Granola bars

Today I decided to make some homemade granola bars!

These yummy bars consist of the following:

dried apricots
shredded coconut
slivered almonds
chocolate chips
dried apples
oatmeal
flour, earth balance, brown sugar, baking soda/powder and salt

and voila!

Banana bread

Banana bread is one of my favorite things to bake because it's super easy and yummy! In fact my mom always asks me to bake her some banana bread for xmas lol.

The recipe is from a Canadian Living cookbook, and I veganized it by using soy milk and oil instead of milk and butter.

The key is to use bananas that are the perfect ripeness! I often freeze my bananas when I see they are getting brown.

I also add walnuts to give it an extra touch.

I LOVE eating this warm, and I really enjoy spreading some earth balance on it. yummmmmm


I will be doing a lot more xmas baking in the next coming week. Instead of buying gifts for my family and friends, I bake and make crafts for them :) The challenge of making the goodies ahead of time is NOT eating them lol.

Stay tuned for some yummy vegan xmas goodies!

If anyone has a good vegan gingerbread cookie recipe please let me know! I tried a recipe last year, but it didn't turn out too great. The dough was very hard to work with.

K

Lentils with squash and kale

This is one of my favorite dishes, but my husband isn't too crazy about kale so he's not a big fan of the dish. The recipe is from a newspaper, from a few years ago. It is really easy to make. If you want the recipe just let me know.

It contains the following ingredients:
couscous, kale, tomatoes, butternut squash, lentils, and spices.

Tofu pineapple strir-fry

I hadn't made a stir-fry for a while, so I thought it was time!

I marinated my tofu in homemade terrayaki sauce and pineapples for about 2 days (the longer the better)


Then I added some mushrooms, peppers, onions, and rice stick noodles. I also added some rice vinegar and a put of hoisin sauce. OH and I also added some toasted cashews.

Muffins / Cupcakes

I decided to make some pumpkin muffins with the leftover pumpkin puree, they turned out MUCH better than my pie :)

My husband went to an Animal Law Conference in Portland on my bday weekend, so I had to make myself vegan bday cupcakes. They were a huge success! I'm usually not very good at making cupcakes, but these were really easy to make.

Vanilla cupcakes with lime frosting:

Leak and bean cassoulet with biscuit

Mmm mmm mmm. This receipe is very similar to my veggy pot pie, with it has a nice twist with the biscuit on top!

I recommend using a BIG pot, not a frying pan like the book suggests


Once I realized my cast iron frying pan wasn't big enough I transferred everything to my cast iron oven.

And voila! The finished result

Our amazing wedding reception in San Francisco

My husband and I got married on August 22, 2008 in Berkeley and we had our reception at The Millennium in San Francisco. We had moved to California for the summer to do internships, and we decided to get married :) I planned the whole wedding in about a month, yes it was crazy, but everything turned out perfectly!

Food is really important to us, and we wanted nothing but the best for our wedding! (And of course we wanted an ALL vegan wedding) Finding the best location was tricky, we tested out a couple of restaurants, and the best BY far was The Millennium (an all vegan restaurant). We really wanted to impress our guests with the food since many non-vegans think all we eat is salad!! lol

We were blown away by food, and so was everyone else. There was even a vegan pasty chef who works at the restaurant who made a wedding cake for us.

Here are some pictures (I can't find the original menu for the life of me, so I can't tell you what each dish was called right now, but I will re-post when I find it :)










Bottom tier was hazelnut, top tier almond. With raspberry sauce, fruit in the middle and white chocolate mousse

Various dishes

I've been taking pictures of my creations way before I start blogging. So here are some of the meals I've made in the past.

Easter dinner with our vegan friends (smashed potatoes, green beans, potatoes mix, and spatzel)

Field roast with potatoes and mushroom gravy (Oh how I miss living in California!! They don't sell Field Roast in Montreal :( )

Veggy pot pie:

Smashed potatoes (red potatoes, red onions, garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper):

Cold udon noodles and tofu topped with a spicy peanut sauce:

(The cupcakes were actually made by my husband - and I am sorry I don't remember what they are called lol) :

Candied pecans are sooooooooooo yummy

Hiking in Vermont

My husband and I went hiking with our girls during the thanksgiving weekend. I absolutely love this time of year!!

Here are some pics:



Most people are really surprised when they see Nina hiking because the perception is that small dogs are wimps. But let me tell you, Nina can out-hike me ANY day! She is sooo fast, full of energy, and she LOVES to jump everything. Andy and I keep joking about her being a circus dog. If we could afford it, we would take her to agility classes because we know she would love it.

Thanskgiving

This was my first thanksgiving dinner as a vegan wife (first year actually making the dinner because in the past we always went to my in-laws), and our second cruelty-free thanksgiving.

I decided to try something completely different, so I made seitan! I was always intimated by it, but found a great recipe for it in Veganomicon. So I made seitan cutlets with brown gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans. It was delicious! I can't believe how much seitan actually looks like meat.. it's a bit scary lol.

And here is the finished result (with Nina in the pic!) :

As for dessert, I haven't quite mastered the art of making pies! :( The filling tasted good, but the pastry was pretty pathetic. Apparently you aren't supposed to use a glass pan? Oops!

Hello!

I've been contemplating starting a blog for a while now, and I think it's time. This blog will showcase the yummy vegan food I make, and hopefully inpsire vegans and non-vegans. You will all notice that my two dogs are like my babies, so you will see lots of cute pics of them :)

Let me introduce myself for those who don't know me:

My name is Karine, I am 27 years old, and I live in Montreal, Quebec. Andy (my husband) and I have been vegan for almost two years now. It all began when he was taking an animal and the law class at law school. We had no idea just how badly animals were treated, we were in total disbelief. We love animals, ALL animals not just "cute" animals lol. We have two toy poodles, Mitsou who is 15, and Nina who is going to be 6 in December.

We went from being vegetarian, to strict vegans. The transition was really hard for me at first because I was a big cheese eater! Andy was never a huge fan of dairy so it wasn't too hard for him. I basically had to learn how to cook all over again! It was quite challenging at first, but now I don't even think twice about it. I believe that anyone who really cares about animals can do this. My compassion for animals has really got me through all of this. It also helps if you like to cook :)

I really do enjoy cooking, I find it extremely rewarding, and I love making my husband happy :) I'm not really the type to invent recipes, but I do often modify them. My heros are Isa Moskowitz & Sarah Kramer. I really look up to these two wonderful women who have brought many smiles to the dinner table. How it all vegan, Vegan with a Vengeance, and Veganomicon are my bibles!! Veganomicon is pure genius, it explains all sorts of techniques, and talks about handy kitchen tools. I highly recommend all 3 of those books.

I will start posting pics of some of the food I've cooked in the past once I figure out how to.

Stay tuned for pics of yummy food.

Enjoy! And feel free to ask any questions

K