My Worst Kitchen Disaster Yet

Ah, it feels good to be free. I forgot to post something from the other day. I was sick from studying Roman civilization so I went with Greek food ;) I had some faux feta left, so I crumbled it in with some romaine, cucumber, tomato and oil and vinegar dressing. I tossed it all together and stuffed it into a whole wheat pita. So delicious! I originally got this idea from the Garden of Vegan, but I just wanted a really quick pita stuffing so I could keep on cramming. It was so yum. Of course, I would have preferred to make my own dressing for it, but I used bottled oil and vinegar. (no judgement please! :P)














As you can see, my Roman notes are under the plate. As stressed out as I was about that exam, I wish I would've spent more time on this course over the semester, its really interesting!

Anyways, I found out last night that Billy had baseball practice tonite, so our night time BBQ became an afternoon one. I made corn on the cob, Yves veggie burgers and Garden of Vegan's seitan kabobs.














I love fresh corn. It is one of the best things about summer. I like to eat it plain, corn is so flavourful on its own. I ate my burger on a whole wheat bun with a slice of tofutti cheese, a pickle, lettuce, ketchup, mustard and relish...the works. I've made the kabobs before and remembered how delightful they were so I made them to get some veggies in us. My kabobs had marinated zucchini, seitan, green and red peppers, onion, garlic and mushrooms. Billy is a bit more picky with vegetables so his only had seitan and the peppers. All in all, a very nice BBQ dinner, although we didn't use the BBQ (due to weather) and ate while watching TV...which Billy was later reprimanded for.














For dessert I had planned on making Nikole's boss' mom's peanut butter chocolate cake (whew, what a mouthful) from La Dolce Vegan. I had it made and in the oven...I took it out, thought it wasn't cooked enough and went to put it back in the oven, but it slipped out of my hands...and by Murphy's law, landed upside down. I was quite upset, but it turns out I had overcooked the cake anyways, so it was all good. I decided not to give up on the cake and made it tonight while Billy was at practice. YES! Awesomeness portrayed in a cake! Billy adored the cake, and went back for seconds. I really liked it. I didn't think it *looked* all that impressive, because the peanut butter cream cheese topping didn't swirl into the batter the way it did in the first cake...but I was proved wrong. Basically, its a rich chocolate cake with a pb cream cheese "glaze" on top...that's the only way I can think of to describe the topping. Sorry I didn't take the best pictures. The lighting wasn't all that great.















Starting tomorrow, I work for 4 days, but I hope to do some more cooking...after all, what else is summer break for!?!

Can I get a...

WOOT!!!!

Yes, I am finally finished exams! This has been the most stressful exam period in my three years of university. Luckily, my Roman Civilization exam didn't violate me too much and I was very blessed that the essay question just happened to be the exact same topic I did my essay on during the semester! Talk about good fortune! So now I have one week until my summer courses start. I wish I had my regular 4 months off, but what can you do. I plan on sleeping lots, exercising lots and cooking lots...two of these are my favourite things :P

I've got some plans in mind for food for the next couple of weeks. Tomorrow is BBQ day with Billy...I'm making the seitan I need for the kabobs tonite to save some time. Also, next week I think I'll make meals from Vegan for One, they're organized into weekly meals. So far I've just picked and choosed meals I wanted to make, but this time I'll try and do the whole week. Anyways, I'll post tomorrow!

Pasta and Spuds

I've been *trying* all day to study for my last exam tomorrow...sigh...I can't wait til its over. I just wanna get the destruction over with! For dinner I made How It All Vegan's garlic roasted potatoes and La Dolce Vegan's roasted cherry tomato pasta with Kalamata olives and capers. The potatoes ended up being more of an appetizer than a side dish, I couldn't stop picking at them while I was making the pasta, they were so flavoursome! My sister really liked them too. Needless to say, they were gone before the pasta was even ready. The potatoes were tossed in olive oil and mixed with lots of garlic, sage, rosemary , pepper and salt.














The pasta dish is similar to the roasted cherry tomato pasta I made a while back with some slight variations. It was good, but I enjoyed the other one better. I didn't like capers the first time I tried them but decided to give them a chance in this dish. I guess I'm just not meant to like them. I'm also not an olive fan but have enjoyed them in choice meals. I would make this again, the organic cherry tomatoes were great, but I would leave out the capers and olives. Now, if you enjoy capers/olives, I'm confident you will thoroughly enjoy this dish. All in all, it was a very agreeable meal. I like pastas with simple toppings like this. Oh yes, there was also some grated mozzarella "cheese" in there. For some reason, Vegan brand cheese doesn't melt in any way except on the stove top.














Billy and I will be BBQ'ing on Wednesday or Thursday to celebrate me finishing a hellish semester. I'm thinking veggie burgers, seitan veggie kabobs and potato salad *drool*, oh yes and maybe some fruit tarts. I can't wait. Hopefully the weather cooperates so we can sit outside.

The fruits of procrastination

So I had to go to campus today to drop off my two Ethnobotany essays (which I wrote yesterday, haha) and to pick up my midterm from the same class. I thought I'd be seeing my TA to do this, but it turns out I had to get it from the actual prof. I didn't think I had done very well on this test, as I completely blanked out for some questions. So he went through it tallying up my mark and asked why I didn't do so well...talk about awkward. Like I wanted to tell my prof my excuses! He said I did neither good nor bad then handed it to me...75% That may not be up to my usual standards, but its freakin' awesome considering I thought I did wayyyy worse. I mean I completely forgot everything about vegetable waxes...I'm surprised they gave me any points for that question. The guy is super nice though. Anyhow, I have an exam tomorrow night, so naturally I was cooking all day :P.

For breakfast, I made the basic buckwheat pancakes from How It All Vegan. This was my first time using buckwheat flour. It gave the pancake batter a gray colour, which was cool. These did not cook all the way through! I haven't yet mastered the art of cooking perfect pancakes so I'm not sure if its because of how I cooked them or just the nature of the recipe...the good thing is is that the recipe was good enough to still be eaten, regardless of the fact that it was partially uncooked! I made Vive le Vegan's blueberry maple syrup again, but this time I used raspberries and a touch of lemon juice instead. Titillating! (Oh yes, I plan on using the thesaurus from now on to help me describe my food in more than one way) So all in all, the pancakes were good, and next time I will cook them longer on lower heat and make sure they cook all the way through. I froze the leftovers to eat as snacks in the future. They sure looked fine on the outside! The sight of the syrup is giving me goosebumps all over again, tee hee.














Lunch was leftover taco casserole and a baked potato with a bit of Earth Balance and bacon bits (I'm naughty)...but it was oh so good!

I felt like baking something so I pulled out Vive le Vegan and zeroed in on the Choco-cinna-nut biscotti. What a delight! I have never had biscotti before so I had to google it to see what it looks like and how its described. Here's what I found: "A hard biscuit that has been baked twice and is often served with coffee. Good for dunking.". Sounded good to me, regardless of the fact that I don't drink coffee. This is a marvelous recipe! Its a chocolate batter with toasted almonds, chocolate chips, cinnamon, vanilla and your choice of mocha or almond extract (I only had almond). I love the taste of the almond extract in the finished product. After baking for the first time, the biscotti was cooled and sliced and sprinkled with sugar and baked again. Once it cooled I dipped them in melted chocolate...Mmm pure decadence. All in all, a great recipe that I think I will make again in the future, using different nuts and extracts to vary the flavour. Oh, and my sister, the Starbucks barista, said it was really good :)
Before dipping:














After dipping:














The dip job isn't perfect but after the cream egg ordeal I just didn't care and wanted to get 'er done.

Then for dinner, I made La Dolce Vegan's perfect pesto pizza. If you want to make this make sure you have some time on your hands, or that you prepare in advance. It requires a pizza crust (unless you go with store bought) and the making of pesto. I thought the pesto was going to burn a hole through my pocket because the stores usually only sell basil in little packages with maybe three quarters of a cup in it for 3 bucks. But Smith's had a bunch of basil for 3 dollars, so I snatched that sucker up! Turns out it was the perfect amount. But it was not fun cleaning it! The roots and everything were still there and sand and dirt just kept falling out. A lot of water and many towels fell in battle, but it eventually got clean.
The fairest herb of all:














The pesto is awesome (sorry...grand)I'll be using it for other meals too. Sidenote: the thesaurus gave the word "hairy" as a synonym for "awesome"...right...clearly the guy who wrote this one is very hairy. I made a whole wheat crust to up the nutrition. The pizza has a layer of pesto as its sauce which is then covered with sauteed shallots and baby spinach.














That's followed by a layer of soy cheese (I used Vegan brand mozzarella) and faux feta (I used sunergia brand).














I had hoped to get my hands on the Vegan Gourmet brand of cheese, because it actually melts, but the store was sold out. The Vegan brand worked just fine though. The feta was good but not so great that I'd buy it again. The feta recipes in Garden of Vegan and La Dolce Vegan are better and cheaper. All in all, I really enjoyed this pizza. Its very filling, so I only ate two pieces instead of half the pizza...ha! I had to save room for the biscotti, of course. The pizza wasn't like the one I used to have at the Ex. I think I'll experiment in a few weeks to try and come up with a similar one.

Ugh, is it really Friday night? I hate Saturday exams, they ruin everything! Billy and I had a battle royal (I love this thesaurus) last night, so I'm eager for him to finish work so we can just be together tonight.

Its a beautiful mornin'

Now that I'm all caught up with past meals and such...I can post more about today. First of all, it was such a gorgeous day! I got to sleep til 10 (woot!) and it got into the 20's today...yay! It was so beautiful out, Billy and I walked to Smith's Market to buy a bunch of produce. For dinner, I started with a simple baby spinach salad (cucumber, shredded carrot, red pepper) and lemon zinger vinaigrette from Vive le Vegan. This vinaigrette is divine! I love love love it! I made it with lemon juice, agave nectar, dijon mustard, and flax oil (with some other seasonings). Easiest thing in the world to do, and you get a nice, FRESH, dressing for your salad....Mmm mm good.














The entree was La Dolce Vegan's pinto bean casserole with tortilla chip crust. It consisted of pinto beans mixed with a vegetable mixture of onion, garlic, green pepper, tomatoes, cumin, chili powder, jalapeno and vegetable broth and covered with crushed tortilla chips. In the last 5 minutes of baking I added a layer of nacho soy cheese. Although the meal looked awesome, I wasn't too impressed. I think it may have been because it was so spicy. The cheese is spicy too, so it may have just taken it overboard. When food gets too hot, its hard for me to taste anything that is in the meal. I added more cheese and bacon bits afterwards, oh and quite a bit of salt. It was still good, but I don't think I'd make it again. But you gotta take the good with the not so good, and I know that almost all the other meals in LDV are winners! Someone else might think this is the greatest dish in the world. I've just never really been a fan of dishes that are too hot or spicy.




























That being said, once I get all my leftovers eaten up I plan on making a pesto spinach pizza from La Dolce Vegan. I can't wait. When I lived in Winnipeg before I was vegan, I used to get spinach feta pizza every time the EX was in town (a fair), I was crazy about it. Hopefully this pizza is somewhat similar, and if not, it still sounds delicious. I'll keep you posted!

Smoothies!

I've apparently been on a smoothie kick lately. Monday nite while studying I had a craving for a frozen drink, so I whipped up the orange creamsicle smoothie, a recipe from Sinfully Vegan (Yes it has drinks in it too!) It was very simple, both preparation wise and taste wise. Sort of like a creamsicle popsicle. Vanilla soymilk, orange juice concentrate, and I threw in some banana and flax oil to up the nutrition. Then Tuesday morning I decided to have a smoothie for breakfast to get ready for my exam. I made the tangy citrus shake from How It All Vegan so I could use up the silk tofu sitting in my fridge. This one had soymilk, banana, lime juice and the tofu among other things. It was good! I love using fresh lime or lemon juice. Then yesterday afternoon I had an unquenchable thirst that only a smoothie could take care of so I made another one. This time the Berry Delicious smoothie from Sinfully Vegan. It had apple juice instead of soymilk so it was lighter. I used blueberries. Mmmm! Apple juice, berries, crushed ice, banana and some maple syrup. These smoothies really helped me get all my fruit servings for the day! The pictures in order are the creamsicle smoothie, the tangy shake and the berrie smoothie.











































Lunch yesterday was leftovers. Leftover stuffing from the festive squash with "beef" seitan. It went really well actually, and it was filling!














My dad finished off the leftover chowder I had made so I had to make another soup for dinner last night. He loved the split pea chowder...he even banged on the door while I was showering and yelled that I should make more ASAP...everyone knows I hate being yelled at while in the shower, so it must've been urgent ;) I wanted to make a carrot soup from HIAV but didn't have enough carrots so I made the spicy tomato soup using up some tomatoes in the fridge.Yes! I loved it! Its a really spicy soup, but not too spicy...and if you don't like spice, you can cut down on the pepper. Such a simple soup, but it looks like it took lots of time. To serve with the soup I made maple nut soup muffins, also from How It All Vegan. I thought the idea of muffins with soup was a little bizarre, but these really work, and they're great for dipping in the soup! The only sugar in the muffins comes from the maple syrup, which really only serves to give a nice maple-ey taste to the muffins...mmm mmm














I went to two health stores yesterday and came away with a lot of goodies:















-Buckwheat flour for pancakes tomorrow
-Earth Balance
-Vegan brand mozza cheese and sunergia soy feta for a pizza I'll be making this week
-Eden organic cans of pinto and aduki beans
-whole nutmeg for when I make some baked goods from Vive le Vegan!
-Vegan Gourmet Soy Nacho cheese ( I originally wanted regular mozzarella and cheddar but they were out)

I wasn't sure what to do with the nacho cheese, but I figured it out! Its awesome melted over nacho chips and I also used it in a pinto bean casserole from La Dolce Vegan (More on that later).

"Eat It All Up" Soup

Or at least that's what I would've called it. I think I might eat the whole pot of this stuff in one sitting. Its Adam's Yellow Split Pea Chowder from La Dolce Vegan. You wouldn't know that its such a simple recipe from its taste. All it is is onion, celery, carrot, veggie broth, basil, salt, split peas and brown rice. The carrots give the soup its gorgeous orange colour, and the rice and peas provide awesome chewiness. I blended the soup with a hand blender but left a few carrots chunks and pieces of rice.
I love this soup, I'll definitely be making it again. I'm a little bummed by all my exams right now, and this was the perfect comfort soup! Its so easy to make too. Once the veggies are softened and the rest of the ingredients are added you just let it do its thing on the stove for 45 minutes. The time flew for me, I was studying. Oh and its cheap to make...the bag of peas I bought was 99 cents, think of how much cheaper it would be if you bought the peas in bulk!

If you have LDV, you should make this soup soon!! And then send me some!

Easter

Hi everyone, hope you all had a nice long weekend! Wasn't long for me, it went by so fast and I had to work Friday and Saturday but at least I had Sunday off. My grandparents, my uncles and a cousin all came to town for dinner at my aunt's house. I didn't feel like eating plain old vegetables as dinner so I made my own food and brought it with me.

For dinner, I made Festive Stuffed Butternut Squash from La Dolce Vegan and served it with merciful miso gravy from the same book. I loved it! You start by roasting the squash (in half) and then scraping out the squash to make two shells to stuff. The stuffing had sauteed onions, celery, green pepper and garlic, the squash, walnuts, pecans, bread, spices, tahini, tamari and brown rice. It was awesome. I loved how the nuts added a bit of crunch to an otherwise soft stuffing.














The gravy was delicious...nice and thick, the way I like it and I smothered the squash in it. I didn't get the greatest picture of the gravy. I took pictures before heading over to my aunt's, so I couldn't get a picture of the plated meal. That's the last thing I need is my family asking why I take pictures of my food. I would definitely make this dish again, possibly for Thanksgiving...its so festive! My gramma even said it smelled good.














Everyone else ate boring turkey. I would be so frustrated...my aunt spent all day in the kitchen making the turkey, and everyone was done eating in ten minutes! I know its a tradition but c'mon! But...I wouldn't mind spending a day in the kitchen. The only thing that marred my beautiful dinner was my uncle's wife asking me if I took vitamins "because most people who don't eat meat have to take vitamins to supplement....and eat nuts for protein..." blah blah blah. The rest of my family has been around longer and are past caring, so I was kind of annoyed I had to deal with these questions again, but I just said "No, I don't need to" and left it at that. I think she got the hint, plus my uncle piped up and said I was doing fine...strength in numbers baby ;) Oh and then there was the incident where she starts talking about how her "mom" had a sheep farm and how she shipped them off to get killed, etc. Classy.

For dessert, Sinfully Vegan's Chocolate Covered Coconut Cream Eggs. Whooo these were quite a task to make. I think I ended up giving up half way through. The recipe makes so many eggs and I was so frustrated I just stopped. The chocolate that I melted was so thick and it was hard to just give the eggs a thin covering. I had chocolate all over me and never thought I'd live to see the day where I was sick of chocolate, but it came. They set really well though, and while they don't look perfect, they ended up being very delicious, frustrating as they were. My other uncle and mom even ate some and enjoyed them. This was my first time making anything like this, so I guess practice would help me improve next time. The filling was a mixture of silk tofu, Tofutti cream cheese, coconut extract, coconut and mashed potatoes! The potatoes make for a softer, creamier filling I suppose. I really like these eggs. You bite into a hard chocolate shell and the coconut filling just slides into your mouth like a dream. It was the perfect Easter treat and the good thing about them is you can only eat one or two, they're so rich. So you're waistline is safer than it would be with say, cheesecake or chocolate cake. :P Oh and they remind me of Bounty Bars, which were my favourite before going vegan.




























I bought some individually wrapped Endangered Species Company Dark Chocolate Treats in the spirit of Easter. These are great little snacks and Billy liked them too, which is good because I wasn't about to buy him a milk chocolate bunny, haha.














Oh yes, for breakfast on Saturday I had a craving for pancakes, so I made the Brainless Banana Pancakes from How It All Vegan. These are so yummy! They taste like banana bread, especially when they're cold (you could eat them like that as a snack). I also prepared the blueberry maple syrup from Vive le Vegan!. Mmm mmm. I am a sucker for maple syrup, so any variation on it is okay by me. This was great syrup...and a great way to use up some frozen blueberries (or other berries for that matter) and get some fruit in you.














That's it for me, I've got to start studying for my Experimental Methods In Biology exam that's tomorrow morning. Yawn. Ooo I will be making a yellow split pea soup for lunch, stay tuned!

Mushroom Stroganoff

Am I ever full. I whipped up this mushroom stroganoff from La Dolce Vegan for dinner tonight. Mm mm good. I don't believe I've ever had stroganoff before but I found this little definition from wikipedia (gotta love it):
Beef Stroganoff although now commonly served continentally, has its roots in Russia. The recipe developed as the result of a St. Petersburg cooking competition in the 1890s. The recipe was prize-winning and was consequently named after the Stroganov family that the chef was working for. The recipe traditionally includes beef cubes, mushrooms, and sour cream. Usually served over noodles or rice.

So I'm guessing this recipe was similar. It has seitan beef cubes (seen on the right hand side of the plate picture), and mushrooms. Instead of sourcream the sauce was made with silken tofu and soymilk...although, I'm sure one could make vegan stroganoff with Tofutti Sour cream. That would be awesome, considering I'm addicted to the stuff! If anyone out there already has that kind of recipe or is up to the challenge, do tell! Anyways, the sauce was great. It was pretty subtle, with the taste of parsley and pepper really helping it out. I served it with whole wheat rotini because I don't have any fettucinne, with a side of green beans, and it was superb. The recipe made lots, so I'll have some leftovers for dinner tomorrow and possibly Saturday.

Normally, a dinner this great, I'd be going back for seconds. But I decided not to. Its all part of the plan to have my clothes fit again ;)

omelets

I know I've posted about tofu omelets before...but I just had to do it again. Today, I made one of the most perfect omelets I have ever made. It was seared perfectly and didn't break apart. I used tomato/basil/gomashio filling again. Mmm I love how the Braggs in the tofu makes it salty! By the way, the recipe is from Garden Of Vegan. I've made it so many times, I know it by heart...not that there's much to memorize. I had half a pound of tofu left from the cauliflower bake so I figured, what better way to use it up! I'm getting really good at using leftover food so it doesn't go to waste. That must be because I'm broke and don't want to waste anything! So here's a picture of my lovely omelet, one of my favourite ways to eat tofu...














I'm trying to plan my meals a bit more. I've gained weight, yet again, so I'm cutting out baked goods for a little while, just while I get back on track. I'll miss them, but its for a worthy cause :P. Oh, to think...If I had stayed on the healthy weight loss track I was on a month or so ago...I could've lost twenty pounds by now! Such is my life...

So this morning I made the cumin spiced rice from La Dolce Vegan. Its brown rice with sauteed onions and cumin seeds (a first for me), made in veggie broth with a bit of black pepper...it should be great. I'll be eating that at lunch with some chickpeas, raw veggies and steamed broccoli. Its amazing how if I don't plan anything I barely eat any veggies or fruit...tsk tsk. So lunch will consist mainly of veggies.














For dinner, I'm making the mushroom stroganoff from LDV. I made the seitan last night while studying. I always find myself wanting to make meals that include seitan but don't have an hour to spend making the seitan, and then more time to cook dinner. So I cooked it ahead of time, stored it in its broth in the fridge...and dinner will take no time at all tonite! I'll post later on the results of that. I have an exam to write this afternoon.

Edit: I had to wait a bit to finish this post, because pictures weren't loading. In that time, I had lunch...the cumin spiced brown rice with chickpeas (topped with a bit of oregano, salt and pepper), raw carrots, cucumber and celery and a lot of steamed broccoli topped with red pepper flakes. Holy moley, that rice is spicy. I think my lip has a cut in it or something, because my lips were burning like a moffo! As spicy as it was, I really liked it...its a great way to spruce up plain old brown rice. And the chickpeas went with it very well. Ah, I love chickpeas so much.

She's a He

So it turns out Talulah isn't the best name for our fish. Turns out its a guy! I noticed that the fish was making little "bubble nests" at the surface of the water, so I did some research and found out that only the males do this, as they're the ones that take care of the babies. When males do this, it means they're happy or in a good mood apparently. So we renamed it to Stewie, after our favourite Family Guy character. We're a little Family Guy obsessed. But the name suits the little guy very well. We're going to be buying a big tank very soon and decking it out to make a little paradise for our baby.

I did some cooking today. I had to use up leftover cauliflower from the curry I made earlier. So I made the fennel cauliflower bake from La Dolce Vegan. Whoo! De-lish! I don't usually like fennel, but this dish was delicately flavoured by it and there were so many other flavourings that it blended really well. It was easy to make, it just had to bake in the oven for half an hour. I served it over brown rice that I steamed yesterday. I really recommend this dish...its not as colourful as some, but its definitely tasty.














For dessert,mint chocolate chip ice cream cake! Also from La Dolce Vegan. The recipe originally called for vanilla ice cream, but the grocery store only had chocolate so that's what I got. Its a basic recipe though, so you can swap in whatever you need to. Besides, mint goes really well with chocolate. I used peppermint oreos as the crust to add to the mintiness. The ice cream is blended with maple syrup, mint extract and chocolate chips, then topped with more chips and frozen. This was a simple recipe to make...it was ready by 7:30 despite needing two hours in the freezer...I worked on it while dinner was cooking. What a yummy treat! I recommend you really let it solidify in the freezer once its assembled so its not all melty when you serve it. Billy really liked this cake too...so its a winner!














I had my first exam today. It went pretty well. I found out today I got 97.5% on my lab exam for the same class (Histology), which is great because its worth just about as much as the final for the class. I got the fourth highest mark out of the whole class! Woot! I still have 4 exams left though and today's was probably the easiest so I gotta keep studying.

Talulah

Billy and I now have our first "couple" pet. He bought a betta fish one day when he was out with his brother. I was a little surprised. I feel bad for the little gal (we decided to raise it as a girl), so as soon as we can afford it we're buying a big tank for her.
I did some cooking this week! First, I made the garden medley vegetable stew from How It All Vegan. My parents went crazy over it when they smelled it cooking! It was pretty good...and super healthy. Its got squash, green pepper, carrots and tomato. It was just what I needed to help flush all the bad stuff out.














For dessert, I had some zucchini loaf, also from HIAV. Yum! This is a cinnamon sweet bread with raisins, walnuts and zucchini. I don't know how zucchini goes so well in desserts, but it does! I got Billy to eat some...he thought it was banana bread and loved it so I was overjoyed when I got the chance to tell him it was actually zucchini, seeing as he swears he hates the stuff! Bwua ha ha ha. Its sweet enough to be a dessert but still healthy enough to be guilt free... in moderate amounts of course!












I finally got to watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe two days ago. I loved it! I reread all the books when the movie came out. I can't wait for sequels :P. I was anxious to start watching the movie, so we didn't feel like cooking. Instead, I just made some tri-coloured pasta and heated up some canned pasta sauce with a can of diced tomatoes, fresh garlic and salt and pepper. It was very yummy. I rarely ever leave jarred pasta sauce as is...I like having chunks of tomatoes or other veggies in it. Its definitely not a complicated meal at all, but far better than some of the canned stuff Billy subsists on.















We also watched Memoirs of a Geisha yesterday. It was pretty good. I enjoyed the book too. But Billy told me I was never allowed to read a book before seeing the movie again, because I "insist on pointing out all changes they made in the movie"...pfff whatever. :P

And last but not least...creamy curried veggies with brown rice, a recipe from How It All Vegan. Woot! I wolfed this sucker down in no time! You can make it with coconut milk or soymilk. For the life of me, I can't eat dinners made with coconut milk, so I just used plain soymilk. This was an awesome meal! It has carrots, cauliflower, peas, potato, onion, garlic, and mushrooms There was just the right amount of curry and spice, I'm very picky about that. A nice, healthy meal that was pretty easy to make and didn't take long since I cooked the rice ahead of time in my steamer. With my meal I had a delicious smoothie. I used chocolate soymilk, some flax oil, banana, agave nectar and some organic peanut butter. Mmm mmm.















Well I've got more laundry to do...so in the words of the cartoon The Weekenders....Later Days! :D

Awwwww

I was studying all day today for my lab exam. It went well, I think. It was easier than I was expecting. So I didn't have time to cook but luckily I had a frozen black bean burrito ( a recipe from LDV), which is just as great defrosted and a great way to have a healthy lunch when you're busy.
I came home tonite to find that Billy had bought me a dozen roses...for no reason. Gotta love that!

Catch up time...

So my semester is over, now all that's left is a lab exam tomorrow night, and 5 regular exams throughout April. I have managed to do some cooking in the last week or so. I've been pretty busy. Billy's brother Brian is in town visiting from Winnipeg, so we've been going out a lot. I think I've been out more in the last week than I have been the whole semester! We went to Science North on Friday. It was fun, but I think its more for people who maybe aren't science majors :P A lot of the demonstrations and things there were things I do in class and lab all the time. But it was Billy's birthday, so it was his day :).

Being his birthday, it was a great excuse to make a cake! So I made the double chocolate cake from Sinfully Vegan for him. Its a rich chocolate cake with 4 layers, covered in chocolate cream cheese icing and some blended chocolate chips. Dang it was good. I think there's only one piece left after a day and a half! If you're going to make this one, make sure you have plenty of soymilk on hand. It took me about three glasses of soymilk to finish eating my piece, haha. Mmmmm, so delicious.














I didn't cook a birthday dinner though. For that, we went to East Side Mario's. My brother came along too. I don't think I've laughed so hard in months. Those three guys together are hilarious. I barely talked, just laughed. Last night, we went to Ice Age 2 as an extension of the birthday day, cuz we couldn't make it on Friday nite. It was so funny and really cute. I think we picked a bad time though. We were the only adults there not accompanying children! I mean, I understand that children will make noise, but if your kid starts wailing in the theatre, you should probably leave the theatre for a minute or two for a timeout! Plus the kid beside me was throwing popcorn, mostly in my direction, and there was no parental interference there. But popcorn covered or not, it was a fun movie.

During the week, I made chunky fettuccine with fresh herbs and vegetables from CalciYum!; it was a sauce made with bok choy, acorn squash, soymilk, basil, parsley and some seasonings. Yum! I've never had acorn squash before, and its great. It works really well in the sauce, it thickens it up and doesn't overpower the taste. I used whole wheat fettuccine.




























Also from CalciYum!, I made the figgy bars. These consist of a fig layer between two cake like layers. They're really good, but I think I slightly undercooked them, so they're a bit mushy. If I had left them in a few minutes longer, they'd be perfect. They were a great snack for school.















Wow, I've been making a lot of desserts. On Monday, I also made Wolffie's cowpies from La Dolce Vegan. I am loving these "no bake" dessert recipes! Its awesome. You just make the batter, spoon it on a cookie sheet, stick it in the fridge and forget about it for an hour (well ok, you don't forget, I couldn't wait to try them!). These are soooo chocolatey! It's essentially raisins and walnuts covered in chocolate. I really enjoyed them. They were great as a quick dessert after dinner, and I had some left for snacks at school.














Well, that's what I've been up to. Now that exams are starting, I'll have more time at home, and hopefully I can get back to cooking and eating regular, healthy meals again. I'm planning on updating more often so that all these pictures don't build up and it doesn't take me forever to do my blog! :P