Summer and Sushi!

I had my last day of placement yesterday...and summer begins! I just got back from a walk on the boardwalk, it could not be any more gorgeous out.

Billy and I had plans to shop yesterday so when I got home (it was a half day) I made a quick pasta and bean lunch; with romano beans, diced tomatoes, onion, garlic, mushrooms and brown rice pasta. I topped it with some vegan parm too.


To celebrate the start of my vacation, I decided to finally try (and make) sushi for the first time. I kept it really simple with fillings of cucumber and tofu bites. For the sushi rice and instructions I used Vegan Lunchbox. Sushi is yummy! I got Billy to make a roll, but he refuses to try it :( Next time I'll be making it with brown rice, since there's basically no nutrition in these ones, but I wanted to go for authentic my first time. And they're fine as next-day leftovers too.

Summer starts now!

It was a busy week, but I'm finally done placement! I forgot to take pictures of my lunch this week...but it was yummy. I made the cheesey lunch box fondue from Vegan Lunch Box. It was delicious with some dippers like baby potatoes, broccoli and mushrooms. I had it with an apple and some almond dark chocolate.

I also forgot to take a picture of a delicious soup I made. I modified it quite a bit from the mushroom barley stew in How It All Vegan, to use up some stuff in my fridge. It was sooooo good, and Billy loved it.

I was supposed to make a bean and bulgur salad from Vegan Cooking for One...but didn't want to use bulgur (wheat). So instead I used a ground round subsitute that I found, that's only made of soy flour. Its called So Soya. This salad had navy beans, the ground round and some veggies, and was pretty darn good.

Dinner this week was the Southwestern Corn Casserole from La Dolce Vegan. It is soooooo good, go and make it right now. At first, I wasn't quite sure what to expect based on the ingredients (silken tofu, soy milk, flour, corn, etc) but I was pleasantly surprised.

I made cookies two nights ago for all the staff on my floor at placement, as a little thank you. I made the chocolate chip cookies from Vive le Vegan (Since I know they're great), and also tried the chocolate pecan/walnut cookies from La Dolce Vegan (without nuts, extra chocolate chips). They both turned out great, everyone loved them. I had some leftover too, which led to me eating way too many....which led to me spending an hour at the gym, hahaha.

That's it for now. I just felt guilty for not posting sooner

Week 2 Wheat Free

More cheesecake (Sinfully Vegan)! This is Billy's plate, along with a nut and seed butter cookie from Vegan Lunchbox. The cookies are gluten free. We were expecting traditional peanut butter cookie taste, but they're different. I still like them though, and they'd be great with a cold glass of vanilla soymilk.


This week, I decided to take a week of dinners from Vegan Cooking for One, since they're usually pretty quick and easy recipes, with lots of veggies in them. Sunday lunch was bean and potato salad. It was surprisingly very good. Potatoes mixed with green onion, navy beans, vegan mayo and soy yogurt.

Sunday dinner was zucchini and tomato flan...which was basically a veggie pie. Very yummy.

Dinner on Monday had to be quick, since I came home and had about half an hour before we were out the door to play softball. The cashew vegetable curry was really easy to make, and I already had cooked the brown rice, so I was able to fit in a healthy dinner for the night.

I didn't make dinner last night. I ended up crashing after my placement and didn't wake up til 10:30 pm. So I had some air popped popcorn and applesauce instead.

Tonight, I did not feel like cooking, but I forced myself to, and it really didn't take long. I made tofu stew with basmati rice. The stew has carrots, onion, green beans and celery, sauteed with tofu, and thickened with rice flour and veggie stock. I love the sage in it. Billy ate this for dinner too, so its a winner.

No matter what happens, I'll always have food...

OK, where to start...I guess I'll just get into it right away!

Curried bean and rice filled zucchini from Vive le Vegan:

I made the rice and spelt kernels on the weekend so when it came to cooking this on Tuesday, it was pretty quick. There's great texture in this dish, from the rice, beans, spelt kernels, raisins and cashews.

Then, I had leftover rice and black beans from the zucchini, so for breakfast I made a quick burrito (with a brown rice tortilla), with the rice, beans, salsa, red pepper, and some cheese. Mmm it hit the spot. I'd kill for a whole wheat tortilla, but what are you gonna do, right?

Lunch for the week was from Vegan Lunchbox again. Wheat free oatmeal pancakes with maple syrup, strawberries and almond buttered sweet potatoes. However, by Friday, I was out of strawberries so the picture has a banana. Also, I was not a fan of the sweet potatoes so I brought yogurt instead for the rest of the week. The rest of the week, the pancakes were smaller, but these two were my first batch and I made them bigger than I was supposed to.

From the stuffed zucchini I had a bunch of leftover zucchini, as I had to scrape out the insides. So I made some gluten free lemon zucchini muffins. The texture is a bit grainier, but Billy didn't mind, and ate them as soon as they were out of the oven (haha, he ate zucchini...shhhhh). They're delicious! They have a great lemon flavour. Here's the recipe:

Lemon Zucchini muffins (or loaf):
1.2 cup shredded zucchini
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg replacer
1/4 cup oil and 1/4 cup applesauce (or all oil)
1.5 cups gluten free flour (or you can use regular wheat flour)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp lemon zest
1 T lemon juice

Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease a muffin tin or loaf pan.
In a bowl, beat the zucchini, sugar, egg replacer, oil, applesauce and lemon juice. In another bowl, sift the flour, salt, baking soda and powder and stir in the cinnamon and lemon zest.
Stir flour mixture into the zucchini mixture til just blended. Pour into muffin tin or loaf pan. Bake 45 min for loaf or 30 min for muffins, til a knife inserted comes out clean.
Cool ten minutes before removing to cool completely.

And last, but not least, some of you may have noticed that my mom has now found my blog (now I have to censor myself lol), and requested a cheesecake for mother's day. Happy Mother's day mom!!!!! This one's for you: Swirled Raspberry Cheesecake from Sinfully Vegan. This is so good. I had two pieces yesterday, and as a result have to be really good today ;)


Wow that was a long post. I'll leave you with this hilarious picture of Logan. *Warning* there's cat parts in the picture, turn your eyes away if you're under 18 :P

Still here....

Despite my lack of posting, I have cooked a little. I made a vegetable curry from La Dolce Vegan, but ate the last of the leftovers today without taking a picture...whoops. It was too spicy for my liking, but that can be fixed next time. I liked the chickpeas and loads of veggies (zucchini, red pepper, spinach, etc).

Hopefully, I'll have a picture of my lunch for you tomorrow.

I've been doing a placement from 9-5 and its very tiring, so posts may be a bit scarce for a bit. Also, this week I started a wheat free diet to see if it helps with my skin. Its so hard!!!!!!!

Time to bake!

I've sat through two days of initial practicum preparation...and they've managed to stress me out, not only about my placement this month, but about all of next year when I do my B.Ed. So when I got home today, I needed to bake something. I knew if I indulged too much, I wouldn't stop eating, so I decided to try something somewhat healthy. That's where Vive le Vegan's Energy Cookies come in. These are wheat free with a bit of barley and spelt flour. The rest consists of sunflower and pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds, along with some chocolate chips and cinnamon.

These are good. I got to bake and enjoy an after school snack without blowing my diet for the day. Now, that chocolate bar Billy brought me is a whole other story...

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.

Nacho bean pizza

I had cheese and refried beans leftover so I thawed my last individual size pizza dough (from Vegan Lunchbox) and made pizza. I just put refried beans instead of pizza sauce and topped it with the nacho flavoured cheese. This turned out to be really good! I haven't made much else this week. I've been eating the Lick's veggie burgers in my freezer and some canned goods.

I went on a shopping spree today and spent more money than I have...what fun!

Comfort Food

Sometimes, its fun to just wing it and not use a recipe. As I mentioned before, I didn't do many groceries for the week, since I want to just eat whatever I already have on hand and save some money. I decided to have a downright comfort food meal for dinner last night. I had mashed potatoes, peas and corn and my own version of shake and bake. For that, I thawed some "beef" seitan I made from La Dolce Vegan, coated it in a breading and baked it for ten minutes. This meal really hit the spot.

It was my friend's birthday yesterday and she had a potluck. I brought a 5 layer dip and guacamole along with some tortilla chips. The dip is from Garden of Vegan and is yummy. Refried beans, sour cream, salsa and nacho cheese. Everyone loved the guacamole, although I've had better. I got the recipe from the simple little vegan slow cooker.

Burning my books!

Just kidding, they're worth more than I am, haha. Alright, so school is done. I now have one short week to party until I start my teaching placement, haha. Bonfires and dancing for me :) And maybe some cooking. I really wanted to try my hand at sushi, but the financial situation at the moment is a little pathetic so I'll probably just be cleaning out the freezer and pantry.

For lunch yesterday, I made some rice paper veggie wraps from How It All Vegan. They took some time, but were simple to make. They've got hummus (from HIAV also), cabbage, radish, carrots, and marinated mushrooms, with some other things too. The hummus makes the wrap, otherwise it would be pretty bland.

I tend to have more unhealthy meals on the weekend, and this one is no exception. After I got home from work last night, I whipped up a quick beef stroganoff recipe that I adapted from the Healthy College Cookbook. It was good, with lots of mushrooms and some sour cream. Nowhere near healthy though, unless you count the vitamins and minerals from the PC beef strips. It looks a bit bland, from the mushrooms and white sauce, but its good.

Beef Stroganoff
Serves 4
Enough pasta for 4 (I used brown rice shells)
"beef" strips or seitan, cut into chunks
1/2 small onion, chopped or sliced
1 tbsp. flour
1 clove garlic, minced
8 fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 vegetable or "chicken" broth (or 3/4 cup if you want more sauce)
1/2 cup Tofutti sour cream
salt and pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions, set aside.
In a skillet over medium heat, cook the beef and onions. As the beef starts to brown, stir in the flour and stir to coat the beef.
Stir in garlic, mushrooms, broth, and sour cream. Cook til sauce is an even consistency and the mushrooms are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste, serve over pasta.

Nutritional Information (without pasta) per serving:
Calories 200
Fat 6.7 g
Carbs 17.4 g
Protein17.8 g

Quick Fix

As horrible as my studying went yesterday (read: almost non-existant), I was in a state of studying most of the day. Therefore, dinner had to be quick. In comes the "Beef" Burrito Skillet. Its basically a burrito filling with the tortilla chopped up and stirred in. It was very good. Spicy too, since I used seasoned ground round and nacho soy cheese. The heat could be cut down by changing both or either one.

Quick Fix Beef Burrito Skillet
Serves 4

1 package ground round
1/8 cup taco seasoning mix (note, usually high in sodium, can be left out if preferred)
19 oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup salsa
1 cup water
4 small flour tortillas, cut into 1.5" squares
1 cup shredded cheese
1/3 cup Tofutti sour cream
1/3 cup chopped green onions

Heat ground round in large skillet on med-high. Add seasoning mix, beans, salsa and water; stir. Bring to boil and simmer on med-low for 5 minutes.
Stir in tortillas and top with cheese. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes or til cheese melted (it may have to be stirred in to really melt). Top with sour cream and green onion.
Optional: top with favourite toppings: tomato, shredded lettuce, or avocados.

Nutritional information:
calories 432
fat 9 g
carbs 59 g
fiber 15.3 g
protein 30 g

Tuscan Stew

Shape Magazine did a piece on beans, and how they're nutritious, etc (all that stuff we already know), and their recipe for Tuscan Bean and Pasta Stew caught my attention. Its actually vegan without any modifications. I would call it more of a pasta dish, or a pasta salad, there wasn't much liquid, but that may be due to using gluten free pasta. I did make a few changes:

Tuscan Bean and Pasta Stew
Makes 5 two cup servings

~12 oz uncooked pasta (I used brown rice shells); approx. 4.75 cup cooked
1 tablespoon olive oil (originally called for 2)
2 cups minced onion
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 tsp each dried thyme and sage
1/4 tsp salt (originally called for 3/4 tsp; which in hindsight, I recommend)
6 cups baby spinach (or 10 oz)
28 oz can diced tomatoes
1/4 cup fresh basil, minced
2 14 oz cans cannellini beans
freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cook pasta according to package directions, drain and set aside.
Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large saucepan. Add onion, and half the garlic; saute for 5 minutes over medium heat, stirring until onion is translucent. Add the thyme and sage and 1/2 tsp of the salt; saute for 10 minutes more, til the onions just start to brown.
Add the spinach, tomatoes and remaining garlic and salt to the onion mixture. Stir, cover and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring once or twice until spinach has wilted. Add the basil, beans and cooked pasta. Heat on low.
When the pasta is heated throughout, add black pepper and serve.

Per serving:
Calories 435
Total fat 5.9g
Sat .7g
Poly .8g
Mono 2.5
Carbs 80.9g
Fiber 12.9g
Protein 16.1g

4 more sleeps!

Wow, this feels just like Christmas...4 more days, and I'm done exams! Thursday afternoon will be my last science exam EVER! Woot. Until then, I'm stuck inside studying, well, somewhat.

Tracy kindly shared her recipe for sundried tomato pasta with me, and I loved it! Its part of a collection for a possible cookbook, so I won't be posting it, but feel free to drool ;) It was so simple to make too.


That's it for now. I'll post dinner later, which was courtesy of a recipe from Shape Magazine.

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!

Exciting!

Today was exciting for me. My local Superstore opened up their Natural Foods section. I was like a kid in a candy store! Vegan cheese, Tofurkeys, ice cream, I can pick it all up there. One stop shopping! I picked up a case of Yoso soy yogurt. It came in three flavours: strawberry, vanilla and blueberry. I had the strawberry one today for a snack. Its probably the closest thing to the real thing that I've ever had. Very yummy.

I hope you all had a great Easter if you celebrated. We had a great trip down to Ottawa. We went to Lick's, a burger place. But they also have the greatest veggie burger ever. They even cook it on its own grill, with its own utensils, with a vegan whole wheat bun. I don't have a picture, but it pretty much looks like a burger. I also bought some kid-sized ones to take home with me (portion control, haha).

Easter dinner was great, I got stuffed on stuffed squash, and then for dessert, a mint cream egg! Billy's mom found these smooth dark chocolate eggs with mint fondant centres at Giant Tiger...and they're delish! If you've got a Giant Tiger near you, get over there!

Also, since this post seems to be about a bit of everything...I've now officially lost 20 pounds! I can't count how many times I've blogged about wanting to lose weight, and losing a few pounds here and there. I didn't want to be all talk, so I figured I'd wait til I hit the big 2-0 and then say something. Happy dance!

Oops

It seems I've been revisiting Garden of Vegan a lot lately. I forgot to take a picture, but I made the dragon bowl earlier this week for dinner. Its brown rice with shredded carrot, kale, green onions, and tossed with a delicious dressing. Hit the spot!

Here's a great meal from GOV that will let you get dinner on the table in less than 20 minutes (if you're like me and have the brown rice that cooks in 15 minutes, haha): Curried Lentils with brown rice. This is such a simple meal, but its very flavourful, and its got that great curry taste I love without heat.


Billy, Logan and I are heading to Ottawa for Easter to visit his family. I'm having this for my Easter dinner, since its healthy and quick, and it won't take up the whole kitchen! We're also heading to Lick's for burgers on Saturday, they have the greatest veggie burgers!

Have a great weekend!

Pizza pizza!

To celebrate the end of the semester, I decided to splurge with lunch. I made a mini pizza and a spinach salad. The pizza is 6 inches so it fits perfectly in the lunch box and is topped with pizza sauce, Yves pepperoni and soy cheese. Its baked at 500 and I find that this and broiling for one minute helps the cheese to melt really well.


The spinach salad has baby spinach,pear, dried cranberries, almonds and a raspberry vinaigrette. I didn't get a picture, but its pretty basic, so you get the drift.

I forgot to take a picture of dinner the last two nights, but I'll get one tomorrow.

Birthday Weekend!

Finally, something more exciting than leftovers! :P For Billy's birthday breakfast, I made him apple cinnamon crepes from Garden of Vegan...so good! I took him out to dinner to that restaurant I went to a few weeks back...delicious! Then we headed over to a pub and met with friends. Good times were had. I even brought his cake with me. I felt silly dispensing cake in a bar, but the table next to us was drooling over it, and I gladly shared :) Billy chose the chocolate covered mint cake from Sinfully Vegan. It is so good! Its a chocolate mint batter with a yummy chocolate icing. So worth the calories, haha. I didn't get a nice picture, so I just cropped a picture that someone took of me cutting the cake.




Its my last week of classes, so I'm doing something fun for lunches...you'll see!

Disaster!

*sob* While making dinner tonight, my How It All Vegan Book came apart! I now have two chunks of papers that come right out of the cover :( I'm going to have to replace it eventually I guess. I love my cookbooks, and like to think I take pretty good care of them (minus all the writing and food stains).

Anyways, lunch this week is filling! I'm going to have to cut down on portions to be able to finish it all in one sitting. Beans and dogs (so yummy) with some bagel crisps, cucumber and edamame, and chocolate banana pudding. The pudding is very good, I think I'd like it even more made with chocolate soymilk instead of almond milk. But the banana makes it so great.

I made the Sweet Polenta Pie for dinner tonite, from my now deceased HIAV cookbook. Its alright. I suspect its one of those meals that is better as leftovers. I've never had polenta before though, so I'm not sure if the mushy texture of the crust is right or not. It does have a whole lot of veggies in it though, and the topping is good. Kind of hard to eat, the polenta is slippery ;)


I'm conducting an informal survey. When you eat out, what's your standard tip percentage, granted that the server was adequate and nothing went horribly wrong? Don't say a number because you think its what's right, answer honestly...I'm not here to judge. Its just that I hear many people at work complain about tips, but I'm thinking, maybe its not us, but that some people have different ideas of what a good tip is. Thanks!

Visiting the Garden...

... of Vegan! I've eaten so well this week, I felt like indulging for breakfast this morning. Even then, it was super healthy. I made the huevos rancheros from Garden of Vegan, and served them with strawberries and pineapple. Scrambled tofu and refried beans baked in a tortilla shell....my kind of breakfast. The recipe called for cheese, but I didn't want to buy any and be left with half a package tempting me all weekend. Billy eats these up too, even with the onions, mushrooms and tofu.

Billy's birthday is next weekend, which can only mean one thing....cake!