Toronto Vegan Adventures!

I spent my reading week in my home town, Toronto (or Teronno, if you're local), and of course this meant eating at many fine vegan establishments. I tried to make it to all my old favourites and jam in as many of the new-kids-on-the-block as possible, but lemme tellya, the vegan scene has exploded in Toronto since I moved away 2 1/2 years ago! There are so many new restaurants, bakeries and vegan friendly coffee shops I could not possibly make it to them all! But here is a round up of the epicurean highlights of my trip:

Oh, my love, my darling  . . . Sadie's Diner is a long-standing favourite of mine and really, no trip to Toronto would be complete without the greasy-spoon delights they serve up. Sadly, I was feeling under the weather the morning I stopped in for brunch, so it was fruit salad and ginger tea for me, but I did get the vicarious thrill of watching my brunch buddies devour scrambled tofu, home fries, and veggie sausage. Not to downplay my fruit salad, it was amazing.

Another sadness of my trip was not having a chance to check out the new juice bar and vegan ice creamery that Sadie's has opened up in Kensington Market . . . I think this calls for a summer trip . . .

Green Earth was a new restaurant for me and I stumbled upon it quite by chance. And, I'm glad to report, it was a delightful lunch. My lunch date and I split the crispy wontons to start, which were sooooo good. Seriously. Then I had this crispy breaded burger, I think it was called something like the "good earth" burger or something, which was really good. I am generally more of a vegetable burger kinda veggie burger gal, so it wasn't my normal cup of tea, but I enjoyed it. It's been awhile, but I think this burger pretty closely simulated a breaded chicken burger. The crispiness was a fun touch, and the burger inside was juicy and flavourful. My friend had the chow mein, which was pretty standard veggie chow mein.

So, all in all, not the best restaurant in the world, but totally solid, reasonably-priced, multi-ethnic vegan food, making it worth checking out for a casual lunch. (And if you do, please try the deluxe fettuccine alfredo and let me know how it is! Not having that for lunch is maybe the biggest regret of my trip.)

Awesome. Awesomeawesomeawesome. What else can I say? Mylk Uncookies gets my vote. First, as a lover of puns, I deeply appreciate a coffee shop which makes its own almond milk onsite, serves up raw cookies and cheesecake, and names itself MYLK UNCOOKIES!!!!! Then, take into account that its products are of the highest calibre, what's not to love? Plus, the decor is precious in all the right ways.

They are not fully vegan, so make sure you ask before you buy. I tried two (baked) cookies (they were out of raw cookies the day I went in), shortbread and oatmeal-pumpkin seed, both of which were delicious. I also bought a jar of their almond milk to enjoy with my morning cereal and wow, just wow. I discovered you really haven't had almond milk until you've had real almond milk. Coming back to my regular old cartons has been a rough transition.

The verdict? Go to Mylk Uncookies, if that wasn't clear!

What is this, you ask? Why, it's a peanut butter banana muffin from The Green Beanery! It was so good I couldn't even wait to eat half of it before taking a picture. If you find yourself in the annex and in need of a coffee accompanied by a vegan muffin or cupcake, then I suggest you head on over to The Green Beanery, my friend.

I had been looking forward to my trip to Bunner's for months before arriving in Toronto, so there was pressure, but boy, did it live up to my expectations and then some. Bunner's is a vegan, gluten-free bakery, and by some alanis-morisette-style irony, it opened up shop a little over a year ago on the same block that I lived on for almost four years in the junction. Seriously, it is literally three doors down from my old apartment. But maybe it's a good thing I don't live three doors down from Bunner's, because even vegan, gluten-free baked goods are bad for you if you eat them everyday . . . or five of them everyday. Here are some more photos from my Bunner's trip (because I'm kinda in love):

My Box of Treats!

The mile-high buttercream on the french toast cupcake mmmmmm . . .

After gorging myself on divinity in sugar form, I needed something a little, um, healthy to balance me out  . . .

Which meant lunch at another old favourite, Fresh. I had my old reliable green goddess bowl and drank a deep immune juice (sans chyawanprash) and I felt all better. Plus, it was amazingly delicious! I love Fresh, simple as that. They are, and will forever be, one of my very favourite restaurants in the world. I'm not kidding, I always look forward to a chance to eat there and their cookbook has a special (and often used) place on my shelf.

The final stop on my vegan adventure is One Love Vegetarian, which I actually ate at twice! The first time was right at the beginning of my trip, when I had the bbq tofu served on rice with fried plantains and avocado. It was sooooooo good! My only complaint is that for the price I expected it to be two meals (or at least one so-big-I-feel-sick-for-eating-all-of-it meal), especially since it's a take-out restaurant. But hey, it's downtown Toronto. On my first trip, my friend had a roti wrap, which looked so good I had to go back to try it before I left and I'm glad I did. It was amazing. I had the chickpea and potato curry in the paratha shell and I can honestly say it was one of the best roti wraps I have ever had (and pleasingly well priced). I definitely recommend checking this place out. The menu is small, and like I said it's take-out, but you won't be disappointed in the quality.

Veg Jenski xo

Mini-Cleansing & Cleansing Beet Juice Recipe

I have been dragging lately - physically and mentally - something has just been "off" the last couple weeks. Then, when I woke up yesterday morning with a stomach ache and a serious case of the grumps, I knew, it was time for a mini-cleanse.

What I mean by mini-cleanse is a gentle reboot of my system. Out with the bad stuff and in with lots and lots of the good. I'm not doing any crazy master cleanse (which, for the record, I don't think is a good or healthy way to cleanse one's body), I'm basically doing a dialled-back version of a full on cleanse, which for me generally includes eating only organic fruits, veggies and non-glutinous whole grains, lots of rest, lots of exercise, loads of water and herbal tea, a trip to the infrared sauna, exclusively 100% natural soaps and no tv/computer.

So, since I'm in super busy, lead-up-to-midterms time at school, doing all of that is just not practical. So instead I'm simply getting rid of the bad stuff (wheat, sugar, salt, caffeine, alcohol) and eating all the fruits veggies and whole grains my body can handle (yum!). I'm also allowing myself trail mix, for when I'm on the go, but obviously salt free trail mix. I'm going to make a point to get better sleep, which I have not been doing very much of lately. Top that all off with lots of water and herbal tea, and hopefully I'll be feeling back to normal in a week.

One way I will be getting all those fruits and veggies in is with fresh homemade juice. One of my favourite juices (which is also very cleansing) is as follows:

Cleansing Beet Juice

1-2 inch chunk of ginger
1 medium beet, scrubbed
1 medium carrot
4 apples
10-20 drops milk thistle, optional

Juice the ginger first, followed by the beet, carrot, and apples. Add the milk thistle drops to the juice, if using, and stir. Serve and enjoy!

Both the beets and the milk thistle are very cleansing to your liver, and your liver is a very important organ! A lot of people associate liver problems with heavy drinking, which is true, but even if you are not a heavy drinker chances are your liver needs some extra tender lovin' care. Our liver is like our body's filtration system, and with all the processed junk we consume it can get pretty beat up.

That's why I love this juice. First off, it's delicious. Even if you are some crazy person who doesn't like beets, fear not, this is not very beet-y tasting. It is actually quite sweet, kinda like an earthy apple juice. Then secondly, it cleans your liver! It's like a delicious superhero. You can be sure I will be drinking this as my afternoon snack everyday this week.

Of course, this juice is good (and good for you) anytime, so no need to reserve it for your next (mini-) cleanse!

Enjoy!

Veg Jenski xo

ps. Here are some other resources you might find helpful:

I highly recommend jae steele's book Get It Ripe. Not only is it full of delicious vegan recipes, but it has really helpful tips on healthy cleansing. You can check out this post from her blog Domestic Affair, in which she talks about fasting, to get a feel for her. Also, I swear by the "Liquid Apple Pie" fibre drink recipe in the post when I'm cleansing (though I leave out the wheat bran and the bentonite clay).

Whole Living had a 21 day cleanse routine that they promoted this January. A friend of mine did it, and she really enjoyed it. Maybe you want to check it out?

If you are interested in juice cleanses, you can check out this post from My New Roots.

Pie Making, etc.

Hello dear reader(s?)!

So, you might be wondering where I have been all these months, maybe you've even wondered if Veg had abandoned you forever. Or maybe you haven't . . . . Either way, the blog has been so quiet because I went back to University this past fall. It's something I had wanted to do for a few years now, and I'm really loving every minute of it. However, between school and my job and my attempts to continue having a life, something had to give and sadly it was the blog. I do have lots of new recipes, and some of them will surely make their way onto the blog at some point, but since September it's been "eat when you can eat" and not "eat after arranging your food nicely and taking pictures of it", ya know?

To keep myself sane-ish through all the stressed-out, sleep-deprived, how-the-heck-do-you-make-an-APA-reference-list weeks, I have made a point each weekend to make a pie. Pie making is great for sanity, because it forces you to slow down and be in what you're doing - making a pie.

As some of you surely know, the lovely ladies of The Post Punk Kitchen recently released a new book all about making vegan pies, Vegan Pie In The Sky. When it arrived, on a cold, blustery Autumn day, as my head was spinning from hundreds of pages of reading, that's when I knew - I was to bake my way through this book with whatever time I could spare. And thus, my weekend pie making adventure was born.

So, I'm going to tell you a little about my experience making some of the pies from this book. I'm not going to tell you the recipes, you can get the book yourself (and you should!). The PPK website has some sample recipes from the book, including three of the pies I have tried, so if you're not convinced that this book is a good investment, give 'em a try and see!

Without further ado;

Week 1 - Maple Pecan Pie

Up front, this was the first pie I made and it may be my favourite. There really isn't even much to say about this pie other than it was incredibly delicious and relatively easy to make. Admittedly, the crust was only so-so (I've been generally displeased with how the crusts from this book turn out, but more on that later), but the rest of the pie was soooooo good that honestly in this case the crust just didn't matter that much. And if you think that is a completely blasphemous thing to say, full disclosure, I am a crust girl. Generally when I'm eating a pie, the crust is all I'm really caring about. I will savour every last bite of crust, often scooping out filing and eating it, just so that I will be left with perfect little bites of (vegan) buttery, flakey goodness. So, when I say that crust is not the star of this pie, I really mean it.

And lucky you, this is one of the sample recipes on The PPK. Click here to enjoy!

Week 2 - Key Lime Pie

I was so excited for this pie, like kid-on-xmas-morning excited, and after my sterling success with the maple pecan pie, I was feeling pretty sure of my pie making abilities. But then tragedy struck! After making the filling and putting it in the fridge for three hours to set, it was still a pie pan of liquidy-lime goo! So, I waited. Six, seven, eight hours went by and the filling was no more solid than when I had poured it over the crust all those hours earlier. So, I put the pie in the freezer. It firmed up and became a very enjoyable freezer dessert. Not quite the creamy key lime pie I had dreamed of, but all's well that ends well, right?

After much thought on what went wrong, I've decided the most likely culprit was the agar agar. I used agar agar flakes, as it was what I had on hand, instead of agar agar powder. I'm pretty sure that was my fatal error, so please learn from my mistake dear reader. Don't cheap it on the little, but important ingredients!

And just a note on the crust - This pie had a cookie crust, as did the next few, and I have found the cookie crust and it's variations in the book very reliable. I have just been disappointed in the traditional pie crust recipes in the book, three of which I have tried so far - The Single (and Lovin' It) Pastry Crust, The Olive Oil Double Crust and The Puffy Pie Dough. I've already mentioned the first one, which went with the maple pecan pie, and I'll get to the others shortly.

Week 3 - Chocolate Galaxy Banana Cheesecake

Right now you're like, "What?!?!? I thought this was a post about pie?" but many a cheesecake is included in Vegan Pie In The Sky, and why not? They are round, they have crusts, they are eaten in pie-shaped slices. I had never thought about it before this book, but now I'm all up on the cheesecake-as-pie craze.

And the cheesecake recipes in this book are some of the best I have ever come across. Instead of using several (expensive!) tubs of Tufutti, the creamy cheesecake texture comes from a combination of silken tofu, mashed banana and soaked cashews. Blend it all up with a few other things and you have a truly delicious, authentic and economical cheesecake.

This cake/pie was great! I'm not sure why it jumped out at me, because I'm not that into bananas generally. I mean, I'll put them in my smoothie, but you won't catch me gleefully eating banana bread or anything. But I loved this cake/pie! Creamy banana cheesecake, with pretty swirls of chocolate on a chocolate cookie crust, yes please! Actually writing about it is really making me want to make another one!

Week 4 - Pumpkin Cheesecake

Again, delicious. Not much more to say about this one. It was awesome. Mind-blowing, even. Take a look for yourself here, and then make one of your own!

Week 5 - Old Fashioned Chocolate Pudding Pie

This one was good and easy to make, but it made me remember that I don't like pudding. It's been so long and the photo that accompanied that recipe looked so good (as evidenced here) that I just had to have it. But then it came to eating it, and I was like "oh yeah, the texture of pudding totally makes me gag!" So, if you love pudding, you should make this pie (and you can with the link above). If you don't like pudding, then move along.

Week 6 - Apple Crisp

I had some company the night that I made this crisp, and the poor thing did not survive to see the light of day. Simple, comforting, delicious. Everyone went back for seconds and thirds, with good reason. Not that I have ever met a crisp I didn't like, they are pretty hard to screw up. But this one . . . . well, you'll just have to try it for yourself and see. Sadly, there is no recipe link for this one, so let's just call it incentive to get yourself a copy of this amazing book!

Week 7 - Cosmos Apple Pie

The filling of this pie was excellent. The crust so-so, and unlike the maple pecan pie, the insides just didn't make up for the outsides for me. I used the olive oil double crust for this one. I found it difficult to work with, especially in rolling out and the end result wasn't flaky at all. It turned out thin and kinda hard. However, overall this was still an enjoyable pie.

The recipe made way too much filling though, so I put the left over in the fridge for the following week (Week 8). When time came I was just going to make a second apple pie, but then realized there wasn't quite enough apples to fill a whole pie. So I dumped in some mixed frozen berries and waited to see what would happen. The results were amazing! Seriously one of the best pies I have ever tried. I have always been partial to berry pies, but something really magical happened when the berries and apples met inside that pie.

It wasn't until a couple days ago when I was flipping through the book, looking for my next pie conquest that I realized I had inadvertently made the Appleberry Pie! Well, sort of. Because I had started out with apple already seasoned for apple pie and just dumped in the mixed berries, it wasn't the exact recipe. Still, the same idea.

And because I'm open-minded, I wasn't ready to write off the olive oil crust. I gave it another shot with the "appleberry" pie, with a few tweaks, but I was still not happy with the results. Sadly, I think I won't be using the crust recipes from the book anymore. I will enjoy the delicious filling recipes in my old-reliable pie crust. I've mentioned it here before, but I'll say it again, the Flaky Pie Crust from Colleen Patrick-Gourdreau's Joy of Vegan Baking is my go-to crust and the best vegan pie crust I have ever tried. So while you're at the store grabbing your copy of Vegan Pie In The Sky, grab The Joy of Vegan Baking too, and become a vegan baking god!

Week 9 - Figgy Apple Hand Pies


It's actually unfortunate to be finishing here, because these were the disappointment of the bunch. From the Washington Post to The PPK 100, everyone seems to have agreed hand pies are the next big thing in potable desserts. However, my first attempt at the palm-sized treats didn't go quite as I had imagined. All week I had been looking forward to the weekend, dreaming of the flaky/sweet/gooey delights in store. So, maybe the end result was even more crushing than it would have been if I were just making a regular-sized pie. Who knows?

They weren't  . . . bad . . . . They were just . . . not good. The crust (the puffy pastry dough) was hard and dry, not flaky as I'd expected. The filling was very tasty, but not gooey enough to counteract the dryness of the crust. At first, I thought maybe I should have eaten them right out of the oven, and letting them cool was a mistake. However, they were actually better the following day. Not that they became great over night, they were just somehow better.

There are several hand pie recipes in the book and I'm not ready to give up yet. Hopefully I get some decent hand pies soon, before the fickle dessert-eating-public moves on to eclairs or whatever.

I'll try to keep you guys posted on my pie making, I'm sure there are many more delicious spheres of pastry to come. And one of these days you just might get a new recipe, too!

Veg Jenski xo