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Showing posts from February, 2022

Started 2025 with a trip to Las Vegas

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It’s now December 31, 2025 Im drinking tea in an ice cream shop in Ottawa realizing I never finished this post. I drafted this post earlier in the year but it’s all still relevant.  The  way the world has changed in the last few months I feel like I need to explain that I went to Las Vegas in early 2025 because I knew things were going to change after January 20. I didn’t know how. I was expecting more violence and less direct flights. I never expected that things would change so quickly in a few months. It is now the beginning of March and it’s hard to keep up. Anyways flights and tourism to US destinations are already significantly reduced from Canada. I finished this trip knowing it would be awhile before I visited the US again and it was a pretty perfect trip for my memories and I am glad I took it.  I have been to Las Vegas many times you can read about some of my previous trips on this blog. I don’t think I have ever been in January. This time I was supposed to go w...

Vegan hollandaise substitute

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  I only became vegan a year ago and one of my favourite things when I was vegetarian was hollandaise sauce. There are no restaurants near where I live that serve vegan hollandaise and the ones I have tried in the past were not even close to being a regular hollandaise.  A long time ago I worked in restaurants. One of the restaurants would get hollandaise as a powder. I have not seen any commercial vegan hollandaise sauce in stores near me. I went in search of an accidentally vegan hollandaise powder but I couldn’t find any.  In another restaurant I worked at we made the hollandaise from scratch and I remember the process being similar to making mayonnaise except using butter and whisking over heat. My next option was to attempt to make a homemade version. I didn’t know where to start could I use a vegan mayo as a base?  I looked up some recipes they had common ingredients mustard, turmeric, black salt, and lemon I had all of these except lemon. There were different ...

I tried the new plant based jalapeño lime beyond burger at a&w

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 I often go to a&w for a beyond burger combo. I always have coupons and my store even told me they accept expired coupons. The beyond burger combo is $7.99 with the coupon it includes a beyond burger, fries, and drink. The burger by itself is $7.75 so the coupon essentially gives free fries and drink.  I asked if the coupon was valid on the jalapeño lime beyond burger they tried but it was not. I am assuming because it is a limited flavour.  The question becomes is it worth paying a few dollars more for a different flavour of beyond burger.  Today it was okay because McDonald’s had free fries and I’m fine with drinking water. I bought the burger by itself. It was nice to not have to customize anything. I usually have to ask for no mayo, no cheese in my beyond burger but the staff at aw are so good it’s never an issue. I always go home and add vegan mayo and sometimes vegan cheese. This has not been an issue for the past few years as I’m always getting takeout and...

I tried Purdy’s vegan sweet Georgia Browns chocolate

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Purdy’s chocolate has really been stepping up their vegan chocolate selections. They have created a mylk using rice powder. Originally they introduced a few types of simple chocolate bars. I have tried all of them and they are all good.  Recently Purdy’s released vegan sweet Georgia browns. I have had the non vegan version and they are not my favourite but they are very popular. I always love to support companies when they introduce new vegan products so I tried them expecting I wouldn’t like them. I was wrong.  The Sweet Georgia browns come in either a package of 2 or a bigger package. The package of 2 for the non vegan costs $5.50 and the vegan costs $6. It is understandable the vegan ones will cost more as they are a new product and I personally think the ingredients are better.  They are a little difficult to get out of the package because there is no chocolate on the bottom. It is a lot of pecans in the beautiful vegan caramel  topped with chocolate.  These...