Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and More Scones

I have mind boggling, insanely slow and annoying internet in this new place. Hence the lack of post last Sunday and yesterday. Bah-humbug I can’t wait to get out of this place. But before that…

Las Vegas!

And San Francisco. I can’t wait to get new food ideas there. And shop. And gamble of course.

While getting some beautiful photos. Should make for a great birthday and end to a wonderful summer.

No guarantees I’ll be able to post while I’m there for two weeks but I should have lots of good stuff afterwards.

And to make up for the past little bit, I am excited to share a delicious ‘breakfast’ scone that I like to enjoy at any time. Just recently I served it with the petit fours for the Spa Night I organized at work.

(Speaking of which, my Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries made a come back at our Wrap Up BBQ by popular demand!)

What You’ll Need:

• 3/4 cup cold buttermilk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• a large egg
• 2 tsp cocoa
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup soy flour (I used Bob’s Red Mill, you can substitute this for whole wheat or another extra healthy flour)
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp cold, cold butter (just not frozen)
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 large egg white
• sprinkle of sugar

What To Do: 

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Cut the cold butter into small pieces to make your future much easier. Combine the buttermilk, sugar, vanilla and egg in a medium bowl with a whisk.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa and mix well. Cut in the butter pieces with a pastry blender if you have one. If your like me, use two knives. You want this mixture to resemble coarse meal:

Once that’s done, fold in the chocolate chips. Carefully add the milk mixture and stir just until it’s moist.

Flour a hard surface. Scoop the dough out and knead lightly with floured hands so it’s less runny. On a floured baking sheet, form the dough into a circle (roughly 9 inches but I’m very bad with those things). With a good knife cut the dough into wedges, 9-12 of them, all the way through so it leaves a dent. This makes it a lot easier to cut later.

Brush the egg white on the top and sprinkle some sugar over it lightly but even. Bake until golden, around 18-20 minutes. Cut and enjoy!

Certainly not the healthiest recipe I’ve ever done, but I figured such an absence deserves some deliciousness. It’s roughly 5-6 points a serving, depending on the size of your scone.

Vegan Family Picnic

Vancouver’s weather has finally decided it is time for summer and the sun is out! To celebrate this beautiful time, I invited my parents out for a picnic dinner. I told them it would be healthy, organic and mostly local food.

I didn’t tell them it would be vegan.

Now, when I originally invited my parents, I hadn’t planned on a picnic. I bought groceries and made recipes not expecting a picnic. So most of the meal would probably taste better hot, but I served it cold.

For the Thai Coconut Brown Rice:

You only need 2 cups of brown rice, Happy Planet‘s Thai Coconut Soup and 1/4 cup of cornstarch. I didn’t use instant rice which worked out well, the 50 minutes it takes to cook the brown rice is enough to prep everything else. While the rice cooks, pour all of the soup into a sauce pan and heat it on a medium setting.

When it starts to get warmer, add the cornstarch to thicken. Stir really well and continue to heat until it reaches a thicker consistency. Set aside to wait for the rice. Once all is said and done, mix the rice and the Thai Coconut mix together and serve warm or cold.

Left overs are good for a couple of days. In fact, I’m eating some now for dinner.

Then my “Steak” was a new dish, not only for my parents but for me as well. It was really tough for me to find a good meat substitute that would look like meat to help hide my secret from my parents.

It wasn’t so good cold, but man was it delicious when I tried them hot!

They come frozen and all I did was spread them on a baking sheet and stick them in the oven at 325 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

I just wish they came with more sauce, I thought they were a little dry.

But what topped the meal off for me was the bread I bought. I love A Bread Affair breads. Local, fresh, organic…what’s not to love?

Some of the best breads I have ever tasted.

Somewhat surprisingly to me, it was my mom that had the hardest time with the vegan meat. I knew my dad would eat it, I just thought he’d mock it more. But mom had a really hard time with the texture. To quote her, it was “all in [her] head” and I’m proud she did so well with it.

Brown Rice and Bulgur Salad

As I spent my whole day doing engagement photos for one of my closest friends, I am going to make this one a quickie — both in post and in prep time. Last Friday when I hosted Father’s Day, I served my very popular Brown Rice and Bulgur Salad. So I thought I would share.

You’ll need:

salad -

• 1/3 cup uncooked bulgur
• 1 cup instant brown rice
• 1/2 tsp table salt
• 1/3 cups uncooked green onions
• 1-2 medium sweet peppers, chopped
• 4 tsp mint leaves, fresh and minced

dressing -

• 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 tbsp fat-free chicken broth
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• a whole lot of pine nuts

What to do:

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil and stir in bulgar, rice and 1/4 of the salt. Cover your pot, reduce the heat and let it cook until tender, about 10-11 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside covered for 5 minutes. This allows for the remaining water to be absorbed. Uncover and let it sit to cool. If you’re making a large dinner or don’t have much time, make the rice and bulgur mix the night before and leave it in the fridge. Combine the green onions, peppers and mint. Add to the cooled bulgur and stir well.

In another bowl, combine lemon juice, broth, oil, pepper and the remaining salt. Stir really well and pour over salad. Give the salad a good mix and sprinkle the pine nuts on top just before serving for presentation.

 

The meal takes no time at all, is really healthy and yields a lot of servings (about eight). Half a cup is only 3 WeightWatchers points and it’s great for lunch, a snack or dinner. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip

I’ve often thought I would like to ditch my current career plans to open a flower shop with some sort of social good twist. Obviously I would use social and environmentally responsible  flowers, but I would somehow turn my little, imaginary flower shop into a socent (jargon alert: socent is a hashtag (#) used on twitter to signify social entrepreneurship and innovation). These days I have begun to add and grow my flower shop to include a vegan, healthy bakery/cafe/treat shop of sorts. Now I’m questioning if I’ve become a hippie but I think this is a shop with some potential in a place like Vancouver (please nobody steal my idea, it would make me sad). The reason for the addition probably has to do with my recent foray into vegan experiments in the kitchen.

Like this current work in progress. I’ve noticed cookie dough dips have become popular online and I wanted to try my hand at making a recipe. I got the general idea of what is required through my research and I wanted to make a recipe that could be done with what I currently have in my kitchen, which isn’t a lot. Oh, and it has to be WeightWatchers friendly of course.

I’ve only attempted one batch so far and I know there’s a lot of improvement to be made. And if you have ideas on how to make it better, I wouldn’t turn down any suggestion (except coconut, I despise coconut).

Ingredients: 

• 1 package of silken tofu
• 4 Tbsp light peanut butter
• 2 Tbsp or less sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• 1/2-1/4 cup vegan dark chocolate chips

{you’ll need about 10 oz of tofu to make a large enough batch to blend}

Instructions:

In a food processor (or blender) combine all but the chocolate chips. Process/blend until all mixed and smooth, scrape down the sides as much as you can to make it right. Pour into a bowl and add chocolate chips. Mix well. For a chunkier texture, add half a cup of oats to the food processor/blender also.

I foolishly didn’t use silken tofu but just soft regular tofu. It caused a lack of thickness with my dip and I will not make the same mistake twice. Because of this, I used more peanut butter than I would have liked and it’s given my dip a strong flavour. Good for us who love peanut butter but don’t be

afraid to use less than four tablespoons. I’ve also stuck my dip in the freezer to thicken a bit more. Don’t use more than two tablespoons of sugar but if you want it a little healthier snack, this is an area that can be cut back. Be careful on the salt because I started with way too much and it was gross.

Originally, I wanted to make a batch half this size, but as I began to blend I realized there wasn’t enough ingredients to actually mix. I would also love to have a food processor.

Another area for possible improvement is the peanut butter. I would like to try making this with an almond butter. Or chickpeas instead of a tofu.

The dip will go with a variety of foods, from fruits to crackers to a spoon. Good as a snack or a dessert.

{to help prevent eating the whole thing in one sitting, I dished out each serving in a mini mason jar}

This recipe provided six 55g servings which are 4 points each with WeightWatchers.