TWO WEEKS = A FORTNIGHT...one day before halfway.

And it was very nearly a cop-out! Saturday is the day we lunch with my hubby's parents, so this morning my mother-in-law came upstairs and said words which two weeks ago, would have been magic...
"Eggplant parmesan".

Uh-oh. I nearly caved! I confess!!! I very nearly caved in on the spot. I didn't know how to get out of it, given that "Melanzane alla parmiggiano" is known to be one of my all-time favourite dishes...

I KNOW I should just 'fess up to her, and explain what I'm doing, but there is NO WAY on God's Green Earth that she would A. understand, B. approve, and C. be able to avoid making MANY comments ...

There is enough going on in my life right now, and I don't want to add yet another cause of stress. So I am keeping my diet to myself.

Luckily she gave me an out, by saying "I'm doing pasta for the others." - So I asked very nicely (explaining that I am trying to eat "light" after discovering the hernia), if she wouldn't mind just doing pasta for me, too.

I could see that she wasn't happy, but luckily it was just a small tray of eggplant p. she'd taken out of the freezer, so it was okay just for mother and father-in-law. We had wholemeal pasta with a simple tomato sauce, followed by roast pumpkin and cardoons or cardi, which are one of my winter favourites. I had no room for fruit after that lot - so much for eating light!

This afternoon, our school hosted our annual Cambridge Speaking Examiner co-ordination, with the school from Terni which we always do it with, so it was off to Viterbo again. I got home late, and the kids were hungry, even though hubby wasn't. I could have copped out again, gotten by with just the leftover vegan quiche, but I looked in the fridge and all those vegies were beckoning me.

So, the quiche got finished, but we also had potatoes (if you chop them into small enough pieces, they only take 20 minutes to boil), carrot sticks and steamed broccoli. The kids had some cheese instead of the quiche because they didn't want any (and because the last piece was kind of small).

Fruit (Kiwifruit and mandarins) to finish, and there goes Day Fourteen.

Something I am really noticing is that I am having sugar lows much less often. I used to arrive home from a day like today, late, and get into the kitchen just ravenous, needing to eat - which meant that what I produced was quick and not very good for us. Now I get into the kitchen, but my blood sugars seem much more balanced, and I can focus on choosing good recipes or creating good dishes. Very positive side-effect!

There's a Banana in My Briefcase! Day Thirteen

I've decided that the humble banana is a vegan's secret weapon. On days like today, I swear they are the only thing which keeps me going.

Today was the first DELTA seminar, or "input session". It was Background to Second Language Acquisition. We looked at the three big theories - the Behaviourist position (BF Skinner, with his 1957 book, Verbal Behaviour, Robert Lado, Contrastive Analysis), the Innatist/Mentalist position (Chomsky, with his 1959 "A Review of BF Skinner's Verbal Behaviour", Stephen Krashen, the Input Hypothesis), and the Interactionist position (Michael Long, caretaker talk, negotiation of meaning).

I left the building a little dazed and glazed - and ate the banana from my briefcase, and felt so much better.

Then I slipped. Not a major slip-up in the grand scheme of all things vegan. I mean, I didn't sit down and have an oozy, bloody steak. I didn't munch down on a ham and cheese sandwich. I didn't even get a whiff of a fast-food burger...

Nope, while in the supermarket at the train station, looking for some nuts to snack on, I weakened, and bought Gatorade. A coffee (which I am also trying to cut back on) would have been a better option! At least I could have put brown sugar in it. I did think "Oh, bad food choice, bad food choice" while buying it, but low blood pressure was saying "Get me some Gatorade, woman!", so I did...

On the train, I had my prepared lunch - peanut butter on brown bread sandwiches, mandarins, a(nother) banana, and the hazelnuts I'd bought (along with the Gatorade). I drank the Gatorade, as I googled it...and found that, apart from being appallingly bad for my health, the fact that it contains white sugar means that it technically isn't vegan, because white sugar is refined in a process which uses animal bones. This magazine contains an interesting article on the subject (of sugar refining), as well as some recipes and other useful stuff.

It's been such a busy couple of days that I decided not to beat myself up toooooo much about the slip-up, and just get on with it.

It was straight off the train, into the car, and off to Viterbo for our annual Cambridge Exams seminar, organised at the lovely Villa Sofia. There were three speakers. Josephine McNulty, who gave a very useful presentation on using technology in the classroom. She's the first presenter I think I've seen who addresses the "what to do if you only have the projector and computer, and not the actual interactive whiteboard?" question, and I'm about to go download some interactive whiteboard freeware to start getting a handle on it.

Rebecca Haag spoke about the new FCE for Schools exam, and her talk included some ideas and tips for classroom activities as we prepare our students for this exam.

Margaret Horrigan was the last speaker (she was also the first of my day, as she's one of my DELTA tutors!), and talked about traditional teaching methods. Page 21 of this journal is where you'll find her article on this subject.

Back to menu plan - raced back home and found my mother-in-law's wonderful minestrone, and this time, hubby had asked her not to put in the parmesan rind, so I could eat it! Yay. It was full of borlotti beans, rice, potatoes (yes, starch, starch and more starch, but yummy anyway!), carrots, celery and all those good things. I topped it with some nutritional yeast, and was as happy as a vegan who cheated could be! Finished with two kiwi-fruit, a mandarin and two oranges. I think I got my 5+ today!

Off to google wine + vegan now, and plan a lesson using my new freeware.

Day Twelve (?? I think...I'm losing count)

I had a few minutes to spare this morning (by accidentally getting up fifteen minutes early!), and decided to get a head-start on dinner. There were mushrooms which needed using, so out came my well-loved copy of the great Kiwi classic - Meals Without Meat, by another great Kiwi classic, Alison Holst. 

I don't know why the photo is sideways - I've tried several times to change it, and it refuses, so please just tilt your head slightly to one side.

Alison has a recipe for Mushroom Burgers, which I've loved forever (well, for the last 18 years, anyway), but it needed some tweaking to make it vegan. Here is my adapted version:

3 shallots, chopped finely

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 tbsp olive oil

300gr mushrooms, cleaned and finely chopped

1 cup fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs

1 tsp potato flour or cornstarch

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tbsp nutritional yeast

1 tbsp ground flaxseed

1 tsp miso paste

Sauté shallots and garlic in oil until they begin to soften. Add mushrooms and continue cooking until they turn soft and dark. Tip the mixture into a bowl or food processor (I find it much easier in the processor) and add the remaining ingredients. Mix well, then with wet hands, make burger patties (I got 14 small ones, but if you're making them for burger buns, make 6-8). 

Cook in a little oil, using a non-stick pan, until lightly browned on both sides. 

I served them with the left-over rice salad from last night, plus fresh salad, and fruit to finish. Very tasty.

(lunch - we're not talking about lunch today. Thursdays! Fruit, rice crackers and peanut butter...spread out over the day during ten minute breaks here and there....oh, I did talk about it after all!).

I also wanted to mention the need, during the first days of a vegan diet, for DIGESTIVE ENZYMES, if you don't want to gross yourself or your friends out while that intestinal flora gets itself sorted...

My health-food guru-guy recommended Nutrizym, and it is working wonders! 

Something about a BUSY day which means you can fit more in...

Or at least that's what it always seems like to me. A "day off" may result in achieving nothing, whereas a day with four lessons, a trip to the doctor, dance for the daughter, study and lesson planning results in...
dinner ready at 2 p.m!

We're only half-way through Day Eleven as I write this, but I'm going to post the menu plan now, as I have a moment...just a moment :-)

Lunch: leftover Braised Seitan with 60gr wholemeal pasta (and fruit to follow). The Seitan was even MORE delicious and flavoursome today, after its night in the fridge (just realised that I didn't take a photo! Bother!)

Dinner:

Vegan Mushroom and Zucchini Quiche

Brown Rice Salad from imagination

One Vegan quiche, adapted from this recipe, and a brown rice salad, with olives, capers and sundried tomatoes. Rounding it all out with the grated carrot salad, which is becoming a bit of a fixture! Tasty, raw, colourful - it just feels right on the table. (UPDATE: Modified the Carrot Salad, by adding a small chopped shallot, some sunflower and pumpkin seeds, some sultanas, some ground linseeds, and some toasted chickpeas. Made a dressing with oil, salt, pepper, dried basil, and nutritional yeast, and apple cider vinegar. Let it sit for an hour - WONDERFUL modification!)
(A word about the quiche. It was very quiche-like in texture, but not so much in taste. I put too much turmeric in it, so you could taste it. Next time I'll either use less, or use saffron, which is pretty much tasteless. But there WILL be a next time, and next time I'm going to make my own vegan wholemeal pastry, without resorting to store-bought. I hope that it works with olive oil, because I refuse to add margarine to our diet, just because it is animal-free!)

Oh - daughter ate everything, son nothing (his Nonna made him his favourite soup instead...vegie broth with small pasta cooked in it.)

DAY TEN! Worth celebrating - shame I have no time for that.

Found some more Cavolo Nero at the small market in Piazza San Faustino, so I was very happy. I'm finding that I'm craving fruit, fruit and more fruit, so I bought oranges fresh from Sicily, mandarins, and bananas. Bananas are such a perfect snack - easy to transport, not messy to eat, and very filling.

Menu plan: Lunch was cold wholemeal pasta (50gr) with 2 carrots (I peel and slice the carrots, put them in the pot with the cold water, bring it to the boil, add the pasta, cook for 10 mins, and it's ready to go!). I made a dressing with dried herbs, chilli flakes, and nutrional yeast and olive oil. An orange, 2 mandarins and a banana, and that was lunch.

Dinner was a bit more involved, but very, very tasty! I made Braised Seitan with Broccoli (didn't have the Brussels Sprouts the recipe called for, but broccoli worked well), Kale and Sun-Dried Tomatoes. This is a recipe from The Veganomicon, and colourful, easy to make, and it tasted as good as it looked! The Seitan didn't pick up the flavours as much as I thought it would, but it was still a very satisfying dish. I did plain boiled potatoes as a side, dressed with olive oil. Oh, and a grated carrot salad, and ended with two kiwi-fruit.

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Change of Subject

DELTA - Day Two and it has taken over my life pretty much. Which is what I expected. I'm working on Task 1 and 2 simultaneously, and everything else, including facebook, favourite TV, and the occasional game of Angry Birds, has been put away...

It's only six months. I can do anything for six months .... :-)

Day Nine, just for the sake of it

Boring food day. No time for fancy.
Lunch - leftover broccoli-potato soup from last night.
Snacks - a banana, an apple, 3 oranges (throughout the day)
Dinner - see lunch.

Tomorrow will be better, one hopes.

I can't NOT post my menu plan...

Today we had another rustic family picnic. I made the Sunshine Carrot-Pineapple muffins from The Veganomicon. I didn't have soy yoghurt in the house (and doubt I ever will because I can't stand the stuff!), so substituted a banana (thanks to my friend Rowena for this vegan tip!).
I had great luck with the new grain (Grano Capelli Arkrux) in the mill, and made a cup and a half of wonderful tasting flour in about 3 minutes. The muffins turned out really well. I also made a simple bean salad, and took a loaf of wholemeal bread, some fresh fruit salad, and some mandarins. A perfect picnic, and all vegan.

Sunday night is egg night in our house - a tradition which dates back to at least my childhood, but perhaps even to my mum and dad's. So the kids had their eggs on toast, hubby had his cup of tea (don't ask...!), and I needed something a little more interesting and tasty. There is some fresh fennel in the fridge, and at first I thought about a carrot and fennel soup, but then realised that the broccoli I bought on Tuesday really needed using. I whipped out the Veganomicon again and found Broccoli-Potato Soup with fresh herbs. Just the ticket - and my daughter had gone foraging with her Nonna and had brought back some fresh fennel fronds, which I used instead of the dill that the recipe called for. It was wonderful - a delicious, warming, chunky soup, filled with green goodness. I was greedy, and had a couple of slices of bruschetta (white bread, shock, horror! But good Italian salt-free white bread, from the local bakery. No preservatives, no nasties - if you don't count the commercial bleached white flour, that is!).

Fruit to finish, and that was Day Eight. Goodness from start to finish, and I feel joy, joy, joy, down in my heart!