I Love it When We're Cruising Together: Part Two

So I don't sound like a spoiled uppity shrew

who complains about cruise ship food when there are people starving all over the world, let me preface the following spoiled uppity shrew complaining with this: I am grateful to exist in a part of the world where I am not wanting for any necessities, especially healthy, wholesome, easily accessible food. I am simply comparing my cruise dining experience as someone who does not eat animal products with the dining experiences of my fellow cruisers, and the expectations people have when paying for a product and service.

When I have the luxury of choosing where I eat, I will choose restaurants with creative and appealing and delicious vegan options. When I go to a restaurant that is not my choice, I am usually able to make the best of it and am content with pretty much anything, complete meal or not. Obviously, if I go to The Keg, my dining experience isn't going to be as great as that of my omnivore friends because I'll be seriously limited in my selection and will likely have to settle for a few random sides and maybe a salad if I'm lucky. I'll still go because I'm not going to pass up the opportunity to spend time with my friends or insist that every restaurant we go to has decent vegan options. I'll probably nibble my dry baked potato (it'll only be dry if I forget to bring my own Tupperware midget full of Earth Balance butter and Tofutti sour cream) and down a few martinis to keep myself entertained, enjoying everyone's company. And then I'll just head to The Naam afterwards for some Dutch Apple Cranberry Pie with a scoop of vanilla Tofulatti to salvage the evening. They're open 24-7 y'all. It's all good. I'm easy.

The problem with cruising is that it's not like I just have one "vegan at The Keg" dinner to sit through. It's Every. Single. Night. My family had a set dining time in a set dining room, and it was an awesome way to reconnect at the end of the day and spend time together. That is, after all, the purpose of cruising with people you love and don't get to see very often. And I thought that since they actually had a "VEGAN" box for me to click on my pre-cruising profile, they would totally be on board with rockin' vegan alternatives.

Especially considering the growing awareness of food allergies and intolerances, of which dairy is pretty huge, I would have expected a staff that serves such a huge variety of people from all over the world would totally be educated in this area and the menu would feature dining alternatives that work for a variety of food intolerances and lifestyle choices, which would limit the special meals that would have to be prepared. I feel for a chef and prep crew that has to feed thousands of people at a time, and then has to deal with special dining requests. I actually didn't think my specialty diet was all that special.

When it came to dinner on the ship, my family (all 15 of us) had a scheduled dining time of 6pm every evening. I really enjoyed this, as we were always sure to see each other at least once during the day, even if we spent that day doing different things.



The dining room was elegant, there were a couple of formal nights over the course of the week, and it was a really classy experience every night. We had two tables for all of us, and it was really nice to just sit and visit and share the day's experiences. Everyone ordered off a menu that changed nightly, and the food was always really beautifully prepared and creative, especially considering the sheer number of people the kitchen had to serve. 


On our first night there the head waiter sought me out, aware of my vegan food preference from when I filled out my personal profile. I told him that I wasn't picky and I was happy to eat anything off the regular meal that happened to be vegan, and if there were no vegan entrees I was happy to eat whatever they came up with. Seems simple enough.


So that first night I thought I was in luck, seeing a vegan by default melon appetizer on the menu. It was refreshing, and a pretty perfect way to start off this dinner experience.

The kitchen wasn't prepared to do a special meal that first evening, so I just ordered a pasta dish off the regular menu, minus the chicken. Easily veganized without the chicken, right?

Apparently not, as it turned out they weren' big on individualizing a mass prepared dish by making one without chicken. Swell.

I just picked the chicken off (I'm not big on sending food back and wasting it unless it's absolutely necessary), and I ended up really enjoying this dish. The sauce tasted super fresh and reeeeally delicious. It actually stands out as a highlight of my cruise dining, right up there with their guacamole. I looked past the bits of chicken carcass and was able to really appreciate this pasta.

The next evening I had a specially prepared vegan entree coming, so as the waiter was taking our orders I asked him if he could just let me know whether any appies on that night's menu were meat & dairy free. He suggested the chilled peach soup and salad.

The soup was very good...like eating peachy applesauce.

Then as the waiter was putting my salad down in front of me he said, "Oh sorry, there's cheese."

Yup, there was. And apparently he missed the bacon.

Ok. So first they can't hold the chicken when I order pasta, and now they recommend a salad with cheese and bacon.

That's ok. I'm a passive, happy Virgo who never wants to be that annoying pain in the ass vegan who's all picky and difficult at dinner just because she doesn't want to eat carcasses and titty milk.

So I thank him for the salad and eat around the cheese and bacon. After all, the staff is crazy busy, and it's only the second night. There's still plenty of time to figure it out.

When my specially prepared entree comes it's pasta with the same delicious sauce from the night before and some deep fried, flavourless tofu. Essentially the same dish two nights in a row, but whatever. It did taste very good (except for the ho-hum tofu).

Luckily my godson was able to keep me entertained to make up for the boring tofu.

As the nights went on, when it came to dinner service, I came to realize that this vegan thing was more of an inconvenience than I thought it would be. I did have vegan entrees coming each night, but our dinners consisted of four courses (2 appies, entree, dessert), so I was always inquiring about whether any appetizers that night were vegan. The waiter was always pleasant and very friendly, but he never really seemed to know anything for sure, and it became apparent over the course of the week that he never bothered to find out in advance. I get that he had a ton of people to serve each night, but I figured it would be way easier for him to just ask someone in the know what appies were vegan friendly that night and let me know rather than having to deal with me asking him about each appy that looked potentially vegan.

Here's my idea of how things should have gone in a perfect world:

Waiter: Good evening! So today you can order ____________ or ____________.

or

            Good evening! Today you can order ___________ but it comes with <animal product>.

or

            Good evening! Sorry, no appetizers are ok for you today. 

Me: Thank you very much :)

Instead, this is how things went for the most part.

Waiter: Good evening! What would you like?

Me: Is there any dairy in the <appy option 1>?

Waiter: Ummmm....yes, I think so.

Me: Ok, how about the <appy option 2>? Any dairy in that?

Waiter: Ummmm....I'm not sure. *Starts getting fidgety because he has a crapload of other orders to take and time is tight*.

Me: What about <appy option 3>? Is that one safe? Can you recommend something?

Waiter: *looks over at menu* Well, you could try the...hmmm... <appy option 4>...no wait that's made with cream....um...this one has shrimp...

Me:  Ok, I'll just get <appy option 2>, but can you check if there's dairy in it, and if there is, then I'll pass. 

Waiter: Yes. 

Me: Thank you very much :)

and

Waiter: Good evening! What would you like?

Me: Is anything safe today?

Waiter: Hmmm...no, I don't think so. 

Me: Ok.

*Waiter proceeds to take everyone else's orders. Just before he leaves our table I inquire again...*

Me: What about the <appy option 1>? It seems ok. Is it made with cream?

Waiter: Oh...ummm. No, that's fine. 

Me: Ok, I'll have the <appy option 1>. Thank you very much :)

It got pretty tiresome, for both of us. But he was still always super friendly, and so was I. I can't say one negative thing about his demeanor. But there just wasn't that extra effort to make the ordering process easier for both of us by informing himself about the menu beforehand. Granted, I don't know what goes on behind the scenes in the kitchen, and it's clear that the staff works super hard and super fast to get things done on schedule. But when you're dealing with the same people for the whole week, you come to hope they come to give a shit.

I don't know. Are my expectations too high? I just think it would have simplified things if the wait staff knew the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of menu items for specialty diets. But from my experience, it really didn't seem like they had much experience or interest in dealing with that.

So over the course of the week I made due by lucking out with some vegan by default appies or just picking around appies that were mostly vegan...

Elegant and absolutely delicious pineapple wedge with honey (it's a grey area for me) and pistachios. I left the ricotta cheese behind.

Another chilled soup...I think it was cantelope this time. 

Kiwi and grapefruit with fruit puree. 

Really good salad. Yummy dressing. 

Salad. Not memorable.

Another salad. Also not memorable.

And of course, bread. Yes, that is my Tupperware midget of Earth Balance, 

which came in very handy. I know. I'm a loser.  

And now....bring on the entrees! I never stated any preference for my specialty entrees; I just trusted whatever they wanted to prepare.

Veggie stirfry with tofu. Or Tofu stirfry with veggies. It was all right. Same boring tofu as before. But whatever. It was food.

This one was just depressing. An entree of mushrooms, rice, and yam fries. Seriously? SERIOUSLY? This is like the absolute least inspired meal I think I've ever had. 

Getting better. I LOVE cabbage, and the browned garlic gave this whole dish really great flavour. Thumbs up.

Pretty. Grilled eggplant & zucchini. Tasty sauce. Enjoyable. 

More grilled veg. Tasted good, but been there, done that.  

Stuffed pepper. A bit more creative, but stuffed with uninspired white rice. I love asparagus, though. 

That was the world of Ruby Princess vegan entrees in a nutshell. I appreciated the effort...except for the mushroom & rice night. Seriously, what was that?? Effing mushrooms and white rice for dinner? Yah, there's something to replenish the body at the end of an eventful day. Really, Princess? Really?? 


But really, I appreciated having something to eat alongside my family in our elegant dining space. Did the food fill me up? Yes. Would I consider any of those Ruby Princess vegan entrees good enough to place on a menu somewhere? With the exception of the pasta with the delicious tomato sauce, probably not. When you really think about it, these entrees were nothing more than glorified side dishes. I really liked the cabbage dish with browned garlic, but did it constitute a complete meal? Hmmm... they threw a potato on there for some carbs. Cool. 


If these are the types of meals people think vegans eat on a regular basis, I can totally see why they would be asking the 66,000 dollar question, "But where do you get your protein?" 


And let's not forget dessert. The only thing I was able to eat for dessert, out of the kajillions of cookies, pastries, cakes, frozen delights, brownies, mousses, tarts and the like, was sorbet.


Don't get me wrong. I friggen love sorbet. But when you are a dessert enthusiast and you're ON VACATION and you're trapped on a ship and sorbet is the only thing available ON YOUR VACATION and you can't drive down to The Naam for Dutch Apple Cranberry Pie with a scoop of Tofulatti, or pick up a vegan vanilla cupcake from Whole Foods, it gets a bit redundant.

Delicious flavours. But night after night, even the most delicious, creative sorbet (just like oatmeal and fruit for breakfast) got redundant.

Once again, I was grateful my godson was around at dinner to break up the sorbet monotony. 

When it comes to being able to offer a great vegan cruising experience, these guys aren't there yet. Food is a huge part of cruising and vacationing in general, and though I don't expect to have the same selection as my omnivorous peers, it would be awesome to see the same kind of care and creativity and passion go into the specialty meals that they put into their general culinary fare. Cruise ship food is meant to impress. I'm not there to gorge, but I would have appreciated being impressed.

I was content. But definitely not impressed. 

This pretty much solidifies my assertion that cruising, though it has its awesome moments, is not for me. And the awesome moments were there.

Movies Under the Stars? Definitely for me.

(and yes that is a Cleos chocolate peanut butter cup. I did bring some of my own stash anticipating the titty-milk laden desserts that awaited me on board)

Reading under the sun? (And reading something other than English 10 essays?) Definitely for me.

(not exactly light, recreational  reading, but definitely one of the most valuable and eye-opening reads ever)

Watching my sister swim to her heart's content in turquoise water? Definitely for me.

Finding a restaurant called Blue Bitch Bar and a town called Cockburn? Definitely for me. 

Dance parties with the coolest dancing partners ever? Definitely for me.

Discovering Guavaberry Rum Coladas? Most definitely for me :)

Getting off the ship in Ft. Lauderdale to find Rob the Husband (who I left back in Vancouver as he was unable to join us on the cruise) waiting to surprise me?

Yah, that was pretty cool. 

Until I realized how much it cost him to fly out for just a couple of days so he could surprise me as I got off the cruise ship. Then I was kinda choked. And horrified. I contemplated selling an organ to make up the difference. Surely someone in Florida could use a kidney? I had one to spare. 

But then he gave me a vegan chocolate donut he got from Whole Foods, and all was right in my world again. 

Because vegan chocolate donuts make everything (even reconciling the loss of a few thousand dollars in the name of a sweet romantic gesture) better. 

I Love it When We're Cruising Together...Part One

Actually, that's not really true. I'm not a huge fan of cruising. I'd much rather hang out at a resort and rent a car and have total autonomy than be on someone else's schedule. But for the purposes of family gatherings, schedules can be a great thing, and therefore cruising can be a great thing. And when it comes to my family, I genuinely do love it when we we're cruising together, so I'll keep the title. Option number 2 was "Vegan Cruising: Food was Snoozing."

So in February (blogging in June about a February cruise...yay procrastination yet again), to celebrate my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary (50 years, yay!), I joined my them along with my mom & sister, cousins and their kids on a Caribbean cruise on the Ruby Princess.

The beaches were fantastic, my family was amazing, the sun was blistering, and the rum was delicious.

This was my third cruise, second with the Princess line, and my first since forsaking consumption of flesh and titty milk and the unfertilized products of poultry reproductive cycles.

And I'm not planning on cruising again any time soon.

Like a lot of people, food has always been a huge part of my vacation experience. This didn't change when I went Plant-Strong. While my selection has certainly been limited, I've welcomed the challenge of sourcing out vegan-friendly eating establishments. I've had awesome experiences eating vegan in Banff, Vegas, Disneyland, Whistler, the Okanagan...I even managed to make a go of it in the Philippines. I recognize that not all restaurants are vegan-friendly, but it's actually been fun researching a location before going and trying to find a restaurant that will offer you more than veggie stir-fry. Though if veggie stirfry is all they have to offer, I'll still eat it with a smile.

Before cruising, everyone has to fill out a personal profile, listing, among other things, food preferences. So I clicked the vegan box (yes there was a vegan box! Score!), thinking this was something they would be able to accommodate easily. I remembered really great vegetarian options on my previous cruises, and considering how many people have dairy allergies and lactose intolerances, I expected that great vegan options wouldn't be too far-fetched an expectation.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

To sum up from a Plant-Strong perspective: buffet was quite good, dinner service was...good...ok...good. That's not really saying much considering the whole cruise experience and expectations.

Let's start with the buffet. While the VAST majority of food, as expected, was not vegan, there was always enough to work with to start my day off right. That said, breakfast became very redundant after, like, a day. Oatmeal was always my default, rounded out with fruit and hash browns because there was absolutely nothing else for me to work with.

First breakfast on board. That's a poached pear at 1:00. Very yum.

Deja vu

After a couple of mornings I began to wonder whether
my breakfasts would get more interesting...

Umm...

...yah, apparently not.

Morning of departure...miso soup for breakfast!
Superheroes like Alicia eat miso soup for breakfast
so I was allllll over that. Not my conventional breakfast
food but I was eager (desperate) for a change.
And it was goooooood.

So breakfast was great on the first day...and totally repetitive after that. This is the thing about cruising...you can't just go somewhere else for food when you've exhausted your options at one place and you want a change. No vegan-friendly bakeries to grab a muffin, no quaint diners to grab a tofu scramble, no juice bar to grab a titty-milk-free smoothie. I mean, I don't expect a spectacularly innovative vegan breakfast every day, but a week of oatmeal and fruit (while it kept me healthy and nourished and I was thankful to have it as opposed to nothing...yes, I know...#firstworldproblems) is just one reason why cruising (with this line anways) is not for me. 


Lunches were really quite nice in terms of variety, and I always managed to fill my plate like any legitimate cruiser. I was able to load up on lots of veggies (always a good thing), and for the first couple of days there was a doable soup option. 

First lunch on board...bok choy and beets is a promising start!

Similar version to puree for my tube-fed sister. An awesome, complete meal

Gazpacho, yellow beans, lentil curry, squash.
The pasta wheels had the most delicious red sauce, which made more appearances at future meals.

Doesn't look too interesting, but probably my favourite lunch.
A delicious rice noodle dish, similar to Filipino pansit...LOVE!
And this guac was ridiculously good. Thank God for guac!
Throw some couscous into the mix and I'm good to go.   

Super yummy tofu curry dish (thank you Indian food!) with
chopped garlicky greens. Thumbs up for sure. 

Can't say no to salad when there are pumpkin seeds available.
Tomato-okra stew above that with some roast potatoes and pasta salad.

Hello again curry. And greens and beets. I enjoy you. 

This was my lunch on the beach in the Bahamas. They were serving burgers and hot dogs
but I managed to make a decent carcass-free lunch out of the sides.


And nothing beats eating lunch while having a beach pedicure by the pros.

So as you can see, buffet lunches on the ship were much more interesting than breakfasts. There wasn't necessarily more to choose from each day, but they definitely changed it up in the realm of daily vegan-by-default options. Considering my lunches consisted of just a fraction of what was available, you can imagine the daily selection at the buffets. And I was definitely more than pleased with my lunch experiences on the ship. 

But consistently good lunch experiences are not enough to keep me on board for another cruise. Because when it comes to food, the real weight rests on the shoulders of dinner. And my dinner experiences, while they were "acceptable", certainly weren't memorable. Not for the right reasons anyways. 

But that's a whole other blog post. And considering how long it took me to get down my Part One thoughts, I expect Part Two should be up by September. 

That seems ambitious.  

Almost as ambitious as a vegan expecting to eat something other than fruit and oatmeal for breakfast on a Princess Cruise ship.

Oh snap.

Vegg Trick Muffin

I recently won a $5 gift card to McDonald's. My first thought was, cool, a couple of orders of fries. But then I remembered that McDonald's fries Never Go Bad, and that kinda grosses me out. So then I realized that all I'm willing to eat at McDonald's (willing to eat...something sounds wrong with that) nowadays is the oatmeal.

Which got me reminiscing about all the things I used to love eating at McDonald's. I have fond memories of Big Macs without onions, cheeseburger days in elementary school (damn those things smelled good), the failed McDonald's pizza in high school, $1.50 McChicken days during my college years, and more recently, fruit & yogurt parfaits, Egg McMuffins and BLT breakfast bagels (add cheese and bacon for an extra hit of awesome).

Even after going Plant-Strong I would still have McDonald's fries when the occasion called for it. I was grateful that I could still enjoy that indulgence in my new vegan lifestyle. Fries aren't a nutrient-rich whole food, but they taste damn good and are made without animal products, so they were a-ok in my book in the once-in-a-while category.

And then I saw the special features of Supersize Me, wherein Morgan Spurlock tries, unsuccessfully, to see how long it takes for McDonald's fries to go bad. His intern accidentally throws them out. After 10 weeks.

Seeing those picture perfect fries, in picture perfect condition after 10 weeks was all it took for me to cross McDonald's fries off my once-in-a-while-indulgence list, permanently. I mean, holy shit, what the hell is in those things, and how the hell is it ok for whatever is in them to be in us??

Something is seriously wrong.

But just because I'm completely grossed out by McDonald's now (please God don't let there be some revelation about the oatmeal before I use my gift card) doesn't mean that I don't still long for that McDonald's-esque fix on occasion.

So I put my own spin on Strong Hearts Cafe's Egg Trick Muffin: the Vegg Trick Muffin.

At his latest excursion to Karmavore, Rob the Husband picked up a package of the Vegg.

This is essentially a mix for a vegan egg yolk made primarily from nutritional yeast. You blend it with water and it actually smells and tastes very similar to an egg yolk. It's a really interesting product, and the bag yields A LOT. I got practically a whole blender full from one pack. You can totally portion this stuff out.

For our first attempt we pulled out a block of tofu, cut out a few "egg" pucks with a cookie cutter, and followed the Strong Hearts Cafe recipe for the coating as seen in the YouTube video. We used "bacon" instead of "sausage" and added some jack-style Daiya we picked up in the States (they have Daiya blocks there...them Americans always get the cool stuff first). I assembled everything on an English muffin, squirted on some organic ketchup, and we were good to go. 

This Egg Trick Muffin was definitely a winner. The texture is just like that of an Egg McMuffin, and the flavour is actually better, as real eggs always had kind of a mlechy aftertaste, like dairy milk. The seasonings they use in the coating are perfect. I was definitely an instant fan. 

I also found my new official favourite veggie bacon....Smart Bacon. We picked up a pack to try (in the States, of course) and holy crap is this stuff ever good. I've found other veggie bacons to be pretty tough and kinda rubbery, but the Smart Bacon cooks up with a fantastic crispy texture and awesome smoky flavour. It was delicious on its own and was a perfect compliment to the TrickMuffin.

For experimental Round 2, I thought I'd make use of the Vegg and amp up the egginess of the TrickMuffin by soaking the tofu puck in Vegg after coating it. This worked out really well, as the Vegg cooked the puck and made the coating nice and crispy with less oil. I also tried doing it backwards by soaking the tofu in Vegg and then dredging it in the coating, but when I fried it up on the pan the coating just fell off, so it's better to have an outside layer of Vegg for sure. It also adds just that extra jolt of eggy flavour, making this sandwich pretty friggen perfect. 

So there you have it...cruelty-free comfort eats that give you a fast food fix and taste awesome. Thumbs up Vegg Trick Muffin.

And I'd wager it doesn't take three months to decay. 

A Skinny Bitch Mother's Day for My Skinny Bitch Mother

When I first started writing this post I started it with "Today is Mother's Day" followed by "Yesterday was Mother's Day" followed by "Last week was Mother's Day." Needless to say, it's taken a while to get this post off the ground. Ah well, such is the life of the procrastinator. 

A couple of weeks ago was Mother's Day. A day to celebrate our mothers, and for some of us, a day to atone for all the crap we put our mothers through every other day of the year.

Though my mom has not gone totally Plant-Strong, she has seriously cut back on the animal products in her diet. She has her moments of clarity on a good day when she'll acknowledge the awesomeness of going Plant-Strong and how important it is for her health, but those moments sometimes compete with her old-school meat & dairy mentality. But I figure I gotta cut her some slack, as she has 60 years of erroneous thinking to battle, whereas I had half that.

There are things she loves (hello vegan Shepherd's Pie) and things she hates (like that fake sausage and fake sour cream and fake cream cheese crap), but overall she has responded positively to kinder, more compassionate eating. And since I'm always all over any opportunity to expose my family to new vegan eats and expand my recipe reservoir, Mother's Day was a perfect opportunity to bust out my Skinny Bitch cookbook and try something totally new. Or, as it were, four totally new somethings.


Mother's Day 2012 menu:
* Thai Coconut Soup (Skinny Bitch p. 98)
* Beet & Cheese Napoleon Salad with Candied Pecans and Shallot-Balsamic Vinaigrette (Skinny Bitch p. 116)
* Asian Macaroni and Cheese (Skinny Bitch p. 224)
* Tempeh No-Meatloaf (Skinny Bitch p. 229)


This was a somewhat hectic meal to prepare, as I was doing it by myself, and trying to prep everything simultaneously proved a tad challenging, as I had never prepared any of these dishes before and I wanted to time everything so that things would go into the oven at the right time and come out together.  The kitchen was a mess afterward with no time to tidy up before serving dinner, but considering I was only cooking for my sister, mother, and Rob the Husband, it was nothing to stress over. Overall, with the exception of the soup simmering on the stove longer than I would have liked, it all worked out pretty swell.

First course: Thai Coconut Soup.

There were a lot of ingredients going on in this soup and a few different stages of cooking. Some of the ingredients were hard to come by, but I learned that the local Asian grocery store is a great one stop shop for pretty much everything you'd need veggie-wise. They even had a little pre-packaged thing containing some of the more challenging items to find, like lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves, which was very convenient. This soup was an event to prep but definitely worth it, as the flavours just came together super nicely...the lemongrass and coconut especially gave it that wonderful Thai flavour, and it had the most perfect kick to it in the spiciness department.

This recipe actually didn't yield very much for me, which might have been because I was simmering it way longer than I should have while I prepped the rest of my dishes, thereby evaporating away a lot of the water. I did find myself adding water just before we were ready to serve, as it seemed a bit thick and too concentrated in flavour. Adding the water to dilute it spread the flavour out nicely to a more reasonable intensity, and the soup was enjoyed by all to start off Mother's Day dinner.

Rob's Rating: 
Thai Coconut Soup - 4 Happy Tongues

Second Course: Beet & Cheese Napoleon Salad with Candied Pecans and Shallot-Balsamic Vinaigrette  (Try saying that 5 times fast)

This was a super fancy-schmancy salad and involved a lot of prep from beginning (roasting the beets) to plating. I'm a huge fan of beets, so I bought golden as well as red to use as the middle layer of the beet & vegan cream cheese stacker. The recipe tells you roll the cream cheese mixture into a ball and place in a ziplock bag to flatten, but I didn't bother with the bag. I just rolled the balls and flattened them between my palms before placing them on the beets and it worked out great.

The highlight of the recipe for me was the candied pecans...holy crap were these ever good. They were a hard cunchy mess to scrape off the cookie sheet out of the oven (imagine scraping baked syrup off a cookie sheet), but they were ridiculously delicious. I was just hoovering them right off the pan. Everbody loved them on the salad too. The lowlight for me was the dressing, as it was made with cane sugar and shallots, giving it that sweet onion flavour that I'm not a fan of, but I was alone in this opinion, as everyone else enjoyed it. I ended up with way more dressing than I needed, as you don't end up using very much on the salad considering the powerful flavour.

Overall, this salad was super pretty and very elegant. It's also featured on the cover of the cookbook!

It's not a dish for a large dinner party, as each salad needs to be plated individually. It's a little intimidating when you first look at it, but it really delivers in uniqueness, it's sure to impress your guests, and it's worth making just for those leftover candied pecans (holycrapholycrap sooooo good).

Rob's Rating:
Beet & Cheese Napoleon Salad with Candied Pecans and Shallot-Balsamic Vinaigrette - 4 Happy Tongues

Main Course: Asian Mac & Cheese and Tempeh No-Meatloaf

These two dishes worked very well together, as the mac & cheese is quite light and the no-meatloaf is comparably intense in the flavour department. My first impression of the mac & cheese was not very impressive. I found the first bite quite bland and boring, as there was no cheese in it whatsoever (it didn't call for any vegan cheese at all). I was toying with the idea of putting in some Daiya anyway, but decided to trust the recipe and try it the first time as it was meant to be. The "cheesy" sauce is made out of cauliflower and coconut milk. It is actually quite tasty, and once I mentally took it out of the mac & cheese category and started considering it as a dish on its own merit, I liked it a lot more. It does have the satisfying, crunchy top thanks to the panko breadcrumbs, and with a dash of salt, after a few more bites I was sold. It's not as heavy as traditional mac & cheese and if you like cauliflower like I do, you'll really appreciate this one.

The delicate flavour of the mac & cheese was in stark contrast to the tempeh no-meatloaf, which turned out very bold and quite sweet, I'm assuming because of the ketchup. This meatloaf had the makings of serious comfort food, and a great tempeh texture. Tempeh is so unattractive to look at (especially the 7-grain stuff...all those dark grainy bits look like bugs), but I've never had a bad experience cooking with or eating it. This meatloaf goes super well with any kind of carb, like the mac & cheese (Kim Barnouin, the Skinny Bitch herself, recommends pairing it with Root Veggie Mash, p. 185 in the book). It's not something I could eat a large portion of by itself, but pairing it with something lighter in flavour is a perfect combination.

Rob's Rating:

Asian Mac & Chese: 2 Happy Tongues (Ouch. He said it was bland and the top layer of macaroni was hard, but acknowledged that it had potential)
Tempeh No Meatloaf - 4 Happy Tongues

Leftovers the next day were pretty delicious too. Lots of leftover beets and plenty of pecans hells yes.

And there you have it...four awesome Skinny Bitch recipes for my awesome Skinny Bitch mother. She really is one of those women you love to hate. Case in point: 61 years old and not a bit of cellulite on her. She somehow neglected to pass that genetic gem on to me.

Thanks Mom.