Soupasana

This is the one compromise I will make, when in a hurry – Quaker Instant Oatmeal Regular Flavour. While it does not even begin to be compared with the real thing, you can simply stir in hot water, and it’s ready to go. That is definitely hard to beat on busy morning, as I was rushing off to yet another 8am exam.

Result? Instant oatmeal with 1/2 banana, peanut butter and brown sugar on top, along with the remaining banana and coffee.

I also added these to feel full longer:

A more carnivorous breakfast included plain yogurt, banana, frozen blueberries and peanut butter granola.

As I was meeting mom for lunch later (I know, I know – it’s a family lunch week), I snacked on some baby carrots, finished 1/2 bottle of smoothie from yesterday (still too sweet).

I also couldn’t resist, and poured myself a cup of coffee. No soy milk at work, so black… Ummm…. yeah. The last time I had black coffee was when I pulled an all nighter in university, and made some black instant coffee to stay awake. It was so disgusting that I poured the whole thing down the drain… This one was… better. However, black coffee still leaves a nasty aftertaste in my mouth.

My mom and I met at Cagney’s, a family restaurant in Mississauga. I would say they serve a fairly typical fare, consisting of burgers, chicken salads, sandwiches and the like.

No beer = fancy water… Perrier water with lime:

California Spring Salad with baby greens, fresh sliced strawberries, red onion, sweet-candied pecans with balsamic and olive oil dressing on the side. It tasted great – I finished the whole thing, and stopped myself from licking the plate.

Mom got the same salad, but with goat cheese on top:

Pre-workout snack: protein, fat (peanuts) + carbohydrates (apple sauce).

Post-workout fuel: about 1/2 cup of coconut water –> tonnes of electrolytes and potassium.

For the weekend, we were heading out to Niagara Falls with our friends for Kate’s late birthday celebration (the other Kate from the Kate team), so the next few meals would also be eaten at restaurants.

I decided to suck it up and actually try the soy yogurt, which has been hanging out in my fridge for at least a week now. A student in my class told me that the vanilla flavour IS actually really good, which has been the first mention of soy yogurt being good that I have heard, and it brought up my spirits a little bit.

I was fully armed:

I had no idea what to expect consistency wise, so I made sure to shake it really well before opening…

Hmm…. much more creamy than I expected. Promising?

Verdict?

It was REALLY good!!! Creamy vanilla goodness! I inhaled the whole thing with peanut butter granola, and didn’t even need the banana.

Whew…

My mornings have been looking significantly better with this blue box in my life!!!

The breakfast today was from the sandwich category, and may have been my heartiest breakfast yet! Meal and dessert in one.

• Sandwich one – 1/2 avocado + tomato + salt/pepper
• Sandwich two – peanut butter and Crofter’s jam

This held me over until 1pm!!!! Impressive. Will keep this in mind for busy days with no snackage potential.

I had a quick snack before meeting dad for lunch – you may remember the smoothies I scores at Yoga in Motion… The actual bottle consists of almost two servings, and since I wanted a snack not a meal, I poured about half into a tiny Canada Pure bottle. Perfect size!

The smoothie was great as a snack, but I am finding it too sweet! It’s like drinking liquid sugar. I may want to try diluting it with water 1:1.

I met my dad for lunch at Sushi Ya Japan. The atmosphere was definitely very authentic. The servers wore traditional Japanese clothing, and forks were never offered. I am ok with chopsticks unless I am really hungry. Today I broke down and asked for a fork about half way through the meal. Need to keep practicing!

Miso soup and salad to start off with… I could discern a lettuce mix and avocado in the salad. The dressing was completely unidentifiable, but the server promised that it did not have milk ingredients. At the end of the day, who knows?

Some non-vegan appetizers for dad:

And a non-vegan main course – one of the lunch bento boxes with bulgogi (sliced beef) as the main player.

My main course was teriyaki tofu stir-fry with a side of rice. It was fantastic, however, somewhat heavy… It was definitely a testament to the fact that vegan does not equal healthy.

I was very half-hearted about this dinner… Primarily, because I really did not feel like a salad, but something hot – soup, pasta, etc. All of my grand plans were interrupted by an electricity outage, so the dinner was limited to cold things that did not require water. On the positive note, we had candles everywhere – cozy romantic atmosphere… even though I had no idea how much olive oil actually ended up on my salad. LOL

Ever tried adding dressing blindly? I was so worried that I would eat some non-vegan thing by accident, as I was pulling things out of the fridge in complete darkness.

The salad turned out to be really good (albeit a little dry – I think tomatoes would save it):

• coleslaw
• bean sprouts
• broccoli
• avocado
• sunflower seeds
• olive oil + balsamic vinegar

I added a few black olives (with pits) on the side, and, of course, bread with hummus. Oasis berry blend juice was playing the role of red wine.

Start your day with green!

I was literally running out of the door this morning to make it in time for a 8am exam (giving one, not writing, but still! ). So as a result the breakfast was all green:

• 2 cups of spinach
• ripe banana
• 1 cup of vanilla soy milk
• 3 ice cubes

Tasted like a dream! Ok, I don’t really  know what dreams taste like, but this definitely tasted like a vanilla milkshake! A bright green vanilla milkshake…

Repeat after me: you cannot taste spinach in a smoothie. You CANNOT taste spinach in a smoothie.

After drinking various weird separating liquids in my coffee, I definitely deserved a treat this morning.

Cappuccino with soy milk – foam love!

Note that I was predictably hungry 2.5 hours later… I’d throw in a toast with peanut butter or a  handful of nuts next time to make it last longer.

Another car eaten lunch (or breakfast?):

• sandwich with hummus and tomato
• baby carrots
• blackberries
• Canada Pure water in Lemon Lime (another item from the Yoga in Motion loot bag) – this brand “offers a healthy alternative to traditional sweetened beverages”, and it is also supposed to be lower in calories. Well, ingredients wise – it was your most regular soda: water as the first ingredient, followed by sugar as the second ingredient. As for calories, this was indeed lower in calories than a can of Coke, but the bottle is tiny!!!

Later in the day, I was deconstructing preconceived notions…. Just because something was not made as a soup, does not mean it cannot be transformed into a soup! Leftover rice noodles from yesterday + vegetable stock = Asian style soup!

Grazing has definitely taken place yesterday…

In the evening we were meeting with a bunch of girls from the old university days for a mini-get together. A whopping eight of us showed us! We should definitely do this more often! No pictures, as we were sitting in a fairly dark spot (actually, the whole restaurant is pretty dark), and were too busy catching up! It was like a Sex and the City episode.

The venue of choice was Moxie’s Classic Grill. For dinner I ordered a Citrus Chicken Fusion Salad without the chicken. Blasphemy, right? According to the menu, it had arugula, avocado, grape tomatoes, edamame beans, roasted red peppers, crispy rice noodles, sunflower seeds and chopped dates, tossed with a honey-fid vinaigrette. I also asked for a side of naan bread and St. Pellegrino with lemon to drink.

While the salad looked great on paper, but in reality was nothing to write home about. It was really mostly arugula with dressing. In fact, after desperately looking for avocado, I asked for extra avocado slices to be brought. I just like my salads… you know… more… MEATY.

I can see recreating this at home though, and trust me, my version would have more than 2 grape tomatoes.

I received a warm reception when I came home:

What? No? I must be the only one then… Although I admit, it’s kinda sad to be so excited about grocery shopping. LOL

I literally just got a whole bunch of random vegetables yesterday, so expect random recipes in the next couple of days.

• fresh coleslaw
• butternut squash soup
• cashew carrot ginger soup (both were on sale!)
• radishes
• green peas
• bananas
• carrots (i’m thinking peanut butter carrot fries!)
• bean sprouts
• vanilla soy milk (finally!!!)
• black olives
• carrot juice (which was collectively finished by myself and fellow yogis before yoga class)
• eggs
• ham

Vlad is slicing through his definitely not vegan dinner.

The bean sprouts and green peas had me thinking – stir fry of some sort?

How about…

Easy Rice Noodles with Peas and Peanuts

The white jelly fish looking things are two servings of rice noodles, floating in hot water.

Ingredients:

• rice noodles
• green peas
• peanuts
• bean sprouts
• pasta sauce

My favorite pasta sauce! When I was in university I had a vegan roommate for a semester. I actually credit her with helping me to start the whole food exploration adventure, as she introduced to me to some weird foods (at least I thought so at the time). That semester I discovered almond butter, plantane chips, and Stevia.

She also avoided sugar, and always bought this tomato sauce, because it was one of the very few on the market that did not add sugar.

All mixed in:

And an easy salad (continuing with the theme of easy eats!):

• spinach
• coleslaw
• cucumbers
• sesame seeds
• sesame oil

I think coffee gods have heard about my misfortunes and sent me this:

I must have downed at least a full glass of this, before even putting it into coffee. It is vanilla heaven. I am also ecstatic to report that it mixes with coffee! And stays that way!

Thank you, coffee gods!!!!

Dessert: french vanilla coffee with vanilla soy milk + peanut butter jelly sandwich = happy Kate!

Look who decided to grant me with his presence…

Late night snack!

The lunch was constructed using the old “I have no idea what to have, so let’s look in the fridge” formula.

Spicy Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups of vegetable broth
• 1 cup of canned pumpkin (can you tell I am trying to use this up?)
• 2 cups of spinach
• 1/2 cups of cooked kamut (or wheatberries)
• 1 cup of broccoli florets
• alfa alfa sprouts (optional)
• salsa, hot sauce
• salt, pepper

Directions:

Heat up the vegetable broth on the stove (medium heat), stir in pumpkin. In a separate pan, steam some spinach (I just added water). Pour the broth into a BIG bowl, add spinach, kamut, broccoli and alfa alfa sprouts. Season with salsa, hot sauce, salt and pepper.

I love how pumpkin instantly thickens the broth!

My humangous bowl with the mandatory carb load…

If there is any potential for blandness, this guy will instantly spicify anything!

After the morning coffee fiasco, I actually opted for some Tetley Red Berry Rooibos tea… It’s a sad day.

Tea and grapes for dessert.

Going to head over to my physio appointment early, so I can sneak in a somewhat illegal run on a treadmill, and then meeting up with Kate for hatha yoga!

See you at dinner.

This morning was strawberry-themed, as a huge box of strawberries in the fridge was on its last legs. Easy breakfast of raisin bran…

Vlad hates raisins, so I actually pick out the raisins out of his cereal, and put them back in the box. True love!

As I am out of rice milk, HEMP was the next milk substitute on the list. Yes, hemp comes from a Cannabis plant. No, it won’t get you high. Hemp and marijuana come from two different varieties of the same plant, and the hemp plant has less than 1%  THC (the psychoactive substance), while marijuana plant has 10 to 20% THC. This is similar to how certain milk beverages have very low levels of alcohol (e.g. kumis), but not enough to get intoxicated.

Two hemp milks were squaring off:

I’m sorry to say that I hated them both. I think it was mostly the question of texture – they were not as smooth as rice or almond milks. Interestingly, hemp milks also tend to be much more expensive than more mainstream varieties, so I think I will stick to other milks from now on.

The fact that I still had my morning coffee is more of a testament to my love of coffee… hemp milk was just BLECH in it…

Strawberry love!

After adding hemp milk, this did not look very appetizing at all…

Starting off a new week with a new non-dairy milk…

I gotta say this was pretty scary going into the pot of oatmeal – brown, thick with chunks in it… Blech…. Thankfully, there is nothing that can spoil a good bowl of oatmeal with a banana whipped into it…

I also mixed in about half of a cup worth of canned pumpkin and some vanilla extract. Brown sugar as a topping! I love how it melts and turns into amazing sweet goo.

Cup of coffee and an orange with some strawberries on the side.

After few spoonfuls, I realized that I’m missing the crunch (the oatmeal was very smooth and almost liquidy), so in went some peanut butter granola and walnuts. Made things right!!!

My lunch consisted of many random things that I literally grabbed from the fridge as I was running out. Prep time – under 2 minutes.

Line-up:

• 2 slices of rye bread
• hummus
• baby carrots
• unsweetened apple sauce
• almonds
• blackberries
• banana

This was… lunch #2? Needed to get some food in me before Yoga Jam (a really intense 105 min ashtanga-inspired class).

Savoury bowl:

• millet
• mushrooms
• broccoli
• canned pumpkin
• salsa

Yoga Jam was amazing. We came out dripping with sweat!

Did you know that people who eat strawberries are significantly happier than the general population?

Sometimes a LOT happier…

Ok, I totally made that up, but seeing the photos you almost believed me, right?

I really didn’t feel like cooking dinner… so I threw some millet with hummus, sliced tomato, cucumber and baby carrots on the plate.

Oh, and I had to finish that vile-tasting carrot juice.

MUST finish…

Late dessert –> coffee with hemp milk (with floating particles – yum) + apple smeared in peanut butter.

I seriously could not stop eating today…

The king was chilling on the top of TV… check out the dangling paw action!

P.S. If you are wondering what the heck is on the screen… we were watching Family Guy. I swear. One of those random moments.

I actually ended up passing out on the couch. It must have been a really good yoga class. Woke up in about an hour, downed a glass of berry blend juice, and transferred my carcass to the actual bed.

GOOD NIGHT!

If you had the following: brown rice milk, apple peach snack, and a ripe banana, what would you make?

THAT’S RIGHT – oatmeal!

• 1/2 cup of Quaker rolled oats
• 1 cup of brown rice milk
• a dash of vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp of peanut butter, walnuts and peanut butter granola on top! (no, I have never heard of peanut butter overdose)

Meanwhile, in the meat eater’s land…

Final product – perfect pre-yoga marathon fuel!

Yoga in Motion is a yoga and Zumba fitness marathon in support of breast cancer research at Mount Sinai Hospital. Last year was the first time this event took place, and it had 180 participants. This year it had over 400!

The venue was gorgeous, no doubt – Renaissance-style complex that was built in 1926, standing on the lakeshore.

The practicality of the venue was, of course a different topic altogether… The room we were in was long and narrow, and was definitely NOT meant for over 400 yoga mats. The mats had to be placed within inches of each other, with some people having to wait outside until the next session. The resulting atmosphere, as people were trying to squeeze in, was hardly yogic. Ironically, there was a huge hall right next to this room, which housed a couple of lonely vendors, and not much else.

We did not let little things like that bring us down though. No, sir!

There were four separate time slots during the day with four yoga classes and four Zumba classes running in each time slot. So you could choose whether you would do yoga or Zumba for each time slot. We ended up doing a yoga session in the morning, a heart pumping session of Zumba right before lunch, and two more yoga sessions after lunch. The teacher line-up was excellent this year – I actually knew all the teachers, as they were all very well known and respected in the yoga community.

The spirit of the event was simply fantastic, and our team raised over $4,000 for breast cancer research!!!

Yoga Tree team

Snacks galore – apples, bananas, and oranges (really? not even tangerines? oranges? how many people were actually motivated enough to peel?). Muffin tops (the edible ones), and cookies – I even found some vegan cookies!

Jason and Debbie are sampling gourmet teas…

Snacks in between yoga sessions:

When a bunch of yogis have a break and way too many cameras on their hands, the following happens:

You know you really mastered Sirsasana if you can smile when you are upside down…

No, I did not find motivation to peel oranges… Ended up taking these home – remember, eyes bigger than the stomach…

It was sooo cold. Not very conducive to a peaceful Savasana. Note the little pocket for the feet.

After grazing on fruit all day, I could not WAIT to have some normal food. And in my books that means millet, canned pumpkin, salsa, alfa alfa sprouts, sliced tomato and, of course, rye bread with hummus.

Dessert included cookies for babies. But it did say ages 1 to 101 on the box, so I am okay.

Two of these were in the loot bag we have received at Yoga in Motion! I scored the other two flavours as we were exiting. Don’t you love the names on these?

Later in the evening… dessert #2?

This is kind of like L’Oreal… because I’m worth it.

• apple
• brown sugar
• peanut butter
• walnuts

The day started with Nature’s Path raisin bran, predictably disgusting coffee (watch the separation in the mug), and melon.

I was out of the door by 7.30am. Yes, on a Saturday. With the teacher training occupying most weekends since January, it will be incredibly weird to have all weekends to myself all of a sudden. What on earth will I do with myself?

Post-practice snack – banana with peanut butter, and some black tea.

Given the current vegan kick, the black tea will be appearing more and more often, when I am outside of the house, because a rare place (apart from Starbucks) would provide non-dairy creamers.

Right before lunch, Luke grabbed his drum, and Becca – the guitar…

I love how Luke only realizes that I’m filming halfway through the video. The clip totally captures the atmosphere of the teacher training, by the way. Chill. Cool. Relaxed. Jamming. 

Lunch included many beautiful eats and even more beautiful people.

Julia and rice with vegetables (right, Jules?). I just remember trying it, and the fact that it was good. Now trying to identify the ingredients from the photo.

Attention! Kim is now offering sessions on how to look gorgeous, even when eating green stringy vegetables. Please inquire within, as they are filling fast!

Whatever she’s having looks good. Let’s zoom in:

I spy rice, lentils and asparagus!

Becca and her beet salad! The salad was gone before I could take a picture. I say it must have been good then.

I’m working on part 2 of yesterday’s dinner to be. Love these filling foods – my eyes are definitely bigger than my stomach. I’m constantly making more than I can eat!

Dessert: slice of bread with peanut butter and Crofter’s jam, walnuts, blackberries, grapes, and another black tea!

We were heading out to a family dinner right after the teacher training, and I was staaarving!

Pre-dinner snack:

Moroccan hummus… yum.

Vlad gets this happy expression on his face, when there is meat on his dinner plate…

My plates:

Fresh vegetables, green olives, and pickled mushrooms. The guacamole was amazing. Another sandwich just like that followed.

A little bit of white rice – haven’t had it in ages… And potatoes. Potatoes. Potatoes. Ok, I may or may not have turned off the camera after this photo, and went to town with the potatoes. Definitely my weakness – carb love.

Not chocolate, oh no. Potatoes.

Lemon buzz…

Post-dinner glow…

Another late night = late night snack.

I couldn’t make up my mind tonight, so I ended up making both soup and salad… Both were incredibly easy to throw together – I think the prep time for both was about ten minutes.

For soup, I heated some vegetable broth in the microwave. Meanwhile, I threw the rice noodles in a bowl with boiling water, and left them there for about five minutes. Then drained the noodles, dumped them into the broth, added some fresh broccoli, and voila.

The salad was even easier – chopped tomatoes, fresh mushrooms with kamut (or wheatberries) thrown on top.

This was way too much food though, so the salad will be featured as tomorrow’s lunch!

Soup spicified (it’s a word, coz I say it is) with some hot sauce!

Carb love…

Dessert was colorful!