Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day to all of you Canadians and Canada enthusiasts!

July 1st marks a gigantic celebration for our northern neighbors, representing the momentous occasion in 1867 when Canada officially became a country. So happy birthday Canada!

Now personally, I love me some Canada. And one of these days, I'll make it up nawth to celebrate this fine occasion in true Canuck fashion, but for now I'll just have to be there in spirit.

In honor of our delightful continent-mates, I thought I would make a special dish tonight: Poutine!

"Well, what in le monde (the world) is 'poutine'?" you may ask. Think french fries with the comfort-food-o-meter turned WAY up. The fine people of Quebec have combined fries with gravy, and added fresh cheese curds on top for good measure. Now, seriously, who doesn't love Canada?

I also personally love the story that this decadent dish got its name when Fernand Lachance of Warwick, Quebec declared "ça va faire une maudite poutine ("it will make a damn mess")" Now, I don't know if that's true or not, but, don't you want it to be?

Traditional poutine is made with chicken or even veal gravy, and cheese curds so fresh (less than 24 hours old) that they actually squeak when you chew them. Now, you may think to yourself "Sacré bleu!, I thought that this was a vegetarian blog!"...and you'd be right. Tonight, poutine goes animal-friendly.

Poutine (vegan and gluten-free)

adapted from montrealpoutine.com

Gravy

• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 oz (by weight) potato starch; You can use regular flour if gluten is your friend
• 1 oz (by weight) oil or Earth Balance/margarine
• salt and pepper to taste
• sliced onions (I used half of a medium-sized vidalia onion); optional*
• 2 button mushrooms, chopped finely with stems removed; optional*

Melt your oil/margarine in a frypan, and add your starch or flour. Mix and cook over low heat for 3-5 mins to make a light roux, which we'll use to thicken our gravy. At the same time, bring your stock to a boil in a small saucepan.

Once your roux is cooked and your stock is boiling, add the roux to your stock and whisk to combine. Turn the heat down to a simmer and then keep stirring until the desired gravy consistency is reached.

Next, use your frypan to sauté your onions and mushrooms in oil until the onions are soft. You can caramelize the onions if you want to, but you don't have to. I did and I really liked the extra flavor. The onions and mushrooms aren't exactly part of the standard recipe, but neither is vegetarian gravy, so I say just go with what you like. When you're done, keep your gravy warm until you are ready to serve it.

Cheese curds

Next, prepare your "cheese." I used Follow Your Heart vegan mozzarella, but Tease brand makes a good cheddar or mozzarella flavor vegan cheese. These come in blocks or logs so you can chop them; Just use something accessible in your area that tastes good and preferably melts at least a little.

Chop your cheez o'choice into little chunks (maybe nickel-sized - Canadian or US!), and place on some parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Broil in your oven until melty and misshapen - for a more authentic look. Truthfully, I might have overdone it a little on the melting, but no harm no foul. There is no need to brown your "curdz", but, if it happens by accident, I won't tell anyone...; Now, leave your "curds" to cool and firm back up while you prepare your fries

French fries

Either bake up some frozen ones according to package directions, or cut and fry some Yukon gold or Idaho potatoes if you're feeling ambitious; If you make your own fries, I am going to submit to your awesome knowledge and not detail the process here.

Combine

Now, below I've listed the approximate the ratio of fries to cheese, etc according to montrealpoutine.com. You may choose to alter this according to your preference.

On a plate, place 2 cups prepared fries. Layer about 1/2 cup "curds" on top, then cover with about 1 cup gravy. And now, for those of us who do NOT douse their french fries in ketchup, here comes the tricky part...According to legend/purists/some websites I read, you are supposed to let everything "meld" for a few minutes before eating. Dear Lord give me strength to do nothing as my french fries become moistened...

Or alternately, if this sounds totally unappealing to you, put all of your ingredients separately on a plate and use a fork to get all of the components together. Heck, the US is on the eve of its own independence day this weekend, so have at your poutine however you want. Exercise ALL of your constitutional freedoms this weekend!!!

Happy Canada Day everyone, and Happy 4th too!

3.14 Happy Pi Day!

Ah 3.14.

A day when we can at last pay proper tribute to the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.......

.......A day when geeks, nerds, and theoretical mathematicians may skip happily hand in hand, unabashedly celebrating their love for everyone's favorite infinite number.

I hope you don't think me too "irrational" (sorry, pi joke), but since this day comes but once a year, I thought it best to show my respect for this humble but transcendent(al) number in the best way I know how: eating.

I made these black and white cookies according to the recipe in the freaking awesome book, Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. I piped on the pi symbols freehand with a bit of parchment paper I rigged up, Wilton style.

Fun fact: Did you know that computers have calculated pi to over 1 trillion decimal places?

I wish I could say that the first batch of these cookies came out as perfectly round as the circles for which pi exists, but the reality was more like this:

In several layers of irony, I put the incorrect "ratio" of baking soda to, well, everything else in the batter - because I wasn't paying enough attention. And, because I used too much baking soda, the cookies melted all over the bottom of the oven, necessitating more baking soda to be poured over the burned bits to get rid of the odiferousness. Yes, I am a master of irony².

But anyway, I hope that you and yours have an "infinitely" enjoyable Pi Day. If you do not celebrate in the traditional sense (i.e. by eating pi(e) and walking around in a circle), I hope that you take a few minutes to read about this beautiful and curvaceous symbol at some point today, or even send a Pi e-card to those who you love like a mathematical constant.

Big ups to physicist Larry Shaw for inventing this holiday back in '89, and making everyone's life at least 3.14 times more enjoyable.

From my circle to yours happy March 14th!

I'm here! I'm here!

I do apologize for all of my tardiness and unexcused absences...but I swear I had a good reason, honest!

For the past month, I have been off having my semi-vegan way with the world all over the place. I have had the good fortune to have met 3 successful and inspiring vegans, including at least a couple of virtual rock stars of the vegan universe. I am totally going to gush hopelessly about all of them, so I think this will have to be the first of 3 installments...

The whole big hero-worship-inducing mess all started about a month ago. I had already bought the book Thrive a little earlier this year, having discovered it during one of my frequent forays on Amazon.com. I started reading it and I found it to be very enlightening regarding the effects that certain foods can have on the body. Some of you may be familiar with the book's author, Brendan Brazier, as a notable vegan athlete. In fact, he is not just an athlete, he is actually a career tri-athlete. I will have to admit to you that, like much of the world, I have not often thought of the words "vegan" and "athlete" as belonging together. I just don't picture Arnold Schwarzenegger pumping a bunch of iron and then heading home to refuel with a package of veggie dogs. But you know, when there's a will, there's a way.

Thrive has a lot of reasonable and valuable information to offer, and clearly Brendan Brazier has done his homework. Being me, I tend to take everything I read with a grain of salt, but I didn't see a lot of sensationalist information in this book. I tend to get nervous when I read about all kinds of obscure superfoods I've never heard of, and only rarely does some new "out there" nutritional supplement make it into my regular rotation. A notable exception of course is spirulina, which I posted about fairly early on here.

But anyway, I am straying from the point. The results seem to speak for themselves. Brendan Brazier succeeds as an athlete, and, even more notably, as a vegan athlete. It is such a HUGE challenge to navigate the physically taxing demands of the Ironman triathlon, even under "normal" circumstances. And honestly, from my point of view, veganism is a thinking man's game. It takes some effort to plan nutritionally-rounded meals for people with average activity levels, nevermind for people who have just biked over 100 miles and think to themselves, "You know what would be awesome right now is a marathon. Let's DO this..."

So when I found out that Mr. Brazier himself would be giving a talk and doing a book signing at my local Whole Foods store, I was totally all about it. I mean, why not go see and be inspired by someone who has accomplished something that most people would have thought impossible?

So I went, I saw, I got my book signed. I also stood there awkwardly in the book signing line and I asked this successful author and owner of the extremely popular Vega nutritional foods line if he was from Canada. Yes, he is from Canada. And he is also very nice when talking with awkward hero-worshipping semi-vegans who meet him in supermarkets.

So to the Hot Vegan Army with you Brendan Brazier! And I'll see you in the bulk dry goods aisle....

P.S. He IS that tall.

It's a hell of a town, Toronto is...

This past week, my boyfriend and I had the most excellent fortune of spending time in the beautiful city of Toronto, Canada. We only had a few days to explore the place, but it seemed to us to be the stuff of dreams. A bustling yet remarkably clean city by day, Toronto transforms into a glittering metropolis at night. In fact, it looked to me like a comic book illustration of Gotham City - but better.

And, hands down, you have to love a city in which EVERY hot dog cart you come across offers veggie dogs. And not even wimpy flavorless ones either. The one above was roasted over an honest-to-goodness open grill, with real flames and everything! Plus, I had my choice of a veritable smorgasbord of condiments - including crushed potato chips! And let me tell you, the potato chips really bring something to the party...

And the Canadian reputation for politeness seems to me to be quite well-founded. Pedestrians actually hurry across the street when they cross in front of your car...and they even wave thank you for letting them pass! And, what's more, many Toronto-an businesses - like the very kind hot dog vendor I snapped a picture of above - accepted U.S. dollars from us. This was extra nice because the USD is actually only worth about $.96 Canadian these days...So if our hot dog vendor is still outside the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel or thereabouts, go tell him hi from his friends from Rhode Island! And try a veggie dog with potato chips!

I was a little sad that we didn't get to try out more of the vegetarian restaurants we passed while driving around. There was one called Kale that looked really interesting. I found a review here that wasn't an unqualified endorsement, but certainly indicated that the place wasn't bad. The pictures on the link certainly look like you'd be able to replenish your nutrient level pretty well there after a long day of roaming the city streets. And the buffet-style service makes the eatery fairly economical to boot.

If anyone has had the pleasure of visiting any great vegan/vegetarian restaurants in Toronto, please tell us about them here! And if anyone is interested in seeing a bit of the highlight reel from our trip, please go ahead and scroll through the post.

Have a great rest of the week guys!

Not even joking when I say that we caught a beautiful sunset every single night in Canada

Canadian money is quite pretty. It kind of reminds me of euros. But stereotypes aside, there were definitely pictures of children playing hockey on the $5's... Also, fun fact from my boyfriend: The Canadian $1 coin is actually called a "loonie" because it has a picture of a loon on it. How could you not get a kick out of having waterfowl on your currency?

It appears that the Canadian government likes to reassure you that you will not be stuck in traffic. How nice is that? I even like the way they phrase it...

Some beautiful green space near the waterfront. There were lots of kids and couples taking pleasant afternoon strolls that day.

The elusive and totally bad-a** black squirrel, native to the area.

The CN Tower is supposedly the world's tallest tower. And it sure feels like it when you are standing/sitting/whimpering on the see-through glass floor on the observation deck at the top...The tower above is shown here at a much more manageable size

I totally took this picture. I will gloat forever about that. The CN Tower observation deck simply cannot be beat at sunset.

I assure you that this terribly-taken picture doesn't nearly do Toronto justice. I hope it at least gives you an idea. If you can ever see this place first-hand at night, it's breathtaking.

And awesome large-scale art and architecture are everywhere in Toronto. Totally a cool youthful-feeling city.

We just stumbled across what appeared to be the Canadian Walk of Fame as we headed back to the car. I just couldn't resist snapping shots of famous PETA-spokeperson Pamela Anderson's star. She's soon to be added to the Hot Vegan Army, don't worry!

And William Shatner...Not a vegetarian, but still... And yup, I just boldly went there... :-)

A strangely ominous sign advertising the Toronto Zoo membership program.

And even as we said a fond farewell to the fair city of Toronto, it gave us one final gorgeous sunset to remember it by. We'll miss you Toronto! Hope to see you again soon!

"Dear God Feed Me" Vegan Nachos

You know, when I have a she-beast sized appetite, but I'm short on ambition, I reach for vegan nachos. You can pretty much have this plate of food in your hands in about 5 minutes, with almost no work, and it is very satisfying. It's also pretty easy to keep the ingredients on hand.

All you need is:

• Tortilla chips (Santitas brand was used above; They're vegan too, with only corn, salt, and oil listed in the ingredients)

• Daiya brand vegan shredded "cheese," (see image below)

I have had this specific brand of vegan cheese recommended to me by 3 (count-em #3!) separate vegans within a short span of time, and none of them knew each other. They were totally right. This stuff is really good. I even fed it to my omnivore father, who confirmed that you really couldn't tell it wasn't real cheese. I'd say you could probably tell if you ate it cold, but warm you hardly notice. And it's tasty food with a conscience.

The cheese comes in cheddar and mozzarella styles (shredded only, no blocks that I know of), and I bought mine at my local Whole Foods. Maybe cheddar style is better for nachos, but honestly, when you're hungry, eat whichever one you have on hand and use them interchangeably. And this "cheeze" really does melt and stretch as it proclaims. It lacks a little in the salt department (in terms of imitating the flavor of real cheese), but the tortilla chips used in this recipe will help to compensate for that. If you are really interested in daiya "cheeze" look them up on their website, daiyafoods.com. Extra credit if you make their recipe here for vegan macaroni and cheese. I have not tried that recipe yet, but I am starving and could easily eat that right now...

Anyway...

Instructions:

Lay out however many tortilla chips your heart desires on a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. Sprinkle the daiya cheese generously over the surface of the chips. Try not to get too much of the cheese on the pan. Broil the nachos carefully between 400 and 500 degrees in your oven until the cheese starts to bubble, and the chips get some toasty brown color. This will take a few minutes, but just watch to make sure the chips don't burn.

You're done, the end. Scoop these carefully onto a plate, and serve with guacamole, salsa, refried beans, etc. Relax. Repeat.

Of COURSE you can add other ingredients to your nachos (peppers, faux taco meat, etc), but this version is a quick and dirty "OMG I am starving I might destroy Tokyo" sort of recipe.

This instructions may seem simple, but I promise this recipe will help to save you from the hunger monster...

Good luck and Godspeed. Tokyo is saved.

Intro

Hi everyone!

For a while now, I've wanted to write a blog about my experiences as a vegetarian (and a partial kinda sorta vegan). However, as a natural procrastinator, it has taken me months (read: "years") to actually write this first post.

But, as they say, there is no time like the present. I hope you enjoy my personal explorations into the vegan/vegetarian/attemptedly-healthy lifestyle. I'd love for all of you to join me through the good, the bad, and the not at all appetizing...

Well, happy June everyone, and here goes!