Saturday, July 16, 2011

Pasta with Lemon and Shrimps

10 days or so have gone by since I started my little vegan challenge and I'm done! Sadly, I didn't get the chance to photograph many of the meals I was 'forced' to make. I really enjoyed being vegan for this short amount of time but my family of meat eaters would not support it over the long term. Oh well, many of the dishes will be made again so I hope to post them as soon as I can. 

Now onto tonight's dinner. I'm so glad to have seafood, eggs and milk back into my diet. Oh how I missed them so! We hosted 10 people for dinner tonight and we had this lovely pasta, a salad which I take no credit for and a honey cake (which have no pictures of). 


The pasta was great served cold and had a nice refreshing lemony taste, perfect for the crazy hot weather we've been having here. For those of you interested here's the recipe for the pasta: RIGHT HERE! Note: I used alfalfa sprouts in place of rocketcress. 

I would include the recipe for the honey cake however, it was a little dry at points so once it's perfected it shall be posted. 

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Forever Nuts

I never liked tea. Though if you met me now you'd never this. I remember the first time I actually enjoyed a cup of tea. My family went out to an indian restaurant after one of my cousin's dance recitals. Chai tea was brought to the table, and feeling adventurous I decided to have a sip. It was delicious! The moment I got home I tried desperately to re-create the tea with no success. I wasn't happy with another cup of tea until a friend introduced me to DAVIDs TEA. The flavour of the tea was just so interesting, chocolate, mint, and peppercorn in a black tea. Mmmm. I visited DAVIDs TEA on Monday with my aunt who is visiting from Australia. We decided to pick a fun tea to try. We chose Forever Nuts and it legitimately tastes like apple pie! Oh and of course turns an amazing pink colour.  


Though I now love tea. I never liked iced tea. Though to be fair I had only ever tried Nestea. Forever Nuts makes a great iced tea however (like many teas at DAVIDs TEA)! Unlike Nestea, I can choose to add no sugar to my drink. Plus, the flavour of Forever Nuts is so much more interesting than what ever Nestea is, and likely a lot better for you. Hope all you tea lovers and 'tea haters' enjoyed this post, and I'll write to you all again very soon.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Mmmac and Cheese

I've always thought vegans were crazy. I mean no milk or cheese? Ahhh how does one survive? Well I've decided to challenge myself, and so I will be eating vegan for the next 2 weeks or maybe longer.

So what a better way to begin my vegan challenge than with a blog post about my dad's macaroni and cheese. Ahh, it's torture just looking at it. I made this mac and cheese a while ago and I've had the picture just sitting on my computer for weeks. Though why should I keep it to myself. So here it is...


Mmmmm, sadly the recipe my dad made up for me at the time was not cheesy enough for my liking but I've found that what is written bellow works perfectly. 

Dad's Mac & Cheese

For the sauce:
4 Tbsp of butter
1/4 cup of flour
3-4 cups of milk
3 cups of cheddar
1/4 cup of goat cheese
2 tsp worchester
1/4 parmesan cheese (it can be the the dried stuff)

For the topping:
1 Tbsp melted butter
3/4 cup of bread crumbs (rice crispies and potato chips work great too)

1. Melt the butter and combine with flour
2. Whisk in milk and microwave for 2 minutes
3. Whisk and combine remaining ingredients
4. Microwave for 5 minutes and stir
5. Cook pasta and set oven at 400℉
6. Combine sauce and pasta in a lightly greased casserole dish
7. For the topping, combine butter and bread crumbs and sprinkle over the pasta and sauce
8. Cover and bake for 15 minutes
9. Remove cover and bake for another 5 minutes

I will continue posting some 'non-vegan' foods (there is slight build up of photos) along with some new yummy vegan recipes. Please let me know if you try out this recipe and how it turned out for you!


Sunday, July 3, 2011

For Mom

First weekend at the cottage and what a weekend it was. We celebrated Canada Day and my mum's birthday! WOOHOO! Typically, I would make something quite fun for my mum's birthday but I was faced with a challenge... our old cottage oven. This oven will burn everything. And so I stood there wondering, "how will I make something fantastic with this oven and Duncan Hines cake mix?" So I cake up with this.


For the icing I found some milk chocolate whipped icing in a tub. I marked the top of the cake with a shot glass and cut out the shape with a butter knife along with the burnt part on the bottom. I will admit it was quite the challenge and icing the first few crumbly cakes, I nearly burst into tears. However, everything payed off in the end. The mini cakes looked so much prettier and tastier than any cake that would have come right out of the oven. I finished off the mini cakes with some blueberries, raspberries and a scoop of a vanilla ice cream. And for those of you in the states (or just no-chocolate-people) you could make these vanilla for the Fourth of July. Hope everyone else had a great weekend and I'll leave you with another puppy picture.