Ribfest

I live quite close to Thompson Park in Scarborough.  It's a beautiful park, and I love to go for walks there of a pleasant evening or morning.

This weekend, the park is off-limits to anyone with a healthy sense of common-decency: it's time for Ribfest.   Booth after booth of pork and beef ribs and pulled pork sandwiches.

It's utterly revolting.

And the worst thing is, no one who goes to ribfest understands exactly how appalling it is.

Gluten-free Oatmeal

I found some gluten-free oatmeal (Bob's Red Mill) at the supercentre in my Dad's neighbourhood today, so now I'm good to go for making cookies for my MIL.

I won't be able to make them tomorrow though, we must attend a funeral.  I will make them on Saturday.

I'm On A Quest

My dear Mother-In-Law is getting older.  She is a lactose-intolerant, gluten-sensitive diabetic.   Despite our best efforts, she does not always eat foods that are best for her.

When my husband picked me up at the airport, he told me that he had visited her a few days earlier and had found cookies in the house that were not gluten-free, and which contained milk, and their diabetes suitability was questionable.  My FIL claims that it is hard to find the right cookies.  My DH told them they didn't need cookies if they were not appropriate for his DM's dietary needs.   There was unhappiness all around.

I have decided that I will try to make some vegan, gluten-free, diabetic appropriate cookies for her.

Today I went to my supercentre and I purchased some almond flour, some gluten free all-purpose flour and some xanthan gum - all Bob's Red Mill Brand.  The store was out of Bob's gluten-free oatmeal so I will have to go to a health food store tomorrow.  I have a few cookbooks I can use for inspiration, but the final results will be my own invention.   I have to do something about the sugar or syrup that almost all of the recipes call for - these cookies have to be sweetened more or less by their ingrediants.  It helps to remember that cookies don't have to be super sweet to be really good.

I'll keep you posted about my efforts!   I'm starting tomorrow!

I'm home now

I back home from my fabulous trip, and I'm having a bit of trouble with jet lag.

Hopefully it will clear up soon.

London, England: Vegan Haven!

There are so many vegan, vegetarian, and vegan-friendly places in London, that it make no sense to go to a regular restaurant to see if maybe there might be something to eat on the menu.

On the day we arrived, we went for a vegan high tea at La Suite West Hotel, just off Queensway, near the Bayswater subway station.  It was fantastic!  So fantastic that I ate too much, and I am trying to be strict on my diet while I'm away.

Yesterday we went to Norman's Coach and Horses, a vegan/vegetarian pub near Soho.  We both had the tofish and chips, and were very impressed.

Today we went back to the Coach and Horses to meet up with friends from Rwanda. I had the veggie burger and I have to say, with all honesty, that it was the best veggie burger I have ever had.

Vegan in Rwanda

It was not hard to be vegan in Rwanda.  Not at all.  What was difficult was finding a large variety of vegan foods.   Because of the leisurely pace of Rwandan restaurant service, we almost always ate at buffets.   At every buffet there was always rice, potatoes (several kinds - roasted, boiled), sweet potatoes, and always boiled greens such as spinach or cassava leaves (very tasty), as well as a bean stew of some kind - beans with green beans, or beans with sweet potatoes, or beans with beans.   We were never worried about being short of protein, just short of variety.

We were glad that we brought a jar of peanut butter with us, because breakfast most days was toast and fruit.   There were eggs on offer but of course, we don't eat eggs.

Animals being taken to slaughter are treated poorly in North America.  From what we have seen, they are treated worse in Rwanda.   Four years ago, I saw cows stacked (yes, stacked) in a truck as we drove along a highway.   Last week we passed a truck with pigs tied to the top of it.

We could not have been the only vegetarians in Rwanda, yet Rwandan waiters and restaurant staff looked askance at us if we said we didn't want cheese with our brekkie or milk in our tea.

No food posts lately

I acknowledge that I have not posted in a few weeks now, and I really regret the lapse.  I have been so busy planning this trip to Rwanda, and finishing off the school year, that I really have not had time.

Once the trip gets underway, however, I hope to make regular posts, but those posts will not contain recipes, rather they will be posts about maintaining a vegan lifestyle while travelling.

I'm looking forward to a vegan high-tea in London, and I will post a review about the restaurant that offers that, as well as a trip to The Coach and Horses, a London pub that serves only vegetarian and vegan food.   Looking forward to the tofish and chips!!!

Our meals on the airplane are listed as "vegetarian hindu"   I think that means vegan.   I hope it means vegan!

I'll keep you posted.

Party Post-Mortem

My SIL's birthday party at our house was great!

The cake was fantastic, and I have my sister to thank for that great recipe.

I also made a potato salad using small red potatoes - so small, in fact that I only needed to cut them in half before boiling them.  I bought them at my local Loblaw store.  They are called "Little Gems" and apart from being a pain in the neck to cut, they are great for salads.  Loblaws also sells white and coloured Little Gems. I added thinly sliced red onions to the potatoes, and then added the dressing.  I added a few dashes of Trader Joe's Everyday Spice mix to the bowl.

I made the dressing out of vegenaise and dijon mustard, a dash of vegan worcestershire sauce, and plenty of black pepper.

We also had a fruit tray and a veggie tray.  I made a dip from french onion soup mix (it's vegan!), silken tofu and vegan cream cheese.  It was great.

My SIL made a beautiful salad containing a mix of greens and kale, spinach and avocado.

We had a great day!

Leslie's Mincemeat Cake

Today is my sister-in-law's birthday, and my DH's family is coming over for a BBQ.  As well as burgers, I've made vegan potato salad, and an interesting salad with corn, black beans and hearts of palm.  My SIL is bringing a green salad.

In honour of my SIL's birthday, I thought I would make a cake.  My favourite cake right now is my sister Leslie's mincemeat cake.  She's an inventor in the kitchen, my sister, and one day she decided to put half a jar of vegan mincemeat into a cake she was making.  What a fabulous inspiration! Her recipe appears below, and below that, the adaptations that I made to make a gluten-free version that would be suitable for my niece and my MIL.

Leslie's Mincemeat cake

Dry ingredients
2.5 cups flour
1.5 cups sugar
.5 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1.5 baking powder

Wet ingredients
2 cups soy milk with 2 tsp of apple cider vinegar -set aside to curdle
2/3 cup of oil
2 tsp vanilla

Half a jar of mincemeat

Preheat oven to 350. This makes a bundt cake or a two layers or a 16x9

Mix dry ingredients together til all mixed up.

Add all wet ingredients and the mincemeat and beat for about a minute or two

Pour into prepared pan or pans and bake for 25-35 minutes.

Gluten Free Version

I used Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free all-purpose flour.  I didn't know that xanthan gum or guar gum was needed, and I was worried about the thinness of the batter, so I added another 3/4 cup of the gluten free flour.  I had to cook the cakes (I used two 8" square pans) for an extra 15 minutes.

The cake came out fine!

Chunky Vegetable Soup

If I have not mentioned it before, I really love soup, even pea soup, and I'm not a big fan of cooked peas!

On Sunday I made a really nice soup without the use of any packaged vegetable broth, just with the broth generated naturally by the soup's ingredients.

Here is the recipe:

Lisa's Chunky Vegetable Soup

Ingredients
1 tbs canola oil
3 large cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 large onion, coarsely chopped- my favourites are Spanish onions, sweet onions and Vidalia onions
4 large carrots, peeled and coursely chopped in the food processor
3 celery stalks, chopped into 1/4 inch slices
1 zucchini, cut lengthwise in quarters, and chopped into 1/4 inch slices
1/2 head of cabbage, shredded or 1 bag of plain coleslaw
Black pepper to taste
Trader Joe's Everyday Spice Blend to taste

Instructions

1. Add the oil to a heavy soup pot, heat, and toss the onions and chopped garlic in to cook.  Stir frequently until the onion is mostly translucent.
2. Add the other veggies and add water to cover.
3. Add pepper and Trader Joe's Everyday Spice Blend to taste.
4. Bring to a boil, and let the soup boil hard for about three to five minutes.
5. Add more water to top up the pot and return to a boil.
6. Turn the heat down and let the soup simmer for about twenty minutes.

What about Protein?

Once the soup is made you can add rinsed and drained beans.  My go-to beans are black beans but white beans would also go nicely in this soup.

I also put slices of pressed plain tofu in the soup.  The tofu absorbs the flavours and becomes quite tasty.

You can serve this soup with crackers or a nice sourdough bread.  

I discovered quite by accident that this soup is also great when cold.

Can't Sleep

This doesn't happen to me very often: a sleepless night.  Generally speaking, I fall asleep within seconds of hitting the pillow and wake up only intermittently for very short periods of time.

Tonight I was asleep by 9:30 p.m. and then I woke up at 12:30 a.m. and have been awake ever since!  After tossing and turning for two hours, I decided to get up and read.  While reading, I thought I would make a blog entry.  The truth is, I am really tired, and now I'm afraid that if I lay down, I will not be able to get up in the morning.  Five o'clock comes pretty quickly when you are short of sleep!

I've decided to make a cup of tea because tea both relaxes me and energizes me.  My favourite teas? Irish Breakfast by Twinings, and Maritime Breakfast Tea by Just Us, which is a fair trade tea.  I also like the tea I bought in Rwanda.  I'm down to my last four tea bags of that, but I will be buying more this summer when I return to Rwanda.  I don't imagine I will return to Rwanda a third time, so I will have to buy a huge supply, several boxes at least.

I steep my tea for four minutes, and enjoy it with a touch of President's Choice Original Soy Milk. It's the best soy milk I have ever found: has a mild taste which does not overpower the tea, and it's a nice pale colour.