Entertaining and Eating Out - two new experiences.

Last Thursday was a VERY special day. An old friend from my AFS Turkiye days (1988-89!), who makes amazing chocolates on a small island in Maine (blackdinahchocolatiers) was visiting Italy with her husband and two friends...two VEGAN friends! Via facebook, we organised to meet, which in the end turned out to be lunch at mine. First time entertaining since becoming vegan. I was VERY excited. And in my focus on "cooking for friends, cooking for vegans" I forgot to worry about the "cooking for a chef" part! Oops!

Our menu was as follows:

Bruschetta - plain garlic, olive patè, artichoke patè

Wholemeal pennette with Puttanesca sauce

Roast potato and parsley pesto salad

Beetroot and Blood Orange salad

Carrot and Sesame Salad

Leek and Mushroom Quiche (which was a bit of a disaster! I made the filling with soy cream, but didn't add enough cornflour and it didn't set. I ended up scooping out the filling into a pot, stirring in more cornflour and cooking it until it thickened, then pouring it back into the pie crust! - it still tasted ok-ish).

For dessert we had soy icecream (store-bought), with homemade vegan chocolate sauce (which was a crazy choice, considering I was cooking for a Chocolatier! Eek! However, she declared it delicious - I think I had VERY polite lunch guests ;-) )

It was a real pleasure entertaining as a vegan, and cooking for vegans. The discussion about the whys and wherefores was interesting as well.


That was Thursday, and on Saturday I had another first. First time eating out as a vegan. I planned ahead. Luckily in Italy, because they generally cook from scratch in restaurants, instead of cook chill which is common in some places, as a vegan you can ask chef to leave out things, or change things around a bit. It helped that the friends I was dining with know the restaurant owners, too! There was much hilarity as I tried to explain what I DO eat (everything EXCEPT that which comes from animals...yes, that means honey, too), and in the end, I had a very satisfying and delicious meal!

Bruschetta with olive and tomato
Borlotti beans with porcini mushrooms (to die for! Honestly!)
Hand-rolled spaghetti with simple tomato sauce.
Fruit salad for dessert.

Perfect :-)


And to top off the week, I just discovered a recipe for the best hummus I've ever made!

http://vegweb.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=ec11327653c032bd93cf02b2c39d7b56&topic=18020.0

Challenge Fail!

Sorry. It's one thing becoming vegan (which was so much easier than I expected it to be). It's a whole other thing trying to get a very unfit 40 year old body into REAL exercise every day...
I started so well, but fizzled on Thursday. That was a given, really, because of teaching from 8 until 5, with lots of driving in there too. You may remember that I'd done double duty (exercise-wise) on Wednesday...well, my knees really let me know what they thought about THAT on Thursday. So I decided my sprint from car to school to car to school to high school to school to car was plenty. Then there was some excuse (like needing to work on the DELTA) on Friday which stopped me, then I examined for PET/FCE most of the day Saturday, and it rained today. (Nobody mention the orbital trainer upstairs in the warm and dry...).
So I've failed.
Bummer.
And I'd love to say ... well, I'll just jump back in tomorrow...but I think we all know THAT isn't going to happen. I'll stick with the vegan challenge, and passing the DELTA with more than just a pass (ha ha ha), and perhaps in the summer time, will be more movement-inclined. Ho-hum...

wow - day five already...

The flab is losing its sag! I can feel it, even if no-one can notice. Got up at 6 a.m. again, and shuffled downstairs to do the GAG routine (I LOVE the fact that Bums, Tums and Thighs turns into GAG in Italian - Glutei, Abdome e some other large muscle group which starts with G...gambe? maybe...) Anyhoo...did it. Took 30 minutes. Felt good...but not enough. Uh-oh...addiction kicks in around Day Five maybe?

I taught at the pre-school - much better today (relatively speaking...). Lots of Wiggles, including their favourite song. Rockabye Your Bear - it never gets old. Love the dance. I'm thinking end-of-year recital with all my little cherubs...even though I know it is NEVER going to happen!

So after that, I decided it was time to try out the vegan sponge cake with "butter-cream" icing. I used margarine (vegan) in the icing. I've never cared for margarine, and being vegan isn't enough to make me like it. However, the fact that it tastes more or less like Italian butter (which always smells and tastes rancid to me) makes the whole icing thing acceptable to all those in this family. In fact, as I write, at 9.15 p.m., there is one small, sad slice of cake left on the plate in the fridge. That's a good result in my book!

Dinner was also a success. My first try with TVP , and it turned out very well. Tasty, chewy, wonderful food for a cold evening. I boiled it for 15 minutes, then let it drain (I had a few hours. Usually you just squeeze the extra moisture out). I sautéed an onion and a leek, then added the TVP, let that sizzle for four minutes, added garlic, diced potatoes and carrots, some shoyu (1 tbsp), and a tbsp of tomato paste, then covered the lot with enough boiling water to cook the vegies...left it until they were down. Turned into a really comforting stew. I'm impressed! Served with broccoli and mushrooms, and my work here is done. Which is good, because I'm in the throes of planning for tomorrow's seven hours of teaching children of various ages...

Oh yes....after lunch and before afternoon lessons, I ALSO fitted in a 30 minute walk/run around my village. 3.13km of uphill/downhill. On the off-chance that I don't feel like the orbital trainer tomorrow evening after all that teaching, I'm going to consider that I'm one-up.

Still doing it

I got up at 6a.m. again, and did another 25 minutes on the orbital trainer. It was tough - it really is the blog that keeps me to it! How odd. Remembering to take the iphone (with podcasts) upstairs before going to bed helped! Very interesting podcasts on ten odd animals in history - only listened to the first five, so will listen to the other five next time I'm on board.
I also walked from my car to school and back - which granted, only takes seven minutes, but that is 14 minutes in total. It counts, right?
And when I got home from work, Miss 7 reminded me that she REALLY needed a new exercise book, otherwise there was NO WAY she could do her homework...
Which necessitated a walk down to the village shop and back up. Add another 10 minutes to today's total, and it is starting to look pretty good.

Also discovered that, given the fact that our one and only bar/coffee shop in San Michele just closed down, the men all now hang out in the shop. It was packed (well, packed for SM) - there were five men in there, gas-bagging. I love my village.

Vegan round-up - pasta and vegies for lunch, minestrone with beans and silverbeet in it for dinner, followed by my vegan Peaches and Cream - the cream was made from ground almonds - tasty, but not creamy enough. They were too gritty to have the same mouth-feel as whipped cream. I will keep on hunting.

If you based your opinion of my teaching ability...

on today's lesson at the pre-school, you'd probably think "What the HECK is this person doing teaching kids?" What a disaster! Thank goodness I've had some wonderful lessons with this group recently, because otherwise I'd chuck in the towel RIGHT now!

Some comments I've had recently from the kids (in Italian) are "The English teacher is just so lovely." "English is really FUN!" and "The English teacher is really FUN and LOVELY!" - so I'm taking that to mean I'm doing something right (Thanks to Genki English!)
But discipline really is an issue. I know it isn't just me - both the PE teacher AND the Religion teacher are having problems, but today was diabolical. Let's blame it on the wind! - it is blowing a gale, and the sun is shining, so it is a Mad March kind of day.

What to do about a little one who does roundhouse kicks, followed by punches and slaps to anyone he can reach? Same fellow only stays in his chair for about two seconds at a time - and only gets out of his chair to kick and punch...today the teacher left the room, and there was an all-out brawl! I feel very ineffectual at moments like that, because even if I speak in Italian, they just won't listen, and won't stop. I can't even catch the fellow to put him in the Time-Out chair - not that he'd stay there.

I think I need some advice, but the teachers tell me I'm doing well (????) - today it doesn't feel like it.

______________________________________________________

If I wasn't vegan, I'd ask for some cheese with that WHINE! ;-)

On a brighter note, I hauled my comfortably-sized behind out of bed at 6 a.m., and did my Aerobics Arms DVD for 30 minutes! Today's challenge - TICK. I didn't want to do the orbital trainer today for two reasons...one is that my leg muscles were telling me they'd quite like a rest, and the second was that I didn't have my phone upstairs - no podcast = very boring workout = high likelihood of stopping after 10 minutes...

I can feel my triceps. :-)

Day Two of the Exercise Challenge.

We woke up too late to go to the mountain. I wasn't very sad about that - it meant I could fit in my 20 minutes on the Orbital Trainer before my shower. While pedalling away I try to increase my brain power (or at least my ability to answer pub quizzes!) by listening to podcasts from the lovely folks at Stuff You Missed In History Class and Stuff You Should Know. Today I learned all about quicksand - even though many old movies (and some not so old - Hi, Indie!) would like us to believe differently, it is actually fairly unlikely a human would die in quicksand - it usually just isn't deep enough. :-)
I needed to know that.
Yesterday I learned all about Richard the Lionheart - dreadful administrator, genius at war, which is why he spent most of his rule either crusading, or beating up on his should-have-been-father-in-law Phillip of France. Great fun - keeps me pedalling, otherwise I'd give up after 8 minutes (that's my boredom threshold limit for orbital trainer).

To make up my exercise regime to thirty minutes (you know the drill - "moderate exercise, thirty minutes at a time, three times a week, blah blah"), I vacuumed vigorously and washed the floors feverishly - it ended up adding another twenty minutes to my regime - bonus!

Legs - sore.
Knee - complaining.
Feeling - pumped :-)

And menu, because after all, this started as a vegan challenge, and morphed...
Lunch was the standard wholemeal pasta with herby tomato sauce, and dinner was a wonderful soup - thanks to my Dutch friend Arja for the suggestion!

Small onion
2 leeks
2 potatoes
4 carrots
1 celeriac bulb
250gr split green peas
4 cloves garlic
salt and pepper to taste

I sautéed the onion and leeks in a little olive oil, then added the chopped vegies (diced), and garlic. Sweated them awhile, then added the washed peas (I didn't soak them), salt and pepper, and covered with 2 litres of water (which I had to top up later). Brought it slowly to the boil, and then let it simmer for an hour. I pureed mine, because I prefer a creamy soup. Served with nutritional yeast - delish! Hubby had his chunky, and also pronounced it "delish" - or rather, his seal of approval - a shrug and a "You could make it again." :-)

Another update

I guess I knew that this would happen - once the challenge ended, so did the blogging. I AM still vegan, though, and we've still been eating well, as my ever-expanding behind proves. I thought I would share a few new photos of some of our more interesting meals. And then I thought I'd share my NEW 30 day challenge idea...

Grilled eggplant with parsley

vegie burgers made with okara, carrots, zucchini and rolled oats

ugly looking but normal tasting home-made tofu

Samosa-stuffed pastie. Fine! VERY FINE!

Still my fave from Veganomicon - seitan with brussel sprouts, kale and sundried tomatoes.

And the new challenge is (mostly to get me blogging again!) -
Building exercise into every day for 30 days. I'm enjoying my food too much, and it is showing. Spring is in the air, and with that, the desire to shed what I am kindly calling my winter weight...
So, as my diet is probably not going to change much (trying to keep up with calorie intake, plus vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, protein, etc etc...), my exercise regime MUST change.

Today I began with 20 minutes on the orbital trainer. That felt good - made me quite grumpy for the rest of the day, and my sit-down muscles are telling me to go to Hades right now...
Tomorrow might include a trip to the snow - I'll try to make that count.

Wish me luck - I hope to be as successful in THIS new challenge as I was in the last!