Life in a tree

Posted: December 24th, 2009 | Author: admin | Filed under: food | 7 Comments »

I really cannot believe it’s Christmas Eve already. I’m really not with the Christmas spirit this year and it’s usually my favourite holiday. I’m currently listening to some Christmas music online to try to get into the spirit of things.

I think it’s working

We went to see Avatar tonight and I loved it. If you ever want an idea of how I would envision my ideal world (without all the war and mayhem, of course) just watch that movie. It’s pretty much my perspective in a nutshell. It helps that I’ve spent pretty much my whole life wanting to live in a tree I’m tempted to do a full movie review here but I’m not sure it’s the place. I work in the film/tv industry and I hold movies very close to my heart so I find it difficult to not want to write whole essays on the subject at times.

Before the movie I did a lovely little hot yoga session. Very mellow and relaxing class tonight. I was really focussed in savasana tonight. When I finally opened my eyes everyone else was already out of the room and I hadn’t even realized it!

My eats today were pathetic because I was in such a rush to get to yoga after I woke up and then in a rush to make it to the movie. I grabbed a key lime pie Larabar (one of my favourites) on the way to yoga and picked up some stuff from the to-go counter of the health food store on the way to the movie. Including an edamame & arame salad, green onion cake, and a kombucha in niagara grape flavour. I really love kombucha and I think it’s a great alternative to pop, which I can’t stomach at all anymore, not that I want to drink it. I do worry about the caffeine content from the tea, though. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on here before but I no longer drink caffeine because I suffer from severe physical side effects from it (I’d rather not get into the details right now). I had a larger bottle than usual so my fingers are crossed that the caffeine content isn’t enough to affect me too badly.

I have a few eats from earlier this week to share, though. Just the good stuff

Truffles! I made these for a work party of Dan’s but there were lots left over so I’m giving them away for Christmas. They are super rich, made entirely with 72% chocolate and cream, so one is a dessert in itself. They were also ridiculously easy to make, if a bit messy.

I also made a raw, vegan version with cashews, flax, dates, agave, cocoa powder and a bit of peppermint extract. These don’t win in the texture department but I think I liked them better taste-wise. But I’m a sucker for minty stuff. And they definitely win the health prize.

Vegetable stew with a homemade biscuit.

I try to stay away from white flour but I had a craving for biscuits and that’s one of the few times where whole wheat or spelt flour isn’t going to do it for me. They were more than worth the small health sacrifice

This vegetable stew was a very simple recipe, I loosely adapated it from Susan’s Beefless Stew. I wanted something close to the kind of stew I grew up eating – traditional British beef stew. This was pretty close but lacked a bit in flavour. I ate it with some Sriracha, though, and that definitely helped a lot. It made a huge pot full so most of it has been slipped into the freezer for a later date.

Lastly, I made a lovely little salad the other night in an attempt to use up some of the oldball ingredients in my fridge. I don’t want to do a grocery run until after the holidays and I’m running low on everything, so I had to get creative. Luckily this “salad” turned out amazing.

Roasted cauliflower with sauteed black beans and shallot, topped with capers, goat feta, almonds & bread crumbs mixed with honey, parsley, tarragon and chives. Lovely menagerie of flavours going on here.

Hopefully I’ll be back in a couple days with some good Christmas meals to share. We usually like to do it right .

Merry Christmas, all!

---