Welcome to my Blog! As you may have guessed, this blog started out as an experiment, but has turned into a way of living. It is mostly about food, but I reserve the right to share or rant or even point the odd finger. I hope you find it entertaining! I encourage your comments and questions!

Monday, January 31, 2011

Mexican Meatless Monday!!

So I was looking for a little something different to throw together for dinner tonight.  I knew I wanted to make some guacamole to use up my avocados which were very ripe.  So I thought...  didn't I see a taco recipe with chickpeas in one of my magazines??  Of course I couldn't find the recipe I was looking for and I didn't want to spend all night looking.  But I came across another taco recipe that called for black beans and voila!  I substituted chickpeas, because I am the all powerful kitchen queen.  It turned out so well that I just have to share.  My kids gobbled this up and asked for more.  And asked if they could have it for lunch tomorrow.  You know it's a winner when that happens!!  So get your pencil ready!!

Take 1/2 cup of salsa, 1 tsp. of cumin and 2 minced garlic cloves and put them in a medium sized pot.  Add a can of chickpeas, or 1 1/2 cups of cooked chickpeas (mine were frozen).  Then cook it on medium high for about 10 minutes.  After that mush up some of the chickpeas with a potato masher or a fork and add 2 Tbsp. of chopped cilantro (or leave it out if you don't happen to have any on hand). 



Meanwhile thaw 1 cup of frozen corn in the microwave.  Pat the corn dry with a paper towel.  Warm up a frying pan and spray it with some olive oil or Pam or whatever (or don't).  Add the corn, 1 1/2 tsp of cumin, some ground black pepper and some cayenne pepper to taste and toast the corn for 5-10 minutes or until crispy and golden, stirring frequently.



Stuff your taco shells with chickpea mix, sprinkle on some corn add some salsa, lettuce, green onion or guacamole and enjoy!!



The second recipe I tried out was chocolate hazelnut biscotti.  I got this recipe from Veganomicon.  And it was not Mexican but it was delicious none the less.  And it gave me an opportunity to show off my pretty flow blue platter.  Bonus!!  Did you know that hazelnuts are also called filberts?


Happy Groundhog Day Fellow Foodies!!!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Making of Seitan 'Fried Chickin'

Now that I realize how amazing seitan is, and how easy it is to make, I've gone a little seitan crazy.  So after last week's stroganoff, this weekend I decided to tackle a Apple Cranberry Salad with Country Fried Seitan from the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook by Lauren Ulm.

I started making the seitan the night before.  Super simple...  mix vital wheat gluten with nutritional yeast, some spices then add a mixture of water, soy sauce, soy milk and olive oil.  Mix it up. Kneed it, and form it into cutlets.


Then simmer the seitan in 2 cups of vegetable broth for 20-30 minutes.  After that I stored it in the cooking broth in the fridge over night.


The next day I prepared the seasoned dry mix (flour, nutritional yeast, baking powder and Old bay seasoning), and the wet mix (1/3 cup of the dry mix plus water, soy milk and Dijon mustard).  And then I dipped the cutlets into the wet and then the dry mixtures....  just like fried chicken, I guess....  though I've never made fried chicken.




And then it's into the oil for frying....  about 3 minutes on each side.



To assemble the salad, tear up some romaine lettuce, slice up some apple, and the fried seitan, and sprinkle on some dried cranberries.  For the dressing, add 1/2 cup of sliced almonds, 1/2 cup of water, 2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast, 1 1/2 tsp. soy sauce, 1 Tbsp. lemon juice, 2 tsp. Dijon mustard and 1/2 tsp. Old Bay Seasoning to the blender and blend until creamy.  Then drizzle the salad with dressing and enjoy! 


This salad is great for dinner topped with the nice warm 'chickin'.   And the next day I made myself a nice 'chickin' sandwich with the leftovers! 

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Seitan-Mushroom Stroganoff

Friday was my boyfriend's birthday, so I decided to go all out and try out some new recipes.   And I have to tell you that every single thing turned out so amazingly well, we stuffed ourselves and the leftovers disappeared forthwith. 

We started with a Caesar Salad with Roasted Garlic Croutons from Veganomicon.  I absolutely loved the dressing.  It was creamy and garlicky and tangy, made with soft tofu, capers and ground almonds.  It even had the consistency of the traditional Caesar Salad.  I'm sold.  And the recipe made enough dressing for at least two or three big salads.

The salad was followed by Seitan-Portobello Stroganoff from Vegan with a Vengeance.  I even made homemade seitan, which is not difficult once you've found the vital wheat gluten.  As almost all the recipes I have tried from Isa, it was awesome.  Creamy, rich, 'meaty' and satisfying.  I used white wine instead of red, since that's what I happened to have on hand.   I would confidently serve this at any dinner party!  We ate the rest of the seitan on it's own with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes, which was a satisfying meal on it's own.


The piece de resistance was this Triple Layer 'Cheesecake'.   I found the recipe in this month's VegNews magazine.   It had a chocolate wafer crumb crust, then a layer of peanut butter cheesecake, then a layer of chocolate cheesecake, then a layer of vanilla cheesecake all topped with swirls of peanut butter and chocolate.  I just can't say enough about it!!  I just could not bear to stick this masterpiece with 48 candles......


This was such a memorable meal.  Totally decadent.  I think the birthday boy liked it at least as much as I did, especially since it was prepared with lots of  love.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Boston for the Holidays

Over the holidays we were lucky enough to get away for a few days to Boston.  This was our first vegan holiday, so we probably went overboard preparing, but it all paid off.  We drove from Montreal to Boston on December 27th.  This was the day after they had a storm that fell just short of their definition of 'blizzard'.  But being Canadians, that didn't deter us.  It took a bit longer than expected to get there, but we had a cooler full of snacks, and an iPod full of music.  We stayed in the Residence Inn in Cambridge just north of Boston, but right around the corner from the 'T' that could take us where ever we wanted to go.  And for insurance, we made sure to get a suite with a full kitchen.  It was nice to have the kitchen, but we really didn't use it that much except to keep the wine cold and make tea in the mornings. 

We came prepared with a list of vegan friendly restaurants that we were excited to try, but we did not have a map.  In hind sight it would have been more useful to have had the restaurants pin pointed on a good map.  It would have saved us an hour and a half trek through fresh snow in the freezing wind on the first night we were there!  But, it made the food taste twice as good once we arrived at the 'Red Lentil' in Watertown (http://www.theredlentil.com/)  Their Gobi Manchurian was fabulous as was the Near East Seitan with Teff Crepe and the Carrot Cake!!  We liked it so much we went back again!

In downtown Boston near Chinatown we found My Thai Vegan Cafe.  This is a nice second floor space filled with plants and windows.  I had a Thai Curry Vermicelli and a really great Tom Yum Gai soup both with veggie-chicken.


Near Harvard we ate at a little student hang out called 'Veggie Planet'.  This is a basement space with huge windows and brick walls where you place your order at the counter and wait for your name to be called when your order is ready.  There is also a stage where I guess they have bands play and stuff.  But this is the kind of place you can go and have lunch alone with your book and not look pathetically friendless.  Here we each had the salad and vegan pizza special and tea and I think the total was like 18$ for the both of us.  Who can beat that??


Our last day there we went in search of the famous vegan Clover Lab Food Truck which usually parks near the T station at MIT.  Unfortunately, they were off for the holidays....  but we did find a falafel truck. 

And we did manage to squeeze in some sightseeing and shopping between meals.  I even got to feed the birds.... 

So all in all, this trip was a huge success.  It has given me confidence that with a little research and preparation, it is a snap to maintain a vegan diet on the road!! 





Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Christmas Dinner Recipes

Happy New Year!  I hope you are all having fun and making resolutions!!  It's so great to be reminded to improve ourselves and to replace bad habits with good.  Did you know it only takes 30 days to create a new habit?

I just have to share what we ate for Christmas dinner this year.  It was so yummy, I think it will be repeated at future holidays meals.  I found recipes for Mushroom, Lentil, and Wild Rice Timbales and Mushroom Gravy on the Fat Free Vegan Kitchen Blog (http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2008/11/mushroom-lentil-and-wild-rice-timbales.html).  The gravy was so good that my sister-in-law and my son both said it was better than the traditional turkey fat gravy, and it was super low fat.  I will make this gravy over and over and put it on everything.  I could eat it like soup, it's so good.  In the timbales, I used a whole grain rice blend instead of the wild rice, but I'm sure it's equally delicious with wild rice.  Mashed potatoes are a must here to sop up all of that lovely gravy.  I made the timbales ahead of time and they warmed up nicely in the microwave.  I also froze some and reheated them in the oven, and they were just as good, so they are great for when you don't want to spend the whole day cooking!


Last year at my brother's home we had a sweet potato casserole with a sweet crunchy pecan topping!  This inspired me to search for a veganized sweet potato casserole recipe which I also found on the Fat Free Vegan website (http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2006/12/sweet-potato-casserole-with-pecan.html).  It is sweetened with maple syrup and brown sugar  and could pass for dessert but you could probably reduce the amount of sugar in the potato mixture if you were so inclined.  I also froze the leftovers and they reheated beautifully.

I also wanted to mention a very exciting discovery.  Ottawa has a Vegetarian Association!  It's called the National Capital Vegetarian Association (http://www.ncva.ca/), and they have a monthly vegan potluck.  I can hardly wait.  The first one of this year is scheduled for January 15th at 6:30 at the Jack Purcell Centre.  I think this is a really great way to meet like minded people.