Double the Chocolate, Double the Fun July 19, 2009

I apologize for the complete lack of pictures today.  I had every intention of bringing my camera to lunch because we had been planning to go to a fancy-ish restaurant for Summerlicious, but I ended up leaving it on my desk in the hurry to leave the apartment.

Breakfast this morning was a tasty, though grainy mixture of collard greens, wheatgrass ice cubes, vanilla almond milk, stevia, agave, and cacao nibs (the hard grainy bits).  It was drunken with a lot of stirring in between, which was completely worth it for the chocolatey goodness.

For lunch, my roomie and I had the intention of hitting up a Summerlicious restaurant, with today being the last day and all. After perusing the menus, we found a couple of restaurants with what looked like particularly tasty options. Unfortunately, last night we figured out that Pangea was either all booked up, or closed, so we switched our plans over to Midi Cafe. But when we got there for lunch, it was also closed! These restaurants seriously need to post their opening hours (or more specifically, days) on their websites. So instead, we headed over to Urban Herbivore, which I’ve been wanting to check out for a while, mainly due to my roomie’s raving about the incredible awesomeness of the sandwiches. He got a sandwich, and I tried a bite of the sesame tempeh inside, which was delicious in an incredible way that made me not hate tempeh like my only other tempeh experience did (plain, grilled from Fresh). I ordered a build your own salad with mixed greens, carrot, cucumber, green beans, broccoli, mixed bean sprouts, beets, sunflower seeds, and citrus herb dressing. DELICIOUS! The sprouts, beets, and the sunflower seeds made the salad, I have got to get on growing my own sprouts.

Then we went to see Harry Potter (fun!, even though it somewhat abruptly skipped over huge sections of the book, and I have no recollection what so ever of the Weasley’s house burning down). After the movie we hit up Starbucks for free drinks, mine being a tall iced coffee with soy, and did some wandering around over to an old used book store the roomie loves in Little Portugal before he headed to work and I meandered some more on the way home.

For dinner I broke out some more dulse for a tasty pasta salad made of tofu shirataki noodles, mashed avocado, red pepper, lemon juice, and lots of the seaweed. And along side that I enjoyed some pineapple, a granny smith, and organic milk chocolate with hazelnuts (twice what made it into the picture).

And it would appear I did a poor job of selling the Stash green tea powder, with my not liking it and all, so Krista, Cindy and Caroline,  may you please be so kind as to email me your mailing addresses (plentifulplantsATgmailDOTcom) so I can send the goodies your way 🙂

It’s Canada Day July 1, 2009

Up Canada way
On the first day of July!

Gotta love Stompin’ Tom 🙂

I made an honest attempt at patriotic breakfast art, which slightly failed due to runny ingredients. I started with a base of Heather inspired oatgurt, which I blended with water, chia and stevia powder. Then I took a pair of scissors to a cereal box for the application of strawberry “jam”, strawberries blended with agave and chia for thickening.

While both ingredients were pretty fantastic, both separately, and together, they were a bit too runny to for proper stencil application. But you can figure out what that’s supposed to be, right?

Lunch was a super tomato-y affair. Regular tomato, kumato, avocado, carrot, and pineapple salsa mixed with fresh parsley (which was amazing with bites of avocado).

Then mid-afternoon I played around a bit in the kitchen and produced these tasty little Pumpkin Pie Bites.

I used:
~ 1 cup whole dates, which I chopped before processing
1/4 cup dried coconut
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 T water
~1/2 cup pumpkin seeds

I threw the first four ingredients in the food processor and chopped until combined (my dates were a bit dry, so you may not need the water). Then I formed the mixture into balls, and rolled them in the pumkpin seeds.

Pretty darned delicious, if I do say so myself. I snacked on a couple of them.

For dinner I de-rawed/veganed myself for a plate of chicken baked with Peach and Bourbon BBQ sauce, baked kabocha, and steamed Europe’s Best Nature’s Balance frozen veggie mix. The kabocha received and dose of ketchup post photo-op.

I used this Ted Reader’s sauce for the chicken, and it was really good, unexpectedly spicy, but good.

And I’ve got some dessert waiting for me during SYTYCD, almost a repeat of yesterday, brazil nut milk blended with frozen raspberries (it was freezer clean out sort of night).  I would totally go see some fireworks, but all the displays except Ontario Place have been cancelled due to the outdoor city workers strike, so I assume Ontario Place is going to be over packed and the street car will be crazy to get home on at a reasonable hour to go to bed to get up for work tomorrow.  Though they will also have fireowkrs on Saturday night, s I might go see those.

PS. I’m insanely jealous of Gina right now, I was hanging out in Chapter’s today browsing through Living Raw Food ($48, seriously? that’s not what the exchange rate is these days), and if I could go to 105degrees Academy, I totally would.

Very Vert May 5, 2009

This morning started off with a bowl of President’s Choice Cinnamon Spice Multigrain Oatmeal (uncooked) mixed with a little maple syrup and topped with almond butter and a golden delicious apple. I loved dipping the apple in the oats before each bite for a crunchy coating.

For lunch I brought along a container of carrot, snow peas, cucumber, and red pepper.

As well as a fruit selection including tomato, blood orange, cantaloupe, and mango. Really good mango…

Later in the afternoon I tried an Elevate Me! Blueberry Cranberry Goji Berry Boost Bar. This bar was really good, I could definitely taste the berries, and they tasted REAL (which they were, obviously, but some bars still manage to taste fake). I think this would take second place behind the Chocolate Coconut Chew bar in an Elevate Me flavour competition.

When I came home I had a few dates before leaving again to run some errands.

And when I got home for the second time, I wanted dinner, but didn’t feel like cooking, and was craving a green monster. So I went SUPER-GREEN with green grapes, a lime, spinach, a banana, chia seeds, Natura unsweetened soy milk, and a little stevia.

This monster hit the spot perfectly, I loved the lime addition.

And finally my fellow Canadians may be interested in this sample up for grabs.

Mixing things up April 28, 2009

This raining day started out with a mishmash breakfast of a beautiful bartlett pear, and egg with salt and pepper, and a breakfast cookie made simply of oatmeal, pumpkin, a few raisins, pumpkin pie spice, and a little stevia.  Random, but delicious.  I’ve been putting off a craving for pumpkin for a while because I needed to come up with something to do with the rest of the giant can.  I’ll think I’ll try freezing some.

Lunch was a slightly unphotogenic hodgepodge of fridge finds, red pepper, carrot, cucumber, lentils, snow peas, tofu and asparagus edamummus.  Again, random but delicious.

And in the afternoon I enjoyed a blended green monster of a banana, a russet apple, lots of spinach, and a couple spoonfuls of chia seeds.

When I got home I put the can of pumpkin to use to make sauce for a plate of steamed broccoli.  The sauce contains red onion and mushrooms sauteed in a little olive oil, then tossed with pumpkin, soft tofu, salt, pepper, and dried sage.  And with a sprinkle of lime juice on top, it turned into a delicious plate of food 🙂

And to finish the night, dessert was a delightful fruit and cheese affair.  Pineapple and brie to be exact.  This Allegro low-fat brie tastes rather amazing, I wasn’t missing triple creme brie in the least (well, that’s probably because I haven’t had any in years and forget just how tasty it is), and was perfectly happy to save the 40 or so cals per ounce.

Edible Bowls and Goddess Goodness February 21, 2009

This lovely morning started with me sleeping in a couple hours later than I usually get up, then getting up and making myself a wonderfully sweet and savoury bowl of oatmeal that completely disappeared!

I cooked some oatmeal in water with wheat bran and at the end stirred in some melon that I scooped out to make the bowl, half a small cantaloupe, a little larger.

The melony bowl of oats was topped with what looks like a mountain of goat cheese and dried cranberries.

Well, I lie when I say the bowl was completely eaten.  But it is rather environmentally friendly….

I spent the rest of the morning, and into the afternoon grocery shopping and running errands.  I takes me several hours because I walk everywhere, and like to shop in several different directions.  Though, I do enjoy myself doing so.  There were ice sculptures being set up on the sidewalks!  I wish I could have taken pictures, but my camera battery was charging at home.

When I got home I was pretty hungry but wanted to start a couple cooking projects, so I had a quick container of yogurt with Nature’s Path Pumpkin Flaxplus granola and a touch of stevia.

I then set to work in the kitchen, transforming these ingredients into something I’ve been seeing a lot of and was eager to try.

And I must agree, if mine turned out anything like like the store bought or original recipe version, it is absolutely delicious.  What did I make?  Well, I’m a bit unwilling to pay $5 for a bottle of something so high in fat and calories, so instead instead of Annie’s Naturals, I drew some inspiration from FatFree Vegan Kitchen and whipped up a batch of gorgeous goddess dressing.  I don’t know if it tastes the same as Annie’s, but I’m definitely falling in love with it.

The ingredients, all thrown into a (mini) food processor, yielding 12 tablespoons dressing:

• 1/3 package (100 g) lowfat silken tofu
• 1 tbsp tahini
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp dried parsley
• 1 tbsp dried tarragon
• 3 finely chopped green onions (green part only, no white)

My version (using the Calorie Count Recipe Analyser) works out to 18 calories/tbsp, 1.4 g fat, .8 g protein, .7 g carbs, and 50 mg sodium.

The dressing made it’s first appearance in my very late lunch of fish wraps.  The outside is my favourite winter green, collards, which where spread with dressing and rolled around some baked Lake Erie striped bass.

The fishy goodness was paired with a juicy pink cara cara orange.

Meanwhile, all afternoon I had had a pot of chickpeas simmering on the stove and when they were cooked through, I again made use of the food processor to produce a batch of roasted garlic hummus.  The creamy spread was sprinkled with green onions and enjoyed with a pile of celery and cucumber slices.

Now it’s getting to be time to catch up with some TV, Monk and Psych are calling my name.  I’ve been eating meals very late today so I’ll probably have a more substantial snack before bed, but I’ll post it tomorrow.