Apple Spice Cake

Hello and happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

I'm back in Ottawa for a hot minute and since my parents had a sudden urge to be good citizens and work at the advance election polls all weekend, I've had a lot of time to do some baking, see relatives and friends, and get outside to admire the beautiful trees changing colours this time of year.

On Friday evening, I went to my aunt and uncle's house for Thanksgiving dinner and I brought along this wonderful apple cake. I had made it a couple weeks ago with hand picked apples and it was so quick, delicious and easy (i.e. Breakfast at Midnight blog post prerequisites). The last time I made this cake it was in a bit of a different context...

The day I went apple picking just happened to be when the red moon made its appearance. So when my friends and I decided to sneak onto our campus golf course and watch this rare occurrence, I had the (not so) brilliant idea to bring along an apple cake... in an extremely heavy cast iron pan... in the pitch dark... where I ultimately had to jump a fence. Needless to say not my brightest moment, but it tasted even better after the job and a half it was to get to eat it. And I can say that the second time I made it it was just as tasty!

I found the recipe on Joy the Baker (love her!!) and I knew I couldn't go wrong when she suggested making it an a cast iron pan. I mean how fall-ish does that picture look?

Apple Spice Cake

Ingredients
✿ 1½ cups all purpose flour
✿ ¾ tsp baking powder 
✿ ¼ tsp baking soda
✿ ½ tsp cinnamon
✿ ¾ tsp salt
✿ 6 Tbsp butter (just under 1/2 cup)
✿ 1 cup white sugar
✿ 1 egg
✿ 1 egg yolk
✿ 2 tsp vanilla
✿ ¾ buttermilk (you can make this by adding ¾ Tbsp of white vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk, then letting it sit for a minute)
✿ 4 apples, sliced into thin rounds and cored
✿ ¼ cup sugar and ¾ tsp cinnamon for topping

Directions
- Preheat oven to 375ºF. Once this is heated put a little butter in a cast iron skillet and stick it in the oven to melt it. Then spread it around with a paper towel to grease the pan.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
- With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until well incorporated and lighter in colour (roughly 3 minutes).
- Add the egg and yolk and beat for 1 minute, followed by the vanilla.
- Turn your mixer to low and add in half of the flour mixture.
- Add the buttermilk and then the remaining flour. Beat until just incorporated.
- Spoon the batter into the greased pan and then top with ALL THOSE APPLES!!
- Sprinkle the cinnamon-sugar mixture onto the apples.
- Bake for about 35-40 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean from the centre of the cake.
- Preferably paired with vanilla ice cream and enjoyed under a cozy blanket, while listening to soft acoustic music.

Enjoy fall, my lovelies!!

xox

Roasted Veggies

Hello sweet readers!

I hope I haven't lost you all :) I am working on a bigger post about everything cake, buttercream, ganache, truffles, tiers, toppings at the moment, but in the mean time I am itching to give you a little trick I used yesterday when roasting some cauliflower and sweet potato. 

I wanted a quick but filling dinner between classes, so I biked home and scavenged around a bit in my fridge and cupboards to throw a meal together that could get me through a three hour lecture on the changing trends in labour relations (i.e. something that would also keep me awake!!). 

And guess what I discovered? The best seasoning for roasted veggies in a pinch is.................... taco seasoning! It makes sense, in most taco seasonings you have chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, red pepper flakes, oregano, paprika, cumin, salt, etc., so basically what I usually sprinkle on my cauliflower before roasting it, but this was just so easy!! Especially if you're a student like me and most meals you make need to be made in about 10 seconds while brushing your teeth and finishing up a reading. Also, if you don't have a stacked spice rack you can just buy a pack of taco seasoning for a couple bucks and voila!

So here are the deets on the steps I took to achieve crispy mouthwatering roasted vegetables:

Ingredients:

✿ One head of cauliflower

✿ One sweet potato

✿ One package of taco seasoning

✿ Drizzle of olive oil

Directions:

- This is very simple, so follow closely :) 

- Preheat the oven to 400ºF.

- Cut up the roasted cauliflower and sweet potato into bite sized pieces (pictured above).

- Place on a baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil.

- Sprinkle a little taco seasoning on the veggies. You don't need to use the whole pack.

- Bake for 30 minutes or until golden and crispy.

- Serve on toast with hummus, in a salad, in a wrap with fresh vegetables, or shove it in your face because it's THAT good.

 

I'll be back soon with more goodies to share!!

xox

G

Breakfast in Ottawa

Since this blog is called Breakfast at Midnight I think it’s about time that I write a bit about breakfast! Breakfast seems like a pretty safe zone, compared to brunch, which for some reason people have such strong opinions about. I feel like you can categorize people into two buckets: brunch lovers and brunch haters. I know you know what I mean, there’s the total brunch lovers that take birds eye view Instagram pictures of their perfectly crisp croissant or eggs benedict on blue and white china, with their glass of OJ and coffee placed right at 1 and 2 o’clock. Then for others, brunch and by association brunch lovers are just the bane of their existence.

Well I’m a brunch lover, so haters gonna hate.

But we’re not talking brunch! We’re talking breakfast, a.k.a. Switzerland in this battle.

There’s nothing I love more than going for breakfast on a Saturday or Sunday morning and I just happen to live in a city, four months out of the year, that is bursting with cute little spots to grab a bite to eat early in the AM. So here are my favourite breakfast places in Ottawa broken down into a couple of categories:

1)      Best Vegetarian Breakfast

2)      Best Trendy Breakfast 

3)      Best Bring-Your-Mother-In-Law Breakfast

4)      Best Greasy Spoon Breakfast

5)      Best Classic Ottawa Breakfast

1) Best Vegetarian Breakfast goes to The Wild Oat

If you’re frolicking around the city with a vegan or vegetarian and you’re looking for a good breakfast that veggie-heads and meat lovers alike will enjoy, then the Wild Oat is for you. They have a great selection of plant based breakfasts and a wicked good bakery attached to it. Bonus: It’s kind of hippie moms/Glebe adventurer central so don’t feel bad if you just rolled out of bed, threw your hair into a bun and strapped on your Tevas, you'll blend right in!

Favourite thing to order: The Croissant Breakfast Sandwich with cheese…. Those croissants alone bring me back to sipping a café au lait along the Seine.

2) Best Trendy Breakfast goes to Art Is In

I love Art Is In because even though everybody and their brother knows about this bakery/restaurant, I feel like I’m in on a secret when I turn into the big ugly factory complex that it is nestled into. This place is filled with urban hipsters drinking matcha lattes and munching on kale salads (#guilty) but I love it. It’s popular for a reason, and that reason is that the food is so dang good! They also have the best bread in town, so more often than not I buy a loaf to-go after my meal.

3) Best Bring-Your-Mother-In-Law Breakfast goes to Scone Witch

When I used to work downtown I would sometimes treat myself to one of Scone Witch’s mouth-watering scones on my lunch hour. And now that my yoga studio is a hop skip and a jump from their newest location I am finally reunited with the cutest little spot to go have some tea, scones, or a light breakfast with the ladies. They’re famous for their sconewitches, which are scone-sandwiches… brilliant, I know!

Favourite thing to order: The Cream Cheese & Cucumber Sconewitch on a lemon poppyseed scone.

4) Best Greasy Spoon Breakfast goes to the Elgin Street Diner

This place could leave a huge football player full after breakfast or could please your elderly grandmother, in other words, they have something for everyone! The Elgin Street Diner has been featured on You Gotta Eat Here and word on the street (or on their website haha) is that they have been voted best diner, best breakfast, best poutine, and best milkshake in Ottawa. Phew!! Aside from all the stellar honours, they have won a place in my heart for the sole reason that they offer a gazillion choices of bread with your meal, including bagels!! Oh and they have 99 cent cappuccinos... the real key to my heart.

5) Best Classic Ottawa Breakfast goes to the Ottawa Bagel Shop

Bagels? Did someone say bagels?? I guess maybe bagels aren't really a thing like they are in Montreal, but whenever I'm back in Ottawa this is the first place I go to, and I've been going to for my whole life. There’s a bit of controversy over what is the best place to get bagels in Ottawa but since the Ottawa Bagel Shop is a ten minute walk away from my house it wins over Kettleman’s Bagel Shop any day. Either one has freshly baked bagels and an array of tasty breakfast options to go along/on the bagels. When I was a little kid, it was the biggest treat when my parents would bring home some of their cinnamon puffs!

**Honourable mention goes to Baker Street Cafe because it seems to be a Westboro staple. To be honest though this breakfast joint didn’t make my top 5 cut because there’s usually at least a half hour wait to get in and I’m so not about that life. Also, the portions are HUGE, so much so that my mom and I split a meal and were still SO full.

*** Other places that have been on my radar but I haven’t tried out for breakfast yet are Stone Face Dolly’s, Fraser Cafe, and Wilf and Ada's.

**** I should probably also say that the pictures for Art is In, Scone Witch, and Elgin Street Diner weren't taken by me, but I couldn't wait a second longer to post this guide to breakfast in Ottawa, so I cheated a bit :)

Shawarma with Falafel and Garlic Sauce

Hello! I hope you are all having lovely summers so far. I posted a picture on Instagram the other day with the caption "Summer has been so good to me so far" because I've recently just been basking in the little moments that are so uniquely summer. Last weekend, I went for a bike ride and hit up seven different festivals along the way! This weekend, I watched the sunset at the beach while sipping wine on a blanket, went to an outdoor concert, ran in the hot rain, picked strawberries with my mom, and drove up to the country to eat baked goods with freshly picked lavender. See what I mean? Summer summer summer. And although I am totally a die hard fall lover, summer is slowly inching its way into my heart. 

If you are wondering about my no-dessert challenge, it's been going well! I have been doing lots of cooking and baking because I feel like being in contact with sweets is kind of, sort of the same as eating them, right?? On Father's day, I wanted to make a meal that my whole family could not only eat but enjoy, which is harder than it sounds with two vegetarians, one meat lover, and two eat-anythings. I landed on shawarma with homemade garlic sauce and falafel and they were oh-so delicious! Even my dad was happy with his meal. Gasp!! 

My friend Kelly requested a blog post for these beauties, so ask and you shall receive said the Lord food blogger.

Shawarma with Falafel and Garlic Sauce

For the garlic sauce, I was looking for a recipe that was very very close to the sauce they serve at all the shawarma places in Ottawa. You know the type I mean, thick, garlicky, and the best part of the pita. After a lot  of googling and searching on Pinterest, I found a recipe that didn't require a whole cup of garlic and seemed fairly fail proof. I'm just going to link the recipe here because there are more steps than the Eiffel Tower...

Garlic Sauce

Be warned though that this is a little difficult to get just right and add the oil VERY slowly, like a couple drops at a time or else your sauce will separate. It might take you a little bit of time too,  but don't give up because everyone in my family agreed that this was key to the whole meal!

Falafel

This recipe, that I adapted from one I found on Pinterest, is the BOMB. So so so easy and good either in a pita with toppings, in a salad, or by itself. 

Ingredients

✿ Two cans of chickpeas (500g x 2)

✿ ½ cup fresh parsley, chopped

✿ ½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped

✿ 1 carrot, grated

✿ 1 onion, chopped

✿ 6 cloves of garlic, minced

✿ 4 Tbsp flour

✿ 1 tsp paprika

✿ 1 tsp rosemary

✿ ¼ tsp chili powder

✿ 1 tsp cumin

(or if you don't have a stacked spice rack just throw in a couple shakes of whatever to give it a little flavour... my version of "cooking")

✿ salt and pepper to taste

✿ 2 Tbsp tahini

Instructions

- Use a food processor to blend chickpeas

- Then add the chickpea paste to a large bowl and mix in the rest of the ingredients.

- Heat some oil in a frying pan

- Make the patties (about 2-3 Tbsp per patty)

- Fry them on each side for a minute, then bake them at 350ºF for 10 minutes on each side.

- Add the falafels to a pita with the garlic sauce, hummus, lettuce, tomato, and pickled turnip. 

- Enjoy!

xox

Gaby

Crostini with Mango Salsa

Hello! It seems that in the past little while I have taken the time to blog only when it is a way of procrastinating. Clean my room or write a post? Go for a run or write a post? Work on my research study or write a post? I am living the latter right now because talking about salsa and desserts (or lack thereof) is way more fun than reading approximately the five hundredth article on organizational trust, so here we are!!

First things first, I want to tell you just HOW GOOD making your own salsa is! I recently had a bunch of fruits and vegetables that needed to be eaten up so I got chopping and made my very own mango salsa. Yum yum yum!

Side note: Forgive me for the vagueness of these ingredient measurements, I made this roughly a month ago.

Crostini with Mango Salsa & Goat Cheese

Ingredients:
Salsa:
✿ 2 tomatoes, chopped
✿ 1 mango, chopped
✿ 1 sweet potato, chopped and roasted
✿ ½ red onion, chopped
✿ 1 red pepper, chopped
✿ 1 cup of cilantro, chopped
✿ a couple squeezes of lime juice

Crostini:
✿ Baguette
✿ Goat cheese, softened
✿ Olive Oil
✿ Avocado, sliced

Directions:
1. Before anything else, heat the oven to 375ºF to roast the sweet potato. Now you don't need to add sweet potato to this salsa, but I put sweet potatoes in almost everything!

2. If you opt in to adding sweet potatoes, chop them up, mix them with some olive oil and them plop them in the oven on a baking sheet. Take them out once they get soft and golden (about 25-30 minutes).

3. Next, chop up all the fruits and veggies and mix them together with the lime juice to taste. Add a bit of salt and pepper if you're feeling it needs a little something something.

4. This is a pivotal point in this recipe, you can either dig into the salsa with a spoon OR slice the baguette, spread some goat cheese onto the pieces, drizzles said pieces with olive oil, and bake in the oven for a couple of minutes till the edge are just crispy (5-10 minutes). 

5. Then, you can slice up some avocado, add it to the crostini that just came out of the oven, and then top with your delicious mango salsa! VOILA!

Okay, now I guess that was the good news first, now I have a confession to make...

I am not eating desserts for 50 days #fiftydaysofgrey (inspired by this blog). You heard right. CRAZY, I know. 50 days without desserts is a lot of days and especially for me (a.k.a. the cookie monster incarnate). BUT I think it will be good to take a step back and see all the sugar I eat. Since starting on June 1st, it has been insane to see how many times I am confronted with sweets. There are desserts popping up EVERYWHERE and I'm like helllllo where were these when I could actually eat them????

Along with me, my mom, my sister and my cousin aren't eating desserts either which makes it more fun because we can text each other live updates about how we aren't indulging.
Conversations go something like this:
"Look at this double chocolate oreo cheesecake I DIDN'T eat today *includes pictures of cake*"
"Oh yeah, well I didn't eat a four layer brownie/cookie salted caramel thingy at work" and so on...

What I won't look like for fifty days :'(

It was so bad the other day that I stopped in at a bakery just to look. How sad is that? Low point in my life, I know. Okay maybe I'm being a bit dramatic, it's actually kind of nice to eat healthier and who knows maybe I'll actually learn something from doing this. Maybe.

I'll keep you posted!!

xox
G

Veggie Burgers with Beet Hummus

I figured I should post something sooner or later seeing as I haven't shared any recipes in forever!! I tried the best veggie burgers from Oh She Glows last night and I whipped out my camera faster than you can say oh-my-god-did-I-just-make-a-non-soggy-veggie-burger. They were fast to make and Angela goes on and on about how she tested out tons of recipes before she landed on these beauties. So even if you aren't vegetarian, these puppies will have your mouth watering.

In other news, I ran my second half marathon this past Sunday and spent the weekend with my cousins Ali and Moni who always come down to Ottawa for my favourite weekend of the year. There were close to 50,000 runners for Ottawa Race Weekend this year and it's just an overall fun, active, and exciting weekend. Even though it took me about ten minutes to sit down on the toilet on Monday, the race was worth it for all happy faces along the way and the expensive granola bars at the finish line.

Veggie Burgers

Recipe by Oh She Glows

Ingredients:

✿  ½ cup onion, diced

✿  1 minced garlic clove

✿  Flax eggs: 2½ tbsp ground flax + ½ cup warm water

✿  1 cup oats, processed into flour in a food processor

✿  1½ cups bread crumbs 

✿  1 cup grated carrots

✿  1 cup mashed black beans

✿  Heaping ¼ cup finely chopped parsley

✿  ⅓ cup chopped almonds

✿  ½ cup sunflower seeds

✿  1 Tbsp olive oil

✿  1 Tbsp soy sauce

✿  1½ tsp chili powder

✿  1 tsp cumin

✿  1 tsp oregano

✿  Little shake of salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat a pan and sauté onions and garlic in a little oil (about ½ Tbsp). 

2. Mix the warm water and the ground flax in a small bowl and let sit for at least 10 minutes to make a "vegan egg" or what looks like egg whites.

3. Mix together all ingredients and then add seasonings. 

4. Wet hands and shape patties. I used a large round cookie cut to make them a perfect patties, but hands work perfectly fine too :) I made 6 patties, but Angela suggests 8. 

5. I cooked mine on the pan I used to sauté the onions and garlic on medium heat. Cook the burgs for about 5 minutes on each side or until nice and crispy on the outside. You can check out the original Oh She Glows post for instructions on cooking on the bbq or in the oven.

Beet Hummus
Recipe adapted from Minimalist Baker

I wanted to add a little something something to my burgers so I threw some chickpeas, beats, and a couple other ingredients into a food processor to make some beet hummus. Isn't it so cute and pink!?

I also topped my veggie-burgers-from-heaven with lemon aioli, crumbled goat cheese, and chopped parsley. Can you say yum??

Ingredients:

✿  A couple (2-3) small beets (Confession time: I was lazy and just used canned instead of roasting my own. #talesofaweeknightcook)

✿  1 15 oz can of drained and rinsed chickpeas 

✿  3 Tbsp lemon juice 

✿  Little dash of salt & pepper

✿  2 cloves of minced garlic

✿  2 heaping Tbsp tahini

✿  ¼ cup olive oil

Directions:

1. Blend together until smooooooth in a food processor!

2. Admire the beautiful pink colour.

Enjoy!

G

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