Still here...and full of sugar

I haven't been posting for a few days because my aunt passed away on monday and was buried yesterday. Not many people who know me will have known as my poor aunt only found out she had pancreatic cancer in mid January, so it has all happened frighteningly quickly. So I obviously haven't had time to blog, and the thought of talking about myself with everything that's been going on just seemed a bit weird. Anyway, it's likely when I get something up in the next few days it'll be about trying to cut out sugar and caffeine. I've more or less lived off the stuff in the last few days. Lots of cake. A fair amount of chocolate. Two cups of coffee a day. I'm all fidgety and off-balance. My tummy isn't great either. Funny, my brother seems to have the same symptoms. All the sugar we've been eating instead of proper meals not to mention the stress and upset will be to blame. It's strange how comforting it is though, especially when you haven't had much for a while and you really feel it kicking in. Chocolate especially is like a soft warm brain massage. But by yesterday evening I was quite sickened really.

As I'm writing this, I'm sipping on some soy milk and coffee. Oops.

Not really sure yet how I'm going to wean myself off and cleanse a bit. Probably plenty of water and lightly steamed greens, plain oatmeal or brown rice, and a little gomashio or umeboshi to perk it up. Simple food to heal the mind and the body.

Snow day=kitchen day

Sunday is that one day of the week that if you use well time-wise, you'll skip through the week ahead. Otherwise you end up dreading hastily prepared lunches that quite often just don't 'work'. For that reason, I got up early this morning to get some sponge method rye bread started and to soak some chickpeas. By the end of the day, these lovelies will be cider rye bread and hummus. Other great things to do on sundays are cookies or flapjacks for week day snacking, oatcakes, a big vat of brown rice or pot barley for freezing in portion sized packs to speed dinner along and some salad dressing or toasty seeds for sprinkling on everything.

This is all made easier today by the fact that it has snowed. Ok, it wasn't a heavy fall, but it's excuse enough for me to stay in.

This morning, I discovered this tasty looking alternative to hummus- Muhammara

Picture courtesy of Closet Cooking

I don't have all the ingredients in the house, but I have to try this as a hummus alternative. I've tried a walnut beetroot dip before and wasn't fussed, I think the smoky sweetness of roasted pepper and smoked chilli would work better with the nuts. I can't believe I've gone so long without knowing about this! I guess I know very little about Levantine cuisine, although I like anything I've tried.

Another great snow day undertaking is Boston beans (or any verrrry slow bean dish). You can of course do this sort of thing on a work day as you can start it in a low oven or slow cooker in the morning and it'll be done for dinner. However, I don't have a slow cooker and wouldn't want to leave electrical equipment or an oven on all day while I'm out of the house. In any case, I'd never be organised enough in the morning to get a stew going- that's why I prep for weekday lunches on sundays as much as possible. So for me slow cook bean dishes are a weekend endeavour, everything in the Le Creuset for 8 hours. It means if it dries out a bit, I can check it, rather than coming home to a pot full of congealed, dried out, semi cooked haricots.

Boston beans

500g small white dry beans (haricot or cannellini), soaked overnight and brought to a hard boil for 10-15 minutes

1 large onion, sliced finely or chopped (whatever you prefer)

4 garlic cloves, chopped

2cm chunk of fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped

a small onion or shallot studded with 4 or 5 cloves (remove before serving), or 4-5 cloves in a little muslin bag, or 1/4 tsp ground cloves

4 tbsp molasses (black treacle would do)

4-5 dried chipotle chillis or 2 tbsp spanish smoked paprika (aka vegan chorizo substitute!)

3 bay leaves

several grinds of black pepper

t tsp dried mustard powder

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 cup ketchup (I'm using some smoky ketchup), put I've used passata before and it was lovely)

water

2 tsp salt

Put everything except the salt (it toughens the beans so put it in at the end) in a large casserole pot. Cover with water (more than you might think if you are going out and leaving it alone until it's done) and put in a 120 degrees fan oven (140 conventional) and cook for 6-8 hours, until the beans are very tender. Stir in the salt, remove the clove onion or bag if used, and serve with rice, pot barley, rye bread and/or steamed collard greens. This will definitely, as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is fond of saying, warm your cockles.

And what should you eat on snowy sundays? Oatmeal of course!

His: with vanilla rice milk, heated up frozen raspberries and rice malt syrup

Hers: with one sliced banana, and a teaspoon each of almond butter and rice malt syrup.

Dukka girl needs her bittersweet hit and she wants it HOT!

I collect liquid containers. Mostly for water; I have a Platypus, a wide mouth Nalgene, a Sigg bottle, a big green bottle with a flip up bite valve (can't remember the brand), a little sports cap bottle with a beagle on it and a Guinness glass on my desk at work. This is all in a bid to make sure I drink two litres of straight water a day. Now, I know there has been a backpedal on the whole 2 litres a day thing, but I need 2 litres, since my diet is pretty high in fibre and has got more so, and I definitely have the thirst for 2 litres. I find if I leave my desk and forget my bottle, I'm parched by the time I get back. Sometimes I don't drink all the water because I've had a couple of cups of herbal tea. Problem: I let the tea go cold, and it's not nice cold. Also drinking lots of cold water makes me feel cold, especially with the current dip in temperatures. So I need a way to keep my drinks warm in a decent cup. Hence my purchase in Avoca today. It's double-walled porcelain, holds 250ml and has a silicone lid with a drinking slit, so it doesn't stay hot as long as those portable coffee cups with the push down thing, but I have one of those and think it makes the drink taste nasty. This is just the right thing for sitting at my computer, not really for carrying on a journey though. In the spirit of all things new, I tried it out with some Whole Earth 'No Caf'- basically an organic barley and chicory based coffee sub, because I really need an alternative to the instant crap at work if I want to ditch caffeine for good. I drink it because I want something hot and bittersweet after my lunch. I needed something that was made up exactly the same way because it it was fussy I knew I wouldn't bother with it after a few days. The great thing is this drink doesn't interfere with mineral absorption like tea and coffee does, and I actually much prefer the taste to instant coffee. I had mine with some vanilla rice milk and a little agave nectar to sweeten. I'm really odd about the way things feel in my hand, especially pens and cups. This is gets my vote! I don't like handles on cups, I hold mine around the body normally. Probably why I get cold hands so easily, my hands are so used to hot things.

I took my usual trip to the Nutmeg (independent health food shop in Belfast), and as well as the No Caf, I got some rice malt syrup, buckwheat flour (for making Breton galettes...mmm), lazy Ezekiel bread mix from Dove's Farm and more rye flour as I'm hoping to make Dan Lepard's rye cider loaf and start up a rye sourdough again. I made it up when I got some so I wouldn't forget all about it (25g rye flour, 50g warm water in a warm place). I also got wheat berries to do pumperknickel once the starter is up and running. Dan Lepard is my all-time favourite source for any baking ideas, whether it's bread or something decidedly sweeter. His Guardian How to Bake column is wonderful. I have to say I have yet to read a recipe of his I didn't immediately put on my to-bake list. Today's marmalade Chelsea buns are now at the top- I'm always on the lookout for anything to put my gallons of pink grapefruit marmalade into. It's so delicious, but quite runny, so perfect for baking into things.

Next, I went to St George's market, mainly in the search for black kale or early purple sprouting broccoli, but kind of knew the cold frost in January would have affected them both. I didn't find chipotle either, I was looking some for boston beans. I did buy some new tea though, Suki Tea Japanese Cherry Sencha. I'm sipping some now in my mug, mmm! I must say I love green tea with something fruity sweet in it, like acai or raspberry, I grow rather tired of it alone or with jasmine. Suki sell gorgeous teas, and they're a Belfast company- hurrah!

The final trip was to the Asia Supermarket, in search of mugicha and cheap umeboshi, neither of which I found. I couldn't see any tempeh either. I did get green stemmed bok choi, kailan and sushi ginger, the Clearspring one is double the price for half the amount, I bet it's worth it, but I just want mine for onigiri or on rye bread with vegan cream cheese (looks like smoked salmon, but tastes completely different, more sea-like if you sprinkle with a little arame or hijiki). I had the bok choi for lunch dressed in hemp oil, ume vinegar and tamari toasted seeds. The dressing seemed to bring out the sweetness of the bulgar wheat beautifully. Saturday being a lazy day, I had some Goodlife nut cutlet. They're good, but I prefer the taste of Sainsbury's own nut cutlets. Probably because they're not as healthy-ha!

Sugar feast, sugar fast

That's me about to chow down a vegan creme egg. The appeal of the creme egg will be well known to British and Irish readers, but not sure they're easy found in the US. They're a thick shelled Cadbury chocolate egg with a fondant filling (dyed white and yellow like an egg). The fondant is probably dairy free, but the choc isn't of course. And Cadbury chocolate, as any European who even vaguely likes chocolate will tell you, is more milk than chocolate. It's also just sold itself to Kraft. Yuck. Anyway, my boyfriend loves a creme egg, and as a treat for going vegan with me, I sourced some vegan ones. And they were better than the Cadbury ones (duh). Here's the filling:

Probably a bit off putting if you're not an egg fan..but they're soooo good. One is definitely the ceiling, sweet and chocolate together...yum..

As yesterday was pancake tuesday, and we reckoned they were better as dessert than dinner, we ate light- just some red cabbage, black beans and a bit of leftover quinoa

The extra space was filled with these pancakes- I made them with wholewheat flour and oat milk, and made a chocolate ganache. This was liberally spread on the pancakes and topped with Swedish Glace Raspberry Ripple and Chocolate, and black cherries. It was super yummy, but my tummy hurt all evening after. It wasn't anything in the food, I just ate too much. So today I went really light, just a little bit of oatmeal and an apple and a kiwi in the afternoon. I was pretty hungry when I got home, so chowed down some toast with homemade very lemony coriander hummus:)

Anyway, after the sugar indulgences of the last few days, I've decided to cut out sugar for the next two weeks. By no sugar I mean no sugar, syrup, agave nectar, maple syrup etc. Also anything with sugar in it, like jam, cake, biscuits, chocolate etc. Although I won't say no to fruit, some fruit juice sweetened jam, or biscuits sweetened with rice malt, or some amazake. Although I know where to get vegan sugar free chocolate, I'm going to give choco a miss too. All this is by way of a clearing out of my system, to give it a rest from stimulants.

Sweet really is the order of the day, check out my guest post on my friend's blog:

http://writenoiseni.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/guest-blog-from-vegan-dukka-girl/

Rainy monday fare

It started pouring this afternoon, and it's starting to get cold again. And Mondays are always tiring. That means easy-cooked, heart warming comfort food. So it was just as well I had cooked black beans last night, and then fried them up with a bit of onion. Beans are in my book the ultimate (savoury) comfort food. Tonight I added some passata, cumin, oregano and hot sauce to the beans and heated them up, and we had the yummy beans with quinoa and the remains of my lunch salad. I topped it off with soya cream and lime juice to kinda do sour cream. It was great! I had extra hot sauce, enough to raise a sweat, heh. I love it. I tell myself it's good for my circulation and upping my metabolism so I can eat dessert after, hehe. Speaking of which, we got vegan creme eggs in the post today, hurrah!

V day feast!

After our weeding and chocolate choc and toast snack, we did some reading/study and then some hard indoor pedalling on our exercise bikes. Appetite worked up, we sat down to our V day feast:

Brooklyn Pad Thai from Isa Chanda Moskowitz's Vegan with A Vengeance. This was so good. I just made half the recipe, which is easiest, as you can't do more than two helpings of noodles in the pan. I didn't use beansprouts- I used broccoli instead which I boiled with the noodles. I also used udon noodles as I had them anyway. They worked quite well:) The only things in the recipe I didn't halve were the dried chillis, lemongrass and garlic, they're too yummy to lose out on. So the red theme continued (vaguely) with lots of chilli, it was hot, I used very hot hot sauce. Yum.
I had intended to make brownies for dessert, but having leftover almond pulp earlier in the week I made flapjacks and didn't want to bake again- there isn't enough of us to chow it down! So I just whipped up some chocolate sauce and heated up some frozen cherries, and we had sundaes, with Swedish Glace chocolate and raspberry varieties and some dairy free "Whizzers" chocolate beans on top:) Not red, ok, but pink! Also a legitimate Valentine's colour- and chocolate is a must on V day, this was our second dose of the day!

We rounded off with a little glass of wine, which has become a really rare treat for us. We're both pretty stuffed and now I have to get back on the greens'n'grains straight and narrow. But it's fun to go mad every now and again!

Naughty Valentine's day...

Mmm, red is the colour of lurrve. So I had the last of my raspberry compote on my pinhead (steel cut) oat porridge and I had a jar of nearly finished peanut butter so I scraped it out on to my porridge to use it up. YUM. That was weeding fuel, as we then went down to our new allotment. We got nearly a third of it completely weeded, but my hands were extremely painful after, so much so I was nearly sick. Two hours later and my fingertips are still on funny. As we got in the door, I had hot chocolate on the brain, when Eamonn asked if I had tried making vegan..."hot chocolate" we both said! So I put two cups of almond hazelnut rice milk in a saucepan, warmed it up and then added 60g grated chocolate (I chopped it finely with a knife as a cheese greater didn't seem a good thing to handle with numb fingers!) and 2 tsp cocoa powder. It was really good, really rich:) We continued the red theme with some red pepper hummus- sounds weird with hot chocolate, but I was hungry after that weeding!

Valentine's treats and more greens'n'grains

This was breakfast/lunch on friday, when I was off. It's just sauteed kale (in a little hemp oil) with some pre-cooked barley chucked in at the end to warm it up, and a toasted sesame and umeboshi dressing. Despite being so simple, it was very good, and I was chuffed with myself for eating something so wholesome, so chuffed, in fact, that I treated myself to a little marmalade flapjack...ahem. The recipe is Dan Lepard's, and I added in some almond pulp left over from making milk, and used blackstrap molasses instead of black treacle. I used homemade grapefruit marmalade that has very chunky but very tender strips of fruit in it. The almond pulp made them more cakey, which I prefered, although they're very rich, so much so that half a one feels more like eating two flapjacks...

That's them after they came out of the oven. I was tempted while out shopping to buy crimson raisins to make these, but resisted the splurge as I had ordinary raisins in the cupboard. I'm trying not to spend *all* my money on food...

We decided to exchange Valentine's presents early chez moi, although we will be having a Valentine's supper tomorrow evening, after weeding the allotment. I'm planning Pad Thai noodles and cherry raspberry chocolate sundaes.

I got Plamil ginger chocolate, a mini hot water bottle to take with me to work to ease my cramps now that I'm foresaking painkillers(gush- I love how he supports my choices:)), a new piggy torch (I had the same for a year and broke it two weeks ago) and Costieres de Nimes, which we are enjoying a glass of this evening:)

I cooked japanese tonight:

I love soba noodles, they're such a treat- these are the Clearspring all soba variety. I just had a little helping as I'm trying to cut down on breads, noodle and pastas, and other floury things. So I helped myself to plenty of savoy cabbage and edamame, just briefly boiled and coated in ume-sesame dressing. The dip is shoyu, mirin and spring onion, and a little sprinkle of toasted sesame oil on the noodles.

PMS Survival kit

I've been taking the agnus castus tincture in water most mornings since I got it, maybe two weeks ago. It tastes kind of odd, but not nasty. Anyway, cramps kicked in yesterday afternoon, although they were weaker than usual, so I booked the next day off work and started drinking the raspberry leaf tea, which is really nice. I was craving sweetie, fatty crap all day, but I resisted, except for a little bit of raw dark chocolate in the evening. So today I'm off, I had a good night sleep, I have some mild cramping, but not enough to stop me enjoying my day off. I wasn't expecting to go pain free straight away, but the dietary changes, the agnus castus and raspberry leaf tea are all working well enough to keep me away from artificial hormones and painkillers. Yay!

Last night I cooked a big pot of barley to last a few meals (it's now in a big box in the fridge). I had it after choir last night with some wilted kale. Kale is so tasty, I love that cruciferous taste, it's super charged in kale!

PMS/Dysmenorrhea Survival kit:

Vegan diet based on fruit, vegetables, whole grains and some nuts/seeds

Agnus castus tincture (10 drops twice a day in water)

Raspberry leaf tea

Hot water bottle/hot cherry stone bag

Big fleecy blanket and/or big sloppy jumper (sweater)

A day off work

Hugs

A sneaky bit of chocolate or raspberry beer...mmmm

Main course: Stuffed dukka girl with leftover oatcakes

Dinner: Staffordshire oatcakes with broccoli kale gratin and frijoles refritos

I ate most of that, not all, I wasn't a complete pig, but I did eat far too much because I didn't want to waste it, especially the greens. I'm still not great at preparing just enough, of course I could have put less on my plate and had the rest for lunch (what I normally do when I'm being sensible). This is one of my two major sins against my health (as well as my couple of times a week coffee habit), I know this will leave me all sluggish and probably with a sore stomach as I'm trying to sleep. I hope blogging about it will make me challenge it. As for the coffee, I had a small cup today and I was hyper all afternoon. The muscles in my right ass cheek kept twitching...it was freaky...maybe freaky enough to make my kick the habit for good. I'm thinking good subs would be mugicha (roasted barley tea) and barley coffee with frothy hot nut milk. Sometimes herbal tea just doesn't hit the spot, and I want something creamy and a little bit sweet and bitter.

Aaanyway, despite all that, dinner tasted pretty fab (if it was the same amount of avocado, I'd still be playing with it, eeeugh).

I made cashew "cheese" on sunday for lunches, basically soaked cashews blended up with nutritional yeast, sundried tomatoes, harissa spice blend, soy sauce and a little hemp and sesame oil. I decided to make the sauce for my gratin from the cheese, about 1/4 cup mixed into a pack of Oat Cream (250ml), another 1/4 cup nutritional yeast, a tsp dried chilli flakes and some salt. I poured this all over blanched curly kale and broccoli and baked for about 40 minutes. Just a twist of black pepper and it was ready to eat.

I then made refried beans: an onion fried in hemp oil, stirred in a can of borlotti beans, a big heaping tbsp tomato paste, 1 big tsp dried thyme and a very generous shake of hot paprika, as well as a tsp of dark brown sugar. Kind of boston bean flavours in refried beans.

It was very good with the kale broccoli gratin (it really was cheesy!) and staffordshire oatcakes- they're basically yeasted oat pancakes from some parts of Staffordshire in England, like Stoke-on-Trent. I used this recipe, although I also have a recipe from Bread: River Cottage Handbook No.3. I used warm water with about 100ml soya milk (just using a pack up). I also used all oatmeal (3/4 fine, 1/4 medium) instead of half fine oatmeal and half flour as I didn't want any refined wheat. They were very hard to turn over in one piece, but much tastier, the oats on their own taste much nuttier and toasty:)

Greens'n'grains girl

I got Alicia Silverstone's book this week, The Kind Life, in which she explains her macrobiotic-based vegan diet. I'm funny about two bits of the macrobiotic diet: nightshade veggie avoidance/limitation (maybe I don't know enough about them?) and minimal fruit consumption- I do love my fruit. Other than that, I think it's great, I'm a greens'n'grains girl. And a lot of the foods are japanese and I love japanese food, like soba, soy sauce, lotus root etc. I've been reading a lot about raw food and I like that too, but I just love whole grains, like brown rice and barley. I've realised that pasta, even the wholewheat, constipates me, but I'm ok with some noodles (like rice noodles or soba, which are buckwheat). I've also been trying to eat no bread, although I was thinking of starting sourdough again and making bread once a week. I think I'm going to try out a loose-based macro thing, greens'n'grains, miso for brekkie (tried this for the first time today with fresh ginger-yum), but keep eating as plenty of raw fruit, vegetables and nuts, and I am especially keen on the fruit-before-noon rule I have, with the odd exception for a porridge breakfast. But I just love a veggie ricey dinner. Here's some of the dinners I've had the last few days:

Stir-fried spring greens and leeks with lots of garlic and chilli, served with quinoa

Courgette gram flour pancake (recipe here) with stir fried leek and spring greens, a sprinkling of toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds and some sweet chilli sauce. Instead of the spice recommended, I did 1/2 tsp each fennel, cumin and coriander seeds, roasted and ground, 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes, 1/4 tsp each mixed spice, ground ginger and turmeric.

Tofu in a garlic tomato oregano sauce, brown rice and roasted broccoli and pepper with sunflower and hemp seeds.

I made almond milk tonight too, following Gena's recipe, except I used half agave and half the quantity of dates. It was so creamy and all frothy from the blender. I think I have found my alternative to soy lattes, just heat up some almond milk and add to hot barley tea or coffee.

This is the pulp left from the almonds. I'm planning oatmeal almond cookies/flapjacks tomorrow evening with this:

These are the toasted sunflower and pumpkin seeds I had on my pancake tonight:

I just filled the jar full, tipped into a sieve and rinsed and then roasted on a hot dry cast iron pan. When they were done I sprinkled some soy sauce on them and let them cool before putting back in the jar. I got the idea from Alicia Silverstone's book. I also took her tip of cooking extra grains or porridge, so this morning I made porridge and enough to do tomorrow as well, so all I have to do is warm it in a saucepan with some homemade almond milk:)

Oh, do check out Just Hungry- it's my favourite new recipe site, lots of japanese yumminess:)

IBS article

Control IBS with Proper Diet and Exercise

I thought this was fairly good. Personally though, I find cooked fibres much more troublesome than raw. Soup is a big trigger, but I can eat the same veg lightly cooked or raw e.g lightly cooked leeks, raw greens or carrot. I've found loads of great raw recipes in the KristenRaw, Choosing Raw and the Pure2Raw blogs. These girls are fantastic, they make the healthiest food the tastiest. I hope to try some ideas out at the weekend.

I didn't have a smoothie this morning as I'd had them all week. I had some porridge with my raspberry compote when I got into work, it made a nice change but I'm now convinced smoothies are the best breakfast. I had some soba noodle salad with soy beans and spinach for lunch and a dark chocolate bar, which was delish. I went for a good hard run when I got home and then had quinoa and spring greens barely warmed through with lots of garlic and chilli. So bloody good! I love the taste of quinoa, I could eat it on its own, but then I would say the same about spring greens, so deliciously sweet.

Good old rice

The rice helped me tummy ok. Today was busy, I was hungry when I got home so I got some Dorset Cereals Simply Fruity Muesli with Hazelnut Almond Rice Milk before heading out to choir.

When I got home I made some sesame soy bean and buckwheat noodle salad for lunch tomorrow and snaffled a bit to keep me going until the morning.

Some of my spices are running low, so it's time to give Steenberg's a visit. They do a fantastic range of spices as well as teas and baking ingredients. They're fabulous, and very friendly people too.

Darn wheat

My tummy was crampy today because after my run last night I was so hungry that I thought soup wouldn't be enough, so I made pancakes with white flour and soya milk. Either the wheat or the amount of soya has upset me (although I'm strongly guessing the former as I've had similar amounts of soya recently with no ill effects).

So I just had fruit, some oat and fruit muesli and soup by itself until dinner time, and then I had a brown rice risotto, so hopefully tomorrow I'll be a bit better. At least it's nothing like the cramping and gas I had with dairy. My constipation hasn't totally cleared up, despite the fact I drink at least 2 litres of water a day on top of lots of herbal tea (and some ordinary tea), usually don't eat anything other than fruit before lunch and base the rest of my meals on veggies, pulses, tofu and wholegrains like quinoa and brown rice. So I'm going to coax myself to get a colonic.

Ok, so today wasn't brilliant, but that's because I've been used to feeling so great lately. Running again feels amazing, although I didn't go tonight, just resting up a bit as I'm hoping to do plenty of exercise at the weekend- weeding my allotment, a hike in the Mournes and a run or two.

Enjoying my breakfast (you can so tell I don't like getting up in the dark)- a raspberry banana smoothie with almond rice milk and oats (more of a "thickie" than a smoothie)

New food I've tasted

Blackstrap molasses- oh this was bad. I'm so glad I'm not anaemic...this was rough. Like extra beetrooty, salty, soily, licoricey horribleness. YUCK! I wanted to keep my iron nice and high, maybe a little bit in smoothies will work?

Avocado- boggin'. It just tastes like underripe bananas...not worth the extra vitamin E.

Luckily dinner was good, and I was definitely hungry after nothing but smoothie and rice crackers and boggin' avocado. I made a big coconut mushroom and spinach curry with roasted broccoli and quinoa. Yum yum yum!

Pictures and recipes will have to wait- I'm doing a week of vegan food thing for a friend's blog.