My convocation is online. I'm at 1:16:50, approximately. :D

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 :)

Grad

I am now officially Melissa, B.Sc (Hon), cum laude. Haha, although I won't refer to myself that way. As it turns out, I graduated second in my class, and was only one percent away from having top marks....story of my life. Graduation was fun, graduation dinner was fun (and delicious) and my graduation BBQ was even more fun. My grandparents and some aunts and uncles came, along with my family and Billy's family. They grilled meat and such, but I wasn't deprived. I also grilled some corn on the cob that everyone ate.

As for me, I had a Sol Spicy Bean Burger on a whole wheat bun (I ate wheat for the weekend), with grilled pineapple and some yummy Mango Ketchup from Candle Cafe.

Dessert was Death By Chocolate Brownies from Sinfully Vegan. I really liked the texture of these, dense and fudgy; and so did everyone else.

And for lunches when my cupboards and fridge were a bit bare, I made a great red lentil soup recipe that I found on vegweb.

There you have it, I kept it fairly simple so I could spend time with my family instead of in the kitchen.