Day 128 - the brave

Today has been another crazy day. Straight out of the madhouse. Yesterday evening our landlady called to say they'd do some maintance work in the flat today. So just like that, I had to take a day off, still working at home, though god knows you cannot really work with all the fuss going around. The workers came in at 9.30 am. They left at 6 pm. All this while me keeping them under my eyes, removing things out of the way, moping the floor behind them and cleaning surfaces. Just a quick glance at our flat today:

At 6 pm I was more than happy for them to be gone and I jumped up and finally managed to feed.

(I know that curved thing looks like a shrimp, but it's not. It's actually zucchini and all vegan).

I threw together some tortilla wrap filling and just indulged, before taking the mop again and clean everything yet again. Balcony included. Did I mention we spent the weekend painting the walls and cleaning everything? Well, almost a waste of time. We need to repaint several areas again.

In other news, the postman made my day by bringing me a package of superfoods I ordered - wheatgrass powder & acai berry powder. I decided to use the acai berry powder as an addition to smoothies, but haven't tried it yet. I did, however (oh, me so brave!) decided to take a shot of the wheatgrass.

Oh my. I did spend some time gathering the courage to pour this down my throat. I did add a slice of lemon, just because I saw it in every picture so far of a wheatgrass shot. Man, this stuff looks nasty! And it smells even worse! Like horse hey and stuff. Well, man up, I told myself. If I managed to start drinking red beet juice (detest red beet!), I can manage a small shot of this shit.

I squeezed my nose and took a sip.

Oh boy! Oh nasty! YUK! Now I understood the benefit of the lemon slice and quickly bit into it to remove the taste. My partner rose his eyebrows at me and told me to stay away. I lingered over the sink, just in case. I still had quite a bit of the green shit to drink. I was not so sure anymore I would actually manage it.

I tried again. Man! Same result! Well, I would not let a bit of green water take the better of me. I diluted the shit with water and squeezed some more lemon in it. I diluted some more and rose the glass.

And drank it all. And was not so bad!! Surely better than my first red beet juice try.
So yes, I will drink it again, more diluted and with maybe some orange juice in it. Just for health's sake. Aren't I the brave one.

Day 126 - vegan grill

VEGAN GRILL STICKS
serves: 2

• 1 small zucchini
• 1 bell pepper (I used yellow)
• some roughly cut white onion
• pre-made tofu chunks or slices, marinated in garlic and teryaki sauce
• salt, pepper, olive oil
• grill sticks

Wash, drain and cut your veggies. Season to taste. Assemble bits on the sticks, add some olive oil to prevent sticking and grill or roast it. I grilled mine on an electric contact grill (the aluminium foil is just for conveniece, so I don't need to clean the grill afterwards).

If you have smaller corn available, cut that as well and assemble on the sticks - mine was too big, so I served it aside with some toasted rye bread.

This lunch/dinner was a total surprise to the man of the house, since it's the first time I actually made this at home (I did it before on a picnic at which he was not present) and he, dare I say, licked his fingers (ate tofu bits and all, but I did add some grill cheese to his sticks)! A success, definitely! 

After dinner we both drank a glass of red beet & apple juice each and, to my surprise, this one was actually rather tasty! I do intend to make a habbit of this, since I do belive red beet is very good for health and blood improvement.

Oh, and I did order wheatgrass powder, which I will start drinking every morning as shots (god help me), and some acai berry powder to add to smoothies.

125 - results

So as I have predicted, I got my medical results back today.

The good news is, I have improved almost all of my results, having reduced my kidney problems, but it's still not 100% ok. I have also gone from my urin of ph 5.0 (! highly acid!) to a pretty toasty ph 8.0!

On the not so good news, though I have improved my blood results a little bit, I still seem to be a bit anemic (this I have been since I remember, probably). So, I have decided to start drinking regularly red beet juice (yuk yuk!) and possibly add some powdered wheat grass or algae for clorophile intake.

The things people do for health!

Day 125 - young corn

CORN

• corn (1 / person)
• water
• salt to taste

Peel the corn and wash it.

Fill a pot with water, just enough to cover the corn inside. Cover the pot and bring the water to boil. Cook on low heat until the corn turns tender to the bite (about 20 minutes).

Remove from water, serve hot and sprinkle with salt to taste.

Day 125 - summertime

It's been about 4 months now since I changed my lifestyle to the (almost) vegan diet, but who's counting anymore? Just because I am not posting, it doesn't mean I abandoned my challenge. It's still there, still effective, still enduring, though I don't have troubles with it anymore, like craving meat, though eating out is sometimes a pain in the ass.

Being summer and hot and all I don't really have the will to cook, though I would make like a cauliflower or pea soup and then I think about the water boiling and steaming and I get sweaty just by thinking about it, so no, thank you.

I do enjoy the fruits of the summer, though, like apricots, pears and peaches, which I have been having in abundance, so much so, not everything fits in my fridge anymore.

My blood results should be coming in any day now and I'm getting a bit nervous. Am I lacking nutrition? Will everything be ok? I feel good, otherwise, with lots of energy and my blood pressure is amazing, but with lots of work I have been sleeping like the dead.

Talking about work, I had the splendid idea of spending the weekend painting the flat. I had done that before, but never in my current habitation, which proved to be rather challenging... and I still cannot understand how much work there can be in a 30m2 flat! We've spent the whole 2 days removing things, cleaning, painting, cleaning, replacing things, cleaning, sleeping in the kitchen and then some more painting and cleaning and washing and ironing... and I still need to clean the bathroom today! Un-be-liev-able! I'm not doing this anytime soon again! But I'm very much pleased with the end result and our home now feels like we have just moved in again, everything clean and tidy and fresh.

In between working like crazy I found time to cook a bit (recipes follow) and I was especially happy when I found fresh young corn in the supermarket! Oh my, was I awaiting it! I made it with some fried eggplants (which is also something we adore!) and young potatoes for lunch.

One other dish I made recently, but not this weekend is also this delight:

That's baked young potoates, a wheat burger (bit overcooked) and a mix of lightly cooked garden vegetables, like zucchini, carrots, bell peppers, peas & onions.

Day 114 - Yogurt Cake with Apricots

 YOGURT CAKE WITH APRICOTS

Dry ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup sugar

Wet ingredients:

• 1 cup oil
• 250 g plain soy yogurt
• 2 tbsp rum
• drop of vanilla flavor

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, combine well and pour into a greased baking tin. Top with sliced apricots or other seasonal fruit. Bake 30-35 minutes.

Day 114 - Blueberry'n'Orange Muffins

Blueberry'n'Orange Muffins
yields: 12

Dry ingredients:

• 1,5 cup flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 4 tbsp sugar

Wet ingredients:

• 80 ml oil
• 0,5 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
• drop of coconut cream or milk (rice milk with coconut)
• 1 tbsp rum

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and combine well. If the batch is too thick, add more milk, if it's too liquid, add more flour. Last, add a handful of fresh or frozen blueberries and combine.

Pour the batch into moulds and bake about 20 minutes.

Day 114 - baking

I've been baking a lot today (recipes follow). We have a picnic tomorrow and everyone is supposed to bring his/her own food, so of course I decided to make some vegan sweet goodies, just for the sake of it and to show people vegan food is yum!

I started with a beer and some Chocolate Coconut cupcakes which I didn't put into a mould, so instead of getting cupcakes I got some weird looking biscuits which I'm still debating if take them with me or not, but I guess when we're drunk enough anything will do.

Since my first cupcake batch failed, I tried some Blueberry'n'Orange muffins which were a real revelation and I immediately put the recipe into my personal cookbook and will make them again as soon as possible.

Apparently, the beer did me good, I was in a real mood and immediately made another batch, this time with soy yogurt to produce a Yogurt Cake with Apricots. Which, also, turned out just yum! Into the cookbook with it!

And finally, I noticed two really awful looking bananas that just called to me to please spare their lives and not throw them into the garbage. So, yes, I also made the banana cake. Just because!

And here the result:

I think we'll have a lot of munching to do tomorrow!

And about my dress. It has arrived from China yesterday and, guess what! It couldn't be more perfect! It fits like a glove and is just what I hoped it to be! So I'm ready to do some serious wedding dancing!

Just need to get a pair of new shoes and a lovely pink clutch bag and I'm good to go!

ps: the dress needs washing and ironing, please pardon the appearance.

Day 108 - lots and lots

I've been a bad blogger, lately, and an even worse vegan. Not that I stopped being one, I just become more flexible towards vegetarian these days, but only because of circumstances. That means, lots of eating out when I was happy if there even was a vegetarian choice on the menu. So I've been eating too much cheese. Luckily, so far, no consequences, which hopefully means, I got rid of my milk intolerance at last, because I have been so diligent these past 2 years. And yes, I took almost 2 years to "clean my body".

Just to give you an idea - when I was not cooking I've been eating stuff like: pasta with asparagus, spinach & melted cheese (and no, they could not hold it) or cauliflower soup (tasted suspiciously of mushrooms but I swallowed without complaint), grilled zucchini & young cheese with sicilian tomatoes. Yummi stuff like that.

But when I was cooking, or at least assembling my own food, there have been plenty of huge salads, raw fruit (cherry & peach season!), sandwiches:

stir-fried rice:

and pasta

If I was cooking that meant I ate nothing but fruit or yogurt all day and then dinner at 6pm. Needless to say, I have lost another kilo, I got out my old pre-kilos wardrobe that now fits perfectly (like 7 years old trousers) and went shopping for smaller jeans. I also threw away some of past summer purchases that I don't want to see ever again. Ever. I went from EU 38 to EU 36 for bottoms, and EU 34-36 for tops. I even dug out a beautiful Benetton blouse from my high school partying times (that's 10 years ago!) that I have been having difficulties with all these years and still refused to throw it away, simply because I liked the design so much... I have just washed it clean and it's ready to wear now!

Next week I'm having a yearly medical check-up that I have been doing due to some problems I had, supposedly with kidneys, but nobody knows for sure. I am extremely curious about the results and I hope my diet has been chosen well and I will not get "bad" blood results, and if I do I still have time to re-arrange my diet and include more food that I, sadly, hate, like beets and beans.

My mom is buying a new more powerful juicer and has promised her old one to me, which allows making juice (not smoothies) from apples and cucumbers and carrots, so if I do get it I might concentrate some more on that to get my vitamins (and might even include a beet or two). And let's just not think about where the hell am I going to put the machine. I think I might need to move to the basement, there's no freaking room anymore! :)

Day 100 - chocolate coconut cupcakes

It's day 100 people!! Congratulations to me! :)

To celebrate I made some yummi bruschetta, with yellow bell pepper for extra coloring.

And just because this wasn't enough and something sweet and chocolately appealed to both of us, I went back to the kitchen:

only to produce this fantastic Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes!

CHOCOLATE COCONUT CUPCAKES
yields: 12 cupcakes

dry ingredients:

• 1,5 cup flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup coconut flour

wet ingredients:

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup milk (soy milk, coconut milk,...).. I used about 2 dcl of chocolate soy milk, you can also mix it - half soy milk and half coconut cream for extra coconut flavor
• drop of vanilla syrup

Heat the oven to 180°C. Fill your cupcake baking tin with paper cups.

In separate bowls combine dry and wet ingredients. Then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. Just before you pour the mixture in the baking tin, add 2 tsp cider vinegar, stir well and immediately pour the batch in the baking tin.

Place baking tin in heated oven and bake 14 - 18 minutes. You can check if the cupcakes are done by inserting a toothpick into them - if the toothpick comes out clean, it's done!

Remove from oven and let the cupcakes cool down in the baking tin (they are fragile while cooling!).
When cool, decorate at will. I didn't, they usually disappear before I get to this task. But you can try decorating using this recipe, maybe.

I don't use regular US measuring cups. I just take a 2 dcl yogurt cup or glass and have it as a measurement. It's not rocket science, really.

I brought some cupcakes to the office, too and my collegaues couldn't believe it's really vegan! Just goes to show you can produce yummi foods cruelty-free!

Day 99 - tiramisu

Yesterday, I had a major slip. I blame it on the PMS urge to eat junk food, but it's really no exuse. I had a toast. Actually, I had 2 of those, with cheese AND ham! Oh my! It was good, of course, but it was a one-time thing. It's probably due to my menu yesterday:

Breakfast: oat meal with soy milk and a drop of chocolate syrup, coffee, juice
Snack: cherries, banana
Lunch: large salad (organic lettuce, carrot, cucumber, red bell pepper, corn)
Snack: watermelon, some chips :)
Dinner: toast

Yeah, I gave in to the cravings, damn.

But I'm back to being a good and harmless human today with a lunch of my beloved chow mein. It replaced the chinese fried noodles, obviously, and a much healthier choice.

And surprise today. After looking at it for so long, today I gave in and bought a vegan tiramisu dessert. Coffee-soaked cookies, soy cream and tofu crumble.

Not the best on the market (I do prefer when I make it myself with vegan pudding), but it will do. Not sure if I'm buying it again, though. I'll stick to chow mein :)

In other news, I've been searching for a nice dress to wear to the upcoming weddings this summer and finally, I came across a design I really liked:

Pretty, right? They told me it costs 170,00 eur which for a dress like this is alright and I almost made an appointment for a fit-try, then they told me they have none in stock and that I could try something similar. And then, something clicked, and I went on ebay, only to find this. I mean, same thing for £25.99? Are you kidding me?? It appears, they, too, just order it from ebay and re-sell for a higher price. What a joke!


I'm probably ordering it from ebay then. Even if it doesn't quite fit and I need to take it to the seamstress it's still cheaper. Or, I can just go on diet, I have a few months :)