Many of us don’t need to be reminded that there’s only a few days left before exam season starts, but we might need a reminder to make time for a nice home cooked meal. It’s easy to turn to buying lunch or dinner when you’re tight on time during these next few weeks, but there are ways to make cooking an enjoyable experience while relieving some stress too.

The Sil staff have compiled their favourite recipes that are easy to make, especially when you’re short on time. We encourage you to try them out, change up the ingredients and most importantly, take the time to take care of yourself this season.

 

Hands-off tomato sauce

Shared by Sasha Dhesi (Managing Editor)

Pasta is a staple batch recipe since it’s fairly easy, delicious and lasts the whole work week. While most people don’t have time to make homemade pasta, students don’t have to rely on jarred sauces and compromise their time. 

Making a sauce at home can seem challenging, but simple recipes like this one are great for students low on time and on a budget.

I adapted this recipe from Bon Appetit’s Bucatini with Butter-Roasted Tomato Sauce. I replaced a few of the more expensive ingredients with more accessible, easier kept items that make more sense for students to keep around in the house. The recipe should make about four servings and take about 40 minutes, but only 20 of those minutes are active! This is a great recipe to make while studying at home — just pop the sauce into the oven and you’ll have a great sauce in no time!

 

Ingredients

 

Steps

    1. Crush the garlic cloves, removing their skin. Cut the butter into small cubes. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
    2. Pour the can of tomatoes into a rectangular baking dish. With your hands, gently crush the tomatoes. Add garlic and butter cubes to baking dish alongside tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. roast for 20 minutes.
    3. Take the baking dish out of the oven and add the fish sauce and chili paste to the dish. If you don’t like heat, don’t add the chili paste! If you like it spicy, feel free to add more. Return dish to oven for another 20 minutes.
    4. While the sauce roasts for another 20 minutes, begin cooking the pasta. Boil four to five quarts of water, adding salt when the water starts to release steam. Once the water boils, add the pasta and cook according to the pasta’s instructions. Reserve one cup of pasta water, and drain the pasta.
    5. Once the sauce is done roasting, remove it from the oven and let it cool slightly. Using a fork or masher, crush the garlic and tomatoes into a jam-like texture. Add the pasta and sauce into one pot. Toss the pasta and sauce with tongs, slowly adding about ¼ cup of pasta water to thin the sauce.
    6. Serve while warm, garnished with parmesan.

 

Warm carrot and potato soup

Shared by Hannah Walters-Vida (Features Reporter)

In an effort to describe how good this soup is, the most a room full of Sil writers could come up with is “warm, warm soup, it hugs you from the inside”. Pretty much everyone in the office will agree that this is a great recipe for soup. I typically double the recipe and freeze the soup in mason jars for when I need a quick, filling meal.

This recipe is originally by Jennifer Segal and I made a few modifications to make it vegan friendly. This recipe yields 8 servings and takes about 45 minutes to make, but most of the time is spent letting the soup simmer. This soup can stay fresh in the freezer for up to 3 months, so it’s worth the investment in time. Just make sure to pop it into the fridge the day before wanting to reheat it!

 

Ingredients

 

Steps

    1. Heat the vegetable oil over medium heat in a large pot.
    2. Add chopped onions and stir for about ten minutes or until soft. Avoid letting the onions turn brown.
    3. Add the curry powder and cook for an additional minute.
    4. Add chopped carrots, sweet potatoes, vegetable broth and salt. Allow the vegetables to come to a boil.
    5. Cover the pot and allow the vegetables to simmer on low heat for about 25-30 minutes.
    6. Stir in the chopped apples and honey. If you have a stick blender, you can directly puree the soup in the pot until the consistency is smooth and creamy. If you have a blender, let the soup cool slightly and then puree it in batches. Segal recommends leaving the hole in the lid open and covering it with a kitchen towel while blending to allow the steam to escape.
    7. Season your soup to taste with salt, pepper, curry powder or honey if desired.

 

Black bean and chickpea salad

Shared by Razan Samara (Arts & Culture Editor)

This is my go-to recipe for dinner with friends and potlucks. It also makes for a perfect side dish alongside lunch or dinner, I personally think it pairs really well with chicken tawook tacos and panko-breaded fish. This recipe yields about 3-4 servings and was inspired by Cookie and Kate.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve found myself become quite reliant on this recipe. It requires minimal effort, which means I can throw a whole batch together pretty quickly the night before my early morning commutes. This recipe has filling ingredients, can easily travel and can be modified to meet your taste preferences. I encourage you to keep things new and interesting with every rendition of the dish!

 

Ingredients

 

Steps

    1. In a large bowl (like really large), combine all of your beans, corn, chickpeas and vegetables. Add in the lime or lemon juice, zest, olive oil and season with ground cumin, salt and black pepper to your taste! I tend to go heavy on the cumin.
    2. Mix all your ingredients.
    3. You can serve right away or cover the bowl and let it chill in the fridge for a couple hours to really enhance the flavours. This recipe can also last in the fridge for about 2-3 days, just make sure to replenish the flavours by adding in lemon or lime juice and giving it a quick stir before serving! I also like to add fresh tomatoes.
    4. Garnish with slices of lime, extra cilantro, avocados or even some tortilla chips!

 

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Despite being a relative newcomer to Hamilton’s restaurant scene, The Burnt Tongue has already had remarkable success. Located between Cannon and James, owners Leo Tsangarakis and Dan Robinson hit the ground running when their doors opened in the midst of a 2013 Super Crawl. Since then, their restaurant has been featured on The Huffington Post, the Food Network, and topped a number of Hamilton “must eat here” lists.

Every stop at the Burnt Tongue has yet to disappoint. From butternut squash, spicy chipotle, dhal, or Finnish split pea and apple, the list of soups offered goes on. Better still, each of the soups can be paired off beautifully with daily sandwiches and salads during the summer, or with classic burgers, fries, and grilled cheese. They even provide Rudy’s Pallettas and ice cream if you’re in the need of a refreshing dessert.

While some of these sides are certainly good enough to stand on their own, the soups at The Burnt Tongue always take centre stage through an ever-changing daily menu. In its first year of business alone, the Burnt Tongue has offered more than 600 soups, each posted on their signature chalkboard menu, displayed across their Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, everyday at 11:30.

After talking soup, small business, and social media with co-owner Leo Tsangarakis, it’s easy to see why The Burnt Tongue is such a success. By mixing culinary talent with smart business and design decisions,  Tsangarakis has made The Burnt Tongue Hamilton’s latest foodie staple.

Leo stresses that his restaurant was created to be accessible to everyone, in terms of both the food and the aesthetic.

“People relate us to a kind of ‘barn-like’ [atmosphere]...to me that just ends up meaning comfortable, organic and rustic. I had a very clear vision of how I wanted to do that. The massive community board was a must down here. I wanted a whole wall dedicated to corkboard and just nothing but people putting their business cards or whatever because that’s just how James Street came to be, just from the community.”

Leo personally created the interior design some friends who helped to craft the industrial design-inspired touches, such as the hanging Mason jar light fixtures (a clever play off of the soup theme), concrete sinks in the bathroom, and the dedicated cork board wall. The nostalgic décor combined with friendly counter-service has allowed many diners to take ownership of the space and further spread the word.

“Every other day we have people bringing their friends and they’re showing them their place and that’s more then alright with us… you don’t really get that from dine-in restaurants. You could, but you’re left more alone at The Burnt Tongue. Yeah, we will check up on how your food is doing and we hope everything is alright, but the casual nature creates a bit more ownership for the consumer for sure.”

The daily menu updates on social media was conceptualized from the beginning, and Leo believes it contributed greatly to the restaurants early success. “I would definitely use the exact same format if I opened another restaurant.” The restaurateur has hinted to the possibility of opening a second location.

Clearly, people are paying attention, as “@theburnttongue” currently boasts 3,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 4,000 likes on Facebook.

While the Burnt Tongue’s dynamic daily menu and comfortable atmosphere no doubt contributed to the early success of the restaurant, it couldn’t have been pulled off if it wasn’t for the work of the stellar chefs behind every bowl.

Head chef and co-owner Dan, (or “the Tongue” as Leo put it), has a knack for consistently creating a large variety of flavours, each of which can satisfy even the most adamant “not-a-soup-guy” guys.

Dan and the kitchen team head to Westdale’s Fiddes Wholesale Produce early in the morning, take into account the weather forecast and other elements that influence customers’ cravings, and formulate the day’s menu. Certain fan favourites are always subject to make a reappearance based on request or simply how fast they sell. While vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options are almost always a mainstay on the menu, the kitchen staff first and foremost commits to using fresh ingredients every single day.

While soup isn’t exactly synonymous with the summertime, The Burnt Tongue’s vast menu offerings and the quality of each and every bowl makes this place a must visit this season.

The positive reception is well deserved, and though he wouldn’t confirm or deny the whereabouts of the pending second location, Leo again and again expressed their excitement and gratitude for the continued interest and love that the city has given them as they approach the two year mark.

If you’re longing for the flavours of the summer months but are too fearful of the cold to venture towards the barbeque, this hybrid recipe combines the best of warm weather tastes and cold weather coping strategies. Let this taco soup warm the cockles of your heart and reminisce on the ghosts of summers past.

Ingredients:

-       Roughly 3 tbsp olive oil
-       1/3 of a yellow onion
-       1 red or yellow bell pepper
-       2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (you can find these in your canned food aisle; they look super gross, but are delicious)
-       A pinch of cumin
-       Salt and pepper to taste
-       1 ½ cups vegetable stock
-       1 can black beans (or bean medley, up to you), rinsed
-       ½ avocado
-       Corn chips or corn tortilla

Directions:

-       In a medium-sized pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat

-        Finely chop the onion and bell pepper, and sauté in the oil; season with cumin, salt and pepper

-        Once the onions have softened add in the chopped chipotle peppers

-        Now add in the stock and rinsed beans and continue to cook until warmed through

-        Top with avocado and corn chips (or panfry your own corn tortillas cut in small strips). Serves 2.

10 Cannon Street East
4/5 Stars

Sneakily hidden behind craft stores and mini-marts sits one of Hamilton’s newest novelty food hotspots. Sandwiched between two of the city’s busiest streets, James North and Cannon East, is the new gourmet soup advocate, The Burnt Tongue.

The Burnt Tongue has been up and running since September of last year, selling a variety of homemade soups alongside fries and burgers. Located in the Hammer’s cultural hotspot and primary Artcrawl location, the restaurant has been well received in the high-traffic area (a Twitter search of their name will bring up songs of their praise from an already devoted following).

I headed to the restaurant with a friend on a day when their rotational menu included macaroni and cheese, cabbage roll soup, and sausage and sauerkraut soup. She ordered the cabbage roll, and I had the sauerkraut (size small, $6.50). Moderately priced, the soups were served quickly and cleanly from their friendly staff.

The cabbage roll soup had an even ratio of meat to vegetables, featuring a mix of peppers, beef, and naturally, cabbage. Flavourful and filling, my friend, whose Ukrainian heritage had her closely examining the variation of her country’s classic, gave the dish a stamp of approval.

The sausage and sauerkraut was equally as tasty, with a hearty mix of meat and veggies and a surprisingly large size for the “small”. It was like eating a high-class Willy Dog in a bowl (which is a good thing).

Much like their soup portions, their small fries was equally as generous and was enough for the two of us to share. Overall, I didn’t have any complaints about their food, and would definitely go back again, especially during these cold winter months. But forewarning, bring a scarf if you’re heading over. They’re located in an older city building and it can be a bit chilly even indoors.

In addition to quality food, the restaurant also sells quirky sodas from small companies, featuring flavours like cotton candy alongside other classics. Their clean and stylish branding make them stand out on the street, even though they’re tucked away and a bit hard to find for Hamilton novices. They also have a great social media presence, making it easy to find out their rotating daily menu which they post to Twitter and Instagram every morning.

Contrary to their name that makes them sound too hot to handle, The Burnt Tongue is actually one of Hamilton’s coolest new food sensations.

By: Jennifer Bacher

 

As the days get colder, the only meal that seems to satisfy is a hot bowl of soup. This kale and cheese tortellini soup is jam-packed with vitamins that will keep you kicking through the winter months.

Ingredients:

(Any small U-shaped kielbasa is good in this soup. The best beans to use are Eden's canned beans, they can be found in the organic section of any grocery store. The best part of this recipe is you don't need to be strict with how much you put into the soup; add whatever amounts of fennel and kale you would like. Serve with asiago cheese sprinkled on top.)

Heat olive oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat.

Add onion, fennel, and garlic until soft.

Next add kielbasa until lightly browned, about 12 minutes.

Add broth and bring to boil.

Stir in kale and cannellini.

Reduce heat to low and simmer until kale is wilted, about 4 minutes.

Add tortellini to soup.

Simmer until pasta is just tender but still firm to bite, about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle on asiago and enjoy!

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