Born to be Vegan

Fancy Dinner Vegan Style!

2012-02-12T14:57:00.000-08:00

Sorry for my long blog break - 2012 has been an awesome but busy year so far!

This is way late but I thought I'd so a quick post on how we celebrated the arrival of 2012. We don't usually go out on New Years - we prefer to do family things. A couple of years we've been invited to kid friendly house parties and those have been a blast but the last few years we've just stayed home. This year I thought we'd do something a little different with the kids and decided to bring out the fancy china for a special new years dinner. Below is a few pics from that night.

Ready to start eating - they we're super excited to have candles and no lights. They felt very grown up!

Our first course was a green salad with cucumbers, grape tomatoes, sunflower seeds and dried cranberries with the Apple Cider vinaigrette from Vive (I think it was from vive - Dreena's recipe anyways!) We also had some toasted baguette with olive tapenade.

Second course was a homemade butternut squash soup. It was a new recipe I tried and it was quite good! Our third course was pasta but for some reason I didn't get a picture of that - guess I was too busy eating!

And for dessert I made brownies with vanilla coconut milk ice cream. No one complained!

It was fun to do something like that with the kids now that they are getting older. Every course someone took a turn making a toast and a wish for the new year.

So whats kept me so busy I had no time to blog? December was so hectic I took some time to just spend with the girls and DH plus DH was working a job that had to be done off hours which meant he was working nights and weekends and sleeping when he could during the day so it was a very odd 3 weeks for us. I've also been doing a lot of reading lately - has anyone read Super Immunity by Dr. Fuhrman? EXCELLENT book - if you haven't read it I highly recommend it!

I also got something new that I have been wanting for a long time now but I'm saving that for my next post - don't worry it won't be 2 months from now, I already have my pics ready to go for it!

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau speaks at San Francisco World Veg Fest

2012-01-21T15:19:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T21:52:00.000-08:00

I had a big post planned for tonight but time got away on me so I'll save it for a really big post in a few days.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

Raw cashew ice cream

2011-12-29T11:59:00.001-08:00

The other day at the store Ollie talked me into buying this ice cream for her (she didn't have to work very hard to convince me!).

Its the Blue Mountain Cashew Creamery ice cream. We picked the strawberry flavour to try and I'm surprised by how much i like it. I'm not a huge ice cream eater or even dessert eater but one thing i really use to enjoy in my pre vegan days was cheesecake and this ice cream had a real cheesecake taste to it imo. The kids were a little put off by the colour (it was kind of purple-grey in colour) but they got over it as soon as they tasted it. It was a real crowd pleaser. Very filling - a very small bowl is all you need which is good because it was $8.50 for a little container but like I said a little goes a long way. I'd like to try the mango flavour as well.

So if your looking for a raw ice cream or if you want to switch up your usual non dairy ice cream you might want to give this one a go. We've only tried the strawberry but we give 2 thumbs up and we'll definitely buy it again.

Salad, cookies and a special green smoothie!

2011-12-28T09:28:00.001-08:00

Another Christmas has come and gone and I hope everyone had as wonderful a Christmas as we did. Christmas dinner was excellent and everyone loved all the desserts. It was a great to spend time with family and friends and the kids don't have school for 2 weeks so now we can really relax!

After all those big meals we were feeling like something a little bit lighter so I made this taco salad. It has all the usual suspects in it - romaine lettuce, taco "meat" (I use some field roast veggie ground), chopped tomatoes, green onions, black olives, kidney beans, and some green peppers. the dressing is a mixture of hummus and salsa and I aaded a scoop of guac to mine and put some crushed pico de gallo chips on top. Everyone loved it of course - whats not to love?!

Next up is a few long promised pics of the candy cane cookies. These are the chocolate mint melties from ED&BV with a few changes. Instead of a mint dark chocolate bar I used mini chocolate chips and then followed the recipe as usual. Then at the end instead of putting some chocolate bar squares on the top of each cookie I crushed a few candy canes and "dipped" each cookie into them. Then bake as usual and presto - candy cane cookies! The kids love these and I've made about a million batches of them this month alone.

I also finally made the Oatmeal Raisin cookies for ED&BV. I'm not sure what took me so long to try this recipe but I really wished I had made it before - they are awesome! Of course I added some chocolate chips to them. I made some for Christmas Eve this year and everyone else really liked them too.

And finally a green smoothie with a twist. I love avocado and so does my youngest but my oldest won't eat it. But i think avocados are just too nutritious to miss out on. So yesterday I decided to add half an avocado to our green smoothie and see if she would notice. This one had pineapple, frozen peach slices, dino kale, half and avocado, some frozen banana, a scoop of vanilla coconut milk yougurt and a little water. When I asked if she liked her smoothie she said it was really good! It made it kinda creamy and it was a little more filling which was nice so I think it will be a regular addition to the green smoothies from now on.

Some people have mentioned to me that their kids won't touch a green smoothie because it looks weird. Since the kids have been little I've always given them a special name. For instance above is a Shrek the Halls smoothie. I usually call them Shrek smoothies but I went with something a little more festive for the holidays. I've also use monster smoothies, dino smoothies, slime smoothies (halloween), etc. If your kids are put off by the colour maybe try the name thing. Works like a charm for us!

Making a list and checking it twice...

2011-12-24T10:24:00.000-08:00

I know I promised to post my Christmas menu yesterday but I had my littlest's party yesterday all morning and then the cooking/crafting/wrapping/cleaning continued all day so I was wiped last night. Every year I say I'll be more organized next year but every year I seem to be rushing right to the last second. Maybe next year will finally be the year!

Anyways now that christmas is here I'm putting all the craziness to the side and just enjoying being with the kids and dh. Tonight we go to my parents house for supper and so I give you this years Chirstmas menu!

Dinner

Gardein Savoury Stuffed Turk'y

Mashed potatoes

Mushroom gravy from The Vegan Table

Tossed salad

Roasted veggies

Spinach salad

Buns

Dessert

Cappuccino mousse pie from Vegan Pie in the Sky

Coconut raspberry squares

Double chocolate candy cane cookies

Oatmeal Raisin cookies

Coconut date balls

I'm usually not a fan of mock meats and as a rule we don't eat them - we are a beans/legume family but I bought some of these gardein turk'ys to try and the kids loved them and I quite liked them too so I thought we have them for christmas this year. They are a seasonal item but i really wish they had them year round cuz they are really quite delish ! I made all the desserts plus the tossed salad, and the gravy so thats why I've been so busy in the kitchen these last few days. Plus I'm bringing a huge veggies and dip platter to my in laws on Christmas Day. but now its time to put all that aside and focus on whats really important - family. And with that I'm off to watch Elmo Saves Christmas with the kids (again!)

I hope all of you have a fabulous Christmas with all your friends and family too - Merry Christmas!!!

Almost there....

2011-12-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

I have been swamped with marathon Christmas baking, crafting, gift wrapping, concerts, etc. Both girls have their last day of school tomorrow and both have their school Christmas parties tomorrow so I'm off to put the finishing touches on the cookies for them (both girls requested double chocolate candy cane cookies - pictures coming!).

I will be back tomorrow with my Christmas dinner menu - it looks good and we can't wait for Christmas to be here!

Happy Birthday!

2011-12-11T20:11:00.001-08:00

Not to me but my Dad. Its his birthday later this week and we were going to have a big family dinner tonight to celebrate but my sister, brother in law and their 4 kids are all sick, my other sister had to work and my brother and his 2 kids are sick too! So we just had my parents and my niece over here tonight for a quiet birthday celebration. Unfortunately my camera is sick too (battery died on me - good to know 2 days before the school Christmas concert!) so I don't have any pics for you.

Since it was on a bit of short notice I decided to go simply with the meal. It was a chilly day out (december in canada - go figure!) so we had Monkey Minestrone from ED&BV (I know, I'm slightly obsessed with this soup - its so good!), a big tossed salad, and the garlic toast from The Vegan Table (best garlic toast ever!). It hit the spot along with some tall glasses of Silk True Almond Dark Chocolate Milk. My Dad loves dark chocolate so I also made the chocolate mint melties from ED&BV but with a twist. Instead of using a mint chocolate bar I just put some chocolate chips in the batter then I crushed up some candy canes and sprinkled them on top of the cookies right before I baked them. I also made the raspberry coconut squares from the everyday vegan and both were a huge hit! So dinner was a success - thanks mostly to Dreena's fabulous recipes!

What we're eating

2011-11-07T10:16:00.000-08:00

With the colder weather coming I've been making a lot of soup. I like soup because its so versatile - you really don't need a recipe just start with some carrots/celery/onions and some veggie broth and go from there. I like to pair legumes and grains for a hearty and healthy meal. Plus it only requires one pot to cook so it makes after dinner clean up easier!

One of our favs is the Monkey minestrone from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. The kids aren't too fond of tomatoe based soups but they love this one. I use kidney beans and navy beans and the tinkyada little dreams rice pasta. The kids love the different little shapes and it think it holds up well in the soup. Below is a pic of my bowl from the other night.

Since the soup comes together so fast I try to pair it up with a few different sides since i have extra time. This time i made some kale chips, pita and hummus and babaganosh and veggies & dip.

Here the table shot with all the goodies out for the picking. I find the kids eat a pretty good variety of foods when served this way.

Of course some nights we feel like pizza and we often make pita pizza (as you've seen many, many times on this blog!) but now we have another choice - Famoso! They make the best crust in the world and they have daiya cheese as their vegan cheese! So after a crazy saturday of running errands and the kids to birthday parties we decided to treat ourselves to some of their awesome pizza!

I can't remember the name of the one i had but it was loaded with artichoke hearts, peppers, kalamata olives, sauteed mushrooms, red onion and daiya. So good!

The kids opted to have a simplier pizza. Marinara, pineapple and green olives with fresh basil. simple but good!

Halloween Recap

2011-11-07T09:59:00.001-08:00

I know this is pretty late but I wanted to make sure I got this pictures posted. Halloween is always such a crazy busy day and this year was no exception. The day before was beautiful and the kids had a blast doing up their pumpkins. We were going crave some cool designs into them but our craving knife broke so I just let the girls use markers and draw on their scary faces. They loved it and I think we might go that route again next year.

Halloween day was filled with lots of excitment. Ollie had her party at the preschool in the morning so i stayed for that. It was lots of fun - they did halloween crafts, played boo bingo and their teacher read them halloweiner (which was a book that Ollie brought in to share with the class. its a really cute halloween story and we've read it almost every night in sept/oct!).

After Ollie's party was done we oicked up lunch and went to Gabbie's school. We had lunch with her at school and I dropped off cupcakes for her school party. She had a halloween parade in the gym that Ollie and I stayed for to watch and then she had a party in her classroom. Then it was home to relax for a few hours before we had a quick dinner of split pea & barley soup and out the door trick or treating. The kids had a good time getting their candy which they left for the halloween fairy. She left them each a book, bookmark and a few vegan candies and they were thrilled!

Halloween was a little extended this year because the kids had no school they next day (they never do - its always a pd day) and our group had a playdate the next day. The kids dressed up again in their costumes and my friend had some halloween crafts for them to do and I went grocery shopping that day and they had all the leftover pumpkins out for free so i grabbed a whole bunch of smaller ones for the kids to take to the party so all the kids could decorate them with markers and stickers. it was a fun filled 2 days but i'm glad its over now because it wore me right out!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T20:44:00.000-07:00

After a long day of Halloween parties for both kids (I was with Ollie all morning at her preschool party and then off to Gabbie's school in the afternoon) and a night full of trick or treating I am wiped! But I wanted to do a quick post to finish off MOFO. Obviously I didn't post everyday but I am happy that I posted more than a typical month. I have a camera full of pictures so expect a big post tomorrow!

Vegan MOFO Day 15 - there is a whole lotta screaming going here....

2011-10-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

I've missed so many days already I didn't want to not post tonight but I don't have much for you. One child woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning and is screaming her head off right now for reasons unknown. I've had a busy day getting ready for tomorrow which will be a super busy day - we have friends coming for a visit in the morning and then lunch, Ollie starts soccer after that then both kids have a birthday party right after soccer so I spend today cleaning and cooking for tomorrow (monkey minestrone soup and veggies & dip for lunch tomorrow with some chocolate oatmeal cookies), buying a birthday present, grocery shopping, etc. Pita pizzas for supper tonight - they were good and I do have a pic for you but I'm too lazy to get it off my camera!

On a more upbeat note I ordered Thrive Foods for amazon today - super excited for it to come!

Vegan MOFO Day 14 - Mahalo

2011-10-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

Today I went with Ollie's class on a field trip to the Scarecrow Festival. It was a lot of fun and I wanted to upload a few pictures but my phone is being difficult.

As promised I have a few product reviews and I thought I'd start with this yummy treat I picked up the other day. I'm sure many of you have had the Go Max Go chocolate bars. I've tried almost all of them now but the last one I had to try was the Mahalo.

So how was it? So so good! Previously I thought the Joker (kinda like a snickers) was my fav but I think its tied with the Mahalo now. How could it not be - just look at this picture!

How awesome does that look! It was every bit as delicious as it looks. So if you've been looking for a great vegan candy bar reminiscent of some of your past pregan favourites give these a try - you won't be disappointed!

Vegan MOFO Day 9 - falling behind

2011-10-12T19:42:00.000-07:00

Day 9 for me, day 11 for those who have it together and are posting every day for mofo! Busy days and fighting off a cold have left me drained the last few days but I think I'm winning the cold battle and I hoping another good night of sleep will leave me feeling peppier tomorrow and with motivation for doing a post!

We're having a yummy stirfry for dinner tomorrow with a little treat I picked up at Earth's General Store plus I have 3 product reviews coming up as well so stay tuned!Publish Post

Vegan MOFO Day 8 - Getting Ready

2011-10-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we are having my family over for Thanksgiving supper so today has been a busy one try to prep what I can. I'm excited to say that we are having a vegan Thanksgiving this year which is pretty much a dream come true but it also means that I am doing 95% of the work. I'm keeping it simple this year and going with dishes I know will be crowd pleasers.

I wish I could blog more tonight but to be honest I'm wiped right out after a late night last night at Padmanadi's. It was so excellent and everyone enjoyed it but but I ate a little too much and didn't sleep as well as I thought I would last night and after a busy day today I'm running on empty. So I'm off to bed to recharge and start fresh tomorrow morning!

I'm pretty sure I won't have time to blog tomorrow but I'll be taking lots of pictures and I'll have a big Thanksgiving post for Monday!

Vegan MOFO Day 7 - Padmanadi

2011-10-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

Well it didn't take me long to fall off the wagon did it?! With Thanksgiving this weekend I had so much to do last night I really had to prioritize and I just didn't have the energy to blog after all was said and done. I had to make some fall cookies for my friends children (there's 9 kids all together) so last night I made sugar cookies in the shape of maple leafs for them and this morning I iced them and put some fall sprinkles on and put them in pumpkin bags tied with some shiny red ribbon to give to them this afternoon. Then I had about a million loads of laundry to wash and put away and the list goes on and on.

But tonight I'll getting a break. The 3 or my girlfriends and I are heading out to Padmanadi's for dinner. I'm the only vegan in the group but they all really wanted to try it out so I'm happy to oblige! I'll try to get some pictures for you all.

This weekend might be a little dicey for blogging as I'm having everyone here on Sunday for Thanksgiving but if I don't get a chance to blog over the weekend I'll have an extra big post on Monday!

vegan MOFO Day 5 - TLT'S

2011-10-05T19:35:00.000-07:00

Wednesdays are a super busy day for us so suppers are usually pretty relaxed. I started the day off with a trip to Planet Organic for a few goodies. Today I scored some more coconut milk yougurt (strawberry, vanilla and plain), some organic cauliflower, organic strawberries, organic raspberries, organic salba, organic apples, some tempeh bacon, earth balance, some vanilla coconut milk, organic pears, organic tomatoes, organic oatmeal, and a few lara bars (they were on sale).

And i couldn't resist picking up some of these red bananas to try. Pretty cute! Too bad their hard as rocks. I'll wait awhile and hopefully they soften up. or are they suppose to be hard? Does anyone know?

Like I mentioned wednesdays are really busy for us so supper tonight was some tlt's (tempeh, lettuce and tomatoe) on silver hills sprout whole grain bread with a side of kale chips. I added some guacamole to mine which really takes it over the top imo.

Not the fanciest dinner but everyone was pretty happy with it! Of course both kids had to have a pickle on the side - thats what takes it "over the top" in their opinion!

Vegan MOFO Day 4 - Treats from Karmavore

2011-10-04T18:44:00.000-07:00

Last week Karmavore had a 40% off sale and I figured it was the perfect time to order a few things i had been wanting to try.

Sorry for the terrible photo - I tried to arrange it so you could see everything. I ordered 3 of the Food for Lovers Vegan Queso. Has anyone tried this yet? I've heard great things about it! Also I got some vegan jello in strawberry, lemon and raspberry, some sweet and sara mini marshmallows (perfect for hot chocolate!), a Bonvita rice milk chocolate bar with coffee crisp and as an extra special treat for myself a box of assorted nuts and chews chocolates.

I'm excited for all of it but I'm really excited to try the queso. I love spicy food. I use to get the Natural Desserts vegan jello from Karmavore and it was excellent but they don't carry it anymore so I'm also excited to try the new brand their carrying. I'll report back on what I think!

Vegan MOFO Day 3 - Guess what I found....

2011-10-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

Today was a today I have been waiting 2 years for. Today I finally got my hands on some So Delicious Coconut Milk Yougurt!

Here's the proof.....

Do you see the giant smiles on their faces? I'm not the only one who has been waiting forever!

So after all that waiting how did it measure up? We have only tried the strawberry one but it was AMAZING! Now granted I haven't had dairy yougurt in 4 years but it tasted just like dairy yougurt to me - only better! It was thick and creamy and not too sweet. I liked that it has 8 grams of fibre per serving and that its fortified with calcium (unlike the beverage here in Canada). The girls loved it too and would have eaten the whole container if I had let them. I foresee a sharp increase in our grocery bill.....

Vegan MoFo - Day 2

2011-10-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

It was a typical fall day today so what better to do then spend some time in the kitchen?

Fresh cranberries are finally at the store so I picked some up to make some orange cranberry muffins from Vegan brunch. Love these muffins - and so do the kids! Perfect for snacks and lunches this week.

I haven't made cookies for a few weeks now (much to everyones surprise!) so I made some of the Chocolate Oatmeal cookies (or something like that - I'm too tired to go check the name) from Vegan Cookies Take over Your Cookie Jar. i added some cranberries and coconut to them and they are nice and fudgy!

And last up - the White bean and Leek Cassoulet from Veganomicon. Always a crowd pleaser the kids and DH had 2 bowls each and I saved enough so they can each have a bowl for lunch tomorrow. Here's a pic of Ollie - she was pretty happy to see what was for dinner tonight!

Vegan MoFo - Day 1

2011-10-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying I'm not officially signed up to do Vegan MoFo - we all know my blogging is less than consistent - but I'm going to try to post every day this month and I'm hoping that will help me become more consistent in my blogging. They say it takes 30 days to establish a habit so hopefully they are right!

Today was a crazy busy day. We had a lot of running around to do and got stuck in traffic everywhere we went. We had to head down to MEC to get everyone outfitted in new hats and mitts for winter. Love their stuff - its such a good quality and we love going skating and sledding in the winter so we need warm clothing. We walk to school everyday and we've been finding it a bit chilly out the last few mornings so we decided to make sure we got all our stuff this weekend - you never know when they weather will turn! Then we had to stop in at Planet Organic for a few groceries and make a few other stops before we finally got home.

After all that running around I was less than motivated in the kitchen tonight so we decided to have a fun supper - nachos while we watched a movie with the girls. We used the Que Pasa organic tortilla chips and put some pepperjack daiya on as well as some chopped tomatoes, olives and green onions. Probably not the healthiest supper but a treat is nice every once in awhile.

I promise to try and make something a little more wholesome for dinner tomorrow!

Adopt-A-Turkey!

2011-09-28T19:31:00.000-07:00

Quick post tonight - wednesdays are a super busy night for us!

Today was a very exciting day for us. Today I did something I have been wanting to do for a few years now.

Meet Daphne - the turkey we adopted from Farm Sanctuary this year! I have been meaning to do this for a few years now but for some reason or another it never got done but I decided that this was going to be the year it happened. When Ollie and i went to the site yesterday it had the 2010 turkeys up. Thanksgiving is a little sooner here so they don't have the 2011 birds up but that really didn't matter to us. The girls liked all the birds but really fell in love with daphne so I called Farm Sanctuary today and we were able to adopt her. I can't wait for her picture to arrive in the mail - they addressed it to the girls!

If you've never adopted a turkey or if you've never heard of it check it out here.

Rebar eats!

2011-09-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

Happy September everyone! Sorry for my absence - we've been in a crazy rush of getting back to school and all the activities. Its a full schedule but I love it!

When we went to Victoria this summer we had the chance to eat (a couple of times) at Rebar Modern Food. I've had their cookbook for a few years but had never made anything from it. Not everything in the cookbook or the restaurant is vegan but they have a lot of things that are or are easily veganized. One of the things we loved the most was their house bread - a Rosemary Garlic Focaccia bread. We all agreed it was the best bread we'd had and my husband also loved their caesar salad. So when I came home I pulled out their cookbook and got to work.

First up the bread. It's a really simple recipe and it turned out excellent except that I used spelt flour in place of the white that the recipe called for and I think I would make this with white flour next time as a "treat".

Here is it pre baked

And here it is baked. it was probably the simplest bread I've ever made but make sure you start well in advance of when you want to eat because it needs a bit of time to rise.

The second recipe I wanted to try was their caesar dressing recipe. This was a big one because I've never found a vegan caesar dressing recipe that we all liked. The original recipe isn't vegan but it was really easy to veganize since it didn't have any eggs in it just cheese which you could replace with a vegan parm but I just used ground walnuts to replace it. It turned out awesome and finally we have a vegan caesar that we all like!

Here it is in my new salad bowl (which I am also in love with)!

And a close up just because my food pics are usually so crappy but this one was pretty good!

And here is the whole meal served together. I always start with some organic jarred sauce and add a bunch of shredded veggies to it. this one had shredded carrots, zucchini, diced red and orange bell pepper, and some cremini mushrooms.

Double Chocolate Brownies...Yes Peas!

2011-08-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back I got an email from amazon.ca with some book suggestions for me. I was going to delete it straight away because we're tightening the belt around here and I didn't want to tempt myself but I just couldn't resist a peek. First book on the list ways "Peas and Thank You - simple meatless meals the whole family will love." I don't really need a new cookbook I told myslef but I decided to take a look at it on amazon.ca anyways. In the description they talked about the blog so I decided to check it out.

Love it, love it, love it! I'm probably the last person on earth to read the blog/website but if you haven't checked it out do it! Funny funny girl that Sarah and her two girls....well lets just say I can relate to many of her stories as I have two girls the same age with the same flair for the dramatic and a love of dresses and skirts as well.

So of course I ended up ordering the her cookbook (as well as Colleen Patrick Goudreau's new book the 30 day vegan challenge - looking so forward to this book and as a side note my sister and her family are going vegan and her in-laws are as well so I may be buying a few more copies of this one for them but more on that in another post) but unfortunately it is delayed a bit and won't be here for a few weeks but no worries - Sarah as lots of reci"peas" posted on her site so I decided to try a few out this week.

First up was the Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls. My friend Kirsten and her daughter come for coffee on Monday morning and it was a chilly day here so I decided to try these out. The house was filled with the scent of sugar and cinnamon and coffee - pretty close to heaven for a couple of fall lovers like us! We had them warm out of the oven and they were really good! The girls ate the rest of them (recipe said makes 6 rolls and I got 10) and loved them too.

Last night I decided to make the Double Chocolate Single Chin Brownies. I had my doubts when I looked at this recipe due to the high amount of applesauce it called for but decided to try it anyways because it was easy to make and a short list of ingredients (all of which I had in the house). So glad I did - my new favourite vegan brownie! So moist and delicious and pretty healthy for a brownie - I made mine with whole grain spelt flour but other than that I followed the recipe. Kids loved these too and we finished off the pan today.

I have a few more reci"peas" marked to try out soon and I'm really looking forward to it. I've sent my sister the link to the site too as the recipes are pretty easy (she's not a fan of cooking and needs simple recipes) and so far they seem to be crowd pleasers. If you haven't checked it out peas do (sorry couldn't help it - lame I know but once you get started with the pea thing its hard to stop!) I think you'll enjoy site and recipeas too!

Beautiful Butterfly

2011-08-03T08:54:00.001-07:00

I was looking through my pictures and I can't believe I forgot to post these! Back in June I was picking Ollie up from preschool one morning when she said "look mommy, look at me!" and a butterfly had landed on her hand. So I grabbed my cellphone and snapped a few pics. I thought the butterfly would fly away but it stayed on her hand the whole time we walked home (about 10 min) so when we got home i grabbed my Nikon and snapped a few more pics and it still stayed with her. Finally I took it and put it on our weeping caragana in the front. It stayed there for most of the afternoon before it left. Ollie thought it was pretty cool and so did I!

Back from Victoria!

2011-07-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

Actually we've been back for about a week and a half now but the day after we came back we had family from out of town staying with us for a week so it was a little crazy around here!

Back in June dh and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary and originally we had planned on going to San Francisco to celebrate but then we ending up doing some renos to the house (and some renos led to more renos...you know how it goes!) so San Fran was out. But we decided we still wanted to do something special so we decided to go to Victoria, BC for 5 days with the kids. Victoria is near and dear to s because its where we honeymooned 10 years ago.

So we got a really good deal on a hotel and ended up staying at the Fairmount Empress which is right on the harbour. The hotel was awesome, the staff was super friendly and very nice to the kids and the location was excellent - walking distance to everything we wanted to do.

We hit the Victoria Bug Zoo (best attraction for the kids imo) and we went to the Underwater Sea Gardens which the kids LOVED! We also went to the Royal BC Museum and watch Born to be Wild at the imax there and we took a tour around the harbour in a boat which was also a lot of fun. One day we hot Beacon Hill Park which was beautiful to walk around. And the hotel had a pool in it so of course the kids loved that (and it was a free thing for them to do which was good cuz it can get expensive going to all the touristy things!).

But for me one of the highlights of the trip had to be ReBar. I've had their cookbook for a few years now but I'd never made anything from it - which is a real shame cuz I was missing out! I told dh that I one place I really wanted to eat when we went was ReBar and we actually when there for supper the first night.

Wow - amazing food! If your in Victoria I highly recommend you try to make it there. Not everything is vegan but there are a lot of options and the staff is super friendly and knowledgeable. The kids where so excited to have so many options to pick from and finally a restaurant that serves a non-dairy milk other than soymilk. None of us are fans of soymilk and they had soy, almond and rice milk! It was so good we actually ate there on our last night too. Needless to say since we've been back I've made a few things from their book and its been awesome.

Pics to come next post!

Last day of school!

2011-06-28T09:07:00.001-07:00

Gabbie had her last full day of school yesterday (today is a half day for her because they are having a family picnic of hotdogs so we obviously will not be dining there!) so i tried to pack her a special lunch. Raspberries, blueberries, cucumbers, carrots, pepper strips, a granola bar and for the main entree an amy's california veggie burger on a whole wheat bun. She was pretty happy with it!

As much as I love that planetbox I gotta tell you i am so happy to be washing it and packing it away for the summer. Bring on the lazy days!!!

Happy Anniversary!

2011-06-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

Dh and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary last week. It was a busy day because it was also ollie's last day of preschool but I managed to get a decent meal on the table. The farmers market had beautiful asparagus, potatoes and cherry tomatoes. We had marinated portobello mushrooms on the grill and we also marinated (in balsamic vinegar) some thick slices of red onion and cherry tomatoes and grilled those too. I pan roasted the asparagus with garlic and lime juice and I also roasted the potatoes with lemon, garlic and dill. Then we just tried to arrange it all fancy on the plate. It was delicious - not bad for a rushed night!

Here I am!

2011-06-26T09:55:00.001-07:00

We we're feeling like a treat the other day and I was looking back at an old post on Dreena's blog about Maple Banana loaf and as luck would have it I had all the ingredients so we decided to try it. Except when i went to bake it i realized i don't have a loaf pan! I know I use to have one so I'm not too sure what happened to it - good excuse to treat myself to a new one i guess! So instead we had Maple Banana muffins. I made one addition to the recipe (other than changing it into muffins) and that was to add some chocolate chips. They were excellent muffins and i liked that they really used very little oil. They were very moist though!

The other night I felt like pancakes so I set everything out for the morning so i could make blueberry pancakes for breakfast, I always use the pancake recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking. Its such a simple recipe and the pancakes turn out great every single time. I always use spelt flour and I add a little extra (1 cup of whole wheat flours = about 1 1/4 cup of spelt). They turned out perfect (this recipe really is foolproof - try it if you haven't!) and it was a really treat for a weekday breakfast.

Quinoa is so good for you and so fast to make I like to use it whenever I can. One way I incorporate it into our meals is with a stirfry. We also really like brown basmati rice so I don't use it every time we have a stirfry but I like to alternate our grains. this strifry is a simple one of broc, onions, mushrooms and a crumbled up smoked apple sage field roast sausage. I make a simple sauce of tamari, grayed fresh ginger, grated garlic, rice wine vinegar, toasted seseame oil and a touch of sugar. Delish!

Peter Puffin and the International Children's Festival

2011-06-06T10:15:00.000-07:00

The last month of school is here and boy is it a busy one! We started the month off by attending a fundraising concert at Gabbie's school. The school has been fundraising for a new playground and they have a new one going in this summer. When Peter Puffin heard about the schools fundraising efforts he offered to do a benefit concert and donate all the proceeds to the school for the playground. The kids were super excited to go and loved the concert. By the time the concert ended we had to hurry home and give the kids a quick bath and get them to bed because they had another big day - the International Children's Festival. Ollie's preschool had a field trip their last Thursday and we were able to purchase extra tickets and we pulled Gabbie out of school for the day and dh even took the day off work to come with us!

This was my first time going to the festival but it certainly won't be the last! What a great festival - we all really enjoyed it! We left around 9am and drove out to St. Albert were the festival was being held. Then we took the free park and ride to the festival site. Our first show was at 11 am so we had a little time to look around the festival site before we had to line up to get our seats.

The first show we saw was Splash n' Boots. Excellent show - very interactive and lots of singing and dancing for the kids. Even the adults really enjoyed it.

Then we had a stop at the storyteller tent before lunch. It was ok - not bad but not great either. Then we had a picnic lunch. I packed hummus, crackers, strawberries, raspberries, grapes and veggies and dip to eat. We were all hungry and ate up but the kds were disappointed because there was a hotdog stand that was selling veggie dogs and they really wanted that. Actually there was a few vegan options at the festival - an ice cream place that had all dairy free ice creams, a veggie panini, and veggie dogs.

The next show we saw was excellent too. It was a glow in the dark puppet show presenting The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other Eric Carle favourites. It was put on by the Mermaid Theatre from Nova Scotia and it was so, so well done! They had a Q&A afterwards and explained to the kids how the show works with black light and how all the puppets work. Really interesting and entertaining!

As a treat after all the shows were done we bought the kids a veggie dog - they topped it off with ketchup, mustard, raw onions, sauerkraut and pickles! It was a great day and it made me excited for all the fun things we're gonna do this summer!

Pita Pizzas

2011-05-20T19:17:00.001-07:00

The weather has finally been nice here and we're taking full advantage of it! Lots of walks and bike rides and stops at the playground. Of course since we've been taking advantage of the nice weather and spending so much time outside I've neglected a lot of the indoor stuff that still needs to be done so I spend evenings trying to catch up on all of that. I'll be glad when school is done - we are all looking forward to a break! I'm tired of the same get up, make lunches, get out the door routine and I know the kids are too. Bring on summer!

Due to my daytime laziness we've been in need of some quick suppers. I've been keeping a lot of salads on hand in the fridge (bean salads, grain salads, green salads, etc) and veggies and dip too and something that has been popular lately had been pita pizzas.

Heres a picture of mine from the other day. It has sauteed organic mushrooms, olives, yellow peppers, onions, pineapple and fresh tomatoe slices all topped of with pepperjack daiya. If you have not tried the pepperjack daiya yet get thee to the store stat! Its fantastic on pretty much everything and makes the best nachos ever!

I like to make my own pizza crust but I find it so simply and handy to have some whole wheat pitas on hand (I usually keep a pack in the freezer) and they make a nice personal size pizza that everyone can personalize themselves.

What is your favourite quick supper?

Strawberry Cupcakes with lemon frosting

2011-05-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

I made these cupcakes for Easter. They are the Strawberry cupcakes from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I made the buttercream frosting in the book to go with them and made it a lemon buttercream by adding so lemon zest and lemon extract. It was a great combo and all the neices loved the butterfly decorations and of course the sprinkles - no cupcake is complete without sprinkles right?!

Good Friday before Easter my sister had a little easter party at her house for all the kids and wouldn't you know it - the Easter Bunny showed up for a little visit! The kids were so excited they were jumping up and down and screaming - it was funny to watch! Of course the Easter bunny brought some treats for them. The girls got a few vegan goodies.

Meals lately have been pretty simple. Kids are really digging sandwiches lately which is fine by me! Below is my sub - hummus, guac, lettuce, onion, tomatoe, green peppers, cucumbers, black olives and pickles. And because it was a friday night and we felt like a treat we had a side of sweet potatoe fries.

I've been trying to keep some quick meals in the fridge to make life a little easier. We've been munching a the quinoa, mango and black bean salad for the last few days and I just made the white bean and artichoke salad tonight for Color Me Vegan which is actually the first recipe I've made from this book even though I've had it since Christmas! I'm sure it will be great though because Colleen's recipes have never let me down!

Happy Mothers Day!

2011-05-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

Look what I got for Mothers Day....

A new yoga mat! I don't think I've ever mentioned on this blog before that I practice yoga almost everyday. I also try to take a class once or twice a week but this past year it was tough with everything going on here so I didn't make it out to any classes. Now that everything is calming down I'm looking so forward to going back to some classes! So when my husband asked my what I wanted for Mothers Day this year I mentioned that I had my eye on this new yoga mat and I am in love with it! Its pretty heavy but its nice and thick and its really slip resistant and I'm looking so forward to using it!

In January I mentioned that my goal this year was to get back to basics and that is what I have been busy doing. I had a huge garden at my old house but when we moved here there was nothing so this year I decided that there was definitely going to be a garden so I've busy sourcing out organic heirloom seeds, building supplies, and of course this......

A composter! I've been wanting to start composting for a long time now so I did some research and found this composter which I think will work great for our household. For me the big advantage with this composter is that there is no turning of the compost. You just open the lid to add your compostables and compost comes out the bottom. You can also collect the compost tea and use it (diluted with water) for your flowers and grass.

I have a lot of pictures saved up from the last couple of weeks so I'll be back with a big catch up post!

Look what came in the mail!

2011-04-19T12:20:00.001-07:00

The girl's easter chocolates came today! I ordered each girl one of the these baskets with a small "milk" chocolate bunny and 4 foil covered eggs each from Karmavore.

We don't like to give them too much candy but I couldn't help but grab a 4 pack of these cocomels to add to their stash. They come in 4 flavours - fleur de sel, vanilla, chai and java. I got them a pack of the vanilla ones.

And of course I couldn't help but get myself a little Easter treat too! The cocomels also come in a chocolate-covered 12 piece variety pack and I just couldn't resist. I love chocolate covered caramels and I love coconut so this has to be a winning combo! I haven't tried them yet - I'm trying to be good and wait till Easter.

So pretty! It will almost be a shame to eat them...almost;)

Busy making beans!

2011-04-17T09:07:00.000-07:00

I love beans! My kids...well some days they love them and some days, not so much. Hummus and falafel are usually good bets but I've been making this salad of about a year now and everyone likes it. Probably doesn't hurt that I serve tortilla chips with it to scoop and eat the salad. Its just a mixture of black beans, pinto beans, chopped grape tomatoes, yellow bell pepper, green onions, frozen kernel corn (defrosted and squeezed of excess moisture) and for a dressing just a tiny bit of canola oil, a splash of rice wine vinegar, taco seasoning and a squeeze of lime - all organic! This is the basic recipe and people add extras according to their likes - avocado, black olives, etc. It makes great leftovers and packs well for school lunches.

I had some leftovers the next day over lettuce and crushed some tortilla chips (Garden of Eatin Multigrain chips - really good!) on top for a filling lunch salad. Also good with a scoop of guacamole on it!

And last weekend I got to cleaning out my cupboards and noticed I had A LOT of chickpeas in there so I decided to make a big pot up and freeze into about 2 cup servings. I'm using one of the containers tonight to make the Falafel Burgers from The Vegan Table. I haven't tried that recipe yet but pretty much everything I've made from there has turned out to be excellent.

Planetbox Lunches

2011-04-13T14:57:00.001-07:00

It feels likes it has been forever since I last posted. After the girls got better with the flu DH got it and was sick for a good week with it. I lucked out and managed to avoid getting it!

Back in August I got both girls the Planetbox lunch box. I was pretty hesitant since it was pricey but after much internal debate I decided to get them. I got one for both kids since shipping was not cheap and Ollie does use hers for preschool snacks and of course will bring her lunch in it when she starts school fulltime.

I'm so glad I bought these for the kids...they've been great lunch boxes! They hold a lot of food which was something I was really worried about because Gabbie is a pretty big eater. In the cold months I would often send her a thermos of hot food (soups, pasta, chilis, etc) and pack a salad and fruit and veggies in her planetbox to go with it.

Here are a couple of lunches I've packed for her recently.

Mangoes and organic strawberries for fruit, organic carrots and cucumbers for her veggies crackers and hummus along with a little treat for after lunch and below is a cookie packed in the big dipper as well.

Also made some Banana Chocolate Chip muffins from 100 Best Baking Recipes book. I usually like to add a scoop of peanut butter to these muffins but since they were for lunches I left the pb out. The only changes I made were to use whole grain spelt flour of the all purpose.

Every Friday is hot lunch day but there are never any suitable choices for Gabbie so I try to either send her a vegan equivalent of a extra special lunch that day. Last Friday I sent her one of her all time favourites - veggie sushi! We had a lot of fruit in the house too so she also got organic kiwis, organic mangoes and blackberries and muffin in her big dipper and a few treats for after lunch. She was quite pleases with her lunch and said it was better than what the other kids had.

Catching up

2011-03-22T19:20:00.000-07:00

Blargh. So the flu has hit the 2 youngest members of this house. First Gabbie woke up last tuesday saying she wasn't feeling well then on thrusday morning Ollie said she didn't feel well. Both had a fever on and off for quite a few days, no appetite or energy at all. Gabbie is about 95% better now but Ollie is still not well. They've both been taking the Sambucol and drinking a lot of smoothies with some coconut water in them (I like the ones with a splash of fruit juice in them like the pineapple, mango and guava ones. They're also good mixed half and half with organic fruit juice if a smoothie is too much for the tummy). Its been some sleepless nights for me and dh. I hope we don't get sick too!

Here are some pictures of what we've been eating for the last couple of weeks. Their not in order and I'm too tired and lazy to try and fix it!

A shrek smoothie. This one had pineapple, frozen mangos, frozen peaches, kale, a scoop of vega tropical tango shake and go mix and some pineapple coconut water in it. Its very refreshing - even for those of use not sick!

Sometimes its breakfast for dinner - choc chip pancakes made with organic spelt flour and almond milk, lemon dill roasted organic baby potatoes, and apple sage field roast sausages...so so good!

Coconut choc chip cookies from vive. Coconut, chocolate...it speaks for itself!

Sweet Potatoe and lentil chili from Eat, Drink & be Vegan. This is a real favourite of mine and Gabbie likes to take it for lunch in her thermos. I always add corn to mine - the kids love corn and will eat pretty much anything with corn in it.

This was actually tonights dinner. Gabbie's plate looked a lot prettier than mine. Savoury french lentils (ED&BV) quinoa, steamed broc. and sauteed dino kale. Not the prettiest supper to look at but it was really tasty.

The kids hamming it up for pics. Supper that night was no queso quesdillias. Yes that is ketchup on Ollie's plate. She also had half an avocado sliced on her plate as well but she gobbled it up pretty quickly.

Zucchini and sweet potatoe curry (ED&BV). My friend Rebecca made this recipe and raved about it and her kids loved it - she makes it every week now. So I decided to make it too. Sadly my kids didn't dig it at all. I should have known better thought - the recipe called for coriander seeds and I like the flavour of them but the kids hated the texture - they thought there was little rocks in the food. Ollie ate hers with ketchup and Gabbie only ate a few bites and I had to toss the rest. You win some, you lose some. I liked it but probably won't make it again for awhile and the next time I do I'll use ground coriander instead of the seeds ;)

And thats it! Looking at all these pics I can see we are really lacking in the salad department lately. Now that the renos are all done and I have my kitchen back I'm hoping to try some new recipes and get put of this cooking rut I seem to be in.

Whats you favourite salad?

Their back.......

2011-03-04T13:57:00.000-08:00

So Delicious Coconut milk beverages that its! I knew they were shipping to Canada again but today was the first time I could pick them up here in Edmonton! I grabbed 2 cartons of the vanilla flavour and as a bonus they were on sale!

One of the worst weekends of my life........

2011-02-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was one of the worst weekends of my life. I had been looking so forward to it because it was not only a long weekend but sunday (the 20th) was my youngests 4th birthday. We had planned a special day of swimming and then a trip to the toy store to pick out a special present then dinner out at a restaurant of her choice. Unfortunately we had some very bad luck.

The weekend started out just fine. The kids had swimming lessons Friday night then we came home, had supper, bath and bed. Saturday we woke up normal time and dh had to go into work for a few hours then pick up the tile for our kitchen then he was coming home. The kids and I had breakfast then I sent them to the basement to clean up. I was sorting through the laundry when I heard screaming and crying coming from the basement. My youngest came up with blood dripping down her face. I grabbed a cloth and asked what happened. Turned out she had been walking with a ballpoint pen and had tripped and got the pen in her eye! I called my husband and burst into tears explaining what I knew and told him I was taking her to the nearest emergency room and he left work to meet me there. After a quick exam the doctor called an eye specialist and he sent us to the Royal Alex hospital where they do all the eye surgery. We quickly dropped the oldest off with my mom and headed to the alex. The specialist looked at her eye, dilated it and gave her an eye exam. It was hard for him to get a really good look in her eye but he felt that her eye was ok but she had a severe laceration to the eyelid (her eyelid was almost cut in half) so she needed surgery to close the wound and then once she was under they could take a better look at the eye. They got her scheduled pretty quickly for surgery so we did all the pre-op stuff and then they took her down to the OR. I was able to put on a gown and cap and come in till they put her under then I had to leave. She was a real trooper - she talked with the nurses while I talked to the surgeon and she was really brave till the anesthesiologist then she started screaming for mommy and curled up into a little ball on the bed. They had to restrain her to use the gas to knock her out and I felt like bursting into tears yet again. I had to leave after that and dh was in the waiting area. As soon as I saw him i did burst into tears again and cried the entire time she was in surgery. All I could think about was the last thing she told me before they put her under. Broke my heart and still does when I think about it today.

Ollie: knock, knock

Me: Whos there?

Ollie: Mommy

Me: Mommy who?

Ollie: Mommy I'm your best friend!

All I could think about was what if those were the last words she every said to me? They should have knocked me out with the gas too because I was close to hysterical. Thank god it was a relatively short surgery (about 45 min). Once they had her under and they were able to take a good look at her eye they saw that not only did she have a severe laceration to her eyelid but she also had a laceration on the membrane of her eye. Thankfully, both will heal with no damage to her vision (as far as they can tell she has 20/20 vision). She was freaking out after the surgery because she had a patch over her eye and she couldn't see. After 45 mins of trying to soothe her I told dh to rip the damn thing off and as soon as we did and she could see us she calmed right down. She drank some apple juice and they brought her a popsicle. She rested for a bit and I read to her then she fell asleep. They kept us for a couple of hours after the surgery then they let us go home.

I can't say enough about all the nurses and doctors that took care of us at the Alex. They have a pediatric day surgery unit at the Alex thats closed on weekends but they brought a nurse in from there and she was excellent with Ollie and with us. So funny and kind! The OR nurses were super friendly with Ollie and they gave her a cap just like mine to wear and took a picture of the 3 of us before she went into the OR. The surgeon was amazing - I felt very at ease talking to him and felt confident about her surgery. The unit nurse gave Ollie and really nice gund teddy bear and some stickers and bracelets before we left and she called a few days later to see how we were doing and to say hi to Ollie. She packed up all our medicine for Ollie and made sure we had everything we needed before we left the hospital.

We got home around 10 pm that night and it was close to 11 before we all went to bed. I though she would be so tired that she would sleep in. Nope. She was up at 7 the next morning (her birthday) and she ran and played like nothing happened. It was an exciting day for her because all my family was calling her and coming by to see her - both for her birthday and for the surgery. We still took her to the toy store to pick out a special toy and then out to dinner but by the time we went to dinner she was complaining about her eye and we went straight home after that. A warm bath, some tylenol and a few books and she was out. The next day she really complained about her eye and she was super tired - all the "excitement" for the last few days had really caught up with her. It was another early to bed night.

So this week I have no awesome food photos to share. We've just been eating a lot of bean soups and salads. The kitchen and bathrooms have been a mess with the wall repairs being done and the tiles going up. I'm so glad all these renos are almost done. Ollie hasn't been able to go to preschool this week and it really bummed her out but she sees the surgeon tomorrow for a follow up and hopefully she'll be able to go back this week. This week has been a real fight sometimes trying to get her to put the drops in her eyes and stuff but her eye looks a 1000 times better.

Hopefully next week is a better week!

Love is in the air.....

2011-02-16T09:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Belated Valentines Day! We had a super busy weekend so this post is a little late but better late than never!

On Saturday we had my niece's birthday party. My niece and Ollie were actually born on the same day and in the past we've done birthday parties for them together and separate and this year we decided to do separate parties. So this past saturday we had Brianna's birthday. My bro and sil had this ballon lady/tatoo artist come and the kids loved her. Gabbie and Ollie each got 2 tatoos and Gabbie got a Tiger balloon animal and Ollie picked a cat. For supper my sil made sloppy joes and she made us a separate pot of vegan sloppy joes and she made a salad of mixed greens with strawberries and a raspberry vinaigrette and for dessert she made a vegan apple crisp and some vegan chocolate cupcakes with coconut buttercream frosting. i provided some So Delicious Coconut coconut milk ice cream to go along with the crisp and cupcakes. I know - their awesome! My sil always makes sure there is plenty for us to eat when we have a family dinner at their house.

We celebrated Valentines Day on Sunday night. We put the kids to bed early and DH placed an order for pick up at our favourite Italian restaurant. We always have an incredible meal from their and they are very good about making sure their is no dairy or eggs in the food. I started with a panzanella salad. its got roasted peppers, olives, capers, romaine and a tomatoe vinaigrette. Then we shared some brushetta - some tomatoe and an artichoke one. Both are fantastic but the artichoke one is my favourite! then i had the vegetariana pizza with no cheese. Hands down my favourite pizza! Artichoke hearts, fresh spinach, olives, roasted peppers, eggplant, cherry tomatoes - love it! for me this supper was a million times better than any flowers I could have got! We gave the kids each a small bag of cocoa kissed SaviSeeds and a panda red licorice stick.

The girls had their valentines Day parties at school as well. I made chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes with orange buttercream frosting (pictured above). The kids went crazy for them and needless to say Gabbie didn't bring home any leftovers. For Ollies class I made heart shaped rice crispie squares using dandies and earth balance. They turned good too and Ollie was super excited to bring them to school. I also brought her one of the cupcakes that I made for Gabbie's class since I was pretty sure the cupcakes provided at her party wouldn't be vegan. Ollie also had a very cool surprise at her party. Zelda the stuff animal zookeeper came and did a show for them. Wow was it ever good - the kids just loved her! Ollie was smiling and laughing the whole time and at the end the kids each got to pick a balloon animal. Ollie asked her to make a black puppy for her. She had such a good day but it really wore her out and she went to bed pretty early that night!

I can't believe the week is only have done! I'm so glad we have a long weekend coming up this weekend (the 3rd Monday in february here is family day)!

Banana Crumble and sick, sick, sick!

2011-02-11T14:33:00.000-08:00

We seem to be in this really weird weather pattern lately - really cold temps for a few days then really warm (relatively speaking) temps for a few days. On one hand its great to have a break from the cold but on the other hand it feels like mother nature is taunting us with a little taste of warm weather. Lets just say I'm really looking forward to spring!

Last cold snap I felt like a comfort meal and had some extra time for dinner prep that night so I made some mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy (from the vegan table - best gravy ever!) and served it with some veggies, salad and dr preggers california burgers. But these weren't your average mashed potatoes - these ones had a special ingredient in them that made them extra creamy and delicious. And that secret ingredient was beans! I put half a can of navy beans in the food processor and added a couple of tbsp's of water and blended it all up. Then i added the bean puree to the mashed potatoes along with some roasted garlic. The bean puree adds a really creaminess to the potatoes - almost reminiscent of cream cheese. Give it a try - you won't be disappointed!

For dessert that night I made the Banana crumble from JOVB. It was good. I'm not a fan of all things banana so it wasn't my favourite dessert but the girls went wild for it with some coconut milk ice cream on top. It was really quick and easy to put together so if you need a dessert like that and you like bananas give it a try.

Ollie got struck down by some sort of stomach bug Wednesday night. She was complaining of a sore knee when I put her to bed and once she fell asleep she was tossing and turning a lot. She woke up whining around 11 pm saying her knee hurt. I rubbed it a bit and told her a good sleep would fix it but I could still hear her tossing and turning in her bed and I knew it was her stomach that was bothering her. I asked her if she was gonna throw up and she said no. 10 minutes lately we heard some nit great sounds coming from her room. We ran in and sure enough she had puked everywhere. We stripped her bedding and I gave her a bath (had to wash her hair and everything) and when we remade her bed I layered lots of towels on the mattress incase she was sick again and couldn't make it to the bathroom. Good thing I did that because she was sick all night long. We went through every single towel we own - even the beach towels! Thankfully she seemed to be feeling better in the morning. She rested on the couch the whole day but she kept some bland food and water down.

She's feeling much better today and eating normally which is good because we had a lot to do today. We left early this morning to go get a birthday present for a party tomorrow and then we had to go to Planet Organic. Dino kale was on special so I grabbed 3 heads and a bunch of other stuff and the kids picked out a new cereal to try (Love Crunch from Nature's Path - chocolate chunks, strawberries and raspberries with coconut and flax granola. It has to be good right?!) then we headed over to save on foods to finish off our list. Then the poor car was in serious need of a washing so we did that then we headed home. I spent the afternoon washing and chopping kale, carrots, broccoli, etc.

Off to swimming lessons then we're relaxing tonight. Got a big tomorrow with the birthday party!

Back to the food

2011-02-06T15:16:00.000-08:00

Sorry for my blogger absence. I have a good excuse - I've spent the month of January painting. As I've mentioned before we're doing some renovations and I've spent every weekend in the month of January painting with my Dad's help. And since I spend all weekend painting I don't get any laundry, etc done so I spend the rest of the week catching up on housework and getting ready for the next weekend of painting. The good news is we are really close to done and I only have a few more weekends to go.

Now on to the food! I mentioned in my last post that we got a Cuisinart griddler for Christmas and what an awesome gift that has been. It comes with 2 flat plates and 2 grill plates and we're using it almost everyday. One of our favourite things to make is a panini sandwich and our favourite panini right now is thin sliced avocado, roasted red peppers, black olives, artichoke hearts, thin sliced tomatoes and red onion and mozza daiya. So, so good. And the pictures turned put pretty good too - so good I decided to show you two of them!

And to go with it I used up some of the panini ingredients and make a really good salad with some romaine and balsamic dressing. I think I added some white beans to the salad too. The girls aren't too keen on the paninis so I usually just make them a grilled cheese using daiya. Speaking of Daiya I am so excited for the Pepperjack Daiya to hit the store shelves in March!

I've also been doing some baking. I made the homestyle chocolate chip cookies from vive but I used spelt flour. I usually use spelt for all my baking. I want to start experimenting with some gluten free baking - both my niece and my sister have to cut the gluten out for awhile so I bought some of the Bobs Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose flour to try. The bag says you can use it 1:1 in your recipes so it should work just fine. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I also made a chocolate cake (the magic chocolate cake from JOVB). There was a birthday celebrated at Ollie's preschool and I found out the night before so I needed to whip up something quick. I added some of the enjoy life chocolate chips in the batter and threw some of the lets do organic sprinkles on and called it done. The other kids had these store bought cupcakes and Ollie had a generous piece of cake. Personally I think Ollie's cake was better than the cupcakes. Just saying.

Not pictured but also made were a batch of mini coconut carob muffins from vive and a batch of mini banana choc chip muffins from JOVB . The girls like taking mini muffins in their lunches so I try to make sure I always have a good supply in the fridge.

Happy New Years!

2011-01-01T09:08:00.000-08:00

Happy 2011 everyone! I thought I'd start the new year off with a blog post to catch up on the last 2 weeks or so.

Gabbie got sick on the 23rd with a 24 hour stomach bug. She was feeling well enough to come to my Mom's on Christmas Eve and when we were there she really pepped up (almost 24 hours on the nose!). Normally we have a big supper on Christmas Eve but this year we decided to do snacks instead. For the vegan fare we had 2 bean chipotle lime hummus, roasted garlic hummus, cheese and salsa dip made with cashew cheese, veggies and dip, fruit, and an incredible hot artichoke dip - I had high hopes for this dip and it blew me away! Really easy to make and so tasty - everyone loved it! It was a really relaxing night - we opened presents with the kids and played games with them then they kicked us out so they could play by themselves so we watched a Christmas classic- National Lampoons Christmas Vacation - and my Mom, Dad and I enjoyed a nice pot of tea. For Christmas I bought my Mom this mug as well as a good selection of caffeine free teas. We tried the Forever Nuts tea on on Christmas Eve and it is outstanding! I'm not really a herbal tea drinker but I'm going this week to buy a tin of this one its a perfect caffeine free tea!

Christmas Day we woke up around 8 and opened presents. We got a cuisinart griddler (we love grilled veggies and paninni sandwiches!) and I got a copy of Colour Me Vegan and Appetite for Reduction. I also got the same travel mug as my Mom and some new teas (Love Tea #7, Chocolate Mint Rooibos, and the Organic Sencha) as well as some paperbacks in a few different series that I collect. The big family gift for us this year was an ipad. So far I love it but I haven't had much time on it - everyone else is using it 24/7 it seems. Then we went to my inlaws. My husband is the youngest in his family by a lot so the kids on his side are a lot older. It was quieter than at my Mom's but a lot of fun too.

And of course we are still renovating and we had carpet being installed last tues/wed/thurs. Wow thats a lot of work! We had to move all the furniture from one side of the house to the other, then over to the other side, take apart beds then put them back together, blah blah blah. I'm glad its done! I'm also really glad my nephew is a firefighter and works out everyday...he used all those muscles to help us move our furniture around! Thanks Rene!

New Years Eve day we did some errands then took the kids swimming. After that we headed home and made supper (grilled portabella mushrooms on the griddler - works fantastic!, steamed brown rice, and a spinach salad) had some dessert (vanilla bean coconut milk ice cream with strawberry rhubarb sauce) watched Toy Story 3 with the kids, put them to bed then we cuddled up on the couch with our blankets and books and put a movie on for us. We didn't watch much of it - too busy reading. Then we headed to bed ourselves. Not the most exciting night but after all the craziness this past week it was nice to park our butts on the couch for the night and do NOTHING!

And thats it! Thats all we've been up to the last 2 weeks.

Ok New Years Resolutions. I don't make them per se I set goals for the up coming year. This years goal - get back to basics. I want simplicity in our lives - from meals to stopping to enjoy what we have. We've been going at an unreal pace for the last 6 months or so and its time to stop and just enjoy our family and friends. I have some changes I plan on making in this house in the upcoming year and I'll share them with you as I go along. I'm looking forward to a happy and healthy 2011.

How about you? Any goals/resolutions for 2011?

The gift that keeps on giving....

2010-12-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

I'm a lucky girl in so many ways. And today I got a little luckier.

I won a copy of a cookbook from Dreena! I was so excited to find out that I won, even thought I already have all of her cookbooks. See I have someone very special in mind for this book - my friend Rebecca.

Rebecca's Dad had a heart attack very young so her Mom put the whole family on a vegetarian diet and they stayed on the diet for many years. I'm not sure why but slowly the family went back to eating some meat. Now Rebecca is married and has 3 little ones and she is wanting to go back to a meatless diet. She is comfortable with vegetarian cooking but feels a little intimidated by vegan cooking. So when Dreena announced she was giving away one of her cookbooks I left a comment about wanting to win a copy for my friend and I won! It comes at the perfect time too because she is feeling a little overwhelmed lately with some parenting issues and I think this will really help give her a positive focus (it always makes me feel good to know I'm feeding my family well) and help her reach her goal of changing her families diet.

I decided on Eat, Drink & Be Vegan for her because many of my favourite recipes are from there (Chickpea sensation patties, sniffle soup, sweet potatoes and lentil chili, savoury french lentils, peanut passion sauce, chickpea confetti casserole, all the desserts! and of course all the great hummus recipes - special mention to the peanut sesame and the olive and sun dried tomato one!) The list just goes on and on!

Whats your favourite recipe from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan (or any other cookbook from Dreena Burton)?

Lets talk tea....

2010-11-19T17:39:00.000-08:00

Those of you that follow this blog know that we are doing what I may have described as a "few" renos to our house right now. Those of you that know me personally know that I grossly underestimated the magnitude of this renovation and that my house (and my life!) is in shambles right now and that is why you aren't seeing a lot of food pics right now. Not that we haven't haven't been eating...despite, at times, having a lack of oven, prep area, water (plumbers were this week and as a result I had the water shut off for most of the day everyday this week) we have been managing fairly well. Not gourmet meals mind you but healthy and filling and sometimes thats all you need. And speaking of things you need....

A month ago I was out with my sister doing some Christmas shopping and I happen to walk into a lovely little tea store called David's Tea aka - Heaven! Black teas, green teas, oolong teas, white teas, herbals, red and green rooiboos, mate, - you name it they probably got it! They also sell tea pots and cups and it just so happens that I have been looking for a little tea pot for myself and I found an adorable little red one with some matching cups! And of course I had to buy a few teas for my new tea pot.

I'm generally a green tea drinker but with so many great variety of teas to choose from I had to branch out a little! On my first trip there I bought some pumpkin chai (a black tea), green seduction (an organic pomegranate green tea), strawberry white (an organic silverneedle white tea), and read my lips (a black tea with chocolate and pink peppercorns). They were all fantastic and so I just had to go back a few days later for a few more varieties! I've also tried the long life oolong (a peach oolong), green and fruity (a green rooiboos), love tea #7 (a black tea with chocolate and strawberries), toasted walnut (a green tea with walnuts), organic sencha (a really lovely green tea), lime bang (a green tea with pineapple and lime peel - more of a summer tea imo), and for the traditionalist a cream of earl grey (earl grey with vanilla). They all been lovely and everyday I look forward to stopping the reno madness for tea time!

I really can't say enough about the staff at David's Tea. Everytime I've gone in (I also did a little Christmas shopping for my Mom there as she is a big herbal tea drinker and they have some wonderful varieties of caffeine free teas) the staff always has some great recommendations and they always have a couple of different "teas of the day" that they give samples of. If your a tea lover check them out!

Whats your favourite kind of tea?

Vega Shake and Go Smoothie review

2010-11-12T20:46:00.000-08:00

I am a big fan of Brendan Brazier and the Thrive Diet.I don;t follow his adive to the "t" but I think the nutritional advice and products he makes are top quality - nutritional speaking. Unfortunately every product I've tried has gotten 2 thumbs down in the taste department from me. A great product is only good if you can actually ingest it and I could not choke down more than a sip of the Whole Food Health Optimizers nor the Whole Food Smoothie Infusion (funny but the kids seemed to like the smoothie infusion I just couldn't drink more than a sip of it). I thought as much as I like the idea behind his products I'd never be able to use them.

Until I tried this....

Tropical Tango Shake and Go Smoothie. This stuff is seriously good! Now full disclosure - I haven't just mixed it with water and drank it - I've been adding it to our morning smoothie but I feel confidant that I could just mix it with water and it would be good too. Just not a real breakfast smoothie if you know what I mean:) I've been making a pineapple/orange/strawberry smoothie the last couple of days and been adding 2 tbsp's of the mix to the smoothie and its been fantastic. It has a very nice peach/nectarine taste to it that really compliments the mix of fruits I've been using. The kids love it and I feel like it fortifies our breakfast a little bit. I think it would be great to use in green smoothies and would help mask the greens (not that I've ever had that problem). The only problem I have with it is that its pricey - I got this pouch for $19.99 on sale but its normally $24.99 and that would only last use 2 weeks i we used it everyday. So I'm not sure if we'll be able to use it everyday as I'm trying to cut down the grocery budget a bit but I'll have to see if we can fit it in because everyone really enjoys it.

So if your like me and have wanted to like the Vega products but just could get over the taste of them give this one a try! I plan on trying the berry one and the vanilla almond one.

Happy World Vegan Day (and the start of Vegan MoFo)!

2010-11-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

What a crazy, crazy week last week! I am still recovering from the school Halloween parties/events, the cupcake making (both at home to send for the older one and at the preschool for the littlest. New rule - all food for parties must be bought at the store or made at the schools "certified" kitchen. Needless to say 20 vegan cupcakes would have been waaay to expensive so I packed up all my baking ingredients/supplies and make 24 golden vanilla cupcakes a la VCTOTW at the preschool for the party. Everyone loved them and the preschool teacher wants to borrow my book. See - much better than buying cupcakes!) costume prepping, house decorating, etc. We had great weather for trick-o-treating and the kids were totally thrilled with the barbies the Halloween fairy left for them (they traded their candy to the fairy for a surprise toy and some vegan treats. I actually think they were more excited for the halloween fairy than for trick-o-treating). I love Halloween but I seriously feel like I need a vacation after this last week.

I'm very excited about the start of Vegan MoFo. Although I am not officially participating I'm going to try and post every day this month too but with the renos still on going its a little crazy here but I'll do my best!

And last but not least Happy World Vegan Day to all the vegans out there. I'm off to enjoy my yummy vegan supper (grilled portobella mushrooms, bbq potatoes, steamed broc and a tossed salad...yum!)

So Delicious Coconut Milk Beverages are now available in Canada!!!

2010-10-25T11:29:00.001-07:00

***ANOTHER IMPORTANT UPDATE***

They're coming back! Here is the official statement from Turtle Mountain:

So Delicious Coconut Milk Beverage will be widely available in Canada by the end of February 2011. Due to a labeling discussion with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), our coconut milk beverage was temporarily unavailable. We are incredibly pleased that the CFIA has recently agreed to allow So Delicious to sell our dairy-free products with allergen information on the label. This information is so valuable and important to consumers, and we are happy to be able to communicate that our coconut milk beverage is dairy-free, soy-free, gluten-free, vegan, and kosher. We want to thank Canadian shoppers for their patience and ongoing support. We are thrilled to be coming to a grocery store near you in the coming weeks.

I sure hope the creamers and yogurts are right around the corner!

***IMPORTANT UPDATE***

Many of you probably have noticed the beverages are no longer available in Canada. About a month after I purchased my first carton I was told that the beverages had to be pulled off the shelf due to a complaint by a CFIA (Cnadian Food Inspection Agency) inspector over some labeling. I waited and waited for themt o come back along with the yogurts. I got tired of waiting so I sent the nice people at Turtle Mountain an email inquiring when the beverages might be back in Canada. This is the reply they sent me.

Thank you for your email regarding our products. At this time only our frozen products are available in Canada. I am including our official statement regarding this.

Turtle Mountain has been working in full cooperation with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to resolve an important labeling issue. Recent CFIA policy prohibits Turtle Mountain from making the claim that the company's So Delicious Coconut Milk Beverage is gluten, dairy and soy free. Even though those statements are true, the CFIA has recently decided to prohibit "allergen-free" statements on packaging. Their decision marks a major change of direction in CFIA's policy and promises less label information for allergen sufferers at a time when consumers are asking for more and clearer information on allergens. By prohibiting manufacturers from making "allergen free" statements, the CFIA is restricting the amount of information available to Canadian consumers, which raises significant public-health concerns. Turtle Mountain believes that the CFIA's decision to prohibit 'allergen-free' statements has such a critical public-health impact that it asked the most senior policy officials in the CFIA to reconsider. Turtle Mountain is fundamentally opposed to limiting the amount of information that is available to consumers. The best interest of the Canadian public is at hand, and Turtle Mountain is passionately urging the CFIA to act in accordance with their commitment to communicate important food safety information to consumers. We hope that this matter will be resolved quickly so that Canadian consumers will have access to valuable allergen information and also be able to enjoy safe, healthy and delicious dairy-free food options.

If you have any other questions regarding please feel free to call or email me.

I have to be honest - I was close to speechless and let me tell you how rare an occurrence that is. If this is the case then I guess Quaker should have to pull their granola bars off the shelf and remove all their peanut free labeling. Somehow I doubt the CFIA will be asking Pepsico (Quakers parent company) to do that. I've sent an email to the CFIA asking for clarification on the subject. Pretty sure I won't get a reply.

The nice people at Turtle Mountain did give me some advice. They also sell their coconut milk beverage in shelf stable cartons and if you go to this site you can order from them and apparently the ship to Canada.

If I hear more on this I'll be sure to post another update.

Attention all Canadians! Ollie and I just came back from a trip to Planet Organic and look what we found there...

So Delicious Coconut Milk Beverages! We have been impatiently waiting for these to come to Canada so we were super excited today when I asked someone there if they had any and he said yeah I'm just making room for them on the shelf right now, I've got 3 cases in the back. We picked the vanilla one to try. Ollie loved it so I'll have to get Gabbie's feedback and let you know. I liked it too but its not as fortified as the almond milk we drink so I'll have to mix the 2. On the plus side the schools will let the kids have it there so I can bake with it (yes!) but its pretty pricey ($5.49 a carton) so we'll have to go easy on it.

Now we're just waiting for the creamers and yogurts to come.....

Part way there!

2010-10-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

Its been a very long week of renos but I now have new kitchen cabinets and countertops (and bathroom cabinets and some new cabinets and countertops for my laundry room too)! My Uncle and his apprentice came down to do the work for us and even though they were great guests (and workers!) its nice to have everyone out of the house and to be by ourselves again. DH and I were up late last night cleaning and I'm working on reorganizing everything in the kitchen today. We have a week off before the plumbers come to fix our bathtubs and shower (the joys of an older house). The renovations haven't been fun but they're so worth it! I am in love with my new kitchen and we moved things around a bit so I finally have some countertop space! So excited to start cooking in there again! Thankfully the weather has been nice we've been grilling a lot of veggies and mushrooms, etc but its starting to cool off so it looks like the kitchen is done just in time.

Back to clean and organizing.........

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-10-09T15:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long blog break. Things here have been very hectic because we're renovating our kitchen and bathrooms! I'm very excited but its a lot of work to get everything packed up and organised. My Uncle is actually doing all the cabinets and countertops and he is coming tonight to stay the week with us and do it. So tomorrow we are ripped out all the old stuff for the new.

Unfortunately due to the timing of the reno I will not be hosting Thanksgiving at my house this year and I am seriously sad about that. Thanksgiving is my favourite holiday to host and I love designing the menu and decorating the table with all the fall colours. Oh well, there's always next year and as a bonus I'll have a new kitchen to cook the meal in too :)

My Mom is hosting Thanksgiving this year and she is making lots of vegan goodies for all to enjoy! On the menu is mashed potatoes (vegan of course), roasted veggies, mushroom gravy from the Vegan Table, a apple and broc. slaw of some sort that is vegan, and for dessert cran apple maple pies and crisps. I was suppose to make the Festive Chickpea tart but my mom forgot to make an extra vegan pie shell for me and I'm too lazy to run to Planet Organic to get one some instead I'm making some Smoked Apple field roast sausages - these sausages are so great! Dinner is gonna be great, I can't to eat!

I hope to be able to blog over this next week once of twice but it really depends on how things are going.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Canadians and hope everyone else is having a fabulous weekend too!

Apples, apples, apples!

2010-09-26T15:49:00.000-07:00

Last week my friend went to her sisters house to pick apples and asked if I wanted some. I said only if they had enough to spare. I guess they had plenty to spare cuz I got a huge box full! What to do with all those apples?

First up was some apple sauce. The kids don't like it on its own (the apples are fairly tart and I didn't put hardly any sugar in the sauce) but they love it with cinnamon and sugar on it and in their oatmeal.

I always make a batch of mini muffins for the kids lunches so I decided to make the Apple Pecan muffins from The Joy of Vegan Baking. I made a few adjustments to the recipe. First I left out the pecans (no nuts at school) and instead of cutting the apple into chunks to add I shredded it with a grater and added it that way. The kids love apples but I had a feeling they wouldn't like the chunks of apple in the muffins. They turned out very well and the kids are excited to take some in their lunch.

Then last night I made some pie filling based on a recipe from Catherine over at Food Snob. She used some apples to make a pie filling that goes in the freezer and that sounded like a great way to use up some more of my apples! The recipe calls for 8 apples but my apples are pretty small so I kinda had to do a best guesstimate. I think I ended up with a double batch. I plan on using some of it for apple turnovers this week.

I still have half a box of apples to use up. I'm going to do some more baking and if that filling works out I'm going to use the rest for that. Sorry there are no pics...I was too busy to stop for the camera:)

Packing school lunches in our new PlanetBoxes!

2010-09-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

Sorry for such a long absence from blogging...we have been adjusting to new schedules and getting into the "back to school" routine.

First up though an update on the haircut disaster. My youngest is now sporting a very short (and chic!) bob. And although there are large chunks of hair still missing in the back, with some artful blowdrying and combing we can hide much of it. I just hope the missing chunks grow back fast.

Ok so the last few weeks have been crazy with back to school in this house. My oldest started grade 1 and the youngest started preschool 2 mornings a week. Grade 1 has been a huge change for us because for the first time I have to send her to school with a lunch. I really wanted to have a good system for the school lunches and part of that was how to transport her lunch. I didn't want to be wasting time looking for lids to a million tupperware contains - not to mention I didn't want to use any plastic for her lunch either. So when I saw the planetbox I knew it would be perfect.

I first saw the planetbox on this blog (I so love this blog and I hope veganmomma starts blogging again - I have really missed her post!). I really hesitated when I saw the price ($59.95 US plus shipping) but after much internal debate and a lengthy chat with DH we decided to order them. And I'm so glad we did, they have made school lunches very healthy and easy for me to pack and Gabbie to eat!

I don't know why blogger is underlining this, so frustrating! Ok so here is one of her lunches from this week, cucumbers, blackberries, mini banana choc chip muffins, a field roast sandwich and some skittles for her "treat".

Here is her lunch with the big dipper for her snack - some yummy organic strawberries.

Here it is all packed up in her case with the magnets she chose for the day. We have 3 different sets and she really likes picking a set each morning.

And here it is already to go with her sigg bottle full of water for the day. She only drinks water throughout the day. Her big dipper is in the front pouch next to her water bottle.

Ok so here are my thoughts so far on the planet box. First up the likes. I love the compartment system for packing a lunch. You can put anything you want in each compartment obviously but we've designated a fruit one and a veggie one and every morning she picks a fruit(s) and veggie(s) to pack for school. The main compartment is for her "main meal" and the long tray is usually some filler or extras. I usually pack her snack in the big dipper and this works well for her. Its quick and easy for her to grab her snack out of the front pocket. It holds a lot of food. I was initially worried that it won't hold enough to keep her going all day but she always says she has more enough to eat. It is really easy to clean - I usually just wash it in the sink with my pots and pans at night then dry it and leave it open on the counter to pack for the next morning. On the weekend I wash it all up and put the dippers inside, pack it in the carry bag and put it away in a cupboard till Monday.

Now for my dislikes. I first started packing applesauce with cinnamon for a snack in her big dipper and it would leak in her carry case. According to the website if you put a "wet" food in the dippers and you don't put it in the actually box itself you need to put a rubber band around the dipper to secure it. I tried that and it still leaks so for right now I've been putting more fruit or crackers in the dipper. My daughter's dislike is that she finds pretty heavy to carry to school which means I usually carry it for her. I don't find it heavy but I'm not six either.

Thats all I can think of for now. As we pack more lunches I'll be sure to post more.

Stress!

2010-09-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

My youngest starts preschool tomorrow and she just finished giving herself a haircut.

*sigh*

How bad is it? Its down to the scalp in some areas and the back...well its one of the worst mullets I've ever seen. Thankfully my niece is a hairdresser and after a frantic call she came over and did her best to fix it. Its a very short bob now with some layers in it and with some artful styling and combing I think I can hide the worst of it.

Fortunately this child can really rock a hat........

Wilbur

2010-09-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

Wow my 100th post! I finally made! I probably should do some great food post but its been a crazy weekend of cleaning and organizing with Fall coming and school starting so we've been having some quick and un-blogworthy meals the last couple of days. So instead I want to share a few special pictures of a really special dog.

This is our dog Wilbur - yes I picked his name, not the kids. I don't know - he just looked like a Wilbur to me! When my oldest daughter was little she was pretty sick and at one point spent some time at the local Children's Hospital. She always wanted a dog so once she got out of the hospital I started looking for one. My husband is pretty allergic to dogs and cats but thankfully he is fine around Shih Tzus. We had hoped we'd find one that was white and brown but the minute I saw Wilbur's picture I knew that was my dog. He has been such a great addition to our family. This little guy has a heart of gold. He is a real loving dog, always happy and excited to meet everyone he sees and he is great with kids. He loves to go for walks and at night after our walk he likes to curl up with me while I have a cup of tea and watch tv or read. Everywhere I go in the house he follows - he is a real people dog.

Really - how much cuter could he get?! Love you Wilbur!!!

Farmers Market Finds

2010-09-01T09:05:00.001-07:00

We hit the Farmers Market yesterday afternoon for some more back to school produce. Not that we don't eat produce all the time but its exciting for the kids to call it back to school veggies!

I don't know why blogger is underlining this - sorry! We got quite a few things (not in the picture is the coveted Blackberries, I forgot to include them) but the girls were most excited over this....

A purple bell pepper! I've seen purple beans and potatoes before but never a purple pepper. The lady at the stand said they taste sweeter than a red pepper but I found it tasted more like a green pepper. I don't think the kids will be excited when they taste them because the love red, yellow and orange bell peppers but not so much green ones. They'll still eat them (if only because their purple) and I'm ok with that!

Also deserving a special mention is the awesome cucumbers we got. They had a sale, buy one large bag get the second one half price - couldn't pass that up so we now have a lot of cukes but thats ok cuz everyone in this house loves cukes!

Hectic Day

2010-08-31T11:19:00.000-07:00

We are getting ready for back to school today and the house is a flurry of activity! My kitchen is a disaster right now - I am washing and chopping pineapples, strawberries, lettuce, kale, blueberries, carrots and other goodies for breakfast smoothies and back to school lunches. Next up is muffin and cookie baking before we head out to the farmers market (my daughter says she must have some blackberries for her lunch this week!) I'm sure there will be more washing and prepping when we come back. Did I mention I also have to clean the bathrooms and of course the kitchen too? And naturally my youngest had an accident last night so I had to strip her bed and wash it all. And just when I thought I was going to catch up on the laundry....

The Planetboxes did arrive last Friday and we are in love with them! I promise to post a few pics and my thoughts on them once we pack a few lunches in them.

Thats all for today, back to the kitchen....

Eco Planet Crackers

2010-08-24T08:55:00.001-07:00

I've read about these crackers on a few blogs now and have been wanting to get them for when school starts so the girls could have a fun cracker in their lunch as a treat every now and then. I have kept my eyes open for them but never saw them here in Canada. I thought about ordering them on online but was kinda hesitant about it (not sure why, I order a lot of stuff online!). I decided to check the manufactures site and sure enough the had listed Safeway as a retailer here in Canada. So I called up a Safeway close to me and they had them in stock! Yesterday the girls and I made a trip over there to pick up a couple of boxes.

The kids love them, no surprise there. They taste much like those goldfish crackers many love. The girls like the fun shapes and are very excited to have them in their lunches. The downside is they are expensive - $5.49 a box at Safeway and there isn't a lot of nutritional value (ok theres no nutritional value) so they won't be getting them everyday but I'm happy I got them and will be packing them for lunches sometimes.

Getting ready.....

2010-08-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

For back to school that is! Its hard to believe we are half way through August already, the summer has really gone by fast this year. My oldest is going to Grade 1 this year and my youngest starts preschool 2 mornings a week so starting in September its back to packing snacks and a lunch for my oldest. I've been looking at this lunch box for a long time now and today I finally ordered it (nothing like leaving it to the last minute. It should arrive a day or two before school starts). It was pricey especially when you include the shipping but my Husband and I felt it would be worth it in the long run.

I like the compartment idea so you can quickly see if you have a well rounded lunch packed or not. And there is no garbage produced with it so its definitely better for the environment. The girls are very excited for them to arrive. They each picked the purple power carrying case with the under the sea magnets. Since the shipping was so expensive my Husband decided we should order a few sets of magnets as well so each girl got a set of the rainbow ones and the retro kitty ones.

I'll be sure to post some pics when they come and give my thoughts on the lunch box after I've packed a few lunches in them.

Tempeh, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomatoe...mmhhhh!

2010-08-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

I have tried to make tempeh "bacon" many times from many different recipes and it never turns out. So when I saw this product I had to give it a try. The verdict? Its really good. Pricey so we won't be buying it all the time but it makes a really great sandwich. The BLT was a favourite of my husbands and he really enjoyed the tempeh version as did the girls and I but we added avocado to ours which, imo, put it over the top.

Here is a close up of my sandwich. It was so good it was hard for me to stop and get a picture of it. Good thing me new camera snaps pics pretty quick!

And here is a picture of my plate. We rounded out the meal with a green salad tossed with a sweet onion vinegrette. And yes those are green olives on my salad. I love olives and I tend to put them on anything I can!

We're still enjoying the nice summer weather although its raining out today. The girls have their last day of swimming lessons tomorrow and we're all looking forward to having a few weeks off before school starts. I can't believe how fast the summer has gone by. We been very lucky the last few years, we've had incredible weather in Sept/Oct and I'm hoping it will be the same this year. Its rained so much this summer we haven't been out bike riding and playing as much as we wanted to but the fall is usually dry here so hopefully the weather will be warm so we can make up for some of that lost outside time.

So much to blog about

2010-08-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

It feels like forever since I blogged last but we've been so busy I just haven't had time to sit down at the computer. The girls are in swimming lessons again for 2 weeks (they were in the first 2 weeks of July as well) and the weather has been really nice here so we've been walking to the library, going to the park, playing on the swing set and sandbox in the backyard..basically just spending as much time outside as we can!

And of course we've been enjoying those awesome "summertime" meals. Here's what I've managed to download of my camera so far (I have a lot of pictures to post in the next couple of days!)

Pad Thai with tofu, grilled pineapple and steamed broccoli with garlic sauce. Had the leftovers the next day for lunch. Delicious!

Lemon Blueberry Muffins. Made these on a rainy day to pop in the freezer for snacks and to bring for breakfast on vacation. More on that in a minute!

Sometimes you just need something fast and easy. Dr. Preager's gluten free california veggie burgers, fries and kale chips. Mmhhhh!

Burritos made with homemade "refried"beans and cashew cheeze sauce, baked in the oven till crispy on the outside. Paired with a green salad it was a yummy dinner. Again the leftovers were enjoyed for lunch the next day.

Not the prettiest looking dish but it actually turned out to be pretty tasty. I we we're out of ideas and low on groceries so we marinated portobella mushrooms and grape tomatoes with balsamic vinegrette and grilled them on the bbq then tossed with whole wheat pasta. Sometimes simple really is best.

We went on vacation to the mountains for a few days to see the sights and to visit my granny (the girl's great granny). It was a great vacation! As much as I miss the baby stage now that my youngest is 3 I have to say I am enjoying some of the perks of have children that are so much more independent. It was nice to go on a trip and not have to worry about packing the stroller, baby carrier, etc. We had so much fun touring around Banff/Canmore and the kids were amazingly good despite some pretty busy days and lots of walking in the fresh mountain air. We pack quite a bit of food and our hotel room had a mini fridge so we pretty much ate in the hotel room and pack picnic lunches. For dinner we found this great indian place that made great basmati rice and an incredible red lentil curry that had coconut milk and green beans in it. I was sad to leave but happy to come home if that makes any scene. We are looking very forward to going back soon.

Steady Eddie

2010-07-05T19:30:00.001-07:00

Awhile back I posted that I had won a contest over at Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. I was the lucky winner of a very nice t-shirt from Silver Hills Bakery and 5 coupons for free loaves of bread.

Silver Hills Bakery makes delicious sprouted grain breads that are minimally processed, high fiber, low fat and great tasting. I've borrowed the following from their website - I believe they say it best:

First off, we believe the simple things in life are best.

Second, we live this belief with our breads and bagels by making them the way they should be: as simple, organic and delicious as possible, and made with sprouted organic grains in their purest form to provide the highest nutritional value for you and your family.

Couldn't have said it better myself! I like not needing a chemistry degree to understand the ingredient list on my bread bag. So I promptly took one of my coupons to the store and bought a loaf of the Steady Eddie bread. I chose this bread for a number of reasons:

1. I love the name Steady Eddie

2. The t-shirt they sent me was a Steady Eddie t-shirt

3. Its sweetened with organic whole apples and

4. It has a GI rating of 55

So the choice was obvious and I picked a real winner! This bread is so very good. Seriously. If you don't believe me ask my kids. They won't eat anything just because its good for them. If they don't like it they aren't shy about telling me (whining to me) that they don't like it. I have made them toast with this bread and grilled cheese sandwiches with the vegan rice cheese and they love it. They also love the fact the their bread has a cool name like Steady Eddie (what can I say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree does it).

I've had many a sandwich with this bread - my favourite being a combo of hummus, avocado, tomates, broccoli sprouts, thin sliced red onion and pickle. I think the biggest thing I noticed after eating a sandwich made with this bread is that its really filling. Normally I'll eat a couple of sandwiches and I'll be hungry a few hours later but I only eat one of the afore mentioned sandwiches and I'm full till dinner. Not sure if its all the fibre or the low GI rating but it really fills you up.

We've been sticking with the Steady Eddie for awhile now but I'm looking forward to trying some different loaves with our coupons. I'll keep you posted!

Happy Anniversary to me!

2010-07-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

This June Dh and I celebrated 9 happy years together! Unfortunately it was a crazy week with school and the kids and dh has been working quite a bit of overtime so we didn't get to go out and celebrate just the two of us yet but things are slowing down to a more manageable pace so we'll have an evening out soon.

So I wanted to make a special supper that night but I also wanted to make something that the kids would like and eat too plus it was a warm night and I didn't want to turn the oven on or have dh bbq as he was coming home pretty late from work. And so I decided to make this:

Pad Thai from The Vegan Table and and asian salad that is my own "creation". The Pad Thai is awesome and we all love it and the salad was spinach, peppers, shredded carrots, cucumbers, hemp seeds, sunflower seeds and Renee's Asian Sesame dressing. Perfect summer meal!

I was trying to think of something special for dessert that night when Dreena posted on facebook that she had just made a double batch of brownies. That seemed like a dessert worthy of turning on the oven for. So I made these brownies without the icing and walnuts and I topped them with the So Delicious coconut milk vanilla bean ice cream. Dh was supper happy (and full)!

You may have noticed that my food pictures are a little more appealing (I hope!) - we finally got a new camera! It was pretty pricey but worth every penny imo. I was so tired of the crappy point and shoot camera that we had - it was so slow; there was way too much lag time between shots and I couldn't have that because my oldest graduated from Kindergarten a couple of weeks ago. After a disastrous last day of gymnastics (me trying to get lots of pics for dh who couldn't make it because work is so busy and missing every shot because the camera was so slow) I said no more and went out that day to get a new one. I'm still earning how to use it and how to proper photograph food but hopefully you'll see some more appetizing shots on this blog from now on!

And speaking of the graduation, after the grad I took both the girls out to the local coffee shop here in town for a special treat. The lady who owns the place does a lot of gluten free cooking and baking and is very allergy aware so she understands completely our request for no dairy. Look at the cute little soy hot chocolates she made the girls.

The girls have a love affair with hot chocolate (as does their mom!) so they were super happy with their special hot chocolates! Know what goes good with hot chocolate? These.

My husbands new favourite cookie - the Carob-Coconut-Pecan cookies from Vive. I had to make a few subs - Im out of spelt flour (how did that happen!) so I used whole wheat pastry flour and I used the enjoy life brand of chocolate chips (didn't have any carob chips) and I didn't have any pecans either but they turned out pretty excellent regardless! My husband loved them and my parents tried some the next day and my Dad said it was one of the best cookies he's ever had! So if you haven't tried these yet and its not too hot in your house (its really cooled down here for the last few days which has allowed me to do some baking again) give these a try.

Look what I found...

2010-06-29T11:47:00.000-07:00

Summer is here! The kids are done school and the weather has been so nice so we've been having some pretty lazy days. Its nice to have a break from the structure of the school year.

Today we had some errands to run (bills to pay, etc) and we decided to stop at Planet Organic. I love it there but I always spend way too much money so I try to only make a couple of trips there a month. My local grocer carries a large selection of organic produce and vegan products. I know the manager there and he is very helpful in bringing in any vegan products he can for us.

Today was a great day to stop in at Planet Organic because we found some great new products!

First up:

Vegan rice cheese slices! I like a grilled cheese made with Daiya but the girls aren't fond of it in a grilled cheese so I was excited to see these today. I like that they are soy free - not that we don't eat some soy but I don't like a lot of processed soy products. We try to only eat minimally processed soy products (organic tofu, etc) and I haven't been able to find a rice cheese slice that was vegan.

I've blogged before about my love for the So Delicious coconut milk ice creams - love them! So I was ecited to try the Luna and Larry's brand of coconut milk ice cream products.

I love chocolate and hazelnuts so I knew exactly which flavour of ice cream I was going to try.

And I had to try the Dark Chocolate bliss bars too. Wow - this ice cream is so decadent! Its a great treat on a hot day! The Hazelnut Fudge ice cream is my new favourite ice cream for sure. I see myself gaining a few pounds this summer.....

And last but not least soy free earth balance. I have heard so much about this spread but it wasn't available in Canada till now. I haven't tried it myself yet but I made the girls grilled cheese sandwiches with this and the rice cheese slices and the Silver Hills Bakery Steady Eddie bread and they gave it two thumbs up - a real honour based on their rating system for food! I'm glad to have a few new soy free options.

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-20T14:03:00.001-07:00

I know its been so long since I last posted and I have a lot to catch up on but I just wanted to stop in to say Happy Father's Day to all the daddy's out there an of course an extra Happy Father's Day to my Dad and my Husband...two of the very best Dad's around!

Another sick kid!

2010-05-31T18:32:00.000-07:00

This spring we have had more than our share of sickness running through our house. Now Olivia is in bed sick with a sore tummy and a bit of a fever. She slept through dinner and just had a bath and some books and is sleeping again now. I hope after a good nights sleep she feels better. So strange, we really didn't have anyone sick in this house this fall/winter but this spring we have been hit hard.

Hopefully this awful weather goes away soon and all the sickness with it!

I Won!

2010-05-20T12:07:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up feeling a little sad because it seems that I've picked up a little cold. I can't believe I didn't have so much as a sniffle all fall/winter long and now I have a cold! Oh well - its not a bad cold but I hate being sick at all when the weather is nice. Anyways, the day wasn't looking to be anything special when I decided to do my daily blog visits - until I went to Dreena's blog and I saw this:

okay, the new winner for the Silver Hills giveaway is Born to be Vegan (comment: "Enter me please! My daughter starts grade one in the fall so I see some sandwiches in our future").

I can't believe I won! I'm so excited, I never win anything! And I won coupons for Silver Hills bread! I really like their bread but man is it pricey. Its worth it because really you can't put a price on your health but yikes we go through a lot of bread in this house. Like everyone else we're always trying to balance getting healthy organic food while trying to stay in our budget. Needless to say these coupons are gonna come in handy!

Warning - EXTRA LONG post ahead!

2010-05-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

It feels like forever since I last posted. May is always such a busy month for us! I keep saying I'll post tonight and then something always comes up and I put off posting. Ok so here is an update of everything thats been going on - I'll try not to babble too much!

We celebrated Mother's Day with my family on the Saturday (the 8th). My sister hosted at her house and my Dad and the rest of teh men took care of the food and cooking (for the most part!) My Dad made me some marinated portobello mushrooms on the grill (as per my request - I did the marinate part) and he got me the best vegan potatoe salad ever - yes it truly was the best poattoe salad I have ever had. It was from planet organic and it was awsome - I had more than my share for sure! My brother made some grilled veggie packets and we have a fruity spinach salad with a raspberry vinegrette. I made the cookies and cream cupcakes from VCTOTW 12 chocolate and 12 vanilla. Both were excellent! I didn't care for the icing but I really don't like icing. Everyone else loved them too! Then on the Sunday I went for a extra long workout at the gym then had a relaxing shower, played some wii with the girls and then my husband made the dinner i requested - veggie dogs, more of the awesome potatoe salad and veggies and dip - and I *might* have had a few potatoe chips! Oh and for dessert we had so delicious chocolate coconut milk ice cream. I had hoped the weather would be really nice that day so we could eat outside but it wasn't to be.

Later that week we celebrated my birthday. It was a great day! I spent the morning relaxing at home after dropping off the oldest at school. Then we picked her up and heading off for some vegan sushi for lunch - so good as usual! Then we went herb plant shopping - with much success. Then we headed home and I took the girls out for a wagon ride - they enjoy it but I'm telling you they are heavy to pull! Then we headed home for a quick shower/bath before dh came home and we headed off for a delicious italian dinner.

Then this past weekend the dh and I were going to go for a relaxing supper out just the 2 of us but my sister decided to move my niece's party to this saturday since the weather was so nice. I had to teach a course this weekend so it worked out ok for my no cooking saturday night! My awesome Dad went to planet organic that morning to get me some more of that awesome potatoe salad and a piece of vegan chocolate cake - he knew i was teaching this weekend and wouldn't have time to do a lot of cooking. It was so nice to come home after a long day of teaching and go to the party and have lots of food to eat. Thanks Dad - it was so thoughtful and very appreciated!

And thats it! Thats what we've been up to. The last few days the weather was super hot so we've been eating pretty basic stuff - salads, smoothies, etc. Yesterday the girls and I ate an entire watermelon over 8 hours. Between that and all the smoothies we drank that day I'm pretty sure we got out quote of fruit!

The weather was a little cooler today and its suppose to stay a little cooler for the long weekend which will actually be good. I can do some baking this weekend to freeze for the next few weeks. We're running ow on muffins and cookies! Thats the only thing I don't like about the warmer weather - too hot to bake (and we don't have air conditioning).

Hope everyone is spending as much time outside in the beautiful weather as we are!

Successful Day in the Kitchen!

2010-05-05T19:18:00.000-07:00

So in my last few post I have been going on and on about enjoying the nice spring weather we've been having but this....

is what I woke up to yesterday morning! Actually it was worse than this because the wind was blowing something fierce! It was a spring blizzard and man it sucked, there is just no other word for it. The roads were a mess and we went grocery shopping that morning cuz it was 15% Tuesday (a big day for us for grocery shopping every month). By the time I dropped Gabbie off at school, got groceries and went to pick Gabbie up my jeans were soaking wet and I was frozen to the bone. Needless to say we skipped gymnastics yesterday afternoon and went to a friends house for lunch instead. My friend Karen made us the Quinoa, Mango and Black Bean salad from Vcon and peanut butter banana choc chip muffins from 100 best vegan recipes. It rocked...thanks for lunch again Karen!

So today Gabbie had no school (why couldn't there have been no school yesterday!) so we stayed home and had a pretty productive day in the kitchen!

This weekend I was on a roll making beans ( I was trying to stay busy after we had to take the youngest to the emergency room late friday night/early sat morning for croup. I figured if I stayed busy I wouldn't fall asleep!) . I made a big batch of black beans and a batch of navy beans. So today I made a black bean and sweet potatoe enchilada filling. I haven't made the enchiladas yet but I did taste the filling by scooping some on a few tortilla chips and it was super good! I'm looking forward to the enchiladas! And due to the crappy cold weather I decided to make a really hearty supper tonight...White Bean and Leek Cassoulet from Vcon.

The cassoulet pre cooked

The cooked cassoulet and our salad

Spinach salad with grape tomatoes and balsamic dressing

The happy kids eating their second bowlfuls!

If you have not made this dish yet you don't know what your missing! It is so delicious...a perfect winter (or cold spring) day dish! I didn't have any leeks so we left those out and I must say I think I like it better without the leeks and so did the kids. This supper made everyone happy and the kids are very happy that there is just enough leftovers for them for lunch tomorrow. The spinach salad is a staple at this house. We have 2 or 3 nights a week and it was a perfect pair with the cassoulet.

Well I'm off to sit with dh and watch some tv...I've been cleaning and in the kitchen all day and I feel like doing something mindless tonight!

Sick

2010-04-28T19:03:00.001-07:00

I know I said I'd do a book review today but we had a sick little girl over here last night. She woke up at 12:30am complaining that her tummy hurt. I asked her if she had to throw up and she said no...sure enough about a half hour later she threw up all over the bathroom. So we got busy cleaning up the bathroom and Gabbie and she slept really well after that. I didn't send her to school this morning but I think she'll be well enough to go tomorrow. She had her fair share of smoothies today and they seem to have helped - I but some coconut water in them to help keep her hydrated. She doesn't like the mouth feel of coconut water but she didn't seem to notice it in her smoothies so score one for me!

Needless to say the adults in this house are running off minimal sleep so the big book review post will have to wait.

I thought I'd leave you with this picture...someone was keeping busy while I attended to her older sister today. Doesn't she look nice?!

Quick Post

2010-04-27T19:56:00.000-07:00

No pictures again...I know (!) but we didn;t eat anything terribly photo worthy. For lunch we had a quick stirfry with cabbage, onion and broccoli over brown rice and dinner was pita pizzas. Tasty and filling but not much to take pics of.

Tomorrow I am doing a review on a couple of books I've read lately and I promise to post a few pics with that post!

Gimme Chimmis

2010-04-26T18:27:00.000-07:00

No pictures but tonight's dinner was really good! We had the Gimme Chimmis from ED&BV but I made a few changes. I added grated zucchini, grated carrots, and chopped red bell pepper to the bean mixture. And I made a cashew cheeze to go in the chimmis. I spread a thin layer of the cashew cheeze on a whole wheat tortilla then a scope of the bean/veggie mixture. Then I rolled it up and brushed both sides with a bit of olive oil then I pan fried them. Crispy on the outside, nice and cheezy on the inside and no greasy at all. They were so good served with a salad of baby spinach and grape tomatoes with balsamic vinaigrette. Very filling dinner....I actually ate a bit too much but I couldn't help myself.

Now I am super sleepy because our youngest who has been an awesome sleeper her entire life is going through a phase where she is afraid of everything...and this has resulted in a lot of nightmares. I took them for a extra big walk this afternoon so hopefully she will sleep really good tonight with no nightmares!

What we're up to

2010-04-25T20:02:00.001-07:00

I'm happy to say that the weather has been getting so much nicer here! The sun has been shining and everyone is pretty happy about that. The kids have been playing outside lots and although I love it when they spend all day outside it makes for some pretty tired kids and when they get tired they fight with each other...a lot! Oh well, atleast with all the fresh air they have been going to bed a little earlier than normal.

Today was a little bit chilly even though the sun came out in the afternoon so I decided to make what will probably be my last pot of soup for awhile! It was just a vegetable barley soup with red and brown lentils and green split peas. It looks like dirty water but its really tasty! We had homemade pita chips and hummus with the soup and for dessert we had the choc chip oatmeal espresso cookies from vegan cookies invade your cookie jar.....so good!

I've been super busy trying to get all the spring cleaning done...its hard to clean inside when its so nice outside! The weather is suppose to be a little cooler this week so hopefully I'll get more of the inside stuff done. I also have a website that I need to get done too...after that I have no big projects scheduled which is kinda good and kinda bad!

What have you been out doing in the nice weather lately?

Venting

2010-04-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

Be forewarned...this is not a food post. This is a raising children post. And its a long one.

My oldest started kindergarten this year and at first I was nearly having a heart attack about it. I mean, its not like I didn't know she was growing up but now that she is going to school every morning at a real elementary school it just feels so sad...like a chapter in her life and mine as her mama was closing. And it was/has. She is growing up so fast and she has really matured this year. So much so I'm not really sad anymore, I'm so proud of the person she is becoming. I always worried she would be lonely at school because she is so shy but she has really taking well to school and has made some real friends.

And the learning! I can't believe how much info one little person can absorb. She's like a walking encyclopedia and a french/english one at that because she is enrolled in french immersion. She loves learning a new language (my husband and I both speak french but his first language is french, its my second language and it shows!) and she loves learning about new things. She even loves doing homework and that is what this vent is about.

When we enrolled her in this immersion program we were told she would get a homework package sent home once a week - every wednesday they get a package and they return it completed every monday. Each package has a book with a photo on one page and the french word on the page next to it (eg. picture of an apple and the word pomme on the page beside it). There are a total of 12 pics/words. The kids are also given a paper with lines and the pictures from the book on it for them to write the french word next to. They also get a set of magnets (12 pics, 12 words) that they have to match up.

A couple of weekends ago my husband was doing her homework with her and noticed that two of the word magnets were missing. I was teaching this particular weekend so I wasn't around while this was going on. They finished up the rest of the homework and packed it away to send back to school the next day. My husband forgot to mention to me that there was 2 magnets missing and when I went to pick her up the next day at school the teacher told me she had missing magnets could I look for them at home. I called my husband who told me they were missing when he opened the package and so we told the teacher this. She told me no way could there have been any pieces missing from the package. Ok....obviously there could be cuz ours was missing some. So they said we had to pay for the missing magnets and they sent me a bill for $15.60. We were a little miffed but decided to pay the bill and look at her package they day it was sent home from now on to make sure we had all the pieces.

So I get the bill on the friday before spring break and I noticed that she didn't get any homework. I assumed it was because of the break. Then we were invited to a friends house for a playdate. This friend is in the same class and she got homework so I assumed that they forgot to give us ours. No big deal I thought, we'll just get it when we get back and do it then. So when I dropped her off for school on Tuesday I asked about the missing homework. I was told that because we owed the $15.60 that she would not be getting any more homework until we paid the bill.

Are. You. Kidding. Me.

Are you telling me that because we own a measly $15.60 for something we didn't lose in the first place our child will not be getting her homework? Surely there has been a misunderstanding I thought because thats the dumbest thing I have ever heard right?!

I called the principle to discuss it. Apparently this is the policy that the kindergarten teachers put in place this year to ensure missing pieces were paid for. I was told its just like library books. If your child doesn't bring the book back on the assigned day they aren't allowed to take more books out. Well certainly, I said, its reasonable for a 5 year old to remember to put their library books in their backpack once a week to return. But children don't write checks. Its not my daugthers responsibility to make sure a cheque is sent for the missing pieces (that we didn't lose), its mine so why is she being punished for something she has no control over. Why, quite frankly, is she being denied part of her education over $15.60? What about people who can't afford to pay the bill till a payday? Don't laugh, my friend just told me she has $8.51 till next friday. Should a child be denied their homework and their education over that?

So rather than drop it, I decided to schedule a chat with her teachers. If this is indeed the policy then they need to execute it better. When I received my bill it should have been noted right on the bill that she wouldn't receive anymore packages till the bill was settled and they should have verbally told me this when they handed me the bill. Further more, because I got the bill the day she was to receive her homework they should have been a grace period..like she gets her homework this time but if the bill isn't settled by the next scheduled homework day she won't receive her next one.

I don't want to be a "problem parent" but I feel like I need to stand up for not just my child but for others too.

What do you think?

Warning - LONG post ahead!

2010-03-31T19:17:00.001-07:00

Wow is there ever a lot to catch up on! Its been very busy around here esp. in the kitchen!

The girls have been pretty healthy all winter long and DH and I haven't had a cold all winter long. We went out for dinner on Valentines day and we were talking about how lucky we were to have escaped all the sickness this year and I said that it probably has a lot to do with us cleaning up our diet and he agreed that it was a big part of it. Svore one for vegan eating! My DH isn't vegan (I wouldn't change one thing about him...except maybe that!) but he eats mostly vegan and this year he is really starting to see the benefits.

So what is all this healthy vegan food we've been eating? Well it has all been healthy....

I'm sure every vegan on the planet has heard about Daiya cheese. I ordered some from Karmavore - one bag of the cheddar and one of the italian blend. Above is a pizza I made with the italian blend. Homemade crust from VwaV, tomatoe sauce, daiya, fresh pineapple, saute mushrooms, green peppers, onions and black olives. It was great! I really like the Daiya - its vegan, soy free, gluten free and it even has fiber in it. And it really does melt like dairy cheese! The texture took me a little getting use to but if I had to buy a vegan cheese this is one the one I'd pick every time hands down. I'll give you my review of the cheddar next time - it doesn't disappoint!

We had some cold days here and sometimes you just want some comfort food. This is my version of mac and cheeze. The sauce is made from raw cashews, a red pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and I think thats it. I whiz it all up in the vitamix and it is so good! Even my omni bro likes this stuff - its on the regular rotation at their house. This will probably gross some of you out but when we we're little, my siblings and I always put ketchup on our mac and cheese (my Dad taught us that one!) and if you put ketchup on this mac n cheeze it taste exactly like the mac and cheese from my childhood - except a little healthier and animal friendly!

Here is a pic of the sauce in the vitamix. This sauce is also excellent on steamed broccoli and other veg for a once in awhile treat!

I've been trying to go through all my cookbooks and pick a new recipe or two every week to try. Above is the chickpea ratatouille and the broccoli & walnut phyllo dish from vive served with a side of quinoa. Both were super tasty but I really liked the phyllo dish. It does that a bit of time to prep and make so its not a everyday dish here but it would certainly be great for company or a day when you have extra time. I think Dreena mentions that you can also mix the filling with pasta - I'll definately give that a try!

Well thats all from me tonight. I have to go write out my meal plan and grocery list for the weekend/easter.

So far behind!

2010-03-20T19:46:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how far behind I have fallen on this blog...and I have so much to share too! I lost the cord to my camera so I had no way of downloading pictures and I was determined to find it but I've looked everywhere and and I just can't find it so I broke down today and went and got a new card reader so we're back in business! And good thing too because I have a lot of pictures to share, I just need a few days to download and organize all of them!

Prepare for a very long post in the next few days....

Playing

2010-02-25T15:00:00.001-08:00

Not too much happening in the kitchen these days. We had a play date the other morning with some friends. The oldest was at kindergarten so it was just the two of us. We had a lot of fun playing ...well one of us had a lot of fun playing, the other had a lot of fun sipping steamed soymilk and visiting with the other moms. I'm sure you can guess which is which!

I didn't have anything too exciting planned for supper that night....or so I thought. I made this sauce and tossed it with steamed broccoli and brown rice penne. We also had some chickpeas on the side. Every loved it...the grown ups had seconds. The sauce is so easy to make and very decadent tasting. Not something to eat everyday but it was a nice treat!

We have one birthday party left to go this weekend and then we're done with the hosting duties for awhile! Wish me luck!

Breakfast

2010-02-23T09:19:00.001-08:00

I was feeling rather ambitious this morning so I decided instead of just our regular smoothie for breakfast I'd also make some pancakes. The smoothie is a combination of strawberries, peaches, vanilla almond milk and a scoop of vanilla hemp protein powder. We have this smoothie almost every morning and its a big hit. Our green smoothie is usually our afternoon snack. That one is usually a combination of oranges, pineapple and kale. The pancakes were whole wheat and I threw in some ground flax and salba for some extra fiber and nutrition. They turned out really well..the girls gobbled them up!

In the background you can see some of their craft stuff. They've always enjoyed doing art projects but lately thats all they do. I swear I clean up all that craft stuff 10 times a day but it always seems to make it way back to the kitchen table. Its gotten to the point where we just push to the part of the table we don't use and leave it there. Much less work!

A quick update on the hummus - both made excellent bases for pita pizzas! I will definitely be making more of each very soon.

Hummus to the rescue!

2010-02-18T09:46:00.000-08:00

Yep its been another busy week! Yesterday was my husband's birthday and Saturday is my youngest' birthday (Saturday is also my niece's birthday - me and my sil had babies on the same day, same hospital, delivery rooms across the hall from each other and overnight rooms right next to each other. The girls are an hour and 4 minutes apart - practically twins!) I can't believe Olivia will be 3 - I'm excited and heartbroken all at the same time. Where has the time gone?!

Needless to say, there has been a lot of celebrating going on this week which means there has been extra cooking and baking going on as well. I knew I would be short on time this week so I made 2 batches of hummus and stocked up on whole wheat pitas and veggies so we'd have some quick lunches and snacks this week. I made the Chipotle Lime Two Bean Hummus and the Peanut Sesame Hummus from ED&BV. Both are excellent - I ran out of chickpeas for the Chipotle Lime Hummus so I used a mixture or white beans and kidney beans. I think it would make an excellent burrito filling (which I plan to try tomorrow for lunch) and I would say the Peanut Sesame Hummus is the best hummus I've made so far. I love pad thai and spicy peanut sauces so its no surprise that this hummus was such a big hit. I made double batches of each because my friend had a baby last week and I sent a batch of each home with her so she'd have some quick lunches/snacks too. I also plan on making veganomicon's quinoa, mango and black bean salad and the espresso oatmeal cookies for her for next week. I still remember what its like to have a new baby in the house and I think some quick, healthy eats are appreciated.

And speaking of babies it looks like I'd better start making a lot more hummus cuz it seems like everyone I know is having a baby! My cousin is due in June, my sister is having twins! and is due in July but is excepted to delivery in June as well, my sil is due in September and my best friend is pregnant after 7 years of trying and is due in September as well! I'd better go get cracking in the kitchen.....

Why I love Jamie Oliver

2010-02-15T08:30:00.000-08:00

I love Jamie Oliver. And this is why.

Absolutely inspirational! I have watched Jamie Oliver's cooking shows from the beginning and even though I don't like the food he makes I love his personality and enthusiasm. I think the work he has done to improve the diet and lives of children & families is nothing short of amazing.

My one wish to change the world? For everyone to adopt a plant based diet - including Jamie Oliver - then he could whip up some amazing vegan dishes to share with all of us!

It's beginning to look a lot like..

2009-12-24T13:59:00.000-08:00

What a BUSY month this has been. I had a major project that started and ended in about 2 1/2 weeks time (which is less than half the time I normally do a project) plus all the wrapping, baking, cards, Christmas concerts, teacher presents, gift bags for my daughter's school friends, etc...all you Mom's out there know exactly what I'm talking about. And today is busy getting everything ready for tonight's meal. My sil and I are doing an entire vegan spread to accompany the very un-vegan bird. Infact she will be here any minute so I'm going to have to cut this short.

Merry Christmas to everyone. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of our feast tonight to share with you all!

Catching Up

2009-11-20T20:00:00.001-08:00

I can't believe this is my first post for November! Time has been flying. My oldest started kindergarten this year so she goes 5 mornings a week so I'm busy driving her to school and helping out with school related activities, driving her to gymnastics, homework (yes homework already!) and trying to keep my youngest entertained at the library, colouring, reading (her favourite thing to do) oh and did I mention I work for myself? Yeah so I'm also working on a couple of big projects as well. So we've been busy. And my oldest had the flu this past week. Not fun but everyone is feeling healthy and happy once again.

So even thought I've been super busy I've still been spending a lot of time in the kitchen. Here are a few random dinners we've had lately.

Teriyaki Udon Noodle Stirfry - Kids loved it and so did the adults!

Banana Soft Serve "Ice Cream" w/Enjoy Life Choc Chips - new fav. dessert

ED &BV'S Monkey Minestrone - One of my new favourites and so easy to make!

Vive's Banana Oat Bundles - perfect breakfast with some fresh fruit

Lentil Loaf with mashed potatoes, golden mushroom gravy and peas - The Vegan Table

The lentil loaf recipe was from The Vegan Table. I love this cookbook and almost everything I have made from it has been absolutely awesome but this lentil loaf really didn't work for me. The flavour was spot on but the texture was terrible. I actually couldn't even finish eating it. Maybe I used the wrong kind of lentils? I think I'll try it again with french lentils. The gravy I have made before - its the golden mushroom gravy from the same book and it is so delicious! We all love it and its the only gravy recipe I use now.

I also made the Chocolate Peanut Butter cupcakes with Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting from the Joy of Vegan Baking for my niece's birthday last weekend. They were a huge hit. Not too sweet and just the right amount of PB and chocolate. I will definitely make them again.

Climate Change

2009-10-29T08:41:00.000-07:00

Check out this video clip that was on CNN.

Quick Supper

2009-10-28T09:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry its been so long since my last post I have been absolutely swamped with work and kids! I love working from home for myself but lately it feels like when I'm not with the kids or cooking or doing laundry, etc, I'm working. I guess its good that I have lots of work to do but I still haven't figured out a schedule for myself. I guess it will take some time to find out what works and what doesn't.

So since I've been so busy we have had to have some pretty quick suppers. And even thought supper has to come together quickly I don't want it to be nutritionally lacking. So I've tried to make a few things ahead of time and make extras. Here is one such supper.

Greeks Salad

Garlic Toast

Brown rice pasta with Lemony Cashew Pesto

The Lemony Cashew Pesto is from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. I liked it but the kids weren't too crazy about it. I ended up mixed some tomato sauce in with their and they seemed to like that a bit better. I think it was too much lemon for them. The garlic toast is from The Vegan Table and it is the BEST garlic toast I've ever had! We all love it and its a fight to see who gets the last piece. If you haven't tried this recipe yet go make it. I promise you will not be disappointed. Its a real crowd pleaser. The greek salad was you basic greek salad ingredients minus the feta cheese. I love anything with olives so I really enjoyed it. And if you were wondering about the dora cup in my salad picture thats my daughters dora sigg - not mine! Both my kids have siggs and they love them - they take them everywhere, including the dinner table!

Also just listened to Colleen's new podcast a few nights ago. Its called "The Favours we do Animals" and its great. One of her best I'd say. So if you have heard it yet go teh www.compassionatecooks.com or to itunes to get it.

Thanksgiving - Part 3 - The Big Day

2009-10-14T09:29:00.000-07:00

I know I promised I would post this on Monday but things got a little crazy over the holiday weekend and I needed a few days to catch up.

My plan for Thanksgiving this year was to come up with a compromise between the vegan and the omni's. There was a turkey served by my Mom but everything else on the menu was vegan. The verdict? Everyone loved it! Not to toot my own horn but it was possibly the best Thanksgiving dinner we have ever had. Because all the dished were vegan I did most of the cooking, althought I am very fortunate that my sister- in- law knows a thing or two about vegan cooking and brought a couple of dishes and helped me in the kitchen all night.

Below are some lovely pictures of all our Thanksgiving goodies with my personal rating out of 10.

Pear and Cranberry Salad with raspberry vinegrette and Candied Pecans

10/10

VCons Roasted Portobello Mushroom Salad w/ Mustard Vinegrette

8/10

Golden Mushroom Gravy - The Vegan Table

10/10 - best gravy ever!

Mashed Potatoes (earth balance and almond milk)

9/10

Mashed Root veg w/ Fresh Herb Infusion - The Vegan Table

8/10

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

9/10

Peaches and Cream Corn

Can't rate corn from a bag!

Steamed Green Beans w/ earth balance and fresh chopped mint

8/10

Steamed broccoli w/garlic butter and cashews - The Vegan Table

10/10 - excellent broccoli recipe!

Roasted brussel sprouts with apples and onions - The Vegan Table

8/10

Pumpkin Cheese Pie - ED&BB

6/10

CranApple Maple Pie

9/10

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie - ED&BV

9/10

My plate at the Thanksgiving table

My plate with all the yummies!

I was a little nervous because I was making some of the dished for the first time but everything was delicious! In fact my brother didn't even eat turkey because his plate was so full of the veggies that he didn't have room for turkey and by the time he was finished he didn't have room in his tummy for any! If that isn't an endorsement for a wonderful vegan dinner I don't know what is. As you can see I had a huge plate of food and I was stuffed by the end - but not too full for dessert. I loved the Chocolate Pumpkin Pie (so did everyone else) but I wasn't fond of the Pumpkin Cheese Pie. Everyone else liked it but it wasn't my favourite and I don't think I'd make it again. The CranApple Maple pie was excellent - the filling part anyways. The pie crust was terrible and I actually scopped the filling out of the shell at the last minute and served as a compote with non dairy vanilla ice cream. I loved it and would definitely make it again.

So what would I change for next year? I want to make a vegan stuffing for next year and I'd like to do a phyllo dish as well. I also think I'd make Dreena's Festive Chickpea tart to serve. And maybe a corn bread and possible a stuffed squash. For the dessert I'd do the Chocolate Pumpkin Pie again for sure but I think I'd make do a crisp to go with it or maybe put that CranApple Maple compote into phyllo and bake it and serve with ice cream. Iloved how I decorated the table and everyone else thought it looked really nice too. It sounds silly but I think it added to the whole experience.

I'm already thinking about the Christmas dinner menu......

Thanksgiving - Part 2

2009-10-10T20:18:00.000-07:00

Another busy day is done! I am almost ready for the big day tomorrow. Still a little more laundry to do and a little bit of last minute tidying but food wise I'm right on schedule.

Today I tackled the desserts. We're having 3 different pies. I made the Pumpkin Cheese Pie and Chocolate Pumpkin Pie from ED&BV and the Cranapple Maple Pie from More Good Great Dairy-Free Desserts. For the Chocolate Pumpkin Pie I used the Cocoa Walnut Crust recipe from Extraveganza. Basically its just ground walnuts with cocoa powder and agave and oil. And for the Pumpkin Cheese Pie and the Cranapple Maple Pie I went with a traditional pastry crust. The pie fillings turned out great, especially the Cranapple filling - its the best fruit filling I have ever tried but I was seriously disappointed with the pie crust. I was going to use the one in The Joy of Vegan Baking but then I decided to try the one in More Good Great Dairy-Free Desserts. It is the worst pie crust I have ever tried. I am so disappointed but I don't have time (or money) to remake the 2 pies. At least I know for next time. I should have went with my instincts - I trust Colleen's recpes 100%, they haven't let me down yet! I'm sure everyone will still like the pies - the crust are terrible but the good news is that they are super thin so they won't have much impact.

I won't be blogging tomorrow cuz I already know I'll be way too busy but I'll be sure to post on Monday and let you all know how the big day went.

Thanksgiving - Part 1

2009-10-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

I love the Fall. I love looking at the leaves changing colour, I love the warm fall days and crisp fall evenings and of course Thanksgiving is in the fall and Thanksgiving just happens to be one of my favourite holidays.

Now if you were to look out my window you would not think that its fall, it looks like winter. It snowed here yesterday and I had to bring out all of our winter coats! Its not just crisp out folks, its damn cold! But thats ok because it will make Thanksgiving all that more cozy right?!

In my family we spilt hosting the holidays and since Thanksgiving happens to be one of my favourites (its a tie between Thanksgiving and Christmas but really I think Thanksgiving wins) I host it at my house. Let the fun (and work!) begin.

Thanksgiving is Monday here but we are celebrating it with my family on Sunday. We are celebrating with my husbands family on the holiday Monday.

To kick off the festivities I decided to treat myself to a soy pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks. Then it was a quick trip to get the groceries before I had to pick my oldest up from Kindergarten and then the girls both had haircuts. Then we headed home and I put a movie on for them while I got to work in the kitchen. I always have the same strategy for hosting big family dinners - prep everything I can ahead of time so I'm not stressed the day of. In fact I actually plan my dinner menu with this in mind. I try to pick things that I can make ahead of time and cook the day of with minimal effort. So today I started by cleaning out my fridge and organizing the kitchen. Then I washed and chopped all the veggies. I got as much laundry done as I could (there is still some left but tomorrow is another day) and I made double the supper tonight we can have leftovers tomorrow.

And now its time for me to get to bed. Today was a busy day and tomorrow will be too but it will all be worth it on Sunday when I'm actually enjoying myself with my family instead of being stuck in the kitchen the whole time.

Busy Bee

2009-09-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

Despite my good intentions, I've been a bad blogger lately. What can I say, school starting (my oldest started kindergarten this year) and this summer like weather has keep us busy. Truthfully as soon as I pick up my daughter from school we are outside enjoying the great weather. Which means I am only on the computer for work lately. Not that we haven't been eating. Mostly its been same old stuff I've blogged about in the past but we have a a couple of great new dishes that I will share with you all as soon as I get the pics off my camera.

Check back soon for some food pics!

Vegan food...its catching on!

2009-08-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we had a big family dinner to celebrate my sister-in-laws birthday. And since it was my sil's special day we wanted to make her a supper full of all her favourites. My sister host all summer shindigs due to her huge backyard full of stuff to keep the kids happy but I am the chef/organizer for most of these summer parties cuz my sister is not exactly a shining star in the cooking department.

So I phoned my sil to ask her specifically what she wanted to eat for her party. I made the list and I could hardly believe it...it was almost all vegan! She wanted good old hamburgers and hotdogs (veggie burgers and veggie dogs were also offered for those who wanted them), Vcon's Quinoa, mango and black bean salad, marinated veggie salad (chopped veggies marinated in an italian-ish sort of dressing), guacamole (my speciality) with salsa and chips and for dessert she wanted angel food cake with berries and whipped cream (coconut whipped cream with berries for the vegan and dairy sensitive). Also on the menu was hummus - interesting thing about my family and hummus. We all love it - lot. My Dad buys a particular one from Planet Organic to bring to most family events - its from Sunflower Kitchens and they make some really awesome flavours. So my Dad usually brings a couple to our family parties. Except this time he brought 15 containers of it! A couple for the party and a couple for each family to take home to enjoy (I'm the oldest of 4) plus my Dad knows I consume an enormous quantity of hummus he bought me a couple of extra on top - thanks Dad!

Everyone enjoyed the party, and all the food was gone - the Quinoa, Mango and Black Bean salad was the first to go! And my Brother - who is perhaps the most devote carnivore on the planet - enjoyed all the vegan foods the most, he actually asked for the recipes.

Vegan food...its catching on!

Grilled Pineapple Salad

2009-08-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how long its been since I last posted...I didn't even do a post in July! I wish I could tell you about all the wonderful, productive things I did on this hiatus but the truth is I was just really lazy, enjoying what little summer weather we've had here.

And it would seem that fall is at our doorstep - the leaves are changing already and there is a definite nip in the air in the mornings. I love the fall, its my favourite season but I'm not quite ready for it come just yet.

But in all seriousness, part of the reason I have been absent from my blog is because we've had some big changes around here. I no longer work one day a week - I'm now working for myself. I work as a designer (web and print work as well as some teaching and curriculum development) and ever since the girls have been born I have always wanted to work from home for myself. Well the opportunity presented itself recently and I decided that it was now or never. And that is a big part of why I haven't blogging - I've been busy setting up my home office and taking some time to wind down before I had to gear up again with a bunch of design projects.

But that doesn't mean we've been eating veggie dogs and burgers all summer long (although we certainly had our share of those, it is summer after all). We haven't had the greatest summer weather this year so I tried to make each tropical with our food - even if the weather didn't cooperate.

One dish that we really enjoyed was a grilled pineapple salad. Its super easy to make, you can serve it warm or at room temperature, and it last a few days in the fridge.

To make this salad you just skin and core 1 whole pineapple. Then cut into 1" slices. Then take 2 large red onions and cut into thick slices. Brush both the pineapple and red onion with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill on the BBQ until pineapple is golden and has nice grill marks and the onion is soft. Remove from BBQ and cut pineapple into chunks and toss with red onion. Squeeze fresh lime over everything and voila - you have grilled pineapple salad.

We paired this salad with the Pad Thai from The Vegan Table and Seseame Green Beans, also from The Vegan Table. It was an awesome supper and the leftovers were great for lunch the next day. I think if you want to cut down on eating out (for your health and for your wallet's health) you need to make sure you have a great meal either planned or waiting at home. This meal definitely fit the bill.

The Vegan Table

2009-06-24T12:19:00.001-07:00

Wow its been a long time since my last post! So much for my plan to start posting on a regular basis. Summers busy, out enjoying the warmer weather, etc. But just because I've been out enjoying the warmer weather doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. Despite spending more time in the great outdoors I have also managed to find time to do a little shopping on amazon.ca (imagine that!). I ordered a few new cookbooks and the one I am most excited about is The Vegan Table by Colleen Patrick Goudreau.

Now some of you will be familiar with Colleen from her excellent podcast Vegetarian Food for Thought. I have recently (the last 4 months or so) become an avid listener and in fact I have a few episodes that I have listened to multiple times. As the only vegan in my family it can be a little lonely sometimes and I find Colleen's podcast to be a great source of inspiration for me...much like reading all your vegan /vegetarian blogs! If you haven't had a chance to listen to one of Colleen's podcast I highly recommend you give them a listen (you can subscribe to the podcast through itunes as well). You can find out more at www.compassionatecooks.com.

Ok on to the cookbook. In my last post I was raving about the recipes I tried from the Joy of Vegan Baking so when I saw The Vegan Table and all the great reviews people gave it I knew I had to get a copy. I was pretty sure I was going to like this book but I didn't think I'd love it this much! I don't eat a lot of soy so some of the tofu and temph recipes don't excite me to much but most of the recipes are soy free or you can make soy free. Below is a reviews of a couple of the recipes I have tried so far.

Pad Thai - I love Asian food and especially Thai food however I have never made an asian dish at home that I really loved...until now. Incredible easy to make with simple, fresh ingredients. My oldest daughter was very excited to see this dish at the table (she is a hugh noodle fan) and she was ready to eat it all just looking at it. I told her to take a little bit and if she liked it she could have as much as she liked. After she had her first bite I asked her how she liked it...."love it!" was her reply. I couldn't have said it better myself. My husband had 4 helpings so I'm guessing he loved it to. The recipe said it feeds 2 to 4 but we had this for dinner, lunch the next day and I had the rest for my lunch at work today. I give this recipe a 5/5.

Pan Seared Marinated Portabella Mushrooms - These are my "steak" and I eat these often on the grill in the summer so I was excited to have another mushroom marinate recipe to try. The results were very good. I had t use dried herbs cuz I didn't have any fresh ones on hand but they tasted fabulous. I would definitely make these to serve to an omnivore. I give this recipe a 4/5.

Seared Asparagus with Lime - Love, love, love asparagus and I noticed quite a few people had mentioned this recipe in their reviews on amazon so I made a note to try this one right away. Another really simple recipe with fresh ingredients. Very fast to make and taste fantastic. My new favourite way of eating asparagus. My husband is not a real veggie eater but he asked if I could make this recipe once a week. My oldest daughter had 3 helpings and she was very disappointed to see the serving plate empty (but very pround that she got the last spear!). I give this recipe a 5/5.

I have many more recipes marked to try and I promise to give you my reviews but trust me on this...go buy this book! You will not be disappointed. Overall the recipes are very simple with clear instructions and use fresh ingredients with minimal prep. One of the bet cookbooks I own vegan or otherwise. If you want to try a few of the recipes she has a couple posted on the Vegan Table website.

I hope to be back soon with some more recipe reviews. Hope everyone is having a great summer so far!

The Joy of Vegan Baking

2009-06-05T16:50:00.000-07:00

I admit it - I am a complete and total bookworm. I got my first library card at age 7 and I went to the library every single day . I still go to the library every week but I also buy more than my fair share of books (I am probably one of amazon.ca's best customers). So you can only imagine how many cookbooks I own. The problem with me and cookbooks is sometimes I buy them, I drool over all the pictures and then I don't use them.

Today I had some friends over for coffee/tea this morning and I wanted to bake a few treats to serve. I decided it was high time to dust off one of those cookbooks and try a few new recipes. The book I decided to give a whirl was the Joy of Vegan Baking. Boy am I ever glad I did! I have read nothing but great reviews from this book and I am a big fan of the podcast so I don't know what took me so long to try this book out. Below is a quick review of each recipe I tried.

Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins - I knew I had to make this recipe for sure. You can't go wrong with any muffin that has Chocolate Chips in it! Ok first the bad - they have a whole cup of white sugar in them and they are made with white flour however I'm sure you could cut down on the sugar and probably use a whole wheat pastry flour. Now the good - these muffins are awesome! So moist and super tasty! As soon as these babies came out of the oven I knew they were gonna be delicious and I was right ( I'm right 99.9% of the time...just ask my husband...lol). These were gobbled up right away and I'm happy/sad to report I have none left more my breakfast tomorrow.

Lemon Blueberry Muffins - I want to make these ones for 2 reasons. First fresh blueberries are on sale right now so they were actually affordable to make (sometimes blueberries can cost as much as 7 dollars for a tiny package in my neck of the woods. I'm not prepared to spend $15 on blueberries to make muffins). The second reason is I thought the combination of blueberries and lemons was very spring/summer like. Ok so they have the same bad points as the Banana Chocolate Chip ones but they were absolutely sensational! They were going almost as fast as the Banana Chocolate Chip ones. In fact my youngest had two of these and she probably would have had more if I had let her.

Folks, 7 ladies (and one little lady) ate 24 muffins! Yes they are that good. So good I didn't even get a picture.

Apple Strudel - I have always wanted to try this recipe but I was a little intimidated by the phyllo. I have never worked with phyllo before but Colleen's instructions seemed pretty clear so I decided to give it a go. Easy as can be! You have to work fast with the phyllo but as long as your organized and have everything ready to go it is a simple procedure. I loved it! Taste just like apple pie in a light, flaky wrapping. We had it for dessert last night and my husband polished off the leftovers tonight. In fact he ate almost the whole thing himself. I can see this is going to have to be a sometime treat the way it was gobbled up.

So there you have it. One strudel and 24 muffins later I highly recommend the Joy of Vegan Baking. And so do all my guest from this morning.

Fun in the Sun

2009-06-03T18:33:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posting but we haven't had the best spring around here so when the weathers been nice like it has been the last couple of days, I made damn sure I took advantage of it. And anyone who has seen me today knows it because I'm about 5 shades darker!

I always think things will slowdown in the summer with no school, gymnastics, library programs, etc. But the summer is always busier than the rest of the year (except maybe Christmas). There's always the yard work , the house is dirtier because everyone is tracking dirt in from outside, the kids manage to dirty at least 3 or 4 outfits a day, we take a lot of late night walks with the kids and dog, the kids go to bed later (partly because of the walks and partly because the sun sets so late) and yet you might think that because they get to bed so late that they would be tired and sleep till a reasonable hour in the morning. Nope, not my little ones. They are up at the crack of dawn ready to do it all over again!

So I'm going to try to post more regularly but be forewarned it might not be all food related. There is just too much other interesting and fun things going on in the summer.

Hope your all enjoying summer too!

Here's the Scoop

2009-05-27T12:04:00.001-07:00

So if you've been reading my blog the last couple of months you've noticed that we eat alot of the So Delicious Coconut Milk Ice Cream products.

Those little ice cream sandwiches (as well as the ice cream) are pretty low in sugar, soy-free, and are just darn tasty. But they are also pretty expensive ($7.69 for a pint of ice cream or a box of the sandwiches in my neck of the woods) and we really can't afford to keep buying these all the time. So for my birthday I decided to treat myself to something I've been wanting for awhile.

This ice cream machine was pretty reasonably priced and I figured with what we were spending on the coconut milk ice cream at the store it would pay for itself in no time. I also ordered myself The Vegan Scoop from amazon. When I first pre-ordered the book I emailed the authored and asked if the recipes were all soy-based. I didn't receive an answer but when the book arrived it was indeed mostly soy-based. However the author suggest you try different milk combinations and thats just what I did.

First recipe up was the Basic Chocolate Ice Cream recipe. I pretty much followed the recipe but where it called for soy creamer I used a can of low fat coconut milk and where it called for soy milk I used Chocolate Almond milk.

Here is a picture of it churning away in the ice cream maker.

And below is the finished product.

So how did it taste? It was fabulous! Even my husband, who swore he would never give up his dairy ice cream, loved it! It was really simple to make, fast in the ice cream maker (only took 30 minutes) and much cheaper than buying it from the store. The consistency was closer to soft serve ice cream right out of the maker but I'm sure if you popped it into the freezer it would firm right up. We ate all of the ice cream that night (hey it was hot out!).

So if you've been thinking about getting The Vegan Scoop I highly recommend it. I'm excited to try out alot more flavours.

Vegveeta

2009-05-19T11:36:00.001-07:00

When I first saw the vegveeta post over at Dreena's blog I was very excited. We ate fairly healthy growing up but we had some pretty bad stuff too and velveeta melted with salsa was a favourite of ours growing up. I know its disgusting when I think of it now but I loved it. So when it was time to vote for which recipe people wanted most I certainly knew which item I was voting for (although they all looking delicious). I was so excited when the vegveeta won! I went to the store immediately to buy all the stuff I needed (hand most of it one hand except the tahini) and of course life got crazy busy and all thoughts of vegveeta left my head. Until last night. We decided to have nacho nest and I thought what better time to try the vegveeta.

I had very high expectations for this recipe. Even though I haven't had the velveeta/salsa thing in a long time I seem to remember vividly what it taste like. And I so wanted to like this recipe. After I blended everything and went to put it in a pot to heat and thicken I was worried because it didn't smell that great. But I waited until it was bubbly and hot and had another whiff. Still smelt pretty off. Then I added the salsa. Still not smelling that great. So I had a little taste. I was awesome! It actually tasted like velveeta/salsa! I couldn't believe it! I've heard many people say things like," have a veggie dog, it taste just like a hotdog but its much better for you." I applaud all efforts for getting people to cut back or stop eating meat but your not going to fool anyone with a veggie dog. I think its products like that that give vegetarian cuisine a bad rap. Better to eat foods that are naturally vegan. And thats why I was a little worried about the vegveeta but its incredible! I poured some over my chickpeas and topped it with tomatoes and green onions. Some black olives and avocado would have been perfect but I was out and didn't feel like going to the store in the snow to get some (thats right its snowing here!)

If you haven't made this yet you have to put it on your list of must makes. I wouldn't hesitate to serve this to any omnivore it taste that authentic. I'm going to make this for the next family gathering that we have. I think it will really knock people's socks off!

What are you waiting for...go make this asap!

Birthday Eats

2009-05-18T13:31:00.001-07:00

Some birthdays are a blowout and some are extra great. This birthday was an extra great one. This year my birthday coincided with my one day a week in the office which turned out great. The ladies I work with know that one of my favourite restaurants is the Blue Plate Diner so my boss took us all out there for lunch. I had the veg burger with the sweet potatoe fires (it was between that and the indian platter which they make vegan by taking off the chicken and adding in more curried chickpeas but it felt like a burger kind of day so veg burger it was) and we all shared an order of the vegan chocolate mousse. Everyone was blown away by how darn awesome it was...my boss loved it and he thinks he hates tofu. Then my husband and children took my out for supper that night and we had birthday cake at home. I don't usually eat out that much but it was nice to have a night off in the kitchen, even though I love to cook.

On Friday night my Husband took me out for a special birthday dinner - just the two of us , which rarely happens! We went to one of our favourite italian restaurants. The chef was very accommodating and I had a great vegan dinner. We shared an order of bruschetta - best bruschetta ever! - and then the chef prepared an awesome salad with baby greens tomatoes, olives, artichokes and mixed peppers with a red wine vinaigrette. After so much eating out this week I felt like a lighter supper. The chef had a few vegan pasta dishes for me to choose from but the salad was perfect for that night. The meal was so great we didn't have room for dessert!

On Saturday my sister had a special birthday BBQ for me at her house. Everyone made an extra effort to be accommodating for this family dinner and it was much appreciated. That alone was a great gift. We started off with some guacamole, salsa and chips.

And we also had some spicy hummus to dip the chips in. Everyone loves this particular hummus - it never lasts too long at a family gathering. It has roasted jalapenos and coriander in it. The kids find it a little too spicy, probably because they don't dip so much as scoop it up by the heapfuls. Thats ok, more for us adults.

Below is my plate from the BBQ. I had a Grilled Balsamic Portobello Mushroom burger with lettucce, tomatoe, red onion and avocado on it. The bread was a roasted garlic ciabatta. It was so good my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. I had also made Vcon's Quinoa, Mango and Black Bean Salad and my sister made an asian broccoli slaw salad. They was also some veggies and dip and a potatoe salad to round out the meal. It was delicious!

I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of my birthday cake! I made the Raspberry Blackout Cake with with Ganche-y Frosting from VwaV. It was really really good. Almost everyone had seconds, and a few had thirds! The only change I made in the recipe was I used almond milk everywhere it called for soy milk or creamer. If you haven't tried it yet I would definitely recommend it for any special occasion cake.

Blue Plate Diner

2009-05-10T19:36:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post part of my Mothers Day gift was supper out at a favourite restaurant of mine called the Blue Plate Diner. The Blue Plate Diner is a quaint little spot in downtown Edmonton that serves a little bit of everything. For every meat dish there is a vegetarian or vegan counterpart and that is a good because my whole family is not vegan...in fact they are not even vegetarian! As I read back through some of my past post I realized that it sounds like all 4 of us are vegan but that is not the case at all and I wanted to clear that up. I am the only true vegan of the family. My children are mostly vegetarian, especially the youngest, she hates meat but they both like the odd bit of fish. Both children follow a dairy free diet for heath reasons and neither likes eggs and I do all my baking vegan style so they eat no eggs at all. My husband is not a vegetarian and I serious doubt he ever will be. Thats ok with me. He has always been respectful and support of my choice to be vegan and so I support his right to make his own choice as well. As for our children we too will let them make their own choice and so far they are leaning towards vegan. My youngest hates meat and loves legumes while oldest is starting to get very passionate about animals and is starting to understand where meat comes from and she is not alright with that. My Husband encourages them to choose the vegan options most of the time because he knows it healthier for them.Not matter what they choose, all 3 of them are extraordinary and I love them very much!

Back to the Blue Plate Diner it doesn't matter if your all vegan or vegetarian or omnivores...go check it out, you will not be disappointed. The menu is clearly marked if a item is vegan, vegetarian, or gluten free. Most Vegetarian options can be made vegan is you ask them to. Many of the ingredients are local and the service is awesome, very friendly and helpful staff. Portions are hearty, in fact I can't finish a meal most of the time and I'm a pretty good eater. Prices are reasonable, you won't have to wash dishes afterwards.

My personal favourite is the chickpea curry. Its served with saffron rice and grilled vegetables. But for my Mother's Day meal I decided to go for the Famous Veg Burger (made vegan by leaving off the cheese and mayo) with the sweet potatoe fries (best ever) and grilled vegetables. For dessert we all shared the Vegan Chocolate Mousse....hands down the best Vegan Chocolate Mousse I have ever had!

So if you live in the Edmonton area go give the Blue Plate Diner a try, you won't be disappointed!