The Vegan Butcher

I am obsessively counting down the days to a very special event. No, not Christmas. The release of Alicia C. Simpson’s next cookbook: Quick and Easy Low-Cal Vegan Comfort Food! It is being released 03 January 2012 in North America. In the UK it will be released 01 February 2012 (boo). (more…)

Ahoy, mateys! Disclaimer: I plan to make pirate references throughout this entire post (as this will most likely be one of my few voyages to the sea and I plan to take full advantage of it, read on to see why).

Even before I went vegan I was never a fan of seafood. Growing up on Cape Breton Island (a.k.a. God’s Country, The Most Beautiful Place on Earth, or Down Home) I was often seen as a bit off for not joining in on lobster boils and fish fries and other such seaside rites of passage. The idea and especially the smell of fish have always disgusted me.

My first mate Jimmy and I were parleying the other day about how whenever someone points out something smelling of fish it is never in a positive context. You never hear anyone say, “Mmmmmm! What smells like fish!?!” It’s always, “Uggghhh….is that….is that fish? Do you smell that? What smells like fish?!?” That is because it’s disgusting. Straight up. No sharp, tiny, hidden bones about it.

Now, with all that said, I hypocritically would only ever want or eat fish one way, and at that only about every 2 to 3 years. Every few years I would get a hankering for fish and chips. I would head down to the Halifax waterfront (or if I were down home, one of the countless seafood restaurants on the island), get fish and chips, and be done with it for another 2 to 3 years. Well, it’s been probably 4 or 5 years since I’ve last eaten fish and chips, so I was long overdue. (more…)

Round two of recipe testing for Alicia C. Simpson’s next book involves all things breakfast…….for supper! I love breakfast for supper. I don’t have time to ever cook breakfast for breakfast anymore, so supper time’s pretty much my only option anyway. But we’ll pretend it’s by choice, okay? Okay. (more…)

I’ve figured out what it takes to get me to post: I need an assignment! I need pressure. Participating in VeganMoFo forced me to post every day, and so I did. Well, dear readers, I have a new assignment and I’ve decided to take you along for the ride! I have been asked by a certain darling Alicia C. Simpson to be a recipe tester for her as yet untitled third vegan cookbook. Eeeeeee! I was very delighted and honoured when she asked me to help out. This is my documentation of the testing process. (more…)

LASAGNA! DAIYA! HOMEMADE MARINARA!!! Man, was I ever looking forward to this meal.

Tonight I cooked Spinach Lasagna from Quick and Easy Vegan Comfort Food by Alicia C. Simpson. There’s a back story to this author, dear friends. When I got on Twitter I made friends with @VeganGuineaPig and thought she was just another vegan doing her thang. We commented back and forth, agreed on a lot of topics, and got to know a bit about each other. Then one day I was in the veg cooking section of a bookstore, perusing a book that I thought looked good. I flipped to the back cover and saw my dear Guinea Pig’s face staring back at me! I nearly dropped the book in excitement and bought it immediately. And now I proudly tell anyone who will listen how what we’re eating is out of  “my friend’s” cookbook. Ahahahaha. Name-dropper. (more…)