Coconut Milk Yogurt for the Win

I've been hearing about all of these great coconut milk products from people in the US. I've been waiting patiently for them to start appearing in Canada. We've had the coconut milk drink for about 6 months or so, I think, but we haven't had any of the yogurts (that I've seen at least) until just recently. The market near my house started carrying it last week, so of course I nabbed some.

I really miss yogurt. I used to eat soy yogurt all of the time. I love the Nancy's soy yogurt so much. I've been trying to limit my soy intake so that's gone off the menu except for every now and then. I'm stoked to finally have a replacement. This stuff is so good. It's thick and creamy and delicious. Just like you'd expect from it. I'm pretty sure that everything I've had that's been made with coconut milk has been awesome. Coconut milk ice cream, I'm talking to you.

So far I've only tried the vanilla flavor, but there were a few others at the market that I'm definitely going to grab when I'm there next week.

 

Things that are Awesome: Holy Crap Cereal

I remember about a year ago James telling me that he heard something about the woman who started Holy Crap cereal on the CBC (that's like NPR in the US). Apparently it was so popular that it was backordered for months. I think the popularity took her by surprise. There was some other stuff, but I forget exactly now and I don't want to spread lies, so just check out the google if you're curious. Anyway, I remembered that discussion when we saw it at the market the other day. Intrigued, we decided to buy some.

 

Immediately I was struck by just how friendly this cereal is to a variety of diets. It's vegan, gluten-free and nut-free. How cool! Plus, the package says it's "the world's most amazing breakfast cereal". If the packaging says so, it must be true.

So what you do is add 2 tablespoons of cereal to 4 tablespoons of liquid. I've been using almond milk, but it even says you can use yogurt or something if you want. After you mix it, you let it sit for about 5 minutes. There are tons of chia seeds in this so they absorb a ton of liquid as it sits and turns into an almost pudding-like consistency. That may seem a little odd, but I actually kind of like it. It's different than normal cereal, that's for sure.

Now you're probably looking at these pictures and thinking it looks kind of grey and bland. But no! It's actually really tasty. There's some dried fruit in it which adds a bunch of flavor. This is my first time eating hemp hearts and I think I like them. They have a nice nutty flavor with just a tiny hint of chocolate to them. Oh, and speaking of pictures, I'm sorry that these are so blurry. It was really early in the morning before work when I took these and I clearly don't know how to focus before I've eaten my breakfast.

I kind of love that it's called Holy Crap. Just the name makes me giggle. I like to say it like an exclamation even if it's in the middle of a sentence. To me there's always an exclamation point on the end. I usually like to add some fruit to my bowl of Holy Crap! as well. We've been putting blueberries and strawberries in with it this week.

Vancouver Food Trucks: Mom's Grilled Cheese, the Sequel

I went back to Mom's Grilled Cheese on yet another gorgeous fall day to enjoy a sandwich and the nice weather. The truck was still mobbed, but not quite as much as the last time I was there. Good for them that they're doing so well! The food is really delicious.

 I got my sandwich in a cute little cone this time. There are some potato chips at the bottom under the sandwich. So cute!

I had the same thing as last time: marble rye with Daiya cheese, pickles, onions and tomatoes. I got mozzarella Daiya this time, though. That's my favorite. They had all three flavors this time, which is pretty rad. My sandwich had a little bit of olive oil brushed on it before grilling this time. That definitely gave it a bit more of that grilled cheese texture and flavor. So good!

Cindy was nice enough to give me a sample of the tomato soup. It's made vegan, but it comes with cheese on it, so just ask for no cheese if you order it. The soup was really tasty! It had such a nice flavor with some definite Italian herbs in there. I really liked it. I can see myself going back for a big cup of soup on a particularly blustery day or a day when I'm not feeling quite so great. This is not some crappy, boring tomato soup.

 

My sample cup of soup is balancing on top of my ginger tea.

I also ordered a ginger tea this time. It's pretty much just ginger and a bit of demerra sugar. Absolutely wonderful. I will probably stop by just for some of this tea sometimes. It's gingery without being too spicy and just a touch sweet, not too much sugar. It was a wonderful thing to have on a day with a crisp wind blowing.

Weekend Brunch

I've been looking through some of my older photos on Flickr and I came across this triad of brunch photos. This might be my absolute favorite thing to eat for brunch. I know I've said this before, but just looking at these pictures is making me hungry. Good thing it's almost lunchtime.

The Tofu Bennies, Temphe Bacon and Diner Home Fries are from Vegan Brunch and the chard is from the ground. I know, I'm hilarious. I'll be here all week, folks. Oh, and did you notice that huge slice of heirloom tomato? That's right, there's no playing around when it comes to tomato slices at my house. I've been making the Tempeh Bacon recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance for years now and love it. The one in Vegan Brunch is pretty similar, but has some different stuff in it. I'm not sure which one I like better, I've never done a side by side taste comparison. But there's a fun idea for breakfast! If I know I'm going to make this in the morning, I try and marinate my tempeh slices overnight just to give it a little more flavor.

Okay, so I didn't cut the bennies into cute little circles. It looks super cute, but then I have all this leftover tofu and really squares and circles taste pretty much the same. I usually wait for company to get fancy with my tofu cutting skills. This was just a weekend at home. I've made a bunch of things from Vegan Brunch, but the bennies are one recipe that I keep going back to over and over again. I make them on english muffins sometimes, but I actually prefer them just like this - on a bed of potatoes.

And speaking of potatoes, these Diner Home Fries are delish! Back in the day, I used to buy hash browns from the freezer section of the grocery store. I would always get the one with the onions and green peppers in it because that was my favorite. I never really tried to add those things to my potatoes at home until a big "duh" went through my head when I was reading the recipe for these. So good. If I'm not feeling so hands off that I just want to roast my potatoes in the oven and forget about them until the timer goes off, I make them this way. The hollandaise sauce from the bennies goes great on them, too. So good!

Vancouver Food Trucks - Off the Wagon

The food truck journey continues today with Off the Wagon. This place was actually recommended to me by Cindy from Mom's Grilled Cheese. All I had to hear was vegan tacos and I was sold.

Yes, I loaded up on the habanero sauce. I love that it's yellow!

Off the Wagon is in a cute little school bus painted red right at the corner of Burrard and Dunsmuir. It's right by the Burrard Skytrain entrance, which is handy if you're coming from across town. And who wouldn't cross town for a yummy taco?! If you're at the winter farmers market at Nat Bailey Stadium, you can also find this food truck there with even more veggie options I'm told. The tacos are all $3. The special today was 3 tacos and a drink for $10. I think that saves you $.50 or something like that. The truck downtown only has 3 tacos every day, one of which is a yam and black bean taco. The third taco changes and is sometimes also a veggie taco. I was told that sometimes they'll use pumpkin! I would love to try a pumpkin taco. Yum!

I ordered 3 of the yam and black bean tacos for lunch today. These babies have yam, black beans, onions, guacamole, salsa and cilantro. If you're a cilantro hater, I'm sure you can ask for it without, they make them fresh as you order. There's a bottle of habanero hot sauce to add some heat if you want it, which I surely did. The tortillas were soft and didn't fall apart. The ingredients all seemed really fresh and quite flavorful.

These little tacos were quite good. I would definitely go back here again. The person that took my order was very friendly and immediately told me that the tacos were vegan when I asked about dairy. That make me happy and I'm much more comfortable about my food. I do typically go to the farmers market quite often and I'm excited to try some of the other tacos they'll have this winter.

Cheap and Easy Noodle Soup

There are some nights when you just don't feel like cooking. We typically have a stash of things to reheat in the freezer for nights like this, but right now it's pretty much all chili and tomato rice soup. I love both of those things, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood for something thick and tomatoey.

These are the days that we have ramen for dinner. I'm lucky that I live in such an international city. The market that I go to has a plethora of different types of food, including tons of different flavors of ramen. The sesame oil flavored one is the only one I've found that's vegan. That's totally cool with me because this one is actually super tasty. Even just on its own, this is pretty good. There's a spice package inside and also a little pouch of sesame oil to add in to your soup. Neat!

See, it even says on the package that it's yummy!

Another great thing about these noodles is how cheap they are. You are definitely not going to break the bank by buying something like this for dinner. Plus, these noodles are a great vehicle for those leftover veggies that you don't know what to do with. I'll typically just add some of whatever we happen to have in the fridge. This time we had a bunch of spinach, shitake mushrooms and green onions so that's what went in. On other occasions I've added ginger, carrots, celery, or James's favorite, broccoli. Pretty much anything goes. Do you like it spicy? Just add a spoonful of some chili paste or a dash of hot sauce and you're good to go.

Quick, cheap, easy and delicious. If you have any kind of Asian market near you, check it out, you might luck out and find something like this. It's also awesome because on the nights we're short for time or don't have much of anything else to eat in the house, we can always make ramen and it doesn't feel like we're settling for something not as good.

Vancouver Food Trucks: Loving Hut the Sequel

I spent a beautiful fall day last week surrounded by gorgeous leaves and eating yummy junk food. Most of the leaves still haven't gotten around to changing here. It seems like it always happens all at once. Green leaves, then brilliant colors then a few days later, the streets are full of piles and piles of brown leaves. The fall colors are something to enjoy while they last, that's for sure.

 

Speaking of enjoying things while they last, that's exactly what I did with my lunch at the Loving Hut food truck! The sun was really bright and I wasn't sitting on the best bench for photos. I couldn't get any decent pictures of my sandwich and I took tons from all different angles. Oh, well. Just imagine some extra yumminess in there if you can.

 

I'm kind of cheating by visiting Loving Hut's food truck again. It's just around the corner from my office, which is pretty rad. There are more to discover, but some days I just don't feel like traipsing around the city at lunch, you know. That sometimes depends more on what kind of shoes I'm wearing than anything else, I'm afraid to say.

 

I'd been really looking forward to trying the crispy chik'n sandwich so that's exactly what I ordered. There are sides now, too, which is great. You can choose between zucchini sticks or yam fries. Zucchini sticks sounded quite a bit different than what you can normally get with your lunch, so I got some of those, too. This stuff may be vegan, but it's definitely junk food.

 

There were so many zucchini sticks, they were definitely not being chintzy on that. Thick, fried pieces of zucchini. I don't eat fried stuff all that often so it was a bit much for me. I don't really care for mayonnaise based sauces (or mayonnaise at all for that matter, usually) so I tried the dipping sauce but didn't really eat it much after trying it. I think most people would like it, it's just not my thing. It's also a bit sweet which I also don't tend to care for. Keep in mind that I think things are sweet that most people think are not sweet at all, so you can't judge too much by that. I think there are some red peppers or ketchup or something mixed in there that gives it that sweetness.

 

The crispy chik'n burger was doused in that same sweet mayo sauce. I bet most people would like that stuff, it looks to be the same color as the "secret sauce" that you see on things all the time. Though, how secret can it be if everyone knows about it? There was also some guacamole, lettuce, tomato and this yellow apricot/jalapeno relish along with the sauce and the chik'n burger. I ended up getting quite messy. I saw another guy eating his with it still partially wrapped up in the paper. I should have done that instead of taking it out like I did. I really liked this, but I think that next time I'd get it without the sauce for sure. It was delicious and I think it would be even more delicious without that. But, again, it's just not my thing, you might like it with the sauce.

I noticed they're still selling those cookies, but now instead of $2, they're $2.50. Each! Yowza. Guess what I'm never buying with my lunch?