- I'm just here, queen of the jungle.
Excuse me garcon, I need my candles lit.
(laughing)
Yeah, I'm pretty extra in my home,
it's just, that's just
who I am, I like it.
(beeping)
Good morning friends.
I am about to make coffee,
Molly is also here.
- Hi.
- We're prepping for some work today,
but I'm going to make a
quick cinnamon coffee.
So pretty much what I'm doing here
is adding some cinnamon
to my coffees in a French press.
If it's just coffee for me,
I use like an espresso-maker
thing for one.
But because there's gonna be
a couple of people here
throughout the day,
I'm just gonna make a big
batch of cinnamon coffee.
All right, I've had my coffee.
I've made myself a little just lemon water
and a little bit of sea salt situation.
I find myself not drinking a lot of water.
I'm just not like a thirsty person.
So I like to kind of try to drink this
in the first half of my day.
Refill it with just water and
then drink that for the rest.
But for breakfast, I'm more of a
savory breakfast girl myself.
And something quick that
I like to throw together
is like a vegan version of a BLT.
So I'm going to achieve
that with some smoked tofu,
which is like my favorite
thing for sandwiches.
It's so, so, so good.
Tomato, instead of lettuce,
I'm going to use some pea shoots,
grown in Ontario, that's where I live.
And then avocado, so it's
like a California-style BLT
with just some, this is
sprouted rye and 12-grain bread.
I just, yeah, I try to buy the
healthiest bread that I can
that isn't like really intense,
that I still love to eat.
For the tofu, I'm just gonna sprinkle it
with some kala namak or
black salt to give it
kind of like an eggy flavor.
And then put hot sauce on it.
And that's a sandwich.
Done, no, I'm just kidding.
I'm going to start with the avocado.
I'm also recovering from the flu.
I haven't had the flu in
like years, it feels like,
and I'm trying to eat a
lot of greens and things
to make sure that I don't get sick again.
I blame it on my flight,
I almost never get sick.
Okay, so instead of like
a mayo, or a butter,
I'm just gonna use avocado.
So I'm just gonna take
some pea shoots on there.
Cute, cute, so actually, this one is huge,
so I'm just gonna add one little tomato.
And then, a little bit of black salt.
(grinding)
Slices of smoked tofu.
A little bit of hot sauce,
just 'cause you know,
why not wake up with a little bit of heat?
This is habanero, so I'm
just gonna do little dollops
'cause you know, I like to taste my food.
I just don't want my mouth to be on fire.
I like to taste my hot sauce, there we go.
And that my friends,
is just a pretty basic
vegan version of a BLT.
So the T is tofu, the B is bread,
and the T is tomato, and
sprouts, it's a BLTS.
I'm going to eat this.
I'm going to drink my
water, go do some work,
and come back for lunchtime.
(crunching)
Oh my gosh, so good.
(mumbling)
(beeping)
All right, lunchtime.
I have been pretty good
at prepping my vegetables
at the beginning of the week,
so I can just throw things
together during the week
and make like easy salads, and bowls,
and soups, and that sort of thing.
So, I have some chopped kale,
some leftover onions, and
what are these things called?
- Cucumber?
- Cucumbers,
that's what they're called.
And a couple of random vegetables.
So I'm gonna throw a nice salad together.
I know we talked about easy recipes
that indulge your comfort food cravings.
Here's how a salad does that.
This is the best Caesar dressing ever.
And we're going to make
a loaded Caesar salad,
oh yes, oh yes we are,
with simulated bacon bits
because they're vegan and
I have so many of them,
(laughing) from a recipe that
I did and I need to use them.
As well as some leftover
avocado from this morning.
Sun-dried tomatoes, beans from a recipe,
some leftover, what are
these things called?
Peas, pea shoots from this
morning that need to get eaten.
And then some chopped veggies.
So I've already gone
ahead and massaged my kale
with my dressing, let's talk
about this for a second.
I love to massage my
kale with the dressing
either the night before
or that morning before
because it breaks down.
Here's the thing.
It might make your kale smell like farts.
So just open it up and
(laughing) air it out first
before you eat it 'cause it
does kinda smell like farts.
Just gonna add that to the bowl.
Pour some more greens, and
just because I have them,
and I'm not going to eat just sandwiches
in the next couple of
days before these go bad,
I'm just gonna add some
pea shoots on there.
And then some onion.
I'm kind of styling this as if
I'm gonna leave it like this,
but I'm gonna toss
everything with dressing,
so I guess it doesn't really matter.
Some cucumber, these are
pretty much the veggies
that I always have on hand,
so I can just throw a
quick salad together,
or I can throw a soup together,
or some sort of grain bowl or something.
Here's the thing, when I eat,
it's all more or less
the same ingredients,
just packaged in different
ways, if you will.
All right, I'm gonna add some dressing.
I like a lot of dressing.
I know there's already dressing on this,
but here's the thing.
It's my salad, and if
you like less dressing,
you can add less dressing.
(laughing)
Like if I'm perfectly honest,
I don't eat a lot of salads
because I just find most salads,
like if I eat out somewhere,
salads can be pretty boring
when someone else makes it.
I like my salads a very specific way.
I'm not gonna eat it if I don't like it,
so this is how I like mine specifically.
And most people don't do
it the way that I like.
So, I never order a salad when I go out.
You may have thought,
"Wow, you eat your salads
"in a really big bowl,"
no, that's just for tossing
'cause I like to take photos
of the food that I make
for Instagram because that is my job.
So I need to put it in a clean bowl.
Take a photo of it, and then I can eat it.
I do junk food for a living, mostly.
But there's people out there that make
really beautiful salad bowls,
so I have to compete with them.
So I'm adding some beans
just for some protein.
There's protein in the dressing as well
because it's cashew-based.
Oh, and if you wanna make this,
I like to make a big batch
and keep it for the
week, it's on my website.
It's the, if you search
Edgy Veg Caesar dressing,
it should come up.
I'm also adding some
peas for protein as well.
And I just love peas
and I eat a lot of them.
And then, sun-dried tomato,
I know that this is,
these ingredients are not in
a traditional Caesar salad,
and I am well aware of that,
but it's a Caesar dressing
and that's why I called
it a loaded Caesar salad.
It's, you know, my own creation.
Oh, my avocado, duh.
All right, now I'm adding the bacon bits.
This just adds like a nice
salty crunch and a smokiness.
And then there you go, that's
my loaded Caesar salad.
Salad, I'm so excited to dig into this.
Maybe I should've left
it in the bigger bowl.
Oh my god, it's everything.
It's crunchy, it's salty, it's creamy.
I tried to twirl that as
though it was spaghetti,
which I think is what I'll
have for dinner tonight,
'cause clearly I'm waiting for.
There is no better Caesar dressing.
Um, I think these guys need to go outside
given that they're pacing
around like little psychos.
So I'm gonna eat this, take them out,
do some work, and we will
reconvene for dinner.
(crashing)
Hi friends, it's dark here
because I live in Canada
and it gets very dark (laughing)
at dinnertime around here.
I eat a lot of pasta, I love pasta.
I think it is one of
the greatest foods ever.
And one of my favorite things
to make is pasta al olio,
which is just pasta, I'm using
spaghetti, oil and garlic.
I like to do it with
pepperoncini, or chili flakes,
and then also for a little bit of protein,
I like to add peas.
I don't know why I'm waving this around.
So I am just cooking some pasta in here.
Meanwhile, I'm going
to heat up some garlic
and olive oil in another pan.
So traditionally, this dish
in Italy is just oil, garlic,
and then at the end you finish
it with some Parmesan cheese
and maybe, maybe some parsley.
Some I'm gonna use some elements of that
and do my own version of it.
Heat up the oil and the
garlic at the same time,
that way the garlic has
as much time in the oil
to infuse as possible.
The key with this dish is
the cooking of the garlic.
So, you want it to be cooked enough
that it has flavor, but
not so much that it's brown
and it becomes bitter.
So you don't want it too browned,
and you don't want it to be too raw.
I once read online about this recipe,
the key is to just do it perfectly.
That was the tip.
Just don't mess up.
I don't like to run my life that way.
(laughing)
So, I also don't like to
make my pasta that way.
So, if I feel like the garlic
is cooking too quickly,
what I like to do is add a
little bit of cooking water
just to bring the temperature
in the pan back down
and bring the cooking down of the garlic.
Because I like things a little bit spicy,
I like to add some chili flakes.
So I like to add that to the oil as well,
and that way the oil becomes
a little bit spicy and garlicky.
This is, back in the
day when I was married,
and I didn't feel like cooking,
let's say I was by myself
at night or whatever,
this is pretty much the
meal I made all the time.
After, especially when I
was writing the cookbook,
because I would be cooking things all day
and I just couldn't,
like I'd been tasting.
I just wanted something really simple,
and something quick and
easy to throw together.
I ate this like multiple
times a week for dinner.
Or like late-night cravings,
it is my absolute favorite pasta.
I also have some vegan parm in my fridge,
so I'm going to use that at the end,
but you can also use nutritional
yeast if you don't have
access to a vegan version of Parmesan,
or you can just leave it off
altogether and just use salt.
You also can use any pasta shape.
I just prefer spaghetti because
you can really coat the...
The entire noodle.
All right, in the last minute or so,
I like to just throw
in peas into the water.
And those will cook at the
same time as the pasta.
They'll finish at the same time
and then you can just
scoop out all of them
and throw them into the pan.
That should be enough, right?
So, I like to always save
some of the cooking liquid
in case I need to use it.
(sizzling)
So now I just kind of
swirl the pasta around.
I'm going to add some vegan parm.
The amount is really up to you.
I like to add between a
quarter cup, half a cup,
give it a nice taste, let it melt.
Add some more and then
sprinkle some on top.
And then I like to add a
little bit of the parsley
to the pan just at the end.
(sizzling)
Salt, babe.
I like to leave a little bit
in the pan so that I feel like,
when I go back for
seconds, like I have more.
(laughing)
I like to go back for seconds.
There's just something
so satisfying about it.
(upbeat music)
I'm goin' in, guys, I'm goin' in.
Mm, it's the best pasta, it's so easy.
It's like the cheapest thing on the menu,
(laughing) if you go to an
expensive Italian restaurant.
Like when I was in Italy,
it was always just a few dollars or Euros.
If you make nothing else for your recipe,
or any of the recipes today in this video,
you definitely can make this one.
It definitely is a
game-changer when you get
access to vegan parm as
opposed to nutritional yeast,
because you get like the
authentic original experience.
(beeping)
