New Year and Diet Update

The weather was pretty rubbish over the New Year break, but we got out for a little walk to Northern Ireland's highest waterfall, Cranny Falls.

We tucked into our mushroom pate and rocket rolls and munched on some fruit.




I used the time off to bake some slow bread- no knead bread. The initial rise is 18 hours(!) But as you can see, it's worth it, not having to knead the dough means you can make it as wet as you dare to get all the lovely air bubbles.

A warm slice with olive oil

I continued the flour adventures another day with pancakes:

Yummy with maple syrup.

Dinners have been rice and veggies, usually, with some add ins.


This one had rocket, broccoli, parsley, loads of lemon juice, smoked paprika and roasted shallots and veggie sausages chopped up.

And this was my laksa spice blend mixed into the cooking water with thai jasmine rice, then spinach and petit pois, plus a splash of soya cream and plenty of lime juice and a little coarse sea salt.

I guess some readers won't like this very much, but I had a secret New Year's Resolution- to consider expanding my diet a bit because I had reduced my consumption of nutrient dense vegetables to ease my IBS and also because, truth be told, every time I looked at the artisan cheeses in the deli and my heart ached at the thought of never trying one of those again. I thought about it a lot over the holidays and have decided to experiment with a little small scale produced dairy (raw milk goat and ewe cheese and yogurt, but not milk, butter etc). The main aim is to add more variety, satiety and pleasure to my plate and to vary my sources of protein, calcium, iron and zinc beyond soy and brassicas. I'm hoping it'll help my dry skin and menstrual issues that have started this year. So far I have had goat cheese and organic yogurt made a few miles down the road. I had forgotten how zingy dairy yogurt was. My tummy seems to be handling it very well so far, in fact the goat cheese lunch really filled me up. Anyways, I'm not decided on the extent of this experiment but I'm contemplating the odd egg or perhaps bit of fish as well as a bit of yogurt and goat or ewe cheese.
Here's how I ate the yogurt:

With a passionfruit and some frozen raspberries.

For now my boyfriend is not joining me on this although he supports my choice. The irony is it was my idea to transition from vegetarianism (he being stricter than I over the years) to veganism this time last year and he went along with it. He says he doesn't miss dairy and feels much better without cheese in his diet. Before he went vegan his cholesterol was elevated and the doctor had told him to reduce it. The great thing is we now eat a greater variety of foods but my stomach has struggled with the carb heaviness. My boyfriend seems to do well on lots of carbs, whereas I find it hard to feel satisfied but my tummy gets upset. I prefer more protein, and have been getting that mostly from tofu.
Over the last 2 or 3 months, in an attempt to eat lower fibre, I have been eating more processed foods than I would like, and my other food resolution is to cut this out. At the moment my thinking is that I'd rather have a bit of artisan cheese to sate my appetite than a chocolate biscuit.
Anywa, that's all for now. I will have more foodie stuff early next week as I'm doing a special birthday dinner for my Dad on sunday. I got him a bird table this year:)