I had also been planning on trying out making tofu feta for a while so I decided to make a barley greek salad! I was never a feta fan, even when I ate cheese, but I did like the tofu feta. It does still taste like tofu though, so I probably wouldn’t serve this to tofu-phobic omnivores. I made the feta on Saturday so that it nice and marinated when I put the salad together on Sunday night. I use Soyarie brand tofu. Their tofu is made in Quebec using organic soybeans from Ontario and Quebec, so it’s a great local food option! I used the tofu as is and it was quite soft, you could freeze and thaw it first if you are looking for a firmer texture.

You can serve this on its own or over romaine lettuce.

This salad came together to be much better than I was expecting. Everything just worked. Dave was pretty sceptical – barley? tofu? – and even he loved it.

Tofu Feta (Adapted from this recipe)
1 package firm tofu (I use Soyarie)
¾ cup water
¼ cup miso
2 tbs fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 tbs white vinegar
1 clove garlic

Drain as must water as you can out of the tofu. Slice the tofu, wrap it in a tea towel, and place something heavy on top of it. Let it drain for at least 20 minutes or as long as 2 hours. Blend together all other remaining ingredients.  Dice the pressed tofu into 1 cm cubes. Put the tofu cubes in a container (preferably one with a lid) and cover with the marinade mixture. Shake it up and put it in the fridge. Shake it up every so often when you happen to be near the fridge.

Greek Salad
½ cup barley, uncooked
2 green bell pepper, diced
1 small red onion, finely diced
1 can sliced black olives
1 pint grape tomatoes (or any kind of tomatoes you like)

Cook the barley in 1 ½ cup water for 50-60 minutes; drain and cool. Mix together the barley, remaining ingredients and marinated tofu in a large bowl.

Dressing
1 ½ tbs fresh lemon juice
1 tbs olive oil
1 tsp dried oregeno
salt and pepper to taste

Whisk together and pour over salad.

This recipe was submitted to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend.

Ok, let me first admit that I can’t even remember the last time I had a real Orange Julius – there’s a good chance it was 2 decades ago – so I really have no idea whether or not this tastes like the real thing. But it tastes just like how I imagine an Orange Julius to taste – frothy, cold, creamy, and full of orange flavor. And this version is super healthy!

Healthy, vegan Orange Julius (serves 2-3)

4 oranges, peeled, sectioned and seeds removed
2 cups soy milk (or other non-dairy milk)
2 cups ice
1 tsp vanilla extract
sweetener to taste (I used 4 drops stevia, maple syrup or agave would also work – I would start with 2 tsp)

Put everything in your blender and blend away. Taste, adjust sweetness if necessary and enjoy!

Submitted to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend

I thought it would be fun to go back and take a look at some of my most popular posts along with some of my fav recipes.

Most popular posts

Three posts clearly show up as my most popular posts. And it really wasn’t much of a surprise!

Pizza rolls!

Cheeseburger Poutine!

and…

Butterfinger cake!

Travel posts

I guess I’ve actually done a fair bit of travelling since I started the blog. I’ve blogged about my vegan eats in: Toronto (here, here, and here!), Vancouver, Cuba, Montreal, Wellington, Auckland, and San Francisco (part 1 and part 2). Here are some highlights.

Quinoa battered onion rings from Fresh in Toronto

Fries Supremacy from Hogtown Vegan in Toronto

Chocolate midnight cake in Auckland

Vegan donuts in San Francisco

Ice cream from Holy Gelato in San Francisco

Vegan waffles at Aux Vivres in Montreal

My fav lunch recipes

Here are my go to healthy lunch recipes!

Chickpea taco salad

Balsamic chickpea kamut salad

Orange beet and almond salad

My fav recipes

These are some of my favorite recipes that I make all the time!

Red lentil sloppy joes

Coffee smoothie

Amazing banana oat muffins

Dave and I had a joint birthday party this past weekend and I wanted to make something really spectacular for dessert. Two years ago I made a vegan DQ style ice cream cake that was out of this world. So the pressure was on to make something equally amazing.

Awhile back, I pinned these amazing looking vegan butterfinger cupcakes and then a few weeks ago, another one of my favorite bloggers posted this butterfinger cake. Ever since then, I’ve had bufferfingers on the brain and settled on making a butterfinger cake.

I wanted a buttery, peanutty cake for the cake layers that wasn’t too peanty. A cross between an intense peanut butter cake (like the one in VCTOTW) and a buttery white cake. I didn’t find any recipes that fit this bill so I made up my own and it worked absolutely perfectly in this cake! I topped each cake layer with chocolate ganache and crumbled butterfinger candy and then frosted the whole thing in a chocolate buttercream and topped with more butterfinger candy.

The final result was even more delicious than I had hoped. In my opinion, it’s probably the yummiest cake I’ve ever made.

Below are all the recipes and step by step instructions. It does take a bit of work, but it’s well worth it in the end!

Step 1: Make the butterfinger candy. This can be done a few days in advance (as long as you can resist eating it all). I used this recipe and followed it exactly (except I didn’t coat the candy in chocolate). I’ve had problems making candy in the past until I read that candy thermometers are often off by a few degrees which can make a huge difference. I calibrated my thermometer in boiling water first and sure enough it was showing 5 degrees cooler which explains why my candy always ends up rock hard. Knowing that, I stopped the butterfinger mixture at 285 and it worked out perfectly! The candy tastes amazing on its own. Dave and I literally did a happy dance in the kitchen when we tasted it!

Squares of vegan butterfinger candy

Step 2: Make the cake.

1 ¾ cup soy milk (or other non-dairy milk)
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
½ cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup Earth Balance vegan margarine (2 of the baking sticks)
1 cup brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350 and line the bottom of 3 9 inch round pans with parchment paper and grease the sides.

In a measuring cup or small bowl, combine the soy milk and apple cider vinegar, stir and set aside. In a large bowl, beat together Earth Balance, peanut butter and sugars until creamy and well combined. Add the vanilla and mix until combined. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir to combine. Alternate adding the flour and soy milk to the peanut butter mixture, beating each time until incorporated. The batter with be really thick and not pourable. Scoop the batter equally into the 3 prepared pans and smooth out to the edges as best you can. It will smooth itself out when baking so it doesn’t have to be perfect. Bake on the middle rack for 25 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pans for 5-10 minutes and then remove and let cool completely on a cooling rack.

Butterfinger cake layers cooling

Step 3: Make the ganache and buttercream frosting.

While the cake is cooling, you can make the ganache and frosting.

Chocolate ganache
½ cup soy milk
1 tbs vegan margerine
2 tbs maple syrup
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Bring the soy milk and margarine to a gentle boil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat and stir in the maple syrup and chocolate chips. Stir quickly until chocolate is completely melted and smooth. Set aside to cool. You want it to cool for at least 30-60 minutes before using or it will be too runny.

I used the chocolate buttercream recipe from VCTOTW but I only added 2 cups of powdered sugar instead of the full 2 ½ cups.

Step 4: Put the cake together

Place most of the butterfinger squares in a large ziplock bag. Cover the bag with a towel and hit with a hammer a few times to break the squares up into crumbles with a few big pieces remaining. Alternatively you could pulse them in a food processor, but that’s way less fun.

Place one layer of the cake on a nice large plate. Top with a thick layer of ganache and sprinkle liberally with butterfinger crumbles. Place the second cake layer on top of the first and top with ganache and crumbles. Top with the third cake layer.

Assembling the cake

Frost the entire cake with the buttercream frosting and cover the top with remaining butterfinger crumbles. Then enjoy your ridiculously decadent vegan treat!

The finished cake!

A slice of vegan butterfinger heaven

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!

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!

This is actually my first time making crackers. Now that I’ve made some, I have no idea why they always seemed so intimidating. I think it was something about spreading them out thin enough that always scared me off. These crackers are a snap to make (hehe) and make an excellent afternoon snack. They are also seriously healthy –  packed with nutritious seeds they provide lots of omega 3 fatty acids, calcium and fiber.

They’re actually quite addictive. Lightly sweet, toasty and super crispy. They remind me a little bit of a healthified sesame snap.

I’m sure you could also make these raw by dehydrating them instead of baking them. I haven’t tried that yet but I likely will this summer when it get too hot to cook so I’ll report back then!

I’m also submitting these to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend!

Cinnamon Sugar Seed Crackers (Adapted from Angela’s Endurance Crackers)

¼ cup chia seeds
¼ cup whole flax seeds
¼ cup ground flax seeds (also called flax meal, I make my own in a coffee grinder)
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup sesame seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
¼ cup maple syrup
¾ cup water
optional 1 tbs cane sugar for toppping

Preheat oven to 325 F and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the maple syrup and water and stir to combine. Let sit for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until all the water has been absorbed. The mixture will be wet but there shouldn’t be any standing water. Spread mixture evenly over the lined baking sheet. I just used the back of a wooden spoon to spread it out and because the mixture is wet it spreads very easily. It should cover the whole sheet. Bake for 30 minutes. If you want the optional sugar topping, take the crackers out after 20 minutes and sprinkle evenly with the cane sugar then return to oven. Take out of the oven and using the parchment paper, carefully flip over the entire sheet of crackers. Peel off the parchment paper and cut into squares (I used a pizza cutter and cut into 24 squares). Return to oven and bake for 20-25 minutes more or until all the crackers are lightly golden brown. Remove from baking sheet and let cool completely on a baking rack.

I am so in love with this lunch right now. We pretty much always eat the same thing for lunch everyday and often, once Friday rolls around, I’m a little tired of it. But that was not the case this week! This salad is filling enough to count as a meal and there is just something about the juicy oranges, roasted (local) beets, chewy kamut and crunchy roasted almonds that is simply irresistible. This is definitely going to be joining our regular lunch rotation.

Kamut is a grain closely related to wheat and you cook it just like rice. I absolutely love it on salads! If you don’t have kamut, wheat or spelt berries or wild rice would make a good substitution.

I didn’t find that it needed any dressing but if you must have some, I bet this maple balsamic one will go nicely.

Orange and Beet Salad (makes 5 lunch sized salads)

2 large heads romaine or leaf lettuce
1-2 lbs beets
1 ½ cup raw whole almonds
1 – 1 ½ cups uncooked kamut
5 navel oranges

On the weekend, wash and chop the lettuce, roast the beets (I didn’t use any oil), toast the almonds and cook the kamut. Once the almonds are cool, transfer to them to a food processor and pulse a few times to chop them up. Put your salad togehter each morning and top with orange pieces.

We had a little taste of summer last week and it sort of felt like coming out of hibernation. All the snow melted, I put my winter boots away and broke out the flip flops. It was blissful (at long as I didn’t think about the looming devastating effects of climate change….). With the warm weather I was craving all things cool and creamy. I’m a big fan of banana ice cream and I sometimes like to play around with other fruits. Mango is one of my favorites as it always blends up nice and creamy. I’ve always loved the combination of mango and coconut so I put the two together for this incredibly yummy treat. I used reduced fat coconut milk since it was all I had on hand and it was still lusciously creamy. But I’m sure it would even better if you used the cream from the full fat milk.

Mango Coconut Ice Cream

2 cups frozen mango cubes
⅓ cup + 2 tbs chilled coconut milk (from can, can be full or reduced fat)
2 tsp maple syrup or agave (can be replaced by stevia)

Put your coconut milk in the fridge an hour or two before you want to make the ice cream. Add mango and sweetener to a food processor fitted with the s blade. Start the food processor and slowly pour in the coconut milk while it’s running. Start with the ⅓ cup and add more until it’s light and creamy but not at all liquidy. Enjoy! (I’m sure a squeeze of lime juice would also be yummy!)

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!

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.

We’re definitely planning on going back some time soon, do you guys have any other suggestions for where we should eat?