Watermelon bunnies & Cucumber bears

I love cutting fruit and veggies into little shapes for P's lunch.  This one has fun watermelon bunnies and  cucumber bear heads.  There's also some Kashi puffs, rice crackers, soy yogurt and brown rice pasta with a chopped up veggie dog.

Another lunchbox that came home empty!  I'm sure one of these days I'll strike out and P won't like what's in her lunch, but I'm really excited that she's eating all this good stuff.

I've got Dandies for my Yams...

It's Thanksgiving this weekend here in Canada.  There's always so much hype around the US Thanksgiving, is it wrong of me to feel underwhelmed with ours?  I was talking to some co-workers yesterday about how, when I was growing up, I hated everything that was served on our Thanksgiving menu.

My mom always made a molded green jello ring mixed with cottage cheese. I forget what it's called - I want to say ambrosia salad but I don't think that's right.  In any case, it's revolting.  My cousin makes a yam dish baked with marshmallows on top, and of course there's the turkey and ham.  Blehhh.  I used to fill up on dinner rolls and corn.  Not really much of a feast, to say the least.  Weekday meals were far more interesting.

Being vegan since the age of 14, I looked forward to the family gathering more than the food that was served, but I really do wish I could do both.

This year my cousin (the yam and marshmallow girl) has invited us over to celebrate Thanksgiving at her place.  I'm determined to make it my best Thanksgiving meal ever.  So I've got Dandies for my yams, and I'm making a huge baked vegetable medley for everyone too.  There will be lots of vegan goodies, so stay tuned for photos of the feast!

Fun new VEG song with catchy verses

I received an email from Cyrus Pirasteh, Founder of OhWhyOhWhy.Org asking me to check out their new song/music video promoting the veg*an movement.

I wasn't really sure what to expect, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the song has a funky reggae-feel to it, and I really enjoyed watching the video with Preciosa.She was excited to see all of the animals in the video and when it was over she asked to see it again.

So here's the video for you to check out for yourself. It's performed by Greg Cipes and Jah Sun.



For more info about the organization behind the tunes, go to http://www.ohwhyohwhy.org

I also found the song on iTunes for $1.29.  For that price, how can you not buy it?

5 Worst Forest Foods

While I was eating lunch @ work today I skimmed through the Metro News and came across an article that screamed at me to be read, and shared on the blog.

5 worst forest foods by Romina McGuinness

1. Beef
2. Palm Oil
3. Rice
4. Corn
5. Soy

It's no surprise that beef is number one, but the rest of the culprits are every day foods on many vegan plates, and it really got me riled up that they blame the entire soy consumption on vegetarians! "More and more people are choosing to consume less meat, a decision that has led to an increase in soy, the main ingredient in making tofu (a staple of the vegetarian diet.) Soy covers some 11 million hectares of forest across South America."

The Author, Romina McGuinness, makes no mention whatsoever of the cattle ranchers who are destroying the rainforests to plant soy that becomes animal feed. If the article took a more neutral/less biased position backed up by actual facts, it would have been a far more interesting and believebale article.

Thumbs way down on what could have been a very imformative lesson about how our dinner plate is linked to deforestation.

I commented my feedback in their article pointing out the oversight. Feel free to do the same.

You can read the full article here.

Marmalady's Vegan Pesto & Eggplant Curry Spread

A while ago I wrote about Marmalady who brings a wealth of delicious lunches to our office every Wednesday with her lunch cart service.  Chef Salima told me about some new vegan items that she was adding to her catering menu and asked if I would be interested in sampling them.

 Would I?  Heck yeah!

First up was her vegan pesto - when she first told me that there was no nutritional yeast in her recipe, I wondered if would still have that je ne sais quoi...and I'm happy to tell you it did not disappoint!  It is already so packed with flavour, there's no need for nooch.  Chef Salima uses walnuts instead of pine nuts, so there's a good dose of Omega 3 in her pesto too.  You can buy the pesto at Drive Organic on Commercial Drive in Vancouver.  I made brown rice elbow pasta and slathered on some pesto. Deeelicious!!

The other sample she generously bestowed me with was a huge sandwich with a vegan curry eggplant spread (also available at the Drive) Sadly, I can't find my photo of it, but I can tell you it was mega-delicious and if you have a chance tyo get yourt hands on some, you should get it.

Marmalady now has a website: marmaladycatering.com.

Another soy-free lunch, bento style!

Can you tell I'm really digging these bento box lunches?  I went to Daiso on the weekend and stocked up on little bento gadgets so I can make fun things like the little army of bunny shaped pancakes in this vegan bento lunch box. I put blueberry syrup in the small container beside them.

A navel orange and kiwi fruit are next, followed by a 1/2 sprouted grain bagel with sunflower seed butter. I had to cut it in half again to make it fit.  The last section has black beans and green beans with a 1/2 corn on the cob left over from dinner tonight.

Canada Day Recap: Brick Oven Bread, Greasy Fries and Solar Powered Street Lamps

Yesterday during our Canada Day festivities, I discovered an amazing jewel of a bakery.  It's called Romania Country Bread, and I was lured in by a Romanian man sitting outside the bakery at a checkerboard table, telling the throngs of passersby that inside was the best bread we have ever tasted.

He was not kidding.

If organic stone-ground whole wheat bread is your only product, it better be good- and trust me, it is fantastic!  The rustic loaves come in two sizes, 1/4 kilo for $5.00 or 1 kilo for $10.00.   The reason their bread is so amazing is because it's made the bread was supposed to be made - in a massive brick oven.  I was talking with some people outside of the bakery and apparently it took them years to get a permit from the city to build this oven because of fire safety hazards and such.

I bought two of the 1/4 kilo loaves. One of them was mostly eaten by the time we got home (yes, I shared).

We also visited Pajos at the beach to grab a veggie dog and greasy fries served in a cone of paper.  I love how the picnic tables have holes carved in them to accomodate the cones of fries.Unfortunately Pajos doesn't have do-it-yourself condiments, so this is what I got when I asked for mustard & relish.  (Note the ketchup and absence of relish.) It's a good thing I like mustard!
 

And the final highlight of my day was not food related, but environmental.  A lamp post unexpectedly powered by a solar panel and wind turbine.  It's part one Richmond BC's pilot projects and I hope we see more initiatives like this become mainstream. 

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian readers, I hope you had fun celebrating Canada's 143rd birthday :)