Lunch on the Patio.

This was a valentine's gift to myself: a relaxing, leisurely lunch on the patio with the sun blazing overhead and me shaded underneath an umbrella reading a good book. I can't ask for anything better to do on this gorgeous Sunday. We're lucky to get this kind of weather here while snow storms ravage the majority of the country. I will enjoy it while we have it. So, on to my lunch. I had a platter of dips (hummus and baba ganouj) with pita bread and cucumbers, a Lebanese eggplant and chickpea stew, sweet little clementines and a beer and tomato juice. Yes you heard that right! I used to love Clamato y cerveza when I was omni and the only way I can kind of duplicate that is to use tomato juice instead of Clamato. Tastes great and works for me!


The two dips in the front are hummus and baba ganouj that was leftover from my lunch yesterday at Gaby's Mediterranean cafe. I also had a big thing of hummus that I made last week so I added some of that to my plate as well. Drizzled with olive oil and flanked by cucumbers, this was heaven.


The star of the meal. Mnazalet Al-Batinjan or Eggplant and Chickpea stew from "Tables of Lebanon" cookbook. Easiest recipe ever. It's beautifully fragrant with cumin and mint leaves. The eggplant is so tender, it melts in your mouth. I love this dish.


Scoop some on bread and eat!


Dessert was the chocolate beer waffles from Vegan Brunch cookbook. Yummy! I served them with blueberry/maple syrup and a dusting of powdered sugar.

Vegan Pumpkin Waffles

I so had this for dinner. I felt really guilty and full of white flour and sugar afterwards but then I thought, 'what the hey! it's the holidays!'. This is the recipe from 'Vegan with a Vengeance'. I think I may have messed up because while the outside was semi crispy, the inside was a little mushy. I was playing around with the amounts of sugar (I decreased it by a bit) and the amount of oil and pumpkin. So it was very much my fault for fiddling around with the recipe. But the taste was good and I ate all of it with melty Earth Balance margarine and maple syrup. I was so sugared out after I finished that I had some salty/sour sauerkraut and pepperoncini to balance my taste buds out, haha!

Detox Week 3, Day 20

Hello weekend! It's a great one because it's the last weekend of my diet and next week I will finally get to eat some of the things that I've been craving. My husband bought me a bag of Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos, hehe...naughty! I'll have those next week as well. Just a little though. I'm not going to be a gluttonous pig or anything. I will have whatever I like in moderation. Other things I will have in moderation: banana chocolate chip cakes, nachos, tacos, vegan beer bread, chocolate rum cake, blueberry buckle, pizza with tofurky sausage and pine nut cheese, vanilla pudding trifle...boy there are a lot of desserts I'm looking forward to!

Today's eat were very nice.


Breakfast: Dandelion Carob Tea (dandelion tea, 1 tsp carob powder, unsweeteened soymilk, 1 tsp brown rice syrup)


A breakfast treat: Instead of eating my usual oatmeal, I'll have my oats in another form! Oat-Corn Waffles (oats, cornmeal, dates, water, olive oil) with sesame seeds. Served with 2 TB maple syrup. I got this recipe from the Country Life Vegetarian cookbook.

Snack #1: 1 tangerine


Lunch: Mediterranean pizza with a sweet potato crust. A Gillian McKeith recipe. Very healthy yet absolutely delicious!


Served with red leaf salad. I ate two slices at lunch.

Snack #2: celery and sunflower paté with a square of date brownie

Dinner will be two more slices of pizza and another salad!

Corn-Oat Waffles + Bonus party cupcakes

My father in law is visiting from Montreal for a few weeks and he's a diabetic so I thought I'd keep the Country Life Veg cookbook close by as all the recipes are healthy, low fat and sugar free. These breakfast waffles are made entirely out of oats, cornmeal, water, a bit of oil and a tiny amount of agave syrup. They came out really nice! They are crisp on the outside and tender on the inside with a light corn flavor. I imagine a little cinnamon added to the batter would have been amazing. Never had a non-flour based waffle before and I think I will make these more often. It's like having a bowl of oatmeal in waffle form.




My father in law's waffles overflowing with sugar free pancake syrup.


Mine with lots of buttery Earth Balance!

***


Aren't these just screaming "birthday cake"? Tomorrow is a big party for several birthdays in our family so I made these festive cupcakes for them. It's the Dulce Sin Leche recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and the fluffy vanilla buttercream frosting.