My vegan ways

Day two on the vegan diet. I cannot believe that I am eating vegan. I hate vegans. They are too earthy. I am humbled. I have to keep realising I cannot judge others...'cause here I am eating almost vegan and loving it.

As you can see this is my lunch today. Yummy. Who would not want to eat that. Below all the yummy stuff are noodles. Since I do not have udon noodles in the house I used the whole wheat ones that I have been buying for my family. (I have just learned they prefer white pasta-yuck.)

For this yummy recipe, I boiled the noodles and it a separate pan I sauteed garlic, red onions, a pinch of salt (which I do not know why I added it, I rarely use salt, it was sea salt though.)and pepper. I also added broccoli, muchrooms and firm tofu. I have eaten tofu before, I did after all spend a month in Japan, kinda hard to avoid it there! and never really liked it but I got the firm kind, I remember not liking the extra firm but the firm is yummy. It tastes like the other foods around it but the texture was good not too hard, not too soft, just right goldilocks!

For breakfast I had my usual oatmeal but with fruit. I really cannot say that at this point I am going to give up fruit. Meat and dairy are not a problem but fruit not so sure about that one.

I am eating yummy food, I think I should have cooked the onions a little more... I have wicked onion breath!

Vegan-Almost

So I have had adult acne issues for a long time now and in the ever increasing desire for beautiful skin I am trying another "diet" method to cleanse my skin. Since last August, (I cannot believe it has been a year already) I have stopped eating white flour and refined sugar. (this is not to say that I have not eaten them occasionally) (does a box of oreo cookies count?) but in my every day diet I try to avoid them all together.

I also gave up dairy, I stopped eating cheese last summer, having realised that it was causing the majority of my acne, (a weekend of triple creme brie is not good for my face) so giving up milk was not that hard.

Giving up meat will be difficult. I love a good steak. All other meat will not be that hard. But fish, that will be tough.

I am going to do it gradually and incorporate some good vegan food into my diet. I will not truely be a vegan because I cannot go without fruit!

Tonight I am making quinoa and collard greens. I did not cook them together, just eating them together. I have wanted to do collard greens for a long time and finally got the courage to cook them. Should be yummy. I will let you know.

My family is having steak, corn on the cob, grilled peppers and salad.

Eat good food!

Simple Dinner

This dinner looks really simple and it was to make but taste so YUMMY! Salad, fruit, I love fruit in salad. I like the sweet with the lettuce! I am out of red onions, those are my favorite in salad and I keep forgetting to buy more. I put avocado in as well a little dressing and the meat is seasoned pork tenderloin and tender it was. A great easy meal. I even ate it in the garage watching the kids play. Yummy!

Raspberry Brownies

Oh my gosh you can see the raspberries on the right side....in the middle you can see the jam oozing out of icing! YUMMY!


I got this recipe from my mother-in-law, she bought this book and I copied the recipe out of the book. She never actually made it!

I of course have modified it as I do with most recipes I make. First of all it made WAY too many brownies for my family to consume and not get fat. (read me for family) So next time I make it I will half the recipe and put half the jam and twice the raspberries. And a recipe with 4 eggs! CRAZY.

1cup of butter and 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips, I never use milk chocolate because I do not like the taste so I used bittersweet. So melt the butter and chocolate in a saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat and add 2 cups of sugar, 4 eggs, 2 tsp of vanilla and beat until smooth.

Sift together 1 1/4 cups of flour, 1tsp pf baking powder, then add 1/4 tsp kosher salt and stir into choco batter then fold in 1 pint of fresh raspberries.

Transfer to 9 x 13 buttered pan. Bake at 350 for 30 to 35 mins. Cool. While brownies cool make ganache. The ganache is 8 oz of bittersweet chocolate (60% +) melt that then pour over boiled heavy cream (1 cup) ans stir until smooth then add 1 cup of raspberry jam. When brownies are almost cold (I could not wait) pour the ganache over the brownies and cool for an hour at least, more like 2 in the fridge. Then serve.

Enjoy!

Easter and Lent

WOW! A long time since I have written. Well I have made some yummy meals. The other day for my sister I made a salmon loaf. Kinda like salmon patties (using canned salmon) but make more of it and put it into a loaf pan. And voila. Yummy veggie substitute for meat loaf! I cannot take credit for this one, it was my Mom's idea. I feel like I wrote about this already? I also made baked zucchinis. I scored them, melted butter with garlic, poured that over the zucks then mixed assiago cheese with parmesean cheese, pepper and a few other spices I use and toped the zucks with all that, into the oven for 20 mins and YUMMY.

My Easter meal is very simple. Ham, I always boil it and bake it regarless if it is fully cooked when I buy it, it adds flavor and kills off any crap in the packaging. I am not a huge fan of the nutrious value of ham(is there any?) So Easter is the one time we eat it. I am also making scalloped potatoes, easy recipe from Canadian Living cook book. (p. 88 of the 2001 edition if you are interested)

I am also serving broccoli, a salad and a delicious chocolate cake from one of my favorite magazines, Fine cooking. I also made ganache. And since I gave up chocolate for Lent it should be yummy!

Enjoy this blessed time of year. Feast well my friends.

Mardi Gras

So yesterday I made crepes for dinner. We had pancakes for breakfast so for a little spice in life, I changed it up at dinner time and had crepes. Now of course being very conscious of feeding my kids healthy foods, I could not give them just crepes for dinner. Especially since we had pancakes for breakfast which is usually a weekend morning only breakfast. So I gave them left over chicken in a yummy sauce I made with pepper, onions, celery and various spices. I also gave them left over shrimp noodles pasta. The dinner was yummy all around and they finished most of their plates.

Since it was mardi gras I did eat the crepes (not the pancakes in the AM, I gave those to a friend who came over after we had finished eating breakfast. The pancakes were blueberry pancakes and were very yummy) and a salad. I did omit the vanilla from the recipe so that they would not be as sweet tasting since they were for dinner. I must admit that I did have berries wrapped in a crepe with maple syrup for dessert. Yummy.

Since today is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent I am giving somethings up and will be putting a huge halt to all baking for 40 days with a big sigh. Boy it is going to be a long 40 days...

So we will see how creative I get with the kids meals during Lent because all I will be eating is very basic with fruit for dessert! Is it bad if I make the kids "sacrifice" certains thing they like to eat too?

Eat yummy food!

Last night for dinner I used a recipe from Cooking Light magazine. When I looked at the recipe list I thought great I have all the ingredients. Chicken and some spices, potatoes, I did not have squash but my husband does not like that anyway so no big deal. So I take out all the stuff I will need and put it on the counter and read the recipe. The recipe calls for a whole chicken and I have chicken breasts! Oh well instead of putting the spices between the chicken and the skin, I just put it on top of the breasts with some olive oil, cut up the potatoes (for the kids, I don't eat potatoes) and put it all in the oven and dinner was done. I warmed some veggies I had made previously and put fresh apple and a little piece of bread on the kids plate. The adults had salad and the chicken and a great meal was had by all! Best part I went out after and did not have to clean up! Yeah! Eat yummy food.

Soup for dinner

My husband was away or I do not think I would have served soup for dinner. Although the soup did have carrots, potatoes and sausages. I got the recipe from Jamie Oliver in Cooking Light Magazine. I don't really like the way he cooks but I really liked this soup. Very easy to make and tasted great. I added the sausages that were already cooked. (mostly so my kids would eat it) I also made beer bread again. I love warm beer bread, the next day it is yucky which is good because then I will only eat it at one meal! And that was dinner, really easy less than an hour to make soup and bread. We had fruit for dessert as usual! A very yummy meal.

Poker Night

Yesterday was my husband's poker night. So tonight we had the leftovers. We had sausages, (Gruyere stuffed-yummy) and salad, part of my high protein and greens diet. The kids had noodles and veggies too. But for poker night I made chicken pieces coated in garlic and other spices and served the rest of the sausages and home made salsa which was spicy (jalapeno peppers!) and smooth and crunch all at the same time. My husband bought a 6 layer dip and nuts. They are guys, it was simple and they liked it! I did not make a dessert.

Tonight we had leftovers (sausages and other stuff in the fridge) and I caved and make the cookies. I used a recipe from the Costco magazine. I will use a recipe from anywhere if I have the ingredients and like what the end result will be! Oh my GOSH, they were good. I dipped the cookies in granulated sugar before I baked them. Yummy. (so much for the diet!)

I have a weakness for cookies!

Good night... and for those of you watching LOST, I hope it is worth the however many month wait it has been. I am very excited!

No flour, No sugar

So my life really does revolve around food. I am constantly thinking about it. What is for dinner? I can't wait for breakfast. What will I make for lunch? For the boys? For me?

This past summer I changed the way I eat. I was having acne issues and changed my diet. No more bread, or anything with white flour (including gravy) or white or refined sugar. I started experimenting with different kids of sugar and flours. Some good, almond flour, some not so good, garbanzo bean flour. (makes gravy and especially sweets taste weird)

But overall I did okay. Once I stopped eating sugar, the less I wanted it. Chocolate was a whole other story. I ate 75% to 86% cacao. After a while, milk chocolate just tastes gross. (too sweet) Two good things about the diet is that my acne cleared up and two, I lost 15 pounds in 3 months! And I have managed to keep it off. Around the holidays it was really hard to do and so I just gave in and ate crap (cookies and bars and yummy Christmas food) Then I had house guests and made tons of bread and sweets for them so I did eat some of that. Now I am back on the diet, my face was getting bad again. I eat lots of berries and salads and they are yummy. I have been wanting to make chocolate chip cookies but have not caved yet... I long can I go. This is now day 3 and counting...

Last night for dinner I made a beef stew. I invented the recipe. As usual I combined several recipes. For the beef part I used a short ribs recipe. I floured the meat and seared it then added aromatics (garlic, celery, carrots) sauteed those up and then added spices and herbs (paprika, chili powder, oregano and tomato paste) then deglazed the pot (one of my favorite things to do) with red wine then returned the meat to the dutch oven (my favorite pot) Then I used a soup recipe and added 2 cans of tomatoes, one crushed one not. I also added split peas, red beans and lentil that I boiled previously in broth. I also added some of the broth from the beans. I put the lid on the dutch oven and placed it in the oven and cooked it at 350 for 1 hour. I also steamed potatoes and after the hour I added those and served it to my family. Yummy!

Since I had friends coming over and the beans were still a little firm, I put it back in the oven and baked for another hour. I should have added more liquid before that extra hour but still yummy. As I heat it up tonight then I will add more liquid. I served it with gluten free tortilla chips. I would have preferred beer bread but I was running out of time and was not in the mood.

I also made my favorite dessert that is easy and fast and tastes great. Berry crisp. I put frozen berries into an oval corning ware. I added a few fresh berries and a 1/4 cup of powdered sugar. Then in another bowl I mixed flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and melted butter. I spread that on top of the berries and cooked at 350 for an hour. Yummy! Great if served with ice cream or whipped cream.

I rarely measure anything. If I am making a recipe for the first time then I do but after I invent a recipe I never measure, I take note of what I used but rarely measure again. So follow my recipes at your own risk!

Enjoy and eat yummy food!

No Cook Dinner

I had planned to make a salmon loaf. A few weeks ago my Mom called and told me she made a salmon loaf instead of salmon patties. So I made it and it was yummy, my kids loved it, my husband loved it, my in-laws loved it (long story, they were staying with us for 8 weeks!) The loaf turned out to be a big hit. So that is what I was going to make tonight. Then my wonderful husband called and said he was picking up sushi and bringing it home. The kids will eat left overs and the grown-ups with eat sushi. We give some to the kids but if I don't give them something else to eat they eat too much sushi and there is not enough left for me! So I will tell you about my salmon loaf recipe another time when I actually make it.

Itedake masse. (as they say in Japan)

Eat yummy food!

Yummy Food

So it is 9am and I am searing chicken! I love to cook. And so the reason for this blog! I know the food blog has been done and made into a movie. I am not about all that...just sharing my love to make food. I love to eat, but I would rather cook it or bake it!

This dinner that I am making at 9am is a volunteer project that I take part in for my Mom's Group. When one of us has a baby we make meals for the Mom and her family. I am planning on taking my kids out all day and so the only time I have to make this meal is now.

I figure that when families get these meals they will typically get some sort of pasta dish so I want to do something a little different. I am combining a short ribs recipe I made a few weeks ago (I am using chicken instead) with a recipe from my Mom. (like a chicken a la king) My recipe which I am inventing as I am making it will be with tasty chicken, yummy vegetables with a nice baguette (which I would normally make but my yeast expired!) and apple crisp for dessert.

Okay time to start deglazing.

Glad you are reading and hope you will follow my food experiments as a cook for my family and friends!

Yummy Food.