Cooking Without Pants

2007-12-07T21:19:00.000-08:00

Hey.. here's a quick post to let you know I haven't completely forgotten about this. Even though I really haven't been taking pictures of what I'm eating lately. I have about a million other things going on right now.. and on top of that I just moved to a small remote community in northern Alberta (aka beef country) so.. meals are about to become interesting. Especially considering there's a serious lack of fresh vegetables here, and what is available is very expensive.

But.. for now I will leave you with some highlights from NS. In no particular order..

Tofu scramble with tabouli.. a classic, and I was really craving it after not eating it for 2 months.

Pumpkin soup with roasted pumpkin seeds.. you'll see a theme here soon.

I made some "nutella" out of hazelnut butter someone gave me.. it was so good. I technically should have added oil but decided not to, which made it a bit dry, but I didn't mind.

I got veganomicon a couple weeks later and noticed a recipe for nutella in there, I'll have to try that out next time.

Thai stew (or something like it, I definitely modified this) from The Everyday Vegan.. it was delicious.

The vegan breakfast from Pyramid Cafe in Halifax. I ate this many times.. so good & so cheap. Though their falafels are a little bit disappointing (Too dry - I'm still missing Falafel Place in Winnipeg). Overall it's amazing though, got a little bit of everything.

VwaV peanut sauce and udon noodles with tofu.. another classic.

A big ol' pot of chocolate chip cookies. This pot was also my only "cake pan", because I had no cake pans, so I'd line this with parchment instead.

Pumpkin muffins with freshly roasted pumpkin. The first time I tried this, I mixed up the sugar with the salt... not a good idea.

Pumpkin cheesecake from Heartwood Cafe & Bakery in Halifax. Yes, I am crazy about pumpkin. This was alright but nothing like a cheesecake, I am not sure why they called it that.

Anyway.. that's all for now. I may hibernate for winter.. so if you don't hear from me, just assume I'm too busy trying to scavenge for vegetables in this land full of meat.

Thanksgiving and then some.

2007-10-15T16:55:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was thanksgiving in Canada. I actually remembered to take some pictures. Generally I haven't been eating anything fancy and therefore I don't bother.. even some of these are things I've probably posted before. But, it's comfort food, and I like it.

The homemade tofu roast, from La Dolce Vegan, with roasted onions on the ends. There were some skeptics before it was made, but everyone loved it in the end..

Stuffed spaghetti squash (sauteed onions and mushrooms for stuffing)..

My dinner plate, roast & stuffing, squash, mashed potatoes and roasted carrots (it was a very roasty sort of day.)

Pumpkin pie and tofu chocolate silk pie, which was a lot better than it looks.

And now on to non-thanksgiving food.. baked tofu and vegetables:

Mozzarella mac n cheese:

My favouritist french toast ever, from VwaV:

aand last but absolutely not least, "Heavenly Brownie Torte" from Sinfully Vegan.

As a side note, the delicious scones from the potluck that everyone wanted a recipe for? VwaV recipe, with some spices added in to taste and vegan cheese. Go figure.

2007-09-22T22:25:00.000-07:00

I've been slacking horribly on the picture-taking since I arrived in Nova Scotia, even though I've been "house manager" this week - meaning I'm responsible for all the cooking/budgeting for the 12 people living here.
Which might actually explain why I've been even too busy to take pictures.. and it's a lot harder to make everyone wait for dinner while I photograph it, than when I'm cooking only for myself.

So in no particular order, this is the stuff I *did* remember to take pictures of. I just noticed that it's all basically the same colour.. weird.

Peanut butter bagels (a la Celine):

Even though I'm technically not allowed to buy anything processed, exceptions are sometimes made at the beginning of the program. The local store has vegan rice cheese slices and I got some for myself to try, of the pepper jack variety.. they are so much better than tofutti. oh man. I made a tomato and cheese quesadilla..

Lentil Curry (yum) and rice.

Corn chowder. well, not technically a chowder. But it was really good..

And these cookies, which were good, but I am not so sure about the banana.. I might try using flax seed instead of that as an egg replacer. And chocolate chips were added.

Potluck Goods

2007-08-27T14:39:00.000-07:00

I had a going-away party on saturday, in the form of a potluck. It was quite lovely and rather successful if I do say so myself! These are a few things people brought.

Tofu and herb stuffed mushrooms:

"Cheesy" scones, which were probably the tastiest vegan-cheese experience I've ever had. There were also berry scones, pictured in the background.

Lasagne:

Matt, ever the show-off, went all out with the vegan sushi. Yam tempura, deep-fried vegan shrimp and crab all found their way into the rolls, alongside the "usuals" like avocado.

A giant vat of chili:

And then there were desserts, which is where I become the show-off. There was a few things that didn't get photographed (at least by me), including a spice cake (which I didn't make) and a chocolate kahlua pudding layered with nutriwhip. Pictured here, on the other hand, is a strawberry-rhubarb pie:

Tiramisu cupcakes:

And lastly, something not related to the potluck.. I just forgot to post these last time. Kahlua almond cookies (see a theme with the kahlua here?)

2007-08-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

I may be the laziest blogger alive.

Ok, no, that's an exaggeration. Still, it's pretty pathetic. And it may very well get worse yet - I will be departing on a 9-month volunteer-youth-service program in 2 weeks, and have no idea what this will do to my opportunity to update, but it's unlikely to improve.

Oh well. I'll flood your screen with pictures now instead...

I eat at work a lot. Mostly it's soup with couscous or tabouleh, because we have a decent variety of delicious vegan soups, or a falafel.. but not always. This particular concoction is rye toast with hummus, tomatoes, onions, banana peppers, eggplants, tahini and parsley. So good.

For some reason, anything with a bunch of veggies and some sort of potato grilled together is referred to as a "hash", though it's really more of a scramble. This is my take on the vegan breakfast "hash" we serve, which usually comes with yams, potatoes, tomato, green pepper, and onion, and to which I have here added mushrooms, eggplant and banana peppers, on grilled tabouleh. Also covered in tahini sauce, because I'm a tahini addict.

This is tomato soup from Celine's upcoming zine, and while I can't remember the exact name of the soup, it is delicious.

Another test recipe from her zine, a creamy pumpkin almond sauce, served here on whole wheat pasta with a grilled broccoli on the side.

I admit it, I am a bit of a reuben snob. I learned to make reubens as a cook in a restaurant renowned for their reubens, and even though I don't eat those ones (they aren't remotely vegan) I have high standards for any reuben that is now going to enter my mouth. I have only recently given in to the addition of avocado, because it's actually really good, if not traditional. The rest of this reuben is made on rye bread, with tofutti swiss cheese, seitan, homemade thousand island and sauerkraut, and is fully endorsed by me ;).

This is what I am referring to as "breakfast pudding", meaning it's unsweetened, aaand I ate it for breakfast. Plain vanilla pudding, delicious fresh blueberries, what more can you ask for?

This was Siobhan's birthday pie, the VwaV Black-Bottomed Peanut Butter Silk Pie (whew). I think I'd like it with less sugar next time, but it was still excellent. Even the tofu-phobic person loved it, and I do enjoy sneaking tofu on people.

Boston Cream cupcakes, for another friend's birthday. I screwed these up a bit (way too much vanilla) but the flavour mellowed out by the second day, and they ended up quite delicious in the end.

After visiting a local gelati place with an incredible vegan selection, I noticed they had bricks of green tea ice cream (not vegan) in their freezer. Naturally, I had to go home and invent my own. I froze it into star-shaped bricks because I had been.. inspired.. and served with raspberries which complimented it nicely.

the recipe:

2 cups cashews
2 cups plain almond milk (could probably sub. water, but I haven't tried it)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup brown rice syrup (again, could probably use all maple syrup if you wanted)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
4 teaspoons machta green tea powder

Blend cashews in a food processor until crumbs. Add liquid ingredients slowly, pulsing and scraping down the sides often, and continue to process until mixture is creamy and no longer grainy. This is important, because once the ice cream freezes any graininess will become more noticeable. Blend in green tea powder until well mixed. Chill in the freezer until cool, then make according to ice cream maker's instructions. Will probably need to set in the freezer overnight, unless you like your ice cream very soft..

Avocado, berries, and cake.

2007-07-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

As the title suggests.. this post has a few themes. The garden is full of delicious fresh raspberries, every day I go out and pick a huge bowl (larger than the one pictured here):

So good. On top of VwaV "fronch toast" and nutriwhip..

Freshly made spinach pasta from Delucas, with pesto and avocado..

My favourite thing to snack on lately, a bowl of guacamole with multigrain waffle pretzels. Simple but satisfying.

I baked some cakes for Matt's parents' wedding this weekend, though not traditional "wedding" cakes..

Raspeberry Blackout Cake (VwaV) - every bit as delicious as I had hoped it to be.

Due to the surplus of fruit in my house, I also made an almond trifle. Some of you might remember the last trifle I made, this was similar but with (obviously) an infusion of almond, and different fruit - strawberries, cherries, raspberry, blueberries, mango, and nectarines.

Even the hardest-to-please omnivores enjoyed it.. I can't complain about that.

2007-07-03T12:38:00.000-07:00

You are probably sick of hearing about how busy I am, but it's the truth. This is what I've managed to squeeze in the past week..

An attempt at "omelettes". In defense of the recipe, I didn't entirely follow it - I was supposed to pour the egg in with the veggies, but that's not my definition of an omelette, so I tried to keep it separate. It ended up more like a veggie filled pancake. Next time I'm going to try my own thing instead, I have some ideas. This was still tasty, just.. not even close to what it was imitating.

Quinoa custard and date-toffee pie, with a quinoa-coconut cream. Though it had been chilling for twice as long as recommended, it wasn't completely set yet when I ate this piece. Lots of unusual flavours mixing in this.. coffee, carob, lemon and lime, coconut milk, banana, soy and rice milk, quinoa, dates, molasses. You can't tell here but there's three layers to the pie. If I made it again, I would leave out the banana, which overpowers everything, and add more coffee.

Some cauliflower curry soup I threw together last night, using whatever I needed to use up in my fridge.

Mocha "vice cream", with a couple of chocolate covered coffee beans on top. Sooo good.

It's about time...

2007-06-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

Well.. I'm back in the kitchen. Haven't been taking pictures in the last month, really.. too busy. Too bad. Here is a green tea cupcake I made this afternoon, with some pansies from the garden for edible decoration.

This was dinner. Asparagus pancakes from Vegan. That title seems incomplete, somehow..

Mango summer rolls, attempt #2: successful. I ran out of bean sprouts and added mixed greens to some. Also, no cilantro, because Matt hates it. I think that made them a little bland, but they were still alright with a nice dipping sauce.

Barbequed mushroom burgers, grilled squash and asparagus, some kind of delicious coleslaw I made up.. hey, what is it with the asparagus? Every time I've eaten it this year it's ended up on my blog..

and I almost forgot.. Matt makes excellent vegan iced capps. I harrass him for them on hot days.

2007-05-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

It's been exactly a month since my last post, and I've been feeling kind of guilty for not updating. It's not like I haven't been eating.. (though I haven't really been up to anything interesting, either, considering this is all I have to show for a month). One more month and I can get back in the kitchen..

I guess I'll start with breakfast food, and go from there. Orange hazelnut scones, made by Heather, adapted from ExtraVeganZa:

This my look like just a bowl of fruit to you, but it is my favourite fruit salad right now. 1 banana, 4-5 strawberries, 1 red grapefruit (with any excess juice from cutting it up poured in). The strawberry/grapefruit combo is really complementary... and I can't get enough..

Some muffins, made by Matt's mom. The back one is blueberry, the front one is "morning glory" - some delicious combination of bran, carrots, pineapple, I think sunflower seeds, raisins? and who knows what else, but they're yummy.

Vegan junk food. Grilled tofutti "cheese" with fried onions and tomatoes, and breaded seitan chicken fingers. This is a terrible picture, sorry.

Quinoa Pine Nut Pilaf. This originally started as someone else's recipe, but I've changed it so much by now that it's .. no longer even close. I love it, though.

Lentil curry, loosely based on this recipe, on brown basmati rice.

Agave nectar cupcakes (VCTOTW), for mother's day. Pretend they're not in spongebob liners.

I made the blueberry mousse and tried to get fancy with it. The mousse gave me a lot of problems, though.. it was way too runny to begin with, I added 1 1/2 t of xanthan gum to try and gel it up a bit. It got much better, but still didn't quite keep it's shape for very long, and the tops tried to run away shortly after I assembled the cupcakes.. oh well.

Mocha mousse (VCTOTW), with melted chocolate on top. I think I like this recipe more than any of the cupcake recipes in the whole book, which is saying a lot. The texture of this mousse is so good.. I make it to eat by itself, nevermind inside a cupcake.

That's all for now. I promise to return to a normal schedule in July, there's so much stuff I want to make.

2007-04-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I know I've been absent for a while. School is quite literally consuming all my time and cooking will not be a priority again until I'm done at the end of june. On top of that, I have been unable to get my desktop computer to recognize my boot drive for the past week, and my photo-editing software did not work with my laptop, so unless anyone was interested in desktop-sized pictures of food, posting was not an option. I've installed a newer version now, so it's all good..

Anyway, here is some stuff I've been eating lately. Matt's been cooking for me due to my complete lack of time. And doing a pretty good job, might I add.

Spanikopita from VWaV:

Veggies, noodles, and Sweet and Sour Seitan, Lolo-style:

Macaroni and Uncheese:

And just because, the biggest strawberry I've ever seen:

That's all for now. I'll try not to neglect this too much, but I make no promises until school is done.

2007-04-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

Chickpea spinch curry from VWaV, on brown rice, tahini sauce in the middle. I find it makes this really nice and creamy..

Alongside garlic mashed potatoes and steamed veggies, these are Matt's seitan "ribs" that turned out more like steak this time. I actually had trouble eating this whole thing, partly because it was huge and partly because it reminded me of steak, which I obviously don't care to eat. Though I usually find seitan very tasty..

And now onto easter food.. Matt's family and my family got together for dinner on sunday, which was nice. I was being distracted from doing my schoolwork before the meal due to the huge delicious smelling pies sitting on the counter right behind me.

His mom made us vegan paska! yum yum. I was going to try to veganize my aunt's recipe, and may yet, because I like my paska pretty orangey, and this was not so much (though still very good).

My dinner plate, consisting of (closkwise from top left): roasted onions, asparagus and green beans, tofu roast & stuffing (from La Dolce Vegan) and mashed potatoes with cream corn.

Saskatoon Rhubarb pie. Soo good.

food I didn't make.

2007-04-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

Alright, I've been really busy with school and work and therefore not cooking near as much as I'd like to be. But here's a few things I didn't make, starting with this amazing birthday cake by my roommates, made of vegan rice crispie cake and various other ingredients, including a marzipan dragon. I highly recommend you click on the picture for a larger version, it's rather impressive.

Side view, including dragon victim:

This was a tortiere made by Stef, recipe from "A Frugal Vegans Guide to the Harvest & Holiday Season", or something like that. I've never had non-vegan tortiere, but he said it was actually pretty close. Either way I thought it was good.

Ok, this I made. Rice pudding, which has always been one of my most favourite comfort foods. I could (and sometimes do) eat this for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert... mmm.

I don't have a recipe, because measuring is not my forte. Basically I throw cooked rice and soymilk into a pot, add raisins, slivered almonds, vanilla and almond extract, maple syrup, cinnamon and maybe allspice or some other similar type of spice, and cook it until it thickens, adding more soymilk as needed. It's even better as leftovers (though you'll probably have to add more soymilk again) because the raisins get nice and plump. yum.

2007-03-28T22:09:00.000-07:00

Back in winnipeg, a few more pics from my trip. Mostly it's food I bought and not food I made, but oh well, it was good.

Portobello mushroom burger from The Earth:

Salad also from The Earth, with their own vegan ranch. This was the first time I'd had ranch since going vegan, and it was quite good.

Erin and I decided to celebrate our birthdays while I was there, despite the fact they're in august and december, respectively. Any excuse is a good excuse to make cupcakes, right? These are chai latte cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

This was surprisingly good, it's the mac & chreese from the grocery haul in my last post. I don't really like nutritional yeast unless it's a background taste, and was therefore rather skeptical, but this somehow managed to pull it off. The listed ingredients were pretty simple, I am probably going to try making my own version of it..

Whoever came up with this is genius: chocolate covered ginger (crystallized) . Ohh lord.

My overpriced airport breakfast, from when I was stuck in the minneapolis airport for 30 hours. It was good, at least.

2007-03-20T01:20:00.000-07:00

Well, I am in Oklahoma and having a great time. My camera can upload to Erin's lappy without problem, so I am updating.

This was the last thing Matt & I ate before I left, crepes with thawed berries and ice cream that got all nice and melty:

I had a couple hours in between at the minneapolis airport, and was very hungry, but could not find anything vegan to eat (nothing substantial, at least). After walking around for a long time, reading random menus and asking if there was eggs/dairy/fish sauce in one thing or another without success, I just walked up to the next restaurant and asked if they had anything without eggs, dairy or meat (saying 'vegan' tends to give confused or snobby responses) and she immediately said "oh! you mean vegan! you should go to ____.." and even recommended a specific dessert, some chocolate raspberry square, which was absolutely amazing. The only filling vegan dish they had was chili, which is what's in the cup:

Eventually I made it to OK, and one of Erin's friends came to pick me up at the airport. He wanted to make fajitas and had cut out the label from a package of morningstar steak strips, to make sure I could eat them, which I thought was really sweet. We headed over to his house and he cooked up some spicy veggies and steak strips, which were actually good even though I'm not big on fake meat..

The next day Erin & I went to T.E.A. Cafe for lunch. I had a stir fry with a big pile of sesame brown rice (though perspective makes it look a lot smaller..)

They also make flavoured teas with non-dairy creamer. I had hazelnut, she had rose. They were amazing and gigantic. These have got to be at LEAST a pint.

Today I went for a trip to a local health food store, which kicks the ass of any winnipeg health food store. A few things I picked up.. especially excited about the vegan parmesan (unavailable in the 'peg to the best of my knowledge), the vegan mini-wheats (I admit it, I miss mini wheats) and the brown rice syrup, which is available at home, but for at least twice the price. In fact, a lot of things were much cheaper here. Earth balance also costs over twice as much at home, and I'm pretty jealous that it's actually affordable here..

I wanted to buy a kiwano today, mostly out of curiousity. So we did.

This is what it looks like, opened up. It was a lot like the middle of a cucumber, but in.. rows.. (I am describing this poorly..)

I liked it, but it's not going to become a staple in my diet, that's for sure.

2007-03-16T13:52:00.000-07:00

Matt thinks it's funny that my mind went straight from "hmm, someone gave me a pineapple" to "pineapple upside down cake!". There was no other reason for a cake, I just didn't feel like eating a whole pineapple by itself..

Recipe here, I added half water and half soymilk instead of the syrup/juice because a) I figured this was going to be sweet enough and b) I used a fresh pineapple, and didn't feel like opening a box of juice when I didn't really have to. This was really fantastic, with a scoop of vanilla soy ice cream; it's not quite the same without it.

I also got a bunch of fresh organic herbs for free (connections are a good thing to have), so I've been making whatever I can think of that uses what's there, and giving the rest away, as usual.

Lots of basil = pesto pizza with Basil Tofu Ricotta (VWAV). Adapted Best-O Pesto from The Everyday Vegan, and yeast-free crust from How It All Vegan, plus mushrooms, olives, tomatoes and red onion.

Fresh mint = minty fruit salad, with whipped topping, because I'm addicted to it, ok?

I leave tomorrow for 9 days in Oklahoma, visiting one of my best friends. There may or may not be updates in the meantime, but I wouldn't count on it. See you when I get back :)

Surprises and mishaps

2007-03-13T21:55:00.000-07:00

I picked up a jicama at the grocery store a while ago, for the sake of trying something new. I had no idea what a jicama was, but looking at it, I guess it was something that one would want to maybe roast, boil or turn into a soup. I mean, look at it:

That's not something you'd want to eat raw, is it?
The recipes I found via google said otherwise, after I'd brought it home.
I let it sit there for a while.. not quite knowing what to do with it.. it started to go bad, finally, so I gave in and cut it up. Figured that before I made any plans for it, I should taste some, and.. hey, it was actually pretty good.. reminded me of a starchier, milder apple or even pear, though less grainy. It was crunchy and slightly sweet. Instead of doing something interesting with it I threw it in a salad with some mango dressing because I had a bunch of veggies that needed to be eaten anyway..

The mysterious white sticks are the jicama.

Then, I decided to make some mango summer rolls (it was a mango kind of day, I guess.) Alright.. cooked some rice noodles, cut up some cucumber, cut up my mango... it was brown inside (even though I only bought it two days ago). Ok, no mango. Fine. I steamed a bit of yam for some colour, and got out the rice paper from the cupboard... which turned out to be in pieces. Literally, every piece was broken. Out of a package of at least 50, I managed to get 4 usuable (though still ripped) pieces, and the rest was garbage. Huge let down..

So, I successfully made a total of 4 summer rolls, pictured above. I cut them in half to fool myself into thinking it was more (haha).

I consoled myself with a "Vice Cream" Sundae, as the other thing my sister & I made on saturday was black forest ice cream. Soo good.

2007-03-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

My sister and I made sushi last night. This was her first time.. and she's pretty darn good at it, if I do say so myself. We used shitake mushrooms, roasted red pepper, flavoured tempeh, avacado, green onions, various sprouts, cucumber, sesame seeds, veganaise and some sweet & spicy sauce, for the most part.. and there was probably at least 3 times as much altogether as I have pictured here (gotta have leftovers..)

Even a few inside out rolls were attempted, more or less successfully.

Before..

..and after it was demolished :)

Some velvet red lentil soup (with added carrots) and a tofu-salad pita (tofu extravanganza from La Dolce Vegan)

Some biscuits Stef made this afternoon. Ate one when I got home from work, they were still warm and delicious:

Udon noodles, seitan and peanut sauce from VWAV. Best peanut sauce ever. I brought this to an omnivorous potluck and it was great.

Camp Cooking

2007-03-05T16:20:00.000-08:00

I went camping this weekend. If you know where I live, and think I'm nuts for sleeping in a tent in march, well, you're probably right. The temperature outside right now is -20, though I don't know exactly how cold it was all weekend. Anyways, camp cooking in general, let alone winter camp cooking, is entirely different from what I normally eat.. though you probably can't tell from pictures. Overall, it's simplfied, possibly a little more black and/or full of ash, and generally considered edible as long as it's warm. I kind of cheated by making things ahead of time at home, but whatever. Having the added challenge of only being able to bring things that could freeze narrowed my options, so I did what I could to work around it.

Perogies, with mysterious flecks of blackened something (for added flavour)..

"Death star chili", as it was so lovingly named by the wusses that can't handle my level of spice, and toast:

Peanut yam soup (mmm my favourite) and blackened toast:

These were delicious, but would have been a bit better if the chocolate wasn't frozen, probably. As you can see my first marshmallows didn't melt all the way through either, as vegan marshmallows seem to ignite even faster than the regular kind, and it took me a while to perfect it.. still, it had been ages since I'd eaten a smore, and it was well worth it. I didn't photograph the more successful attempts... some things need to be eaten while they're still hot.

Otherwise it was veggies & hummus, frost-friendly fruit (bananas and apples), and muffins for snacks. And lots and lots of tea.

2007-03-01T08:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's "day-off" breakfast, a delicious scramble and potato patties that were not-so-delicious. Every time I eat them I remember why I never eat them - the storebought ones taste like crap. Oh well, I didn't buy them anyway, so I guess whoever did likes them.

Matt & I decided that once we were better, we were going to celebrate the return of our appetites by going out. Yenat ( a local ethiopian restaurant) has a vegan lunch buffet which is delicious:

I'll admit that I can't remember the name of everything we ate, it's not labelled anyway. Clockwise from the top was a green lentil dish, cooked cabbage and beets (key sin I think) which was one of my favourites, brown lentils, a cabbage and carrot salad, some rice that was the only thing I didn't like (it tasted like it had been sitting there for a long time), ground lentils & big chunks of potato in a spicy berbere sauce (another favourite), and yellow lentils in the centre which were also really good.

Matt eating with injera - the "plate, utensil and food in one"

Mushroom Seaweed soup I made up the other night..

And truffles that heather made me for valentines day, though I have only recently got around to eating one.

2007-02-23T18:10:00.000-08:00

Nothin new to report lately because my stomach has still been kind of queasy. I've mostly been consuming smoothies, soup and cereal, with a couple salads in between. I made a taco salad today and it's probably the most interesting meal I've had all week:

Though it would have been better had someone else not got to the avacado before me. Otherwise it's taco chips, mixed greens, mexican ground round, salsa, tomatoes and sour supreme.

Was inspired by these doughnuts and ok, these aren't actually that mini, but I decided to try making some of my own.

Subbed 1/4 C of flour for cocoa, for fun. You can do things like that when you have 25lbs of cocoa just lying around. Trying to dip these in melted chocolate was a disaster, the first one stuck in the bowl, with extra suction power, and I had to slide it out the side or else rip it to shreds trying to pull it out. The next one I tried to spread the chocolate on, as opposed to dipping, and it just kind of sucked. I had some leftover ganache that had been kicking around my fridge for longer than I care to admit, so I threw that in the double boiler and successfully dipped the remaining 4 in it. Fantastic.

Now I just need to find someone to eat them all.

Valentines and other mishaps.

2007-02-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

I have been absent due to the flu. Believe or not, I was too sick to even use the computer. I'm feeling a lot better now, and seem to be able to keep food down again, which is nice. This was the last thing I ate before I started projectile vomiting..

Coconut brown rice, adapted from VWAV, steamed peas, and maple-ginger tofu with zucchini, from my brain. Was really good at the time, but matt now has to eat the leftovers, because all memories of this dish bring up naseous feelings.

I am not particularily fond of valentine's day, and don't care to celebrate it with my significant other, but it was a good excuse to do some baking, and make some vegan treats for the kids I volunteer with on wednesday nights. Basic chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW, vanilla buttercream, strawberry jam and heart candies:

These actually turned out to be a bit of a pain in the ass, because I decided to decorate them the day after I made them, knowing they're better the next day. They're also considerably more crumbly the next day. It probably didn't help that I made these 100% whole-wheat due to someone's white-flour allergy, and the didn't quite rise as well. Not that it matters too much when you cover them in frosting, anyway..

I had leftover batter and made some mini heart-shaped cakes for a few people. They were all decorated differently, partly, again, because decorating them turned out to be kind of disastrous, due to extreme crumbly-ness. I finally gave up and drizzled the icing on, which turned out to be my favourite one anyway:

Matt ate it. He was satisfied.

Winter Salads

2007-02-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

Winter is a sad, sad time for produce. I guess I've sort of lucked out until now - trips to the grocery store have usually produced at least one or two bonus fruits or veggies, something I wouldn't normally buy but happens to look good and not cost too much. Lately, the produce gods won't even give me that much. I wander the aisles aimlessly, looking perhaps a bit lost and forlorn. Or perhaps just melodramatic. Not even my "regular" veggies are looking hot right now. What's even sadder is that I mourn more for my birds than myself, who eat a fresh mix loosely based on this, which, on a good day, can look something like:

Looks actually pretty good, but that's probably because I hadn't added the seed and mashed beans yet..
Anyway, they are especially deprived. It's sad when I can't find two different kinds of green leafy veggies that don't look like crap.

Back to my original point: grocery shopping, typically something I enjoy, lately something to further depress me. I walked by the kohlrabi and thought of this salad, and decided to give it a go. There was really not much else to satisfy my giant-salad needs.

I decided to make my own dressing, half "veganized" from someone else's recipe and half of my own invention. It gave me another excuse to use up that carton of soy creamer in the fridge. Also, I used organic gala apples instead of granny smith, because that's just what I had.

Dressing:
1/4 cup soy creamer
1 1/2 t dijon mustard
1 t maple syrup
1 T lemon juice
1 T fresh parsley (I threw this in the salad instead, actually)

Not sure if the lemon juice would cause the creamer to curdle, I whisked the other ingredients first, let it sit while I prepared the rest of the salad, and added the lemon right before I was ready to mix it all up. The excess dressing hasn't curdled yet, so I guess it's ok. A delicious lunch, either way.

2007-02-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

Nothing really new to report, I've been eating either leftovers, salads, or making food at work. Reason for posting: pad thai recipe, modified from here, which happens to look a lot like vegweb from across the kitchen on a macbook. Replaced fish sauce with vegetarian version, eggs with cornstarch + water (to thicken the sauce), dried shrimp powder with dulse flakes (seaweed), for that fishy flavour, and added half a red pepper.

Just so this isn't a completely disappointing post, here are some old pictures from when Radish and I made semi-whole wheat perogies.

Top filling bowl was potato, "cheese", green onion and dill.. bottom was VWAV ricotta, which we mixed with something else later on (vegenaise maybe?) .. I don't remember. Whatever it was, it sounded kind of weird, but tasted really good.

After boiling...

With fried onions and mushrooms, and sour supreme.

Tofu Pad Thai

2007-02-08T20:08:00.000-08:00

Recipe from vegweb, somewhere. If I find it I'll post it.

This was incredible. Credit to stef and kelly, who did more of the work than I did. To be honest I had a really busy day and planned on eating leftovers or a muffin for dinner by the time I got home. I lucked out, however :)

2007-02-07T20:52:00.000-08:00

Somehow I forgot about chana masala for a while. I love me some chana masala, and the fact that it's easy, quick, and I *always* have the ingredients for it on hand makes it a perfect last minute meal. It was tonight's solution for dinner, when I realized I only had so much time before I had to leave for my meeting.. steamed some swiss chard, tossed a bit of tahini sauce and sesame seeds on that, took a mediocre picture and ta-da.. dinner is served.

The Best Pumpkin Muffins from VWAV. Matt says they are aptly named. I threw some walnuts in for good measure..

Bagels, from here. These were okay, but small, and still not as good as harvest bakery's.

Tried to make some fruit leather for the first time today/yesterday. This is what it looked like, pre-dehydrated (hydrated?).. yeah.

I think I didn't add enough fruit, though it looked like a lot at the time. It came out pretty thin, though good. Dehydrated: