The New Kid on the Counter

So I have a confession to make. I was convinced that I owned every small kitchen appliance that I would ever need. I admire the punk rock ethos that Isa and Terry perpetuate in that you don't need fancy accoutrement to make good vegan food. I inherited my food processor from my grandmother. I’m certain that I could use my oven to dehydrate flax crackers if I ever decide to try them. I was content to make my beloved green smoothie every morning with the $20 discount store blender that I’ve had for years. I had learning the exact timing required to mulch kale. Then, one morning, the smell of burning plastic signaled the dawn of a new green smoothie era. Behold, the mighty Champ HP:



It contains the raw ingredients of our favourite green smoothie – Tracy's Tropical Typhoon.

Tropical Typhoon (serving for one person with an extra large smoothie travel mug)

1/4 papaya
1 banana
1/4 pineapple
1/2 mango
1 handful kale
1 scoop hemp protein powder
3 cups water

Blend together in K-Tec Champ HP on 2. Or your old trusty working blender. It’s all good.

Woo Hoo!

With the Ottawa Senators having clinched a spot in the Stanley Cup finals, I can now divert my attention from biting my nails to cooking - for about a week.

A couple of weeks ago, Kyle mentioned how he had ordered General Tao's chicken from a local Chinese take-out. After telling me how it tasted pretty bad, I recalled how I'd seen many on the PPK rave about a version of General Tao's tofu. I found the recipe, and made an attempt to make homemade take-out that would compete with Kyle's former meal.

And compete it did! I thought it was weird to use 3/4 cup of cornstarch to coat the tofu, and was a little worried that I wasn't frying it in enough oil (the tofu had globs of gellied cornstarch for the first 8 minutes), but they turned out great. We added 1/2 of each red and yellow peppers, but next time, we both agreed to double the sauce. There just wasn't much to coat the noodles, and I don't think it had anything to do with me mistakingly adding only 4 teaspoons of sugar instead of the whopping 4 tablespoons the recipe called for.


For dessert, I thought I'd try to do something different, yet still summery. Kyle and I have gotten into the habit of snacking on soy ice cream, and with bikini season nearly here, I was seeking an alternative. I thought I'd whip up my own creation. I can't say that I will make this again. I puréed 3 mangoes, 1 box of silken tofu, 1/2 cup sugar, the rind of one lime and the juice of half a lime. I let it sit in the fridge, but it didn't turn out as mousse-like or as mango-ey as I had hoped. After Kyle ate his share, he decided to have his usual Peanut Butter Zig-Zag soy ice cream.

Temperate Cooking

We had a good start to summer going on, so we sat in the sun and fired up the grill. One of my very favourite summer dishes is a medley of marinated grilled vegetables, served either plain or over noodles.



I always adlib the marinade so they never taste quite the same twice. Pete does a great job on the barbee, and they are always grilled to perfection.

Another night I had a hankering for spicy chinese. I searched the web for yet another way to do tofu. I found this.



It was really really good, even better than takeout because I could control the amount of oil in it.

Then the weather turned cold, so a steaming hot bowl of soup was in order. I had been eyeing Susan V's White Bean and Garlic Stew recipe.



I chickened out a little bit and only added half of the cloves of a garlic bulb. I also wanted to up the green content so I threw in some chopped swiss chard instead of parsley, and had only one can of cannellini beans so I added a can of chickpeas. It was absolutely delicious. I thought it would be super garlicky but it was really mellow.

Again, the weather was damp and cold tonight, so I improvised a little. I had an acorn squash in the cupboard and a few potatoes. Thus my Curried Squash Pumpkin Potato Soup.



I decided it needed a sexier name. Pete suggested:

Squish Squash Soup

1/2 tblsp olive oil
1 chopped white onion
1 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp curry powder
4 cups veggie broth
1 cup water
1 baked acorn squash, skin removed
1 can of pumpkin (but reserve 1 cup so you can make VwaV's pumpkin muffins another day)
2 potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 tsp salt
a small handful of cilantro leaves, chopped

Heat the oil in a soup pot. Add the onion and saute until soft. Add the mustard seeds and curry powder and stir for a minute. Add the broth, water, squash, pumpkin and potatoes. Heat to boiling and then reduce to a simmer for 15 minutes, or until potatoes are soft. Stir in salt to taste and fresh cilantro.

Let's hope the weather turns around so we can be on the patio with fruity drinks by Friday afternoon!

I <3 Summer!

I love a nearly disaster-free dessert - bananas, strawberries and pineapple fondue!

I had never used my cheap fondue set before, but remember being told to melt my chocolate mixture first and use the candle below to keep it warm. So I melted some vegan chocolate chips with some soymilk, and was ready to munch in no time. I did learn, however, that that little tealight candle has alot of power. While watching the hockey game, we heard some sizzling - a little patch of chocolate was burning.

Although I didn't mind tending to this little hiccup - I just swirled a cool chunk of pineapple around to stir the chocolate and leave myself with a decadent mouthful.

An Old Friend

I made my absolute favourite comfort food that came from my own imagination the other night for probably the hundredth time when I realized that I had never posted the recipe here. I did post something *really* similar, but not exactly the same. Since we've lightened our diet, I make this with brown rice pasta.



Sundried Tomato Spinach Artichoke Pasta

1 tblsp oil from julienned oil-packed sundried tomatoes, or olive oil if using dry sundried tomatoes
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup sundried tomatoes packed in oil, or dried then reconstituted sundried tomatoes
3/4 cup red wine
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 huge handfuls of baby spinach, or chopped spinach
1 can quartered artichoke hearts
1 can chickpeas, drained

1 box brown rice pasta, cooked

Heat oil in wok. Saute garlic for a couple of minutes. Add sundried tomatoes and saute for a few minutes more. Add wine, vinegar and spinach and cook until spinach is slightly wilted. Add artichoke hearts and chickpeas and heat through. Add drained pasta and mix together. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

I always make this when I don't know what to make, as I usually have everything in the pantry, and spinach in the fridge. Except for that E coli episode - that was painful.

Three Strikes

I woke up early this morning and decided to make my honey some waffles. It's been awhile since I've used my waffle maker, and with a busy day planned to work on backyard projects, I thought a hearty breakfast would be a great start.

Now, I decided that I didn't want to make just any waffle recipe. I really liked the pumpkin waffle recipe from VwaV, but that was not suitable for today's summer-like weather. VwaV came through once again though - Lemon Corn Waffles with Blueberry Sauce. Upon reading the recipe, I was excited that I had most ingredients. And because this was Sunday, I didn't want to go to the trouble of making a separate blueberry sauce - heck, I decided that I would just add the blueberries to the batter instead and rely on maple syrup for a sauce. In addition, I decided to use soft whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose, and since I didn't have 1/4 cup of soy yogurt, I thought that an equal amount of additional soymilk would do just fine. Geez, with the juice of two lemons, I was sure that all of the recipe's soymilk would curdle like yogurt!

But somehow, something went wrong. Very wrong... see below:

"It must just be these first four waffles that are messed up," I told Kyle.


The next four showed some improvment (at least the waffles weren't split into two), but they still weren't looking right.


The final two waffles confirmed that something had gone wrong. Since my waffle maker has the most annoying 'beep' to signal that it's done, I knew that I hadn't opened it too early. I think my substitutions had the best of me.

Ah well, they still tasted good, despite the fact that they looked like some dead sea creature.

Hawaii Five Oh!

Our littlest Princess hit the big number five over the weekend, and selected a tropical theme for her party. While having six other princesses over for the afternoon seemed like a mistake at the time, the day turned out to be a success, complete with fashion show, limbo competition and gift-opening brawl. Special thanks go out to the parents of the kids who kindly gifted Princess with real makeup and Bratz dolls.

For lunch, we started with a main course of vegetarian Hawaiian pizza with fresh pineapple and veggie bacon, but it turns out that kids really just want plain pizza.

For the family affair in the evening, we had salads, starting with Vegan Hot German Potato Salad.



This recipe is an old family fav from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, made with Yves Veggie Bacon. I always boil the potatoes in cubed form because I'm lazy, but Mom made this so I don't know what she did.

Next up was Spinach-Mushroom Salad with a french-type dressing.



Not-so-Tropical Spinach Salad Dressing

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup organic ketchup
1/4 cup organic sugar
2 tblsp red wine vinegar
1/4 onion
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/8 tsp cayenne
1/4 tsp vegan worchestershire sauce

Blend all ingredients together in a blender.

I found the spinach really absorbed the dressing, so don't add the dressing until immediately before serving. Unfortunately I didn't think to take pics until the folks had dug into the buffet.

Our final salad was Sarah's marinated edamame salad that she blogged about. I love bean salads.

For dessert, Princess pre-selected Pineapple Right-Side Up Cupcakes from VCTOTW, topped with Vegan Buttercream Frosting tinted pink and orange.



These were really good, but I suspect even better with the pineapple-cherry topping as written in the book.

The evening ended with a rousing Hawaiian-Irish-Yogic harmonica solo by Princess that defies description.

Awful Pics, But Yummy Food

Since my last post, I made so many yummy things. This summer, I want to make more alternative salads - I'm getting tired of the greens, and want to make more bean and grain salads. Of course, I started off by making two outstanding salads, and gobbled them down so quickly that I forgot to pull out my camera.


However, May/June's VT featured a section on marinated salads, and I managed to take a snapshot of the edamame salad that was featured. It was OK, but next time, I'll throw in some garlic for added flavour. I didn't find the overnight marinade really added that much flavour. I also subbed chickpeas instead of the red beans since I'm not a fan of those.



Last night, I craved tofu fingers, so I used a recipe from the Vegetarian Family Cookbook to make Tofu Nuggets. I really liked them! This was the first time I used a finer grind cornmeal, and the results were much better than when I tried similar recipes in the past. The fine cornmeal stuck to the tofu much better. I ate them for lunch cut up with a spinach salad, then dunked them in ketchup for dinner. Tasty!

A Full Course

I was craving chickpeas, so I made one of my fave recipes from Vegan Planet - Chickpeas with Zucchini and Rosemary (or something like that). It was very simple, and quite filling.

When I asked Kyle what he was hoping to eat this weekend, he mentioned a salad. We have a few old stand-bys, but I decided to try something new. From 125 Best Vegan Recipes, I made the Waldorf Salad with Cranberries. The dressing, once mixed, was pretty blah, but surprisingly, once incorporated with the cranberries, apples and walnuts, it tasted really good!

To finish things off, I modified my own recipe for a coconut cream pie to turn it into a Key Lime Pie. When I had cravings for Key Lime Pie in the past, I had used this recipe, but was always grossed out by the requirement for packaged vanilla pudding and fake cream cheese that is laden with hydrogenated fat. My version was good, but a little too jelly-like, so I have to work on making it a little creamier. But with a tasty graham crust, it is quite heavenly!

VT Crazy!

I went on a bit of a spree with the April 2007 issue of Vegetarian Times. I'm finding that after close to two years of seeming to cater to new vegetarians who mainly eat mock meats, they are featuring many more vegan-friendly recipes. Hooray!

I first made the Banana Walnut Bread. I was quite excited to use the agave nectar in my pantry for the first time, so I couldn't wait to see how it would fare in this recipe. I followed the instructions nearly all the way, but I used soft whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose, and used a few teaspoons of vanilla extract instead of the 3 tablespoons (!) that were called for. The verdict? Although I found that my version nearly matched the appearance of the mini-bread that was pictured on the page, I found the bread very bland and much preferred my own recipe.

Next, I made the 'Meatloaf' that was meant to be used in sandwiches. With a base of firm tofu and 'ground round', it was delicious! I even used old-fashioned oats instead of quick cooking oats, and although I was worried about the impact, the loaf turned out great.

I added some baked cubed sweet potatoes (4 small sweet potatoes with 1/3 cup veggie stock with a teaspoon of dried thyme baked at 375 degrees for 40 minutes) to serve along with it. I think it was my third time trying to convince Kyle that sweet potatoes were tasty, but to no avail. It's too bad that I've been unsuccessful in making them taste good to him, as they're so good for us!

Finally, I tackled the Vanilla Pound Cake with Lime Glaze. Since my loaf pan was occupied by the 'meatloaf', I used my muffin tin to make individual-sized poundcakes. Again, I followed the recipe nearly to a T, except I used whole wheat flour instead of cake flour, and doubled the amount of icing sugar for the glaze so it wouldn't be so runny. The verdict? Absolutely heavenly. To die for. Delicious. I only wish that I didn't take such a blurry photo.

As I typed this entry, I saw my 'bunny' - a friendly little visitor to my barren backyard. He's so darn cute. Kyle and I are planning to put in a garden this spring, so unfortunately, we'll be fencing it off so that 'bunny' doesn't eat all of our vegetables.

Sweet 16

The youngest of our two cool teens turned 16 on Tuesday, and the five of us celebrated the big event last night, complete with VCTOTW's basic chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. The liners featured Strawberry Shortcake, as per Princess's request.



It was worth the indulgence. Of course, we sent the birthday girl packing with a few cupcake leftovers so we wouldn't eat them.

As the book suggests, I added 1 tsp of rosewater to the icing for a sweet sixteen scent.

Aahh, to be young again.

The Salad Standoff

As a parent trying to make sure her child is fed the best diet possible, getting all the essential vitamins and minerals, I carefully concocted a salad for Princess, with the things she likes, as well as some new things snuck in, confident that it would be appealing enough to not become a dinnertime battleground. I present to you, the salad that surely every kid would eat.



Well the avocados were rejected immediately, and even had to be hidden in a napkin so they weren't visible during dinner. The strawberries went over well. The cucumbers were half-eaten to become moons, the tomatoes disappeared somewhere and the lettuce became "wraps" for the carrots. Quite a few fava beans fell victim to the floor, and therefore the dogs, but at least three were consumed under my watchful eye in order for the meal to qualify for dessert, which was by request a vegan s'more (no pictures of that, as it wasn't very appetizing, even for chocolate).

For the adults in the crowd, the salad dressing was amazing.



Guacamole Dressing

1/4 cup fresh lime juice
1 tblsp chopped cilantro
1 chopped green onion
1/4 tsp sea salt
dash of ground pepper
just less than 1/2 cup organic extra virgin olive oil

It satisfied my daily craving for guac.

And tonight for dinner, I tried another recipe from Vegan World Fusion Cuisine, strangely named Tara's Pad Thai.



It was very authentic, and Pete gave it a Tony-the-Tiger "Grrrrreat!". I found the order of ingredients in the book confusing, and the result was that I accidently added the sesame oil to the sauce, so if you make it, don't say I didn't warn you.

Thus far into the book, I have not discovered who Tara is.

Blossoming Lotus Week

I used the excuse of needing to order a few birthday presents online to order myself a copy of Vegan World Fusion Cuisine.



After borrowing it from the library, I knew it was written for where I am in my current-diet-train-of-thought. It is based on "vegan transitional" recipes, those that contain light ingredients with some raw or partially raw recipes. The first recipe in the book is Radical Roasted Red Pepper Hummus. This is the Sundried Tomato Variation.



And the same hummus in a flax seed wrap with avocado and veggies.



I served the Lotus Live Tomato Sauce (pas de beets) over baked spaghetti squash. I liked this ten times better than any other pasta based spaghetti and I think it will become a staple in our house. I threw in a few dates just for sweetness.



On many days I have cravings for Gracias a Dios Guacamole. I don't add the spices, as I like the natural flavour of the lime and cilantro. We try to minimize the fat content by dipping with baked pita chips instead of tortilla chips.



And finally, a fully cooked dinner. Grilled Tempeh with peanut sauce, Daddy Dread's Jamaican Jerk Plantain and steamed broccoli. I've never had plantain, so I thought I'd give it a go. I wasn't totally impressed, it was too starchy for my taste. I couldn't give up the comparison to bananas enough to make it a fair decision.



Another recipe from the book I tried but didn't photograph was the Grilled Portbellos in Shoyu Marinade. They were excellent, and I'll remember to make them again in the upcoming barbeque season.

If you're looking for a healthy, inspirational, kinda raw vegan cookbook, I highly recommend this one. If you just like beautiful pics of food and the world, it's good for that too.

Colossal Food

I was craving something sweet, so I pulled out my VwaV, recalling that I had seen an interesting recipe I always wanted to try. Since I had all of the ingredients on-hand, I decided to make the Raspberry Chocolate Chip Blondie Bars. I used my homemade raspberry jam, as suggested, instead of going to the trouble of making the raspberry purée.

They turned out great - almost too great. You see, I live alone, and Kyle was working alot of nights this past week. In case you can't tell from the photo, this is a 9x13" pan worth of rich, calorie-laden blondie bars. It was dangerous. I had one, and soon after sampling, knew I had to offload the 30-some servings of these things before I turned into a blob. Fortunately, they kept well in the fridge, and I was able to have Kyle take more than half of the pan to his hungry co-workers on Friday. Phew! Next time, I'll definitely halve this recipe into an 8x8" pan, or even quarter it into a loaf pan.

One note that was weird - I felt guilty making those blondie bars. All week, I was snacking on grapefruits as my nightly snack. It was mildly surprising how much I was enjoying this treat! One night, I ate my grapefruit, then had a tiny piece of blondie bar. It was weird, because I was so mad at myself for losing the sweet, light aftertaste of grapefruit in my mouth, and instead tasting the oil-based, sugary confection I had created. I was mildly disgusted with myself, and hope this is a sign that my somewhat sweet tooth is diminishing.

Today, I modified a Caesar Salad recipe from the Vegan World Fusion Cuisine cookbook. I used soy mayonnaise instead of the silken tofu/water combo. I found it better tasting than another Caesar-style dressing I made before, so I'll be sure to do this again. What I won't do again is double the amount of garlic. I have no idea what I was thinking, but at least I won't have to worry about vampires tonight.

Great Start to Spring

It was a good vegan vibe night, as we had dinner at The Table, our favourite local vegetarian/vegan/raw buffet. After a leisurely dog walk in the warm, approaching spring weather while it was still daylight, we stopped by the mailbox to be surprised by the April issue of Vegetarian Times. It reminded me that even though I've made three dishes out of the March Issue, I haven't actually read it. Sarah's African Chickpea and Spinach Soup made me flip right to that page to try it, and then the Napa Cabbage Salad caught my eye, and with so much success with peanut butter, I had to make the Peanut Butter-Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips (but only because it didn't call for any white flour).



The recipe isn't vegan, but I veganized it by subbing 1/4 cup applesauce and 2 tblsp soymilk for the yogurt and egg. And I just used whole wheat flour, not pastry flour. It was da bomb, better than any previous banana bread that I've made. Of course, the chocolate chips don't hurt.

Two nights ago, I made grilled tofu using the Asian Marinade from VWAV. I just had to admire the beautiful lines my grill pan left.

The Pounds Go Marching one by one...

I haven't posted lately because our menu has been following a rather routine pattern. We have green smoothies for breakfast, combining fruit such as bananas, pineapple, mango, papaya, or berries with greens such as spinach, kale, romaine or parsley. Every day, I try a different combination. For mid-morning snack, a fruit salad and dried fruit and nuts. At lunch, we have a salad, guacamole and/or leftovers from the night before. Dinner consists of a steamed green vegetable, beans, chickpeas or lentils and occasionally, brown rice or pasta. I haven't felt that much of this was worth taking a photo. That doesn't mean that I'm not totally enjoying what we are eating. In total, I've lost 8 lbs, and Pete has lost 10. But more importantly, I have much, much more energy than I've ever had. I don't sleep less, but I feel very positive and energetic during the day.

I tried a new recipe from the same Vegetarian Times article that Sarah last posted about - this one is Napa Cabbage Salad with Peanut Dressing.



The napa cabbage was refreshing and really pretty after grating with a mandoline. The peanut sauce was out of this world with very little added oil. I could have eaten the whole bowl.

I did make Fat-free Oatmeal Cookies since Pete begged for cookies, but they didn't last long enough for a photo. Super good.

PB with Tomatoes Sounds Gross, But it's Not

Well, I haven't had time to supersize my Apple Oatmeal Walnut Muffins, but I did have time to type up what I have so far. As I mentioned in the post with the pic, I wanted to use some steel cut oats from my everyday brekkie, but if you don't have any kicking around, I would increase the rolled oats from 1/2 cup to 1 cup, and increase the soymilk from 1/3 cup to 2/3 cup and let them soak together in the applesauce mixture before adding to the flour mixture.

Apple Oatmeal Walnut Muffins

2 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup cooked steel cut oats
3/4 cup applesauce
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/3 cup soymilk
1/2 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with muffin liners. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, rolled oats and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, combine cooked steel cut oats, applesauce, oil, maple syrup and soymilk. Add applesauce mixture to flour mixture, and stir until just combined. Add walnuts and stir.

Pour into prepared muffin tin, and bake for 20 minutes. Let muffins cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 12 muffins.

I did some good eatin' this week. First, I had some leftover pesto from making Isa Pizza over the weekend, so I cooked up some penne, sautéed some mushrooms, red pepper, onion and zucchini, and added Yve's Chick'n Tenders for a quick meal. Tasty!



Still on my Vegetarian Times kick, I made the African Chickpea and Spinach Soup from March 2007's issue. It was part of the 1 Food 5 Ways section featuring Peanut Butter. I was very skeptical about peanut butter in a soup with canned diced tomatoes, but I absolutely loved how the PB gave the soup a rich creaminess that was nicely offset by the cayenne. It was a breeze to put together, and Kyle was very impressed by how flavourful it was. The only disappointment is that it only makes 4 small servings. Since we ate big bowls at dinner, our lunches the next day were pretty pathetic due to having only a few sipfuls of soup.

Not Ugly at All

I wanted to try Fatfree Vegan Kitchen's Miang Kum Rolls. Since Susan's daughter E ate them, I figured Princess might too (bland toppings only). I made them as raw as I could, using raw cashews instead of peanuts.



The sauce was really tasty, once you warm up to the idea that it's not peanut sauce, but tamarind flavoured. Princess was excited by the wrap-assembly process, so I was optimistic that she would eat the one she made. Alas, she picked out the spinach and only ate the cucumber and rice paper. But Pete and I really liked them.

We have been eating bushels of fruit lately, so to increase our dietary variety, we decided to try an "uglifruit". Here's what it looked like.



Inside, we were pleasantly surprised, despite the name.



They were very juicy with large wedges the size of grapefruit, but the taste was somewhere between an orange and a grapefruit, with a hint of lime. We ate it like an orange. I would definitely not hesitate to buy one again.

The Not-so-Secret Solution

This morning I opened my homepage to read the latest news headlines and recent entries of my fellow vegan bloggers. I was floored by this article:

Diabetes Rate in Ontario Rose Far Faster than Forecast: Study

Ontario is our home province, and here we have publicly-funded health care. It can be a wonderful system, in that if you have a run of bad luck, you don’t need to mortgage your entire future to pay for your hospital stay, surgery, etc. Every person in the province has equal access to health care, regardless of social status or income. The system is funded through income taxes, where theoretically everyone pays the same percentage toward the costs.

One downfall is the migration of good Canadian medical doctors to the US, attracted by more lucrative salaries of the American private health care system. It is hard to find a general practitioner in town that is accepting new patients. If you have a GP, you keep them, regardless of whether you disagree with their approaches or loathe the service you receive in their waiting room.

But the other downfall is highlighted by this recent article. Our health care system is getting increasingly more expensive. In part, it is because good health professionals deserve higher compensation. But much more costly are the thousands of people that are becoming unhealthier by the year. One out of eleven people in the province have diabetes. Probably a similar percentage have heart disease (maybe the same person). And then there are the increasing rates of diet- and lifestyle-induced cancers. And who will shoulder the burden of those increasing costs? Those that take care of themselves and are still able to work. And our children.

The article states, “Rates of diabetes grew most rapidly in people under the age of 50, especially young women”. Clearly this increase is directly related to poor diet and lack of exercise. We are killing ourselves with our forks and televisions. How can we get the message out that meat, dairy, and refined and processed foods are poisoning our society?

The proof that a healthy vegan diet prevents diabetes is irrefutable. This movie follows six people as they adopt a raw vegan diet and get off their insulin (thanks to The Veggie Voice for that link). Many authors/doctors such as Robbins, Ornish, McDougall, Barnard and Fuhrman have written books on the health benefits of vegan diets. I recently borrowed Fuhrman’s Eat to Live from the library on Fat-Free Vegan’s recommendation. It is a well-written book citing study after study about the disease-preventing benefits of a vegan diet based on fresh fruits and vegetables (even more interesting to parents might be his Disease Proof your Child). Many of his patients successfully ended their dependence on insulin.

It is frustrating that many of the people I care about already are, or are at high-risk of becoming one of the increasing number of Ontarians with diabetes. I, as many of us do, hold the “secret” - the knowledge about how to prevent or cure diabetes. But it is useless unless they are willing to listen. They have to give up their attachment to unhealthy patterns of eating the wrong foods in inappropriate amounts. They have to get themselves moving. How can we help people who aren’t willing to be helped?

Not-So-Supersized Muffins

I make steel cut oats in a little mini slow cooker every day for breakfast, and one day, I decided to make extra and put a few cooked oats aside to make some muffins. I was craving an apple-oatmeal-style muffin - one like the fluffy, oversized versions I used to get from muffin stores in the mall food court, but obviously vegan.

I came up with a tasty recipe that incorporated the cooked steel cut oats, applesauce, uncooked rolled oats, walnuts and other tasty goodies. They had the same texture and taste I was craving, but I was hoping for something bigger that would 'spill' out of the tin and make a typical shape with a muffin top. So I'll have to revise my quantities, and will post the recipe once I've perfected it.


I also tried another VT recipe, this time, from March 2007's issue. I've found that VT has been pretty vegan-friendly lately, so I've been making quite a bit of stuff from there lately. Last night, I made the Israeli Couscous with Shiitakes. I made some modifications, as I couldn't find Israeli couscous at Loblaws for the life of me. Of course, when I got home, I re-read the recipe after spending an extra 20 minutes on that task, and discovered that I could have used orzo instead. Argh...

Anyways, I made this without the chile and chives, used corn instead of peas, and used 4 cups of veggie stock instead of the 6 cups of broth that were called for. The recipe also called for tarragon, a fresh herb that I can't say I've ever tried before. I found it smelled like licorice, and it actually gave the dish a great flavour. Although it took a lot of time to stir in the stock like I was making risotto, I would make this again, with chickpeas or seitan chunks for extra protein.