Update (not too long)

Dear friends of the blogosphere, I am still here.   Like most of you, bloggers, I've been very busy.   I just finished my semester at uni (and all my exams), as well as 185 hours of internship/coop work.   As you can probably imagine, it's a great feeling.  And as a treat, we are leaving on a family trip to Cuba tomorrow morning!  I can't wait to be in the sun, sitting on the beach, drinking cold beverages.  I might lie down on the beach and sniff the sand..... that is how happy I am to be going somewhere warm.  If I do, I'll take a photo.
I'll be back in a week and guess what?  I don't have a job for the summer (so far).  So I might be doing lots of blogging and vegetarian cooking for my blog.
I hope everyone is well.  I can't wait to read you all when I get back!

Girls' weekend in Vermont

Last weekend was one of the best in long time.  I had the opportunity to take a break from regular life and head on a road trip to Vermont with some of my best friends.  

Renée, a long-time friend, was part of an art show/walk in Vermont and asked us to join her.  It was a last minute thing (long story) and here I was running around to get my expired passport renewed!  I did (thanks to Passport Canada's express service!) and we were off on Friday morning.

Before the art show, we stopped at Four Corners of the Earth where I ate the best sandwich ever: The Jamaican Avocado (grilled sandwich)

  (this photo does NOT do justice to how delicious was this sandwich -if you're ever in Burlington, Vermont, you *must* go check out this place.  Half of the menu is vegetarian.)

Renée setting up her art

 

Some of Reneé's art behind the four of us - so beautiful, so Renée
(far right: that's me, I cut my hair and went a lighter colour)

After the show - we drove back to Stowe where we were staying.  What a quaint place!  It had everything we needed: cute Inns, amazing shopping, good food, and a few pubs.  The place where were were staying is called Ye Olde English Inn and I will be back!!  Fantastic service and ambiance.  Vermont people are some of the nicest I've met.  Honestly.  Lovely place.  Some of the girls and I are talking about perhaps making this a yearly tradition since we don't see each other as often as we used to with our careers, families, etc.

So as I was saying, we checked in and decided we wanted a drink
(the Inn conveniently has a pub!)


It started innocently enough...


And turned into a small party


Saturday and Sunday we did more eating, shopping (but not as much partying)








I also discovered TJ Max.  Where have you been all my life??  Although I live just outside an amazing city, we are not blessed with great shopping.  Everything is so expensive here.
TJ Max, I will see you again soon!

 

To see more of Renée's art and free tutorials, check out Peaberry Designs.

Chickpea dahl with crêpes

Dahl (or dal) is quite a popular dish in our home -even the teenager likes it- so my husband was happy to join me in the kitchen to prep this Vegan Tuesday meal. We usually make it with red lentils, but decided to try with chickpeas and it was so good!  

He made the dahl and I made the pancakes to go with it.

Chickpea dahl

30 oz  chickpeas (2 cans)

½ teaspoon  ground cumin

1 chopped Onion

1 tablespoon  minced fresh ginger

1 tablespoon  minced garlic

½ teaspoon  ground turmeric

1 tablespoon  ground coriander (up to)

1 teaspoon  cayenne pepper

1 ½ cup  tomato sauce

½ teaspoon  salt

3 tablespoon  fresh lime juice

Directions

Remove 2 cups of chickpeas (including the liquid) from 1 can of chickpeas. Drain. Coarsely chop. In a food processor/blender, puree the remaining chickpeas and its liquid. 

Set aside.

Heat a nonstick saucepan over moderate heat. Add the cumin and stir, about 10 seconds. Add onion, ginger and garlic. Stir until onion is soft and golden. Add turmeric, coriander, red pepper and tomato sauce.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer 1 minute. Add chopped and pureed chickpeas. Cook, stirring, 2-3 minutes. Add salt to taste. Remove from heat. Add lime juice and stir.

Chickpea flour crêpes

1 cup  chickpea flour

1 ¼ cup  water

½ teaspoon  ginger paste

½ teaspoon  garlic paste

½ teaspoon  turmeric powder

1/8 teaspoon  onion powder

1/8 teaspoon  baking powder, optional

Cooking spray

Directions

In medium-size mixing bowl, add all ingredients. Mix using hand mixer, until smooth. The texture should look smooth and like a thick liquid (not like regular batter).

Heat non-stick pan, add cooking spray if needed. Gently and slowly pour batter to make a crepe (about 1/4 cup). Makes 6 small/medium crepes.

And... here's the final meal...  

We use the crêpes to dig in and grab the dahl!  Delicious! And there's leftovers which is great because it's even better a day later once all the flavours blend.

 

Happy Vegan Tuesday!

Vegan Tuesday - No pasta "spaghetti"

To balance out my non-healthy vegan recipe from last Vegan Tuesday's, I'm sharing an easy-to-make light meal (low-fat, low-calorie and vegan), nothing fancy, but it does the trick when you're looking for a quick light meal.
Ingredients  Firm tofu cubed (a few ounces depending how much you want to eat, I used about 3 ounces) One sweet pepper, sliced in strips 1/2 cup of your favourite tomato sauce (spiced/herbed/flavoured will save time) 1 small garlic clove, minced, optional Fresh parsley, optional

note: I cut off the amount of tofu needed and froze the rest in an air tight container (thawed tofu is deliciously chewy!!)

(our fresh herb pot)
Instructions: Sauté, stir-fry or boil your sliced pepper until soft (5 to 10 minutes) and drain.  Use the same pot to heat up the tomato sauce and add the garlic and tofu (5 minutes). Top the drained cooked peppers with the sauce.  Sprinkle with parsley. *you could also sauté/stir-fry the garlic with the pepper instead of adding it to the sauce directly.

Last week's Vegan Tuesday

We did have a Vegan Tuesday at our home last week, I just didn't get a chance to write about it!  This past week was extremely busy for me (are you tired of hearing about this yet?) so my husband made me one of my favourite foods for Vegan Tuesday:  POUTINE.   Are you familiar with poutine?  If not, well, it's pronounced "poo-tin" and it originated in Canada (Québec).  Made with fries, gravy and cheese, it is NOT a healthy meal.  But it's a real comfort food nonetheless.  Learn more about poutine, here.    Typically it's not vegan, and not even vegetarian, because it's made with gravy and cheese. But vegetarian poutine can be made with a vegetarian gravy (mushroom is pretty good).   And here is our vegan version.

 

  What is your favourite comfort food?  Salty or sweet?  

Passion in relationships - Quote of the day

"Passion isn’t something you can just EXPECT to happen; it is EARNED through trial and error. And if you REALLY love someone, by NOT LEAVING when it gets hard, but by staying – working THROUGH the problem and getting to the other side – that’s how you create passion." (source)
  - Mastin Kipp, founder and CEO of The Daily Love.  Follow him on Twitter here.

Therapy Monday

Not everyone is looking for a life partner.  Some people are perfectly happy and content being single, and all the best to them!  I'm not one of those people.  Since I was very young, I knew I wanted a someone to share my life with.  As I mentioned a few months ago, here, I had A LOT of work to do on myself before I could get there.  But I did get there!  (It took me awhile, but I wouldn't change a thing about my life.)   I read something this morning that triggered some not-so-distant memories.  It was also a good reminder for me to remember to love and be grateful for what I have (this is getting easier over time. Thank God!)   The title: "Be the kind of person you would like to be with" *and I would like to add "...and be honest about it!"   For some people, this message is second nature.  They can read this and think "Duh??"  But for some of us, loving other people didn't (or doesn't) come that easy.  I could write a whole other post on "why" it doesn't come that easy to some of us, but it's not the message I want to share today (and I also have to get myself to uni in a couple of hours.)  The message I want to share is simply, be the kind of person you would like to be with, and be honest about it.  *disclaimer: we also shouldn't beat ourselves up though...nobody's perfect.  So if you don't love perfectly, don't worry, you fit in with the majority of us.  But there's always space to better ourselves right?   So the point of my post is, why did it take me 14 years to find my life partner?  A big part of the reason is because I was going into relationships looking for people to "make me feel good about myself".   Let me explain.  I was expecting the people I dated to "act and behave" a certain way to prove to me that they loved me....that I was lovable.  And if their behavior didn't fit in my close-minded belief of "how someone that loves you should act", then, I would be mean, critical and non-loving toward them.       Seems pretty simple, but it's not when one is trying to break learned behaviors. At some point in our relationship, after 8 months of dating, my then-boyfriend (now-husband) Sean opened up to me and said he wasn't sure he wanted to continue a relationship with me.  Yes, I was heartbroken, especially because this pattern had repeated itself so many times in my life, and I was tired of it.  I almost gave up on relationships, but then remembered that I've always *really* wanted a special someone in my life.... I deserved it *if* that is what I wanted.  And that is what I wanted.  So I made the decision to behave differently this time.  To look at the situation from Sean's point of view.  
My first automatic way to deal with this situation in the past would've been to say "F**k you then! If you don't find me lovable, I'll find someone that will!!"   But after analyzing everything I knew about Sean, I decided he was worth it.  I was able to have empathy, put myself in his shoes, and try to see things from his point of view. He was SCARED.  Scared of me coming into his life, taking it over, ruining him and his life.  Scared of the unknown.     I was scared of being rejected and not being lovable.  But after all the work I had done on myself, I knew I was lovable....  so that couldn't be it.  There was something else, and that's how I pushed myself to see things from his perspective.   I didn't tell him this.  But met him in person and listened to him while he told me that I wasn't what he was looking for, that it wasn't going to work etc.  THE HARDEST THING I'VE EVER DONE.  I listened (without crying) like a good friend would, supported him and let him open up.  Once he had said everything he had to say, I said what I had to say.   I told him I believed that there was something special between us; that I believed in our capabilities of making this relationship work; that we could take our time and that eh, if things didn't work out, we're adults, we can handle it!    He still left sticking to his way of seeing things. As soon as he was out of sight, I cried my heart out.  I knew that this was NOT in my hands.  I had done my part.  I had been completely vulnerable, loving and open about how I felt.  I had broken my pattern.  I had faced one of my biggest fears.    At that point, I truly felt like the odds were not in my favour.  Yes, Sean was a man worth putting myself out there for, but his fears were pretty strong. So I let go. And cried the sadness that comes with having put myself completely out there, and having been fully rejected.  Big sobs of sadness from deep down in my heart.   Weeks passed.  And then!  A sign from Sean.  He said he had been thinking about what I had told him during our conversation, that it made a lot of sense. We had a few more conversations and then we made the decision to get back together and take things slow.  We did.  And we moved in together almost 3 years ago,  and got married last year.  So far so good.  I am so proud of both of us for having faced our fears.  Obviously, we also both wanted a special someone in our lives and  both wanted to put in the effort that was required.   Without wanting to toot my own horn, I have to say that Sean has surpassed my expectations of what a loving husband should be.  And articles like I've read this morning, remind me to love him for who he is in his entirety, with his fears, his imperfections and all.

   Are you someone who chooses to be single, with someone, or somewhere in between?  Is is easy for you to love and open up?  Have you ever had to face one of your biggest fears?   “Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.” - Anthony Robbins