Relief

I didn't get a chance to post last night as I wasn't feeling very well and thought it would be best for my body to go to bed. The children and I have been fighting a cold most of the week so we've all been a little bit miserable.

Today was an interesting one. I didn't have any breakfast this morning as I had an abdominal ultrasound I had scheduled and was required to fast for at least six hours. For those that are curious, because I know I would be, at my physical yesterday my doctor said that my spleen felt enlarged but she wanted to double check with an ultrasound. I'm relieved to say that my spleen is just fine - thank you God! I was starving by this point (it was already 11:15 am) so as soon as I left the ultrasound clinic I headed downstairs to the pharmacy and purchased a Key Lime Pie flavoured Larabar. That Larabar was FANTASTIC! I don't know whether it was the hunger or the relief that I didn't have splenomegaly (an enlarged spleen - I just had to use the correct term because it sounds so mysterious), perhaps both, but it completely satisfied me!

Let me tell you now that I have the most amazing friends in the world and I am grateful! Two of them looked after my two youngest today while I was at the appointment. When I returned they had made lunch for us - a delicious fresh veggie stir fry over a bed of rice. Thank you for everything you two - your love and support means more to me than you'll ever know!

I was so inspired by lunch and had some veggies and tofu to use up in the fridge, so I decided to make a stir fry for dinner as well. The stir fry I made was a little different in flavour as I used some alternate veggies and spices to flavour it (my secret ingredient for this stir fry was curry powder), but I loved it all the same. I tried out some brown jasmine rice I had bought the other day and thought it was surprisingly good. 

I love extra firm tofu pan-fried with a bit of salt and pepper on it. I think the key to having it as part of a stir fry meal is to keep it separate from the stir fry when you are cooking it. I always pan fry the tofu first and set it aside, then I cook the veggies. I add the tofu to the meal as a garnish, otherwise I find it loses it's crispiness! 

A Wonderful and Supportive Husband

I was asked by a friend last week why vegans can't eat regular margarine. The answer, as I've discovered by reading the labels of various margarine containers, is that regular margarine contains whey (the liquid that remains after milk has been curdled and strained). There may well be other ingredients that are not vegan friendly but as soon as I saw whey on the ingredients list, I put the margarine down. While I'm on the topic of vegan margarine I have to stress that I am continuing to love the Becel Vegan margarine and would definitely recommend it.

My husband is so helpful in the mornings. Thanks to him all of us were fed before we walked out the door today. I had another toasted tomato sandwich, but this time it included guacamole. I usually make my own guacamole but when we were at Costco the other day my husband picked some up. The brand we tried this time was called Wholly Guacamole. It's amazing and I especially appreciate that every box contains four separate compartments. I'm not normally into extra packaging but this is one instance where it makes sense because guacamole is far less attractive to eat when it has turned dark green/grey from sitting in an over-sized container for too long. 

Lunch was another wrap that my daughter and I shared. It had the last of our tandoori hummus that I made using Victorian Epicure seasoning, spinach, yellow peppers, orange peppers and tomatoes from the garden.

We also decided to try some Amy's Organic Lentil soup. I have to say that right now I'm feeling like a hypocrite as just a few days ago I mentioned in a post that I don't typically like using canned items. While this is still the truth, it must be declared that our soup was pretty darn good!

Tonight we had leftover enchiladas and green rice for dinner. The green rice this evening was hot from the jalapeno peppers. I didn't use any more peppers than I normally do but these ones were super-spicy!

I'd like to close today's post by thanking my husband. He has been so incredibly supportive through this journey and very committed to the challenge. While he is always 110% committed to something once he takes it on, I have been both impressed and touched by his enthusiasm during this entire process. Thank you, my love.

Pesto Pasta

This is a short post as I'm planning to head to bed very soon. I'm sure this is a shocker for anyone reading this who knows me personally - I'm a night owl and always have been! I thought it would be a good idea this week to get up early in the mornings to be a bit more prepared rather than running around like a mad woman. It's a busy week and I don't want to miss a thing!

Food today was good. This evening's dinner was a bit of an experiment inspired by dinner at our friend's house on the weekend. I decided to try to replicate the vegan pesto with rice pasta that she had made. I used Rizopia brown rice pasta. I really like this pasta, as long as it's not over-cooked, as it seems to hold its firmness well. If you like your pasta al dente, this is the pasta for you. It's wheat and gluten free as well. Once the pasta was cooked I added the pesto and some chopped kalamata olives, one red pepper and a tomato from the garden. I reheated everything in the pot and plated it with some mixed greens on the side. The dish was a hit with us adults but not so much with the children - just as my husband had predicted!

This is a garlic super-power dish so I shall apologize in advance to anyone I'm coming in contact with during the next few days . . . I'm terribly sorry!

A Night Out

It was another very busy and enjoyable weekend for our family.

Yesterday morning started off with another toasted tomato sandwich but this time it also included some avocado and mixed greens. I love avocado, though perhaps a bit too much. The last three days I have been eating them quite a bit and I'm sad to say that I've been having diarrhea - sorry for those that are shock by me writing about diarrhea, but one of my intentions for this blog is to give a truthful account of my experience!

Lunch was half of a leftover veggie burger and some chili potato wedges.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Chapters and purchased a housewarming gift for some friends that are mostly vegan. We decided on a lovely looking cookbook named La Dolce Vegan: Vegan Livin' Made Easy by Sarah Kramer. We had committed to bringing dessert to our friend's house last night and decided that it might be fun to start them off with their cookbook by making a dessert out of it for everyone to enjoy. We decided on the peanut butter cupcakes (sorry, I don't remember the exact name for them). We made a few extra baby cupcakes to sample before we headed to their place and I thought they were tasty.

The children ate dinner first - they had a sweet potato and black bean salad and a vegan Enchilada Bake from peta.org - both were great. We ate our meal after the children went to sleep and it was excellent! Dinner was BBQ'd asparagus, sweet potato and black bean salad and an amazing rice pasta dish with red peppers, olives and home-made vegan pesto. The sauce was so good I started to lick the serving spoons and bowl, I couldn't help it.

I started today off with a piece of toast with peanut butter. I threw together an iced coffee right after breakfast as the children and I were heading off to Bowness Park and it was going to be very warm out.

Lunch was tomato-basil soup that we pulled out of the freezer and leftover pasta salad from days ago. The pasta salad is quite old so I sure hope I don't get sick from it. One of the things I can't stand is throwing food out so I try very hard to eat all of the food that comes in to our house. 

Dinner was my rendition of the PETA Enchilada Bake and carrot salad. I thought the Enchilada Bake was better at our friend's house last night, but our's was a close second!

A Day of Sandwiches

My husband made a delicious breakfast for me this morning - a toasted tomato sandwich on whole wheat chia bread. I'd forgotten how much I love toasted tomato sandwiches until I took the first bite! It's such a simple sandwich, but yet it's so tasty, especially with the Vegenaise. I haven't had one of these sandwiches in months and oh, how I've missed them!

Lunch was leftovers for me but the children wanted to have a bun with peanut butter and bananas and cucumbers and tomatoes on the side. The children seem to really appreciate lunches like this and let's face it, most of us did when we were children as well. This is obviously an inappropriate lunch to take to school due to it's peanut content, but an alternative non-nut butter would be a good choice.

Dinner was another attempt at burgers and fries, which I thought would be a great choice for our dinner guests. This time we tried a new burger recipe that a friend recommended - the veggie burger from Whitewater Cooks. I made a few modifications to the original recipe but I can tell you it was delicious! I also made more potato wedges and decided to accompany the burgers and fries with a carrot salad. I LOVE carrot salad. In this evening's salad I decided to include shredded carrots, shredded cabbage, raisins, dried currents, pumpkin seeds, Vegenaise, dijon mustard, mustard, soy milk, apple cider vinegar (with The Mother) and a bit of salt and pepper. The key is to just lightly coat the veggies with the dressing - if there is too much dressing it just becomes a sloppy mess. 

For dessert we had a vegan chocolate pudding that a friend had recommended. The pudding is made from avocado, dates, cocoa, vanilla and water. I thought it was great! If you love bananas you could even add half of a banana to the food processor when you are mixing the ingredients together. The texture of the pudding was slightly different than a typical milk-based pudding, but I thought it was equally tasty!  

Being Different

Sometimes it's just not popular to be different, or so I've discovered. I was talking with my mother and brother today about our plans for Thanksgiving coming up in a few weeks. Every year we get together as a family along with some family friends. It's a tradition we've had for at least two decades and have done this for Christmas and Easter as well. It was decided during our conversation that since our family friends had hosted Christmas and my mother had hosted Easter, it was our turn (my husband and I) to host Thanksgiving. I told my mother and brother that it was a fantastic idea and that I couldn't wait. I then proceeded to tell them that Alicia Silverstone's book, The Kind Diet, had some great looking vegan recipes and that I thought the Thanksgiving Tofu recipe would be the perfect alternative to cooking a turkey.

My mother's jaw dropped.

My brother said "But you'll be off your vegan thing by then - you said it was only a 30 day challenge".  To which I replied, "Well, not necessarily. The vegan challenge is going really well for me and I think I might stay on it as is or make a few adjustments if need be." My mother then proceeded to tell me that perhaps she should host Thanksgiving instead.

Disappointment. That's all I felt in that moment.

I wondered to myself "why can't they try something different?" I understand that tradition can be a wonderful thing, but sometimes I think it's nice to stir things up a bit. What's wrong with having a "traditional" meal without the turkey? Is Thanksgiving about the turkey or is really about celebrating the blessings in our lives and being with the people we love? Here I go again, it's the start of my "Save the Turkey" campaign. At least the conversation has been started. Now I just have to see if I can get everyone on board!

To my mother and brother, if you're reading this, I love you both very much!

Today I had soup for breakfast - more of the butternut squash soup out of Rebar. I finally decided to freeze the remainder of the soup. As good as it is, I just can't eat it more than five days in a row (I've been having some each day for a snack).

Lunch was also more leftovers - leftover naan bread, Quinoa with Basil and Pine Nuts from The Kind Diet, tandoori hummus with snap peas and some more pasta salad from the other night.

Dinner was leftovers as well - partially because we had them in the fridge and partially because I was very strapped for time between spending an hour and a half at the playground after school and then going to a parent-teacher interview at 5:30 pm. We had the last of the burgers from yesterday and some lentil soup. The burgers were even better today as the flavour was stronger and the texture was better - the burgers were cooked for much longer at a very low heat on the stove in a frying pan.

I didn't photograph anything from earlier today so we've just made some of our favourite popcorn to show you - Chimayo Chile Popcorn with garlic-sage "butter", from Rebar. We haven't found Chimayo chile powder, so we use the standard chili powder in it's place. I highly recommend you give this one a try!

Energy

I want to start today's blog by telling everyone how much energy I have right now - I have TONS! When I was younger I would just be coming alive at this time of night (it's around 10:45 pm right now). I have always been a night-owl and have had a hard time going to sleep since I was a young child. Since the birth of our youngest just over four months ago, I have been exhausted. Nearly every night in the last four months I have wanted to go to bed close to 9 pm. I never do. I always feel I can't go to bed because I want to get some cleaning done - I hate waking up to a dirty house and have felt that losing sleep to clean a dirty house is almost always worth it.

Tonight I went to the gym with a friend and felt energized both during and after the workout. At the end of the workout I felt like I could take on the world. I thought to myself "why can't I feel this great all the time?". Is this my change in diet starting to take over? Is it an attitude shift? I don't know the answer, perhaps it's both and then some. All I know in this moment is that I feel terrific and want to tell the world!

Today, if you'll remember from yesterday's post, I was determined to provide a kid friendly meal for dinner. I decided on burgers and fries. I chose the menu just today and knew that I wanted to make a vegan black bean burger but had not chosen a specific recipe. When I went to CO-OP this morning I picked up a can of black beans. I need to pause here and say that I really don't like using canned goods because they are full of sodium and usually make beans and veggies kind of mushy, not to mention the whole BPA issue. I decided to pick up the can of beans because I had not soaked any the night before and was running low on time.

When I got home I discovered that the few recipes I had for black bean burgers included ingredients that I was lacking in my pantry. I started surfing the web for vegan black bean burgers and couldn't find anything highly rated that met my ingredients list so I decided to wing it.

I was very impressed with how the burgers tasted. My only complaint was that the patties were very soft and squishy when you compressed both sides of the burger together. The patty was very similar to a bean paste. A new product that I tried in the patty was an egg replacer. I honestly can't tell if it made much of a difference to the recipe, but I can tell you that the patties didn't fall apart. The fries were some potatoes I cut up into wedges and seasoned with herbs and olive oil.

Our oldest son loved the meal but this time our daughter didn't. Oh well, I guess you can't please everyone all the time!

Shine It On

So my husband and I have decided that for the time being we are going to keep our children on the vegan challenge. Our plan of attack is to focus our efforts on kid-friendly meals. I've said so many times to my son "If you don't like what I'm making you to eat, what would you like instead?". He always replies that he doesn't know what he wants. We've just decided that we're going back to typical children's cuisine - burgers and fries, tacos, mac'n cheese, etc. but this time they will be vegan and it will be healthy!

Now, on to how our day went . . .

We had the typical breakfast foods including bananas, cereal, toast with peanut butter and fruit spread.

Lunch was a Silver Hills bagel sandwich again using Yves Veggie Ham, Tofutti American cheese slices, hummus, tomatoes, spinach and guacamole. I have to say that the cheese slices, upon closer inspection, are actually pretty good. I wouldn't eat them on their own as a snack but they definitely work well in a sandwich. Our oldest son loves meals like this and actually wanted a repeat of this for dinner as well . . . too bad we didn't oblige.

Dinner was a desperate attempt to put together something healthy and satisfying. I decided to make a pasta salad using some kamut pasta, sprouted bean trio, tomatoes from my garden, a red pepper, a yellow pepper, chives, Vegenaise, dijon mustard, dill, salt and pepper. The salad was very fresh tasting and the kamut pasta had a flavour that reminded me a bit of cinnamon. My husband, daughter and I loved it - our son did not.

Thank you to everyone who sent encouraging words and recipes my way in the last day. Your support to make this process a little easier for our oldest son is very touching. Even though life is becoming increasingly busy this month for all of us, I am committed to trying to find recipes that our children will find exciting as well. Wish me luck!

Tears, Tears and More Tears

So we are almost half way through our vegan trial and I think the reviews are mixed.

Personally, I'm feeling great both physically and emotionally. I don't feel bloated, my digestive system is extremely regular, the weight loss has been welcoming and my conscience is clear. I feel passion and ease in my heart about making wholesome food choices for my family while not harming animals. My husband says he feels fine - he feels satisfied and content with the food options and meal planning. Cravings for him seem to be non-existent and we both agree that when we go to a grocery store we are not tempted by any of the meat and dairy products.

Our daughter is doing well on the trial and rarely complains about the food we offer. She is always willing to try new and unusual foods. Our son, while he does eat the vast majority of what we offer, complains about the food frequently. What to do???

Today I tried some Yves Veggie Ham and was very pleasantly surprised. It didn't taste like real ham of course, but the essence was there. I would definitely recommend this product as a substitute for a traditional deli meat sandwich. My only word of caution is to not have too much as it's still quite high in sodium.

For dinner this evening we tried Quinoa with Basil and Pine Nuts out of The Kind Diet. I thought all the flavours were nice together and particularly enjoyed the basil. Our oldest son cried for about 20 minutes at the dinner table and kept telling us he didn't like it, even though he hadn't touched it yet.

My husband and I are seriously contemplating changing our son's challenge to a vegetarian challenge, rather than a vegan one. If we do this we will of course do the same for our daughter as she will no doubt want to eat and drink the same things as her brother. Hmmm . . . . I guess we'll sleep on it.

A Feast with Non-Vegans

It has been an incredibly busy weekend! I started Saturday morning at my Mom's house because the children and I had a sleep over there on Friday night - my husband was out of town on business and my Mom was going to look after the children while I attended a meeting on Saturday morning in preparation for my youngest son's Baptism. The children had fruit and cereal with almond milk while I had toast with peanut butter.

For lunch yesterday I had Green Rice and some left over Sweet Corn Salsa and jalapeno tortilla chips. The children were not interested in eating Green Rice for a third day in a row, so my Mom made them some pasta with a veggie tomato sauce. We ate at lightening speed so we could get to the airport as fast as we could to pick up my husband. We spent the remainder of the afternoon shopping for groceries to prepare a lunch menu for after our son's Baptism today.

Planning a menu can be challenging when cooking for a larger group and trying to take into account people's taste preferences - especially children. We were fortunate to have an easy-going crowd to plan for! I knew that I had wanted to make soup and sandwiches, an amazing vegan chocolate cake that a friend had introduced me to and veggies and hummus. We shopped at Superstore and chose items we were most likely to use.

I need to pause here and tell everyone about some of the amazing deals we got in the "health food aisle" at Superstore. For whatever reason, whether it's discontinued products or the store trying to stimulate purchasing, I often find items at 50% off in this section. (Hint: look for the bright pink triangular sticker indicating a product is reduced for quick sale). We picked up some silken tofu, Organic Vegetable Bouillon Cubes by GoBio (I love these and used them long before we started our vegan challenge) and even some vegan "Butter Chicken".

For dinner last night I was inspired by the "Butter Chicken" and decided to add tofu, broccoli, zucchini and tomatoes to the sauce. I made the sauce creamier by adding the Tofutti Sour Cream . . . YES - I've finally found a use for the sour cream! I served the "Butter Chicken" with basmati rice and some beautiful spinach naan by Indian Life. It was a delicious meal and took very little time to prepare!

Last night we finally decided on a menu for today's lunch and slaved away in the kitchen until almost 2 am to prepare all the food.

I could go on and on and on about our process and how everything tasted and how much the non-vegans did or didn't enjoy the meal, but I'm going to keep it simple and to the point so people will actually want to read this posting and so I can go to bed!

We served veggies with two types of hummus - a spinach hummus and a tandoori hummus; sandwiches with Vegenaise, chipotle hummus, avocado, tomatoes and spinach; Roasted Butternut Squash soup with ancho chiles, orange zest and pumpkin seeds from Rebar; and my personal favourite of the day (though the soup comes awfully close) "The BEST chocolate cake ever . . . that happens to be VEGAN. I kid you not!" Please check out the recipe at http://www.instructables.com/id/The-BEST-chococlate-cake-ever...that-happens-to-be/ I can promise you that you won't regret it! Keep in mind that to truly make it vegan you will have to use a natural sweetener, an unsweetened vanilla and a vegan friendly margarine! To add to the feast, my Mother brought a fruit tray and the godparents of our newly-baptized son brought home-made salsa (it was so yummy and vegan friendly) with tortilla chips.

I think the food went well today and hope that all the non-vegans enjoyed the variety of foods and more importantly, the flavour! I'm sad to say that in the mayhem of the lunch hour and trying to get everyone fed, including a baby, I forgot to photograph any of the food from today!

Feeling Great

The morning I started my vegan challenge I weighed myself on the advice of a friend who suggested I should keep track of my weight during this process. I'm glad I did - this morning I stepped on the scale to see where things were at - I've lost five pounds! I'm shocked, to say the least. I could feel that my clothes were a bit loose on me, but kept thinking it was due to them stretching out after having recently purchased them  . . . clearly I was delusional. I'm honestly over-joyed, I'd be lying if I said otherwise. I had my youngest child nearly four months ago and found that I had lost a bit of the weight but seemed to be at a stand-still with nearly 20 pounds left to lose. I was in no hurry to drop all the weight right away because I didn't want to compromise my milk supply . . . yes, I'm breast-feeding. After I has my daughter the weight just flew off my body, but my milk supply was terrible - I don't want that to happen again! Here's hoping that my milk supply remains plentiful while I continue my vegan journey.

Today I popped into Amaranth again to stock up on a few items for the weekend. One thing I thought I would try was the package of "Soy American Flavored Slices". Oh my gosh, they certainly leave a lot to be desired. My daughter, however, loved them and I'm beginning to think she really has a palate for a vegan diet!

Breakfast was the usual cereal and toast with peanut butter and fruit spread.

For lunch my daughter and I both finished the remainder of the pasta and veggie ground round tomato sauce. My oldest son went to school with a sandwich and barely touched any of it - I think he's caught on to the fake turkey meat I was putting into them. He said he also didn't like the tomatoes (which are from my garden - what's with that???) and the avocado.

Dinner included more green rice. I also added snap peas and pan-fried tofu (yummy) to the dinner. Both children loved it and polished it off!

For my evening snack tonight I'm going to have some popcorn. Normally I don't think I would pile on the carbs during the evening after having so many of them during the day, but hey, I seem to be getting away with it!

Yummy Goodness

Today the kids and I started with Silver Hills Squirrelly bread, toasted with peanut butter and fruit spread. We also had calcium and vitamin D enhanced orange juice. I love breakfasts like this because they fill me up and don't leave me looking for food an hour later.

Lunch was a soup that I made which included tomatoes, potatoes, chickpeas, carrots, onions, garlic, lemon juice, thyme, rosemary and oregano - all pureed together. The soup was okay - I think it would have been better with some "buttery" garlic croutons on top.

Dinner was delicious! We had one of my favourites - Green Rice, from Rebar of course. I do use white jasmine rice rather than brown for the dish, but it's also packed full of green veggies - spinach, jalapenos, parsley and cilantro. For those of you who don't know, I LOVE cilantro and Rebar is good at including it in a number of recipes. In addition to the Green Rice we had some nuts (pistachios, pecans and pine nuts), which is a great way to get some extra protein and fat into the diet.

Today, like all days since we've been on the vegan challenge, we had numerous snacks. Snacking for me has been the key to not going hungry and then pigging out at meal time. I have definitely been listening to my body a lot more and have not walked away from a meal feeling bloated and disgusting since the challenge began.

Just Another Day

Not much new to report today as it was again another day of leftovers.

I had toast with almond butter and fruit spread for breakfast. For a snack a few hours later I shared some leftover Sweet Corn Salsa and sweet potato chips with my daughter.

For lunch I had another wrap but this time used Mountain Bread as my vehicle to hold all the nutritious and delicious veggies together. We buy these wraps from Costco occasionally. They are paper thin and really don't have much flavour but are guilt-free for sure - 1 wrap will run you only 72 calories, 73 mg of sodium, 0 g of sugar and 3 g of protein. Clearly there are also other numbers to take into account when deciding which wraps you want to include in your diet, but these wraps are probably the healthiest I've found.

Dinner was leftover pasta with veggie ground round tomato sauce. I had a date square a little later to help with my cravings for something sweet.

Oh, great news - my son had all of his breakfast, lunch (a sandwich, fruit and veggies and a juice box) and dinner today, I'm so pleased! 

Creation

I must start today's post with my confession. Last night there was an infraction while attending a book club meeting at a neighbour's house. I had three rum balls. I couldn't help it - they were calling my name! I can assure you the rum balls were very small, which makes me feel a little less guilty, but they had sugar in them all the same!

Today was much better than yesterday. We started the day with toast and almond butter. I love nut butters - peanut, almond, cashew, etc. We tend to have toast with one of the butters just mentioned for breakfast quite frequently because I find them satisfying and nutritious. When I was growing up we always had peanut butter, but it was the less than ideal type - it was always filled with lots of sugar and salt. The only types we allow in our house are the "natural" nut butters with no added salt or sugar. For those of you who have not tried these fabulous products, I highly recommend them. If you are worried that they won't be sweet enough for you, try adding a very small bit of maple syrup to the spread or even a no sugar added fruit spread.

Lunch was a wrap with some red pepper hummus, kale, spinach, pine nuts, avocado, red pepper orange slices and the maple-chipotle vinaigrette previously mentioned. I love wraps with fresh ingredients, you just feel so good afterwards!

This afternoon my daughter and I made some date-fig squares. We put together our own recipe using ingredients we had waiting to be used up in our pantry. I love playing with recipes and coming up with my own - there is something exciting to me about getting the creative juices flowing. One of things I often challenge myself to do when I attempt to follow any recipe is to make it "healthier" by using a whole grain flour, a refined sugar alternative, using less sweetener or even by adding additional or alternate fruits or veggies.

Dinner was a veggie ground round tomato sauce with lots of veggies that I whipped up this afternoon along with some angel hair pasta. This meal was a hit with everyone, including myself . . . no taste-bud trouble today!

Terribly Troubled Taste Buds

My taste buds are definitely off today - everything tastes disgusting!

I purchased a sugar-free caramel americano this morning while my daughter was at preschool - it was nasty. I generally stay away from sugar-free flavourings because I find they have an undesirable after-taste and often give me a sore throat, but today I thought I would try one. I had three sips and couldn't continue drinking.

Dinner tonight was a "leftovers" meal again. This time I tried to make the burritos more child friendly by adding Daiya cheddar style shreds and Tofutti Sour Supreme. I have used the Daiya cheese substitute before in a macaroni and cheese recipe and found it to be okay. Today with the burritos the cheese didn't really work out. I love cheese and for me there really is no substitute, I'm going to leave it at that.

As for the sour cream substitute, it claims that it's "better than sour cream" which I personally don't find to be true. I think I'll just be nice and say that, for today anyway, it's not good eats for me.

I even had a hard time eating the leftovers of Summertime Succotash tonight, which leads me to believe that what is off tonight is really just me. My mother has always told me that if everyone around you seems to be the problem then it's time to look at yourself . . . I think she might be right.

The one silver-lining in the clouds today were the beautiful cherry tomatoes I picked up at Amaranth. Yay for fresh produce!

Inspiration

Our fridge is so full of leftovers. Much of the food we've been preparing is fresh and is best eaten fresh and therefore won't freeze well. This is a bit of a problem when preparing double of everything. I have, however, been able to freeze our soup leftovers which is nice as we move towards autumn - the best season of all.

I'm sad to say that today we had a breach of the vegan policy by our children. Today was the first day of Sunday School at the church we attend. To celebrate the start of a new year the church hosted ice cream and cookies at the end of the service. Our children were pining for both despite the fact that I had brought them a separate vegan friendly snack in anticipation of the ice cream and cookies. They were able to wear me down - I caved in and let them have the ice cream, but no cookies.

Today we had some friends over for dinner. They live in the same community we do and their children are fairly similar in age to ours so it's great to have the children play together while we catch up. Tonight we provided appetizers and dinner while they provided dessert. We had more corn salsa and chips, beautiful yellow, purple and orange carrots from Hotchkiss Farms (located in Rocky View, Alberta) we had purchased at Amaranth the other day, tomatoes, hummus, blueberries and pecans. My husband also made a fresh juice called the Atomizer from Rebar - it's an odd colour of green but who knew that cucumber, apple and pineapple would taste so good together!?!

For dinner we had a leaf lettuce salad, lentil soup and some fresh Rosemary Garlic Foccacia, also from Rebar. We changed the recipe up a bit and substituted some of the unbleached flour for spelt flour. We also used Sucanat rather than refined sugar.

Dessert was fantastic - it was vegan date squares and strawberries. My friend loves date squares and made up her own recipe - good job! It was very yummy and I'm grateful for the leftovers. I loved the dessert so much that I have been inspired to make some date squares and plan to do so in the next few days some time. Perhaps this will be a great project for my daughter and I while my oldest is at school and my youngest is napping.  My daughter loves to help out in the kitchen!

A Delightful Dinner

Today was a kitchen day. I spent most of my time in preparation for dinner guests but was smart this time and decided to double most of the recipes we were putting together for meals down the road.

I started by whipping up a tomato basil soup. I love making soup and, as usual, I didn't follow any specific recipe and instead threw in items that we had sitting around the kitchen. I made excellent use of some of the "priced to clear" organic tomatoes we had purchased from Community Natural Foods last night. I made so much soup that I had enough for this evening as well as soup for three other meals. It feels so good to make food for the freezer and is definitely an ideal solution for a busy mom like me.

I also made the Summertime Succotash from Alicia Silverstone's book, The Kind Diet. A Succotash, for the unacquainted, is a dish that is made from corn and lima beans and was made frequently during the great depression. Alicia's recipe is great - it's so fresh and satisfying in flavour - I would definitely recommend it!

I made one of my favourite fresh salsas - Sweet Corn Salsa, from Rebar. I doubled this recipe to have some for tomorrow when we are having more dinner guests.  It's such a beautiful salsa to look at and it's really easy to make. I made a guacamole as well and served both with unsalted Que Pasa Tortilla Chips. Can you believe that one serving (approximately 30 chips) has only 2 mg of sodium? I'm amazed by this because I always find chips very high in salt. I will definitely be purchasing these chips in the future.

The visual highlight of the dinner for me was the salad - I was so excited to incorporate the edible flowers we had purchased the night before. The salad included kale, spinach, oranges, raw pumpkin seeds, toasted pine nuts and the maple-chipotle vinaigrette from Rebar's Painted Desert Salad. I made a duplicate of this salad for tomorrow's dinner as well.

My husband put together a lovely Lemon-Lime Sorbet using our ice cream maker. It was a low-effort dessert to make and included fresh lemon and lime juice and zest and a simple syrup he made using sugar cane.

All in all it was a successful dinner and I walked away from the table feeling very satisfied and not bloated - it felt so great not to be weighed down by an overfilled belly. The only thing I felt dinner was missing was some hot and fresh crusty bread with vegan margarine . . . perhaps we can add that to the menu for dinner tomorrow night.

A Fantastic Day!

I want to start today's blog by thanking everyone who has been reading my blog and supporting me and the family through the start of our vegan challenge journey. I appreciate the comments I've received via the blog, Facebook, email and even the phone calls from friends and family - please keep them coming, I find them very encouraging and helpful!

Today was a great day. My husband and I went on a date this evening and had a wonderful dinner at Buddha's Veggie Restaurant. We actually used to go there quite frequently during university when I was a vegetarian, but when the restaurant owners moved their location from Southland Crossing to Macleod Trail we stopped going.  As soon as our "Veggie Ginger Beef" arrived at our table and I bit into a piece of it I was delighted - it was even better than I remembered! If I'm being very honest, I don't actually know that the dish met the unrefined sugar requirement that we've been trying to follow - the "Veggie Ginger Beef" tasted quite sweet and though the lady working there said it was "vegan" I didn't actually ask about the type of sweetener they used, and really, I didn't want to know . . . oops.

We finished off our date planning a menu and shopping for groceries for a dinner we will be hosting tomorrow night. We stopped by Community Natural Foods close to Chinook Centre and spent a good hour going through the store, aisle by aisle. We did find some great deals in the "priced to clear" produce section - a five pound bag of organic apples for $5.50 and approximately five pounds of organic tomatoes for about the same price. I've already decided I'm going to make some tomato basil soup with the tomatoes . . . yummy. Another delightful item we purchased that I can't wait to try is a small container of edible flowers - they looked so beautiful I couldn't resist!    

I'm keeping it short and sweet tonight - we're off to bed to catch up on some much needed rest!

Detoxification

I have a terrible headache. I actually had to push myself to sit down and write this post, but I'm happy I'm here doing it - I wanted to record all of the good and bad moments so that people have an idea of what they are getting into if they decide to give a Vegan challenge a try. My husband and I both have headaches today and have looked online to find the culprit.  One possibility is that we are in sugar withdrawal.  If anyone else reading this blog has encountered this, I'd love to hear from you. Apparently the sugar withdrawal can last up to two weeks - let's hope this doesn't happen as I feel like I'm in a fog!

I'm happy to report that food today was the best it's been so far! We started the day off with watermelon and some banana-wheat germ muffins, a recipe from Veganomicon. The muffins were good but I added carob chips to the top of the muffins in place of chocolate chips. Honestly, nothing can replace the yummy goodness of a traditional chocolate chip.  The carob chips didn't even soften in the oven.

Lunch was cantaloupe and leftover burritos from two days ago with pasta from last night.

Dinner was a marathon to put together as I started cooking it this morning and periodically worked on it throughout the day as time allowed. I made Rebar's Quinoa Corn Salad and Williams-Sonoma's Lentil Soup. Both recipes are excellent and were chosen because I knew they'd be a hit with the kids. Our oldest son exceeded our expectations with three helpings of the salad and even polished off his bowl of soup - this is the best success we've had with his meals in three days!

My husband is home from work tomorrow so I'm quite excited to have a meal-planning companion.  The kids are going to my mom's for dinner tomorrow night so she will be on her own to come up with a vegan friendly meal that the kids will want to eat. Good luck, Mom!

As for us, we need to find a Vegan-friendly restaurant in South Calgary... any suggestions?

A Little Bit of Disillusionment

So where do I begin today? Oh, right - I'm starving! I really don't want to dwell on this small, simple fact, but it's true.

I've come to the conclusion that I didn't eat enough food yesterday. I almost always have a snack about an hour before I go to bed but last night I didn't. I wanted to see what would happen if I skipped my usual huge bowl of popcorn - the results were less than desirable. I know some people say "don't eat for at least three hours before you go to bed or your metabolism will be trashed" or "you'll have terrible nightmares if you eat just before bedtime". I say HOGWASH to all of that! I woke up this morning with my jaw clenched from a rather unusual dream where Mike was cooking the kids and I a creamy meatball soup - there's a nightmare if I've ever heard one!

As a result of my starvation, I decided to start my day off right with half of a burrito left over from last night rather than a bowl of cereal with nutty milk.  This was a much more satisfying meal and held me over until lunch time, with the exception of some fresh fruit I had at a friend's house.

Lunch was great. We had a sandwich with Original Vegenaise by Earth Island, hummus, avocado, spinach and roasted tomato - it was delicious! My oldest son didn't think so, apparently he would rather go hungry than eat that sandwich.  He came home with three quarters of it remaining.

Dinner was less than a hit for my husband and I, but strangely enough the kids loved it! I couldn't decide on any particular recipe from the books in front of me at the time, so decided I would wing it and try to come up with my own dish in hopes of finding excellence while cleaning out my fridge. Imagine: bow-tie pasta, shallots, left over tapenade without anchovies, tomatoes (field and beautiful cherry and grape organic tomatoes that were red, orange and yellow - I wish I'd gotten a picture), spinach, tofu and purple beans. Sounds colourful and appetizing right? It was almost flavourless and really all I wanted to do was cover it in cheese and salt.

I've learned my lesson from yesterday - eat an evening snack! While typing this up I have been eating popcorn with a vegan margarine, garlic, sage, chili and cayenne . . . so much for mindful eating in this moment!

A Pretty Fantastic Start

Day one, I'm happy to report, has been a success!  

The morning started well with flax cereal and unsweetened hemp milk. I have to say to everyone that while hemp milk is not terrible, I certainly wouldn't be the first in line to get some - it has a very nutty flavour which could be a little off-putting, depending on what you are using it with. Unfortunately, before I was able to get downstairs to the kitchen this morning, my husband decided to let our oldest son have a little taste test of all the "alternative" milks we had available. This didn't end well as our son said they didn't taste good and tasted like nuts and then decided he wanted to eat his cereal without milk. Perhaps we'll try again tomorrow. Our daughter, on the other hand, had no complaints about the unsweetened hemp milk sitting in her cereal bowl - probably because I didn't give her the option for anything else and also because she had no idea she was having a non-dairy milk.

One of the highlights for me today was the trip I took to Amaranth Whole Foods Market, located in Arbour Lake. I love going to whole food stores, especially this one - they have beautiful produce that is fresh and local and the service can't be beat. One of the ladies that works there remembers me every time I come in, asks how I'm doing, chats with me and the children and then helps carry out my groceries - I love it! Today we picked up some beautiful Hotchkiss carrots, zucchini, vegan friendly wraps, miso and purple peppers - yes, that's right, purple peppers, who knew such a thing existed? 

Lunch was simple - Maeve and I shared a Silver Hills sprouted herb and garlic bagel with home-made hummus and slow roasted tomatoes and yellow and purple carrots on the side. For an afternoon snack we were able to resist the temptation of chocolate covered almonds and biscotti at a friend's house and opted for the watermelon instead - yay for fruit!

Dinner was fantastic! Bhangra Burritos out of one of my favourite cookbooks of all time - Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook. Tonight's attempt at the recipe was my first and it was actually easier and faster than I was expecting. The children didn't seem to mind them and ate almost everything except for the potatoes . . . of all the things not to eat . . . very strange that both of them should not like them.

All in all, the day went very well. I feel better already - in my heart and in my body. Perhaps it's that I'm committed to this and that's really half the battle. One of the biggest differences I've already noticed in less than 24 hours since we began this journey is that I'm practicing mindful eating. It's wonderful to put a piece of food in your mouth and truly taste it and savour it and it's great to eat when your body tells you it's hungry and not just shove food into your mouth because it's "time to eat".

On the Eve of the Vegan Challenge

For as long as I can remember I've been interested in a vegetarian "diet". I use the word diet not in reference to a specific time period where the goal is to lose weight, but rather as the way one eats on a regular basis. In junior high I remember going on my annual "Save the Turkey" campaigns at Thanksgiving because I was so disgusted at the thought of one animal dying for us as part of our celebratory meal. It's not that my mother didn't cook poultry frequently - she certainly did and lots of it as nearly every meal she cooked had meat of some sort or another. Thanksgiving always stood out to me as a horrifying though yummy meal because we would see the whole body of the turkey, minus the head, feet and feathers, lying out on a big platter, waiting to be eaten. In high school, I remember telling everyone that I was going to be getting a dog when I finished school and then the dog and I would be vegetarian together - I think all I got from those conversations were a bunch of people laughing at me and telling me that dogs, like us, were "meant to eat meat" and "didn't I know that?"

When I was in university I finally decided to take the plunge and went vegetarian for three years. Nearly every day of those three years I craved meat. I kept telling myself I was getting enough protein and eating a wide variety of foods, but looking back and knowing what I know now about the large variety of alternative proteins available, this certainly was not the case. My vegetarian crusade ended in 2003, shortly after my husband and I were married, when I decided to try out a "nameless" high protein diet that was popular at the time. My first few meals as a re-invented carnivore included such items as beef jerky, hamburgers, salmon and whole cans of tuna. I felt so sick, I think I lasted a week before I came to the conclusion that perhaps meat in moderation was a better way to go if I was going to re-introduce it back into my life.

Since the summer of 2003 I have continued to eat meat but have done so sparingly. Over the years I have become increasingly less enthusiastic about cooking and eating meat. In the last six months specifically, I have really felt a need in my heart and soul to explore the vegetarian way of life again and am also very intrigued in the more extreme vegan lifestyle. A vegan, for the unfamiliar, is someone who cuts out all animal products from their lifestyle - including food, fashion and body care products, to name a few. As a result my husband and I have decided to try a 30 day vegan food challenge for our family.

The rules: no meat, no eggs, no cheese or dairy of any kind. Oh and the kicker... no sugar.  Pure vegan, no excuses.

The challenge is set to begin tomorrow morning. We are both excited and a bit apprehensive - we love food and love to cook, but wonder how easy it will be to prepare a wide variety of foods that our children will love and will also meet nutritional needs for our bodies. Please stay posted to find out how our journey progresses . . .