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!

I Eat from the Dumpster

I`ve revealed my dumpster diving activities to you in the past and now I want to divulge what I`ve been up to and what I`ve found in Montreal`s waste land… Yogurt. Woah. And not just any kind of blah yogurt – Astro yogurt, Greek yogurt (and Meditteranean yogurt which is just as amazing but not fat free), organic yogurt, and cottage cheeeeese (for cheesecake, of course!).

So obviously, since the past few weeks of yogurt frenzy, I`ve gone off the vegan bandwagon and am back on the vegetarian one for now. It`s unbelievable how much yogurt I`ve found in Montreal`s dumpsters. Where exactly? Well, I can`t tell you THAT =P. Some of the yogurt I find hasn`t even passed its due date, while others are a couple of weeks past due date, but they all taste fine – I`ve eaten yogurt that was two Months past due date and they tasted fine, And I didn`t get sick =P. Since my recent love development with Greek yogurt I was more than happy to find all kinds of tasty flavors of them waiting to be given a second chance. Xavier himself is a big fan of yogurt so we have no trouble keeping the quantity down. Well, kinda. Actually, the yogurt`s been taking over the fridge… But then I thought of something – Frozen yogurt and sherberts! So I dedicated two entire days to making sherberts and frozen yogurts… A whole post on that to come soon!

Here`s a load of treasure Xavier came back with one night. We needed bananas, well, we got èm! The organic lettuce, the spinach, the whole wheat pitas and the chives were the cream of the crop this time (and the loner onion since we had none left!). It`s so funny to think how Xavier reacted the first time I told him about my dumpster diving activities. He was tactful about it and eventually said he would even come with me one day, but he said he wouldn`t eat anything that we got. Now I`ve got him going on his own and eating to his heart`s delight! Muahahaha!

Along with his bounty was a Giant red bell pepper. It would have been perfect for turning into a stuffed pepper but the bottom was badly bruised. Upon cutting it open we noticed a bunch of interesting mold… It happens. But it`s not like the whole giant fruit (yes, fruit) was a loss.

We were able to save most of it, and what was saved was wonderfully fresh and great tasting. And to contrast the intriguing mold was this beautiful little thing growing inside.

How could someone throw out such a beauty as she??

Another little load retrieved from the dumpster. My other roommate thinks me peculiar for various reasons and often jokes around about my dumpster diving. He`s scared to eat my goods, but sometimes he does!

Besides my roommate`s condiments and milk and besides a few food gifts, almost everything in the fridge and freezer was dumpstered. Yogurt, bread, bagels, pies, yogurt, mayonnaise, greek salad, and a bunch of vegetables. (Don`t mind the nasty rust stains, the fridge has some serious issues…) I had to take a picture because it felt so good to have so much food in the fridge again!

Another thing that`s special about dumpster diving is that you can come across all kinds of things you normally wouldn`t buy, so you get to try new things (like mangosteens and pitaya!) and challenge yourself with new ways of using certain ingredients. This exotic fella was most likely thrown out because of the little bruise on its side. I don`t even remember the name of these things but they`re a rollercoaster ride in your mouth!

But not just the fridge, the cupboards too! It`s not all dumpstered stuff of course, but some of it is, like applesauce, peanut butter, flour, walnuts, dates, dried cranberries, crackers, organic soups and some canned goods – Most of these were retreived the same day as the mother of all treasure loads we god. Xavier and I have literally taken over the kitchen – The cupboards are All ours, and 3/4 of the fridge is ours. We spend most of our time in the kitchen but at least we clean up after ourselves efficiently too.

Of course, it`s not easy. I stress, to various degrees, every time I go dumpster diving, worried I`ll get caught. I`ve never gotten into real trouble before and a lot of employees that have caught me don`t mind, but still. With winter here, it`s unpleasant to go in search of food in the cold, and it`s especially unpleasant to go scouting, but the bright side to the cold is that it keeps the food from spoiling quickly. The ride back home is a sweaty one in the metro, and once home I can`t just relax – I have to wash all of my little treasures, and then find space for them. I usually soak my produce in vinegar water and rebag my other foods in clean bags and containers, usually slicing and freezing most of the bread. Quite a lot of effort in the end but it`s alllll worth it. I`ve saved a lot of money dumpster diving and I`ve saved a lot of good food from being wasted. A LOT.

Love Of Zines

All my life I`ve loved making little books and panflets about various things – When I was a kid I made a nice little book on our galaxy, with color pictures and everything, using my dad`s computer. Unfortunately I lost it, but I remember the great joy that I had in making it and in informing people about various stuff. Many years later I made a zine on how to care for gerbils, when I used to have a dozen and couldn`t keep them all anymore. Although it was a simple little beefy zine printed only on one side of the papers, I had a blast making it and I knew that thanks to it, my gerbils would always be in good hands and the owners wouldn`t get any nasty surprises.

Since I changed my eating habits over 3 years ago I`ve often had the desire to make zines dedicated to food. I wanted to help people start making good choices in their life with something I had experience in. I wanted to inspire people with new ideas, but for various reasons I just couldn`t put my zines togehter. At one point I printed out a 22-full-page, one-sided food zine of this blog but it wasn`t quite what I wanted. While those I gave it to were highly pleased and appreciative, it wasn`t made the way I wanted it and it didn`t contain all the information I would like to have in it. Now that I`m settled back in Montreal and am getting serious with food again, and after being inspired from going to Montreal`s zine fair, I`m happy to say that I`m finally putting my food zine plan into action!

At first I thought about making a big fat zine that included everything, but now I`ve decided to make a Food Zine Collection of 12 zines. With time I will evaluate which are most popular and make a higher-quality, beefier recipe zine with more information from the more popular zines. For now, these are the 12 food zine topics that I plan to put into print:

#1 UnReFiNeD Recipe Book: About 50 wholesome recipes of mixed variety, meaning some will be vegan (all will be vegetarian), some will be raw, and some will be gluten-free (and easily labeled as such). There will be photos and some nutritional value information. Knowing me, there will probably be a bit more desserts than anything else, but still a nice mix =P. The zine will also include an informative summary of my other food zine topics.

#2 Fundamental Food: This zine will talk about the importance of eating wholesome food, eating locally and seasonally, and using quality ingredients. It will also talk about the benefits of eating a more vegetarian/vegan/raw diet.

#3 Food Politics & Dangers: A look into today`s problematic food system and what to consider with the growing, shipping and packaging of what becomes our food. Also, an informational list of dangerous ingredients.

#4 Food & Kitchen 101: Basic cooking and food storage tips, plus a glossary explaining less-common ingredients and kitchen equipment.

#5 Eating On A Budget & On The Clock: Various tips on eating inexpensively while eating healthy, and trying to do so in not too much time. This zine will also include an informative summary of several other food zine topics.

#6 Growing Greens: A look into growing a garden and an introduction to growing herbs indoors for food and teas. There will also be a big section on growing sprouts, along with a handful of sprout recipes.

#7 Dumpster Diving & Foraging: This zine will be about dumpster diving etiquette and the dangers to watch out for while doing so. There will also be an introduction on foraging for food. There will not be specific dumpster diving locations included =P.

#8 Traveling With Restrictions: Tips on eating healthy/vegan/raw/gluten-free while traveling, plus a quick look into several coutnries` eating diets and habits. This zine will also include a few short stories of my experiences eating a very restricted diet while backpacking in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

#9 Rawsome!: An introduction to eating a raw food diet and the benefits of doing so, without the need to buy extremely expensive ingredients and kitchen equipment. This zine will include various tips for beginners, as well as a big handful of simple raw recipes.

#10 Remedial Foods & Herbs: A list of various foods and herbs and their remedial values, as well as how to use them in food and teas. There will also be a section on homemade health-care recipes.

#11 Kitchen Disasters: A comical look into bad food combinations, a few funny and scary kitchen disaster stories, and what Not to do when the kitchen is on fire.

#12 Be Proavtive!: Suggestions on how you can help your community by gathering, cooking and serving food to the public, and teaching good food habits to those you care about.

I hope you`re as excited about these as I am! As you see, they will basically be a nicely-categorized, updated version of my blog with added goodies, in paper. I plan on printing them into the usual half-page-sized zine and hope to color code the covers. The inside will most likely be black and white to cut down on costs. They will be available in person and by mail once they are completed and will cost approximately 1$-4$ each, with a special price for all dozen zines purchased together. Stay tuned for the release date!

If you want to help me decide which recipes I should include in my recipe book, you can review my recipes you`ve tried on food.com (under the name Ravenhood) and allrecipes (these are waiting approval right now), or simply review them on the pages they`re on here. I`d also be really appreciative of your thoughts on my food zine collection and topic selections. Thanks in advance!

The People`s Kitchen of Occupy Montreal

As many of you know, Wall Street’s occupy movement reached Montreal and, along with many other cities, set into action on October 15th of last year. I wasn’t sure how this was going to turn out but it gave me an opportunity to volunteer with Food Not Bombs-type organizations and to talk food politics with those at Square Victoria.

One the 14th I got together with a couple of other people and joined forces with a coop to dumpster dive and cook food for those involved with the movement. The next day, we biked in the freezing breeze to Square Victoria and began serving our food on a small table. I left shortly after and came back a week later, to find an amazing development: All the people and organizations that gathered, cooked, and served food joined forces to create the People’s Kitchen, a partially-enclosed area with cooking areas and Loads of food.

Excited, I put on some gloves and got to it! There was no real leader as the group of people working in the kitchen was never the same, which regularly complicated things. Wearing gloves had become a requirement but besides that almost anyone was allowed to volunteer in the kitchen. The tasks were: cut bread, prepare produce for dishes in mind, keep kitchen sanitary, cut bread, take care of dishes, serve food, cook food, stir slowly-heating soup for hours, cut bread, and take in and shelve donations. Did I mention cutting bread?

I loooved working in the kitchen, to the point where I once worked for a span of 11 hours in one day, and with barely any breaks! I spent 2-8 hours volunteering there when I went, usually starting in the afternoon until around closing time. When I was there, I lost track of time (and of the importance of staying hydrated…), and just went on and on – There was so much to do!  Sometimes there was really not enough volunteers in the kitchen – At one time it was only me and another girl, both of us who were still kind of new to the kitchen, and her more than me, so I ended up taking over Everything, rushing between tasks to keep the kitchen going. I know I didn’t need to overwork myself, I was there freely giving free food, but I couldn’t help it. And it felt good. I had a purpose. Who knows what the kitchen would have looked like that afternoon if I hadn’t been there o.o. I guess people would have slowly made their way in to help themselves, which sometimes became a problem at night when the kitchen shut down. I think it silly that people were complaining that the kitchen shut down after 11pm (with bread and jam left out)… It was almost midnight! The kitchen can`t run 24hrs on a trinkle of tired and cold vonunteers! – Anyway. With time a sheet was run across after 11pm and between certain meal times to close it off more, and more people that had a better sense of what was happening would come by to make sure everything was alright.

And with time we started kitchen meetings to discuss problems (such as lack of space, troublesome activists, the homeless who took too much advantage of our kitchen, working in cold conditions, sanitary conditions, the inability to use big stoves and propane burners to cook food (ugh, what a Pain!!!), lack of volunteers, closing time and so on.

Dishes were quite the problem too. There was one older bearded man who was truly amazing because NO ONE wants to be in the dish pit, yet he was at it every day, scrubbing other`s dirty dishes in the cold, gathering and returning dirty and clean dishes, and trying to talk sense into passbersby to do their own dishes. He was usually frustrated – I don`t blame him – Most people would just pile their dishes (that they had gotten at the People`s Kitchen with their free food) in the dish pit and leave it for some sucker to do. It wasn`t pleasant. Even I didn`t do my own dishes, but I think I only used 2 cups and a couple of plates and utensils the whole time I was there, plus I was always busy scurrying around in the kitchen… A big thank you to the dish pit regulars!

It was fun to get shouts of encouragement (and vice versa) from the coffee/tea tent infront of us, from the dishpit regulars, and from those receiving free food once in a while. It was fun coming in to see my favorite co-volunteers already there in the kitchen, doing their thing and chatting happily about whatever came to mind. It was fun to get sunlight once in a while (I swear it usually was just grey and cold and often rainy…), and it was fun to be treated to some special little desserts for our hard work once in a while. It was fun becoming a part of something big, something important, working together, learning, having fun… =)

As it got colder and colder I bundled up with lots of layers and my handmade kitty hat. The whole time I was there I never actually was the one to Make soups and whatnot on the propane burners (I never bothered to learn how to use them), but I did make some fancy tuna salad on crackers myself. I usually did major multi-tasking. Once in a while I’d bring home apples and oats to cook apple crisps for the People’s Kitchen, almost losing my baking pans in the process of retrieving them. I eventually invited Xavier to come volunteer with me and, although I know he’s not into this movement kind of thing, he came without hesitation, to help me and to cook. We had loads of fun, snacking on treats as we went along, grooving to music from the nearby drum circle (or keyboard. We once even had a choir come practice at Square Victoria!).

We usually served a mix of vegan and vegetarian dishes. Obviously we got a lot of donated ingredients and prepared food that had animal ingredients in them so we used those too. It got tricky to know what had what in it, and then to make sure everyone else in the kitchen knew – In a kitchen where the volunteers and the meals always changed! One time we had a man come in with a bunch of higher-quality hot dog sausages. He didn`t just donate them to us – He came in and took over the propane burners to cook them! I tried to keep a selection of raw fruits and vegan snacks always available on the table as I saw most of the other volunteers didn`t give a damn about the vegans at Square Victoria. At least we usually had various salads we`d make every day. The food we made was pretty healthy, but the desserts (besides things like baked cinnamon apples and fruit salads that we made) were donated by various people who bought or made them and their healthiness was a mixed bag. I got nibbles of all kinds of tasty neat things there!

The kitchen worked off of donations, and wow were we surprised with the amount of donations we got! Some people would bring food from their homes that they didn’t use. Others would buy what we needed (like peanut butter, oil, etc). Others, either from their homes or a little business they had running, would bring in food they made, the most coveted being hot food like soup, because it often got cold (and rainy) there, and we only had little propane burners to cook with. Sometimes people would bring over leftovers from meetings (think giant plates of appetizers and sandwhiches) and from the stores they worked at. One guy handed me a bunch of fresh bagels that were going to be thrown out of the bakery he worked at. Xavier and I were about to head out so we took a couple with us to eat when we got home. They were Berry infused bagels! Spread with cream cheese and berry jam, they were DIVINE! I still regret not asking the guy where they came from because they were just so good! I sometimes brought in my own dumpstered stuff for the kitchen, but these had to be labeled as such =P.

Near the end of October it started getting really cold. I was working on adrenaline and little reserves, in very cold conditions outside and with very little hydration. I eventually got sick, my sickness hitting its peak on Halloween night (booo!), and after then I didn’t go to the People’s Kitchen as much. Reasons being, I was out of town for a bit,or I was preoccupied, and often I’d go there and the place was taken care of and they didn’t really need anyone at the time… bummer. I could have maybe squeezed myself in, but I never feel comfortable about doing that. I like to have something to do and to really be needed, not just standing around twidling my thumbs and getting “I don’t knows” to my “what can I do” question.

It felt strange to have various people come over to photograph or videotape us working in the kitchen – I wonder if I ended up anywhere more public. I once got interviewed by a woman who had questions about the kitchen and what my beliefs were. I discussed how the People`s Kitchen worked and shared my thoughts on all the food that we waste and all the land and imprisoned animals and effort that goes into making that food that gets wasted as well. I also talked about all the homeless and needy peopel who could be getting all this wasted food instead of the dumpsters – A lot of it is still good and safe to eat. Politics in general is something I`m really not strong in, but obviously food politics is where I shine more.

Occupy Montreal was eventually shut down November 25th or 26th, I forget. I wasn’t there but wish I had been. I hear some people tied themselves to the People`s Kitchen posts as a last resistance. It sure had been quite the experience. Square Victoria had become a tarped tent city full of music and chatty people, and full of curious people with others to inform them. I loved its feel. I met some really awesome people there, but I unfortunately lost contact with most of them. I still wish I had spent more time there (and not just the kitchen, but the rest of the square as well), but my social anxiety got in the way. Still, I participated quite a lot, I had a great time, and I learned all kinds of useful things. A really great experience.

Miscellaneous Findings

This is a collection of information and whatnot that I`ve gathered these past couple of months that I feel like sharing with you guys. Really varied in topics… Enjoy!

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I have a tendency of using ground flax seeds in almost all my baked goods, but I never thought of using it for something other than food – Thanks to Xavier`s mom, I discovered that flax seeds crammed into little homemade pillows (that have different compartments inside) can make great heat packs! She just sticks the pack in the microwave for about 5 minutes and voila, I stuck it on my stomach to ease the pain and it stayed hot/warm for a long time. The funny thing is, it gives off a smell that makes me think of farms and barns. But what an ingenious idea! I`d like to make my own one day. When I do, I`ll definitely post about it!

Something else I thought was a really neat idea was using cranberries to make cranberry icecubes – Simply dropping cranberries into an icecube tray with water will create a beautiful, eye-striking color to your drink, and eventually a little zap of sour flavor =).

During the second and third weeks of December a huge craft fair was open to the public, filled with beautiful, original works of art made by locals. To my delight there was also a big food section at the back. Lots and lots of sauces and jams, wine and chocolate, and lots of sampling! The first time I went to check it out I spent 4 hours there with Xavier – There were so many neat things to see! The “Metiers D`arts“ has apparently been going on for 56 years. It scares me to think of how much it costs to sell your stuff there for the two weeks; You really have to believe in your stuff and your skills! I took a quick peek and, for the minimum space you can get, it`s over 3,000$! I highly recommend fellow Montrealers to check out the next one in December to be inspired, to find beautiful gifts and talk with their creative creators, and to tingle your taste buds.

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My mom invited me to eat with her at Commensal, a restaurant that serves healthy vegetarian food buffet-style. There`s one in downtown which is really nice, and one in Laval which is apparently not half as nice as Montreal`s. It`s not the cheapest, but the food there is really amazing!

By the time we met up I was starving, plus my mom was treating me, so I took as much as I could – Everything looked so delicious! Certain things were really spectacular, but with so much on my plate, I forgot what was what and ended up not having any clue… Both plates pictured were mine. Once I was done with that, I actually went for dessert. Wooow and Owwww. Overall, it was a great experience. It`s so rare I eat at restaurants – This one`s ambience was really wonderful, the buffet had a great variety of delicious healthy vegetarian food, and the price wasn`t too terrible. For Christmas my mom gave me a certificate to go eat there again, I can`t wait! But I`m waiting for a special occasion before heading back.

Another thing my mom treated me to was supper at her place for my birthday (December 19th), which I made all kinds of exceptions for. We had one of my favorite suppers – Turkey Dinner, and for dessert… My all-time favorite cheesecake. This. Is. The. Shit. Fo real. I doggy-bagged a piece back home with me to wolf down on, it`s just sooo amazing. I hadn`t eaten this cheesecake in a long time as it was usually my mom who made it but I`d gone off vagabonding for a long time.  It`s one of the recipes on Eagle Brand`s sweetened condensed milk cans, the one with the picture of a cherry cheesecake (I think it`s called Cherry Cheese Pie): 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 1 package cream cheese, 1/3 cup lemon juice, 1 tsp vanilla extract, a graham crumb crust, and a can of cherry pie filling. It`s not baked and doesn`t have eggs in it. Just whipped together and stored in the fridge overnight before eating. Seriously. If you want to try making a quick and easy, eggless, no-bake, super duper crazily wow amazing cheesecake that`s sinfully unhealthy, go in search of the Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk with this recipe on it, it will show you the way.

I gotta stop looking at this food porn, it`s making me drool.

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Another supper I had for my birthday, courtesy of Xavier, was these special rainbow-colored ribbon pasta, sided with a tasty salad and a slab of garlic bread. Making pasta from scratch is something I`ve got on my to-do list, including gnocchis (Technically dumplings. Lots of people just cut them into chunks but I want mine potatoey and with the fork mark on them! *stomps foot*). I hear many people are scared of making these, but I`m excited.

Speaking of pasta, I decided to try a new pasta boiling method that was found online. Instead of using a pot, I used a frying pan and stuck my pasta in while the water was still cold (apparently this keeps the pasta from sticking together). The water heated quickly as there wasn`t much in the pan, and the pasta cooked wonderfully. Best of all, there was no messing around trying to bend the spaghetti into the pot to wet them all at once – They fit!

But really, I find whole wheat spaghetti/ pasta specifically horrible – The taste is too strong and the texture is just horrible. Brown rice pasta really has a better taste and texture than whole wheat pasta, and on the plus side it`s gluten free. Thankfully, brown rice pasta is becoming more popular on the market and so is more easily accessible and affordable.

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I finally did it, I froze and thawed my tofu. The texture becomes incredibly rubbery and a lot dryer than normal tofu, which can be used to make all kinds of neat things, but you really need to know what you`re doing.

I cut mine into pretty little cubes, but the end result wasn`t very pretty. I marinated them in teriyaki sauce with pressed garlic and chopped onion, which was really delicious, but when it came to cooking them in a frying pan, I failed – The heat/time for this technique was unknown to me, and the marinated tofu was way too soaked with liquid. I tried sticking them in a pita which didn`t work because the texture was all wrong. To make matter worse, I stubbornly decided to try a mayonnaise spread on my teriyaki tofu pita and the flavors clashed horribly. If I were to freeze tofu again, I would stick it in a food processor to get a hashed beef effect, I would marinate/season my tofu with less liquid, and I would find out the best technique to stir fry them.

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A made a nifty gift basket for Xavier for Christmas, and part of it included herb plants, since we often talked about having fresh herbs in the house. Considering the time of year, it was very difficult to find them, but we ended up with basil, rosemary and curly parsley.

The place where I found the green basil had only those two left, and they didn`t look in the best of shape so the woman sold both of them to me for the price of one. My mother had found me cilantro, which I later found is quite tricky to grow, and unfortunately it didn`t make it. It`s been tricky overall keeping these guys going, but one thing that`s going strong, Really strong, is a garlic clove that I planted not long ago. It had started to sprout so I planted it an inch or so deep, and two days later it surfaced with great strength. Every day it gets taller by over an inch! I`m so excited! I don`t know anything about growing garlic and I thought it`d be more difficult and timely to do, but so far it seems to be doing so great!

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A new girl moved in nextdoor and she smuggled in her furry cat with her, a very talkative creature that loves attention. I believe it`s a she but I talk about it like a he for some reason. Nonetheless, when the cat gets kicked out of the appartment, it eventually starts meowing infront of our kitchen door. I love and miss having cats so I often let it in to warm up and get a belly rub, during which it talks to me without catching its breath.

One day I was cooking something up in the kitchen and working on finishing up the dishes, when I saw a paw swat at me from nowhere – The window was slightly open and the cat was staring at me with its been green pleading eyes, meowing away its desire to come back in. Such a cute furry thing!

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But cats aside, I discovered something amazing this winter (thanks to the dumpster for I can`t afford fancy food!) - Greek Yogurt!

I don`t think I could have ended up with a tastier carton either – Organic Oikos greek yogurt, flavored with blueberries. Simple divine. The flavor is really delicious, sure, but the texture is what it`s all about – It`s sooo unbelievably thick and creamy. As if that wasn`t enough, the nutrition table is unbelievable too – It`s fat free and Loaded with protein! No wonder it`s more expensive than your typical yogurt, but it`s worth trying out. Simply divine.

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Another thing that I surprsingly only discovered this winter is wild rice. I had tried a little once before, but I found it very hard and too different, so I stayed away from it. But for the Christmas potluck that Xavier and I were going to attend, we decided to make a wild rice and walnut bundt cake to bring along as he had quite a lot of wild rice, and we`d found a tasty looking recipe in an old cookbook.

I went ahead and prepared the wild rice for the recipe, noticing an extremely strong nutty smell as I boiled it for a long time. The smell caught me offguard at first, but then I tried it and Wow. The flavor is quite something else, but if you`re able to appreciate it for what it is, it`s really delectable. I guess what I had tried years ago just wasn`t cooked long enough as these were nice and tender, although still a bit chewy. We had a bit left over the next day and I took a cold bite from the fridge but it just wasn`t the same as eating it fresh and warm from the pot.

Wild rice is actually a grass (and technically a few types of grasses), not a grain. It grows in shallow water mainly in North America, where a lot of Indians would cultivate the plants by canoe. It`s generally very expensive.

Here`s the bundt cake that I mentioned in my earlier post. An unfortunate failure, in my opinion. I followed the recipe exactly as written, but there was too much batter for the bundt pan (even after I let Xavier run off with the mixing spatulas Loaded with batter), and it rounded out at the bottom, so when placed proper side up, it split between the lines. As if that wasn`t enough, the wild rice ended up unpleasant hard and chewy. The cake was supposed to bake for 1 hour, but when I checked the interior, the stick came out Liquid! I baked it until it was good enough inside, but by then the wild rice had become way too hard. We brought the cake to the Christmas potluck but, due to my scary warnings to everyone about it and due to the fact that there was way too much food for everyone, we ended up taking back most of it, which Xavier happily finished off. Fortunately, not a lost cause.

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To finish off this post, here are my happy and not-so-happy eggs! XD

I spend too much time in the kitchen…

- And the Not so Sweet Stuff

Sweetness aside, it`s time to leave space for the healthier, more savory dishes that were made, eaten and discovered this holiday!

I`m sure all you dumpster divers out there know that tomatoes are something that`s always to be found in dumpsters, and in abundance! I once ended up with so many tomatoes it was ridiculous, so I decided to use them in a smart way – by making oven-dried tomatoes and tomato sauce with them.

The oven-dried tomatoes took a long time to make – I first had to gut them and cut them into the thickness and sizes that I wanted them (some people season them with a bit of oil, salt and spices, while others just dry them as is), and then layered them on cookie sheets and baked them at low heat in the oven for a long time (by long time, I mean hours – it depends on the size of your tomato pieces (cherry tomatoes dry faster and are quicker to prepare, for example), but it can take only a couple of hours to 6,8, I dunno. A long time. A food dehydrator works great in these situations! I had to check them regularly to make sure they weren`t burning, and would either turn or take out the pieces that were drying faster than others. It`s tricky, really. You have to make sure you take them out when they`re dry enough not to easily mold, but not too dry that they`ll be hard and unpleasant to eat. I ended up with a bunch which were fun to add into salads or food-processed ingredients. They were fun to eat just as is too. I tried canning some in oil with a couple of garlic cloves and fresh herbs, and that was a total fail. After a couple of days I wanted to check on it and opened it up. I tried one and it was absolutely disgusting. I put it back in the fridge, and a couple of days later it looked so disgusting inside that I through out the entire thing. I don`t know what happened exactly, but I do know that I didn`t really know what I was doing. I wasn`t able to find much information on properly canning dried tomatoes (or even just drying tomatoes), so I experimented.

Making the tomato sauce was fun. I tried all kinds of things. The bottled stuff you see in the picture above was a very simple and unusual sauce I made, but very pleasant. I took off the skins but left the tomato seeds in it, added just a bit of garlic and herbed salt, and left a lot of the flavor of just-begun-cooking tomatoes – You`ll notice after making tomato sauces that the color and flavor changes a Lot as you boil it for a long time. The quick and easy way to make tomato sauce is to just huck your tomatoes in a blender and give it a quick spin, boil it with whatever seasonings and other you want (spices, herbs, salt, ground pepper, vegetables, or sugar if that`s your thing – Xavier puts Loads of sugar in his tomato sauces. I think he`s crazy. He think`s I`m the one who`s crazy. Sugar has become a taboo topic in the kitchen now lol) until it has the consistency you want (keeping in mind that it will thicken up more once it`s chilled). The more labor-intensive, traditional way would be to blanch your tomatoes so you can take off the skins, then gut them to get rid of all the liquid and seeds inside, Then boil them (actually it`s more complicated than that but I won`t get into it!). The two methods vary greatly in texture and flavor, it depends how much time you want to put into making it, but both can be very tasty. One thing I noticed about making tomato sauces (which, I tell ya, I really don`t know much about so far… but I will one day!) is that the flavor becomes better and better after being kept in the fridge.

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My favorite salad had always been ceasar salad – hold the bacon, extra parmasan, with a slab of garlic bread thank you – but Xavier recently introduced me to his amazing vinaigrette which dazzles my taste buds. I`ll simply name it the Honey Dijon Vinaigrette.

It`s made with extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, old-style dijon mustard, and honey. Delish. As for quantities of the ingredients, I can only say experiment with your own. There`s mostly oil over the other ingredients but not by a huge margin, and it`s followed more or less equally by the balsamic vinegar and dijon mustard, followed with less honey. It goes great on a bed of mixed greens and chopped bell peppers and apples.

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Another tasty sauce Xavier made for me was a Yogurt Dip, made with plain yogurt, freshly-pressed garlic and “Tuscan salt“, which is a delicious blend of dried herbs with big cubes of salt (which we grind with our mortar and pestle). This dip is great with vegetables – Celery, cucumber, carrots, you know, the usual.

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And another thing Xavier got me into is springrolls – Simply made with rice paper, rice vermicelli, carrots, lettuce, coriander, peppermint, and a dash of maple syrup. The taste is very subtle but nice, and the peanut butter sauce that it goes with is what really makes it flavorful.

One day I dumpstered some spaghetti squash, which I had never had the delight to work with before. It`s awesome! Just bake it in the oven until softened, and when you open it you`ll find a bunch of sweet-smelling spaghetti-type threads that come apart. I got the brilliant idea to use spaghetti squash instead of rice vermicelli in my springrolls, and to add some apple and freshly-ground anise to complement the flavor, and it was amazing! I looove these. I tried with and without peppermint but I find these springrolls were best without fresh herbs. What I love about using spaghetti squash instead of rice vermicelli is that it cuts down on the carbs, and it`s got a really nice taste to it. Making springrolls is fun and refreshing, and the possibilities are endless! =)

Sweet Spaghetti Squash Springrolls

Ingredients: Rice papers, cooked spaghetti squash, thinly sliced carrots and apples, a bit of maple syrup and freshly-ground anise.

Directions: Drizzle a bit of maple syrup and a bit of ground anise in your spaghetti squash. Have all your veggies and seasonings ready before preparing your rice paper, which you do by dunking into warm water until it has become soft and pliable (but careful not to oversoak it or it will become mush and hard to work with!). Lay your rice paper onto a big plate and pile your filling to your heart`s content about 1/4 of the way up the rice paper, while leaving about 2inches on each side. Start rolling up your springroll and, once you`ve just gone past a full turn, fold over the sides, and finish rolling the rest.

Now, as for Xavier`s peanut butter sauce,

He uses normal Kraft peanut butter (ugh, I know), but mixes in quite a lot of warm water and a bit of honey to it until it becomes thin and has a pale color. It`s really delicious, but I`d prefer to use natural peanut butter. I tried once and it didn`t really work out because of the consistency, but I`ll try again!

As we were making springrolls, we decided to try deep frying them, just to know what deep frying is all about. I`ll tell you now: Don`t do it unless you have a thermometor you can stick in your pot or else it`s a pain to try to get your oil at the right temperature – Too hot and you`ll burn yoru food, not to mention the oil itself, and not enough and you`ll end up with soggy and disgustingly fatty food – The right temperature will cook your food while the moisture rushes to get out of your deep-fried food, thus literally pushing the oil away from completely soaking your food. It`s actually very interesting and I`m glad we tried it, even though we mostly failed – Some ended up burnt, some ended up fatty soggy, , some of them would be crisp and rather dry but just wouldn`t get the nice golden color to them, and lots of them would create giant balloons inside shortly after we put them in the oil, causing us great worry of explosions of hot oil around us – a high tension experience overall, but a good experience anyway.

What we got out of it besides some good lessons is a tasty mix of ingredients as filling – simple, really: grated potato and carrot, shredded cabbage and just a bit of minced onion, with a bit of salt and seasoning, sauteed before adding as filling – It was really delicious.

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Some of you May remember the birds nests that I made a couple of years ago. I decided to make them again for a Christmas potluck (A day or two before the event, it suddenly hit me that 18 appetizers and 9 desserts per person, plus a block of cheese and wine for a supper of 18 people would be WAY too much food – Over 500 bites, to be more precise!). I also made a wild rice and walnut bundt cake for dessert. If I had known we`d have so much food, and if I`d known that my recipes wouldn`t really work out (Well, the birds nests were beautiful and tasted like pizza but after heating them they tasted less great and the main problem with these is that the top noodles become too hard and unpleasant to eat, and the wild rice bundt cake, although I made it Precisely as the recipe asked, was literally liquid inside after the 1hr time needed to bake it, so by the time it dried up inside, the wild rice was also very dry and Very hard to chew, but Xavier loved it anyway and ended up eating it all lol).

I made them using cooked linguini pasta (with some bouillon in the cooking water to season them. You can use any kind of pasta – Whole wheat or brown rice or or whatever you like best, but I find flat noodles like linguini work best) which I layered in a spiral in a very well-greased pan. I then added my egg mix (beaten eggs with a bit of milk and just a bit of grated cheese, salt and pepper), coating all the noodles before the egg mixture settled in the bottom, which would become the structure of the appetizer. Next came the tomato sauce, and the the grated cheese (like mozarrella and some parmasan), topped with a piece of olive, bell pepper or cherry tomato, to create the look of a bird`s nest! I baked them at about 350F I think, until the cheese was melted and the egg underneath was well cooked and held together.

They really are beautiful, and they really tasted just like a delicious pizza, but like I said, the top had to be removed, and that was difficult to do… If I decide to make these again in the future, I`d have to make sure not to bring up the tops; I`d have to submerge all the noodles so that it`d be level with the rest of the stuff.

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This year I discovered the wonders of leeks. They are super tasty, wonderful in soups and casserols, and they`re just plain neat looking! Using our stock of milk, cheese and eggs, plus some leeks and potatoes I had to use up, I decided to make a strange frittata-type potato leek dish.

I grated some potatoes, squeezed the juice out of them, then mixed in some salt, and patted them into a well-greased baking dish. I cooked the potato crust until it started to turn golden and crispy (but not too much!). Aside, I mixed my beaten eggs with some milk, grated cheese, salt, ground pepper and a bit of random spices and herbs, then stirred in my sliced leeks. I poured the egg mixture into my potato crust and returned the baking dish to the oven, to cook until firm. PS. Run your finger along the edge of your frittata thing to get rid of extra spatters so you don`t end up with what I got haha. A very tasty dish; Just make sure to season your egg mixture a lot and to crisp up your potato crust well enough before adding the egg mixture or the crust will end up like soggy white unappealing stuff. Using a glass baking dish would probably be a good idea so you can see the underneath and sides of the potato crust. Can be eaten as breakfast or part of supper.

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Bell peppers are another thing that`s always found in dumpsters, so I sometimes had more than I knew what to do with. Then I remembered seeing a picture of Stuffed Bell Peppers in a magazine I was looking through. What a beautiful, neat, tasty-looking idea!

stuffed bell peppers usually have cheese in them, and often have a certain kind of minced meat in them. Grain like rice is common, but I decided to go with quinoa. With the cheese, I find that the quinoa mixture become too much of a mush (but maybe that`s because I crammed the mixture in because I had made too much haha) so next time I would like to try it with brown rice. I used lots of shredded spinach, plus various vegetables like carrot, onion and garlic, salt and spices. Tomato sauce was added at the end to change and enhance the flavor. I used nice big-bottomed bell peppers that could stand on their own, filled them up (Again, don`t cram the filling in and don`t add too much cheese!), put the tops back on and stuck them in a baking dish to bake for about 40 minutes. Yes, it takes a long time. The end result waas very tasty, and although the (really hot) bell pepper made a beautiful edible dish, it didn`t have much flavor at all. The second time I tried brushing the bell peppers with a bit of seasoned oil, but that dramatically changed the texture to an odd one.

Overall, this is a wonderul dish. Highly customizeable, a beautiful presentation, an edible bowl, and really tasty. I`m sure  I`ll make this again, with all kinds of different ingredients each time.

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I have a vegan, low-fat recipe for potato salad, so here`s a new one; vegetarian non-low-fat recipe Potato Salad. Super tasty and easy to make!

Potato Salad  -  Serves 2

Ingredients: 3 cups chopped raw potatoes, 1/4 cup chopped chives or green onions, 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 1 tbsp white vinegar, 1 tbsp fresh finely grated parmesan, 1/2 tbsp old-style dijon mustard, 1 tsp honey, 1/4 tsp packed pressed garlic, 1/4-1/2 tsp salt, a couple pinches of ground black pepper.

Directions: Boil the potatoes for 8-10 minutes, until softened but not too soft. Rinse under cool water a bit, then set aside. In a bowl, stir together the rest of the ingredients, tweaking ingredients to your taste, then stir in potatoes until well coated. Serve immediately or chill in fridge.

I used Yukon gold. I don`t know if these are the best, but I dislike using cheap quality potatoes for their taste and texture is really inferior. Soft potatoes are a bad idea too because you`re more likely to end up with mush after boiling them and mixing them with the rest of the ingredients. I also used chives because I didn`t have any green onions, but it still worked well! This can be eaten hot or cold, but I prefer it room temperature/cold.

Sweet Stuff Galore

Yessssss, desssserts! Guilty desserts of the holidays! I`m sorry in advance to all vegans and lactose intolerant readers – Most of these recipes have dairy products in them, but some can be omitted by using alternatives.

I had a HUGE zucchini that Saskia had given me from her garden but I just didn`t know what to do with it. Who knows what gave me the idea to stick shredded zucchini in a brownie-type cake as a total experiment but, after a couple of tries,  my fellow roommates and I sure loved the outcome! I never use the exact same quantities every time, so sweetness and density and moistness always varies a little bit, but here`s the recipe I made and use as a base.

Zucchini Brownie Cake  -  Makes 12-16 brownie pieces

Dry Ingredients: 1 cup whole wheat flour, 2/3 cup cocoa powder (no salt!), 1/2 tbsp ground flax seeds, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp salt. Wet Ingredients: 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup margarine, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini, 1/4 cup chopped walnuts, 2 tbsp (small) dark chocolate chips.

Directions: In one bowl, stir dry ingredients together. In another bowl, mix sugars with margarine and vanilla extract until well combined, then stir in shredded zucchini, walnuts and chocolate chips. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and mix until just combined. Pour into a small rectangle glass casserole (sorry, dimension unknown) that`s greased, and bake at 350F for about 35 minutes.

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Brownies were always in my top favorites list of desserts, but cheesecake is what always took spot number 1. I was always a huge fan of cheesecakes, especially Eagle Brand`s recipe on their can of sweetened condensed milk. A cheesecake that ended up as dessert for many birthdays and christmases in my childhood… Great memories! As well as the memories of me groaning in bed mumbling about how I ate too much… It sure wasn`t healthy… But Oh So Gooood!!

Anyway, enough of my rambling… During the holidays I ended up with a bunch of cottage cheese and cream cheese that was generously given to the household, plus a box of graham cracker crumbs as a gift… So I couldn`t resist! But I kept them simple. As much as I love chocolate, chocolate cheesecake is just not really my thing. But lemon is; I use it in all my cheesecakes.

Cheeeeeesecaaaaaake! :3

Many cheesecakes were made, but it goes without saying that cream cheese cheesecakes make superior cheesecakes over cottage cheese cheesecakes (Wow, I said “cheese“ five times in that sentence…), but the big pros is that cottage cheesecakes are loaded with protein and very low in fat.

I didn`t have any delicious cherry topping (my favorite!) so we either ate them bare or in this case, I used strawberry apple jam. Also, for this particular cheesecake I accidentally poured it into the big pan when I had only made a half recipe (they were all half-sized so I could experiment more), hence the thinness… I even made one without any crust (see next picture) when I ran out of graham crumbs… For me, cheesecakes can only be made with graham crumb crusts

As for the cottage cheesecake recipe, here`s what I was working on. Honestly, I had never made baked cheesecakes before, so this was new for me. While It`s pretty tasty and the texture is pretty nice, it`s still not exactly where I want it to be, but here it is:

Cottage Cheesecake

Crust: 1 graham crust (1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs, 1/4 cup margarine, 2 tbsp sugar). Directions: Mix by hand and pat into your greased baking pan. (This is a standard-sized crust, but it`s not super thick, just so you know).

Ingredients: 2 cups cottage cheese, 2 eggs, 3 tbsp flour, about 2 tbsp lemon juice (to your taste, so start with less), 1/4 tsp vanilla extract, 2/3 cup sugar (evaporated cane sugar works great), 1/4 tsp salt.

Directions: Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth, then pour into graham crust and bake at 325F for about 45min-1hr, or until filling is almost firm (it will firm up afterwards, trust me!)

Here`s a half-size recipe I made, with a juice of some kind for decoration. PS. I don`t know why but this cheesecake ended up with a bunch of bubbles on top. If you end up with a lot of bubbles after blending, let your batter sit untouched for a bit. Cheesecake has about 1350 calories, about 170 calories per slice of an 8-piece cake.

Okay so I didn`t bake it quite long enough and the quantities of my ingredients in this cream cheese cheesecake were a bit off (and I was too impatient to wait for it to really bake and then really chill before eating it!), but it was soooo delicious!! Sorry, I lost the recipe I wrote for it… But I can give you two very helpful tips: Blend your cream cheese first and foremost before adding other ingredients, and wait for it to be room temperature before doing so. The consistency will be much better and less lumpy, and it`ll be a lot easier to blend. The other thing is that when your cheesecake is done baking, let it cool down slowly so it has less chances of making cracks, and let it chill completely in the fridge before eating. This is especially true with cream cheese cheesecakes – Let them sit overnight or at least 8 hours before eating them… The taste will be so much more superior!

Okay, lets wrap up this cheesecake topic with the grand total of times that I used the word “cheese“ discussing it: 32! Wow, talk about excessive… and I`m not even a cheesecake expert! I hope one day I will be =).

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While at Xavier`s family`s house, which I was delighted to find out is filled with more food enthusiasts, I found all kinds of awesome kitchen equipment and cooking books. One of them was on crepes, and opening that book opened up a whole new world for me. Not only sweet, but savory crepes as well, and all the kinds of ways you can wrap them up to display and eat them. Although they say that it`s best to let your batter sit for at least an hour or two, crepes are quick and easy to make and can be prepared beforehand, as well as frozen for future meals (they say 4 crepes thaw in 15 minutes). Here`s one of their simple recipes, deliciously thin and crispy, and whole wheat of course!

Breakfast Crepe  -  Makes 8-10 crepes, Serves 4

Ingredients: 1 cup milk of choice, 1/3 cup water, 2 large eggs, 2 tbsp butter or margarine of choice, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 2 tbsp sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, a pinch of salt, plus more butter or margarine for coating the pan between crepes.

Directions: Blend all ingredients in a blender until well combined (don`t over blend), then let rest for a while (preferably at least 1-2hrs, or consider preparing in advance, the night before). Grease and heat a pan on medium heat. Now the tricky part – Lift the pan from the heat while you pour your batter in (about 1/4 cup per crepe), and do it quickly! QUICKLY pour the batter in and QUICKLY swivel your pan in a circular motion to cover the whole surface. Let it cook for about a minute, then turn it and let it cook for about 15 seconds or so.

PS. Put liquid in the blender first, not the flour, or else you risk the chance of leaving clumps of unmixed flour in your batter… Yes yes, I know, I just couldn`t help myself with the chocolate… I can`t resist when there`s banana filling inside!

It might take a couple of crepes to get the hang of it, but then it`s pretty easy… Unless your batter is too thick, then just add a bit of water to your batter.

Fill your crepes with whatever comes to mind. Xavier got the awesome idea to mix butter with chopped bananas (and sometimes an egg), cooking the mixture in a pan until hot and until the bananas start losing their shape. Jam, berries, melted chocolate and maple syrup make excellent toppings. Another nice sauce is butter/margarine with brown sugar and cinnamon. As for a savory crepe, cheese and spinach is good.

Keep in mind, you don`t have to fill your crepes and top them with all kinds of things to enjoy them! Simply cooking them until they`re extra crispy and eating them as a crispy treat is fun, and lighter.

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I`ve wanted to make rice pudding for a long time, especially since my travels in Mexico where they seem to eat it a lot, so I decided to make some when we were given a generous amount of milk. But this version isn`t the usual over the stovetop way, it`s baked in the oven. I found the recipe in Linda McCartney`s vegetarian cookbook which someone left here and decided to give it a try. I know it looks HORRIBLE – gunky and burnt (plus her book photo looks nothing like mine even though I followed the recipe exactly), but once I got rid of the burnt edges, mixed it well, put it in a pretty bowl, and thne into my belly, it was really amazing.

Rice Pudding  -  Serves 4

Ingredients: 1/2 cup short grain rice (short grain rice is much stickier than long grain rice), 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/3 cup sugar, 4 cups milk, 1/4 cup butter or margarine.

Directions: Rinse the rice well, then add to a greased 9inch baking dish. Sprinkle the cinnamon on top, then the sugar, then the milk. Cut the butter/margarine into small pieces and dot these on the milk. Heat oven at 325F and bake for 30 minutes – Stir the pudding gently and return it the the oven. Stir it again 30 minutes later. After 1 1/2 hours of baking, the pudding should have a light golden crust – Serve immediately.

The recipe originally said to sprinkle the cinnamon on at the very end, which is a bad idea because, anyone who`s ever tried to mix cinnamin into milk before knows it`s very difficult. That`s why I suggest trying to add the cinnamin right after the rice, so you hopefully don`t end up with a brown-patched pudding like mine. You can always garnish your pudding just before you serve it, but then the flavor of cinnamon won`t be as nicely integrated into your pudding. Also, make sure to check your pudding during the last half hour to make sure it doesn`t burn. PS. Pictured is a half-sized recipe.

I`m sure the taste would just not be the same, but still, I`d like to try making this with alternative milk, like soy or rice. I will let you know how that goes when I make it. And one day I`ll try the usual over-the-stove method too. Definitely.

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Chocolate fondue. I had quite a few shared and quite a few solo during the holidays. For a chocolate junkie, I think this is a decently healthy recipe because it combines chocolate with raw fruits, instead of with wheat and white sugar in a baked dish. I simply use a dark chocolate bar and melt it with a bit of milk until I get the consistency I want, or I mix cocoa powder with liquid coconut oil and maple syrup. No need for fancy equipment and a constant-burning flame! Just stove or microwave melting and a little jar will do. Even a chopstick =).

To me, bananas are the best (but they can`t be too ripe), followed by strawberries and apples (peels don`t get in the way of the fun!). Pineapple is interestingly good too.

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While dumpster diving I came across a Bunch of peach yogurt, so I brought it back home. I had dumpstered a bunch of fresh peaches during the fall and had frozen them in slices, and felt I needed to use up all these sweet peachy things. Something light… I`d been meaning to bake with yogurt lately, since we had dumpstered so much, and since Xavier is a big yogurt fan, so I went full force into a new experimentation:

Peach Yogurt Muffins  -  Makes 12 muffins

These turned out very light at 125 calories each muffin, and not too sweet or too full of flavor – A nice, subtle taste, a nice breakfast or snack muffin. I`m still in the midst of perfecting it, so I`ll post the recipe once I`m happy enough with it.

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And last but not least… Apples, Apples, Apples! Actually, I don`t have any pictures or even recipes of Xavier and I`s fun times in the kitchen with LOADS of dumpstered apples, but I can tell you a bit about it. We really had a lot of apples. Like, almost 50 of them. We couldn`t stop at just making apple crisps like the good ol` days (btw, Xavier`s tip of the day: add fresh pressed ginger and a dash of ground cloves to your apples in your apple crisps for a special extra zing of taste!) – We had to take it to the next step; We decided to make applesauce and apple jelly.

Making applesauce was a lot of fun. Labor intensive in one way, but when making huge batches, it lasts a long time. We used various kinds of apples (a supposed good idea) and cored and peeled them (but kept the scraps for the apple jelly!). I forget if we minced them or blended them for a very short amount of time, but after that, we tossed the cubes or mush into a pot and simmered the apples, covered, for quite a while, mixing every once in a while, until we had the consistency we wanted. Really, it`s just about getting some of the water out of the apple. Sugar is really not necessary, BUT, adding just a little bit of strawberries is AMAAAAAZING! Wooow. The applesauce turns a lovely subtle pinkish color and adds a beautiful, fruity sweetness to the mix. And really, only a very small amount of strawberries is needed to gain flavor and a bit of color.  Once the applesauce is made, you can eat it just as is, spread it on your toast, or use it as an oil substitute in a lot of baked goods recipes (it often works really well).

Now, the apple jelly was another story. I didn`t even make it, Xavier did, so I`m unsure of what exactly happened. I know he boiled the peels and cores for a long time, and used lots of sugar and gelatin to make it. He cursed the poor apple jelly, thinking it just wouldn`t work, but the end result, after a few hours in the fridge, was surprisingly decent – Jiggly apple stuff… Yeah, stuff… I don`t know… I think it`s kinda strange. Gelatin, for one thing, is not my thing – I don`t like thinking about where it comes from, and if using too much, it gives an incredibly nasty smell and taste. The texture was not very good for spreading on bread either… but still, it wasn`t a failure, it was a pleasant experiment that I didn`t have much to do with… I`m curious to know if I could make apple jelly without gelatin and without loads of sugar, but I`m preoccupied with all kinds of other things right now.

My my, the things I ate during this holiday… I`ve been such a bad girl…

I`m Back!!!

Yes, I`m back! So sorry for the lack of posts since I moved to Montreal… I feel bad about it, but I haven`t stopped cooking! But also… Now that I have less money to play with, and with the holidays that were around, I ate a lot less healthy… Now I`m getting back into my old groove.

I`ve got a bunch of new recipes for you guys; Some super healthy recipes like the type I used to post way back when, and some “less healthy“ recipes that are more open and easier for health food newbies to cook and sink their teeth into. I`ve also got a bunch of miscellaneous info on various neat things I found out over the Fall and Winter.

Plus, I`ve got a new helper and guinea pig in the kitchen… my boyfriend Xavier, which now amusingly resides in the room nextdoor to mine – The one I used to live in before. It`s funny to think how our first conversation revolved around cooking, and now we`re always in the kitchen together! How lucky am I to have found another food enthusiast =). He taught me all kinds of new things, which I will get into detail later.

And lastly, my good friend Purna is about to launch her healthy raw food business Rawk N Heels before the end of the month – Exciting! I`ll be videotaping her courses and nibbling on delicious raw food and dipping my toes back in the raw food movement with her. Stay tuned!

My 100th Post!

Dear Readers, A big apology for not writing any new updates in quite a while – I’ve been busy (still) settling in to Montreal, Doing volunteer work, dumpster diving and scavenging for goods. I still spend loads of time in the kitchen and have many experiences and recipes to write about (like zucchini brownie cakes). My computer was out of service since my last post but I hope to have it up and running this week. If not by then, you’ll hear from me in the new year.

For those who are in Montreal – Take the time to visit the Metiers d’Arts, which is connected to the Bonaventure metro station. It’s loaded with inspiring handmade goodies from the locals, as well as sampling of many scrumptious foods. I spent 4 hours there last time and it was a blast. Happy Holidays!

Settling in to Montreal

Moving to Montreal was exciting because I didn’t actually know where I was going to end up while on route. It was only once we were about an hour and a half away from Montreal did I, after a couple of phone calls, confirm that Crow’s friends could take care of Sage and that I could move to Pascal’s girlfriend’s place for the rest of the month while I searched for a place.

The car was packed with all of my stuff. In the midst of it all was 4 boxes loaded with kitchen appliances and equipment, and food I had been saving up from Peterborough’s generous food bank. I even got some food along the road! Saskia in Baltimore Ontario gave me a huge zucchini and a bunch of green beans from her garden, and Crow’s cousin in Kingston gave me a bag full of organic local vegetables and greens. Sweet!

The apartment is shared with two other roommates (the ones in the far middle back) who are really cool and don’t hesitate to help me with anything. They often have friends over, sometimes having crazy midnight meals like this one. I currently live far (North) from downtown though, by the Sauve metro station, and there’s barely anything here, just a nice little grocery store 10 minutes up the road (which, unfortunately, don’t have a dumpster outside…).

One of my roommates made some delicious spinach pasta the other day to share with me, with butter, but he assured me there was no meat in it. Of course, only after I devoured a whole plate of it did I find out he used beef seasoning in it which contained beef fat……… I’ve been very trusting of people these days but I need to remember that they don’t see things the acute way that I do, and so I need to keep myself fully informed before diving in. I don’t wanna end up like the travelers who order a meatless tortilla and end up with chicken tortillas (because a lot of Mexicans exclude chicken from the term “meat” because it’s not red) =P.

Speaking of diving in, I just saw a screening of “Dive” at Concordia – A great movie produced by an American dumpster diver. Check it out, as well as the amazing,  eye opening “Cultures of Resistance”.

Spending money on food had now become a real problem – I’d usually end up spending Lots of time at a grocery store, in distress about making the right choice, nutritionally and price-wise, and would end up coming out feeling depressed, guilty and with very little food. The other day I spent 5$ on a bag of local apples and some brown sugar (for some apple crisps) and just that put me into a storm of worry, regret and guilt. For the past two weeks I’ve been here, I’ve spent 15$ on food. I was lucky to be able to bring so much food back with me from the CouchSurfing conference I went to. They had a bunch of fruit, drinks, baked goods and vegetables for people to snack on during the 6-hour event. I regret not taking them all though, to hand out to the poor on the street on my way back home… I hope to be able to find out where to go and get the guts to dumpster alone here so I can get more grub. I also hope to get out of this bad thinking pattern…

Yes, apple crisp, sometimes with non-hydrogenated margarine, sometimes with butter. I’ve been staying vegan other than the free dairy products I’ve come across so I can eat more, and apple crisps are an awesome way to use my apples (plus my load of scavenged peaches and apples) and my loads of food banked-butter, non-hydrogenated margarine and oats.

Don’t worry, this blog will not keep going downhill on nutrition with my dairy, margarine, brown sugar, whole-wheat, misc use forever, just while I get myself settled in and find out where I can get lots of wholesome foods. In a way, using these more common ingredients will reach people which are less familiar with or new to eating healthy and wholesome, but I don’t want to lose my previous readers – Bare with me!

Okay, onto the crisps... Crisps are amazing. There are lots of recipes out there, but I tend to just do whatever and it usually turns out delicious. Generally speaking, peel and slice some apples or peaches (I don’t peel the peaches), then mix in a bit of sugar of choice, as well as a bit of cinnamon, and some flour if you think your crisp will be too juicy. Stir that up and put it into a greased glass baking dish. For the crisp crumble top, mix together same parts whole wheat flour and rolled oats (and between same part or half of brown sugar), some cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and butter/margarine (my guess is maybe about a quarter the amount of flour/oats together). Use a pastry blender or spoon to combine ingredients together (you want small clumps), then sprinkle on top of the fruits and bake at 350F until the topping starts to get crisp, could be about half an hour.

Another regular is, well, I don’t even know what to call them… They’re kinda like mini muffins but not really, but they’re not cookies either. I mixed quick oats with a bit of whole wheat flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and salt, and in another bowl grated apple and carrot and a bit of water, stirred everything together and baked these at 350F for about 15 minutes. A tasty little thing I usually carry with me on outings.

I even got some Balkan plain yogurt from the food bank which made the trip to Montreal, and so mixed in some maple syrup with sliced almonds for a delicious snack.

And yet another regular – Red bell peppers with minced carrots, minced garlic and chopped onion, sauted, seasoned and mixed with beans or gingered tofu. Yum!

Thanks to Purna and thanks to my eye on Kijiji, I’ve got two exciting pieces of news to share with you… In the next post! =P

Moving to Montreal!

That’s right! Tomorrow my tortoiseshell kitten Sage, my stuff and I are moving to Quebec! I plan on finding a place of my own or renting in a co-op in Montreal for a while, and I’m excited about it! There’s so many possibilities in Montreal. I want to pursue my food passion and I’m considering taking a cooking course of sorts, and helping the Food Not Bombs there get back on its feet. I’m also looking forward to dumpster diving at the big markets. How exciting!

Can I put the blame on my new companion for not being able to put up more posts by inhibiting my typing skills? Or is she just too damned cute to be blamed?

Free Food!

There are various ways to get free food that is either being offered from wild plants around us  (by foraging) and by rescuing what gets dumped out in thousands of dumpsters every day. Here I will discuss the Food Not Bombs movement and Food Banks, particularly those in Peterborough.

“Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer global movement that shares free vegan meals as a protest to war and poverty. Each chapter collects surplus food that would otherwise go to waste from grocery stores, bakeries and markets, as well as donations from local farmers and sometimes incorporating dumpster diving, then prepares community meals which are served for free to anyone who is hungry.” (Wikipedia). You can visit their website Food Not Bombs and find out if there’s a local FNB in your area, or learn how to start one yourself!

I first heard about Peterborough’s FNB from a really rad couple named Miles and Rachel at the Montreal anarchist bookfair. Once I moved to Peterborough, I volunteered for them on Mondays, mostly chopping vegetables. There was usually about 6-8 people who’d show up to help out. Some brought vegetables from their own gardens.

The dishes served at Peterborough’s FNB (during the summer) mostly consist of (partially organic local) vegetables, some bread, and rarely desserts from what I’ve seen. This delicious dish has a couple of salads, stir-fried veggies, baked potatoes, boiled beets, garlic bread and zucchini bread.

They serve every Monday (year round!) from 6:30pm to 7:30pm at Confederation (cenotaph) Park and volunteer cooking starts at 3:30pm.

FNB also hosts potlucks every Wednesday (seasonally) from 6pm 8pm at Fleming Park. The three guys at the left, with Miles up front, are regulars at both events, and although they are all in good spirits, their smiles are overshadowed by Fred’s sad blue eyes, a sad old dirty man (I’m just being factual) I tend to be unlucky on the days I go to the potluck, with there only being a few others, usually guys, but sometimes there’s quite a bunch of people that show up.

I’ve met some really awesome people at FNB and I wish I didn’t have such social anxiety because I’d love to interact with them more, and not be afraid to take over or create my own dish for the serving… I hope to overcome this anxiety one day and possibly start my own Food Not Bombs!

Peterborough has an awesome food bank called Good Neighbors. I was very low on money and so had to consider all my options. With ID and proof of address, I was entitled to a bunch of groceries once a month, and bread (oats, cereal, baked goods, canned beans and fruits/vegetables) every week, including some clothes and kitchen accessories. They were always well stocked so I always took some stuff for FNB too.

Weekly runs to the food bank was always something I looked forward to – I’d always get a bunch of bags of  quick or rolled oats, various cans of beans, whole wheat breads, tortillas, and sometimes fruits and veggies. Because of the way I eat, I end up taking home less than some others, but it’s still a lot! This month’s grocery run was a hell of a score. They had Loads of fruit and veggies (red bell peppers, tomatoes, celery, crimini mushrooms, carrots, garlic, potatoes and beets), and after telling my diet story to the woman behind the grocery counter, she gave me a whole bunch of wholesome or organic food – organic prune juice, organic carrot ginger soup, organic soy milk, organic vanilla/ almond pudding, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, lentils and whatnot – I was so happy! There was a young woman in there for the first time, giddy as ever about this find.

I always end up with stuff that I won’t or can’t use so I stick ‘em in a box, along with miscellaneous items I dumpster dive that I won’t use, and put it out by the sidewalk where the neighbors quickly scoop it up. The other day a man knocked at the door. He wanted to thank me for the boxes of food, toys and misc I put out on the street for the neighborhood regularly, and he wanted to ask me if he could cut off a couple of flowers from the yard to give to his girlfriend, of which I said yes, although I’ve always hard a hard times understanding the concept behind giving dying flowers to a lover.

It made me feel good to know I could help out, and I liked the Robin Hood-esc feel behind it – Taking from various companies (usually just their waste though) and redistributing it to those in need. It’s something that I will continue doing with growing power.

Out of the Kitchen, On a Checkered Plate

More experiments in the kitchen! And a new addition… A white and green checkered plate! I hope you don’t get tired of it as I’m using it to take pictures of most of my food at the moment.

~Walnut Banana Bread~   Makes 3 mini loaves

I’d been meaning to make banana bread for quite a while. Seeing as I’m such a bananaholic, I’m surprised I hadn’t yet, so it was time! I got some ideas looking at some recipes and mixed some ingredients together. It’s not your usually banana bread as it’s darker and much denser and not super moist (could easily be changed though..), but super tasty and bakes really well. I had someone try it and ask me for the recipe so that’s a good sign!

Dry Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour, 1/4 cups quick oats, 1/2 cup evaporated cane sugar, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, 1/4 cup ground flax seeds, 2 tbsp dark chocolate chips (optional), 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2 tsp salt. Wet Ingredients: 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (~3), 1/3 cup applesauce, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

Directions: Grease 3 mini loaf pans and turn oven on to 350F. In one bowl, stir together dry ingredients. In another bowl, mix together wet ingredients. Pour wet mixture into dry mixture and mix until just combined. Pour into mini loaf pans and bake for half an hour, on oven rack slightly above middle height. Let cool on rack before cutting.

These baked so well (rose nicely, not gooey and sticking to the pan at all) but the consistency is more like a muffin than a bread I guess, and I assume you could just as easily bake these as muffins. I’d like to make a light banana bread recipe solely sweetened by very ripe bananas next time. Without using white flour and sugar, that probably means using less ground flax seeds and walnuts and more baking powder.

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~Oat Pancakes~   Serves 2?   &   ~Simple Strawberry Jam~

I’ve been eating so much (whole) wheat lately, being poor and having a very limited pantry… But I have a lot of oats! I’m trying to come up with a gluten-free or wheat-free oat pancake recipe, or at least one with very little wheat. Here’s what I’m working on so far, not perfected by far, but I’m sure it will get there with time.

Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups quick oats, 1 tbsp flour of choice (like whole wheat, spelt, or a special gluten free flour that has other ingredients in it to imitate wheat), 1tsp-1/2 tbsp ground flax seeds, 1/2 tbsp evaporated cane sugar(opt?), 1/8-1/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/8-1/4 tsp salt, 1 cup plain soy milk (other milk is probably fine too), 1/2 tbsp earth balance. 1/2 tsp(?) baking powder.

Directions: Blend all ingredients minus the baking powder together until smooth, then pour into a bowl and stir in baking powder. Cook on greased pan (I used a cast-iron) until the bottom starts to brown and it’s easily flippable, then flip and cook other side. Add soy milk or water to keep the mixture thin as it will thicken with time.

As for the strawberry jam, it’s a deliciously simple recipe to cook up.

Ingredients: Fresh strawberries (and I don’t mean the ones the size of apples), some honey and a bit of fresh lemon juice.

Directions: Slice the strawberries then mash them up with a fork and throw them in a cooking pot. Bring them to a boil, then let simmer for a while, stirring regularly, until it starts to thicken. Add honey to taste and keep simmering and stirring until desired thickness (but please keep in mind that it will continue to thicken after you’ve taken it off the element). Take off heat and stir in just a bit of lemon juice. Store in fridge.

This never lasts long in the house when I make it so I don’t bother worrying about preservation and canning rules. This is an easy way to make delicious strawberry jam, without the white sugar! I only use a bit of honey. You can probably use agave nectar if desired, but I find the honey flavor special in this

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~Potato Salad~   Serves 2

The first time I ate potato salad was this year… Isn’t that crazy? It’s pretty tasty but I am aware that the stuff sold in stores usually has a really horrible ingredients list. I found a recipe on Happy Herbivore‘s website and altered it slightly and it’s pretty tasty! I made it twice, once with golden potatoes and once with white, and the goldens were definitely superior! I also added some Vegannaise to the golden batch, a nice touch but not a necessity.  The original recipe calls for vegan bacon bit but I don’t do that thang.

Ingredients: 3 cups cubed (~1cm) golden/yellow potatoes, 2/3 cup diced yellow onion, 1/4 tsp dry mustard, 1/4 cup white vinegar, 1 tbsp honey/ agave nectar, 1/2 tbsp arrowroot powder or flour, 1 tsp dijon mustard, 1 tsp nutritional yeast, 1/3 cup sliced green onions, 1/8 tsp black pepper and salt to taste, 2 tbsp Vegannaise (optional)

Directions: Boil potatoes until soft but not too soft that they easily turn to mush. Run them under cool water and set aside. Saute onions until cooked, then add dry mustard and put into a big bowl. To that bowl, add all the rest of the ingredients, then the potatoes, and mix until well combined. Chill in fridge at least a dozen minutes before eating, but longer is better.

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~Berry Crunchy Coconut Banana Snaps~

I was inspired by some coconut-banana-goji berry raw crackers I bought at a raw vegan festival and decided to make something similar for myself. The first times I made them with low-fat shredded coconut, dried in a food dehydrator and scored into pieces and they turned out Awesome, but what you see here was baked in an oven. It took a long time to cook it in the oven and the color turned out very unpleasant. The texture was different too, and the shredded coconut here was much thicker than the low-fat stuff which was nice and fluffy. I would definitely recommend making these with a food dehydrator and with low-fat shredded coconut.

Ingredients: 2 mashed ripe bananas, 1/2 cup shredded low-fat coconut, a dozen thinly sliced almonds, 2 tbsp minced strawberries or soaked goji berries, 2 tbsp ground flax seeds.

Directions: Mix all ingredients together until well combined, then spread in a food dehydrator until crisp. I didn’t have teflex sheets so I shaped them thin in my hands and laid them in pattie-shapes on the racks. A teflex sheet would be the way to go but I haven’t tried.

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~Chili~   Serves 2-3

A tasty mild chilli. Not as saucey as most chilis but I’m really happy with the way this turned out.

Ingredients: 1 19oz can (2 cups cooked) mixed beans, 1 1/2 cups canned diced tomatoes (with juice), 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper, 1/3 cup chopped yellow onion, 1/3 cup chopped (small) crimini mushrooms, 1/3 cup minced carrot, 2 minced garlic cloves, 1 tbsp chili powder, 1/2 tbsp ground flax seeds, 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp dried oregano, couple pinches of black pepper.

Directions: Saute onions, carrots, garlic and red bell peppers until starting to brown. Add the mushrooms and cook for another minute, then transfer vegetables to a pot. Add, to that pot, the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a boil, then simmer uncovered for about 30 minutes.

This is mild chili so go wild with the spices and hot sauce if that’s your thing. Serve hot. You can also blend half of the beans for a thicker mush of a chili.

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~Mushroom Crouton Frittata~   Serves 1

I remember going to big feasts at my father’s Italian family’s place and I was always scared of the spinach-loaded frittata. I don’t know if I ever tried it. But now I was inspired by it to use up some eggs, spinach and mushrooms that were laying around… plus some croutons I had previously made! I just didn’t know what to do with them and I thought they’d add nice volume to the frittata. It actually turned out really awesome every time I made it, even though the quantities of ingredients always changed a bit.

Ingredients: 1 beaten egg, some plain soy milk, a bunch of minced crimini mushrooms, sliced green onions, minced garlic (sauteed beforehand makes it superior), a variety of dried herbs, black pepper and salt to taste, and a (big?) handful of croutons (see my recipe in previous post).

Directions: Grease and heat a frying pan (I used a cast-iron). Mix all ingredients together, croutons last in, and pour into a small frying pan or the center of a big one and gather the edges to give it some height. Cook on, hmm, around 4 out of 9 heat until the bottom starts to brown, then either flip and cook other side for a bit or broil for a short period of time (kepe an eye on it!). Eat as is or top with ketchup.

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~Jam Muffins~

Raspberry citrus jam muffins – Yummy! What an idea. I came across a funky recipe on Naked-Cup-Cakes as I was trying to find a way to use up several ingredients I had left hanging around. Of course I made some changes, but kept the original idea intact. Whole wheat flour, quick oats, ground flax seeds, orange juice, applesauce, evaporate cane sugar, lemon zest, strawberry and blueberry jam or raspberry jam, and frozen raspberries.

I made them twice with different ingredient quantities and changes in jam type – The first time they were awesome except they left a strange bitter taste afterwards. The second time they were good and had no bitter aftertaste but they were not as great and they came out super gooey. They wouldn’t firm up properly even after multiple attempts to bake them more in the oven in various ways. I don’t know what I’m going to end up doing with this recipe but I’d like to continue playing with it until I’m content with it.

~Mmmmmmm.