Healthy crap and ... erm cake!

Sorry UK, I think I jinxed us. Ever since my last post, the weather has sucked!! So yeah the weather sucks!!! Sucks sucks sucks! (maybe this'll bring back the sun?????)

Bright side? I don't have to water the tomatoes.

So I know I've mentioned before I'm gonna be a bridesmaid in October and me & my friend and fellow bridesmaid, Maz, have been going to the gym for a couple of months now and doing pretty well at not quitting it too. But I need shake something up in my diet. I've been feeling pretty tired lately and instead of getting easier, some workouts seem harder! The doc put me on omeprazole for my acid reflux a while back and it turns out that heartburn remedies deplete B12 stores! Something us vegans need to be mindful of, so I’ve started taking a Vit. B supplement.

Also, Jessy's ACT posts really inspired me to try a cleanse and shake my diet up. I’m not following ACT, but for 28 days I am cutting out everything on the NO list – so no coffee, alcohol, gluten, processed foods (except tofu!) …. etc. I’ve been having smoothies for breakfast for a while so I’ll keep that up (I’ve ordered some protein powder, as I’m not sure I’m getting enough protein either!)

I started the diet on Monday but before I go onto that, I have a couple of pics of the last bit of baking I did before I started!! Check out the gloriousness of the Vegan Brunch East Coast Coffee Cake, yes I finally got this book and it's awesome. I did the jam swirl variation, with blueberry jam and also sprinkled some coconut over the jam and put some into the topping too. However, I should have added the extra canola oil the recipe said you might have to, as the topping was really a little too sandy and crumbly. It still tasted awesome though! Before the topping…..


Crumbly goodness, after cutting.

I had to try the green juice, so that's what I kicked off my cleanse with (I bought a juicer). It had a golden delicious apple, some watermelon, a piece of cucumber and a big old handful of spinach. I thought this was gonna be disgusting! Honestly I thought I’d be making this face when I tried it - but it was bloody lovely. The rest of the week I've been having a carrot in my juice instead of watermelon, which is much better, not as sweet.


Then my smoothie was strawberries, soymilk, almond butter, squeeze of agave and cinnamon. yum. It's been pretty much the same all week but today I ran out of strawberries so I switched to mango and ginger instead.


Dinner the first night, I took inspiration from a recipe I saw on sparkpeople for a quinoa chilli. It had quinoa (duh), sweet potato, onion, garlic, sweetcorn, mushrooms and the usual herbs & spices I throw into chillis. I cooked most of it for 25 minutes, then threw in some yellow pepper, courgette and spinach for the last minute so it was still crunchy.

I found these lovely purple radishes in the supermarket - I've only seen pink ones before!

They've been going into my lunchtime salads...... this was today's - leftover avocado, romaine lettuce, tomato, radish, alfalfa sprouts, spinach and wasabi edamames for crunch. YUM.

You know I said leftover avocado? It was leftover from dinner last night. A massive salad with rice noodles, tofu, avo, tomatoes, sweetcorn, lettuce and lime vinaigrette.

This was dinner on tuesday night. Gluten free pasta with a sauce based on the vegan yum yum recipe, only I didn't have any basil or cashews so I used almonds and parsley - still good! I chucked some broccoli and tofu in too.


Tonight I had planned to make bean burgers so I put some pinto beans in the crockpot last night. But I didn't fancy them in the end. So I decided to make Sarah Kramer's bodacious bean & barley soup but make it cleanse-friendly. I replaced the barley with brown rice and used the pintos instead of the chickpeas. It was yummy.

I have tried to find gluten free bread, but I can't find one that doesn't have egg or honey in! Dammit. So I had a go at making GF soda bread. It didn't quite work - texture was ok but the taste was off; I'll work on it!

After dinner we were supposed to do urban rebounding but I couldn't face it - my legs were still hurting from body pump last night because we've been doing more gym sessions this week. So we did water workout instead. It turned out to be pretty entertaining, because as well as getting yelled at by Frau Farbissiner (the instructor) they also played eye of the tiger. This probably would only amuse you if you're a Supernatural fan.

I've been having a larabar when I get back from the gym this week to make up my calories for the day, but I ran out. So I had a bit of my stanky soda bread with some almond butter on instead.

I felt a bit headachy and hungry the first day but I feel ok now and less hungry between meals that I was on Monday & Tuesday. I've dragged out all my cookbooks and am looking forward to trying out some new recipes!! :-)

Laterz

xXx

Bank holiday comes with a six pack of beer ....

...... then it's back to work.... A-G.... A-I-N!! ooh that's made we want to dig out ma Blur albums!!

You know what I love about May? TWO bank holidays! So bank holiday number 1 was this weekend and it was nice to have an extra day off - even though I had to work for some of it.

This was yesterday's lunch. I had some cooked quinoa in the freezer leftover from the last time I cooked it and made too much. I just chipped some off and poured boiling water over it and it was ready to go. I mixed it with julienned carrots, cucumber, spring onions, salad leaves, sweetcorn and the tahini yoghurt dressing from this post. Topped off with crunchy pumpkin seeds and brocco-shoots (Sainsburys has started selling different types of sprouts - I'm loving them!). It was pretty good for a salad.

Dinner on friday night I wanted some trash! I made something approximating the country fried tofu from hot damn & hell yeah (I couldn't be bothered to get out the book so was wingin it a bit!!) and had some mashed taters and mushy peas with it. I love this tofu recipe - it's so good although not all that healthy. I try to use as little oil as possible though and to make it extra good I double dipped the tofu in the soymilk/seasoned cornflour.

I made some muffins yesterday. They were just my basic muffin recipe with a banana and some peanut butter thrown in.

Last Sunday I really enjoyed my soup & sarnie for dinner, so I think I might make it a regular thing. This week my sandwich was a portabella mushroom that I got from the farmers' market shop in town (so excited to have found that place!!!), reggae reggae ketchup and salad.

The soup was creamy cauliflower soup. It was reallllllllly good. The recipe is at the end of the post. I surfed for a few recipes and found this one by gordon ramsay. As you can see it's pretty veg-unfriendly (a bit like the man himself). I took out the animal yuk and replaced it with light soymilk and soya yoghurt. I kind of liked the idea of the wild mushrooms on top (which is what gave me the idea for the sarnie).

Today's dinner was some wholewheat spaghetti and I had some leftover sauce from the balls (hee hee!) from my last post that I froze, so I just put that in and added some fresh basil and toasty pine nuts. I made some garlic knots to go with (recipe also at end of post) which where really really yummy. I made them with 50/50 wholemeal & white bread flours, as I've only made them with all white before. Next time I might try them with all wholemeal as I've pretty much cut out using white flour where I can.

HURRAH - it's UK strawberry season! I bought some strawberries as they were on special and they were amazing. Sweet and delicious. I ate a bowl of them plain yesterday and today I was going to do something fancy pants with the other half of the punnet. but then I realised I had a massive ripe mango and a ripe cantaloupe to use up so I just made a simple fruit salad and it was freakin rad!

This was dinner one night last week. Polenta with tomatoes, spring onions and sweet corn added then left to set for 5 minutes or so with steamed mange tout with nooch on and some roasty butternut squash. Yum.

And lastly, I have a new obsession - raw snack bars. I found the Trek & nakd bars in my local health food store and then found the 4 pack of mini nakd bars in Sainsburys along with... Larabars! YAY! I didn't think you could buy them over here and I must say they're pretty good.

The nakd ones are nice, although the chocolate ones are not the best. My favourite so far are the peanut & oat Trek bars. They rule.

And here are the recipes I promised.....

Creamy Cauliflower Soup
1 small onion (I used 4 fat spring onions)
1 tsp olive oil
1 fat clove garlic
1 x 300g bag of cauliflower florets
1 medium potato (about 150g)
2 cups (500ml) veggie stock
1/2 cup (125ml) unsweetened non dairy milk
1/2 cup (125ml) soya yoghurt
Salt & pepper to taste

Method:
Sweat the onion in the olive oil for about 5 minutes, until starting to get transluscent. Add the garlic and cook for only about a minute.

Add the cauliflower (chop it up a bit) and the potato, mix around and then add the stock. Bring to the boil, then turn down and cover.

Leave to simmer for 20 minutes (or until potatoes are tender). Pour into a blender and blend well (be careful, it's hot), then add the milk and yoghurt and blend again until smooth and frothy.
Then season to taste and serve with a few snipped chives if you like.

Garlic Knots (makes 6)
3/4 cup (120g) strong wholemeal bread flour
3/4 cup (120g) strong white bread flour
1 sachet (7g) fast action yeast
1 scant tsp garlic granules
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup (250ml) warm water
To finish
1/4 cup (4 tbsp) vegan margarine
1/2 tsp garlic salt

Method:
Mix together all the dry ingredients. Mix together oil and water and add about half into the dry and mix unti a dough forms, adding more liquid if needed.

Knead in the bowl lightly and then leave aside.

Preheat the oven to 210°C/410°F. While it's coming up to temp, split the dough into 6 pieces and roll them into a sausage. Then tie into a knot shape and place on a baking sheet. Spray the knots with olive oil and bake for 15 minutes, or until they are just starting to brown and sound just hollow when you tap the bottom.

Take them out and put onto a wire rack. Melt the margarine and mix in the garlic salt. Then brush it over the knots. I froze half the dough, as otherwise I would have eaten 6 garlic knots for dinner!!

Hope you all had a great bank holiday!!

What goes AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! ??

.....A sheep with no lips!

Crap joke yes? Well that's about as entertaining as this post gets I'm afraid. I haven't blogged in over a week because I really haven't cooked anything pic worthy. I have mostly been coming home from work and just throwing some salad or similar along with whatever veggies mum & dad have had for dinner.

And what I do have is not great quality as I took them on my camera phone. I suck, I know. But on the plus side - I move in 4 days and once I'm in my own kitchen, my blogging should get back to being more regular and hopefully more intersting.

This was lunch last week at Wagamamas (again). This time I had the salad instead of my usual and it was spankingly awesome. The picture sucks but it had roasted onions, asparagus, aubergine, sweet potato, squash, radish, mushrooms and leaves with a great dressing.



We shared my usual side of edamame with chilli, garlic and salt. MMMM!



And roasted asparagus. This was my favourite thing, it was amazing. The sauce was soooo good and the sesame seeds. MMMM. This is my new favourite side dish, edamame - you're outta here!!

I haven't hung up my apron completely though, this was a lasagna I made us for dinner last week. It had spinach, butterbeans, mushrooms, onions and VCON Cashew Tofu Ricotta. That stuff seriously rocks socks. My dad made an 'ergh' face when I said tofu, but he loved it and had leftovers the next day.

My only complaint was that it needed more sauce. I like saucy lasagne. This pic is actually cold leftovers for lunch at work (hence cameraphone pic!!)

That's it until next week when I've moved in!! YAY!!

Handbags & Gladrags

I haven't been taking that many pics lately, mainly because I been eating a lot of meals that look like this and they tasty but they pretty boring! But this one was really good. It was just some baked tofu, with salad and a dressing made of tahini and miso and chilli sauce. I forget what else went in but it was good.


Last saturday, we went out to celebrate one of my best friend's 30th birthdays (the one I was dogsitting for last month!) We went for an Italian meal and I didn't fancy any of the vegan options on the menu. Actually I'm lying, there weren't any vegan options, but there were the usual things you can just ask them to take the cheese off. But as I said, didn't fancy those so I asked them to do me a salad and this is what they came up with and I have to say, I was REALLY impressed. It had roasted onions, peppers and courgettes, potatoes, rocket and a great dressing with chilli oil and balsamic vinegar.



I really wish I'd asked them how they did those potatoes, as I couldn't work it out but they were amazing. Seriously.

Birthday cake was my mango & coconut cake - which seems to be my friends' favourite as it's the one they always ask for. But when I was reading the recipe I realised it had a shit-tonne of oil in. So I cut it back to 1/4 cup and increased the soymilk to 1 cup, plus I used 1/4 cup of the mango syrup to make up the liquid content. I used tinned mango as I couldn't find a ripe enough fresh one (about half a tin / 1/2 cup finely chopped) and it was just as good. This mixture made for 15 cupcakes!

This was lunch the next day (when I was hungover from way too much Prosecco!!). I bought some falafel and made a tahini sauce and then served it with some tomato, grated carrot and a wholemeal pitta. Super yum!

Inside Shot!

I had some falafel left over and I made some bulgar wheat that I added a tin of tomatoes and some spices to. It was really good, but I didn't quite get the spcies right, so I'm gonna work on that one!

Like I said, I been eating a lot of salads for lunch lately and this was one I had at work last week. Really good! Rocket salad, sun dried tomatoes, chick peas, raw broccoli, carrots, cucumber.... with balsamic dressing and mixedseeds. Sorry for the crap pic, I took it on my phone, which doesn't seem to have any flash options.

During the week I really fancied some chocolate soymilk, but when I picked up the packets of Alpro I saw that one 250ml carton weighed in at over 700 calories! I thought that was unbelievable. So when I went home I made my own with light soy milk, a spoonful of cocoa, a dash of vanilla and a squeeze of agave nectar. Tasty, chocolatey and less than 100 cals! Which meant I could have an oreo. YAY to my friend for bringing me back oreos from Las Vegas - UK ones are not vegan.

Yesterday me, mum & dad hopped on the train to reading to do some shopping and have lunch. We were wondering around the oracle trying to find a veg-friendly restaurant when my dad spied a Wagamamas! HURRAH. I had my usual yasai itame (gorgeous spicy coconutty soup with loads of veggies, noodles and herbs - sooooo good) and a side of chilli/garlic/salt edamame. I snapped a pic of the soup on my camera phone! I've tried so many times to recreate this and I NEVER get anywhere near close!

Another bonus of going shopping with the parents (aside from them paying for lunch) - accessories!! Mum was buying a new bag and so was I and Debenhams were having a sale but you had to spend £50! Mum's bag was £49 and mine was £25 so she bought it for me! YAY. I really love Julien Macdonald's Star range. His bags are leather free - yay! And he does some awesomely trashy, sparkly shit that I just love. This pic doesn't begine to capture the gorgeous pretty blue/green of this bag. It's lovely. Mum thought I was mad and kind of turned her nose up!! haha

Lastly, today's dinner. I bought all the stuff to made lasagna but none of us could be bothered to wait for it. So I made a quick veggie casserole cuz mum fancied potatoes and something in gravy. But as I was cooking she knew it would have to be vegan, but they still really enjoyed it so I'm happy. It had fennel, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, red pepper, red onion and cauliflower. The sauce was just veggie stock, red wine, dried thyme & oregano and a good splash of vegan worcester sauce. Really good and lots of gravy to soak up with bread.

Oh and I know I promised a tattoo photo, but I'm very sad to say that the guy did such a shit job that I've had to book in with the place that did my first one so they can fix it! I wish I'd listened to my gut and gone there in the first place. However, I think it should be fairly simple to fix, so pics when it's all done next month!

It's all Greek to me

I finally got around to making tofu. Actually this was my second attempt, the first was a big fat failure. This one worked really well.

The texture is strange, it is somewhere between regular and silken tofu. Very soft - and the taste reminds me of what I remember cottage cheese to taste like. It split down the middle when I turned it out of the mould.


I baked some (that I didn't get a photo of) but I overcooked it and it was a bit yuk. When trying to decide what to do with the other half, all that kept popping into my mind was feta! I know there are a few recipes out there for tofu feta but I was too lazy to look one up so I just doused it in a bit of olive oil, white wine vinegar, oregano and salt & pepper and left it over night.

Then I made a greek salad with it. The supermarket has started doing pick and mix tomatoes and I got yellow, orange and red cherry tomatoes - they were so pretty and sooooo tasty....

I added some chunky cucumber, finely chopped red pepper, my tofu feta and shallot and a simple red wine vinagrette. Oh and lots of fresh mint. The rather unphotogenic stuff next to it was some brown rice and lentils, cooked together in veggie stock with some peas added and a bit of red wine vinegar. Ugly but tasty.

This week, my copy of Sarah Kramer's Garden of Vegan arrived. I was flipping through and as soon as I saw the recipe for the Bodacious Barley & Bean Soup (AKA the best soup EVER), I knew it had to be mine. Oh yes, it had to be mine! So I made it and wow! My friend was round at the time and when she tasted it, took the recipe straight away to make it when she got home.

To go with it I made some more soda bread. I'm still working on getting the recipe right though so I can post it.