Internet Troubles Can't Stop Me From Sending Blog Love!

Hey All!
Just a quick note to say that I haven't forgotten to eat, but our internet at home is not working for some reason...it's wireless...it's picky! So here I am on a dsl line at work sending you some love. Hopefully all will be fixed in the near future! And hopefully I will have some exciting news for you, too! But it's a secret MUAAHAHAHAH. Ha!

heart!

cheers!

Listening to the Rain, Filling out a Survey, ahh Lazy Monday...I Adore You.

Hi All!

Well, as promised I will have pictures of food from our V-Day adventures last night, but first, it's survey time! Woop Woop! And I can't resist a good survey. I missed out on the Veganmofo survey because, well, I didn't have a blog. I did really enjoy reading all of your answers though, so I was super excited when lovely Liz over at Food Snobbery, created this super little survey. I had fun filling it out, but now I'm hungry after thinking about all this food.

1. If you have to choose between locally grown or organic, which do you usually choose? Usually I don’t have to choose, which is nice. Our local farmers are dedicated to the organic methods.

2. Favorite way to prepare potatoes: Baked with cornmeal and chilli powder, or shredded into a potato latke, mmm.

3. Do you press your tofu before preparing/cooking it (if you eat soy)? Sometimes, depends on what I’m using it for.

4. Name your favorite recipe that is a tradition in your family: Plain and simple tea biscuits. Mmmm. So good the next day, warmed with earth balance and molasses.

5. Any food allergies? I’m allergic to preservatives, pesticides, and I have a slight gluten intolerance. But I can’t help but devour a little seitan from time to time.

6. When you want to go to a fancy dinner, where do you go? The Wooden Monkey! Infact, we were there last night.

7. When you have a cold, what do you crave? Tomato Soup, and Lemon Tea.

8. What kind of water do you drink? (Filtered, spring, tap, etc.): Tap water, or if I’m on the run, bottled water, but NEVER from a plastic bottle!

9. Name a flavor of soda you'd love to see: I’m not really a fan.

10. If the recipes you ate as a child were compiled into a cookbook, what would the title be? Dirt Cakes and Dandelion Salad! (I was into food at an early age…and I played outdoors…a lot!)

11. If you were allowed to grow one food that can't grow in your climate, what would it be?MANGO! Or avocado. Mmm, or olives. (I'm somewhat indecisive..as you can see)

12. Favorite type of mushroom? I love portabellas, as well as shitake

13. Most frustrating part of your kitchen? The temperature in my oven is off by about 25 degrees. Sometimes I forget…and burn bottoms! (Not like, my own bottom, I mean biscuit bottoms, etc.)

14. Last food you burned? See question 13! :)

15. Usual response to a veg*n's favorite question, "But where do you get your protein?": BEANS BEANS BEANS, grains, nuts, seeds! It’s like a little chant, I even do a dance from time to time whilst tossing quinoa and black beans into the air.

16. If you were baking your own birthday cake today, what flavor would it be? I would have to say gingerbread.1

17. Favorite brand of chocolate chips? Just Us! Organic, Fair Trade (they aren’t actually chocolate chips, but its what I use in place of chips, I just break it into small pieces.)

18. You have $200 of your tax return reserved for Williams Sonoma- What do you buy? Another LeCruset Pan. I would really love a grill pan. Or I would invest in some seriously fabulous coffee and espresso accessories.

19. Do you plan your menus in advance? Any tips to share? Not usually, they are pretty well based off of cravings/time/and what’s getting old in the fridge!

20. You have 3 minutes before you have to leave the house and you're starving- What do you eat? Smoothie with spinach, almond milk, peanut butter, spirulina, banana, grapes, flax seed and coffee beans.

21. If Martha Stewart, Paula Deen, and Rachel Ray got into a fight, who would win and how?HAHAHA, I think I would have to go with Martha, she’d be all secretive and crafty about it. It’s a good thing.

22. If you eat oatmeal, what do you add to it before serving? Raisins and agave nectar. Mmm.

23. If you got to travel to one country and learn all the traditional dishes there, where would you go (ignore commitments in your current place of residence)? This is a tough one, but I would have to say probably Peru or Thailand.

24. Favorite late night snack? Leftovers from dinner! Or mocha soy milk. Or toast.

25. Favorite springtime food? Microgreens, fiddleheads and asparagus (again, with the indecisiveness...I know, I know!)

26. Favorite food-related magazine? VegNews, and Greens

27. Which do you prefer: shoyu, tamari, conventional soy sauce, or Bragg's Aminos? Bragg’s all the way! (Unless we’re talking about with sushi, then I’d go for shoyu)

28. What vegetable or fruit do you dislike the most? Durian. it’s a gigantic, smelly fruit. Bleck.

29. Name a holiday food you look forward to all year long: Miso Gravy…Mmmm. I’m drooling about it already!

30. If you could convert anyone to veganism with your magic wand, who would you convert?
I would have to say, Bob Dylan, ‘cause I’m sure he’d write the best song, ever, about being vegan! It'd be all groovy and protest like.

All right, that was super fun, but I'm lazy and sleepy after our weekend comes to an end tonight, so I will save the pictures and food stories until tomorrow.
I hope you are all having a fabulous evening!

Much Love from the Rainy East Coast!
Cheers!

This, is a Love Letter...to a Cutlet.

Even though I received Vcon in October for a birthday gift, I only got around to making the much adored Chickpea Cutlets the other night. I wish I hadn't waited so long, 'cause holy moly! They are un-freaking-believable!! I know, I know, I'm really behind the times here, but honestly, we fell in love with their slighlty spicy, chewy, warm and filling entirety. Mmmmm. I made a delish Roasted Red Pepper and Mushroom Gravy to go with them...it was one of those clean out the fridge, inventive dealies, so no recipe...YET! But hopefully when I remember what I put in it, I can pass it along. I also made some spicy sweet potato bites and some simple steamed broccoli and carrots. It was a heavenly dinner that we enjoyed with some beers and some Frasier re-runs.

Dear Chickpea Cutlet, I love you, please be mine.

In other news; cake!

Curtis wanted something sweet after dinner, so he started leafing through the cookbooks and decided on the Carrot Cake from LaDolce Vegan. It was really good! It was more like a cinnamon bun, in a way, only not bun shaped. But its all good, it wasn't too sweet, and it was moist and delicious. I made a simple vanilla/almond glaze for it, and we ate it all at once! MUAHAHAHHAHAH. Okay, no, no we didn't we were so full of cutlets we could only have a little, but it was great!

We've been looking everywhere for My Sweet Vegan, the recipes I have seen on other peoples blogs make me drool...a LOT! But here in Canada, it is SOOO not available. I have even tried to get all of our local little book stores to order a copy in for me, but none of them can get it in either. Sad day, indeed. Have something sweet for me and if you're travelling to Nova Scotia, ever, please let me know so I can beg you to bring me a copy!

Today after work, errands, groceries and all the other stuff, I was pretty sleepy. So for dinner tonight we had something from a *GASP* BOX! I know, I know, but I love these little bundles of joy. Totally vegan, canadian made potato croquettes. A delish and garlicky outer shell houses a smooshy, mooshy warm inside of perfectly spiced yukon gold potato. Mmm.

You can probably tell by the rushed nature of this photo that we were hungry!

We had these with a salad of romaine, tomato, grapes, pumpkin seeds, chickpeas and top secret poppyseed dressing. We also had steamed broccoli and carrots with hummus. Mmmm. For a busy day, it was a great dinner. Tomorrow we're heading out to our most favourite local restaurant for our V-Day Dinner. We love each other all year 'round, so Valentine's Day is pretty much a none-issue around here. But its fun to be romantic and eat out sometimes, so tomorrow it is! Hopefully, I will have some photos for you (of food, not mushy romantic scenes. HA!).

Now, go make chickpea cutlets! Run!

Lentil Loaf Ahoy!

Good Evening, my fellow bloggers!

As most of you know, Curtis and I have a Sunday/Monday weekend rather than a Saturday/Sunday weekend like the rest of the normal world, so our weekend comes to an end tonight. After eating our usual weekend pizzas and cocktails and having delicious, but easy things for lunches and breakfasts like tofurkey bagel sandwiches and smoothies, I decided to cook up something yummy and filling for dinner tonight. Lentil Loaf! WOO! We paired it with a giant salad and enjoyed it very much! And bonus, left overs to take for lunch!

The lentil loaf is a recipe that I got from our local Planet Organic, and boy is it good. Lots of red and green lentils, brown rice, rolled oats, a tonne of veggies and spices, and baked with a little ketchup on top. Mmmm. The salad was shredded romaine with tomatoes, red pepper, broccoli and mango, with some home made poppy seed dressing. It was quite the satisfying meal, warm and cozy, which is definetly something we need right now, what with the piles and piles of snow outside the door. I'm trying to be hopeful that spring will arrive, someday!

I really need to start taking more food pictures, so that I can start blogging more regularily, but I just get so excited sometimes to eat, that I totally forget to photograph. Please say you understand!

Valentines day is coming up this week, and while we aren't big on the Hallmark concept of the day (shouldn't we love each other all year?!) we do see it as a fine reason to go to our favourite restaraunt in town and have an amazing meal, with amazing wine and then we can cuddle and walk home together, and not have to do any dishes! So with any luck, I will remember to bring my camera, and risk being looked at like a crazy girl, just so I can show you the delightful food that we are so lucky to be able to get around here! But it won't be on Thursday, we're going to be saving our celebrations until Sunday, so patience patience!

Hope you are all enjoying a warm and slighlty trailer-park-esque dinner tonight, too!

Cheers!

Do You Know the Muffin Woman, the Muffin Woman, Do you Know the Muffin Woman, She Lives on Barrington Street!

Remember that song? The muffin man? I always secretly wished I lived on Drurey Lane with him.....


HAHA Look at me! I'm a muffin and I'm all up in your face!

My camera has returned! WooHoo! So in honour of that, I made something totally uncolourful to show you...hmmm, not good planning on my part. So here is a picture of our superbowl pizzas before we get to the stuff from tonight

Homemade crust, broccoli, portabellos, tomatoes, spinach, red pepper, mozarella "cheese" and a few pieces of veganronies. Mmmmmm. Usually I try to make the sauce, but since we would be preparing our food in my Dad's kitchen, rather than our own (and because I didn't plan ahead), I went with a jar sauce (*GASP*!), but I gotta say, this sauce ROCKED. It was on sale this month at Planet Organic, it's called Prairie Harvest Organic Roasted Garlic Sauce. It had a little sweetness from the tomatoes and a little kick from the garlic. MmmMmm. I highly reccomend searching a jar out for yourself.

Now, on to tonight. I was craving something sweet, which is a rarity for me, I usually like salty, carb-y snacks, so I didn't want TOO sweet (ie: not a tofu cheesecake). So the first thing that came to mind, muffins! Of course muffins, little bundles of joy, all wrapped up in a pretty terra cotta colour unbleaced, recycled muffin wrapper, stuffed with fruits and nuts and love. Okay, I guess thats a pretty glorified description, but you know how I roll. And I even made two differnt kinds! Go me!

Banana Oatmeal Muffins with Flax Seeds and Walnuts

3/4 Cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1/2 Cup Rolled Oats

1/4 Cup Sugar

2 Tbsp Ground Flax Seeds

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 Cup Chopped Walnuts

1/2 Cup Almond Milk

1 Teaspoon Molasses

1/4 Cup Canola Oil

1 Teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract

1/2 Cup Mashed, very ripe Banana

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C). In a bowl, combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, soda, flax seeds and walnuts. In another large bowl, mix together milk, oil, molasses, and vanilla. Add the mashed bananas, and combine thoroughly. Stir the flour mixture into the banana mixture until just combined. Line with muffin papers and divide the batter among them (its about 1/3 Cup each). Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 15 minutes, or until done to your liking.

Mango and Pineapple Muffins with Wheatgerm and Almonds

3/4 Cup Whole Wheat Pastry Flour

1/2 Cup Rolled Oats

1/4 Cup Sugar

2 Tablespoons Wheat Germ

1 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 Cup Slivered or Crushed Almonds

1/2 Cup Almond Milk

1 Teaspoons Molasses

1/4 Cup Canola Oil

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

1/2-3/4 Cup Mashed Mango and Pineapple, mixed.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
In a bowl, combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, soda, wheatgerm and almonds. In another large bowl, mix together milk, oil, molasses and vanilla. Add the mashed fruit, and combine thoroughly. Stir the flour mixture into the banana mixture until just combined. Line pan with muffin papers, and divide the batter among them. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 15 minutes or until done to your likeness.

So there we go! Muffins ahoy! The banana are on the left and the mango pineapple are on the right. We might end up eating them all tonight. Okay not really, but in my muffin fantasy world, I would eat them all!
I hope you are all staying warm.

Much love!

Food and Books! Fiber for your belly and fiber for your brain!

Hello All!

I do apologize for being MIA the last few days...I went and left my camera at my Dads house when Curtis and I went over there this weekend for a Superbowl Celebration! We have certainly been eating though. Last night we had gigantic salads with greens, sprouts, tomatoes, chickpeas, grapes, broccoli, carrots, toasted pistachios, pepitas and roasted beets. I used the Nectar with a Sting Dressing Recipe from V Cuisine, which is a really cute little book I would reccomend picking up. Along with our monstrosity of greenery, I made the Autumnal Latkes from Vcon, only I used just red potato and sweet potato since I opted to have some beets in our salads. The whole meal was very enjoyable, and a nice reprive from the junk food we ate this weekend. Though, I guess it wasn't ALL bad...we had a lot of pizza, homemade though, and other salty game-time foods. Oh yes and beer, oh gosh the beer! It was a great weekend, despite forgetting my camera.


I don't live very far from my Dad though, so hopefully I will be back soon with some photos. In the meantime, lets talk BOOKS! Woo!


I love reading. I wish I got to do more of it. The one good thing about using the public transit system, is that when I'm not welling up with allergy tears due to the guy beside me bathing in old spice for about 58 years, or scowling at the woman in the fur coat, I get a lot of reading done. Some of my favourites that top the list are the classics, The End of Food, The China Study, etc. Anything with graphs and charts and facts, I adore! (I used to read cookbooks, but turns out the public isn't so down with me drooling everywhere as I gaze at quinoa salads and tofu scrambles), But recently I indulged in something a little more laid back; Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Now, I'm not a religious person, so after receiving this book for Christmas, I was a little hesitatant to start reading it...only due to the word "pray" in the title. But I gotta say, I loved it! I cried, I laughed (out loud...on the bus...thats right, I cause public disturbances). Be forewarned if you choose to read it, Elizabeth discusses food a lot, specifically the foods she ate on her journeys through Italy, Indonsia and India, and as you might guess, there is definetly meat, but looking past that, to the extreme passion that she and I (and many of you) share for food, it makes it easier to relate.

More food, much soon(er....than last time).
MWAH!

Cheers

It's Raining Cookies! Hallelujah!*

*to be sung to the tune of "It's Raining Men"..come on, I know you want to.

Hi All!

So far this week has been quite drab. I know, what a ridiculous word, drab, but honestly I can't think of any other way to describe it. The days are still short and dark, the weather is windy and rainy. Sad day. My favourite season is autumn. I LOVE autumn. The crunch of the leaves under my feet, the smell of wood stoves in the chilly evenings, the warm September sun bathing me in its rays as I frolic about the city! I know, I make it sound like a fairy tale, but its so far away right now that it feels as though its arrival is only that, a fairytale. I suppose I do have spring and summer to look forward to, and I DO love fiddleheads and asparagus and fresh corn. So I guess I should just shut my mouth. Or talk about some food.

Last night was pasta night! Woo! And while I was getting busy in the kitchen (COOKING, I was getting busy cooking, get your mind out of the gutter!) I thought I should probably make some peanut butter cookies, and while I was making some peanut butter cookies, I thought I should probably cover half of them in chocolate. Good thoughts? Yes indeed.

These are the Gigantoid Peanut Butter Cookies from VwaV. There is only one gigantoid one though, as you can see, that one I made for Curtis...because I love him...and there is long history of peanut butter cookies in our past!

And now for dinner,(*gasp* dessert before dinner!! I know you've eaten dessert before dinner before, don't deny it), PASTAAAAAAA!

This was thrown together pretty quick, a really simple tomato sauce using about 1/4 cup of a jar of tomato sauce we had in the fridge, fresh tomato, garlic, basil, thyme, pepper and sea salt. With chickpeas, roasted cherry tomatoes and toasted pine nuts. And of course...garlic toast! It's a top secret family recipe. It is my absolute favourite. Curtis and I went to spend a weekend at a cottage with some friends of ours this summer...and this garlic bread, on the BBQ, saved our LIVES! Okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it certainly helped to curb what could have been a (more) nasty hangover.

Tonight for dinner, I made some plain and simple tomato soup with crackers for Curtis, he has come down with a cold and stuffy sinuses. His sniffles demanded some soup. I had nothing too fancy myself, but a gigantic salad with some toast. It kinda looks pretty, though.

Greens, tomato, carrot, roasted beets, home grown sprouts, chickpeas, and a few pieces of smoked mozzarella sheese. Mmmm. So nice, so comforting. And we had cookies for dessert...again! But hey, we all need a little indulgence now and then. And of course by "now and then", I mean two days in a row!

Tomorrow is Thursday, (like you didn't already know that), and hopefully I will have something more substantial for you to gaze at than salad. I hope you are all staying warm and dry.

Cheers!