2 Days Until The New Job

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.)