Vegan Adventure Week One Complete...

Yahoo!!! I've made it through to the evening of Day Seven without (m)any challenging moments. Menu plan today was easy - mother-in-law cooked lunch because I was at work (and because that is usually the meal we all have together as an extended family in the week).

Lunch was spinach risotto, followed by pan-roasted pumpkin and potatoes with rosemary and garlic. I finished with fruit, but the others had Bignè for hubby's birthday. They didn't attract me at all, and I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

Dinner was left-overs. Yay for being able to produce a vegan leftover dinner :-) The kids had finger food platters, which they always love (not vegan, as they had cheese pieces to round out their plates). I had the last pita pocket, with the last of the mushroom and walnut paté, as well as a big bowl of salad (lettuce, radicchio and grated carrot, with a simple olive oil and apple cider vinegar dressing and nutritional yeast flakes), and then I finished off the fruit salad from yesterday.

I'm stuffed to the gunnels, and completely satisfied. Right now, being a vegan is rocking my world.

Also should add - weight loss Week One - 500 gr (just over a pound for our American readers...). Gotta love that bonus side-effect!

Next week, I will probably only post if I make something REALLY delicious, or discover something new, because the DELTA starts on Monday, and I'm already feeling the pressure of preparing lessons while studying, while blogging, while thinking about what's for dinner...

And if I DO blog, I'm probably going to write more about teaching...

Unless you REALLY want to know about the week's menu plan ;-)

Shopping as a vegan.

Today was my first visit to the regular supermarket as a vegan (not counting the earth-friendly supermarket, because it is a different kind of experience). I spent a lot longer in the fruit and vegie section today, and really had a good look at what was on offer. I got three cartons of mushrooms instead of one, because so many vegan recipes call for mushrooms (the little powerhouses that they are! Filled with lovely B vitamins and whatnot...and they taste good, too!). I was hoping to find some varieties, but they only had champignon, so that's what went in the trolley. As well as four cartons of carrots. I've done a lot of the colour orange so far, and it was time for a change...

The greens were calling me, and I noticed an odd looking vegetable which I don't remember noticing before. Cavolo Nero. It wasn't just calling me - it was screaming my name, and practically jumped into the trolley by itself when I got close enough. Black Curly Kale is an attractive vegetable, with an almost sinful depth of colour, and such a pretty leaf. I was SURE I could make something delicious with it.

Standing at the check-out was a very special moment in my adventure so far - not a single animal product was in my trolley, and yet I felt like I had sufficient food for an entire week's meals, without stress or worry. If the little old signora in the queue behind me had said "And what are you going to do with THAT, my dear?", I could quite happily have said, "Oh, that? Well, that's going into a Moroccan style pie, and this is going into a soup, and these are going to be sprinkled on top of a salad. " The realisation that I am, finally, after 21 years of cooking for myself (and others dependant on me for their meals), totally in control of my kitchen and meal-planning. Did I have to go vegan to get to this point??? And why? And does this mean that thirty days is only the beginning of what is going to be a much longer adventure?

Today's menu: Lunch was a fiasco, but that's because I had lessons at odd times, students that stayed longer, and others that arrived earlier, and so I had a banana at 10, one rice cake with peanut butter at 1.30, the other one at 3, with an apple and two mandarins, and then another banana before shopping! I don't think I'll bother reporting work-day lunches any more - It's kind of embarrassing.

Dinner, on the other hand, was rather special! Today is hubby's birthday, but there was no time to make cake. Mother-in-law is handling that tomorrow (and I will avoid eating the bigné that she makes because she still doesn't know about the adventure, and I don't want to tell her).

I sautéed some garlic, zucchini, carrots and celery in a heavy pan for about 20 minutes, adding water as necessary, then put the MOPUR sausages on top, and put the lid on. This kind of "vegetable meat" is best braised, rather than grilled or cooked like real meat.
In another pan, I sautéed a chopped garlic clove in some olive oil, added a cup of water, a tsp of cumin seeds, and some cracked peppercorns, and a little salt. Then I added 325gr of chopped Cavolo Nero (black curly kale), and put the lid on. It took about 15 minutes to soften, and smelled wonderful.
I served the lot with boiled potatoes dressed with olive oil.
A HUGE fruit salad with kiwi-fruit, apples, oranges, and pineapple finished our Day Six Dinner. My daughter HATED the sausages (it isn't often that food makes her gag, but they did, sad to say). She loved all the vegies, though! My son was the complete opposite, of course. He enjoyed the sausage (but did say that the German wurst that they eat when we go visit our German friends, "the animal ones, Mummy", are MUCH better).

Hubby and I enjoyed the sausages, but agree that neither of us are actually missing meat at all. I think this MOPUR will be for moments when I realise we need a protein injection, or a change from pure vegetable dishes.

Day Six COMPLETE - feeling more than good....feeling on the way to GREAT!

Day Five, full-on day, not much cooking.

Thursdays are my longest working days, and I don't usually get home until after 6 p.m. Today's lunch was a peanut butter sandwich on wholemeal bread, an apple and a banana. I had asked my mother-in-law to make her wonderful winter minestrone (she uses carrots, potatoes, celery, and thickens it with rice). Perfect solution...for the rest of the family, I realised as I was driving to work. The soup gets its wonderful flavour from the rind of parmesan (that would be CHEESE!!!) she cooks in it, and also from the stock cube...and I don't know WHAT'S in that...


Thank goodness for the morning market in Piazza San Faustino, and a thirty minute break at work. I raced over and bought a head of lettuce, a very small (and kind of sad-looking) head of radicchio, some broccoli and mushrooms (what would happen to a vegan who hated mushrooms?). I also visited the best healthfood shop in Viterbo (which doesn't have a website - it is Shao Yang, Via delle Piagge, 1, 01100 Viterbo), and got a new kind of grain to try less-complicated flour-milling. It is a very ancient grain, grown in Sicily - if it is a success, I will post details. I also got some vegan "sausages" made from an Italian product called MOPUR (their site obviously needs a better translator, but you get the idea...). They'll make next week a little easier (mabye). 


Anyway, back on topic - I got home and found I was correct. There was cheese in the soup. I dished for the family, and made myself a simple salad (like last night's, with carrot, lettuce and radicchio), a re-heated pita pocket, and some of the left-over mushroom and walnut pate. An apple rounded out the meal, and everyone was happy and satisfied. 


I had a few hungry moments today, but I always do on a Thursday - banana at 1, and sandwiches at 3 will do that to a person. 


It's all good on the Vegan Frontline! 

Day Four, nature's bounty

Yesterday's Beetroot and vegetable soup, which did for lunch today as well. There is something about this soup - it is like getting a vitamin injection. Beetroot is going to be on my shopping list from now on, and come March  -
 I'M PLANTING IT!

Dinner - take a bow.

Super cooking day today. I feel like I'm getting my chef groove back! After discussion on the forum of The Fresh Loaf, I found that home-milled flour can often have quite a bitter taste, and that one way to get around this is to "soak" the flour for 24 hours. So yesterday I milled a batch of Grano Duro and Barley flour, added a little salt and then 2 cups of boiling water, to make quite a sticky dough. I left it covered on the kitchen bench overnight. It looked highly unattractive, and had that awful smell that has been putting me off using my mill.

But when I got home from work at 2 p.m., it smelled like BREAD!!! I then added the yeast - I used active dry yeast, 1 tbsp sprinkled on warm water (which I'd dissolved a teaspoon of maple syrup in). It went lovely and frothy. In the end, I had to cheat and mix some store-bought white flour, as I'd obviously put too much water in the night before, but hey! It is all a learning experience. I probably added a cup in total, so it was still predominantly wholemeal flour.

I kneaded it for fifteen minutes, then put it to rise. The children helped me shape it into pita pockets - we made sixteen in total. They were left to rise for another 40 minutes, then I cooked them in batches of four for 8 minutes a piece. They were very puffy, just as they should be. When I took them out of the oven, they went straight under tea-towels to soften.

While all that was happening, I also made Walnut and Mushroom patè (which ended up as more of a dip), a mixed salad (cheated! Opened a mixed salad from the supermarket, and dressed it with olive oil. It had carrots, rucola, lettuce and radicchio), and a kidney bean and tomato salad with a simple oil and balsalmic herb dressing. The table looked bright and inviting, and the house smelled wonderful! 

My son was a loooonnnnnggggggg way from impressed (although he loved the bread), but my daughter cleaned her plate. She's getting excited about Mummy's "new diet" because she's been saying for a very long time that she feels sad when she eats animals. Now she's asking all sorts of questions, and I have a feeling that she might be the reason that this new habit lasts more than 30 days :-) She talked me up to 90 during dinner.

Anyway, there was no dessert tonight, just fruit, which is better for us anyway. 

Okay, now I say Veeeeeeee-gan...but the Italians say vey-gan.

I seemed to spend a lot of today cooking and washing dishes. So much for keeping it simple.
Lunch was wonderful though! I wanted to make a beetroot soup, because in spite of claiming to hate beetroot, a vacuum pack of four steamed ones looked mighty good today. I found a recipe which called for vegetable broth, so I put a pot of water on the stove, added 2 carrots, a zucchini, some celery and parsley, and a little salt and got it boiling. When it was done, though, all those vegies looked pretty good, so instead of just using the water, I threw a potato in, waited ten minutes, then threw in the beetroot...cooked it for another ten minutes, then pureed the lot! Blow me down! What a bowl of energy that was! Brilliant red colour in the plate. A swirl of our oil on top, a few of those nutritional yeast flakes, and I was in Vegan Heaven! I rounded it out with a couple of bruschette, and I am glad I did...
because although after lunch I was bursting with energy, by the time 5.30 rolled around, I was CRABBY!
Mind you, that could have been because my dear wee boy is going through a "Loudest Boy In The World" phase.
Dinner was the roasted potato salad with the parsley pesto, which was definitely A KEEPER! Yummy. I also made a very simple grated carrot salad (just grated carrot, with an apple cider/olive oil dressing), and had bowls of sultanas and mixed seeds on the table for adding.
My find of the day was the Vegan Society of New Zealand website, and their recipe for fat-free, gluten-free vegan Brownies!!! I halved the recipe, and used Cannellini beans instead of black beans, because that was what I had on hand, and WOW!!!! I was sure the kids would turn up their noses, but NO...everyone came back for seconds, thirds...fourths...lucky I saved two for the kids' snack boxes tomorrow.
Now I am searching for a source of Agave syrup which doesn't involve a trip to the earth-friendly supermarket in Terni...

Day Three was a success food-wise, but mood-wise, not so much. Bearing in mind that my body is probably beginning some fairly serious de-tox process right about now (or probably right about 3 p.m. this afternoon, when the bad mood kicked in), I am NOT going to give up, but am going to ride it out, stick with it, and continue to enjoy this experiment. After all, IT IS ONLY THIRTY DAYS, and you can do anything for 30 days...

Please remember, if you read this blog, I love comments, and if you are a vegan, and have any advice, suggestions, great sites to visit...don't be shy now!

I say Vey-gan, you say Vee-gan (Adventure Day Two)

...and I still don't know how you say it in Italian, which is fine, because I don't intend to make a big announcement to those around me any time soon.

Today was the first day back at work after our three-week Christmas break. I thought it was going to be tougher than it actually was (mainly thanks to Genki English, but that's for another post). Last night was a mega-insomnia night. Perhaps I'd had a tad too much green tea (??), too late in the day. Perhaps I was just feeling a little stressed.

So, in spite of very little quality sleep, I've been able to keep going all day, with only two coffees (in the past it probably would have been a four cup kind of day). Is it the new diet? I doubt it, after only one day. It is probably more likely that I'm just happy to be back at work. A person who loves his or her job is truly blessed.

Down to it! Here is today's menu, as it panned out. I knew there'd be no point posting my weekly menu plan until AFTER the week :-) Nothing is ever carved in stone in my kitchen.

Breakfast: Overnight oatmeal (again - easy, tasty, gets me through to lunchtime without the munchies. You have to love that.)
Lunch: I made it before I went to work, because I knew I'd be home late. I cubed some pumpkin (there is going to be a recurring pumpkin theme this month, as we had a bumper crop this year), sliced a carrot, and put them in a pot with water and salt. Once it was boiling, I added 50gr of wholemeal pasta (penne rigate), and cooked for ten minutes. I drained it, put it all in a glass bowl, and poured a little olive oil over, then covered it with a plate, and left for work. When I got home, all the flavours had melded, and it was a delicious, creamy pasta salad.
Dinner: was meant to be roasted potato salad with parsley pesto, but I didn't get it started in time. So it was back to pumpkin. I roasted it with garlic, rosemary, drizzled in balsalmic vinegar. Yummy!

The roasted pumpkin, still in the pan

And then there was the sudden rush of inspiration from Vegan Piggy, so I made stuffed mushrooms with what I had on hand. Fresh breadcrumbs, a little red onion, a little garlic, mushroom stems, basil, parsley, and baked for 30 minutes.

Stuffed mushrooms (bad photo - they look like eggs!)

And the kids have been asking for tapioca pudding for ages, so I thought I'd try making it with the home-made soy-milk I made yesterday. I needed to add vanilla essence to cover the rather strong taste, but the kids came back for seconds (and even thirds!).

Home-made soy milk. I added oil, but won't do that again. Needs a good shake before using.

And so, Day Two is drawing to a close. Any changes yet? Perhaps a little too early to ask this, but my forearms are no longer itching. Perhaps it is the clay which is doing something - Too Much Information coming up (been going to the bathroom WAY more than usual! - this is often what happens at the beginning of a vegan diet, so I've read, but not usually so soon, as far as I can tell).

So far, so VEGAN :-)

Day One - Challenge Begun

The Menu:

Breakfast: Overnight oatmeal (the quantity in the recipe (see previous post) was enough for me for two days. It probably would have been enough for three days, if I hadn't been a little greedy. It tastes good.

Lunch: I made spinach and ricotta ravioli for the kids. For hubby and myself, I cooked two cups of Venere wholemeal rice. In a pan, I heated through some pre-cooked spinach (yay, thank you, Mother-In-Law!), with some herbs and spices (the Pasta Mix we got from the market in Campo di Fiori in Rome), and a little oil. Then I stirred the rice through that once it was cooked. We had yeast flakes sprinkled on top instead of parmesan, and it was delicious.

Dinner: Hubby was still full, so he had green tea. The kids had sandwiches (peanut butter for one, Asiago cheese for the other) and fruit. I nearly took the easy option and had peanut-butter sandwiches myself, but then gave myself a hearty shake. I don't mean to opt for cop-out on the first day! So I cooked half a head of cauliflower, and made a peanut sauce.
RECIPE: 2 big dessert spoons of crunchy peanut butter, 2 tsp of soy sauce, some chilli pepper, cumin and coriander, as well as some dried garlic. Thinned it down with boiling water, and whisked until it was creamy. I poured it over the cooked cauliflower, and ate with the usual seeds, and nutritional yeast. I served a big PAT ON THE BACK on the side :-)

I'm not going to mention all the fruit, because that would just get boring, but rest assured (in case you were feeling a little anxious!), that I'm getting my 5+ a day - plenty of mandarins and apples being devoured.

Bring on Day Two, I say.

I also should mention that we picked up some Green Clay (Argital) from the earth friendly supermarket, and so we are also trying this drink for a month. Well, 4/3/3/4, as you're supposed to do.