Two Tickets

To make good on those last two BB ticket picture posts, I bring you the current post. We'll start off with the ticket posted most recently for the King Tut exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
This was basically one of the most amazing things I have had the pleasure of seeing in person, but they didn't allow cameras in the exhibit. I'm still in awe of the things I saw. I could also add that I have a strange fascination with Egypt so I'm sure I would have loved it no matter what. Oh, is that a little street guard?
Now for the other ticket, which was Mew. Amazing live show with a great light show to accompany it. Some very creepy visuals playing for the majority of the set as well. The singer has a strong voice where on the record I thought he could not pull it off live but he did with no trouble at all. The sound was also crisp, which is very important for the amount of sounds happening during Mew songs.
Thank goodness for seat sales. Bonus outtake footage.

A Small Dream Lived.

Now to find a way to make the big part happen.

Crack!

is here and so is the spreading of xmas cheer.

Brief TO Trip

I went on a little trip to Toronto not even two weeks ago and I for some reason left my camera in my pocket or in my temporary apartment for the majority of the time. First the things that we captured. Second raptors game with some friends. Great time. Hey...
Next up was a new eatery called Calico that I had never been to before and had just heard about the day before. Calico uses produce grown in the backyard and a new menu is created every two weeks to take advantage of fresh seasonal flavors. First up was a soup that I can't remember the name of but you can tell that it was shared and was dug into quite quickly.
A couple of shared beverages, a smoothie and some kinda apple pineapple juice if memory serves me correctly.
The next app was grilled king mushrooms and greens picked that day from the backyard. I'm not the biggest fan of mushrooms but I think that is because I grew up on white button mushrooms. These guys right here were delicious and had a very nice texture.
The main had hickory smoked tempeh with maple glaze, once again trying to pick my brain, barley risotto and a purple cabbage slaw. I don't often eat tempeh, but this dish could change that.
A little cranberry currant cobbler to finish it all off.
Calico was an overall enjoyable experience with great service, food arriving quickly and for the style of food and presentation it was relatively inexpensive. I would go back in a heartbeat...and will on Sunday for brunch.

Now for the things that we lost. Not captured that trip were numerous great meals and desserts, hangin with Karl and Crime In Stereo and then driving their van and trailer around TO, seeing Brand New and spending time with lots of good friends. Hopefully I'll remedy all of those things this weekend. Pretty much done my little game of catch up now.

Leftovers

This is one that fell through the cracks or was supposed to be my last post for veganmofo 2009. I made my french toast from a previous post and fiddled around with coconut milk in it and also used cinnamon roll bread. Let's just say that it was amazing. There were some homemade cherry sage sausages from the Vegan Brunch book and it was all topped off with some fruit salsa.
Hopefully this will inspire you to get a loaf of cinnamon roll bread and make french toast. Zero regrets.

New Terrain

Yes its snowing behind

Look at this!

Dreams just came true!

Numerous Knockouts

Pretty much any UFC that is remotely worth watching gets watched with a bunch of people at Puddy's crib. What goes perfectly great with that kind of event? Snacks obviously! There was some little bits n bites and this and that. Highlight of the small stuff was coconut cashews that I picked up at a bulk spot. True story, possibly the greatest snack version of the cashew ever. Onto the real highlights of the night though. We'll start off with Chill's fruit salsa served with cinnamon sugar crispy triangles(I clearly forget what said triangles were made of).
Then to finish off the night was the dynamic duo of apple pie ice cream with cinnamon vanilla crumbs and chocolate marshmallow ice cream.
Needless to say, the weekends are a time of maximal food consumption. A very delicious version of that particular activity! The KO reference in the title relates to the fights and food induced comas that come from these particular evenings. Ha!

Bye Bye Albert Diner

Sometimes bad things happen during VeganMofo. This is certainly the case in Winnipeg as The Albert's Royal Diner has shut the doors down and I didn't even get the chance to make it down for one last veggie burger. Good thing my homie Nate had me covered, since he worked there and all. We had a little last feast on a couple Albert veggie burgers with cheddar Teese, spinach, farm fresh tomatoes, farm fresh onions and curry mayo. You pretty much need sweet potato fries to go with this and oddly enough we managed to procure some. Here it is...
but it won't be for the last time as something is currently in the works. Stay Tuned! Only thing that was missing was the aioli that comes with the sweet potato fries at the diner, but what are you gonna do? It's gonna be a rough patch up ahead in regards to getting an amazing veggie burger in Winnipeg as the two best spots are either shut down or closed for the season. Someone needs to fill this gap and quick!

Thanksgiving Round 2 Part 2!!!

I thought that after that great meal that took place as my second Thanksgiving meal that I would be done with them. Little did I know that there would be a tofurky feast with roasted veggies and dumplings ahead of me that evening.
As you can tell, it was a pretty filling evening and I doubt I even had to eat the next day. Sometimes things happen and you have two grandiose meals back to back, so what?

Thanksgiving Round 2

A little late or a little early depending on where you are! This was the evening compliment to a nice relaxing day of watching football. Simple seitan sliced then and then soy milked and flour breaded and fried served with gravy. Then the real deal that makes any holiday meal worth it, beet leaf holopchis! My mom made them and then I made the dill cream sauce to go with them. Leftover proof.
That was followed up by a "little" pumpkin pie that Chill made. Once again, it's nice to have a pro baker in your midst on the regular.
This happened.
Then this happened
I could only put one of those pieces away, that pie was both dense and delicious. It was a pretty filling day to say the very least.

Fun Stuff

It's time to be a little more live in the blogging this month. Saturday morning have become a fairly regular occurrence for a brunch followed by recording a Hotcakes Podcast. This Saturday was no different and I decided to switch it up from hotcakes to french toast. Not only was it french toast, but it was stuffed french toast! My own recipe for french toast with some cooked apples from my parents tree to fill it. Here it is.
Now here is the recipe.

1 medium to large banana

½ cup coconut milk

¾ cup soy milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon cinnamon

Dash freshly ground nutmeg

4 tablespoons whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon brown sugar

1 loaf multigrain bread

Canola oil or vegan margarine for frying

Place banana, soymilk, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg in a food processor or blender and mix until they are well blended and there are no more banana lumps. Add the flour and sugar and blend again to incorporate. Heat a non stick frying pan over medium high heat and use a little oil for each pan of French toast you make. Pour the mixture into a shallow/wide bottomed bowl or baking dish. Drench a slice of bread until it is fully coated and place into the frying pan. Flip when it is browned, about 2-3 minutes. Remove from pan when the second side is browned.

For the filling I used farm fresh apples and sauteed them gently in vegan margarine with some sugar. I added cinnamon and just a pinch of nutmeg and cooked them down until they were just getting soft.

Assemble the french toast however you like with the apples, top off with some maple syrup and add some fresh fruit to the mix and you're laughin!

New Eats

This is another example of having a post saved up for when you get busy or maybe just don't feel like doin too much. Billy was in town last month and that always means good food and serious chillin. We decided he had to try the newest spot in town with vegan fare...The Lo Pub Bistro. We started off with the chickpea fritter app that came with a couple weird sauces and I cannot for the life of me remember their names, but they were great.
A little caesar salad with bread followed. A nice simple salad that was really really good. I actually want to eat some of this right now. ha.
Now to the main courses and the one dish that most people seem to talk about and that is the veggie fish n chips. Some house made seitan wrapped with seaweed and then lightly breaded and fried. There is a tartar sauce like thing that comes with this and is great. We also got some miso gravy for the fries, you gotta live right? This is very good and it was actually the second time I had it!
Pigs in a blanket...for dinner? Yes! This time it was house made veggie sausage wrapped in a corn crepe with some southwestern veggies and a rugged mustard dipping sauce. A nice change from covering this dish in syrup like I normally would for brunch.
Is there anything wrong with having a piece of black forest cake for dessert? Even if it was the only vegan dessert option, I'm sure most people wouldn't pass it up.
Billy blogging in progress...hope to see this before the month ends here.
Also, its a good thing that Billy likes to get his gamble on and win some $$$ playing poker. Why would I bring that up? Well let's just say that this is me thanking him again for the wonderful dinner that he treated Nate and myself to! Now, here is the man in action keeping all his loyal fans happy!
Then it was off to the tour bus to relax in comfort. The size of this TV might not translate well due to this picture, but let's just say that it was a nice size and the Xbox 360 was a nice touch as well.
Are these the same jeans that sponsor both Silverstein and TJ? WTF!?
A benefit of having a great bro that is constantly on tour is that he sometimes brings you treats that you can't find at home. I may have eaten two of these thanks to Billy.
Yeah, it's on the rider.
Well that was a nice little catch up post, hopefully some real time posts start happening in the near future. Take care.

Black Saturday

It was that time of year again on Saturday, the time of the year that we say goodbye to The North Star and their delicious veggie burgers until the spring shows itself. A new little treat happened on this day and that was fresh homemade potato chips. Amazing.
Here are the burger twins. The only difference is that one has fried onions and the other has raw. Both delicious and a great way to end a great season. Don't forget about the homemade curry mayo I brought to put on to take them to that whole new level of awesome.Here were my burger bros.This finger numbing experience was the start of my thanksgiving weekend. I used the ride home to get my extremities back to warmth and had a very relaxing weekend. Hopefully time for catch up and new food stuffs in the near near future.

FavreBQ Sammies!

Tonight was Brett Favre's first time facing his former Packer teammates and that alone was cause for a few friends watching some football. Also, people gotta eat while watching a good game right? Yes they do! I had my eye on a recipe from Vcon and decided tonight was the night to try the BBQ seitan slaw sammie. We ended up using a bought chipotle BBQ sauce and it turned out to be pretty tasty. Here it is just before being devoured.
Not pictured is the delicious root beer that washed this gem down. A great night for football and food. Now Favre is the only QB in the history of the league to have beaten all 32 teams. Kaboom.

Sunday Hotcakes

This sunday was a weird one as I watched under one game of football, but stranger things have happened. I did get a nice little brunch in though! I made some mint chocolate chip pancakes up, which involved subbing half the vanilla extract for peppermint extract in a basic pancake recipe and adding choc chips. Nice and easy. Topped that all off with a little celestial cream from Dreena Burton's Eat, Drink & Be Vegan
This brunch was the fuel for a sunday morning recording of the Hotcakes podcast. I will apologize right this minute for the picture quality. Why? Well, when I was half way to the studio I remembered that I forgot my camera at home and wasn't about to turn around for it so we'll all have to enjoy the wonderful picture taking abilities of the blackberry once again.

October Is Upon Us.

and that means the same thing that happened last year is going to happen this year...
I have been so busy with everything that kitchen time etc has been at a minimum but luckily I had a photo of something I made recently that I saved!!! Here we go with some black bean and chorizo enchiladas with mozza teese, salsa verde and avocadoThis one was just thrown together haphazardly and I will give you a quick guide to whipping this up for yourself.

Enchilada shell. Mix some maseca flour and lukewarm water together until it feels like it is a bit too wet to use. You won't want to use more than a cup of flour for this. Then flatten them out into the disc size you want to use and make them quite thin. Fry them in shallow oil in a pan and that part is done.

Black bean chorizo topping. Sautee some onions, garlic and jalapenos together and when softened add salt, pepper, chili powder and cumin. Cook down for a minute or two and then add some black beans and allow to cook for a bit. Add some water so that you have a bit of sauciness when you are done cooking the beans. When the beans are pretty much ready add the chorizo of your choice, whether it be homemade or store bought, and cook for a few more minutes. Check for seasoning and finish off with some fresh cilantro.

Salsa verde. Jacked from here

As soon as I took the enchilada shells out of the oil I put the teese on them and then covered them with the black bean chorizo to aid in the melt. Top with salsa verde, some fresh avocado and enjoy.

Now let's get ready for a month of deliciousness all over the internetz.

First Sunday!

The NFL season has begun and with it also begins a plethora of delicious treats on a weekly basis. This particular weekend included a dinner of veggie chicken alfredo on spinach fettucine and some garden fresh zucchini. As if that wasn't enough! Dessert served up some peach amaretto cheesecake. I'm sure you can tell which is which from the following pictures. The alfredo was from the ppk message board and the cheesecake was a chill creation that I don't have the recipe for. Sorry folks, soon enough and I'll get on top of sharing recipes with y'all. Sorry for the BB pics, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Late Summer

It is pretty much hot as can be for September so why not fire up the grill? Veggie burgs with homemade tofu bacon, curry mayo and an assortment of veggies. Snacks on snacks.

Guess Who's Back!

Oh shit, it's Billy!
We decided to hit the asian vegan friendly joint Affinity on a Monday since all the other good ones are closed. Once again, I'm only keeping tabs on my favorite dishes. Here we have the Chili Eggplant. One word, amazing.
Next up is the Kung Pao Gluten and it did not let anyone down.
Some salt and pepper breaded deep fried cauliflower will always do the trick.
I know it's hard to believe but this gentleman right here ate a vegan meal and fully enjoyed it.
We made a detour before seeing Funny People that night, sidenote great movie, and picked up my ice cream maker from Chill. Oddly enough there was some ice cream in the freezer that she had made up. If I'm not mistaken this is caramel choc chip vegan ice cream.
These kinda things happen when a concoction such as that shows itself.
Finally close to caught up. Bye.