April 26th, 2012
I recently ordered a box Seattle Sweets & Co’s vegan caramels through Vegan Cuts. I was so excited that they were willing to ship to Canada because most of the offers are only for the US. It took awhile for them to get here but they were well worth the wait!!
The cute little box was filled with four delicious flavors. Fleur de sel, lemon toasted coconut, raspberry balsamic and chocolate earl grey. I normally like my caramels plain, so I’ll admit that at first I was a little concerned that they would be too ‘weird’ for my tastes but I can happily report that I loved them all! The flavours were very delicate and worked really well together.
I highly recommend trying to get your hands on some of these caramels!
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April 19th, 2012
I’ve had a package of the new Gardein crumbles in my freeze for the past week and I was trying to think up a fun way to use them when it hit me – cheeseburger poutine! Here is a dish that sounds and tastes ridiculously decadent yet is super easy to make and not even that unhealthy! What’s not to love?
I really enjoyed the Gardein crumbles as well. I left them completely unseasoned in this recipe and really enjoyed both the texture and the taste.
I don’t have an exact recipe for you. It’s basically baked fries topped with the Gardein crumbles and cheese sauce with optional cheeseburger toppings like diced onion and pickle. I browned the crumbles in my ceramic non-stick pan for about 5 minutes. I used the cashew cheese sauce recipe from The Vegan Table with a few modifications. I omitted the oil, added a bit of red pepper for colour and added more nutritional yeast. I’m sure this would also be crazy good with a Daiya based cheese sauce!
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March 12th, 2012
Given that I live in Ottawa, I have no idea why it took so long for me to get down to Montreal to explore their vegan food options. I follow Viva Vegan Store on Facebook and regularly drool over all the yummy cupcake pics they post and I’ve been dying to try Aux Vivres, so Dave and I decide to head down to Montreal last weekend.
We drove directly to Aux Vivres when we got into town and were instantly impressed. It was a lot larger than I was expecting and the atmosphere was great, not at all crunchy like some vegan restaurants can be. I was a little disappointed though that during brunch hours on weekends, not all of them menu options are available. We had been eyeing their chili fries from the online menu but they were not available. So we decided to split the cold platter to start so that we would get to try a bit of everything. I was most intrigued by the veggie lox. I didn’t think I’d like it because all sea food grosses me out but it was soooo good. I think it was carrot based and it was beautifully smokey. It went amazingly well with their tofu cream. The tapanade and pate were both really good, hummus was just ok. Then I had the BLT with coconut bacon and Dave had the Gyro. The BLT was spot on and the coconut bacon was amazing. Dave has really been missing tzatziki sauce, so he had high hopes for the Gyro and it did not disappoint!
- Cold platter from Aux Vivres
- Gyro from Aux Vivres
- BLT from Aux Vivres (look at all that coconut bacon!)
After lunch we strolled down St. Laurent to Viva Vegan Store where we stocked up on vegan goodies. We got a few Go Max Go chocolate bars, Eli’s Earth Bars, Field roast Mexican sausage, marshmallows and an eye shadow. We also got a cinnamon bun from their bakery and it was perfect! I ate it too fast to get a picture. We tried the sausage the night we got back, the texture was great and Dave loved it but it was WAY too spicy for me.
We decided to try Yuan for dinner because they have a buffet price where you can order what ever you want from the menu so we though this would be a great way to try lots of dishes. The serving sizes were really small which was actually a good thing because we got to try tons of different dishes. The soy BBQ meatball type things from the appetizer menu definitely stole the show! The food was really good but it was quite heavy and greasy. I also didn’t like that they put fake meat in absolutely everything. We really enjoyed it but probably won’t go back on our next trip.
The next morning we went back to Aux Vivres for brunch. Waffles are one things I really miss as a vegan and for some reason they are really hard to find, even at places that have a great vegan brunch. So I obviously went with their waffles. OMG they were amazing!!!! 2 large waffles topped with cashew cream, apple berry compote, whipped cream and maple syrup. Are you kidding me? They were seriously perfect. Dave got the polenta with black beans and guacamole and really enjoyed it. The only thing I wasn’t crazy about was their coffee – it was way too strong for me. This is a little embarrassing, especially since my breakfast was so sweet, but we also got dessert! We went with their cheesecake and it was probably the best vegan cheesecake I’ve had.
- Aux Vivres waffles. Pretty much the best breakfast ever!
- Aux Vivres Polenta brunch with fried polenta, black bean refritos, guacamole, salsa & salad
- Cheesecake (Gateau Faux-mage…love it!)
We’re definitely planning on going back some time soon, do you guys have any other suggestions for where we should eat?
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February 4th, 2012
Presidents Choice actually makes some of the yummiest and most affordable faux meat products out there. But I bet a lot of people don’t know about them because they are quite hard to find. They’re not near the produce aisle with with the tofu and Yves and they’re not in the natural foods section. And if you’ve ever tried asking a grocery store employee where the vegetarian chicken or the vegan cheese are, you’ll know that you usually just get blank stares in return.
The PC faux meat products are usually found in the large frozen foods section at the back of the store with the regular frozen chicken products. They make four ‘chicken’ products that actually use Gardein but are way cheaper than buying Gardein!
So far I’ve tried all of them except the Scallopini, and they are all amazing. We recently tried the vegetarian wings and they did not disappoint. My only complaint is that the sauce packet was a bit stingy. So if you like you wings super saucy you’ll want to buy some extra wing sauce.
PC wings with baked spicy fries
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January 24th, 2012
Source
During my trip to Toronto last summer I excitedly picked up some kelp noodles at Panacea (the vegan store). But then they just languished in my fridge for months. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with them and I had to wait until I was having dinner on my own because, although Dave is good about trying new things, I knew kelp noodles were way too hippie for him.
So finally, a few weeks ago, Dave had to help his parents move and I was looking in the fridge for something quick and easy to have for dinner. I opened up the noodles and rinsed them off. My first taste was really disappointing. They were quite crunchy, pleasantly crunchy, but not at all like ‘real’ noodles. But then I read online that they soften up a lot if you soak them in a liquid that has some acid in it. So I whipped up a super simple almond butter sauce, poured it over the noodles and let them soak for about 5 minutes. After soaking they had visibly shrunken down quite a bit so I was excited to taste them. And sure enough they were much softer and had a remarkable resemblance to regular noodles. They were really yummy!
I should also note that I really don’t like seaweed and I didn’t find these had a sea taste at all. So don’t let that scare you off!
I’m pretty sure that I have seen these in Ottawa now. I think at either Market Organics or Herb and Spice on Bank.
Almond Butter Kelp Noodles
2 tbs rice vinegar
2 tbs almond butter
1 tbs tamari or soy sauce
1 tsp agave syrup
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
1 package kelp noodles
some steamed veggies (bell pepper, cabbage, broccoli and kale would all be great)
Rise the kelp noodles and cut into bite sized pieces. Mix the sauce ingredients together and pour over noodles. Let sit for 5 minutes while you steam your other veggies. Add veggies to noodles, toss it all together and enjoy!
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January 16th, 2012
Here’s what I ate on my last day in San Francisco. You can check out part 1 here.
You won’t find Sunrise on many vegan food lists for San Francisco but it was recommended to me by a friend who used to live there. They do serve meat but they also have a lot of great vegan options. I went there for breakfast and had the vegan breakfast burrito. Soyrizo, home fries, black beans and avocado all stuffed into a giant wrap. It was sooo yummy and ridiculously filling. I wasn’t hungry again for hours.
I had heard that having a burrito from Papalote was an essential San Fran experience so I headed there for lunch and had my second burrito of the day! I had the regular soyrizo burrito. It was also freaking huge! I’m known for eating ridiculously large amounts of food and I had some trouble finishing this burrito! It was really good but I think I actually liked my breakfast burrito better.
I spent the day strolling around the Golden Gate Park and visiting the Academy of Science and the Conservatory of Flowers. Then I headed up to 9th Ave and Irving area. I knew I wanted to go to Patxi’s Chicago Pizza (Irving location) for dinner but I was still stuffed from lunch so I strolled around for a little but. This is a great area, there are lots of neat shops, health food stores and bakeries with vegan goodies. I picked up some vegan cookies from Arizmendi Bakery (1331 9th Ave). When I was finally hungry again I headed back to Patxi’s. They have a bunch of crust options and after much deliberation I decided to get the ‘regular’ crust. This pizza was simply perfect, nothing more to say. Unfortunately I so excited to eat it that i didn’t get a great pic.
So far I had been really disappointed by the lack of exciting vegan ice cream options in San Fran. So you can image how excited I was to see this sign:
I went in and they had an entire case of vegan flavors. And not just fruit flavors. They also had vegan cookies and brownies and their waffle cones are vegan!!! The place is called Holy Gelato and they are only a few blocks from Patxi’s, so make sure you save room for dessert! I went for all the junky flavors with scoops of Coconut Heaven (coconut milk based ice cream with chocolate chips, toasted coconut and toasted almonds), Charlie Brown’s Nightmare (soy based ice cream with chocolate, peanut butter and cookies) and Irish Morning (coconut milk based with coffee, fudge, cookies and Whiskey). Best vegan ice cream I’ve tasted!!!!!!! This place is a must visit for vegans heading to San Fransisco!
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January 13th, 2012
After my trip to New Zealand I stopped in San Francisco for a few days. I will admit that gorging myself on delicious vegan food was the sole purpose for the trip and that I was certainly successful in my mission!My first stop was Herbivore in the Mission District for lunch. After spending a ridiculously long time looking at the menu I decided on the ‘chicken’ shwarma wrap. The wrap was delicious but the side salad was only meh. The service was also pretty bad, my server gave me the impression that my presence was inconveniencing her. But maybe she was just having a bad day.
That night I went to Ike’s Place for dinner. It’s a a really neat sandwich shop that isn’t vegetarian but has a ton of veg options including fake meat and Daiya. I had the Vegan Womanizer which is a breaded ‘chicken’ patty, Daiya and marinara sauce. Holy crap this was delicious!! Certainly one of the best vegan sandwiches I’ve had. Another bonus is that all the sandwiches come with a bag a chips. The only downside is that there isn’t any seating so you have to take it to go.
So breakfast was a soy latte and a salted caramel vegan donut. I’m normally disappointed by cake donuts but these actually tasted like donuts, not just cake with a hole in it. Yum!
That night for dinner I went to Millennium. I actually wasn’t sure if I was going to go there or not. Ottawa has an amazing high end vegan restaurant (Zen Kitchen) so that’s not something I feel like I’m missing out on, and having a fancy dinner by yourself isn’t exactly the most fun thing ever. But at around 6pm I found myself a few blocks from Millennium and starving so I figured why not. As a bonus it was one of the nights that they have a frugal foodie deal where you get an appetizer, entree and dessert for $39 which is a pretty good deal. My starter was a spinach salad with apple and smoked tofu. They smoke their own tofu and it was absolutely divine! My main dish was a pumpkin tamale. This was actually my first time having a tamale and it was delicious. My dessert was called Chocolate Almond Midnight – almond cashew crust, mocha chocolate filling, raspberry sauce, white chocolate mousse.
Check back soon for San Francisco Vegan Eats Part 2 featuring 2 kinds of vegan burritos, pizza and some of the best vegan ice cream I’ve ever had!
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January 11th, 2012
Here is a very belated post on all the wonderful food I ate in Auckland, New Zealand when I was there for a conference in December. I had done some research before I left and was amazed to find that there were at least 4 vegetarian restaurants that were a 10 minute walk or less from the convention center where the conference was held. Thankfully all my school friends who were at the conference didn’t mind me always dragging them to veg restaurants!
Loving Hut (formerly Golden Age, 61 Victoria Street West)
The first place I ate out in Auckland (well besides a Pita Pit, but that doesn’t count) was The Loving Hut. Despite Loving Hut being the largest chain of veg restaurants in the world, this was actually my first time eating at one. I forget exactly which dishes we ordered but there was crispy ‘chicken’, eggplant and tofu and a veggie dish. All of it was delicious but it was very greasy! For some reason I expected Loving Hut to be a bit on the healthier side. But still a great place to go for vegan junk food.
Raw Power Cafe (10 Vulcan Lane)
The name is a bit misleading because this isn’t a raw restaurant as I was expecting. But they did have a raw salad on the menu and fresh smoothies and juice. There actually weren’t a lot of vegan options on the menu but that wasn’t a problem at all because they also have a large selection of salads every day including bean, noodle and green salads. You choose a plate or a bowl and then pile on as much of the salads as you can. I got this the first time we went there was it was great. The salads were delicious and filling without being to heavy. The second time we went I had the scrambled tofu off the menu which was very good. They also had a large selection of vegan desserts.
Revive (33 Lorne St & 16 Fort St)
Revive is the perfect spot to grab a quick takeout lunch. Every day they have a number of different salad options, most of which are vegan, along with a soup and one or two larger items like a frittata or burrito. Everything I tried was great, especially the vegan potato salad which was gorgeously creamy and didn’t taste like any potato salad I’ve had before. They also have a few packaged mostly raw snacks for sale.
Basilicum (41 Elliott Stables, Elliott Street)
Of all the veg restaurants I went to in Auckland, Basilicum had the best atmosphere for a nice sit down meal. It’s located in a neat little area called the Elliot Stables where a bunch of different restaurants share a gorgeous seating space. There were only 4 or 5 vegan entrees on the menu but all of them looked really appealing. I had some fried eggplant to start and the Hakka Fried Noddles for my main. The dish was simple but very fresh and flavorful. They had a decent selection of vegan desserts and they regularly hold vegan dinner nights, so watch out for that!
Revel (146 Karangahape Rd)
This restaurant isn’t as close to down town as all the others and it’s not completely vegetarian but it is worth checking out. Karangahape Rd, referred to as “K street” by kiwis has a hipstery vibe with lots of veg friendly restaurants, cool shops and even a vegan store. And it’s only about a 35 min walk from the city centre. There is also a free bus that you can take from almost anywhere along Queen St up to K St. I had the tofu flourentine for breakfast at Revel. Lightely seasoned tofu, tomatoes and a rich creamy sauce, I savored every bite! I got their chocolate midnight pie to go and it was heavenly. A thick shortbread crust topped with incredibly rich and smooth chocolate.
And, right across the street from Revel is a small all vegan store called the Safe Shop that sells all sorts of vegan goodies.
I was also lucky enough to meet another vegan blogger, Moira from An Auckland Vegan and her partner Erin who were nice enough to let me couch surf there for a night!
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November 12th, 2011
I’d like to admit an addiction – dried mango. I can’t stop eating it, it’s just so freaking tasty. It’s also one of my fav movie snacks. But, I’m very picky about my dried mango. Most dried mango contains a lot of added sugar and sulfites so it’s hard to find a brand that is just mango. And even when you do find an all natural brand, sometimes the mango is way too dry, hard and impossible to chew. I recently discovered a new brand that is perfectly soft in addition to being both organic and fair trade so I just had to share!
Level Ground produces fair trade coffee, sugar and dried fruit from a few different countries. I love that they give you information about where the products come from as well as the growers and producers. I first got hooked on their dried mango but now I’m also addicted to their dried golden berries. I thought golden berries were some crazy foreign new fruit but it turns out they are also grown right here in Ontario but we call them ground cherries. The dried version tastes nothing at all like the fresh fruit. These dried berries are incredibly tart and sour and I love them! (in fact, I ate the entire bag before I even got around to taking that picture!) If you like sour, you must try these! Their third flavor is a tropical mix of mango, coconut and banana. This mix is good, but I’m not a huge fan of eating dried coconut on its own, so I’ll probably stick to the mango and golden berries. They also have dried pineapple but I have yet to try that flavor.
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October 15th, 2011
So it turns out that I’m still not feeling 100%. I may have over done it a bit today- Farmer’s Market, Auntie Loo’s Treats vegan bakery birthday celebration and Occupy Ottawa. And now I’m feeling like crap again! But at least I have some yummy vegan baked goods to cheer me up!
Auntie Loo’s Treats was having a 2-year birthday celebration today. There were tons of free samples and an all vegan BBQ by donation to support the Westminster Pet Sanctuary. I had at least one of pretty much all the samples: peanut butter chocolate cupcake, gluten free brownie, banana split cupcake, Earl Grey lemon cupcake and blueberry crumble bar. We also bought a cinnamon bun and a rocky road cupcake to go.
I spent some time talking to the people who run Westminster Pet Sanctuary. It was so nice to hear about the great work that they do and that they are all vegan. We foster kittens for the Humane Society and sometimes it can be frustrating that, although they care all lot about cats and dogs, they often have events that centre around meat – clearly a disconnect there. Anyways, it was nice to support an organization that gets that cats and dogs are no different than pigs and chickens.
Vegan Cupcake Samples!!
Cinnamon Bun and Rocky Road Cupcake (got a little squished in my purse) from Auntie Loo's!
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