Me: Vegan

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, is all I can say for taking a more than a year long break!  I promise on my love to you, my 3 loyal readers that I will update this blog much more regularly (and with interesting articles too!)

So, for my first post back, just a quickie:

I went with my Dad today to stock up on Veggie samosas from Sundhu’s Sweet House in North Surrey.  We’ve become fairly addicted to them and figured they were well worth the half hour drive.  $20 got us two full cases for a total of 40 fresh made samosas.  Needless to say, there will be no shortage of night time (or day time for that matter) snack food in our house!  I also came to realize today, that Chana Masala is the only dish I’ve been able to find consistently at every Indian restaurant I’ve ever enjoyed that has always been Vegan.

So this evening, I’m much too stuffed with potatoes, peas and garbanzos to eat a proper meal, but I’m still in the mood for a late snack.  So I’m putting a large pot on medium-high heat (setting 6 out of 9) with just barely enough oil to cover the bottom.  Next, I’m covering the bottom with just enough popcorn kearnals to cover, they’ll expand to fill the whole pot!)  I stir them constantly, and after a few minutes, they’ll change to a darker color, just before they start to POP, then I turn the heat down to low-medium (setting 3 out of 9.)  Once they start popping, I let them go until it sounds like they’re all done popping.  Then I pour them into a bowl, cover with 1/3 cup of melted Vegan margarine, then sprinkle extremely generously with nutritional yeast to make ‘Cheesy Popcorn.”

Enjoy!!  And my sincerest apologies for the extended absence.  I’ll be posting a series of informational bits on Vegan travel over the coming weeks and months.

Peace be in you all and may you share it with the ones you love.

It’s no secret among my friends that I love to cook.  Put me in a kitchen for couple of house, give me a pile of ingredients and a great chef buddy to work with and some beautiful things are likely to happen!

We started by putting together a list of things that Thanksgiving cannot happen without, and then added some of our personal favorites.  Here’s what we came up with:

Tofurkey

Roasted Hubbard Squash  -

We cut off the top of the squash and carved out the guts.  Then we covered it in foil and popped it into the oven at 350 degrees for one hour and 20 minutes.  When it was done, we carved it into strips and served it with the stuffing and gravy on top.

Hearty Vegan Stuffing -

1 loaf of bread, we used Silver Hills Squirlly cut into 1-in. cubes
1 pound some kind of Tofurky Italian sausage (or your preference)
2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 cup vegan butter– I like Earth Balance, melted
1/2 of a large onion or 1 small onion, diced
1 clove of garlic, minced
14-15 ounces (about 1 3/4 cups) Veggie Stock
1 egg substitute, with dashes of salt and pepper added to it
a VERY generous pinch of poultry seasoning
large baking dish, greased

Directions:

I should mention that according to my mother’s recipe, the bread should be left out for 1 week in a paper bag to get a little stale, however, she has made this without leaving the bread out and it tastes the same. I surely don’t do it.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook the  ‘sausage’ (crumbled or chunked) until heated through.  Add the celery in, then add the onion and garlic.  Saute until tender.

In a large bowl, add the cubed bread and all the other ingredients. Mix together.

Add the stuffing to the baking dish and bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes, until the stuffing is not watery. Don’t cook too long or it may dry out.

This can also be prepared a day or two ahead. Just bake it for 45 minutes and refrigerate. Bake for 20 more minutes or so when ready to serve.

Enjoy with or without the vegan gravy of your choice

Two Gravies

Yorkshire Puddings -

Ingredients at room temperature:

2 cups sweet rice flour
2 tsp guar gum
2 cups soy milk
Egg Replacer for 6 eggs
1 tsp salt
Olive Oil

Preheat oven to 400 F.  Mix with whisk. It’s ok to leave a few lumps.(Batter should be super runny.) Let stand at room temperature for 10-15 minutes. Put a half a cap full of oil into each muffin cup.  Fill muffin cups about half full of batter and bake approx. 25 mins.

Variation – I did these Gluten Free, however you can use wheat flour instead of the sweet rice flour, and just eliminate the guar gum which isn’t necessary with wheat flour.

Pumpkin Pie! -

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Have ready, one 9″ unbaked pastry crust

Blend in blender:
2 cups solid-pack canned pumpkin
1 cup almond milk
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 tbsp. blackstrap molasses
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. EACH ground ginger, nutmeg and salt
1/4 tsp. ground allspice or cloves

Pour the filling into the pastry and bake 60 minutes, covering the edges with foil if they begin to brown too quickly. Cool on a rack, then refrigerate overnight before serving.

Portabellos with Almond Sauce

Roasted Seasonal Mixed Veggies

Scalloped Potatoes -

6 medium potatoes, peeled and super thinly sliced
4 tablespoons earth balance
3 tablespoons flour (we used sweet rice flour)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 1/2 cups Almond milk
1 small onion, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 325ºF.

Heat 3 tablespoons of earth balance in a saucepan over low heat until melted. Blend in flour, salt and pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is smooth and bubbly. Gradually stir in almond milk, 1/2 cup at a time. Heat to boiling. Boil and stir 1 minute.

Arrange potatoes in greased 2 quart casserole in 3 layers, topping each layer with part of the chopped onions and 1/3 of the sauce. Dot the top with the remaining 1 tablespoon of earth balance, broken into little pieces.

Cover and bake until potatoes are tender, about 60-70 minutes. Let stand 5 to 10 minute before serving.

Add 1/2 to 3/4 cup shredded Daiya cheese to the sauce and mix to melt.

Olives

and

Chocolate Chip-Coconut Cookies

Recipes to come very soon!

One of the things that many people gripe about in regards to being Vegan is that it’s just not feasible to be Vegan while traveling, or in tiny towns.  I’ve always felt that is a very weak excuse.  I know where I stand in regards to objectifying and eating animals, and those feelings do not change just because I love to travel.

So this August I had a wonderful opportunity to go to my traditional family home of Binscarth Manitoba (population 450.)  Naturally, I was well aware that small town Manitoba is not the Veganism capital of Canada.  Since Binscarth is nowhere near an anything, we flew into Regina Saskatchewan, then drove 4 hours.

I started my journey my checking out the invaluable www.happycow.net for a list of health food stores in Regina to stock up on Vegan staples for our time away.  I found a fantastic store Nature’s Best (2224 14th Ave, Regina, Saskatchewan.)  While the store is not vegetarian, they are filled with all of the staples you could want for a few days away from ‘civilization’ such as; vegan cheeses, tofurky meats, produce, bulk nuts, canned soups, breads, vegan snacks, chocolates, and even a great vegertaian sandwich bar.  I picked up a package of frozen Tofurky Kielbasa Sausages (which kept them nice and cold all the way to Binscarth) half a dozen Primal Strips, two chocolate bars, 3 grapefruits, 2 pears, a handfull of dried chickpeas, a handfull of dried black beans, a veggie sandwich, and refilled my Food Fight water bottle (which I never leave home without!)  Honestly, I think I ate better than most of the people I travelled with!

Our first night in Binscarth I enjoyed a tofu scramble with peppers and a soy-teriyaki sauce.  Breakfast the next morning consisted of fresh fruit, and a juice with Vega.  Lunch for the others was steak sandwiches, so I thought I would have something along the same lines.  I found some Vegan bread in our lovely hostess’s freezer, spread some mustard on most slices,  I sliced up the Tofurky Kielbasa Sausage to make long, thing strips, and put that on the bottom with some cucumber and tomato slices in the middle, and cut up a Primal Strip for some extra “meat” on top.  Everyone was jealous of my sandwich, which to be honest, looked amazing.  For dinner we all went to the only restaurant in town, Arbuckles.  I wasn’t sure if or what I would be eating, so I just went with an open mind.  Our meals came out and she placed in front of me the most exquisite roasted peppers stuffed with a spiced quinoa, with beans on the side and a beautiful salad to start!  Naturally I was immensely grateful and very impressed.

Our final morning was another refreshing breakfast of fresh picked fruit with juice and Vega.  Our lunch was full of Vegan foods that most people forget are Vegan.  I made up another sandwich, and had a cob of corn with some salt and olive oil, and a baked potato, which was more than enough food to fill me to the brim!

I left my extended family and Binscarth feeling well fed, excited by the surprising meals I had experienced, and deeply proud to come from the family that I do.  If you’re ever travelling in the middle of frigging nowhere Manitoba, you would do well to make a stop in Binscarth.  It is a special town, filled with wonderful people, lots of history, and natural beauty.

One of the questions I get asked when I am at family functions, or catching up with distant friends is: “So you’re Vegan, what do you eat?”  Unlike every Vegan’s least favorite “But where do you get your protein?!?” question, the “what do you eat?” is not asked out of ignorance, as much as it is out of legitimate curiosity.  I feel like it is asked to give the asker a more clear picture of what a Vegan diet is like in practice and how many or few restrictions it has.  I created “The Everyday Vegan” column for the above mentioned sort of people who are simply curious about what I, personally, eat from day to day.

Please bear in mind, that since Vegans are just normal people who choose to consume a herbivorous diet, the dietary preferences from individual to individual vary quite widely.  While most Vegans are healthier than their animal consuming counterparts, there are certainly junk food Vegans, just like junk food meat eaters.  I try to remind myself that binge eating deep fried tofu and fudgie coconut icecream is only marginally better than binge eating deep fried chicken and dairy icecream.  (However it is certainly vastly more satisfying!)

So, without further ado, here is what I ate today:

Breakfast — Cereal (Panda Puffs to be precise) with almond milk.  Peanut Butter Panda Puffs have far less sugar than I had feared at 7g per 30g, AND are totally gluten free, so really they’re a health food…or so I’m telling myself….

Mid Morning Snack — A bunch of roasted, unsalted Cashews.

Lunch — 2 packages of the Garlic and Veggie flavoured noodles from Thai Kitchen.  Usually I go out of my way to turn them from glorified Mr Noodles into a legitimate meal by adding a bunch of fresh veggies, and some cubed tofu, but I was lazy and hungary so I ate them plain, which kind of sucked…

Snack — Primal Strips!  Mmmmmmm, if you’ve been Vegan for more than 10 minutes, you know what I’m talking about

Dinner — A Big Ass Salad.  Seriously, this salad is full of everything.  I used about 8 shredded leaves of Romaine, a whole can of black beans, 2 roma tomatoes, about a 1/4 cup of fresh, chopped dill, a chopped orange pepper, about 2 tablespoons of hemphearts, and I just threw a bunch of olive oil and balsamic on top with a dash of fresh ground pepper and BAM, a perfect supper (and sooo filling!) on a swelteringly hot night.

Midnight snack — Smoothie, similar to the Purple Power smoothie I posted a couple of days ago.

So there you have it, my nutritional day in a nut’s shell.  Stay tuned for more suggestions, ideas, and general info about what a Vegan lives off of to stay alive, healthy and happy.

Mmmmmm!!  Best smoothie ever recipe:

* 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

* 1 sliced banana

* 1 cup soy or almond milk (today I used VitaSoy)

* Roughly 25 unsalted cashews

Blend like crazy in the blender (VitaMix if you are so blessed,) make sure the cashews are completely liquified.  Pour your thick, purple goodness into your favorite mug or glass, and ENJOY!!!