Day 15… I’ve lost my bible

Not found, still looking

This morning I didn’t managed to do my devotion before leaving home this morning. Thought I would do it on the go, alas couldn’t find my bible… now at 8pm I still don’t know what happened to my bible. I do have a few around the house, but the others are French or much bulkier… I left the house with one of the bulkier ones... HEAVY!

I am not sure who to blame for this… the devil perhaps? Not sure

I’ve got a theory. In Daniel 9, Daniel fasted for 21 days for his people after a vision he had. He had to wait 21 days before he the angel appeared to him with a response to his prayers. The Angel proceed to explain that the response to the prayers was blocked by the Prince of Persia  (the Devil) from the first day of his prayer.  Daniel 9 v 12-14.

Is this a coincidence? At the end of this week it will be 21 days since I started this Daniel fast/XL vegan lent. Something happened yesterday that made me change the order of my prayers… I decided that this week’s prayers would be dedicated to few members of my family 1, 2 or 3 different members per day. So, today was the first day and the first time during this week  was going to pray  for one of my siblings household, I didn’t managed it, I got side tracked as I was looking for my much loved bible. Then I got to work late… coincidence? Not too sure.

I decide then to crank up the prayer routine during the day and added 1 more time of prayer mid afternoon on top of the morning devotion and mid morning break.  This is what we will apply at least for this week.

On the food now, after eating the content of a vitamins cabinet yesterday, I chose to have lighter and less starchy foods today.

For break fast I had my beloved oatbrand with dry raisins, seed, rice milk and grape fruits.

For lunch I had a big salad with beetroot, grated carrots and balsamic vinegar very filling

For dinner I had a quinoa stir fry with load of sweet pepper and carrots cut a la julienne.

To make the quinoa stir fry, you will need some part cooked quinoa, an onion, garlic, leek, celery, spring onion, a green pepper, a carrot, a tomato and a cube stock.

The quinoa usually takes 20 minutes to cook. So, for the stir fry you will precook it for 15 minutes, plain and Just with water. Set aside don’t let it cool down.

While the quinoa is cooking, peel and chop all the other ingredients as you want. Preferably thin and of the same size. Pay special attention to the carrot as it will be the hardest to cook amongst the ingredients. Set aside.

Put a bit of oil (vegetable oil) in a really hot wok, throw in your onions first and your carrots, stirs for two minutes.

Quinoa stir fry

Add in the other chopped ingredients keep stirring the lot for another 2 minutes.

Now throw in your precooked quinoa, mix it well, add black pepper, salt and your crushed stock cube. Mix well.

Now cover for another 5 minutes the time for the quinoa to finish cooking.

Et voila! Enjoy. I did.

I enjoyed mine watching the Simpsons on TV finally (first time in at least 3 weeks). I still can’t find my bible, but I feel relaxed and at peace. God bless you for reading.

See ya tomorrow.

Day 14… It was a brain wave

I am beginning to think that doing the prayers, the cooking, the blogging and overusing my brain was a tad ambitious. Man! This is time consuming. I haven’t watched a cartoon in 14 days, my sleeping time has considerably reduced. But I owe to keep up with at least the blog as I feel it serve to keep me in check.

This blog thing was just a bored moment brainwave. I mentioned the idea to my colleague, asked another which blog he used, tweeted to ask recommendations and in the space of 1 hour lunch I had set up a page and posted my first blog… I didn’t realised it was going to cost me so much and I am  for the last 48 hours trying to think of a good reason to stop blogging daily. Perhaps I could do it only every other day? Once a week?

But if I take that route, it would mean that I am slowing down and not keeping myself in check that tightly as I have been so far… Hate the idea of letting my self down so I will keep this daily blogging going until at least half way (day 20) then, we’ll if we carry on daily.

Punkin seeds loaf ingredients

Today’s lunch and dinner was a Cameroonian dish made from white pumpkinseeds power. It is a pumpkin seeds loaf with soya meatballs, accompanied with cassava and yellow sweet potato. The loaf is often cooked with parboiled boneless meat or flaked fish all wrapped in banana leaves to give that extra  something . This dish is packed full of goodness. As I said previously, there must be a good reason for West Africans to be built like trunks. Just look at me! Lol.

Now let me tell you about my food. The pumpkin seeds are packed full of Vitamin E, vitamin B6, proteins, Anti-oxidants, help lower bad cholesterol,  they are also full of calories… who care it tastes so guuud!

To make the loaf, you will need some seasonings: Onion, Garlic, coriander leek. All this is to give a bit of taste to the soya meat balls. You can’t cook this loaf like a meat loaf in a baking tin, but in aluminium foil wrap (or banana leave if you’ve got it) and placed in a pot with  shallow water and plenty of steam. For full recipe & method DM me on twitter @hjulienne.

the yellow sweet potato

The cassava is a very versatile root vegetable also full of goodness. Get this. It full of proteins, vitamin K, vitamin B complex and B6.

The then the yellow sweet potato which is full of starch and contain vitamin B6, Vitamin A,K and Iron. Please note the yellow potato has a slightly more tougher constancy  than the regular potato. It will stay together in stews. The one that you find easily on the stalls is the red variety that easily goes mushy. I don’t like it…yuk.



it tastes better than it looks!



Both the cassava and yellow sweet potato ca be found at the Indian shop. They will cook in shallow water for about  20 minutes depending on the cut and in a covered pan. They are a bit unruly when it comes to cut them raw they basically break whenever you are trying to cut nice little shapes. Best cut it rough for an easy cooking then, cut to shape once they are cooked.

My plate just seems like an edible vitamin cabinet, but bwoy am I glad I have been researching these foods. If manage to keep this diet, there is no reason I should my Docs any time soon this year.

See Ya!

Day 13 … leftovers party

Today I went to meet few new friends at the BFI for brunch… I checked out the menu of the café before I went. Of course that didn’t cater for vegans… Quelle surprise!

Before I arriving at the venue, I stopped by Wasabi at Waterloo station to pick up some Edamame beans so I won’t just watch others eating.

When I arrived at the venue, I checked with the kitchen if there was something I could eat… they couldn’t event make ma a fruit salad. They response gave me an excuse to whip out my beans and eat the openly. All washed down with a pot of sugar free Ginger and lemon tea. .. This is good because all I spent in that very expensive café was £2.35! Wow. My new friend thought it was odd that I had brought my own beans…  I really really feel sorry for vegans. Seriously. It is not just because they are not catered for, but because other s that are not are very unsupportive.

I had my lunch very late afternoon today… a collection of left over foods from the week. My plate had some boiled potatoes, boiled in the skin plantain, chunky tomato sauce and chunky green sauce (salty chutneys sauces).

The sauces are really handy to have in the fridge. They will go well with almost every thing savoury and can be eaten hot or cold. To see the recipe of the chunky tomato sauce, please go to day 11.

To make a jar of my chunky green sauce /chutney, you will need the following:

*1 green sweet pepper

*1 big onion

*5 garlic cloves

*1 leek

*Half a bunch of fresh coriander

*2 or 3 stems of thyme

*1 red chilli pepper

*Plenty of vegetable oil (100 ml), Salt & 1 vegetable stock cube

Start by washing and chopping everything. Keep the onion and thyme separately.

Pour all the oil in a non sticky pot. When hot, throw in the chopped onion and thyme stems stir until the onion is caramelised. Throw in All the chopped ingredients above and cook stirring continuously for a bout 10 minutes… all ingredients should be soft then.  Crush the stock cube and add to the mix. Leave to cook another 2 minutes and remove form fire. Leave to cool and spoon into the jar.

Once in the jar all the oil will come to the surface of the jar. Just leave that oil there as it will protect the chutney and keep it from moulding. 1 jar will keep 2 weeks in the fridge. Only use clean spoons to scoop from the jar. Using a dirty spoons or one that has been in your mouth will cause your chutney to spoil quicker.

Enjoy!

Day 12... praying for our leaders!

As I am doing the Daniel fast/XL vegan lent, I have set up theme of prayer week by week.

This week was my week of praying for people in authority in churches and Para churches organisations in particular.

Over the years we have heard of leaders in ministry falling from grace, thus reminding us that even though they are chosen by God to fulfil their roles they are still human.

The bible often reminds us that we must pray for our leaders and intercede for them without ceasing especially those who we are seeing are clearly in the wrong and won’t change their ways. Often, those leaders are surrounded by ‘Yes’ people who will applaud them until they drop off the bridge.

In Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar was reminded in a dream that he was king because God placed him there. He had become big headed and was asked to change his ways but he didn’t and was send in the wilderness etc…

We owe to remember that whatever comes from the top filters down to you, who ultimately have to execute the orders. And if you are in some sort of ministry, you will be passing them to God’s people…

We owe to pray that our leaders will remain humble, teachable, seek God and REMAIN in touch with the master. So that, when your leaders decide something, it is in line with what the Lord wants. That way, when the orders filter down to you it will feel as pure as the olive oil that was poured on Aaron’s head travelling smoothly from his head to his beard to the hem of his garment (psalm 133).

Praying for them is also selfish because ultimately, it will save you a lot of heartaches as you will stop questioning their decisions when you know that they are in tune with the Lord. It will stop you trying to justify them when they are wrong. It will stop to jeopardising your own integrity.

Whether you like your leaders or not… stop dancing around get on your knees and get praying.

Ok sermon over. Peace.

Day 11 … Conspiracy!

Have you ever decided to cut out an ingredient from your food and discover that the said ingredient is in every thing you want to buy?

My beef is with sugar today. It is one of he items banned on my XL vegan lent. Try buying a jar of tomato sauce that doesn’t have sugar or animal dairy in its ingredients list.

A week ago I was going to eat vegetables for lunch. I hadn’t had the time to stir fry them. Iwas going to find some sort of sauce to put over my microwave steamed vegetables… I can tell you it wasn’t fun trying to read all the Dolmio and the likes sauce that were on the shelves… I ended up irate and no longer hungry… I had spent my lunch hour any way. So I took my vegetables back home for dinner. Got home, decided to look at my black soy sauce’s label. There was sugar in it too!

I think this is a conspiracy against people who are trying to live a healthy life style including the diabetics, vegans and vegetarians. Even the simplest items of foods are full of extra unwanted and unnecessary stuff. Ready meals are cheaper than a bag of good apples in the supermarket and then people cry out when they see muffin tops walk past. Raw unprocessed foods are much more expensive than refined foods… how the hell did that happen? How can the food industry put all that energy, add ingredients only to sell it cheaper?... don’t get it. Now I can put a name to my suspicions… I am always questioning the 3 for 2 or buy one get one free… do you think the supermarket work hand in hand with the NHS?...



Chunky tomato chutney

Anyways that night I made my own chunky tomato sauce (salty chutney) to eat my vegetables with. It is really practical to have a jar of it in the fridge. These sauces are great for snacks too and would work on a salty pancake, piece of bread, potato or plantain…

Roasted mushrooms

To make a the sauce you will need a Jar (really important), plenty of vegetable oil, a big onion, 5 garlic cloves, 1 tin of peeled tomato, 2 medium fresh tomatoes, a hand full of  chopped leek. Fry the onion, chuck the rest in the oil, cook the mix for 10 minutes to get rid of the water. Don’t over fry the tomato or it’ll lose it sweetness. Leave to cool put in the jar, Voila!

For my lunch today I had some seasoned roasted giant mushrooms with a green pepper and yellow plantain… don’t be fooled by my plate here, I had seconds… and my friend chunky tomato sauce was at the party too! It took me 30 minute to get this ready last night. Good food doesn’t take ages to prepare once you know where to start. A good knife makes everything simpler!

Day 10 ... Check up

It is day 10 to yay!

According to Daniel 1 v15, it was on day 10 that the eunuch came to check on Daniel and his friends. After Daniel refused to eat the food offered to him by the king and decided to go for vegetable in stead. The eunuch only agreed to if Daniel and his friend remained healthy and well fed looking after ten days in the diet.

When the eunuch came back on the 10^th Daniel, Hananaiah, mishael & Azariah looked event better that the other student who were being feed from the kings reserve. So, they didn’t lose weight either. I can believe that.

Today incidentally, I was complimented many times about my general “bonne mine”. Isn’t that funny?

My snacks options so far

For the last ten days every time I told some one that I was going vegan for the next 40 days, their first reaction was: are you o a diet?, what are you going to eat, oh I cant join you because…whatever. All those reactions are based on the assumption that the vegans do not have much choice in what they eat. It also the result of the misconception that nothing else is available to eat beside the rubbish that is so readily available to us.

Well, I am still out to prove to my connections/friends that they are wrong. All this is of course a lot of efforts, a lot more labels reading and finding alternative which often aren’t the cheapest. But it is possible to be vegan and WELL FED!

My lunch

On to my food for today; breakfast was same as yesterday. For lunch I had a very colourful salad made of Beetroot, grated carrots, sunflower seeds & garlic. For vinaigrette I just had a squeeze of lemon.

I love this salad and ordinarily will have it with grated cheese, and a piece of baguette. You can also shred a piece or roasted chicken on to of this if you like chicken. It is great combo and you will stay fuller for longer too.

Beans, lentils & plantain for dinner

For dinner I had this beautiful plate. Black lentil and kidney beans cooked in grated ginger onions and garlic with a little bit of fresh thyme & a chilli. Accompanied by boiled in the skin plantain. The bean will also work well with fried plantains. The beans can be enjoyed cooked with liver or kidneys which I love!

If you are reading this, please do post a comment or DM me on tweet tweet @hjulienne. Prayer time this week is at 11.30 am. We are praying for church leaders and those leading para-churches organisations. Thank you for joining even in spirit. Blessings.

Day 9…. The best breakfast combo yet

 Today I had to go to a restaurant again. I must say, I really feel sorry for Real vegans and vegetarians. It must be a torture for them to go out to dinner. People think that they can only eat cardboards and grass… WHAT IS UP with that? The restaurant I have visited today had very few or barely options for vegetarians and vegans. It must be even worst if they can’t cook for themselves…

Forgot to say graces again.

At the restaurant, I had salad leave for starters, more salad leaves on a bigger plate topped with lukewarm roasted vegetables… Well, my verdict boring, boring, boring. No desserts option available to me either. I wasn’t paying so, had to seat through it. I don’t think I will go to that restaurant again!

Anyways, back to today! I had an eureka moment with my concoction this morning and it turned out to be the best so far excluding the weekend fry-up.

I did warn you that I was going to try until I get the best out of that darn oatbran at breakfast! So, here it is!

Ingredient:

3 table spoons of mornflake oatbran

½  mug of rice milk

1 table spoon of dry raisins

1 table spoon of pumpkin & sunflower seeds mix

¼ of pomegranate jewels

2 kiwis

Method:  in your bowl, combine oatbran, rice milk, raisins, seeds. Stir to make sure that the melange is well covered in milk. Put the bowl in the microwave for 4 minutes.

In the meantime, deseed your pomegranate, peel and chop the kiwis keep it aside until your microwave pings.

 Check that the mix is cooked to your taste. Leave to cool down for a minute then throw in the fresh fruit melange.

Can you tell? I have enjoyed it.

Don’t blame me if you don’t like it, If you don’t something must be wrong with your taste buds.

If you’ve got other idea, please share and I will try them.

Et voila! Bonne nuit!

On the 8th day my true love gave to me… Laziness!

Right ok. So I really feel lazy today and decided to skip dinner. I blame the woman who seats near me at work and who is a walking cheese factory…  She is so sweet it feels evil to say no to her… She is also a master of “I’ll be a minute” that results in me to me shouting “it been 10 minutes I A M LEAVING NOW COME ON!”  I got home late and was to cold to do anything meaningful.

I have roasted some peanuts (groundnuts) and munching on them while typing this update… I think I may be fattening because of the amount I have been eating .These ones are from the village where my Grand-parents were born… The land of the Bamileke in the province of Nde in Western Cameroon… You better not tell me you can’t place this on the map of Africa!... Little note for you dear reader; Africa isn’t a country.  In the same way that Europe isn’t one!

Talking about peanuts. Have you tried the soya nuts? They are great… and calories free. But those pesky things cost £1.20 for a handful of them. I have to make them last.

Brekki (buckwheat cinnamon & toppings)

Anyways. Back to today for breakfast I had crushed Buckwheat porridge with rice milk flavoured with cinnamon. All I can say is, it needs improvement. It wasn’t that bad. Buckwheat as porridge actually has a good consistency and keep a bit of its graininess after 5 minutes in the microwave. I prefer its consistency to that of the oatbran porridge.

As regards to the rice milk, I find it actually nicer that the Almond or the soya milk. The last wo are actually milkier and have unsweetened options. The rice milk on the other hand though naturally sweeter look like an over skimmed cow milk… all 3 are costlier than the cow milk which I prefer whole.

For lunch I just had a tomato and radish with homage pesto sauce.

Tomato & radish with pesto basil

Have I told you? This week I am praying about the leadership in churches and para-churches organisations. Isn’t it just fitting to stumble across Nebuchadnezzar who is refusing to acknowledge that God place him there and gave him all that he had… he was sent away and was reminded who is in charge. Then the next king also forgot… well it seem at some point, all leaders forget who got them there, preach and act off message and it is why we all need to pray for those who lead us whether they are a pain in the derriere or not.

Fancy joining me this week, do not hesitate…. “Whenever 2 or 3 agree in prayer” and all that… DM me @hjulienne or just say a prayer around 11.30 am every day this week.

Ok bonne nuit. Off to bed.

Day 7… Whoo hoo week 1 over!

Well, we have now completed a full week of what I called the Daniel “fast”. I am please to have made it so far. I am not saying that I am not missing my treats. The first thing I think I will eat  after this will be a yam stew with lamb neck or ox tail, washed down with the vintage Bordeaux wine my brother Flaubert gave me in Paris last week... uhhmmmmm!

Back to the fast. I came to the realisation that I am a dummy! Doh.  Though I spent last month preparing for this month of fast, I didn’t read the book of Daniel…euh hello? That’s where I should have started. I thought I knew that book like the back of my hand…! First thing I noted in the FIRST CHAPTER  is that the fast isn’t a big deal at all. The only reason Daniel ate only fruits and vegetables was because he didn’t want to eat from the king’s reserve as often the meat might have been leftover from sacrifices to false gods and Daniel didn’t want to defile himself with that.

I don’t even think he called it a fast as it seems his request to be brought only vegetable for his meals would have been a permanent request with a test period of 10 days. There is no mention of him then praying about anything in particular while he limited himself to vegetables. See Daniel 1 v8-16.

In the light of this, I will no longer call this experience a “Daniel fast” as I don’t think there is no such thing. I will call this a Daniel diet or an XL- Vegan-Lent, because this is what I am finding it to be.

XL-Vegan because this fast excludes all foods that involved animals/insects (even milk and honey), also excludes sugars and refined products. The vegan diet includes the last two categories. Lent because this in effect what I am doing. Besides Lent includes sacrifices AND prayers for 40 days. To that effect, I will now finish this experience on 12 of April and not on 31^st March.

During the last 7 days, I have tried and discovered some new foods to add to my diet and some new ways of cooking the ones I used already. Yesterday I found the Roasted Soya nuts in Tesco this works very well are as a variation to roasted peanut. They taste great too. I am going to try tomorrow morning to have crushes buckwheat for breakfast as a replacement of oatbran. I am getting a bit tired of it.

Oatbran pancake with fried onion & Almonds

Djansang tomato sauce & plantain

Today for breakfast I hade some leftovers (see yesterday’s post) oatbran pancakes with fried onion topped up with crushed almonds flakes… and  a kiwi for sweetness. I normally have the fried onions with fresh baguette topped with cheese and placed in the oven to melt the cheese…  This announces the week end!

For lunch today, I had a Cameroonian dish; the tomato & djansang sauce with boiled-in-skin yellow plantain. The sauce is usually cooked with the mighty meaty catfish….tasty.

Recipe available on request. Tweet me @hjulienne

Well, that is the week of thanksgiving finished. I still haven’t succeeded once in saying grace before eating… I seriously need to work on that. Isn’t it a minimum requirement for Christians?

A la semaine prochaine!

This is a smile not a plantain!

Daniel day 6 ... Doubt



Where's my encouragement?



Why do people seem to pity you whenever you say that you are doing a Daniel fast or any other fast for that matter? I don’t get it! It is like when you tell the same type of people that you travel 1 hour and 30 minutes to work each way; they give you that same look. And the look says “why are you even trying?” What is it with THEM! I seriously hope that the default position of pitying everybody who think/does the things “I won’t /wouldn’t do” is particular to the set of people I frequent. Would be a pity if a whole population was that way.

I have had that look often this week; I am starting to wonder is I am doing this Daniel fast in the right way.  I am actually enjoying it. If you, yes you dear reader think that I am doing this wrong, feel free to tweet me @hjulienne.

All banned, for March!

A Daniel fast isn’t a weight loss programme either people! So stop asking that question. This fast is about forgoing all things processed, refined, and all food items of animal origin, which I am doing.

I have been really creative with my food so far and think I may have even put on some pound this week. It feels great to know that, those pounds aren’t brought on by sugar, biscuits, cakes, whole milk or bacon.

Today I am starting the day with a full English breakfast with a fry-up Daniel style. Since I started this,  I actually have the time to have a cooked breakfast today.  So, the composants of the breakfast were oatbran savoury pancake, a large fried mushroom and fried tomato slices and a chunky tomato sauce for moisture.

To make the breakfast you will need:

Half mug of oatbran, Half mug of soya milk, 2 tomatoes,  2 big garlic pearls, herbes de Provence, white pepper  & vegetable oil.

The pancakes:  mix the oatbran, milk and 2 pinches of salt in a bowl. Stir well and leave to soften & bind for 15 minutes. After that, stir again and the mix should look like a batter. It is ready to fry.

On a hot non sticky pan spay a bit of oil. Once the oil is hot enough, measure 3 table spoons of the batter then spread it the in the pan and leave to cook for 1.30 minutes to 3 minutes each side depending on how crispy you want the edges to be.  With the measurements given, you should obtain 3 medium size pancakes.

The mushroom and tomato: Peel the mushroom and remove the stork. Slice 1 tomato in 3 rondelles, dice on of the garlic.

Dust the tomato and the mushroom with salt, white pepper, diced garlic and herbes de Provence. On a hot pan, put a table spoon of vegetable oil. When the oil is hot enough, place the tomato rondelles and mushroom let them fry till brown on each side, set aside.

The last tomato & garlic clove: dice both, then toss- fry both until soften, no more than 3 minutes in a hot oily pan… this is what will add moisture to the whole thing… just like bake beans would.

Now all is ready to serve. I served mine stacked in this order: pancake, mushroom, tomato rondelles, then the chunky tomato sauce on top. Bon Appétit!

I didn’t do the toss-fry tomato this morning as I premade a whole jar last night. If you want to make a jar of this, I will post the full recipe soon along with other of the same type.

Thank you for reading. A demain.

Great food to shoo doubts isn't it?