I Gunna Eat Choo!

Our New Fur Baby!

2010-02-25T09:10:00.001-08:00

Well, we finally did it! M convinced me to get a kitty and now I'm SO in love with kitty Kate! We found her at D'arcy's ARC in St. James. She's almost a year old and was flown in from Thompson along with her 8 brothers and sisters. They were all wild kitties and didn't like people when they first got to Winnipeg and the Humane Society was going to put them all down. Thankfully D'arcy's ARC stepped in and took them in. When we were there last Sunday there was only 3 of them still there and Kate and I had an instant connection. Her 2 other sisters, Jiminey and Mango were less receptive to our affection but very cute and sweet. Kate is settling in really well at her new home and I can't get enough of her! She's such a sweet girl! The only problem is, we want her life to be as full as possible which would mean having a buddy to play with while we're at work. So, it looks like we're going back to the shelter this weekend to bring home either Jiminey or Mango! So, needless to say I've been more focused on cat food lately than person food. We want to change the current food they're eating to something much better for them so I'm doing lots of research on what would be best. I'd love any recommendations if you've got some! Right now she's eating Nutro dry and wet food which doesn't have a lot of great reviews from what I've read online so far. We've already bought a bag of Orijin dry food and would like to seek out their wet food too to hopefully get both kitties slowly switched over. They're a Canadian company and they use high quality, local ingredients. Here's hoping they actually LIKE the food! I'll be sure to keep you posted on our fur family developments!

I'm addicted to avocados!

2010-02-19T09:59:00.001-08:00

For the past several months I have been totally addicted to avocados. I've been eating them on average of 3 to 4 times a week and almost always in the same form. I make a guacamole type mixture using avocado, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, hot sauce, lemon juice and a splash of mayo or sour cream. Then I break out a bag of organic tortilla chips or stuff a whole wheat or spinach soft tortilla with the avocado mix and some veggies and tofu! YUM! I find avocado to be a huge comfort food for me. My favorite sushi roll is the avocado shitake roll at Miyabi (now called Naru) on Osborne. The two textures are such a satisfying combination! Now I was some sushi. Anyway, I've taken some shots of my process for making my tasty avocado dip. Give it a try and let me know how it goes! You can always add stuff like crushed garlic, chopped bell peppers or hot peppers or whatever else you can dream up. No matter what, I'm sure it'll be a hit. As for last night's dinner, the left-overs went to M when he got home from work with the munchies and I had my avocado dip in a tortilla with some jalapeno monterey jack cheese, bread and butter pickles and the triangle tofu cut into slices and reheated wrapped in a soft tortilla. Once again, a tasty meal of avocado goodness! And of course it was followed by one of my super yummy chocolate cream cheese cupcakes. I make sure to have cupcakes frozen at all times for a guaranteed yummy dessert after every dinner. I get grumpy when I don't get dessert.

What's for dinner, you ask?

2010-02-18T09:10:00.000-08:00

So, I tried out part of one of the recipes in my new cookbook, Vegan Yum Yum and was quite pleased with the results! I took the recipe for.... ah crap I forgot the name of the recipe. I think it was broccoli and tofu with almonds in a sweet and sour sauce but I only cooked the tofu part of the recipe. It was a process I haven't done before for making the tofu crispy so I thought I'd try it. I always cut my tofu up in squares when I chuck them into a stir try but this recipe called for cutting them into triangles which I ended up really digging! It didn't call for any marinade or seasoning for the tofu which concerned me so I splashed the triangles with some Braggs to give it a bit of flavour. In the end, turns out I didn't really need to do that. I also added some cayenne pepper (my favourite seasoning!) to the corn starch to give the tofu a bit of a kick. I was worried that the small amount of egg replacer called for in the recipe to coat all the tofu I had cut up wouldn't be enough but I actually ended up have plenty left over. Turns out I should trust someone who has written a cookbook over trusting my know-it-all voice in my head. So, once they were all coated I chucked them in a hot frying pan and watched them sizzle! Make sure you're wearing your trusty apron to avoid grease splashes all over your favourite shirt.
I got them good and crispy shaking the pan around a lot to make sure there was no sticking going on. In the mean time I figured I was too hungry to wait for rice to cook so I boiled a pot of water for some Soba noodles. And in time and water saving fashion, I chucked in my cauliflower (instead of broccoli) in the water along with the Soba noodles and in no time they were ready to go! I had a couple mushrooms in the fridge so I chopped those bad boys up and threw them in with the tofu which was nearing it's perfect crispiness point.
There was A LOT of tofu so I took out 4 pieces and set them aside on some paper towel for Mac to munch on later. What a nice wifey I am, huh!? So, in the pan went the noodles and cauliflower! Now for some saucey goodness! I had some store bought :( hoisin and some szechuan peanut sauce in the fridge so I chose the peanut sauce. I forgot just how salty this bottled sauce is when you don't water it down at all which resulted in a rather salty meal. Insert several glasses of juice and water following my dinner. And no stir fry in our house goes without a good topping of raw cashews! We're nuts for nuts!
(Sorry about that lame comment but it had to be said.) I'll certainly try this recipe again and next time I'll make the sauce in the recipe instead of grabbing a bottle of sauce from the fridge. As for dinner tonight.... left overs! Oh and I should mention I ate WAY too much tofu last night and my guts are not all that happy with the soy overload today. Tofu and all soy products in moderation, my friends! That's my tip of the day!

2010-02-17T10:42:00.001-08:00

After feeling some inspriation to cook a cookbook front to back, I took a look around the book section at my local Superstore and was thrilled to come across Vegan Yum Yum's new book! I was slightly familiar with her great blog and was SO pumped to see she had put a book together. I spent most of the night reading it instead of getting work done but it was so worth it. I can't wait to get started trying out all the recipes!! It was written just how I like cookbooks to be writen: clear and thorough, offering substitutions, with a sense of humor and with ingredients I know I can find easily enough. I'll be sure to post when I make my first recipe from the book. I've dog-eared a sweet and sour tofu dish for tonight so we'll see if it's a success. Stay tuned and in the mean time, I say pick up your own copy or at least check out her blog for some great recipes!

Pining for Spring.

2010-02-16T08:42:00.000-08:00

I just took a look at the pictures I've posted here on my blog and MAN is it making me pine for my garden! I miss going to my backyard for ingredients for dinner. And with all the snow that is now covering my garden, it feels like spring will never come. I left one plant, my lavendar, in the ground just to give me some hope that one day again I'll see green out my back door.

I watched the movie Julie and Julia last night and it really got me inspired! I'd like to try the concept of cooking every recipe in one cookbook. I just need to pick which one I want to attack! Any suggestions? I'm really wanting to try doing more vegan baking these days so, maybe I'll seek out a good vegan baking cookbook. I'll be sure to keep you posted on this venture. It'll be a tough, long, drawn out venture seeing as I've been working six days a week so, my Sundays have been very full with visits to see the rugrats, TRYING to help M keep our house somewhat presentable and now our new project: adopting a fur baby! So, one step at a time for this project. Stay tuned!

Dropped Off The Face Of The Dinner Plate

2010-02-04T14:35:00.000-08:00

I know. I've deserted (so to speak) my baking and cooking adventure documentation. Not to say I haven't been cooking and baking up a storm on my ONE day off a week! The usual coconut blueberry lemon drop scones, the baked beans and brown rice burritos with guacamole and all kinds of other tasty goodies! I just keep forgetting to take pics along the way to share with you! But I'm here to say I'll make a REAL effort to give this tasty blog the attention it deserves! So, stay tuned, my hungry friends!

What's cookin', good lookin'!?

2009-09-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

Already I've been neglecting my new blog and I apologize for that. Even though I'm sure I'm the only one actually reading it.

So, a couple weekends ago I still had a pile of zucchinis to cook up and this time I went for the chocolate zucchini cupcakes and a veggie tvp chili with lots of zukes! Both were a smash hit! As with most of my cupcakes, I LOVE putting a tasty surprise on the bottom or in the middle for extra sweet happiness. This time it was OREOS! My fave for the suprise base of any flavor cupcake. I highly recommend it. The chili was SO very easy! I just kept a basic veggie chili recipe on hand to glance at and winged it for the most part. Using up a bunch of zucchini, of course, and throwing in some textured vegetable protein (tvp) for that 'meaty' goodness and well... protein! I loved this chili! Chili is such a great recipe to make up as you go. With a few basic main techniques/ingredients, it's pretty much a free for all! We enjoyed this chili for several days with some of my fresh from the bread maker oat bread. YUM!

It was the long weekend last weekend and I had lots of alone time which I, of course, spent mostly in the kitchen baking and silk screening. Here's what I came up with in the baking department! On Saturday on my way home from the fabric store I stopped at a fresh fruit and veggie market in St. Boniface not far from our house. Or so I thought! Turns out it's pretty far when you're walking in 26 degree heat in the sun for thirty minutes weighed down with about 20 pound of fabric and another 15 pounds of fruit and veggies. AAAAAAAnyway, I loaded up on some beautiful Ontario peaches, local blueberries, raspberries and strawberries along with some yummy veggies. My first recipe was for vanilla cupcakes that were screaming for those fresh peaches and strawberries. Seriously, I could've sat down and eaten the whole dozen in one sitting. And to make them even more awesome, I whipped up a wee bit of icing with some icing sugar, vanilla extract, a bit of vanilla soy milk and some margarine, slathered it on and topped it off with some Skor bits. AAAAAAAWESOME! I was in heaven, let me tell you.
Next was a very new project for me. My good friend has a huge crapapple tree in her back yard and was sweet enough to share a grocery bag full of them with me. I had NO idea what I was gonna bake with them. After some googling I decided on Crabapple Spiced Jelly! It seemed straight forward enough, though time consuming. Lucky for me I had time! First I trimmed off the ends of each apple, then I boiled them in a huge pot with just enough water to cover them for about 30 minutes. After this I used my cheesecloth for the first time and let as much juice drain out as I could. Back in the pot the juice went! This is where it gets tricky. Well, at least for me it did. I didn't want to use gelatin and most recipes I found online said that crabapples have enough pectin in them naturally to have them jelly up on their own with a schwack of sugar. I try, where I can, to cut back on sugar in all my recipes but soon learned that in jelly making, cutting back will really effect the end result. As in, it won't jell. It got pretty syrupy eventually after boiling it several times. I ended up throwing in some pectin which helped a bit but needless to say, I've got three jars of delicious crapapple syrup! Perfect on pancakes, ice cream, fresh fruit or whatever! I really like it even though it didn't turn out how I planned. Definately a learning experience. Next time, I'll use the full sugar amount and the full box of pectin and I'm sure it'll turn out much more jellified!
Next were the cookies! I tried out a recipe from my How it all Vegan cookbook which I love! Cootie's Coconut Cookies was on the menu! They turned out huge and delicious, as expected! They were a huge hit at the kids' household. As does anything with chocolate chips. So, that sums up most of my kitchen adventures in the past couple weeks. This weekend I hope to bake up some vegan treats for my first ever Sew Dandee Clothing Swap at my store. I hope it goes well! If anything, they'll be well fed! Now, what to bake for them!?! Hmmmmmmmmmm......

Zuke Recipes Were A Hit!

2009-08-25T08:25:00.000-07:00

Well, all three of the recipes I made over the weekend were a huge hit with my man, Mac and my brother and his whole family. Now what to make with the next batch of those phallic veggies?! If you've got some kick ass vegetarian or vegan recipes using zukes, post them here! If I try them out I'll be sure to post pics.

As per usual Sunday ritual, I made us a yummy sweet breakfast over the weekend. This time I tried the Oh Canada Pancake and Waffle Mix from Shoal Lake Wild Rice Ltd. I found the mix at a great little community centre farmers market a week ago. Every bit of the mix was made right here in Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan! AWESOME! It was tasty but I have to be honest, not as super delicious as I was anticipating. I added some fresh blueberries and cut up some banana on top which is my fave on pancakes. I though they were good but...... not the best. I'm still partial to my eggless pancakes using banana, some oats, organic whole wheat flour, some ground flax seed, cinnamon and nutmeg and some nuts and/or fruit for good measure. As a matter of fact, I plan to whip some up this weekend!

One Zuke Down. WAY More To Go.

2009-08-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I managed to use up one of the massive zukes today in 3 delicious recipes! Since it was SO enormous, I shredded it up and made it less of a focus ingredient. First was the Carribean Zucchini Muffins. Originally, the recipe was for zucchini bread but I'm more likely to eat them in muffin form. I can freeze them and take a couple for lunch to work everyday. Now, this recipe I found online at All Recipes like a lot of the recipes I use. Here is the link. They're an awesome resourse so be sure to check them out if you haven't already.
I threw in some extra coconut so I could empty the bag I had and some chocolate chips for good measure. You'll quickly notice chocolate chips find they're way into a lot of my recipes. I have an addiction. I'm not afraid to admit it.
This recipe made a BUTT LOAD of muffins! It made a whopping 24 muffins so needless to say, my brother and his family are getting a good pile of them. Since the recipe called for baking them in loaf pans I had to adjust the cooking time. It took a couple toothpick checks but I ended up cooking them for about 30 minutes. I tried my best to time it so I could always have something in the oven and not waste energy if I could. For the most part, my plan worked. Next, I made the Zucchini Oatmeal Cookies! YUM! This recipe I followed to a tee and they turned out great! I did, however, have to extend the baking time by about 8 minutes. This could've been because I had other items baking in the oven with them at the same time. But again, another big batch! I didn't count them all but I'd say about 24 cookies from this recipe. Again, another online find here. Lastly, I made Baked Zucchini Quiche. My first quiche EVER! Lucky for me it didn't call for a homemade crust. I was already wiped out from the three hours of yard work. I didn't have the energy or skill to grind out a pie crust, too! Who am I, frickin Julia Child!? Anyway, I threw a few extra goodies in with this recipe too. Some feta, mozza and cheddar cheese, button mushrooms, a green pepper from my garden and some fresh dill, oregano and basil again right from my own backyard. How cool is that, right? I'm loving going just a few feet from my back door to do my grocery shopping!

This recipe was super easy and I'll certainly make it again.

Just mix everything in one big bowl and dump in a lasagna dish! Easy peasy lemon squeezie!

Happy Eating!

After Pictures.....

2009-08-21T19:13:00.002-07:00

Here is my herb garden today! I've got basil, a couple kinds of oregano, pineapple sage that smells like heaven, a couple kinds of lavendar, chocolate mint which spreads like awesome wild fire, stevia (which I'm looking forward to try baking with) and a little Tiny Tim tomato plant! I've been harvesting all of the herbs like mad and am LOVING cooking with them. You can tell I'm a first time home gardener. I'm rather gitty about seeing things grow for the first time.

And here are my veggies! I'm so proud they've mostly turned out awesome! Most I planted from a starter plant but a few like the smaller zucchini plants on the corners and the dill I did from seed and would plant them from seed again for sure. They were easy peasy to grow.
The peppers have taken a long time to start growing even from an existing plant but now I've been able to harvest some to chuck in my dinner when I get home. I'm anxious for my cayenne and banana peppers to fully mature and change color so I can get them into my kitchen. The celery is getting close to ready, too! At the end I've got my raspberry bush just starting out. I can't wait for it to over-run the fence. And the spaghetti squash!! SOOOO pumped for them to get huge. Again, that's what she said. Stay tuned for my weekend cooking and baking projects! Happy eating!

Before Pictures.....

2009-08-21T13:26:00.001-07:00

Here are a few shots of my very first garden in my very first house with my very first 'husband' (hopefully my last husband)! This is when I'd only planted some peppers and lettuce and a few herbs back in May. The boys did a fine job tearing the heck outta the lawn to make my garden area. Today it's bursting at the seams! I'll take some shots of it this weekend to show you the fruits and vegetables of my labor!

Time To Get This Food Party Started!

2009-08-21T13:21:00.000-07:00

I hope to do some hard core baking and cooking this weekend so hopefully I'll get some good action shots that will get your taste buds flowing! Zucchini is on the menu seeing as they have taken over my garden in a HUGELY phallic manner! They're SO BIG! (That's what she said.)