Hello!
It feels like forever since I've posted... due to Blogger being down :(, oh well it's back up and running which is all that counts! It's finally Friday! Friday the 13th indeed, thankfully however nothing bad has happened to me... that is unless you don't count last night. Here I am minding my own business, biking in the living room (my bike is set to stationery right now) and all of a sudden this huge, huuuuge bug skids across the floor. I don't know what it was centipede, grasshopper, who knows what, but I definitely let out the biggest shriek of life... my mom came running out of the office as if someone had just shot me... I am not a fan of bugs, not at all. I may love to camp, but the bugs that come with it, ugh... no. However, for the most part I am a good veg and don't kill bugs (unless, I'm sorry fellow veg's out there, it's a spider). I cannot let a spider be close to me... I would love to put it on a piece of paper and bring it outside, but I'm far too afraid to let it get that close to my hand, and risk the chance of it finding it's way back into my house. I do it with earwigs, centipedes, flies, bees, anything, but spiders, oh I cannot. Unless I yell at someone in the house to do it... which is usually the case because no matter how small the creature I feel bad. Nonetheless, my shriek, it was loud, and it was literally on the floor for less than five seconds, I don't know where it disappeared to, if it went in between the hardwood floors (which scares me because my room is in the basement) or in my moms bed, meuahhahaha, but it was gone. I had hopped off my bike right away, it went near my yoga mat, and vamoose it was gone. Needless to say for the rest of my ride I was looking at the ground, but it never showed it's faec... which is a good thing because I didn't feel like being frightened again. Other than that though, no bad karma came my way! I even got to sleep in today, mama and I left the house at 10:10 am this morning! I looooove living in Montreal where our work is ten minutes away, it seriously feels like paradise.
Enough with that though! I want to share with you guys the recipes that I had today! Ah it was such a marvelous day, that's for sure. Last night I definitely spent a good hour and a half prepping my meals for the day, but it was certainly worth it.
Coconut Chocolate Avocado Pudding
Recipe slightly adapted from here
My breakfast was a recipe for raw chocolate coconut avocado pudding. I'm sure none of you guys are going to remember, but one of the first recipes I made on this blog that was far from normal for me at the time... okay, this was the recipe that I was most scared about... it was my first "spinach" recipe. It was a recipe for Avocado Chocolate Pudding, the picture actually makes me giggle, you can actually see bits of spinach in there, that's definitely going to get people who are afraid of "green" food to like this, hahaha, I remember Jordan picking out a piece of spinach, I had loved it, hence after that I started tucking in more spinach into my dishes, but that was the recipe that broke the ice.
Since then I have seen many vegan pudding's floating around, some that involve firm tofu, silken tofu, cashews, avocados, etc... I've had a recipe saved for quite some time that I've been wanting to make as a dessert. This week however, I haven't had any sweets really, other than last night when I decided to have some Sweet and Salty popcorn. Usually at this point I'm down 2-3 BAGS of Nibs, and a ton of popcorn. When I knew I was moving to Montreal I told myself that I was going to control those urges and surprisingly I have. With that being said, I had bought an avocado and decided that I was going to make breakfast with it. That's right I was going to have pudding for breakfast. I have never been a fan of pudding, unless it was pistachio... there's just something about the texture, and food that you can still eat if your teeth are closed shut, it just freaks me out. I figured since it's all natural products, and I've attempted it before I'd try it again. This time it was different, it was food taken to a whole new level, it was blissful, it was decadent. I was a little upset at first because I didn't want to have chocolate pudding, I wanted to have matcha pudding, but I forgot my matcha powder back home unfortunately so I settled for the chocolate. To my delight it was really good, maybe it's because I could taste the dates and I added shredded coconut on top. Regardless this was so good. I reduced the cocoa amount since again, I'm not a giant fan... the amount of cocoa I added was a good amount, I still wanted to taste the avocado and I could, but it was more of a passing by of the ingredients. Neither the cocoa or the avocado overpowered the other, it was perfect. It was smooth, it was pudding, but pudding you could feel good about, and I didn't even feel guilty having that at eight in the morning, haha!
This would certainly be great as a dessert, but it also works as breakfast, even if you wanted to add chia/protein powder to give it a boost of protein too that would be fantastic. I loved this, and know that I will be making this again!
Ingredients:
- 1 ripe avocado, pitted
- 8 dates
- 1/4 tsp vanilla
- 2 1/4 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup water
- Shredded coconut - for garnish
Directions:
Place all ingredients in a food processor (you can use a blender or Vita, but food processors work much better for this recipe) and begin blending.
Drizzle water in, stopping to scrape sides of bowl if need be, until the mixture resembles a thick, chocolate pudding. Let it continue mixing until smooth and creamy.
Garnish with shredded coconut, sit back and enjoy.
Breakfast made my day start out so well. Honestly, it was just so wonderful, I loved every single bite of it. At first I was a bit skeptical of eating a whole avocado for breakfast, yes it's good fat and is very good for you, but... there's a lot of fat. However, I couldn't stop, it tasted so wonderful, and it is healthy so I just went with it, plus what the heck, it's Friday!
Lunch was as delightful as breakfast. I already knew that however, as I definitely ate 1/4 of the tofu last night, when added to the salad I made... oh my goodness, my taste buds were definitely doing a happy dance. Last night I had to consciously stop myself from eating all of the tofu, it was by far one of the best tofu's I've ever tasted. I love extra-firm tofu, it makes me think of chicken... kind of weird, but it's one reason I don't miss meat at all. If your tofu is marinated well, it's as if you're eating meat without the guilt. This tofu had a bunch of my favourite flavours, and seeing as they are all staples I have in my house, even at the end of the week when groceries were done days before I still had the proper ingredients. Unfortunately, I didn't have white wine on me since I wasn't back home, and my mom only seems to have white wine, but this tofu still turned out delicately. If it were that good without the white wine I can just imagine how sinful this would be with it. I loved it. The maple syrup and orange juice gave the tofu a crispy-caramelized taste/texture. I will be making this again.
Ever since I stopped eating meat, started eating healthier Chinese food was one thing that I haven't really seen, other than fried rice... and fried rice unless made at home isn't that great anyway. When I saw this recipe I knew I wanted to make it. It reminded me of comfort food, the comfort I used to feel when I ate Chinese food. Last night, and today at lunch I had that warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach and spirit. I loved it. It was so simple to make, seriously a little chopping, a little drizzling, a little sprinkling plus a little bit of baking and voila, home comfort food without the guilt, and with as much flavour, "oohhs" and "ahhhs" as your take-out Chinese.
Orange Ginger Baked Tofu Salad
Recipe adapted from here (I forgot all of my condiment's at home, so I had to opt a bit but it still turned out magnificently)
Ingredients:
- 14 oz extra-firm tofu, drained and sliced
- 2 tbsp of minced ginger
- 4 cloves of garlic minced
- Zest of one orange
- 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
- 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
- 1-2 tsp EVOO
- 1/2 tsp wine vinegar
- Pinch of red pepper flakes
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
To make the marinade, whisk together all of the ingredients. Pour half of the marinade into the baking dish and dredge tofu in the sauce. Cover with other half of the marinade.
Let soak for 10-30 minutes.
Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes and then flip with tongs and bake for 20 additional minutes uncovered for a total baking time of 40 minutes
Turn on broiler for a few minutes for extra chewiness.
Salad:
- Marinate tofu
- Lettuce
- Arugula
- Cucumber
- Carrots - chopped thinly
- White balsamic vinegar
- EVOO
- Sunflower seeds - to taste
Directions:
Toss everything in your bowl and eat!
I hope your day was as delicious as mine!
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