Finally blogging once more

It's good to be back again! My poor desktop where I do my photo work caught a nasty virus which prevented Google and all its partner sites like this one to be blocked or non-functional, eep. But finally I was able to get to the bottom of it!


Now I have made cake, but I have never made a breakfast cake. This is like a better version of oatmeal almost. Decided to try this one morning when I woke up a bit earlier than my boyfriend. He got to awake to a tasty breakfast - he loved this! I just wish I could remember the blog I found the original recipe from! It originally had no agave nectar or cinnamon - I just added those for a little extra sweet and flavor.

Banana Oatmeal Breakfast Cake
2 cups non-instant oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, beat (or egg replacer for 1 egg)
1 mashed banana
1 sliced banana
1 1/2 cups milk of your choice (I used almond)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp agave nectar
Brown sugar

Optional:
1 tsbp or so ground flax seed
Cinnamon

Peheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mash 1 banana then combine with the rest of the wet ingredients. Mix wet ingredients in with the dry.

Coat a pie pan with vegetable shortening (your cake will stick to it otherwise!). Put 1/2 of the sliced banana on the bottom of the pan, pour in your mixture, then decorate the top with the other 1/2 of the banana.

Cook the cake for 26 minutes or until golden brown. Sprinkle brown sugar all over the top. Broil the cake for 3-4 minutes or until the sugar starts to bubble and brown.

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This disappears pretty fast whenever I make it now! It's a keeper recipe for sure.

Botox and progress

So it's been since June 10th since I received my botox injection to help me out with TOS. What's happened since then?

Good stuff! I'm happy to say that the injection is helping, really happy. It took until about the end of June, but that's when I started to notice my pain wasn't nearly as bad and I wasn't as prone to flare-ups like I was. In fact, I was able to try Bikram yoga without a major flare! Some discomfort, but no flare! It was amazing!

I can't credit just the injection though. I've been working with physical therapists who know TOS, and know neurogenic TOS, and they've been able to work with me to try and correct my body and how it's warped from being in chronic pain for so long. They're picking out things even I haven't noticed which is great - means I can work to correct those things I wouldn't have picked up on otherwise!

So the symptoms that are staying are the nervy/pain feeling in my hand and the tightness in my jaw, but the TMJ/jaw symptoms are reduced, and so is the pain in my hand. I'm just glad I can lift bigger pots of water for cooking again, and be able to do other light chores with just a little bit of pain instead of a huge disaster like before.

Now I'm not sure what will happen once the botox wears off, but I remain hopeful that when it does, things won't be as bad as they were before. I would like to continue to do some of these things I'm doing now. I'll just enjoy the little freedoms I have now and savor them just in case!

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!