Little Chefs' Fruit Salad

Les Ateliers Cinq Épices (The Five Spices Workshops.. roughly translated) held another cooking workshop at my son's school this morning and I was on hand to help out (and snap photos). On today's menu: Fruit salad with a lime-mint-honey sauce. The salad had red and green apples, red and green grapes and pears. I helped the kids with their cutting technique, showed them how to squeeze lime juice and to cut mint leaves with small scissors. They were so good! And so was the salad.. sadly though my son really didn't like it. He wasn't keen on the tartness of the lime juice I think.

While I listened to the nutritionist asking students questions about the various ingredients, I was reminded of Jamie Oliver's visit to the school in Huntington, West Virginia. You know, the one where the children eat pizza for breakfast and couldn't name any of the fruits and vegetables he held up.

The children today could not only name the ingredients they were cooking with - they knew the parts of the fruits and what was significant about them, could describe where they grow, how they get to market and could pick out Fuji apples, green apples and bosc pears in a blind taste test. And this is in a low-income neighborhood, so the argument about the poor only eating cheap, processed food doesn't really fly here. I believe the school environment and its emphasis on nutritional education has played a positive role in fostering that knowledge. I hope schools in other areas have access to programs like this. Maybe Michelle Obama could see to it that this type of cooking workshop becomes part of a national childhood nutrition program in the US... for starters.

PS.. this program has been operating here in schools in Montreal, Canada for nearly 20 years.

Environment reasons to cut out meat: Part II: Greenhouse gas emissions

The 2006 UN/FAO report "Livestock's Long Shadow" was key in spreading knowledge about the negative environmental impacts of livestock production.

At this time, it was estimated that "livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions."

However, a more recent report published in 2009 by the Worldwatch Institute reexamines the UN/FAO report and argues that "livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions". The report authored by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, entitled "Livestock and Climate Change", concluded that "a 25-percent reduction in livestock products worldwide [...] would yield at minimum a 12.5-percent reduction in global anthropogenic GHGs emissions."

Environmental reasons to cut out meat: Part I: Water consumption

In keeping with the yesterday's World Water Day theme:

According to National Geographic it takes 1,799 gallons of water to make just one pound of beef. This does not include the additional water used for irrigation of the crops which go into the feed, nor the water used in processing.

One pound of soybeans requires just 216 gallons of water.

Happy 6th Birthday!

Happy Birthday Son!

My son's birthday was celebrated here on Saturday. We all had a blast and he thanked me for the "best party ever"... *blush*

In the midst of the chaos that is a kids' party, I didn't even take any food shots. But at least I have some pics of his cake. He had asked for the same cake I had made for another party.. this time I veganized it.. except for those After Eight Mints he insisted on (see edit on earlier post).

(photo acknowledgments to my friend Sarah at Black Ink Photography)

Chocolate cake recipe was from My Vegan Cookbook - only I made a double layer cake and 6 cupcakes.. just because. Frosting is the Fluffy Buttercream Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, with mint extract instead of vanilla and a few drops of green food die.

Other items on the menu:
- Hummus, black olive tapenade, veggie platter and pitas
- Mexican bean and sweet peppers salad
- Chili with veggie ground round
- thin-crust pizzas with peppers, black olives, veggie pepperoni and vegan cheese

Nobody left hungry :-)

More Quick Meal Ideas

A couple more super quick plant-based meal ideas because, for some reason I can't quite figure out, I find myself super-busy and strapped for time, even though I'm currently unemployed.. scratching my head.

First up is yet another inspiration from the Plant-Based Dietitian: A take on her Fiesta Fantastica, only turned into tostadas by placed between two tortillas and topped with salsa and vegan cheese. My partner came up with the filling idea: Just sauté some chopped onion, red and yellow peppers, add some veggie ground round and canned kidney beans and a little chili powder and a few tablespoons of water just to make it a bit saucy.

Place between two soft tortillas, top with salsa and vegan cheese. I just melted it all in the microwave (when I say fast, I mean fast ;-) ) Served with a mixed salad.

Next up is just a little stir fry I whipped up for a lunch the other day. I started with chopped asparagus, red peppers and green onions (because that's what I had on hand) in a little canola oil and added a package of Commensal Thai flavoured seitan. Tossed it all with rice noodles that took 3 minutes to prepare. Sooo easy.

I'm off to the Expo Manger Santé et Vivre Vert (Eating Well and Green Living)... I'm excited!!

Toxic Spices??

Oh great.. what next??
My favorite spices.. that's what. Its a good thing my son doesn't like a lot of spice to begin with.

Imported spices reported to have double the lead content found in U.S. brands:

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/03/15/spices-lead-children.html

Tofu 'Eggs' Two Ways

TOFU... not just another four-letter word.. a protein source with seemingly endless possibilities...

Here I've rescued a block of plain tofu headed towards its "best before date" and given it new life masquerading as scrambled "eggs" and an "egg" salad sandwich. Since these two recipes have similar items, its a great time saver to prepare them together.

Neither of these require any exact recipe and you can add a variety of chopped up and/or leftover veggies you have on hand.

What's weekend brunch without Tofu Scramble?

For 2 servings I used:

1/2 block of tofu, rinsed, pressed to remove water, and finely crumbled with a fork
3 green onions chopped
1/2 package of white mushrooms, sliced
1 T olive oil
1/2 t tumeric
1 t cumin
Dash of black pepper
Shake of Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb
2 T nutritional yeast flakes
Leftover green beans, chopped.

Sauté mushrooms and onions in oil over medium heat. Add crumbled tofu, yeast flakes and spices. Continue to sauté a few minutes until heated.



A favorite quick sandwich mix of mine.. tofu (egg) salad.

For enough mix for two sandwiches:

1/2 block of tofu, rinsed, pressed and finely crumbled with a fork
3 green onions, chopped
1/4 cup of Veganaise
1 T nutritional yeast flakes
1 t dijon mustard
1-2 t lemon juice
dash of fresh ground pepper
dash of tumeric

Just add all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.. ENJOY!


That out-of focus green stuff on the ends of the carrots is edamame dip.. found at the local IGA grocery store. A bit bland - they need to add a little more lemon juice or something to perk it up me thinks.

Off to enjoy another spring day while it lasts (I see the long-range forecast is for winter to return next week. I hope its wrong, I've already put away all winter outer wear.)

Rice and Beans Redux

A simple dish combining leftover canned lentils, leftover cooked brown rice, asparagus steamed in the microwave (2 minutes), tossed with a couple tablespoons of Bel Soy, a dash of sodium-reduced tamari, and nutritional yeast flakes. Total time: about 5 minutes. Price tag? Under $1 I would guess.

It really helps to make extra rice, noodles, legumes, and so forth that can be quickly combined into last-minute meals.

Kitchen Inspiration

I admit it, I have yet to come up with many exciting new recipe ideas of my own. I find so much inspiration out there in veggie blog land!

I noticed Julieanna Hever's post on Japanoodles the other day and have been craving this. I didn't exactly have the right ingredients on hand but made due with what I had: a mix of udon noodles, left over broccoli, carrots, green onions, miso, garlic and brown rice vinegar... it really hit the spot! I can't wait to do this again with some leafy greens (sadly, it is so not the season for them in these parts). This took a whole 5 minutes to prepare so I don't want to hear complaints from the peanut gallery about not having time to eat well.. grrr... ;-)

Fast Breakfast

One of my favorite quick breakfasts is to have a veggie paté on whole grain toast and a smoothie. I don't know if you have something like this available where you are but this green peppercorn terrine by local producer Cuisine Pur Plaisir is a dead-ringer for liver paté, but completely plant-based and actually packed with nutrients (like 75% of your daily B12 requirements per serving). I know, you'd think I was getting kick-backs from these companies but I swear that's not the case! :-)

I'm having a banana-strawberry-rice milk smoothie today but of course the possibilities are endless. (The banana I used was so ripe I think this might have some alcohol content to it.. hiccup).

Have a great healthy day everyone!! :-)

PS.. I have a ton of posts back-logged since I was away most of last week... they'll pop up in the coming days..

Meatless Monday Meal - Lentil Loaf and Swiss Chard

Even though every day has become Meatless Monday around here, I still think it can't hurt to make the point that if everybody just cut meat out for one day a week the planet (and their bodies) would be better off.

Alrighty, so enough preaching and onto food, glorious food. Like I said before I'm on a mission to cut costs on all fronts this month, starting with the food bill. A trip to the grocery store yesterday set me back a whole $16.81 and I intend to make this go as far as possible (ok, I already had a full pantry and items in the fridge).

One blog I have turned to time and again for excellent, easy and low-cost vegan recipes is My Vegan Cookbook. Yesterday I craved his lentil loaf and here it is.. only I switched green pepper for yellow (for some reason green peppers were twice the price of red, yellow and orange ones.. odd). I also nixed the salt for some Mrs. Dash garlic & herb since I'm watching my sodium intake.

(Hmm.. that doesn't look so great like that.. but it is!)

I'm also trying to get more greenery in my diet so I sautéd up a side of swiss chard with some chopped onion and red pepper left from the lentil loaf recipe, added some garlic, a dash each of olive oil and balsalmic vinegar and a pinch of sea salt.

My pan runneth over:

And the final outcome:

Looking forward to leftovers for lunch :-)