6 away

After this post, I'm 6 posts away from 300! What am I going to do...probably let it pass by quietly since I am horrible at planning ahead.

This week's kind of a non-grocery week so we're making whatever we've got.

Veggie Bake- Looneyspoons
Pretty much like a pot pie but with bread crumbs sprinkled on top instead of a crust. It's okay, nothing special.


Random Pasta
Spaghetti mixed with tomato sauce, spinach and TVP, as well as a bit of salsa. Quite good.


I had to go to the grocery store for some margarine, and I found some great vegan stuff they didn't have before, so I'll be doing a product review soon. Also, they now carry Daiya! Woo hoo!

Blahhhh

Ugh, it's the first week back from March break, and I feel like a zombie...I cannot get back into the groove of things, plus I've got a dumb assignment due tomorrow. Anyways, Sunday was nice and sunny and in an effort to feel like I actually did something during my time off I decided to bake some stuff.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins- The Vegan Lunchbox

So yummy! I made jumbo and regular sizes since I had lots of leftover pumpkin puree.


Wolffie's B'naner Bars- La Dolce Vegan
Billy wanted banana bread, but for all of my go-to recipes, I was missing a key ingredient, so I made these instead. These taste just like banana bread but with more of a soft, cakey texture. Billy was kind enough to leave me ONE piece of the eight that the recipe made for my lunch on Monday :P


Stuffed Peppers-Looneyspoons
These were wonderful! I can't post the recipe as mine because the recipe was vegan on its own (except I used vegan Worcestershire sauce). We added a bit of ground round in with the rice and black beans. These are nicely spiced.

Double Team Dinner

I chose meals for the week that I knew Billy would like and eat (so no mushrooms, zucchini, potatoes, excessive onion, or any other "weird" veggies). We also planned to cook them together. So since we had made a "date" to make this stirfry together last night...it was so much easier to get motivated to get in the kitchen, rather than just vegging because I was tired and didn't want to cook. It was a lot of fun! Billy took care of all the chopping, and I whisked the stir fry sauce together and covered the sauteeing and rice making. Dinner was made and served within 30 minutes.

"The Way We Stir" Chicken Stir Fry- Looneyspoons


PC meatless chicken, snow peas, red pepper and green onions sauteed in a ginger peanut butter sauce and served over brown rice. Healthful, quick and delicious.

I busted out Looneyspoons again to get some delicious, easy and healthy meals. First, I made a chicken and potatoes dish flavoured with salsa. Filling and good!

Then I made the veggie fajitas, chock full of veggies: onion, carrot, red and green peppers and zucchini. I didn't have any sour cream on hand, so I mixed just a bit of Vegenaise with the salsa to make it creamy. I also threw in some black beans for some added protein then topped it with lettuce, tomato and nacho cheese .These are delicious and very satisfying.

I also made Crabby Cakes with Remoulade sauce from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, but I haven't taken a picture yet. The cakes are made up of veggies with some kelp powder for that crabby taste. They are really good! The remoulade sauce is a bit too lemony, but that's easily fixable. I served them over a bed of lettuce.

Almost as soon as I saw Vegan Dad's recipe for funnel cake, I had to make it! I wasn't going to, because I didn't want to cancel out all that healthy food, but I couldn't resist, and I threw in an extra long workout to make up for it. There are really good! Best to make when there's a friend around though, so you don't eat all of it at once. I just dusted mine with icing sugar and topped with warmed jam. But they'd be really nice with some vanilla soy ice cream on top too!

I just got a package in the mail from Vegan Essentials with some very exciting stuff...more on that later!

A blogger favourite

I had some time tonight, so I decided to make the chickpea cutlets from V'con that everyone seems to love. They were easy to make and I had all the ingredients. Good flavour, but I think I made mine too thin because they were super crunchy. I baked them instead of frying them, due to a shortage of olive oil. I'll be making these again, just a bit thicker so they keep some chewiness. I love the idea of using gluten flour but not just making seitan.

I also made a thai pasta based loosely on a recipe from Looneyspoons, meaning I left some veggies out and replaced them with broccoli since it was all I had. This has a light peanut butter sauce with just a bit of background heat, which is pretty much the only way I like heat anyways.

I was on my way to class today when a guy selling baked goods for a fundraiser asked me if I was interested. I said I couldn't eat any of it, and he said they had vegan-friendly stuff, if that's what I meant. So I got a brownie and some sort of nut butter cookie. The brownie was good enough, but the cookie was so bland I didn't even finish it. These people are spreading bad impressions of vegan food! I wish I had thought of a bake sale earlier, I would have organized one for our school of ed. Oh well, I was able to buy something vegan on campus, it's a first step.

Here's a picture of Zepplin (on the right), our foster cat, sitting with Logan. I hope he finds a good home soon, he is such a sweetie, and so quiet!

The end of summer

I finally buckled down and cooked again. It'll be nice to start school, just so I can get back to my regular routines of cooking and exercise.

From Looneyspoons I made the "Canajun" rice and beans, a mix between Canadian and Cajun flavours. I'm not posting the recipe because I didn't really need to change any of the ingredients, it was in the vegetarian section. I really like this dish, there's some spice but not too much.

From Cooking for the Rushed, I made the chicken pot pie. I adapted it by using fake PC chicken strips, Earth Balance and soymilk, and instead of using prepared Pillsbury biscuits, I made mine from scratch, using the baking powder biscuits from La Dolce Vegan. This dish is amazing!! I love the idea of placing biscuits on top of the pie, instead of spreading a crust. And the biscuits are phenomenal!

I had a craving for fried foods last night after work, so I decided to try my hand at cheesesticks. They actually turned out pretty good. I cut up Follow Your Heart Mozza cheese into mini sticks, and then dipped them in a flour/arrowroot mix, an egg replacer/water mix and then a breadcrumbs/ Italian seasoning mix....and then redid that. I fried them in oil for about 30 seconds and then sprinkled them with a bit of salt and parmesan. They really hit the spot! I want to refine the seasoning a bit, but they're a great occasional snack.


Back to school Tuesday, better hit the mall for some school supplies.

200!

This is my 200th post :) I got back from Barrie yesterday. Me and 9 other friends went to the Warped Tour there and had a blast! I even died my hair purple, but since I'm a redhead, it just made it a darker red haha; as you can see (on the right).

Anyways, I wish I could say I baked cupcakes for my special post, but I really made them for our jello shooter-making party we had on Friday. And everyone loved them. They were basic chocolate with buttercream frosting, from Vegan Cupcakes. And I even managed to make myself some vegan shooters from a recipe on vegweb. But I added too much agar and they were way too strong, so I didn't even drink them. I'll have to tweak the recipe.


Other than that, the only other thing I've made is Maui "chicken" and rice, from a recipe I adapted in Looneyspoons. I made chicken seitan to replace the meat in it.


Maui "Chicken" and Rice

4 chicken seitan "steaks", cut into cubes
2 1/2 cups "chicken" or vegetable broth
1 can/14 ounces pineapple tidbits in juice, undrained
1 1/2 cups uncooked long grain white or brown rice (if using brown, use the rice that cooks in 25 minutes)
3/4 cup finely chopped carrots
1/2 cup each chopped sweet red and green pepper
1/3 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons each of brown sugar, white vinegar and soy sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup chopped green onions

Spray a large saucepan with cooking spray. Cook seitan over med-high until heated through.

Add remaining ingredients except green onions and stir well. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to med-low and cover. Simmer for 25 minutes, til rice is tender. Stir occasionally.

Stir in green onions during the last 5 minutes of cooking time.

Makes 4-6 servings

Just got back

We just returned from a week of relaxing and visiting with family. I had a blast, and didn't worry about food too much, so it was mostly veggie burgers, sausages and sandwiches. I do have some pictures lying around from before though.

I made tiramisu from the Candle Cafe cookbook. I used half the amount of espresso required, since I'm not big on coffee, and it was the perfect amount. Its a sponge cake layered with a cream cheese/tofu mixture. I brought it to a girl's night, and everyone devoured it!

Also, from Looneyspoons, a roasted veggie and soy cheese sub, with a sweet mustard sauce. It was delicious! I'll be making it again.

Long time no see

Wow, its been a while. I was cooking, but I also got caught up in reading the Harry Potter series, so I became a hermit!

First of all, I found out yesterday that I get a scholarship next year, woot! So now I can buy groceries and not worry about not saving that money ;)

So lets start with dessert. Some of the girls from work decided to have a tea party, so I made some chai cupcakes from VCTOTW. They were deliciously spiced and had a really simple topping of cocoa powder and powdered sugar. Yummy!

I tried some more adaptations of recipes from Looneyspoons, and I'm quite happy with the results. First I made a broccoli cheese soup using soy cheddar, soymilk and Tofutti sour cream. It was delicious. The only change I'll be making will be to melt the cheese more before adding the sour cream, so that its more cheesy.

And I also made a baked mac n' cheese. This had vegan parm, soy cheese and Tofutti cream cheese. Very creamy, and I loved the bread crumb topping. It had a strong onion flavour, but nevertheless was good. I think it might have gone well with some ketchup too.

Now the fun news. I just got back from a trip to Toronto to visit some high school girlfriends. I had so much fun, we went shopping and went to a club and there was a lot of eating involved. We even went to Fressen (since it was the closest of all the veg places at the time) and we really enjoyed it. We ordered a basil fettuccine, a pesto gnocchi, beer battered tempeh fish (which rocked) and a mushroom puff pastry. And of course, dessert. We weren't too crazy about the dessert, which was some sort of nut roll, but it was still good. The plating was amazing too.

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 :)