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

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 :)

Cured

I'm well today, thank you for asking :) My bladder is ok, I have regular healthy temperature and, the most sure sign of my well being is - I'm bossing around and doing chores.


Yesterday I had a protein breakfast that really kept me full a long time. So I didn't think about food up until about 4 pm, when I decided for pizza. Problem was, we were running really low on flour (and well, other ingredients), so I ended up mixing regular flour, fullcorn rye flour and another type of wheat flour that is not really for baking. All this for a 200 g crust! Then, topping the pizza was another major adventure but thank god for mom's zucchini that keep 2 weeks in the fridge! I made half the pizza vegan for me, and the other half non vegan for the man. And guess what, we liked the crust even better than the regular! So next time I'm making pizza, I'll be using the same combination... on purpose!

Today's lunch was improvisation at its highest. Since I haven't been outside the house all week the fridge was just as good as empty. While I was looking around for edibles to cook for 2 I almost gave up and settled for pre-made gnocchi that can keep in the fridge and I like to save such things for days when cooking time (or ability) is limited.

So, in my opinion, you can pretty much grade a cook by the dish he or she does with limited resources and from scratch.

Had a quarter of small cauliflour turning brown, 2 carrots (literally), 2 tiny zucchini turning soft, 1 big onion turning to jelly and a tiny one still good, some rotting leeks and fresh (wow) garlic. I turned all this (save the rotting and jelly parts) into a veggie soup.

Gosh my phone camera is crap

Then I took bio potatoes (by bio I mean it was half unusable and I only had 4 small of them), that became fried potatoes, and luckily for the freezer where I found stashed a cup of peas that I cooked in a cream sauce and already roasted peppers (curtesy of my mother&sister-in-so-called-law!) that I simply thawed super-fast (lunch time was approaching), and added some chopped garlic on top (YUM!). I made me some mock fish fingers by the Redwood, and he got some barbecue chicken wings, everything also from the freezer, God bless it.

Although we're leaving tomorrow for visiting, I made the man go grocery-shopping for flour, yogurts and canned goods, and some apples, too, so at least when we return we'll have food in the house. It took him almost 2 hours, I was getting worried. Turns out he bought almost everything from the list and spend an agreeable amount of money. If I had gone shopping I'd buy the list + another off-list and spend twice the amount! So I'm seriously considering the idea of making him in charge of groceries. Even though he did not bring me the requested pommegranat, but mandarines instead.

We're visiting his place tomorrow for lunch, then I need to head south to my place (2,5 hours of driving) because we have much going on. It's my aunt's birthday so we're visiting her in the evening, then on Monday is national holiday and my boss is making me and half the company work, so hooray super happy about that. We have a family dinner planned in the evening and then on Tuesday (All Saint's Day, also national holiday) I need to visit the graves and so on and finally returning home. And a close friend of mine is having her birthday and I do not even know when to plan visiting her, what with the calendar being packed to the brim. *sigh* at least I get to have more time for her birthday present! And I am not telling yet what it is, but I think it's pretty awesome :)

I also need to start planing for a mini-trip. Heading to Milan next weekend for work and still need to book the hotel. So, another full weekend of work, no rest. Luckily, my boss is letting me bring along my boyfriend for free, so while I'm visiting the fair, he can go tour Milan. And I have company and a driver for the road :)

Saturday, 29/10/2011
breakfast: blueberry soy yogurt
lunch: veggie soup, mock fish fingers, fried potatoes, roasted red bell pepper & garlic, peas in creamy tamari sauce
dinner: 1 thin slice of pumpkin seed bread, 2 raw carrots, 1 apple, 2 mandarines


Friday, 28/10/2011
breakfast: vegan ham&eggs with bit of cheezly mozzarela, slice of bread
lunch: vegan pizza with rye-flour crust
dinner: half an apple and I totally forgot if there was anything more, but I had lunch at 5pm, so I highly doubt

No cacciatore in here, but the dog

First of all, I want to give a warm hello and welcome to all of the hundred readers that visit me daily and never bother to say hello :-) I know you're there, you cannot hide :-) I hope you're not shy and will soon man up to greet me properly :) or ask me questions or just simply support my point (and I do have one).

Next, I'm getting better, thankgod. My bladder is ok, I think, no major problems today or yesterday, but I'm running a bit of a temperature, so I'll mind myself for another day. No use of going back to the office on Friday, of all days, just to fall ill again on weekend, right? (I so hate that).

You'd think I'd have time to blog while laying around the house all day (oh well, I AM working, so) , and I just don't. Then I skip a day, or two, and I totally forgot what I ate. Shame on me.

Thursday, 27/10/2011
breakfast: banana cake
lunch: spaghetti non-cacciatore
dinner: soup, 2 cups, with bits of zwieback bread, and another piece of banana cake :)

I made me spaghetti again because feeling a bit ill I don't have the will to cook anything that takes longer than heating up a liter of water. And such a meal takes about 10 minutes, so it's fine with me. It is however not fine with my behind. Chinese noodles with mock meat (wheat gluten mostly) and zucchini. And I don't know why I had to throw an extra egg in there, but I did. And some soy cream and tamari sauce, just because. I baptised it spaghetti non-cacciatore :) Cacciatore actually means hunter in italian (and the recipe does call for tomatoes, but who cares, right?), thus the title. And our dog is a hound dog (a beagle). And that's the only resemblance there is. Actually, funny story, the beagle has never hunted for real, but she is excellent for spotting mice in the cellar. Just bring the dog in and she'll show you right away.

Wednesday, 26/10/2011
breakfast: banana cake, me thinks
snack: apple
lunch: barley minestrone with a piece of bread
dinner: a whole lot of everything (grapes, zwieback bread with lactose-free dairy spread, some peanuts, probably some banana cake, too)

Keeping warm

Yesterday I woke up not feeling too good. It all actually began Monday evening, when returning from grocery shopping, I found myself having bladder problems. I don't know the medical term for it, but we simply say the bladded caught cold. It's a really nasty sensation of constantly feeling the urge to pee, although you just went and experiencing pain and burning while doing so. As I say, nasty. The only cure there is, beside antibiotics of which I do not approve, is plenty of unsweetened tea, cranberries and heating the belly with a hot water bottle.

So that's mostly what I've been doing the past two days. Yesterday afternoon & evening I felt good enough to cook me lunch and in the evening I even made me salad and baked a batch of banana bread with alterations, because I thought I'd be taking it to the office today.

My plans fell into deep deep water this morning when I woke up to the familiar nasty sensation and while I was packing my barley minestrone for lunch and making coffee, I went to pee like 4 times, that is I didn't pee much, I just felt the urge to.

So my plan of going to the office was cancelled, I heated up another hot watter bottle, made me a liter of cranberry tea and back I went to the couch, wrapped thight in blankest and working from home again. Today I'm taking it seriously and will just heath the belly all day long, because I need to be ok by weekend! I have to!

I've fallen behind on my menu and now I cannot recall the things I ate this paste days. I'll go backwards, it might be easier.

Tuesday, 25/11/2011
breakfast: bread & marmalade
lunch: delicious wine risotto with spring wok veggies & vegan protein burger, diced
dinner: large mixed salad
snack: a piece of my altered banana cake

You may recall the recipe for the simple banana cake, that has been a huge success in the house. Since I first made it, I've become quite bold in cooking, so much so, I rarely look at recipes these days, I just need meal ideas and I take it from there. So yesterday, while making the banana cake, I took it a step further, which my boyfriend simply called "cleaning the pantry". I took all the opened packages of nuts I could find, put it all in the food processor, blended it and added to the batch. I think there were almonds, pecans and macadamia nuts involved. Then, I went ahead and added cocoa to the batch as well, which really made it delicious! So now, we're left with a whole tray of yummi cake pieces and only two mouths to feed, but my boyfriend has taken this duty up to himself, mostly. Well, someone needed to.

Monday, 24/11/2011
breakfast: bread & marmalade
snack: blueberry soy yogurt, 2 carrots
lunch: lunching out, fried eggplants, grilled zucchini and pommes frittes
dinner: 1 cup of barley minestrone, few peanuts

Diet, anyone?

After the first week of my diet you might wonder, how I've done. Well, after the initial -1kg success the weight went right back to its steady point, where I've been the last few years, not counting the occasional drop that I always gained back. I'm beginning to think this weight, although I do not like it, is my "steady adult" weight. No, I will not accept it. I'd like to be able to wear tight skirts and mini jeans that today look ridicolous on me. And I know I'm not the fattest there is and I know heavier girls than me wear absurd wardrobe (and it always make my eyes pop; self-esteem is good, but everything has its limits), I'm just self-conscious enough to not want make ridicule out of me.

So, I reckon it's time for the heavy weapons. That is, taking this diet seriously, cutting the amounts, and going back to more raw foods and less carbs. And I still didn't do much about exercising.

Sunday, 23/10/2011
breakfast: fried egg with vegan ham&cheese, slice of bread (couldn't help it, woke up so hungry!)
lunch: soup with dumplings, gnocchi vegetarianese leftovers
dinner: pommegranate, pop-corn

*sigh*