Happy Two Years xDadx !

Today is my dad's two year anniversary of being clean and sober. Yay xdadx !! Two years ago today was both one of the worst (by far) and best (maybe) days of my life. Worst because myself and my family finally had to deal with the fact that my father had been an emotionally abusive alcoholic and drug addict for most of my life, and that my family and my life as I knew it was teetering on the brink of collapse. If you would have asked me two years ago today, or really at in any point in my semi-adult life before this day, what my family would have looked like when I was twenty three I would have easily answered divorced, collapsed and with maybe a 50% chance that my father would have been in my life and alive.



However, it also ended up being one of the best days of my life. My dad spent the summer in rehab and I spent the summer at the bar (not adviseable!). In the two years since my dad went to rehab life has not been heaven, but nor has it been the hell that it was before. Each day is full of trials, but my family is slowly being to piece itself back to the 'together' that never really existed before. My dad and I are finally beginning to build a relationship based on love and respect for eachother rather than on tempers and tears. Occasionally, those old feelings of anger and resentment towards my father resurface, but I feel like over these two years I have gained the tools to work through these feelings, rather than just pushing them away and having them pushed away by others. For example, sometimes I resent the fact that he gained his sobriety so late in my "childhood" and feel like why could he not have done this when I was younger, when I really needed him. But, I have to remind myself that I can't change that, so its not really worth getting upset over. Also, if I ever have children, at least I know my children will have the best grandfather ever. Things are good for the most part. So, happy two years xdadx !



His friends at his Alcoholic Anonymous home group are having a little party for him tomorrow night, so I decided to make him a yummy vegan cake in celebration and thanks ! After much deliberation, I decided on a triple layer, decadent chocolate-banana marble cake with a peanut butter butter cream frostly and a chocolate ganache drizzle !

1. Bascially, I took the VCTOW Basic Chocolate Cupcake and Banana Cupcake recipes and doubled them both.

2. One completed, take the Basic Chocolate mix and remove one cup of batter. Pour remaining batter into a greased 9x16 pan. Take the Banana mix and remove one cup as well. Pour the remaining batter into another greased 9x16 pan.

3. Take the one cup of chocolate batter removed, and pour in vertical stripes into the banana mix. Slice a knife horizontally through the batter, at a 90 degree angle to the chocolate batter stripes. This creates a marbling effect. Repeat with the remaining banana batter and chocolate mix.

4. Bake as per VCTOW and ice with some Peanut Butter Buttercream.

5. Yumm !



Now, that its one am, and I have to be up at six, maybe I should go wash my hair and clothes for FOOOTBALLL tomorrow ! Yeah, football, I said it ! And American football at that !

Hello Again !

So, I became incredibly discouraged with blogging over the holidays and decided to give up. It felt weird just talking to myself. But I'm bored and back.
A few weeks ago I bought about three cups of hazelnuts with the intention of making the hazelnut cupcakes from VCTOW. Today, as I was cleaning out my designated "weird vegan stuff" cupboard in my parents kitchen I stumbled upon those long forgotten hazelnuts and decided that they must be put to use, immediatly ! I had no Mori-Nu or cupcake liners (shame!), so hazelnut cupcakes were clearly out the question. I couldn't think of anything else creative and quick to do with hazelnuts, so I decided on making a vegan version of Nutella. While in Europe this summer I was really, really dissapointed that Nutella wasn't vegan, as it was often the only condiment served with breakfast. I'm pretty sure there's a recipe for vegan Nutella in the 'Nom, but I lent my copy to one of my fathers friends a few weeks back. So, I decided just to make a recipe up!

Ingredients

2 cups of hazelnuts
1 cup of powdered (icing sugar)
1/4 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted
1 tsp of vanilla
some veggie oil


1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the hazelnuts on a baking pan and toast for about 15 minutes, or until the skins are allllmost black.

2. Once the hazelnuts are roasted, place in a clean kitchen towel (or youy mother brand new bathroom towels, as seen here), and rub, rub, rub until almost all of the skins are removed.



3. Place hazelnuts in a food processor, preferably one younger than yourself, and pulse ! At first the nuts will turn into a fine grind, but don't stop here ! Eventually the friction between the baldes and the nuts will make all of the yummy oils come out and it will become paste like.



4. Add icing sugar, vanilla and melted chips into your processor. Drizzle oil into the processor until the mixture becomes a peanut-buttery consistency. Yummm !





I can't wait to spread this on some crepes this weekend !! Mmmm !!

After making the hazelnut paste, I became aware of how similar to nut butters it was and how easy it would be to make homemade nut butters. Look for some yummy cashew butter soon !?

Chrismukkah !

Happy bee-lated Chrismukah everyone ! My Christmas this year was pretty shit due to a severe lack of funds, my mum being pretty ill, having to put my puppy down at the end of the week and working fourteen hours on the actual day. Boo !

There were, however, a few upsides to this Chrismukkah. One being our quasi-Christmas party at none other than the ever classy Queen's.



Some of us got naked. Or almost there.





Others just engaged in risky sexual behaviour.








Mostly it was just awesome fun and awesome friends.





Oh, and there was a family reunion.



Oh, and there was that time where we pretended we were elderly in Florida.



Even thou Christmas was mostly shit, I got a few awesome things from my parentals and brothers.







I'm really, really, terribly stoked on both of those last items.

The worst part about this week thou was my broken stove. I busted out my Fresh cookbook, whish is mostly grilled and stove-top variety stuff. This stuff was unusually healthy and light for this self-admittedly chubby vegan. Nonetheless it was delish and I've actually continued cooking out of it since my stove has been fixed.


Mango Thai Salad.


Peace n' Love Salad.


Santa Fe Salad


Cucumber and Cashew Dip. Best. Ever.


Sweet Potatoe Coconut Curry.


About to be mashed in to Guac.

Oh and I finally made these babies. I've been terribly jealous of my friend Jon's buns for a really long time. Mine have turned out horrible over and over again, but I think I've finally got it right. They were terribly, terribly good.




More important than all this garbage is the fact that my friend Dave and I will be hosting bi-weekly Marxist discussion groups in the New Year! Yay. The first one is set for January 5th and its on the recent economic crisis, looking alot at the manufacturing crisis here in Southern Ontario. Time and location are TBA. Get stoked !

More exciting than any of this other garb. is the fact that I'll be in Berlin with a whole tonne of people that I miss lots in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS. I'm going to a conference type thing for the IMT. The theme I guess is Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebkart (I'm really awful at spelling) and the German Revolution. I'm re-reading Rob Sewells' "From Revolution to Counter Revolution" before going, just so I don't feel like a total idiot jerk. I'm staying in Berlin for about a week after with my friend Dan and his friend Sam.I'm really really terribly excited for this.

New Years (Resolutions)

I always make a list of New Years resolutions on this pad of paper I've had since I was 13. I usually hide it under my bed then pull it out the next year to giggle at. This time around I decided to also make public my secret hopes and dreams. They're sort of in order of importance.

1. Make sure I'm actually graduated. Book an appt. with councelling to make sure I actually have all my credits and garbage. Find out some way to pay my tuition (whoops!)

2. Get into Teacher's College in England. Preferably London Met for Secondary Citizenship, History and Politics, but I'd take anything really. Other than number one, this is the most crucial goal of all on the list. I'll prolly get a little dramatic if I don't get in and we might have a repeat of two summers past, and no one really wants that.

3. Pay back my poor parents the ga-zillions of $$ I owe them from this summer. (whoops x2)

4. Start a Niagara Region branch of Fightback. This should hopefully happen before New Year's actually. I really should have undertaken this task earlier, but the idea of me being in any situation of political leadership both terrifies me and makes me laugh. Ideally, I'd like to have five other comrades here by the time I leave in August. That would be nice.

5. Get Kyle and myself's (sp?) vegan catering/bakery idea of the ground. I'm seriously so so so so excited to do this.

6. I don't think I've had a proper meal out since coming home at the end of August. I really, really love to cook and there's not really any good veg/vegan places in the region. However, I still feel like I'm missing out on some yummy noosh else where in Ontario. I kind of think that eating out might inspire me a it with my own cooking and open me up to new things. This being said, I move away permanently to a new continent in seven months. So, I've set myself up a not really challenging challenge, to eat at and review seven new restaurants in seven months. I've even made a list of the places to try, but not in order, thats crazy.
Affinity (in Hamilton)
Get Real! Cafe
Fressen
LIVE
M and B Yummy House
Vegetarian Haven
PAN (St. Kitts)

7. Oh and as always, loose weight. This has seriosuly been on my list all 9 or 10 years I've been writing on that pad and I've always been unsuccessful at it, mostly due to things like #5. Whatever.

Happy Brithday David Blaine !

I figured today would be the perfect day for a big update as it looks like this:



and this:



outside today. Also when we left our coffees outside for 1/2 an hour this is what happened:



I hosted a Birthday Party for David Blaine/Happy Christmas Party for a few friends. The title is a long story, Jesus is Magic .. yadda yadda .. I took a tonne of photos, most of them turned out like crap. I get really nervous when I host parties so I was awkward taking the photos, and they turned out well, awkward. Here we go !

Round One: Appetizers



Hot n' Sour Soup



Tempura Yam and Eggplant, Deep Fried Soft Tofu



Rice Paper Rolls stuffed with matchsticked Mango, Cucumber, Roasted Peanuts and Rice Stick Noodles. You can't see it here but it was served with Spicy Peanut Sauce and a Spicy Thai Sauce



Group shot with Ryan looking grumpy



Group shot feat. Dylan loving the Hot n' Sour

Round Two: Entrees



Ryan thanking David Blaine and the magical world for providing us with this feast. You can really see all the yummy food here !



Cashew Chicken



Lemon Chicken



Bill's Sushi !



BBQ Sweet n' Sour Korean Ribzz



Ginger and Garlic Azn Veggies

There was also White Rice, Pad Thai Noodles and a super awesome Cauliflower Curry Dish from Dylan and Krista that made my night.



My plate with the Curry already gobbled up ! Yum Yum !

Round Three: Dessert !



Homemade Green Tea Icecream smooshed in between Almond Cookies



Homemade Candy Cane Icecream smooshed in between Double Chocolate Reverse Cookies. I think this was the most shit picture of them all.



Kath's sugar cookies. This picture really doesn't do justice to how unbelievably pretty and yummy they were.



Candy Cane Cupcakes. These were my favourite of the night.



Green Tea Cupcakes. My mom ate 8948935 of these, I swear.



Ryan also brought a fruit tray. I think it was a good relief from my deep fried and refined sugar ladden menu.



Graham loving Green Tea Sammiches.



This is when we spent a good hour re-living Bill's awesome highschool experience, including the time he tried to saw his neck of to get out of getting beaten up by a xxx jock.


Aside from cooking for the party, I didn't get around to making too much else this week. But I did make these cuties.





TLT's - Tempeh, Lettuce and Tomatoe



"Fish" Sticks - I f'real cut the tofu in the shape of fishies !


Erm, I also had my Keg work party version 58478 this week.



Prep cooking being a pig. Pretty sure he grabbed my bum that night. Eww ! I luurve Sharra and Court thou !



Keg Bar girls ! And Gerald ? Aha

I have tonight off from both work and the kitchen. I'm going to spend the night watching movies with my mum and learning how to blog better. I'm quite terrible at it really. Tomorrow, its back to work at both. I'm catering and bartending for my Aunt's work Christmas party tomorrow, so I have a massive amount of work to do tomorrow, sigh ..