Vegetable Valhalla

If pizza is a vegetable, ketchup is a smoothie, then North America's doing just fine

2012-02-02T10:12:00.000-04:00

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but.....

Thai Thing-- featuring the poor man's version!

2012-01-19T13:37:00.001-04:00

This isn't a gourmet meal, but it's quick and healthy. Its glamourous name around the house is "Thai Thing*" and I hereby bestow it onto you. Summer's vegetables seemed more authentic in this recipe, but autumn and winter aren't too far behind. Every time you make it it's a new meal because of the seasonal vegetables. You could also use frozen vegetables too if you were so inclined. We use frozen corn a lot because its sweetness is delicious. Sweet potatoes are our favourite winter vegetable to use in this dish. Slay it! This can be made start to finish in 30 minutes. Blink and it's done. BLINK. THAI FOOD ON MY PLATE! Is this authentic? Not sure, but it is good!

This is a summer version. I liked the photo better.

Thai Thing

2 T. oil
1 lb. or less of firm tofu, cubed or chopped fried tofu**
3 c. seasonal vegetables, chopped
1 T. grated gingerroot
half can of coconut milk, more if you like it saucy!
2 T. lime juice
1/2 tsp. turmeric powder
2 scant T. soy sauce
3/4 tsp. thai curry paste
a hot pepper or red pepper flakes (optional)

Saute tofu until browned-- (4-6 min). Remove from pan and allow to rest on a plate. Saute vegetables for about 5 minutes. Add coconut milk, turmeric, and ginger, hot peppers (fresh ones are sooo good in this recipe) and cook until vegetables are almost tender. Add lime juice, soy sauce, curry paste, and tofu and cook for 5 more minutes. Serve over noodles of your choice. We usually use rice stick noodles or kamut linguine.

For an even cheaper meal, try the POOR MAN'S VERSION:

Instead of curry paste, use about a teaspoon and half of curry powder-- get a decent blend or it will taste crappy. We ran out of curry paste and are really digging this version!

I hope you enjoy Thai Thing. We make it as an emergency meal at least once a week. What's your emergency meal?

*This recipe was featured in Issue 4 of T.O.F.U. Magazine which is an awesome magazine. Check it. It's pay what you can!

**you can get this at well-stocked Asian stores. If you buy this kind, you don't need to fry it again. Just skip this step and chuck it in.

Lentil me wish you a happy 2012!

2012-01-02T17:37:00.001-04:00

Okay, perhaps using lentil as a verb in that context was a stretch, but I'm all about experimenting today! I've been holding out on you way too long with this soup. It's a fantastic recipe full o' fibre, protein, iron and lots of other nutrients. Do yourself a favour and get some decent spices (in small amounts) and make this soup. This is a great meal to take for lunches. You can get it ready pretty easily before you hop in the shower and it's ready to put in a thermos before you're ready to leave. The garlic and ginger are anti-inflammatory, which is awesome.

Red Lentil Soup

3 c. seasonal vegetables, chopped.
1 c. red lentils
4-6 c. water
1 tsp. cumin seeds
1/2 tsp. black mustard seeds
1 T. coconut oil
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. grated ginger
3 cloves
4 peppercorns
1/2 tsp. coriander seeds
a dash of red chili pepper flakes
broth cube or equivalent
sea salt and/or Bragg's

Heat oil over medium heart. Add cumin and mustard seeds until they begin to pop. Stir in lentils and stir for a minute. Add vegetables and stir to combine. Add all seasonings (except salt-- as it prevents lentils from cooking) and water. Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat for 25 minutes. If it's not done, turn to low heat, ensure there's enough water and cook for another 5-10 minutes. Season with a bit of sea salt or Bragg's to taste. If you wanna be a pro, put the peppercorns and cloves into a li'l muslin bag or piece of tied-up cheesecloth so you don't get too much of a taste sensation when you find one in your soup. I like this prize, but I (not like a pro) leave them in and fish the cloves out for Bruce, as he hates them.

HAPPY 2012! What are you gonna get up to in 2012?

Set some carrots aflame, make them your soup.

2011-11-23T13:25:00.000-04:00

I really dig Occasions magazine. It like to read about all the newly-released alcohol I can't afford, and dream about the ones I will purchase someday. I also enjoy the recipes, usually created by local chefs and paired with wine, beer or spirits. While I often doddle and procrastinate for years before trying a recipe that I've clipped out or copied down, I made this recipe the day after I first read it. Roasted Carrot and Cumin Soup? It called to me. This one's incredibly easy.

About to set these carrots on fire!

I made mine with rainbow carrots, so the colour isn't a normal carrot orange but a deeper, more pumkiny hue. Root vegetables are very grounding, connecting us to our centre and helping us settle down and not be so flighty. Goes nicely with this time of the year, don't you think? These qualities are enhanced further when you roast them (the carrots, not the qualities). If you've got a bag of carrots (preferably local and doubly preferable-- unsprayed or organic), and a decently-stocked spice cupboard, you can make this soup right now. Get lost in a book or some work, and you'll blink before this soup is done. My carrots only took 40 minutes to roast, as I cut them pretty small, therefore shortening the time between being tempted by the awesome aroma of roasting carrots, garlic, and... oh wait. I used garlic in lieu of onions in this recipe, as Brucifer abhors onions.

Cookin' this soup twice, gettin' all the beta carotene!

Here's how to roast garlic: Take a head of garlic and chop off the top so a little bit of each garlic clove is exposed. Rub the whole thing in olive oil. Cover it in foil. Chuck it on the pan with the carrots in the oily spice rub. When the carrots are done, remove the foil from the bulb (careful, it will be hot-- let it cool some!), and squeeze the garlic up and out of the holes in the top of the skins. The garlic will ooze out nicely (a bit sticky maybe, but I've still found this to be the best way). Puree the roasted garlic with the roasted carrots, the water or broth (less if you like it thicker) and you're golden. I also added some nutritional yeast to mine, for the extra vitaminions!

This bowl of soup has a nipple.

Let me know if you make this soup. Carrot makes for good soup. I'll totally root for it!

Miso Soup for Ninjas!

2011-11-15T03:32:00.000-04:00

Miso (a fermented, aged soybean paste) is one of the most nourishing foods on the planet. Really really. It's been around since 800 BC, and there's probably a pretty solid reason for that. It's a good source of calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, many B vitamins, as well as easy-to-digest protein. It's possible you find that boring. Stay with me.... it also helps improve crappy, weak digestion, is used to help treat cancer, to alkalinize overly acidic bodies, as a libido tonic (you heard me), as well as to heal several types of intestinal infections. Miso's got lots of antioxidants such as sapoins and melanoidins (moreso in the darker, aged versions). It's got lots of good bacteria which increases the overall usability of nutrients as well as myriad other benefits. Miso helps you rid your body of excess tobacco. In traditional Japan, miso is still used to remove tar from smoker's pipes! That blew my mind just a bit.

I promised you guys forever ago that I'd give you my recipe for miso soup. Not sure why it took me so long, but it did. Allow me to mention in advance that this is the Beany von Doom take on the traditional miso soup. A real miso soup is usually mostly broth, peppered with a few vegetables, some tofu and seaweed and is generally meant as a starter course. When it's a main meal, it's generally a light meal meant for healing. Enter my miso soup. It is a meal that will not leave you wanting and I'm not frigging around. Adjust the quantity depending on your appetite or the number of folks you intend to feed.

Basically, I boil about two cups of water in a small pot, add three or four dried shitake mushrooms, between one and a half and two cups of seasonal vegetables (make sure to have some greens!), a quarter of a block of fresh cubed tofu or a few pieces of frozen fried tofu, and some kamut soba or spaghetti. Simmer this for 15 minutes with the lid partially askew. This way much of the water evaporates, and we're left with enough to make a broth, but not so much that you'll be full off water.

When the vegetables are suitably tender, ladle out a bit of broth in a small bowl and add a heaping teaspoon of miso paste. If this isn't enough, you can add a bit more, but remember that miso is extremely salty! Whisk to combine, then add it back to the soup. This step is important, because if you boil the miso, the heat destroys many of its beneficial properties. To cool it down, I add a splash of rice wine and sometimes some hot sauce or spicy seasoning. This is an awesome ninjalike move, definitely not a traditional monastic one, not that there's anything wrong with monks.

Voila. You just ate lots of vegetables for breakfast! This is actually my favourite breakfast. I'll often prepare the soup before I begin to exercise, let it simmer, then take it out to cool partway through my workout. When I'm done, it's ready, and I'm rewarded with my lovely soup. I eat it, breathe in the steam, and continue to sweat. It's awesome. It's a very alkalinizing start to your day. Your cells have a fighting chance!

Do you make miso soup? What the heck is yours like? What else do you do with miso?

Kale Satan!

2011-11-07T20:25:00.001-04:00

I've probably eaten too much kale today and it's only 2pm. Kale, as you may or may not know, is a leafy green vegetable which has many varieties. It's got the highest antioxidant rating of any commonly-eaten vegetable (I'm sure someone would debate this, but it's generally held to be true), it's beautiful, and I think it's generally pretty badass. I went from hating it to tolerating it to liking it to loving it. The nutritionist in me was the one to push. "LOVE KALE OR DIE, BEEYOTCH!" I said to myself, or some such thing. I said the same with seaweed. I made it happen in both instances. With enough willingness, I believe you can make yourself like any food. I don't even mind cilantro now.


Brassica bra, or bra-ssica.

Yup. If I ever get married, I'd do it in the autumn, and carry a huge bunch of kale down the aisle with me. I love holding a humongous bunch of kale. Makes me feel very alive, very strong (lots of vitamin K and calcium in those leaves!), and very beautiful.

Anyway, back to kale consumption! This morning I woke up on day two of my cleanse and was keen to make a whole juice with my Blendtec blender. I concocted a juice from some purple kale, blueberries, a pear, an apple, and some ginger. I put too much water in it and it tasted kinda bland, so I won't bog you down with a shitty recipe. But I was feeling MIGHTY good after that, and additionally after my peppermint yerba mate with with almond milk and syrup from the tit of the Mother Maple Tree (a crude yet apt analogy from the geniuses at Epic Meal Time).

Fastforward to my first meal of the day, after recording my workout on Fitocracy, I decided to make some Hail to the Kale salad, a recipe from the company who shan't be named where I used to work (although you can click to see). Brucifer isn't too into vinegary dressings so he wasn't into this, but I ate a ton of it alongside some sprouted grain bread and some happier eggs (free-range from a cute little Menonite farm).

Goth Kale Salad

Anyway, I feel like a crazy person I feel so good right now. Part of it's the cleanse, part of it's the juice from this morning, and part of it I'm sure is the kale overload (and the sunshine outside)! I'm about to go for a massive walk in the park to check out some squirrels. I'll report back if the kale was an overload (I'll be able to tell). Because you know, you can overdo everything (even kale and links and parentheses-- what the hell is my problem today!?)

So....do you like or love kale? If so, how do you like it?

Thanksgiving Sushi, beet cake, and 40 years of marriage!

2011-10-21T12:08:00.001-03:00

My parents might've predicted that they'd be married 40 years (hopefully most newlyweds have this hope at first!), but they probably didn't predict they'd be at the cottage making sushi and eating beet cake for their 40th anniversary party.

Instead of a traditional gift, my brother and I rigged them up with all the gear they'd need and taught them something they could use throughout life-- how to make delicious and nourishing sushi. We made sure they knew that t there's no limit to what you can put in sushi (even though it might prompt trained sushi chefs to weep), as our "Thanksgiving Roll" exemplified!

This is my plate: avocado and mashed sweet potato with sweet chili sauce, a Korean Gimbap roll (pickled radish/mu, kimchi, avocado), and the one most universally loved by all-- the Thanksgiving Roll (tofurkey-- they used real turkey, cranberry sauce, dressing, and I totally put some gravy on mine too)! An awesome way to use up Thanksgiving leftovers whilst getting some wonderful sea minerals!

I think Mom's getting a chopstick refresher lesson from my brother here. She caught on quickly.

My Dad, rockin' the chopsticks.

Aw, it's my wonderful family (including Brucifer) eating homemade sushi together! I'm taking the photo, though-- so please assume I look smashing!

I didn't want to use artificial food colouring in my icing, so I chose Swedish Berries. Then I realized there's artificial colouring(as well as natural) in the Swedish Berries (which are vegan!) Anyway, I think they look like l'il rubies here-- and it was my parents' Ruby Anniversary, so huzzah!


And here's the lovely couple, 40 years married. I forgot that my Dad was using the stained glass 40 he made for my grandparent's 40th the cake said 40 twice-- one for the first 40 and one for the next?


I went to the kitchen after the cake'd been de-panned and I saw that my brother had made some Beany von Doom-approved baked good grafitti. He later edited his own message to say "beef power" but I didn't glorify that with a photo!

That's right- a beet cake! I suppose it's not the first beet cake I've shown you here, but I still think the concept is amazing no matter how many times I make one. I made a cake version of the Velvet Cupcakes from Jae Steele's Ripe From Around Here. The cake batter itself was a lovely fuschia colour, and the cake often ends up with a reddish tinge, but ever so slight. The cake was moist and delicious, just as a chocolate cake should be. It even prompted a story about my Dad taking chocolate cake in his lunchbag to school way back in the friggin' '50s (were they called the friggin' '50s?).

His teacher called him to come to the front of the class. "Bobby, could you bring in a copy of your mother's chocolate cake recipe?" Panic subsided. Grammie earned the reputation of being a fantastic cook, having routinely fed dozens of her husband's woodsmen buddies at lunchtime each day). On top of that, her chocolate cake looked moist and delious. I'm honoured that a chocolate cake I made (one of dozens before it) prompted a story that reminded my dad of his mother's baking!

We had an awesome Thanksgiving weekend (two weeks ago now, geez!) and I hope that if nothing else my parents get some use of of the rice cooker and enjoy many more years of happiness and health living together!

Love,

Your daughter and your other unconventional kid

Carrot facial

2011-08-21T16:54:00.000-03:00

A friend of mine just sent me this and said it reminded him of me. I feel mixed, but mostly awesome. Enjoy.

Saffron smoothie for Grampie

2011-08-12T14:16:00.001-03:00

My grandfather wasn't Middle Eastern (his last name was Scott!), and I'm guessing he's probably never tried saffron, but this smoothie is still dedicated to him. I served it in a Home Hardware cup, as that's where he worked for years. Grampie passed into the Great Beyond this morning, and he will be missed by many. If I'd had beer (he enjoyed it in small amounts in his younger years), I'd've put a splash of that in too. And turnips. And garden peas. These are the things that remind me of Grampie. RIP, John Burris Reid Scott.

The Burris

1 c. almond milk
3 medjool dates
2 tsp tahini
2 or 3 strands of saffron*
1/8 tsp cardamom, ground
1/3 c. pumpkin puree

*Saffron has shown to have significant cognitive effect on mild to moderate Alzheimer's patients. I just heard this last week. My grampie was suffering from severe Alzheimer's at the time of his death. I'm a new lover of good, real saffron, which I'll talk more about later.

Now I've gotta go be with my family.

Be well and have an awesome weekend!

I've got tea and Jager in every crevice!

2011-08-05T16:48:00.000-03:00

My computer sucks. My AA batteries are all toast. My online presence has suffered. Anyway, I managed to squeeze enough juice out of my batteries to document some of the goodness I've been up to lately. This summer has been super fun and awesome so far, and I hope yours has too.

It was pretty chilly this morning which reminded me of shirking all my other duties, throwing on some wool socks, blasting some awesome 70s rock, and baking. So I did. I took a huge bunch of kale and made it into chips. Kind of morbidly, I photographed the kale chips beside my kale that's growing. THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL BECOME, KALE!

Meanwhile, I made a blueberry smoothie with coffee and peanut butter, then baked up a variation on Matthew Kadley's Maple Pumpkin Tea Loaf. I kept it pretty similar to Matthew's recipe except I used flax seeds (1T. ground flax+ 3 T. war, water per egg) in lieu of eggs, light spelt flour, instead of wheaty business, I added pumpkin seeds rather than walnuts, Jagermeister-soaked raisins (YES, JAGER-SOAKED RAISINS! SOAKED FOR A DAY in magical German cough medicine!!) in lieu of dried cherrries, and I topped the loaf with Maple Omega Crunch shelled flax! Pretty delicious. I enjoyed the loaf with the iced tea (served in the mini New Brunswick stein I got at PEDVAC, the awesome thrift store close to my parents' cottage) I made yesterday. No recipe-- just strong black tea, lemon juice and raw sugar. I don't like any bottled iced tea I've ever had-- why would you? Pretty much the only drink I like that comes in a bottle also has the power to get me drunk. Alcohol is supposed to agecfor a while. Everything else should be made fresh. So there.

Also, in case you were wondering, I haven't stopped making Indian food. Man, it's fantastic with fresh summer vegetables. This dish translates as "Nine Jewels." The jewels are vegetables, obv.

I also scored a good deal on a mandolin slicer o cut vegetables all fancy-like. Stay tuned to see if I actually use it!

HOPE YOU ARE WELL!

XXOO

SURPRISE-- I'M NOT DEAD!

2011-06-21T20:14:00.000-03:00

In fact, I've been eating and stuff. Here's what you missed!

Spring has brought us some awesome fresh produce. No offense to the noble beet and turnip, but-- see you next fall!

Strawberry rhubarb apple and blueberry crisp. All but the strawberries were local (wasn't berry season yet. Blueberries were frozen). Oh yes, and cashew cream.

This was absolutely one of the best dishes I made over the last month. My only regret is not trying to recreate it. Fiddlehead pasta with olives, mushrooms, garlic, balsamic turmeric goodness.

This is a rendition of a maple flax brownie that I make. They're truly a health food brownie. Brucifer wanted to put nuts on the top. He decorated it beautifully. Also we threw on some maple omega crunch shelled flax.

A stir fry with cabbage, carrots, spinach, maybe some other vegetables. Served with fake chickens and salt and asian cucumber salad.

An amazing breakfast. Indian scrambled eggs, Earth Balanced toast and stir fry with mushrooms, rainbow chard, asparagus. Yes. I eat eggs now from free run hens.

Rhubarb cupcakes with rhubarb icing. Yes, really. The frosting was more gorgeous than the photo managed to capture.

I understand that this looks rather ghastly, or perhaps gothy if I was being kind. I like this sort of a meal, though. Stir fried vegetables with soy sauce and fried tofu on toast. And some hot sauce for good measure.

This was my rushed pre-birthday trip meal. A tuno sandwich with yellow carrots and some wilted swiss chard on the side.

This $23 breakfast at the Fairmont Algonquin was AMAZING. This was a salmon dish and I asked for a vegetarian version and they made me little carrot burgers! With avocado salsa!!

Other than the Algonquin, this was the best meal that could be had in St. Andrew's NB on a Wednesday evening in the off-season. The sauce was pretty good, but the vegetable selection weak.

After my sushi dance party I wanted to make more sushi with the remnants. My brother's sushi was prettier. This was made in haste. Pickled radish (mu), kimchi, cucumber and shitake.

Blueberry grunt. This is so goddamned good. I will make a strawberry grunt soon.

I got a li'l BBQ from my friends on my birthday. For a couple of weeks I went pretty apeshit. My ambitious first attempt to BBQ anything finds me BBQing a homemade black bean burger with carrot, onion, sweet potato. Most of it fell in the BBQ.

Fermento burger! Here's the same burger but with sauerkraut, mu and kimchi. I digested that!

Good ol' Yves veggie dogs with grilled asparagus and mushrooms. Oh, and obviously sauerkraut!

Yves veggie chicken burger salad with PC Smokin' Stampede Chipotle Beer BBQ sauce-based dressing. And sauekraut. And lettuces.

Homemade chickpea burger topped with fried egg on rye bread with lime ponzu grilled asparagus. This meal felt amazing!

This was some sort of leftover meal-- a lentil soup, I think, mixed with leftover basmati rice and served with kimchi for extra digestibility.

Chickpea burger BBQd (success!) with asparagus and pepper rings!

Coconut cinnamon toast with strawberry heart, two lovely fried eggs and mixed greens with caesary dresssing.

Japanese vegetable stew with asparagus (can't get enough), shitake, buttom and enoki mushrooms, and spinach. From this book.

Sukiyaki (calorie-less yam noodle dish with fried tofu and vegetables)-- asparagus, mushroom, cabbage, kale and ginger. It's got a soy sauce-mirin dressing. Oh yeah! From the same book.

Kamut noodles with kale, arame seaweed, black sesame seeds, toasted sesame oil and ginger. This was ridiculous and so quick. A la Jae Steele's Get it Ripe.

Holy living hell this was delicious! Warm NEW POTATO potato salad with asparagus and kale and the first egg I've hardboiled in the last 11 or so years. Also some bacony bits. Amazing.

Fresh local strawberry shortcake. My first attempt at biscuits. Cashew cream. I might make this again tonight.

So yes, this is what I've been eating. Please accept this photo overload while I scrape together the story of what's been preventing me from writing.

Have you been enjoying spring's bounty? I hope so.

HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE!

The best and the worst week so far!

2011-05-18T02:02:00.002-03:00

Week 4

Monday, May 2

-1 c. curry leftovers (2)

-pita and baba ganoush 1/4 c. (0.5)
-lunch: raw carrot ginger cashew soup (3 servings)

-supper: rest of soup (3 servings) with rye crackers

Total: 8.5

Tuesday, May 3

-samosa (2)- that's right that thing was FULL of potatoes and peas!, hummus and pita
-Kopi colada with coconut and pineapple (no real fruit here I don't imagine), bourbon
-quick but homemade chili with garlic bread (2)
-carrot (1)
-1/2 Crowbar

Total: 5

Wednesday, May 4

-Breakfast at 2pm: tuno sandwich with 1/2 c.lettuce, tomato, kraut (1)
-supper: piece of toast with 1/2c. chili sauce (1)
-another piece of toast, tapioca pudding. Kinda rebelling against myself today.

Total: 2

Thursday, May 5

-miso soup with 1.5 c. carrot, enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms (3), 1c. spinach (1)
(That's right-- 4 servings of vegetables FOR BREAKFAST!)

-guacamole (1), sweet potato dip with cucumber (2)
-Magaritas with fresh lime juice (1), 1 serving of organic blue corn chips (these are too healthy not to count (1)! Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Total: 9

Friday, May 6

-smoothie with 1 c. blueberry, 1/2 banana (2.5)
-1 c. red pepper/mushroom/garlic/spinach/garlic in stir fry (2)

Total: 4.5

Saturday, May 7

-leftovers from last night (2)
-pakora--cabbage and potato (1) + 1 c. vegetables in salad (2)
-1/2 lime in Margarita (0.5)-- I'm getting the official word on how much lemon and lime juice count for-- until then, I will count as such

Total: 5.5

Sunday, May 8

-BLT with 1/2 c. lettuce and tomato. I don't frig around (1)
-Fried tofu and vegetable stir fry from Robie Food (6) + veg spring roll (1)-- I ate this in two sittings

Total: 8

Daily average for the week: 6.07-- Best so far!

Week 5 (this is where I really screwed the pooch):

Monday, May 9

-smoothie with 1 c. strawberry (2) + 1/2 banana (0.5)
-egg sandwich with 1/2 c. lettuce, tomato and green pepper (1)

Total total: 3.5

Tuesday, May 10

-BLT with 1/2 c. Fun Jen and tomato (1)
-Indian food combo from Taste of India (1.5)
-burger with 1/2c. Fun Jen, tomato (1)
-molten chocolate cake

Total: 3.5

Wednesday, May 11

-cake (yup. for breakfast. don't tell anyone)
-Thai fiddleheads 1 c. (2) with rice and tamarind chickpeas
-more chickpeas and rice
-sufficient number of delicious cupcakes

Total: 2

Thursday, May 12

-BELT with extra lettuce (1)
-Crownola-- Crowbar granola
-red lentil soup with 1 c. carrot/beet turnip (2), 1c. spinach (1), 1/2c. peas/corn

Total: 4.5

Friday, May 13

-miso soup with shitake, carrot (2), 2 c. spinach (2)

-hummus and delicious organic blue corn chips (2)
-margaritas with 1 lemon (1) Thanks, Cinco de Mayo!

Total: 7

Saturday, May 14

-hummus and chips
-pakora (1)
-tostada with lettuce, avocado, tomato (1)
-If I ate anything else it couldn't've had any vegetables because I didn't record it

Total: 2 yeesh!

Sunday, May 15

-smoothie with fresh mint and raw chocolate
-3 c. salad with tomato (3.25)
- scrambled eggs with 1 c. mushroom/green pepper, garlic (2)

Total: 5.25

Daily average for the week: 3.96

Week 1 Daily average: 4.93
Week 2 Daily average: 5.86
Week 3 Daily average: 4.88
Week 4 Daily average: 6.07
Week 5 Daily average: 3.96

Daily average overall: 5.14

Still not great, under what's recommeded by the most recent Canada Food Guide (7-8 min for adult Canadian women), but realistic. Apparently this is average for Canadians! According to the Canadian Community Health Survey, In 2008, 50.1% of Canadian females (6.8 million) and 37.0% of males (4.8 million) reported consuming fruits and vegetables 5 or more times per day. Call me sceptical, but I think people are overestimating. In most cases, I'm doing everything I can to eat as many vegetables as I can. Every meal I make at home, I actually use measuring cups for accuracy! Nobody's perect, but I think I'm doing pretty well.

How are you doing? How many servings of vegetables are you eating per day?

Try fiddleheads! Thai fiddleheads!

2011-05-12T16:28:00.000-03:00

Fiddleheads, fiddleheads in a dish... how many fiddleheads do you wish?

Gulai Pakis, Maritime-style, served with Tamarind Chickpeas.

Fiddleheads are a wonderful wild fern. You can't get 'em everywhere, but you can luckily get 'em here in the Maritimes. Friends of my brother's used to drive for 5 hours to get them each May when they weren't yet available in stores! At the time I thought that was ludicrous. Okay, I still kind of do, but at least now I get it. These awesome ferns are a rare, time-limited delicacy available in wet n' wild areas during parts of May and June around these parts. Although they're loaded with omega-3s and 6s, antioxidants, fibre and iron, they also have a natural toxin in them, so you should definitely cook 'em before you eat 'em.

Most folks fry the fheads in butter, maybe with some garlic, lemon or vinegar. Maybe I just haven't been invited to the right parties, but this is the only way I've ever heard of them being cooked. Delicious sure, but slightly ho-hum. So I did a little search around the ol' internet, and found that in Thailand-- who knew they even grew there?-- they cook 'em up in coconut and other typical Thai seasonings in a dish called Gulai Pakis. I made a variation of this yesterday and it was pretty awesome. I used dried galangal, kaffir lime leaves, and turmeric, I used red curry paste rather than shrimp paste, and sriracha and red chili flakes rather than the fresh hot peppers, but otherwise, I pretty much stuck to the recipe. It was pretty damned delicious. If you know someone who thinks fiddleheads taste dull (as my bf does), stew this up!

How do you serve this awesome spring fern?

Howz about them fiddleheads?

2011-05-07T19:26:00.001-03:00

I spent all day working my booth at the farmer's market. I worked alone but managed to duck out and score my first load o' fiddleheads of the season and some salad greens called Fun Jen. Thanks, Free Spirit Farms (and the ditch you likely picked the fiddleheads from)! Now, I will likely collapse and/or pretend to watch the Kentucky Derby but really drink bourbon. I'll cook these bad boys up later and let you know what I did with 'em.

Yes, my shirt says "Eat your f@#%'n vegetables!

How do you like to cook fiddleheads?

AN UNBEETABLE GLUTEN-FREE CAKE!

2011-05-05T16:04:00.001-03:00

This was our best effort at decorating the cake like the Type O Negative logo. The green icing was made with chlorophyll and the black icing was made from adding charcoal powder to a chocolate icing mix.

GUESS WHAT? You can put vegetables in your cake and it's truly delicious and not gross at all! Beets colour this cake a little red, but not much. The addition of fruit and vegetables make this cake nice n' moist. They makes me nice n' moist too. My pal Tracy and I adapted this from the least-horrendous (but still quite horrendous-- it called or gross Splenda!) gluten-free "Red Velvet Cake" recipe. Some people stoop so low as to add a bottle of red food colouring to their cake to make it red n' velvetty, but they're obviously not thinking clearly. Maybe they need a little iron? I suggest the consumption of beet cake, not weirdness-causing artificial dyes!

The cake was actually made to celebrate the life of Type O Negative's Pete Steele who died a year ago April, hence the gothiness and the lipstick made of black frosting.

Red Water (Christmas Mourning) Beet Cake

dry ingredients:

1 cup unrefined sugar

1 cup gluten-free flour mix or 1 cup other flour

1/4 cup cocoa (please use fair trade)

1 teaspoon flaxmeal

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

2c. shredded beets

1/2 an apple, chopped

1 tablespoon oil

1/4 cup applesauce or mashed banana

2 eggs or egg substitutes

1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar (only if using gluten-free flour mix)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.Prepare a 9x13x2 inch baking pan with vegetable cooking spray or two 9-inch cake pans. Sift together dry ingredients. Fold in wet ingredients (vinegar last) and mix just until combined. Pour into pan and distribute evenly. Bake for about 40 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Eat this cake. Count it toward your vegetables servings. Tell your mama.

This is probably the most PG photo that also shows the inside of the cake so you can check out the colour.

Another week of counting vegetables. I need your input!

2011-05-01T21:07:00.003-03:00

Friday, April 22

-2 c. salad mix (2)
-1 c. peppers, mushrooms, tomato (2)
-cake (1/2), cornchips (1)

Total: 5.5

Saturday

-1 c. pineapple (2)
-sushi innards: sweet potato, avo (1)
-kimchi (1/2), sandwich (kraut, tomato, lettuce)-- (1)

Total: 4

Sunday

-1 c. pineapple (2)
-1 c. salad mix and tomato (1)
-1/2 c. blueberries in yogurt (1)

Total: 4

Monday

-bigass omlette (spinach, mushrooms, tomato)-- (2)
-1 serving pineapple (1)
-sandwich with kraut, tomato, lettuce, peppers (1)

Total: 4

Tuesday

-3/4 c. strawberries (1.5), 1/2 c. blueberries (1), 1/2 banana (1/2) in smoothie= (3)
-some cooked dish which I don't recall: 1/2 c. corn/peas (1), 3/4c. tomato = (1.5)

Total: 4.5

Wednesday:

-1c. yellow/green peppers, parsnip, carrot (2), 1/2 c. peas/corn (1), 1/2c. spinach (1/2)

Total=3.5 What in hell I ate that day + why I only seemed to eat one meal is beyond me!

Thursday

-Taste of India meal!=yellow cabbage, mixed vegetable curry, chana masala with tomato, green beans= approx. 1.5 c. pure vegetables (3 servings)
-1 c. yellow peppers, garlic, enoki mushrooms, spinach (2)
-2 c. beet greens/lettuce (2)
-1/2 c. sauerkraut on toast (1)

Total: 8

Friday, April 29

-1 c. various vegetables in omelette- yellow peppers, tomato, spinach-- (2)
-1 c. beet greens + lettuce (1)

Total: 3. I expected to get fed a second time today ;(

Saturday, April 30

-1/2 c. sauerkraut (1)
-1.5 c. of various vegetables in Korean meal-- lettuce, daikon, carrot, spinach, sprouts, green onions, kimchi cabbage (3)

Total: 4

So, I realized part way through the week* it might not really be that helpful to you if I didn't list my vegetable and fruit consumption in context of my meals and snacks. Often, as you can see, I get lazy and just list the vegetables and amounts, but don't make it appetizing by letting you know HOW I ate them or what that looked like. Am I right? Would you like full disclosure? Do you wanna see the rest of what I eat? Would you like more pics? More recipes? Please let me know. I'll be concentrating more on this blog in the coming weeks.

I want your input on how I can proceed. How can I inspire you to eat more vegetables?!

* This week I was merely recording my intake and not concentrating on it as I sometimes do, thus the high intake at the end of the day ;)

Stir fry and hot dogs!

2011-04-21T23:14:00.004-03:00

Saturday, April 16

-This day was a big blur. Worked all the day at the market then just ate an insane amount of corn chips. Between the two types of samosas I had today and the Indian food (spinach dish and tomato dish) (3 servings)
-Not sure if corn chips can count for vegetable servings, but I ate a really awesome Organic type that has a lot of calcium, protein and fibre in it, and even though I ate a shitload of corn via these chips, I'm only gonna count it as (one serving)

Total: 4

Sunday

-Breakfast (at 1:30 pm or so) 2c. salad mix (2 servings) with 1/2 c. additional tomato and cucumber (1 serving)

At about 1 am I ate the contents of the above photo. I made the whole thing while I was on the phone, so it was kind of a blur. Cumin red vegetables (beets, carrots, corn,spinach), mashed potatoes with tamarind sauce, and chana masala (tomato). (5 servings)

Total: 8

Monday (apparently a snacky day):

-leftovers from the night before (1/2c= 1 serving)
-tomato soup (2 servings)
-edamame (1 serving)
-cake (yes, cake! More on this later!=1/2 serving)
-sandwich with various vegetables (1 serving)

Total: 5.5

Tuesday:

-2 c. salad mix
-Thai Thing with 1.5 c. cabbage, carrots, parsnips, 1/4c. spinach/jalapeno (1/2 serving), 1/4 c. corn (1/2 serving)= 4
-baguette sandwich with 1/2c. kraut, tomato, lettuce, olive, cucumber (1 serving)

Total: 7

Wednesday

-baguette sandwich with 1/2 c. vegetables listed above (1 serving)

-Then we had a midnight stir fry and veggie dogs! I didn't even consider that this combination was a li'l wacky until Brucifer mentioned it, but I guess it kind of was! This stir fry was HUGE and had 5 cups. of vegetables! We split it, so we each ate 5 servings! I hadn't eaten all day (other than hot cross buns, anyway) and actually had more vegetables than what's pictured here. I was pretty full. Featured vegetables were a beautiful organic orange pepper, corn, sundried tomatoes, a mass amount of cabbage (to make up for the lack of green leafies), carrots.

Total: 6

Thursday

-Earlier today we went to Heartwood and I slowly savoured one of my favourite dishes, a bean burger served with raw vegetable toppings and a HUGE side of leafy green vegetables and cabbage. That big pile o' goodness netted me (3 servings) of kale, red cabbage, raw onion, lettuce, avo, tomato.

-Ugh. I kind of made a stupidly large stirfry and ate 6 delicious servings of vegetables-- red pepper, cabbage, mushrooms and garlic. I probably didn't need this many.

Total: 9 !!

The great nacho FACE-OFF!

2011-04-15T22:16:00.001-03:00

Breakfast (at 3pm) today was a scramble with 5.5 servings of vegetables (spinach, mushrooms, peppers, garlic, tomatoes with toast. Yup, I was pretty full afterward.

While at the grocery store I got a pretty dope idea for dinner that could incorporate a bunch of vegetables and still feel kind of like junk food if you want it to. The photo has probably given it away by now: NACHOS!

Brucifer defnitely didn't protest, and it was clear we'd do our our own versions: his with ground beef, japalenos, sundried tomatoes and cheddar on a base of Spicy Nacho Doritos and mine on organic blue Que Pasa chips with green peppers, jalapenos, chopped tomatoes, spinach, kalamata olives, mushrooms, and daiya cheese. This meal allowed me to consume 3 servings (or 1.5 c) of delightful vegetables.

Daily total: 8.5 servings of vegetables!

Which plate o' nachos would you rather eat? It's okay... I won't be offended if you pick Brucifer's.

Full disclosure!

2011-04-15T01:29:00.000-03:00

Before we get into the thick of me counting my vegetable servings every day, I'll show you a couple of things I ate in the days prior to my beginning the official count. These peppers look better than they tasted. For some reason the buckwheat cooked strangely and I felt awkward about eating it. It got starchy and I got eerily full. Didn't use a recipe here, but perhaps I should've.

Brucifer and I checked out Threeman's, our pet name for the new Freeman's location in Fairview. This is the Grilled Vegetable Salad. They have it at all locations. I got it with hummus rather than tzaziki. It's a huge salad that I can't finish. It packs in about 4.5 servings of vegetables (3 servings or 1.5 cups of cooked and 1.5 servings or 1.5 cups of raw leafies) and is served with tasty toasts. Big fan of this meal.

MONDAY:

This was the best breakfast I've had in ages. A scramble with 2 servings (1 c.) of tomato, mushrooms, green pepper and 1 serving (1 c.) of tatsoi (green leafy spinach-tastealike/mini-collard- lookalike), 1 serving/1 c. of spicy salad mix, and some bonus kimchi. I ate this with sprouted grain toast with coconut butter, maple syrup and cinnamon. This is the best fucking breakfast I've had in ages. Same as the first sentence, but with swearing for lack of my being able to explain its awesomeness without it.

Later I had a sandwich with 1/2 c. of cucumber and tomato (1 serving)

Then apparently I had another sandwich-salad combo with 1/2 c. cucumber, green pepper and kimchi and a salad of tatsoi (1 c) =2 servings in total for the meal

MONDAY's vegetable servings= 7 which meets the MINIMUM recommendation for adult Canadian women according to the Canada Food Guide. I was full all day. Almost too full. 7 servings is pushing it for me. I think I can eat a lot, but I'm still just a l'il girl. Vegetables are filling!

I was telling Brucifer how excited I was that I'd eaten 7 servings of vegetables, and he told me he hadn't had any yet today. This was midnight or so. He was upset that I didn't tell him we had cucumber. He then made himself this cute snack of cucumbers, sriracha and salt n' pepa from which he shaped himself the best cucumber pentagram he could muster.

TUESDAY:

Brucifer and I shared some "Thai Thing." We each had 3.5 servings of vegetables (blue potato, carrot, jalapeno, orange pepper, tatsoi and spinach).

At about 1 a.m, I made myself some sushi that was made in such ravenous haste it was too hideous to photograph. I packed about a half cup of vegetables (1 serving) into it.

Daily total: 4.5 servings.

WEDNESDAY:

Breakfasts can feature a lot of vegetables! I managed to pack 3 servings of mushrooms, carrots, swiss chard into this soup and ate it all (and was pretty full). Eating miso soup for breakfast is an awesome way to pack in some vegetables before you head out the door. It doesn't take too long to make (15 min or so), but if you're in a rush, a smoothie might be a better choice. Yes, friends, I PROMISE to do a miso soup post soon!

Later, Brucifer and I shared some fried rice featuring carrots, spinach and corn. My portion had about 1.5 servings of vegetables.

Daily total: 4.5 servings. I can already see a pattern emerging. When I get up late (which is most days), I tend to only eat one or two major meals, therefore finding it difficult to pack in enough vegetables. I usually don't get hungry enough to make a huge meal late at night and often don't eat until 1pm or so on days I get up late.

THURSDAY:

Brucifer and I clinked glasses while we drank some delicious Purple Counts for breakfast this morning. They were particularly friggin' delicious and each had about 2 servings of blueberries (as you can see, I'm keener on the vegetables than the fruit) and 1/2 serving of banana. I ate some more banana later. =3 fruit servings

This is what I had for supper. I just wanted some beans on toast like the olden days. It wasn't as tasty as the days of yore, but it was quick. I made myself have a l'il salad with 1 serving of spinach and 1 serving of tomatoes and orange peppers. Total 2 servings. Today's total: 5 servings

How many servings of vegetables and fruit did you manage to eat today? It's okay if it's low. Mine's only this high because I'm making a concerted effort in order to solidify this habit for life. I want to help inspire you to eat more. Let me know how I can do that for you!

TUNO: the tuna that thrills you

2011-04-08T13:18:00.000-03:00

I feel so irresponsible, like I've left you ill-informed, in the dark. Maybe you've been huddled in a corner weeping because you wanted to eat a tunafish sandwich, but you don't eat fish anymore and didn't know what to do. I can't believe I've never even told you about tuno!

I've had this recipe in my roster for 10 years. If you're a close friend, you've probably had this at my house, at a potluck, or seen it in a cookbook or recipe exchange. This is my go-to recipe. I usually make it once a week or so. It's one of the quickest meals I know of, and I've just discovered a new innovation-- adding pickles! Here's how to get 'er done!

TUNO!

1 can chickpeas
juice of half a lemon
2 stalks celery diced, diced onion, minced pickle (optional)
1 tsp. or more kelp powder
2 tbsp. veganaise (or regular mayonnaise), or more or less to taste
onion and/or garlic powder to taste (optional)
cayenne powder if you like it spicy!

Mash chickpeas with potato masher. Add lemon juice, diced celery or other vegetables, kelp powder, mayo, onion or garlic powder, cayenne and stir. Serve between pieces of healthy bread,on a bed of greens, or grilled with sauerkraut or some sort of cheese to make a tuno melt! Serve. Takes approx. 5 minutes and makes enough for a few sandwiches.

Tuno is so awesome for so many reasons. Firstly, it takes only a few minutes to make, and it tastes goddamned amazing. Secondly, make a sandwich out out of this and you get a ton of awesome fibre to sweep the garbage outta your intestines-- especially with the addition of a couple of vegetable servings in the tuno mixture or in your sandwich. Thirdly, you're using kelp powder which has hundreds of vital trace minerals from the sea including one we're often deficient in: iodine! Your thyroid needs iodine. A healthy metabolism depends on it!

Anyway, as a former tuna lover, this recipe always has and always thrilled me and fulfilled me. Hope it does the same for you. Holla back and let a sistah know!

Hot toddies'll waarm* your everything

2011-04-01T16:50:00.017-03:00


Crown Royal will do in a pinch.

I never expected to feel compelled to make this post in April! There's such a gross storm a brewin' outside-- rain, snow, hail, repeat. Yesterday was 100% gorgeous outside and I took my bare legs for a walk in my new mini jeanskirt. Today, by comparison, is really just the pits. I got super soaked and really cold today walking out in this crud today. I've been home for an hour and half, and I'm just nicely starting to warm up.

I give all the props to my hot toddy!

I throw the term hot toddy around a lot in the winter, especially when my kith and kin are sick. It's a favourite home remedy of mine. While there are no hard n' fast rules regarding what a hot toddy must include, generally speaking, a dark hard liquor like rum, brandy or whisky should be the base, mixed with hot water, lemon and honey.

The very first hot toddy I made, way back in 2004, was pretty hilarious. I used equal parts Jack Daniels, honey and lemon. No water. No friggin' around. Pretty sure Emily felt no pain after downing this ill-advised science experiment. Many years later, I still don't frig around when preparing hot toddies. I don't like to make 'em predictable or painless. I want 'em to hit ya upside the head like a big burlap sack o' bricks, but then get you pretty gunned, or at least sufficiently warm n' fuzzy so as to not feel said smack upside the head.

My hot toddy usually goes something like this. I get a little more extreme if I'm treating a cold. Hell, I'll just tell you my extreme version and you can dumb it down from there if you like, although I recommend going all the way!**

HOT TODDY to make you WAARM!

1-2 shots of whisky or rum
juice of a quarter of a lemon, or more if you like
1 tsp. honey
1 tsp. grated ginger
2 whole peppercorns
2 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
pinch of hot-as-hades cayenne powder
just-boiled water to fill the mug

If you don't want stuff floating around in your mug, you could use a teaball or piece of muslin. I like to chew on the pieces of ginger, which is definitely medicinal if you're ailin' from a stupid cold or flu.

Anyway, the noble ol' hot toddy is a favourite of mine during cold nights, when I'm illin' or when I just want a hot drink and some whisky at the same time.

Recommended brands of rum: Ironworks (local), or Sailor Jerry (strong as hell + spiced).

Recommended whiskies: Glenora (local), Bulleit Bourbon (my all-around fave liquor).

HAPPY DRANKIN'!... I mean.... waarming up n' gettin' well.

*old folks around these parts, especially those from the South Shore of Nova Scotia, sometimes pronounce "warm" more like "arm" than like "storm." It's hilarious. When you wanna really stress that you're warm, this is pretty effective. And funny. At least to me. And my Dad.

**for my friends that don't drink alcohol, you can omit the alcohol and this is still a pretty delicious and effective drink. Maybe you could put a couple shots of ginger beer (Propeller if you live handy me) in instead.

Wanna know how many vegetables I ate today?

2011-03-31T23:17:00.001-03:00

First, let me show you a photo of baked goods!

What kinds of things do I do at 2 a.m.? One of them is make whoopie pies! These were gone by 8 a.m. Hadn't made 'em in years, but they were so good I think I started a recurring trend rather than getting the craving out of my system. They had oats in them, so they're healthy ;)

So as you may have picked up, I'm trying to eat as many vegetables as I can. Some days are better than others. Today's "breakfast" (at 1pm again) is a vegetable improvement over yesterday's. It took a few more minutes, but it was worth it. Making my sandwich open-face style allowed for double the vegetable content (which could still be higher, and many times it will be). I also added a shredded carrot and beet to my spicy greens. Yes, yesterday's salad was just greens, olives, dressing and homemade vegan parmesan.

Estimated vegetable servings at breakfast: 3
snack/lunch (chili): 2
"supper" (guacamole with peppers and corn chips): 1.25 (no, I'm not including the corn chips!)

Total servings so far today: 6.25

Oh yes, I wanted chai tonight. I don't have any teabags kicking around, didn't feel like cleaning my frying pan to roast spices, so I decided to just make a single mug full. It wasn't as strong as I liked. I'm gonna perfect this and then I'll share it with you.

Brucifer's creaming adventure + vegetables for days!

2011-03-31T02:36:00.001-03:00

Sometimes Brucifer likes to help me with the baking. Here, he's creaming the sugar and butter. I taught him the technique and he got really into it, suggesting that nobody has never creamed better than he creamed that day. He's making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies which disappeared too quickly to be caught on camera. He actually made them from start to finish by his precious little self. Yes, he bakes in his jean jacket.

Last week I got home from the market extremely excited that I could get local tomatoes, cucumbers and spicy mixed greens. Thank you, greenhouses! I made a l'il celebratory salad with my sprouts, some herbed tofu, and the tamarind sauce from Unique Asian Catering. FRAICHE!

I picked up another stir fry pack from the local health food store. It was so full they had to tape it shut with stickers. I fried it all up and made a ludicrously-humongous stir fry which we ate with basmati rice and a drizzle of creamy tahini! Hot + crunchy vegetablely goodness! Not much tops the deliciousness that this simple dish can deliver. I power-ate this, despite my own firm suggestion against doing so.

I didn't make this meal, as you can probably tell from the (*gasp!*) disposable plate. It came from Just Spring Roll in Park Lane mall. I love big heaping plates of vegetables consumed in malls. It doesn't seem likely, and it's just so wonderful. Malls are so gross. They seem to zap my energy. Vegetables give that back in spades! Here's my review of the meal on Yelp, where you can see that I ate this in five minutes so we wouldn't be late for seeing hometown-proud "Hobo with a Shotgun."

I've been making my fruit crisps lately with my Crowbar granola on the bottom, fruit, then the normal crumble on top. I was inspired by a petite spitfire of a chef who asked why one WOULDN'T have two layers of crisp?!

At first I was making Indian curry, then I decided to make Thai. Then I decided to put noodles underneath. I was feeling very wild and crazy when I made those zany decisions. The decisions resulted in mad deliciousness.

This is what I had for breakfast this morning. It was kinda late, like 1:30 or something. I had vegetables for breakfast. That was awesome.

It just occurred to me that you don't know what I measure vegetables in! Well, I use this grungy old liquid measure which the lined wore off years ago. This is about 4 cups of vegetables-- in this case: turnip, carrot and GORGEOUS SPRING KALE! WOO! I almost flipped my lid when I saw this at the market last week. I probably screamed like the little girl that I am.

Tonight's supper was pretty badass I must say, and it had three components, the concept over which Brucifer gets all giddy. I'm pretty keen on the one-dish meal-- for the lack of dishes, for ease of digestion, and for the (little) time it takes. The meal was pretty heavy on the legume content- not supremely balanced, but nourishing and tasty it was! All three are new recipes. In the top right corner we have "Blackened Chickpeas" from The Indian Vegan Kitchen: More Than 150 Quick and Healthy Homestyle Recipes. This recipe actually calls for black tea which I thought was pretty neat. It also called for tamarind sauce, and I gladly dumped in a bunch of tamarind sauce from our market friend. This was Brucifer's favourite part of the meal.

Moving clockwise, we have the straight-forwardly-named dish "Carrots and Turnips" from the same book, which I borrowed today brand new (I'm 99% positive I'm the first one to take this out-- the book is pristine!) from the library. I also went wild and chopped up some kale and put it in there. The vegetables are basically fried up with some cumin seeds and turmeric and some garam masala thrown in at the end (so the aroma doesn't fade away. Important!). I'll probably adopt this method for simple Indian-flavoured vegetables.

The slop at the bottom was last night's supper and tonight's leftovers, left on the stove all day (not cooking). Yesterday this was subpar, but tonight, it was unbelievable! I wouldn't've recognised this dish if I'd fallen over it. I started to make a urad dal (black lentils) dish last night that I'd made before, and part way through I decided to use the recipe on the back of the spice mix we bought that was designed for urad dal, Dal Makhani Masala. Essentially, you cook up some black lentils and in another pot throw in a heaping half cup of tomatoes (I used canned) and a tablespoon of the Dal Makhani Masala (which you should find at any well-stocked Indian grocery) and let it reduce. Add this to the lentils, as well as a half cup of coconut milk (it called for cream) and some coconut oil (it called for butter). This turned superb overnight, so I recommend if you make this, make it ahead. I also salted this and threw in some Bragg's for extra pizazz.

What was the most delicious meal you ate today?

#organicmetalbands

2011-03-22T22:31:00.000-03:00

Yeah, so for a couple of hours tonight, twitter was trending quite possibly my most ideal #hashtag trend ever. @pattonoswalt started the #organicmetalbands trend. I absolutely cannot leave this kind of thing alone. I love wordplay and I was completely obsessed with compiling these. Um... metal bands and healthy food? There's perhaps no twitter hashtag trend more perfect for Beany von Doom. I was continually inspired by the ideas of others, the best ones of which I'll share with you, but first: here are mine and Brucifer's best #organicmetalband names:

Oatpeth, Marilyn Branson, Rob Zombpea, North End Nettle All-Stars (local band), Soyvod, Satyricorn, Amon Amaranth, Crowbarley, Rice Dream Theater, Free-Range Bison B.C, Hing Diamond, Nettle Church, Six Beet Under, Starch Enemy, Gojiberria, Impaled Nazerbean, Killing Yolk, Fig Destroyer, As I Lay Daiya, Darkscone

and in my #raregrains trend, we have: Teff Leppard, Farrosmith, Job's Tears for a Cowboy

Brucifer's gems were: Grand Funk Raddichio, Nashville Parsley, Suicidal Tempehburger, Morbid Angelhairpasta, Sarcophagoatcheese, Type Oat Negative.

Other favourites other users came up with were: Tofu Fighters, Tempehror, Yngwie Mangosteen, Death Spell Omega-3 and my all-round fave, Sepulturnip!

Anyway, I'll probably continue to come up with these over the next few days. You can check out my twitter feed if you're interested. For the rest of you shrugging your shoulders, thanks for letting me get this out of my system.

Just a snippet of the fun I had tonight on twitter. Definitely the most fun I've had posting by myself ;)

Kale seitan
#organicmetalbands for life!

If you can think of any others, please share them with me! You will get lotsa cool points with me then.

13 great moments from the last 12 days

2011-03-17T16:16:00.000-03:00

Free-style pear-blueberry crisp with Crowbar hemp granola on the bottom and normal crisp stuff on the top!

Crisp for breakfast with yerba mate, almond milk and maple? Don't mind if I do!

Red lentil soup is always feelin' hot hot hot!

One afternoon while I was preparing some notes teaching a course on Alternative Diets for a nutrition school where I teach, I was apparently fascinated by the smiley face at the bottom of my mug. This mug was hand-painted by my wonderful friend Elena for me on my birthday last year.

While I didn't intend for this to look like a swastika, it kind of does. Toast with Daiya cheese, oregano and black sesame seeds: a snack for Brucifer. This pattern was originally a Hindu symbol of good luck, anyway, so whatever.

Oatmeal for ladytimes. I was in pain and had to teach later so I made some oatmeal (local-- from Speerville, NB) with dates, turmeric + ginger (anti-inflammatory), blueberries, Omega Crunch maple shelled flax (from NS), and I think I threw some 70% dark chocolate and some chocolate protein powder in here too. This isn't even next-level oatmeal. I can do better-- I'll show you some day.

Here's some genmaicha (roasted brown rice green tea) with matcha from Kyoto! It looked amazing, topped with a sauerkraut lid as always. This is an old flowering tea pot whose handle broke off. I use it a lot for steepin' stuff. It holds a lot of liquid. Look at the lovely patterns in the teapot!

After the market last Saturday, we needed to use some of the wonderful tamarind sauce we've been admiring forever from Unique Catering. They put it on all their Indian dishes and it's such a great complement. I have no idea how to make this sauce, so we bought a bottle from them for the amazing price of $3. Oh yeah, I made some sort of free-style Indian dish with some Yukon Gold mashed and served it with some of Mom's pickled beets.

It will be clear soon how proud I am of my first batch of spouts. I actually made two varieties of sprouts, and they're both wonderful! On the left, we have Cloverfield, my red clover sprouts, and on the right, A.L.F, my alfalfa sprouts. How easy was it? Really easy. How delicious are they? Quite? How nourishing are they? Even moreso than they are delicious. 3 days and you've got sprouts!

Yeah, okay, so I'll probably put sprouts on everything for the next couple of weeks. This sandwich was deluxe: slabs of Acadiana Soy Thai tofu (from NS, though), tatsoi from Free Spirit Farms's greenhouse, sprouts from my kitchen, pickled ginger, Squirrely Bread from Silver Hills bakery, homemade veganaise and Sriracha. OH, and avocado. A really tall and broad sandwich. Amazing day.

After I got home from class on Tuesday, I decided to polish off the rest of last night's hummus we made, as well as the crumbs from my favourite corn chips ever, Que Pasa blue! I chucked in some sprouts and after this photo was taken I threw in some more spouts and some hot sauce. Glory, glory! What a nice, quick snack!

I wasn't kidding about the sprouts, was I? An open faced-avo sandwich with sprouts and hot sauce. Maybe some pickled ginger and definitely some mayonaise. This was killer.

Brucifer almost made me supper after class. Instead, together we made what he was thinking of making: tofu (with garlic, soy, Korean red pepper and lemon marinade/baste), garlic homefries, and a balsamic-ginger carrot stir fry with corn and some collard-like greens I got from the market.

It's been a very busy but delightful week with a few moments for decent meals and a lot of time for healthy small meals/snacking! What fun snacks did you rip into this week?!

JAVAVALHALLA DRANK!

2011-03-13T21:35:00.000-03:00

Coffee and I have never really been tight pals. Since my surgery, my intestines have been more tolerant of coffee, but drinking it still affects my nerves negatively. I feel like a maniac-- I get agrressive, talk too quickly (yes, even more than usual!) and my thinking is kind of cloudy so I kind of say dumb things. Although I have no interest in making coffee a habit (yerba maté is my caffeinated drink of choice), I was determined to test my limits of coffee-- to see how much I could tolerate, and seeing if I could notice its supposed wonderful affects. As it made me feel so awful, I was left curious as to why millions of people worldwide are hooked on this stuff (other than it being a hot, tasty beverage that people tend to drink in groups or as a private morning ritual which could be reason enough itself).

Unrelated to this experiment, I borrowed Ruth Tal's reFresh: Contemporary Vegan Recipes From the Award Winning Fresh Restaurants from the library. There's a pretty sweet section on espresso smoothies, and it gave me a pretty splendid idea. I'd been made hip to the idea of putting coffee into a smoothie during a David Wolfe smoothie demo on youtube, I believe--and I liked it. I think he used a teaspoon of ground coffee, which I've done before and it's pretty good-- but likely sort of difficult to digest, and a bit harsh.

After reading the espresso shake section in reFresh, I, over the course of a few days, formulated a smoothie that feels SO DAMNED GOOD inside me-- filling me with both mental and physical energy-- and it also tastes amazing in my maw. It's absolutely blowing my mind right now, and I've had one every day. I hadn't had a banana in about six months, so this bananafest is wonderful too!

JAVAVALHALLA DRANK

double shot of espresso or coffee
3/4 c. almond milk
1 frozen banana
3-4 ice cubes
1 T. almond butter
1 tsp. maca powder (preferably gelatinzed)
1 scoop vegan proteins+ chocolate protein powder (or something else)
1/4 tsp. good quality cinnamon
3 medjool dates (or 1 tsp. maple syrup)
2 tsp. chia seeds (or flax)

Why the hell would I make this smoothie like I did? Well, I wanted something that would balance my blood sugar and give me a chance of assimiliating this coffee in somewhat or a reasonable fashion, thus the inclusion of protein powder, almond butter (fat, protein) and chia (fibre)--the three main factors in blood sugar balancing. I upped the cinnamon to a quarter teaspoon as this amount has been shown to help regulate blood sugar levels. Maca, a miraculous tuber from South America, is an adaptogen-- protecting and nourishing our hormonal system-- calming us or energizing us, depending on our body's needs. Amazing stuff. It also imparts a lovely but strong caramel taste when you pair it with the right foods.

This smoothie is stupidly good. You could also probably put some greens powder in here as well (today I used Amazing Grass chocolate greens), or some cacao powder. Anyway, for those of you who aren't hypersensitive to caffeine to the extent that you can't have it at all, for those of you who would like to enjoy coffee, but it wigs you out a bit, and for those of you who enjoy a delicious smoothie, the Javavalhalla Drank is THE drank to be drank.

Have you tried it? How was that for ya?

*Sorry about the photo. It looked great on the display screen of my camera ;) I promise to replace this next time I make this drank and the light is better. Just want to get this post out!

Four winning meals with a 50% chance of failure

2011-03-05T23:51:00.000-04:00

CURRY! Can't get enough Indian food. I've said it before and I'll say it again: we eat Indian food probably 80% of days. This is an old throwback recipe. Decided to take a photo before it was cooked so you could see the pretty blue potatoes.

Was hungry like the wolf the other night. Crazy wildly, ravenously famished/have-been-neglecting-to-eat-while-working typa hungry. Quickly thought: "make parsley pesto pasta!"-- so I did. Steamed some already-peeled squash, carrots and parsnip and the whole thing was done in like a half hour or so. Pesto was made with sunflower seeds and pasta was my beloved kamut. This hit the spot niiicely!

I was simmering ingredients for miso soup while rushing around trying to get ready to leave the house, and had the lid slightly off this pot while doing so. I came back and the broth had ALL evaporated-- every drop!

....so I took the fail and made it into a win by quickly making up a dressing consisting solely of miso paste dissolved in some cooking sake. Friggin' divine, and much more zen than the time
I got drunk and spilled sake in a temple in Kyoto.

Yeah, so tonight Brucifer and I were making supper and we smelled burning. Uh, this is what was INSIDE THE OVEN ON FIRE! This was the first time in all my years in the kitchen when something was totally afire, but it went okay I guess. No casualties and since we don't have a smoke detector in the building, the annoying alarm didn't go off. Obviously the chance of us dying in our sleep was a downside to this. Note to self: call landlord.

Luckily, our supper was totally fine and great and we dined on this quick and easy meal: cumin lime baked tofu, sweet potato and blue potato garlic fries, and stir-fried carrot, napa and tatsoi (first time for this awesome green) with parsley pesto and a bit o' balsamic.

Anyway, Charlie Sheen and I are winning this week. Must be all the tiger blood I've been bangin'.

The Purple Count

2011-03-05T22:33:00.000-04:00

What's better than a bigass five pound box of frozen wild local blueberries? Not a frig of a lot if it's winter and you're kind of sick of it! Good morning, delicious blue wonderorbs!

What do I detest about this blog editor? A lot. What don't I hate? This amazing smoothie.

I promise you this won't become a smoothie blog, but I'm pretty proud of myself that I've been actually eating breakfast, as I've been pretty lax on this lately (read: the last few years). The strange schedule that I keep messes me up in the appetite. This smoothie was gorgeous and the colour reminded me of both this awesome Playskool vampire figure and the Count from Sesame Street, thus the name. Here's how to make it:

THE PURPLE COUNT

1 c. almond milk
2/3 c. blueberries
1 banana
1 tbsp. chia
1 scoop vegan proteins+ vanilla
1 tsp. gelantized maca powder
1 tsp.matcha powder
1 tbsp. hemp oil
bunch o' cinnamon
handful of shredded coconut
1 tbsp. Nova Greens
2 medjool dates

Wow-- I actually thought I might've tooled this one up by putting too many ingredients in it. Instead, I got a thick, not too sweet, delicious purple smoothie. It felt awesome, imparting awesome nutrients, nourishing me with sustained energy. I'm so glad my body knows how to use nutrients now! HAHA. It's great.

Meals made while feeling like a lunatic

2011-02-27T19:58:00.001-04:00

On the night of the full moon, I went kind of crazy and made a bunch of food all within an hour. I chopped cabbage for sauerkraut, made some roasted beet dip and cooked up a batch of rice pudding from brown rice. I listened to :wumpscut: and danced a lot. I thought I might turn into a werewolf, but I didn't.

I worked all day at the market, ate the rice pudding at the market for breakfast, shared a chickpea roll, a pakora, a samosa and salad drizzled with delicious tamarind sauce from Unique Catering with my brother at lunchtime, then made myself this quick orange and purple plate for a snack. The plate features: kalamata olives, purple carrot sticks, kimchi, and roasted beet dip. Pretty dope.

It may have been later that night that I made these. I was still feeling wild, fast and furious and these were really quick to prepare. I prepared some mung bean noodles and forgot to put them in the rolls until the end. It was awesome to be able to make these fresh spring rolls in the winter. I was given some produce by a lovely friend of mine as it was being given away at her work. I've been pretty much refusing to buy out of season produce, but I will eat it if it's given to me. These spring rolls featured Acadiana Soy tofu, mung bean noodles, lettuce, shredded carrot, green onions and possibly some other stuff, rolled in rice paper. I made a quick sauce with almond butter rather than peanut butter (I was out of pb), rice vinegar, water, ginger and sriracha. Pretty fresh.

Here I made some dark miso soup featuring shitake mushrooms, nappa cabbage, baby bok choy, grated ginger, broken up kamut spaghetti, fried tofu, topped with green onions, splashed with shoyo soy sauce, littered with korean red pepper powder (gochu), and cooled down with some cooking sake. OH YEAH! Not exactly a traditional miso soup, but I'm not exactly a traditional gal.

I'm really sorry this doesn't look as beautiful as it tasted. It's called Acorn Squash Poriyal (even though I used butternut) and I served it with some plain brown rice. It was brutally delicious and pretty quick to make.

Some day I do hope to be able to take a decent photo of a meal indoors at night. Until then, we all suffer. I made this meal at midnight for Brucifer to welcome him home from his rock n' roll vacation. It's basically an old-style curry that we used to make a lot together when we first started dating. It's really easy, versatile and delicious. I made some yellow rice a la Manjula to accompany it. Wowzers.

Missed Meals Vol. 2

2011-02-22T01:34:00.000-04:00

Yes indeed I HAVE eaten in the last 11 days. Here are some of the vegetabley things you haven't seen me eat before:

This oatmeal dish was inspired by this Carrot Cake Oatmeal. The best part about checking out this recipe was the discovery of the mixture of pure coconut milk with maple syrup to make a new sweet topping that rivals icing. Whoa, Nelly!

Standard lentil soup for around here

Miso soup with enoki mushrooms, kamut soba, carrots, napa cabbage, shitakes and chia seeds.

Some sort of Indian dish with beets and barbeque flavoured mung beans (a neat concept which I will aim to perfect).

Spicy miso with sriracha, tofu, noodles, nappa, cabbage, enoki and shitake.

Skipped meals

2011-02-10T22:12:00.000-04:00

It's been inordinately insane here at VV headquarters. You've missed a few of my meals. Allow me to fill you in.

Canadian winters are awesome for some things, namely cooling things off quickly. Put it outside and it'll be cool in no time!

This pie was stupidly good. I'm not a food photographer and this photo looks particularly gross, but trust me-- vegetables in pie format are an experience unmatched. I can't believe I actually bothered to make this pie, as I've been thinking about it for months. My good pal Kevin made this pie a few months ago and gave me a slice. His was a ten (at least), and my first attempt here was a 7.5-- but still stupidly great. The recipe can be found here.

Oh yeah, I had a party for Lunar New Year. I forgot to take photos, so I staged these ones after the fact.

One of my lovely guests, Laura, suggested it would be fun to put flowering tea in the Crystal Head vodka bottle. She was right. After the guests left, Bruce begged me to make cookies, so we made these peanut butter pillows. Also stupidly good and highly recommended.

I wish a few things about this soup. I wish a) that I copied down the recipe that I made up, b) that I took the time to make this next-day soup like I did the day before, c) that I put enoki mushrooms in this soup. Basically, the soup I made for the Lunar New Year party was perhaps the best soup I've ever made and I have no idea how to recreate it. DAMN, though! Some day I'm just kickin' it, I will make this happen again. The main culprits: shitake mushroom/kombu dashi/broth, shitakes, kombu, turnip, cabbage, yam noodles (they have 0 calories and are awesome), carrots cut in rolling wedges a la Cooking with Dog, and fried tofu balls. I think I threw in some sake and some soy sauce too. The first soup (complete with enoki mushrooms) simmered for hours. This was obviously part of the awesomeness.

I was teaching at the nutrition school this week, and I got the students to track where their food came from for a few days. I was so stressed out I hardly made a decent meal for myself all week, rather opting for mass amounts of sauerkraut and homemade garlic mayo delivered on various carby vehicles. A couple days ago, I grabbed a stir fry pack from the health food store which contained a lot of peppers. I don't generally buy peppers during the winter because they come from far away, but since the stir fry mix is cuttings from vegetables that would otherwise be thrown out, I feel it's okay. Anyway, this looks pretty hilarious-- like a plate of Chinese food with red sauce-- but really it's just a simple stir fry with beet-stained tofu.

Tonight's awesome meal contained onions (I had one tiny one in the crisper) and sesame oil since Bruce is at work. Here we have balsamic-maple brushed baked tofu, maple-nutmeg mashed turnip, arame and carrots with onion, cabbage and black and white sesame. Oh yeah, and pickled beets, 'cuz they're the bomb.

Root vegetable stir-fry and other dandy rigs

2011-01-24T14:41:00.002-04:00

The other day I saw a recipe for a root vegetable stirfry and it blew my mind a little. I'd never thought to do that. What a wicked idea! So I set out to appropriate it. Although Bruce still claims to not like vegetables, there are certain vegetables he likes even less than others, and turnip is one of them. This root vegetable stir-fry had a ton of turnips which he didn't even notice. Carrots, beets, turnips, and parsnips sliced thinly and stir-fried with a sweet and sour sauce (mirin*, soy sauce, lime juice, garlic, ginger, sesame oil). Turnip, rest your weary battle-worn body. You have prevailed once again! Let it be known that I've always had faith in you. Bruce also hates toasted sesame oil "right up there with mushrooms and onions" and he still liked this which was great.

I decided to make cinnamon rolls out of sugar cookie dough at 1:30 in the morning. I'd been thinking about making these for months. Bruce got leftovers for breakfast. "You're dandy," he told me this morning. "Of all the rigs, you're the dandiest."

Awww :)

*Mirin is a sweet Japanese rice wine. Hopefully you can easily get it at Asian groceries, or I'll be screwed next time I have to buy this without a discount. It's pretty expensive from a health food store.

Scotian Kimchi Chigae

2011-01-23T16:36:00.000-04:00

I have a headcold. I've been working diligently to burn this cold out of my system with fiery foods. I've been making insane hot toddies, employing all sorts of food cures: Garlic, ginger, black pepper, cayenne, sriracha, lemon, honey, shitake mushrooms, miso, sauerkraut, umeboshi plum, licorice, thyme, fennel, a ton of tea and lots of vegetables. Last night, after having to miss one of the two actual workdays of my week where I have to go outside, I really wanted to make sure it didn't hang around and stop me this week. I tried to recall the spiciest dish I've ever eaten, and I fondly remembered the kimchi ramen soup I'd eaten in Korea with my brother.

Unfortunately, it's almost midnight, and I don't have any kimchi.... But I do have sauerkraut! Kimchi is, put simply, spicy sauerkraut. I'm certainly oversimplifying it here, as there're many special methods to making it, but when you break it down, this is what you've got. I turned to one of my most trusted authorities on Korean cooking, the girls from Crazy Korean Cooking to show me the ropes.

Here's my version:

Scotian Kimchi Chigae

1 tbsp. toasted sesame oil
2 lrg. cloves garlic, sliced
1T. minced ginger
2 c. sauerkraut, chopped, juice reserved
2 carrots, sliced thinly
1 lb. tofu, cubed
2 c. broth (in my case-- homemade shitake/kombu)
3 tsp. gochu (Korean red pepper powder)
1 bundle of mung bean noodles

In a pot, heat the sesame oil. Add garlic and stir for a minute or so. Add cubed tofu and fry for 4 minutes or so. Add chopped kimchi, gochu powder and mix to combine. Add carrots, ginger and, broth, and some sauerkraut juice. Bring to boil. Cover and lower to a medium-low for 15 minutes or until carrots are tender. If much of the broth has evaporated, add some more sauerkraut juice. Add the mung bean noodles and simmer for a couple of minutes- they only take a couple of minutes to soften. I chopped up the shitakes from my broth and threw 'em in, for extra immune-boosting and flavo(u)r-flav.

While this soup didn't boast the complex flavours of Kimchi Chigae, as the kimchi tends to be left for a long time to ferment with the gochu, kniting the flavours together in a magical way, this soup was certainly awesome in a pinch, and I'm pretty pumped on my hilarious Nova Scotian bastardization (with all due respect) of this wonderful, medicinal dish. If you're sick and you don't have any sauerkraut, it'll do in a pinch. I noticed my head clear quite a bit last night, but this morning, it's about 80% gone (the congestion, not my head). Pretty amazing. I've only had this cold for a couple of days and now it's practically gone. BURNINATING THE COLLLD!

RATatouille, Nine Jewels and a Whore of a Meal

2010-08-23T15:46:00.010-03:00

Yesterday we made a crazy brunch before we went to Beach Meadows beach in Liverpool with friends. We made some Indian homefries, Caesar salad, and Puttanesca Scramble (ok, Bruce made eggs!) that looked nothing like the one from Vegan Brunch for several reasons I could explain but I won't. I was full all day, but in a good way.

I'm about to pick up my fourth CSA box tomorrow and so far I've been doing a pretty killer job making sure nothing rots despite the fact that we pretty much get too many vegetables for us to consume. If we ate three meals, it'd be easier, but we don't really do that. Anyway, following this suggestion from Buy Local NB (New Brunswick) facebook group:

Ratatouille-a summer vegetable delight! Add olive oil to your favorite glass roasting dish, toss in quartered tomatoes, chunked onions, whole garlic cloves and chunked peppers. Roast for 10 min at 400 degrees. Now add in cubed zucchini, eggplant and fresh basil, oregano and a little thyme. Roast for an additional 10 min. Serve with pasta, rice or my personal favorite, new potatoes!

I made some Ratatouille for the first time. There is is, pictured above! It was pretty bomb and helped me use up a lot of vegetables before the next box arrives!

And lastly, here's a supper from a few days ago. It's an Indian meal from my favourite Indian cookbook called North Indian Navratan Shak. The Navratan parts means "nine jewels" which refers to the common number of vegetables in the dish. I actually had all the vegetables on hand that this recipe called for: potatoes, eggplant, broccoli, celery, carrots, string beans, tomato and onions-- but I used green onion instead of white onion as Bruce abhors onions. Anyway, this dish is pretty large and insane but we ate without rice or anything so we ended up eating about 3 cups of cooked vegetables each which means we each ate 6 servings in one meal!. Niiiice!

I grunt, you grunt we all grunt for Blueberry Grunt!

2010-08-21T22:07:00.008-03:00

Hot damn! Why did it take me 31 years to bother making Blueberry Grunt?! OMG! It's so easy! So delicious! So perfect! A bit of biscuitty goodness in a hot, sweaty mess of sweet berries. It's almost too good to be true. It takes about 25 minutes from start to finish. Go pick some berries, buy some berries, steal some berries from the supermarket-- whatever you have to do to get berries and make this dish! When I made it, I felt like it was a right of passage for me... another Nova Scotian woman knows how to make a grunt.

If you're not from Nova Scotia or don't have relatives from there, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about right now. Blueberry Grunt is a traditional dish from my home province and was made all the time by early settlers here-- possibly the Acadians. The Acadians call this Blueberry Fungy which I'd never heard of until staying with my friend Randy's family in Clare. Apparently it's also called Slump although I've never heard anyone call it that. It used to be made from apples, rhubarb, strawberries as well, but blueberry's the one that stuck. It's was traditionally eaten as a main meal, and has more recently become dessert material. Lately I've been keen on the main meal position.

Here's the recipe I used, adapted from a recipe on the Select Nova Scotia website which is, thankfully, a government website whose purpose is to promote local food; and the Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens cookbook compiled by Marie Nightingale.

Blueberry Grunt!

gruntiness:
2 c. local blueberries
1/4-1/2 c. organic/unrefined sugar
1/4 c. water
1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

dumplings:
3/4 c. light spelt flour (or whatever you have)
1/4 c. coconut flour (if you have this, I urge to to try it)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. organic/unrefined sugar
1 tbsp. shortening, margarine, or coconut oil
enough almond milk to make a soft biscuit dough-- probably 1/8-1/2 c.

Combine the grunt ingredients and boil in a large pot on medium heat until you've got some juice flowing-- about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, sift together flours, baking powder, sugar, salt. Cut fat into the flour mixture. When it's all clumpy, add enough milk to make a soft biscuit dough (not too wet! less is more!) Drop biscuit mixture into the barlin'* berries by the spoonful, put the lid on the pot and cook for 15 minutes with no peeking. Usually makes about 8-9 dumplings. Eat it warm. You don't even need a bowl. Get a potholder and eat it right of the pot if that suits yer fancy. Some folks eat this with ice cream or whipped cream. Coconut ice cream would be pretty incredible. Holy hell this dessert is fine!

Today I made some Blackberry Grunt (pictured above) with some berries I picked in the park with my friends the other night.

This grunt was equally mindblowing. Thanks, settlers, for settling in such a rad spot and being so handy with the berry recipes.

*barlin' is how some old folks from the area pronounce "boiling" as in "Honey, the kettle's a'barlin'!"

A carby vehicle for garlic

2010-08-19T12:03:00.003-03:00

I needed a vehicle for garlic as I have a little cold. I'd been incredibly hungry all day and I wanted an insane amount of carby foods which wasn't a supersmart idea nutritionally, but it's what I wanted. This meal looks a bit ugly, but here it is. I ate this whole plateful-- everything is local-- mixed yellow beans, corn, carrots and broccoli with a nutritional yeast sauce, roasted potato wedges with a tonne of garlic, and garlic bread with parsley. It was pretty dope. My cold feels less intense today which is amazing.

Pesto pasta is fantastic!

2010-08-16T16:53:00.005-03:00

I love pasta. I could eat a lot, but I probably only eat it once a month. Today, wanting to make the basil from my CSA box into pesto before it rotted, I made some pesto according to this Jamie Oliver "recipe," substituting sunflower seeds for pine nuts and sesame seed/nutritional yeast cheese for the parmesan. I like his recipes because they're vague. Anyway, this pasta dish is simple. I used kamut penne, steamed some carrots and zucchini and chopped up some kalamata olives. I ate almost twice this amount because I couldn't help myself.

Chana Masala, advised by Manjula

2010-08-15T12:03:00.004-03:00

I can eat tomatoes now! I remember realizing back in the year 2000, after eating pretty much nothing but pasta (albeit wheat-free), dairy-free "cheese" (I mention in quotes because it was so gross back then and nothing at all like cheese) and with tomato sauce and TVP for almost a year and being in pain every day, that tomatoes probably bothered my belly. I lived in painful denial for a while, continuing to eat tomato sauce and paying for it. Sadly, I eventually I cut tomatoes in all forms but ketchup out of my diet, and along with wheat, was my main food sensitivity.

Ten years later I have bowel surgery. Tomatoes and I are A-OK now.

Tomatoes are delicious! I'd never cut into a tomato and eaten its wonderful flesh. I'd never cooked with fresh tomatoes. Basically, I hadn't lived. My brother and I didn't like them growing up, so 2010 has been the summer of reclaiming the tomato. I've been getting a few tomatoes in my CSA box, so I've been eating them every day. In salads. On sandwiches. In Indian food. It's been so great.

We had a monstrous tomato from the CSA box (organic, of course) and I decided to try my hand at homemade Chana Masala. Normally, we make it as a quick meal, using canned tomatoes, canned chickpeas and boxed Chana Masala spice from the Indian Grocery. Recently I was in a piss-poor mood and decided I needed real nourishment. Of course I didn't know how to make Chana Masala from scratch, so I turned to the obvious source for such advice: Manjula! Nobody does Indian vegetarian cooking more completely, more gently, authentically and honestly as her. She has a ton of recipes up. As I cook Indian meals a lot, I reference her YouTube channel a lot. Her voice is soothing. I'd love to hang out with her in the kitchen!

Watch Manjula make Chana Masala! You won't regret it.

So yeah, the Chana Masala with chickpeas cooked from dry, real tomatoes and a homemade spice mixture totally killed the canned version. But even making this from canned food will give you a lovely quick meal. Watching Manjula make it, then making it myself gave me a sense of satisfaction and totally saved my dour mood. Indian food always does this for me.

Summer meals of the unemployed

2010-08-06T22:14:00.010-03:00

It's summer. I'm unemployed. You think it'd give me all the time in the world to conjure up all sorts of awesome blog posts-- and it does, but I'd rather be doing other stuff. I've still been eating well and everything. Here, I'll prove it:

Of course on one of the muggiest days of the year we decide to slow-cook chili. The smell wafting through the house all day was almost unbearable. We tasted it probably 10 times. In lieu of ultra-easy canned beans, us unemployed folks used chickpeas and black beans that we actually bothered to cook up from dry, plus a can of mixed beans. This is the first chili I've made at home in many years because I was so sensitive to spiciness and tomatoes pre-bowel surgery. It's so nice to sit down to a meal of salad, chili and corn bread like a regular person might. I feel so goddamned grateful.

Red lentil soup heavy on the vegetables: potatoes, zucchini, beets, green beans.

Bruce likes meals with three parts and we usually only have one part, so sometimes I try to make him proud by cooking three small parts. This time he cut the potatoes and I came up with some sort of cumin-seed and lemon-type thing for a side to the most ridiculous vegetarian chicken fingers you'll ever eat. They're pretty stupid.

The day after Bruce's birthday, we ate cake for breakfast after eating it pretty late the night before. Although he didn't really feel off, I sure did, so I made a "second breakfast" of miso soup heavy on turmeric. I bought a pound of organic turmeric recently, so I've been putting it in everything.

Shepherd's Pie is pretty good. This one was made with veggie ground round. The cheese sauce on the broccoli was an old recipe I'd copied down years ago called "Easy Cheesy" Sauce or something like that. Guaranteed to have the ingredients in your house if you stock nutritional yeast.

Ok, so we've been eating a lot of potatoes lately. How can you resist new potatoes?! This warm potato salad was made with my mom's veganized version of her homemade mayonnaise and peas from my Aunt Gloria's garden. I had some local tofu around, and made a quick marinade of hot-as Hades Korean red pepper flakes, Bragg's liquid aminos and grated garlic and ginger. Kablammo!

That is all. Hope you're eating well too.

The simple dish I wish everyone would eat

2010-07-29T18:59:00.004-03:00

I wish every Nova Scotian-- perhaps every Canadian-- perhaps everyone in the world was eating this dish. Why? Because it's simple, delicious and local. All the vegetables in the photo are fresh summer Nova Scotian vegetables. The peas hail from my Aunt Gloria's garden in Cumberland County-- I brought them back with me when I visited her. And the nine beans in this dish are from my balcony garden! As I've said, I hardly get much sun, but I still managed to harvest a handful of beans and that is rad as hell.

Vegetables in the most unlikely of places

2010-07-22T18:11:00.015-03:00

I took a 24-hour trip back to my homeland a couple of days ago. There are some serious cool things there. First off, we took a trip to Nashville Pussy's favourite Canadian restaurant, the Schnitzel Haus. As it's a German restaurant renowned for serving seafood and behemoth slabs of pounded meat, it makes sense that there's only one vegetarian entree on the menu. I've eaten there once before and was pumped to try to make a small dent in the insane "Vegetarian Platter." It would leave the most ferocious Viking feeling defeated. Check it:

For context, look how large the plate is compared to me. It's HUGE! And so full! And there's a serving of potato noodles that they just couldn't fit on the platter! The creamed peas, coleslaw and and salad dressing weren't vegan, but even without those, I still could hardly touch this meal. Other restaurants could learn from their valiant effort!

Next, on the way to my cottage, we stopped by one of my favourite places, the Tantramar Acres, a roadside vegetable stand in Point de Bute, New Brunswick. It's a run by a father and son and it works on the honour system. Check out the logbook you record your purchases in.

It was their first week being open this year, so it was a popular spot and they only had a bit left when we arrived. The cucumbers were all sold out. So was the Swiss Chard.

Here's the Scale of Honour and the cashbox, which, unsupervised, anyone could grab and take off with. But I hope they would feel pretty badly about themselves. I hope you have a roadside vegetable stand near you. I wish I knew where they all were.

the Vegetable Diaries

2010-07-14T15:29:00.007-03:00

I asked Bruce what he wanted for supper a couple of nights ago and he melted my heart by saying "vegetables." I honestly never thought I'd hear him say it. For those of you not keeping track, Bruce confessed to his roommate a couple of years ago that he "didn't get vegetables"--as in he didn't understand why anyone would actually eat them. I tried to explain why people do eat vegetables when we first met, and then made it my mission to be less preachy, and show him by never (or almost never) including the vegetables he hates (mushrooms and onions, unfortunately), and instead using vegetables I either knew he liked or delicious ones he'd never eaten. Here's a version of a Japanese tofu stew flavoured with half seasonal vegetables and half last year's crop. I served it over a Rice Pilaf. We both thought it was awesome.

The night we finished watching the first season of the Vampire Diaries, we enjoyed red lentil dahl with spinach and carrots and a ton of ginger and turmeric.

We quickly devoured the soup alongside some grilled asparagus with ponzu sauce. A nice Asian fusion meal, good enough for a vegetable vampire.

I'm writing this while the rain pours down, listening to "Twilight of the Thunder Gods" by Amon Amarth and drinking holy basil tea. Awesome day.

Victorious Pumpkin Chocolate Spice Muffins!

2010-07-11T10:10:00.006-03:00

Baking with vegetables totally rules. Although botanically pumpkin is a fruit, I'm still into baking with fruit. Anything without too much sugar-- muffin not a cupcake-- that includes fruit or vegetables can totally be eaten for breakfast. I wanted to bake some pumpkin chocolate spice muffins, but I didn't like any of the recipes I had. They all used too much sugar, not enough spice, too much oil or showed some other undesirable trait. I used three recipes as reference and really came up with a wicked brand new muffin. This is one of the most victorious recipes I've used, both taste-wise and All-Round Muffin Beauty-wise. I've had a lot of compliments on this recipe (including someone I'd just met eating three at a brunch with more people than muffins), so I'll share it with you. Note: do not dance in the kitchen or take the muffins out too early to test them (examine them through the oven window first) or they will fall.

Victorious Pumpkin Chocolate Spice Muffins

1 1/2 c. light spelt flour
1/2 c. maple syrup
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves
a pinch of sea salt
2 tbsp. blackstrap molasses
1 c. almond milk
1/2 c. pumpkin puree
1/4 c. coconut oil, melted
Flax egg (1 T. ground flax mixed with 3 T. water)
1 c. chocolate chips
2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk together ground flax and water in a small bowl and set aside. Sift together dry ingredients except for the chocolate chips. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients until homogenous. Add the wet mixture to the dry and stir until just mixed. Fold in the chocolate chips. Portion batter into 12 greased or lined muffin cups. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tester toothpick comes out clean.

Bruce tends to have an eating contest with himself whenever I make muffins, but I think this may have been a record. I think he ate 7 in 15 minutes. This was a muffin I got to enjoy by myself along with some delicious almond milk*, although had Bruce walked by, he'd have eaten it.

*I have a bit of a problem where I don't enjoy a baked good to its fullest potential unless I eat it alongside some milk. Used to be cows', then rice, then soy and now it's precious almond.

How's it growin'?

2010-07-08T10:17:00.008-03:00

The speedy dwarf beans are really sprouting up! I tried to plan them so there'd be sun and a place to climb. Turns out they get the least sun of anything in the garden, but they're still doing pretty well. Bonus: the blossoms are beautiful.

I ACTUALLY HAVE BEANS GROWING! My proudest gardening accomplishment thus far.

I don't know if you can tell, but my herbs are growing. Most improved: chives and sage. I repotted them and they loved it.

I've already had a mega feast from this last week. It was so full of salad I could hardly get the scissors in to cut it back. I've got a couple of flowers coming. I'm not sure if I should leave them or not.

Look! I have a Swiss Chard plant! The birds have been eating almost all the little sprouts, but this big one and the tiny one under the leaf at the front have survived! To deter the birds, I snapped a couple of cds in half (makes prismy light that freaks out the birds) and staked them in the soil. No bird feasts since.

You wanna know how does my garden grow?

2010-06-19T19:02:00.020-03:00

Three quarters of my mint: English mint, spearmint and ginger mint.

This kinda just happened. It's a pot left here by the old tenants. I just decided I had too many bats inside and put this one there.

This one also made itself. Cool moss growing. I put the frog in there and a tiny piece of an aloe plant.

One half of the herb garden.

The other half.

Speedy dwarf beans.

Broccoli.

Mesclun mix. Salad drawer.

My herb garden at a glance. I'm growing rosemary, sage, thyme, lavender lady, lady's mantle, alpine strawberries, wormwood, a quince bush, lime mint, english mint, spearmint, ginger mint, lemon balm, chives and parsley. . This is my first time planting a reasonable-sized garden. I'm pretty impressed at how it's doing considering the balcony only gets morning light and a bit in the afternoon. It's sort of windy too.

Breakfast Pasta and Compost Broth!

2010-06-17T10:48:00.009-03:00

It's a dull, rainy day. I didn't sleep much. I got up before 7. What will remedy my awful situation? Vegetables for breakfast.Inspired by this recipe from Ripe From Around Here and the miso tahini sauce from yesterday's breakfast, I made this. Waiting for the water to boil was the longest part. I blanched the asparagus and spinach. I soaked the rice noodles in the same boiling water for 2 minutes. I added some grated garlic, ginger, lots of turmeric, a splash of sesame oil and Bragg's to yesterday's sauce and voila-- several servings of vegetables before I even (assuming I do) leave the house!

I also made some broth from my refrigerated compost trimmings. It's the first time I've bothered to do it although I've saved my compost probably six times and let it rot instead. I normally don't bother with broth other than the shitake-kombu stock I sometimes make, but I figure I might as well use some of my compost for stock. I added some peppercorns, a bay leaf, a kaffir lime leaf and some curry leaves as well as a bit of sea salt. I needed to add more at the end, but essentially, I have some broth now!

Quinoa Bloody Quinoa

2010-06-16T11:08:00.007-03:00

Sorry to disappoint the vegetarian zombies out there, but the red is actually beets. I normally don't eat like this anymore. When I was single and didn't have a meaty bf to cook for, I'd eat simple meals of steamed vegetables, grains, beans and tofu. Maybe a little sauce. This morning I threw together a little throwback meal to my bachelorette days. Here's how I made my bloody breakfast:

Quinoa Bloody Quinoa

1/3 c. quinoa
2 baby beets
2/3 c. water or stock*
3 or so swiss chard leaves

Grate beets. Add quinoa to boiling water (I used my rice cooker which was awesome) and stir in the beets. Steam greens atop quinoa near the end of cooking.

Miso Tahini Sauce

1 T. miso
2 T. tahini
shake of sea salt
1 T. lemon juice
almost 1/3 c. water

Whisk together ingredients and decorate bloody quinoa lavishly.
Feed the zombies. They're hungry.

If you have some chives growing in your garden, they would be awesome here. I added some seeds (not pictured) for the crunch factor.

Thanks to Vegan Dance If You Want To for the inspiration for this recipe. She used amaranth greens. So lucky and grand!

Oh, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but it'd be a shame if you didn't view the photo in its large format, the bloody quinoa tails are so cute. I'm an absolute know-nuthin' novice at photography, so the detail excited me more than perhaps it should've.

*I used the shitake-kombu stock mentioned in my last post

Ahhhh! A vegan omelette!

2010-06-15T09:56:00.003-03:00

I miss eggs. There, I said it. They were the last animal food to go when I became vegan. I burned my arm on the pan as I fried my last egg ever and I still have the scar ten years later. At the time, I knew it meant something because I'm like that-- a good omen or a bad one. Clearly it was a good one, as I've enjoyed so much more vitality since the transition. I've said many times that there's no vegan egg susbtitute-- you know, for a damned pan-fried egg! We can scramble tofu, replace eggs with flax or whatever in baking, we can pretend soft tofu is eggy all we want--but pan-fried eggs are difficult to replace and a hard-boiled egg is pretty much totally out of the question. When I first heard about the possibility of a vegan omelette, I freaked out, but for some reason it took me a couple of years to bother to try it.

Today was the day! Lord T'underin' Jesus it was amazing! I'm the kind of girl to put ketchup on my mac n' cheese and scrambled eggs, and even though I probably never ate an omelette with ketchup, I did it today just for the thrill of the thing. It's been a while since I've devoured breakfast this excitedly. This omelette from the Vegan Brunch book was incredibly easy and fairly quick to make. As you can see here, I used roasted asparagus (with balamasic, olive oil, salt and pepper) as a filling. I've never actually had an omelette filled with anything in the past-- my dad always just put pieces of vegetables in the batter-- but I opted to do it the way the recipe suggested the first time. Oh, did I say I'd do it as per the recipe the first time? I'm totally full of crap! So, as I was laying the asparagus down in the omelette, I reached for the black salt* to sprinkle some more on for extra flavour, when I realized I didn't have the black salt out at all, and that I'd put slippery elm powder in my omelette! Perhaps I should've finished drinking my greens before making breakfast. *Le sigh* Anyway, this asparagine and sulphur-rich Atkins-friendly (Ha! I HATE the Atkins diet!) breakfast was delicious-- but we'll see how it smells on the other side.

*actually pink in colour, normally found in Indian Grocery stores. It has a really sulphury smell, super-eggy and great for egg salad sandwiches and whatnot.

Not just another tofu stew with vegetables!

2010-06-14T19:02:00.009-03:00

We were both sort of grumpy tonight and we hadn't eaten anything all day. Tonight was supposed to be the night where we learned how to make rice-on-the-outside sushi, but in this state, taking on such a project would've proven unwise. Instead, I turned to "Japanese Cooking: Contemporary & Traditional" because it's an amazing book and everything from it so far has been simple, quick and incredible.

Along with some mashed potatoes which turned out delightfully (not pictured), I opted to make the simply named Tofu and Vegetable Stew (Kenchin Jiru sounds awesomer though) which was basically some vegetables-- I used carrot, spinach, asparagus and peas-- simmered in a shitake-kombu stock* with soy sauce, grated ginger and sesame oil added; and a small amount of Cucumber Salad with Wa-Fu Dressing which was a simple cold marinated salad featuring rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, a sweetner, salt and sesame oil. When I was almost finished eating the stew (really a thin-brothed soup) and mashed potatoes separately, I added some mashed potato to my soup with pleasing results. For one, the potato thickened the stew, and the blandness of the potato was totally partied up by the stew. And although Bruce normally eats pretty quickly, he ate this meal with extreme speed and fervour. He even ate the asparagus and pinched one spear from me.

*when I suspect I might be making a Japanese soup, rice, inari pockets, stew, etc. later that day or the next day, I add a few shitake mushrooms and a 2-3 inch piece of kombu to about 3 cups of water in a jar and let it sit until I need it. This makes a nutritious deep stock which can be substituted for dashi stock which is normally fish-based and thusly undesirable to me.

Four Green Soups

2010-06-12T18:02:00.011-03:00

I made three green pureed soups in one week due to my dietary restrictions after surgery. Today I'm making some fiddlehead soup. That's four green pureed soups and they all look a bit different. How about I show you?

Here's some Asparagus Soup I made on my birthday to balance out all the cake and corn chips I'd have later. It's a thin soup featuring kelp powder, cayenne, Bernard Jensen's broth (not as gross as it sounds), garlic, Bragg's aminos (this potentially sounds grosser), nut milk (no big deal, right?) and that's about it. It didn't compare with the asparagus soup with coconut milk that Sophie made for me early in my recovery, but its purpose was to be healing and simple-- and it was really really good-- just not decadent.

Next is some spinach soup, shown here with me still looking spindly and weak. Into it, we have some green onions, almond milk, maple syrup (a tiny touch), broth, and some ginger powder. Bright green! It was delicious and allowed me to eat $6 worth of spinach in one day and fall all Popeyey.

Third up is some kale soup that I began making after I realized I didn't have much kale left. It's pretty potatoey. Do you think I could've taken a stupider photo? This is actually the best one I took. Perhaps we could chalk it up to having an off day? Anyway, this is a real homey-tasting one into which I put some kale, carrot, potato, onion and summer savoury .I really like homey-tasting soup like this.

The last one is Fiddlehead Soup. The fiddleheads were first spotted the day before I had my surgery, and although I love them a lot, I didn't want them as my "last meal." I was a little late on the draw. This was my second and last feed, as I believe this is the end of the fiddleheads in our region. They're a May crop. Ok, I just ate the soup and along with looking like pudding-- (perhaps photographing it in a pudding bowl doesn't help), it tasted like... fiddlehead glue! The potatoes are old and gummy (last year's Yukon Golds) and I waited quite a while to puree the soup, allowing the soup to... This is the first soup I've ever thrown out in my life. The fiddleheads deserved much better. They're a tasty fern. They were defiled by the old gluey potatoes. Off to Valhalla I send thee!

Which one do you think is the prettiest? I wish I'd had more kale-- it was getting old when I got around to the soup. I will make a prettier kale soup soon when there's lots of big kale for cheap! I'm glad you weren't here to try the fiddlehead soup. GAG!

Vegetable Supper Invasion!!!

2010-01-30T16:53:00.012-04:00

So, my computer totally shit the bed. Not sure what's wrong with it, and I've not bothered to get it fixed, rather I've just been enjoying my limited internet time. I have, though, still been cooking with vegetables and sometimes even taking photos of my meals. I have my brother's computer to myself this afternoon, so here're a bunch of photos of the meals we've enjoyed over the last month. I hope I remember the ingredients sufficiently to give you an idea of what each dish was about. Also, I miss you.

"Cooking with Dog" is one of my favourite youtube channels. It's a show where you're taught to make Japanese dishes by a dog named Francis. He tells you how and the lady actually makes the dish. This dish, Tofu Nimono, is the best one I've tried so far. I will take any excuse to have a dog tell me what to do with delicious fried tofu. Damn it's good. If you think you don't like tofu, you should try it fried. For this version of Tofu Nimono, I used potatoes, carrots, turnip, daikon radish, peas. Another incredible feature of this stew is its delicious brothy base (as I don't have the special starchy potato to make it thick. I suppose I could use kudzu). When I was in Japan, I couldn't figure out how anything was seasoned. This recipe helps unlock that secret. Allow Francis to walk you through this dandy.

If I'm not mistaken, this dish is a recipe that I created last year, which is basically Indian spices and, well, it used to be purely chickpeas, cabbage and a humongous onion, but Bruce doesn't like onion, so I amended this one and also threw in some red pepper. I served this over the lovely yellow rice that I learned from Manjula of Manjula's Kitchen. She rules and every recipe I've tried has been amazing. Here's the video.

This gorgeous dish was really quick to make and is also extremely good for you and delicious. You couldn't ask for a much better meal than that, eh? It's from Jae Steele's wonderful debut cookbook "Get It Ripe," and it's called "Sesame Kale Soba" and also notably features arame, a cool black seaweed. Page 192. Make it, and get some kale and seaweed into that body of yers.

So I'm reading this book about kudzu called, aptly titled, "The Book of Kudzu." Kudzu is both a much-loved and much-hated vine that grows in Japan and the Southern U.S. Kudzu deserves its own post, so I'll make that happen soon, but for now, I just had to show you the drink that I totally made up using kudzu (which is, for the purpose of this post, a delicious, alkalizing thickener). Basically, I was feeling really overheated digestively-speaking, so I thought-- what would be better than thickened peppermint tea? That's right-- nothing. So I did it. Peppermint tea sweetened with a bit of maple syrup, coloured with some liquid chlorophyll and thickened with kudzu. Oh yeah. It felt perfect. I drank a ton of it. Here it is presented in the Shuswap mug Mom and Dad brought me back from British Columbia.

I estimate that a clear 70% or more of my meals are Indian dishes, based on the principles of Ayurveda, because I have holes in my bowels and these delicious dishes (that sounds so cool!) nourish me, and I'm a big dork who yearns to be an expert in Ayurvedic cooking. This dish, a Digestive Kichadi from "The Ayurvedic Cookbook" by Amadea Morningstar and Urmilla Desei, is one of mine and Bruce's favourites. I usually alter it slightly because Bruce loves things a little spicier. This dish features split mung beans, basmati rice, carrots, maybe sweet potatoes, peas and a medley of delicious Indian spices. I will absolutely devote a huge post to this book soon. It's got tumeric stains all over it.

I love nog. Since becoming vegan, I've been obsessed with So Nice's version called Noel Nog and I wait for it each season with no semblance of patience at all. This year, after having recipe tested for Jae Steele's forthcoming masterpiece "Ripe From Around Here," I didn't actually buy one carton of Noel Nog. I considered it a couple of times, but concluded that it was much less delicious and much more saccharine than the version from Jae's book. Here it is in my bat mug that my beloved friend Ingrid made with her own little elf hands. This nog is stupid good. While I can't tell you the recipe, I can say that its base is almond milk, and is doped up with coconut milk and a warming array of spices. And maybe rum or bourbon. I think the book is due out in the spring, and I recommend you make it then.

A few nights ago I wanted pasta so I made pasta. Nothing terribly special, just pasta with sauteed vegetables (garlic, leeks, zucchini, mushrooms, yellow pepper, yellow beets-- yes, yellow beets!, spinach), and basil pesto over garlic parsley kamut linguine noodles. This was my leftover meal the next day for breakfast and even though I had the afternoon light, this meal still looks kinda gray. Ooops!

This is a weird one. I've always been into the idea of savoury squares. My oft-missed friend Emily and I always lamented the fact that you can't buy a savoury energy bar or square. Always with the sweetness, never the savoury. With some tweaking, this could be it. This recipe, "Endvo Savory Squares," was the first recipe that appealed to me from "The Modern Ayurvedic Cookbook," but it took me a while to make it because it's kind of involved. I tweaked it and used cream of brown rice rather than cream of wheat, and this recipe is basically a lot of rice cream with cabbage, carrot, peas and spices. Here it looks ghastly and gray, but it was actually bright and tumericky. It was delicious, but was a bit dry and in need of chutney or to be served with a soupy dish.

I've had my eye on this dish since last summer when Bruce and I planned to make it and then for some reason didn't. The other day, after tasting chipotle peppers the first time on a veggie chili-making date with my galpals Tracy and Laura, I knew I needed more chipotle in my week. This one's called "Southern Bowl: Chipotle Black-Eyed Peas with Maple Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Collard Greens." Daaamn, chipotles are hawt and smoky and lovely. I figured I was kind of stupid to make this dish when my belly was already feeling terrible, but I couldn't talk myself out of it and oddly it didn't make it worse-- it actually might've even inexplicably made me feel better. And oh yeah, this recipe is also a Jae Steele classic from "Get It Ripe." I misread this recipe and made it a bit differently, but it still turned out wonderfully, if I may say so. Bruce, full of about four sandwiches, even ate a bunch. He didn't try the collards, of course, but still.

Geez, those're all the photos I have from this month, except for the photo shoot of Bruce making me soup. That one gets its own post because it was so awesome. Stay tuned, dude(tte)s.

Blizzard of Brocsnip Soup!

2010-01-02T18:51:00.007-04:00

Today was awesome. I trudged through the freshly fallen snowstorm to the market with Brucifer. It's always really hard to drag my ass out of bed and be there by 8 on a Saturday morning, but he suggested that it was a beautiful morning out so I left with him when he went to work. I got a lot of great stuff at the market, which was dead as a tomb due to the holiday and the snowstorm. I scored some more carrots, a spaghetti squash, a pumpkin, a small broccoflower (this will be my first time using it), parsnips, a couple of sweet potatoes, some candy cane beets (white and pink swirls on the inside!), a bag of curly kale, a small daikon radish, a bunch of leeks, a piece of celeriac, two pounds of California Herb tofu and one kilogram of blackberries.

I kind of just chilled and drank tea and read today, and looked through some cookbooks for new ideas to use the produce I bought. Inspired by a recipe called "Christmas Parsnip Soup" by Kristina Turner from "The Self-Healing Cookbook" --which is more than just a cookbook, but a guide to the link between food, cooking and how we feel-- I made a really quick but wonderful soup. Anyway, here's my variation on her recipe, inspired by Halifax's first big storm of the winter:

Blizzard of Brocsnip Soup

4 c. water
3 c. parsnips, sliced finely
1 c. broccoli, including stem if necessary
2 tsp. dried sage
1 tsp. summer savoury
1/2 tsp. rosemary leaves
1 scant tbsp. light miso
a swirl of bragg's amino acids
sea salt and pepper to taste

Bring water to a boil and cook parsnips and broccoli with herbs for about 20 minutes, or until tender. When soup cools down to a temperature you don't mind getting splattered on your skin (just in case), add miso, salt and pepper and a touch of Bragg's and puree with blender, hand blender or food processor until desired consistency. This should be about right. Serves 3-4.

Parsnips-- sweet as hell and wicked sliced thin and pan-fried as chips, are also high in fibre, the oft-forgotten important but relatively difficult to find mineral manganese and vitamin C. The parsnip's flavour architect, winter frost, hath arrived most everywhere that's gonna get any. Grab 'em while you can and make 'em into something you can eat during a blizzard.

Pumpkin & Sexy Pepper Curry is a good thing

2009-12-04T11:57:00.009-04:00

I never expected Martha Stewart to be helpful to me twice in one season, but it happened. My wonderful friend and Naturopathic Doctor, Sandra Murphy alerted me to this recipe last month, and it was evident I needed to make it pronto (yes, this is how bad I am at updating my blog-- I made this--okay-- about three weeks ago). I made it the next night. It's a pretty simple recipe, although my version ended up looking as if it'd been stored in a plastic grocery bag and dragged through the city. Okay, so I'm no food photographer-- I guess that's no secret. That, and I added the tofu early because I wanted to, and it wasn't as firm as hers. But it was still wicked.

As I was cutting up the peppers, I noticed one piece naturally formed an "s," which I thought was pretty rad. I looked further and easily found an "e." And I think peppers are sexy anyway, thus me spelling the word "sexy" using the red peppers that I'd roughly chopped. Bruce took this photo for me. How sexy is that?

The curry (Martha calls it stew, and hers looked like stew, but mine didn't) was spicy as hell because I used a muchi curry powder (which is hotter) rather than the usual organic one I use. It was SO very DAMNED HOT (for me-- for curry powder, anyway). I'm sure some of y'all'd be all like "it's not hot at all!! You call THAT spicy?!" Everything is relative, and I'm just as adamant about showing off about certain things, so let's let it rest. But if you're looking for a hot powdered curry blend, muchi might be the one. Anyway, this stew/curry was extremely quick (like 40 minutes all told, probably) and simple and delicious and used very few ingredients. Peeling the li'l pumpkin was much less tedious than I'd remembered. As for the recipe, I varied it only slightly (for me, anyway). I used whole coconut milk because light coconut milk is for pussies and I used almond milk because rice milk is only for people who are allergic to absolutely everything. To me it's outdated and gross. I used it before almond milk became the new soy milk. Anyway, I also used a lime because a) limes are better than lemons in Indian cooking and b) that's what Martha pictured with her stew, even though she called for a lemon. ZING! Oh, I also omitted the jalapeno pepper (because I can't have too much heat) and the onion (because Bruce thinks they're evil, about which he's wrong, but I appease him). And finally, I omitted cilantro leaves. I may be in the minority here, but I'm just don't like them. I won't say cilantro's gross, I'm still working on liking it.

This was our curry and it was a good thing, or whatever.

All Hail Black Kale!

2009-12-04T11:26:00.004-04:00

Okay, it's purple kale, but it's soooo dhark and gets even darker (and somewhat greenish) when cooked. Anyway, I've been neglecting my kale intake lately, so I thought I'd try preparing it an Ayurvedic (for all intents and purposes-- in a balanced Indian style) way in hopes I would tempt Bruce to eat it as well. He did smell it and agree to try it at a later date, but he was so into his fishsticks and fake chicken that he wouldn't stray. So..., I just ripped pieces of kale off the stalk, boiled it until tender (you could also steam it but I wanted the energetic effects of boiled kale, plus I'm gonna use the purply mineral-rich boiling water for soup!). In another little pot, I warmed about a teaspoon of coconut oil (this one, a new one was full-flavoured and therefore tasty!), added 1/2 tsp. of cumin seeds and when they started popping, added a tsp. of coriander powder. I then poured this oil mixture on the kale and added some Bragg's liquid aminos (saltiness) and a sheet of nori seaweed (the stuff of sushi) torn roughly into squares. I was shocked at how delicious this was-- the bitterness of the kale kind of vanished-- this is a highly recommended kale preparation method. Anyway, this bowl of kale was all I ate for supper. I baked apple blueberry oat muffins later. I ate tofu for breakfast and Indian cauliflower and potatoes for lunch. I've been eating so strangely lately. It's been fun, so I've been going with it.

KALE-- it's what your creakin' bones've been askin' you for.

Fig Almond Butter Shortbread Hearts & Hummus Sushi

2009-11-21T12:29:00.005-04:00

I subscribe to a few google alerts, so I can keep abreast of what's going on without hardly having to lift a finger. One awesome recipe that came through recently on my vegan google alert, was one for Fig & Almond Shortbread. It came from here and it was aparently her first attempt at making a recipe (at least for baking) vegan. Her adorable substitution of almond butter for butter impressed me. I'm not sure if she thought it would be the closest susbstiution, or she just couldn't bring herself to use magarine (good girl), but regardless-- I knew I had to bake them-- especially after several "what's for dessert?" cries from Bruce, and several near-demands that it have chocolate in it, and assertions from both him and Blake that they didn't like figs but would still try it. And I had to try out our new convection toaster oven.

Here's how I ended up making the recipe:

Fig Almond Butter Shortbread Hearts

1/2 cup old fashioned oats + 1/8 cup
1/4 cup light spelt flour
a pinch of grey sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup finely chopped dried figs
0.5/3 cup almond butter
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon rum
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper. In a food processor, blender, coffee grinder or what have you, grind up the oats, keeping the extra eighth of a cup aside. Add the ground oats and reserved oats to a bowl, then add the flour, nutmeg and sea salt. Stir with a fork to mix. Then add the figs, mixing thoroughly to coat. In another bowl, cream together the almond butter and brown sugar. When mixed completely, add rum and vanilla and stir until homogenous. Add the flour n' fig mixture wet mixture and combine using a wooden spoon, or if necessary or desired, your hands (fun)! When this mixture makes a non-sticky ball (adding a tiny bit of flour if necessary), roll the ball out on a floured surface with a rolling pin (or wine bottle) until it's about a quarter of an inch thick. Here, you can choose to cut your dough in shapes or use a cookie cutter like I did. Don't bake these for too long. I baked mine for about 15 minutes in my convection oven and burned at least half of them somewhat. The original recipe (which was double the size), suggested 25-30 minutes. I'd guess at15-20 in a regular oven, but please watch them and make sure they're not burned. Sure I could perfect the cooking time before I post this, but what's the fun in that? I trust you. So basically I made this recipe wheat-free and full of rummy goodness and it yielded 12 little hearts. And I forgot the sliced almonds, so you could pound some into the top if you were so inclined. Anyway, they were dope and yes, the boys ate them.

Hummus Sushi

On the day in question, I was really about eating lightly. I've been into eating rice cakes with veganaise, ginger-carrot sauerkraut and cucumbers lately, and had eaten a bunch in the afternoon (my morning). For a light supper, I kind of wanted sushi, but was getting super-hungry. And I also wanted chickpeas. Ta-da! Hummus sushi was conceived. And while I figured it had already been thought of (a cursory internet search gave me 2960 hits for the term), I was pretty stoked. Anyway, here it is in all its delicious glory. I made the hummus from scratch (with my beloved hand-crank food processor which allows me to burn calories while I'm making hummus ;) to use as the bed for the toppings, and then laid down some sweet yellow pepper, grated carrots and fresh parsley (all local and in season) and rolled it all up in some nori sheets. The sushi was pretty good on its own, but the pickled ginger put it over the top! I made 12 pieces and pounded them down. The photos look kind of '80s to me-- the hummus looks like some sort of egg filling. Anyway, win.

Two Canadian Thanksgiving Dinners

2009-11-12T12:29:00.001-04:00

For some reason I didn't post this after Canadian Thanksgiving, so I'll post it in time for American Thanksgiving. I hope that everyone has a delightful day off (if you get one) and I hope that you enjoy the fruits of the autumn harvest in good company and with lots to be thankful for.

I was lucky enough to eat two Thanksgiving dinners during Thanksgiving weekend. The first was at my friends, Kevin and Sophie's new home, joined by her sister and my brother. We had mashed root vegetables, roasted root vegetables, steamed brussels sprouts and swiss chard, green leafy salad and tofurkey slices. We also managed to fit in some pear ginger crisp and chocolate pumpkin cake, but we ate them without taking photos ;(

Here's the recipe for tofurkey slices. I've been making these since mom made them for me when I first became vegetarian in 1997.

Tofurkey Slices 1 pound firm tofu, rinsed and patted dry Marinade: 3/4 c. water 3 tbsp soy sauce 3 tbsp nutritional yeast ½ tsp poultry seasoning** ½ tsp coriander ½ tsp onion salt ½ tsp garlic powder Coating: 1/4 c. flour 1/8 c. cornmeal 1/8 c. nutritional yeast 1/4 tsp onion salt 1/4 tsp salt dash black pepper Cut tofu into 1/4 inch or appropriately sized slices and place them in a wide, shallow mixing bowl or shallow baking pan. Place all ingredients for marinade in a bowl and whisk them together. Pour marinade over tofu slices, ensuring all slices are covered. Cover and place marinated tofu in refrigerator. Let tofu set for several hours or overnight, turning slices a couple of times. When you are ready to cook the tofu, combine the ingredients for the coating mix in a bowl and stir well with a fork. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mist baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray, set aside. Remove each tofu slice, shake lightly to allow extra marinade to drip off and dredge each piece in the coating mix, allowing for total coverage. Arrange tofu on baking sheet. Mist tops lightly with cooking spray. Bake tofu for 15 minutes or until bottoms are golden brown. Flip slices over and bake for another 9 or so minutes, until other side is golden brown. Makes 10 or more slices. (4 -5 servings) ** or rosemary, sage, summer savory. Eat plain hot or cold, with make it into a sandwich.

My second Thanksgiving dinner was at home on Thanksgiving Monday with my lovely bedfellow, Bruce. I made mashed potatoes, a mixture of white and pink sweet potatoes-- they were sooo sweet and delicious-- Bruce's favourite part of the dinner--, ginger-glazed carrots, a recipe test from Jae Steele's upcoming cookbook "Ripe From Around Here," mushroom gravy that's been a standard in my kitchen during holidays for years, and a complicated-looking but actually really simple mounded tofu turkey courtesy of my friends Mat and Dave of the award-wining radio show Let's Get Baked.
Tofu Turkey & Fixin's Turkey: 5 pounds of firm tofu Stuffing: 2 tbsp oil 1 large onion 1 cup celery, diced 3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced 2 tsp marjoram 2 tsp thyme 3 tsp Herb de Provence 1/4 cup soy sauce or tamari 2 cups bread crumbs 1 cup wild cooked wild rice salt and pepper to taste Basting mixture: 1/2 cup toasted sesame oil 1/4 to 1/3 cup soy sauce or tamari 2 tablespoons miso 2 tablespoons orange juice 1 teaspoon mustard 1/2 cup nutritional yeast Mash tofu together in a bowl. Line a Colander with cheese cloth and dump tofu in. Use a plate to press out the excess water from tofu. leave a heavy weight on the plate for an hour or two to drain as much water as possible (preferably in the fridge). take colander full of tofu and hollow out a place for stuffing. In a sauce pan fry up the garlic, onion, and celery. when they are sufficiently brown mix in the rest of the ingredients for the stuffing thoroughly and dump it into the hole that you have made in the tofu. pack it tigthly and flip onto a baking sheet. Cover the tofu turkey with the basting sauce and bake at 375 for an hour or so until it is golden brown. If you have the time you can cook it longer and a lower temperature and baste it a couple more times for extra amazing flavor experiences. Enjoy!

Good Gravy

* 8tablespoon vegetable oil
* 3-6 cloves of garlic, squashed and minced
* 3 slices of yellow onion, chopped
* 8tablespoon all-purpose flour
* 2tablespoon nutritional yeast
* 4tablespoon low sodium soy sauce or tamari
* 2 1/2 cups water (to start)
* 1/2 teaspoon ground sage (dry)
* Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
* 1/4 cup red wine (optional--but a huge help)
* 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
* 6 sliced mushrooms (optional)

I can't take all the credit for this great gravy. Unfortunately I cannot recall exactly where I came upon it. My apologies to the original source. I made some slight adjustments. I often opt for a plain ol' mushroom gravy, but this is the deluxe one I like to prepare.

In a medium saucepan heat oil on a medium or medium-low heat. Add garlic and onion and cook until slightly tender and translucent.

Add the flour, yeast and soy (or tamari) to make a paste or roux. Be careful not to let it burn. GRADUALLY add the water, stirring constantly. With frequent stirring, bring the gravy to a boil and allow it to thicken. Add pepper, mushrooms, vegan wine and balsamic vinegar. If you don't want to add vegan wine, you might try a bit more balsamic vinegar or a red vegan wine vinegar in its place.

If the gravy is too thin (unlikely) add a small amount of cornstarch which has been dissolved in some cold water. (Dissolving the cornstarch in water first will prevent lumps.)

Can you tell me how to get... how to get to Vegetable Street?

2009-11-12T10:44:00.004-04:00

I admit I had forgotten about the marvelousness of Sesame Street's incredible plant-promoting superhero, Captain Vegetable, but as soon as I heard a verse of the song, memories came floating back and I was able to retrieve the lyrics from some hardly-used portion of my '80s childhood brain.

Here's the transcript of the song:

Out of his secret garden somewhere in New Jersey comes your newest favorite super hero!

It is I, Captain Vegetable
With my carrot, and my celery
Eating crunchy vegetables is good for me
And they're good for you, so eat them too
For teeth so strong, your whole life long
Eat celery and carrots by the bunch
Three cheers for me, Captain Vegetable
Crunch, crunch, crunch!

My name is Andy
I love candy
And I eat it whenever I can
If it's handy
Gimme some candy
It's so good and sweet
The perfect treat
It's such a thrill
To eat my fill
And gobble till there's nothing on the plate
Candy is great, but wait!

Who are you, some kind of bad dream?
Do I look like a bad dream?

It is I, Captain Vegetable
With my carrot, and my celery
Eating crunchy vegetables is good for me
And they're good for you, so eat them too
For teeth so strong, your whole life long
Eat celery and carrots by the bunch
Three cheers for me, Captain Vegetable
Crunch, crunch, crunch!

My name is Eddie
I love spaghetti
So I eat it whenever I can
If it's ready
Gimme spaghetti
It's a lovely thing
It looks like string
It's such a thrill
To eat my fill
And gobble till there's nothing on the plate
Spaghetti is great, but wait!

What are you? Are you some kind of weirdo?
Do I look like a weirdo?
It is I, your newest super hero

It is I, Captain Vegetable
With my carrot, and my celery
Eating crunchy vegetables is good for me
And they're good for you, so eat them too
For teeth so strong, your whole life long
Eat celery and carrots by the bunch
Three cheers for me, Captain Vegetable

Gee, Captain Vegetable this is the best thing to come around since meatballs!
Three cheers for Captain Vegetable!

Three cheers for me Captain Vegetable
Crunch crunch crunch!

and here, you lucky folks, is the video! It's so damn catchy, we've been singing it around the house a lot.

OMG! I found an updated version featuring John Leguizamo as Captain Vegetable wherein he refers to Elmo twice as "Playa."

Sesame Street has been trying in strange ways to get us to eat vegetables and learn to count and be kind to each other and whatnot for 40 years, and to celebrate Sesame Street's 40th birthday, they invited America's First Lady Michelle Obama to Sesame Street (again) to teach kids how to plant an organic vegetable garden and to promote eating healthy vegetables.

She rules. This rules. I'm a happy girl. Gonna go eat some vegetables.

Only 358 days until Hallowe'en!

2009-11-02T21:29:00.014-04:00

Hallowe'en was a week ago. Luckily for me, there're still a lot of jack o'lanterns rotting around town to help me through my intense Hallowe'en withdrawal and the imminent onslaught of Christmas. I'm pretty sure Halifax was as Hallowe'eny this year as I've ever seen it, which is so awesome! I wonder if it was because the holiday fell on a Saturday, but more than that, I'm just so thrilled to have seen the immense participation this year! There were jack o'lanterns on almost every doorstep (and many times two or three-- sometimes many more!) and more Hallowe'en events than anyone could hope to haunt. For the first time ever, I tri-hosted a party with two friends of mine, and preparing for the party (and making mine and Bruce's costumes) was in many ways the best part of Hallowe'en. With four horror/monster music compilations by my new friend Adam up before Hallowe'en, I had an almost unending source of amazingly horrific tunes, and I was the happiest ghoul you've ever seen, dancing around the kitchen in a (fake) bloody apron with a ridiculous smile on my face for the weeks leading up to the spooky day. I finally completed my Hellboy costume, complete with a gigantic replica of his seven-barreled Big Baby gun. I used a helluvalotta duct tape, both black and red for this costume. It was invaluable. Bruce's Count Frightenstein costume came together wonderfully at the last minute. He was such a handsome silly vampire.

I made TREATS for the Hallowe'en party! It was superfun! I emptied out my newly acquired Crystal Head vodka bottle (SHAPED LIKE A SKULL and filtered thrice through diamonds made in Newfoundland according to Dan Akroyd's exacting specifactions!) and transferred my two batches of arugula vodka into it, so I'd be able to serve ghastly green vodka from a skull-shaped bottle. It was so awesome! And I made skull and crossbone- shaped green ice cubes made with chorophyll water that oozed green into everyone's drink! And bloodshot eyeballs from radishes and pimento olives! And wheat-free ladies' fingers with beet-stained, chipped almond fingernails! And a gory green hummus (with spirulina-- a blue-green algae), which, in all the mayhem, I forgot to photograph. Also, the arugula vodka in the Crystal Head vodka is yet to be photographed, but I will post it soon. The drink pictured is an eyeball martini made from Crystal Head vodka, vermouth, a green ice cube and an eyeball radish. Of course I used a skull-shaped martini shaker (also not pictured, sorry).
I must, at this time, send a shout-out to my good friend Tracy who's the only other human I know so excited about celebrating Hallowe'en in some way 365 days a year, and oddly, to Martha Stewart, who inspired us with two Hallowe'en featured magazines this season. And to the old lady who consulted with Tracy and I at our store about what to use for blood in the apple-bobbing bucket at her grandchildren's Hallowe'en party. And thanks for coming back after the party to tell us that concentrated cranberry juice with chunks of jam blood clots ("the gorier the better," said she) worked swimmingly. You give us hope that we'll always care about Hallowe'en and might not sell out and be crotchety and disinterested. Yes!

So, with another Hallowe'en season fading, I want to wish all y'all a belated Happy Hallowe'en. I hope it was as gruesome for you as it was for me and mine. And remember-- every day is Hallowe'en, so wear whatever you like and don't be afraid to be spooky now and again and growl and howl and moan when you need to. You know it feels good. RAWWWWL!

Seemingly forced Saturday 8am grocery shopping

2009-10-25T08:42:00.003-03:00

The Halifax Farmer's Market is many things, but yesterday morning, all I could think was the only time I can buy local groceries for a decent price and selection is at 8 am on a Saturday. Essentially, if I don't walk down with Bruce in the morning when he goes to work, a) I probably won't bother to go at all and b) it gets busier than it is at 8 am. Ugh. Forced 8 am Saturday groceries. I can't believe I ever get there at all and I often get comments about how early I'm up from people I meet there.To be perfectly honest, I only like the slowness of the market and the social aspect in theory. I almost never see any of my friends who go to the market, just the faces of the customers I've served at the last few jobs I've had since 2001. I want to get in, buy vegetables, and get out. I'm also often hungover and incredibly sleep-deprived, although thankfully I wasn't (the former) yesterday.

Anyway, yesterday I didn't go too crazy. I did buy a lot, but there were several things I left for someone else: more sweet potatoes (I already have some), turnip (I still have some in the fridge), pears (I really regret this one, although I didn't notice any unsprayed pears there anyway), broccoli (I've been meaning to start freezing vegetables, but it's a bit of a process and it's Hallowe'en week and I have a lot to do, so I decided to be realistic), Chinese Lanterns to go on my mini lights (I think I can find these cheaper elsewhere).

So, as you can see, I got: 2 lbs of carrots, 1 lb of parsnips, some brussels sprouts, a bag of arugula (I've already got arugulaka batch two begun), two pounds of tofu, three tiny red peppers (one of them was moldy :( ), four onions, a head of garlic, a huge bunch of kale, two tiny squash, and most adorable of all: two tiny pumpkins! If I can remember correctly, I think I paid $25, although it doesn't add up properly, but that's probably close to being accurate. Anyway, it was a deal. I'll let you know what I make with it all.

Killer Kale Muffins. No really.

2009-10-24T11:00:00.008-03:00

I don't even know how the hell I came across kale muffins on YouTube, but somehow I did a while ago. An urban farmer named Bronwyn from B.C. dreamt up the ingenious idea of putting kale in muffins. OMG! Her recipe is very '80s homestyle health food muffin and isn't vegan, but I loved the concept a lot and have been playing with it a bit. Here's the recipe I used to make muffins last night:

Killer Kale Muffins

1/4 c. orange juice
1/4 c. olive oil
1/2 c. agave syrup
1 flax egg (1 tbsp. ground flax + 3 tbsp. water, mixed well)
1/2 c. almond milk
1 tsp. natural almond flavouring
1/2 c. shredded carrots
1 c. kale, steamed 'til tender then pureed with 2 tbsp. almond milk in food processor
1 1/2 c. light spelt flour
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 c. pumpkin seeds
1/2 c. fresh or frozen blueberries
1/4 c. uncooked millet (this will make the muffin really crunchy!)
1/2 c. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 F. Sift together dry ingredients except seeds, blueberries, chocolate chips. Beat oil, juice, agave, flax egg, milk and flavoring together. Stir in carrots, kale puree (mine didn't get super pureed because my minichopper is quite crappy), chocolate chips, pumpkin seeds. Stir in dry mixture. Fold in blueberries. Portion batter into 12 greased or lined muffins cups (may I suggest acquiring some silicon cupcake liners?!) filled 3/4 full. If you have batter leftover, bake it into something small like a mini loaf pan. Bake for 18-20 minutes. May I suggest enjoying one warm with almond milk? You're eating kale in a muffin and you're loving it! Can I get a hellz yeah?!

So, I baked these muffins to share with my brother, Blake and my lovely bf, Bruce. Blake's allergic to cinnamon (as well as other stuff), and Bruce said he'd try one if I replaced the raisins with blueberries, so I did it. The blueberries were a huge improvement over the raisins. I'm working on this recipe until it's the healthiest I can possibly make it with Bruce still wanting to eat them. He'll decide when I've gone too far. When I asked Blake if he wanted a muffin, he said "What kind of question is that?" as he extended his hand. As he was biting into one, he asked what was in them, and, as the word kale left my lips, he said "nice time to mention it has KALE! Next time don't tell me until after!" but he still devoured it and loved it. Bruce loved it too, and wanted more. Total success. Neither of the boys like kale (although I will hopefully help make it happen some day), so I think these muffins are a total win. As you can see in the photos, it's really difficult to detect the kale, even close up-- most of the green you see is from the pumpkin seeds--- so these would be ideal muffins to bake for li'l ones who won't eat anything green. You could substitute the pumpkin seeds for other less green seeds, too, but they're ideal to feed to men, as they're good for the ol' prostate, and are full of zinc which is good for immunity and sexual health (which is important for ladies too). But yeah, they're tasty muffins--and even though the list of ingredients may be lengthy, the muffins don't take that long to prepare. Please ask me about any substitutions you're not sure of. I hope you'll try 'em.

Tumourick Tofu Triangles and Terrifying Curried Turnip Monster Mash

2009-10-23T14:40:00.008-03:00

I'm still deciding what I want to be for Hallowe'en. I know! I know! I actually start thinking about it November 1 for the next year, but I always leave the ultimate decision for the week before the big day. Oh the pressure! Last year I'd prepared to be Marvel Comics supervillian Sabretooth and woke up Hallowe'en morning and needed to be a butcher based on the cool fake hacksaw I wouldn't let myself buy while out Hallowe'en shopping the day before. As it stands, I'm deciding between resurrecting last year's Sabretooth, Hellboy (but a girl), and Hilarious House of Frightenstein's Grizelda . Anyway, to fuel myself for going to the amazing Glow Parties store, which is such an awesome costume store in Halifax, I needed to make myself a warming, healthy meal, so I made Turmeric Tofu Triangles, a Jae Steele recipe test from her upcoming cookbook, Ripe From Around Here, and a version of Grandma's Turnip Curry from the Modern Ayurvedic Cookbook with a lovely local turnip. As I've been reading about Ayurvedic Medicine for several years, I've come to learn how to modify recipes so my body will better respond to them. So I made this one a little bit better for me, a Pitta-Vata dosha, especially to counteract the spiciness of the turmeric triangles. I'd LOVE to give you the recipe for the triangles, but it's a secret, so you'll have to wait 'til the book's published. I'd give you the turnip curry recipe, but I'm going to work on it to perfection first!

BOO! I've gotta go try and get some more pieces for my costume. I'll let the day itself inspire me.

P.S. I bought a garter belt with a holstered gun and a heart jello mold at the costume store. No closer to my Hallowe'en costume, but way cool nonetheless!

I'm up in yer desserts, bein' all fruity

2009-10-16T16:47:00.009-03:00

I like baking....Backpedal.... I LOVE baking. I love to bake in the middle of the night. I love to eat baked goods. I love to eat baked goods in the middle of the night. I love sharing baking with my friends. I love to eat baked goods. I hate feeling crappy after eating gross processed baked goods. I don't even like them. A solution: to bake with whole food ingredients, a lmost always incorporating fruits and vegetables. Here are a few examples of my past exploits to get this party started. 1) Strawberry rhubarb crisp 2) Pear Custard Pie 3) Black Forest Cake (admittedly, this was potentially the sweetest thing I've ever baked, and the cherry preserves just made it sweeter! 4) Pumpkin Brownies according to this recipe. So fudgy and rad with swirls of pumpkin! More examples to follow.

Arugula Spirits!

2009-10-16T15:26:00.001-03:00

One day last year, I overindulged in chocolate. I rarely actually overindulge in chocolate anymore, because it makes me feel like hell. I do eat chocolate, however, pretty much every day. So anyway, on this one particular day, I was feeling lousy and I asked one of my wise-beyond-his-years friends what the opposite of chocolate was because I wanted to eat whatever it was. He suggested arugula. That was pretty awesome. I always remember this when I eat too much sugar, and proceed to eat a handful or more of the wonderfully spicy and bitter green.

Hmmm, I thought... how amazing would arugula liquor be? A concentrated form of alcohol, kind of like a tincture (yet I'd drink more than I would of a tincture), that I could drink when I didn't have fresh arugula on hand! As with most things, it takes me forever to actually put my ideas into action. This summer I actually started going back to the farmer's market on Saturday mornings. My boy works at 8 in the morning, so I usually get up with him, often after staying up way too late out at a rock show, and get my ass to the market to buy a backpack full of vegetables.

I did a little research on the existence of arugula spirits, and discovered that there's an Italian spirit called rucolino made of arugula that's drunk in small quantities as a digestive. Wicked. I looked for recipes, found something kind of fancy (if you consider lemon peel and cloves fancy) and decided to just do it straight up for my first time. Initially, I was going to make a liqueur out of it, but upon tasting it after a 25 day maceration period (this amount of time is insignificant-- I just decided to try it yesterday), I decided it tasted awesome, and that the original point of my making it was to combat the ill-effects of too much sugar, so frig it. Unfortunately, the colour of the liquor changed with age. At about 8 days, the vodka (50%, Smirnoff- the only 50% vodka I can find in these parts) was so beiutiful-- a perfect Misfits greens. Of course, as time went on, the colour got a little less bright and little more dingy. So, based on the success of this batch, I'm going to make another, stopping the maceration (the process of steeping herbs in unflavoured alcohol) at the height of its brightness-- probably somewhere around 7 or 8 days. I just got greedy last time, and wanted a large arugula factor. I've decided the arugula vodka (arugulaka?) tastes like plain green peas. My boy said that it didn't, that it maybe tasted like arugula.. yet he admitted he doesn't really know what arugula tasted like. He said that it was nice and sweet and kind of minty, so he drank about an ounce of it, which made me happy. He was eating arugula-- even if it was a trace amount steeped in strong vodka! My wonderful friend Tracy also disagreed that it tasted like peas, she said the vodka was kind of overpowering, and that all she could taste was whichever component of arugula was strongest-- something cooling, anyway... which is interesting, because arugula's kind of peppery. As for its medicinal effects, I've been feeling a bit on the crappy side for a couple of days, and I felt like my belly had a hole in it this morning (ok, it does, but more on that later). After my cauliflower and potato curry, I had about an ounce of the arugulaka, and I feel a lot better. I even chewed the pale translucent ghostly arugula leaves-- hoping it'd be kinda like the worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle (not that I've ever eaten that). They were ok. Limp, yet still a bit crunchy. So, I can't wait to try this again, and perfect arugulaka. With any luck, I'll make it to the market tomorrow, after my brother's birthday fiasco, and buy some more aruuuugulaaaa.

The moldy pumpkin and its humble beginnings

2009-10-12T13:02:00.000-03:00

I thought that moving out of my batcave would prevent everything I own from growing mold on it. While everything I own isn't damp to the touch now, my beloved New Brunswick pumpkin rotted. I was overjoyed to bring my $2 pumpkin home from The Brunz, and devastated when I examined it the other day and its moldy stem pulled apart from its body when I touched it. It's only been five weeks since it'd been pulled from the vine.
If I can stand the smell, I'm totally carving (SLAYER) into it... and then I'll probably throw it off the balcony. It would've made an awesome pie, but there's heck all I can do about it now.

Now check out the pumpkin's adorable beginnings. I love this farm so much. It's on the way to my parents' cottage in Pointe de Bute, New Brunswick. One day a couple of years ago as we were almost to the cottage, I saw the sign announcing "Fresh Farm Vegetables" and totally had to stop. It's basically a family of farmers who harvest produce daily and sell it in a little shed to one side of their driveway. They set the vegetables up, mark them with really reasonable prices, and have a little notebook where you're to record what you bought, and the total. There's a cashbox where you leave the payment for your vegetables, and out of which you make yourself change. They use the good ol' honour system, and damn is that honourable! I love this farm so much and wish I could get all my produce from them, but it's two and a half hours from my house. Apparently they've only been robbed a couple of times. I can't think of a much sleasier thing to do than to steal a cash box from a family who's trying to make a living by selling really affordable farm-fresh vegetables using the honour system. Those thieves are pure pond scum.

Anyway, on this particular visit, the farm was bursting with kittens and it was totally totally rad.

The Vegetable List

2009-10-10T13:14:00.000-03:00

I, like many of you, sometimes let vegetables and fruit rot in the fridge. There're a few reasons for this, but, near the top of the list, at least for me, is that I forget about them. (Forget. Ignore. Forget. Who's really to say?!) When I see a bag of blue corn chips and a can of refried beans and I'm sharvin', the vegetables in my fridge might as well be invisible to me. So I thought of a brilliant idea a couple of months ago and began using post-it notes to track all the vegetables I have in my fridge/in storage (aka on my floor or under my sink). It's been helping SO MUCH! I've only had a couple of things go to rot since I began, and my vegetable and fruit purchasing and consumption have risen greatly! Initially, this seemed like one of those dorky ideas that a) I wouldn't follow through with, b) wouldn't be that effective and c) would make me feel too stuffy and organized. I don't know what I was thinking, because it would pretty much take a complete personality transplant for me to be too stuffy and organized! Oh the needless fear! So, without further ado, I present to you the current version of the Emily Strange post-it notes (that I got as a birthday gift probably 7 years ago) that had me worried I'd sold out. As you can see, my handwriting and organization of said notes should alert you to the fact that any improvement in the areas of neatness and organization should only be seen as improvement. It being harvest season, it's almost impossible for me to leave the farmer's market without buying one of everything, hence, I have a helluvalot of vegetables and fruit, and I have to make use of them-- pretty much by myself. I live with my bf and brother, but still many of our meals are separate-- plus, I always make my lunch, whereas the boys don't.

This morning, I decided not to go to the farmer's market because I knew I'd buy too much produce, and some of last week's bounty would rot. No good. So I'll use up what I have and go next week. For weeks, I've been planning to blanch and freeze a bunch of vegetables for the winter, but thus far, I've failed at actually doing so. Go team! Anyway, vegetable list, vegetable list, vegetable list! I am the vegetablist!

For those who can't read my scribblins or can't see through crossed-out words, here's a what was and is written on the lists: pears, apples, edamame, kale, broccoli, green beans, red pepper, mushrooms, parnips, turnip, zucchini, purple cauliflower, carrots, yellow beans, green beans, swiss chard, beach peas, beets, arugula, blueberries, lime, lemon, red cabbage, green cabbage, grapes, squash, pumpkin, tomato, orange pepper, potatoes. If you have any questions about what I made from any of these or what I plan to make, please ask away!

Vegetables for breakfast. Yup.

2009-10-08T20:41:00.000-03:00

Today I ate breakfast at about 4:30 p.m. It's possible I'll make another meal around midnight, but unlikely. I'm still pretty full. As I was too distracted to conjure up a meal before what was my childhood suppertime, one would be correct if one were to guess I was pretty ravenous and that I wanted my meal to be ready already. So I opened a can of black beans, added fresh minced garlic, cumin, oregano, a bay leaf and some cayenne, mashed them with some olive oil and heated that shizz up. In another pot I sauteed some red pepper, mushrooms and zucchini. I spread some homemade vegan cheese that I used to make grilled cheese sandwiches a coupla days before on some Genesis bread and VOILA-- brunch in ten minutes. That was pretty quick. Pretty unglamourous, but also pretty quick. Vegetables for breakfast? Friggin' right.

One girl, two vegetable cups

2009-10-08T19:40:00.001-03:00

So I found two little vegetable cups at Value Village last Thursday as I was looking for components for my Hallowe'en costume. I'm going as Hellgirl (Hellboy, but I'm a girl, hence, uh... Hellgirl). I excitedly came home and took a photo of one of my l'il cups filled with Barleans greens. It was tasty and rad and I'd subsequently drank out of these cups a lot in the last six days.

Last night, my lovely boy was fixing us some drinks, and he was trying to cram two standard sized ice cubes into this little cup. He was pushing and I heard cracking and I warned, "Please don't break that," and, not surprisingly, he broke it.

I say, "You're lucky I love you" pretty often around here ;)

One girl, one vegetable cup :(