Quesedillas (or however you spell it)

Generally, I am always in the mood for mexican food - last night was no exception. The hardest part was deciding between fajitas, tostadas or quesedillas.... finally Dave pushed us over the quesedilla edge.

We took some onions, orange & yellow peppers, mushrooms, mock chicken (Yves Chick'n strips), and cilantro and cooked it all up in some olive oil. This is what it looked like: Afterwards we piled it between two corn tortillas, placed on a cookie sheet, shreded some cheese onto it and baked for about 12 mintues. Et voila, Bob is your mothers brother! With no room left for dessert the night finished off with my favourite cup of tea:

And that was that, a nice quite one at home.

snaps and 'caps (mushroom that is)

Tonight I needed to make up for an entire weekend spent outside of my kitchen. So we started with making a great dinner
Those are double baked potatoes stuffed with brocolli, soy cheese and S&P - they were really good and the tops got nice and crispy. mmm... With those I had a roasted portobello mushroom marinated in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, basil and oregano. I wasn't expecting much, but it really turned out fantastic - so sweet and soft. Then ofcourse some roasted asparagus with olive oil and S&P.

After dinner, we were both craving something sweet so I went through the pages of my cookbooks and found a recipe for Dad's Molasses Cookies. In the midst of mixing my dry ingredients, I realized that I was missing allspice and ground ginger. We went out and Dave suggested that we check out the little convenience store underneath our apartment - I bet him that he wouldn't have it, but low and behold there it was (and I didn't even need to pay through the roof for convenience!)

These are them in the oven:
Dave and I just stared through the oven door for what seemed like the 12-14 minutes of baking - I think we were really looking forward to some ginger snappin' action!

And finally, these were them:

Busy weekend

What a busy, busy weekend. I didn't cook very much, so food wise this won't be the most exciting post.

We went to a very yummy brunch on Saturday (for details check out Megan's blog) it was very good and afterwards we definitely needed to burn some of it off so we hopped onto our bikes and did some grocery shopping. Not a super exciting day, but rounded off nicely with homemade pizzas and television at Trevor's. All in all a good day.

Sunday, we went to Guelph to visit an oldie but a goodie, my friend Brian. Had a good visit and went to the Cornerstone Cafe, which is a Veggie/Vegan restaurant with really good food. I ofrouse, brought the camera but left it in the backpack the whole time (too busy talking). But, at least you all have a reason to go to Guelph now - to check out the Cornerstone!

We ended up at my parents house for early Thanksgiving (we'll all be scattered around in 2 weeks, for actual Thanksgiving). Here is a photo of my mum, dave and i - I really like how goofily happy we all look:
Food was good - my Mum still hasn't mastered the art of not just giving side dishes as veggie mains, but I did have some nalesniki which are always good.

Here are some photos of the feline (Smirnoff) and canine (Blueberry). They permanently live with my parents, as our place is way to small, but we take them for some side visits every so often:
Blue is quite old, she turned 16 this year! We've had her in our family since she was just 8 weeks old - it's crazy to think, but I don't really remember life without Blue.
Smirnoff is a bit of a nut job. His mum was stolen when he was just a 3-day old kitten, so he was mostly raised by Blueberry (the dog). He has a lot of dog characteristics, in that he plays fetch with a ball, lets you rub his belly for hours, and his meow is short and choppy more like a dogs bark than a typical cats meow. He looks a bit evil here but in reality he probably wouldn't know how to hurt a mouse.
Oh, the one thing I did cook... some corn tortilla chips and salsa. Nothing too fancy, just cut up corn tortilla with salt, sugar, paprika, chili and garlic powder. They came out tasty, but mixed with the salsa really spicy (Dave and I were sweating like nobody's business)!

A visit from Megan the Vegan

What a great evening, after a less than great day (don't you hate when you have to deal with Bank people over the phone... I'm really sorry if some of you guys are bank people, maybe you are all lovely, but you most certainly don't work for my bank then!)

Anywhoo... tonight Megan the Vegan came by for a visit. Coincidentally (or maybe not?) she came by just as I was making supper... hmmm... tricksy that girl is! I was making risotto (the one I made for Trevor's Mangiano Italiano party. It's really easy to make and has very few ingredients:

onion, garlic, portobello mushrooms, white mushrooms, asparagus, white whine, veg stock, s&p, and arborio rice. (if you want the recipe, let me know and I'll post it as a comment)

here it is, as you can see I was eager to try it:
[Please note the fancy pants, new haircut, my hair DOES NOT usually look that nice]

I think this photo gives you the best indication of how wonderfully goofy and fun Megan the Vegan is, and also would throw off those guys that guess peoples ages at the fair.
Now, I guess I should leave on a more official blogging note and show you a picture of the actual risotto and not just of silly madness... this is the risotto (I threw some parmesan on top as I was feeling slightly cheesy, but the starch of the rice makes it more than creamy enough to omit this).

Tostadas and our friend Trevor

In today's post, you'll meet on of our bestest friends Trevor. He's fun and has a cool blog that you should all check out, visit it here. Just a snippet of how talented an artist he is, this is a drawing that he whipped up of our puppy (that is not in our possession as of yet, but we wants it!):
Onto last night, went climbing and afterwards Trevor came over for dinner... it was Tostadas night. Tostadas were introduced to me by a colleague from work, and Megan the Vegan revamped them by piling on lost of delicious toppings - blackbeans with jalapenos, cilantro, green onions, lettuce, tomatos, and avocado. The boys had regular cheese and I had some soy mozzarella with chilis thrown into it. As you can see they were a delight (oh and this is Trevor):

I usually put all the toppings out in little bowls so you can pile up as much of each item as you want; this was taken before the entire table was covered in toppings, after dinner it sort of looked as if we had flipped the bowls upside down and spilled their contents everywhere - for obvious reasons, I refrained from photographing that ;)

To round out the meal, some ice cream (though I think it's getting a bit cold for ice cream - to proove it, today as I rode to work I realized that it's officially gloves weather (at least in the mornings). This is Dave and his ice cream (a love that cannot be broken):

and that ladies and gentleman, was Wednesday night... and today I'm getting my haircut (woohoo!)

Kubo Radio...yum, yum, yum

Tonight I went with some friends to Kubo Radio for dinner. It's an "Asian Pub" and oh boy was it good and surprisingly, really veggie friendly. I ofcourse, forgot my camera at home, but can hopefully whet your appetites with some descriptions.

I started with the edamame - a classic - it was as to be expected... great.. just salty, soya goodness. Some of the girls had the Goyza dumplings, fried and stuffed with wild mushrooms - I almost wished I had gone that route. For my main, the Tofu You Wok'd Noodles (fried tofu/snow pea shoots/red peppers/crushed cashews/garlic/soy sauce/lime/Thai stick) it was listed as having egg and oyster sauce, but they happily removed both. They offerred up a sweet chili paste as a condiment and with a little bit of that the noodles really did wok! ha ha ha

I came to find these waiting for me:

What a nice surprise from Dave... I've never been one for big fancy bouquets or long red roses, so these happy coloured flowers were great. As a thank you, I thought that I would make him a choclatey treat. I didn't really feel like measuring, stirring and baking so I found a recipe for a no-bake choclate treat... they turned out great.

Sadly, these aren't vegan but I think they could be easily "veganized".At first I didn't think that there was enough chocolate to cover them and that they wouldn't be that good, but after they hardened Sheemdle said that they were very good. Yay! This is a close up of one of them, they're just melted chocolate chips and water poured over crumbled up graham crackers.

I don't think they're vegan, because I don't think that graham crackers are (are they?)

Wet, hungry but still happy!

Shmeedle and I went climbing tonight and on the way home got caught in the rain, very caught in a lot of rain. You can't see, but it was all dripping:

But it didn't dampen my spirits as I had a good climbing night, and made it up some climbs that I didn't think I would. I'm glad that my old climbing self is starting to peak through the summer-off-climbing-self. Looking forward to Wednesday.

Was starving when we got home, so Shmeedle had leftovers and I made myself tempeh, arugula, onion and avocado sandwiches. They were really good. I marinated (for approx. 6 minutes.. no patience) the tempeh in soy sauce (pearl rivir brand, it's amazing), water, lemon juice and some hot sauce. Then I fried it up, using the marinating liquid on the pan. It soaked it all up and turned out pretty good, take a look:

I am a firm believer in open-face sandwiches, that way you taste all of the good sandwich innerds, instead of only having a lot of bread to bite through. Dinner was rounded off with some vanilla Soy Delicious with caramel sauce on it. mmm... a little taste of summer on a very rainy night.

You'll probably notice that I talk alot about Shmeedle, he's really Dave but I mostly call him Shmee.. this is him... he's dreamy (and a bit of a silly goof :)

Cooking like a fiend!

What a busy weekend, I feel like I've done nothing but cook... though the high point was definitely going for my first run in 2 months (I was travelling a lot this summer and letting a hip injury heel) but I finally went on Saturday morning. Nothing too taxing, but good enough to hopefully keep me at it.

But first a photo, to keep you interested (I find the blogs that keep me hooked, are full of photos.. to appease my short attention span). This is a picture of the moon over Lake Ontario, taken from our balcony by Shmeedle:



But, back to the cooking. Last night a friend was having a dinner thing, and he, Shmeedle and I cooked all of the food. I was the chef, and they were both sous me..teeheehee. It turned out great! I tried a new risotto recipe, wild mushroom and asparagus. It was fantastic, I even managed to make two (not one, but two!) non-mushroom eaters believe that there is indeed FUN, in funghus. Next was both manicotti and canneloni - the manicotti was neat, because instead of using pasta I made crepes and stuffed those with filling. I should have taken photos, but I'm new to this blog thing and forgot.


Today was a bit of blah day, weather wise it was beautiful but I was just feeling a bit out of sorts. So, I hopped on my bike and went to kensington to pick up some produce and nummies. With that mission acoomplished, Shmeedle suggested we go for a walk which was nice, but sort of uneventful, except... I picked up some phyllo pastry which after some consultation with Megan the Vegan, turned into this:


They were delish! I've always been a bit intimidated by phyllo but it was really quite easy, though time consuming. I filled them with this, can you guess what it is... I coiuldn't believe it after I peeled it... who knew they were so pretty:

It is an .... apple. We peeled it and it clearly was blog worthy.

bunnies!

I just rediscovered this photo on my computer. It was taken in downtown Ottawa, I can't believe there are just bunnies hoping around the city... how cool is that?

Hello and Welcome!

Hello!
Wow... my very own blog. I know, I'm the last one as everyone and their sister has one.. but somethings just take time.

First let me explain the whole urban granola thing. You see, I've always had a hard time answering the question "What's your style?" By style, I don't just mean what you wear or how you cut your hair, it's more than that. To me it's the values you hold and things that are important to you. Let's break it down "urban" i love cities! Their vibrant, alive, crazy, and chaotic all in one unit. Then "granola" i also love all of the outdoorsy, naturey, animaly things that this fine planet has to offer and that makes me a proud tree huggin' granola ... so what better way to than to be the urban granola, est voila! a blog is born.

This blog will be a collection of ramblings, rants and recipes from my life here in Toronto. First a few notes about me and what i do:
i work (blah.)
i live with shmeedle (my loverly boyfriend)
i ride by bike everywhere (it's not a looker, but oh boy does she go!)
i love to climb (wahoo!)
i love to run (but i've been in a bit of a rut for about a month)
i love to cook (i'm veggie and so are all of my recipes) and
i have a weakness for dogs.

now... you know about me... stop by and have a read...hopefully something will tickle your fancy.

this is the view from our balcony... the urban part.

bye for now.