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?

Daniel day 5 - I am indeed a tool!

In the Lords prayer, there is a line that says, “…give us our daily bread”. In my view, the Lord does give us that daily bread. Sometime it is not for us to keep, but to pass it on to someone who need it more that we do. The bible says that we must feed the needy, give to the poor, encourage those who need encouragement. Etc… we cannot give it out if we haven’t received it… Start praying!

Many times I have prayed to be a vessel so I can be used to reach those that God sends me to. And from time to time is has happened.  It is much easier to reach out to the homeless as nearly every one can do that and explain their action. The spiritual stuffs are more difficult to explain (see day 3’s post). Today again I had to call a random person who I had to pray for. I am not often aware of the impact this action has, but my sole mission in this is to try and contact the person in the same day so I don’t forget it…(I am a walking talking sieve). Today the person I prayed for needed encouragements for a situation at work… I am glad now that I managed to get in touch without too much difficulty. I do worry about the reaction of the people I contact.

I spoke to my colleague about this prayer thing and he replied that when Daniel did his fast, “weirder thinks happened….”  Not really reassuring is it? Though I am excited to be of some use, I

am worried and maybe fearful of what is to come spiritually… I am conscious of how unclean and unworthy I am. if I may say so myself I am a right pain in the derriere for most people and to the Father too.

The fact that I am being a useful tool in God’s toolbox makes me … yes fearful. I guess He’s got his reasons for using this particular tool in this way. I can’t wait to see what’s next! So, onwards and sideways!

Oat Bran with pomegrana & seeds

In regards to food, I am still testing new ways to eat oat bran without sugar. I tried it today with soy milk and Pomegranate … That taste great, As the little jewels bust and release their juices…. Yummy!

There is a business manual that says that before you can put a product on the market, you should find 20 ways to present it… from that, I have already found 4 ways of consuming the oat band and tomorrow we are going to try a version of the fry-up… I am excited about this! Come back tomorrow to see the pic and the method.

Lunch was skipped… no time. 

my tomatoes chunks sauce



For dinner I made my own Jar of tomato & chunks sauce… this is going to be my best friend next week, but tonight it worked well with my  seasoned-steamed-vegetables.

Thank you so much for keeping up with me on this journey.

Nite nite

Daniel day 4… Alert ugly head in view.

I may have spoken too fast on yesterday‘s post. See, I suffer from severe anaemia and other ailments. I am often in pain and chronically tired. Until this morning I thought that I was all right because I hadn’t seen sign of all that too much this year yet. This morning, I was reminded that my old friends are very much there.

So I woke up at 5 am, made the bed prep the breakfast settled down for the teachings on Premier… then fail asleep. I didn’t have my breakfast at home today as when I snapped out my nod/nap it was 7am. I packed my food and ate it at work. I spent the rest of the day tired and in pain.

If I was overly spiritual, I would say that the devil is already at work beckoning me to drop the fasting and given my oh so regular “rendez-vous” (with “handsome” doctors) at Mayday, Purley hospitals and GP last year, I could just stop things here because of my fear of a repeat. I guess this is where my faith will have to play. I believe that God is a healer and health is one of my prayer points during this time of fast. I pray that I will never again have a year like the one I had last year with my health issues.

The other reason for this fast I guess is to learn to cope with the things that I consume that might ultimately be bad for my body… like my abusive consumption of milk and love for dairy products, savoury biscuits and coffee.

If I can make it to the end of this week, I should be fine and I pray that the Lord will give me the strength to complete the fast… only 21 days to go. Yay!!!

Discoloured fruits salad

Apart from that gloom, food was a great today. I have my discoloured fruit salad at work with caffeine free, sugar free Acai berry tea… the fruits salad was made of 1 banana, a handful of blackberries and a handful of strawberries.  

Note for the future: for a better fruits salad experience, you better eat it within 30 minutes after chopping them… I hate discoloured food fruits!

My lunch & the burned Hassleback

For lunch we had a green mixed salad with radishes, olives and tomato drizzled with a balsamic vinegar and subfloor oil vinaigrette accompanied with a (burned)  hasslebak potatoes to replace the bread.



I went out for dinner with my team today at Giraffe… the choice wasn’t great for vegans or vegetarians for that matter. So I had an olive pickle for starters, a house salad and roast vegetables plus corn on a cob. I took my banana with my to the restaurant as there was no option for me on the card… I ended up not eating it as we were all too stuffed to take dessert. All I drank was a glace of water with a slice of lemon in it while looking enviously at my colleagues’ cocktails…

Note about going out: make our mid up before going out. Do not bow to peers pressure and ask your friends to respect your choices. Tell your waiter about your current dietary requirements… above all, check the restaurant menu before hand and make your choices (you won’t have too many choices anyway with this diet. By making your choices and your substitutions in advance you won’t hold up people at the table and won’t be considered weird!

 Voila! Please keep me in your prayers. Thank you for reading! 

This is how they should look like - Hassleback Potatoes



Daniel day 3… we are getting cosy!

Isn’t it funny how we become over apprehensive over a project/idea/journey?

Doing a Daniel fast and a regular blog are both very new to me so, over the whole month of February, I chewed my nail over this. I imagined all possible fails and good reasons to abandon or push back the fast. I nearly abandoned on day one… I was in Paris and surrounded by GOOD FOOD! That was the worst bridge to cross. And having crossed it I now feel that all that time worrying about doing this was just a…. WASTE. Well here we are. 

It might just be day 3, but I feel that the worst is over. I have also realised that worrying about stuff helps you prepare for obstacles. I am not claiming victory just yet, but I felt that I am getting in to  a routine now and really starting to enjoy this.

It is almost too easy. The real challenge will come when the spiritual stuff start kicking in. You can never prepare for that. I sincerely hope that the prayer for random people isn’t going to increase as I feel weird calling someone and saying…”God told me that you needed prayer”. Thank God the most random of them seem to know who I was, but I couldn’t remember her… well, may be that is my comfort issue … will need to sort it out and be more positive about it.

The reading today in my bible was about Moses having people supporting him in everything he did. Similarly during my preparation, I nominated few people who will support me during the fast and help me keeping on… people to be accountable to are a good motivator… who like admitting defeat? Not me! So I find them really useful and thank God that I have such friend. I am yet to find people to join me on short legs of the journey and can understand their reluctance… If you are interested, there is still time. DM me on twitter to @hjulienne.

Oat Bran with fresh fruits

Today food wise, the Oat bran looked and tasted better topped up with fresh Strawberries, chopped red grapes, coconut milk and a small pinch of salt. I think this could be even better with sharper watery fruits like Clementine or other red berries (black berries seem watery enough).

For lunch I had the leftovers from “my suede surprise” topped up with sesame seeds for crunch.



"my suede surprise"


For dinner it was a simple lentils & potatoes soup accompanied with bobolo. The bobolo is from Cameroon and made with fermented Cassava steamed in a banana leaves…

I love them and they can be used in place of bread for the soup. Given that It is fermented, I am not quiet sure if it suitable for this fast. 

Lentil soup and bobolo





Recipes of the soup and the bobolo are available on request. Please DM me via twitter @hjulienne.

Thank you for keeping up. A bientot!



girl holding a bobolo







  

Daniel day 2

Daniel day 2. I am settling in. No fail today. Yay!

Another change added in my routine from today; I am reducing my LBC early morning intake.

Now. I am an LBC973 addict. And Steve Allen is the best person to wake up to on week days. Steve keeps me from falling back asleep from the first alarm at 4.45am until 6am when I switch to David Jeremiah on Premier Christian radio as part of my morning devotion.

By reducing Steve Allen to 30 minutes, I get to sleep 15 more minutes and switch to Premier from 5.30am for 1hr teachings. But more sleep yay!

Breakfast was rank this morning. I have switch from porridge to Bran oat.

That, mixed with soy milk and no sugar….yuk!  I have promised myself to make this slobby slob edible and visually acceptable. So tomorrow, we will add in fresh strawberries and red grapes on top of the seeds and dry raisins that are already there. Hopefully the sugar kick will be more instantaneous.

My lunch plate

Yesterday I was a bit worried about the staff lunch with all that meat available on the buffet, but, my plate was quite satisfying as I had not troubles resisting the liver pâté and cheeses available… I am really proud of this…. See how beautiful my paper plate looks with the colours and houmous!

For dinner I made what I will call my suede surprise … see how beautiful that look; it includes, suede (also called) rutabaga of course, green cabbage, chilli pepper, fresh tomatoes, sage and coconut milk.

The dinner was really tasty but my mouth was oh so on fire… I was too heavy on chilli… lol.

As for prayers today and the rest of this first week, we are still on thanks giving prayers… I have discovered that the more you thank God more you find reasons to… One thing I really rubbish at is praying before eating… I must work on that… Hey I never said I was perfect!

Thank you for reading... A demain!

Recipes of all the meal are available on request DM me on twitter @hjulienne.

Here we are... Daniel day 1

I spent the week end in Paris with my family. They know how to deal with food and of course I stuffed my face even though I was supposed to wind down in order to star the fast.

This morning first day, I woke up in Paris few steps away from warm tasty croissants, pains au chocolat, pain aux amandes and fresh baguette. 

Instead I opted for 3 oranges and a apple. But I couldn’t resist coffee. Well, that was the first and hopefully the only fail of the nest 28 days. T

he rest of the day was easier because I was returning to London by coach and ferry. I planned my day and had enough ground nuts and a vegetable stir-fry (see picture) in my luggage. 

Stir fry eated on the quay waiting for the ferry at Calais - France



For drink, I had  glaces of hot water with lemon slices then normal water. Another apple in the ferry that cost me 80 pences… thieves! Plus it was a tinny one.

Over all it was an easy enough day as I wasn’t around food much. The journey from Paris lasted 10 hours (passports issues with some of my fellow travellers) and I used that time for prayer and reading the word of God -I intend to read the bible cover to cover I started in January, made a big dent today-.

The prayer today were mostly about thanks giving as I’ve had many answered prayers this year already.

I got home at 10.45pm, so, missed out on cooking the meal I was so looking forward to put together for my first fast cooked meal. So (quick) dinner is roasted nuts and caffeine free- sugar -free-ginger tea.

Tomorrow at work is staff lunch…aaaahhh that’s going to be fun with the whole office filled with smells of roasted chicken and hot dogs… I might just decide to take a walk… Yes I am a chicken, cowed or better yet …a horse ah!

See ya tomorrow and thank you for reading… Want to join me for a day or two on this journey? Please let me know. So I will add you to my prayers of the day.  A bientot.