Operation Vegan 2.

So today was day two of Vegan Week and I'm already beginning to become disillusioned with it all. I'm not usually one to give up on anything and I won't give up on this... I just miss sausages. And cheese. Which is funny really since I don't eat either of those things all that much when I'm not being vegan. It's been an easy and relatively tasty day. Nothing nasty and I'm not hungry, so that's all good. I just want chocolate... and milk. Or chocolate milk. I think I might treat myself to a litre or two of that when this is over.

Actually took this photo myself! I had them a few weeks ago, exactly the same.

Breakfast / Lunch: Vegan pancakes with banana and berries.
I used a recipe I found on All Recipes and they are so, so tasty - especially if you use coconut oil. I love these pancakes and they're genuinely the nicest I've ever had. These will be a firm addition to my life even when Vegan Week is over. I had them with a chopped banana and some slightly heated summer berries I had in the freezer.

Photo credit: Healthy Blender Recipes. Mine looked exactly the same.

Dinner: Well... this was disastrous. So we shall say a fruit smoothie.
When I say disastrous, I might be exaggerating a tiny bit. I originally cooked myself some Fanta Chicken without the chicken... so that's just Fanta Veg, with rice. I threw in some tofu too. I've never had tofu before but I thought I'd push the boat out with it being Vegan Week. It's mushy. Mushy and tasteless. My nose was running with all the spices I'd put in the Fanta to make it taste nicer but the tofu was still absolutely tasteless... and mushy. I think mushy is my sticking point - I'm not a fan. So I ate half of it and then just made myself a blueberry, banana and strawberry smoothie with soya milk. Far more satisfying than mushy mushy tofu. I hope tomorrow is a brighter day on the vegan front.

Operation Vegan.

Hello, lovely people. Apologies for being a little quiet - I have 25 days left at university and four assignments and three exams within that time. Needless to say I'm busy but probably procrastinating more than I should be. Anyway, this week I have decided to challenge myself to see if I can be entirely vegan for seven whoooole and painfully long days. I am the world's biggest meat eater and I don't think I've ever gone a day without eating some sort of meat - even the days when I was trying to be vegetarian but gave it all up for a sausage roll. Vegan-ism takes it to the extreme by cutting out butter, dairy and egg too and you'd be surprised at just what you can't have. I looked on the back of my Horlicks tub and, sure enough, it contained dried milk so that's a no go. Some Vegans won't even eat honey because it involves an animal in its production. Today's menu was as follows:

Photo credit: The Vegan Mouse.

Breakfast: Two Weetabix with soya milk and chopped banana.
This is nothing unusual for me - I love soya milk and usually drink it anyway. I've nothing against 'real milk' - a glass of whole milk is one of the best drinks in the world - but soya milk has a thicker consistency and a unique but lovely taste so this was fine and easy.

Photo credit: Veggie Buntch.

Lunch: Baked beans on two slices of toast.
Now this was mediocre... What is beans on toast without butter, I ask you? Absolutely naff, that's what. I even pushed the boat out and went for Heinz beans but to no avail. It was okay... but that's all it was. Butter is clearly the key tasty ingredient of beans on toast and, since I don't fancy shelling out the extra money for Vegan approved spreads, tasteless my lunch shall remain.

Photo credit: VeganYumYum.

Dinner: Vegan bubble and squeak.
This dinner was surprisingly tasty but made me feel a little sick afterwards - I'm not sure why. I put two potatoes, a carrot, some cabbage, a red onion and a leek into a pan and cooked them on the hob for twenty minutes. I then drained them and mashed them together with a little splash of soya milk. When slightly cooled, a made balls out of the mixture, coated them in flour and shallow-fried them for around ten minutes. They were tasty and not as bland as I expected. I think they'd make a nice side to a chicken breast though... mmm chicken. They were an adaptation of a recipe I found on VeganYumYum and I think I'd try them again in a smaller quantity.

(Please note, I didn't take my own photos because silly me has left my camera 200 miles away).

Operation Fanta Chicken.

Today I have been on the look out for healthy binge foods. They are words that don't often go together. However, I've had this recipe in the back of my mind for months and today was the day for Fanta Chicken. Don't pull a face... I was the same at first. 'How does that work, then?' Well, Fanta Chicken (as well as Diet Coke Chicken) are Slimming World secrets. When the Fanta reduces into a sticky, thick sauce, it tastes just like sweet and sour chicken from the Chinese... except there's no calories in it because it's diet. The benefit of making your own is that you can take out the vegetables you don't enjoy and add more of those you do, whilst knowing that all your ingredients are fresh and not packed full of unknown bulking agents.

Four pieces of chicken with sweet and sour sauce from Panda Express is a whopping 310 calories. That's for just FOUR pieces. Now imagine how many pieces you actually eat when you finish the full portion. This recipe, however, is a grand total of... get ready for it... 700 calories - INCLUDING rice AND chips! And that's around twenty pieces of chicken, vegetables, pineapple, the sauce and the sides. If you took off the rice and chips and just had it on its own, the whole portion of Fanta Chicken would be 460 calories. Now compare that to Panda Express and tell me you don't want to try it.

Ingredients:
1 330ml can of Diet Fanta.
1 tin of pineapple pieces in their own juice.
2 chicken breasts.
1 chicken stock cube.
A handful of frozen mixed peppers.
Herbs to taste - I used a mixture of garlic, pepper and chilli flakes and it was nicely spicy.
Fry light (around 10 squirts in total).
1 potato.
1 serving of rice.

1. Firstly, peel and chop your potato into chips around 1cm wide and thick. Spray them with around five sprays of Fry Light, add a little salt and pepper and put into the oven for the duration of the rest of the recipe. Obviously keep checking and flip them over once. They will be in there for approximately 30-40 minutes.

 

 2. Cube your chicken breasts and cook in the frying pan with a few more sprays of Fry Light to prevent sticking.

 

3. When the chicken is 90% cooked through, add a handful of frozen (or fresh should you have them) mixed peppers and sprinkle the mixture with your herbs. I do find that the garlic and pepper add to the authentic taste.

4. When your chicken is almost all cooked (it doesn't matter much at this stage because it will continue to cook throughout), add your 330ml of Diet Fanta to the pan. Bring the Fanta to the boil and let it boil for around 15 minutes until the water evaporates and you're left with a slightly thicker sauce.

5. When the Fanta is boiling, drain your pineapple from its juice and add the chunks to the pan.

6. As the Fanta reduces, it gets thicker and stickier - so make sure to stir once in a while so that it doesn't stick to the pan.

It has reduced quite a lot if you look at the pictures above in comparison.

 7. Serve up your Fanta Chicken with anything you'd normally like from the Chinese - such as the home made chips, just rice or enjoy it on its own.

 

It's a really delicious dish and is both healthier and cheaper than a takeaway from the Chinese. Let me know what you think of it. :)

Operation Mousse.

I woke up this morning fancying a treat. I've been eating well and documenting everything from a month now with no break and I really just wanted to eat a lot of something. So, I made this Slimming World Mousse. I don't know if it's actually Slimming World per se, that's just what it seems to be called online. The good news is (for those who don't use SW terminology) that the whole thing - that's the whole of the original mix and all of the ingredients below - comes to a mere 300 calories. THREE HUNDRED. That's a binge without the guilt right there. And it's delicious. For those who do speak SW, I believe that it is 1.5syns for the whole batch. Given that all of the ingredients cost me less than £2.50 and it's SO simple to make, you can't go wrong either way. :)

Ingredients:
60ml of boiling water.
1 sachet of sugar free jelly (I chose Strawberry).
250ml of fat free fromage frais.
250g of quark.

 

1. Dissolve your sachet of jelly in 60mls of boiling water. Mix thoroughly to make sure it has all dissolved.

Now, the next step is slightly different than the method I used but this is to improve your results.

2. Add 250ml of fromage frais and 250g of quark to a bowl. THEN pour over the jelly. I did it the other way round and got a few little jelly lumps on top. They didn't detract from it overall because it was still gorgeous and there wasn't many, but for perfect results I'd recommend adding the jelly last.

 

 3. Thoroughly mix until smooth. I used a fork because the kitchen where I live actually doesn't have a whisk. Ridiculous. But a whisk or an electric whisk would probably be the best bet.

Ignore the little lumps - they look worse than they actually were!

4. Chill in the fridge or freezer for an hour to let the mixture thicken up and then enjoy! Let me know what you think. :)

UPDATE: I have made this since without the quark. I had half a tub of fromage frais left and so I added the same amount of jelly. The quark just makes sure it stays as a mousse. Without it, it's actually tastier but more solid. And not a lump in sight. Delicious.

 

 

Operation Lentils.

After talking to Hannah (of We Have All The Wine!) last night on Skype, I really wanted to try lentils. Hannah said that she'd tried a recipe the weekend before which had puy lentils in and she'd really enjoyed it. So, today, I thought I'd pick some up whilst I was at the supermarket. Lentils are pulses which are high in protein and low in calories. They have the texture of beans or peas and are pretty tasteless on their own - but pick up the flavour of what they're cooked in. I decided to follow Hannah's lead and have peppers stuffed with lentils and mozzarella cheese.

Ingredients:
30g lentils (mine were green).
1 pepper.
1 onion.
1 carton of passata.
Salt, pepper and herbs to taste.
1 ball of mozzarella cheese.

 

1. Chop your onion and brown it in a large pan. The reason for doing this is so that your lentils will take on the flavours of the onion when put in the same pan. At the same time, cut your pepper in half by cutting around the stalk and then make one cut from side to side.

2. Boil your lentils as per the packet's instructions. Twenty minutes works well. Don't be alarmed by how small the portion looks. They swell... a LOT. Look at this for an example. This is lentils submerged in boiling water for ONE minute compared to what they were before.

3. Add the carton of passata to your fried onion. Stir them together whilst adding the salt, pepper and herbs you like.

4. Add the cooked lentils to your passata mixture.

5. Simmer until reduced and cooked thoroughly. At this point, preheat your oven to 200 degrees and cut your ball of mozzarella into slices ready to be placed on top.

6. Spoon the lentil mixture into your cut peppers and add sliced mozzarella to the top. I added a little in the middle to give a nice surprise.

7. Put in the oven for approximately 10-15 minutes.

8. Enjoy. :)

Operation Burgers.

I am a fan of burgers but I don't appreciate not knowing what goes into them to make them so massively calorific. Since I had some mince in the fridge that I didn't know what to do with, I thought I'd have a go at making my own Pork and Onion burgers. This recipe is really simple and hugely tasty. It's all about the seasoning. This, however, is not a recipe for anyone wearing false nails or with careers in hand modelling because I had to wash my hands an obscene amount of times. :)

Ingredients:
However much mince you need. Mine was 350g of Pork mince but more / different mince would work equally as well.
1 egg yolk.
Heaps of black pepper (if you like it that way), 1tsp salt and 1tsp of mixed herbs (or herbs of your preference).
Half of one diced onion.
A splash of olive oil.


1. First and foremost, chop your onion into small diced pieces.

 
2. Add the olive oil to your pan to stop the burgers sticking. Begin to heat the pan on a low heat.

3. Add the mince, onion, egg yolk and seasoning to a bowl. This is where it gets a little icky. Get in there with your hands a mix the ingredients together until they all seem to bind well and are equally distributed.

4. Turn the heat of your pan up to 2/3 of it's highest heat. (I know all hobs work differently but mine was on 4 out of 6).

5. Split your mixture and hand shape your burgers. Make them as thick or as thin as you like but remember that the thicker they are, the more careful you'll have to be that they cook through.

6. Place your burger patties in the pan and cook until you're positive they're done - flipping a few times whilst cooking. Personally, I scored a line down the back of each burger to make sure they heat got to the centre of them whilst they cooked. I also added black pepper quite generously to both sides of the burgers as they were cooking.

7. When cooked through, let your burgers rest for a moment on some kitchen towel just to absorb any grease that may be on the surface.

8. Finish them off however you choose! I went for no bun and a splash of sweet chilli sauce to give them a little kick. They were seriously tasty and I prefer these to shop bought burgers any day - especially given that you know exactly what's in them. They'd be gorgeous on a crisp roll with some fresh lettuce.

9. The last and most important step - enjoy. :)

Operation Buffet.

This week, my father took a holiday to Spain. A well deserved holiday at that. As a full time carer for my grandfather, who suffers from dementia, my Dad works longer and more demanding hours than he did during his employment as a police officer. I know that first hand because I took over my grandfather's care last week whilst Dad had some respite.

Me, my eighty-seven year old grandfather and my Dad, earlier this year.

The situation is bad but there's nothing that can be done. Dementia is like the thief that is never caught. It sneaks in unannounced, takes your possessions and leaves before anything can be done to stop it. Of course the possessions are still gone and the thief comes back for more but you miss it every time and can't do anything to stop it getting back in. I don't think that I fully appreciated the gravity of my grandfather's condition until I stepped into my dad's shoes.

I'd arrive at 8am to give him his morning medication and make his breakfast. He's on around ten tablets in a morning, if not more, and is adamant (despite taking them for the past ten years) that he has never taken morning medication and doesn't need to. Of course this isn't the case. So after a debate and a little stern talking, morning tablets are down and I left him with his cereal, toast and tea in order to go to my full-time work experience as a teacher. (It's worth bearing in my mind here that I've arrived at the house to a broken television - because he ripped our labels off telling him not to press certain buttons and did it anyway - and him having unplugged the fridge and spoiling 2 full litres of milk along with other bits of food).

I then returned at 12pm to the same debate. 'I don't need my dinner time tablets, I never have medication at dinner time'. He does. He always has. He just doesn't remember. And so the argy bargy continues, I made his lunch, gave him his tablets, made sure that his coal fire was stoked, cleaned the kitchen (he tries to but seems to leave more mess than was there originally) and prepared his evening meal. The evening meal (complete with 'Eat me at 5pm' label) and evening tablets (complete with glass of water and note forcing him to take them) are left on the dining room table. There's only so much you can do and I can now understand fully why my Dad, who is the most patient man in the world, gets frustrated and loses his temper a little. There's nothing more annoying than finding a fridge of ruined food at 8am two days running, like I did, or finding the Cellotape you stuck over something to stop him touching it ripped off and the item in question turned off.

So, as my Dad arrived home from his time away on Saturday night, I thought I'd let his respite last a little bit longer and throw him a surprise buffet. It wasn't much but it meant all the more now that I know the job he has to go back to. It costs nothing to be kind. Well, it did, it cost a tenner at Iceland... but that's not the point you should be taking from this whole post. :)

Chocolate orange cheesecake with homemade 'welcome home' skewers.

Gary made this. It is 'Vid' (my Dad's nickname) spelled out in chocolate fingers.

 

Prawn wontons, vegetable spring rolls and mini chicken kievs.

Prawn toast and mini beef Wellingtons.