A letter

Dear Calgary Film Festival,
Thank you for lumping me in the same category as sexual deviants, hippies and weirdos.

That is all.

Signed,
Someone who will not be going to Calgary anytime soon...

Winter is coming...

and with winter, comes the urge to cook! I cooked a lot last week and this weekend. In no particular order...

This is my new adorable cookie jar. Billy said if I got a cookie jar, I would have to fill it. So....


I made cookies! In the top left, it's the chocolate chip cookies from Vive le Vegan. These came out a bit differently, because I had to sub out some maple syrup for agave. But still tasty. In the top right, we've got the chocolate raspberry cookies from Veganomicon (a household favourite), and front and centre, we have chocolate chip cookies from Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.


Artichoke Marinara and Spaghetti- Vegan Italiano
Most of the meals I made come from this cookbook. That's because the food always comes out delicious, and the ingredients are simple and easy to find at the local grocery store. I have to be in a special and rare mood to drive to the health store these days!


Apples poached in red wine- Vegan Italiano
Very simple to make. There's a touch of cinnamon in these that makes it extra yummy.


Gnocchi with Sundried Tomato and Almond Pesto- Vegan Italiano
Yum!


Chocolate Strudel-Vegan Italiano
Holy cow people! I found vegan puff pastry at the grocery store! :) This is the first thing I made with it. Chocolate and almonds mixed with icing sugar, surrounded by a puffy, flakey crust. Billy must prepare to be puff pastried in the upcoming weeks.


Meatloaf, smashed potatoes and garlic green beans- Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Foods
Comfort food at its best. The meatloaf firmed up well the next day. The smashed potatoes are super easy (I don't believe in peeling my potatoes, so it was nice to see a recipe of the same mindset). I also threw in a spoonful of horseradish. The garlic green beans are AMAZING! They're steamed and then sauteed with onions and garlic and slivered almonds.... I also made sage gravy to top it all off.


Cauliflower soup- Vegan Italiano
I love soups.... This soup is so simple, and by blending the cauliflower after cooking, it really gives the soup some creaminess, without the use of soymilk or cream. I'm adding this one to my regulars. And Billy says its good but its still cauliflower and therefore refuses to eat it (we all hold on to some childish behaviours lol). More for me!


Lemon Cranberry Poppy Seed muffins- La Dolce Vegan

I like the addition of dried cranberries to this classic combo. Yes, those are Disney princess muffin cups!

Happy Halloween!

I was so excited for my first time handing out candy to trick or treaters (we've always been in apartment buildings before). We got about 50 kids, which is great for our little neighbourhood. I had fun carving pumpkins too. Not pictured, I also did a vampire pumpkin.


I roasted the pumpkin seeds with salt...mmmmmm.


We put Dill upstairs and blocked the stairs with a baby gate so that she wouldn't be barking and scaring the little ones that came. For some reason she is afraid of the baby gate, and wouldn't go near it. This picture shows the closest she would get to it to look at me down the stairs, hahaha.

Birthday...

Our beautiful puppy turned 2 today :) Apparently, they're puppies until 2, so maybe we will see some more mellow behaviour now...or not.
On a whim (and I am prepared to accept jabs about how we did this for a dog), we bought a dog "birthday cake" at PetSmart. It's totally vegan and we thought it would be cute. Also, we didn't give her the whole thing!




You know its good when it gets carried over to the dog bed...


In knitting news, here's a picture of the finished bolero. I haven't washed it yet, so I'm hoping it will block a bit and that the ribbing will settle down a bit more nicely. Other than that, I'm quite pleased with the results, although it did stretch out a lot from being worn one day (it is cotton after all).


I've also completed a different project and begun a new one, but these shall remain top secret as they are Christmas gifts :)

Craft Night!

I had a few of my favourite girls in the world over last Friday for a Halloween craft night. There were some challenges (although I picked the simplest crafts from Martha Stewarts website....we decided she has robots to make them for her), but we ended up with a few cute things.

Halloween candles...




Paper Hangups...



And food!

Caroline's vegan chocolate pie (delicious)

the Perfect Sunday

To me, there's lots of different "perfect days" out there. But Sunday is special. That's me time. I was awoken this morning to the smell of cinnamon rolls, because Billy was holding up a cup of "cinnamon pastry" coffee to my nose, along with a plate of cinnamon toast. Mmmmm. Then we caught up on some DVR'ed shows and brought the dog for a walk in the park, while taking in all the beautiful fall colours.

The rest of the day will be spent alternating between knitting and cooking/baking to fill the house with pleasant smells. And who knows, I may even throw a puzzle in the mix.

Here's what I've made so far:

Pumpkin Cake- Sinfully Vegan


This is a lovely spiced cake. On its own its satisfying but nothing spectacular. Topped with the whipped pumpkin topping however, puts it over the edge. The sweetener in this recipe is maple syrup (lots of it). It also has applesauce, whole wheat flour and flax powder in it, so its pretty healthy for a dessert :)

Chicken Soup- Skinny Bitch in the Kitch

Yummy! Apparently this is Billy's NEW favourite chicken soup. It has PC's meatless chicken chunks, veggies, and rice. I subbed the rice for pasta. It's a tad salty for my taste, so I will cut that down next time, but other than that, it's delicious!

Spicy Pumpkin Soup-Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Foods

There is a lot of pureed pumpkin floating around our household due to Thanksgiving and the season. I'm trying to find different ways to use it (this week was pumpkin chocolate chip muffins). This soup is very spicy, but kind of bland. It only has pumpkin, milk, veggie broth, maple syrup and dried chili flakes in it. Maybe I'll like it more with crackers. However, I also find it hard when an ingredient transitions from "dessert" to "dinner". I think its also why I don't like coconut milk in savoury dishes.

Knitting Update:
I finally finished my brown cotton lacey bolero that I've been working on since June (I frequently hibernated this project when I got to a tough step :P). I just need to sew up the arm seams and weave in loose ends, then I will show it off here :)

Happy Sunday!

Nooooooooooooooooo!

My first time ever hosting Thanksgiving and I forget my &%!$ camera in my classroom! Bah! So we will have to settle with a list of all the food I'm making :(

-chocolate truffles (The Vegan Table): so yummy and simple!
-spinach dip (125 Best Vegan Recipes): always a winner. Note: this recipe is best made with Vegenaise (there are no other comparisons)
-tofu roast (homemade tofurkey, La Dolce Vegan)
-mashed potatoes (mine will have horseradish in them)
-mushroom gravy
-pumpkin cheesecake (Sinfully Vegan)
-green beans in garlic butter sauce (Vegan Table)
-holiday cranberry sauce (Veganomicon)
-stuffing (boxed)
-pumpkin and apple pie

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians...may it be delicious and cruelty free ;)

Whoops

Two months since I posted...yikes. Buying the house, fixing it up and moving in was a huge drain, not to mention kicking off a new school year! I've been cooking a bit but not bothering to take pictures. Til now!

I'm also hosting Thanksgiving next weekend, so there will lots of pictures from that.

Cupcakes!
Just basic chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting and various sprinkles. These were made for a BBQ night that we had at our place in August to celebrate the end of the mixed league baseball season.


Cheezy cream of broccoli soup- Skinny Bitch in the Kitch

As the weather gets colder, I turn to soups to comfort me. This is a very yummy soup with daiya cheese in it. I was expecting a more orange soup but the daiya doesn't melt all the way into the soup. It's nice and thick though. Skinny Bitch gets a bad rap for having lots of "junky" recipes that use lots of vegan cheese and meats. But every once in a while I get a craving for those kinds of foods, so I like it!




Attention readers: any recommendations for great crowd-pleasing vegan Thanksgiving recipes?

Cooking in the heat...

Vegetable Risotto- Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Foods


Fruit Cobbler- Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food


Broccoli Bake-Mom

It doesn't look very pretty, but it's delicious! Steamed broccoli topped with a thick mushroom sauce, crumbled Ritz crackers and Daiya Cheddar.


Watermelon Sorbet


Huevos Rancheros- Garden of Vegan
One of my favourite breakfast items. Tortilla, refried beans, scrambled tofu and cheese, baked to yumminess!


Wolffie's Fiesta Macaroni Salad- La Dolce Vegan

Another favourite, and as I discovered this weekend, a crowd pleaser.

Easy Peasy

Dinners this month will be focused around cleaning out the cupboards and using up some staples and canned goods. So with that in mind, I made a super quick and easy meal yesterday that was also very tasty. Chili macaroni (a la Hamburger Helper style, sorta). Canned black beans, canned diced tomatoes, macaroni, soymilk, and some seasonings (oregano, chili powder, garlic and onion powder, salt and pepper...). All simmered for 20 minutes. It hit the spot! No recipe, I just winged it and tasted for seasoning.



Latest Knitting Project: Cotton Bolero

This took a little while to get off the ground as I was reading the chart wrong, but I think I've got it for now. I'm liking the lacy look so far.


So, as elated as I am that we are soon moving into our first home....make that first house, as my home is always where my family is, even if it's not in a house, I've been lamenting the fact that I will no longer be a 5 minute walk away from our town's beautiful lakeside public park. But, Billy and I just did a quick tour of our new neighbourhood and we are two minutes away from an awesome, huge park (minus the lake). There's a playground, a tennis court, an arena (which is great in the summer for running around with the dog), and a closed 1 km cycling path, along with a few other features. So I'm feeling pretty good!

A Treat

Our closing date for the new house isn't until August 3rd, and we probably won't move in right away, but we've already starting packing, dejunking, donating and all the other activities that come with a move. We literally have no weekends free after this one (full of plans), so we need to work fast! I thought I'd make us a treat and take a break for breakfast today.

French Toast- The Vegan Table
I used one of the variations and made French toast "sandwiches" with banana slices. These were made with a day old baguette sliced up. With the banana and a touch of vegan whipped cream, these were heavenly! Then back to work...

Crazy...

Poutine:
Fried, mushroom gravy and Daiya "mozzarella". It was really good!


Linguine with Fire Roasted Tomato Sauce and Bruschetta
A simple meal when we're short on time.


These last two weeks have felt like two years. Billy and I officially bought our first house today! More details to come...

We are pretty busy right now with traveling and some things going on. Stay tuned....

Happy Stuff

It's been a long and exhausting two weeks at school, as my students write their provincial tests. One day this week, I'd had enough and needed to visit a few of my happy places to make everything OK again! So I took a trip to the library for some books from my book bucket list, and did some retail therapy at the local yarn store....

These are all vegan yarns (gotta love the warm weather yarns that come out!). I got 5 skeins of Butterfly Mercerized Cotton (brown), two skeins of Berroco Comfort DK (nylon, acrylic) in red, two skeins of Classic Elite Yarns Firefly (viscose and linen) in gray, two skeins of Rowan lenpur linen (green), and a skein of Kertzer On Your Toes Bamboo, a mix of bamboo viscose and nylon in purple (hello, socks!). I cannot disclose all of the projects I have in mind for some of these yarns, as they are part of my Christmas knit list. But the brown cotton is all mine and I hope to make a bolero with it.

Two of my animals getting along this morning...they look so guilty.

Junk Food

The following is a few weeks of stuff, I don't eat this stuff every night! We like to do one "junky" meal a week as a treat, like pizza, or mac and cheese, etc...

Mac and cheese....so rich and filling!



Pizza with daiya cheese and vegan pepperoni


Chicken Nachos:
Corn tortilla chips with Daiya mozzarella and cheddar and chopped up PC "chicken".


My local health store started carrying Sol Cuisine's veggie breakfast patties. These taste a lot like sausage patties! So I had to make breakfast sandwiches last weekend to try them out. A tofu egg with cheese and sausage. Mmmm, it hit the spot!


Dill's tongue captured in action!


Also, here's the Prospect Park Potato Salad I brought when we went camping...