Saving the best for Last: Panthere Verte, Montreal (Part I)

I can hardly believe what happened here. In an attempt to get the reviews of good, but not overwhelming places out of the way first – to save the best for last – I ended up finally completely neglecting my review of my favourite place: The Green Panther. It is a 100% vegan restaurant.
From their website:

The Green Panther is a fresh, dynamic project whose main goal is to develop
a more sustainable way of living in today’s urban reality by supporting and creating local alternatives, through the use of organic produce (local when available), recycled materials and by raising awareness.

Sounds like good hippie food, eh?

I managed to visit both of their locations, in spite of only being in Montreal for 2 days. That I call some vegan-food-finding talent. Still, I have absolutely no regrets. On both visits I was not disappointed …

To make things easier, I will report about the first location on 2153 Mackay St in Montreal downtown today, and will follow on with pictures and reports on their other location at 66, St-Viateur Street West next time.

OK I know I know – less talk, more foodz!!1!

Menu

Tempehtation Pita, $6.99

Choc Chip Cookie for good measure

It may not look like much, but the combination of the soft pita, yummy dressing (Hummus & lemon I think?) and the crispy tempeh was divine. The cookie was also delicious…
Overall – the food was so good, I had to go back the next day (review to follow).

Have a good Tuesday, guys!

Happy National Peanut Butter Day!

Okay, yes, the National Peanut Butter Day was yesterday. And okay, if you’re gonna be so picky about this: it’s the national American peanut butter day, not the Canadian one (wonder if Canada even has one?)
Nevertheless, this is an opportunity not to be passed to re-cap my favourite peanut butter “recipes” for you!

Homemade Vegan Reese’s cups

Sm’love Pie

PB-Coconut-Chia Balls

PB, I love you. I can’t believe I had neglected you for 20 years of my life, but now we have all the time in the world to catch up. Thank goodness.

Pita Pit

The nearest Pita Pit is less than 200m away from my house; yet until this day I’ve never made it there. Today was a Sunday night on which the quick walk and the prospect of not having to make dinner seemed tempting, and so we finally went.

I heard heard that Pita Pit was “basically like Subway, but with pitas instead of subs” – and in a way, that’s very true. From the green billboards to the ads of supposed “fresh eating”, the 2 places seemed very similar. Same concept, too: you walk in, choose your size and kind of bread, choose your main topping, and then have a variety of vegetables, extra toppings, and sauces available.

Toppings bar

One significant difference to Subway though: this place seemed much more vegan friendly. There are a total 4 vegan options, and they are clearly marked as such on the menu – Hummus, Babaganoush, Falafel and Garden. Check out their menu here. I chose the 6 inch Babaganoush on whole wheat bread with lots of spinach, tomatoes, onion and black olives (love black olives), and bean sprouts. The whole thing cost $3.79, which I deemed acceptable.

babaganoush pita

Definitely good choice for a quick Sunday night dinner, maybe not great if you’re very hungry or needing some protein (shame, no tofu or tempeh in sight).

Best part: free pita chips!

Bringing Meatless Mondays to town

I recently decided to join my coop’s food committee. I am obsessed with food, as it is, and also I slyly saw a chance to bring more vegetables and fruit to our daily meals. Short after, I presented my idea to the rest of the committee: introducing Meatless Mondays.

Meatless Monday is “an international movement to help people reduce their meat consumption by 15% to improve personal health and the health of the planet” (apparently ‘saving animals’ doesn’t sell well). Either way, Meatless Monday is starting to pop up everywhere, it is a great initiative and I want to bring it here.

About 100 people on average eat at this cafeteria every day. About 20 of us are vegetarians/vegans, so around 80 meals with some kind of meat or fish portion are prepared every day, from Monday to Friday, for dinner. That is a whole, whole lot of meat – if I’m ever in need of reassurance for my diet, popping my head into the freezer to see a few hundred pounds of beef or chicken chilling around sure helps. Either way, mathematically speaking, changing that one dinner to a plant-based meal creates the same result as having 16 people pass on the meat for all 5 dinners of the week; or even 5 full-time vegetarians, if you assume the average omnivore consumes some kind of meat product for 14 of the 21 main meals a week. I am normally not a fan of these kinds of statistics, but thinking of it that way gives you a perspective. In my opinion, it is always about reducing suffering, reducing consumption – not about making black & white choices. Therefore, I can appreciate that from my pov having 80 people choose a vegetarian dish one dinner a week can be more helpful than “converting” one or two people to full-time vegetarians (even though some people may disagree with me here).

Why am I telling you all of this now? Well, tomorrow is the AGM of our housing cooperative and I decided to use this opportunity to inform everyone of our campaign and to win some votes, even.
I am kind of nervous about giving the talk, but at the same time I am 100% convinced by this cause. I know it’ll improve our coop for the better. It would make me so happy to leave Kingston, knowing I’ve left some positive change behind. This gives me extra motivation to push harder and harder towards that goal.
The actual decision will be made, based of feedback from a member survey next week. Fingers crossed.

Sticky Cinnamon Buns

After I had the most delicious sticky cinnamon buns in Washington DC for Brunch on New Year’s day, the idea of making my own was stuck with me. Fortunately, I soon found a vegan recipe on the Side of Sneakers blog. They looked delicious and the recipe sounded easy enough.

I used raisins instead of chocolate chips, but kept the other ingredients the same. (If you avoid honey, you could probably replace it with Agave or maple syrup).

Definitely try making these, they are easy (alot of the baking time is actually just letting the dough sit – I rested it overnight). They turned wonderfully and filled the house with cinnamon smell. Gone within 2 hours.. (the perks of having 7 house mates), but highly recommended.

After rising overnight, just before going in the oven!

The finished product!

Butternut-Squash Pizza!

This month, I decided to enter the Iron Chef Challenge.

Basically, every month, they give out a new Secret Ingredient and vegan chefs (ie: bloggers) from all around the world try their best to go crazy with that special food.

January’s one was: Squash!

Since my wonderful housemate still has a few squash from her garden sitting around the house I figured January was finally the month I’d join in the fun!

This is what I made:

Butternut-Squash Pizza

Super-simple, different, but yummy.

First, roast the squash. I chopped it up and coated it with some olive oil and red pepper. Check out instructions on How To Roast Veggies over at the HungryHungryHippie blog if you need more details.

Next, I made some simple tofu ricotta. Mix:

• 1 pack silken tofu
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• Splash of lemon juice
• Salt and black pepper

To be professional, I decided to also make some pizza dough from scratch. This vegan recipe worked excellent.

When your pizza dough is risen, assemble your toppings!

• Roasted squash
• Tofu ricotta (see above)
• 1/2 Onion, cut into rings
• Anything else you like on your pizza! I kept it simple and only used the above.

Bake for approximately 15min at 405F. Yes, that seems hot, but pizza needs a hot oven kiddos. It does.

And … enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Have a wonderful day and spend some quality time with your family.

Also, I hope someone made this for you. Cause it looks delicious.

The PPK Seitan Christmas Roast

find it here: PPK Christmas Roast