Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning japanese. I really think so...

That's right it's Oyaki day!!!! For those of you who don't know Oyaki is a traditional Japanese pastry or bun stuffed with a savory filling. I had planned to make three different Oyakis today but ran out of time and dough; so the Greens filling was canned and only the sweet potato miso and mock beef soboro.

Step one
Employ minions.













Step 2: Employ a potato peeling minion




Normally I wouldn't bother peeling the potatoes however for Oyakis the potatoes will be used to make the dough so the consistency is important and the nutritious peels have to saved for later or composted.









Potato peeling is rigorous business,





so make sure you have a suitable supervisor to keep the process in line.
















Fire Ball supervising the potato peeling process

I seem to have lost the rest of the photos and step for this process the search for the missing footage continues 2010

Doughtnut days

That's right, we made doughnuts and they were awesome. Recipe curtsy of Random Girl .
We double the recipe and added some extra Mace (worth the purchase it gave the dough a lovely sweet spice). Some where fried, other's baked (with a unfortunate accident for those on the lower rack >.<).inside shots!

We started with taking the warm baked donuts and dipping them first into melted earth balance and then into a bowl of cinnamon sugar with cinnamon. Very good, although messy our technique was not presented. We also took confectioners sugar with water as suggested for a nice white glaze which was very pretty. Doubling the dipping action for extra sweet crispy goodness. I also turned the eb/brown sugar bowl into a glaze of its own, cinnamon style. Here they are in various forms. Assembly line


Fired VS Baked Bowl for the nerds.

These ones were on the bottom rack.... oops.

Recovery is in sigh

Tonight is the first night my face is feeling somewhat back to normal. So in celebration Geoff and I decided to buy some Pizza and eat a meal for once. We grabbed an Amy's thin crust pizza, no Cheese, Vegan of course from the frozen section and brought it back here.

Now, Pre-Made Frozen pizza isn't bad enough. I decided I wanted to add some fake cheese to the mix so after oiling up the pizza stone and opening the package, I take a moment to tear up some Toffutie Slices and brush a little oil on them. Follow with a grind of fresh pepper and bake according to package directions. Near the end I took two minutes of broil time and once removed from the oven I added some ground basil.

I've got to say, Amy's Pizza with Caramelized onions is Brilliant. If you don't want to, can't or simply don't have time to make yourself a decent pizza this is one hell of a way to get there.

And as Pizza is never enough of a treat on its own, we also opted for some Vegan Ice Cream and the failed brownies I made a while back.














The brownies were a bit drier as they had been sitting out all this time, however due to my handicap (wisdom teeth extraction) I had mine chopped and mixed into the combo of Soy Decadence Cherry Nirvana and So Good Regular Chocolate scoops. Geoff opted for a classic piece of brownie with accompanying Ice cream scoops.

And you people thought vegan meant healthy

Well as usual, I am here to prove you wrong and bring you down into the gutters of vegan cuisine and eating. No, I'm not going to re-create mike's Tater pig, but we are headed into Lazy, Processed, No Effort, Heart Attack promotive Eating.

First up on our way to triple bi-pass, my introduction to solid food one week after wisdom tooth surgery. It ain't pretty, but damn if it isn't tasty. Simple, spicy fries and gravy. Gross you say? I thought so too, packaged spicy fries are to be enjoyed on their own or preferably not at all, but thanks to my little brother and his disgusting habits, I've given it a shot and by Goddess if it isn't white trash good eatings.







Extremely simple, prepare frozen spicy fries as directed by package. Once fries are done and hot, open your can of mushroom gravy (vegan of course) and ladle on top of plated fries.


Normally I would suggest you heat the gravy first, but as I wasn't supposed to be eating hot foods this combination of hot fries and room temperature gravy turned out to be a great combination (not warm enough for it to be an issue with my stitches but not so cold I want to hurl and give up eating all together). This was especially helpful if allowed to sit for a few minutes in order to soften up the crispier edges of the fries. Those of you not recovering from Oral Surgery are encourage to eat immediately.

Product Review: English Bay Dairy-Free

While shopping for my package swap I noticed a sly pink carton in the soymilk aisle, however it wasn't soy milk, nor any kind of nut milk, nor rice milk and it's gluten free. So what the heck is it? I asked myself, and of course I had to try it.

It turns out English Bay Original Dairy-Free non-dairy vegetable based-beverage. It's dairy, msg, soy, gluten and fat free. So what is it? Well a quick look over the ingredients list shows... it's not much of anything filtered water, Maltodextrin (from potatoes), fructose, more potato etc. So... it's potato milk? Potato and sugar, mostly. I'm down with that.







So i brought it home for a taste test with my friend Geoff, who will be my lovely model and omni opinion on the mock-dairy-de-jour. Despite it's relatively sparse ingredients list it does back an impressive 25% calcium and 2% iron per 1 cup surprisingly thought it has 0 protein. But I digress. It is a product of Canada and should the cold war come back vegan kind will be able to survive with our potato rationed beverages.

Anyway, the taste. My first thoughts was how incredibly creamy it felt/tasted... coffee creamer is what came to mind. Sweet, very, very, very sweet and lush. Despite its thin it left me with the rich, creamy, thick feeling and sense. I liked it, I'm not sure it will be replacing my other non-dairy milks, but the as it reminds me of coffee creamer I would definitely consider buying it for such purpose. For the price of 2.99$ and to get away from silk creamer I would consider making the switch. Actually given its creamy flavour, sweet taste but thinness I'd imagine it would be extremely good in icing/baked goods, particularly smoothies or milkshakes. (Baking Testing to Follow).






Omni's View:

"Its interesting stuff, I would suggest it to my mom, for her coffee as she likes it sweet."

It was good, but I think it would be better cooked into something than to drink it straight. Very sweet tasting, like nothing I've had before, it poured a lot thicker and looked much thicker than it was, so I found it surprisingly thin.

Definitely doesn't taste like cow's milk, as it is much sweeter, I think it was probably better than Dairy Milk.














Special thanks to Geoff my guest omni for putting up with me and reviewing this crazy drink.

Cooking for the family, backlogged

i am currently recovering from surgery so most of my food looks pretty gastly. But this may give me the chance I needed to get back to posting the older stuff.


This meal actually had my mother eating tofu, which was interesting. I loved it and I think zane did too. Isa's Baked tofu from theppk.com very few modifications, pressed tofu for a few hours and as usually it was frozen first.


Wild mushroom couscous that was sitting in the pantry, along with the some toasted almonds and broccoli in lemon juice with brags. And candied Carrots from Kittee's site.




I also made some brownies, Isa's recipe again although I accidentally used regular tofu instead of silken, so they were a little dense but still good I found. Live and learn.