Winter Blues - Salty Snacks to the Rescue!

Well is has certainly been a busy past few weeks. Christmas is sneaking up on us all again; I can't believe there is less than two weeks to go! This year, I decided to do as much as my shopping as possible online. Maybe I was taking the lazy way out this time, but I saw it more as efficient shopping with a glass of wine in hand. Can't get much better than that!

My sister now knows about my blog so I can't divulge any secrets just yet. I have to say though, I think she had the better idea of shopping local. I am guessing she found much funkier gifts. Ah well, on the right side, I will be the recipient of one of them! Woo hoo!

So this year is the first time doing the holidays while eating a vegan diet. I made it through BBQ season and have just one Christmas party to attend. Man, what am I going to do! I don't think the non-vegans of the world realize how much time you can spend trying to figure out how to get through holiday season with good food and without bothering anyone. It's madness! 

I think I will have a similar plan of attack as I did for BBQ season. Vegan emergency pack! Basically I pack a cooler (a small one, like the ones that can hold 12 beers). Inside the cooler I pack something sweet and something salty, vegan condiments etc etc. During BBQ season I packed it with home made black bean burgers, toppings, salad and.or vegan salad dressing, and ice cream.

Now for Christmas... I will have to think about this, but I am thinking I will need an appetizer, something to substitute the turkey, a dessert or at least coconut ice cream, and.. soy nog... Man do I have my work cut out for me!

I shall do my best to have a full reporting of the Christmas festivities including what the hell I am going to pack with me. To be continued!

Alright.. On to the good stuff.. lately I have had a major case of the winter blues. It's cold out and all I want to do is sit at home and eat junk. So rather going out and buying junk food, I did with what I had at home.. and it was a million times better than potato chips and candy!

Roasted Lotus Root, Leeks and Sweet Potato

•  Lotus root, about 4" peeled and thinly sliced
• 1 sweet potato, peeled (or not) and thinly sliced
• 1 leek, thinly sliced (White part only)
• 1-2 tbsp of olive oil
• Pinch of Salt
• 1 tbsp of maple syrup

This recipe is adapted from Alicia Silverstone's cookbook, The Kind Diet a fabulous book with lots of tasty recipes.

I modified the recipe a bit as I did not have all the veggies listed in the books. I did, however, happen to have lotus root on hand from a shopping trip to T&T. Every time I go there, I wonder why I bother with shopping at Safeway. Everything is cheaper, fresh and they have lots of ingredients that aren't easily found in western grocery stores.

Now, back to the recipe.. Pre-heat the oven to 375 F and get a baking sheet out. I did not grease the sheet and things stuck a bit. Maybe use some cooking spray. Peel and slice all the veggies and put them in a bowl. pour the olive oil on top and mix it up with your hands so everything is covered. Sprinkle the salt and pop it in the oven for 12 - 15 minutes. Take them out and stir then drizzle the maple syrup over top and put them back in the oven for 10 minutes.

How easy is that! Salty, sweet and yummy. I served mine with some left over lentil loaf and sauteed spinach

  

Vegan Onion Rings

A couple days after this tasty treat, I was again feeling the craving for something salty. I had not been grocery shopping in some time, so my kitchen was not exactly well stocked. After some searching on the internet, I found a recipe for vegan onion rings!

The recipe is available at http://www.theppk.com/2010/10/omg-oven-baked-onion-rings/

I did not change much as this was a first time making something like this. I did change the seasonings and added some paprika and Chile powder. I have to say that this recipe is easy to do and pretty good. It was not as good as the deep fried version, but pretty close and probably a lot lower in fat, so I will definitely make these again before I go find the fast food alternative. Here are some snap shots of my attempt:

Found all the ingredients. I actually made half of the recipe on the PPK because I only had a little bread crumbs left.

After taking this pic, I realized that this was not the right order! Onion, wet, dry, pan! :)

 Ready for the oven... and now the final results!

trust me, make these! They are salty and sweet and fab!

Happy Birthday to me!

Well, my birthday has come and gone. I was glad that in the end I went and partied. I wasn't planning on it, but was convinced by my friend. I got my hair done, bought new clothes (Which did not fit. Serves me right for being in such a rush).

This year, I decided to give myself a birthday present with a trip. Everyone put names of places in a hat and I ended up drawing Rio de Janeiro!! I am so excited. A little scared too. It sounds like Rio may not be the safest place in the world.

Now I am just deciding on when to go and whether I want to risk it and do it on my own, or go with a tour group. Honestly I know I will get to see more if I go on a group tour, but it is so much more expensive!

I found two promising tours. The first is a 15 day volunteering trip. It sounds amazing, but does not seem to have a lot of relaxing time. Essentially you work everyday with the exception of a couple of trips on the weekends. I can't go to Rio and not have a beach day! That honestly worries me.

There is also Carnival. So expensive, but man what an experience!

Will need to figure out the expenses and the timing and go from there I guess.

Lazy Saturday - Lazy Did not Pay!

I love a good, lazy weekend. Today I drank my breakfast... by having a soy coffee misto at Starbucks. That is the way I think I need to start more days. I spent my morning with my oldies volunteering at their garage sale. I was given the important position of the white elephant table. I am always in awe of what people will buy... and even more so on how little it takes to convince them. I sold Christmas Villages, coats, VHS and books on Cassette (The woman didn't even think she had a cassette player!), leopard print foot stools, fanny packs and many more things I can't even name. Something about the oldies makes me happy. I love that it is perfectly acceptable to complain and whine all day and everyone just puts up with it. Now don;t get me wrong it's not all whining and carrying on, but there is rarely a day when I don't hear something.

After having to get up early I decided to have a pasta lunch. I have a simple pasta sauce recipe from the Everything Guide to Vegan Cooking Cook book and I loosely follow it to make my own dish:

Pasta with Green machine sauce
- 3/4 cup of soy milk (or whatever you have on hand)
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tbsp vegan butter or margarine
- 1 tbsp flour
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
- 1/2 pack of frozen spinach thawed and drained
- Pasta - use one that catches the sauce well like macaroni, or penne
- salt and pepper

(Note - I didn't use exact measurements when I made mine, but this is generally what you need)


1. Boil water and get the past going, cook to the package instructions.
2. As the pasta is cooking, combine the soy milk, butter and garlic over medium heat until melted. Whisk in the flour and let it cook until it begins to thicken
3. Add the spinach, nutritional yeast and salt and pepper and cook until heated through (5-8 min)
4. Combine with pasta

I garnished with some fresh basil. Parsley would have been yummy too.

For dinner, I continued with my lazy Saturday by throwing together a quick stir fry. I had this meatless 'chicken' in the fridge for a while now and decided to try it here. Let me tell you before anyone sees this and thinks it sounds like a quick and easy dinner. I learned my lesson.. Yves Fake chicken is not very good. I did not like it at all! On top of that, I went really lazy and just used some frozen veggies as the base of the stir fry. The veggies were good, but the dish really lacked the luster of a yummy veggie meal. It looks drab and boring.

So see below or what I did. Then I will tell you what I wish i had done!

C+ Stir Fry
- 2 tbsp of oil, I used Sesame
- 2 cups of frozen veggies, I used a Japanese blend
- Hand-full of mushrooms, chopped
- half a head of cabbage (or 2 cups) chopped
- Mince Ginger, about 1 tsp
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 2 tbsp soya sauce
- 1-2 tsp of vinegar (Rice or umeboshi plum)
- 1 small pack of noodles (I used Udon), cooked
- 'Chicken' strips.

Heat up a wok and add sesame oil. Once the oil is hot, add the frozen veg and cook for a couple minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients and cook for 10-15 minutes.

Now... Knowing that this is really like a 4 out of 10. Here is what I would change:

1. Fresh Vegetables. I know this, and in a pinch a combo of frozen and fresh could work, but really the more fresh, the better the taste
2. Fake Chicken - this is not good. It definitely had the consistency of meat, but the taste was just weird. Maybe if you had a heavy sauce you could mask the flavour, but not good otherwise. Tofu or Seitan would have been much better.
3. Cabbage - I used green and it just wasn't right. Bok Choy would have been much better.

So after a mediocre dinner, I decided to make cupcakes! I had all the ingredients to get things going, but not much of a recipe to follow. So I did what most people would do and googled for guidance.

I used the linked recipe to start with:

http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/cupcakes/r/vegan_pumpkin_cupcakes_Recipe.htm



To this recipe I switched up the spices a bit. I had cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and all spice. I also put a bit less oil in the recipe, probably closer to 1/3 cup than 1/2 cup. The batter was a bit more dense, but it worked out ok.

I would say as they were, these were somewhere between a muffin and a cupcake. They were much more dense than most cupcakes and not very sweet. That said, they were still very yummy... but thought they needed an icing to send them into the world of cupcake.

So, I made a simple vanilla frosting and called my sister for colour inspiration. She chose green...

This, may have been another mistake. The colour was a weird slime colour and I put too much millk in the icing, so no matter what I did, I couldn't get it to thicken enough.

So now these cupcakes had to be eaten with a disclaimer... They really were much yummier than they looked.

All in all it was an OK day. Lots of cooking and really lots of lessons learned about the value in fresh food. I'll leave you with a picture of my favorite roommates.... Meet the Piggies!


All caught with their mouths full.... They had all fresh food.. They refuse anything else. I could take a lesson from them!

Night all