Happy Easter! (And a Little Market Research Favour...)

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter with food, family and friends. We had a great time!

As I described in a previous post, I made a few yummy things...

Fronch Toast - from Isa's Vegan with a Vengeance book. I used all flour instead of some of the chickpea flour called for since we have to be legume-free. Turned out great as always! Annoyed with myself since I made homemade raspberry and strawberry sauces that I forgot to put out with the maple syrup...argh.  Served with Buttah, which I will blog about shortly!

Smoky Maple Sausages - from Isa's Vegan Brunch recipe. Used my own seitan. Turned out ok - I think I forgot to add salt and maybe I would have preferred more of a sauce with them? I have no idea how regular sausages are even served.

Fruit Flowers - This was pretty last minute. I ran out of time! I had visions of something even more grand!

Bakery Style Berry Muffins - Tasted perfect! Kyson was stealing these from unsuspecting guests' plates.

Potato Spinach Squares - also from Isa's Vegan Brunch. Others liked it, I thought it was ok.

Hash Browns - I loved these ones! From Isa's Vegan Brunch. I love these! I only have one nonstick muffin pan, and after using a regular ol' muffin pan, we quickly realized I will need to invest in a second nonstick one if we decide to double the recipe again.

Quinoa Salad - cooked quinoa, grape tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, cilantro and parsley with Farm Boy Lemon Garlic dressing. Easy! Was yummy!

Carrot Cupcakes - Chickened out using the recipe from VCTOTW since I was nervous about subbing for the soy yogurt. Used a recipe from Happy Herbivore. Found them to be dough-y and gummy and stuck all over the muffin papers. Should have asked my MIL to make them since she does a way better job. Looked pretty though! Ash took charge of the coloured icing detail.  Here they are in their cute little basket wraps and then with the homemade tempered-Enjoy Life chocolate chunk Easter eggs (mold and wrappers from Bulk Barn).

Punch - bottled organic lemon juice and lime juice, two small bottles of POM, 1 bottle sparkling water, a few glugs of agave nectar and OJ. No pic :(

Takeaway - everyone got sugar cookies - making the icing was fun...spinach, turmeric, beet and blueberries were used. So pretty! Can't stand the thought of artificial colours. I enlisted the help of Ash and her older cousin Princess to decorate them all! Didn't get pics of that though.

So I think it went well.

Oh, doing a little market research - please comment if you are from Ottawa...any interest in vegan/soy free/peanut free/tree nut free cupcakes for events? I promise I wouldn't get Ash to decorate them :)  Awhile ago, I had thought about doing this on the side, but after being sidelined with the whack of allergies, I had to put it on the back burner.  Now that I've mastered this allergy stuff, I can make stuff taste great and even appeal to whoever else might need some stuff that's safe for those with soy, peanut or tree nut allergies.

And for those in Ottawa or outside of Ottawa (I can mail these puppies)...what about an order of vegan/soy free/peanut free/tree nut free/ refined sugar free/ridiculously healthy yet so yummy cookies as a great snack for work or packing in school lunches? Each cookie features a whopping 7g of protein, is chock full of fibre, packed with omegas, and contains 20% of the RDV of iron? I've developed them to serve as a meal replacement for my picky toddler. Will post more info soon, but hoped to gauge interest :). Thanks in advance!

What I'm Making for St. Patrick's Day

I have no idea when I will get the time to post again, so I thought I'd be a little proactive in putting something up to share what I will be re-making for St. Patty's Day. Originally titled 'Tempeh in Hearty Mushroom-Lager Sauce', I subbed Yves Chick'n Tenders (what else?). Since it's from the March 2009 issue of VT, I can't seem to quickly find a link to the recipe :(

Anyways, it tastes like total pub fare. So darn good. I mini-hoped that the 2 1/2 cups of beer would somehow affect how Ash would sleep after nursing, but I think most of it cooked off during heating.

I'm super pumped to make this again! I just have to think of a side that's green to go with it that would be Irishy too...anyone have any ideas? I did steamed green beans last time I made this but I'd rather do something a little more exciting.

Every Course is Covered!

I think I've made enough new things when put altogether would serve as a 10-course meal!

I was feeling a little under the weather, but Vcon's Chickpea Noodle Soup hit the spot! I think it was so dark since I didn't have any light miso. Cool thing about this soup - it turns into a noodle casserole the next day!

This looks like next day's Chickpea Noodle Soup, but is actually some spaghetti recipe from an old copy of VT. It said to roast the spaghetti first in the oven before adding it to broth to cook, as it would give it a nutty taste. I didn't notice any difference and was annoyed at the time it took to do that extra step. It's served with some delicious potatoes from our garden that Kyle cooked up.

Speaking of Kyle cooking, here is his delicious salad!

Salad:
Shaved Carrots (garden)
Honey cherry tomatoes (garden)
Beefsteak tomatoes (garden)
Lebanese cucumber (garden)
2 cloves garlic (garden)
Basil (garden)

Dressing:
3 parts olive oil
1/3 part balsamic vinegar
1/3 part lemon juice
Salt-pepper-onion powder

I made VwaV's Gigantoid PB Cookies with a few variations...one of the moms in my mom's group has celiac issues, and the other is severly allergic to nuts! So I made these with soy nut butter (which really doesn't taste like a nut butter at all much to my disappointment) and rice flour. There were OK, but I really do prefer the original recipe and am thankful I don't have any allergies!

Ah, summer...time for Peach 'Custard' Pie! Peaches, sugar, soymilk, flour and nutmeg...delicious! I think I've blogged about this before!

I think this was from VwaV...these Stuffed Peppers were AWESOME! The black bean-quinoa filling is so great and can be eaten as a grain side dish, or a stuffing for squash or anything!

From a recent VT...Peanut Butter Coconut Ice Cream. Of course I added chocolate chips. I think I'll stick with Vcon's Ice Cream recipe since I found this one to be very 'icy' - and I don't mean too cold.


I was watching Ricardo and Friends on the Food Network, and he made this cool sandwich from a loaf of hollowed out round bread. I imitated using layers of pesto, roasted veggies (eggplant, zucchini, peppers and onions), Tofurky slices and VwaV's Tofu Ricotta. I weighed it down and kept it cold. It was delicious!

I was craving something with peanut butter again, so I made up the sauce for the Cold Udon Noodles from VwaV, but added warm noodles, coriander, red pepper, cucumber and cubed tofu that I cooked up. Yummy and easy.

How to make a fast birthday cake - take a graham pie crust, add some softened neopolitan soy ice cream and freeze for 4 hours. Spread some ganache on top and top with nuts, and re-freeze for another 4 hours minimum. Then serve! Just like Baskin Robbins! In this case, I topped with fresh strawberry slices before serving.

Another fast snack - tortilla chips tossed with sugar and cinnamon. The first time I tried it I warmed them in the oven then sprinkled with organic sugar and cinnamon. They were like Beaver Tails that I used to eat as a kid. However, they are easier to make when simply tossed in a bag with a little icing sugar and cinnamon (no photo). This time they were like waffles that we used to get an old southern Ontario amusement park.

Where to Start...

(Note: This is obviously being written by the sister that is not going raw, as I think each one of the photos below would not be included in the raw food diet. Just thought I'd clear than up right now, in case anyone reading this thought that Tracy had changed her mind!)

I made Wheat-Meat Cacciatore from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker. It was OK, but found myself thinking back to a comment I remembered before about slow cookers. On someone's blog, I think they said that all slow-cooker stuff tastes the same. I disagreed at the time, but found that this recipe tasted exactly like my Half-Day Ratatouille from the same book, despite having completely different ingredients. I didn't find that it reminded me of my mom's cacciatore that we ate as kids (with gross chicken), so I'll have to try and re-create that with seitan instead.

For my snacks this week, I made these fantastic Chocolate Banana Muffins from a recipe I found on the Fat Free Vegan's site. I had my doubts that were was no oil, but they were great! Since Kyle would also be snacking on these, I also threw in some chocolate chips. They were SOOO good!

Speaking of Kyle, it was his b-day this past week, and he asked me to make a cake. He loves carrot cake, but I knew that I couldn't take that on. As a result, he asked me to make my applesauce cake into a b-day cake. So I multiplied the recipe by 1.5 and poured into two 8-inch cake pans (lined with parchment paper with pan sides oiled), and baked for the same amount of time. For icing, I used the Vegan Buttercream from VCTOTW, and piped some chocolate ganache from a parchment paper tube (note: those blobs with squiggles are supposed to be balloons). It tasted great.

On Friday night, Kyle and I ate burgers, and I made Potato Subji as a 'different' side dish to our regular potato wedge fries. No idea where I got the recipe from originally, but it's one of my comfort foods. I don't think Kyle would consider it to be one of his however :( I think I used too much turmeric. In case you're wondering what the black things are, they are popped mustard seeds.

And finally, la pièce de resistance...I did my first gym workout of 2007 today. Sam and I decided to do a workout, then treat ourselves to Starbucks. On the way to Starbucks, I was starting to feel a little guilty about working out, then ingesting a calorie-laden drink, but somehow got over it. What I was not expecting was this:

A VEGAN LOW-FAT CHOCOLATE BROWNIE!!! I couldn't believe my eyes. I had to order one (and clearly I'm the only one in Barrhaven that had, since the edges were quite dry). It wasn't horrible, but tasted like a brownie I would make, so my $1.95+tax was not wasted. I was just so surprised and excited to see something vegan in their dessert case!!!