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! ^_^