Baked Sweet Potato Chili Fries with Lemon Chipotle Vegan Mayo

I have a history of low standards for utensils. Highlights include- but are not limited to- using an old library card to cut cheese, chewing a carrot stick into a spoon, and carting around a plastic fork with only one prong for months while travelling - proving exceptionally difficult when my plates were newspaper and bowls were plastic bags. These meals were also often accompanied by what was sure to have been the highest quality of portable miniature boxed wine available to me at the time.

Since then, I'd like to tell you that I've really upped my game outside of my kitchen. I wish I could tell you it was long ago that I was using two pencils as chopsticks on a regular basis to eat my lunch at work. But- I can't. It was one month ago. And only ended when my colleague was concerned for my health and kindly brought me a fork.

What I can do, is let you in on a recipe with no utensils required. I've made these in the past using egg-whites instead of only oil- but found they had some difficulty crisping up. This time, I had some gluten-free breadcrumbs on hand, and used a combination of olive oil and lemon juice for a perfect, light little shell. This recipe only serves two as a side, so double (or triple) for bigger parties or appetites.

Gluten-Free Vegan 'Before Noon' Crumpets

Lately, I have found I am getting hungry more often than usual. Now, I am one of those people you will see constantly snacking. By the time lunch rolls around, I have eaten three- sometimes four- rounds of food. I am all of a sudden getting very hungry, very quickly, and having some difficulty curbing it. What is the deal? Is it lack of sleep? Pregnancy? Tapeworm?

Though I'd like to be clear that the first is the most likely culprit, I am starting to chalk it up to the requirement of more protein and substance in my life. The easiest, most cheap and time-efficient gluten-free vegan alternatives to the more filling sides of life's best snacks in my life right now are:

- lettuce for wrapping
- rice cakes (otherwise known as breaths of air) for spreading
- vegetables for dipping
- more vegetables to replace pasta noodles
- ice-cream-less, crustless, shortcake-less fruits for dessert

I'm not saying these are the best or only alternatives- I know there is a lot of creativity (and sometimes pricey replacements) out there. I'm just saying when Monday to Friday comes, this creativity becomes difficult to tap into after rolling into my apartment at 5pm on my bicycle in "feels like" 40 degree weather. These were whipped up on a day off, and adapted from an egg-free crumpet recipe from The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread- a little gem found at a neighbourhood garage sale by my lovely mother. I would like to point out that although both my parents were up visiting at the time, I was the only one awake at 8:00am after a night of flowing wine and guitar-playing. Then, returning from a stroll into the market for some fresh croissants and fruit - still the only one awake. Which is where these were born. How times have changed.

Do It Yourself: Origami Diving Birds

In a recent conversation with a friend who has sadly just found out she needs to move, it came up that I had, in fact, changed dwelling places five times over the last two years. That is more than I have moved in my entire life- and I've been in the same city the entire time.

This was mostly due to uncertainty of how long I wanted to stay in one place for, and a fear of signing anything with a term longer than eight months. During this time period, I have lived in an apartment with a kitchen so small you must be touching the second cook at all times, a kitchen that was constructed in a hallway across from a bathroom (and cat litter), a carpeted basement which used to be a Best Western hotel room, and above a pizza parlour where I was eventually robbed.

Needless to say, this is the first apartment I have had that I can start to settle into, and experiment with home projects. I'm not sure what possessed me to try this out, but after an initial observation that they looked like bats was dismissed, I was pretty happy with the outcome. I tried to find the best and simplest folding pattern for an air-borne bird, and settled on the traditional dove or pigeon origami. I got instructions online, and here is what  I did:

Raw Zucchini Pasta with Vegan Sunflower Walnut Pesto

I know that I have the best friends a girl could ask for.

That's because my birthday involved an evening filled with entirely worst-dinner-guest-friendly foods- including raw cake and homemade coconut ice-cream- and new kitchen gadgets. I have never actually owned more than a garlic press and hand blender. It wasn't long ago that I was scraping carrots with a semi-sharp knife for lack of a peeler. Well, in one week, I all of a sudden own an 'apple peeler corer slicer' (awkward title, I know), food processor and spiralizer. On top of feeling loved, I also now feel more accommodating to myself. This is the first dish to use any of these gadgets, and I have used all three. Hopefully, these will help to alleviate the amount of deep sighing the comes from the other side of the room when I use my hand blender for 10 minutes straight.

The Hardest Recipe to Taste-Test: Homemade Jalapeño Hot Sauce

In the last two years, I have consumed about 100 times the amount of hot sauce I have over my entire lifetime. The amount has increased even more in the last few months while adjusting to my heart-wrenching break-up with ketchup. Sometimes ketchup was my sole reason for eating food. French fries, for example, or raw tofu - these were, in fact, just vessels for ketchup. I also have a persistent craving at all times to dip things.

Sometimes I will admit this backfires, because when I am excited and treat hot sauce like ketchup I risk numbing my taste buds for the rest of the meal. In this recipe, I used jalapeños, but removed the seeds to allow for a more moderate degree of heat. I told my guinea pig I thought it needed more seeds. He asked if I thought it should be hotter. My response was that I couldn't tell- my mouth was on fire.

I still stand by the fact that it is on the medium side of spicy, and the lime and mango give it a really nice, refreshing taste. As refreshing as hot sauce can be, anyway.

Homemade Jalapeño Hot Sauce with Mango and Lime   
   
Ingredients   

1 cup grated carrot

1 yellow onion, chopped

15-20 jalapeño peppers, chopped and seeded

1/2 tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic

1/3 cup water

1 mango, peeled, cored and chopped

1/3 cup vinegar

3 tbsp lime juice

1/2 tsp coarse ground sea salt

1 tsp fresh ground pepper

Directions

Heat a saucepan on medium heat. Add olive oil, onions and garlic. Cook for 3 minutes, then add carrot, jalapeños and water.

Simmer for 5-10 minutes, until onion and jalapeños have softened. Remove from heat, and combine in a food processor with remaining ingredients. Blend until completely smooth. Add more vinegar if you prefer a thinner consistency.

Transfer mixture into jars, let cool, and refrigerate. Yields about 3 cups.

Camping and Alligator Pears: Fresh Lime Guacamole

The last couple of Fridays have consisted of packing up and taking off to a camp-site or cottage. I will have you know, this does tend to be a bit more difficult for the gluten-free vegans out there. We take more preparation than your average camper. How easy- and not to mention, cheap- it would be to be able to toss hotdogs, burgers, chips, marshmallows and a fishing line into a backpack and be survival-ready. I always think I've remembered everything. That is, until it is day-3 and I have discovered I have eaten the exact same meal, with slight variation, every single time we've cooked. A girl can really only take so much re-hydrated hummus and tofu.

One thing that's great to pack to add variety on such adventures is avocado- also known as the alligator pear for its shape and texture of the outer skin. They're one of the most nutritious little savoury fruits out there. Some people (you know who you are) avoid these delicious morsels because of their fat content. People are always falsely grouping all fats into the "bad fats" category, but avocados are one of those magical things, like coconut oil, which are actually beneficial to digestion and very high in protein, vitamins and fibre.

Here is a simple guacamole recipe to enjoy. If anyone out there is allergic to corn, the closest thing I have found to a tortilla chip is a bean chip (pictured above). They're a bit expensive but can be found in specialty stores or organic sections of the grocery store, and definitely worth it if you miss corn chips as much as I do.