1 day to go

I recall of a story that I heard on Radio France Evangile, the story of marathon runner  frog (STOP IT! No frog legs jokes please).

So we are going to call the main frog Sandrine… yes it has to be a female frog. So, Sandrine was part of a group of frogs (all females) that decided to climb a high mountain running. They all chose to go via the main street of the town (called Chataigne). A lot of other frogs lined the streets to encourage the runners frogs on their way. The closer they got to the mountain, less there were people to encourage them, some where even enjoying discouraging them. Then the group of runners frogs  started to diminish. The further they went more the discouragements came and less there were runners. 

Soon enough, Sandrine was the only one running. You could hear the “supporters” shouting and mocking saying things like: “ahhh she’s never going to make it to the top! Just you watch she will give up really soon. She’ll give up soon”. Sandrine kept going and kept going and kept going. She made it to the top of the mountain.

A journalist came to interview her wondering how she did it, where she found the strength to go on… Sandrine wasn’t responding, just staring, he tried again. Nope, nothing… Sandrine was simply deaf. The reason she kept going is because she didn’t hear those who were discouraging her… She couldn’t hear a thing!

So, here we are with only one day to go, just one more step. I think I might keep this going, and cook dishes that will last 2 or 3 days so I won’t cook every single evening…

For food today, a friend and I shared a mushrooms & cauliflower soup topped with grated roasted Brazil nuts at lunch. My friend had hers with a toasted mini baguette just like I would normally eat my soup. I had mine on its own, in a fuller bigger bowl.

To make the soup you will need every thing on the photo to the right.

*Cauliflower, chopped

*lots of closed cup chestnut mushrooms peeled and chopped

*potatoes peeled and cut in 6 to 8 to serve as the creamer agent,

*celery, spring onion chopped

*onion, garlic chopped

*dried Herbs de Provence & tyme

• Start by frying onion, thyme and potatoes until the potatoes are brown… this is going to bring an added flavour to the soup. Once the potatoes are browned, chuck in all the rest of ingredients in the pot and cover with water, stock and leave to cook for 20 minutes. You may want to add more water before blending. I blend mine while the pot is still on the fire. Because as I blend and it becomes creamy, I can still add water before taking the pot off the fire…

For dinner I tried to make a rosti of suede and carrot (for the first time) with a ginger tomato sauce. I am not sure that I have seen it anywhere but I figured, If you can do a rosti with potato, you could do it with any root vegetable. The problem is, neither the carrot nor the suede have binding agent in them unlike the potato which Is full of starch.

When I saw that the rosti wasn’t maintaining its shape in the frying pan I just scramley all of it and stir-fried  for 5 minutes, Then chopped some fresh parsley, keept frying for another 2 minutes to soften then parsley.

I will call this dish riced suede and carrot with ginger tomato sauce.
Next time I will try yam or cassava rosti, they are full of starch and might just hold.

That’s all folks! Suits is about to start sorry, must dash!

Ciao!

Just 2 days to go

Funny how at times when you are getting nearer a goal, it seems people around you gang up and are suddenly against you. I am not even sure they realise it. As Christians, we think that “it is the work of the Devil” who sets up people against you so you would fail, usually closer to your “breakthrough”.  
If you have never read the bible just look for the book of Job, it makes an interesting read. Just read it as a book you have picked up. It would make you ask a lot of questions about life, choices and why somethings happen to good people. Click here to read Job’s story in Wiki, or here to go to the story.

Today I got really near to loosing my rag and ring someone’s neck, but a kind colleague reminded me that I was so close, which helped calming me down. I am bracing myself for more confrontations as I get closer to the end of my lent. Few of my prayers have been answered and I have faith that more will be after I have finished… Faith is hope! 

My Lunch today

Onto the food then. For lunch I had some home made houmous with a platter of vegetables. The houmous could have done with a little more salt. The only reason i made the houmous is because I opened a tin of chick peas and I would have wasted it if not used.

To the chick peas, I just added rapeseed oil, garlic and yellow peppers, blend. Food is served. 10 minutes to prepare.

For dinner it was just as simple. A pulses party: Chick peas again ( yes I love them) green lentil, black kidney beans, sweet corn, toasted sesame seeds, sundried tomato, salt & black pepper plus a little drizzle of flavoured oil. Ideally I would eat this with a fresh baguette… banned in my diet for another 2 days. Rice cakes will do.

I am stopping here because I am trying to watch this Centrafrican film on the Africa channel.. it is showcasing pygmies and it is in French too. Those films are rare here in the UK but are are much more popular in France as old colonies are part of the fabric of French society. You will those film regularly on national television (to know more about Franco African films check out FESPACO)…

The film tonight is called the “Silence of the forest”. They are eating pounded Cassava and caterpillars… yikes!

So, see y’all tomorrow.

3 days to go

Only 3 days to go, temptation is everywhere. Today at work, somebody kindly bought me some chocolates, I was proposed some sweets and also some Jamaican bun... I am not sure if they did it on purpose but, I kindly took whatever came and put it in my bottom drawer... only 3 days. If I’ve done 37 days, 3 days aren’t going to be that difficult would they?

It is 8.20pm, I am so full it is unbelievable.

Mix grated vegetables

At work I had decided what I was going to eat tonight, but on my way home I saw one of my colleagues with some ravioli, and it gave me an idea. I am not a big fan of pasta and they contain eggs anyways, I decided to find an alternative and cook a vegetable Pappardelle with soya meat balls and garlic (very garlicky) tomato sauce. See about Pappardelle pasta here.

I love colours in my food so the vegetables had to be very colourful and hold their shape in cooking.

So I popped into the shop and got 1 courgette,  2 aubergines (1 deep purple and the other very light purple and slender).

Variety of aubergines

To make the dish, you will need one of each of the above, plus a carrot, or any other vegetable that will hold their shape after 3 minutes in boiling water. A small onion, 3 fresh tomatoes, 5 chestnuts, 5 garlic cloves, oil obviously, salt & pepper.

For the “pasta”, prep and grate the courgette, both aubergines and carrot. To grate the

This is what graters look like

vegetables you will need to use the side of the grater that cuts like a potato peeler. But the grater cut is slightly larger.

You will obtain a mix that looks like the top photo once all the vegetables have been grated.

The shape we are aiming for is like 4 centimetres flat pasta (Pappardelle). On the grater on the image to your left, you would use the middle bit to obtain the type of cut we want.

I also discovered that my grater was really rubbish and not sharp at all, which made the cuts really untidy and slightly ugly.

To cook your veges, boil water with a bit of salt just as you would with pasta, chuck in all your vegetables and let boil for another 3 minutes. Remove from fire, rinse as you would with pasta. Leave on the side.  



my new comfort dish

For the sauce In a hot pan, fry onions and soya meatballs until brown. Add in the minced garlic, chopped tomato, chopped chestnuts, salt and pepper. Leave to cook for 10 minutes. Remember to soften the soya meatballs first in boiled water for 10 minutes then squeeze out the water before frying.

I mostly use fresh tomatoes in sauces when they are going off. I only buy them for salads.
The result may look ugly, but, I think this is the best dish I have made so far. I will definitely do it again, prettier. I have found a new comfort dish!

I guess we’ll have to cook the suede tomorrow.
Sorry about the Franglish!
Nite!

4 Days to go

Today I walked from Stockwell to Pimlico twice took me 25 minutes each way. I am planning to do that all this month… I really ought to lose some weight. According to my BMI I am 10Kgs overweight with my height, I should weight 75kgs, but I can’t shift the pounds. So from time to time I take on heavy exercise or gentle ones like walking. My problem is, I tend to bulk up really quickly so must be careful that I don’t turn into a 5ft7 black women with muscles like Mike Tyson… Might scare my future husband away…lol

So. Have you ever tried rice in salad? Well, here is one that I made for my lunch today.

You should have noticed by now that I LOVE my greens. For this beautiful rice salad you will need the following:

* Red Camargue and wild rice from Waitrose (cook for 30 minutes with salt as normal leave to cool down, rince to remove any remaining starch)

*1 carrot grated (don’t use the thinner side of the grater)

*1 tomato really finely chopped (try matching the size of the grated carrot)

*Broccoli (just use the very green heads raw – same size as the above)

*Half a red pepper cut finely preferably same size as the tomato

*Roasted salted peanuts chopped in the same size too.

*2-3 tables spoons of black poppy seed (just because I like them and love the way they crunch)

Mix all the above to with a bit of salt and black pepper. Done!

The salad can be eaten just as it or with a squeeze of lemon or even balsamic vinegar. The sauce must be kept simple as the salad on its own is already full of flavours.

For dinner I just had a soup based on a dish I found in Waitrose:  noodle soup with no noodles (I don’t like them), and without soy sauce (contains sugar).

So to make this you will need some green and red sweet peppers, onion, baby corn, leek, celery, green beans, mange tout, 1 chilli pepper and stock, garlic..

Since I didn’t have the soy sauce to give it the really dork colour it needed, I fried chopped onions in really hot oil and stock cube. If you fry it long enough, you should obtained some kind of darkish gunk to which you will add the vegetable and enough water to cover them.

Cover the pot and leave to cook until the French green beans are cooked to preference. I base the cooking time on the French green beans because I cook them often and if they are cooked, the baby corn will definitely still have a great crunch.

In this soup, the prep takes longer that the actual cooking, but all can be done within 30 minutes. While eating it I was reminded how I hate the mange-tout! Note to self, never buy them again, too much energy wasted on getting rid of the strings… KMT

See you tomorrow for day 37! Nite nite zzzzzzzzzzzzz all that walking? yeash!

5 days to go

Today was pretty uneventful. There was a special healing service and I went to the 9.30 m service. But our friend the stalker was there too and I had to duck out pretty sharpish and change my road home. The last time I tried rush out to avoid him, I left my bible at church. I think I should definitely change my church time for a while (See the I lost my bible post).

Since I have not been home for few days, so, I had a lot of “tâches ménagères” to do including planning meals for next week. I had a very late lunch at nearly 3.30pm. it consisted of left-overs from yesterday: left-over dessert and roasted potatoes with the left-over tahini sauce.

To make the sauce, please see yesterday’s post. As for the roasted potatoes, use the smaller salad potatoes. They don’t event need peeling. They are much easier for me to use as I can’t really peel many potatoes due to a slight disability on my left arm (see cause here). The day I learn that I could eat some potatoes without peeling them I was really pleased as the peeling pressure on the left arm can cause me some real pain forcing me to have a break after peeling 2 or 3 potatoes.

So for this dish, I have just rinse and cut the potatoes in 2, added salt and black pepper. A spay of vegetable oil, shoved in the oven for 30 minutes. Once cooked, I reheated the th tahini and mustard sauce, adding more water to make it more fluidy, then I chopped some fresh parley and added in the sauce just before serving. Voila!

For the dessert which I made yesterday, I used some strawberry which were going off, 2 apples, 1

banana and a handful of Red Camargue & wild rice.  I have never come across this rice before and found it when walking around Waitrose purposelessly after the trip at the dentist on Friday. This compote is inspired by one of my preferred childhood compote from Andros.

So, prepare and chop all the fruits, add the red rice, cover it completely with water and cook for 30 minutes until the rice is cooked. Then blend, leave to cool at room temperature, then in the fridge to refrigerate before serving.

The compote tasted good, but I will need to do it again later adding whole milk, more strawberry and perhaps 2 table spoons of sugar.

Compotes and yogurts are very popular in France and often used as desserts or as replacement for mid-morning snacks or even the Gouter (the mid afternoon snack at 4 pm). It is also at around 3.30 4pm that time that the baker will be bringing out of the oven the last set of viennoiseries  so the children can buy a croissant aux amandes or chausson aux pommes or even a mini tarte aux fraises on their way home from school. I really missed that (click on the coloured words to be directed to corresponding website).

If you would like to try a real croissant, chausson aux pommes and creamy hot chocolate, head to Paul in Wimbledon village, Regent Street or Knightsbridge, They also do a weaked beignet au chocolat (Nuttella filled doughnut). The later cost £1,95 each, but it is worth it. Do try it.

Tonight dinner is light and simply tomato and home made pesto.

Ingredients for a simple pesto: fresh basil, salt, oil, roasted almond flakes.

Ready pesto!

Happy Sunday! :-)

6 days to go

Last night as I was preparing for a quiet night and a Saturday free of any activity, a message came through “ are you still up for tomorrow?” how what? What is up tomorrow? "ASLAN…" oh no! "8.30 am Waterloo station…"

Apparently I had promised to help out today at All Souls’ homeless centre this morning. It wasn’t in my diary and I had completely forgotten it. First, I nearly cancelled; then, I got lost on my way … that is a story on its own.

Anyhow, I got there 30 minutes late, but the guests were not in yet. After breakfast, the volunteers can mingle and chat with the guests. I had today one of the best conversations ever with one of the guests from Romania. It took me nearly an hour to convince him to try the job centre and keep going until someone at those centres is ready to lend him a hand.

He had quit trying because his friends didn’t get anywhere. But, what I realised is that my Romanian friend spoke better English than his friends, looked strong and was willing to do anything… All I can say is that, God sent me there is morning and this guy needed to hear that he had potential. Encouragement is such an easy forgotten tool and today I have seen it power once again. The guest did agree that I pray for him and I am glad I made it to the centre today. God is good.



Since I had to leave at 7am, for breakfast I had  small portion of yesterday’s leftover. I only got home around 3.30pm and had to cook my dinner… made up on my way to the homeless centre: roasted butternut squash with spinach and a tahini white sauce plus potato rosti just for the sake of it.

Turned out alright didn't it?

So, to make this dish you will need These Ingredients: 1 onion, 1 potato, half of a small butternut squash, 1 red sweet pepper, 2 table spoons of tahini paste (sesame seeds paste), 2 table spoons of mild sugar free mustard, 6 blocks of frozen spinach leaves defrosted. 

ingredients to make the dish



For the Roast the butternut squash: cut into quarters, place in an oven dish, season with salt, black pepper, and a spray of oil. Place the dish in the oven for 40 minutes. Once cooked, switch oven off leave the dish inside to keep warm.

For the pommes Pallaisson  (rosti): peal and grate the potato, squeeze water from the it. Season with salt and coarse black pepper. There is no need to shape your rosti, you can just flatten it in the pan. It is better to fry them in hot oil and in a non-stick pan.

For the spinach: defrost it, squeeze out the water, fry half the onion with the finely chopped brazil nuts until brown, then, add the spinach. Stir with a sponged spatula while separating the leaves. Add a bit of salt and pepper, stir again, add 4 table spoons of water, cover to cook for 5 minutes. It is ready.



Potato rosti

 For the sauce: chop the other half of onion into really fine pieces. Do the same for the all the garlic. Heat some rapeseed oil in a pan, brown onions, add the garlic and fry some more. Don’t let the garlic burn. Now add the tahini paste and the mustard. Stir for 2 minutes then add a glass of water and leave to cook for 5 minutes. Stir from time to time so it won’t stick. The sauce is ready.Now all you need to do is serve before it gets cold. It is better to serve the sauce on the side and not soak the dish in it.

Voila!

Forgive me for blowing my own trumpet, but it tasted good and it is ALL VEGAN!

Somethin’ for dessert?



7 days to go

Today is my first day back after having spent 6 days at Minehead Butlins Resorts. Boy, am I glad to be back. It was a genius idea to take with me jar of homemade fried onions and a jar of fried chunky tomato. I have used them for breakfast lunch and dinner. When they ran out, I set off to Morrison’s and got some jars of olives & Garlic, char grilled aubergine, sun dried tomato all conserved in sunflower oil or olive oil. I had also made some oatbran biscuits that I took with me they helped too.   

When I weighed myself this morning, I had lost the extra pounds I had gained during the first two weeks of my extreme vegan lent. That is probably due to the fact that I may had skipped few meals from the restaurant at the resort.

We are now only 7 days to the end of my experience and I am really looking forward to start drinking full fat milk again, drinking coffee and eggs and the rest.

 I didn’t go to work today and that gave me the time to produce this beautiful thing that I made for brunch (I had a lie in). This is a plain rice cake topped with fried onions & thyme, chopped chestnuts and sun dried tomato washed down with some sugar free ginger tea.

Then I popped to the dentist to spend a whopping £220 (how do they get away with charging so much for our grinders?).

Or dinner I made a nice little chilli con carne with soya meat and accompanied with some pearl barley.

Chilli con Carne ingredients (two portions): 1 tin of kidney beans, 1 tin tomato, 1 onions, garlic, ½ red and ½ green pepper, 1 tea spoon cumin powder, 1 tea spoon of coriander powder, a bit of black pepper, soya meat balls (20 medium ones).

Start by soaking the soya meatballs in boiling water for 10 minutes. Then squeeze out the water and cut in smaller pieces.

In a hot pan, fry your chopped onions until brown; add in some thyme and then your soya meat. Add black pepper and salt, then fry so the meat can absorb all the flavour (5 minutes should suffice).

Now add your chopped green, yellow peppers and the tomato cook for about 10 minutes. By this time, there should be very little or no juice from the tomatoes. Now add in your cumin powder, coriander powder and kidney beans plus 250 ml of water or vegetable stock. Then cover and leave to cook for another 20 minutes stirring from time to time.

For the pearl barley: measure 1 glass of barley, rinse it to remove the power that is covering it. Then In the cooking pan, place the barley in the pot with two glasses of water and one table spoon of rapeseed oil. Leave to cook for 15 minutes without covering the pot. Once the water has reduced, stir to separate the grains, cover and reduce the heat. The rest of the cooing will be by team.

Done.

I added, some freshly chopped parsley to my barley just before serving.

Voila!

I have also just posted the blogs from my week in Spring Harvest at Butlins Minehead. Do check in and have a read...

Thank you for reading and for keeping up with me. Remember to post a comment.

Day 32 ... SH day 6

Thursday 4^th April. Last day of Spring Harvest for me. It turned out to be longest day. I managed to miss my bus connection from Minehead to Taunton. The next bus was only in 20 minutes which meant that I would miss the train from Taunton to Bristol and also from Bristol to London. As I waited worrying about how I was going to pay for new tickets… a church coach pulled up to collect members who were returning from Spring Harvest to London. A friend who happened to be a member of said church came to say goodbye… to cut a long story short, he wasn’t returning right away and manage to get me on the coach for free.  Talking about being blessed? Now, that’s a blessing. 6 hours it took to arrive in Dagenham plus another two to get home… well, I got home at 9.30pm.

My late broth

 The first thing I did was clear the mess that Mr Jay made while I was away, then made myself a home-made warm and creamy broth with chickpeas and coconut milk… uhhhmmmm! I missed warm food.

Last meal at Butlins

For breakfast, I when to Butlins restaurant this morning and ordered a double portion of fried seasoned mushrooms that I eat with sugar free Dijon mustard… I think this must have been the only breakfast made with effort for the last six days.

Lunch was a snack fest in Pembury when the coach had a stopover; it consist of some plain salty pop corns, an apple and a banana, plus a "Green Machine naked fruit juice… I had never tasted it before it tastes amazing and has no added sugar. Highly recommended!

Now Butlins and all the made up concoctions are behind us now and we’ve got just 8 more days to go.

Day 31 ... SH day 5

The food at Butlins sank to a new low this morning when I went for my breakfast. I arrived and let the kitchen staffs know that had arrived. No less than 3 minutes later I was presented with some barely cooked row mushrooms and almost splattered tomatoes.

The mushroom looked visibly uncooked and I asked the waiter “seriously, would you eat this? Can you not see that this isn’t cooked?”  And I asked him if he could at least ask the chef to cook all into some oil with garlic and black pepper? The waiter took away the plate and when he reappeared, I had better looking tomatoes and healthier looking cooked mushrooms…

Frankly how these people remain in business is beyond me. I don’t know. Is it because we are Christians and are not meant to complain? By not complaining, these people think it is ok to serve us this rubbish and in our “Meekness” we accept mediocrity.

A the end my breakfast look like this with some sundried tomato and marinated aubergines

 At lunch time there was no surprises… you’ve guessed it OVERBOILED broccoli and cauliflower. I didn’t manage to have my lunch at lunch time as we were so busy on the stand. So, my lunch was eaten cold at 6.30 pm.

At break time, I went to Morrison’s in search of new flavours and came back with some Tahini, olive and garlic in olive oil and some sugar-free Dijon mustard. I also discovered that 99% of mustards jars I could find on the shelves had sugar in their composition... Wow!.

So, for dinner my concoction was made of he following: Ready-to-eat chestnuts, tahini and mustard, potatoes, over killed broccoli and cauliflowers, olives, sundried tomatoes… my dinner companion was a  very  hungry  seagull who watched all my movements.

It tasted really good. Tahini on its own isn’t that good, but with a bit of mustard it is just great. Tahini is the equivalent of peanut butted, but it is made of sesames seeds. Next, I will try it on a peace of cracker … it should be interesting.

Day 30… SH day 4

Today I decided to skip the resorts’ breakfast again. I wonder if anyone has spoken to them about the quality of their food here. It is amazing that, having traded for over 20 years, no one has taken them to task about their food; the vegetables are always over boiled, the fruits are bruised and at times you can find some starting to spoil… oh boy. I think I would have cried if I was paying for this with my own cash.

 So, skipped the resto’s breakfast, had a lie in and had some of my oatbran cakes with some tomato, fruit and redbush tea.

For lunch I had a plate of over boiled broccoli too ugly to be shown here.

And for dinner, I had some grated carrots collected from the restaurant at lunch time. To that, I added some grilled aubergine, sundried tomato and pickled beetroot eaten with a rice cake and a drizzle of flavoured sunflower oil from the aubergine jar.It tasted nice, but , I am starting to get tired of these unplanned mixes… just two days before I can go home and plan my meals properly. Can’t wait!

Only 10 days to go now before the end of this no meat, no caffeine, no sugar, no refined food, no deep fried food, no flour, no rice, no pasta extreme vegan lent.

The last days of anything can be a challenge and I hope that I won’t fall for anything until the end.

See you tomorrow.