The Vegan Butcher

My fack, I love bread. So, so, so much. And Dr. Atkins can kiss my carb-filled ass, because I ain’t givin’ it up anytime soon.

Today was a bit out of hand, though. I had toast for breakfast (as I ran to my Tube station), a peanut butter sandwich for lunch (at my new job!) and when I got home I made a big ol’ pan of bruschetta. The Bruschetta Experience involved using a gas oven for the first time. Did I blow up the house?!? Only one way to find out… (more…)

I finally found tofu in this new city of mine! The Tescos and Marks & Spencers that I have been haunting these past three weeks have left me high and dry in the soy curd department. This afternoon was a perfect, sunny, crisp October day to walk around and finally find a Sainsbury’s. I took a roughly 5km roundtrip jaunt to the supermarket located over in East Ham. The way there was lovely. I was walking through a part of town I hadn’t seen yet, taking in local shops and wandering town their High Street, marvelling at the new and exciting.

The way back was AWFUL. My arms nearly fell off my body. I always buy too much stuff. Between the supermarket and the street-side vegetable market stalls, I got some wicked (albeit far too many) ingredients for a stir-fry. (more…)

This post is in honour of the home city of my heart, Halifax. Just this evening it was announced that our Halifax shipyard has been awarded a $25 Billion contract to build new ships for the Canadian military. I can only imagine the parties that are springing up across the city right now. And across the whole country, really. (We have a lot of boys that had to go away to find work. Maybe we can get some of you home now, eh?) I wish I could be there with you tonight, my friends. The only thing I can do from here is drink with you in spirit (check) and blog about my last lunch EVER in Halifax. I know, a touching tribute.

My very last day in Nova Scotia (as in, I was flying out that night) saw me packing, running my friends out to the airport for their flight ahead of mine, and tracking down rogue vegan foods/ingredients that I feared (correctly) I wouldn’t be able to find over in the UK.

We were out at Pete’s Frootique (ironically, a British grocer) and I found my sought-after ingredients and I bought a couple things to make one last honkin’ sandwich before flying away. Here’s what went down. (more…)

I was sitting at home one evening after work last month when an unknown number came up on my cell phone. I normally don’t answer numbers I don’t recognise, but something compelled me to do otherwise that night.

“Hello?”

“Is this Tracy?”

“Sure is!” I answered, not knowing who it was, but thinking it could possibly be my friend Jana.

“Do you like vegetables?”

“You know it! What have you got?”

“This is Annik.”

Well, then. (more…)

I was in the grocery store the other day (or as Jerri and I have taken to calling it, the brocery store—don’t ask) and as I wandered through the produce section I happened upon a vegetable I had never seen before.

“What in the hell is that?” I asked Jerri, who was wandering with me at the time.

“Kohlrabi?” she read from the sign. “I have no idea. Are those slugs?”

I dropped the kohlrabi I was holding because for a second I thought it was, indeed, covered in slugs. I picked it up, called her a bitch as she laughed at me, and put it in the cart. (more…)

Welcome to the first and (I would say with almost definite certainty) not the last “Drunk Vegan Cooking with Tracy” post!

Since I work seven days a week and all holidays I have very few opportunities to get good ‘n’ drunk nowadays. There have been so few in the last year, in fact, that if you wanted I would be able to name the specific dates and occasions. It’s sad, really.

Anyway, since it’s almost time for me to blow this popsicle stand and move across the pond to Londontown, Jerri and I decided to each book a vacation day and get hammered on a school night. Drunk Tracy and Sober Tracy are similar in that they both love to cook. Where they differ is in their judgment calls and ability to make good choices. This post chronicles that night and those choices. (more…)

Get ready for the most exciting blog post of your life in which I make a sandwich from the leftovers in my fridge! I can tell you’re all pretty jacked up about this–perhaps we should all calm down.

The other night I was cooking for a post that didn’t involve a main dish. I didn’t have anything on the go to eat for supper, so I rooted around in the fridge and found leftover seitan and garlic mayo from this meal, and dug in the freezer to find leftover batter coating from this meal. We were in business! (more…)

I am a theatre kid. I sing incessantly and love everything about Broadway. In high school a friend and I started the theatre troupe at my school and I took part in all productions we staged during my time there.

During my final year of high school we put on “Into the Woods”, an absolutely perfect musical by Stephen Sondheim. If you are not familiar with this play, I highly recommend that you get it into your life. It’s a delightful story with multiple fairy tales interwoven as one and tells the story of what happens after the happily ever after.

What does this have to do with vegan cooking? There are numerous references to food in this play. So many references to food, in fact, that I could ignore them no longer. I needed to get into the kitchen and bring them to life! In this series we are going to delve into the foods of “Into the Woods” (see what I did there?). Are you ready? Doesn’t matter—we’re doing this. (more…)

I invite you to once again join me on my quest to mastering seitan. When I say I’m going to learn to do something right, I’m not messing around. You’re going to see so much seitan on this blog you’ll long for the simpler days of tofu and beans. Take heart, beloved readers! The roads hardest travelled often lead to the best destinations. POWER THROUGH! We’ve got this. (more…)

In honour of passing 666 followers on Twitter, here is a post on seitan. (Ahahahaha. Oh, SO CLEVER, Tracy!) Big up to my 666th follower, @nubiandread!

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I have a vegan buddy in England who wants me to teach him some new kitchen skills when I move there this fall.

“I can totally do that!” I thought to myself as we chatted, feeling confident in my skills, “Just as long as he doesn’t request lessons in making seit—“

“…especially if I can learn to cook seitan!”

Melonfarmer. (For those of you joining this programming in progress, that is the curse I use instead of “motherfacker”. It’s friendlier for my Mama, whom I know reads this blog.) (more…)