Plant a radish, get a radish, never any doubt. That's why I love vegetables, you know what they're about!

Gah! Food overload! When I get in the groove like this, I really need to update more often. My days are filled with yummy, nutritious, healthy whole foods, and I'm loving it. Let's get to it...

Scottish Broth-The Vegan Table
"Broth" in Scotland actually means stew...go figure. This is a delicious soup, and very easy to make. You throw all the ingredients in a pot (after soaking the barley, red lentils and green split peas) and simmer until done. I love barley!


Creole Stuffed Pepper and Messy Rice- Veganomicon
I've made stuffed peppers a handful of times in the last 12 months, and every time they are different. Gotta love variety. I left out the jalapeno so I don't know how "creole" these are anymore, but they're filling and the bean mixture is tasty. The messy rice is made with crushed coriander seeds (lemony!) and jasmine rice.



Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream- The Vegan Scoop
The only downside to this e-book cookbook so far is that I can't write my recipe notes in it! This ice cream is so good! I added the green food colouring just to make it more like store-bought ice cream :) I made this using all soy-based milk and creamer. Next time, I will experiment with coconut and almond milk.


Chili- The Vegan Slow Cooker
I added another cup of tomato sauce when I got home, since it dried out a bit. Billy and I loved this chili, and it was great as Sloppy Joe filling too.


Breakfast Bake- Skinny Bitch
My first recipe from my new cook book, Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Guide. I sauteed the potato, onion and tempeh bacon filling yesterday, and just popped it in the oven this morning for a delicious and filling breakfast. I also had a side of fresh fruit salad from the Vegan Table (no picture).


Chicken Gnocchi Soup- a modified recipe
The only thing I love more than a good vegan cookbook is veganizing recipes on my own! One night I felt like having gnocchi, but didn't want the typical gnocchi and pasta sauce. So I went on my allrecipes app and searched for recipes with gnocchi. I found a recipe for a creamy chicken and gnocchi soup. So I subbed out the cream and chicken with vegan subsitutes, and OH MY GOD, this is my new favourite soup. I'll post the recipe one of these days!


Chicken Salad- Skinny Bitch in the Kitch
A vegan mayo-based chicken salad, served on greens. I used PC's meatless chicken. Yum!


No-Chicken Noodle Soup- Vegan Slow Cooker
This didn't have much broth left by the time I got home, but it was a very simple and tasty "chicken" soup for dinner.


Pizza- The Vegan Lunch Box
I've been using the pizza dough recipe from Vegan Lunch Box the last few Sundays, because you can mix it up and then stick it in the fridge until you're ready to use it...which fits perfectly into our lazy Sundays. Plus, we make individual sized pizzas for portion control, and they're cute! This one had soy pepperoni, green peppers and Daiya mozzarella.


Applesauce Muffins- How It All Vegan
These are very midly flavoured, with applesauce and cinnamon, but they are so fluffly and light.

The Dog

Note: this post is not meant to debate whether or not your pet should be on a vegan diet. I am well aware that dogs are omnivores, but healthy, nutritionally balanced vegetarian pet food is available. It is an informational post to help inform others and maybe give them a helping start if they choose to do so.

After watching a video (which I may or may not post in the future), I have decided to switch my dog to a vegetarian diet. Most dog food is made from leftovers from slaughterhouses. Picture them scraping up the leftovers and hauling them into a truck....not what I want to feed my dog. Anyways, I've made the decision not to *buy* any meat products for my dog, but I will not make a huge deal out of other people feeding her meat products if it happens (although she's not supposed to get scraps:P)

So far, we've got her eating Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Vegetarian Dog Kibble. Vegetarian dog kibble is easily available as many dogs have meat sensitivities. Dill really likes it, and as a treat I pour some olive oil over it every few days.

Also, once a week or so, she's given a can of Holistic Blend canned dog food, the fruits and veggies flavour. Dill eats this up in two minutes flat. She adores it.




And from How It All Vegan, I made her the bad breath doggy biscuits. I get the same reaction out of Dill when I give her one of these as if I just gave her a milk bone. I only had gingerbread men cutouts, but I'm going to look for bone shaped ones.


So far, Dill has lost her little winter tummy and has tons of energy (as usual).

Delurk yourselves! :)

Whoops...our Thanksgiving dinner of stuffed manicotti and brownies was so delicious, we ate it all too quickly before I remembered to take pictures! I will post the recipe soon though. I'm quite proud of it, as Billy ate most of the recipe including leftovers, and it's a task to try and get him to eat leftovers.

Here's an apricot loaf I made from How It All Vegan, in an effort to make recipes from some of my more neglected cookbooks. I'm not a huge fan of dried apricots, but I was gifted with a large bag of them and wanted to try them out before just tossing them. The bread itself is quite lovely, with apricot juice but next time I would drastically reduce the amount of dried fruit or substitute for one I like. If you love dried apricots, this bread is for you!


And finally, if you have been stopping by, I'm asking that you leave a comment, even just to say hi. Why? Because I'd like to say hello, and stop by your blog if you have one! Plus, it makes a girl feel good to see some comments after her hard work...ok, not hard, but still :)

An Awesome Breakfast

Tofu No-Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise Sauce- The Vegan Table

My first recipe attempt from The Vegan Table. This was actually easier to coordinate than I thought between all the layers and the sauce making. And it's delicious!! It would be easier to make if it was a slab of tofu, since the scrambled tofu falls off....but nevertheless it's perfectly seasoned. I would eat just the scrambled tofu from this recipe too. I had some difficulty with the sauce and it's thickening, and then there was too much lemon juice, but I managed to tweak it a bit to make it good.





I feel like I've been neglecting most of my cookbooks in favour of a select few books. I can't let them feel that way so I've decided to make my way through all of my books and make a few things from each.

Spinach Artichoke Dip- How It All Vegan

This is pretty good served with tortilla chips. I'd like it to be a bit creamier and more of a dip consistency, but it's a start.


Butternut Squash, Sweet Potato and Apple Soup- How It All Vegan

I wanted to make a fall-ey soup, and felt daring, thus the apple....but it just didn't float my boat. Maybe because I used Granny Smiths and it made the soup a bit sour...I don't know. Plus it was the consistency of baby food. The picture doesn't show it well but the colour was beautiful. Also, too much pepper. When will I learn to do it to taste and not blindly follow the recipe?!?



I was going to have a baking day in the kitchen but I feel a killer headache coming on...

Comfort Foods

We've been on a bit of a banana bread kick lately...I try to make different kinds of baked goods with bananas, but Billy still always asks for banana bread. And why not, it's one of the greatest foods of all time! I like to change up which recipe I use for variation though. This time, I used the recipe from How It All Vegan. This loaf is so moist and sweet, and the chocolate chips don't hurt either! It has dates in it, which really give a soft texture.

From my new cookbook, Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar (I know, I know, everyone else already has it :P), I made the carrot raisin spice cookies. Keeping Billy in mind, I left out the walnuts and coconut (picky!), and they still turned out wonderfully. These are delicious, with a great chewy and soft texture. The lemon glaze drizzled on top adds some extra pizzazz.

Omelettes were made for Sunday mornings. I made the spinach omelette from Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food...and it was very comforting! My first omelette didn't come out too nicely but it still tasted good! These were a little oily, but only because I eyeballed the oil for frying...next time I will reduce it. I still love the tofu omelette from Garden of Vegan, but this one has more of an eggy texture. Yum!

Also from Comfort Food, I made the wait-for-you slowcooker stew. That's for lunch today so I'll post it later!

Bad pictures, but good food

Well, after a hectic, busy and sleepless month...I'm finally done school! I am now a teacher. Woot! While I did cook a bit, I didn't always take pictures, but I'll show what I do have. Billy turned 25 last month so we had a big party with lots of good food.
I made Billy's favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe from Vive le Vegan, and then also made a gluten free batch for our friend with Celiac's. The gluten free ones were so good!!


I also made him a wheat free carrot cake with cream cheese icing from Sinfully Vegan, but I forgot to take a picture. It was delicious, and I'm glad he really enjoyed it. I also made a standard chocolate cake with chocolate icing. I can't remember for sure, but I think the chocolate cake recipe was from How It All Vegan, and everyone loved it.

I also had a hummus platter with veggies and mini pitas, as well as some kick butt spinach dip from 125 Best Vegan Recipes. It never lasts long.



Meals were kept pretty simple during my teaching placement. For example, from Vegan Italiano, I made a quick broccoli pasta sauce. It was very tasty.

Last night, for game 7 against the Flames and the Sharks, I made chocolate gluten freedom cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes for all our friends to eat. They were surprisingly moist. It was my first time cooking with quinoa and tapioca flour, and it was well worth the 12 dollar flour!

Excuse my laziness

I actually did cook at the beginning of the week, but decided I'd rather read all day then do anything else, like blogging, for the rest of the week!

For breakfasts, I decided I'd make some glazed cinnamon buns from Table for Two. They were alright, and only the day of. They were rather dry, and not nearly sweet enough for my liking. The only sugar came from a little bit of juice concentrate in the batter and in the glaze. Plus the tahini/apple butter filling just didn't do it for me that much. I much prefer the cinnamon buns from Garden of Vegan with their delicious cream cheese glaze.

But, once I made them, I was in a baking mood...so I made some vanilla cupcakes with a cinnamon "glaze" from Vegan Cupcakes. I botched the glaze but it turned out tasty anyways.

Since I'm supposed to be eating more kelp and seaweed, I made a miso soup with a kelp powder broth and some nori chopped up in it. Blech. It was okay, but just too strong for my liking. It was a bastardized version of the miso soup in How It All Vegan, which I'm sure would be fine if made properly. After I made this, I went out and bought kelp tablets. haha

I mentioned a while back that my How It All Vegan cookbook had fallen apart. Well, my wonderful mom took me out shopping last weekend and bought me a brand new one!!! So to celebrate, I made the soup from HIAV and the artichoke rotini, except with spaghetti instead of rotini. This was a really yummy meal. And light too, which is nice when it gets this hot.

I have to share this picture of Logan with you. It demonstrates why we named him Logan, after Wolverine from X-Men ;) I guess its time to trim those claws!

Lasagna with Mex Appeal

I finally saw a naturopath about my eczema. She doesn't believe its diet-related, but rather that my body and my thyroid are run down from a stressful year(s). So I was given some sulfur and orders to rest, sleep and eat kelp (iodine) and rosemary. I'm hoping this works. I'm free to eat what I'd like for now.

Billy cooked dinner on Tuesday (gasp!) and it was delicious. We adapted a recipe from Looneyspoons for Mexican Lasagna. It has tomatoes, beans, peppers and spices layered with corn tortillas and soy nacho cheese. I'd also like to try it with flour tortillas.

For a decadent breakfast this week (full of wheat!) I made some raspberry/blackberry muffins. This is a variation of a muffin recipe in How It All Vegan, in which you choose the fruit combination that you'd like. Raspberries are awesome in muffins. It made 6 jumbo muffins, but you could also make 12 regular sized muffins, which I will do next time for better portion control. I also used 3/4 whole wheat flour to make them a bit healthier.

And for dinner last night, I made the tofu loaf from La Dolce Vegan, along with dijon mustard brussels sprouts, also from LDV. This was good. The inside was still a little too mushy for my liking, but the flavour was good. I used rosemary instead of parsley and tossed in some kelp powder as well, which didn't affect the taste.

It looks like the weekend will consist of mainly leftovers, but I'll be back next week with more food :)

Summer starts now!

It was a busy week, but I'm finally done placement! I forgot to take pictures of my lunch this week...but it was yummy. I made the cheesey lunch box fondue from Vegan Lunch Box. It was delicious with some dippers like baby potatoes, broccoli and mushrooms. I had it with an apple and some almond dark chocolate.

I also forgot to take a picture of a delicious soup I made. I modified it quite a bit from the mushroom barley stew in How It All Vegan, to use up some stuff in my fridge. It was sooooo good, and Billy loved it.

I was supposed to make a bean and bulgur salad from Vegan Cooking for One...but didn't want to use bulgur (wheat). So instead I used a ground round subsitute that I found, that's only made of soy flour. Its called So Soya. This salad had navy beans, the ground round and some veggies, and was pretty darn good.

Dinner this week was the Southwestern Corn Casserole from La Dolce Vegan. It is soooooo good, go and make it right now. At first, I wasn't quite sure what to expect based on the ingredients (silken tofu, soy milk, flour, corn, etc) but I was pleasantly surprised.

I made cookies two nights ago for all the staff on my floor at placement, as a little thank you. I made the chocolate chip cookies from Vive le Vegan (Since I know they're great), and also tried the chocolate pecan/walnut cookies from La Dolce Vegan (without nuts, extra chocolate chips). They both turned out great, everyone loved them. I had some leftover too, which led to me eating way too many....which led to me spending an hour at the gym, hahaha.

That's it for now. I just felt guilty for not posting sooner

Burning my books!

Just kidding, they're worth more than I am, haha. Alright, so school is done. I now have one short week to party until I start my teaching placement, haha. Bonfires and dancing for me :) And maybe some cooking. I really wanted to try my hand at sushi, but the financial situation at the moment is a little pathetic so I'll probably just be cleaning out the freezer and pantry.

For lunch yesterday, I made some rice paper veggie wraps from How It All Vegan. They took some time, but were simple to make. They've got hummus (from HIAV also), cabbage, radish, carrots, and marinated mushrooms, with some other things too. The hummus makes the wrap, otherwise it would be pretty bland.

I tend to have more unhealthy meals on the weekend, and this one is no exception. After I got home from work last night, I whipped up a quick beef stroganoff recipe that I adapted from the Healthy College Cookbook. It was good, with lots of mushrooms and some sour cream. Nowhere near healthy though, unless you count the vitamins and minerals from the PC beef strips. It looks a bit bland, from the mushrooms and white sauce, but its good.

Beef Stroganoff
Serves 4
Enough pasta for 4 (I used brown rice shells)
"beef" strips or seitan, cut into chunks
1/2 small onion, chopped or sliced
1 tbsp. flour
1 clove garlic, minced
8 fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 vegetable or "chicken" broth (or 3/4 cup if you want more sauce)
1/2 cup Tofutti sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions, set aside.
In a skillet over medium heat, cook the beef and onions. As the beef starts to brown, stir in the flour and stir to coat the beef.
Stir in garlic, mushrooms, broth, and sour cream. Cook til sauce is an even consistency and the mushrooms are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste, serve over pasta.

Nutritional Information (without pasta) per serving:
Calories 200
Fat 6.7 g
Carbs 17.4 g
Protein17.8 g

Disaster!

*sob* While making dinner tonight, my How It All Vegan Book came apart! I now have two chunks of papers that come right out of the cover :( I'm going to have to replace it eventually I guess. I love my cookbooks, and like to think I take pretty good care of them (minus all the writing and food stains).

Anyways, lunch this week is filling! I'm going to have to cut down on portions to be able to finish it all in one sitting. Beans and dogs (so yummy) with some bagel crisps, cucumber and edamame, and chocolate banana pudding. The pudding is very good, I think I'd like it even more made with chocolate soymilk instead of almond milk. But the banana makes it so great.

I made the Sweet Polenta Pie for dinner tonite, from my now deceased HIAV cookbook. Its alright. I suspect its one of those meals that is better as leftovers. I've never had polenta before though, so I'm not sure if the mushy texture of the crust is right or not. It does have a whole lot of veggies in it though, and the topping is good. Kind of hard to eat, the polenta is slippery ;)


I'm conducting an informal survey. When you eat out, what's your standard tip percentage, granted that the server was adequate and nothing went horribly wrong? Don't say a number because you think its what's right, answer honestly...I'm not here to judge. Its just that I hear many people at work complain about tips, but I'm thinking, maybe its not us, but that some people have different ideas of what a good tip is. Thanks!

Tequila!

How I did now blow my "diet" this weekend is still a mystery. So many baked goods and yumminess. I'll start from the beginning...

I've been craving banana bread for a long time. I happened to have some very ripe bananas on hand this week, so I made the bread from How It All Vegan. Soooo yummy, and sweet. The dates in the bread make it extra delicious. I only wish I could eat it all at once...but portion control for me!

Next, for my girl's night, I made the Margarita Cupcakes from VCTOTW. Awesome! They're so cute. The girls really liked them, although we couldn't eat them all, since there was *so* much food there. But I brought the rest to work today and my manager ate two! Some may find them a bit boozy, but they were so perfect for our night.

I had mozzarella soy cheese left from the risotto and I've been craving mac and cheese (lots of cravings lately), so I decided to make it with white cheese this time (recipe in La Dolce Vegan)...I wonder how many times I've blogged about this recipe. I also threw in some chicken strips for some protein and something other than fat :P This was so satisfying. I had a huge plate of it for dinner tonight...veggies be damned!

Beans and Bows

Dinner tonite was fairly quick and nummy. Whole wheat bows with a tomato chickpea sauce from Table for Two. Even Billy ate it; with the sole complaint that there were too many chickpeas (I used a 19 oz can instead of 15). The tomato sauce is really simple, made from tomato paste, oregano, basil, and onion/garlic granules. Mmmmm.


I had it with a tossed salad with Creamy Italian Dressing from How It All Vegan. Garlicky goodness!