Bang-Bang Cauliflower Tacos

This is an adaptation of several recipes I’ve seen on Pinterest. It’s a major hit in our family. We’ve made it probably 5 times in the last month or so. It’s not super hard to make and it’s super tasty. I don’t like cooking with eggs so I bread the cauliflower with oil. I know that’s probably not the lightest way to bread something. Feel free to use eggs instead if that’s your jam or figure out another vegan way of doing it. My way is super tasty and I figure, since your already having a completely plant based meal, treat yo’self! PS if you don’t like spicy food, you won’t like this. Also, I realize this recipe is not really authentically asian, and I also realize I have no clue why it’s called “Bang Bang” sauce. I do know these tacos taste unreal.

Ingredients

For the tacos:

• One head of cauliflower, washed and chopped into bite sized pieces
• A small bowl of panko breadcrumbs
• A small bowl of olive oil
• Small tortillas (I used multigrain this time but usually use corn)
• Chopped cherry tomatoes
• Chopped cucumbers
• Chopped Cilantro
• Thinly sliced jalapenos
• One lime sliced in wedges for garnish/squeezing on top before devouring

For the “Bang Bang” sauce:

• 1/3 cup of prepared Thai chili sauce
• 1/3 cup of Siracha
• 1 tablespoon of honey (omit if you want to make it vegan)
• 2 tablespoons of Mayo or Vegenaise
• Juice of half a lime

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Take a baking sheet, spray it with non-stick cooking spray.
3. Take your cauliflower florets, dunk them in a bowl of olive oil. Then dunk them in the bowl of panko breadcrumbs. Lay them on the baking sheet.
4. Bake breaded cauliflower for 20 minutes or until they get golden and crispy.
5. While cauliflower is baking, make the sauce. Mix it all sauce ingredients in a bowl. You can do it without any mayo/vegenaise if you don’t like that stuff. It’s still awesome – I promise!
6. When the cauliflower is nice and crispy, put it all together on a tortilla. I like to toss my tortillas in a hot frying pan for a few seconds before dressing them. Then I added the crispy cauliflower, chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, drizzled with lots of Bang Bang sauce. Garnish with chopped cilantro, thinly sliced jalapenos, and a couple of limes wedges. Enjoy!

Review: Liberte Baby Yogurt

I’ve struggled over the past few months about dairy. I know it’s baby-cow-growth-formula, and neither me nor my children have the right to steal milk from another mammal. Not to mention… it’s super weird that we as a species commonly drink another animal’s milk or eggs. But anyways… For now, I’m feeding him yogurt and cheese because I’m a hypocrite if I eat these things myself and deny my child them, and I feel like people already judge me for not feeding my kid meat.  Some day we will be vegan but for now, I’m feeding him yogurt and feeling super guilty about it. Which brings me to the topic of this post. Until now, I’ve been feeding Chance 2% plain or vanilla yogurt. I started him on vanilla, and then realized that was not smart of me because if I get him to like plain from the beginning, he will never know better and won’t be addicted to the added sugar. I know with babies they say to give them the highest fat percentage dairy products. So, I was stoked when my husband brought this bad-boy home: 6% plain yogurt made for babies!!!

It’s technically called “Liberte – Step 1 – Plain Light Sweet Taste”. Chance tried it today for lunch and he seemed to like it. I tasted it too, and honestly it tastes exactly like sour cream. Not saying that’s a bad thing. I guess it’s the same taste as regular 2% plain yogurt, just a big creamier and richer. It contains 70 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, 4g of protein and 25% daily iron intake. It’s also enriched with vitamin D, which apparently breastfed babies are lacking so that’s a good thing I guess.

What shocked me though was that it contains 4g of added sugar! And honestly, it doesn’t even taste sweetened at all. So what’s the point of adding sugar? Chance ate the non-sweetened 2% version no problem, so why are we making our kids addicted to hidden added sugars at the tender age of 9 months?

Pros

• Convenient packaging (grab and go)
• 6% fat content is good for growing babies
• Added vitamin D
• High in iron
• Chance likes the taste

Cons

• Unnecessary and random added sugar?
• Packaging is not very environmentally friendly (I’d rather buy a big container and portion it out myself)
• Dairy product so inherently mean to animals

 

 

My Favourite Baby Cereal

When it came time to start feeding Chancellor solids, I was admittedly overwhelmed. My nutritionist recommended feeding him traditional rice-cereals, which I did for a few days. But I was shocked by the nutritional value (or lack-thereof). The popular Gerber cereals are full of sugar, and contain literally ZERO grams of fiber. How do you make OATMEAL with no FIBER?  Isn’t that the point of oatmeal?

I was stoked when I found this alternative, right next to the Gerber stuff in the baby aisle.

You can mix this one with breast milk, formula or water. The ingredient list impressed me – full of  wholegrains including my favourite: Quinoa!  Nutrition-wise, this stuff packs a big punch. It still has the iron that the other cereals have, but this one contains tons of Vitamin B1, B2 and B3, and a good serving of protein and fiber. Much lower in sugar than the Gerber brand. The Gerber rice cereal I was feeding him before had DOUBLE the sugar (a whopping 8 grams!).

This ancient grain cereal is an awesome base to a balanced and tasty breakfast. I like to blend a bunch of fruits together in the Baby Bullet at the beginning of each week and freeze them in an ice-cube tray. Basically, I pre-make little frozen smoothie cubes. I change up the fruits each week. I’ve done blueberry banana, strawberry banana, and this week is cantaloupe and honeydew melon. Each morning I warm one of those smoothie-cubes up and throw it in with this cereal. Chancellor loves it! I plan to start adding greens like spinach or kale to my smoothie cubes – Breakfast of Champions!

Vegetarian Thai Chick’n Caesar

This is a SUPER easy, quick dinner that I make regularly for Kevin and I. It’s a hearty salad that has a great balance of creamy & acidic flavours. I am a HUGE fan of Gardein products. I often trick my meat loving friends by swapping out the meat for these realistic cruelty-free alternatives.

Ingredients

• 1 unit of romaine lettuce
• 1 lemon and 1 lime
• handful of cilantro
• your favourite garlicky dressing (anchovy free-caesar or something simlilar)
• croutons
• parmesan (optional)
• Gardein 7 Grain Crispy Tenders
• Thai Chili sauce (whatever brand you like – I used VH)

1. Preheat oven to 430 degrees Fahrenheit. Cook the Gardein tenders as per the instructions. I baked them for 10 minutes, remove and flip, 5 minutes to make them nice and crispy.
2. While your Gardein tenders are baking, wash your lemon, lime, cilantro and romaine. Chop your romaine into little strips. Chop your cilantro into smaller pieces (no stems!). Cut your lime in half and remove the seeds. Cut your lemon in half. Chop one half of the lemon into wedges (for garnish).
3. Stick your romaine in a big salad bowl. Add the croutons and chopped cilantro. Squeeze your half lemon and both halves of the lime over your salad. Keep the wedges for garnishing. Stir in your desired amount of dressing. Toss it all together.
4. When your Gardein tenders are nice and crispy, remove from the oven and immediately toss them in a bowl with the Thai chili sauce.
5. Plate your salad with the saucy Gardein tenders, freshly grated parmesan and some lemon wedges. Add fresh ground pepper to taste. Voila!

To veganize this meal, skip the parmesan and replace the dressing with a creamy, garlicky alternative (I love tahini so I would do a simple dressing of roasted garlic, tahini, lemon juice – blend it together and add a bit of water to thin out the consistency). We were in a rush last night so we used Farm Boy’s Caesar dressing. Watch out when buying caesar salad dressing. A traditional caesar salad dressing will contain anchovies. The Farm Boy brand has capers instead. Or keep it super simple and just use the juice of half the lemon, lime and a little olive oil for your dressing.  Yummmmy!

An Update on BLW…

Just wanted to give a little update on our Baby Led Weaning efforts. I tried – I really did. For the first few days of feeding Chancellor solid food, I was giving him BLW finger foods. I gave him whole bananas with cute little handles. I made him super soft cooked sweet potato fries. And honestly, I don’t know if any of it ever made it to his mouth. On the sweet potato fry night, he put one in his mouth and immediately turned bright red and started gagging. Now I know this is part of BLW, and that gagging is different from choking, but it still scared the crap out of me. So I immediately scampered down to my storage room and dug out the Baby Bullet I got for my baby shower. I found it extremely easy to use (honestly, it’s just a regular Magic Bullet with a few cute smiley faces). Since that day, I’ve been feeding him all purees. But I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not really a bad thing. The pureed route recommended by my nutritionist also suggests introducing solid finger foods after the first couple of weeks. So I really don’t think it’s that different. I’ve decided I’m not going to beat myself up for not fitting into the “box” or category of parent that I had planned for myself. Chancellor eats fresh fruit, vegetables, and plant based proteins everyday in addition to breastfeeding. I should be patting myself on the back for feeding him such healthy, natural foods and not feeling defeated for giving it to him in a different texture. As with everything in parenting, you don’t really know what will work for you until you try. I use cloth diapers and occasionally baby-wear (he is learning to like it but it was a struggle at first). I think that’s pretty granola/hippie… but I don’t need to be defined by that. We are just doing our thing – and I’m stoked that Chancellor is such a happy, healthy little guy. What more could I ask for!

The Next Stage of Cloth Diapering

As I mentioned in my post from last week, we’ve started feeding Chancellor solid foods. In the end, after a lot research which mostly just stressed me out, we decided to feed Chance a mix of pureed foods (apple sauce, rice cereals) and some baby-led-weaning style “solids” (aka equally mushy food in more traditional forms, like whole bananas, extremely cooked sweet potato fries etc.). So I guess I can say that solid foods are going pretty well now and I’m less stressed about it all. That being said, the “solid” foods have led to something else being more solid and thus disgusting and messy. You guessed it, Chance has reached the “solid poop” phase. Which wouldn’t be that bad if we didn’t use cloth diapers. As my husband put it yesterday: “I’ve seen things…”.

For six months, we have exclusively used BumGenius 5.0 pocket style diapers. We’ve raved to all of our friends about how easy and non-gross they’ve been to use. It’s been pretty much my favourite topic of conversation. I could talk about how much money we’ve saved all day. Also, did I mention they are so much cuter than disposable diapers? Anyways, this morning we brought Chance to the doctor for his six month shots. The nurse asked us to remove his diaper so they could do his weight and height. And oh dear god – did we ever have a disgusting poop explosion on our hands! This was the third or fourth next level gross diaper we’ve had in a few days. I’ve researched the options for this stage of cloth diapering. It seems buying a diaper sprayer or dunking diapers in the toilet are the two most popular options. Both sound really gross and the diaper sprayer is pretty pricey. Also, we’ve been using the supposedly “flushable” Kushies diaper liners – and discovered that although they are biodegradable, they are NOT recommended to be flushed as they don’t break down fast enough and will destroy your plumbing.

I’m a bit heartbroken about this, but I think the best solution for my family is to start using disposable diapers when we leave the house, and deal with the grossness of the “big boy” poopy diapers at home with our cloth diapers. We are home most of the day anyways so we are still having a minimal environmental impact. I am hoping we can use the same cloth diapers for our next kiddo, so switching to half cloth half disposables might make them last longer. Silver lining, I guess? If anyone has any tips of how to tackle this new stage of cloth diapering, I would REALLY appreciate it! Otherwise, I’ll just keep doing my best and trying not to stress about being the “perfect” environmentally friendly mama. Oh well!

Why is introducing solids so stressful?!

Chancellor’s half birthday (six months) was yesterday. And I must admit – I think we’ve hit the baby lottery because he is such a laid back little fella. We take him pretty much everywhere. In his short six months of life, he has been to weddings, gone to all kinds of awesome restaurants,  been on a zillion road trips, gone to a dozen open houses and showings of farmhouses for sale etc. He’s slept through the night since he was 4 weeks old with only a handful of exceptions (don’t hate us!). I think part of why we’ve had it so easy is that Kevin and I have a very laidback approach to parenting. He doesn’t have a set nap time – he sleeps when he’s tired. I don’t breastfeed on any type of schedule – he eats when he’s hungry. But now that he’s hit six months, we’ve hit a crossroad. According to all the experts, it’s now time to start introducing solids. I find it kind of ironic that they are called “solids” because it should be called mush. I’ve done some research and thought I would do Baby Led Weaning for sure. But then a few weeks ago, my family doctor called me and invited me and Chancellor to a presentation on introducing solids with a nutritionist. I was kind of excited to learn more about this topic. But I definitely left feeling really overwhelmed. Chancellor was the only baby there who wasn’t already eating solids (even though 6 months is the recommended age to start). The dietitian wasn’t against BLW per se, but said there is more research on the pureed strategy. She sent me an article on BLW but it was a medical journal article so very long and didn’t really lead me anywhere. She emphasized in her presentation the importance of feeding babies iron-enriched cereals to start. I looked at the ingredients though, and it seems pretty processed. I started this week trying to give him some of this cereal, and he absolutely hates it. I managed to give him two tablespoons of apple sauce today with pretty good success. I realize this is pretty much just pure sugar (though natural).  What I’ve found is that he wants to feed himself, and mostly just wants to play with his food. So moral of the story – I think this BLW stuff might be on to something.

Chancellor is ready… but am I?

BLW recommends starting out with naturally mushy food anyways so I don’t see the choking risk being any worse than the cereals etc. I’m going to give these soft cooked or naturally mushy solid foods a chance this week – bananas, avocados, sweet potato and carrot spears, little broccoli florets etc. I’ll let Chancellor be the boss and decide how much he wants to eat and just keep introducing new healthy foods every 48 hours (so we can watch for any potential allergic reactions). It’s all the same stuff Kevin and I eat anyways! I’m not going to worry about sticking to a particular schedule or keeping up with the schedules of other babies. As long as Chancellor is growing, and keeps breast feeding, hopefully BLW will make food fun and not stressful.  Trying the pureed route has already freaked me out so much! If the laid back, baby led approach has worked for us in every other way so far, let’s hope it keeps working and Chancellor learns to love his fruits, veggies and plant based proteins as much as his Mama and Papa!

Easter Eggs for Grownups

This past weekend, Kevin was away on a work trip and I was looking for a fun, cheap activity that I could do while drinking wine with my closest GFs. I was flipping through the latest Chatelaine magazine (aka my Bible) and I saw a really cool article about Easter egg decorating. Hmmm… what a perfect centre piece idea for my Easter table! So I invited a handful of girls over, hit up Michaels for some glitter, glue and cheap paint brushes, and dug out the old acrylic paints I had in my closet. We ordered a pizza, drank wine and went to town decorating eggs like we were 10 years old again.

To make this craft cruelty free, buy eggs from an ethical (or more ethical) source such as a local backyard non-kill egg farmer or a pasture-fed producer such as Organic Meadows.

I realize a full-fledged-vegan might not enjoy this craft. But hey… we do our best.

We hollowed the eggs pre-decorating using the ol’ pin hole trick. You make a small hole on the top of the eggs using a pin (safety pin works well). Then you make a second, slightly larger hole on the bottom. A bobby pin helped make the hole bigger. You blow the egg yolks and whites out one egg at a time. Then we decorated all the eggs. It helps make the finished product look more “mature” if you pick a theme in advance. One of my friend’s chose to do metallic, black and white. I chose to do gold, green and blue.

A Pinterest & Instagram-worthy girls night.

A few of our favourite egg decorating techniques:

1. Doodle on the eggs with a sharpie in a adult colouring book style pattern.
2. Make ombre eggs using acrylic paint. Progressively add more white to the paint so that the colour fades from top to bottom.
3. To achieve the “marble” look, fill a tupperware container with water. Make sure it’s one you don’t mind recycling after this craft. Drizzle some old nail polish in the water. Dip and roll your egg in the water and remove quickly to let dry. This technique works best if you only use a few colours at a time. This is a great way to use up old nail polish you never use!
4. Paint the egg with craft glue. Dump glitter into a ziplock bag. Add gluey egg to glitter filled ziplock and shake it around a little. For extra pizzazz, paint egg first with acrylic or water paint or even the marble nail polish technique. Allow egg to dry. Use masking tape to cover up half of the egg. Then paint with craft glue and cover with glitter. These eggs are next level!

Did someone say cookie dough?

I just wanted to let the whole world know, there is now a vegan/dairy-free alternative to cookie dough ice cream. This beauty caught my eye at the Real Canadian Superstore in the Organic/Natural Food section two weeks ago, so of course I had to buy it.

Pros:

• Tastes amazing!
• Did I mention it has cookie dough?
• No animals harmed in the making of this decadent dessert.
• The 500mL size prevents you from eating 2L (it happens).

Cons:

• Compared to dairy ice cream, it is a bit tougher to scoop when fully frozen. Easy solution is to take it out of the fridge five minutes before scooping.
• It is more expensive then dairy ice cream, but that’s a small price to pay for an ethical alternative.
• It contains soy so not great for people allergic to soy.
• Still full of sugar – but what did you expect?

Overall – I think this is one of the best ice cream alternatives in the grocery store. It’s still a rich, sweet dessert but I find I can manage one scoop and be satisfied. Pairs perfectly with a nice cup of decaf after dinner.

You aren’t feeding your kids MEAT?!

I’m used to people thinking I’m nuts for not eating meat. I’ve accepted that. I remember being around six or seven years old and my family going to a farm to choose a live Turkey to be slaughtered for our Thanksgiving dinner. I cried the entire way there, the whole way home and refused to eat the turkey at dinner. However, my older siblings still tease me because a few days later, I caved and ate a hot turkey sandwich with the rest of my family. I felt like such a failure. But looking back, my parents did not respect my wishes at all and never offered me a vegetarian alternative. This went on an on throughout my childhood. I would declare myself a vegetarian, and be offered a plain bun with mustard or ketchup while the rest of my family had hot dogs. I really didn’t understand how my family and friends could eat animals, while fully understanding that the animals had lived short, brutish lives and experienced torturous deaths. By my teenage years, I had gone full-time vegetarian.

I decided way back then that when I had my own children, I would do the opposite: I would raise them vegetarian until they were old enough to fully understand what they were eating (or “who”) and where it came from. I managed to get Kevin on board with this idea early on in our relationship. The topic of changing my maiden name came up in a casual conversation. I had always said I would keep my maiden name. But instead, we made a deal: I would agree to take Kevin’s last name if we could raise our children vegetarian until they are old enough to decide for themselves – I’m thinking around 8 years old. So, that’s the plan. And every time it comes up in conversation, people still look at me like I’m absolutely nuts. But even my husband Kevin eats vegetarian/vegan at home (he eats meat at his parents house and at restaurants). When we first moved in together, I would make myself a vegetarian meal, and make him a separate meat meal. What I found was that he would be more interested in my meal, and his meat leftovers would rot in our fridge. It was the same as when I lived at home – my teenage brother would eat ALL of my gardein chick’n nuggets, and leave the Costco sized-box of actual chicken nuggets to get freezer burnt. I guess the grass is always greener!

My little future PETA activist!

Recently, we took Chance for his 4 month check up. My usual doctor was away so we were seen by a lovely young female doctor instead. She asked me when I planned to start feeding solids, and I told her around six months (as per the current recommendations). It came up in conversation that I was going to raise him vegetarian, and this doctor said the strangest thing. She said that it was important that we MUST make him try all the different kinds of meat to see if he has an allergy. She said if I wasn’t comfortable cooking it, to ask a friend or family member to do it. Now, I’m not a doctor or a nutritionist, but this kind of caught me off guard. Why would it matter if he’s allergic to meat/chicken/fish if we never cook it and he doesn’t eat it?  Also, if little Chancellor decides to take up eating meat at age eight or nine, couldn’t we just introduce those foods slowly then to ensure he doesn’t have an allergy? I usually don’t question my doctor’s advice, but I’ve decided that I won’t be feeding my kids meat at all, and that is a decision I am allowed to make. I shouldn’t be made to feel like a bad parent for this choice. I’m proud to raise my child and his future brothers and sisters in a mindful, environmentally friendly way. If other people want to feed their kids meat, that’s their business. But I’m sticking to my guns on this one.