Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Mmm... Vegan Gelatinous Meat Substitutes!

There seem to be two camps of vegetarians and vegans: those who are into eating vegetarian "meat" substitutes and those who think such things are totally blasphemous. I fall into the former category- I stopped eating meat because I loved animals and wasn't morally okay with eating beings that weren't really any different than my cat or dog, not because I particularly didn't like the taste of meat. The fact that there are foods that I can eat (in moderation, just like everything else) that replicate what I would be missing out on is, for me, awesome.

That being said, I still am totally amused and amazed by what meat substitutes people come up with. Recently while shopping at a vegetarian food store, I found this:

Now I can see how someone would really miss, say, chicken wings, schnitzels, ribs, and burgers. What I can't comprehend is someone thinking "man, I like being vegan but I sure do miss my gelatinous chicken feet and snails!" I've also seen (and once tried) vegetarian "intestine", from which animal it was supposed to be I'm not particularly sure. This kind of stuff just comes down to cultural differences in diet, but it still makes me giggle. To each their own, right? Hope you newbies to the world of vegetarianism/veganism find some amusement in this as well :)

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Bagels!!

So now that we have our new kitchen stand mixer, I've been really keen to make more dough-related goods. It was a cold morning and I couldn't think of anything more perfect than to have fresh, hot bagels for brunch.

After some quick research I settled on this recipe:


It was easy to follow and the only thing I can really say about it is that I'm sure it would become easier to handle the dough with more experience. My bagels didn't come out as puffy and gorgeous as the ones in those photos, but they still tasted amazing!! The ones with roasted garlic flakes were my favourite, but I think T liked the jalapeno ones the best.

P.S. It was a fiddle-with-phone-camera-settings type of day!