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!

Pancakes for Two

After lounging in bed with the cat this morning, I finally got up and made some peanut butter and banana pancakes from Table for Two. They were easy to make, and I like that we didn't have leftover pancakes to deal with. You couldn't really taste the peanut butter though (probably because it calls for 2 teaspoons). I'd make them again because they're quick and easy, but they didn't taste spectacular. For me, pancakes are just a vessel and an excuse to use maple syrup ;)

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!

Coming home to dinner

I didn't have time to take a picture of lunch today...but it'll be the same all week, so I'll get one eventually. Its perfect for this snowy weather we just got.

Dinner tonight was made thanks to my slow cooker and a recipe from The Simple Little Vegan Slow Cooker; Sloppy Josephines. Let me tell you, the smell in the apartment when we got home was amazing! These are really simple with ground round, ketchup, onions, bell peppers and some other stuff served over whole wheat kaiser rolls. I forgot to buy brown mustard and had to use dijon, but it worked out fine. Also, I couldn't find dark nonalcoholic beer so I improvised and used water with some tamari. These had such a great BBQ flavour. And Billy went crazy over them! He ate 3 and barely left me any leftovers for tomorrow! They weren't very sloppy though. The sauce thickened considerably, but I don't think that's a really bad thing.

I've also made the stuffed peppers from the book, which Billy also really enjoyed.

This weekend I had a craving for cheese biscuits, like the ones at work. But I didn't have any bisquick mix and all the recipes seemed to call for it, so I just made whole wheat biscuits from Table for Two, mixed in some Earth Island cheddar cheese and topped them with some garlic butter. They did the trick. The picture isn't all that great, but these were delicious.

Day 3 and muffins

Yesterday's meals consisted of all new recipes/ideas. Breakfast was a simple fruity smoothie from Calciyum. It was pretty good. It had oj, orange, strawberries, silk tofu, vanilla and maple syrup. I was too lazy to cut up the orange very much so there were a few chunks in the smoothie, but I liked them. The recipe makes a lot so that's all I had til lunch.














Lunch was cream of tomato and basil soup from La Dolce Vegan, served with multigrain crusty bread and salad. The soup tastes sort of like canned tomato soup but better! The basil lends so much flavour to the soup and I enjoyed the pieces of onion. With canned tomato soup, I practically have to put in a whole pack of crackers to eat. That's why I love homemade soup, you rarely need crackers to be satisfied, there's so much texture and flavour.














Dinner was week 2's Tuesday dinner from Vegan Cooking for One, Mediterranean noodles. Yum! My favourite dinner from the book so far, and very simple. Whole wheat spaghetti tossed with margarine and Vegan parmesan and topped with a sauce that has green pepper, onion, mushroom, veg stock, tomato paste and seasonings. Quite delicious. I really liked the parm on the spaghetti, I'll definitely be doing that again! I served the spaghetti with some stirfried collards with fresh lemon.














Last nite, I made some cinnamon raisin muffins from Table for Two for breakfasts and snacks. The book also focuses on smaller servings, so it makes 6 small muffins. I didn't take a picture, they're nothing special in the looks department, but they taste pretty good. I had one for breakfast this morning with a banana and I was pretty happy with the results.

I can' t wait to finish this week's meals, I have a lot of plans for next week!

So as I said earlier, I went to the dentist yesterday, and its all good...no cavities :) Things also went well with my academic advisor. He told me that with my grades I should go into medicine...that was a nice self esteem boost, and reassuring to know that if I wanted to, I could. He also told me I'm all clear for next year, and I actually have some room in my schedule in the fall, so I dropped one of my spring courses and am taking it in the fall...less work for me this summer :)

Hopefully I can post tonite's meal later on.

Woot!

I lost four pounds! Do the happy dance with me! :)

Check out what I had for dinner last night, it was a bit of an indulgence:















It's butternut squash soup with a "turkey" sandwich. mmm. The soup was good, but the pieces of steamed collards weren't so hot...I think I would've prefered it if had been blended along with the rest of the soup, it was kind of rubbery. But the soup is still very good! The sandwich was on whole wheat, with Yves turkey slices (I really like their new texture and taste!) with some vegenaise(why must you be so fattening?), mustard and spinach leaves. Oh and a slice of tofutti cheese. A very good dinner, and easy to prepare (if you've got leftover soup lying around) right before work.

I was having a major snack attack yesterday. But I tried to ride it out. I had a raspberry punch orange (awesome!) and 4 or 5 almonds after my semi-workout, and a bunch of raw veggies. Another thing that helps me avoid the munchies is a glass of lemon perrier with some fresh lemon wedges added. I love mineral water, it helps me avoid pop.














I garnished it with a strawberry. I bought some yesterday from Smith's Market, they were surprisingly good. Other strawberries I've bought in the winter are never really that great, but these are juicy and flavourful. I love strawberries.

As for breakfast today, I wanted to make pancakes or something as my weekend "treat" but I didn't have all the ingredients to make any of the ones I wanted. I did, however, have a bunch of leftover kale (its impossible to use up a whole bunch!) so I made kalewiches from Table for Two. I put the steamed kale on whole wheat toast and drizzled it with some good olive oil, sea salt and some fresh lemon juice. Mmmmm, that hit the spot, and its healthy! I had some more delicious strawberries and chocolate soymilk. Oh ya, and some green tea/mint/ginger tea. I actually used the water from steaming the kale to make my tea! You can't taste a difference and that way you're still getting any nutrients that were lost from the kale by steaming! :) I did this with the butternut soup too, I used the steaming water to make vegetable stock. So there's my tip of the day, I'm sure some of you veteran vegans have been doing this for years.














Ever since I got my camera, I've mostly taken pictures of food, so I was goofing around yesterday with my cat, trying to get a good picture. She kept moving around though, obviously, but here's one of my fur baby, Whiskers.














Speaking of Whiskers, she just puked all over the floor. I told Billy not to let her drink that milk! He's gonna get it now....grrrr Thank God for hardwood flooring.

I've been in the kitchen all afternoon!

But before I get to that, I was going to post my picture of food from the other day. I had school from 8:30 a.m until almost 9 p.m (with breaks in between classes and lab) so I had to bring lunch and dinner and snacks with me to school. So I cooked a bunch of stuff the night before to prepare. I made a black bean spread for toast (upper left), which I had for breakfast, to start my day off with a good, healthy meal. Then for lunch I had Wolffie's Cajun beans and rice (bottom left) which I mentioned earlier. Man, it was good! Billy liked it too, he had some yesterday with his sloppy joe's. Then for dinner, it was leftover lasagna again(bottom right). The salad in the upper right corner is romaine with pomegranate seeds ( I got the idea from Dreena Burton's Vive le Vegan! blog), tomatoes and carrots with an oil and vinegar dressing which has cumin in it (its from La Dolce Vegan).I have since frozen the leftover lasagna. I was overdosing and needed some variety. Anyways, it was a big pain in the butt lugging all this food around campus with me, but way better than anything I could've bought there! Campus is so not vegan-friendly.

For dinner tonite, I'm having chickpea ratatouille (Vive le Vegan recipe) with a bed of organic brown and wild rice. As a side, I made the Dijon Mustard Brussels Sprouts from La Dolce Vegan . I think I've made them three times now, they're just so good. The ratatouille is awesome! Its full of flavour and was really easy to make. I just had to mix all the ingredients in a casserole dish and let it do its thing in the oven! Its a great dinner!




I also made soup today. Its navy bean soup from Table for Two by Joanne Stepaniak. I work tomorrow night, so I wanted to have something I could just reheat quickly before leaving. I had a small bowl as an appetizer, and it is good! My dad tried some and said it was delicious. That is an extreme rarity for him to a) willingly try my food and b) say he likes it! He even recommended it to my sister and she ended up having some for dinner! I love when that happens. They're just a little slow on what we already know, that vegan food rocks!


Now....does someone want to come clean my kitchen?

Oh and in the entertainment world...stay tuned for a vegan chocolate pudding wrestling match between me and Berna...or is it a tournament now? All this to determine who gets Joaquin Phoenix ;) more details at the Forum