B.P. Karting

How do you take a version of butter chicken that you like and make it vegan?  It’s not an easy task since you can’t use butter or chicken.  However, we modified a recipe from Eat Shrink and Be Merry that we like and came up with this!  We’ve made this recipe couple of different ways. If you’re still not sure about chickpeas, then feel free to substitute some Gardein Chicken Strips (without the teriyaki flavor). This will give it a more natural “chicken” texture.

First you start with your onions and “spice” it up a bit!

Next comes all the yummy tomatoes and tomato paste!

Then you let it simmer for a while and let the yumminess develop.

Then comes the best part!  Coconut milk and chickpeas to give it that creamy flavor and all the protein you need! Mixed in my Bosch Styline gives that creamy flavor!

Let those flavors develop and you have a delicious “butter chickpeas.”

Enjoy!

This may not be a very authentic version of butter chicken but it’s delicious and healthy.

• 1T Earth Balance “butter”
• 1 cup chopped onions
• 2 tsp minced garlic
• 1T grated ginger
• 1t chili powder
• 1/2 t ground turmeric
• 1/4 t ground cinnamon
• 1.5 (14.5oz) cans diced fire roasted tomatoes
• 2T tomato paste
• 1T brown sugar
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/4 t black pepper (freshly ground)
• 1.5 cans of chickpeas
• 2/3 cup of light coconut milk

Melt the butter in a deep skillet over medium heat.  Add onions and garlic.  Cook slowly stirring often, until onions are tender.  Takes about 5 minutes.  Add in the ginger, chili powder, turmeric, and cinnamon.  Cook another minute with the spices added.  Add undrained diced tomatoes, tomato paste, brown sugar, salt, and pepper.  Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 10 mins, stirring occasionally.

Add chickpeas and coconut milk.  Simmer, uncovered, for 5 more minutes.  Remove from heat and server over rice or with a side of your favorite naan.

For dinner I went to Mom, which shares a space with Pearl Yoga and seems very health conscious and mindfully prepared. All of the food is organic, wholesome, and natural. They offer many different bowls, but the size of the bowl is huge, and I didn’t want a ton of grain after that burger! The Soul Salad has spinach, chipotle tempeh, slow-roasted tomatoes, and avocado, sprinkled with toasted pumpkin seeds. The dressing was a garlic tahini with red chili vinagrette. I am a fan of meal salads, and this one was very filling.

The drink was a strawberry basil lemonade. I would never have thought to add basil to strawberry lemonade, but it was awesome and refreshing, and I would go back for another one.

I went back to Fredfor breakfast on Friday morning and had their most popular oatmeal bowl, the Rogue Oatmeal.  This is made with peanut butter and cacao nibs with bananas throughout.  It is made to order, which takes a bit longer, but I appreciated the freshness of the meal.  They added the hemp seed at my request.  Again, this was a very filing meal, and if they offered half sizes, that would have been more appropriate for me.  I had a coconut milk apple cider with it, which was warming, sweet and homemade.

Vadees is an Indian restaurant in the lower Lonsdale area that I found through a brochure that mentioned their vegan options. Whenever a restaurant mentions this, I always have to go try it. Their menu has a V next to each item that can be made vegan, and there are quite a few Vs. (This doesn’t show up on their online menus though.)

For starters, they have vegan samosas filled with potato and peas. They came with a tamarind chutney and a cilantro chutney.

They have a “make it a meal” option that comes with what you see below (except that I substituted roti for the naan bread, as the naan is not vegan). The small veggie curry is coconut milk based.

This was $4.95 and was practically a meal on its own. Do note, though, that they don’t have a substitute for their honey salad dressing, so if you don’t eat honey, they will bring it to you dry! Some oil and lemon or vinegar would be a nice suggestion.

We got a baigan bartha (roasted eggplant with peas, onions, and cilantro) and a black lentil stew.

Here’s another look at the baigan bartha:

What I liked about this restaurant — aside from the many Vs on their menu — is that mild means mild. I’m pretty wimpy when it comes to spices, so I really appreciate this! However, do be sure to tell them you are vegan so that your food is not prepared with cream or butter. This goes for the roti too — they will put oil on it for you instead of butter.

On my three visits to Vaades, I found that I had to check with them a couple of times to make sure that what I was getting was in fact vegan. They did put a curry in front of me one time that had cream in it. Another time, the black lentil stew was unavailable because it had been made with cream that day. However, they will always have other vegan curries to chose from, and I always leave satisfied and with a substantial amount of leftovers.

May your days be merry and bright!!

Wishing you all a season of love, health, and happiness!

The holiday trifecta is upon us!  We will indulge in the giving of Thanks this week, and within 4 weeks, it will be the Christmas festivities for many of us, and finally, we wrap that up with New Years Parties.  What a glorious time of fun and food!

So here’s a tip to consider, should you feel you want to maintain some semblance of control over your food choices this year.

Take your time to enjoy your food!

Not only can this help you control your urges and slow your eating, but it is a meditative reminder to slow down and appreciate the gift of food, the joys of the occasional indulgence, and the process of eating.

When you go to eat anything from an appetizer to an entree or decadent dessert, really take a moment to ponder all the work that went in to the food.  And I don’t just mean the work of the host or person who prepared the food.  But from the ground up.

Think of the farmers who work in the hot sun during the summer so you can have the grains that go into your flour or corn based foods.  The gift of nature that took its time to slowly grow that good.  And the people who harvest the food, to clean it.  Think about the small employees working hard at either little local factories or stores or the large chains, who prepare the packaging and run the registers.  Give a quiet Thanks to all these hands that went in to making your food available.  And of course, a mindful thought to the person who finally prepared it in their kitchen.  Whether that was a few moments placing it in the oven, to several hours chopping, dicing, glazing, or rolling.  Who else may have been involved in that bite?

With all the time and effort that went in to preparing that food, try to take more than a fraction of a second to wolf it down — and instead be thankful for the gift of food, thankful that you can fill your body, and mindful of how that food tastes and feels in your mouth. 

Savor it.

Savor the holidays, savor the parties, savor the people, and appreciate all the little things.  Slowly, deliberately, and with awareness of our intricate, interconnected, magical world.

Happy Thanksgiving!

• Green salad
• cucumber
• tomatoes
• belgian andive
• watercress
• cherry tomatoes
• northsea shrimps

After work yesterday, I was so hungry ( it was already 9 pm) that I didn’t want to spend a lot of time preparing food.. Enter: chocolate protein oats!

Hey hey
I’m preparing for a 4 day trip to Germany, Essen to do some shows for the same bridal brand ( remember Paris?) We’re staying in the Sheraton so I think we’ll be getting a good night’s sleep..(I think I’m gonna need it after standing on those heels again the entire day ) And a darn good breakfast!! My favourite part of staying in a hotel is defenitely waking up and preparing to go to breakfast.. Especially if it’s a full buffet breakfast ha! I usually try not to put everything on my plate but walk around for a bit and then pick out the healthy options.. ( Fruit/ yoghurt/ veggies/ muesli / dark bread and so on..)
Recently I’ve been trying to incorporate more raw veggies in my diet.. Since reading Sabine’sblog @ the fruitpursuit.com eating raw most of the time .. I’ve been wanting to do it myself as well.. Firstly because I’ve been feeling a bit off in the energy department and secondly because I just think it’s very healthy.. So I’ve been making some awesome salads! I’m also planning on starting to juice more, but I’m still browsing the stores for a decent juicer ( = not too expensive)

The best salad!

• Spinach leaves
• lentils
• 1/2 veggie steak
• copped cucumber
• chopped sweet paprika
• chopped cherry tomatoes
• chopped sundried tomatoes
• sunflower seeds
• garden herbs hummus

Enjoy your day off, enjoy family and sun, food and fun.  And still take care of your health! You’re worth it