attempted catch-up

So while I’ve been cooking the recipes listed in the correct order, I’ve found it really hard to get the whole photo/blog update portion of this challenge under control. I don’t know why the blogging aspect of this is harder than the cooking part but for some reason I always forget to update. I ended up getting a new camera and camera card since my other card wasn’t reading the images that I had taken, this means that while I’ve cooked all the recipes thus far, I only have photos for the last week or so….so that’s where I’ll start from.

Stuffed Butternut Squash

This was really tasty and worth the extra effort! I loved the different textures and how well balanced it was.

Chocolate Pecan Cookies (with walnuts)
The texture of these was a little strange at first, but after a few taste tests, I really enjoyed them and I think I’ll make them again!

Curried Fennel Cauliflower Bake
Another amazing dish! I loved the fennel in this, it’s a spice I haven’t really used much in my cooking. I really enjoyed having cauliflower baked instead of steamed like it’s usually prepared. Yum

Fruit Juice “jello-tin”
This was alright. I’m not a huge “jello” fan so this wasn’t my favourite but it wasn’t bad. I used a combination of apple juice and Odwalla Pomegranate Limeade which was a good mix

 

 

Monday Morning Meusli
I thought I would really like this one, because I was a HUGE fan of the granola recipes , but there was a weird texture/flavour in this for me. I think it may have been the wheat germ. I used dried mango and cranberries in mine and while it was good for breakfast, I’d much prefer the granola 🙂

 

Parsnip Apple Soup
This was….alright. It ended up kind of runny for me and at the same time I think the milk and apple juice kind of went funny when they mixed and it ended up looking kind of weird. The flavour was alright but not quite my fave soup.

 

argh!

I’m still here, and I’m still cooking everyday but my camera card has been acting up and I think I’ve lost the photos that I’ve taken thus far. It’s been such a crazy few weeks with my photography job picking up and extra work popping up here and there that it’s been really tough to post on my blog about my cooking adventures with the LDV challenge. I’m hoping that this weekend I can right myself and start up again.

I honestly don’t even know how it’s been so long since I’ve last posted. I got so mixed up with days and recipes and work and all that mumbo-jumbo that I finally feel like I’m sort of kind of back on track. I know that I’ve made recipes that I didn’t take pictures for, like the Roasted Parsnips with Kalamata Olives (not a fan of the olives). I know that I’ve made all the assigned recipes because I stamp the pages after I’m done so excuse the lack of some photos  🙂

 

Nikole’s Bosses Mom’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake
This one wasn’t too bad, not the best cake from the cookbook but a nice twist on a regular chocolate cake.

Dijon Mustard Brussels Sprouts
I don’t know what people have against Brussels Sprouts, they are so tasty and I loved them in this recipe too, the perfect balance of acids and spice. Deeelish

Jen’s Creamy Basil & Sun-dried Tomato Pasta
At first I didn’t think that I would like this one but I actually thought it was amazing! I couldn’t tell that it was tofu that added the creaminess and it tasted just as good as a cold salad the next day!

Maple Flax Squares
This wasn’t anything like I expected, it was much better! Very good and would be perfect with some raisins in there too!

Tip Top Tofu Loaf
As weird as this one turned out, I didn’t mind it. I used it as filling for sandwhiches and it was pretty tasty!

Vegan ‘Sausage’ Hash
While I really enjoyed this recipe, I did have to transfer the mixture to a hot frying pan to get it to the crispy stage, once I did that it was crazy good!

All Caught Up

So it’s been a few days but now I’m 100% caught up. We were fixing stuff around the house and by the time we finished that each day, cooked and cleaned I couldn’t even think about blogging! But here’s all the recipes and now I’m ready to keep on going, I’m not sure if these are in the right order but I’m going to try (some of them need to be rotated too…)

Carrot Ginger Soup
Holy wow, this soup was spicy! I think my ginger must have been really fresh or something but this was a mouthful of heat but so good!!

 

Simple Oatmeal Cookies
I think I’ve made these in the past and they are so quick to make and taste so good, I added some currants to mine and they are hard to not snack on!

 

Curried Butternut Squash Soup
This was just ok for me, I liked the flavours and the warmth I just felt like it needed some more to it, I’ll try again though!

Macaroni and Cheeze Sauce
I’ve made the nutritional yeast cheeze sauce before and I didn’t like it so this wasn’t my favourite recipe. I added some Daiya cheddar and it helped a bit but still not my fave.

 

Peanut Butter Banana Strudel
Wow. Yum. Like seriously, I should have made two of these.

BLT breakfast casserole
This was a lot of prep work but actually turned out pretty tasty in the end! I made my own cheese sauce with Daiya and it was SO good, can’t wait to have some leftovers for breakfast tomorrow 🙂

Chocolate Pear-zza and Sesame Miso Dressing (um…not together though!)

Chocolate Pear-zza

I really like pears but this wasn’t the best way to have them…at least for me. I found the end result to be a bit dry and kind of strange. I think if I were to try this again I would nix the chocolate and add some ginger to the pears and make a sauce or glaze to go with it!

Sesame Miso Dressing

Let it be known that since we started this project back in September,  I haven’t purchased a single bottle of salad dressing. These dressings are all so good and so easy that it doesn’t make sense to buy them! I’ve even been making extra to bring to work to share with people who end up scribbling down the recipe 🙂

Potato Salad & Nuts

Hot Nuts

Okay, I giggled when saying this recipe name out loud, couldn’t help it!! These were pretty tasty and the heat was sneaky but a nice after effect, must.not.eat.all.of.them.

Roasted Asparagus Potato Salad
It’s nice trying out these different kinds of potato salad, I’m used to just that mayonaisse heavy standard version but this one was pretty tasty with the onions and light acidic note from the vinegar. Yum!

Spiced Potato Soup:

I think I need to start bringing the cookbook with me to the grocery store because I had to make 3 seperate trips for this recipe, I kept forgetting ingredients! The overall result was pretty tasty as far as potato salads go 🙂

On Golden Pond Mushroom Soup:
At first I was a bit weirded out by the colour of the soup, it reminded me a lot of mushroom gravy, but in the end I really liked the flavour…it was pretty tasty!

Snickerdoodles:
While these may not be my favourite cookie, they did seem to dissappear quite quickly from the pan (though nobody fessed up). They’re easy and pretty good but not my fave.

 

Walnut & Spinach Salad with Raspberry Dressing
This dressing is easily my favourite of all the ones we’ve made thus far, even if it does take a few extra minutes it’s worth it! The sweetness from the berries is really an awesome compliment to the salad.

Time To Catch Up!

Okay….whew, made it through the holidays! After a crazy week, a scary weekend driving on the highway and a few double cooking days, I think I’m all caught up!  One of my resolutions for this year is to stay on top of the blog posts!

Forgive the photos this post, I was in a hurry to get everything caught up! These aren’t necessarily going to be order either…oops!

 

 

 

I thought at first that I would like these but they turned out kind of soggy….I left mine in the fridge overnight to make sure the chocolate was firmed up but then the cereal turned really weird…probably not a favourite of mine….

BBQ Popcorn
I think I would have enjoyed this if it didn’t turn out so mushy….perhaps upping the pretzel quotient might help to make it less soggy, might have to try again….

Corn Casserole
I’m not a huge corn fan so this didn’t seem all that appetizing to me at first, I let mine cook for a bit longer and used firm tofu which I think helped to give it some texture. Overall it wasn’t too bad, but I think if I make it again, I’ll add some greens to it and eat it in a wrap…

Coconut Red Lentil Soup
This is one of my favourite soup recipes, I make it all the time (or at least I did before this challenge!) It’s pretty simple to whip up and the coconut milk adds such a nice taste to it….yum!

Tara’s Chocolate Cake and Frosting
I think I’ve made this cake before and it’s always turned out pretty darn good. Usually the response I get from people when I bring it is “It’s pretty good, can’t believe it’s Vegan”….I love that reply! As you can tell from the photo I’m not a cake decorator by any means…but it’s the taste that counts right?

The first of many catch-up posts!

Hoping you all had a wonderful christmas holiday, I sure did although I was away from a kitchen for the last few days and when I did return home, realized I had no food to make any of the recipes!

Christmas was yummy, my first ever tofurkey….it was different but I did get everyone to try some and almost everyone (even the cattle ranchers at the table) agreed that it was pretty tasty!

Here’s the first in what will probably be several catch-up posts! They’ll be in a weird order but they’ll all be there eventually!

Cranberry Pecan Granola
This was my favourite of the granola recipes we’ve done so far, the combination of pecans and almonds was perfect and I kind of regret only doing a half batch as i could eat this every day for breakfast!!

Banana Pecan Pancakes
I cut the recipe in half and almost didn’t even get to try them as the first 2 that I put into the frying pan ended up burning a tad. ooops. The second batch turned out great and I liked the simple flavour, very tasty for breakfast!

Holy crap, the holidays are crazy around here even if I’m not trying to get as involved in the hooplah this year! I’ve been cooking in a mad frenzy for the past few days it seems and that combined with christmas parties and shopping (plus trying to sneak in a bit of relaxing) has left me kind of jumbled.

I don’t think these are all in the right order  but I kind of mixed up the recipes from the past few days and made them in a weird order…oops!

Mashed Potatoes with Kalamata Olives

I like mashed potatoes but I still don’t like olives, this seemed like kind of a strange combination to me but I tried it out and while I must admit my potatoes came out perfectly, I wasn’t sold on the olive bits.

Santa’s Favourite Christmas Bread
This reminded me of the Banana Bread recipe in Vegan A Go-Go which is one of my favourite recipes. I loved all the additions, the textures from the oranges and cranberries were great and I will totally be making this again.

 

 

Peacefrogs Artichoke Heart Pasta
Yum! I really liked this recipe, it was relatively simple and quick to make and tasted fresh and light, a definite keeper!

Red Lentil Pasta
I must admit that I was a bit hesistant on the cinnamon in this sauce but in the end it came out pretty tasty, I liked the texture and it was just the perfect balance between sweet and savoury.

Lemon Cranberry Muffins
I love the smell of lemon extract (is that weird?) so I was quite happy to add a bit extra into these muffins, they turned out so good and I can’t believe that I’ve never made them before!

 

Walnut  crusted “Chicken”
So after my last wheat gluten induced migraine, I’ve tried to veer away from using the faux meat recipes in the book, I subbed in some tofu that I had sliced into big slices and they turned out awesome!! The marinade was so good and the breading was perfectly crunchy, awesome!