beatrixkiddoe

I kind of love Meyer's slightly ridiculous accent, I always chuckle when I think of how he says "when you run the numbers, it starts looking very attractive." in S2. His pronunciation of "attractive" gets me every time. Speaking of accents, I'm always staggered whenever I hear Stephen Graham speak outside of the show, he does such a great job on BE.

I'm generally not a fan of "mock meat" but I must admit that I do sometimes enjoy gardein fake chicken. I just had curry vegan chicken salad using their "chick'n" at my Whole Foods and it was really good. I bought it from the deli case, shoved it in a challah bun and had a very tasty lunch. I can't imagine it's a particularly uncommon dislike, but I can not stand any kind of fake whipped "cream" product. The thought of Cool Whip makes me gag.

I would definitely say you should give jackfruit a go, stillshimpy. I was just thrilled to find a place that was serving it, I've never even seen it in person before. They were also serving black bean tostadas that looked really good, but alas you can only eat so much. I also would've loved to have tried their burritos stuffed with mac and cheese and potato chips, but I had just had mac and cheese for dinner on Saturday. The taco place was sharing space with the Through Being Cool vegan bakery and I had half of one of their chocolate iced doughnuts with homemade sponge toffee on top and it was ridiculously good.

I was at the Toronto Vegetarian Food Fest today and my dinner was an amazing BBQ jackfruit taco with guacamole from a place called Hot Beans. I've been wanting to try a jackfruit taco for ages and this one did not disappoint, although I now have to come to terms with the fact that the restaurant is nowhere near where I live. For dessert I had a really tasty cupcake, it was a homemade version of a Hostess. Snack cakes have always been my guilty pleasure (but I can never justify buying them) so it was a real treat.

Hee! That made me laugh, stillshimpy. I'll have to give that recipe a go, I love lentils (yet of I've never thought of turning them into a spread, which I find intriguing) so I tend to always have lots of them around. I'm also quite often at a loss with what to put in a sandwich, my standby of avocado and hummus is delicious, but it's nice to mix things up. If you're interested in the kale salad, I just toss the kale with a chopped apple, some cranberries and pecans with this vinaigrette: 1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard 3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 2 tablespoons maple syrup 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil Sea salt Freshly ground black pepper I feel like I shouldn't be making it with manky storage apples when the early falls ones are pretty close, but it's tasty and I can't help myself.

That sounds really tasty. Count me in as another lover of smoked paprika, it's the key to my favourite maple (real maple syrup, thank you very much) mustard baked beans recipe. I have no air conditioning and my apartment is ungodly hot, so last night it was a big kale salad with cranberries, apples, pecans and apple cider vinaigrette. I learned my lesson after the night before, that no it is not worth it to turn your oven up to 400 for an hour to make chickpea nuggets and sweet potato fries.

I'm sorry, mables-child but that really made me laugh. I watched it on dvd and made it through almost the entire movie, until JLG starts describing what the coach made him do. By that point I just couldn't take anymore, I had to fast forward through the rest of the scene. It would be scarring with any actor in that role, but I'm sure the fact that I grew up with him as Tommy in "Third Rock from the Sun" didn't help.

I always used my KitchenAid food processor to make almond butter (now I'll use the Vita-Mix because it takes a fraction of the time) and it worked well. You just have to be prepared to stand in front of it and constantly pop off the lid and scrape down the sides.

I have a terrible cookbook habit, I was at a used bookstore this past weekend (just to browse, I swear!) and came home with three. One of them I'm already a little in love with: "Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying and Start Making" by Alana Chernila. I love making homemade versions of stuff that you'd normally buy, so this book is pretty much perfect for me. I also snagged the "Veganomicon" by Terry Hope Romero & Isa Chandra Moskowitz and I can't wait to start cooking my way through it. I completely understand people being dubious about them, but Gwyneth Paltrow's "My Father's Daughter" and "It's All Good" are two of my favourite cookbooks ever. I literally use both of them a couple of times a week at least and many of the recipes have become staples for me. The food consistently turns out really well.

I love cinnamon ice cream, Bella! It's so hard to find, I've only ever seen it in one ice cream place where I live and they went out of business. To me that's the best part of having an ice cream maker, being able to churn out flavours that you can't find anywhere else. My current summer ice cream love is vanilla buttermilk, it tastes amazing on top of a fruit crisp or pie. I had no idea you could shred chicken with it. I'm a vegetarian now, but that would've been handy to know before I gave up meat. I always used to hate getting chicken-y bits stuck under my nails. I have a kitchen gadget question that I'm hoping somebody can help me out with. I'd like to start making fresh pasta and I'm trying to decide between getting the KitchenAid attachment or the hand crank kind. Anybody have any experience with either?

I finally took the plunge and sprung for a Vita-Mix a couple of months ago and I have to say that I love it even more than I thought I would. I know it's crazy expensive, but it works so well. The other day I was standing in my kitchen marvelling at how it pureed a raw beet into my smoothie in literally seconds. The package I bought also included the dry goods container and it is so cool being able to grind my own flour. I also absolutely love my Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, I know you can mix by hand but it just makes things so much easier (not to mention faster). My parents bought if for me as a birthday gift ages ago and every Christmas I still wonder how I ever made so many batches of cookies without it. One last gadget, it's not something I use very often, but I'm so happy I have an ice cream maker. It's another birthday gift from my parents, early supporters of my love of all things kitchen related, and you just can't beat making ice cream from scratch.