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