Mad About Udon

I hate waiting for fruits/veggies to ripen! Such is my major frustration with mangoes, avocadoes, bananas, , etc. (Apples & carrots, FTW!!). Three weeks ago I bought a mango to make Mango-Avocado Guacamole and after 2 weeks (seriously!) of waiting for it to ripen, I manically hacked into it with a machete (okay, just a knife). It was still hard as a rock and I forlornly threw it out. Later that day I found 3 mangoes at the grocery store in the “50% off because these are so ripe they are about to go bad” section. Victory against the mangoes! Two went into the guacamole and with one to spare, I made Quinoa Salad with Black Beans and Mango from Veganomicon:

It was colourful and nutritious, to be sure, but 3/5 for taste. I couldn’t even detect the mango. This is only my second Veganomicon experiment, the first one being my wildly successful and often-repeated Pumpkin Cake with Pecan Streusel Topping.  I think I’ll probably shelve this recipe and try another one from the book.

Happy Canada Day long weekend everyone!

                 -Maureen

This past weekend I travelled to New England to hike the Presidential Range of mountains in New Hampshire. This was my first trip into the States this hiking season. Usually I go to Adirondacks in New York but something drew me to New Hampshire. I went with 8 other hikers from the Alpine Club of Canada. The drive through Vermont was lovely, tarnished only by the uproarious admission by my car-mates that they had (all!) smuggled fruits and veggies across the border. What. The. Hell.

Hiking burns about 500 cal/hour, and for long stretches on the trail, it’s important to pack lots of food and pack it well. I made a dozen sandwiches consising of baked tofu (marinated in soy & ginger salad dressing), soy cheese, and sweet thai chilli sauce on a bun.

I also packed 12 granola bars (seen above) and 8 apples (which I legitimately purchased in Vermont, unlike my obnoxiously felonious comrades).

Aside from tofu sandwiches, apples, and granola bars, there is a lot that the active vegan can pack for a hike. Unless you’re trying to create a calorie deficit (which is often the case), you may need to pack up to 5,000 calories/day. Packable fruits and veggies include oranges, carrots, peppers, avocados, broccoli, cauliflower, and potatoes. For long hikes, you can dehydrate certain fruits like pineapple, bananas, mangoes, apples, strawberries, and kiwis.

Additionally, Luna Bars, some Clif Bars, and random brands of granola bars are vegan, so check the labels. I find it’s easier to pack a dozen identical sandwiches because it saves money and stress, and packs well, but other ideas include: peanut butter or hummus on a pita, crackers, dry cereal, trail mix (although I personally think that hikers eat waaaay to much trail mix), raisins, wild rice, vegan cookies, fruit leather, or just any type of homemade sandwich using your favourite vegan protein.

Our group dinner the first night was fortuitously vegan—pasta and sauce. I co-ordinated dinner the second night, which was 6 different kinds of store bought curry (all vegetarian, two vegan), brown basmati rice, and naan. Unfortch I forgot to take a pic but here is a salad that another hiker made that night for the group:

The hikes were great—the storms lifted just in time on Saturday morning for us to scale Mt Madison and Mt Adams, and hike along the rocky ridge of Mt Jefferson. On Sunday we hiked a small mountain just to stretch our muscles back into shape. It was very challenging overall (I’m still sore!) but good practice for my Rockies trip in August. The views were incredible.

Happy Hiking!

-Maureen

Empidoids! Mmm dried flies… Just kidding. The only time I consume flies is when I accidentally inhale them (some of the specimens are quite small; I have to mount them under a microscope).

Clockwise from upper left corner: steelcut oats with apple and raisin, red grapes, honey dew melon, cold pasta salad (vegetable confetti pasta, fenugreek sprouts, watercress, sweet yellow pepper, white onion, cucumber and capers), raspberries and blueberries and Yoso blueberry soy yogurt.

The above photo is a somewhat typical example of the kind of packed lunch I bring to work. I usually eat the oatmeal and grapes in the morning, and the berries and soy yogurt in the afternoon. The cold pasta salad is not really typical of my packed lunches as I usually do not have time to make such a thing in the morning.

- Aly

PS The Granola Girl Cafe Project is back from the summer hiatus!

Good news–I got my degree on the mail (having skipped convocation). So I officially have my Bachelor of Science in Biopharmaceutical Sciences (concentration Medicinal Chemistry). Whoo whoo!!

*crushes beer can on head*

Okay, so onto the food, I have so much to post. I’ve been re-making a couple recipes just for convenience. The other day I made falafels again from The Garden of Vegan. Let me tell you, that book is on fire! No seriously, it’s on fire, I turned the wrong element on (like I do every time!!) and it caught fire. Now my book is charred but my favourite recipes are intact so it’s all good.

Other foodz:

Banana Bread. I’ve made this before but with vanilla icing. Chocolate is equally good.

Grilled melons and pineapple with So Good soy vanilla ice cream

Not-yet-barbecued kebabs. I used PC Blue Menu Marinated Tofu and red and yellow peppers drizzed with oil and sprinkled with various herbs. Loblaws has been out of zucchini for like, a week (!!), and so peppers were the only vegetable I could come up with. Unfortunately, the BBQ was out of propane so I just baked these instead (didn’t get a picture, oops)… we’ll try again with the BBQ next week I think.

Another batch of Thai red curry, this time with little grilled tofu squares and served over brown rice vermicelli (upper left).

My friend “T” and I were wandering around the city last weekend, on a sweltering summer’s day, looking for a place to eat. We ended up at Sushi Go, right in the Byward Market. The prices were decent (also since I make sushi at home, no price for take-out sushi is every really satisfactory) and the sushi was excellent. We were, however, a little disturbed at the “Doors-Wide-Open-and-Air-Conditioner-Blaring” policy that Sushi Go and every other restaurant/cafe/business in the Market seemed to operate. Is it even remotely ethical or responsible—in this current age of environmental concern and reform—to engage in such a business practice?

TGIF!

-Maureen

This post has been brought to you by Jake, my catsitting charge last week, seen here crunching data and compressing files.

Despite 23 years of real-world (and kitchen) experience, I admit that I just recently looked up what Crisco actually is. I’ve long suspected that it was something I couldn’t eat, made from animal souls or something of that nature. But apparently this is not only a vegan but also a kosher product. Quelle suprise!

These pictures come from Tasmia out at McGill in Montreal, who baked a vegan pie for her household (incl a vegan roomate) back on March 14 (3.14)—Pi day! And what better type of pie to make than a Pi Pie.

Truly artistic and imaginative… far beyond anything I could ever put together (although I long to jump on the VCTOTW bandwagon and paint pretty cupcakes). The recipes come from Crisco itself and can be found here (crust) and here (filling).  Thanks Tasmia for the pics, and for uniting math and food!

-Maureen

Sorry for the delay in posting. We went to Toronto for my BFF’s birthday party. Toronto (my hometown) is the best—and as far as I can tell, the only—city in Canada, and everything about it is 1,000,000 X superior to Ottawa, mostly because the entire city (Ottawa) supports the wrong hockey team!! That’s right, I said it. It is also probably the centre of the universe.  I knew I was home when we nearly got killed on the 401 highway by a Scarborough driver who decided to displace our car by veering into it without signalling or even checking his mirrors. Oh, Toronto.

But just to backtrack a couple days, we had celebratory smoothies on Tuesday. The celebration?? A new blender!!

You may recall in my last post, I made falafels and using an electric mixer instead of a blender. Life really isn’t so hard without a blender, with two exceptions: hummus and smoothies. I eat buckets of the former so we eventually caved and put $15 down at the ol’ Wal Mart on a blender.

Ingredients: frozen berries, bananas, Earthshake Soy and Oat beverage, cocoa powder, and Dutch chocolate vodka

I got those little umbrellas at the dollar store. Cute, no?

-Maureen

I had forgotten what an amazing workout it is to box with WBK! If you are interested in non-competitive boxing training, I would highly recommend them! I can not think of any activity which has brought me greater pleasure, aside from seeing Daft Punk live at the Bell Centre last summer. I was too exhausted to prepare a meal from scratch after class, but was desperately in need of a high calorie meal! Here is what I came up with:

Clockwise from upper left: 1 container of yoso vanilla soy yogurt with 1 c of blackberries and half a banana, 2 T of hummus with 5 olives, 8 baby carrots, and half a whole wheat pita with 1 T of PB (although I am allergic to tree nuts, peanuts are still cool as far as I know!) and the other half of that banana.

It did the job!

- Aly

I have not posted in the last week as it seems like I have been exclusively eating salad following a demotion from girlfriend to friend. Here are a few products of my salad fixation:

#1: Lentil Salad

Ingredients: shredded lettuce, grated carrot, cubed tomato, chopped green and white onion, chopped yellow pepper, green lentils, capers, sesame seeds, and a white wine vinaigrette. This salad was inspired by the (best Ethiopian restaurant in Ottawa) East African Restaurant’s awesome Azifa.

#2: Quinoa & Tofu Salad

Ingredients: shredded lettuce, quinoa, corn, baked tofu, grated carrot, finely sliced white onion, capers, sauerkraut and red wine vinaigrette.

#3: Cold Noodle & Spinach Salad

Ingredients: rainbow vegetable spiral noodles, baked tofu, grated parsnip, baby spinach, coarsely chopped onion, chopped yellow pepper, minced garlic and white wine vinaigrette.

#4: Fruit Salad

Ingredients: one orange, one banana, frozen raspberries, raisins and cinnamon. (Being allergic to most raw fruits makes spontaneous fruit salads quite the challenge.)

Thankfully my appetite has begun to return as I finally started running! I never really understood how great it was until I was capable of running for longer than 15 minutes. Interested in starting? Check this site and others out for more information and most importantly, just get out there and do it!

- Aly