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.

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.

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..

My sister and I made sushi last night. This was her first time.. and she's pretty darn good at it, if I do say so myself. We used shitake mushrooms, roasted red pepper, flavoured tempeh, avacado, green onions, various sprouts, cucumber, sesame seeds, veganaise and some sweet & spicy sauce, for the most part.. and there was probably at least 3 times as much altogether as I have pictured here (gotta have leftovers..)


Even a few inside out rolls were attempted, more or less successfully.

Before..

..and after it was demolished :)


Some velvet red lentil soup (with added carrots) and a tofu-salad pita (tofu extravanganza from La Dolce Vegan)


Some biscuits Stef made this afternoon. Ate one when I got home from work, they were still warm and delicious:


Udon noodles, seitan and peanut sauce from VWAV. Best peanut sauce ever. I brought this to an omnivorous potluck and it was great.

Camp Cooking

I went camping this weekend. If you know where I live, and think I'm nuts for sleeping in a tent in march, well, you're probably right. The temperature outside right now is -20, though I don't know exactly how cold it was all weekend. Anyways, camp cooking in general, let alone winter camp cooking, is entirely different from what I normally eat.. though you probably can't tell from pictures. Overall, it's simplfied, possibly a little more black and/or full of ash, and generally considered edible as long as it's warm. I kind of cheated by making things ahead of time at home, but whatever. Having the added challenge of only being able to bring things that could freeze narrowed my options, so I did what I could to work around it.

Perogies, with mysterious flecks of blackened something (for added flavour)..


"Death star chili", as it was so lovingly named by the wusses that can't handle my level of spice, and toast:


Peanut yam soup (mmm my favourite) and blackened toast:



These were delicious, but would have been a bit better if the chocolate wasn't frozen, probably. As you can see my first marshmallows didn't melt all the way through either, as vegan marshmallows seem to ignite even faster than the regular kind, and it took me a while to perfect it.. still, it had been ages since I'd eaten a smore, and it was well worth it. I didn't photograph the more successful attempts... some things need to be eaten while they're still hot.


Otherwise it was veggies & hummus, frost-friendly fruit (bananas and apples), and muffins for snacks. And lots and lots of tea.

Some of you are probably already well aware of the fact that I have a list of foods that I miss and feel a need to "veganize". It's mostly dairy stuff - whipped cream was on the list. Yogurt. Omelettes.

My oma's waffles, and the pudding we used to eat them with (which is easy enough to make vegan) also got onto this list. I don't know why, but I can't seem to make a nice, fluffy delicious vegan waffle. Any recipe I have tried to use (or heaven forbid, make my own) have come out horribly wrong. While I've made some pretty good waffles in the meantime, none of those recipes have tasted anything like my oma's (usually due to whole wheat flour. hah.).

Tonight I got as close as I've been able to so far. I used this recipe, but thoroughly watered it down with soymilk as it was like a dough when I first mixed it, and after the first one came out really heavy added a bit of baking powder also. They're still much too heavy, but I think I can possibly work with this since they're not disastrous like the rest..



Not the healthiest dinner, though not as bad as it looks. Made a strawberry sauce with frozen berries, water, just a spoonful of raw sugar and a bit of cornstarch. Mostly the nutritional downfall is from the white flour.. I ate two and put a tiny bit of sour cream on the second one since it's kicking around in my fridge anyway, which also brings down the healthy-factor a bit, but it was soo good.

And yeah, those are blood oranges. They were on sale at price choppers (extra cheap) and celine's pictures had me wanting, so. there you are.


This soup was from extraveganza again. I forget exactly what it's called, curried squash something? Heather bought a little buttercup squash probably months ago by now, and it's been sitting there looking lonely ever since, so I turned it into delicious soup. It has a really unique flavour as there are two pears in it, but it's a good combination. The only thing I changed was adding 2 cups of water instead of 8-10 cups because I don't like my soups that watery, and I find all of the soups in that book so far are much too watery for my liking..

Also, it matches my bedroom floor. How can you go wrong?