"The world's favorite season is the spring. All things seem possible in May."

 I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted...it sure doesn't feel like it! We have been keeping busy with outdoor projects, but the cooking continues (even if the meals have been simpler lately).

Southwest lasagna- Supermarket Vegan
A very simple lasagna, featuring corn, refried beans, salsa, and hominy. This was my first time using hominy, which appears to be soaked corn (but tastes much better than it sounds!). Billy and I both really liked this dinner.

 


 

Yellow Basmati Rice with Chickpeas- Supermarket Vegan

Another simple dish that really hits the spot. Basmati is my absolute favourite rice, it is so fragrant! So far, the cookbook does not disappoint.

Southwest Pasta- Supermarket Vegan

Pasta tossed with black beans, tomatoes, peppers and corn....it doesn't get any better. This pasta dish is very fresh!  

Banana Muffins- Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook

LOVE these muffins! They've got a nice moist flavour with a cinnamon sugar topping. I left out the nuts so that I could eat them at work (nut free school). I was going to make them for our upcoming camping trip, but apparently bananas attract mosquitoes, so I'll have to find a different recipe.  You can see the recipe for these here.

Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies- Vive le Vegan

Billy was craving some cookies a few weekends ago. Since Christmas, we've both been paying more attention to our diets and exercise routines, so I haven't been baking much or buying much junk food. But he wanted a much deserved reward and decided (with a push from me) to make them, so that I wouldn't have to, and be tempted to eat them! I had one, and it was fantastic. I have made this recipe countless times and it is always delicious. The author has posted the recipe here.

Spicy soba noodles in peanut sauce- Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food 

 This dish was good. It had more veggies than noodles, which from a health standpoint is good, but from every other point is kind of disappointing. Mind you, we are calorie counting (with great success), so it is no one's fault but my own for not adding extra noodles! I did not make my own peanut sauce, I used a storebought packet, but instead of adding coconut milk, I added soymilk. Mmmm....

Spaghetti with tomatoes, broccoli and white beans
This was made later in the week, when I'd already made all our planned menus and just wanted to wing it. Very comforting!!

  










Linguine with cream sauce- Skinny Bitch UEC

 The recipe actually calls for spaghetti squash, but Billy wasn't really feeling it, so I decided to use whole wheat linguine instead. The sauce is delicious, and I think next time I make it, I'll make it with pasta for Billy, and with the squash for me. A soymilk-based sauce with baby spinach, diced tomatoes, garlic and onion. There's also supposed to be vegan parm but I was all out.

Stewed Rhubarb 

Our backyard has two HUGE rhubarb plants that grow at an exponential rate. As such, I was able to harvest some stalks that were already ready to eat. I stewed the diced rhubarb with some sugar and water for a quick and easy dessert that is reminiscent of my Grandma Helen's strawberry rhubarb freezer jam. I cannot wait for this summer!!













And since I am clearly so awesome in the kitchen, I've decided to venture into the DIY world of household products, to challenge myself, but mostly to save money. Landscaping is expensive!! I have made a homemade toothpaste and mouthwash that I enjoy (post to come) and also have had success with a homemade laundry detergent (borax free). I will save the recipe for an upcoming and separate post. Here's a picture of the laundry detergent. It works just as well as store bought but it is way cheaper.

Happy April!

I haven't posted in a couple of weeks, but I've been cooking! Things are going really well with Billy's "weekday vegetarian" transition, which has really turned into "vegan at home" more so than a weekday/weekend thing. Whatever the label, it is really nice to have a vegan household and fridge!

Before I get to the food, I just wanted to say something about posting recipes. Over the years, I've had some requests from readers to post the recipes that I feature. Most of the food I post comes from cookbooks and recipes written by other people. I know there is a lot of grey area when it comes to posting recipes, and yes I could technically post these recipes as long as I give credit to the author. However, I do not feel comfortable doing so as it is not my intellectual property. It is my intent for readers to see some meals from these books and then decide for themselves if they would like to purchase the cookbook themselves. That being said, if I find a link to a recipe that I am blogging about, and permission has been given by the author to post it, or better yet, the author posted it themselves, then I will provide a link to the recipe. I hope this makes sense to everyone!

Veggie Pot Pie- Skinny Bitch UEC
The crust for this pot pie is phenomenal! I usually am terrible at getting a good, flakey pie crust, but this recipe did the trick! The filling is basic veggies in a creamy roux sauce. Next time, I want to add some tofu, tempeh, meatless chicken or beans to add some protein.


Roasted Cherry Tomato Pasta- La Dolce Vegan
I had some cherry tomatoes to use up so I made this simple and yummy pasta dish. The only thing I didn't have was fresh basil so I just subbed dried instead. I also added some baby spinach to the boiling pasta before draining it.


Billy loves his Easter chocolate, so I made some homemade eggs for him...vegan of course! I just melted chocolate chips with a pat of vegetable shortening, then stirred in Rice Crispies and plopped it into my egg mold from Bulk Barn. Delicious! I think Billy ate 7 of the 8 eggs I made and would have had more but I cut us off!



Cholay and Aaloo- Skinny Bitch UEC
This is chickpeas and potatoes. Spicy and delicious! I will make the potato cubes smaller next time to cut down on cooking time, but this is a very satisfying dish. Here's a link to the recipe. If you don't have this cookbook, I highly recommend it, it's my favourite vegan cookbook of the last few years.


Old Fashioned Chelsea Waffles- Vegan Brunch
We didn't do groceries last week and just decided to live off of whatever was in the fridge and pantry (I spent a fabulous weekend in Toronto with some girlfriends and didn't get back in time to do groceries). So one night, I decided to do breakfast for dinner. These waffles are very simple but have an awesome crunchy outside and soft inside. They freeze really well, so I popped the leftovers into the toaster in the morning.


Pasta with Swiss Chard and Red Kidney Beans - Supermarket Vegan
Another tasty and simple pasta dish. Kidney beans with wilted swiss chard, onions and a few other basic seasonings. Billy liked this one! This cookbook does not disappoint either.


Peanut Butter and Jelly Ice Cream- The Vegan Scoop
Our latest adventures of the frozen kind...I made this ice cream with coconut milk and coconut creamer so that it would be soy free. It's really good! I was hoping for ribbons of jam in the ice cream but the mixer kind of well, mixed it all in!


Homemade Burger Buns- Greyt Vegan Life
Billy was craving burgers, so we picked up some Lick's Nature burgers. I don't usually get them, just due to higher calories and trans fat, but with Billy transitioning his diet, its more about satisfying his cravings...we'll worry about the health aspects later! I made the buns from the recipe at this blog, and they are awesome! I had my bun with an Yves veggie burger.


Bean and Veggie Wrap- Supermarket Vegan
These are made with a white bean and roasted red pepper puree and topped with baby spinach. Very garlicky! I think if I make these for work lunches again I will be cutting the garlic in half (raw garlic gets stronger the longer it sits). Overall, they are good.


Bulgur and Quinoa with Chickpeas- President's Choice Blue Menu
I picked this us in the freezer aisle for a quick lunch or dinner option. It's pretty good. Nothing wonderful though, which is maybe why its been discontinued...


Orange Sesame Grilled "Chicken" Tenders- Veganize This
I bought this cookbook so excited to make all the awesome "veganized" versions of my favourite foods. Doritos? Escargot? Twinkies? Sign me up! Except, most of the recipes are dauntingly long and time consuming. Every once in a while I get inspired and try one of the easier looking recipes...such as this one! I did the seitan making and marinading, and Billy did the grilling. These are pretty good! The recipe can be found on the author's blog here.


I am experimenting with making my own household products (toothpaste, shampoo, etc) to save money and reduce my environmental impact. One easy way to do this is to make your own dog treats!
I made this recipe for peanut butter oatmeal treats, and made them bite size. Our dogs are given treats for doing their business (it is very hard to potty train dachshunds!) so I didn't want to be giving them too many big treats a day. The dogs love them and they only have four ingredients which you probably already have in your pantry. Bonus points for not having to veganize the recipes.


The dogs also LOVE dehydrated sweet potato slices...which are not cheap at the pet store. Really, its just sweet potatoes and the dogs go berserk for them. So I bought a few and dehydrated them myself in the oven at 250F for three hours.

And lastly...homemade bread-maker bread! This bread was delicious and did not last long. We live right by a bakery so whenever we are out walking and smell the freshly baked bread, we start drooling. It was nice to have that smell in the house but it will not be occurring on a regular basis...not good for the waistline! We ate this just slathered in Earth Balance margarine!!

Beannachtam na Feile Padraig! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful St. Patrick's day, whether you celebrate or not. Everyone loves to claim they're "Irish" or have some "Irish in them" but whether this is true or not, it is a wonderful excuse to get together with friends. Since it fell on a Saturday this year and we knew the bars would be packed and expensive, Billy and I decided to host a house party this year. And that means food! (and beverages).

Shepherd's Pie/Cottage Pie- Cooking for the Rushed
I did not know this until yesterday, but if you make Shepherd's pie with beef and not lamb, it is technically called Cottage pie. Anyways, I guess this one is neither because it's made with Yves Ground Round haha. This is a quick and simple recipe that went over very well with all the omnis at the party ;)


Irish Soda Bread- The Vegan Table
This recipe has six ingredients: soy milk, vinegar, flour, salt, baking soda and margarine. It was so good! There was none left by midnight. It's really nice spread with a bit of Earth Balance.


Green Punch with Rum
This was a very yummy punch from this site. I couldn't find lime sherbet that didn't have dairy and I didn't have time to make my own so I used store bought lemon gelato instead. And if anyone asked what white gelato was doing in a green themed punch I said: I couldn't find dairy-free green sorbet...so what, wanna fight about it? A little bit of my leprechaun spirit coming out!


Rainbow Cupcakes- Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World
Et la piece de resistance....rainbow cupcakes! These are all over the internet, but I was still very proud of them. I used the basic vanilla cupcake recipe, then followed the tutorial here for how to colour the batter. They are topped with buttercream icing. These went really quickly (I had to hide one so I could have one).




And in non-Emerald Isle news, I'm still cooking lots, and Billy is still eating veg at home, so the adventure continues. The weather this week (March Break) was phenomenal...and that means BBQ season begins! One of my favourite things about BBQ'ing is that cooking dinner becomes a team effort. I do the prep, and B does the grilling (to a tee..he is the Grill Master!).

Vegetable Fajitas- Supermarket Vegan
I had mine with portabellos while Billy had his with President's Choice Meatless Chicken. All these beautiful veggies were marinaded in a balsamic/oil mixture and then grilled on the barbecue. Then we sliced them up and ate them in whole wheat tortillas. They are simple but delicious, topped with a bit of salsa.




"Chicken" Skewers with Chimichurri Citrus Herb Sauce- Candle Cafe
My sister came to visit from Toronto (and she came bearing a gift...Smashbox mascara...yay cruelty free makeup!) so we had a family dinner. I brought this and it was fantastical! It is supposed to be made with seitan but I didn't make the seitan in time, so I subbed with PC meatless chicken. It's marinaded in a citrus sauce, then grilled/charred and then topped with the citrus herb sauce. They are really tasty and I plan on making them with seitan too. As a side, I made quinoa with vegetable broth instead of water and stirred in some frozen peas and carrots.





Tofu Omelette- Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Foods
I woke up one morning this week wanting an omelette badly. I had everything to make it, but I didn't have any veggies that would make a good filling. So I improvised and made a filling from "chicken", salsa, and French Onion Tofutti cream cheese, all mixed together. It was good! It would be even better with some wilted spinach. This meal was so high in protein, I wasn't hungry again til 3 pm.


This is just a basic black bean salad with some bruschetta mix and homemade flax oil/balsamic vinaigrette.



Broiled Grapefruit- Candle Cafe
This is my favourite way to eat pamplemousse, broiled with some sugar on top.


Skillet Lasagna- Supermarket Vegan
All the taste of lasagna without the fuss. This is all cooked in a pot, and it gets better as leftovers. We also tried it with Daiya cheese and it was delicious.


Another breakfast item, whole wheat bagels with French onion "cream cheese" topped with bruschetta mix. I love savoury breakfasts! What's your favourite?

Food Overload

I've got to post more often if I'm going to cook so much! Make sure you scroll down to the last post for my spring roll recipe :) It's March Break tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to cleaning the house, doing some cooking, and hanging out with friends. Billy's trying to eat vegan during the week (weekday vegetarian), so I'm going out of my way to make hubby friendly foods to make it easy and fun for him. He's doing great!

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Sage Butter Sauce-Skinny Bitch Ultimate Everyday Cookbook
Labour intensive! Maybe next time I'll wait for a weekend to make these, but they were rather fun. The mix of squash with butter and vegan parm is a nice filling and the sauce is light. The dough is hard to roll out in one piece so I cut them into smaller pieces and then rolled out the squares. The dough is the best part! Billy's not a huge fan of squash so I made him a different filling.


"Beef Ravioli"
This is just filled with Yves Italian Ground round, with sauteed garlic and some seasonings and topped with jarred tomato sauce. He loved it!


Cincinnati Style Chili Mac- Supermarket Vegan
I got a new cookbook! I already have Vegan Italiano by Donna Klein and love it, so I thought I'd try this one. The concept is that you can find all the ingredients at the grocery store with no specialty products needed (as in fake cheese, milk or soy products). There's a lot of things in there that will appeal to picky eaters and husbands :P. So our first dish from the book was this dish, which is really a quick chili mixed with macaroni and then baked. It was spicy! I'll cut down the spice a bit next time but this was filling and yummy. Billy made the baked beans and macaroni casserole too (no picture), and he enjoyed it.


Curried Udon Stir-Fry- Veganomicon
This is one of my favourite dishes from Veganomicon. It is so good! This is a dish that I made purely for my own enjoyment but Billy liked it too. I love those fat chewy udon noodles. It's stir fried veggies, PC meatless chicken (I used this instead of seitan), and a creamy curry sauce all mixed with udon noodles. Mmmmmm.


Lentil Tacos with Fresh Salsa- Skinny Bitch UEC
This was dinner tonight. Billy was worried about taco filling that didn't consist of some sort of "meat" replacement but he said these were delicious...and I concur! The lentils are blended into a kind of pate consistency and topped with fresh cherry tomato salsa and lettuce. The only change I would make would be to cook the green lentils a little less so they keep some of their crunchy texture. And some taco seasoning wouldn't hurt!


I visited the health store recently and saw this So Delicious Cultured Coconut Milk (like Greek yogurt...thick!). I find it sour, which I think is normal for that style, but I loved it blended up in my morning fruit smoothie! I'd also try it with some granola, fruit and a touch of agave for sweetness.


Butternut Mac and Cheese
I used the recipe here and really didn't change anything other than using soy milk and Daiya instead of milk and cheese. I also might have added some more milk to the cheese sauce. It was good! Super creamy. Next time I'm going to use my standard cheese sauce (from La Dolce Vegan) and just mix in the butternut squash, but the sauce from this recipe was good too. Billy didn't want to eat this as a meal since he doesn't love squash but he had a bite and said it was pretty good. Baby steps...


Blood Orange and Peppercorn Sorbet- Skinny Bitch UEC
Yep, black pepper in sorbet! Whole peppercorns are simmered with the juice, but are strained out before freezing. It's not really obvious in the taste, I think it just enhances the blood orange juice. This has a gorgeous colour and is really sweet! I'm still in love with my ice cream maker.


Spinach Feta Pizza
When I was younger and we went to the fair/exhibition in our old city, I always got a slice of spinach feta pizza and it was magical (back before my vegan days). I had a pang for it last Sunday, and we all know everything can be veganized (well, except meringue...sigh...). Garden of Vegan has an awesome tofu feta recipe, which is also awesome in pitas. So I made that, let it marinate, steamed up some spinach, and sprinkled it on my pizza before adding Daiya mozzarella. It hit the spot! The dough was made in the breadmaker my Gramma gave me...so good!


Black Bean Enchiladas- Skinny Bitch UEC
I cannot, for the life of me, find corn tortillas in my town, so I had to use small flour tortillas, but these were tasty! These got the husband stamp of approval too.


On the menu this week: leftover ravioli, skillet lasagna, chicken BBQ skewers with herb citrus sauce. and maybe some mac and cheese :)

Happy Cooking!

Spring Rolls

Here's the recipe we used to make homemade spring rolls for my birthday. We don't deep fry stuff at home but it was an occasion :) Next time, we want to try this filling in rice paper rolls to make them healthier.


Spring Rolls (makes up to 24 spring rolls)
Frozen spring roll wrappers(Spring Home Tyj is the brand we had), defrosted
1 1/4 cup chopped carrots
3 1/2 cups shredded cabbage
2 bundles clear noodles (bean thread)
1 teaspoon white pepper powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
4-5 tablespoons light soy sauce
3 cups vegetable oil (for frying)
1/4 cup plum sauce mixed with red chili pepper jelly

1. Soak the bean thread noodles in hot water until soft. Remove from water and cut the bundle into four or five pieces.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a pan/wok. Turn heat down to med-high. Add minced garlic and saute a minute.
3. Add carrots, noodles. Mix them well.
4. Add cabbage and mix well. Stir until cooked.
5. Add white pepper powder and soy sauce. Stir well.
6. Put the filling into a bowl. Set aside to cool down.
7. Lay a wrapper in front of you with a corner pointing towards you and spread 2 tablespoons of the filling horizontally. Fold the bottom of the wrapper up over the filling and gently press it down. Fold in both sides of the wrapper and continue to roll the spring roll towards the top. Brush the top corner with a bit of soymilk or water to seal.
8. Heat oil until hot. Turn heat down to med.
9. Deep fry a few rolls at a time until they turn golden brown, flipping them in the oil if needed.
10. Drain on paper towels to absorb excess oil
11. Serve with plum sauce and enjoy!