Before I go...

I'm off to Cancun Mexico for a week in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. I should let you know what I have been cooking over the last week or so. It has been a time of indulgence to say the least. Cooking and eating some of my favourite things!

Pictured above is the swiss chard and tomatoes for my garden. This meal has been a staple this summer.



Swiss chard and tomatoes tossed over organic whole grain pasta.




Pictured here is a mango/lime thai salad from the Harmony Dawn cook book. It was super yummy!



Peaches are in season, so I made peach pie. Yummy!



Problem is, it was so good I ate half the pie myself and gave myself a tummy ache.



Here are some yummy banana pancakes from Vegan with a Vengance. My hubby adored these. Apparently they were light and fluffy enough for this picky pancake eater.



More veggies from my garden to make....



This yummy home made vegetable soup. This soup was designed to use up as much as I could from my garden and my refridgerator before I head off to Cancun tomorrow morning. I succeeded in cleaning out my garden and my crisper with this delicious tomato and swiss chard soup. I served the soup with lemon poppy seed muffins from Vegan with a Vengance. (They are really just cupcakes with poppy seeds in them... super yummy!)



I have made Dreena's Homestyle Chocolate Chip Cookies twice in as many days. These are the ultimate cookie and crowd pleaser. Do you know how many people coincidently stop by my house every time I bake these? They never last long!

An oldie, but a goodie

This is vegan pad thai from 125 Best Vegan. It is probably the best recipe in this cook book. This was probably my first vegan cook book before I found out about all the good ones like this one and this one. Nonetheless I have not come across a better pad thai recipe than this one. Now I have been wanting to get this cook book for a while now. Does anybody have this Thai Vegetarian Cook Book? I want to make some green and red thai curries... oh and some singapore noodles. The green and red curries usually have fish sauce in them, so I am anxious to see how they replace it. I guess I should just pick it up and start planning a Thai Vegetarian cooking class!

Fresh from the Garden

Pictured here are some tomatoes fresh from my garden. Man tomatoes straight from the garden are sweet and juicy. A lot of my dinners have been looking like the picture below. Swiss chard from my garden with some garlic and fresh tomatoes. You can't beat it!

Yummy Noodles with Spicy Tofu Peanut Sauce

When I took my yoga students on a yoga retreat at Harmony Dawn last June I picked up a great cook book by Nicola Lawrence called
The Dao of Harmony Dawn Cooking.


This recipe comes from that book. It was so good with lots of peanut butter and Asian ingredients. I will definitely be making this one again.

Retreat time is coming up again soon. Spaces are filling up quickly. So, if you are thinking of attending. Make sure to register soon!

The most cupcakes I have ever made at one time...

On Friday July 27th, my friend and lifestyle coaching client, Becky Peister got married. For her wedding present I made her 168 cupcakes for her wedding. This was a BIG project. I have never made that many cupcakes at one time! I decided on Isa Chandra Moskowitz's Lemon Gem's from her cookbook, Vegan with a Vengance. What I decided to do was double the batch from Vegan with a Vengance and make it seven times.

I divided the project into two days.






The first day was spent baking and the second day was spent icing. For the icing I made a variation on the butter cream frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I changed up the recipe a bit adding some lemon juice and lemon zest to make the cupcakes more lemony. The final cupcakes had beautiful edible flowers on them. All in all it was totally fun. I'm not going to go into the cupcake catering business, but when my sisters and friends get married, I think this makes a lovely wedding gift!

My latest obsession

Have any of you tried any of the sabra hummus available on the market now? I am totally addicted! I can't get enough of this stuff. My favourite is the roasted red pepper hummus, but I've also tried the spicy hummus and it is good too. I know it seems crazy to buy hummus when it is so easy to make, but this stuff is worth the extra pennies. We love it with the fresh artisan breads and baby carrots. We get it at Sobeys in case you are wondering where to find it. I honestly think I could live on this stuff. I always have at least two containers in my fridge now.

So if you wonder what I have been cooking lately, the answer is not much. On those days when it is just too hot to do anything in the kitchen I am sitting on my back deck with a container of sabra hummus and artisan bread and I'm done.