Audrey's 74

Audrey’s turns three and bids goodbye

Giulia Doyle — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 14:20:44 +0000

This week this blog turns three and this is post 220. This is also my last blog post.

I’ve been blogging for nearly six years, if you count my first blog, and have LOVED it! Blogging allowed me to do so many fun things and learn so much. It allowed me to share glimpses of our life, it challenged me to develop my photography skills, it served as a portfolio to do freelance photography and writing for print magazines and online publications and it gave me the opportunity to partner with some incredible brands. It served as an incredible creative outlet, particularly when my kids were little and because of this blog I have new friends that I never would have met otherwise.

But all things do come to an end and for this blog the end is here and now. I’m no longer drawn to it and just want to do some other things. I will still be on Instagram, and I’d love it if you followed along there.

Thank you all so much for following my blog for however long it’s been! I’ve enjoyed getting to know you and I’m sure I’ll be staying in touch with quite a few of you!

Cheers, Giulia

Egg on Puffpastry with Ham, Cheese, Butternut Squash and Bok Choy

Giulia Doyle — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 18:19:11 +0000

Eggs! what glorious food. Eggs for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner – there are countless recipes that require eggs or where egg is the star. I find anything with a fried egg on top just delicious and it can make a tangle of leftovers shine as a nutritious lunch. This past weekend I decided to play a little with frozen puff pastry, leftover vegetables and an egg. Here is the delicious result.

Egg on Puffpastry with Ham, Cheese, Butternut Squash and Bok-Choy

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 sheet of frozen puff pastry, thawed
chopped vegetables of choice (I used cubed roasted butternut squash and sautéed baby bok-choy)
Shredded cheese
Eggs
Salt, pepper

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400F. Unroll thawed puff pastry sheet and place on parchment lined cookie sheet. Cut into 6 rectangles. In each rectangle, cut four lines to define an edge, in that rectangle pierce the pastry with a fork a few times.
Sprinkle a table spoon or so of grated cheese on each rectangle, mostly keeping the cheese within the border of the cut edge. Add a couple of cubes of squash to each rectangle of pastry and a couple of leaves of bok-choy. Season with salt and pepper.
Bake in oven for 10-15 minutes until pastry is golden and cheese is melted. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.
During baking/cooling fry six eggs until whites are well cooked, edges are crispy but yolks are still runny. Season with salt and pepper. Distribute one egg onto each baked puff pastry square and enjoy.

Notes

Use any vegetable leftovers you have for this. Anything that needs a long cooking time should be cooked ahead, but things like peas, corn or thin shreds of onion could be added raw.

/2016/01/18/egg-on-puffpastry-with-ham-cheese-butternut-squash-and-bok-choy/

English Muffin Bread

Giulia Doyle — Sun, 10 Jan 2016 15:29:34 +0000

I love English muffins, something I could not get my hands on growing up in Switzerland. But when I lived in the States I often bought them and had them well toasted with melted butter and jam, or cream cheese and jam, or as a ham and cheese sandwich. They work in so many ways with their crunchy crust, soft insides and yeasty taste. I wanted to make my own often enough, but never got around to it.

Instead of making individual muffins I decided to try a English muffin recipe in a pan first. These turned out great! I probably over-mixed the dough at the end a bit so there aren’t enough craggly holes, but overall I am very happy with the results. We loved them slightly warm from the oven and the next day well toasted.

English Muffin Bread

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 35 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Yield: 2 loaves

loosely adapted from How Sweet It Is Whole Wheat Pumpkin Spice English Muffin Bread

Ingredients

cornmeal for loaf pans and top of loaves
5 cups all-purpose flour (separated into 2 cups and 3 cups)
2 packages (4 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups warm milk
1/3 cup apple sauce
2 tablespoon honey
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup warm water
2 teaspoons salt

Instructions

Grease two loaf pans with non-stick spray and sprinkle with cornmeal, moving the pan around so the cornmeal coats all the sides. Remove any of the excess.
In the bowl of your electric mixer combine 2 cups flour, yeast, cinnamon and baking soda. Add in milk, apple sauce, honey, olive oil and water, beating on low speed until combined, about 30 seconds. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat for 3 minutes, scraping down the sides if necessary. Decrease speed to low and add in remaining flour and salt, mixing until just combined - do not over mix, do not knead. The dough will be sticky.
Divide batter equally into two loaf pans and sprinkle the tops with cornmeal. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 45-60 minutes.
After about 30 minutes of the dough rising, preheat oven to 375 F degrees. Bake for 35 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Remove from the oven, ensure they are cooked through with toothpick and immediately remove from pans. Set aside to cool.

/2016/01/10/english-muffin-bread/

Citrus Salad

Giulia Doyle — Fri, 01 Jan 2016 13:38:42 +0000

Happy New Year and here’s to healthy but yummy resolutions! I don’t usually set a goal to eat only healthful once the New Year sets in, but after weeks of cookies, cakes, stuffing and gravy my body seems to crave something fresh and full of vitamins. Citrus is always a welcome reprieve from all the heavy options we’ve been consuming in the past few weeks.

This salad is simple, colourful and can be made ahead. No real recipe required; just choose a nice selection of citrus fruit (oranges, clementines, mandarins, grapefruit), peel and slice them, arrange on a platter and sprinkle with cinnamon and slivers of mint if you wish. Eat this at a brunch, for breakfast or with some protein, such as ham or chicken for lunch.

It’s a wrap – 2015

Giulia Doyle — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 20:17:37 +0000

It’s that time of the year already where I go back and think of all the things we did, the places we went, the food we ate and the fun we had. 2015 passed in a blink, faster than I can grasp – only one week left and I truly can’t think where time went. I posted a lot less this year, but was more active on Instagram. I had fun with the blog, but loved the challenge of the little square images captured on my phone. Life was busy with a six and eight year old, family life, school, activities, work and some travel.

Some 2015 highlights:

We split our vacation into three chunks this year and traveled to the Dominican Republic, Prince Edward County and Miami. It was wonderful, all were different and we had a lot of fun.
We hosted two pretty large parties this year: the Midsummer Party where everyone wore white and we enjoyed the longest day of the year and our Cookie Tasting party just the other week – a really sweet occasion.
I collaborated with The Land of Nod on my basement, here and here. And I added some Easter fun to our house with them as well.
I had another chance to work with Cup of Jo.
I was so happy that our house was featured on Design Sponge.
I also did some more styling and photography work for Ottawa Magazine.

So even though things were quieter on the blog – looks like things are still on a roll here at Audrey’s.

Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas, happy holidays and a cheers to 2016! Thank you for stopping by this little corner of the web, for following along and your feedback.

Cookie Tasting Party with Minted

Giulia Doyle — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 14:37:27 +0000

Have you kicked off the holiday season with a party yet? It looks like everyone is booked, attending cocktails, dinners or cookie exchanges. Since we like to gather friends, we decided to host something we were calling a ‘cookie tasting’ party. A fun and sweet way to get together, have everyone bring their cookies, allowing us to try a bunch of new treats.

As you know, I’m a big fan of Minted and have used their services even before I started blogging. Over the years, they’ve expanded their offerings and their party supplies are some of my favourites. This time I used the Rose Colored Glass suite – I loved the gold combined with the soft rose colour, with hints of the winter season seen in the evergreen visual. My favourites are banners which make any event a little more special, tent cards to label all the cookies and stickers which I used to upgrade store-bought cups and take-away boxes. Just some little touches to make the party come together.This time I also tried the new Minted online invitations, which they launched a couple of weeks back. I love the variety of the invites designed by independent artists, how much nicer they are than other online invites I’ve seen and how you can manage your guest list in one spot.

I could have ordered the online invite to match my party supplies, but I decided on a more specific cookie theme to illustrate the party – again, the pale pink pulled it all together. Online invites are still free during their beta phase and the one thing to note is that company firewalls could be an issue for the invite. I noticed that people receiving the invite on their private email didn’t have an issue receiving it, but people receiving it at work did have it end up in their spam folders at times. This was a great way for us to kick-off the season, mingle with friends and end up with a serious sugar overload. I’m always happy to put in the effort for people to get together, it really is nice to slow down, chat, have a drink and not think of our long to-do list. Happy holidays to you and enjoy the photo overload!Photo of Online Invite by Minted. Photo of sugar cookies with red sprinkles, macarons and Mexican hot chocolate cookies by Colin Rowe. Party supplies provided by Minted. Opinions are my own.

Vanilla Meringue Bites

Giulia Doyle — Fri, 04 Dec 2015 21:41:09 +0000

I’m hosting a cookie tasting party this weekend and these meringues are part of our contribution. I like to make meringue for several reasons: I find them easy to make and they store in an air-tight container up to two weeks, so you can make them ahead. They are naturally gluten free and they are light as a feather, making them perfect to snack along with all the heavier desserts you might be serving over the holidays.

Adding some food colouring can make these a fun conversation piece and is much easier than it appears. You could also ommit the colour and dip each meringue in some melted chocolate – mhhh!

Vanilla Meringue Bites

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Yield: about 20 depending on size

Ingredients

2 eggs
100 g of sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
food colouring (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 220F and line baking sheet with parchment paper.
Separate egg whites and add them to a very clean heat-proof bowl. Add sugar.
Place bowl with egg whites and sugar over a simmering pan of water, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water. Whisk egg whites until sugar dissolves, about 3 minutes.
Take whisked egg whites off heat and beat until glossy and stiff with either a stand or hand mixer. This will take another 3-5 minutes.
Prepare a piping bag with a large tip. On two or three sides add a couple of small drops of food colouring. Add meringue to piping bag and pipe small bites onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake 1 hour or until meringue is hard but not golden. Let cool completely.

Notes

Use your egg yolks for other recipes, such as custards, egg wash on breads, mayonnaise or lemon curd.

/2015/12/04/vanilla-meringue-bites/

Chocolate Mousse

Giulia Doyle — Sun, 22 Nov 2015 16:23:15 +0000

People are often intimidated by chocolate mousse, but I find it one of the easiest desserts to make. Mine has four ingredients, can be made ahead and is a hit every time. I’ve made this recipe for years and the key to it’s success is the best dark chocolate you can afford. If you buy low quality chocolate or use chocolate chips you won’t get the results you are looking for. Try this recipe the next time you want to impress, serve chocolate and only have basic ingredients on hand.

Chocolate Mousse

Yield: 4-6 dessert sized servings

Never melt chocolate directly in a pot. Either use the method I describe below, melt it in the microwave in 10 second bursts or use a double boiler. Combine all components, but don't over-stir, you'll loose the airiness and it will be less mousse and more cream.

Ingredients

2 eggs, yolks and egg whites separated
2 Tablespoons of sugar
100 g of really good quality dark chocolate
200 ml of whipping cream (not quite a cup)

Instructions

Beat egg yolks with sugar until frothy
Carefully melt dark chocolate (I do this by breaking chocolate into pieces, pouring boiling water over it, let it sit a few minutes, pour off water carefully, stir).
Add melted chocolate to egg yolk mixture and stir.
Beat cream until you have nice airy whip cream. Combine with melted chocolate mixture.
Beat egg whites until firm. Carefully combine with chocolate, egg, cream mixture. You want to make sure it's well combined, but you don't want to stir the air out of the egg whites and cream.
Chill in fridge for a bit in a large bowl or single serving bowls.

/2015/11/22/chocolate-mousse/

Aunt Elisa’s Olive Oil Cake

Giulia Doyle — Tue, 17 Nov 2015 13:19:05 +0000

As you know I like to make layered cakes with loads of frosting and other decadent sweets to celebrate special occasions (or just for the fun of it). However, I also like simple cakes that can stand on their own, that aren’t too sweet, versatile enough to be served for dessert, afternoon tea or even breakfast. This olive oil cake my aunt made for us last winter is one of them. It’s so simple to make that you can assemble everything while the oven is pre-heating and you most likely have all the ingredients on hand. It’s also the perfect cake to bring to a work bake sale because it’s portable, can be eaten a day after baking and appeals to people that don’t want the tooth-ache inducing cupcake or yet another rice crispy treat.

Elisa's Olive Oil Cake

Ingredients

3 eggs
300 grams sugar
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
300 grams flour
1 teaspoon lemon rind
1 teaspoon orange rind
1 tablespoon baking powder
Icing sugar (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 10" round pan.
Combine all ingredients. Pour into pan.
Bake about 40 mins until toothpick comes out clean. Let it cool a few minutes, then tip out of pan to cool completely on a cooling rack.
Once cooled, dust with icing sugar if you wish and serve. Keeps well, wrapped in saran wrap.

Notes

My other favourite thing are cake recipes that use weight measurements. It allows me to put everything into one bowls and weigh as I go, reducing dirty dishes!

/2015/11/17/aunt-elisas-olive-oil-cake/

Miami

Giulia Doyle — Tue, 10 Nov 2015 13:44:11 +0000

Those of you that follow me on Instagram saw that we escaped Ottawa a few weeks ago for some Miami sun. It was a wonderful week filled with lots of swimming at the pool and beach, celebrating my birthday, the zoo, some local exploring, meeting up with an old friend from high-school and eating more food than we probably should. Our hotel was amazing – not only was it beautifully decorated, but the staff were helpful, friendly and just all around superb. I’m ready to go back any time! Where we stayed, played and ate:

Shelborne Whyndham Hotel South Beach
A day at the pool at the Biltmore Hotel for my birthday
Shake Shack
News Cafe
Yardbird for some Southern Fried Chicken
The Miami Zoo
Miami Seaquarium
Jungle Island
Miami Children’s Museum

Photos by Giulia Doyle and Bruno Doyle