Meatless Breakfast

Breakfast has to be one of my favourite meals (along with lunch and dinner, hehe) - I could easily eat 'breakfast foods' all day, and I have! Sometimes I will genuinely feel like oatmeal for dinner, or eggs for lunch. It's also a 'meal type' that is fairly generous to vegetarians, and even more so if you are eating eggs like me.

I was having a craving for pancakes, so I asked my boyfriend to make me breakfast. A full breakfast!

I actually made the pancake batter (thanks Joy of Cooking!) and added walnuts in for an extra crunch. He cooked them while I made us coffee. He wanted other breakfast goods as well so he prepared hashbrowns and eggs (and maple bacon for him) as well. I added the pineapple as a tropical garnish!

Certainly a good way to start the day!

Meatless Recovery Meal

One of the things I continue to struggle with is trying to replenish and recover my body after a tough workout at the gym. Apparently it's suggested that you intake a 4:1 carbohydrate to protein mix, but it's also proportionate to how much you weigh and how hard you work, so it's a tricky thing to calculate. I've always had a hard time trying to take in protein so going meatless for a month was a concern for me. One option for me was to drink protein shakes but buying a giant tub of powder wasn't that appealing to me.

So what's a vegetarian to do?

What about a spicy tofu and avocado salad and a tropical fruit platter?

Sounds awesome.

Pink grapefruit, pineapple, and mango

Spicy tofu and avocado salad = mix up a dressing of soy, sesame oil, and chili sauce. I wanted to add some natural peanut butter but I didn't have the foresight to warm it up to loosen up the texture.

Meatless Mexican

One of my favourite cuisines has to be Mexican food. Let's be honest, I try to be authentic but I use cheddar cheese which immediately renders it "Tex Mex". I make these breakfast or lunch burritos that I freeze and keep in neat foil packages, ready for it's 3.5 minute ride in my microwave. I can't tell you how many times a frozen burrito has saved me - during busy times at work, I would grab a couple (a breakfast and a lunch version) for meals on the go. They're hearty, flavourful, and nutritious.

This was probably the first thing I was thinking of when creating a vegetarian version. Usually the burrito would consist of: tomato-based rice pilaf, spiced meat, black beans, cheese, salsa. A breakfast version would be: steamed potatoes, scrambled eggs, beans, salsa, and cheese. It would be easy enough to omit the meat and just have a rice and beans burrito but I wanted to create a kind of meat substitute where I could still enjoy the substantial texture of a 'mock meat'.

One of my favourite restaurants in Vancouver is La Taqueria, who do authentic tacos using locally sourced ingredients. A staple on my colourful plastic plate is their roasted chili and creamed corn taco - an amazing balance of sweet, spicy and creamy goodness. I decided to do a twist on this and make a creamed corn filling.

As the rice was cooking away (it was brown rice, so it took a looooong time) I made the corn filling:

I blackened a jalapeno and sauteed it in some butter, then added about two cups of corn. I cooked that for a few minutes then added about 3/4 cup of milk to reduce and thicken. I didn't use cream (didn't have any) and the mixture didn't thicken quite as well as I had hoped, so I added about 1/2 tsp of cornstarch. It did come together nicely but it still lacked...something. And that something? Cheese! Glorious cheese!

Oh hellz yeah. 

Next up? A taco-spiced potato hash! A friend of mine warned me that a potato hash would take a long time to cook. And it did. Probably about 30 minutes? Three moderate sized potatoes, cubed, sauteing themselves in oil for about half an hour. But it turned out way better than expected. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside! I kept the heat on medium-medium high and turned them every few minutes. I sprinkled about 1/4 package of taco seasoning to coat and toss in the last few minutes.

Awesome colour on these taters!

The rice was still not done. So it looked like I would have a rice-less plate tonight - which I didn't mind as everything else was awesome. I opened up a can of black beans, washed, drained and strained and tossed it into a small saucepan with about 1/3 cup of water.I let it cook for a bit and mashed the heck out of it. Usually for salads I keep the beans whole, but mashed black beans in a burrito 'holds' a little bit better and acts as a glue for the rice, haha.

My finished plate:
(with a scoop of salsa and a sprinkle of cheese)

Meatless Month has gotten off to a good start!

Meatless April

At the beginning of the year, I wanted to try a month of meat-free eating.

At a time where there would be lots of fresh vegetables, but before the BBQ season started.

April, it was decided, would be the month.

So here I am, blogging about my meatless month!

Rules:

• Eggs allowed
• Dairy allowed
• Fish allowed twice a week (if eating out and vegetarian options are limited)
• "Picking off" allowed (ie. eating pizza if I've picked off the meat, I'm not going to be all, "but the chicken was ON the pizza" about it)
• Broths, bases and fats allowed but in moderation

April 1st was a write-off as I had a wedding to attend and if there was meat, I was going to eat it! And eat it I did!
Unfortunately today was the "wedding recovery day" so I had a frozen macaroni & cheese and going for sushi tonight. Tomorrow I'll share my shopping list and some menu ideas.

I want to be the 365daysofdining blogger!

An Upgraded Take

While my family was in town, we went to one of our restaurant mainstays - The Keg. Although I am an adventurous eater and come from a family that has roots in the restaurant industry, my parents are fairly conservative when it comes to food. My brother is game to try new things, but doesn't cook. When I go out to eat with my parents we go to one of four or five restaurants that have been tried, tested, and true. They know what to order and what to expect and don't really stray from the list. The Keg is the default "fancy" place of the list where they can get a good steak. Ironically a few years ago my dad wasn't eating beef, I was a vegetarian and my mom was on a big seafood kick - yet we still went to The Keg!

Anyway, they had a set menu special that my mom had which included the Billy Miner Pie. It's basically a 4" high mocha ice cream pie on a chocolate crumb crust, topped with caramel sauce and almonds. It's generally a crowd pleaser, and yes, it's good! A couple of friends of mine love this dessert and as I was going to see them, I decided to do my own take on the Billy Miner Pie.

Let's break it down by component:

• Mocha ice cream
• Chocolate crumb crust
• Caramel sauce
• Almonds

The ice cream
Their ice cream was veeeeery fluffy (almost whipped) with a mild taste. I did a normal churned ice cream amped with chocolate and espresso powder which yielded a rich, smooth, and dense product. As you can see from the picture, I didn't get quite the height as the original but I'd sacrifice a bit of size for quality.

The crust
As for the crust, it seemed that the original had chocolate crumb packed onto the bottom and side of the slice. It was powdery and didn't have any solid support structure at all. I stuck with a chocolate crust, mixing boxed crumb with ground up toasted hazelnuts with melted butter and sugar. I pressed it into a tart pan and baked it for about 15 minutes. It was definitely more like a tart crust, but the nuts in the crumb added a great dimension to the flavour.

The sauce
Their was a basic caramel sauce. Probably from a bottle. I made a fudge sauce of which the base was a salted caramel sauce to which I added a generous handful of dark chocolate. Yeah. It was awesome. Thick. Gloppy. Not too sweet.

The almonds
Same for both. I could've toasted mine I suppose....

All in all - I think my version was pretty darn good. But let's all admit, we have weaknesses for things that are not quite as fussed over (mine is McCain's Deep & Delicious Cake).

The Sandwich of Dreams!

I hosted a dinner for a date recently. I slow cooked a beef shank and served it on polenta with sauteed mushrooms. One of the parts of the meal I was looking forward to was the juicy (and giant) marrow of the beef bone. Like a bulleye, it stared me down whenever I opened up the lid of the slow cooker. I couldn't wait to plunge a knife into the centre and scoop out that velvety marrow and spread it on a piece of toasted baguette. Hell, I would have passed on the rest of the dinner for 10 minutes alone with that marrow bone. Alas, I had to share, but I did get two generously slathered baguette slices along with the rest of my dinner.

A couple of days later, I got to revisit the dinner...in the Sandwich of Dreams!

I took the leftover baguette and cut it in half and lightly toasted it. I heated up some of the beef, shredded it and put it on the bread. The cherry on top? Slices of brie. Oh yeah. And yes, I had a bowl of au jus for dipping as well. (oh, and a baked yam with a dollop of yogurt)