50 years ago, we met John, Paul, George and Ringo!

I am celebrating this weekend because it's Beatlemania again. It was 50 years ago that America was introduced to The Beatles. They arrived in February 1964 and changed the face of pop culture as we know it, via music, attitudes, fashion, originality and visionary genius. Where would we be without them? To show my love for my favorite music group I made a vegan version of the classic victoria sponge cake in celebration. I filled it with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream. It's so delicious! I'm sure it's not exactly like the traditional victoria sponge they make in Britain but it'll do!

Would you like some cake with your cream? Haha, next time, less cream I think?

To have with a cup of tea. Cake recipe is here. (Except I used almond milk and olive oil in mine.)

I live for weekend grilling!

This kind of thing makes me very happy. Red and yellow peppers, onions, eggplant, mushrooms, snow peas, pasilla peppers, jalapenos, tomatoes...

Grilled bbq tofu and red potatoes.

BBQ tofu sandwich.

And later in the day, relaxing with tea and a vegan donut from Whole Foods in Venice.

Hummus, Black Olive Tapenade, Black Pepper Cheeze

To continue yesterday's delicious Mediterranean theme, I made a few things to enjoy today. The rain had gone, leaving a bright, breezy and sunny day in it's wake. I was not going to waste a weekend by staying indoors and not enjoy the beauty. I brought my book and a tray of delicious snacks to the patio.


My tray of deliciousness. I made hummus and I always use the same recipe everytime which is from the "Tables of Lebanon" cookbook. It's creamy, lemony and garlicky and just perfect. I also made black olive tapenade, black pepper cheeze and mint iced tea. And of course with all these dips and spreads, I had pita bread and fresh baguette slices.


Black olive tapenade. Recipe from "The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen". It's made with olives, garlic, dijon, capers, herbes de provence and olive oil. So good. I can see this being used to toss with hot pasta.


Black pepper cheeze from "Ani's Raw Food Kitchen", made with cashews, garlic, lemon juice, black pepper and crushed red pepper.


Mmm, can you imagine?

Monte Cristo Breakfast and Pizza/Salad Lunch

Hope everyone is enjoying the tail end of the weekend. This was breakfast today. Monte Cristo sandwich which is basically french toast slathered with Vegenaise and stuffed with veggie ham and melty dairy-free cheese then sprinkled with powdered sugar. Served with a cup of illy. Yummmm. In case you're wondering, I used Lightlife Smart Deli Veggie Ham and Tofutti American dairy free cheese. My recipe for this sandwich here.


Lunch: Take-away sundried tomato-garlic pizza with added Daiya cheese plus spinach salad with orange-dijon dressing from 1,000 Vegan Recipes. Served with half a banana and pomegranate white tea.

Things To Eat With Tea.

My cousins came over today for tea and a Doctor Who and Robin Hood marathon. When I have tea parties, I always make food to go along with it. I kept it simple by serving onion bagels with Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese and Joni's tofu egg salad sandwiches. Delicious!


You also need cakes with tea! I opened up 1,000 Vegan Recipes again and made the Spicy Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Glaze. It's a moist chocolate cake spiced with cinnamon and cayenne and covered in dark chocolate. Very decadent and chocolatey.

Pizza with Daiya Vegan Cheese

Hello melty gooey vegan cheese that is Daiya! Found some shredded Daiya at Whole Foods and decided to make this yummy pizza. It's got tomato sauce seasoned with za'atar, chopped garlic, tomatoes, onions and sliced olives.


This cheese is very melty and to me tastes kind of similar to Follow Your Heart. (I think I might like the taste of FYH better...) I liked it well enough but would not go out of my way to have it on pizza every time. It was nice to have a change from cheeseless pizza.


And to go with my "lounging on the weekend and watching dvds in bed" theme, I brought a tray to my room. I topped the pizza with arugula salad. Also on the tray, homemade baba ganouj/sundried tomato hummus with cucumbers for dipping and a gingerberry kombucha. I enjoyed all of this while watching 'Death on the Nile' which was most excellent!


Later on, I brought tea and dessert to bed. The tea is Cameronian gold blend and dessert was Fabe's chocolate chip cake.


Considering this is a "health food" brand of cake, it was still very moist and sweet enough (it's not sweetened with sugar, but rather barley and chicory syrup).

VeganMoFo: Za'atar Pizza

I've never had an authentic Lebanese pizza but this was definitely inspired by photos and recipes I saw online. I had a Trader Joe's pizza crust in the freezer that I used as a stand in for homemade pizza dough. I am not skilled in anything that has to do with yeast so I've been relying on TJ's for my pizza dough for quite some time. I mixed some za'atar with olive oil and spread it on the dough, added baby spinach, mushrooms, chopped tomato and onions. After baking for about 10-15 minutes, it puffed up and got all brown and golden and beautiful. I topped it with more fresh tomato and onions. So so perfect!


A slice served with rocket salad that was simply dressed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. Rocket (aka arugula) goes so well with pizza I've learned.


And one must not forget tea in bed on the weekend! My friend brought back tea from Malaysia. It's Cameronian Gold Blend and it's sooooo good. Smooth and beautifully golden colored. I absolutely love it. I enjoyed this with more pizza and apple turnovers that my dad got for me from Ralph's (they are vegan but not healthy!).

VeganMoFo: TGIF & B.I.B

B.I.B. = Breakfast in bed! There's just nothing like it. I've been doing it more often and have been relishing every moment. I'd do it everyday if I had the time. Sometimes on weekends I extend my B.I.B time by making a more substantial tray of food and bringing it to my room to enjoy with a dvd. It's bliss. I may do that this weekend as my Netflix shipment (BBC's adaptation of Dracula) arrived yesterday. This morning to celebrate all that is Friday, I brought to my room a mug of cocoa chai tea, fresh nectarine slices, mulitigrain toast with sunflower seed butter and a slice of my apple-walnut birthday cake. Carb heaven!


Here's a better shot of the cake. Look at all the apple-y chunkiness!

Chocolate Loaf Cake & Breakfast in Bed.

I made this moist and perfect loaf cake yesterday using this recipe and on a whim added a small mashed sweet potato to the batter. The sweet potato flavor didn't come through at all but it made the cake very moist and fluffy and hold together so well. I've made this cake in the past and sometimes it would be a bit crumbly but this time it was utterly perfect, slice after slice. I topped it with a sweet cinnamon glaze made with powdered sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and soymilk.


Breakfast in bed again! This time while watching my latest Netflix arrival: Mrs. Dalloway. On the tray: Darjeeling/Earl Grey tea, buttered toast, a dish of raspberry soy yogurt with bananas and a slice of cake. It was all delightful.

Tea for One.

Ah, weekend! There's nothing better than a restful and relaxing weekend after a long and hard work week. I did a bit of shopping this morning and afterwards came home to make another marble loaf cake. While that was in the oven I watched an episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot and then later made a tray of "tea for one" to take to my room. I enjoyed this light supper while watching 'Desperate Romantics', a mini-series about the Pre-Raphaelite painters. On the tray: hot ceylon tea with soymilk and sugar, an "everything" bagel with Tofutti non dairy cream cheese, marble loaf cake and fresh nectarine slices.

Lunch in Bed.

I made "lunch in bed" today instead of breakfast. I kept it simple with a toasted pita spread with walnut paté, salad (cucumbers, onions, greek olives, tomato, sumac, lemon juice, olive oil) with a dollop of Vegenaise and half a banana. All with a cup of tea. I really like eating meals in bed. There's something very relaxing and leisurely about it. It makes me slow down and enjoy my food rather than wolf it all down before I head out the door. It also makes me more mindful about my food. So here's to more meals in bed! I'm not planning on anything fancy for dinner tonight. I've got homemade broth bubbling away right now for the ramen noodles that I will have when I get home from work. Noodles have just been hitting the spot lately. This is a short work week for me (I've got Thurs. and Fri. off) so on Thursday I'll go grocery shopping and make something nice. I've been leafing through my Iraqi cookbook and want to make so many things out of it. So we'll see...

Edited to add a picture of my ramen:

This was sooooo filling! That red stuff is Sriracha hot chili sauce.

Breakfast in Bed + Ready Made Curry

This was my breakfast this morning, in bed while reading my Agatha Christie. I had a whole grain english muffin spread with Earth Balance margarine, a piece of orange blossom cake and hot ceylon tea (with a dash of soymilk and agave). I enjoyed this very very much. Only thing missing was fresh fruit which I didn't have today.


A close up of the cake. It was supposed to be sour cherry/orange blossom but the sour cherry flavor never came through. I used a half recipe of kittee's vanilla cake and used a mixture of water/sour cherry syrup for the liquid portion but I think I should have added more sour cherry, less water. Oh well. I will try to tweak it next time. But even so, this cake was delicious. Orange blossom is wonderful in desserts.


Sorry about the bad lighting but by the time I got around to eating this, it was late and the light was terrible. This is Trader Joe's Choley curry with toasted and "buttered" rolls. I served it with a side of cucumber salad. Yummy.

Breakfast in Bed.

I have mornings to myself before going to work and I usually get loads of things done before then. I work on jewelry, run errands, walk the dog, do a bit of cleaning and many other things that I allow myself to squeeze into these free hours. I was off yesterday and worked on jewelry so I took a break from that today. I walked the dog early this morning, came home and after a fresh shower, I prepared a tray of breakfast that I brought to my room to eat. It was a lovely little breakfast of pita toasts with margarine and a drizzle of agave syrup, a bowl of oranges and mangos sprinkled with cinnamon and a cup of my favorite Ceylon tea. It was delicious. I should do this more often!

Detox Week 3, Day 20

Hello weekend! It's a great one because it's the last weekend of my diet and next week I will finally get to eat some of the things that I've been craving. My husband bought me a bag of Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos, hehe...naughty! I'll have those next week as well. Just a little though. I'm not going to be a gluttonous pig or anything. I will have whatever I like in moderation. Other things I will have in moderation: banana chocolate chip cakes, nachos, tacos, vegan beer bread, chocolate rum cake, blueberry buckle, pizza with tofurky sausage and pine nut cheese, vanilla pudding trifle...boy there are a lot of desserts I'm looking forward to!

Today's eat were very nice.


Breakfast: Dandelion Carob Tea (dandelion tea, 1 tsp carob powder, unsweeteened soymilk, 1 tsp brown rice syrup)


A breakfast treat: Instead of eating my usual oatmeal, I'll have my oats in another form! Oat-Corn Waffles (oats, cornmeal, dates, water, olive oil) with sesame seeds. Served with 2 TB maple syrup. I got this recipe from the Country Life Vegetarian cookbook.

Snack #1: 1 tangerine


Lunch: Mediterranean pizza with a sweet potato crust. A Gillian McKeith recipe. Very healthy yet absolutely delicious!


Served with red leaf salad. I ate two slices at lunch.

Snack #2: celery and sunflower paté with a square of date brownie

Dinner will be two more slices of pizza and another salad!

Detox Week 2, Day 14

So...my husband has quit the diet and is now back to his regular foods. He ordered a sausage pizza yesterday. :( I'm a little disappointed but it's not my place to force him to do anything. He did it for almost two weeks and it was enough for him. He said the raw salads and vegetables were giving him heartburn. So, it's just me now ready to finish off the last week of healthy eating. I have to say that I'm starting to really crave white bread and coffee like crazy. I made a gluten free butternut oat bread today that bombed big time. I'm not even going to post a picture. It was very sad. So no bread for me today. But other than that, things are good. I've lost about 3-4 pounds which is nice! If I can stay on track with my workouts this week, I can probably lose another pound or two.

Today's eats:


Breakfast: Banana, date, mango, tangelo and strawberry soymilk smoothie.


Lunch: Chopped salad with spinach, green leaf, rocket, cucumber, red peppers, onion and walnuts. Drizzled with goddess dressing.

Snacks: Veggie crudités and white bean dip, sprouted grain chips, a pear and three 1" pieces of carob date brownies.


Dinner: Aduki Bean Stew (from You Are What You Eat cookbook) on top of cauliflower mash.


After dinner tea.

VeganMoFo: Tea For Two

Had a good friend over yesterday for tea. I love tea parties. I don't care if it's for two or twelve, I really enjoy preparing tiny sandwiches and treats to share. Along with a pot of black tea, little sandwiches were in order. I made two delicious standbys: joni's tofu egg salad finger sandwiches and open face cucumber/cream cheese. I used Tofutti brand non-dairy cream cheese. I love this stuff. My friend loved the tofu egg salad. If you like egg salad, this tastes very similar. My friend bit into one and said "Oh my god, this is good!". She suggested that curry powder and sultanas would be good additions. That sounds so good to me. Will try it next time.



I also made tartines, which are baguette slices covered with some kind of spread or different layers of ingredients. I made these with cream cheese, sliced cucumber and balsamic tomatoes with basil.



And for dessert we had leftover birthday cake and cookies. My friend made these beautiful vegan cookies. On the left are Anzac biscuits which were so amazing. I've never had Anzac biscuits before. They had oatmeal and coconut in them and were so chewy and addicting! The ones on the right are Okara Molasses. These were good too, soft and mild with a hint of molasses flavor, more "health foody" but still delicious. I plan to get these recipes from her asap!



ANZAC Biscuits (recipe from my friend)

Ingredients

* 1 cup each of plain flour, sugar, rolled oats, and
coconut
* 4 oz (1 stick) margarine (Earth Balance works fine)
* 1 tablespoon golden syrup (Lyle's brand is
available at Cost Plus. It's a little pricey per jar,
but the flavor can't be replicated)
* 2 tablespoons boiling water
* 1 teaspoon baking soda (add a little more water if
mixture is too dry)

Method

1. Grease cookie sheet and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
(You can use a non-stick cookie sheet or line a regular
cookie sheet with parchment paper)
2. Combine dry ingredients.
3. Melt together margarine and golden syrup. Combine water
and bicarbonate soda, and add to margarine mixture. (I do
this in a glass measuring cup in the microwave, and add the
other stuff when done: about 35-40 seconds)
4. Mix margarine mixture and dry ingredients.
5. Drop teaspoons of mixture onto tray, allowing room for
spreading. (I use a small ice cream scoop. The scoops should
be a tad larger than a small superball or smaller than a
golf ball)
6. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool
on tray for a few minutes before transferring to cooling
racks.

I find that 15 minutes is a little long. The cookies end up
a little too crunchy. It depends on your oven.