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?

Everyday food and an anniversary

Where to start? Chronological order, I guess.

Last Sunday, Billy was supposed to have friends over to watch the football games. So I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip cookies (Vive le Vegan) and chocolate raspberry cookies (Veganomicon), two tried-and-true recipes. And Billy even whipped up a vegan ranch dip for his chips, which is really good. But of course, the guys never showed (hungover) so we were stuck with all this food. I didn't have any cookies but I know they're delicious.


Then, to use up some white wine sitting in my fridge, I made peaches with spiced white wine, from Vegan Italiano. The wine is simmered with sugar and cinnamon sticks and then tossed with fresh peach slices. I don't drink or like wine...but this dessert isn't too bad, since the peaches are good, and the cinnamon sugar syrup helps out a bit too ;)

For lunches, I prepared easy Mexican wraps from the Candle Cafe cookbook. Quinoa and black beans are wrapped up in a tortilla with citrus-cilantro-marinated grilled tofu and a tomato-avocado pasta. These are very filling, and a nice change from regular sandwiches.


And lastly, yesterday Billy and I celebrated our anniversary and decided to have a romantic dinner at home with some of our favourite foods. So the appetizer was bruschetta on a whole wheat baguette (not pictured) and dinner was La Dolce Vegan's amazing mac n' cheese recipe, with a twist. Billy stirred in about a tablespoon of cajun seasoning. SPICY! I don't care what anyone says, mac and cheese by candlelight is just as romantic as any other recipe :) The picture I have is of the leftovers so it doesn't show how deliciously creamy this recipe really is!

Dessert, requested by Billy, was carrot cake. So I tried a new recipe from Skinny Bitch in the Kitch for carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. This is originally supposed to be a two layer cake, but that comes out to about 800 calories per 1/12th of the cake....and that does not make a Skinny Bitch. So I made just one layer and half the icing recipe. This cake is fantabulous! It is so moist that it is fragile, and it could stand alone without any frosting. In fact, I found the icing to be a little too thick/sweet, and would prefer a lite glaze instead. But we both wolfed our pieces down with glee.

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.

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.

Tuscan Sandwiches

I feel like I haven't posted in forever! It felt nice to be back in the kitchen cooking today. More like baking. I made French baguettes from Garden of Vegan to use for sandwiches. For dinner, I made Tuscan white bean pate sandwiches with spinach and tomato. The recipe is from Candle Cafe and its supposed to be with arugula, but there was none at the store. Since I'm tracking my food intake, the amount of bread I used was probably less than desirable for what the authors had in mind. Its very filling though. The pate is made with navy beans, garlic and a few other ingredients. Its kind of liquidy, but that can be fixed by leaving out the water next time. I had the sandwich with some corn and broiled asparagus.

I'm back to school tomorrow to start my placement, so I'll be packing lunches and post pictures of them, if they're fun.

Alright, enough about me...

Let's get to the food! Thanks for the congratulations from everyone.

I've heard a lot about Candle Cafe's cornmeal-crusted tempeh...so I tried it. It was very good, although it was too salty. I was expecting there to be extra marinade (which contained about 1/2 cup of tamari) after baking, but the tempeh soaked it all up and all of its salt too. These are fried, but I cut the oil down by half and it was enough to fry them all. I served these with sweet potato smash, also from Candle Cafe. I really enjoyed the potatoes. I slightly undercooked them, but the combination of cinnamon, maple syrup and miso was great.

While in Ottawa, Billy's mom brought us to the Produce Depot. I need one of these here! They had every imaginable fruit and vegetable in the world! I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable about product, but there were many things I'd never seen before. Anyways, they even had vegan products there (Tofutti, etc). I picked up some Shefu Tofu BBQ Bites by Soyarie. I followed their tip on the package and made a wrap with it. A brown rice tortilla with some guacamole, curried mayo, spinach, pineapple, red pepper and the tofu bites. The texture of the tofu was awesome. It was kind of stringy and dry, the way meat can be, and the flavour was good too. Anyways, my picture of the wrap whomps, so I'm using the one from the website.
I have a lot of fruit to use up, and I was in a baking mood so I made some Maui Muffins with Orange Glaze, again from Candle Cafe. These have orange juice, orange zest, coconut, and pineapple and are topped with an orange juice and zest glaze. They are marvelous. If you have the book, I strongly recommend this recipe!

Piccata

The mushroom risotto from the weekend left me with some dealcoholized white wine (cheap stuff, not real). Nevertheless, it was pricey for what it was, and I wanted to use more of it before it went bad, so I made the Seitan Piccata with White Wine (and no capers! yuck) from Candle Cafe, which is essentially a lemon butter sauce. Its alright. The sauce was better the next day, but I don't know if its the wine or the amount of lemon juice that just wasn't quite right. The marinated seitan was also a recipe from CC. I don't think I kneaded it enough in the water (it was from scratch) but it held up pretty well. I served this lemony sauce with a side of basmati rice.

I made banana bread tonight! I'll post it tomorrow when I have it for breakfast. My girls night is rapidly approaching and I can't think of anything more appropriate than Margarita Cupcakes!

Vive la France!

Lunch today (and for the rest of the week) is what I wish I could've eaten in France when I went, but good luck finding a vegan place. Ham and cheese croissants with French-style green beans. The whole-wheat croissants from Vegan Lunchbox are delicious; time consuming but delicious. They're so much better than Pillsbury, plus you know exactly what goes into it. I wish I could've eaten one straight out of the oven last night at midnight, but I resisted. They're not hard to make, there's just a lot of waiting time (rising, refrigerating, etc.). I made the sandwich using Tofurkey deli slices and a slice of Tofutti cheese. If you don't like knowing nutritional info, stop reading here! The recipe makes 16 fairly small croissants, but they're each roughly 175 calories...darn that Earth Balance, haha. I don't worry about that stuff too much though, I ate the foods I wanted in moderation last month and lost ten pounds.

I made the Mushroom Risotto from Candle Cafe yesterday, which I was so anxious about. Whenever I watch Hell's Kitchen, it seems that Chef Ramsey really rags on the contestants about the quality of their risotto, so I was scared that it wouldn't turn out. But it did! And it was delicious! I meant to throw in some PC chicken strips for protein and forgot, but it was still yummy.

The risotto left me with almost a full bottle of dealcoholized white wine though, so I'll be making something else from Candle Cafe in a few days to use it up.

Woot!

I made it through my lab exam today and I have next week off for reading week. Party :P

Here's the tofu alredo I mentioned earlier this week from Candle Cafe. It doesn't taste like traditional alfredo, but its got lots of garlic in it...num num.

It needs a bit of seasoning, and some fake parm finishes it off perfectly.

Alfredo

Billy and I had tofu "alfredo" from Candle Cafe Cookbook today for dinner. The colour isn't very appetizing and I couldn't get a picture, but its yummy. B says it doesn't taste like regular alfredo but that it's really good anyways, and really garlic-y! We decided to make it chicken alfredo, so we used PC Blue Menu Meatless Chicken Strips. Mmmm, these things are great! I like the texture better than Yves. The pasta, topped with some faux parm and parsley was yummy! And the delicious garlic bread helped too ;)

Thanks for all the get well and birthday wishes...I'm feeling better but still not 100%. Good enough to make cupcakes though ;)

Forgiving but not forgetting

I'm starting to forgive Candle Cafe for its not-so-great tofu scramble. These lemon poppy seed muffins are delish. I asked Billy while I was baking them if he liked lemon poppy seed muffins in general, and he said "not really". That's funny...he ate 3 for supper last night! These are nice and light with a crunch from the seeds. A perfect breakfast with a smoothie.

Dinner tonite was courtesy of CalciYum! Hearty soybean burgers. I don't make my own burgers very often, just because I have the idea that they are time consuming and tedious. These did take some time, but with a little coordination, or even planning ahead, they could be made quickly. I did cook soybeans in my slowcooker for them, since I couldn't find any canned. Aside from the soybeans, these also have potato, carrot, celery, onion, ground almonds, tofu, bread crumbs, a nice touch of mustard and some seasonings. I love that they're baked and not fried, and they even hold up together pretty well. And...they have 24% of your daily calcium! I liked the flavour of these and I think I'll freeze some for later use.

Lunch this week, as I mentioned is lentil rice balls with pasta and tomato sauce from Vegan Lunchbox. I couldn't find any pomegranates like the menu suggested so I went with kiwi. And of course a square of dark orange chocolate. The author suggests packing the balls separate from the pasta until lunch or they'll get soggy. I find that they get harder when they're reheated so today I packed it with the pasta, and they were just right. I didn't get the greatest picture from yesterday but it'll do. I know you can all visualize it easily enough, I just like providing pictures :)

Pamplemousse

I spent my early years growing up in Quebec, and as such, most of my vocabulary was learned in French first, or very soon after. I still remember mornings when my dad would offer me "pamplemousse" for breakfast, because I had started speaking only French at home to try and blend in at school better.

For a quick breakfast on Monday, I tried Candle Cafe's grilled grapefruit. Sounds different, huh? Well, I'm glad I tried it. I don't really like pamplemousse anymore, but I really loved how the broiler warmed up the fruit and caramelized the sugar and ginger. Yum!

Lunch just keeps getting better and better! This week is Pups in a Blanket (or pigs in a blanket, if you prefer), with cooked veggies (broccoli today), a kiwi, and 2 oreos. The pups are so good, I think the taste of soy dogs has grown on me. And the dough is 1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 white flour (the recipe called for all white), plus there's wheat germ in it. So its good and good for you; yes, I went there. They even go so far as to remind me slightly of pogos. These would be great for kids lunches too!

Rice and oats

I made my first meal from The Ultimate Uncheese cookbook on Thursday. The cheezy rice and broccoli casserole was really easy to make. You stir everything together in a casserole dish and stick it in the oven. However, the timing was really off. It said to cook for 50-60 minutes and there was nothing about stirring in between. I decided to check it a good 12 minutes before the 50 minutes was up...and it was done! Maybe too done. It still tasted good though, and I can see myself making it again. Hopefully I'll cook it properly though and it'll be creamier or less dry. The "cheese" comes from nutritional yeast, and turmeric for colour.

I also gave the Candle Cafe cookbook another chance. I made the oatmeal currant cookies (but with raisins). Yummiest oatmeal raisin cookies ever! So chewy with a bit of crunch, just yummy. I can't stop eating them.

I recently switched to the new version of blogger, and everything's fine, except I can't get the layout I used to...the text won't move around on the final draft, no matter how I change it....grrrr.

How vegetarianism becomes so confusing to many, and some food.

Overheard by Billy at Subway:

Girl: I'll have the cheese bread.
Subway Employee: Would you like cheese
on your sub?
Girl: No. I'm a vegetarian.
S. E: But you're having the
cheese bread...
Girl: Its not the same.

Ummmmm, yeah. That's all I have to say about that.

I've made lots of food, but I only have pictures for two things, I'll get more tomorrow. I made a few things from the Candle Cafe book. So far, I'm less than impressed. The lentil chowder is okay but is rather bland. It takes a lot of salt and extra seasoning for me to want to eat it, although I like that there's plenty of veggies in it (carrot, celery, squash, onion, tomato, etc). I served it with some brown basmati rice.














I also made the tofu scramble and home fries. The home fries are delicious and have Yukon and sweet potatoes, but the scramble is also bland, despite having many spices in it, somehow. I ate some leftovers in a toasted sandwich with ketchup and nacho cheese sauce, which was a bit of an improvement. Nevertheless, I'll persevere with this cookbook. I'm sure there are many great meals in it.