A look back... and forth

Happy New Year y'all. Did you have a nice time these past days? I sure did, took a break from work, too, and mainly just chilled, cooked, and did not much else.

At this point, a look back seems in order, to sum up my 2011:

• in february I went vegan for 10 days, and stayed mostly vegan since. I have not eaten any meat since, but for the occasional tuna can, like maybe once or twince a month (I'm cutting on that now, too) and the occasional eco-egg that my aunt supplies. I mainly don't eat dairy, because I'm still intollerant to it, but when there is no other option, I'll take dairy over meat.
• I found being purely vegan in today's society it's extremely difficult, at least in our country. Eating out is a nightmare! So I try to cook my own meals whenever I can, although working all days doesn's make it any easier.
• I went to 2 weddings, one of which was my brother's!
• I became first-time aunt to my niece Karin.
• I started a running trening and dropped it. My excuse is bad weather all year long.
• Visited Paris and Corsica.
• Got a Kindle and bought a whole lot of vegan cookbooks (regular, not kindle cookbooks)
• Learnt what happens if you spill your notebook computer with drinks.
• Realised I really LOVE cooking and have even started dreaming about making my own cookbook, although I lack motivation.
• Did a whole lot of cool things at work and started liking my job again :-)
• Got my first blender and fell in love with smoothies.
• Discovered broccoli, cabbage, radicchio, pumpkin, and a whole range of other veggies I never particularly liked before.
• Discovered the importancy of a vegetarian diet & lifestyle on the impact on our planet through a series of really good documentaries. Education is important!
• Learnt that even if you're vegan, you can still be fat. Plenty of junk food is actually vegan. Think potatoe chips!

Much of my holidays the weather looked like this:

Not much of motivation to go out at all, but rather to sneak below a warm and fuzzy blanket on the couch. Well, I did try and did some baking:

My main motive for this was the desire to bring my own gifts when visiting family. That said, I made a bunch of sweet cookies and wrapped them in packets.

Must say, people were much more happy recieving this simple cookies than they would be if I spent any money on trivial things. And, while spending a whole day baking 3 different kinds of cookies, I remembered why I hate making cookies in the first place. It's boring waiting for each batch to be baked and preparing another one, one after the other, the whole day. My back hurt like crazy and by evening I just wanted to throw everything through the window and be done with it. In future I'll rather stick with cupcakes:

Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes

During the holidays I made 2 vegan grocery discoveries. One was an italian vegan mozzarella based on rice, that they lovingly named MozzaRisella that has its own webpage, too, so I guess you can find it internationally. I can't say I was hugely impressed by it, but I did use it on salad and on pizza.

The other product I found left me quite literally speechless. That is, my mouth was pretty much stuffed with it for the rest of the holidays! I was always sad with the choice of vegan ice cream in our stores, what with them mainly offering Valsoia products, that are alright, but I try to limit soy-based products in my menu. So, when I spotted this gem in the refrigerator area, I was quite thrilled, but I didn't allow myself to hope too much. Rice products usually don't impress me.

Well, I needn't worry. This ice cream was a revelation! So much so, even my partner, who usually isn't keen on my vegan products, indulged happily! This 100% vegetable based ice cream is produced by Ingman (Finnish company) and tastes just like the real deal! It's creamy, light, delicious and vegan! The price is reasonable for a vegan product. There is only one drawback: when I visited the store again yesterday, they did not have this icecream anymore!!! So I hope it was just a coincidence and next time I will find it on the shelves again and I trully hope it was not one of those once-in-a-lifetime-just-for-christmas-offers!
Damn! >:(

In cooking news & pictures. This was some of our holiday menus.

Our christmas lunch:

vegetable stock soup with tiny pasta shells & fresh veggies (carrots & zucchini)

A whole lot of everything. Hey, it WAS christmas! Mashed potatoes, spinach, salad & seitan burgers. The man had a salmon filet and no spinach. We licked the dishes!

I wish I photographed the lunch I prepared for my so-called mother-in-law when she visited. It was Christams lunch no.2.

appetizer: salmon spread on crackers
soup: veggie cream soup with leek, broccoli & zucchini
main: oven-roasted potatoes, peas in onion creamy sauce & zucchini burgers with walnuts
dessert: egg-less tiramisu'

She's not a vegetarian, but since I was hosting the party, I made lunch my way. Everyone was thrilled about the menu and I'm happy to report, not much was left over, but for some tiramisu' and a small cup of peas.

I saved the peas and added them the next day to my kamut pasta:

On New Year's I decided it was time for diet, of course :) So, to recover from partying, staying up late and a bit of drinking, I made my regular barley minestrone (with sausage for the man), to which I added some leftover tomato sauce (from the pasta).

It was so yummi that, dieting aside, I had 2 servings :) On New Year the weather finally turned sunny and while my spelt bread dough was rising, we took a walk around the park, feeding the birds and squirrels with walnuts.

So, if what you do on New Year's you'll be doing the whole year, this is what 2012 looks like for me:

• sleeping late
• no breakfast
• barley soup all year long
• sunshine all year long
• delicious food!
• no work what so ever
• just chilling and having fun! :-)

Sounds good to me.

What I will try to do this year is:

• stay mainly vegan
• improve my diet by eating less junk, more greens and cut on my portions
• lose 5-10 kilos ( I wish!)
• start running & hiking again, please
• finally take the time to make my photobooks!
• travelling some more would be good
• and move to a more appropriate dwelling, be it renting or buying a place of our own, finally.

Other than that, I'll let life surprise me. For the better, I hope!

Did you make any new year's resolutions?

The first Christmas lunch

So, I promised photos of the lunch I had with my work buddies. We went to a rustic restaurant, where we were sure the food would be comfy and delicious. I chose the vegetarian menu, cause they sadly didn't know or want to make me a vegan one. Never mind, the cheese was yummi, scratching aside.

The appetizer: marinated zucchini squash (on olive oil) & fresh cheese with herbs on a bed of arugula. Oh my f-ing broccoli. So good, SO GOOD! I finished it all and was sadly already full after the appetizer! A few more courses to go.

Grilled young cheese in a honey & pine nuts sauce on a bed of corn salad (this corn salad from the lettuce family, not actual corn - is there any other name for it?). MY f-ing broccoli again! 

After the first I had to prepare myself for the second. I was expecting a small amount of gnocchi, as usually one gets, but this is what I actually got:

That's a whole huge plate of home-made gnocchi in vegetable sauce with carrots, zucchini and eggplants diced. I mean, I wouldn't eat it for a single serving and not after 2 courses! But guess what, although I almost exploded, had to hold my stomach and down a few more glasses of a delicious cabernet, I finished almost everything.

Sadly, I had no more room for desert, but the rest of the people each ordered cakes! My oh my, where did they put it?!

Is your mouth watering by now? :-) 

Eat something :)

Becoming a broccoli

It's Christmas time again and I can say, finally, I truly feel the Christmas spirit. The temperatures dropped, there's luckily no snow, but the trees are white nonetheless due to cold temperatures. So I have a really nice view from my office :-)

I've been working like crazy. December is always a busy time for us, what with things to complete before new year.

So even when I was home, this was a usual:

Eating by the computer. No time to take it slow. That's actually penne pasta in a vegetable sauce by Barilla with tomato, peas, carrots and pumpkin. Reminds me of a soup or baby food, really. 

I'm wrapping it up at work today and have vacation next week! Hooray! So I've finished most of my work and I'm finally taking it a bit easy.

 Soup. Do you really expect me to remember every soup I make? I think it was leek soup, though.

The past years during Christmas we would always fight which family to visit first, for christmas dinner or lunch because we always forgot where we spent the past christmas and both families want us home, like always.

So last year I said, we'll just stay home for Christmas, the two of us and then we'll visit during the week. Oh joy, how handy it came this year, when the usual "when are you coming for christmas??" began and we said "we'll stay home like last year!" 

It's like, we're a family now, the two of us, or something :-)

Cereal burgers with mashed potatoes and raddichio.

So the past weekend I did visit a newborn family of ours - my brother, sister-in-law and my niece! Oh gosh, she's so tiny and sleeping like the dead! I can't post photos because I promised I would not, so - sorry. But she is the cuttest button ever. The other family baby, my cousin's daughter Eva we will visit after the new year, we let them enjoy this time in peace, I know they have enough of other visits.

Soy burgers with broccoli, fries and mixed salad.

I'm planning a huge baking / cooking session this weekend. I have my eye on a few cookie recipes and although I'm not a cookie-making fan, I like to make my own cookie gifts to give to friends, so I'll just endure it :)

 Nothing beats freshly squeezed orange juice. Lots of that around here these days.

Risotto with broccoli, carrots and pumpkin, salad mix. If you are what you eat, I'm broccoli these days.

So I'll be posting more the next days, hopefully, since I'll be home much and cooking. Stay tuned.

How about your days? Are you busy? Eating properly? :-)

Oh remind me to post pics of the company's Christmas lunch :) So much yumminess!

Getting in Christmas mood

It's been some crazy days since the birth of my niece, and I still didn't get to see her at all, but maybe this weekend brings more luck.

It's hectic at work, too, as every December is.

Luckily, I got to enjoy some peace and quite this past weekend, when me and M. just stayed home for a change and focused on cooking, eating, resting and, well, some cleaning and ironing, too.

I like cleaning, or, I like the final result when the house is clean and tidy, but I hate the moments, when you're gathering yourself and like "ok, I'll go clean now". It takes me forever to get to the point when I actually take a mop in my hands :) but when I do, I clean just about everything. Plant leaves included.

We also were getting in xmas spirit. On Friday I put up the xmas tree in the office and Saturday I did it at home.

 

We live in a tiny flat and we can only afford to have a tiny xmas tree, that we place on the kitchen table, right next to my cookbooks and blender. Not the best position, but one has to work with the resources she has and I'm making the best I can. And it only lasts a few weeks, right? So, we'll just endure a smaller eating space for some short time.

One other thing I also did this past weekend was relaxing, full time. Like this:

A cup of nettle&mint tea and good reading. Life doesn't get much better.

In cooking news, these are some dishes I made the past week:

The Redwood's Falafel with baked potatoes & peas in creamy sauce

Risotto with tofu & zucchini

Baked polenta with cauliflower and a "mexican" sauce with zucchini, bell peppers, carrots, tomato sauce & corn.

Some more rice: stir-fry with broccoli and cabbage

It's official

Just a quick note to you, who, like me, have been waiting for the big news.

I'm an AUNTIE!! Forever and ever to my NIECE, who they named KARIN :-)

The birth was smooth and it all lasted about 4 hours. My brother was there all along, joyful, and he said it was a very interesting experience :-)

I'll be seeing my niece for the first time this weekend, and strangely (since I'm not a baby person, but blood is not water) I cannot wait! :)

Welcome to the world, sunshine. Your auntie will surely teach you many stupid things that will make your parents very uncomfortable! :))

Yeah, and by the way: Karin was the name I had in mind for my own offspring if there was ever a need. I always felt there should be a Karin in the family... and now, there is, just not how I pictured it :) and now I have to come up with a new baby name haha :)

Waiting

There were a few times in my life when time seemed to stop and dragged endlessly.

First was the time I heard on TV about a mountain accident when the person who died fit the description of one of my best friends. The hours when I was calling him on the cellphone with no response, calling around to learn the news, just waiting for any kind of information I could get, were horrible. It could have been 2 hours, but it felt like a year. At last, I learnt it was him and time stopped.

Then there were the cute hours, a few years back, when I met my partner and since we were long-distance at that time, each time we were to see each other, the time spent travelling was dragging in anticipation.

Today, at 4.15pm time stopped again. My sister-in-law's water broke and she and her husband, my brother, are in the hospital, delivering a new soul to the world. I hold my breath, I wait around, just to hear any news. Time is going to drag tonight.

Fingers crossed.

Early Christmas

I just can't seem to keep with one blogger template, everything bugs me. Maybe it's time to get an own blog and own domain and a tailor-made blog :-)

In other news, I can't have enough of this delicious, hearty barley soup:

It's become a regular on my menu and I love it, that I can just pack it to work and eat it hot for lunch in my Aladdin Bento Lunch Box. Mmm, my mouth is watering just looking at the picture. Barley is good for you. It  has plenty of non-animal protein, vitamins B, iron, magnesium, zinc and dietary fiber.

Yesterday I had a tough day, was on the go all day and barely ate, but for 2 bananas and a sandwich that I couldn't even find vegetarian, so I just went for the tuna version. Either that or starvation. When I returned home in the evening I found my man in bed (with a terrible headache who just wanted to be left alone to sleep) and a note from the postman to go pick up an order. So I just turned arouned, got in the car again and drove to the post office (10 minutes before closing time), only to recieve my birthday / christmas present:

My Amazon order! Back in July I recieved a 100$ gift certificate from my friends to spend as I like on Amazon and it took me a long time to finally decide how to spend it! And this is how:

My oh my! I must have the largest vegan cookbook collection in the country :-) I shall take the time to photograph my cookbook collection one of these days. Seriously, I should just open a library. My bf is amazed, and not in the good sense. He thinks I'm a bit crazy. Maybe he is right :-)

In this package:

• Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson
• Going Raw by Judita Wignall
• Plate to Pixel by Helene Dujardin
• Big Vegan by Robin Asbell
• Vegan Pie in the Sky by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

I think I'll be cooking and baking this weekend :-)

Day 276.