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.

Fogged

I've developed a new smoothie love these past days. It's a combination of banana, apple, blueberries, cinnamon & water. It's simple and you get to eliminate plenty of apples :)

It's also fluffy and rich and ideal for this cold days, as the cinnamon&apple combination remind you of apple strudel or mulled wine.

We've been in a state of fog these past... weeks, actually. I had to take a trip back home, to finally enjoy me some sunshine, after being stuck over 2 weeks in fog, fog and more fog. So after 2 weeks I finally saw this:

What a sight! And warmth! My eyes could hardly focus, unaccostumed to bright light.

We're expecting my niece/nephiew any day now and we have invited the newlyweds over for a traditional Sunday lunch feast. My, her belly grew out! It's hard to imagine there's a living being growing inside, feels so bizzare :) And you see the little feet sticking out, making bumps in the belly :-) I recon, next time I visit, I'll be an auntie :)

Anyway, we cooked delicious food, and with leftover pumpkins rolling around from Halloween, we made - for the first time ever ever - pumpkin soup, served in pumpkin shells with an addition of roasted pumpkin seeds :)

Wow, was it delicious! I sure am making it again! 

I also discovered that Loving Hut has gone winter-style, now serving food in heat-preserving containers, that are - OF COURSE - eco friendly, made of sugar cane and biodegradable! Wow! I wonder, if they can serve food like that, also using biodegradable bags, why can't everyone? We pay for it, we deserve to have what we want! :-)

This is so important and most easily comes to attention when buying vegatables and fruit in supermarkets, where you need to put everything in plastic bags, that are only used for about 20 minutes! And then, to waste with it. When I can, I put price tags on the products directly (bananas, large veggies etc), but I would seriously appreciate biodegradable bags, thank you. I was long one of the rare freaks that brought tote bags to supermarkets, just because it seemed ridicolous always buying new plastic bags I had no use for. Now everywhere they support reusable bags, totes. It's time to take that a step further, do you agree? Let us have biodegradable fruit & veggie bags!

Just think: when I buy groceries I usually buy: lettuce (1 bag), cabbage (wrapped in foil??), cauliflower (foil), chinese cabbage (bag), peppers (bag for each kind of pepper), courgettes (bag), eggplant (bag), bananas (never a bag!), apples (bag), tanjerines, lemons, grapes, ... you name it. That's like 10 or more plastic bags in one shopping spree! And they're too small to actually be reused for other things or garbage, and I cannot use it for bio waste since it's plastic. So, a petition seems in order to supply shoppers with eco bags!

Celebrated

We had our 5th anniversary of just being together, yesterday :-)

To celebrate we agreed on going out to dine, but our initial plan to try Indian quickly changed to Mexican when I said the magic words "apple crisp".

I have been saving myself all day for this feast. I ate almost nothing, just drank tea and water. So in the evening I was ready to eat, but even I could not have predicted what followed.

We started with a classic Chips&dips. I did not hold back. I indulged in cream and nacho cheese.

For the main course I chose a Queso Grande or something like that: a tortilla, filled with grilled veggies and cheese, with a side of salad and other stuff like guacamole and corn on the cob and extra spicy chilly rice bowl. As Gordon Ramsay would probably say: What a mess!

There was so much of everything I did not know where to start. And the salad was absolutely soaked in mayo, which I hate. But all in all, it was good, I must say. Not extraordinary, though.

By this time we were full already, but couldn't pass the opportunity, even if we were to explode.

An absolutely perfect apple crisp with vanilla ice cream & cherry on top.

Oh, my! My arteries are clogged today.

Returned

Hope you did not fear I died or vanished since my last post. Things have been crazy around here. I mean, really crazy. I fear December when things usually get out of control altogether.

I will not bother you with what I have been eating this past weeks, here's just a quick overview:

I made a delicious vegan feast this past weekend. We have a holiday on 11/11 it's called St. Martin's, when we celebrate the grape juice turning into wine. Sort of like Jesus, huh? :-) It's not a national holiday and we don't get to stay at home from work, but we do celebrate it and there's usually plenty of drinking involved. What is also involved is usually roasted duck or geese (that I used to adore, but am not eating it anymore) with braised purple cabbage in a yummi cream & apple sauce and a side of potatoes or mlinci. My tweak: I made a vegan burger (chicken for the man). The cabbage was so delicious we literally emptied the pot and I got permission to make it again :-)

Salad is still a regular on the menu. Yesterday I actually weighed it and I got a 700 g of salad!

Pasta in tomato sauce with vegan Cheezly Mozzarela 

Gnocchi with carrots and broccoli in creamy soy sauce, yum.

Apple pie. 

Fried noodles with wok veggies.

Mashed potatoes, a whole lot of spinach and Redwood's Fish fingers, really good!

Pancakes in tomato sauce, filled with a mixture of spinach, tofu and vegan cheeze.

And the usual cauliflower soup.

There's been plenty of other stuff, too, but I got lost in the middle of documenting everything :)

I hope today we manage to finally go visit the Indian restaurant that we have been talking about going since September when M. celebrated his 29th birthday.... but maybe today we manage, since we are celebrating our 5th anniversary.

And I have a new smoothie beloved combination, winter style: banana, apple, frozen blueberries & cinnamon. Heaven.

In other news, my diet has gone with the Summer :-) I just don't seem to manage to lose anything and with Winter arrived and freezing temperatures, I don't really want to. Give me hearty food :)