Eggsactly What You Need

Kitchen Must-have:

Mini egg frying pan: It makes the perfect breakfast sandwich and the egg is the just the right thickness.

That is all. Have an eggsellent day ;)

Gaby

Company's Coming

Hello!

The other night I had some dinner guests and I made the best shepherd's pie. It wasn't your mother's shepherd's pie, it was made with sweet potatoes and ground chicken. I mainly made it because I got a ton of ground chicken for $5 the other day! I froze it (#typical) so I have chicken coming out of my ears. 

Sweet Potato Shepherd's Pie with Ground Chicken

Adapted from Skinny Taste

Ingredients: 

For the potatoes:

- 2 sweet potatoes, peeled, diced

- 3 cloves garlic

- ½ cup milk

- ¼ cup chicken broth

- 2 Tbsp sour cream

- salt and pepper to taste

For the filling: 

- 1 lb ground chicken

- 1 tsp olive oil

- 1 medium onion, diced

- 1 celery stalk, chopped

- 2 cloves garlic, diced

- 8 oz mushrooms, diced

- 10 oz frozen mixed vegetables 

- 2 tbsp flour 

- 1 cup chicken broth

- 2 tsp tomato paste

- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

- 1 tsp rosemary

- salt and pepper

Directions:

✿ Boil sweet potatoes and garlic until cooked and soft. Drain and mash with chicken broth, sour cream, milk, salt and pepper.  

✿ Preheat oven to 400°F.

✿ In a large saute pan brown chicken; season with salt and pepper. When cooked, drain and set aside on a plate. Add olive oil to the pan, then add the onion and sauté one minute. Add the celery, salt and pepper to taste; cook about 12 minutes, until celery is soft.

✿ Add garlic and mushrooms; sauté another 3-4 minutes. Add flour, salt and pepper and mix well. Add frozen vegetables, chicken broth, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary, cooked chicken, and mix well. Simmer on low about 5-10 minutes.  

✿ In an oven safe dish spread meat mixture on the bottom of the dish. Top with mashed sweet potatoes. Use a fork to scrape the top of the potatoes to make ridges. Bake 20 minutes or until potatoes turn golden. Remove from oven and let it cool 10 minutes before serving.

With some fresh bread and a glass of wine you can't go wrong! I also served cranberry scones and ice cream from a local dairy in Coaticook for dessert. I saw a post on a blog I love about untranslatable words. One of them was the spanish word "sobremesa" that means the after-dinner conversation. I loved that! Well we had a lot of "sobremesa" until late last night and I was little sleepy this morning when I rolled out of bed to bike to campus and head out to discover the Eastern Townships with the BU Environmental Club. We had a lovely day and I had a well deserved three hour nap and a hot hot shower when I got home. 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and run out to the store to get some sweet potatoes and ground chicken! 

Gaby

p.s. Check out my new blog features by clicking on the My Food or Me pics on the right hand side, and see where it takes you ;)

The Mix

Hi lovelies,

Two posts in two days? Wow (more like #procrastination from making stats notes...)! A few summers ago we were up at my aunt and uncle's cottage in Southampton and my aunt D'Arcy made The Mix. It is necessary to capitalize the name because it was a pivotal point in my life. Those Farlow girls sure know how to make good food combinations. Exhibit A: We had been going to a Lebanese bakery to get meat or cheese pies for years. When we brought my cousin Robyn and asked her if she wanted a meat or cheese pie, she responded with "Meat AND cheese together in one". From that day on, we've always gotten meat and cheese pitas! It really is the simple things with food. Exhibit B: Up at the cottage we were making sandwiches and D'Arcy mixed hard boiled eggs and tuna in ONE SANDWICH. I was a little unsure, so you can be too, but the result was incredible and since then it's one of my favourites.

The Mix

- 1 hardboiled egg 

- 1 can of tuna (drained)

- 1 tbsp of mayonnaise (or however much you like)

- A few tbsp of grated cheddar cheese

- 1 english muffin

- s&p to taste

✿ Mix the first three ingredients together in a small bowl. 

✿ Spread The Mix equally on both sides of the english muffin.

✿ Grate cheese on top of The Mix.

✿ Bake on a small cooking sheet at 350℉ until cheese has melted and english muffin is crispy.

✿ Add s&p to taste.

Let's Talk Cookies

Hey guys and gals,

I hope you aren't drowning in too much work this week! It is officially my weekend so I can sit back and relax. Nvm I have like 538439439038 things to do so my weekend will be go go go. I want to get some of my work done early though because I want to participate in the annual Tomiphobia Trail Clean-up with the environmental club on Saturday. I went last year and it was a good bonding experience with the club, plus we got to be in the great outdoors during my favourite season.

This summer I watched a movie and one of the main characters drops out of Harvard Law to open a bakery because she got caught up baking every time she had a study session... Is this my future?? Well judging from this week, that's sounding pretty good! For my International Business class we have to analyze a case study in a group of five every week so my friends Rachel, Kelly, Becky, and Karly all came over to my house to work on it. One of the things I love the most about my house is the big harvest dinner table and the banquet that can fit so many people. It's perfect for big meals or group projects. I made cookie squares for the meeting and they sure were a hit.

Cookie Squares

- ⅔ cup shortening

- ½ cup white sugar

- ½ cup brown sugar                       

- 1 egg

- 1 teaspoon vanilla

- 1½ cups flour

- ½ teaspoon salt

- ½ teaspoon baking soda

- 1 cup chocolate chips (milk choc. taste the best.)

✿ Cream together the first 5 ingredients then add flour, salt baking soda. 

✿ Mix well and then add the chocolate chips. 

✿ Grease pan with shortening (8x8).

✿ Bake 375 degrees for 17 min. or until light brown.  

This recipe is quick and easy and only requires one bowl. You can make them in no time at all because you don't need to roll them or scoop them, just pat them down in a pan. You'll be having study groups in no time if you make these ;)

xox Gaby

Wild Blueberries? Muffins!

Hello hello!

I have a little break in my day today so I get to go home! Later on in the year I will probably use this time to be productive but right now I've done everything I can do, so I can goof around on the internet and write a blog post. Here is the muffin recipe I mentioned a little while ago. Oh btw WE HAVE INTERNET. So I can finally write blog posts from home, which is ten thousand times more convenient.

Banana Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins

1 ½ C whole wheat flour

1 C oats 

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

¼ C sugar

¼ heaping C melted coconut oil

1 tsp vanilla 

1 egg

2 large bananas 

⅓ C apple sauce

¼ hemp hearts (optional)

1 C blueberries 

✿ Combine flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
✿ Mash bananas and add in sugar, melted coconut oil, vanilla, egg, apple sauce and mix well.
✿ Combine wet and dry ingredients and then add the hemp hearts (optional) and blueberries.

✿ Fill 18 muffin cups with liners or spray with cooking oil/spray.

✿ Bake for 17 minutes at 400 degrees.

These are so good and it makes so many! Plus they are pretty healthy for you :) Enjoy!

Gaby

Dessert and Drinks

Hi readers,

I'm sitting in Tim Hortons and using their WiFi but I didn't buy anything. I'm such a rebel. I hope everybody had a smooth transition back to school, and that my friends in their first year haven't died during frosh. We still don't have internet but our house is really shaping up! Here are a few pics of my room:

DIY project

My roomates Sara and Ariane had birthdays in August so we celebrated last night with a vegan cake I made. Since Sara is vegan I decided to alter a recipe I had already made. I used my Grandma's Wacky Cake recipe but instead of using butter, I used margarine. For the icing I used the following recipe

Vegan Buttercream

Ingredients:

- ¼ cup vegetable shortening

- ¼ cup margarine

- 2 cups icing sugar

- 3 Tbsp almond milk

 Directions:

✿ Whip margarine and shortening together with an electric mixer.

✿ Slowly add sugar and milk in small amounts.

✿ Add a few Tbsp of cocoa powder for chocolate icing

Chocolate Center!!

Nice face...

#selftimer

By the way this is the cake stand I bought at Chapters that I mentioned a few posts ago. After the birthday celebrations last night I went over to some friends' house for our usual Shirley Temple Thursday. I'm happy that the bottle of grenadine survived the move and that Elizabeth has fancy glasses to drink them in. I swear they taste better in those instead of Dewies cups. There may or may not have been some vodka added to them as well...

Thanks for reading!

xox Gaby

Lobsters and Labour Day

Hi guys!

I am finally settled into my house in Lennoxville and I'm loving it! I will post pictures as soon as everything is put away and my room is decorated. I started some DIY decorations for my room yesterday but then got distracted by visitors and now my room looks like the clearance section at Michael's. Since my housemates (Ellen, Sara, and Ariane) and I don't have internet yet, I am camped out in the library using their internet.

I have started cooking and some of the recipes I've made so far include the Green Monster smoothie, and the cauliflower pasta. I went grocery shopping before my mom and Steffi left on Sunday and my cart was overflowing. At least I have stuff to put in my cupboards now! I'm super pumped though cause Sara's grandparents got us a NutriBullet (made by Magic Bullet) and I've already tested it out! We also have enough tupperware to have a startup business so I will be making tons of meals and freezing them. But for now, I'm going to a free supper in a church basement with friends #studentliving.

I left my muffin recipe in my kitchen so I can't share it with you now, but one day I will for sure. Instead, I can tell you guys about my amazing trip to Maine. As you might know from reading my Montreal post, I love seafood, so I'm in heaven in Maine. One of my favourite things to do there is go to Red's Eats lobster shack. They have the most amazing lobster rolls with more than a whole lobster's meat in EACH ONE! They have been written about in so many magazines such as Bon Appétit. I once read a fictional book where the author added that the characters ate there! I felt so in the know.

Here are some pictures from our trip!

At the Pemequid Lighthouse

 

My absolute favourite candies! Only at the Granite General Store in Round Pound, ME

I die every time #fatchild

Hey there handsome!

Sea kayaking 

The view from our cottage 

Too bad Britt wasn't there :(

When we attempted to ride in the row boat. #Thenotebook

I had a fantastic summer and an amazing trip but I'm glad to be back. There's something unbelievably welcoming about Bishop's and it's nice to walk down the street and run into four people you know within the first few minutes. The best thing happened to me today. I was in the bookstore with Sara and Ellen and I saw a froshie checking out a psych book. I knew that that book was for a class I took last year so I used my upper year wisdom and told her that she doesn't need the book and the prof even recommends not buying it. She was really happy that I saved her $180 and I was even happier because she was like "Hey, you have a cooking blog right?" and I was all like "Ya! That's so cool that you recognized me" but on the inside I was like "HOLY SMOKES, I'M FAMOUS". So if you're reading Emma, thanks for making my day.  

See you on the flip side folks.

- Gaby