Healthy, Yummy Desserts?

I've been posting recipes for dairy-free Christmas treats, BUT I have to admit: they aren't healthy. Even the butter-free butter tarts which I've posted before and make during the holidays, while they have flax seed and raisins in them, aren't by any means healthy what with the sugar and margarine in them.

So, this has piqued my curiosity: The Dessert Angel Healthy Desserts Cookbook.

There are 78 different recipes in it. It has vegan recipes, which means those ones will automatically be dairy-free and no substituting potentially less healthy ingredients. Most of the recipes are gluten-free, which is excellent since I'm heading back into the realm of gluten-free eating. And many nut-free recipes, which means I can serve them to my niece, too, and don't have to worry about my own sensitivities to nuts.

I admit to being a bit of a sugar addict. I gave into Christmas treats the other day because I just didn't want to stay in that state of craving/discomfort. If I can make some healthy desserts that satisfy the desire for something sweet while not fuelling a sugar addiction, that sounds good to me!

When I try the first recipe, I will let you know how it turned out. :) If you don't want to wait for my first review, do check out the site today. It's actually $10 off for I don't know how long!

-Free Recipe Friday: Vegan Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl Ice Cream

I have a delicious dairy-free/vegan/gluten-free recipe for you today! One of the many things people miss when going dairy-free for whatever reason is ice cream. I'm one of those people. I know people who have said they could never go dairy-free because they wouldn't be able to give up ice cream. Let's face it: ice cream is important to many people. There are some delicious non-dairy ice creams available but the better ones come in tiny containers tend to cost more than a typical 3-scoop ice cream cone! Making it yourself cuts back on costs and lets you make exactly what you want with the ingredients you want.

Today's recipe, Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl comes from The Vegan Scoop

1 cup soymilk, divided
2 tbsp arrowroot powder
1 cup soy creamer (my note: Silk makes original and French vanilla; both taste very good in this recipe)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup vegan chocolate chips
1 tbsp vanilla extract (yes, even if you use the French vanilla creamer)
3/4 cup peanut butter (I use regular, store-bought peanut butter with sugar in it)

In a small bowl combine 1/4 cup of the soymilk with arrowroot and set aside.

Mix soy creamer, remaining 3/4 cup soymilk, sugar, cocoa powder and chocolate chips in a saucepan and cook over low heat. (Not too low or it'll take forever!) Once mixture begins to boil, remove from heat and immediately add arrowroot cream. This will cause the liquid to thicken noticeably. Add vanilla extract.

Refrigerate mixture until chilled, approximately 2 to 3 hours. (Elsewhere in the book, he recommends letting it chill overnight.) Freeze according to ytes of freezing, swirl in peanut butter.

Yield: 1 quart

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My one piece of advice when making this is to not let the ice cream mix too long after you've added the peanut butter. While you can still taste the peanut butter and the combination of the chocolate and peanut butter is amazing, the peanut butter can end up mixing in very quickly and you lose the swirl. As you can see here:

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Don't have an ice cream maker? Check these out. I have the second one and am very pleased with it.

                    

Recipe Time: Hash Browns

About a month or so ago, in my search for wheat-free breakfast ideas for my daughter, plus armed with the knowledge that potatoes have feel-good "stuff" in them, I decided to make hash browns. I had always used the frozen kind before, but we didn't have any, so I found a recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book. (This links to a newer version; the recipe might not be entirely the same!)

It does require some preparation, but mmmmmmm, they are so good fresh, we've had them several times over the past couple of months! I used to go through maybe a bag of potatoes in an entire year, throwing many out because they had spoiled; I'm on our 2nd bag of potatoes in the past 3 months now. lol. Add to it they are vegan and gluten-free, which makes the recipe an ideal choice for this blog. :D

Hash Brown Potatoes, my way
3 medium potatoes (1 pound)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black better
3 tbsp butter or margarine (I use Becel's vegan margarine)

Their recipe calls for shredding the potatoes coarsely and making hash brown patties, essentially. What I do is dice the potatoes to have loose hash browns (I have not mastered cutting potatoes quickly, let me tell ya!). Melt the margarine in the pan, mix the rest of the ingredients together in a bowl, and cook on medium-low heat. It takes about 20 minutes or so once in the pan to cook. I actually make more than just 3 potatoes when I make them, so it does take a bit longer. But they come out delicious!!

After some have already been taken!

Now I'm off to see what sort of dairy-free, possibly even gluten-free, goodies I can make for Christmas. Only a week to go!

Does This Discourage You from Eating Chicken?

I came across this article:

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/16/chicken_is_killing_the_planet/

American-killed chickens can now be sent to China for processing to then be sent back to the US for people to eat.

Because that makes sense, right? Kill the chicken here, send it all the way over there (taking how many days, I wonder, but unless they are flash frozen, greater chance of developping bacteria), get it processed there so that it can be sent back to where it started from.

Um... My brain is really from the "logic." I have no more to say about that part!

That's just about the processed chicken. Which we all should know we shouldn't be eating anyhow. But if you read about the living conditions of chickens in general in the US (and while I've seen things from here in Canada that don't paint such a bleak picture, it's still not a pretty one), does it make you wince? It makes me wince. It makes me want to try to plan the menus for the week without any chicken--or any meat--at all. That won't go over so well for the other members of my family, but surely I can figure out meals that will allow me to eat chicken-free while they can eat the chicken as they wish? (Oooh, this gives me an idea for a recipe book--recipes or meal ideas where you can easily have both vegetarians and omnivores happy!)


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Books for those of you also wanting to go vegetarian or vegan in a healthy way:

A Yummy to Share

Yes, I know, I've been a little AWOL. Lots going on around here.

And even now, I'm not going to post much, but saw this in Facebook and decided to share:

http://suchdifferentskies.com/2013/04/nourish-raw-snickers-tart.html

She calls it a Raw Snickers Tart. Since she uses boiling water, I'm not sure it qualifies as raw (it's nearly raw if not), but it is gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan (if you don't use the honey)...!

Omega-6 and Omega-3 in Vegan Diets

I have been ridiculously busy this past week which is why I haven't posted (or made) a menu plan, Free Recipe Friday and more. But, I was reading this about Omega-6 and Omega-3 in vegan diets and thought I would pass it along:

http://www.vegansociety.com/lifestyle/nutrition/essential-fatty-acids.aspx

-Free Recipe Friday - Jan. 18, 2013

I had in my mind for much of the day that I had to figure out what I was going to share for -Free Recipe Friday tomorrow. It hit me at about 2:30 that Friday wasn't tomorrow, but today. Oh. Shoot. What was I going to share?

Since I had on my menu plan to make minestrone, I decided I would just share whatever I ended up finding. Well, I wasn't happy with what I found so... I looked at a couple of recipes and came up with my own minestrone recipe! And you know what? I thought it was DELICIOUS! My son thought otherwise, but he never likes tomato-based soups. *sigh* My daughter didn't say anything but did eat a decent amount and my husband's not yet home, so I don't know. (Oh, before I got the chance to post this, he got home, ate and only said it would make a good lunch for tomorrow. lol)

In any case, here's the recipe!

Marvellous Minestrone

vegan (dairy-free, meat-free, egg-free), soy-free and potentially gluten-free

I remembered the picture this time! ;) Of course, I'd already finished eating...

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 small/medium onion, chopped

2 large carrots, diced

2 chopped garlic cloves

2 cups vegetable broth or stock

1 796 mL (28 oz) can tomatoes, blended

2 cups water

1/2 zucchini, chopped

a handful of baby spinach, chopped into largish pieces (could have even had two handfuls)

1 tsp dried oregano (could even have a bit more)

2 tsp basil (could even have a bit more)

1 tsp salt

ground pepper (however much you want)

1 can of red kidney beans, drained

(1 cup chopped green beans, which I didn't put this time because I didn't have them, but they'd be good)

1.5 cups baby shells pasta (this makes it VERY heavy on the pasta! you might want to put less, maybee 3/4 to 1 cup only); I used regular pasta, but one of the recipes I was looking at used gluten-free pasta, so that would definitely work.

Instructions

In large pot, put oil, onion, carrots, garlic on med to med-low heat. Once heated, cook for 4-5 minutes.

Add broth, tomatoes and water. Stir. Bring to a boil.

Add zucchini, spinach, oregano, basil, salt, pepper and kidney beans. Simmer covered 30+ minutes. (The longer you simmer, the more flavourful it will be.)

Add green beans, if using, and pasta.

Cook 6-10 minutes, depending on the pasta being used. Let it be ever so slightly not cooked if it's going to be sitting for even 10 minutes. The pasta really absorbs the liquid!

Makes about 8 servings.

-Free Recipe Friday--Jan. 11, 2013

Today's -Free Recipe is not one that I made this week, but did make it over the holidays. Remember my thoughts of baking and I wasn't, in the end, going to do it? Well, we were asked to bring dessert to a family get-together on Jan. 1st and instead of making one big dessert, I made single batches of all the different things I had wanted to make: dairy-free Rice Krispie squares, vegan shortbread cookies, vegan lemon squares and, my favourite, vegan butter tarts. I love these things so much! If you aren't in Canada and have never heard of butter tarts, oh, these are so worth trying! And that is why they are my -Free Recipe Friday choice this week:

Better than Butter Tarts

dairy-free, egg-free, optionally nut-free (I never make them with nuts), potentially gluten-free, if you replace the pastry tart shells with a gluten-free version (cooking times might have to be altered in that case)

from the book How It All Vegan! (10th Anniversary Edition) 

by Tanya Barnard and Sarah Kramer

1 cup raisins

1 tbsp vegan margarine

3/4 sugar

2 tbsp ground flax seeds

3 tbsp water

1 tsp vanilla extract

12 unbaked pre-made pastry tart shells (3 inch) OR home-made pastry dough

1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 400F. Put raisins into a medium bowl and cover with very hot water. Set aside for 10 minutes. Drain hot water off of raisins and add margarine, sugar, flax seeds, water and vanilla. Stir together well. Spoon 1 tbsp of mixture evenly into each tart shell. Sprinkle each tart with finely chopped walnuts. Bake for 15 minutes and serve at room temperature. Makes 12 tarts.

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My note: It is very easy for people to eat 2 of these at a time. Just something to keep in mind if you are making for a crowd of people!

Best. Ice Cream. Ever.

I decided to treat myself this past weekend and bought a container of

It does have soy, but it's vegan, which makes it dairy-free. This particular amazing kind is Turtle Trails. It has some caramel swirls in the ice cream itself and the chocolate balls (you can sort of see a couple) have crunchy caramel/toffee inside.

Don't let anybody tell you that soy ice cream can't be as good as "the real thing": this is, I believe, the best ice cream I have ever eaten. It is a really good thing that it comes in small containers and is so expensive because I'd possibly be eating tons of this stuff otherwise.


On another note, I have been doing the PrayFit, but not really journalling or anything. I did end up skipping yesterday--on purpose. There is always a lesson to be learned and mine this time around:

If you are prone to a tight neck and upper back,
stretch, stretch, stretch after doing as many

push-ups as you can!

I started having issues with extremely tight neck and shoulders and pain, and did begin stretching and had two non-exercise days as part of the program where I stretched on those days, but I apparently didn't stretch enough or the right thing. After stretching yesterday, it's starting to feel like it's all "okay". Tight, but okay. 

Free Recipe Friday

I had the thought that a good way for me to build up a collection of recipes I like is to have a regular day where I post recipes I've tried and liked. Every Friday, I will try to post a "Free" recipe: not only do you not have to pay for it ;), but it will be free of something, like gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan/animal-product-free, soy-free...

Today's recipe: My daughter had started asking for scalloped potatoes. I've never, ever made them myself. Ate them as a kid and liked them so-so, then developped my dairy allergy as an adult and have not been able to eat them when served by others. Found the following recipe and it was absolutely delicious! I don't remember liking scalloped potatoes as much as a kid. There wasn't even any cheese--not even Daiya cheese--on it but it tasted so creamy and good!

Scalloped Potatoes

vegan, so: dairy-free, meat-free, animal-product-free; could be modified potentially to gluten-free

photo forgotten! :(

Original recipe here. My modified recipe below:

INGREDIENTS
3 tablespoons vegan margarine
1/4 cup flour (I'm thinking that a gluten-free baking starch could potentially be used or a gluten-free flour blend to make this recipe gluten-free as well)
1 3/4 cups vegetable broth
1/4 cup Veganaise
3/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
5 large potatoes
1 onion, chopped

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Cook the margarine, flour, broth, Veganaise, salt and pepper on medium heat, whisking constantly until thick and bubbly.

2. Slice the potatoes 1/8" thick or so. A mandoline slicer with adjustable thicknesses works well for this!

3. Mix the potatoes and onions and place in a deep casserole dish.

4. Pour the sauce over the potatoes.

5. Sprinkle with paprika.

6. Bake at 350F for 1.5 hours.

Enjoy!

Vegan--and Gluten-Free--Halloween Party Ideas

We are having a homeschool Halloween party this Wednesday. It is a potluck, so people are bringing food and I have not specified that it should be vegan. That's not my goal nor desire with a party where we're supposed to be hanging out together and having fun!

BUT I did decide that I want to serve some vegan fare. My daughter picked non-vegan fare in terms of Tombstone Sandwiches http://www.familycorner.com/family/kids/recipes/tombstone-sandwiches.shtml. You could absolutely veganise them, but we're not at that point yet with sentimental sandwiches. ;)

Some other things that we will be making:

*Gluten-free vegan mini cakes--the recipe comes from "Eat Your Cake and Vegan Too" and the pans are Wilton Singles (only available through ebay and such now as Wilton no longer sells them).

*Pumpkin-Shaped Veggie Platter that I saw on Dreena Burton's Facebook Page

For the dips, I'll be making Holy Moly Hummus from "How It All Vegan" and then using one or two of the Epicure veggie dip mixes. I'll be buying some vegan sour cream or yoghurt and some Veganaise. Although if they don't have any Veganaise (they are sometimes out), I will unvegan it and use real mayo. The remaining hummus will go in a dish with some round corn tortilla chips (they're delicious with the multigrain, but I want to try to have options available for our gluten-free guest!)

*Blood Punch with a Frozen Hand--it's just juice mixed with some club soda (or other clear, fizzy beverage). You buy some rubber gloves, fill them with water, tie them up well with rubber bands and freeze them overnight. When you need one, cut away the glove and voilà!

So, there you go, some vegan--and gluten-free--ideas for a fun Halloween party!

Make Things Simpler?

I'm starting to think my life--when it comes to food I eat, as well as what I serve to my family--would be much simpler if I just really made the effort to go raw, or at least high raw. And, to be honest, the idea of going high raw feels incredibly complicated and difficult!

My 14yo has been showing some signs of wheat intolerance, possibly celiac. She also wants to be vegetarian, at least most of the time. And she knows she doesn't eat enough fruits and vegetables, but just picking a plain fruit or veggie is rather boring. And now there's an issue with how much rice you can eat each week (have you heard about that? high arsenic levels found) and food recalls here in Canada (beef, popcorn, Mini Wheats...) this and that and the other. Then there is me, with a known dairy intolerance/allergy and signs of soy sensitivity. It really hit me today that if we could find a number of raw recipes that we love, it would solve a lot of problems: grain-free, junk-free, meat-free, egg-free, high fruits and veggies...

Of course, I just got a pressure cooker for an early Christmas present, but I suppose I can still make use of it even if we end up high raw--and for the transitional period. I do have to find some recipes to try, which could be a whole other issue. I found this one book at the library and it seemed to have a lot of strange recipes, a lot of them with lamb and I can't remember what else. Turns out it's from Australia. I guess they have different staple foods in their diet than here in North America!

Where am I going with this? Not sure. It's Friday night and almost time for bed. I don't think my brain is fully functioning. :) But I suppose with all this in mind, I need to throw a question out there: Would going high raw vegan be simpler than going vegan with trying to avoid gluten, soy and I can't think of what else? Anybody been there, done that?

My first ever vegan lasagna!

Yesterday was my mom's birthday. She specifically requested that I make the family recipe lasagna; for whatever reason, she doesn't make it for herself anymore, so it's usually requested for special occasions, like her birthday and Mother's Day.

But that lasagna has regular cottage cheese and mozzarella in it, which I'm allergic to, so I can't eat it. What I've done the past couple of times is simply take some of the tomato-meat sauce and create a mini lasagna on the side with some noodles, the sauce and Daiya cheese. It's not quite the same.

This time, I decided I would go a step further and make myself a small vegan and soy-free lasagna. I looked around online and didn't find a recipe I actually wanted to do, but it gave me an idea of how to make a little lasagna for myself. I bought some mushrooms (which I forgot to put in), zucchini and baby spinach. I had wanted to try gluten-free, but couldn't find gf lasagna noodles at the store I was at. I made the lasagna just like the regular recipe, but put veggies in the layers and had far less cheese. Here's an initial look:

I forgot to take more pictures after that, so unfortunately, that's all I can show you! Sauce got added on top, then some Daiya, then another layer of noodles and so on. The sauce is just Classico Tomato and Basil and then I added in some rosemary. I think next time I'll simmer myself some of my recipe's traditional sauce of tomato sauce and rosemary and get that flavour in it instead.

Well, my supper last night was delicious! At one point, I slightly panicked because with the Daiya mozzarella shreds and just eating the lasagna, I thought for a second I'd made a mistake and had had dairy cheese. (Oy, would that have made me sick!)

All right, I guess I should try to write up a recipe, eh?

Simple Soy-Free Vegan Lasagna
*a jar of your choice of tomato sauce OR simmer a large can of tomato sauce with 1/2 tsp of rosemary for 45 minutes (use less if making a "mini lasagna")
*6 cooked lasagna noodles (or 9, if you want more layers) for a full-sized lasagna; 3 for a "mini lasagna" like in the photo
*baby spinach
*slices of zucchini
*sliced mushrooms (or leave them out since I did by accident)
*Daiya mozzarella shreds

1. Spoon a layer of sauce on the bottom of the pan.
2. Arrange a layer of lasagna noodles. (In the photo, it is one noodle cut in half.)
3. Layer zucchini, spinach and mushrooms. How much all depends on how you like it! You can see I didn't put too much for my first attempt.
4. Spoon sauce over top.
5. Sprinkle some Daiya cheese over top of that. Be careful: You won't need anywhere near the amount of cheese you might put in a "regular" lasagna!
6. Place another layer of noodles.
7. Place layers of vegetables.
8. Spoon sauce over top.
9. At this point, my traditional recipe would have cheese put over top. I however, put another layer of noodles and more sauce before adding the cheese.

Bake in oven at 350 for about 30 minutes.

Overhaul Coming

With looking after my nieces and nephew, along with my 2 kids, and all the summer activity involved with that, I have not been paying good attention to what I have been eating the past while. With only a week left of summer care before school starts, I figure I ought to start working out now some menu ideas for when school does start. I can, by all means, start before that, but I want to make sure to start at the latest September 4th!

My 14yo daughter is on board with me and healthier eating and trying wheat-free/gluten-free (celiac runs in my husband's family) and vegan, or mainly vegan (she keeps coming up with things she doesn't want to give up, but I figure if we can just focus on eating as vegan as possible, she might come to find she'll just indulge now and then or give them up entirely). My 11yo son... A little harder to work with, but being they're both homeschooled and it'll just be us most of the week once school starts, I am confident I can guide him to some positive changes, even if he doesn't go quite as all out as my daughter and I.

But how all out will I go? All depends on my planning and preparation. Part of my problem is I would so often rather not have to eat that if I have to eat, it had better be yummy. lol. Doing a huge overhaul of the diet with untested recipes is not just hard, but frightening. I have reached a point where I feel I do need to do an overhaul. Maybe a one-day overhaul, then a whatever day, then back to the overhaul, at least at first. But I am seeing that I'm not able to do the transitional thing very well: it's taking a lot of time and I'm realizing that if my ultimate goal is vegan, wheat-free meals, and if most of the planned menu items are new, it is going to work better for me to plan on wheat-free vegan meals right from the get-go. Some would say, "Oh, just go vegan and there worry about the wheat later" or vice versa. This just isn't working for me. And part of it is because I know that I'm going to have to phase out a whole bunch of yet-to-be-tried recipes. It may seem perfectionist or something of me, but I don't see the point in trying out a, say, a pasta recipe if it's going to have to be gotten rid of eventually to be replaced by something else because none of us enjoy the wheat-free pastas very much.

Which leaves me with the next week of searching online, working through cookbooks and putting together a collection of recipes I can try out. I have a goal of having the first week of school have 3 "ideal" days: no sugar, no wheat, vegan, lots of fruits and veggies and greens, whole foods... I guess I should really define what it is that I'm aiming for, first! I guess I have an unspoken/unwritten sense of what is acceptable or not, but if I can really define what I'm looking for, it will certainly help!

Jiffy Cinnamon Rolls

The kids have been asking me for cinnamon rolls for at least a couple of weeks. I had found a gluten-free recipe that I wanted to try, but when I sat down to prepare it today, I discovered I'm missing a key ingredient for the gluten-free flour component. So, I said I would maybe make the old standby.

The old standby is a recipe I got from my mother-in-law, but modified so that it is dairy-free, which actually makes the recipe vegan, as well. It's similar to some other Jiffy Cinnamon Rolls recipes I looked up online, but not exactly the same, so I think it's okay for me to go ahead and call it that and to share my version:

Lightly grease or spray a 13" x 9" baking pan.

4 cups flour (I used unbleached all-purpose)
4 tbsp sugar
8 tsp baking powder (or if you have the 10mL dessert spoon, you could do 4 of those, or 2 tbsp + 2 tsp of baking powder)
2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegan "butter" (I used Becel Vegan tonight; I've never tried it with Earth Balance. I have made them with Fleischmann's, but that would make it dairy-free and not vegan; Fleischmann's has vitamin D3 in it, which is from an animal source, and Becel Vegan uses D2.)
2 cups non-dairy milk (if using rice milk, use a little less; this evening, I used vanilla rice milk because the store was all out of the regular when I went! it didn't affect the taste at all)

Another 1/2-2/3 cup of "butter" for the topping
1.5 cups brown sugar
Cinnamon (no specific amount given)

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Cut in the butter until crumbly. Make a well in the centre and pour the milk into the well. Stir it all to form a soft dough.

Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface (you may need some extra flour, especially if you used rice milk). Knead 8-10 times. Roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/3" thick. [I'm not sure I've ever gotten the thickness right, but they've always turned out delicious! I think it actually works better to have it a bit thicker, more like 1/2" or even thicker: the filling becomes that much thicker and yummier.]

Melt the butter. While you are doing that, sprinkle/spread the brown sugar onto the rolled dough. [I tend to not go all the way to the edges, but I should!] Pour the butter over the brown sugar. Sprinkle cinnamon all over the brown sugar. [I would like to be able to give you an idea of roughly how much, but I can't. Mine don't always taste like cinnamon rolls. They still taste delicious, but perhaps more of a caramel roll than a cinnamon roll. I have sprinkled what I thought was a lot, over all the brown sugar, and apparently, that's not enough. I guess I'm saying: it's kind of hard to have too much! lol]

Roll the dough while you are facing it horizontally (so, longest part is left to right). Cut the roll into 12 slices and place in the greased pan. Bake at 400F for 20-25 minutes.

Let cool 5-10+ minutes and enjoy!

Putting my intention out there

I am going to write about my intentions today as a means of trying to keep myself accountable!

What are my intentions for the day?

*Lots of raw today. How will I accomplish this? Smoothie and fresh fruits for the morning. Lettuce wrap with veggie filling for lunch. (Might have some hummus with that; it's not raw, I don't think.) Veggies or fruit as snack in the afternoon or even some seeds and nuts.

*Vegan day. How? The above, and for supper, I'm making something from

   .

It's a Shepherd's Pie recipe I've been wanting to make for sometime. I want to serve it with salad and maybe some green beans. My husband has been really commenting on a mainly fruit and veggie diet, but I'm not sure he's really that ready. lol. I suspect he'd be the type where I would have to go all gourmet at first, but I really don't have the tools I need for that (usually requires dehydrator, a good blender and a food processor; my food processor died recently, my blender can barely handle some of my smoothies and I don't have a dehydrator).

*Wheat-free day. How? None of the above has any wheat. Actually, none of the above includes any grains, I think. Not sure if I've done a completely grain-free day before. So, another intention: grain-free.

I have a further intention: To keep going with this type of eating tomorrow. A few weeks back, I had some great days, then I seemed to cancel it all by eating lots of grains the next day and almost no fruits and vegetables. I know I should take it one day at a time, but I want to set the intention for tomorrow, just tomorrow, now so that hopefully it stays with me when I wake up tomorrow morning.

(Slight worry has just set in: "What am I getting myself into??")

Vegan camping menu?

My mind is working ahead to our camping trip in a few weeks. I think that while I can work at getting more vegan suppers on the table over the next bit, the camping trip could either be a huge challenge or a great chance at making it work since it'll already be different meals.

Have you ever been camping while eating vegan? With picky kids and adults? What kinds of foods did you eat? Please share! I'm not usually a stressed kind of person but this is making me feel stressed! lol

I think this is it

I feel pressured.

I feel like it's time I stop lollygagging around and just do it. (Do Nike commercials still have the "Just Do It" motto?)

It's time to become vegan.

What has led to this:

Not too long ago, my husband shocked me with a comment he made and I even blogged about it here. Well, he's done it again. I don't know if he's been noticing the gazillion vegan and raw food cookbooks I have out, if he's been flipping through them, if his 5-10 minutes of watching Forks Over Knives, all of the above or what, but I made a comment the other day to my little 4yo niece when she was being picked up after work, that she can eat pretty much only fruits and vegetables and be super healthy, but if she doesn't eat the fruits and veggies and only the crackers and other stuff she often has, then it's harder to be healthy. (Her dad had given her nothing but fruits and vegetables in her lunch kit that day on purpose because she hasn't been eating  fruits and veggies lately.) Later that evening, I think it was, my husband said, "You know, if we ate only fruits and vegetables for a few weeks, meat would be disgusting after that." I had another one of my, "My husband said WHAT?" moments. The topic came up again another day and then again today. And my daughter has been bugging me on and off for months. (Why does it all rest on me? *sigh*)

Add to that, my "niece" (21yo, like my own, we'll call her niece) has gotten tired of food affecting her so negatively and has decided to do a month of her style of vegan: high fruits, high veggies, green tea and I'm not sure what else. After a week, she's already feeling better. She invited me to join her.

It's time. It's clear, isn't it? I'm stressed over it though. I love this blog post to remind me that I don't have to be perfect, but, well, dang, I've been a perfectionist pretty much my whole life. I'm the kid who at her 1st birthday party, very daintily ate her cake and had to have her mother smoosh some on her face so she could take a "worthy" picture. I still have to have all the pencil crayons back in the pack in order. Letting go of perfectionism is hard.

I know I can't wing this. I am far too much a creature of habit to be able to simply wing it. But I don't know what to plan that I think my family will eat. And we're leaving on a camping trip in a couple of weeks. (Vegan camping? It might actually be easier than trying to figure out how to keep meat from spoiling...) I feel a bit like I did the first day I tried wheat-free: stressed, antsy, how-am-I-going-to-get-through-this? I know I can do it, especially if I aim to be as vegan as possible rather than simply deciding, "Okay, we're vegan now." Over the past year, fewer processed foods have been purchased and prepared, fruits and veggies are far more prominent in our fridge... It's do-able. I intellectually know this. Now if the limbic system in my brain could stop sending out fear signals, I'll be set. ;)



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On a funny note:

We had Chinese take-out for supper last night. There were some leftovers and my husband decided to claim first dibs on them. My 14yo daughter got a plate and got to the containers and decided to take from the chow mein first, since she knew her dad would go for the fried rice and want lots. She got a couple of bean sprouts onto her plate when he teasingly said, "Dibs!" She backed off, he did his plate, she stepped up to the rice and my 11yo son arrived with his plate. He looked at hers and said, jokingly, "That's all you're eating?"

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dairy-Free Ice Cream

I've had the following book for a few years now:

 

I have stuck mainly with but a few classic recipes and have so far loved them! The book is completely vegan, using soy creamer in almost all recipes, so not soy-free, but you could use something other than soy for the "milk" part of the recipe. I'm thinking I'd like to see how to replace the soy creamer with something non-soy, but I'm not sure I'm that culinarily creative.

Today I am making the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough recipe and have faced my constant problem with this recipe: the cookie dough instructions (delicious, absolutely delicious) leave a rather soupy consistency. And this is before adding any of the water he says to add. You're supposed to add a tablespoon at a time after you have the initial ingredients in place. If I did that, I really would have soup. As it is, the consistency is always too runny and I have to add more flour (almost twice as much) before I can start making anything that looks like cookie dough balls. I would suggest you try the same if you have this book. Despite this problem, this is my favourite recipe from the book!

I have been thinking to get in touch with Wheeler del Torro to find out if there is a mistake in the printing or what else he might suggest! But it just hit me today that by having nearly twice as much flour, I have much more cookie dough and it may be what makes the final product so darn yummy. :D

Favourite Vegan Cheesecake Recipes

I finally bought myself a springform pan today and have every intention of making vegan cheesecakes! I love cheesecake!

It even has a glass bottom! Not sure if that's

good or not, but it looks neat. :)

That said, I've only ever tried one recipe--one from How It All Vegan! It was good, but not quite tasting like cheesecake to me. I'll definitely make it again as a treat, but would love to try some other tried-and-true recipes, either just "regular" vegan or raw vegan. Please share! :D