An Answer, A Question and Some Tampered Cookies

I have not been cooking very much in the last few days so I don’t have a lot of pictures to post but I do have two or three.

First though, I have to say a few things :

The wonderful Ariix has left a comment on the French Blog to say that the Chu Chai Restaurant in Montreal is not completely vegan. It is completely vegetarian though and about 90% vegan. So there you have it and thanks to Ariix for the correction.

Bazu has asked me the difference between the French words Végétarien, Végétalien and Vegan, saying that she thought that Végétalien is the French translation of Vegan. Because Laura had asked the same question last week (I believe), I thought I would explain for everybody to see.

Bazu is right of course, VégétaLien is, officially, the direct translation of Vegan.
But because VégétaLien is very often used to describe a diet without mention of the philosophy of veganism, some VégétaLiens choose to use the term Vegan instead. If so, they generally want it understood that they embrace the ethical aspect of Veganism, meaning that they don’t use any animal products such as leather, suede, wool, fur, other animal ingredients and don’t buy products tested on animals.
Comparatively, I have heard that some vegans now use the term "Vegitan diet" instead of "Vegan diet". Vegsource says "The key is that the word "vegitan" in and of itself connotes no political, ideological or philosophical ideals. It's simply a word that describes a diet."
So because VégétaLien often means “Vegitan”, some francophones use Vegan instead. The words chosen are a personal preference I think because some VégétaLiens will, of course, not use any animal products at all and some Vegans will eat honey or wear wool, or whatever. A word can hardly describe everything that we are. LOL So that is about it.

Eat to Live update : I have been mostly off Eat to Live in the last week as money is really tight because of tires, brakes, and new “used” clothes so I couldn’t splurge on fruits and vegetables as I have been doing in the last few weeks. And I am having such a hard time finding great fruit ! I don’t know what is happening but the last two batches of nectarines were so awful that nobody ate them. It’s apple season and that is mostly what I have had for fruit. It gets boring rather quickly. I still don’t eat vegetable oil though. BUT, the BUTT is still there, and I am stuck at 164. I eat bread, pasta, and I don’t limit the amounts. I have been exercising, still, I don’t feel I’m getting anywhere. So, we’ll see what will happen from here. I’m sure that a non-veg person following ETL’s vegan version would get fantastic results right away but I think that a vegan that already eats rather healthy can’t see the same fantastic results as quickly (or at all ?) So I lost 5 pounds in a month and I never followed it exactly… that is still good. But Crystal was right. It is expensive to follow ETL when you are already on a tight budget. Again, I’m sure a meat-eater would not see as much of a difference on their budget.
So if I end up eating more fruits and more salads forever, that will at least be better health wise.

On to the next subject, this time a question for anybody who might have an answer and/or everybody who has an opinion.
I will generally not post a recipe without the author’s consent. I might post a recipe that is already on the internet though, like that Pumpkin Pie recipe found in Dr. Neil Barnard’s book AND on PCRM’s website. I will give a beloved recipe to close friends though and I don’t have an army of close friends ;-)
Because of that, some of them have, as a result, bought the book where it came from.
But here is my question : What amount of tampering makes a recipe yours ?
I very often tamper with recipes, and I can see that a lot of you do, too. :) Sometimes it’s difficult to recognize the original recipe but other times, even though I change two or three things and I play with the quantities, maybe the author could recognize that the original recipe was from them, I don't know. I would like to share that kind of recipe without offending the author though.
So if you have an answer to that, please raise your hand. ;-)

Now, on to the good stuff : pictures of foooood !

First off, here is a picture of some cookies I made this week.


They come from a tampered recipe. LOL
I didn’t have a lot of the ingredients needed to follow the recipe exactly and I played with the quantities AND made them with applesauce. They are not Fat Free though because of the chocolate and the cashew but still, they are a Lower Fat Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Here is the salad I had for lunch yesterday. Really Good ! With Kalamata Olives and Feta Tofu.


And second, here is what we ate last night.




This is called Chick Pea Sauce and Rigatoni and is from Susan Powter’s Food (the book). That book is the first “health-food” book I have ever read. Very entertaining read and very informative. Two of the recipes from Food are staple meals at our house.

So that is it. I have to go concentrate on something else for now and try to grow two more arms… that would help out a lot.
Thanks for visiting and see you soon !