My latest Additions...

My new Klean Kanteen bottle! I have had a SIGG bottle for many years but when the company refused to replace my bottle which was found to have BPA in the liner the boycott began. This new bottle is an awesome orange colour and holds 40 ounces of water. It was on sale and I absolutely love it!!!

Thanks to my amazing friend Serena who showed me an amazing blog from Kitchen Boutique. They have amazing kitchen products and were having a few giveaways so I won an onion and tomato savers. I love the tomato saver because it can hold a decent sized tomato and is super easy to open and latch. The onion one is a little trickier to open and close since it is so slippery. These are definitely going to come in handy in garden season!

Last but not least....my new Brown Turkish Fig tree! I am hoping it will produce some figs this year. This amazing Fig tree comes from Sage Garden Herbs. The owner is very friendly and knowledgeable. I am sure it will be so much happier once I replant it this week and can put it outside for the rest of the summer. It has only been going outside during the day for now since it is still pretty cold at night. My 2 rosemary varieties and chocolate mint are peaking through in the background.

Steel Cut Oats

There is something about a nice bowl of steaming oatmeal that brings me back to my childhood. It is one of the few memories I have with my grandparents...sitting on my grandpa's lap eating oatmeal. Obviously very oblivious to what the true form of oats are I never knew that the old fashioned oatmeal I ate was so processed. It is cut, cooked and then flattened and then processed again. It still is very nutritious but then I discovered Steel Cut Oats and my mornings changed. This is the form of oatmeal I remember. It takes longer to cook but it makes a much creamier bowl of oatmeal.

I searched the internet for a rice cooker recipe for my Steel Cut Oats. Most advised the same thing...add 1 part steel cut oats to 3 parts water and let them soak overnight. I tried this and it took about 45 minutes in the rice cooker the next morning. I don't have a fancy rice cooker with all of the settings on it or anything like that but the oatmeal came out perfect. It made 2 huge servings. The next morning I heated up my second serving with an extra cup of water on the stove and it turned out perfect again.

I wonder if I can make oatmeal in the pressure cooker...

Vegan Tourtiere and Strawberry Almond Milkshake

Tonight for supper we had the leftover vegan Tourtiere (meat pie) that my mom made for Easter. This is the very last piece so I had to savour every last bit of it. My mom truly is amazing when it comes to any type of pie!

I am also trying to make room in the freezer so that means I have to eat all of last year's hoarded berries. I took out a huge bag of frozen strawberries, added some almond milk and made a nice Strawberry-Almond Milkshake.

Pizza Night!

I finally got a hold of my precious Soy Curls. I have been out of them since my return trip from Portland and they are impossible to find here in Canada unless you want to pay ridiculous shipping costs. Well I have some now...lots of them! I made pizza for supper with my favourite combination of earth balance and Frank's Red Hot Sauce for the base with soy curls tossed in Hot Sauce, sliced portabellos and green onions. Yummers!!!

St. Patrick's Potato, Fennel and Leek Soup

I bought Vegan World Fusion Cuisine way back when I was in Portland, Oregon and have not used it for many years. This soup attracted my eye a few months ago but I never had all of the ingredients together under the same roof at the same time. Well today I did and I am glad I remembered to make this soup. The taste was very nice and comforting.

Spaghetti and Mock Meatballs

I tried out a new recipe for "meatballs". These are losely based on a recipe I found on a blog which I will insert here as soon as I remember where I found it. I changed the recipe and these have minced onions, rolled oats, wheat germ, wheat gluten and various other spices. I was not too optimistic about these going into the oven but they actually turned out to be pretty decent. They would probably taste very nice simmering in a sauce so they could absorb its flavour. I realized once I got home that the organic pasta I got was not whole wheat but I cannot complain since I got it for free :)

Hot Sauce Glazed Tempeh, Rice and Corn

I bought a few extra packages of tempeh when they were reduced to clear and froze them. Well now that I am trying to make room in the freezer I decided to use them up. I have not found a recipe that enjoy more with tempeh then Veganomicon's Hot Sauce Glazed Tempeh recipe. The Tempeh comes out soft, moist and bursting with flavour. We had some brown basmatti rice on the side with corn from the freezer. I had to eat on the go so this is what a vegan meal to go looks like :)

Tofu Stir Fry with Soba Noodles

Tonight's diner was not only inexpensive, tasted great but was very quick as well. Superstore now sells marinated teriyaki tofu so I bought a bag. They were on sale for $2.00 plus they were 50% off since they expired in a few days so I bought a few to freeze. $1.00 for a bag of marinated tofu was a steal of a deal! I also found some leftover veggie shrimps in the freezer and cut those up. The veggies were in a pre-cut bag for $2.00 and the soba noodles were $1.67 making this a pretty decent meal for $4.67 for four servings! The only thing about the soba noodles is I had to rinse them under cold water for a long time to get them not to stick together.

Veggie Corn Dogs and Salad

I have been eyeing a mini loaf pan for quite some time now and Canadian Tire had them on for 40% off so I picked one up. They are perfect to make Veggie Corn Dogs in. The cornbread recipe is taken from Vegan Lunch Box. I really love these and have not had them for a while. They also freeze very well and get nice and crispy when reheated in the toaster oven. I served a nice green salad on the side.

YoSo Soy Yogourt Review

As a vegan I get very excited over finding new products in the stores which I can eat. I first noticed a new Soy Yogurt on the market a few weeks ago and finally wrote the company this week. I received a quick response back from customer service confirming that all of their products are vegan including this soy yogurt. Well you guessed it...I was over the moon.

I found their soy yogurt at both Vita Health and Price Choppers. They come in 2 different packaging...440ml container and a 6 pack of assorted variety (125ml) each. It was actually cheaper to buy the assortment pack so that is what I did so I could try out all of their varieties. The larger containers were around 4.59 and the 6 pack was 6.99

The soy yogurt comes in Vanilla, Blueberry and Strawberry. Now I have tried my share of soy yogurts in the past but with extremely limited success. Without naming names one was always too sour for my taste and the other was way too gritty and left a weird after taste in my mouth. Well now I have YoSo soy yogurt....

I tried the vanilla yesterday and was impressed with the consistency which was not watery but nice and thick. The small container was perfect for a one size portion and has a lot of good nutrition packed into it. 20% DRI of calcium, 6% DRI of iron plus, omega 3 -polyunsaturates and Chicory Inulin which is a prebiotic.

So...how does it taste? Amazing. It was extremely smooth, creamy and tasted great. The vanilla bean flavour was not overpowering which was perfect. I did not find this yogurt overly sweet either.

I definitely give this yogurt 2 thumbs up and recommend it to vegans out there looking for a good soy yogurt. I cannot wait to try their sour cream and spreadable products next.