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Hmmm, so I feel as though the above picture does not do my casserole justice. This was an exceptionally tasty, and ridiculously fattening dish. I suppose it could have been made less fattening, but really where’s the fun in that? This casserole is the perfect Sunday dinner type meal…or it would have been if Fialonia and I had had the good sense to make side dishes to go with it (I’m thinking beets, turnip, and steamed carrots…yum!). Instead, we just ate casserole which means that we got in about four servings of green veg (yaya) and 500 servings of olive oil and vegan cheese (less yaya).

Fatty Veggie Cassy:

Filling:
2 cups kale or swiss chard…something leafy green
2 cups broccoli
1 small onion
1 leek
3 cloves garlic
1/4 cup water (or white wine)
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper

Top:
1/2 cup firm tofu
3 pieces bread
1/2 cup vegan cheese (I went with Jack cheese…tasty!)
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 tsp chili garlic sauce
2 tbsp olive oil (oh yeah…bring on the good fats…)

Preheat oven 350C. Chop up your veg. In a large saucepan, saute onions until translucent and then add the rest of the veg, garlic, water/wine, and salt. Cover and let cook on low while you whip up the top. For the top, blend everything together in your food processor (or blender…although in this case I think food processor would be easier). Start with the bread and spices then go to the tofu, cheese, oil etc. Pop the veg in an 8×8 baking dish and spread the topping on, well, the top. Stick in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. Served with side dishes, this meal easily fills four people. Lazy girls home on a Friday night? Serves two.

Off to work on the thesis some more. Rockin’ Saturday night!

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So yesterday was useless for posting because a) I had leftovers and b) I spent most of the day trying to outline the introduction to my thesis…for the fourth time. I’m thrown out everything I’ve written so far (I can hear you laughing, Rivers) but this time I think I’ve got it. My difficulty, you see, is that this is an ethics paper. And ethics papers are inherently full of holes because if people don’t buy into your ontological base, well, they aren’t going to care much about the rest of it. More to the point, if the person who is writing it (me) doesn’t buy into their own (hippie dippy) ontological base, then they aren’t going to care much about the rest of it. But after four times through, I think I have found my grounding, thanks in large part to Joan Tronto, Fiona Robinson, and Val Plumwood. None of this makes any sense, does it? Ah well. At least I have a chapter two. Chapter ones are for losers anyways.

On a related note, I thought I would give you all some insight into the little land I call ‘thesisville’. Above is a picture of my office. From left: My bookshelf, my laundry, monthly calendars highlighting wildly ambitious deadlines, a stack of books that I have read 500 times and still barely understand, my bright blue desk with A.’s desktop computer (Steve), a heap of “inspirational” pictures (including Jennifer Aniston, Christy Turlington, James McAvoy, A., and Lily Cole), a mug of peppermint tea, my printer (Jane), my “filing cabinet” which is actually just a glorified milk crate, my new mustard yellow handbag which already has an ink stain inside it (effing ecologically friendly leaky pens), my hula hoop, and my exercise gear and exercise ball (which gets much less use than my hula hoop).

This is where I live.

Tonight: veggie casserole. I think.

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Today was a lovely day. I had a student meeting that went super well – the meetings with bright students often do go well. It’s the ones who say things like “But this class is so boring” or “What do you mean Wikipedia isn’t a peer-reviewed journal” that drive me bananas. The student I met today wanted me to go through the rough draft of a pretty decent paper. Easy. After said meeting, I ran into some fellow poliscigeeks on campus and we compared notes on the progress or lack thereof of our theses. My mind was put somewhat at ease by the fact that I’m not as far behind as other people. Still ridiculously behind, but not as bad as I thought. Yaya!

Plus today was sunny. Sunny means busting out the walking dresses, like this little number above (thank you, Freshly Baked Goods!). Sunny also means heaps of vegetables and fun walks to the grocery store to get said vegetables (walks that do not include battling windchill or wearing twelve pairs of mittens). And vegetables mean goulash, or at least they did today.

Now this recipe as shown above could have done with some more kick. I’ve included what I think would be useful kick to the instructions below but you may need more.

Ezmy’s Gorgeous Goulash

1/2 cup quinoa
14 oz pinto beans
2 medium tomatoes
1 small zucchini
2 medium carrots
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 1/2 cups broccoli
1 1/2 cup vegetable stock
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp marjoram
1 tbsp olive oil

Soak your quinoa in a bit of water while you are chopping your veg. Chop up veg (mince garlic, florets for the broccoli, but otherwise chopped is good). In a nice big soup pot, saute your onions on medium heat until translucent then add the rest of the veg, spices and beans and saute for a few more minutes. Then add the vegetable stock, bring to a boil, and then turn down to let simmer. While the goulash is simmerin’, cook up your quinoa in a small pot. When the the quinoa is ready, the goulash is too. Yay!

I had enough goulash for four servings, but only enough quinoa for two. I ended up just throwing the quinoa in the goulash…but you do what you like. Some people aren’t mixers. Fialonia and I enjoyed this recipe with a bit of bread, ‘Sex and the City’, and in my case water with prenats. I’m sure the prenats and the SATC are optional.

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I hate when I have a plan for food and I forget a crucial ingredient. You know, like when you’re planning on making macaroni and cheese and you forget the…cheese. Lame. Well today, I forgot to buy chickpeas and I’ve had a ridiculous craving for hummus. Something about the sunny weather screams dips to me. But hummus without chickpeas is, well, just tahini with garlic and lemon. Which is not bad, but it’s no hummus.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I came across the idea of red lentil dip. “I have red lentils,” I thought to myself, as I read my vegan bible, La Dolce Vegan. Huh. So I went with it, made the usual modifications (more spice! more garlic! more lemon!) and my oh my but it was delightful!

Ezmy’s I forgot the chickpeas Red Lentil Dip:

1 cup red lentils
1 1/2 cup water (in which to boil your lentils)
1/3 cup lemon juice (about 1 large lemon)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp dried chili flakes
3 cloves garlic
3 tbsp olive oil

+pita
+celery or leafy green
=awesome times

Easiest recipe ever. Cook up your lentils – these should take about 10 minutes or so – and set aside for a few minutes to let them cool down. While they are cooling down, get out your other ingredients and your food processor. If you’re like me, you are lucky enough to have a spiffy pink food processor. Mine is called Betsy. But if you don’t have a Betsy, you can just use a blender. Anyways, once your lentils have cooled down a bit, throw everything into the food processor/blender and mix until smooth(ish). Serve immediately if you like warm dip or later if you want cold (I’m a warm dip kind of gal).

I’m off now to munch on red lentil dip with pita and celery and to consider my role as an ecological citizen.

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I’m not going to lie – it’s been a rough weekend. First, that silly cold just would not go away. It’s gone now but I nearly drowned myself in lemon/ginger water. What didn’t help? Recent diagnosis of potential endometriosis. I say “potential” because I need a laparoscopy to determine for sure but, well, according to the doctor, there’s not much else it could be. Awesome times.

Faced with the notion that my reproductive years may be dwindling/gone, I did the most sensible thing: I drank. Alone. And ate cheese. This did NOT help the cold, although it did temporarily distract from the sniffles. And I suspect that my uterus was displeased by these proceedings – I know my stomach certainly was. The only bonus to the weekend really was that I got a heap of work done because I needed to distract myself. So the thesis is coming along nicely even if other things (my diet, my reproductive capacity) are not.

The thing is, everything is going to be totally fine (a fact I knew most of the weekend but chose to ignore because sinking into the depths is comforting). I have plenty of options should I decide to have kidlets and odds are (given previous evidence of my fertility) that my uterus remains a reasonably hospitable place to house fetuses. But no one likes to hear that things aren’t working properly and no one likes to hear that they are getting older, even if older is only 29. What I really need at times like these is a) a louder sensible voice in my head that is able to overpower Crazy Ezmy and b) A. to remind me that cheese = bad. Sigh.

Ah well. I’m back on track today. I’ve exercised for twice as long today to compensate for the last couple of days and I am back to eating my usual 7 servings of leafy greens with seeds and fruit and nuts and pulses. All is well. I remain irritated at my apparent lack of self-control following inconvenient news, but I can’t beat myself up over it.

I will post a dinner recipe later on, although I don’t think I’ll have a picture…I’ve run out of batteries for my camera. Next green purchase: rechargable batteries.

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I miss A.. Especially on Saturdays. Saturdays, see, were the days when A. and I would max out around the house and do nothing. Read the paper, drink too much coffee, maybe go to Carmen’s for brunch, but really do nothing.

Everyday is kind of like Saturday for me I suppose in the sense that all of my days are the same: I wake up, drink coffee, and read books. But I miss A. Saturdays.

Boo.

(Stay tuned for a dinner post tonight…if it turns out. Teaser: peanut butter and tomato juice)

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I have been feeling under the weather for about a week now but today it really hit me – whamo! Head cold. Only cure for a head cold? Soup!! And tea!!

So here’s my version of tomato soup. As a kid, I loved Campbell’s soup but now I find it too salty and too sharp. This soup has a milder base but I add a lot of chilis to smoke out the sickness.

Ezmy’s Tomato Soup

1 small red onion, chopped fine
1/2 cup fresh basil, ripped up (I found some!)
1 14 oz tin of crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp crushed dry chili
1 cup unsweetened soymilk
2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp olive oil

Saute onion in oil until translucent. Add water, tomatoes, salt and pepper and bring to boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 6-8 minutes. Stir in soymilk, basil, sugar, and chili and simmer for another 5 minutes or so. Voila!

I had this today with a mug of ginger and lemon water, 1 cup of steamed green collards and a few pieces of olive bread – very tasty and easy to digest.

On a different topic, allow me to rant for just a minute about my recent experiences at the medical clinic on my campus. To preface, I have had a number of teensy health issues over the course of the last 4 or 5 years, all of which seemed to me to be related in some way but I could never figure out how. Neither it seems could/can anyone else. I went to the doctor on Friday and she informed me that I might be suffering from illness A. I had to follow up yesterday and was introduced to another doctor who told me that it was either illness B or nothing at all. ??? Right, so it’s not nothing, that’s for certain. I have what one could call very obvious symptoms now of something. Likely illness A. So it’s not nothing. But what really peeved me about this whole experience was that I wasn’t expecting this guy to be able to tell me what was wrong. I mean it would be cool if he happened to know, but given the nature of my issues, I was expecting to be referred to a specialist. This guy tried to write me off, saying that everything I was experiencing was perfectly normal (I cannot begin to express how it is NOT normal). He insinuated, not so lightly either, that I was making this stuff up. The only thing that pushed him to give me the referral I wanted was a) I said I wanted to have children someday and that this could affect that and b) I wasn’t leaving his office until he gave one to me. Argh.

A note to GPs everywhere: Please do not pretend to be an expert in a field that you are clearly not an expert in. Your job is to be the frontline – to separate the hypochondriacs and fakers from the rest of us. To separate the common headcolds from the potential tumors, you know? And if you aren’t sure, please for the love of god don’t guess. At least not openly. If I hear one more doctor say “Well, it might be this but I’m not sure…but don’t worry about it” or “I think you might have A but just in case I’m going to stick you on medication to fix B and then if it’s not B we’ll switch to meds for A” I’m going to lose it. I’m also tired of not being listened to. I always feel as though I’m being rushed or ignored because they have to get me in and out in 10 minutes or less. I’ve actually had times where doctors have rolled their eyes about the fact that I was going to need to do a blood test and therefore would have to stay a bit longer. Is it really that much work? My god. And I’m tired of them thinking I’m stupid. I don’t know much about medicine but I do know where my organs are for crying out loud. I told this guy yesterday that I had a pain around my kidney area and he said “Are you sure you know where your kidneys are?”. I stared at him blankly and then pointed to the location of my kidneys. “Oh,” he said, when I clearly demonstrated that I did in fact know what the F I was talking about, “well, ok I guess that might be a kidney problem then.” You guess? Go away.

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So I’ve had a difficult couple of days health wise and really needed to pump up the nutritional value of my meals to make up for not eating enough before (it’s all about balance!). Today it was all about green green green vegetables. I don’t have a picture of today’s lunch but it was loverly: potato leek soup with a good hit of ginger and a pile of collard greens. Tonight, Fialonia and I tested out another recipe from La Dolce Vegan with my usual modifications.

‘Cheery Cherry Tomato Pasta’

1/4 cup vegan cheese
2 pieces bread
2 cloves garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
25-30 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 cup fresh basil (or, if you are me and couldn’t find any basil, 1 tbsp of the dried stuff oughta do it)

+enough pasta for two people (I went with an organic penne because it was on sale)
+something green and leafy (I went with the leftover collards – packed with vitamins and very filling)

Preheat oven to 400C. In a food processor or blender, mix together the bread, cheese, garlic, salt and pepper, and oil. Put the halved cherry tomatoes in a baking dish (I used a glass pie plate) and cover evenly with bread/cheese fantasticness. Pop in the oven for about 15 minutes. While that’s doing its thing, cook up the pasta and greens. Throw it altogether in one bowl, adding the basil. Yum!!

This was a success for both Fialonia and I. This time around, all my stomach wanted as a side was a tall glass of hot water with ginger but next time I would try it with some fried mushrooms and onions I think.

>So this weekend I went to Toronto to see my old roomie AB along with two of my fabulous cousins, CW and KM. So much fun!! And so much strangeness. Allow me to explain:

First, Friday night. AB had to work so I went out with CW. Had a glorious time shopping, eating and sipping delicious smoothies from ‘Fresh’, a veggie restaurant made for Ezmy. Strange: CW was not only all grown up but also living less than a block from where I lived my crazy three years in T.O. She goes to the same shops, eats at the same restaurants, and even gets lost in the same areas as I always did (curse you, confusing-yet-oh-so-amazing Kensington Market!). And while I have never really thought of CW as a kid, given that she’s always been incredibly wise beyond her years, it was still mind-bending to be back in the old neighbourhood with what is, I suppose, the next generation of finding-their-way early twenty somethings.

On Saturday morning, I went for a quick little brunch with KM, another cousin from the other side of the family who really has it all: great husband, cute little boy, new place and nifty job. Little A. was cuter than ever, even if he wasn’t as big a fan of brunch as we were. Strange: KM looks like a mum. In a good way. Which I guess is what happens when you have a kid and whatnot. But it was crazy to be sitting across from her, chatting about houses and kids and all manner of adult topics, while she balanced a 1 year old on her knee, deftly avoided the fork he was wielding and calmly removed butter patties from his fingers (I wonder if the capacity to multitask comes to mums along with breastmilk). I had a wonderful time but left feeling quite inept – I can barely handle my cat and schoolwork for crying out loud.

After a lovely Saturday afternoon of shopping with a side of tea and cake, AB and I went to Mandarin to celebrate another old roomie’s birthday. All-you-can eat chinese/japanese buffet = fantastic!! I ate my weight in garlic veggies and fruit sushi (I am so going to try to make fruit sushi at home…stay tuned). Strange: Sitting there with the old Zen Lounge/Velvet crowd that I had spent every Friday night and Sunday brunch with for much of the time that I was living in Toronto…but a modified version of this crowd. I say ‘modified’ in that everyone is married/with long term partner from outside of the group. And while there was a lot of good conversation, I couldn’t help but feel that the group was really growing apart. After dinner, instead of all heading to a local pub for pitchers or an old skeezy dance bar, everyone sort of just parted ways in slightly awkward fashion. Which was fine but just…strange.

Sunday afternoon, AB and I went to a girly party to celebrate a friend of ABs recent engagement. Great company, great food, and perfectly cheesy movies (‘Clueless’ and ‘The Sweetest Thing’). Strange: seeing AB with a baby. Not her baby, mind you, but a friend’s baby. And she wasn’t holding it like a foreign object, but rather like a….mum. SO strange. And cool, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that AB and I have, for as long as I can remember, avoided babies like the plague and generally agreed that the mum/baby relationship is more than a little parasitic. And yet here she was, not only holding this kid in the cutest way, but fighting off other women at the party who wanted to hold the baby. Checking on the baby when it was sleeping to make sure all was well. Jumping up to offer a spit blanket when the baby was about to puke on mum’s shoulder. Be-yond strange.

All in all an excellent weekend, but a strange weekend. So much was the same and yet so very, very different. Which is to be expected, I suppose, when one returns to the town they lived in for the first time in 6 years. From my perspective, time has sort of felt frozen over the last 6 years – I live in this alternate universe where I remain perpetually 23, largely because everyone around me in Ottawa is in their early twenties and worried about student loans and their first grown-up job rather than bibs and mortgages. This visit to Toronto reminded me that time is ticking by, that people around me are growing up and leading different lives, and that I am still. in. school. I don’t feel bad about this. But I do feel strange.

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Tonight is Grey’s Anatomy night and in lieu of wine and greasy french fries, I decided to make my other favourite comfort food: macaroni and cheese with chocolate milk.

Now if you’re anything like me, you’re highly skeptical of faux products generally and faux cheese in particular. Faux meat freaks me out – I don’t want to know what needs to go in it to make it work. And faux cheese…well it almost always tastes like canned ass. And I’m a cheese girl, at least I was before the whole vegan lifestyle took over. I love good cheese, not crappy Cracker Barrel cheese. But I was really quite desparate for mac and cheese tonight so I went to trusty old Herb and Spice and found this. I chose mozzarella figuring that this type of cheese is meant to have a mild taste anyways so if it sucked, it wouldn’t suck too bad. I went home and found a workable vegan mac and cheese recipe in La Dolce Vegan and went to work making the appropriate adjustments.

The verdict: It was good. Surprisingly so. I would even opt for the cheddar next time because this wasn’t cheesy enough. The real test will be when Fialonia comes home – she is what I would call a mac and cheese connoisseur. So I’ll keep you posted. But I liked it and would definitely make it again:

Ezmy’s Mac and Mozza

dry mac noodles, enough for two people
3 tbsp vegan margarine
3 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4 tsp crushed chili
1 zucchini
1/4 tsp ground coriander
4 white mushrooms (or a couple of smallish portobellos)
1 1/2 cup soy milk
1 cup vegan mozza, grated
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1 small onion

In a large pot, boil the pasta. While pasta is cooking, saute mushrooms, onions, and zucchini with the coriander and set aside. In a small saucepan on medium heat, melt margarine. Once it is melted, remove from heat and whisk in the flour, salt and pepper until smooth. Put back on the heat and slowly add the cheese and milk while whisking away. Add the mustard and the chilis. Keep on whisking until everything is melted and thickened. Add to pasta along with the sauted zucchini etc. Makes 2 very large servings or 4 small ones.

Now. There is A LOT of cheese sauce here. A healthy girl, who wasn’t craving fatty food, would make three or four people’s worth of pasta and have some for lunch tomorrow. A healthy girl would also add a nice salad to this meal (perhaps some romaine with a little mustard vinagrette). Or would perhaps have a side of steamed kale, spinach or similar. I chose chocolate soy milk and the all important ketchup. Don’t judge me. It’s Grey’s night!!

Update: Fialonia loved it. Success!!