Things that vegans eat

Still employed

2010-10-12T16:35:00.000-07:00

The 10th was Aaron's birthday, so I decided to try making something neat. The picture up top is Butternut Vindaloo served in some kind of squash that i forget the name of. The recipe was from 'Vegan With a Vengeance', I just added cauliflower. I was just eating left overs with couscous and they go together well. We also ate it yesterday with a fried tofu salad. Dark green lettuce mix with halved cherry tomatoes, green onions and tofu cubes fried in olive oil with lemon juice, garlic salt and thyme.

The picture below that is an all-veggie meal that I decided to make. There are lemony-dill carrots, broiled string beans with margarine and sliced almonds, and mashed potatoes.

Below that is a fried rice which was delicious beyond all description. I don't even remember how I made it, so you'll just have to take my word that it was really really really good.

Aaaand finally there's a picture of the Double Fudge Oat Cookies I made from a recipe in "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar' by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Its the sequel to 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World' and I can't wait to make more.

Work is hard

2010-09-17T08:45:00.000-07:00

Who knew that work was hard and not fun? Why was I not informed?
Usually when I get home from work I flop on the couch and don't think again until the morning. But I still have to eat, so here's a few things I've been shoving in my face hole:

My friends and I went to the Vegetarian Food Fair the other week. It was a lot of fun, as always. I didn't buy as much as I did last year, but I did get Quinoa for cheap, some fake chicken which I haven't cooked yet, and the sequel to Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, titled Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.

Above the text is a picture of the Quinoa Salad I made the other day. I just took mixed greens, chopped avocado, halved grape tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, and cooked quinoa, and mixed it together with some olive oil, lemon juice and salt. Turned out really tasty, and quinoa has a crazy amount of protein and iron. Served with "beef" skewers from Gardein.

The top picture is my dinner from last night. I made some Basmatti Rice (cooked with vegetable broth and margarine), and ate it with peas and fake mutton from The Perfect Vegetarian in Kensington Market.

That's it for now. I'm going to try and stop letting my job eat my life. We'll see how that goes.

Thought you were rid of me

2010-08-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I haven't made a post since my job started. Well it's been hard and I've been tired so :-P
This post will be an amalgamation of whatever the hell recipes I remember from the past month. Enjoy.

Lunches
I've been trying to take my lunch to work as often as possible. Partly because the office is in the middle of nowhere Brampton and you literally have to drive to get anywhere that sells food. Some of the things I've brought are:

Sandwichs: Almond Butter and Raspberry jam; Cucumber, Tomato and Toffuti cheese slices; Toffuti herb and garlic faux cream cheese with vegetables; Tofurky Hickory Smoked sandwich slices with mustard, lettuce and tomato
Amy's brand Frozen meals
Fruits
Wheat thin crackers and Mr. Christie's cocoa wafers
Left overs

I've also gone out to lunch with coworkers or by myself if I laze out and don't make something. I've gotten Thai Express, Terriyaki with Tofu, Giant Salad, Sushi, and a Veggie Burger.

I've been trying to still cook when I can. I've made Creamy Curry Vegetables with Jasmine Rice (picture above) and Chickpea Noodle Soup. One night I made Artichokes, Brown rice (with a little lemon and thyme), and warmed up some Gardein chick'n in dijon mustard sauce.

Peace.

2 Days Until The New Job

2010-07-31T21:23:00.000-07:00

Coming soon: Vegan packed lunches. Follow the exciting adventure of me figuring out how to keep myself alive while at work. My mommy bought me a lunch box.

Tonight I've had three slices of Twelve Grain toast with Tofuti herb and chive flavoured imitation cream cheese. These were eaten at separate times, I just kept going back for more 'cause it tastes like sex. Usually I don't like vegan cream cheese by itself 'cause you can kind of taste the soy. I buy the plain kind to make vegan cream cheese icing for carrot cake (note to self, make cream cheese icing and carrot cake). But the herbs in this stuff makes it delicious. I was going to use it to make sandwhiches to bring to work, but I might finish it before then.

The picture at the top is of a dinner I made a few nights ago. The vegetable dish is Rustic Roasted Veggies from 'How it all Vegan'. This is one of the very first recipes I ever cooked. Served it with white rice, which soaked up the flavour well.

Countdown to employment

2010-07-22T18:08:00.000-07:00

Howdy.
I've been spending my time alternating between getting ready for my new job and enjoying lazing around while I can.

This evening I made Rustic Tomato Lentil Soup from 'How it all Vegan.' I used flax pasta and added a bit of that 5 Chinese Spice stuff because it seemed a little under-spiced. Turned out delicious and there's tons left.

I stocked up on salad stuff recently, so I've been eating a few of those. The picture above is the salad I had for lunch today: Earthbound Farm Organic mixed greens, organic baby spinach, bean sprouts, tomato and walnuts with Oil and Vinegar dressing.

And a few days ago I made TLTs (Tempeh, Lettuce and Tomato) Sandwiches for dinner, again. This time it had bean sprouts and baby spinach instead of regular lettuce. The tempeh was that smoked maple flavour stuff again.

2010-07-12T21:38:00.001-07:00

I guess I took an unannounced hiatus there. Oh well, sue me.
Well, let's jump right in. I haven't done too many fancy meals lately so I'll have some lazy vegan advice at the end of this post.

Today I made a standard Vegetable-Rice-Fake Meat meal. They remind me of some of the food I ate as a kid. Today it was White rice (with onions and garlic), yellow string beans (totally ate these all the time as a kid, the taste was nostalgic), and Yves Veggie Cuisine Souvlaki Veggie Skewers. The fake meat was not my favourite. I bought it 'cause I haven't tried it before, but I don't think I'll get it again. Probably just personal taste, though.

I've been trying to get more non-soy protein in my (and Aaron's) diet, so a few days ago I made Tibetan Lentil Soup. The recipe is from 'Fresh at home' by Ruth Tal Brown and Jennifer Houston, but I made a few changes. The biggest one is that I didn't notice I was out of cumin until I started cooking, so I used a Five Chinese Spices blend (it has fennel, clove, cinnamon, fagara and anise) which I'd bought randomly and wanted to try. I also upped the number of carrots and threw in a diced yellow bell pepper I had in my fridge. Turned out really tasty and it lasted a good while.

About a week ago I made Orange Chocolate Chip Pancakes. That was pretty much the best thing ever. I took the regular pancake recipe from 'Vegan with a Vengeance' by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and added the zest from one orange, most of the juice from the same orange, and about a cup of chocolate chips to the batter.

So other than those I've been surviving off mostly easy eating or take out lately. A nice coffee with soy milk and toast with margarine and jam will do me just fine. I've also been eating a lot of fruit. In the last little while I've had honeydew, bananas, kiwi, peaches, and some apples. It's been super freaking hot, and nothing is better than cold honeydew after a sweaty walk. I bought a box of Multigrain Wheat Thins (which I like way way better than the originals) and wolfed them down in about a day. Also bought a Theobroma organic chocolate bar with banana chunks. Freaking BANANA CHUNKS. These things are beyond amazing and I could easily eat 4 in a row.

Looks like Amy's started selling a new type of vegan burrito; Amy's Breakfast Burrito with organic black beans and tomatoes. I really like it, and it's a good microwavable meal for when you don't want to cook.

So that's it for now. I will try not to be lazy and make no posts for two weeks again.

G20 Weekend

2010-06-28T18:47:00.000-07:00

Well this last weekend has been a kind of shitty one for Toronto. The downtown was turned into a police state where people could be searched or arrested without cause. Windows were smashed, a few cars burned, several protesters and bystanders arrested and detained, along with some guilty parties, and idiots threw rocks at cops. Civil rights were violated, and a few people behaved like solid gold douche-bags.
Hosting the G20 meetings in down town Toronto when there are plenty of beautiful, difficult to reach parts of Canada where you don't have to shut down a whole city and hire an army of cops just to get together was psychotic.

Going back to Friday, it was Pride themed Rocky Horror, and I think it was one of the best shows I've ever seen.
Come out to the Rocky Horror Picture Show with a live shadow cast at Bloor Cinema on the last Friday of every month.
Right next door is Ghazale, one of my favourite places in the city of Middle-Eastern food. The last picture above is of the box of take out I got after the show.

Above the picture of the take out is a shot of one of the Tempeh Lettuce and Tomato Sandwiches (or a "TLT")I made for myself and Aaron on Saturday. I used Marinated Tempeh Smoky Maple Meatless Bacon, which is a product I don't think I've used before but it was really really good. Looking at/tasting these strips right out of the package I was doubtful, but after frying they're sweet and savory and delicious.
You can also see some of the chocolate chip cookies with orange zest I made with a friend, in the background.

On Sunday I made Curried Split Pea Soup, but I don't have a picture of that one because I couldn't find my camera on Sunday. The recipe was from 'Vegan with a Vengeance' but I added cauliflower and carrots to the soup to make it more substantial. Very tasty.

Finally, today I had my friend Nick over for lunch, since he's going to China on Wednesday and I will miss him. I made curried vegetables and chickpeas with couscous. It was based on a recipe from 'Vegan with a Vengeance' called Spinach and chickpea curry, but I added carrots, cauliflower and celery, which I think totally worked. It was a delicious tomato-based curry dish and we really liked it.

2010-06-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

We had a small earthquake today in the T dot. First one I've ever felt. It was pretty awesome, especially since the crappy old apartment building I live in didn't even fall over. (The apartment I inhabit within the crappy building is actually quite cherry.)
The G20 is also going on, and last weekend the Much Music awards were going on right outside where I live, so I've pretty much decided to hide inside as much as possible.
Better than the garbage strike we had last summer.
Currently looking at a very bright moon on a very pale sky, next to the C.N. Tower. Pretty.

I've been improvising my way through a lot of left over ingredients lately, to varying degrees of success.
The first picture up top is of Herbed Potatoes and Fried Tofu. The potatoes turned out great. I chopped up about 4 potatoes (skins left on, scrubbed), and mixed them with Omega Oil (Grape seed, extra virgin olive and flax seed oil), a whole lot of roughly chopped garlic (like practically a whole bulb's worth), a chopped onion, and a package-full of halved champagne mushroms on two baking trays, then baked them at 450 degrees C until the potatoes pierced easily with a fork (maybe half an hour? I forget).
The tofu somehow ended up really really salty even though I'm sure I didn't put that much salt on it. It was still okay but I'm going to consult a recipe next time I try to do something like this dish.

The next picture down is of a peanut butter, jam and banana sandwich which Aaron made the other day. Super yummy.

Finally, yesterday I made some pretty quality Ginger brown rice just by sauteing one chopped onion, about 7 cloves of chopped garlic (I really really like garlic), and a left over chopped up chunk of ginger in some of the Omega Oil, then added 2 cups of brown rice, stirred to coat it in oil, added 6 cups of water (this turned out too be a bit too much, go with 4 or 6), a bay leaf, and around a teaspoon or two of vegetable broth powder, and let it cook. Served with corn on the cob and Chick'n Nuggest (I threw out the package so I don't remember the brand.) The fake meat was delicious, a great dish for kids. Like most fake meats, it was high in sodium, so you don't want to be eating them everyday. But they taste really good and so I think can be worked in to a healthy diet.

Well, I graduated

2010-06-15T17:17:00.001-07:00

I've been done school for a few months already, but my actual graduation ceremony was yesterday. It was really long and boring and my mom through a fit, but whatever. I've got my diploma now. Plus a bunch of pictures of me looking dorky.

To celebrate I made myself and Aaron each a little celebration cake. Photo featured above. Mine said "Hooray for Me" (it was going to say "Hooray for Stephy" but I ran out of room) and his said "Aaron = Sex".
The recipe was Chocolate Orange Cupcakes from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World' by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. The icing was Wilton brand Sparkle Gel icing.

Today my friend Rena came over and we made Jasmine rice with Gardein brand Classic Style BBQ Skewers.

2010-06-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

The other day I was volunteering as a community steward with the city, cleaning up garbage, watching for pollinators, and removing invasive species at the Spadina Quay wetland, and I found a raccoon skull. It is freaking boss. I put it on my shelf, but I feel like it should be attacked to a hat or something.

Stuff I have eaten recently:

Vegetable and tofu chow mein from King's Cafe in Kensington market
A chocolate vegan cupcake from Wanda's Pie in the Sky, also in Kensington
Peas from the pod
Baby carrots
Lots of coffee with Silk brand soymilk.
Chocolate Monkey Smoothie made with soymilk from The Hotbox Cafe, once again in Kensington market. (I'm actually not sure that the chocolate sauce used in this is vegan, unfortunately.)

Vegetable Noodle Soup with Chickpeas

2010-06-07T20:08:00.000-07:00

Well, I've done it. I've discovered the best tasting soup ever.
I based it off a recipe I found on the internet (Here: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=25698.0), but I changed it a lot.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp olive oil
5 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 large onion or two small onions, chopped
1 leek, chopped
4 celery stalks, chopped
4 carrots, chopped
1 large potato, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 can of chickpeas
6 cups of water (or three cups of water, three cups of vegetable broth)
1 cup of pasta (I used shells. Bowtie would also work well.)
1/2 cup fresh dill, chopped
1 bunch of spinach, chopped (or baby spinach un-chopped).
Salt to taste, pepper to taste, 1 tsp dried thyme, 1 tsp dried sage

- In a stock pot over medium heat, saute the onions, garlic and leek in the oil for 5 minutes
- Add the celery and carrots and saute for another 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add the water, tomato and potato. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and let simmer (covered) for 35 minutes.
- Add the chickpeas, pasta and dill, and cook for another 15 minutes.
- Add the rest of the spices and the spinach.

I hope you end up liking this soup as much as I did.

Hey look I'm back.

2010-06-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

I've been lazy about updating lately, but I've got two great entries comin' atcha, so stay tuned.

First news: I have invented possibly the best way to cook rice and lentils ever. Here's the recipe:
Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced (that means chopped)
1 cup white rice
1/2 cup brown lentils
1 tomato, chopped
4 cups water or vegetable broth
1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp tumeric, dash of peper, 1 bay leaf

- In a large sauce pan or small pot, saute the onions and garlic in the olive oil for 10 minutes.
- Add the rice and lentils and stir to coat with oil.
- Add the water or broth, tomato, and spices. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and cook for 20 minutes, or until the rice and lentils are fully cooked.

I served this with Garlicky Kale.

I also made a super yummy Veggie and Hummus Sandwich at some point. This one had sliced cucumber and tomato, hummus, and garlic salt on toasted flax bread. Can't really beat a good hummus and veggie sandwich for lunch, in my opinion.

Okay I've got a delicious soup to blog about, but it's so amazing I'm going to make its own post.
Peace.

Stew and a rabbit (but not rabbit stew)

2010-05-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

So my twin sisters left yesterday to spend a month in Italy. About 30 hours before they had to go, one of them calls me and says that the very flimsy plans she made for someone to take care of her pet rabbit have fallen through, and she needs me to watch it until she gets back. There is literally not another soul who can take this rabbit (apparently), and even if they did, there's a good chance that it would be someone who didn't care about its needs. So now I've got this rabbit for a month.
The thing is, rabbits don't make very good pets. They're dumb, like hamsters (but unlike rats, which are very smart and affectionate and awesome). Unlike hamsters, though, rabbits need a lot of space. They also don't need human affection or interaction, and really don't enjoy being picked up.
I'm doing my best to keep her happy. During the day when I"m home and can watch her I let her run around most of my apartment (except the bathroom, bedroom and computer room). She's running around the big space and exploring.
She's still really cute and soft, and they don't smell, so it isn't really an inconvenience.

So today I cooked my own version of Chipotle, Corn, and Black Bean Stew from Vegan With a Vengeance. I used just one regular jalapeno pepper (instead of two chipotle ones), and it was still way too spicy for me. I really don't like spicy food. Other than that it turned out well, and Aaron does like spicy food. I added a few ingredients like an eggplant and some TVP. This was a really interesting dish, with lots of ingredients and flavours.

More beans!

2010-05-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

I tried another new bean recipe yesterday. You're supposed to eat a ton of them for fiber and stuff. This time I made Larry's Re-Fried Beans from 'How it all Vegan.' (This was the first vegan cook book I ever bought and I'm still finding awesome new recipes in it.) They were really good. All the right herbs (including fresh cilantro, which I wouldn't have thought of on my own) and some tomato. You're supposed to mash them up with a fork after you cook them, but I just left them in bean form.
To go with the beans I made some fancy brown rice. It went like this: 1/2 cup short grain brown rice + half a cup wild brown rice, cooked in 3 cups of water with a tbsp of Omega 3 oil (a mix of flax seed oil, olive oil and grape seed oil that I bought), and 1 tsp marjoram. After it cooks, add 1 tsp salt and 1/4 cup (ish) of flax seeds.
Whole dish pictured above, plus peas.
Turned out really delicious. I ate it with some lemon juice squeezed on top, which worked better than I expected.

The adventure of the really fucking garlicy pesto

2010-05-18T21:06:00.001-07:00

Today's meal was an adventure.
It started yesterday when I had my first day volunteering with a city of Toronto community stewardship program. I'm with the Spadina and Queens Quay wetlands team. It isn't really a wetland. It's just a little naturalized area right on the harbour. Animals and birds live there though, and it's a nice little spot. I might try going to some other sites also.
Anyways, it was mostly introduction this week, but we did pull some garlic mustard plants out. They're an invasive species that out-competes native plants and screws with the ecosystem. They are also edible. I took a bunch home, pulled off the young leaves, dumped the rest, and washed the plucked leaves by letting them soak for a few hours (changing the water twice).
Then I found a recipe for Zesty Tomato Pesto in 'Vegan with a Vengeance.' I picked it because it looked less fattening than most pesto recipes and I'm trying to drop some pudge.
So since the recipe I came up with was pretty different from the original 'Vegan with a Vengeance' recipe, here is the recipe for:
Super Fucking Garlicy Pesto
4 medium tomatoes (chopped)
1 bunch fresh spinach
1/2 cup green onions (chopped)
1/4 cup + 1 tbsp olive oil (I decreased this from the original 1/2 cup in order to decrease the numer of calories in the dish.)
4 cloves garlic (crushed or minced. I crushed them, which is one reason the dish was so increadibly garlicy.)
1/2 cup fresh garlic mustard leaves (This grows all over Ontario. It is a tallish, bendy plant with small white flowers. You can look it up on google. The young leaves can be plucked and used. Wash very well first.) or fresh basil leaves, if unavailable.
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp lemon juice

Blend all of the ingredients in a blender, then heat and serve over whole wheat pasta.

Puppies and Mexican food

2010-05-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today for lunch I had a simple mixed lettuce salad. I like having salads for lunch 'cause I'm never very hungry until the evening anyways so I prefer to have something light. You can't see it in the picture, but there's some really tasty oil and vinegar dressing on that lettuce. Also flax seeds.

Pictured below that is Aaron's Mr. Noodle Concoction of the Day.

Yesterday Aaron and I went to Sneaky Dee's (College and Bathurst) for lunch. Unfortunately I was dumb and forgot to bring my camera. The food was choice, though. We shared a plate of vegan nachos and a vegan fajita. Then for dessert (despite being totally stuffed already), I ordered a vegan cupcake. THEY HAVE VEGAN CUPCAKES! It was a Pumpkin Spice vegan cupcake to boot. So excellent I haven't words.

Today we went to the animal lovers rally in Queens Park. There were many small puppies. Above is a picture of me playing with one. Note the look of pure joy.

Just stuff

2010-05-14T12:17:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went to the Red Room for a friend's birthday. I got the Vegetable Stir Fry with Tofu. It came with white rice and they must have put like 10 cloves of garlic in it. Freaking amazing. (I just forgot the word cloves and had to look it up in a cookbook. My mind is starting to go.)
Late night snack was toast with margarine and raspberry jam.
They're out of vanilla soymilk at the store by my house, so I'm drinking my coffee with chocolate soymilk today. It's like a mocha.
We just finished the box of Wholegrain Premium crackers which I bought a little while ago. Those make for good snacking.
When I was little we used to call them "square crackers."
That's all for now!

Vegetables!

2010-05-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

Today I had a really big job interview. It went really well. Hopefully I'll have a grown up job soon.

My weight has been bouncing around a lot in the past year, and I'm back up to being heavier than I want to be. SO my plan is to eat lots and lots of vegetables until I get a little bit skinnier again. I've been snacking a lot on salads and raw vegetables. Salads are good 'cause you can make them interesting with all sorts of weird ingredients. Veggies are good for dipping in hummus.

The picture above is from dinner last night. The first dish I made was a baked beans recipe from 'How it all Vegan.' This was my first time making baked beans and they turned out pretty good. Protein and fiber!!! I think this is also the first time I've served beans as their own dish. They make a great meat - substitute and are super filling.
I also made "Honey"-Lemon Carrots from the same book. The honey is actually maple syrup, so they should really just call them syrup-lemon carrots. Anyways they were really awesome too. I increased the amount of lemon juice in the recipe by a whole lot because they only said to put in a little bit and I like lemon. I now know about 4 ways to cook carrots all by themselves, all of which are delicious.
And finally, corn on the cob, which is in season again. Corn is always a good idea. ALWAYS.

Peace

The bag of avocados

2010-04-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

So the other day I went to CostCo with my mum, and one of the things she bought me was a big of like 5 avocados. I'm trying to use them all before they go too soft.
If you've never eaten an avocado, I pity you. But they way to tell if they are ready is they should be a bit soft, so that when you push your thumb into the outside it gives way. But it should be mushy! If it mushes all up as soon as you touch it, then it's gone bad. When you cut it open, if the avocado is ripe the skin will peal off easily. If it isn't ripe, the skin will stick and it will be hard to peal. If the inside is brown or black, it's going bad.

Okay, so yesterday I made an Avocado Salad. It was a butter lettuce mix (I dunno what that means either, just light coloured lettuce), a bunch of chopped avocado, pine nuts and grated carrot. I kind of invented a salad dressing to go with it. Toasted sesame seed oil, rosemary vinegar, salt and pepper. I'll firm this recipe up and post it in full later.

Today I had an Avocado and Hummus Sandwich. Toasted flax bread, margarine, roasted garlic hummus and half a sliced avocado. Delicious. Could have used some salt and pepper.

Well I've got a big job interview on Tuesday that I'm stressing out about, so I'm gonna go work on being ready for that.

Cupcakes and Cereal

2010-04-27T14:24:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Aaron and I made cupcakes to celebrate our three year anniversary. They were Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.'
Two words: Holy Balls. These were amazing. Possibly the best cupcakes that the universe has ever known. The only change we had to make was I didn't have almond meal or corn flour, so we added some spelt flour instead, which has a nutty taste. The recipe contains coconut milk, ground flax, cinnamon and even more good stuff. Freaking amazing

I just had a pretty epic bowl of cereal. Morning Crisp Simply Strawberry Granola clusters, Original All-Bran, Oatmeal Crisp Maple Nut Flavour, and Nutra-Cran Sprouted ground flax with cranberries, in Vanilla Natura soymilk. I'm pretty sure I'm full of enough nutrients to jump over a few buildings. I'll go try that.

I'm about to leave for a volunteer orientation meeting. I'm going to be a Community Stewardship Volunteer. Hurray for me. That means I get to play in the dirt and help keep urban green space clean and awesome.

Cherry Blossoms and the Buddha Bowl

2010-04-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

Today Aaron and I rode our tandem bike to High Park to see the cherry blossoms. We got some falafel and samosas and ate them in the park.

The other day I made a pretty complicated dish out of 'Fresh at Home - Everyday Vegetarian Cooking' by Ruth Tal Brown and Jennifer Houston. It's the cookbook from Fresh, a vegetarian chain restaurant. The dish was called the New Buddha Bowl (pictured above) and had a few layers to it.
The first layer is brown rice, then tofu cubes (they were supposed to be marinated but I just used regular ones), the topped with the dish's sauce. On top of that you put bean sprouts, tomatoes and cucumbers, a spice mix, then coriander and lemon slices. Like I said, fancy. Really awesome, though.

2010-04-16T13:14:00.001-07:00

I've been pretty lazy about posting lately. Chalk it up to looking for a job.

Above is a picture of Baked Beans and Tofurky Beer Sausages.
Took about 5 minutes to make and those sausages are damn tasty. Definitely top quality fake meat. They taste good with the bean juice, too.

Two days ago I made Stir-fry again. This time it consisted of celery, ginger, a green pepper, cauliflower, onion, garlic and Yves' faux chicken. Cooked with some sesame oil and tamari sauce, plus some basil and thyme.
Served over white rice.
Here's one way to make white rice incredibly delicious: add a little olive oil and garlic salt to the water while it cooks.

Back to learning how to do an interview.

Indian Food

2010-04-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

The search for a job intensifies. My mom has been helping me a lot with my resume and cover letters.
In other news, I started drawing my first biomechanical picture today. Inspired by this guy:
http://anderstattoo.deviantart.com/

Yesterday our friend Megan came over and I made a crazy amount of Indian food; tomato rice and curried vegetables.

The tomato rice is a recipe that I got off the internet and have been playing with for a while. Here it is:

You need 2 tbsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of margarine, 1/2 a large yellow onion (chopped), 2 cloves of garlic (chopped), 3 stalks of celery (chopped), 2 large tomatoes (chopped) OR one can of chopped tomatoes, 2 cups of vegetable broth, 1 cup of long-grained rice, 1 tbsp oregano, 1 tbsp basil, 1 tsp parsley, 1 tsp marjoram, salt and pepper to taste.
Heat the margarine and oil in a large saucepan, then add the onion, garlic and celery. Saute for 5-10 minutes.
Add the tomatoes and spices and simmer for 15 minutes.
Add broth and bring to a boil.
Add rice, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes.

The spices for this can be played with however you want.
Make this dish extra awesome by adding 1/2 cup of toasted pumpkin seeds.

To go with the rice I made Creamy Curried Vegetables from 'How it all Vegan' by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. They were amazing. The more I cook with coconut oil the more I love it.

Summary

2010-04-04T16:10:00.001-07:00

This is my 100's post so I thought I'd do a quick list of some of the food's I've already posted. Anyone who doesn't think there is a lot to eat when you are a vegan should read this. It should be kept in mind that a lot of these things can be cooked in many different ways and combined to make new meals. This applies especially to tofu, but a lot of vegetables and grains as well. Spices are very important in vegan cooking. Similar dishes can taste very different, and plain dishes can be made very interesting depending on what herbs and spices are used.
Okay, here we go:

Fruit - i.e. Mangos, bananas, pomegranate, star fruit, melons, pears, kiwis etc.
Berries - i.e. blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries etc.
Potatoes - i.e. Mashed, roasted, baked, french fries.
Tofu - i.e. scrambled tofu, marinated and baked, fried, etc.
Breads - i.e. ancient grains, flax bread, multigrain, whole wheat, sour dough, bagels etc.
Sandwiches and wraps- fillings include tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, sprouts, cucumbers, onions, spreads, PB&J etc.
Spreads/dips - i.e. hummun, guacamole, hemp spread, tofu based creamy dips, nut butters, preserves etc.
Soups - Tomato, vegetable and rice, miso, carrot, mulligatawny, split pea, mushroom barley, carrot, corn chowder, butternut squash etc.
Tea, Coffee, Pop, Water, Juice, etc.
Cooked vegetables - i.e. artichokes, peas, asparagus, mushrooms, corn, eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, spinach etc. There are probably a lot out there that you've never tried.
Rice - i.e. Brown rice, jasmine rice, tomato rice, pilaf, etc.
Faux meat - There are dozens of packaged varieties from a number of different brands. Some are better than others.
Baked goods - i.e. Banana bread, cakes, muffins, cookies etc.
Pancakes - i.e. Banana, raspberry, chocolate chip, etc.
Cereal with soy milk - not all cereals are vegan but many are. i.e. Frosted flakes, All bran, Cheerios, etc.
Pasta - With tomato sauce, olive oil, vegetables, pesto, etc.
Lentils
Couscous
Salads
Kugel - Kugel recipes often contain egg, but this can be substituted with egg replacer, soft tofu and other options.
Veggie burgers and Veggie dogs - available in many restaruants.
Dark chocolate - Many brands of dark chocolate bar are vegan, though many are not. Read the ingredients list.
Vegetable sushi
Falafel
Borritos
Nuts and seeds - i.e. sunflower seeds, cashews, almonds, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, etc.
Crackers
Stirfry
Beans - i.e. Kidney beans, blackbeans, edamame, chickpeas, etc.

2010-04-04T15:49:00.001-07:00

For dinner a few nights ago I made Asparagus with mushrooms and brown rice.
I didn't have a recipe, was mostly just playing around. I chopped up a bunch of asparagus (cut off and dispose of the ends first) and cooked them in olive oil with chopped mushrooms, 4 cloves of garlic, chopped green onions salt, margerame and thyme in a covered sauce pan. Put the mushrooms in first and let them cook covered for a while until they let out some of their juice.
To the rice I added steak seasoning, margarine, onion powder, salt, and flax seeds.

I also had some Blackberries. I freaking love blackberries. Seriously, I can't think of a better snack than a bunch of blackberries.

Brunch for dinner

2010-03-28T20:26:00.001-07:00

I love having breakfast food for dinner. Yesterday I made a pretty awesome breakfast-dinner of Scrambled Tofu and Roasted potatoes. (top picture).
For the tofu, I fried half a purple onion, 6 chopped cloves of garlic, one chopped yellow bell pepper and one chopped red bell pepper in olive oil. I then crumbled (or smooshed) in two packages of silken tofu. You can use firm tofu for this recipe, but silken tofu makes it turn out more like eggs. For spices I used salt, pepper, dill, turmeric, curry powder, cumin and paprika. It turned out really delicious and colourful.
This recipe is a great replacement for eggs. The only difference is that while eggs have their own flavour, with this recipe you add the flavour in the form of spices. Spices are very important to vegan cooking. I recommend playing around with them a lot in order to get familiar with their flavours. My favourites are rosemary and dill.
Spices were also the major factor in the potatoes I made to go along with the tofu scramble. I set the oven for 450 and then washed and chopped 4 potatoes in to bite-sized pieces. I never peel my potatoes 'cause there's lots of good nutrition in the peel. Instead I scrub them with a coarse brush under water. This removes the top layer of skin but leaves most behind.
The next step to this dish was mixing the potatoes with some olive oil (vegetable oil is also good) and a ton of spices. I then proceeded to covered them with the remainder of my Crousset brand Tuscan Bouquet spice blend. They were finished after about 35 minutes.
These potatoes turned out unbelievably good. They were gone in like an hour.

Tonight I made myself a Hummus and Vegetable Sandwich. Fresh lettuce (i like a lot of lettuce on my sandwiches), tomato, avocado, hummus, margarine and black pepper on flax bread.

Stephy's Sicky Soup

2010-03-21T12:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I made my own version of Jana's Winter Sicky Soup from 'How it all Vegan' by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. I think I changed it enough to claim it as my own, so here's the recipe to Stephy's Sicky Soup:
You will need: 1 small butternut squash (peeled and cubed), 6 medium carrots (washed and sliced), 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 small onion, 2 leaks (chopped), 3 tbsp fresh ginger (grated), 8 cloves garlic (chopped), 12 cups vegetable stock or water (I use half and half), 1 pinch of cayenne pepper, 1 1/2 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp salt, 3 tbsp fresh rosemary (chopped), juice of half a lemon, 1 bunch of dandelion leaves (chopped), 1 bunch of kale (chopped), 3 tbsp miso paste, 1/4 cup green onions (chopped)

In a large soup pot, saute the squash and carrots in the olive oil on medium-high heat for 10 minutes
Add the onions,leeks, ginger and garlic and cook for 5 more minutes
Add the stack, cayenne, curry, salt, rosemary, lemon and greens. Simmer on medium-low for 40 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in miso and green onions.
Let sit for 5 minutes before serving.

This soup is great when your sick. The lemon and ginger really open up your sinuses and are great for you immune system. The greens and vegetables are full of important vitamins that will help you get better. Make this soup for yourself or someone you love!
Any other leafy greens can be added or stand in for the ones I used. Collard greens or spinach would also be good.

I'm siiiiiick!

2010-03-20T05:20:00.001-07:00

:( I has a sick. Sore throat and runny nose and all that jazz.
But it's an opportunity for a blog post!

Right now I'm drinking hot vegetable broth. The dehydrated kind, you just pour boiling water over it and you have an instant soothing drink.
I've also been drinking a ton of tea. Mostly lemon zinger and lemon chamomile. Lemon is good when your sick. Honey would probably be good right now, I'm using Agave nectar instead. It tastes and looks exactly the same, but perhaps without some of the nutrients in honey. Honey is one of those grey-areas in veganism. Most will agree that it isn't vegan, however.
I've also been drinking lots of orange juice. I also discovered the best sick drink ever: a Fuzzy Navel! That's when you mix peach schnapps in your orange juice. If you're staying home from work anyways, you might as well get a little hammered.
Aaron is going to go buy me ingredients later so I can make soup. More on that later.

2010-03-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

Today, dinner was Gardein lightly marinated meat-free dijon breasts, (Tee hee. Breasts), Artichokes, and Jasmine Rice.

There are a few different ways to cook fresh artichoke. They all start with cutting off most of the stem (leave about half an inch) and the top 3/4 of an inch or so of the leaves. Then I cook it like this:

Put an inch or two of water in a pot.
Add 1 tsp margerine, 1 tsp salt or garlic salt, and 2 tsp lemon juice.
Put the artichokes in the pot, cover, and bring to a boil. (This is called broiling because you half boil, half steam the vegetable.)
Cook for 15 minutes, turning over once.

If you've never eaten a fresh artichoke, the way you do it is to pull off the leaves and scrape the white soft flesh off of their bottom with your teeth (where they were attached to the whole). Some people like to dip the bottom of the leaf in melted margarine or mayonnaise before biting it. When you are almost out of leaves, cut off the tiny purple ones in the center (with a knife pointed slightly down to get their bottoms). Now you have the heart of the artichoke sitting on top of the stem. You can eat the whole heart. You can eat the stem too, if you like, but some people find it bitter.
Artichokes are one of those under-represented vegetables that most people don't usually eat. But they're good for you, taste yummy, are fun to eat, and make a good vegetable dish for a meal with a few parts to it.

My jasmine rice turned out amazingly flavourful and delicious today. Here is how I cooked it:

Chop one small onion and two cloves of garlic.
Saute in a sauce pan with olive oil until the onions are tender.
Add the rice and stir to coat it with the oil.
Add two cups of water, 1 tsp salt, and 1/2 a cup of frozen peas. Stir.
Let cook until the rice has absorbed the water. Around 20 minutes.
Let sit for 5-10 minutes then serve.

I hope you enjoy these recipes.

Kiwis and tea

2010-03-12T16:28:00.000-08:00

My computer is working incredibly slow today. Also I've been trying to upload a picture to my new Twitter account all day and it just doesn't want to let me.

On to food, I've got a new recipe cooking in the oven. I shall report back after it has been sampled.
Yesterday I went grocery shopping and came home with a bag of organic kiwis (pictured above.) Try and tell me those don't look delicious. I looooove kiwis. Apparently they're also crazy good for you. Mad amounts of vitamin C and the like.

Aaron finally got turned on to tea while we were in Scotland. Yesterday I made us both cups of Celestial Seasonings Vanilla Hazelnut tea with vanilla soy milk and some sugar. It tastes like a cake. I've tried other vanilla hazelnut teas but this one is by far my favourite. Yoga Tea brand Tahitian Vanilla Hazelnut is also really good, it just tastes spicier.
In other tea related news, I bought a tea ball (is that what they're called?) so I can enjoy loose tea! Today I had some of the Mayan Chocolate tea I bought from 'All Things Tea' on Bloor street. (Also pictured above.)

Inventing

2010-03-10T15:33:00.000-08:00

Today I have two recipes that I pretty much made up. MAKE THEM!

Today I made Lavender Pancakes. I adapted it from the pancakes recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance.
To make them you will need 1 and 1/4 cups of whole grain flour (substitute 1/2 cup for white flour, if you like), 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon, 2 tbsp canola oil, 1 1/2 cups of soy milk (or other milk substitute), 2 tbsp dried lavender (I bought mine in Kensington market), 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tbsp maple syrup.

Put 1 and 1/2 cups of soy milk in to a sauce pan and heat to a simmer. I used vanilla Natura.
Add the lavender to the soy milk and let it simmer covered on medium-low for 15-20 minutes. (You don't want it to boil. If it starts boiling, reduce the heat.)
Strain out the lavender, saving the milk in a large bowl.
To the soy milk, add the wet ingredients (including the maple syrup) and mix.
In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir (ideally with a wooden spoon) until just mixed.
Fry with vegan margarine.

Yesterday I made a pretty nifty lentil dish, which I shall also share with you:
You will need 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 cup of brown lentils (or any kind of lentils, probably), 1/2 cup of brown or wild rice (you can use a full cup of rice if you want there to be more food with more rice, just add more water so it all cooks), 1 purple onion, 1 red bell pepper, spices.

Saute the chopped onion and bell pepper (plus some chopped garlic if you want, I add garlic to everything) in the olive oil for about 10 minutes.
Add the lentils, rice, and 3 1/2 to 4 cups of water (if the water is all gone and the lentils don't seem tender enough, add some more water), plus about 1 tbsp of cumin, 1 tbsp rosemary, 1/2 tbsp of paprika, 1/2 tbsp curry powder, and 1 tsp salt. (Adjust the amount of each spice as you like, or replace some if you want.)
Cook until ready (about an hour).
Add a couple drops of hot sauce, or something else to make it spicy, if desired.

Banana Bread

2010-03-06T19:18:00.000-08:00

The other day I made some pretty stellar banana bread from a recipe in 'The Joy of Vegan Baking'.
Now, I've made a few recipes from this book and so far every one of them needed at least one ingredient to be altered. This recipe needed about 1/4 less sugar. I also was going to add cinnamon, which I think would have turned out really well, but I forgot to put it in :-P.
Anyways, I learned for next time and this loaf was still pretty delicious. The recipe said to use a cup of chocolate chips and an optional cup of walnuts. I thought that would be too much stuff so I put in half a cup of each. It turned out perfectly. One cup would have been too much chocolate, especially the semi-bitter stuff I was using.
It was enjoyed by many.

Now Aaron and I are off to goth it up at PANIC.

Veggie chiken wraps

2010-03-01T15:09:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I made veggie chicken wraps I used Dempster's ancient grain tortillas and stuffed them with lettuce, tomatoes cucumbers, purple onions and Yves faux chicken. They were tasty.

I'm having a bitch of a time trying to find another tattoo apprenticeship. Going around begging for a job sucks.

An Ode to Soup

2010-02-25T17:28:00.000-08:00

I think that soup is really the ultimate form of food. Different flavours all dancing together in a delicious mush. Each one is unique. A soup's flavour comes from which vegetables, herbs, spices, beans, rices and other ingredients you use (lime juice and coconut milk are some of my favourites), as well as which ingredients are playing the starring roles and which are playing back ups. Blending half of the ingredients after they've been cooked, then adding them back to the pot makes the soup creamy and hearty.
Another fantastic thing about soup is that you can make them in big batches and be set for days! Or feed a group of hungry friends.
Today I made Mulligatawny Soup ( an Indian soup, apparently) from a recipe in 'How it all Vegan.' It was delicious and yellow. Served with stone milled multi-grain crackers.
I am currently enjoying a cup of Chamomile Lemon Tea.

Cereal and fruit

2010-02-24T19:45:00.000-08:00

I was having a conversation about veganism recently while waiting in line for a party. It was very friendly, which it usually is. One misconception I had conveyed to me was that there aren't a lot of options when your a vegan. Obviously I demonstrate that this isn't true all the time, but I think the grocery shop I just did is evidence that this idea is wrong in itself.
I was out of flaky cereal so after pursuing the isle I picked Nature's Path brand organic Spelt flakes, which are sweetened with fruit juice. I just ate it mixed with Morning Crisp granola cereal with strawberries and vanilla Nature soy milk.
I was also craving fruit while I was shopping so I ended up with golden raspberries (which I just wolfed down), pears, and dried mango.

In other news: I learned how to Charlston today. I've been taking swing dancing lessons at U of T. One of my bestest and sexiest friends teaches. Good times.

Pasta-bilities

2010-02-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

Forgive the terrible pun in the title. I couldn't help myself.
Last night I made pasta, which is one of my go-to recipes 'cause you can put just about anything in it, it's really quick to make and you end up with lots of left overs.
Try mixing it up with regard to the noodles you use. Yesterday I used Rotini vegetable pasta (corkscrew pasta with regular, spinach, and tomato noodles mixed together.
To the sauce (I bought sauce in a jar this time, but you can also make it yourself with diced tomatoes and spices) I added frozen peas, cubed tofu, and mushrooms. Just throw it all together in the pot. Let the mushrooms cook for a while so they shrink and release their juices into the sauce.
Things you can add to pasta sauce:

Spinach
Veggie ground round (fake ground beef)
Tofu cubes
Fake sausage
Peas
Broccoli
Carrots
Bell peppers
Mushrooms
Onions
Garlic
Zucchini
...Pretty much any vegetable you want

2010-02-07T15:56:00.001-08:00

Featured above is a picture of the Curried Split-pea Soup that I made the other day. My grains cabinet is getting pretty full and I noticed that I have a lot of split peas sitting around. The recipe was from Eat, Drink, and be Vegan but I added some chopped up carrot and red pepper to it, which I think made it more interesting.
Served with a baguette.
The meal I made the following day I forgot to take a picture of before we gobbled it up. It was Cumin Lime Tofu with pumpkin seed crust, also from Eat, Drink, and be Vegan. I've made this recipe a few times before and its one of my favourite ways to cook tofu. I also made Coconut rice by cooking jasmine rice in light coconut milk with some margarine and salt.

Stephy needs a job

2010-02-05T13:53:00.000-08:00

I've been out of school for a few weeks now and I should probably find myself some employment. Know anyone who wants to pay me for eating cookies? I'm really good at that.
At least I'm cooking and kind of getting some work done on a painting.
Also I got two more holes in my ear today. Yay for me.
Above was a meal I made with lentils, couscous, and garlicky kale. I love green things and also garlic. The kale was chewy and had a strong taste, almost like a mix between a green and an herb. I enjoyed it.

Back from Scotland

2010-01-31T06:23:00.000-08:00

Well that was amazing awesome fun.
We were really successful finding vegan food and I only cheated once 'cause I wanted a Terry's Chocolate Orange at the airport. I'm just gonna post the pictures of everything we ate and then list off what they were.

1) Fried banana dessert from Mono.
2) Chocolate cake from Mono.
3) Veggie haggis tempura.
4) Spicy tofu dish from a Japanese place called Wagamama.
5) Amazing veggie sammige from Mono.
6) Rosewater sorbet. This was really interesting but I thought that the rosewater taste was a bit too strong. I think I would have liked it better if it was lemon rosewater sorbet or something like that. Still good though.
7) Leek and potato soup also from Mono. This might have been the best soup I'd ever eaten.
9) Indian food.
10) Fried tofu and soba noodle soup also from Wagamama.
11) Delicious fried potato things.
12) Fancy dinner from some fancy place with a name I don't remember.
13) Giant breakfast at Cafe Wander including lentil soup, lots of toast, bananas and coffee.

We also hiked up Aurthur's seat, saw Edinburgh castle, went to several museums, saw a few Churches and the Necropolis, and shopped a bit. It was an amazing trip.

Last post before Scotland

2010-01-22T14:26:00.001-08:00

I'm wicked excited about going to Scotland tomorrow. I will have many pictures when I return.
Here is what I made last night. It's yet another recipe modified from Depression Cooking.
Peppers and tofu with rice. (pictured above.)
Clara made peppers and eggs, so I substituted silken tofu for the eggs and made up my own spices to go with it. I believe I used tumeric, paprika, garlic salt, onion powder, dill and a bit of cumin. It was freaking amazing.
The peppers started out being bright orange and yellow but turned the same colour when I cooked them.
The rice is a mix of different brown rices plus some flax seeds.

More depression cooking

2010-01-18T17:01:00.000-08:00

I've tried a few more recipes from the site 'Depression Cooking.'

For dinner the other night I made Clara's vegetable couscous. It was pretty good but sorely lacking for some spices. I think if I made it with some fresh coriander and parsley it would have been perfect. I really liked the radish, which I had never cooked before. It gave the dish an old fashioned taste, somehow. Like something my Baba would have cooked.
That night I also served a salad of dark greens with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, inspired by Clara's dandelion leaf salad. It was really satisfying because I'd been craving it since I watched the video.
Last night I tried making baked apples again. This time I changed the recipe by adding nutmeg and ginger to the mix of cinnamon and sugar, and threw a few chocolate chips in there. Seriously recommend trying this. Just core the apples, plug the bottom with margarine, fill with the sugar and spice mix, plug the top with margarine (you don't need a lot), and bake at 400 in a pan with water at the bottom (so they don't burn) for 35-40 minutes.
I'm currently drinking coffee with the left over sugar/spice mix in it.

Tonight for dinner I tried yet another of Clara's recipes: Eggplant Parmesan (with Parmesan flavoured soy cheese.) This is a pretty greasy recipe but I enjoyed it, especially since I added chopped garlic to the frying oil. Next time I cook eggplant (this was my first time) I'll look fora recipe with less oil, delicious though it was. Served with couscous and grilled Portabello mushrooms.

Some dresses that I ordered off of www.modcloth.com arrived today. A picture of one of them is above.

Big news: Aaron and I are visiting Scotland next week as a post-graduation trip. I'll let you know how we do finding vegan cuisine there once we get back. I'm flexable and will go back to veganism when we get home, if need be. Aaron doesn't cheat however, so I'm hoping we're able to feed him well. We'll be bringing a lot of trail mix and cliff bars with us.

Back from Boston

2010-01-13T14:28:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I was in Boston visiting my bestest friend Maggie and her significant other Travis. We got a city pass for $44, which got us in to the Aquarium, the Museum of Natural History in Harvard, the Science Museum, and Museum of Fine Art. My favourite things were watching a baby chicken hatch in the Science Museum and the room full of jellyfish at the Aquarium.
Unfortunately I forgot to bring my pills and by the last day I was in wicked withdrawal. I've still got a bad head ache but at least my head isn't spinning anymore.

Dinner the First Night: The first night we were there I cooked them my fried tofu on spinach dish with rice. It didn't turn out as well as it usually does, but it was still tasty.

Dinner the Second Night: The second night I was there Travis made pizza. We used veggie slices brand cheese and topped it with mushrooms and green peppers.

Dessert: That same night I tried out making Baked apples from a recipe on Depression Cooking. They don't look very good but they were freaking amazing.

Dinner the Third Night: On the third night I made another recipe from Depression Cooking; Pasta with peas, as Clara called it, though it was actually pasta with peas, spinach and potato.

Last Night: The last night I was there we went out for sushi.

Old people are adorable

2010-01-06T20:17:00.000-08:00

Here's something fairly awesome that I just discovered: http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking#p/c/D6A6F21C9D7665FC/0/DuMkW35BwK8

It's called Depression Cooking. It's a video blog by a 94 year old woman sharing recipes and stories from her childhood in the Great Depression. This first recipe looks tasty, I'm gonna make it.

I've also made some stuff. I'm less cool than this old lady, though.

Dinner Yesterday: (Pictured above) Yesterday I made a freaking amazing Mushroom Barley Stew out of 'How it all Vegan' by Barnard and Kramer. The textures went together amazingly.

Dinner Today: Today I made Garlic Rosemary Roasted Potatoes and Vegetable Medley Kugel, both modified slightly from recipes from 'How it all Vegan.' To the potatoes I added some extra salt and used fresh rosemary instead of dried. To the kugel I added some rosemary and garlic 'caused it seemed like it could use some extra flavour. I also added celery because why not? Both turned out amazing.

Dessert: My friend Rena was over and she had the idea to make chocolate sauce to dip strawberries in. We made a recipe from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World' by Moskawitze. You just boil a quarter cup of soy milk, then remove it from the heat and stir in some chocolate chips and a bit of maple syrup.

2010-01-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

Lunch Yesterday: Possibly the greatest food ever made: Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes. (Pictured above.) Made from a recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance but with extra cinnamon 'cause I loves cinnamon.

Dinner Today: We went to Fresh on Spadina with our friend Mark and I got the Dragon Bowl on Soba Noodles. It was okay but it came with way too many noodles. I also got a Chocolate Ginger Espresso Shake with soy milk. That was freaking amazing.

Dessert: I actually haven't eaten this yet but I brought home a vegan Chocolate Lavender cupcake. I'm waiting until I'm not grossly full to eat it. I'm pretty excited.

Back in time

2009-12-30T22:37:00.000-08:00

The food in this post was actually consumed prior to that in my last post. But I forgot to make a blog about it and it was a pretty epic meal, so here it is.
After the nummy Salad, we had pasta which was fairly excellent. I sauted some onions and garlic, then mixed them in a store bought tomato sauce (just dumped the sauce in the pan I'd been frying them in), added chopped mushrooms, green peppers and Yves veggie ground round, let that cook until the mushroom had gotten all small, then finally added spinach and let it wilt.

Back from Florida

2009-12-30T22:02:00.001-08:00

I'm back from Florida with pictures.
Bottom photo: Fried tofu on spinach and brown rice with flax seeds This was the dinner I made the night before I left. I don't remember what spices I used in the brown rice with flax seeds, I just made a random combo.
The Fried Tofu on Spinach is a dish I made up. Here's the recipe:

Chop a block of tofu into cubes.
Melt a tablespoon of margarine in a pan, then add tofu.
Cover with a generous amount of garlic salt and onion powder, and a pinch of dill. Add a squirt of lemon juice.
Let the tofu brown for several minutes on medium heat. Stir every 5 minutes or so to let multiple sides of each cube brown.
To make the spinach, saute two or three chopped garlic cloves in a table spoon of melted margarine, then add a bunch of chopped spinach.
Cook on medium low heat, stirring every few minutes when the spinach on the bottom wilts, until the entire batch has wilted.
Add a teaspoon of garlic salt and onion powder and a squirt of lemon juice and stir.
Serve the tofu cubes on top of the spinach.

Second and third pictures: While I was in Florida we went to P.F. Chang's twice. The first time I got Tofu Lettuce Wraps, Garlic Sweet peas, and Brown Rice. The second visit I got the Buddha feast (not pictured.)

First Picture: We also went to The Cheesecake Factory where I got the Portobello Mushroom Burger and fries.

Eating was kind of our major activity on this trip.

2009-12-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

I'm going to Florida for a week. When I get back I'll have several pictures of vegan stuff I ate.
As for the last few days, I've been lacking diligence due to major life changes and being perpetually high. Here's some stuff I can drag out of the haze:

Nature's Choice brand Multigrain Triple Berry Cereal bars
Theobromia Chocolat Banana and Raspberry Flavours
Grilled Cheese with soy cheese
Flavanoid Lovers Pasta and Herbed Potato wedges from Magic Oven.
Avocado Salad, Deep fried tofu, and Avocado Cucumber Role from Sushi Queen.

That's all I can remember right now.

2009-12-16T21:50:00.000-08:00

Today was one of those days where you mostly subsist on one giant meal.
It was an order of Basil vegetable fried rice with tofu from Thai Express.
Also had a toasted everything bagel with margarine, a lime cola, and more tea.

Aaron and I saw the stage production of Fiddler on the Roof today. It was actually really disappointing. I love that play but the guy playing Tevye literally could not sing a note. Nore did he have the vocal power to shout, which Tevye needs to do on several occasions.

Longer and more interesting posts to come after this last fucking exam.

Thing I'm eating right now

2009-12-15T23:05:00.000-08:00

Don't know how I'm going to finish studying for this exam.

Right now I'm eating Pacific Foods Cashew Carrot Ginger soup. Just bought it in a box at the grocery store. It's really good.
Vitamin A!

2009-12-15T11:15:00.001-08:00

Yesterday I sat on my ass and ate like aaaaaaaaaall day.
Things I ate included:

An entire salad made of a mix of dark greens, tomato, cucumber and sunflower seeds with lemon ginger seseme dressing.
Toasted crumpets with margarine.
Toast with peanut butter and raspberry jam.
An Amy's brand frozen dinner: Organic vegetables and brown rice bowl.
Some baking chocolate.
Two cups of tea, one lemon zinger one vanilla hazelnut.
Ramen noodles with fake barbecue chicken.
Probably some other stuff I'm forgetting.

I need to eat significantly less today.

Recent food in reverse order

2009-12-14T12:52:00.000-08:00

Midnight snack: Pecans
Dinner: Banana pancakes
Lunch: Rice noodles, fake beef, and vegetables from King's Cafe.

I slept until 3pm today. I'm kind of ashamed of myself.

Winter

2009-12-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

Oh god, it's getting to be winter again. The wind's a-howlin'.
Some time soon I'll have to make a big feel-good winter meal, but today it was too gross out to go to the grocery store so I made my famous random leftovers stir fry again. It's a good staple dish 'cause it's rarely the same twice, uses up left over ingredients from other recipes before they go bad, is easy to make, and always results in a tonne of left overs.
This time it consisted of onion, garlic, asparagus, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, spinach and pecans (yes, nuts can go in stir fry.) Cooked in toasted sesame seed oil, soy sauce and hoisin sauce. Served over brown rice. Dark veggies are rich in iron.
I've said this before, but I freaking love vegetables. This meal is loaded with vitamins, if a bit salty.

Currently drinking vanilla hazelnut tea. If you put vanilla soy milk and some sugar in it it tastes like a cake.

Speaking of cake, I'm looking forward to making myself a big one in celebration of my last exam next friday.

Creamy celery soup with barley and split pea

2009-12-09T12:56:00.001-08:00

I'm finishing off the last of the soup I made the other day. This is seriously one of the tastiest recipes I have, and it's so simple. Found here:
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=27425.msg299632#msg299632
I used pot barley this time instead of pearl barley, which is the same thing except it hasn't been shelled so it has more fiber. I couldn't tell the difference.
This soup has a fantastic texture. The celery makes it slightly gelatinous and I love the squishyness of barley.
Enjoy!

2009-12-06T12:44:00.000-08:00

I'm working on my very last essay at present. Hopefully will get it done by tomorrow when it's due.
Mom, if you're reading this, seriously don't bug me about it.

Yesterday Aaron and I went to the Christmas party for the Oshawa public library, where he works. This involved about an hour and a half trip out to Oshawa for me, but I chilled out and read 'Blindsight' on the way. It's this really wicked sci fi. Probably one of the best books I've ever read.
There were like 6 vegetarian/vegans there so we were well fed. They served us salad (dark greens, sunflower seeds and strawberries), stir fry with rice, potatoes, asparagus, and red peppers. All of which were really tasty. For dessert we got a fruit bowl with some kind of crumbly goodness at the bottom, mixed with vegan jello with non-dairy whipped cream on top. I was surprised that the cream was non-dairy, you really couldn't tell the difference.

I made chickpea salad the other day (pictured above.) Just canned chickpeas, chopped tomatoes, green onions, some olive oil and pepper. I learned not to eat a whole cans worth of chickpeas 'cause I got super gassy the next day. But it's soooooo goooooood.

Initiate hybernation state

2009-12-04T10:19:00.000-08:00

I want to go to sleep until May. My body is like "What are you doing out of bed, you crazy bitch?!"

Above is a picture of all the groceries I bought the other day. I would have gotten more but that was all I could fit on my bike. I should get another basket.
I saw a guy biking with two kids on his bike the other day. one was in a seat on the back and the other was on a seat on the front. It was beautiful.

Dinner: The other day I made "Kieran's Favourite Rice" from How it all Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer (Also pictured above). It's basically every vegetable you want, mushrooms, rice (I use brown instead of white like the recipe says, so I need to add more water), kidney beans and tofu cubes cooked in tomato juice. So it's basically a big bowl of everything.

Dinner two nights ago: I didn't have a lot of time this night but still felt like making dinner so I just made some white rice (with margarine, garlic salt and onion powder), warmed up one of those microwavable veggie combos, and a Gardin faux-chicken breast in dijon sauce. Vegan meals can be quick!

2009-11-30T18:45:00.000-08:00

Too much homework! Gonna drown! Helllllllp!
Okay enough of that.
Dinner: Only thing I've gotten a chance to actually cook lately was a brown rice and lentils dish (pictured above being eaten by Aaron). It doesn't look like much but it was actually really tasty with the spices added. I kind of made the recipe up, so here it is:

Boil about 5 cups of water. Add 1 tbsp of margarine or oil if desired.
Add one cup of short grain brown rice and one cup of brown lentils. (Any kind of lentils would be good, this is just what I used. Lentils are high in iron and protein (you get a complete protein if you eat them with grains like in this dish. You don't actually have to eat the grain at the same time as the lentil, so assuming you ever eat bread or pasta or crackers etc. you're good.)
Reduce heat and let cook until tender and water is gone (about 40 minutes.)
Add 2 tbsp cumin, 1 tsp curry powder, 1 tsp paprika and salt to taste. Also add a few tablespoons of flax seeds. (I never measure my flax seeds, I just dump in what looks like an appropriate amount.)

And there you go.
Other things I've eaten lately: French fries, Strawberry smoothie, lime cola.

2009-11-25T15:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I made delicious sandwiches for the first time in a while. They consisted of onion sprouts, tomatoes, cucumber, veggie slices brand soy cheese and margarine on 12 grain bagels.
I also bought a box of Mr. Christie's chocolate wafers, one of my favourite cookies.
Today I went to Subway in the library at school and got a veggie patty and baked Lays as usual. I also was a bad vegan and bought their cookies *hangs head in shame.*
The other day I made Mushroom mashed potatoes. This batch I made by chopping up 4 potatoes (I always leave the skins on) and boiling them until easily pierced with a fork. Then I drained them and left them in the strainer while I sauted some chopped mushrooms in the pot with some olive oil. After about 10 minutes I added the potatoes back to the pot, plus a giant scoop of non-dairy margarine and about a cup of regular soy milk. Mash until mashed-potato like. Finally, I added onion powder and garlic salt.
Served it with Green Giant Essentials: Fiber. It had broccoli, black beans, edamame, red peppers and pearled barley "with Asian inspired seasonings." They're 2 bucks in the frozen vegetable section.
Breakfast was cheerios again.
Currently snacking on Premium Plus crackers. They remind me of childhood...the not crappy parts.

2009-11-21T17:26:00.000-08:00

I bought some Golden Pomegranates at Kensington Market the other day. They are freaking amazing. They're sweeter than regular pomegranates and milder tasting. And their juice is pretty much clear so you don't get red all over you. Also got Bananas. I intended to use them to bake something but I've just been eating them straight for breakfast and snacks. Might have enough left over to make Banana Pancakes tomorrow. Or might buy more and make muffins.

We had some friends over for dinner last night. I made the Cauliflower Leek Kugel with Herb Almond Crust from 'Vegan With a Vengeance' by Isa Moskowitz again. I could make that every day.

Today I made Stir fry from the left over vegetables in my fridge (cauliflower, carrots, bit of leek, and asparagus, plus onions and garlic as always), and fake beef strips. Cooked in toasted sesame seed oil, hoisin sauce and soy sauce, seasoned with parsley and lime leaf (found at The Lucky Moose Chinese grocery store), basil and salt.

2009-11-17T23:06:00.001-08:00

One of my papers was pushed back a week, so that gave me a little breathing room. Still pretty swamped, though.
Today's diet: Lots of coffee (with soy milk and sugar). Out to Thai Express (a chain fast food thai place) and got takeout. They give you a crazy amount of food (as is the custom among our culture) so that was kind of my main mean of the day.
Dark chocolate bar with raspberry filling.
Also went out for Indian food with a friend, but I hate spicy food and wasn't that hungry so I just got this thing that's name I don't remember and a Ginger ale. Ginger Ale is awesome.

Soup and pesto

2009-11-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

Quick entry because I have to get to writing this godforsaken paper.
I needed a quick meal the other day so I made pesto with cinnamon basil leaves and academia nuts. Blended with lemon juice, garlic and olive oil and stirred into whole wheat pasta. Picture above.
Yesterday I made carrot soup with fresh dill, lime leaf, and agave nectar.

2009-11-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

Lunch yesterday: This was actually closer to dinner time but we went out for a late dinner too, so I'll call it lunch. I made Tofu Scramble (bottom picture), served with tomato and avocado slices, and toast with margarine and jam. I like making breakfast foods for not-breakfast.
The scramble I kind of invented. Saute half an onion and 3 chopped garlic cloves in 1 tbsp olive oil until onions are translucent. Add one chopped green pepper and saute another few minutes. Crumble up firm tofu into the pan and add garlic salt, onion powder, lots of dill (i like dill), pepper, and a bit of paprika. Let cook for 10 minutes, stirring every so often.

Dinner Yesterday: Went out with my mom and step dad and Aaron's dad and step mom to a fancy Japanese place called Fune. I got Vegetable soba noodle soup. Soba noodles are made with buckwheat. Aaron got an appetizer of assorted pickled vegetables and a vegetable maki set.

Breakfast today: Cornflakes and regular Natura.

Lunch Today: Vegetable sandwiches with soy creamcheese and a banana. (Top picture.) Sandwiches with margarine, soy creamcheese, tomatoes, cucumber, and garlic salt on toasted flax bread.

2009-11-07T21:54:00.001-08:00

So school is trying to keel haul me. I'm working on not letting it.
Going to the Bombay Dreams warehouse rave tonight helped a lot. Even though it closed by the cops around 12.
Right now: Eating an apple. Can't go wrong with fruit.
Bedtime snack: Frosted flakes with flax seeds
The other day I whipped up some Jasmine rice with onion, peas, and celery. It's easy to make. You just chop up like a quarter of an onion (I added celery this time) and maybe some garlic and saute it with like a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a big sauce pan. Then you add like half a cup of peas, 1 1/4 cups of rice and a bay leaf and stir it around. Then add 3 cups of water and let it simmer uncovered until the water is gone. Finally, let it sit (covered I guess so it doesn't get cold) for 40 minutes. Add salt
That's all i got right now.

Stupid school

2009-11-01T16:37:00.000-08:00

I have like a billion pages of reading to do right now. Seriously.
Along with trying to have a social life so I don't become a crazy hermit (this happened last year), that's about all the time I have so blogging has taken a back seat. Here's a picture of me on Halloween. I was an alien. ^^ I went to a warehouse rave with some friends. Much props to the Promise crowd, good party. The visuals were super and I liked the music. Unfortunately it got really hot and crowded around 1, but by then we'd gotten some good dancing in.
I've still got some good vegan ideas for you though, so don't despair.

I made a 9 Bean Soup a few days back. I'd bought this big jug of dried beans and such which has a recipe on the side for cooking it. Next time I make it I'm going to soak the beans first. The box didn't say to do that but the texture turned out all funny.

Yesterday I made Herb Potatoes from 'How it all Vegan.' Fresh herbs are freaking awesome. The only problem is that you never ever use them all up. These had thyme and rosemary (not fresh) on them.
Potatoes are so awesome. You can cook them so many ways (chips, fries, mashed potatoes, roasted, baked, in hashbrowns, etc.) and they're always filling and delicious.

I took my mom to Kensington market the other day. We bought some cute stuff. I took her to King's Cafe, one of my favourite vegetarian places. I got an eggplant dish. Eggplants are cool 'cause they soak up flavour. It was really tasty and satisfying.

I bought a pack of Oatmeal and stocked back up on soy milk. I also bought grapes, which are a great snack.

Aaaand on my way home I saw a guy selling organic stuff so I bought some onions. You always need onions.

Above there's a picture of the bean soup.

2009-10-24T19:05:00.001-07:00

Not much to post lately since I made another batch of that Moroccan dish and we've mostly been eating left overs and cereal. I'm on a Cheerios kick right now.
Breakfast idea: I used to make Quaker's oatmeal with vanilla soy milk and brown sugar ever morning. I ate too much at once and got sick of it but I should pick some of that up again. It is tasty goodness.
Today was the zombie walk. Good times. I appreciate people's creativity in coming up with various zombie versions of just about everything. One chick had a fake pregnant belly with the baby's arm sticking out of her stomach. There was also a zombie Napoleon and more than one zombie Jesus.
Dinner: Afterward we went to the Green Room and I got a plate o'fried rice with tofu.
Dessert: I bought a Green and Blacks brand dark chocolate bar with ginger from the grocery store (Metro). It's got candied ginger bits in it and is probably my favourite kind of chocolate ever. They're fairly expensive as far as chocolate bars go (like 4 bucks), but it's way better to buy quality chocolate once in a while instead of crappy chocolate every day.

The other day my friend came over and we went to Subway. If you've never had their veggie patty you should give it a try.

I think I've done a fairly good job so far of demonstrating how many places there are to go out for food when you're a vegan. Off the top of my head there's Ethiopian, Subway, Japanese restaurants, Thai food, Green Room, Lick's, most places that have burgers also have veggie burgers, Middle Eastern places, Magic Oven, One Love, Full Moon (vegetarian Vietnamese place), King's Cafe, the Hot Box, the Pickle Barrel (they only have a few vegan things but they're good), and Fressen.
Obviously the number of available options changes depending on where you live. Toronto is very good for vegan food.

Thank you!

2009-10-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Thank you to yourworstfriend who followed the link on Reddit to this blog and says they'll use it to eat more veggies. It made my day!
Even if you don't want to go vegetarian, it's a good idea to eat more vegetable based foods and reduce your meat intake. Meat production is really hard on the environment so if you half the amount of meat you buy you're really reducing your carbon footprint. I think you'll feel healthier too. And you'll probably have more money.
Thanks again and I hope you continue to enjoy the blog!

Breakfast: Coffee with soy milk and raisins. (So I'm not big on breakfast, sue me.)

Dinner Party

2009-10-17T16:42:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I made a dinner party, which is something I've been wanting to do more of.
I made two dishes from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cookbook 'Vegan with a Vengeance.' The first step of this journey involved biking home from Kensington market with a precarious weight of vegetables on my bike.
The first dish I made was a corn chowder. Soup is great to make 'cause you always have leftovers. (I'm eating it right now. ^_^) While cooking this soup I discovered that raw corn is DELICIOUS! I'd heard you could eat it but I'd never tried it before. I seriously suggest just going at an ear of corn raw. Anyways it turned out so good that it was hard to stop people from eating so much of it that they ran out of room for other food.
The next dish was kind of adventurous for me. It had a lot of stuff in it that I don't normally cook with like raisins and fresh mint. It was called Moroccan Tagine with Spring Vegetables. It contained lentils (always a great idea), zucchini (I've been wanted to branch out in terms of the types of vegetables I cook, there are SO MANY), grape tomatoes, green beans, and a bunch of other good stuff. Served over couscous (which I've had in my cupboard for a long time and have been really meaning to use.)
Being adverturous payed off. This dish was really interesting and tasty.
I was especially skeptical about the raisins at first, but they turned out really soft with a subtle flavour that worked perfectly.

Happy Birthday to me

2009-10-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my birthday. Actually two days ago since it's after midnight now.
We had a party on Saturday. I made a lemon bundt cake with lemon sauce (decorated with strawberries) and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The cakes were from my new cookbook 'The Joy of Vegan Baking' by Colleen Patrick-Goudeau and the icing was from 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.' I reduced the sugar in the chocolate frosting by like half a cup 'cause I find it just too sugary otherwise.
I should have taken a picture of the cakes to post here but I was so busy preparing I didn't get around to it.
We also had Lays potato chips, lots of hummus and with veggies and pita to dip in it (curtosy of guests), some chocolate chip cookies thanks to Sarah, more cake from Mike, cookies and jiffy pop from Liana and Cary (who are awesome) and a variety of sodas and boozes. I was worried about having enough food but people didn't eat nearly as much as I thought they would so we've been eating the left over junk food a lot. :-P

Two friends gave us a gift certificate for Fressen, the super fancy, super nice, super amazing vegan restaraunt on Queen Street. We've been there before with our non-vegan parents and they loved it.
It's hard to describe what we ate because it was all fancy and each dish had a long description. I'll just say it was delicious (except for a lot of olives I hadn't anticipated. I don't like olives.) The presentation is beautiful too.

Right now I'm eating hummus with Stoned Wheat Thins crackers and trying to figure out ways not to be bored.

Protein!

2009-10-13T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today for dinner I'm havin' a big ol' bowl full of protein.
Started out with my Omega Meal's sprouted rice, lentils and flax. I bought this in a package at the vegetarian food fair, but it's just brown rice, lentils, and flax seeds (germinated, which is supposed to be all extra good for you, but you could just boil the normal type together.) So lentils and brown rice makes a protein, and the flax seeds (which I talk about all the time and will always love) have Omega 3 fatty acids. I boiled them in with a vegetable bouillon cube (organic from GoBIO! brand) and added some marjoram. I like dumping random spices in my rice, partly to help me get acquainted with them.
Then I added some frozen peas, which also make a protein when combined with the brown rice.
This is a totally complete and delicious meal, which took about 3 minutes to make since the rice dish was left over from last night.
Completed with a glass of gingerale.
Make it and enjoy!

Here's a picture of my tattoo

2009-10-12T11:41:00.001-07:00

2009-10-11T20:33:00.000-07:00

Here's a good one for the lazy vegans:
Campbell's tomato soup made with 3/4 of a can of regular soymilk and 1/4 water. I used to make this all the time when I was a kid (with regular milk). Using all soymilk was a little too creamy for me, but this was perfect.
I also threw in some dried rosemary and it was amazing.

Stir fry!!!

2009-09-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

Breakfast: Amy's nondairy burrito with beaked beans and rice.
Snack: Wheat Thins crackers with hummus.
Lunch: Cheerios with Original Natura soymilk.
Dinner: Stir fry!!! I love to stir and fry my food! I was looking forward to making this since like 5 but Aaron didn't get home until 11 tonight so I had to wait. It consisted of purple onion, garlic, left over carrots and broccoli, newly purchased bok choy and shitake mushrooms, fried in canola oil (olive oil or toasted sesame oil is better but I have this canola oil that I want to use up), and with fresh parsley, thyme, basil, and soy sauce for flavour.
Served over left over white rice.
Here's a picture!

Here's a picture of yummy food that I made

2009-09-29T11:00:00.001-07:00

Pedestrian Sundays.

2009-09-28T09:33:00.001-07:00

Freaking out a little bit about being back at school.
Okay yesterday Aaron came home from the bar and found me drunk and bawling. Poor kid.
But food always makes me feel better.
Yesterday was Pedestrian Sunday at Kensington market (fuck I can't believe it's Monday again already).
At two I met my friend Brandon at the Hot Box and got their 'Hippy vegan sandwich." It had hemp pesto on it. Apparently hemp is really really good for you. We also smoked from one of the vaporizers they have there. Technically you're supposed to give them a 20$ deposit but they're always too stoned to remember to ask me.
Then I went to a mining protest at Queens Park with my friend Megan. I got there too late to see Elizabeth May speak though (I didn't know she was going to be there until afterward). That sucked.
Then Megan and I walked back to Kensington and I got a vegan chocolate cupcake from Wanda's Pie in the Sky on Augusta. It was win.
Aaron met up with us and then we ran into several more friends, after which we headed to Full Moon on Dupont and got massive plates of food. I got the Shanghai noodles. ^_^

Now I'm gonna go back to freaking out.

Post # 50! I expect you all to be vegans by now.

2009-09-26T00:28:00.000-07:00

You just can't beat a giant pot full of vegetables. (Some would disagree, but they are clearly inferior specimens of humanity.)
I made a recipe tonight that was really just a massive pot of veggies. Broccoli, red and green bell peppers, carrots, snow peas, and green onions with lemon juice and lemon rind, fresh parsley, thyme, bay leaves and salt and pepper for flavour. They're cooked using this cool method where you partly boil, mostly steam them by putting half a cup of water, plus lemon rind, spices and some olive oil, at the bottom of the pot. The carrots (4) go in first and cook for 5 minutes, then the peppers (2) for another 5, then the broccoli (2 cups) for 4, then the snow peas (2 cups) and onions (1 bunch) for another 2. Then you add the lemon juice, salt and pepper. I also threw in some flax seeds because they are so awesome.
I also made the broccoli patties and omega sprouted lentils and rice that I got from the vegetarian food fair.
It's 3:30 in the morning right now 'cause I went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show and then to Tim Hortons with some friends. I can't eat that much at Tim Hortons 'cause I don't like my bagels and coffee without anything on/in them, and Timmy Ho's isn't big on carrying margarine or soy milk. But I got a camomile tea and it was amazing.

2009-09-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

Breakfast today: Kiwi!
Dinner Yesterday: Aaron and I finally checked out this Caribbean vegan restaurant (rare) called One Love on Bathurst north of Bloor. Really small place but the food was great. We got a bunch of things I'd never heard of before so I can't remember what they were. The corn soup was awesome though.
Lunch Yesterday: Cupcakes. Whatever, you're jealous. My bestest friend Maggie is back in town for a few days so we got together and made 'Basic Chocolate Cupcakes' with chocolate icing from my 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World' recipe book.
Breakfast Yesterday: Ate some of the new cereal I got from the Vegetarian Food Fair with some Natural original flavour soymilk. I don't really like putting vanilla soymilk in my cereal because it tastes too different from what I grew up eating. But original tastes great. (... I think I'm gonna have some now!)
Lunch and Dinner Yesterday and Dinner the Day Before: Two nights ago I made some tomato sauce with spinach from a recipe in 'Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan.' I also made a whole box of whole wheat corkscrew pasta, which ended up being way more pasta than we needed for the sauce. SO the next day I went and bought more spinach and just made more sauce for the left over pasta. There's still some in the fridge.
Breakfast Yesterday: Honestly I think it was cookies. Why not?
Lunch Two Days Ago: My friends Morgan and Nick told me how to make really awesome, really simple chickpea salad. I dumped two cans of chickpeas into a bowl and added a chopped up tomato, chopped up green onions (left overs of which went in the first batch of sauce), oil, salt, and pepper. I actually had to stop myself from eating the whole thing.

Aaron got a whole bunch of lunches out of the left overs.
Mmmmmmmmmm. Food.

Vegetarian Food Fair!!!

2009-09-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

So I ended up going to the Vegetarian Food Fair on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday this weekend. It was awesome. Here is a list of the stuff I got there (no more spending money for me for a while):

A sexy dress from Healing Heart Designs
Vegetable bullion cubes
A Cookbook called 'The Joy of Vegan Baking' by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau and a free 'Go Meatless for Life' booklet of recipes
LOTS OF FREE SAMPLES
Like 4 chocolate amaranth bars
Zoglo's Vegetarian Choice brand Broccoli Patties
Omega Meals Sprouted Omega rice and lentils
A 'Truth' brand "Genuine non-leather" belt

I think that's it.
Hurray!

Blue mashed potatoes

2009-09-11T11:47:00.001-07:00

A few days ago I made mashed potatoes with sauted purple onion in them (also garlic, soy milk, margarine and salt). After going in the fridge the turned blue. Like seriously blue. So apparently I've invented blue mashed potatoes.
Yesterday for dinner I made a salad with a pre-made vegetable mix of iceberg lettuces, radishes and carrots. I added chopped up apples and pumpkin seeds, and served it with lemon-ginger-sesame dressing that I got with my mom at Cost-co. It was pretty awesome.
While we were eating the salad I fried some portobello mushrooms whole, covered in vegetable oil and tamari sauce. Served with the mashed potatoes they make a really good meat-dish substitute. Mostly because they're so juicy.

This weekend is the vegetarian food fair at the harbour front.. Seems I'm going twice. Today with two friends and again on Sunday with Aaron and some more friends. It's always really awesome. Everybody come out!

Yay! Helping!

2009-09-04T13:52:00.001-07:00

Yay! A friend wants to go vegetarian so she asked me to make her a list of all the easiest vegan things to make.

I had a lot of carrots and cauliflower left over yesterday and I didn't want them to go bad, so I boiled them in veggie broth and added chopped fresh dill and a little parsley (also left overs.)
Not the tastiest thing I've ever made but not bad either!
Aaron also surprised me with a Green & Blacks Mayan Gold dark chocolate bar because he is the awesome.

Lots of cooking!

2009-09-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

I made some sweet dishes with the help of friends over the last couple of days.
And here they are:

Cauliflower-Leek Kugel with Almond Herb Crust from 'Vegan with a Vengeance'. I actually used pumpkin seeds and walnuts for the crust since I wasn't gonna go out and buy more nuts when I got bags on the fridge. It was amaaaazing. Leeks are so freaking good. I've got a bunch of left over cauliflower I'll have to do something with.
Strawberry Lavender Muffins from 'Fresh at Home; Everyday Vegetarian Cooking'. You read that right. These were really interesting. I'm looking forward to finding things to put the left over lavender in. I'm going to a party on Saturday, maybe I'll make like vanilla cupcakes with lavender icing or something.
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup, also from 'Vegan with a Vengeance'. I've made this one before and it's always really good. I changed it this time by doubling the amount of vegetable broth in the recipe. It was too thick for me before, this made it more like a soup.

Snack: Left over strawberries from the muffins with Splenda on top.

Cookies

2009-08-30T20:01:00.000-07:00

Last night I made midnight cookies.
I used this recipe from VegWeb.com :
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=27391.msg299350#msg299350

The shortening was so awesome. They're really soft and delicious.
I added a little nutmeg, some orange extract, and some cinnamon just to play.

Lime stuff

2009-08-27T16:35:00.000-07:00

First, check out this awesome fucking tattoo by Cecil Porter - http://colormekatie.blogspot.com/

Now for the food part.
I looooove lime. I love lime lollypops, I put it in my tea and water, pretty much any time there's lime I'm happy.
So yesterday I made a Lime-themed Dinner:

Salad. Not actually lime but I had left over "honey"-mustard dressing. Mescalin greens, purple onion, tomato, cucumber and carrots
Cumin-lime tofu from 'Eat, Drink, and be Vegan' by Dreena Burton. This recipe has crushed up pumpkin seeds on top that make it all crunchy and yum.
Coconut-lime rice. This involved cooking brown rice in mostly light coconut milk. I actually only had regular coconut milk which might explain why I needed a lot more water to cook the rice than in the recipe.

Back from Winterpeg

2009-08-25T08:30:00.000-07:00

I went to Winnipeg for my cousin's wedding this weekend. It was nice but the ceremony was outside and I got eaten alive by mosquitoes.
Here's a picture of me and my sisters all dressed up. Danielle hunches over because she is insecure and thinks she's too tall. It makes her look like a turtle.

So I'm in a kind of crummy mood because I thought I finished school and then I found out I have to go back for a semester because I screwed up the courses I needed.
However, House season 5 comes out on DVD today, Guitar Hero 5 comes out on the first, and Beatles Rock band comes out on the 9th. So I'm planning on eating some special brownies and vegging out until i have to go back. (Unless I get hired at Secrets From Your Sister, my favourite specialty bra store.)

K, back to food.
I hearby name coffee with soymilk the breakfast of champions.
Yesterday for lunch I went to Sneaky Dee's so I could sample some of their non-nacho vegan food. I don't remember the name of the dish I had 'cause it was something Mexican, but it was really filling and tasty.
Dinner:

Salad with dark greens (they have iron), tomatoes, cucumber, purple onion, and pumpkin seeds. I made a "honey" mustard dressing from Eat, Drink, and be Vegan by Dreena Burton. It used agave nectar instead of honey. I think next time I'll use a little less agave nectar since it turned out really sweet.
I made tofu scramble, which we put in Dempster's ancient grain tortillas with some salsa. Tofu scramble is neat 'cause it's one of those things that you can make differently every time if you want to. I made it with mushrooms, green peppers, garlic and onions. The spices I got from a recipe in Vegan With a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, and there were mostly spices that I almost never use (since few recipes I have call for them), so that was fun. They were cumin, thyme, paprika, and tumeric. It turned out really tasty.
For dessert I made a carrot cake from a recipe in How it all Vegan by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer. It turned out tasty but I thought that it could have used more carrot in it. I changed the recipe in the book from half a cup to one cup of shredded carrots. I made "creamcheese" icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I buy soy creamcheese from the healthfood grocery store in Kensinton market. Eaten by itself you can kind of taste the soy (it's still quite good), but in the icing you could never tell the difference from the real stuff. I added a big squirt of lemon to make it lemon creamcheese icing.

So now I'm going to go make myself get dressed, go rent House (I hope they have it), eat a special brownie and then probably eat some left overs.
Peace.

Dinner

2009-08-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

Seems the pattern of this summer has been one of consecutive fuck ups on my part.
On the bright side, going to see Voltaire tonight. http://www.myspace.com/voltairenyc

Dinner: So once again I'm cooking to distract myself from life shittyness.
I'm making this rice: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/65/Portuguese_Tomato_Rice19462.shtml
with the following changes:

Vegetable broth instead of chicken or beef broth, obviously.
I chopped up the remaining celery from the fridge and threw it in so it wouldn't go bad. I love celery. Aaron thinks it doesn't have a taste, but I love adding it to dishes. This is the third dish this particular batch will be a part of.
I'm gonna add some spices but I'm not sure what yet. I'm thinking oregano, parsley, and maybe some marjoram or thyme.
Final awesome: gonna toast some pumpkin seeds and mix them in for crunchy protein.

I'm warming up some Yves Chicken Arrabbiata to go with it for more protein.

Snack: I've been snacking on purple grapes for a couple of days. They are prime snackin'.

Ethiopian food!

2009-08-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

Oh man oh man, going for Ethiopian food tonight. I'm not going to eat anything until I get there.
Ethiopian is totally one of my favourite foods. If you've never had it, go out and have it right now. Seriously.
They give you piles of incredibly delicious lentils, potatoes, and other yummies, which you eat by scooping it up with this spongy bread. It is possibly the most filling and iron-rich vegan dish out there.
Whenever they bring it I think "Hmm, is that going to be enough for all of us?" Then inevitably about 3/4 of the way through you hit this food wall and are insanely full. You keep eating though because it's soooooo good.
We're going to Ethiopia House on Irwin, south of Bloor off Yonge. I highly recomend.

Rice pilaf

2009-08-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

Vegetable rice pilaf is a good thing to make if you have left over vegetables in the fridge.
I started with a recipe from How it all Vegan, but changed it based on what I had.
You start by cooking rice (in this recipe it's 2 cups of brown rice) with some turmeric to make it all yellow and delicious looking.
Then you saute the veggies with some garlic, parsley (2 tbsp) and salt. I used half a sweet onion, 3 green onions, 2 carrots, 3 celery stalks, a cup of peas and 4 cloves of garlic. You add the peas, green onions, and parsley after the other stuff has been going for a while.
When they're done you mix them all together.
It's really tasty and it looks really nice too. You look at it and go "Mmmmmm. That looks tasty."

I also made some 'It's all good' Chick'n fillets in a zesty lemon herb rub, which may be my favourite flavour of said brand.
Voila. Whole meal.

Muffins!

2009-08-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

I bought bananas when I went grocery shoppin' 'cause I knew I could bake them into something delicious. Bananas are so good for baking 'cause they replace the egg with the perfect combination of moist and sticky.
I used this recipe as a base: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=15217.0
but I changed it up some.

I switched the applesauce for soy yogurt 'cause that's what I had.
I added 3/4 of a tsp of cinnamon 'cause I looooove cinnamon and add it to baked goods wherever appropriate. (It makes a really really good addition to brownies.)
I switched 1/4 of a cup of the sugar for maple syrup, just 'cause I was feelin' creative.
Used pecans instead of walnuts, again 'cause that's what I had.

I be excited.

New cookbook! ^_^

2009-08-09T18:45:00.000-07:00

Pages, the bookstore near my place, is closing. :( The rent at Queen West has been getting really high and most of the more alternative stores have moved further west.
Anyways, I went to their 20% off everything sale and bought (among other things) 'Fresh at Home' by Ruth Tal Brown and Jennifer Houston. It's one of the cookbooks from Fresh.

So today my friend Rena came over and we cooked:
1) The most bad-ass salad ever. It had:

iceberg lettuce
bean sprouts
avocado
cucumber pumpkin seeds
and marinated tofu cubes
wild ginger dressing

2) Golden curried dal soup.
Possibly the yummiest soup ever. It had lentils, coconut milk, fresh ginger, and lots of other yummyness. We added spinach, celery and some extra carrots to it. Soooooo healthy.

I also just did a major grocery shop today, since I hadn't gone in a few weeks. I bought Mr. Cristie's chocolate wafer cookies. They are so simple and good. They kind of taste like the tops of Oreos.

Currently watching the CN Tower get hit by lightning.

Sushi!

2009-08-07T16:14:00.000-07:00

Sushi fish is one of the last forms of meat that I gave up. Luckily, there's plenty of vegan stuff to get at Japanese restaurants, and it's a lot cheaper than the meat dishes. Sushi restaurants are one of the best places for vegans and non-vegans to go together.
I picked up a vegetarian bento box from Sushi Queen for dinner. 8 bucks for:

Miso soup and salad (Aaron informs me that the miso soup at restaurants usually has fish paste or beef broth in it. This pisses me off because miso paste is such a good vegan staple.)
Cucumber avocado roll
Edame
Spring rolls
Vegetable tempura
and deep-fried tofu

Tonight I got some friends together to go to Sneaky Dee's, largely because they have a vegan menu. Aaron and I are looking forward to a big plate o'vegan nachos. I looooove guacamole.

Pages on Queen West is closing D-:
Stupid gentrification of the area. The rent has gotten too high for them.
They're having a 20% off all books sale so I went and picked some up. Among my plunder was 'Fresh at Home,' a cookbook of recipes from one of my favourite vegetarian restaurants, Fresh. It took a lot of will power not to come home with a lot more. I was also tempted by 'Vegan Baking' and 'Vegan recipes from the tropics.' In the end though there are so many recipes online that I can't really justify spending too much money on cookbooks.
I also bought a book by the Dali Lama (man he's written a lot of books) and 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' by Phillip K. Dick.
Here is a comic of an android dreaming of an electric sheep: http://www.dieselsweeties.com/archive/1280

Dirty rice!

2009-08-06T16:21:00.000-07:00

K, got a box of Zatarain's dirty rice mix and added a package of Yves Veggie ground round.
Result: Delicious!
We ate it with a baguette to neutralize the spicy (I'm a huge spice wuss.)

Peace.

Pasta

2009-08-01T15:21:00.000-07:00

Yay, pasta!
I've had some Yves Veggie Cuisine original veggie ground-round in my fridge for a while, and it was calling to me.
I made a package of Flax Omega Three Rotini pasta (with some salt and margerine mixed in.)
For the sauce I used whatever the cheapest tomato sauce at Metro was, but I jazzed it up by adding sauted onion, garlic, and mushrooms (all left overs), plus the ground round.

My sexy buddy Rena is coming over later and we'se gonna make cupcakes!
CUPCAKES! ^_^

Impromptu dinner

2009-07-30T16:48:00.001-07:00

I didn't really have anything planned for dinner tonight, but I whipped up some nummies from stuff I had around.
First I cooked some of the oriental style noodles I have.
Side note: The noodle isle in the Chinese grocery stores in China town are amazing. I dumbly bought white flour ones last time I went. I'll get soba noodles next time.
For flavour I put on some toasted sesame seed oil, tamari sauce, and a little garlic salt, plus sesame seeds and flax seeds. On top I put a little Vietnamese fake meat, some sliced avocado, and finally some seaweed strips.
Not bad, if I say so myself.

Hard times

2009-07-30T03:39:00.000-07:00

Been going through some major stress lately. Possibly the first major rode block to be overcome in my life. Until now, everything has gone more or less according to plan. Now I must find a new path despite the anxiety and shame that comes when a previous gamble didn't pay off. Trying to be up to it. Luckily I got peoples who help me along.

But back to food.
I've been using cooking to help distract me, so I've made a few nice dinners.

Dinner 1: I made this rather fancy dinner from 'New Vegetarian Cooking' by Rose Elliot. It was stuffed avocado on this yellow lentil rice. Now the rice didn't turn out right because I forgot to adjust the amount of water when I substituted brown rice for white rice (stupid.) Also, for some reason the lentils I bought dont' cook like lentils but just turn into mush. But it was still edible and Aaron didn't really notice the difference.
The avocados are cool. You cut them in half, coat them in lemon juice and some salt and pepper, fill/mostly cover with this mixed mushroom concoction (with lemon juice and garlic, soooo good). Then you put the avocados on the rice, on a serving plate, and pop it in the oven at 300 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Don't let the avocados cook 'cause they'll spoil, but they can get warm.
Aside from the funky rice (I'll get it better next time), this was quite good. I looooove mushrooms and the lemon and garlic in these tasted really good (probably gonna start making that my standard mushroom frying recipe). The avocados added nummy fat, and the coating really made them delicious.
Also, Aaron was like "Ooooooooh." when I pulled it out of the oven, so that was fun.

Dinner 2: Yesterday I was planning on making dinner and my bestest friend Maggie called, so I invited her over.
We had pea soup that my mom sent me, corn on the cob and portobello mushrooms, rice and lentil mush (this cooking confirmed their inability to cook like normal lentils), and fudgeeos for dessert.

I've got lots of ginger in the fridge that I'm not sure what to do with. Maybe I'll make cookies.
I've also got some veggie ground-round so maybe some pasta.

Vegan Picnic

2009-07-24T09:06:00.001-07:00

Aaron's friend Alex had been wanting to have a vegan picnic for a long time, so yesterday evening we finally did it, despite threats of thunder showers.
I made wraps, some hummus some soy cheese, with tomatoes, cucumber and onions. I bought an avocado too but it was still too hard to use. I also made strawberry chocolate chip blondie bars, which didn't turn out all that great 'cause the recipe was wrong about how much dough to save for the top. They're still pretty tasty though. We also brought honey dew, cherries, pistachio nuts, and a bottle of coke.
Alex and his girlfriend brought a veggie plate with homemade hummus (really tasty), deep fried faux-squid balls, a vegan lemon meringue pie, and a bottle of wine.
Good times were had by all.

Now check this out, bitches: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiPR6kA4_iU
It's the official trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

Esmerelda the Octopus.

2009-07-22T14:28:00.000-07:00

Breakfast: Pear
Lunch: I went to the Green Room for lunch with my friend Brandon today. I got their hummus sandwhich. They put like an entire cup of homemade hummus on it, and the bread is all toasty and delicious.
Dinner: I currently have some tofu marinading. Apparently you're supposed to wrap it in paper towels (slice it up first to go faster) and then press it under a book for a while to get the water out before you do this. I didn't know so this is my first time doing it. The marinade recipe came from 'Vegan with a Vengeance'. It's just boiling water, olive oil, and a bunch of spices. You let it soak for like an hour and then bake it. It takes a while to make but it's worth it.
I'm also going to make some hashbrowns from the same recipe book. They've got mushrooms and green pepper in them. ^_^
Gonna polish off the carrot bisque for a first course and I got me a classy meal.

Fresh

2009-07-21T19:15:00.001-07:00

I went to Fresh yesterday with my friend Peter, who has decided to go vegetarian. Yay for Peter!
Fresh is freaking awesome. It's more on the health food side of things. Lots of fresh veggies and the like. I had the Buddha Bowl, with has tofu and vegetables in a curry sauce with crumbled peanuts on brown rice.
Their veggie burgers are to die for. They're not one of those burgers that try to be meat, it's more of its own thing. Seriously, try their burgers.
Now I'm very full of delicious falafel. Think i need to enter a hibernation state to digest.

I'm sick :-(

2009-07-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

Ugh, this sucks. I got the sniffles and the sneezes and occasionally a fever.
So I'm making carrot bisque soup (from Vegan with a Vengeance.) It has coconut milk in it! Gonna eat it with stoned milled whole grain crackers.
Side note about whole grain: I just don't like white flour anymore. It's boring! Bread stuff is supposed to have texture to it.

My bike got stolen again the other day. This sucks tremendously. Partly because I don't have the money to buy another one right now, and partly 'cause it just makes my life way less convenient. Looks like I'll be walking and taking the TTC for a while.
One reason I don't have money is because Don and I are moving shops. The owner of the shop we were at was seriously a bad man. So we're moving to another shop owned by his friends, but it isn't open yet. It's further away (Coxwell and Danforth), but there's less competition over there. Hopefully we'll be back on track and tattooing before too long.

Cheap, quick food

2009-07-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

I've been at the shop a lot lately, so I haven't had much time to cook.
Today for lunch I went to Subway and got their veggie patty sub. Those things are freaking tasty. Also got a bag of Baked Lays, to which I am addicted.
The perfect three dollar dinner: veggie hotdog. I haven't had a regular hot dog in forever, so i don't really remember what they taste like, but I do remember a nasty feeling in the gut that you get after eating some really heavy, greasy meat. It also accompanied eating McDonalds. Anyways, veggie dogs don't give you that.

Stir-fry time!

2009-07-14T19:36:00.000-07:00

I've been working late a lot so I haven't had had a lot of opportunities to get home before Aaron and make dinner. Today he's working late so I can feed him. ^_^
...when did I become a wife?
Anyways, stirfrying garlic, red onions, carrots, celery and asparagus (all left overs from the fridge, stir fry is great like that) and some Yves veggie cuisine brand fake chicken in some toasted sesame seed oil, soy sauce (be careful you don't buy the kind with lactic acid in it. Lactic acid is a stomach acid. It's a slaughter house run off. It is gross by any standards.), and hoisin sauce (supposedly a fish sauce, but apparently most of them don't actually have fish in them.) I also through some parsley on there.
It's sizzlin' away right now. Should be tasty.

Lots of chocolate chips.

2009-07-10T08:59:00.001-07:00

I found some vegan chocolate chips (annoyingly hard to find, considering that the milk products are completely superfluous. I guarantee they taste exactly the same.) So I made chocolate chip pancakes! Once again, the recipe can be found in 'Vegan with a Vengeance' by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.
I also had a late-night falafel, an excellent vegan staple.
This morning I had Jordan brand granola cereal with vanilla Silk. I mixed together the strawberry and chocolate chip kind.

2009-07-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

Oh man, yesterday I went into an ice cream store for sorbet and they had dark chocolate covered oreos. I kind of wish I had ten more.
Two nights ago I went to a vegan Greek dinner to raise money for the Durham vegetarian food festival. They served us salad, then the main course was this dish that was zucchini over eggplant over potatoes over tomatoes, served with chickpeas and couscous. Dessert was a fruit cake with chocolate sauce. Definitely worth the trip out.
I got a chance to make dinner last night for the first time in while. I made this asparagus recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=11519.0 with a diced carrot added. This recipe had both sesame seeds and toasted macadamia nuts in it. There should be more nuts and seeds in food. They are deelishious. I also made some fried tofu which is my own little invention. You just cut it into cubes, then fry it in some oil (I used sesame seed oil this time to go with the dish), lemon juice, onion powder, and garlic powder. You can add any other seasoning you feel like, also.
Then I served the veggies and tofu over some Asian-style noodles.
When we got back from our bike trip I also made this recipe: http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=10056.msg281968#msg281968
I substituted a butternut squash for some of the potatoes, since I had one, and threw in some tofu for protein.