sunny Vancouver! Since last Thursday, I've been soaking up every second of this lovely spring weather and enjoying my much needed reading week. I'm on the West Coast because I was awarded a grant from my school to attend the Golden Key Canadian Regional Conference in Vancouver. I'm part of the Bishop's Golden Key Chapter and it was so cool to meet some of Canada's brightest students and be a part of such a fun couple of days. Bishop's University has given me so many opportunities and I'm always amazed at how willing they are to help a sista student out. If you think that getting my flights covered couldn't get any better, well think again! I got upgraded to first class on my way out here because I may or may not have gotten into a slight car accident on my way to the airport (from Lennoxville) which meant I almost missed my trans continental flight. Anywho, even though I risked my life, I got free unlimited wine and a solid cheese platter, so you know you win some you lose some!

While here in beautiful British Columbia, I have been staying with my sister Britt and her boyfriend Jesse. It's been such a treat to be with them for a whole week since I haven't seen them since JULY!!! I've been having so much fun strolling around their hood and eating at all their favourite little spots. I think if I lived here I would weigh ten million pounds because every restaurant, cafe, and smoothie bar has been out of this world! I also got to bike around with my friend Julia because she's also here for a conference.

Now maybe I should talk about a recipe right? Well a little while ago I got invited to the Dean of Arts and Sciences home for dinner with a group of students. I decided to bring something sweet to nibble on after dinner, so I made a batch of white chocolate pumpkin cups and they were soooo tasty!

White Chocolate Pumpkin Cups

Recipe changed a teeny tiny bit, but from Culinary Couture

Ingredients

- 12 oz. white chocolate chips or chunks
- 2 oz. cream cheese, softened
- 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or if you don't have this just a bit of cinnamon will do)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs

Directions

✿ Place cupcake liners in a 12-cup muffin tin to give your cups that little crinkle that looks like peanut butter cups.

✿ Use a double boiler to melt white chocolate. Stir with a spatula to quicken the process.

✿ With a spoon spread some of the melted chocolate onto the bottom and halfway up the sides of each cupcake liner. Set aside the remaining white chocolate. Transfer muffin tin to a freezer, and freeze liners for 10 minutes, or until completely hardened.

✿ Meanwhile, prepare the filling. Beat (with a mixer or a fork) together cream cheese, pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Beat in powdered sugar and graham cracker crumbs until well-combined. 

✿ Remove muffin tin from freezer. Divide pumpkin mixture into 12 portions. Roll each portion into a ball, place it into the cupcake liner, then flatten it out. 

✿ Reheat the white chocolate if necessary. Cover the pumpkin mixture in each liner with the melted white chocolate and tap the pan against a flat surface a few times to evenly spread out the chocolate. 

✿ Freeze for an additional 10-15 minutes. Store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.

Enjoy!

Oh and I can't forget!! I made more gifs, and don't even ask about the context...

Pancake Tuesday

Hi lovelies,

I promised myself I wouldn't blog until reading week because of how busy I am, but this post can be our little secret! Today is Pancake Tuesday and although I am Catholic, the real reason I'm celebrating this day is because a) obviously the pancake part of Pancake Tuesday and b) it's a really good excuse to use the hashtag #catholicgirlsdoitbetter on Instagram. Also, let us all note that my picture wasn't the only one when I clicked on that hashtag... No comment.

So now that my motives for stuffing my face are on the table, I can share the recipe I used this afternoon. I searched a Dutch pancake recipe, because when I was in Holland during my exchange Maggie and I had a field day at all the Pannenkoekenhuis (pancake houses). Their pancakes are kind of like crepes but they're a little thicker and still have that pancake-like fluffiness.

I used the recipe from Egg Farmers of Ontario, which is ironic because I was initially looking for some little Dutch grandmother's recipe that had leaked onto the web, but hey authentic or not, they were great!

Dutch Pancakes

✿ 1 large egg
✿ 1 teaspoon sugar
✿ 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
✿ 1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
✿ 1 teaspoon oil

Direction
- Whisk all ingredients together.
- And because I am horrible at explaining how to make crepes, I did us all a favour and copied this excerpt from the Kitchn (a.k.a. the cooking Bible... can I get an Amen?):

"Heat an 8- or 10- inch non-stick skillet (or a cast-iron crêpe pan) over medium heat. Add a small pat of butter and swirl to coat the pan.

Pour 2-3 tablespoons [I always put more than that!] of crêpe batter into the pan. Tilt the pan from side to side until the batter forms a very thin layer over the bottom of the pan. Cook until the edges of the crêpejust start to curl away from the pan (about a minute) and then flip it over to brown the other side (another 30 seconds or so)."

Enjoy! 

If you're wondering what I have been up to since my last post, well I met Justin Trudeau and Chris Hadfield, hosted a Bill Murray themed chili cook-off, won a sushi making contest, got all fancy for my school's fashion show, took full advantage of Target's closing sales (moment of silence...), stood in two places at once #walktoremember when my roommate and fellow recruitment co-worker and I invaded the US, made triple decker taco cupcakes (uh huh. yes. it happened), and studied, studied, studied.

xox Gaby

Croutons

Hello!

I'm finally back to my second home and it just feels so right! Since being back at school I have been having so much fun that I have barely realized I haven't said hello to you guys in about a month. Madness!!! Well, this evening when I was making a kale ceasar salad for Sara and I, I had an epiphany and I thought it would be just pure evil not to share my flash of brilliance with you.

So here's the deal. Nothing is better than a big salad with homemade dressing or vinaigrette, some fresh veg, and a little salmon. Nothing except adding homemade croutons. But, sometimes it's a pain to make them... Until now!

Little backstory: my roommates and I have 75,000 appliances in our house and they actually get used daily. We laugh that we are so not living in your typical student house, which is why it is funny that tomorrow a videographer (who btw filmed Brad Paisley's tour video) is coming to film a Bishop's promotional video of off-campus living in our little cozy home! I'm so excited!!! My dreams of becoming a child star are coming true... Minus the child part :) Okay sorry I got off track, we have 75,000 appliances, so today when I was making a salad and one of our panini presses (yes, one of two) was sitting on the counter I decided to use it to make croutons and it was soooooo easy and they were soooooo good!

So here's what you do:
1) Heat a panini press.
2) Spread a little coconut oil or butter on both sides of a piece of hearty bread.
3) Press your bread until golden and crispy.
4) Cut into square inch pieces and enjoy!

In other news, I love my classes so much, I have two new jobs in our campus Recruitment Office, I was introduced to an amazing sushi restaurant in Sherbrooke, I held A LIVE RAT, I found a snow tubing place close by, I joined the BU Bowling Club, and I recorded a radio commercial this week! Haha listen to CBC Sherbrooke to hear me as of February 1st!!

xoxo

G