My triumphant return to...well, life.

I realize I took a ridiculously long hiatus from the food blogging world, but hey existential crises real life happens. I finished school and am now back home waiting my job situation to sort itself out. I am so grateful for the full fridge and pantry that greet me every morning! Of course the second day or so I was home we went straight to Trader Joe's and Sprouts. I've eaten at one of my favourite veggie restaurant twice, tested out the newly veganized frappachino , and found a less corporate place to enjoy my coffee. I'm also enjoying the loads of vitamin D I was missing in New York. I get tan just from riding in the car!

This morning I was out of the Greens Plus bars that I normally eat for breakfast so I made Skinny Bitch pancakes instead. I added one cup of blueberries to the batter and they ended up being sort of mutant pancakes!

Pancake batter BEFORE

Pancake batter AFTER
See, what did I tell you? MUTANT! My mistake was adding frozen blueberries. My mother is very frugal and thus will not buy any fruit out of season so I had to settle for frozen blueberries. When they thawed I forgot to strain them and so allllllll of the blueberry juice went into the batter :(


They ended up being quite delicious though. I ate them exactly as they are pictured above; without syrup or silverware (and yes, my mother's place mats make me feel like I am twelve) . They were that good! I just wish I had someone to share them with.

Lack of eats

Not much cooking has been going on in Papayaland. Sad to say I have been subsisting on a steady diet of coffee, bagels, and not much else -------> pretty much = poor, starving, college student not cool. I am so sick of carbohydrates it's not even funny, and I'm so desperate for fresh produce the greenery outside is starting to look mighty tempting. I spent the weekend at my Great Aunt's and she was nice enough to send me home with a few groceries. So today I had a big ass salad for lunch and threw some pita chips and hummus together. I also made potato salad.

I know it doesn't look very pretty, but it was my vegan attempt at my Dad's potato salad. I didn't measure anything, as per usual...but I can tell you there was veganaise, mustard, salt, pepper, dill pickles, chopped onion, tumeric, and garlic involved. I think it would have been better with tofu as a substitute for hard boiled eggs and facon though.


Last week I had some friends over for dinner. I opted to make lasagna because a) it is damn tasty b) it feeds quite a few people. I used my favourite lasagna recipe of all time from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. In addition to the recipe I add one container of Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese and a few handfuls of Morningstar Farms Crumbles to the filling. A few people forgot they were eating vegan ;)

Yay family dinners!

Basic Pancakes

I've been on spring break the past week and when I'm not required to awaken at the buttcrack of dawn, I enjoy brushing up on my semiotics and winning countless arguments spending the extra time making lavish breakfasts for myself and others. Normally I make Skinny Bitch pancakes and serve with a massive tofu scramble (avec facon perhaps?), but I was spending time away from my flat and didn't have the resources. I'm sharing with you the most basic pancake recipe I know...I actually have it memorized. I ate my pancakes in the Adirondacks, what a treat!

Basic Pancakes
-1 cup flour
-1 Tbsp.sugar
-2 Tbsp. baking powder
-pinch of salt
-1 cup soy milk
-2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
-1 tsp. vanilla

• Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in bowl, mix thoroughly
• Mix in soy milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat until batter is smooth.
• Measure desired amount of batter onto hot, oiled, griddle. When the upper surface of the pancake starts bubbling it's time to flip! Cook both sides evenly
  
• Serve with desired topping.

These pancakes are so light, fluffy and tasty I can resort to tearing into them with my hands and devouring them without any topping at all!

This is a snapshot of the Kombucha and vegan chocolate chip cookie I scored at Four Seasons Natural Foods in Saratoga. Saratoga had a Chipotle too...mega score!

Cinnamon Roll Extravaganza!

I had an extreme hankering for cinnamon rolls this weekend. I was going to make a batch Saturday morning, but ended up consuming close to a pound of tofu, and a bagel with earth balance and nooch before snowboarding for five hours instead. Today I managed to fit in a few hours of baking and a three hour conversation with my best friend in Deutschland. Just another lazy Sunday :) (actually not because of the copious amount of stress and coursework in my life right now). The cinnamon roll recipe I used today was from VeganYumYum, which you can find here. It's not as labor intense as it looks, I promise. And I definitely used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose. They were still amazingly delicious! My roommates couldn't believe they were dairy free. Unfortunately I did not have a camera to use, so I will leave you with a picture of the cinnamon roll at had at Strong Hearts on Valentine's Day.

Papaya eats Canadian

So my lack of posting has a totally legit explanation. First off, my lappy kicked the bucket and I only just got it back from the shop the end of last week and then I was off to Canada over the weekend for my birthday! My trip was amazing, and it was sooooo easy to find vegan options everywhere (Toronto is full of hipsters vegans). I also must say that after navigating through downtown Toronto I feel like I can drive anywhere. Here are some assorted pictures of foodage from my weekend:

Lebanese veggie plate: falafel, grape leaves, mixed veggies, hummus, taboli avec wheat pita.


Mixed veggie/tofu dish from the convenient 24hr Vietnamese place across from the hostel.

[insert the epic salad from Urban Herbivore in Kensington that I forgot to take a picture of here]

My favourite littlest Canadian was raving about this vegan pizza when we met up for lunch on Saturday, so that night I had to hunt it down and try it myself. Nom, nom, nom!

This was "OMG we're pulling over and going to Chipotle because this is the first one I've seen on the east coast," burrito run in Buffalo. Yeah, I can eat the whole thing, every bite doused in hot sauce.

Yep. So that was Papaya's birthday eats in Canada.

I finally went grocery shopping on Friday after living off of stuffed peppers and the last of my Trader Joe's reserves. Because my mum was so thoughtful and sent me a HUGE box of oranges and grapefruit from back home, I didn't have to buy much produce. Thanks mum! I'm still trying to get her to send me a box of avocados and lemons, but that is not working out so well. I picked up these lovely raviolis by Soyboy during my shopping venture, but when I went make them I realized I forgot pasta sauce! So I basically pulled a sauce recipe out of nowhere and it actually turned out decent. Being a Food Network junkie in high school probably helped. I let my roommate sample a spoonful and she ended up eating the leftovers with her pasta today.

Sauce consisted of:
-tomato paste
-a couple of diced tomatos
-salt
-pepper
-onion
-garlic
-italian seasoning
-nutritional yeast
(and then of course I dummped loads of hot sauce in it once it was on my plate.)

Last night I rocked a spicy chik'n hummus wrap.

Wrap break down = jalapeno hummus, boca spicy chik'n patty, vegan gourmet nacho cheese, avocado, lettuce, tomato, alfalfa sprouts, mustard, and hot sauce. Sadly I had to use store bought hummus because some one has borrowed our blender and hasn't returned it. Yeah, college students make hummus in blenders.

And finally this evening I tossed together a super lazy easy curry and cous cous. Pictured here are the leftovers.


I should have picked out a spicier curry simmer sauce because this medium curry didn't cut it for me. Simmer sauces are lovely because you don't have to do any work other then tossing in assorted ingredients. My curry contained onions, mushrooms, precooked lentils, tofu, and cilantro. Dinner took a grand total of maybe ten minutes, awesome!

Vegan Roommie Love

I know it's already Tuesday, but I just have to say I had some lovely vegan eats over the weekend. I made a much needed stop at Recess for coffee and a rather large oatmeal raisin cookie, was also treated to Strong Hearts, and had KOMBUCHA!! I however, have neglected to go grocery shopping yet this week. So alas, I have no good Kaiah eats to report. I have the most considerate roommate ever though.

She veganized her stuffed pepper recipe for me this evening and even cooked it herself, without any vegan input (I was booted from the kitchen). She also was sure to include loads of Trader Joe's Jalapeno Hot Sauce just in my batch. These peppers were so big I couldn't finish mine completely and there are three more peppers left just for me so I can put off grocery shopping even longer haha.

Here we are eating dinner as a family, because families that eat together...oh never mind.