Smoothies

I have consumed a 16 ounce smoothie nearly every day for the past two years. Originally they were made from just fruit, juice, and flax seed oil, but now I've added in greens (usually spring mix, sometimes spinach or wheat grass juice), soy milk, and VEGA every day.

The smoothie pictured here contains about two cups of mixed greens, 1/2 cup soy milk, 1/2 cup juice, 7-8 strawberries, half a banana, 1/2 cup mixed berries, and 1/4 serving of VEGA.

Smoothies are a great way to get in nutritious stuff that you might ordinarily not include in your diet.

Raw almond pate wraps

OK well the wrap itself isn't raw, but it could be if one was so inclined (i.e. using collard leaves).

I have discovered that I absolutely LOVE almond pate. Some recipes say it's like salmon pate, but I've never eaten salmon in my life so I have no idea if it has any similarity.

I started by using a recipe I found online, but it was no good so I just kept adding seasonings and cayenne pepper until it was absolutely delicious. Wrapped in a fresh whole wheat pita from a bakery downtown with carrots, spinach, and green onions, it's fabulous!

Spicy Almond Pate

* 1/2-2/3 cup unblanched whole almonds

* 2 stalks of celery

* 3 spring onions (green onions, scallions)

* 1 carrot

* lemon juice from half a lemon

* 1/2 tsp. dulse

* 1 TB cayenne pepper powder (or start with 1 tsp and add to taste)

* sprinkle of sea salt

* 1/2 tsp. raw apple cider vinegar (optional)

1. Soak the almonds at least overnight, changing the water every 12 hours.

2. Drain the almonds

3. Chop the celery, onions and carrot. Put these and the almonds into a blender or food processor, and process until smooth.

4. Add lemon juice to taste, and mix dulse/seasonings.

5. Use as a dip for fresh veggies or crackers, or as a wrap filling

Tu-no sandwich

This is another Natasha recipe (www.simplyraw.ca). This is raw Tu-no, made primarily of walnuts and a number of seasonings and vegetables. I used hemp oil instead of olive oil. Also on the sandwich is spinach, tomato red onion, and a bit of Vegenaise. I only used one piece of bread because two pieces is too many.

This was great, and only took about five minutes to make the Tu-no. I think we will eat this fairly regularly.

Raw kale and collard salad

This recipe is from Natasha of Simply Raw (www.simplyraw.ca) It's very simple- kale/collards, salt, lemon juice and an avocado dressing.

Also pictured is a marinated tofu sandwich, with alfalfa sprouts, tomato and red onion slices, and mixed greens.

Tofu "bento bowl"

This dish was adapted from a recent vegetarian times which called for cow's milk yogurt (I used soy) and some vegetables I'm not crazy about. It consists of rice on the bottom, topped with mixed greens, green onions, red onions, and marinated tofu, and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It was a bit too salty, but i know what to do to make it less so for next time. It was very good. Vegetarian Times calls it a "bento bowl."

rawsome!

So I am going to a raw vegan pot luck tonight and had to figure out how to "cook" something raw. Yeah, I eat raw veggies and fruits and salads, but I've never done raw per se. After an hour or so of fruitlessly looking online for recipes I could make on only a few days notice I gave up and just started thinking in terms of what I had in my fridge and came up with this. It's diced carrots, red bell peppers, and red onion, with avocado/garlic sauce wrapped in collard leaves. So far my taste testers say they are good! I'll see what the pot luck goers tonight think. I don't think it's terribly creative, but I am still pleased.

baked quesadilla

I just made this up off the top of my head. It's a whole wheat wrap topped with black beans sauteed with garlic and jalaepeno pepper, diced tomato, green onion and vegan gourmet montery jack cheese. I put it in the oven on broil for a couple minutes until the cheese bubbles, and then I added the guacomole and folded it over.

Even though it doesn't look fabulous, it was actually really good! The wrap crisped up nice, but I was still able to fold it without breaking it. It had a nice flavour and was just the right size for dinner.

Tippy's fort

As most rabbit parents know, there's little a bunny loves more than a good box to rip to shreds.

At my work they were getting rid of this really big, 3 ft by 4 ft by 2ft tall lidded box, so I brought it home and Xactoed a few entry holes.

As I expected, Tippy has adopted it as her own fort. She now spends much of her out-of-cage time in this box, ripping it apart. If you look in one of the "entrances" at her, she hops over to push you out of the way. It's HER BOX, dammit.

The cats like it too, but I think Tippy discourages them from using it. She really calls the shots around here.

Here's a photo of Tippy in her box.

banana walnut muffins

Even though I wasn't posting, I have done a lot of cooking over the past seven weeks. Pictured here are banana walnut muffins from Extra-vegan-za, a cookbook Cherie gave me for my birthday. It is of course modified a bit. I reduced it from 1/2 cup of oil to 2 T of oil and the rest applesauce, and they turned out fabulously. I also used quite a bit more banana than the recipe called for, to add some more nutritional punch. They have lovely little muffin caps, which I love. These are absolutely delicious.

happy Pesto and dinner experiment

She's a little on the chunky side, especially since her medications have made her very hungry, but Pesto is definitely a happy little girl.

In this photo she's clutching one of her favorite toys, a little stuffed fish. She will flop around on the floor for ages playing with it. :)

Tonight I tried a new dinner experiment, inspired by Fresh in Toronto. We've eaten there about a half dozen times, including last week when we were in Toronto for Pesto's consults. What's pictured here is brown basmati rice smothered in Fresh's coconut curry sauce (with chick peas), topped with raw spinach, carrots, red peppers, green onions, and toasted nuts (sunflower seeds, almonds and walnuts). It was very satisfying. The verdict here is it's something we'll definitely eat again sometime soon.

No brain tumour!!

The MRI showed that Pesto does NOT have a brain tumour. Thank goodness!

There were a few abnormalities, but the neurologist said she's not sure we can attribute any clinical significance to them, and that if you did MRIs on 100 healthy people there's a good chance most of them would have some sort of abnormalities.

That being said, something caused her seizure. It might have been a stroke, but since more than 6 weeks have passed, most evidence in her brain would be gone. She had a small area that has some inflammation, and that could be related to a stroke.

She also has a tiny cyst that is commonly found in dogs. It is generally harmless and definitely not something that gets operated on. The neurologist says she has never seen one in a cat MRI. So, while it's a bit disconcerting that we still don't know what the cause is, it's wonderful to have eliminated the worst possible outcome. T

he neurologist says aside from the minor abnormalities, all of her bloodwork, behaviour etc. indicates a very healthy and normal cat.While examining Pesto, the neurologist did notice that Pesto's thyroid gland is slighly enlarged. This would not be a seizure cause, and it is something that is not uncommon in cats. It may require some medication or possible removal, but for now we just need to monitor it and have a thyroid test done at our local vet.

The neurologist was absolutely wonderful, and gave us a discounted rate for her stay at the hospital. I am very happy we went to her. Thank you to everyone here who has cared about Pesto and sent us good thoughts. It's not over yet, but knowing it's not a brain tumour is a huge load off of us. We sort of feel like this whole ordeal might have just been a cosmic kick in the ass for us.... but who knows.
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It's been a while...

Wow, it has been a solid month and a half since I posted anything here. I’ve been taking photos and stuff, but my heart just wasn’t into posting. I'm not sure if anyone besides my best friends are even checking here anymore. :)

Pesto’s still alive. She’s doing pretty well actually. You wouldn’t even know she was sick just by looking at her. We’ve really re-focused our priorities since her seizure, and have enjoyed our time with her and our other little ones. The picture is of Pesto on Jan. 15.

We are taking her to Toronto next week for an MRI. Unfortunately while our animal hospital did have an MRI machine, they got rid of it the same day we decided we wanted to have one done. So that really sucks. So off to Toronto we go. It will tell us if she has a brain tumour, or if we can write her seizure off as plain old epilepsy. We hope it’s the latter, but we’re preparing for the former. If it’s a tumour, we’ll have some tough decisions to make.

But for now she’s doing pretty good. She hates taking her medication and makes it somewhat difficult for us, but we’ve done really well at getting it into her. She doesn’t seem to hold a grudge over it, and has been sleeping with me every night for the past couple weeks. It’s actually been kind of idyllic at our place the past while. We know beyond a doubt what’s really important now.

please think of my little girl

Last night my little girl cat Pesto (she's 7- the black cat in the picture) suffered an unexpected and extremely severe seizure. She basically ran up and down a few flights of stairs and then collapsed in the living room, slobbering and convulsing and screaming. It was a horrifying noise, I thought it was a three-way cat fight or something. This is a cat who has never even had to take medication, who has always been as healthy as can be. We rushed her to the emergency vet clinic where they gave her valium, which put her into a resting state.

Blood tests didn't reveal anything, same with blood sugar test. She is awake and moving around this morning, even purred and talked the vet techs tell me, but we still don't know what happened and why she seizured so violently and prolongedly. She will be examined by an internalist today, with more tests to see if she has epilepsy, a tumour, a virus, or whatever. There's a good chance they won't even get the answer.

I am so frightened for my little girl. The vet is supposed to call soon and let us know when we can see her again. She must be so scared, she really doesn't like anyone except us. Her brothers are very concerned and agitated. I don't know what's going to happen and I'm so afraid of what decisions may have to be made. I love her so much, she's the first animal we adopted, six and a half years ago. She's the sweetest, most loving little girl. We are both very broken up about this.

Please send positive thoughts to us and our baby girl.

Tippy gets a treat!

Tippy's grandma Judy sent her a treat only a bunny could love... fresh grass in a wood crate! Tippy had a great time snacking on it.

someone baked me a birthday cake!

and was it ever yummy!

Our friend Scott baked this for my birthday. It's a chocolate cake with chocolate all over the top and a peanut butter layer too. It also has coffee flavouring in it. It was so good we each had two pieces!

squirrels and cupcakes

I love squirrels. This little guy was just in my back yard. Fortunately since our cordo corp doesn't use pesticides, we have an abundance of squirrels at our place, almost entirely black squirrels. We used to have more grey squirrels and once I saw a red squirrel.



Last night we went to a little vegan pot luck with two other couples we know. I was put in charge of dessert! I couldn't decided between cupcakes and cinnamon buns, so I made both... and with only one exception, everyone had one of each! The cupcakes I made were a modified version of the low-fat vanilla cupcakes in VCTOTW... basically I modified them to make them low-fat chocolate! Then I toppped them with the peanut buttercream icing. They were great. The icing is possibly among the most delicious and decadent things I have ever eaten in my life. I kept "accidentally" getting it on my hands so I could eat it off!

most people don't have a clue

This is a few years old, but I thought it was interesting given the recent spate of food poisonings in N. America. Most people I have encountered don't seem to have a clue, and since many of the more publicized recent outbreaks have occurred with vegetables, people are even more confused. Of course they don't realize most of their vegetables are grown in manure generated through factory farming.

[b]Chicken and beef may be infected with feces [/b]
- health notes - Brief Article
Nutrition Health Review, Summer, 2002

A new study shows that 84 percent of adults have no idea that the primary source of Salmonella, Campylobacter, Escherichia coli, and other foodborne pathogens on poultry and meat is animal feces. The survey of 1,000 men and women was completed during July 2001 by Opinion Research Corporation International on behalf of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM). Foodborne illnesses are at epidemic levels in the United States; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there are at least 76 million cases each year, usually from consumption of animal products.

"Our findings show the vast majority of Americans do not understand there are feces on in meat and poultry," says PCRM staff attorney Mindy Kursban. "In fact, there's a major disconnect in the public consciousness between the foodborne illnesses that sicken so many of us and their originating cause--animal excrement."

Survey respondents answered the following question: "When Salmonella and other disease-causing bacteria are found on meat and poultry, which of the following do you think BEST describes where these bacteria originally came from?"

The answers were as follows:

* They came from animal blood 10 percent
* They came from dirty hands 19 percent
* They are naturally present
in the meat 17 percent
* They are naturally present
in the animal's skin 9 percent
* They came from animal feces 16 percent
* They came from dirty air in a
slaughter house 15 percent
* Did not know/None of the above 13 percent

Statistically, respondents with college degrees, a household income equal to or greater than $50,000, or a metropolitan area residence were more likely to know that feces are the originating source of disease-causing bacteria.

PCRM proposes that all poultry and meat products carry a biohazard label (shown above). Such a procedure would be similar to how medical waste is treated.

Jerk seitan

Another good recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance. I like this one better than the ethiopian seitan and peppers, but Todd likes that one better.

on weight loss and lifestyle change

The before pic is me in July 2005. The after pic is me at the end of October, 2006.

The secret? I didn't starve myself. I didn't base my food choices on what has the lowest calories. I focused on packing in nutrient density, portion control, and above all, ENJOYING MY FOOD and making every bite count. I also exercise five times a week now on my elliptical trainer. My goal was to change my lifestyle, not to lose weight (although I suspected it would be a side benefit). I eat a reasonable number of calories, exercise nearly daily, and I still eat dessert most of the time. You can see how well I eat just by looking at this blog.

tofu veggie stirfry with garlic sauce

This was ok, but WAY too salty. And I didn't even use as much tamari as the recipe called for! I am going to try it again sometime and adjust the ingredients a bit. It looks nice, but it was so salty I couldn't finish it.

chana saag aloo

I haven't made anything new or interesting lately. However, I also haven't posted a pic of this yet. It's modified from a recipe I found online. It's a coconut curry with light tomato, potato, chick peas, and spinach. I serve it with white jasmine rice (yeah I know, brown is better, but it's just not the same!!) It also contains nutritional yeast, which makes it nice and creamy (not to mention really nutritious!)

tiramisu cupcakes

mmmm these were another hit at our house. I subbed the vegan butter cream frosting for the cream cheese frosting (I don't believe cream cheese has any place in desserts!!) and that's a chocolate covered peanut on top. Another excellent recipe from Vegan Cupcake Take Over the World!

vegan freaks!

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting Jenna Torres of Vegan Freak fame. We met in the small New York state town where she and her co-freak are professors and had lunch at the only place in town that has a single vegan item on its menu. Jenna let me ship a bunch of stuff to her place that would cost a fortune to get over the border via mail, which is much appreciated. Check out Jenna and Bob at www.veganfreaks.net and http://veganfreaks.org/

s'mores cupcakes

These were really nice. I was finally able to make them when I located vegan graham crumbs. No crackers though, only the crumbs, so my cupcakes lack the piece of cracker stuck in the top. :)

vegan cupcakes really ARE taking over the world...

at least mine!

Tonight we had the Hazelnut Cupcakes with Mocha Hazelnut Mousse filling and rich chocolate ganache topping. They were wonderful. Todd prefers the cookies and cream, but I liked them equally. They are so different, you almost can't compare.

We had cappuccino ones last night. Again, delicious, but they weren't much to look at.

Note the special Halloween cupcake papers. ;-)

Nothing special for dinner lately, just repeats.