Toronto, while diverse in its restaurants, does not seem to have a distinct signature dish. Some say it is a veal sandwich from St. Lawrence Market or the hot dogs off the cart at 2am but whenever I look around this city, I can’t help but notice all the poutine restaurants. This may be un-Torontian of me but how many fries + gravy places does one city need? Walking down Queen Street West and there are a handful of these restaurants in sight. This places are usually busy after last call at the bar has been done and people are feeling a little drunk-hungry. There is even works about an all-you-can-eat-poutine restaurant with a dish called the “Heart Attack Challenge.” Yikes. 

In my sober state however, I don’t love poutine as much as the next person in this city, I do love some loaded cheesy fries. It is not something to have everyday but it is great to make a platter of these when non-vegan friends come over. I do not recommend making them after a night at the bar, for safety reasons obviously.

Toronto has evolved since I moved here six years ago and food trends are always changing from gourmet grilled cheese, charcuterie platters, and artisanal poutine. I think I will just stick to cheesy fries. 

17 posts down, 13 more to go! See you tomorrow for Day 18: Honour a human or non-human that inspires your veganism. Missed Day 16? Check it out here.

Stay connected on the daily by following me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.  Made a recipe from this post? I would love to see it! Use the hashtag #screcipe on your social media. 

Loaded Cheesy Oven Fries {Vegan}

 

Save Print

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

30 mins

Total time

40 mins

 

Definitely not an everyday recipe but this platter of cheesy fries is awesome to serve to those non-vegan friends that come over. This recipe is vegan, gluten free, soy free, and grain free. The prep time does not include the soaking time.

Author: Jessica DeMarra

Recipe type: side

Cuisine: Vegan, Gluten Free

Ingredients

• For the Oven Fries:
• 2 large russet potatoes, washed and cut into fries (peels on)
• 1.5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• 
  
• For the Nacho Cheese:
• 1 cup raw cashews, soaked for 2-8 hours or quick soaked*
• 1 red bell pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped
• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• ⅓ cup nutritional yeast
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon ancho chili powder
• ½ cup water
• 
  
• Toppings:
• Cilantro leaves
• Thinly sliced green onion
• Sliced cherry tomatoes
• Extra ancho chilli powder

Instructions

1. For the Nacho Cheese Sauce:
2. Add all the ingredients to the blender and blend until smooth. Set aside until you are ready to dress the fries.
3. For the Oven Fries:
4. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
5. In a bowl, coat the cut potatoes with the oil, salt, and spices.
6. Transfer the potatoes to the baking sheet and spread them out into a single layer.
7. Bake for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through.
8. Remove from oven once they are golden and crispy. Depending on how thick you cut your fries, the cooking time will vary. After you flip them, keep an eye on them.
9. Transfer to serving platter and drizzle with lots of cheese sauce.
10. Top with cilantro leaves, green onion, sliced cherry tomatoes, and more ancho if you like it spicy.

Notes

*Quick soaked: bring water in a pot to a boil, add cashews, put tight fitting lid on the pot and take it off the heat. Let the cashews soak in the hot water for about 1 hour

3.3.3077

The post Day 17 Vegan MoFo: Loaded Cheesy Oven Fries appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.

Sorry about the delay in posting but I have some good news. Exams are done, I repeat, exams are done! Isn’t that just the best feeling?

After my exam, I came home to Mark, who had a sandwich and coffee ready for me, hooray! Also the cookbooks I ordered, My New Roots: Inspired Plant-Based Recipes for Every Season and The Sprouted Kitchen Bowl and Spoon: Simple and Inspired Whole Foods Recipes to Savor and Share had arrived, double hooray! Unfortunately, all I wanted to do was sleep. My brain needed a little R&R.

The next day, I couldn’t shake these feelings of anxiety and guilt. I paced around my kitchen and checked my calendar to make sure I wasn’t missing an appointment but I did not have anything planned. I puttered around the house, sorted laundry and scrubbed the tub but I still felt anxious, almost sick to my stomach. I texted my friend Kristen telling her I was really living it up on my first day off school and told her I thought I was coming down with something. She explained that the anxiety I felt was brought on by not studying for class. She said my brain is in the routine of worrying about studying and when I am not hitting the books, my brain is in panic mode.

I wandered around my apartment, disoriented by not knowing what to do and far too distracted to actually sit down and do anything productive. I put on my jacket, laced up my shoes and headed out of the door. I went for a long walk, something I haven’t done in months since it has been so cold out. The cool air, the empty streets, my music coming through my headphones and the steady pace of my legs helped me clear my head and left me feeling refreshed.

I know I have a hard time relaxing; to truly enjoy doing nothing productive except maybe read a non-food related book or to drink a cup of coffee without looking at my phone. My mind tends to race when I “try” to relax, I feel like I should be doing laundry, cleaning, editing my photos or literally anything on my to-do list for that day but I need the time to unplug. Mark can clear his mind and relax so quickly while my mind is like a live wire, whipping around and shooting sparks in all directions. I asked him for some advice and he told me to just concentrate on my breathing, thinking of nothing else but the air travelling in and out of my lungs. Telling me to “not think of anything” seems to trigger my brain into thinking of EVERYTHING like remembering that time I embarrassed myself at that party when I was 21, running through my recipe checklist and the groceries I need to get for them and anything else that comes to mind. Mark, being the nice boyfriend that he is, let me use his Mala beads to help me concentrate on nothing. I placed the sandalwood beads in my hand, counted them all along its string and concentrated on my breathing. It honestly helped with my fidgety hands and busy mind. Everyone’s method to relax is different and I strongly urge you to find out your own, whether it is running, yoga, meditating, walking or reading a book, find it! I thanked Mark for his help by making him this pudding.

What do you do to relax? Leave comments below with your suggestions.

This recipe is vegan, gluten-free and tree-nut free. The FDA classifies coconut as a nut, even though it is technically a fruit. This recipe is adapted from Oh She Glows: {Almost} Instant Chocolate Chia Pudding. Not crazy about chocolate? Check out my Raspberry-Lemon Chia Seed Pudding.

*Disclaimer:  I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program which means I do earn a small commission on the affiliated links.* Something I am trying out and if it works out, great  but if not I will take it down. 

Print

Yum

Coconut-Chai Chocolate Pudding

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Serving Size: 1-2

Ingredients

• 1 cup coconut milk
• ¼ cup chia seeds
• 3-4 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
• Pinch of ground cloves
• Pinch of ground cardamom

Instructions

1. Add all the ingredients to a high power blender and blend until completely smooth. At this point, the pudding may be warmed. Transfer to a serving bowl or cup, cover and refrigerate until the pudding is set and cool. Top with coconut, mulberries, granola or fresh fruit.

Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by Yummly Rich Recipes

0.1

http://www.sproutsandchocolate.com/coconut-chai-chocolate-pudding/

The post Coconut-Chai Chocolate Pudding appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.

This week my younger sister Sarah came up to Toronto to visit me. She and I could not be more different since we disagree about almost everything. I wrote in an old post how incredibly picky my sister is and apparently she has not grown out of it.

She likes gummy candy and I prefer chocolate.

She will wear flip-flops until snow is on the ground and I bust out my knee-high boots at the first sign of Fall.

My sister is a big carnivore, not really liking fruits or veggies and I put kale in my breakfast smoothies.

I am a city girl and she is all about the suburbs.

She prefers mild, dare I say bland food while I am all about the heat and smokiness.

Sometimes I wonder if we are even related! But there are very few but important things that we do agree on: pajama pants are to be put on immediately upon arriving home, Disney movies are always the first choice when we hang out and plates are not required when eating cupcakes.

So when I asked her what she wanted for dinner we really didn’t have a lot to agree on but thankfully there is always chili, the only problem being the heat level. I told her I would make her a spiced but not spicy chili. I still needed some heat to please my palate without having to make two separate recipes.

I decided to make a sofrito, usually a raw sauce consisting of tomatoes, onions, garlic and spices but I decided to roast the ingredients to give the sauce a little more depth and to enhance the smokiness. I blended the charred mixture so it was easy to add to the chili for the heat-lovers. A mild but flavourful version with Cashew Cream for her and a smoky spicy version for me. Now we just have to pick out a Disney movie to sing along to after we feast on chili, crusty bread and beers in pajama pants of course. 

12 recipes down, 8 more to go!

The post Vegan Beer & Chocolate Chili with Smoky Sofrito Sauce appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.

Halfway there! It is kind of crazy how time flies by when you are having fun or when you are stressed out about deadlines for posts but for this first time MoFo’er it has been such a great experience. I am not sick of my kitchen just yet so it is full steam ahead in the second part of this month.

This recipe is inspired by my mother and her love for old black-and-white movies. When my sister and I were growing up, we did not have cable, just the old rabbit ears with tinfoil balls on their ends so we did not watch a lot of TV. My mother only enjoyed a select few cartoons like Animaniacs or Bugs Bunny (which I know them now to be incredibly violent!) so needless to say we did not watch a lot of kid-shows either. During my teen years when all my friends were obsessed with Dawson’s Creek, Friends and Passions (yes the soap opera) however my mother had no patience for 90’s teen TV characters complaining about how everything was just so tragic. “I will show you real tragedy,” she would say as you popped in a VHS tape. So I spent most Friday nights watching Gregory Peck in the Maycomb courtroom defending a wrongly accused man while Jem and Scout watched from the balcony, Audrey Hepburn in her trench coat, soaked and looking for Cat in the rain and of course Humphrey Bogart saying goodbye to his true love all for the greater good but meeting a friend along the way.

How I love Ilsa Lund’s (Ingrid Bergman) jewelry sparkling softly in the low lighting, the way she sipped champagne so elegantly, her large brimmed hats and her amazing capability to keep a white suit stain-free and glowing.

Rick’s Café Américain is what I thought every nightclub was like: large bandstand with talented musicians in white dinner jackets, a piano player playing beautiful love songs, fancy hats and gambling underground until I actually went to one and upon arrival some pimple-faced kid barfed near me, spattering it across my shoes. That place was no Rick’s.

Casablanca is still my favourite old movie as well my mothers. I imagine Morocco’s air to be full of warm spices, gin joints to get a stiff drink and having a grand but tragic romance with my true love. But in the meantime, I will just enjoy these Moroccan Spiced recipes with a drink in hand.

 10 recipes down, 10 more to go! Woot!

The post Moroccan Spiced Chickpeas: 3 Ways {Vegan & Gluten-Free} appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.

Christmas for our family will be a littler different this year since my mother got married. This will be their first Christmas as a married couple and my shopping list has expanded quite a bit.  Besides my 6 year old nephew and my 1 year old niece, there are two more kids to buy for this year which gets me a little more pumped for Christmas. Kids are the BEST to buy for since they are the ones who are the most excited for Christmas. The toys they get are so tech savvy that this old fart (I’m 26) just doesn’t get how they work. When I was a kid (as all old farts say), I was so thrilled to get the “good pack of crayons” as a stocking stuffer one year. You know which ones I’m talking about, the 64-pack Crayola ones which the crayon sharpener in the back of the box. My sister and I coloured just about everything we could get our hands on. Sammy (my nephew) was colouring in a game on his DS Gameboy. I just don’t get it. You can’t put a DS colouring sheet on the fridge and sign it like you are a great artiste! But that’s just me. Get into the Christmas spirit by having a little festive breakfast. Pour yourself a bowl with some warmed almond milk and get to that Christmas shopping list. Brave the mall if you dare….

You can use medjool dates but they are more expensive than the cooking ones but be sure the dates are not soaked in honey. Even if it says pits removed ALWAYS double check. One pit can ruin the whole batch. The granola will crisp up as it cools so be sure not to overcook it. This recipe is adapted from the Forks over Knives Cookbook Basic Baked Granola.

Makes 8 cups

• 8 cups large rolled oats (not instant)
• 1 ½ cups chopped cooking dates
• ½ cup chopped crystalized ginger
• ¼ cup blackstrap molasses
• ¼ cup coconut sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon ground allspice
• 2 cups water

Preheat oven to 275 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. In a very large bowl, measure out the oats and set aside. In a medium saucepan, add all the ingredients except for the oats and bring to boil over medium high heat. Once at a boil, turn heat down to medium and simmer until the dates are very tender, about 12 minutes.

Add the date mixture to a blender or food processor and blend until very smooth. It will be very hot so be careful when taking off the lid to allow the steam to escape.

Mix the puree into the oats until the oats are completely coated in the puree.

Divide the mix onto the two prepared baking sheets and bake for 40 minutes, flipping the granola every 10 minutes. Allow the granola to cool to room temperature before storing. Store at room temperature in an airtight container.

In case you haven’t done so, please vote for my Creamy Mushroom Soup on Virtual Vegan Potluck! Click here to go to the voting page. Voting ends Dec 2nd. A huge thank you to all my readers!

The post Oil-Free Gingerbread Granola appeared first on Sprouts & Chocolate.