Tasty foods galore

Well I thought I'd be back right quick to make another post, but spent the past couple days getting rid of a sneaky virus instead. Eep! All better now though, thank goodness.

What is this? My first try at vegan overnight oats! I based this cup off of what I saw here. Chocolate strawberry banana, oh my! Here's how I made mine:

Chocolate Strawberry VOO
- 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup oats
- 1 1/2-ish tsp ground flax seed
- 1 1/2 cups almond milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- Drizzle agave nectar (I squirted in what was left of my near-empty bottle)
- 1 diced banana
- 4 chopped strawberries

Mix dry ingredients together, then mix in wet ingredients and whisk together. Set in the fridge for 2-3 hours, or overnight.

This made 2 glasses and the second glass that was left in the fridge for 2 nights was still good! Next time I'll half the cocoa powder and maybe add more agave - this just wasn't sweet enough for my sweet tooth. But this was a great idea, especially now that things are heating up!

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Another good thing now that things are heating up? Barley tea from my local Uwajimaya. This is part of what makes summer so awesome!

Now my Japanese is so rusty that I can't even read that anymore, and it's been a whole year since I bought this, but the big ingredient in this was barley so I went for it. If it isn't the same thing I had, it sure tastes like what I had last year!

Edit: Did some digging and this bottle is Asahi brand's own Jyuroku-cha, and not mugicha (or barley tea). However, I stand by the fact that this is delicious, haha!

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I saved the best for last. I did. I made this recipe as an experiment back in April and it turned out to be the greatest experiment I ever did. Oh my goodness.

What could this pot of veggies turn into I wonder? Hmmm, how about...

Vegan Mac and Cheese
Noodles
- 4 quarts water
- 1 tbsp sea salt- 8 oz macaroni

Breadcrumbs (Optional)
- 2-4 slices of bread, torn into large pieces (Use less if you're cooking in a casserole dish with less surface area)
- 1-2 tablespoons non-hydrogenated margarine (Use half the tbsps as slices of bread)

Cheese sauce
- 2 tablespoons shallots, peeled and chopped
- 1 cup red or yellow potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1/2 cup carrots, peeled and chopped- 1/3 cup onion, peeled and chopped
- 1 cup water
- 1/4 cup raw cashews- 1/3 cup non-hydrogenated margarine
- 2 tsp sea salt
- 1/4 tsp garlic, minced
- 1/4 tsp Dijon mustard
- 1 tbsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1/8 tsp cayenne
- 1/4 tsp paprika

In a large pot, bring water and sea salt to a boil. Add macaroni and cook for ten minutes or until al dente. Drain pasta and rinse with cold water. Set aside.

In a food processor, make breadcrumbs by pulverizing the bread and margarine to a medium-fine texture. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a saucepan, add shallots, potatoes, carrots, onion, and water. Bring to a boil. cover the pan and simmer for 15 minutes or until veggies are very soft.

In a blender, process the cashews, salt, garlic, 1/3 cup margarine, mustard, lemon juice, black pepper, and cayenne. Add softened veggies and the water used to cook them in to the blender, and process until perfectly smooth.

In a large bowl, toss the cooked pasta and blended cheese sauce until completely coated. Spread mixture into a 9 x 12 casserole dish (or any dish that fits really), sprinkle with breadcrumbs, and dust with paprika. Bake for 30 minutes or until the cheese sauce is bubbling and the top has turned golden brown.

Looking more like cheese sauce I used to know and love now!

Bam. Fresh out of the oven. I skipped the breadcrumbs this time as I didn't want to get my food processor messy that night, but it was still absolutely delicious. I would like to thank this site for providing the recipe because this is the best mac and cheese I've ever had, ever. Even my sister who is terrified of my vegan cooking devoured the leftovers lurking in the fridge.

Mac and cheese had been something I missed terribly since I developed my nasty dairy allergy, and I thought I'd never have it again! Thank goodness for the internet and creative cooks. I'm actually craving this again, ha! Even when I doubled the recipe it still got eaten up very quickly.

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Also made my zucchini garlic soup, trying out new ratios of onions and garlic this time since I played it safe last. I now know that if I increase the onion, I've got to increase the garlic by even more! This batch was tasty, but not quite as amazing as the last one. I think it lacked the garlic punch.

As a challenge to myself, I'm attempting to veganize two old summer favourites of mine: Summer squash croquettes and a cold pasta salad with fruit. The pasta salad has got pineapple, grapes, mayo, chicken, almonds... perfect combo of stuff, but of course with the challenge I'm using "vegan mayo" and something else in place of the chicken. We'll see how this turns out!

Summer is really here

I've got something cookin in the oven I can't wait to post on, but first a little a bit about the day!

So one of my two vascular surgeons suggested now that I have botox paralyzing that nasty scalene muscle in my neck, that I should get some physical therapy to help my body adjusted back to some form of normalcy.

This new physical therapist had experience with TOS which is a huge plus, and another big plus is he was real with me. No sugarcoating or anything, which is what I really appreciate. But a long story short he says he's not sure just how much I'll improve, but I can improve with some work! Definitely what I want to hear.

This new PT makes me optimistic! The good news from there, cooking awesome things, and enjoying the sunny day made today pretty wonderful. More days should be like this!

Back again

Oh dear. I have been neglecting things! I partially blame the pain I've been in, and I partially blame my laziness.


Oh waffles! I like these a lot better than plain ol waffles and syrup. They're a hands-on, no-utensil way to get a bunch of nutrition in first thing which is great if I've slept funny or am in the middle of a nasty flare. My toppings of choice have been plain soy yogurt, cinnamon, granola, and banana with either a sprinkle of coconut or pumpkin seeds. I just got strawberries today so I'll be able to mix up my breakfast fruits a bit.


What are these? Stuffed mushrooms! These are really really easy to make and are a nice way to compliment a meal or serve as an appetizer. These used to be served at a restaurant I used to work at and I did experimenting at home to see if I could get it similar to how they had it, and it worked great. Nowadays I use the Tofutti faux cheesy products, but it still works!

Easy stuffed Mushrooms
-Stuffing base (1/3 part cream cheese, 2/3 part sour cream)
-Chopped green onion to taste
-Garlic powder to taste
-Plain white mushrooms
-Veggie broth or bouillon cubes

In a small pot, bring the veggie broth to a boil. While the broth is heating up, cut out the stems of your mushrooms. In a small bowl, mix your stuffing base, green onion, and garlic powder.

Boil your "gutted" mushrooms for 2-3 minutes, then fill with your stuffing. Serve immediately and enjoy!

For my dish I used 1/3 cup cream cheese, 2/3 cup sour cream, I think 4 stalks of green onion, and a little over 1/8 tsp of garlic powder. This turned out to be too much for the amount of mushrooms I bought, but this does make a tasty and flavourful veggie dip so I've been using up the excess that way.

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I've still been drinking up my Green Monsters. I actually miss them when I'm out of spinach! Here's what my "perfected" drinks have been looking like as of late. Might as well call em Purple Monsters cause the blueberries I love turn them that color!

"Purple Monster"
1 handful spinach
1 handful frozen blueberries
2 frozen strawberries
1/2 banana
3/4 scoop protein powder
Drizzle of agave nectar
Soy milk (+ some water if the mixture is too thick)

I also recently found that our coffee grinder isn't really used to grind coffee anymore, so I've got free reign to grind up flax and hemp seeds I found in Whole Foods' bulk department. Hooray!

Simplify and improve

I couldn't wait to get breakfast in me today. It's funny because I used to not really care for it at all. I didn't hate breakfast foods, but nothing seemed appetizing, so I would just flop whatever breakfast-type food down on a plate and just grin and bear it. Not so much anymore!

Today's breakfast in a bowl is plain soy yogurt, banana, cinnamon, granola, and coconut. I'd seen a lot of coconut be used for yogurt bowls before, but was iffy on trying it out until today. I looove coconut, but wasn't sure how it would go with the rest, but was great! I love the idea of getting a little healthy fats in with the granola and coconut.

Went out to a doctor appointment, and unfortunately driving kicked my butt (Singing along to songs may or may not have contributed too, hehe) and I was in a lot of pain. But so hungry! Time for me to plop some store-bought butternut squash soup in a cup and make an easy sandwich. This sandwich actually is great as a late-night snack for me - it's cilantro and jalapeno hummus and lettuce on wheat bread. It's not a full meal by itself but it fills me up with the soup. I'd stay full for a while if I were able to cut up some apples, but with this pain now I'd better not. Times like this I wonder if something like an apple divider would be a good thing to have... hmm!

Speaking of kitchen tools, I have been looking around for gadgets to have that would make cooking with TOS more easy. So far the only solid ideas are electric pepper and salt grinders, and a water heater for my teas to skip using the kettle. A lot of devices out there I'm finding though cut prep time down, but are a pain to clean which is not good! Hard to clean equals an automatic "not worth buying" from me even though I'm usually not the one to do dishes in the house. I shall keep my eyes open for more products!

Botox and beans

But not together at once, thankfully!

Today is the start of a three-month treatment "experiment" of sorts. I just had a shot of botox injected into my scalenes on my affected side. If all goes well, this will begin to relax this muscle in one to two weeks and will last about three months. Kind of interesting, the thought of giving a specific muscle a kind of botulism for a few months, heheh.

I am hoping to look for additional treatment while the botox settles in so hopefully when it wears out, the rest of my body will be closer to where it was before I had chronic pain, which also hopefully means less pain! First thing's first though - I've got to see if the botox will work for me.

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I took the evening to ponder what tasty, cheap, and easy dish I could make. Rice and beans seemed like the perfect answer! Tonight's experiment involved black beans, garlic, onion, and a pinch of ginger made into a paste on top of brown rice.

The result? Not bad, but nowhere near perfect. The bean mixture seemed to lack enough flavor punch not to be drowned out by the mellow flavor of the rice. So back to the drawing board while I think of what different portions of ingredients I can play with next time to give it that perfect punch!

Stocked up my "food staples" today at Whole Foods and I'm good to go. I'm already excited for breakfasts this week!

Triumphant return

I return from a five-day trip to Richmond, BC with lots to tell. A shame the hotel didn't have internet there so I could have blogged on the go.

First thing's first before I dive into my adventures in food: Traveling with TOS. It's not easy in the least bit. With me I had a rolling backpack and a very small rolling suitcase, but that was more than enough for me. I cannot use a traditional backpack or anything heavier than a purse on my good shoulder, so instead of carrying that backpack and dragging the suitcase I was dragging both going through customs on the US/Canada border. Fortunately I had help at the beginning and end of the bus ride from family or my boyfriend, but next time I might try the train since customs is at the train stations instead of at the border, so no stops in the middle to drag heavy bags around.

Walking once there was no problem at all actually. I found that aside from being out of shape, I could walk for as long as needed without trouble. I'm glad that the old cross-country runner endurance is still in me. Now footwear may have been a slight concern, but that's another story!

So in short for next time for my physical health: Take the train and make an effort to walk more in the meantime!

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And now onto the best part: food! I'm always a bit nervous dining out since a lot of places use milk products liberally in their dishes. However I was very happy to find that there was an abundance of places in Richmond that were focused on Asian cuisine, which not only is my favourite kind of food, but hardly uses any milk products!

Now I am neither strict vegetarian nor vegan, so while these places don't have milk in their dishes, they do serve meat. All of the vegetarian/vegan places I Googled were quite a ways out from where I was staying and I didn't get a chance to dine there this trip, but next time I am definitely paying a visit to them. I want to dine out healthy, too!

First night my beau and I stopped by a place called Shanghai River. I'd heard rumors that the Chinese restaurants had to be very good to stay in business, and I'm happy to report the rumor is true! We ordered crispy rice with shrimp, a nutty kind of sweet shrimp (if only I can remember the name!), and a "crab ball" kind of an appetizer. That appetizer was iffy, but I think I just wasn't used to the taste or texture. The two other dishes were amazing, especially that shrimp dish! There are mixed reviews out there of this place, but I'd say definitely give this place a try if it's not a busy night.

Second place to note was Ninkazu, which was an all-you-can-eat type of Japanese restaurant. I've gone to a lot of sushi places here around Seattle, and this place definitely compares nicely with those! Now I wasn't blown off my feet but this was still quite good, and I'd go again if I was in the area and craving sushi. We went there at an incredibly busy time with a group of 8 folks, and we still had decent service especially considering how packed it was.

Last but very certainly not least was the Steveston Seafood House, as my silly cell phone photo is trying to illustrate. My dearest wanted to take me to a nice place on my last night there, and he chose well! I don't normally eat seafood but this place was absolutely wonderful. It's a cute little cozy place, great service, and most of all... amazing food! The waiter there (who actually turned out to be the owner of the place) was very accommodating to my dairy allergy, and the main salmon dish I ordered that was tweaked a bit for me tasted as though it was meant to be that way. Didn't taste like anything was missing! This is definitely a "special date" kind of restaurant price-wise, but it's definitely worth trying out. Heck I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. Yum!

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I'm still winding back down here from the excitement of the whole trip, but already I'm plotting more new dishes for the week here. Yum!

Amazing green

From missing a few days of posting I have a recipe of massive success to bring! Just made this last night and actually had the chance to eat this today. It's an absolutely amazing zucchini garlic soup that I will definitely make again.


It's a completely vegan zucchini garlic soup! I had to try my own version after reading about it here. I'd worried that although I was getting my fill of fruit I was falling behind on my veggies. This along with my green smoothies will definitely put me on the right track. It's pureed as well, which makes it easy for me to put in a cup and drink if I'm having a bad TOS flare and don't want to use utensils.


Zucchini Garlic Soup
Makes approximately 1 1/2 quarts

1/4 cup margarine or olive oil
1/2 white onion, sliced
2 large cloves garlic, sliced
3 medium zucchini, sliced
1 cup shelled edamame
4 cups veggie broth
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
Salt and pepper

Put olive oil in a heavy 4-quart pot over medium heat. Add sliced garlic and onion, and cook on medium-low heat for about 10 minutes or until the onion is soft and translucent. Keep the heat low enough so the garlic doesn't brown.

When the onions are soft, add the zucchini and edamame, and cook until soft. Add the veggie broth and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer at low heat for about 45 minutes.

Let cool slightly, then blend with an immersion blender or transfer to a standing blender. Blend until creamy. If using a standing blender, only fill it half full with each batch, and hold the lid down tightly.

Season with ginger, salt, and pepper to taste. Like most soups, this is significantly better after a night in the refrigerator to let the flavors meld.

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I can't get over how good this is! I didn't use nearly as much garlic as the recipe called for as the last time I made a dish with garlic it had much too much of it... and I love garlic, too! Next time I'll try maybe an extra clove or two, but it still doesn't need as much since the ginger and pepper give it such a nice kick to it. Might try it with extra broth next time since it was a little thick in the cup, but if you're using a spoon it's not a problem at all! Huge bonus points because of how healthy this soup is, too!

I will definitely make a huge batch next time I make this so I have plenty of leftovers. If it freezes well that'd be great! Enormous soup batch while I have a good pain day, then I have frozen goodies to just thaw out when I'm not feeling so hot.

I'll be going to Canada for a long weekend starting Thursday! I'll definitely be on the lookout not only for good food but for good ways for me to travel relatively pain-free.