heartyspoonful

When we first moved to Quebec, one of the first "local" foods we tried was poutine, which is really just another word for cholesterol. You grow old enough and you soon realise it's something you crave when alcohol takes over your system. I got sick of course after that first try (lactose intolerant over here). All the cheese curds just didn't agree with me. I also found it way too salty. But maybe it's just me, I don't know what even when it's right there on my tongue. 

Lactose issues aside, I marked poutine as a food I'll just never eat. I'll just have fries with ketchup, thank you very much. But there comes a time in a vegan's life when you want to live a little and just not worry about calories and nutritional value. The little health nut in me though wants both all the fun and the taste. Sometimes, you just can't choose to compromise. Am I right or what? 

My first vegan poutine was from Lola Rosa and it was heavenly. But of course, after a few bites, I did find it rather salty. Perhaps there's something wrong with my taste buds. As with a lot of things I eat dining out, I just had to recreate it at home. So here goes. 

**Full disclosure: I eyed this recipe a lot without using a lot of measurements. Be creative!**

 Let me love you!

 

Do you want to know a secret? I actually adore pizza. I used to endure tummy pain just to enjoy slice after slice of cheesy pizza. Funnily enough, all I wanted as toppings were pizza sauce, cheese and green pepper. I would remove everything else. My brother has always been a die-hard fan of Hawaiian pizza with lots of pineapple chunks. Since my parents never liked his temper tantrums, we were stuck eating that pizza, which I didn't particularly enjoy. But, hey, pizza is pizza. Right? Or not.

Maybe you're the type who like all the toppings imaginable. Maybe, you prefer simplicity, like pizza margherita. Perhaps you prefer it New York style. Or Chicago with a deeper crust. You might even be the type, who likes the crust with hot dogs folded in. Shame on you. You might even say cauliflower pizza is pizza so I'll just go to the left. (Sorry, guys, but as much as I like cauliflower, that's just not a dough.) But however you like your pizza, I think it's a good idea to know how to make it homemade. You know, for days when you feel like you need an arm workout. Or when you're too anxious to make that call for delivery. Or if you're feeling healthy and want to know all ingredients that go into your meal. Or if you're vegan and a vegan pizza delivery simply doesn't exist in your city. Whatever your reason, it's time to learn to make easy pizza dough. 

I may be a feisty little lady, but I ran away, scared to the bone, when a recipe calls for dough. You don't see me baking pie, do you? Bread? I only bake bread when I have expert hands helping me out. I made pizza from scratch with my dad whenever he visited, but to be honest, he did all the work. I also don't like working with yeast. I don't mind the kneading, but what I do mind is the smell of yeast. Just what even! I'm also a very impatient in the kitchen so if I have to leave anything to rise, I don't even both starting the recipe. 

This is where this easy-peasy pizza dough recipe comes in. Not because I didn't have much in my pantry. (I didn't. I barely had enough flour to be honest.) It's for anyone who still isn't very comfortable with handling dough or who's rather impatient to wait for dough to rise. This recipe is perfect to practice on, in my opinion. It makes 1 dough = 1 pie so if you do screw up (I promise you won't), you won't feel too bad wasting half the flour you have available to you. No funky smell in here. I might add, I mention below that it should make 6-8 slices, but it's really up to you. It could be 8 slices or 6 slices or 4 slices or 2 slices. Heck, you can eat the whole pizza. No big deal.

Also, I'm calling this recipe "poor woman's" pizza because at the time of baking, my fridge was almost empty. I had a small container of mushroom, one green bell pepper, leftover tomato sauce, some frozen corn, a few carrots, strawberries and tapioca pudding. Maybe if you're a kitchen genius, you could make do of all of those items, but I'm a simple vegan girl so I kept this recipe as bare as possible. But you have all the right in the world to go crazy.

Ready?

All is well with the world. 

Poor Woman's Easy Vegan Pizza

Makes 6-8 slices 

Ingredients (Dough):

Once you're able to form a round dough, cover the bowl with a cloth and leave to sit for at least 10 minutes. When ready, punch out any air and begin shaping with your hands. Spread dough with your fingers until you're satisfied with the shape. 

Using a fork, poke the dough and bake for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and be creative with your toppings. 

Place in oven and bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. The time will depend on how thickly or thinly you rolled the dough. Also if your oven is crazy hot. 

Topping Choices:

You know what's so great about having foodie friends? Inspiring each other to try new foods! In my own experience, I think my friends and I discuss food more than we talk about boys and relationships. It's just more fun to talk about different kinds of foods, healthy and for comfort. When we're tired from work, food is our go-to. When we're heartbroken and frustrated in general, we turn to food to mend all the broken pieces. We laugh and drink and eat as merrily as Hobbits. Truly. But then again, as is normal to almost everyone, we also have a love/hate relationship with food. Especially after a few days or weeks of hearty meals and the scale declares there's extra baggage that needs to be dealt with. 

My friend Becky and I are so compatible in so many ways. We're both health-conscious, who love yoga and running. We both love to cook and meal prep is a must activity for us. We love trying new restaurants and more importantly, since we both cook, we love trying out new recipes. She mentioned that she was making stuffed peppers and since I've never made stuffed peppers before, I just new I should add it to my (growing) list of recipes. So, here goes.

Vegan Stuffed Peppers

Makes 3

Ingredients:

For a very long time, fueled by a nasty eating disorder, I avoided many sources of carbs. Like potatoes. My beloved French fries simply became a thing of the past. Bread a big no-no. How I craved a good slice of bread. Pasta always made me cry. My mother would cook a delicious vegan pasta dish and I would have a few forkfuls and pretend to eat bowls after bowls. I threw away a lot of food. My conscience was suffering from anxiety and was rather racked by guilt, but that voice in my head that repeatedly told me that I was fat was much stronger.

One day, on a chilly morning in Amsterdam, I noticed a few locals caring freshly baked bread. There were huge smiles plastered on their porcelain-like faces. I was jealous. I begin to think, “Wow, really? So a happy face like that can be caused by bread?” The smell of freshly baked bread also filled the morning air. It was delicious. You know when you crave something so bad your head just turns into a void? You can’t really think of anything, can’t feel anything. It’s like your sole purpose in life is to attain whatever you desire. It was like that, what I felt for a delicious piece of bread that one Dutch morning. I was still suffering from disordered eating at that point, but God, did I want to eat some wheat concoction. I headed to an organic market (that just magically appeared in front of me, I must say) and there was a choir of angels when I finally saw the fantastical bread aisle. Like a kid in a candy shop, I loaded my basket with different types of bread. Mind you, I was travelling alone. I could’ve fed a family of 6 with the bread that I bought that day. It wasn’t just hunger I felt that day. Not just physically. It was an emotional kind of hunger, my soul needed bread. It was symbolic, at least to me. I rushed home right after I paid. I started to pinch a thick piece of spelt bread on my walk back to my flat. I probably finished a quarter of it. I took my time when I got home. I was just smelling the air in my bright kitchen. The sunlight made everything look like a dream and the fresh baked bread smell wafted in the air. It was love, to be honest. For breakfast, I had a raisin cinnamon bun. I think on my week stay in Amsterdam, I consumed 6 of those. I was lucky enough to always buy them warm, freshly out of the oven. The baker started to call me “Bun Girl” because I was there every morning, buying the exact same thing. I’d like to pretend she called me Bond Girl, but I’ll settle for what I really was: Bun Girl.

My next stop during that trip was Paris. And my love affair with bread continues. I bought myself delicious fig bread that I had for dinner, sitting by the Seine and drinking wine. As you do, you know. I would find a seat at Les Tuileries, read a book and munch on bread and hummus. It was la vie en rose for me. Maybe it was an effect of being on vacation, but all the negative thoughts were gone. I didn’t die. I didn’t hate myself for eating bread. I was breathing. I was strolling everywhere. I didn’t think I was a fat elephant.

When I got back to Canada, I was really scared all the nasty thoughts about bread would reemerge. But they didn’t. I didn’t eat that much bread though, to be honest, but I think that’s just because I preferred bread from overseas better (don’t stone me, my dear Canadians). I have sandwiches a few times a week. I don’t shy away from bread. If a restaurant offers a bread basket, sign me right up. I’ll have the vegan burger, please. Pita bread, you say? Yes, please!

One of my favourite vegan spots in Montreal is Green Panther. It’s convenient, the food is tasty, but it’s comfort food, veganised. I’ve had the falafel pita (full size of course) many times. But then, one day, I decided to try their “tempeh-tation” pita. Oh my Lord, that was one heck of a sandwich. My taste buds were rejoicing. I was over the moon. Clearly, I found my new favourite sandwich.
 

I remember my first salad. Or perhaps, it was the first salad I could remember. In any case, I didn't like it. I ate it, sure, but the taste was something I thought I'd only like when I was much older (i.e. when I'm in my 30s, feeding veggies to my own children). My aunt prepared this big salad for our family dinner, which consisted of greens, tomatoes, cucumber, and hard-boiled eggs with some mustard dressing. Let me break it down to you, six year-old me hated cucumbers (I still do except if the cucumber is well hidden in a sushi roll and masked by the taste of tamari), I couldn't stand the taste of raw tomatoes and greens were something I thought a cow would eat. Given that I didn't have as many stomachs like a cow, I justified myself quite well into not liking salad greens. (Of course, a few months later I learned cows eat grass and not lettuce. Shame on me.) So, my first memorable salad experience was disastrous. When I turned vegetarian, however, my tastebuds couldn't get enough salads. I would eat big salads for lunch and dinner. One of my co-workers poked fun at my big containers of 2 salads (hey, I sometimes exceed a 40-hour work week and I refuse to eat [vegan] fast food every single day). I managed to incorporate daily salad servings into my diet, which was also somewhat of a miracle since I hoard pasta and bread. Just ask my mother. 

But of course, after all these years of not consuming meat and consuming mostly fruits and vegetables (except on my Parisian visits where my food pyramid is just bread), I've learned to spice things up in the kitchen. Sure, I still love salads, but I'm so much more creative now with my mix of veggies and greens. I add quinoa at times, when I'm not lazy in the kitchen. Or purple corn chips if I'm feeling adventurous. At the end of the day, my nourish bowl is always colourful. Always interesting. Always delicious and nutritious. 

Given the colderrr days, I actually want less heavy food. I tend not to be as active in the winter because 1) I don't like the cold, 2) I can't do any winter sports and 3) I don't move as much so why stuff myself with heavy comfort food? I tend to crave more summery dishes that are light but still tasteful. Reason why I believe my fridge contains more fruits and veggies in the wintertime than in the summer. (Our kitchen table is currently stocked with the following: grapefruits, mangoes, avocados, tomatoes, apples, bananas, papaya, sweet potatoes. Fridge is filled with: kale, spinach, passionfruit, pears, plums, clementines, greenbeans, squash, capsicum, beets, blueberries, lemons, Japanese yams, kiwi, etc.) And let me be honest, I'm trying to limit my winter weight. I just cleaned out my closet and this girl can't afford extra sets of bigger work clothes. #justbeinghonest

Here's my recipe then, or should I say my "unrecipe" for creating nourish bowls. If you read enough of my posts on savoury foods, you'll notice that I don't measure much. Because this isn't baking and I'm not exactly making a sauce so quantity means close to nothing to me. I'll be posting other versions of my nourish bowls as I eat along. 

Nourish Bowl Part I

Ingredients:

"Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud."

- Maya Angelou

We've never really had raw and actually fresh spring rolls as kids. My parents did prepare some sort of "fresh" lumpia, but inevitably, that was false advertising. What made it "fresh" was the fact that the wrapper wasn't deep fried, but no, it wasn't raw at all. 

What a chance that I discovered some rice paper wraps I purchased a while back, but managed to completely forget. See, spring cleaning one's kitchen cupboards can be a blessing in disguise.On that same day, I also just so happened to be particularly lazy. After a rather long run in the morning and then finishing up some work and preparing my meals for the work, can you really blame me if I didn't want to cook an actual home cooked dinner? 

So I heated up some water. I was going to make myself a cuppa anyway. Plugged in my food processor and grated some carrots and beets. Yes, I also decided my biceps didn't need the manual labour. Then sliced up some other veggies and made a sauce. Hey, I ran out of my homemade salad dressing anyway.

See that? It's laziness with all the denial. Laziness is eliminating the majority of manual labour from cooking. Laziness is reducing the amount of pots and pans and dishes to wash after the actual cooking process. Actually, laziness is eliminating the actual cooking process altogether. But that's not really true, is it? There are some raw recipes that require some muscle as well. And no, I'm not calling raw vegans lazy. Don't mind me, I'm just mumbling here. 

So off to the recipe, or lackthereof before I get myself into trouble. 

The majority of people in my family are very good cooks. However, they're not big on recipes. They can just whip up a dish by taste and sight. They feel for the dish and just know when enough of any ingredient has been mixed in. This is really more of a guideline or a giver-of-ideas of sorts when it comes to rice paper wraps because, really, how can you ever go wrong on fresh rice paper wraps?

Lazy Rice Paper Wraps 

Ingredients: