Cookbooks, Crackers & So Much More

One day last week, I was having an all out craving for pancakes. I took out my trusty copy of The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook, and used their simple, never fail pancake recipe.


I threw in a few handfuls of frozen wild blueberries and had the most delicious blueberry pancakes for my breakfast.

Of course I drizzled them with maple syrup! It was one of my top 5 food picks! On the side were some crispy strips of Morningstar Farms Breakfast Bacon. YumYumYum!

Then, the mailman arrived. (He really was a man, so saying mailman isn't being non-politically correct) He had 2, count 'em - 2 packages for ME! The first one was from amazon.ca When I placed my order, the e-mail said that my books would be shipped in approximately 2-5 weeks. One week later, they were here. Great service! I finally ordered Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. It seemed so tiny, but it is full of wonderful cupcake recipes.

I was having such a good time with my slow cooker cookbook by Robin Robertson that I decided to try another one of her books. Since I've been trying to experiment with different seitan recipes, and I'm a real lover of comfort food, I decided to get The Vegetarinan Meat and Potatoes Cookbook. I haven't had a chance to really read the recipes, but I did a quick page flip and I like what I'm seeing! The third book is The Self Healing Cookbook by Kristina Turner. This book was recommended to me by my naturopath and after I browsed her copy, I thought it would be a good reference/cookbook to have on hand.

My second package contained free samples from Dr. Kracker. I first heard about this offer from Bazu when she posted about it in January. I checked out the website and figured it would be the same old story - offer only valid in the United States. I didn't see anything, so I e-mailed the company. I got a very prompt answer back saying they would be delighted to send me some free samples. I sent off my mailing info and completely forgot about Dr. Kracker until the package arrived. It was all the way from Dallas Texas. I guess that's why it took a while. That and clearing customs.

In the box were 3 packages of crackers/flatbread and a cute cracker tin. They sent some neat varieties - Klassic 3 Seed, Seeded Spelt, and one called Seedlander. All of these look so incredibly good and are made with delicious-sounding, wholesome ingredients. I haven't tried one yet, but I KNOW they're going to be kick-ass.

In my mailbox, I found another puffy envelope from my Dad. Back in October, he sent me an awesome puffy envelope so I was very excited to see this one. What could it be?

A DVD copy of Blue Man Group! It's quite similar to the show Jim & I saw in January. This copy is great! There are some things on this DVD I've never seen before. Thanks again Dad! XO You ROCK!

Whew! What a load of stuff - all in one day. But wait! There's more! Jim arrived home with his E-Bay win.

Lookey what was inside.

Two tickets to the LEAFS game on March 20. This is going to be a good game. They're playing New Jersey Devils who have one of the best goalies on the planet, Martin Brodeur. I'm very excited to see him play. This game will also be interesting because the last time these teams played (March 2) there was a very controversial play and non-call for this incident. Whatever happens, Leafs winning hopefully, we are going to be on top of the action.

Look at our seats.

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Row 4!
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Go Leafs!

March 2 - Leafs vs. Devils

This is just nasty.

Stuffed Shells

A couple of weeks ago, we had a really good snowstorm. It snowed all day & into the night. When I left work that evening, I wanted to take a picture of the snow to post here. None of them really turned out because it was too dark and too stormy, but this one was kinda cool. I had left my flash on by mistake and this is what I got - light reflecting off the snowflakes.

The master of the house loves the snow, but sometimes his feet get cold & he hops around on 3 legs. When we got home, we came in the back way of our building but Simon wanted to run around first. Then, he started his hop and had to be carried in. How sad is this? Who's in charge do you think?

The next day, as everyone was digging out, I had a day off and did a bit of cooking. I decided on this delicious pasta dish. It comes from the cookbook Crazy Plates by the sister team of Janet & Greta Podleski.

I also had a sun-dried tomato and assiago baguette from my favorite bread bakery, Pane Fresco. This was such a delicious meal, it required a delicious wine.


Jim got this bottle of Barolo as a tip from a customer, if you can believe it. We'd had it sitting for about a year and I thought it would be a good time to try it.

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The customer he got it from was an Italian gentleman who was from area where this wine is produced. He'd had this in his cellar for quite a while - it's a 1997! It went wonderfully well with the pasta. The wine had softened nicely, but would still have been able to age for a couple of more years easily. What a wonderful tip!

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SHE SELLS STUFFED SHELLS

(from Crazy Plates)

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18 jumbo pasta shells

1 tsp. olive oil

1/2 cup minced onions

1/2 cup grated carrots

1 clove garlic, minced

1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed dry & chopped

1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

1/2 cup low-fat (1%) cottage cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 egg white

2 tbsp. chopped basil

2 cups of your favorite pasta sauce

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Heat olive oil in a small, non-stick saucepan over medium heat. Add onions, carrots and garlic. Cook & stir for 2-3 minutes, until vegetables begin to soften. Remove from heat and let cool.

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Cook pasta shells according to package directions. Drain. Rinse with cold water and drain again. Set aside.

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In a medium bowl, combine carrot-onion mixture, spinach, cheese, egg white and basil. Mix well. Stuff each cooked shell with a heaping tablespoonful of filling.

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Pour 1 cup pasta sauce over the bottom of a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Arrange stuffed shells in a single layer over sauce. Spoon remaining sauce over shells. Cover and bake at 350F for 30 minutes.

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Makes 6 servings

Another One Bites The Dust

After reading on Megan's blog that she heard a rumour that Lightlife was pulling their products out of Canada, I e-mailed the company to see if this was true.

This is the response I received today.

"Dear Carrie,

Thank you for your interest in our company and products. Yes it is true. Lightlife is no longer available in Canada. We stopped selling our products in Canada a few months ago. We found that consumers really wanted us, they want to have the choices. But the stores either won't bring us in or won't keep us long after we're in. We tried very hard for about eight years to really make a go of it and finally threw in the towel. We wish we could had made it work.

Best Regards,

Luis Torres

Consumer Service"

Why does this always happen?!

Look! It's even making babies cry!

Leafs Captain Rocks!

Whew! It's been a long time since I posted.
A week & a half or so ago, on a Saturday, we were going to go to the hockey game with my friend Allison. Jim & I are of course, Leaf fans & Allison cheers for Edmonton. Since the Oilers were in town, we had picked that game to go to. We didn't have tickets. They are extremely difficult to get most times, so we just went down to the ACC to see what the scalpers had. It's the best way to get decent seats really. When we had originally picked this day, way back in October, we didn't know that there was going to be a big ceremony honouring the '67 Stanley Cup champions, which is the last time the Leafs won the cup.






Also, Dave Keon was coming back for the first time in 40 years. Big long story, but this was going to be a big event. We thought we'd take our chances anyway.


We quickly discovered that this was probably not going to happen. Ticket prices had soared and were completely over inflated. $250 for the cheapest seat. For a decent one, these guys were asking $600! Usually, $100 will get you a pretty good seat with a good view. No way were we going to pay $250 for nosebleeds. Our plan was then to waste some time and come back after the game had started and see if we could negotiate a better deal. By the time the game is underway, if the scalpers have tickets, they'll sell them cheap. What could we do for a few hours?

Let's go here! The Hockey Hall of Fame.

It's located at the corner of Front & Yonge Sts. in an old bank. I love the outside of this building! The City of Toronto has done a magnificent job in maintaining a lot of the historic buildings. The design of the city is such that the old looks good with the new. And anyone visiting that I've shown around a bit has always commented on the fact that for a very large city (pop. over 5 million) it's extremely clean.



This shot doesn't do it justice, but this is the ceiling inside. The vaults are still there, so this was probably the main part of the bank where the tellers were and patrons would come do business. This is when they knew how to build impressive!
If you're a hockey fan, this place is great! It's so chock full of hockey information & memorbilia (except for the bathroom, which could have been "one of a kind", but was disappointing).

Anyway, we got to see the original Stanley Cup that is kept in one of the vaults and got to get up close to a replica.


Above is the Conn Smythe trophy that is awarded to the MVP of the playoffs. Jim loves this trophy because it has a giant maple leaf on it and Maple Leaf Gardens. It was donated by Conn Smythe, obviously & you might remember a bit that I mentioned of him before.





Here's a shot of Allison in a mock-up of the old Habs dressing room. We were looking for the showers, but alas, no luck.




It got to be dinner hour and we were all getting hungry. We walked over to The Old Spaghetti Factory, but they told us a 45 minute wait! Geez! I hate having to wait anywhere, let alone a restaurant, so we walked next door to Scotland Yard and got a seat right away and a TV we could watch the start of the game on.

I had a house salad to start with balsamic dressing. It was full of baby greens & chickpeas. Mmm - quite delicious.

I was really hungry and we were out for a good time, so I opted for the veggie burger and a side of fries. I love fries. I know they are soooo bad for you, but they taste sooooo good! As far as veggie burgers go, this was pretty good.


We then headed back to the ACC to see if we would have any luck with tickets. The scalpers were gone, sold out! Ah well. We decided we might as well catch the rest of the game on TV, so we hiked down Front St. to a place we had passed earlier called The Bottom Line. It looked quite nice, so we hung out there, sat at the bar and watched the game.



Allison & I were wanting some dessert, so we splurged.


She got some chocolate, caramel cake mousse thing. It was a massive hunk of cake.

I decided on the brownies & ice cream. I really just wanted ice cream, but the brownie part just sounded soooo good.

As expected, neither one of us could finish.

The game was almost done & who should walk in with some friends? Former Leafs captain, DOUG GILMOUR! We really wanted to meet him, but he was out for drinks with his wife & friends and we didn't think it would be appropriate to butt in and bother him. After much debating, Ali & Jim thought it best if we just leave and not interupt his evening. Jim said "I'll probably regret it." I was thinking I would too, so I decided to take my chances and go over. OMG! He was soooooo nice! I apologized and he was all "Oh no, don't be silly. It's quite all right." He signed autographs, chatted with me, chatted with Allison, chatted with Jim - turns out they have a mutual business acquaintance - and took his time and was very attentive & really focused on who was talking. What dreamy chocolately eyes. I've seen him play hockey a gazillion games. He's been on TV & in photos and the newspaper more times than I dared to count, but never realized that he looks REALLY good. Very healthy looking.*wink*
He was most agreeable in posing for a photo. (click pic for larger view)

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So our night for the hockey game that turned bust was, in the end, a very exciting evening indeed!

Valentine's Day

Jim & I have never really celebrated Valentine's Day. But as luck would have it, I ended up having a day off on Wednesday which was ideal, because we got our biggest snowstorm of the year, so far, on Tuesday night. No digging out for me. I stayed cozy inside. I decided that I would actually do a little something to celebrate the day. I had to work with what I had, and this is what we ended up with.





We started out with some bubbly! This sparkling wine is from a fantastic Ontario winery, 13th Street. This wine is made in the traditional method or Methode Champenoise, basically meaning they make it like they do in Champagne with the second fermentation happening in the bottle. Some sparkling wines are made in huge tanks with the second fermentation taking place in those tanks. Those wines would be called Charmat Method. At 13th Street they make all of their sparkling wines in the traditional method.
This particular one is a blend of Pinot Noir & Chardonnay and was aged in this bottle for 3 years. It had a wonderful toasty, nutty flavour with a hint of apple. Very delicious!


For dinner, we had Oh Naturel! Chick'n Cordon Melts which I had blogged about a few months ago. They seemed like a sort of romantic food - fitting for Valentine's Day. I served that with some garlicy brown rice and Quick Roast Green Beans and Peppers from The Everyday Vegan.



For dessert, I made chocolate cupcakes using a tried & true recipe from my Betty Crocker cookbook.

I iced them with buttercream frosting and decorated with little heart-shaped gumdrops.

My other sweetheart also got a Valentine's treat. Here's Simon obviously enjoying a Greenie. At our house, everyday is Valentine's Day for Simon!