WHERE'S THE BEEF?

Dinner last night was courtesy of my brother. We were the only two home since my parents and other bro were in Niagara overnight for a soccer tournament. Go Dad's team!

No photos of dinner but it was half a t-bone steak with french fries. Needless to say, with IBS, a swift trip to the bathroom ensued. Ugh. It probably wasn't the best of ideas considering my stomach's still on the mend from the funky chicken but lesson learned. No more beef. Sean came by to hang out and asked if it was worth it and normally my answer would have been an excited "yes!" but tonight, it was a sad "no."

This morning's breakfast was whole wheat flax seed banana pancakes. I know that sounds like a mouthful but the pancakes were actually made from a mix and dead easy. I love this mix. I was on the search for a whole wheat pancake mix for ages, without having to revert to Whole Foods. I finally found one at Longo's (yay, Longo's to the rescue) and love this mix because it contains ground flax seed. Here's a look at the package:
It was $3.99 for the whole thing and one prep's worth makes 10-12 four-inch pancakes. The best part is that you can keep them vegan by using non-dairy milk (almond works well) and omitting the egg. The mixture will thicken on its own due to the combination of ground flax and chosen liquid. I don't have any photos since the pancakes were actually for Sean. I'll take it that they were good though...how could they not be...pancakes with bananas? Who doesn't like those??

My breakfast, since my stomach was still a little bit queasy, was a bowl of egg thread soup with minimal asparagus and a small slice of some multigrain prebiotic bread:I have no idea what the deal is with this bread. I'll have to read the package a little bit more carefully next time. My dad is the one who picked it up at the grocery store and I'm glad he's into checking out the various healthier items on offer.

Lunch was a few hours later. I wanted something that tasty good but wouldn't take too long to cook. I had spent much of the morning reading up on recipes from The Single Dish when I stumbled upon her recipe for beef stroganoff. Her recipe can be found here. Instead of using sour cream (because I didn't have any), I used whipped cream and also subbed beef broth for organic chicken broth since I had a carton already open in the fridge. Here's my gigantic portion that I really should not have eaten all of but the mushrooms were impossible to resist:
I used waaaay more than the six mushrooms her recipe lists but I'm obsessed with mushrooms. I probably used at least double and I still thought it could have used more mushrooms.

3/5 of the family is still not back from Dad's soccer tournament (he's the coach) so I'm guessing that his team is headed for the final match. If his team had lost, they probably would have been home by now or at least will be home within 30 minutes. I'm bored out of my mind. I really want to bake muffins but we don't have any whole wheat flour (that I know of) and we don't have any blueberries or raspberry jam or sliced almonds (for three different recipes I've been eying all weekend).

Well I'm off...the toilet is a callin' but this time, the beef stroganoff was totally worth it--mostly due to the mushrooms so I'm going to have to find some kind of meat substitute next time. Perhaps pork. My stomach seems to deal with that one okay.

Toodles!

MAY 2-4

It's not quite here yet but Victoria Day is fast approaching. I'm currently slurping up some Egg Thread Soup with Asparagus but more on that later.

Last night's dinner was a leftover and an experiment. While making food suggestions to Sean over the phone, I decided to whip up my own batch of French toast but making them completely vegan. I had all the necessary ingredients including the key one, the flax egg--consisting of 1 Tbsp of ground flax + 2 Tbsp of water. I let the mixture sit for 5 minutes and got on with the rest of my ingredients.

French Toast Sticks
adapted from Can You Stay For Dinner?

- two slices of whole grain bread (we have some weird prebiotic brand in the pantry that I used)
- 1/4 cup of milk
- 1 flax egg (1 Tbsp ground flax + 2 Tbsp water, let sit for 5 minutes)
- healthy dash of cinnamon
- roughly 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract (I used a little more than 1/2 tsp. Who doesn't like vanilla?)
- Earth Balance to grease pan (I'm not supposed to consume soy but I wanted to keep these vegan)

Directions:

1. Slice bread into vertical stick-like pieces.
2. Mix last four ingredients together.
3. Heat up a pan and add Earth Balance.
4. Dip bread sticks into the wet mixture and then place onto pan. Cook on medium heat for about 4-5 minutes on each side. (Note: I get squiky about sogging "middles" so I like my French toast well done.)
5. Continue with remaining sticks.
6. Serve with maple syrup and fruit.

After all your hard work you can sit down to a pretty platter of vegan French toast sticks with pure organic maple syrup, pear and blackberries:
I enjoyed my French toast sticks with a side of leftover congee:
But after a couple of spoonfuls I realized it was missing something green and crispy. Kale chips to the rescue of course:So far this combo of congee and other "regular" foods is keeping my stomach in check. My stomach didn't get mad at me after this meal so I'd call it a winner!

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Today's eats started with lunch. I know, I know...not a good idea to skip breakfast but I woke up at 10:30 (have you ever noticed that you get the best sleep when you're sick?) and then did some cleaning in the kitchen and before I knew it, it was lunchtime! I wanted something quick, simple and refreshing and this is what I came up with:

A spring salad of spring mix, 1/8 watermelon, 2 strawberries, one slice of prosciutto and seared halloumi. I had a little bit leftover (what amounted to one slice about 1/2 cm thick) so I seared that in a pan until it was very brown--well, practically black. It ends up having the best "crisp" when you eat it; I think so anyway. I dressed everything with some extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and the juice of half a lemon. This salad was amazing! Definitely a winner. I'm just insanely sad that I don't have anymore halloumi left. This calls for a trip to Metro.

Along with the salad I had the other 1/8 of watermelon:
and called that a late lunch. Of course, knowing me, I got hungry again. This blog ain't called "I'm Hungry, Feed Me!" for nothing! After seeing the potato wedges on Heather's blog a couple of times now, I wanted some of my own but while talking to Sean on the phone, I absent-mindedly cut mine into cubes and accidentally poured in 1/3 of a jar of dried thyme. Along with extra virgin olive oil, sea salt and pepper, this is what my potatoes looked like, served up with a side of kale chips:Three hours later, the stomach was calling once again and I quickly whipped up a batch of this Egg Thread Soup with Asparagus following this recipe from Fitness Magazine. My tiny pasta of choice was orzo (of course!) and I used 3 eggs instead of 4 because I only used about 7 cups of organic reduced-sodium chicken broth. A word to the wise, it's a good idea to add more water to the reduced-sodium chicken broth. I find it still, way too salty.

I'd say that my soup looks just like the one on Fitness Magazine's website except that I don't have as many asparagus tips--them being high in insoluble fibre and all.