Welcome!

Do your body a big favor and throw away all those heavily processed food products from your cupboards! Welcome to my healthy-eating blog, full of tips on how to make smart nutritional choices, indulge in some delicious recipes, and feel better about the choices you make! This is not a “diet” in the starve-yourself sense. You eat when you’re hungry and you eat enough to fuel your body for its daily needs with nutritious wholesome foods. Healthy eating doesn’t need to be boring and bland; There are so many possibilities out there! Take it from me, someone who used to be a super picky eater and ate nothing but junkfood.

After opening my eyes to the way I was feeding myself and the things that are being sold as food these days, it shocked me that I’d never even gave it a thought before. After changing my eating habits, not only did I lose a bunch of weight, but my migraines disappeared, I barely got any cravings (after getting over the “hill”), I felt physically and mentally great, and I discovered a Great love for cooking. Health is so important yet it’s barely paid attention to. My goal here is to help anyone who wants to change, but not just their diet; This is a lifestyle change. The recipes on this blog are all vegetarian, all whole-grain/flour, mostly vegan, some gluten-free and some raw. Comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated to keep this blog growing and going!

The Zine and Food Community

I got my hands on a neat little book called “Make Your Place“ at the anarchist bookfair. It`s all hand-written and covers topics such as DIY health concoctions (for burns, bites, healthy skin and hair etc) and gardening basics. It`s amazing how many things we can make ourselves that are cheap and natural, and easy to boot! There were SO many amazing books at the anarchist bookfair, I wanted to get them all. Fortunately there`s places in Montreal where we can read loads of zines and marginal books for free – Neat little libraries that I actually don`t remember where they are and what they`re called…… I`ll get back to you on this!

Speaking of the Anarchist Bookfair, I volunteered one afternoon for McGill`s Midnight Kitchen as they were the caterers to the event. Xavier tagged along and we spent an hour washing and chopping potatoes. I found it difficult to get us participating and feeling part of the gang but it was a cool experience nonetheless… and they have great cook books! I need to go back there and get those titles…

I found many books and zines coming from Microcosm Publishing – “A not-for-profit, collectively-run publisher and distributor of books and zines“ located in Portland. They have loads of zines on all kinds of awesome topics, obviously including eating vegan and growing your own food. Remember that post I made in January about the collection of zines I announced I`d be making? I still haven`t started seriously on it but it`s slowly in the making, and I`ve made a goal for myself to sell them at next year`s Anarchist Bookfair, as well as possibly try selling them to Microcosm Publishing.

Chives and green onions from the garden below. We also have a big rhubarb plant which stubbornly keeps trying to bloom up new flowers, but I say No! I`m so mean… but I want the plant to last! The gardens are growing strong! Yet I still lack so much knowledge in that department… I hope to at least learn some good gardening basics this summer so I can start planting seriously on my own soon.

There`s nothing better than a Garden Salad made with fresh produce from the garden on a nice summer day. And speaking of delicious food…

I hosted our first healthy vegan potluck the other weekend! I invited members of the CouchSurfing community that I`d never met – I only knew one guy from the lot. I didn`t quite know what to expect but it went really well and everyone ended up going home with a big belly full of various food and iced teas.

I`ve always found that springrolls with pb sauce make a great potluck dish for Spring and Summer. I made them with mini rice-papers for (two-)bite-sized rolls. I also made walnut banana bread and chili. Xavier made his delicious spiced baked potatoes.

The others brought a variety of salads with local organic produce, onion quiche, sauteed carrots and mushrooms, home-brewed beer and ICED TEA. I think I drank most of it, and there was lots… I had work the next day but I ended up going to bed at midnight anyway. It was a successful potluck (although it started late due to people showing up late and cooking at home) so I can`t wait to host some more!

Xavier`s Experiments

I`ve run out of posts to put up and, while I know what to write about in the next few ones, I haven`t had the time to write them up, so here`s a short picture post of stuff Xavier has made himself.

But before that and on a completely random note, I once had a toothache and Xavier suggested I rub freshly-ground cloves on the affected area of my gums and woah, the left side of my mouth got all funky fuzzy and lost partial feeling – I didn`t know that cloves have anethstetic properties!

The focus is on the Sweet Corn Soup which was actually not sweet but horribly hot as this is the meal that Xavier stuck a whole jalapeno pepper into without knowing, and not the baked potatoes with spanakopitas and yogurt sauce on the upper left – End of run-on sentence.

He did create an awesome apple carrot salad with colored carrots. Instead of grating them, he did something unusual and used a peeler to make the salad, and spiced it up with freshly-ground cloves and freshly-pressed ginger, along with some cinnamon and fresh lemon juice. A deliciously refreshing little dish on a hot summer day!

One night we ended up cooking up about 6 recipes between the both of us – He sauteed some gnocchi with spices, cooked some ham with beer and onions (nope he`s not vegetarian. I don`t eat meat or drink beer but I have to admit this looked and smelled pretty awesome! It was a really neat idea, and he ended up with a sticky beer candy in the skillet), and a bunch of spicy baked potatoes which we just Could Not stop ourselves from eating even though they weren`t quite ready and too hot… This recipe is definitely on its way so stay tuned.

Along with his meal was some sheperd`s pie and another unusual but tasty creation of his, which I`ll call Mustard Greens – Broccoli, zucchini, prepared dijon mustard and honey – Another recipe to eventually make it`s way up here.

Alright that`s all for now. I`m heading off to Ottawa for a craft and zine fair tomorrow, yessss. Enjoy the weekend!

Those sour little red blobs of flavor…

Almonds and cranberries go oh so well together and I`d been meaning to create a new bar, so I went with this idea. Of course, adding lemon zest brought it to a whole new level. In general, these bars are really great – super tasty – but the problem is that they don`t hold very well… I made them into cookies the first time and I think they held better that time. I`ll have to figure out how to fix this problem but for now here`s my recipe:

~Almond Cranberry Bars~  Makes 10  (vegan)

Dry Ingredients: 1/3 cup whole wheat flour, 1/4 cup rolled oats, 1/4 cup slivered almonds, 1 tbsp ground flax seeds, 1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/8 tsp salt. Wet Ingredients: 1/2  cup dried cranberries (you can stick a few raisins in there too), 1/4 cup water, 2 tbsp melted margarine, 2 tbsp evaporated cane sugar/ sugar, 1 tbsp packed  finely grated carrot, 1 tsp packed lemon zest.

Directions: Stir dry ingredients together. In another bowl, mix wet ingredients together, than incorporate the dry mixture – Mix well. Pat into a small rectangular baking dish (about 1cm thick) and bake at 350F for10 minutes, cut into 10 pieces (you can trim the edges if desired), then bake 5 minutes more. Let cool 5-10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

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I`ve made these three times so far, improving it every time (Xavier thinks it`s awesome) but next time I will use applesauce instead of margarine since I don`t really like to cook with oil (I just didn`t have any applesauce or other sub), and maple syrup once I can get my hands on more. I threw some carrot in there but it`s not necessary. I`d like to try using oat flour instead of whole wheat for this too, but I also need more quick oats. And more cranberries… I think it`s time to go shopping.

It`s so rare I go shopping, it feels strange… But I love shopping for food! I went to a potluck recently and someone had brought over delicious, juicy dried cranberries flavored and sweetened with raspberry and applejuice instead of plain sugar. I was stunned. She says she gets them at the Jean Talon market so I`m definitely heading there this weekend!

Choux Pastry, Croissants & Little Breads

Last week I decided to teach a new pastry recipe from work to Xavier every other day – We covered choux pastry, croissants and little breads. They are all made with refined flour, milk, butter and eggs, but they are a great base to know. Plus, Xavier had loads of fun (being a breadaholic…) and I enjoyed teaching pastries, and for fun, I will post the descriptions, recipes and directions here as well!

Choux pastry is a very simple recipe with a unique way of making it – It is stirred over the stovetop, mixed with eggs, then poured into a “poche a douille“ (pastry bag?) and shaped into various pastries, such as choux, paris-brest and these adorable little swans! How to make it?

Ingredients: 250ml cold water (or halved with milk), 100g butter, 1 pinch of salt (2.5g), 1 big pinch of sugar (5g), 4-5 eggs*, 150g flour**.

Directions: Combine the water with the butter, salt and sugar in a pot on the stovetop. Heat on medium heat until melted, then add the flour in one shot and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined and the dough doesn`t stick to the sides. Remove from heat, then stir in one egg at a time until well combined – This step is important.

Your dough is now ready, so put it in a pastry bag with a piece that doesn`t have teeth. Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper. Make a ball and pull the end to make the tail (this is Very hard to explain how to do so I suggest you view a video on it). For the heads, use a smaller piece and make “S“ shapes. Bake them at 350F until they are hard but careful not to burn them (Improtant – They Must become hard enough or they will flatten once cooling out of the oven). Once cool, cut a slice off above the tail and cut it in half. Set aside with a head. Fill the bottom half with boston cream or something thick of the sorts, then stick the two pieces on the side and the head on the other end of the tail. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top and voila! Beautiful little swans. You can make them bigger too, and in chocolate – The color is more contrasting with the powdered sugar, such as the picture below taken at work, where we also added strawberries ontop and inside.

*The amount of eggs depends on the type of flour you use and the amount of humidity in the air, but generally the extra egg is not needed.

**P.S. Sorry for the grams – You can find other recipes similar to these but in cups instead of grams, or you can search fora  converter online.

Xavier was very pleased with his mini swan, of which he filled with apricot jam and boston cream and devoured in one big bite. Really, making choux pastry is loads of fun because it`s different than the norm and there`s so many things we can make with it!

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Next up are the croissants. We Westerners like them pale and soft, but Europeans like them baked a lot longer. Croissants are made by “laminating“ the dough – rolling it out thinly and folding it over itself twice, letting it rest for 20 or so minutes, and repeating the process 4 times. “Pate feuillette“ is similar but it requires much more laminating. Afterwards it needs to rest overnight – One reason that croissants can be pricey is because they take a lot of time to make. And how to make them exactly?

Ingredients: 325g flour, 25g sugar, 12g instant yeast, 7g salt, 250ml cold milk, 175g brick butter (Not from the tubs – It needs to rather hard but still maleable).

Directions: Mix the first 4 ingredients together (do not mix the yeast directly with the yeast), then add the cold milk and work the mixture into a dough. Let rest covered for about 20 minutes in the fridge, then roll out the dough – it doesn`t have to be very thin. Place the brick butter in the middle, envelope it with the dough, then roll out the dough thin and fold twice, inwards (again, see a video to get a better idea of what I`m talking about). Let the dough rest in the fridge for 20 minutes. Do this 4 times in total (the dough may be difficult to roll out at first with the butter seeping out certain edges, but it gets easier as the dough gets colder and more worked). Let the dough rest overnight in the fridge, covered – preferably 24 hours.

Roll out the dough once again but this time make sure to roll it out into a nice thin square, and cut it into 6 squares. Cut each piece in half to form traiangles. Take each triangle and stretch one end (it`s okay if it breaks, just rub it back in), then pin it to the table away from you and roll from the long edge to the tip. You can pinch the ends together to make a crescent-shaped croissant which is the most popular.

Our ended up quite small as I accidentally cut the dough into 12 squares instead of 6 haha but that`s okay, they made nice little croissants.

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These are called “Pains au Lait“ (milk bread) but I just call them little breads, and they are awesome! The best part of making them is squeezing them into little balls. I like them best with poppy seeds inside or fennel seeds ontop, but I only had sesame seeds to garnish them with. How to make these lovely breads?

Ingredients: 620ml warm water* (or halved with warm milk if you don`t have powdered milk), 150g butter, 1 egg, 1kg flour, 50g powdered milk, 40g sugar, 20g salt, 20g instant yeast. Garnish: a bit of beaten egg with some milk and sesame seeds or poppy seeds or fennel seeds.

Directions: In an electric mixer, pour all the wet ingredients in first, then the dry ingredients, and mix with the bread hook for 10 minutes on medium speed – You can also knead the bread by hand for 10 minutes if you don`t have an electric mixer. Let the dough rest covered for half an hour, then form them into little balls to make a total of about 22-24 little breads of bundles of three. It`s hard for me to describe how to do so to end up with a smooth-surfaced-ball… You kind of take an end of a chunk of dough and squeeze it, take your other hand and squeeze off the top bulb to the right size, and if it`s a little rough-looking, roll it with the side of your palm to smooth it out. Let the bundles of bread rest for 20 minutes, then brush with a mixture of beaten egg and milk and garnish with seeds. Bake at 350F for about 17-20 minutes.

These freeze well – Just stick them in the oven for a couple of minutes to heat them back up. I will definitely make little breads similar to these again in the future, but obviously with whole wheat flour. I`d like to learn to “cut“ breads for decoration… There is so much to learn and do!

My Way to Start a Work Day

I tried making a bunch of muffins these past couple of weeks, some gluten-free based on oats, others made with whole wheat flour, others… I don`t even remember… I wanted to make a breakfast I could bring along with me and eat on my way to or at work, as I have to get up at 5:30am and don`t allow myself much time to eat a real sit-down-and-eat breakfast. Damn, 5:30am is still really early for me… But atleast now the sun is up with me.

These chocolate chip banana oat & wheat muffins turned out great, but who knows where the recipe went… And honestly, I didn`t end up with that many recipes I`d make again – A lot of them were, once again, experiments and, once again, I too often didn`t really pay attention to what I was doing. I Did come up with a winner that became my breakfast and snack muffin for work for more than a week straight, after a wake-up tea and a piece of friut:

~Breakfast Muffins~  makes 6

These make great breakfast muffins – Not overwhelmingly sweet, but satisfying and filling, loaded with nuts and raisins, plus honey, orange juice and carrots for extra oumph. This seems to be quite a flexible recipe.

Dry Ingredients: 3/4 cup whole wheat flour, 2 tbsp rolled oats, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, between 1/8-1/4 tsp salt. Wet ingredients: 1/3 cup raisins, 1/4 cup chopped walnuts, 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 cup water, 2 tbsp orange juice, 2 tbsp packed finely grated carrots, 1 tbsp ground flax seeds, 1 tbsp oil.

Directions: Stir the dry ingredients together. In another bowl, mix wet ingredients together (make sure to soak the raisins for 5 minutes, then discard the water) and pour them into the dry mix bowl. Stir until just combined, then pour into 6 greased muffin molds and bake at 350F for 20 minutes. Once out of the oven, leave the muffins in the molds for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

I rarely cook or bake with oil but this time I decided to put a little bit of oil in the muffins. It`s just 1 tbsp and you can probably switch it with applesauce if you want! Have a great day!

Behind The Scenes – The Pastry Brigade

And so my time in the pastry brigade has finally come to an end… But I did spend an extra two weeks there on the request of my pastry chef! She really thinks I should pursue becoming a pastry chef. She`s given me a lot of confidance, and of course pastry skills too, during the time that I spent with her.

I felt really comfortable in this brigade, and we had a hell of an effective team. At first we were a full team, then a half-sized team, and then it eventually ended up being just me and Kim, a Vietnamese woman, with a temporary helper or two from other brigades once in a while (we recently suffered lots of people quitting or just being absent or finishing their formation so it cut down on our team a lot, but our pastry chef had lots of faith in both of us and, lo and behold, we pulled through very well.  During the last week we worked especially hard, making 1500 desserts, 2000 or so “migniardises“ (dessert bites) and a whole lot of fruit desserts.

Near the end my personal memory card was riding on the edge of max and I`d scramble to put 2&2 together to remember what I had made, what went with what, and so on. I also did a pretty stupid thing too, like ram my finger into a pastry pouch that had a toothed-piece in it! I actually got Really stuck, and it hurt… It was so ridiculous that I had to laugh at the situation while my coworker oiled my finger and my chef pried the teeth open. It hurt for a while. That was on a Friday. I tend to hurt myself on Fridays, especially my fingers, so much that it`s become a running gag with the Asians there haha.

I made cake. Every day. Black forest cake, cheesecake, fruitcake, strawberry mousse cake. Hazelnut cake. LOTS of cake. I became the designated one to decorate, score and cut the cakes for I apparently have a very steady hand and a good eye. It`s awesome to see how quickly and with ease I can put a cook together from scratch now. Here`s one that got dubbed “Kate`s cake“, where I decided to use a white center with a half & half rosette and alternating chocolate pieces. Personally I would have prefered to make a special eye-catching strawberry-chocolate layered cake but I usually just used what we had on hand, and berries were something we didn`t have very often. I`m planning on taking my cake skills at home and making something really special.

Unfortunately, the staff are worried that I may have started suffering from carpal tunnel so they`re sticking me in the Sandwhich brigade where I do the least chopping. I have to give my right wrist a break but I`m finding it Very difficult to do so… I should atleast get myself a volar wrist splint. I have to be smart and not put too much stress on it – I admit that I forced it way too much on my last day in the pastry brigade… A Friday yet again =P

Coffee & Strawberries & Carrots – Calixa Lavallee

After the Cuisine Collective`s suggestion and offer, I went to Calixa Lavallee , a cooking school, as a student for a day in the pastry department. There was no way for me to get a good maps of the place (they All gave different locations) and the phone number on their website was wrong, so I decided to leave super early in the morning to make sure I wouldn`t be late. I actually had a very blissful morning, walking around in a nearby park in the light drizzle for over half an hour, listening to good music from the 1990`s. But when school time finally arrived, I admit I was kinda disappointed.

I can`t really describe how. The place seemed pretty neat (but the classes had no windows which I later realized bummed me out…), offering courses in various cooking branches, but I felt like it wouldn`t give me enough of a challenge… Not to make myself sound all high and mighty! The pastry department course lasts about 1350 hours, about a year, and the students seemed to work in small groups (I would prefer solo…). It was difficult keeping myself occupied during class because I didn`t know where everything was and I was unfortunately paired with a guy that did everything in slow-motion and not all quite right… so I read through lots of cooking magazines, lots of which were also rather disappointing haha. I eventually found myself bored out of my mind and missed being at my regular work.

I got to decorate a cake with what we had and I learned a couple of new techniques. Best of all… I got to take it home with me! I used it as a thank you to those who helped us move out the other weekend but it wasn`t the best tasting haha, oh well, I didn`t make it so I couldn`t feel too bad about it. I had a pleasant experience on the way back home with the cake – I was sitting in the bus when an older woman sat beside me and, in French, asked me if I was scared someone would steal my cake because it was so pretty. She was surprised when I told her that I decorated it, and I went on to tell her about my day. She was very interested in me and the school. She told me of a few food places to check out in Mile End and in return I gave her the documents for Calixa Lavallee as she showed lots of interested in going there. I was glad. No matter how shy and difficult I find interacting with people, I love sudden random conversations with strangers!

So I don`t think I`ll be going to that school. I kinda knew that from the beginning, but I can never know something for sure so I wanted to see what a cooking school was like! It depends on who the teacher is and who I`m paired with of course. I guess I`d have to try another department to see how different it could be to get a better generalized idea of the place – I can`t make a judgement just from one event. That doesn`t mean I might not pursue making healthy vegan desserts! The problem with that is that it`s rare to find them, and even rarer to find legit and professional places that give out “worthy“ papers, but it`s getting more popular!

My coworker in pastries (we`ve been the only two constant pastry workers for a while now! Usually there`s 4-5 people per brigade) has loads of skill and practice in fruit and vegetable carving, it`s amazing. I saw her carving some strawberries as decoration for a fruit dish and decided to try it out myself (Xavier made the one pictured later on). It doesn`t take too much to undersatnd how carving fruits & veggies into flowers works in general.

And lastly… I just had to post this beautiful carrot we had! It`s absolutely amazing… A dusty purple exterior with a rich dark purple color inside, specked with orange that circles down to the tip that shades into orange… Simply stunning.

I felt bad cutting it up for supper…

Home Sweet Home!

It`s always fun to move out to a new place! The never-ending rollercoaster ride of exhausting stairs that always ends up being at least 3 flights of stairs long, the sporadic rain on uncovered moving boxes, the lack of proper meals during the first few days before and after the big move, and finally, the unpacking of all the schtuff.

Lots of stuff. I`m surprised I ended up accumulating so many things since I moved back to Montreal. A lot of that is fabric and clothes I hope to one day sew into lovely wearables. I tried calculating how many times I`ve moved since I left Montreal in 2005 (I think?) and it amounts to about 17! Wow, I feel like I should win a prize or something. That`s a lot of mental and physical work!

It`s always fun to fill the bathtub with boxes and bags too! It`s been a week now since I moved out but I still have a couple of boxes left to unpack. The living room is still awaiting its choice of paint, a futon or pull-out sofa, some bookshelves and general decorating everywhere, but otherwise we`re set!

It`s NOT fun to have to do without a fridge for almost a week though. The fridge was brand new but it refused to cool our food, so we ended up having to keep our frozen stuff at Xavier`s mom`s place and keep our fridge food in two coolers with ice, which didn`t do a very good job. We lost some stuff and couldn`t buy any new cold food until this was fixed. After many battles, we finally got it replaced. Xavier`s mom is in fact the person that owns this appartment building (a total of 5) so she generously gave us many great deals AND bought us a bunch of groceries!

The kitchen is awesome. More awesome than the picture makes it out to be. It`s beautifully lit by big windows and has a new flat convectional oven which kicks @$$. It`s newly renovated and very fancy. I have to admit I still have to get used to cooking in it, but then again the giant plastic table is obviously in the way. We`re waiting to get a tiny table for 2 to stick to the wall because we like to eat in the kitchen, and we`ll keep this big table for potlucks! Yessss, I can`t wait to host some potlucks.

It`s so calm here, So quiet (thankfully, since the walls are paper-thin, one of the bigger cons…) and peaceful, I love it, it`s what I was looking for. I have all the space I need to shelf alllll of my kitchen equipment and food. The small craft room is bright and refreshing with light-green walls, and its light shines into the light-purple-painted bedroom from many big windows that overlooks the middle of a tree-filled street – In the morning I wake up to a big window painted with the morning sky, it`s so beautiful and wonderful. I have the keyboard awaiting my practice in the living room, and a bike waiting to be rode to work… Once it starts getting a little warmer out. I feel comfy here.

Falafel – Vegan, Gluten-Free, Baked AND Tasty!

What we Westerners often make as Falafel usually isn`t traditional falafel. True falafel is actually made from ground up chick peas or fava beans, as opposed to canned/ cooked beans. Cumin and coriander are common spices used in them. They are deep-fried as balls or patties and often stuck into pitas with lettuce, pickled vegetables and sauce.

These make an awesome source of protein for vegetarians and vegans. Falafels bought at restaurants are really amazing but I prefer to make my own healthy version. I`ve only made them a few times so far, always trying different things – While I was missing 2 common ingredients and knew they could be better (the texture wasn`t the best), everyone loved them, so I plan to  keep experimenting making falafel until I get my recipe just where I want it. And by the way… I`ve never been good at prepping up a plate to make it look good, but I see that working at the Cuisine Collective is helping me out! I`m quite pleased with the tasty, eye-catching plate I prepared here =).

So what`s in these little buggers? A mix of canned chickpeas and fava beans. I don`t think sesame seeds or cornmeal are a common ingredient but I stuck a bunch in them and thought it was a fantabulous addition. They also have oat flour, cumin, garlic and onion, some oil and salt and a few other things in them. I`d like to add turmeric and maybe even a bit of carrot next time to see if I can turn them a nice yellow color. I guess they really won`t be falafels anymore… But as long as they`re wholesome, filling and tasty!

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While at work I learned how to make a yogurt dip for deep-fried chicken rolls, so I changed it up a bit and here`s what I got – A super tasty citrusy sauce, but too thin… I`ve yet to work that out. I probably do need that tbsp of sour cream that the original recipe has but I just don`t got. I`m sure I can eventually figure out the perfect quantities of everything but I`ve only made this sauce a couple of times so far.

It`s maybe not the best recipe for falafel – like I said, it`s sold with deep-fried chicken rolled in thin papery stuff at work – But here`s the recipe that I changed up anyway because it`s really good nonetheless and I`ll let it inspired you =).

~Zesty Yogurt Dip~

Ingredients: 1/2 cup plain yogurt (the thicker the better! can use a tbsp sour cream), 1/4 tsp packed lime zest, 1 tbsp lime juice, 1/4 tsp packed orange zest, 1 tbsp orange juice, 1 tbsp maple syrup or honey, 1/4 tsp cumin powder, salt and pepper to taste.

Directions: Stir all ingredients together until well combined.

I guess you can lather a pita with this sauce and then stick in yoru falafel with salad and whatnot, but I just dunk my falafel in the sauce and eat as is. I bet it`d be better with the pita and extra veggies…

Moving Oouuuut!

I`m glad to see it`s a bright, sunny day today! Most of our stuff is already at the new appartment, which I stayed up until midnight painting two nights in a row after work… I barely cooked this week – mostly ate vegetable lentil rice soup, hearty breakfast muffins and whole wheat bread with maple butter all week. Being super tired and wrecked made me do ridiculous things at work which I will share with you guys when I get the chance… I really can`t wait to sleep in tomorrow morning! But I`m not done yet. There`s still the food (for our fridge which is actually disfuntional right now so we have to keep our food at someone else`s for the time being……) to move out, as well as two pieces of furniture, and then the unpacking of all our stuff. I can`t believe how much stuff I`ve gotten my hands on since I came back to Montreal! The place looks really nice, it`s coming along. All that`s needed is to paint the living room, plus a couple of tidbits here and there. Pics to come soon! Ciao and have a good weekend!

Exhaaauuusted…

I am really tired, to the near point of exhaustion this week. Between working extra hard and extra time at work, getting lost in a big forest with friends, Xavier`s/ Derelict`s show (which was awesome!), dealing with this constant rain, certain physical issues and moving out… Yes moving out!… I am reeeeally tired.

Xavier and I will be moving out in less than a week on the 28th to have our own place, a hell of a deal we got, with extra space and a marvelous kitchen for all our cooking needs! I`m so excited! We already moved in over 1/3 of our stuff plus almost all the furniture and are figuring out the paint… Seriously, the place is awesome. Unfortunately it`s only one metro stop closer to downtown, but it`s only a 5-minute walk from the metro station. I`ll fill in with details after I actually move there.

To finish this short post written on energy reserves (by the way I`m running out of scheduled, made-in-advance posts…), here`s a macaron I made at work, a blast to make. I only have one week left in the pastry department which makes me sad – I`m really feeling it there, and my chef says I got lots of talent – She thinks I should go to pastry school to get my “DEP“, but I dunno… Going back to school? And for white-sugar, white-flour, butter-filled pastries? Well, I`m going to a pastry school this week as a student to check it out, paid by my work, should be fun! I had my evaluation the other week and Wow, nevermind A+, I got a bunch of A+++, sometimes even to the infinite! Haha. They really like me there, I`m really really glad =)… but I`m reeeallly tired. I still have stuff to do but I can take it a bit easier today, no one`s here, just going to veg out and watch some good ol` anime.

Spanakopitas, Pizza & Pita Chips

It`s kinda funny how my life has been filled with phyllo dough these days – I went to a vegan potluck a couple of weeks ago and was asked to help prepare some spanakopitas. I`d only had some once before and had no idea how to make them, but it came so naturally to me – I ended up making beautiful triangular spanakopitas. I later found out that the grocery store Adonis was nearby my home so I checked it out and came across some phyllo dough – I decided to buy a package and practice using it at home. Then, during my first day at work I was transfered to the desserts brigade since my chef in appetizers wasn`t there. To my surprise and delight I was asked to make loads of mini baklava triangles (and I mean Mini!) and impressed everyone around me. I was hooked to the edible paper.

I tried making spanakopitas with thinly-sliced spinach, grated cheese (I didn`t have feta) and sometimes some grated potato and egg. I made another type with grated potato and leftover leeks. I also tried making desserts with grated apple, brown sugar and margarine. They were fun to make but I must say it takes time. You can prepare them in advance and freeze them, so you only need to bake them when needed. I`ve made giant ones (way too unecessarily big…), tiny ones (wonderful as appetizers) and medium ones where I cut my layer of three phyllo sheets into 8, and I find the latter the best.

A lot of people use 4 sheets for their phyllo recipes but I prefer to use 3 sheets as it cuts down on the wheat – I don`t find that my spanakopitas or apple pie pockets lack in crispy layers. I`d love to find some whole wheat phyllo – Apparently it exists! But it seems pretty rare, and I`m curious about its texture.

This one made with potato and leek doesn`t look so great inside, but it gives you a good idea of the crispy layers.

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Xavier loves both apples and bell peppers so I thought I`d try blending them together…

I had to add some water to thin it down and, while it wasn`t horrible, it wasn`t amazing either. I can`t forget that I was using an old apple from the batch that I made the strawberry applesauce with though, since some were rotting and smelled horrible… I`d have to try again I guess, but with a fresh apple!

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It was time to make another pizza, but this time I decided to just go with a whole wheat pizza crust.

The crust came out very nice but still not *exactly* how I`d like it to be. I put sesame seeds on the edge and halved the pizza with red bell peppers on one side and lots of olives and garlic on the other. I kept it very simple as I was low on several ingredients, but the result was fantastic.

We both enjoyed our pizzas enormously, even after refrigerating and reheating some of our pieces. Apparently I did a great job at making pizza from scratch at work but that was with refined wheat flour. I must get their tomato sauce recipe!! It`s phenomenal. Once I get my pizza crust just right, I`ll post the recipe for it.

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What to do with dried-up pita bread or the cheap type that makes a mess of your planned chili-pita supper? Pita chips of course!

These are incredibly easy to make – Just slice your pita like a pizza (if they`re the openable type, open them and slice them into singles), then brush them with a prepared mixture of spices and herbs and bake them in the oven for a few minutes. These go great with hummus.

Well that`s all for now; Just a quick post about my new love affair with phyllo and spanakopitas and a couple peaks at some of my kitchen experiments. More to come!