2010 Arrives and time allows for loaves

The sun is out in full force, with sprinkles of snow blowing around outside never staying in one place. Cold can be so dry. Crisp. Brittle. So many words that make me thirsty and send me to the couch with tea and a big blanket.

But alas I can't do that every day.

With the new year rolling over, many changes have made their way into our routines. The largest of which I feel is the parking of my car and commuting to work. I am walking more, I am thinking more, I am eating breakfast at work! That last part is because I get to work 30 mins before my shift due to the bus schedule, so I allow myself this time to slowly enjoy my breakfast, drink tea and write in my journal or read.

So here is a breakfast idea, for those like me who pack breakfast for the road. Don't be tempted by Tim Horton's cakey ploppy muffins, or Starbucks rich and heavy loaves. This recipe has never turned out bad, ever, no matter what substitutions I have made. Just remember when making substitutions, always substitute a solid for a solid or a liquid for a liquid, etc.

Mornings Glory Mini Loaves

DRY:
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup bran (i used ground flax)
1 cup brown sugar (I used 3/4 cup xylitol)
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt

Wet:
3 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup mashed banana (about 2 bananas)
2 cups grated carrot
1 apple, peeled and grated
1/2 cup raisins (i used dried cranberries)
1/2 chopped dried apricots (i used chopped dried dates)
1/2 cup shredded, unsweetened, coconut
3 tbsp flax seeds (i used a combination of sunflower and pumpkin seeds)

• Preheat Oven to 350 degrees F
  
• Combine dry ingredients

• In another bowl combine wet ingredients

• Dump dry into wet and fold/stir until just combined. Batter will be very thick.

• Let batter rest while oiling mini loaf pan (or muffin pan)

• Spoon batter into pan and bake for 23-27 mins. (every oven is different)

A new name, same direction

No Way Au Lait was a title that made me smile. It described the exclusion I had made from all my cooking, but this year, I want to also add my committment to not eating animal protein. It has been about 2 or 3 years now since the shock of learning the meat industries carbon footprint urked me into never consuming a single cow, pig, chicken, sheep, goat, turkey, duck.... ever again.

We are what we eat, we are what we think, we are what we do.

And so this blog will now be named

Food without the Moo!

Theres no shame in a Birthday

How did I get here?
Today.
This City.
At this table.
In these pants.
With this job.
Liking this food.

With the haircut!

Wow, I have changed over the years, and that's what its all about!

Birthdays should never be lied about, or pushed aside. Its one day, only one, where you rein supreme over all that is. This is your day, the only one that you can mark on a calendar as the first day of your next turn around the sun.

This is it, we have time on earth. And time is reflected in dates, and time is counted in years. YEARS............................OLD..........................YEARS...........................OLD

Why do people not like birthdays? Maybe because on this day you will undoubtedly be asked...

How OLD are you?

This is how I see it. One day, long ago, some crazy women decided that with each passing day they were one step closer to hopping on the Ugly Bus. The only way to avoid this non-stop ride to Ugly Town was to lie about their age, because if anyone knew their REAL age, they would have to pack it in and die right there. I know, I know, the logic is flawless but its all the lies I just can't live with! (Cue the laughing track now)

OK, maybe its just a flaw in the space time continuum that some how sucks the 'Happy Birthday' out of the memories of these helpless ladies and replaces it with 'Fear the Birthday'

JULY 15, 1983

That is the day I was born and therefore I am having a PARTY. You may think "Well you're in the prime of your life of course you don't care who knows how old you are, just wait until you are my age (still not disclosing their age) then lets see how excited you are about your Birthday"

Oh Negative Nancy, when will you ever learn!

coming back from oblivion

Toronto Island "Bike For Africa"

So Steve and I have moved to a great new apartment, settled in, and FINALLY got our laptop back! We moved into this fantatic place with 'Free High Speed' Internet but alas!

That isn't to say I haven't been busy!

Murder Mystery Night, I am Countess Von Orlock

Climbing at Rattlesnake Conservation

Toronto Island "Bike For Africa"

self sufficient dough

I was given a bread making machine.
It sat on the floor in the bedroom, propping the door open.
I read the cookbook that came with it.
I bought the yeast.
Yet there it sat.

There are so many things I want to do, so many things I think about, and I can't seem to fit them in between the things I need to do everyday. Like dishes, laundry, eating, sleeping, you know.

But with our new apartment almost in our hands, there is a feeling of excitement in the air, the feeling that anything is possible. We feel like we will be freshening up our lives in this new apartment, but that really stems from how our perspective has changed.

Steve is changing jobs, finally finding that niche where he loves to work, loves it so much, he doesn't even call it work. And you know what they say, "When you find something you love to do, you will never work another day in your life" He has found this, in Yoga.

I just like change. Controllable, foreseeable change, mind you. I like to start new and fresh, switch up the old routine. The biggest perk of a new apartment is INTERIOR DESIGN! Different colours schemes, different placement of pictures and furniture. Because if you live in a small apartment you know very well that you are limited to where you can place your furniture, functionally.

So with a hallway full of empty collapsed boxes and an apartment scattered with full boxes, It felt like the time to sit and relax to the churning sounds of a bread maker. I started with Pizza Dough, if it turns out, I'll move to bigger and better things like Cinnamon bread and Hot cross bun dough.

I'd never used a bread machine before, and I felt like the instruction booklet wasn't holding my hand enough. It just felt too easy. Pour wet in, dump dry in, sprinkle in yeast, select dough setting, press start..... "2 hours later you will have dough" the book tells me. I wanted to ask the book to send my love to the machine.

It is nice to know that I make almost everything that we eat. I buy pre-made pie crusts (making sure its made with vegetable shortening and not lard) I buy soy yogurt, canned soups and beans, rice cheese, almond milk and soy protein items. But otherwise we stock the fridge and pantry with whole ingredients and start from scratch every meal of the day.

I was given an Ice cream machine for Christmas, a digital Crock Pot for my Birthday and now a bread maker, watch out, I'm a cooking machine... or the machines are cooking machines.

so I made a pizza

and topped it off
fresh pineapple, marinated tofu, tomato sauce, mushrooms, sun dried tomato's, fresh spinach, rice cheese, brushetta spice

baked it and sliced it up

and ate it

Start to finish, full circle, I made the whole thing! I love it!

If my cooking machines took over the world, I think I might have to serve them blindly.

A blurb from one of my favourite Bloggers

"But cooking — the process of thoughts throughout the afternoon of what to make, the slow chopping, the simmering, the dreaming? That’s almost better than eating. Tackling a new recipe and then taping it into my giant black notebook, because I certainly want make that one again — that made me feel more capable than my job ever did. For years, the stove was my sustenance, the place I skipped to after a long day of teaching, or on Sunday afternoons instead of grading papers. In the kitchen, I stop thinking. I breathe in the smells. I sing along with Johnny Cash or Talking Heads, songs I know in my toes instead of learning new ones. I chop sloppy, I sometimes don’t clean up as I go, and I enjoy every damned moment of it. Cooking slows me down. There are times that nothing makes me happier than standing in the kitchen in my bare feet, warm air from the opened oven ruffling my hair, and my fingers feeling that the cake is done. It’s the relaxed time of the hands.." Gluten Free Girl

Its nice to hear it from another persons mind. Its nice to read something that registers with every molecule in my body.

2=1

I'm engaged today.

I have been playfully tossing the idea out into the open for so long now that since this precious time has arrived it isn't a screaming fit of surprise that I have seen so many times before. In commercials, movies, or on YouTube video's, today feels like any other day.

But when he asked me, sitting in the front seat of the Yaris, our bellies full of delicious Thai Food. He started to say the sweetest things, but as his eyes welled up and his hand reached into his jacket, I have to admit, I heard nothing more. It was all happening so fast. I first thought he was joking with me, then I thought it was real, then I felt it was real, it was really happening.

There aren't too many things in the world that I experience for the first time anymore. And when I experience new things, I always compare the real feeling I had, against what I 'thought' it was going to be like. What I felt was absolute completion. I felt like so many years of love were colliding into one moment in time. But on the way home, it was just us, we were still the same people, on the same path. And I liked it. I liked that nothing changed, because we didn't change, we have always been soul mates, and will always be.

But ya know, I have been wanting to Marry this man for years, wearing the pearl ring he gave me for my 25th Birthday on my wedding finger, with another plain band to keep it on (Since the Pearl one is a little too big for my ring finger). Looking down at it on a daily basis, knowing I was long off 'the market' and loving this little imaginary world I lived in where Steve was my Husband. But now, its for real, and there is nothing greater than that feeling.

I can't explain our relationship beyond saying He is Me, my Best Friend and my True Love. We are so remarkably similar, and yet he is one of the most influential role models in my life. He seems to never tire of balancing my energy, and I never tire of making him happy.

He is where I begin and where I end.

I believe Love is something you know, in your body. Saying it to each other, this sentence "I love you" feels good, but the words mean nothing. It is the feeling inside, that you think of when you say these words, that means so much to us.

It really is true, all the old stories and sappy romance movies, that climax in complete chaos, then end with two people coming together to express their love, and in that, knowing that everything will be OK. That all that other stuff, isn't as bad as it seems, because you have someone to completely support you and only you, through the rest of your days.

Here's to the rest of our life!