Hey.. here's a quick post to let you know I haven't completely forgotten about this. Even though I really haven't been taking pictures of what I'm eating lately. I have about a million other things going on right now.. and on top of that I just moved to a small remote community in northern Alberta (aka beef country) so.. meals are about to become interesting. Especially considering there's a serious lack of fresh vegetables here, and what is available is very expensive.

But.. for now I will leave you with some highlights from NS. In no particular order..

Tofu scramble with tabouli.. a classic, and I was really craving it after not eating it for 2 months.



Pumpkin soup with roasted pumpkin seeds.. you'll see a theme here soon.



I made some "nutella" out of hazelnut butter someone gave me.. it was so good. I technically should have added oil but decided not to, which made it a bit dry, but I didn't mind.



I got veganomicon a couple weeks later and noticed a recipe for nutella in there, I'll have to try that out next time.

Thai stew (or something like it, I definitely modified this) from The Everyday Vegan.. it was delicious.



The vegan breakfast from Pyramid Cafe in Halifax. I ate this many times.. so good & so cheap. Though their falafels are a little bit disappointing (Too dry - I'm still missing Falafel Place in Winnipeg). Overall it's amazing though, got a little bit of everything.



VwaV peanut sauce and udon noodles with tofu.. another classic.



A big ol' pot of chocolate chip cookies. This pot was also my only "cake pan", because I had no cake pans, so I'd line this with parchment instead.



Pumpkin muffins with freshly roasted pumpkin. The first time I tried this, I mixed up the sugar with the salt... not a good idea.



Pumpkin cheesecake from Heartwood Cafe & Bakery in Halifax. Yes, I am crazy about pumpkin. This was alright but nothing like a cheesecake, I am not sure why they called it that.



Anyway.. that's all for now. I may hibernate for winter.. so if you don't hear from me, just assume I'm too busy trying to scavenge for vegetables in this land full of meat.

Thanksgiving and then some.

Last weekend was thanksgiving in Canada. I actually remembered to take some pictures. Generally I haven't been eating anything fancy and therefore I don't bother.. even some of these are things I've probably posted before. But, it's comfort food, and I like it.

The homemade tofu roast, from La Dolce Vegan, with roasted onions on the ends. There were some skeptics before it was made, but everyone loved it in the end..



Stuffed spaghetti squash (sauteed onions and mushrooms for stuffing)..



My dinner plate, roast & stuffing, squash, mashed potatoes and roasted carrots (it was a very roasty sort of day.)



Pumpkin pie and tofu chocolate silk pie, which was a lot better than it looks.



And now on to non-thanksgiving food.. baked tofu and vegetables:



Mozzarella mac n cheese:



My favouritist french toast ever, from VwaV:



aand last but absolutely not least, "Heavenly Brownie Torte" from Sinfully Vegan.



As a side note, the delicious scones from the potluck that everyone wanted a recipe for? VwaV recipe, with some spices added in to taste and vegan cheese. Go figure.

I've been slacking horribly on the picture-taking since I arrived in Nova Scotia, even though I've been "house manager" this week - meaning I'm responsible for all the cooking/budgeting for the 12 people living here.
Which might actually explain why I've been even too busy to take pictures.. and it's a lot harder to make everyone wait for dinner while I photograph it, than when I'm cooking only for myself.

So in no particular order, this is the stuff I *did* remember to take pictures of. I just noticed that it's all basically the same colour.. weird.

Peanut butter bagels (a la Celine):



Even though I'm technically not allowed to buy anything processed, exceptions are sometimes made at the beginning of the program. The local store has vegan rice cheese slices and I got some for myself to try, of the pepper jack variety.. they are so much better than tofutti. oh man. I made a tomato and cheese quesadilla..



Lentil Curry (yum) and rice.



Corn chowder. well, not technically a chowder. But it was really good..



And these cookies, which were good, but I am not so sure about the banana.. I might try using flax seed instead of that as an egg replacer. And chocolate chips were added.

Potluck Goods

I had a going-away party on saturday, in the form of a potluck. It was quite lovely and rather successful if I do say so myself! These are a few things people brought.

Tofu and herb stuffed mushrooms:



"Cheesy" scones, which were probably the tastiest vegan-cheese experience I've ever had. There were also berry scones, pictured in the background.



Lasagne:



Matt, ever the show-off, went all out with the vegan sushi. Yam tempura, deep-fried vegan shrimp and crab all found their way into the rolls, alongside the "usuals" like avocado.



A giant vat of chili:



And then there were desserts, which is where I become the show-off. There was a few things that didn't get photographed (at least by me), including a spice cake (which I didn't make) and a chocolate kahlua pudding layered with nutriwhip. Pictured here, on the other hand, is a strawberry-rhubarb pie:



Tiramisu cupcakes:



And lastly, something not related to the potluck.. I just forgot to post these last time. Kahlua almond cookies (see a theme with the kahlua here?)

I may be the laziest blogger alive.

Ok, no, that's an exaggeration. Still, it's pretty pathetic. And it may very well get worse yet - I will be departing on a 9-month volunteer-youth-service program in 2 weeks, and have no idea what this will do to my opportunity to update, but it's unlikely to improve.

Oh well. I'll flood your screen with pictures now instead...


I eat at work a lot. Mostly it's soup with couscous or tabouleh, because we have a decent variety of delicious vegan soups, or a falafel.. but not always. This particular concoction is rye toast with hummus, tomatoes, onions, banana peppers, eggplants, tahini and parsley. So good.



For some reason, anything with a bunch of veggies and some sort of potato grilled together is referred to as a "hash", though it's really more of a scramble. This is my take on the vegan breakfast "hash" we serve, which usually comes with yams, potatoes, tomato, green pepper, and onion, and to which I have here added mushrooms, eggplant and banana peppers, on grilled tabouleh. Also covered in tahini sauce, because I'm a tahini addict.



This is tomato soup from Celine's upcoming zine, and while I can't remember the exact name of the soup, it is delicious.



Another test recipe from her zine, a creamy pumpkin almond sauce, served here on whole wheat pasta with a grilled broccoli on the side.



I admit it, I am a bit of a reuben snob. I learned to make reubens as a cook in a restaurant renowned for their reubens, and even though I don't eat those ones (they aren't remotely vegan) I have high standards for any reuben that is now going to enter my mouth. I have only recently given in to the addition of avocado, because it's actually really good, if not traditional. The rest of this reuben is made on rye bread, with tofutti swiss cheese, seitan, homemade thousand island and sauerkraut, and is fully endorsed by me ;).



This is what I am referring to as "breakfast pudding", meaning it's unsweetened, aaand I ate it for breakfast. Plain vanilla pudding, delicious fresh blueberries, what more can you ask for?



This was Siobhan's birthday pie, the VwaV Black-Bottomed Peanut Butter Silk Pie (whew). I think I'd like it with less sugar next time, but it was still excellent. Even the tofu-phobic person loved it, and I do enjoy sneaking tofu on people.



Boston Cream cupcakes, for another friend's birthday. I screwed these up a bit (way too much vanilla) but the flavour mellowed out by the second day, and they ended up quite delicious in the end.



After visiting a local gelati place with an incredible vegan selection, I noticed they had bricks of green tea ice cream (not vegan) in their freezer. Naturally, I had to go home and invent my own. I froze it into star-shaped bricks because I had been.. inspired.. and served with raspberries which complimented it nicely.



the recipe:

2 cups cashews
2 cups plain almond milk (could probably sub. water, but I haven't tried it)
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup brown rice syrup (again, could probably use all maple syrup if you wanted)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
4 teaspoons machta green tea powder

Blend cashews in a food processor until crumbs. Add liquid ingredients slowly, pulsing and scraping down the sides often, and continue to process until mixture is creamy and no longer grainy. This is important, because once the ice cream freezes any graininess will become more noticeable. Blend in green tea powder until well mixed. Chill in the freezer until cool, then make according to ice cream maker's instructions. Will probably need to set in the freezer overnight, unless you like your ice cream very soft..

Avocado, berries, and cake.

As the title suggests.. this post has a few themes. The garden is full of delicious fresh raspberries, every day I go out and pick a huge bowl (larger than the one pictured here):

So good. On top of VwaV "fronch toast" and nutriwhip..

Freshly made spinach pasta from Delucas, with pesto and avocado..

My favourite thing to snack on lately, a bowl of guacamole with multigrain waffle pretzels. Simple but satisfying.

I baked some cakes for Matt's parents' wedding this weekend, though not traditional "wedding" cakes..

Raspeberry Blackout Cake (VwaV) - every bit as delicious as I had hoped it to be.

Due to the surplus of fruit in my house, I also made an almond trifle. Some of you might remember the last trifle I made, this was similar but with (obviously) an infusion of almond, and different fruit - strawberries, cherries, raspberry, blueberries, mango, and nectarines.

Even the hardest-to-please omnivores enjoyed it.. I can't complain about that.

You are probably sick of hearing about how busy I am, but it's the truth. This is what I've managed to squeeze in the past week..

An attempt at "omelettes". In defense of the recipe, I didn't entirely follow it - I was supposed to pour the egg in with the veggies, but that's not my definition of an omelette, so I tried to keep it separate. It ended up more like a veggie filled pancake. Next time I'm going to try my own thing instead, I have some ideas. This was still tasty, just.. not even close to what it was imitating.



Quinoa custard and date-toffee pie, with a quinoa-coconut cream. Though it had been chilling for twice as long as recommended, it wasn't completely set yet when I ate this piece. Lots of unusual flavours mixing in this.. coffee, carob, lemon and lime, coconut milk, banana, soy and rice milk, quinoa, dates, molasses. You can't tell here but there's three layers to the pie. If I made it again, I would leave out the banana, which overpowers everything, and add more coffee.



Some cauliflower curry soup I threw together last night, using whatever I needed to use up in my fridge.



Mocha "vice cream", with a couple of chocolate covered coffee beans on top. Sooo good.

It's about time...

Well.. I'm back in the kitchen. Haven't been taking pictures in the last month, really.. too busy. Too bad. Here is a green tea cupcake I made this afternoon, with some pansies from the garden for edible decoration.



This was dinner. Asparagus pancakes from Vegan. That title seems incomplete, somehow..



Mango summer rolls, attempt #2: successful. I ran out of bean sprouts and added mixed greens to some. Also, no cilantro, because Matt hates it. I think that made them a little bland, but they were still alright with a nice dipping sauce.



Barbequed mushroom burgers, grilled squash and asparagus, some kind of delicious coleslaw I made up.. hey, what is it with the asparagus? Every time I've eaten it this year it's ended up on my blog..



and I almost forgot.. Matt makes excellent vegan iced capps. I harrass him for them on hot days.

It's been exactly a month since my last post, and I've been feeling kind of guilty for not updating. It's not like I haven't been eating.. (though I haven't really been up to anything interesting, either, considering this is all I have to show for a month). One more month and I can get back in the kitchen..

I guess I'll start with breakfast food, and go from there. Orange hazelnut scones, made by Heather, adapted from ExtraVeganZa:



This my look like just a bowl of fruit to you, but it is my favourite fruit salad right now. 1 banana, 4-5 strawberries, 1 red grapefruit (with any excess juice from cutting it up poured in). The strawberry/grapefruit combo is really complementary... and I can't get enough..



Some muffins, made by Matt's mom. The back one is blueberry, the front one is "morning glory" - some delicious combination of bran, carrots, pineapple, I think sunflower seeds, raisins? and who knows what else, but they're yummy.



Vegan junk food. Grilled tofutti "cheese" with fried onions and tomatoes, and breaded seitan chicken fingers. This is a terrible picture, sorry.



Quinoa Pine Nut Pilaf. This originally started as someone else's recipe, but I've changed it so much by now that it's .. no longer even close. I love it, though.



Lentil curry, loosely based on this recipe, on brown basmati rice.



Agave nectar cupcakes (VCTOTW), for mother's day. Pretend they're not in spongebob liners.



I made the blueberry mousse and tried to get fancy with it. The mousse gave me a lot of problems, though.. it was way too runny to begin with, I added 1 1/2 t of xanthan gum to try and gel it up a bit. It got much better, but still didn't quite keep it's shape for very long, and the tops tried to run away shortly after I assembled the cupcakes.. oh well.



Mocha mousse (VCTOTW), with melted chocolate on top. I think I like this recipe more than any of the cupcake recipes in the whole book, which is saying a lot. The texture of this mousse is so good.. I make it to eat by itself, nevermind inside a cupcake.



That's all for now. I promise to return to a normal schedule in July, there's so much stuff I want to make.

Well, I know I've been absent for a while. School is quite literally consuming all my time and cooking will not be a priority again until I'm done at the end of june. On top of that, I have been unable to get my desktop computer to recognize my boot drive for the past week, and my photo-editing software did not work with my laptop, so unless anyone was interested in desktop-sized pictures of food, posting was not an option. I've installed a newer version now, so it's all good..

Anyway, here is some stuff I've been eating lately. Matt's been cooking for me due to my complete lack of time. And doing a pretty good job, might I add.

Spanikopita from VWaV:


Veggies, noodles, and Sweet and Sour Seitan, Lolo-style:



Macaroni and Uncheese:



And just because, the biggest strawberry I've ever seen:



That's all for now. I'll try not to neglect this too much, but I make no promises until school is done.