mushrooms... mmm.. fungus...

Last night I cooked a bunch of different dinner options, including a delicious funghus - yum!


They're stuffed with tomatoes, onions, breadcrombs, and cilantro (and probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting).

As we speak, I'm also defrosting the Soyrizo that I bought whil in America recently (why can't Canada get as much cool Veg stuff as America...) I'm excited to try this (I think I'm going to make Soyrizo burritos for dinner .. make sure to check back!)

alright... i'm givin' this another try...

So I've been kicking myself for not blogging in awhile.. but I'm going to blame a chock'a'block full summer of eating, visiting, and not wanting to sit in front of a computer... now that the fall is here, I'm back!! And here is my oath:
I, Urban Granola, promise to be a better blogger. I promise to cook like no one has cooked before, and to photograph it and write about it.

How's that? Oathy enough?

For now, some highlights from the summer. A super great trip to visit Dave's parents out in BC (including an amazing stay in Tofino.. wow!), one of my bestest friends wedding (yay Kaps), and two more weddings after that!, two seasons of beach volleyball (Spring/Summer), and a couple of camping trips around our fair Ontari-ari-ario!

Lately I've been cooking a bunch here are some examples:

• some vegan tacos (complete with a salsa verde ground round, and homemade salsa)
• oatmeal cranberry/chocolate cookies
• easy-peasy individual lasagnas
• lots of barbecued veggies and guacamole

I would post photos but blogger is being persnickety, so I'll try again from home. I'm back, and here's a fun photo of Dave and I:


All for now, blogger world... but happy to say, I'M BACK!!

oreos... a vegan treat... who knew??

Since Meg was out of town for the weekend and was in for a looooong drive on Sunday; Dave and I decided to make both dinner and dessert for Sunday night dinner. For dinner we made quesadillas with a variety of toppings... arugula, sundried tomatoes, cannelinni bean paste, walnuts... and chicken for the boys. This is them:

For dessert we made oreo cupcakes...after finding out that Oreos (that's right, name brand Oreos, are actually gegan)... so we made these deeelicious cupcakes (from Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World!!)... have a look: and one more view - cause it's hard to see in that photo:

that was dinner... and dessert.

carpet of onions

How's that for a cryptic title??

Yesterday was a busy culinary day... it was my turn to make Sunday night dinner and I decided to go Thai --- Pad Thai. Now, because I'm not a very good blogger... I've only got a photo of the prep and not of the final product (our batteries died).. so here is Dave 's Carpet of Onions... it's pretty neat-o:

Check out Megan's blog for our fabulous desert ... mmm.. chocolate...mmm. peanut butter... mmm together.

Tomorrow... dumprings. That's right -- tofu, mushrooms, ginger... and you guessed it... green onions.

Quelle Surprise

It's only fitting that since my last post was about my birthday, today's post should be about Dave's birthday.

Last Thursday was Dave's birthday and I decided to throw a surprise party for him -- he must be very trusting as he fell for every fib I fed him (even the slightly too far fetched ones). He had no idea and thought that after our dinner our at the Liberty Cafe we were just stopping in at home for a quick rest before meeting some of his work friends for a drink. Mwa ha ha ha little did he know that 15 friends were waiting in our apartment to surprise him (funny that the 15 pairs of shoes at the front door didn't clue him in) witness his surprised look here:

The highlight of the party for me (other than seeing everyone, of course) was the birthday cake. Megan and I racked our brains thinking about an appropriate cake after the poker cake made for Paul... after some brainstorming we came up with the idea of a West Coast themed cake as Dave is from Vancouver and was supposed to go home for the Easter weekend, but his airline went bankrupt. We spent 3 evenings making this cake which included the Rockies, Stanley Park, the ocean, Kitsilano Beach (logs and all), and even some waterfront condos. I think he liked it:
I'm planning to be a better blogger, if not about food then at least about my Ottawa Marathon training (which is in its last 7 weeks). Oh, and a shout out to Cynthia (Dave mentioned that you'll be in Toronto sometime soon -- we'll have to hit up some Veggie places!)

Cake for Ewa!

Hello Everyone,
This is a guest appearance by everyones favourite boyfriend. David!! Yay!!! Well tomorrow is Ewa's birthday and Megan baked her a lovely cake. It matches our bedroom walls perfectly. It looked great and tasted even better. I took these photos to show you all!
I also got her a little surprise for tomorrow which maybe she will blog about if she likes it enough.
Bye,
Dave

We've Moved!!!

I can't believe it, but we finally moved and are in our new place. It's crazy that we don't have to go back and forth between the two houses and that we can shower, use the toilet, wash the dishes... all the things that you can do in a regular house!

It's been kind of sad leaving the Queens Quay house, it was Dave and my first place together and we've had great times there. Here's me (and Emeryt, my 34 year old teddy bear) saying good bye: to come... photos of the new place all finished up (minus base boards, white electrical outlets, a cooktop, pot lights, oven, dishwasher... but who's counting).

The worker bees

Oh how I do love our worker bees... they came out in full force and oh boy does it show! They mortared, they tiled, they grouted and thanks to them we've got one gorgeous shower:
We also now have kitchen cabinets and countertops - by golly, I think we're the luckiest people in all the land:
Finally, yesterdays pièce de résistance [drum roll please] we now have running water AND a bathroom sink AND a functioning toilet (turns out that Dave is quite the plumber!) Photo to come, don't wory... you'll get to see his handy work.

I'll leave you with a photo of our fabulous new pantry (thanks Andy for the great design and idea!)

two very important p's

none other than Plumbing and Painting!

This past weekend we took advantage of some helping hands and painted pretty much the entire place (at least with first coats). Here is Joan (Megan the Vegan's mum) doing the heinous work of painting along the ceilings edge: I say this is the worst job but she likes it; so much as to say it's her favourite job!!! Crazy... is what I say!

While the ladies were doing the painting, Dave tried his hand at plumbing [insert suspensful music here] and alas after extensive blow torch use, one bent copper joint, a quick trip to home depot, and one burn to the forearm... it was DONE! It looks great and more importantly doesn't leak! Who knew, but as it turns out I've found me a plumber who's plumber butt I don't mind looking at (he he he!!)

floors, floors wonderful floors

so, after yesterdays post showing nothing but mess.. i'm happy to show the beginnings of the place coming together.

Before we went away to Vancouver for the holidays, we managed to get all of the flooring into the place... here is our sea of floor: We used a walnut laminate, as we didn't think that traditional Hardwood flooring was the way to go in a condo (the price different between it and laminate is a little unbelievable!) In the bathroom we used a porcelain tile, which in a bit of a freakish conicedence is the same colour as the floors in the rest of the place.

More photos to come tomorrow....

Hello world.. I'm back!

Well... after a long time away from blog land, and then some username problems with blogger, I'm back baby... I'm back.

What has been happening since the last time I posted... A LOT OF RENOVATIONS! Dave and I have been working on the new place for what seems like eons, though it has only been 5 weeks. It's coming along and we should be ready to move in by our deadline of Jan. 27th.

As you can see the demolition was extensive: It seems as though we removed everything but the windows and the concrete walls that surround the place. But since then it has been onward and upward... more posts to come with the latest renovation news; for now, I'm happy to have returned to Blogville.

Adieu.

pilates and back to food basics

Tonight I went to my first ever pilates class - whew, who knew it could at all be that hard to breathe, contract your abs and move your legs... jeebus, it's somethin' else.

When I came home, I felt like eating something really natural so I opted for salad - and oh my, it was good.

Just green leaf lettuce, peppers, onions and avocado - but oh so good... take a look:
It was deeeee-licious.

Happy Halloween!

Today was our office Halloween potluck and Costume party. Below is my, oh so environmentally conscious outfit. Hope you like it - and ofcourse, the required back view: I'm a.... Recycling Box...

Have a Happy Halloween and enjoy all the munchies!!

Lonely times

It's lonely times without my Megan the Vegan friend!
So, in the spirit of Halloween I'm posting a picture from last year so that I can at least pretend she's here... Megan after a rough ride to work: what a good costume, here's one more photo for a full view:
Miss ya Megs!

My name is Ewa, and I'm a delinquint blogger.

So, I haven't been very good about posting. The reasons are threefold:
1) I haven't been cooking very much,
2) I've haven't been home very much in the evenings, and
3) I'm really a little bit lazy about computer stuff.

That being said, the other night I tried my hand at making a pie and surprise of all surprises, it was good. I made the dough from Dave's Mum's recipe and it was really quite easy - next time I'll add a little more water as it was difficult to roll out (it kept cracking).

This is me admiring my pie: and this is the pie itself, an aside - I'm not quite sure how people get those nice pinched edges mine, despite my best efforts came out as smushed edges
On our last grocery shop, I discovered a new pasta "fagottini", they look like little parcels and were filled with pureed veggies. I bought them because of the great name, and thankfully they turned out really great. I made a tofu tomato sauce for them and they were the perfect meal after a hard nights climbing
Tonight we're going to take measurements of our new house, I'm so excited especially about the new kitchen we're going to have... eeeshk!!

Thanksgiving Camping

Megan has posted about the food, so let me post about the fun. It was a FANTASTIC weekend... the food (gooooood), the company (goooooood), the weather (gooooood).

Here are a few select photos to show you all just how goooood it was: first off, a hammock snooze with friends, that's always fun
Then some hammock yoga, a new form of yoga that I think Trevor and I should market: what would Thanksgiving be without the premptive (or post guilty) "too much food" walk, here's Trevor and Megan walking back from our trip to the lighthouse: and ofcourse, the best part about camping snuggling up inside a warm, puffy sleeping bag and closing up all the toggles
and that, my friends, is camping perfection!!

pasta - the ol' stand by.

Last night Dave left for Vancouver, he's gone home for Thanksgiving to surprise his parents and to visit with his Nan who's there right now from Ireland. Since he's gone, I'm taking the opportunity to eat through the variety of leftovers in my freezer. This one, I'll be having for lunch today:It's leftover from a weekend dinner and is just wholewheat rotini, with arugula, tomato sauce and a little bit of ricotta - which I am really liking these days.

The original time I had this meal it was paired with arugula salad and little toasts with a bit of Chevre...like so: Other than that it's pretty quiet, I like things much better when Dave is here, partly because there's someone to share a margarita with

so much to blog about ... so little time.

Haven't been blogging that much, as the business of home buying has been occupying all of my time. Dave and I have been dealing with more banks than you could shake a stick at (and I think shaking a stick at them is all I want to do right about now)... but won't bore you with the details, all in all things are falling right into plan.

Now onto happy thoughts:

This is another Mexican food fiesta - nachos and build your own burritos (a classic)... the nachos were alright, I didn't have any chips so I used broken up tostadas... not a super idea, but it was okay. That night we went to an all night art exhibit that was being held all around downtown Toronto called Nuit Blanche. It was sponsored by the City of Toronto and Scotiabank and ran from 6:59pm to 7:01am the next day - we (Megan, Paul, Trevor, Dave and I) rode our bikes from place to place and saw some interesting art... some examples [all art photos courtesy of Megan the Vegan]:
the elvis as installation art: the penguins in the pool art (which was supposed to be about gay penguins, but I didn't see the connection: and the dancing police officers art, which clearly is self explanatory:
in between all of the art, we clearly needed some nourishment, so stopped in at a... yep, you guessed it, Mexican place and had some margaritas and guacamole (notice the artful expression of the hands as they yurn for the margaritas representing their yurning for eternal life... see I get art!! we ended the evening at our place at about 1:30 - we weren't tired yet, so I made some of Dreena's cookies and we feasted on tea and chocolate chip cookies, a perfect ending in my opinion.

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: