Ode to no deep fried-ness

Hello friends,

I have been MIA recently with no real excuses. I am officially done lent, and it really wasn't so bad, I actually think I like not eating meat. If you haven't noticed I don't really cook with meat, mostly because it is expensive, but I also really don't like cooking it. I think the hardest part of lent was finding vegetarian friendly restaurants. Moral of the story is, I think I am going to continue avoiding meat because it makes my insides happy, and I get to try new awesome things.

Next order of business: Deep fried foods.

Last night I had a Groupon that was about to expire for an Australian pub. Devin and I split a kangaroo burger and fish and chips (yes this is meat but they had no other options, and I wanted to try kangaroo). I wasn't a big fan of the kangaroo burger, it came with an egg on it so the sandwich didn't really stay together well and it was a big mess, and it tasted meh. The fish was what you would expect and the chips were awesome! Super crispy potato devil fingers if you will. I was so full afterward I fell into a big grease coma and felt like death. I couldn't even finish my beer!

After some thought I realized that the last time I felt this way was after a trip to Calgary's famous drive-in burger joint.

On this trip it was still during lent I just got some onion rings and a large fries to split between four of us.

You see that bag that looks like it should have four meals in it? Yeah that whole bag was filled with fries! I think it was 6$ for their "large" fries, I think that is more like "extended family" size. Obviously greasy food coma followed shortly afterwards. To avoid this scenario in the future I am going to officially swear off any deep fried food until my trip to Ontario, then I will re-asses the situation.

In honour of this decision I will post a recipe that I made a long time ago.....

KALE CHIPS!!!

The idea behind it is you flavour them how you wish, using some sort of dressing of any flavour you like, then you bake them at a low temperature until they are completely dehydrated and crispy!

Being the worst food bloger of all times, I don't think I wrote this recipe down... oops?...

It was a combination of cashews, onion, and lemon juice, and seasonings like curry powder and paprika. Either way it was delicious and I encourage you to experiment with your own flavours.

Once you have your dressing, cover your washed kale evenly in the flavour.

Now spread it out on a baking sheet, and bake at 200 for a couple of hours (yes hours) fliping every half hour. When it is done the kale should be completely dehydrated. When I did this some of the kale pieces were done before others, they were removed right away to avoid burning.
The finished product. Nice healthy non-deep fried chip alternative.

See you next week! (I promise)

Quinoa, and VietThai goodness (two separate meals though)

Hi Everyone!

I have been awful at this 'keeping in touch through food' thing... but I am going to catch up.

A few weeks ago my mom went to a lunch with a bunch of the ladies from the neighborhood (kind of like desperate housewives, only not desperate), and they had this vegan from the local hot yoga place cook for them. It was one of those hippy "love your body and mind" sort of things, but my mom came home with an amazing recipe. I will call it quinoa sweet potato salad, due to lack of creativity on my part.

Basically, you cook Quinoa the usual way. Then you cube some sweet potatoes and parsnips and cook them (steam, or fry, or bake... whatever you want really). Then you cut up some kale, and when the parsnips/ potatoes are almost done, you add the kale. When it is all cooked, you add it with the quinoa and add salad dressing. We used creamy poppy seed dressing, because that is what we had, but I think almost anything would work. (If you are actually a vegan, make sure you use vegan dressing). The recipe was supposed to be with cole slaw dressing, but we improvised! It was delicious, colorful, and healthy! (i took a picture on my phone, but I forgot to upload it, so I will do that later)  

I decided that I am going to be the worst at sharing recipes, because everything is so hand wavy with me. My recipes will be all "add this if you want.... or don't... "

On to the Viet Thai food....

Yesterday me and a few friends went to a restaurant in China Town! it was viet-thai cuisine. I ordered the grilled chicken vermicelli bowl (but i forgot to take a picture). It was HUGEEEEEE. The entire bowl was full of noodles, lettuce, bean sprouts, and peanuts, and they gave me two full pieces of chicken (with the  bones still in). Despite the deliciousness of it, I'm not sure if I would order it again. Eating full chicken chunks with chop sticks is HARD to do.

....I just re-read this post and realized the only words I emphasized were huge and hard. oops. 

More Soon!

-Sara

Why won't it stop snowing!!

It has practically been snowing here non-stop since I got back. It just won't stop! It was a really sad moment on Saturday when -22 felt good. It also doesn't help that I left my parka in Ontario.

Anyways Saturday I went to this sweet burger joint called Rodeo Burgers, they make all of their toppings and buns fresh and it is pretty epic. I had lettuce, tomato, caramelized onion, pickles, banana peppers, chipotle ketchup and south west sauce on mine. It was wonderful.

Later that night my roommates had people over to watch the hockey games, it involved lots of booze mostly because that is the only way to I can pretend to watch hockey.

Today we went to Earls (it is a restaurant they don't have out east) and had the best spinach and cheese dip I've ever had, and just to keep going with the drinking thing a few Caesars were consumed. YUMMMMMM... Then we went to see Black Swan, I think I liked it but I am still not sure, the scene in the hospital with the nail file was a bit too much for me.

I have pictures for this post however I cannot find my camera cord, hopefully it is at school and I can upload the pictures tomorrow.

ALSO tonight I am going to attempt to make pizza flavoured quinoa for lunch for the week, wish me luck.

K-Tom