Back in time

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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!

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

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!!!

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

Pedestrian Sundays.

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.

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.

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!!!

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

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!

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!

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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.

1. I switched the applesauce for soy yogurt 'cause that's what I had.
2. 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.)
3. I switched 1/4 of a cup of the sugar for maple syrup, just 'cause I was feelin' creative.
4. Used pecans instead of walnuts, again 'cause that's what I had.
   

I be excited.

New cookbook! ^_^

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!

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 :-(

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

Bike trippin'

Aaron and I just rode our new tandem bicycle out to a bed and breakfast in Port Perry. It took us about 6 hours either way. Sometimes it was boring, but other times it was pretty. It sounds dorky but it makes way more sense than me trying to keep up with Aaron and always having to chase him up hills and being miserable. The B&B was amazing. It's called the Rooster's Inn.
Here's all the stuff we ate on our trip:

• We brought with us Nature Valley bars, Cliff bars, a dark chocolate bar, trail mix, and some V8.
• On the road we bought fresh strawberries and tomatoes.
  
• For dinner we went to a Mexican restaurant in town. We got veggie enchilads, re-fried beans (there was a big pepper hidden in them which apparently I wasn't supposed to actually put in my mouth. It burned), rice, and nachos with salsa and guacamole. Aaron got Mexican beer.
  
• The inn served us an amazing vegan breakfast of pan-fried potatoes, cornmeal patties (they have a name but I forget it) with tomato sauce, and fried mushrooms, onions, and red-pepper on top, fruit salad, toast with jam, orange juice and coffee. I actually had some eggs because they have rescued pet chickens in their backyard that are very happy, and I'm not against well-cared for pet chickens. Chickens make awesome pets! I could barely eat them though because I was so full already from the other stuff. They also gave us a bottle of wine in our room.
  

So that was our trip in terms of food. It was good times.

Been Busy

I've been busy at work the last little while. I did my first tattoos for money!
Here is a random selection of delicious things I've eaten recently:

• Banana Strawberry muffins (the banana replaces the egg really well.)
• Barley Pilaf: vegweb.com/index.php?topic=9131.0 (I added some thyme. Delicious substitute for rice.)
• Mock chicken breast in a dijon mustard sauce from 'Its all good'. They're really good. Pretty similar to a lean chicken breast, but not exactly. They come in a few different tasty flavours and only take a few minutes to cook.
  
• Dried mango slices.
• Corn on the cob
• Ginger ale
  
• Deepfried vegetable maki roll
• Dark chocolate bar with marzipan. Just realized that marzipan is vegan.
  
• Coconut milk and curry vegetable dish with tofu and jasmine rice from a Thai restaurant.
  

Much improved, shaded version of the first tattoo I did

All fixed up.

Things I ate yesterday:
Breakfast: Raspberry lime pancakes. Don't pretend you aren't jealous. The recipe is from 'Vegan with a Vengeance' and has maple syrup in the batter to replace the egg and the sugar. Soooo good. Also put some banana slices on it just to make it extra awesome.
Lunch: Deep-fried vegetable roll and salad.

Things I ate today:
Breakfast/lunch: Tomato soup, potato chips and a coke
Snackies: Hummus and Pita
Dinner: Brown rice (made it with some vegetable broth powder, margarine, and a bay leaf in the water) with flax seeds and some frozen Vietnamese fake meat on top.

I did my second tattoo today. This one had some shading in it.
Heading off the drum circle at Cherry Beach as soon as I've crammed some food in my place. Toronto is awesome.

After Drum Circle Snack: 2 bananas and some pistachios. (I biked there and back.)

I mostly ate left overs today. I did have a weird vegetable maki roll that my boss bought me, and a Cambino Matcha Green Tea dark chocolate bar that Aaron bought me, though. I like when people give me food.
I've started re-playing Bioshock. Definintely still fun the second time.
Apparently I just don't get sick of drawing when I have an excuse to be doing it all day. I drew most of the day at work, and now I'm gettin' ready to draw some more. I'm trying to get my skills up, and just get a repetoire of images in my head for future use. Check it out: http://stephy-buttons.deviantart.com/art/Pin-up-2-126086586

Someone left me a big long message on purerave.com saying that it doesn't sound like I'm a very healthy vegan. They be trippin'. Also they said they didn't like Lick's veggie burgers, so clearly they are quite mad.
I should note that the separation of my meals into breakfast, lunch, and dinner are kind of arbitrary. Dinner may in fact be only 2 hours after lunch, or some such thing.
Stuff I ate today:
"Lunch" (Actually my first meal of the day, but it was like 3pm.): Pea soup and stir fry with rice from United Bakers. I believe that the soup had egg noodles in it, so that was cheating. I do occasionally cheat. I ain't perfect. I'm probably 99% vegan. I think that counts.
Dinner: Salad (I was really in the mood for some plain crispy veggies. Yum.)
Cumin Lime Tofu from 'Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan' (It had pistachios on top ^_^)
Jasmine rice with peas
Snack: Peanut Butter and jam on flax bread.
Side note about flax seeds: Flax seeds are awesome because they contain Omega-3 fatty acids and go good in a lot of things. I like to dump a bunch of flax seeds right in my brown rice (they don't do much to the taste, but I think they look really yummy in there), or in salad. I just now got the idea to try throwing them in pancakes. Will get back to you on that one.

I decided I was drinking too much soda and also I am currently very broke, so I went back to drinking water with a little lime juice in it. Really good. (I'm addicted to lime.)

Unhealthy vegan, my ass!

Brain in a jar

Things I ate today:
GRILLED CHEESE! Made with Veggie Slices brand soy cheese. Soy cheese is one of those things I was really skeptical about before I tried it, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Veggie Slices is just real cheese and they're lying. It's that good. Make a grilled cheese with it and I guarantee you can't tell the difference from Krafts singles. The block kind isn't quite as good to eat by itself as real cheese, but it grates perfectly and they all melt just like real cheese.
Also organic ketchup.

I also did my first tattoo today!!! Check it out: http://stephy-buttons.deviantart.com/art/Brain-in-a-jar-tattoo-version-125845608
Not bad for my first try.

I'm sleepy

Tomorrow I do my first tattoo, based this drawing:
http://stephy-buttons.deviantart.com/art/Brain-in-a-jar-125413751

Stuff I ate:
Breakfast: A veggie-patty sandwich from Subway. Good stuff. (This was at like 1 pm. I'm usually still asleep around real breakfast time.)
Lunch: More Mr. Noodle. This time with frozen peas and fake Vietnamese mutton (this stuff is indescribably good.) Also more fudgeeos.
Dinner: My friends had a really cool barbecue. They have this cute little grill they were using on their little balcony, and we hung out in kind of a back alley of parking lots easily accessible rooftops behind their apartment in China town. They live above a store on Spadina. It's a sweet location, but I didn't know the back was so cool too. Anyways, I had a soy-dog (really good) and potato chips.

Apparently Aaron recommended this blog to someone at his work. HI SOMEONE FROM AARON'S WORK!

Stuff I ate yesterday:
Lunch: Pasta Primavera from a bar next to the parlour
Dinner: Made spaghetti with veggie ground-round and mushrooms in the sauce.

Today:
Lunch: Left over pasta
Dinner: Vegetarian Chow Mien from The Pickle Barrel.

Morning cake

I couldn't sleep all tonight, so at 6 in the morning I started baking a chocolate cinnamon cake from a recipe in 'Eat, Drink, and be Vegan' by Dreena Burton.
Vegan baking is really easy, and totally does not have to be health food. It's just a matter of substituting a few ingredients for other equally good ingredients. Milk is easy, it can be replaced with soy milk or another milk substitute. Eggs are used in baking mostly to hold the ingredients together (so the pastry doesn't get all crumbly.) There are lots of ways to do this with vegan ingredients, including banana (1/2 a banana per egg, fantastic in things like pancakes and muffins), store-bought egg replacer (just a few starches mixed together), apple sauce, ground flax seeds, soy milk with a bit of apple-cider vinegar in it to make it curdle, or silken tofu (1/4 cup per egg, put in a blended. Makes things really moist and yummy).
Some tips:

• Like any baking, don't over-mix your flour
• Put a pan of cool water in your oven while your pastry bakes. This should help it rise and keep it moist. (I once forgot to do this for one batch of muffins, then remembered for the second batch, made of the same batter. The second was noticeably better.)
  
• When I can, I like to put prune baby food (yup) in my brownies and other chocolate things. It adds a lot of moisture and a subtle taste that works really well. (When I tell people the secret ingredient they usually get very surprised, have a few contemplative chews, and then get surprised one again when they realize they can kind of taste it, and it's delicious.)
  

I have a book called 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World' by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Buy this book. These cupcakes are as good or better than any non-vegan cupcake, I assure you. These cupcakes have converted many a skeptic and probably won me some friends (or at least one me respect for my cupcake-making prowess.)

Food I ate yesterday

Inevitably I will not be writing in this thing every day. I'll try to mention every time I have something I haven't written about here yet. I'll probably start skipping repeats after a while.
Breakfast: Toasted everything bagel with margarine.
Lunch: Tofu yakisoba
Dinner: Mr. Noodle with fake chicken nugget thingers (frozen from King's Cafe. They're like chicken nuggets.)

It's 5:10 and I ain't been to sleep yet. It's been a really stressful couple of weeks.

I LIKE TEA

I have an unreasonable amount of tea in my house right now. Lemon zinger, chocolate spice, vanilla hazelnut, a different vanilla hazelnut, vanilla, pear, and probably some others.
I've been sweetening it with agave nectar, which has the same consistency, colour, and taste as honey, but comes from a cactus so you don't have to steal it from bees. (COVERED IN BEES!!!)
Tea is good when reading.
I'm also hoping it will make me less stressed. Man I'm stressed.

Breakfast: Coffee. I'm not a big breakfast person, usually. I like breakfast food, but I'm more inclined to eat it for dinner.
Lunch: Went to 'What a Bagel' today and got pea soup and a hummus/veggie sammige. Man those are good.
Dinner: Finally cleared the fridge of mashed potatoes.
Dessert: Mango sorbet!!!

I'm having complications working out the payment for my tattoo apprenticeship, which is stressing me out like crazy. I just want to tattoo!

What do the inside of factory farms look like?

Here's a link that was on reddit.com yesterday: http://www.treehugger.com/galleries/2009/05/what-does-inside-factory-farm-look-like.php?dcitc=TH_sbl_slide

I don't read much about factory farms anymore because I did that a lot in high school and it's very depressing. I think that everyone should at least be informed about where their animal products are coming from, even if you choose to keep eating them.

I ate too much food yesterday and got a tummy ache. :( Why must the things I love hurt me?! (Actually, I was on a medication called Welbutrin for several months and it almost completely obliterated my appetite. I lost around 15 pounds. Now I'm off it (it wasn't doing what it was supposed to) and my appetite appears to be returning very slowly in waves. So I'll get hungry, eat more than I have been, then feel way too full. I'm hoping I balance out some time soon)

Fooood

Breakfast: Polished off the butternut squash soup.
Lunch: Japanese food (cucumber avocado role and deep fried tofu.)
Dinner: Zen salad and miso soup from King's Cafe in Kensinton market.
Side note about salads: A lot of people probably think that vegans eat mostly salad. I actually don't eat salad any more often than I eat any other food. When I do they're usually an appetizer. Sometimes I have a big one for lunch. I usually don't order them at restaurants, partly because they usually come with chicken or something.
They can be really good, though. The one I had today had pineapple, melon, and strawberries. I like to throw in random seeds and nuts to make them more substantial.
Dessert: Chocolate chip banana bread from Moonbean cafe.

Things I ate today

Breakfast: Pistachios and a soy milk mocha from Second Cup.
Lunch: Amy's black bean burrito (microwaveable).
Dinner: Left overs.

Things lazy vegans eat

K, my boyfriend is the laziest vegan of all time. Here is what he would eat every day if I didn't cook:
Breakfast: Cereal (he mixes a few together) and soy milk (actually he's been having Chinese bean milk that is green and I think is gross lately. But he likes it).
Side note: The following soy milks are delicious;
Natura (I like the vanilla kind best. I use it for coffee, to drink plain, and for baking. I use plain Natura for cooking things like creamy soups.)
Silk (I only buy chocolate Silk because I like vanilla Natura better. It's reeeaaally good. It's basically a chocolate milk shake. My non-vegan sisters buy it all the time.)
I'm less of a fan of So Good and So Nice, but it's probably a matter of taste. If you don't like the first one you buy, try a few more just to be sure!
I also really like almond milk, especially the chocolate kind. It tastes like a chocolate bar.
There's also rice milk (most people don't like this, but I know at least one person who does), potato milk (Aaron has a co-worker who can't have soy so she drinks this), hemp milk (had this at the vegetarian food fair last year and it was the most milk-like I've had yet.)
Lunch: Peanut butter and jam sandwiches. (We buy interesting bread like flax and sunflower, ancient grain, and the crazy shit they sell at Cobbs Bread.)
Dinner: Mr. Noodle with fake meat (I'm especially partial to the frozen Vietnamese brands. Trust me, they're tasty. Not health food. They're like 50% grease. *drool*), chickpeas and/or peanuts.
Sometimes he has hummus on toast.
Drinks: COFFEE. I think his blood must be primarily coffee at this point.

So there you go. You can be a vegan and not think at all about what you eat. He's been eating like this for about a decade and he's still super healthy and the picture of sexyness.
Featured picture up top: Aaron drinking coffee.