Spring has sprung!

I've been feeling great this week!

Two reasons (I think):

Early morning running

I've been walking to work and back most days for a few weeks, but I've added in a morning run too. I get up just before 6 and go out for half an hour, then back in for a shower, brekkie and then walk to work. It's great. I have loads of energy. I was tired this morning and didn't really fancy it, but got up at half 8 and forced myself out the door. However, it was such a fantastic morning, and already getting warm (for April in Northern Ireland) and I had a great 45 min run HIIT-style. Thanks to Angela @ OhSheGlows for inspiring me. You get such a high from HIIT! I got in and had a mango, passionfruit and ginger smoothie with my...

Live, homemade vegan yogurt

This stuff seems to be doing wonders for my digestion. My digestive transit seems to have moved up a gear and I've had a cramp-free week. I think the running might be helping my digestion too, but I'm sure all those friendly bacteria have had their part to play too.

The first batch was a bit hit and miss consistency-wise, but had the flavour I've been hankering for- mild, "bland" as people describe dairy yogurt, but with a real sharpness. The problem with the consistency was that I didn't blend the xanthan gum very well so it had little beads of gum in it and was a bit runny. However when chucked in a blender for a smoothie it thickened up quite a lot! So I used this idea for my next batch; I put 15g sugar, contents of two probiotic capsules and 5g xanthan gum in the blender and dumped in a litre of Oatly oat milk.

It got quite thick and bubbly from just a minute or two of blending! A video was the best way of demonstrating the texture change from watery oat milk to this:

It's now fermenting in my new electric yogurt maker.

I think this, combined with the thorough blending and probiotic powder will give me better results. I noticed HEAB has been experimenting with non-dairy yogurt too, using a different milk and thickening agent.

Overnight oats seem to be everywhere this week too, Angela blogged about hers, and this morning's Guardian had an article.

After run, brekkie, catching up on the news and de-sweatifying, E and I went to an allotment meeting. We have a polytunnel and were working out how to utilise the space. We've decided to divide the polytunnel into areas for each type of crop so that everyone can get to try something out and it'll help share the responsbility of watering. Apart from the usual suspects of tomatoes, peppers and chillis, we are going to get some aubergine plants and try out cucumbers and melons!! I'm so excited. As the weather is so great, E and I are going to get our allotment cleared of weeds tomorrow and monday. Photos to follow! As it's our first year, we're not growing anything super fussy; three types of kale, purple sprouting broccoli, kabocha and buttercup squash and dwarf french beans. Lots more on the allotment in the next few days. And also the results of batch 2 of oat milk yogurt:)

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!

Weekend munches

This weekend, because my energy levels are so fantastic, I started running again. The first morning I picked to start was saturday, the ground looked so slippy but it was great. The only people I met were two dog walkers in Ormeau Park. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the sky was blushing pink. I was out again today, early again, but it was another stunning morning, and being down in Aghagallon, I didn't meet a soul, 4 cars passed me in 5km. After both runs, I breakfasted on big fruity smoothies. On saturday, mine was courtesy of Zumo in Castlecourt- a Tahiti Spice (mango, passionfruit pear and ginger). I LOVELOVELOVE ginger, especially in smoothies. My circulation likes it too. Today I had more ginger, this time pineapple and melon and some flax seed. Today I also had a Trek bar with my smoothie:

You can buy them and the Nakd bars from the company's website: Natural Balance Foods. They're vegan, raw, gluten- and sugar- free and the Trek bars have 11g of protein per bar. I got mine in Sainsburys and found the Nakd Coco Loco bars in Tesco. I had the Mixed Berry, it was amazing! Kept me full until 3pm. I had some soup, and then got hungry around 7, and made some veg and noodles:

I boiled some Brown rice udon noodles (two bundles) and then a few minutes before they were done I chucked in some shredded spring (collard) greens, frozen soya beans and carrot sticks. I dressed them with a big tablespoon each of peanut butter, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, sesame seeds, marmalade and then about 2cm of ginger finely chopped, a clove of garlic and a teaspoon of dried chilli flakes. I stirred this through everything after mixing it thoroughly (the peanut butter takes a bit of beating to cooperate). It was delish! Especially with extra heat in the form of Tabasco. A nice way to finish the weekend.

Oh, and I now have an allotment- as of saturday. The location is stunning, the soil is beautiful sandy loamy stuff (apparently it was once a beach!), the site is south facing and we have access to a polytunnel and a big shed full of tools. Eamonn and I will be weeding it out next saturday, pictures will be posted. Then I have to decide what to put in!