Woman in Real Life

Happy Wednesday! I'm off to see Ryan Adams tonight - first time I've seen him live - so I'm super excited. Love him. If you don't listen to his music yet, you need to buy this album. What are your fun plans for this week? November can be dull in terms of the weather, so we need to keep it exciting, right?

In terms of food, I'm not sure it has been the most exciting week around here. But I have been reading my old copy of Raising Vegetarian Children. Whether you are a vegetarian expecting mother or you have a teen that recently went vegetarian, this book is a great introduction to vegetarian nutrition for children. It has some yummy recipes that are meant to appeal to children too. You can buy it in Canada here or in the United States here. I used to read it all the time when my kids were smaller, but I sort of abandoned it for a bit. Now that my son (who is 12) is going through another picky eating stage, I thought I'd have another go at reading Raising Vegetarian Children. I want to make sure he gets the proper nutrition to sustain him as he plays soccer and basketball (and grows taller and taller!). By the way, I don't think this is an issue that's restricted to vegetarians. Some people seem to think your child is all good as long as he eats meat. Not so. Let's hear it for the veggies! The book has a couple of our favourite family recipes, like French Bread (tofu) Pizza. Anyhow, that picture above is of a bean stew with dumplings my husband made on the weekend. We were all fighting over the dumplings.


I didn't photograph any other food this week, except for my Tuesday eats, which began with simple spelt bread, toasted and topped with peanut butter and jam. I also had green grapes and decaf green tea.


Although I didn't have a smoothie for breakfast yesterday, I have been making them regularly. I bought Omega Nutrition's Organic Pumpkin Seed Protein Powder this week, because I've had it before and found that it doesn't influence the taste of my smoothie as much as some other protein powders (like my Vega chocolate). It will leave an aftertaste if you put a lot in though. Does anybody have a good vegan protein powder recommendation? I bought this with my son in mind, so that we can give him a little extra dose of protein when he's doing sports.


I had a meeting mid-morning with a young woman I was interviewing for a wedding magazine. We met at Starbucks/Indigo Books. I grabbed a decaf soy latte and couldn't resist leaving with a copy of the latest VegNews Magazine. I was attracted to the profile of Cinnamon Snail food truck owner Adam Sobel. We had some of the Cinnamon Snail's delicious vegan food when we were in New York. Actually, you can read the story A Day in the Life of a Vegan Food Truck Entrepreneur online. I gotta say his day sounds exhausting to me. My question for him is, "When are you going to franchise out to Toronto?" You can see pictures of our visit to the Cinnamon Snail here.


I didn't have any leftovers for lunch, so I ate an entire package of Gardein vegan orange chick'n on a bed of lettuce. This isn't the whole package in the picture. I just kept going back for more until it was gone.


The health food store had a sale on Sweets from the Earth cookies this week, so how could I resist? I picked oatmeal raisin cookies, and found they were very wholesome and tasty and just like homemade. All Sweets from the Earth products are vegan and many are free of gluten.


For dinner, I baked tofu with a blend of teriyaki sauce, soy sauce, garlic powder, salt and pepper. I roasted a bunch of cauliflower and broccoli in olive oil too. And we had "smashed potatoes" the way my Italian mother-in-law makes them. Just boil some big cubes of potato, top 'em with olive oil, salt and garlic powder, and smash them up a bit with a fork.

What's on your menu this week?


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