a vegan food blog that will be composed of recipes, straight up food porn, nutritional info and general food talk. occasionally, it will also be mingled with bits and pieces from my life outside of food which might include bicycles, art and my cat.

Monday, April 19, 2010

lazy pizza

Sometimes you want some pizza, but you just don't want to order it, and you definitely do not have the energy or patience to make pizza dough; in enters Naan. Indian Life has one flavour of Naan that contains no dairy, so my friend Ayma and I snagged it and covered it with delicious toppings.

This pizza is covered with the following:

-crushed tomatoes
-sliced cremini mushrooms
-marinated artichokes
-kalamata olives
-fresh tomatoes
-crumbled tofu

The tofu was marinated in a mixture of garlic, lemon juice, white wine vinegar and dill.

We brushed the Naan with olive oil from the artichokes before putting on the toppings, slid it onto a baking sheet and then tossed it into an oven preheated to 350F for about 12 minutes.

Easiest pizza ever!

We also made a simple salad with ripped up red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and avocado. The dressing was made of juice from half a lemon, half a teaspoon of grainy mustard, several splashes of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and probs about half a teaspoon of maple syrup.

Delicious!

Friday, April 9, 2010

Mexicooooooooooo!

I recently went to Mexico with some friends; we had the good fortune of staying in a house and thus had access to a kitchen. Here's a peek at one of the dinners that we made...



It was a mishmash of things, including some grilled asparagus and cactus (which, it turns out, has the texture of aloe vera), a huge bowl of guacamole (avos, garlic, lots of lime), tofu and mushrooms cooked with some delicious peppers (I forget what they were called...), salsa (tomatoes, corn, cilantro, garlic), and various hot sauces...

Ok, not the most informative post, but it was a pretty great dinner! I'm pretty sure that we ate avocados with just about every single meal while we were there... not to mention SO MANY BEANS AND TORTILLAS (even though they were not present at this meal).

That's all for now!

Salad!

Here's a quick salad that I made one evening for dinner. I often forget how easy it is to whip a delicious salad together, and they are so satisfying and delicious!!
YUM!!
Ingredients in this salad are as follows:
-red leaf lettuce, washed and ripped into pieces
-cherry tomatoes and avocado cut into chunks
-grated carrot
-canned black beans, rinsed
-sliced almonds, toasted (you can toast nuts in about 5 minutes on a tray in your toaster oven, set to 375F..... or also on the stove in a dry pan on medium-high heat)
-mushrooms and asparagus (I sliced these up and then just fried them in a pan until they were tender. I prooooobably doused them in balsamic vinegar once they were half-way done)

Toss everything together, and then all you need is a dressing!
My go to dressing is a mixture of equal parts white wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, with about half a lemon's worth of juice, half a teaspoon of grainy mustard, a teensy bit of agave nectar, and a dash of white truffle oil. It's SUPERB!

I know that white truffle oil is expensive, and a bit of a luxury item, but you need such a small amount to add lovely fragrant flavour to a dish. It's meant to be used as a finishing oil (you put it on for flavour once the dish is fully prepared; it's not meant to be used during the actual cooking process), so you basically just need a dash. It makes an excellent addition to salads, or gives a special je ne sais quoi to soups (it's AMAZING on white bean soups!)

Oh yeah, here's the salad!