On the Move

Hey everyone,
sorry for not blogging lately, I had a stressful time at uni. It's all over for 2008 now, thank God.
I have moved my blog to http://hearmeraw.wordpress.com/

Please find me there :-)

Just a quick note

Everyone enjoyed the baked goods :-). And no one missed the egg- and dairy-laden versions.

1:0 to madeleine and the animals :-)

Cupcakes Galore and Cheesecake Indulgence

I really wonder, why this blogspot thing is so inconvenient when uploading photos... never mind

Here are the blueberry cupcakes I made for work tomorrow to have a 'belated' celebration, since I didn't go to work on Friday when I had my actual birthday.


I haven't tried them yet but they smelled delicious :-)


Tonight's dinner was a yummy fruit platter, because my tummy was a bit upset so I opted for raw food :-)


Here the next batch of cupcakes/muffins:
banana muffins with walnut and crumble crunchyness

Haven't tried these yet either, but darling boyfriend said they were tasty, but that next time I should add extra walnuts to the batter.







Last night's dinner was a fruit platter, because I had raw foods Saturday :-)



And here comes the Double Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake.
I also made one small portion to sample before serving it at work because it is the first time I made a raw vegan cheesecake and my colleagues are quite fond of the egg and dairy-laden versions :-). But this will convince them.
I have to admit, I tweaked the recipe a bit, so it's not strictly raw. For example, I couldn't afford to pay NZ$ 26 for 250g of cacao nibs and opted for vegan dark chocolate instead. I also couldn't find cherry extract, so I added dried cherries (which are also bloody expensive).
The base of the cheesecake is very delicious and the filling also. Being raw doesn't make it healthy though hehe. Well, I mean it is healthier than a lot of normal cheesecakes, but 3 cups cashews, 1 3/4 cups almonds and 1 cup of coconut oil do eventually amount to a huge fat content. But that's okay. It's an experiment and I'm glad it went well, because this must be one of the most expensive cakes I have ever made :-).




I will report tomorrow how it was received.
My plan is: Feed my lovely colleagues, let them rave about it, then tell them: It's animal friendly, no butter, no eggs, no cream, no cheese. That'll teach even the most stubborn male :-)

so happy...

Hello to all my readers.

The last week has been frantically busy at uni and I also had to prepare for my 23rd bday which was on Friday. I am so super happy because in the last 3 weeks I made a real effort to loose a few kgs so I could buy a new dress for my bday :-). It all worked out and I feel fantastic now. I now weigh 121 lbs and I feel that's the real me. I haven't been that weight in god knows how many years (probably 10 or so) but now I am so content and happy with myself :-).
Just thought I should let you know. And the most important part I had to change about my eating was to skip the cake for a while. However, apart from that the vegan diet helps a lot with losing weight :-).

so I've gotta go now. Off to the markets. Will do some baking later for work tomorrow, i.e. belated bday cake.

Will show you a photo of the new me, though :-)

Tex Mex Dinner

Tonight we had chilli con carne, well I had chilli with kidney beans while BF had his meat version. I also made the cornbread and queso from Vegan Explosion.
The bread with a bit too sweat for my liking. It was a nice contrast to the chilli and really yummy but just not as "bready" as I liked, rather "cakey" :-). The queso also needs a bit of tweaking but that's because I didn't have the exact ingredients and my NZ substitutes just didn't do the recipe justice. But I will keep trying. However, I usually use this cheese sauce which is real good!

Anyway, the tasty corn bread:



And the chilli topped with cheese sauce (as it turned out a bit spicy and needed dampening down hehe)

Chocolate-Mousse Heaven

Oh my god, I cannot tell you how excited I am to have found an amaaaaaazing recipe for a super-delicious, cholesterol-free, cruelty-free, vegan, gluten-free indulgent, creamy, rich and decadent-tasting CHOCOLATE MOUSSE!

I found it in the July issue of Shape (American issue) and oh my god I am just going crazy here - that's how good it is. The secret ingredient is Avocado and to be quite honest, I had my doubts at first but I thought I might as well try it. And thankfully I did. Unfortunately I haven't got a pretty picture because I just stored it in the fridge in a plastic container due to the lack of a nice piping bag to make little flowery-type dollops, but never mind, it's delicious anyway.



So here's the recipe:

It's very creamy and rich so it's probably enough for 6 people. If you're trying it, you might want to half it. However, it apparently keeps for a week in the fridge (well certainly not where I live hehehe) and 1 months in the freezer so I put 2 portions straight in the freezer (chocolate mousse ice cream anyone?) and 3 portions in the fridge. 1 was devoured straight away (OMG!!!)

- 2 large Avocados --> scoop teaspoon-fulls into a mixing bowl; add
- 155ml (1 cup 2 Tblsp) maple syrup
- 3 Tblsp agave nectar (the original recipe asks for organic evaporated cane juice but that's to complicated for me hehe)
- 2 Tblsp coconut oil (melted)
- 2 Tsp vanilla extract
- 1 Tsp balsamic vinegar (no joke)
- 1/2 Tsp soy sauce (no joke either but I might omit this next time)
- 1 cup good cocoa powder (I only had 200mls left but that was enough as well. I bet more wouldn't do any harm though hehe)

Blend all the ingredients apart from the cocoa. Sift cocoa on top, stir in slowly (do avoid the cocoa 'dusting' everywhere), then blend in fully. That's it! It is quite creamy and dense, so next time I will try beating it with an electric whisker to get some more volume into it and make it a bit fluffier, but gosh, the taste is divine either way!

The magazine recipe had raspberries as a serving suggestion which looked very pretty. I could also imagine, piping the mousse onto a plate in some kind of pattern and then serving it with something like banana slices (banana split anyone???) or so. I'm not quite sure whether the berry combo would work for me, but do give it a try.

The recipe was from a women called Renée Loux.

Now I hope, you'll all run to get some avocados. If you don't, no you have to!!! :-)

All the best and enjoy the mousse!!!

8.30pm: I have just tried some of the frozen mousse. I can't quite make my mind up which is better, frozen or just chilled, it's both divine!


Here some pics of the bounty from the vege market this morning. I paid around NZ$35 for it, which is aroun 17 Euros or $24 US.


(Excuse the eggs, I don't eat them but my darling BF does, so at least by buying free range from a farmer, I feel a bit better about it hehe)

Sweet alternative

I just enjoyed a lovely dinner when a friend came over tonight. We had a variety of things, including seeded cruskits, white bean dip, salad, pickles and some stuff for the two (including BF) omnivores.
Unfortunately i forgot to take photos - woops.

Anyway I bought a cookbook today - haven't bought one in ages (vegan cookbooks in NZ normally come from the US which adds to the already high price of books, so I tend not to buy them).
But I found this book on sale called 'sweet alternative' - more than 100 recipes without gluten, dairy and soy. I'm okay with gluten and soy but have some gluten-free friends, so it would be great to find some yummy recipes.
Eggs are used in the recipes in this book but I have my trusted egg replacer which is gluten free, so I'm all set... :-)

And I am in cupcake mood anyway so I might whip up some yummyness sometime next week. With photos and all that...

Body and Mind

After 5 months of being vegan, last week I told my (vegan for 7 or so years) friend that I haven't been sick since - so last weekend we both got a cold... how's that???
Never mind, I'm doing fine. My spirits are up, just my body hasn't quite caught up yet, but it's getting there.
I really miss running. My last run was a week ago. The weather kept me from doing a long run on the weekend and then came the cough...
I'm hoping to do an easy run this weekend and slowly get back into a 4 runs a week routine.

I have started making sushi with brown rice now after discovering short grain organic brown rice at my favourite Organic store. It's not quite photo-ready yet as I still have to work out the right amount of sushi vinegar to make it stick properly, but it definitely convinced me and will take over from white rice.

Uni is going okay. It's quite busy but I feel good no matter what. One thing at a time, that's the way to go...
I'm still refusing to pull night-shifts in order to get assignments done but I can see myself having to face them this trimester... We'll see.

Today I went to the bar where I'll have my 23rd birthday party. The headchef is pretty much part of the family (boyfriend's sister's partner, i.e. 'brother in law' if both of us couples were married hehe), so he will accommodate my few wishes of vegan as well as glutenfree dishes :-). Don't you just love 'being different' :-).

But I'll make it as easy as possible for them (this will also keep them from making stuff-ups hehe) so I need to organise my invitations etc. and get the ball rolling.

Right, gotta go now, work on my psychology assignment :-)

Recent food adventures

A sunday lunch with the 'family'
homemade breads and salads...



and coconut cupcakes as well as date truffles... yumyum



I have become addicted to sushi again and have been filling my lunchbox with sushi variations over the last few weeks, but see for yourself :-)


My first inside out sushi



Vegan Burger at Burgerfuel


Damn good!

Vegan hotdog with vegan sausages from an Asian foodstore, lettuce, fried shallots, left over tomato sauce (pasta sauce) - it was good :-)



BF and I had a mix and match dinner . I had some fried tofu sticks, bean dip, salad, vegan ham and bread chips

Apologies

Apologies for not writing for aaaaage but I had soo much on, I just didn't find the time.
First of all, there was uni - doing 4 papers really took its toll and was quite stressful.
Secondly, I worked about 12 hours a week, trying to get some more $$$ :-)
Thirdly, I trained for a marathon which required about 6-8 hours of running a week.
Finally, and most importantly, my darling boyfriend also wanted my attention and I have to admit he was somewhat deprived of it as of recently.
But now, everything is back on track.

Number 1: The trimester is over, I achieved 2 A- in my Psychology courses as well as 2 As in my HR and my Accounting paper, so I'm over the moon. especially, because I managed to keep the As coming despite all those other commitments.

Number 2: I'm still happily working away, our team is growing and my colleagues are just amazing. I assume, I am one of the few people on this planet who actually looks forward to going to work :-).

Number 3: I ran my first marathon on June 22 in 4 hours 35 min 39 seconds and am really proud of it because the weather was absolutely horrendous, so finishing in just over 4 1/2 hours was fantastic (headwind, hail, rain, cold, we had it all)

Here you can see me (on the right in the blue top)



Number 4: Boyfriend and I had a good talk about *us* and will both make more of an effort - for me that means making time for being together and doing stuff outside the house even if that means sacrificing a bit of study time or so.

Finally, I am still passionately cooking away, creating some yummy vegan dishes. Just last night we had pizza and I topped mine with vegan nacho cheese sauce made from cashew nuts blended with water, pickled peppers, paprika powder, onion powder, lemon juice, garlic, savoury yeast flakes, salt and pepper (then boil the sauce until thick and creamy).

On Saturday we'll be having a midwinter Christmas party at a friends place. While there will be staple Christmas foods such as ham and pavlova, I will also provide plenty of vegan delights such as vegan German Stollen (a Christmas loaf/cake thingy), vegan dips and breadchips, bread/buns, salad, roast potatoes and veges and drinks.

Okay, that's me for now.

New Experiments

Thanks to Mihl for her recipe for Blackforest Truffles, they were so utterly delicious!

Everyone at my work loved them and nobody "questioned the ingredients". Very decadent!









Pasta with Tomatosauce (very nice one hehe) and walnuts

Our favourite buns:



Pasta with creamy pear sauce and walnuts



3 types of Anzac biscuits: Cashew-Ginger, Chewy, Peanut Butter




Potato Roesti with Veges




First ever home made spring rolls

Baking again

It was time to do some baking again, so here the results

Multigrain 6-seed buns (haven't sampled yet but will do so tonight yay)


Delicious vegan chocolate walnut brownie with boysenberry sauce and chocolate drizzle. Oh yum!




I also recently tried the Sweet Potato and Coconut Soup with Caramelised Cashews, a recipe (slightly changed) from Tofu for Two.
It was so good and even omni-BF loved it hehe




From the same website also comes the Hazelnut Mashed Potatoes which I had with lots of vege

Dinner Party

Delicious Vegan Walnut Cake


Vegan Cardamom and Pistachio Baklava


Dinner Rolls and Multigrain Bagels



White Bean and Rocket Dip with Pine nuts


Carrot and Cumin Dip

Holidays going by way too fast

Yeah, I haven't posted in aaaages. I am on uni holidays at the moment but the last two weeks leading up to it were more than stressful. Anyway, time to post some more food pics. one day I'll hopefully have enough time to actually write more about them as well.

How can people not be vegan?

Since I became vegan 7 weeks ago I have discovered all these great dishes. My cooking is so much more varied without meat and dairy - as ironic as it sounds. Mainly in terms of ingredients. And I just love love love the food and I enjoy it a lot more, because it is such a great experience for my taste buds. So here my recent creations:

Vegan Burger: Because the buns were a bit small, I had the tofu on the side (fried in a little sesame oil with garlic, soy sauce and maple syrup). On the buns I placed hummus, soy cream cheese, two flat cap mushrooms, avocado, tomato slices and tomato chutney. Side salad to go with it. Wow! Yummy!



My favourite fruit loaf: Packed with dried fruit and wholegrain goodness. No oil or margarine, just a little brown sugar. Instant energy :-)


This is my toasted muesli. I make it for my boyfriend, he loves it. It is actually vegan because I use margarine and brown sugar for the coating. Not too much coating but I prefer plain muesli, so BF gets to eat it all :-). It's packed with nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, peanuts and cashews), oats, coconut, seeds and some dried fruit.


Today's rainy-saturday lunchtime pancakes. I have written about them before but here's the photo. The gloss comes from margarine and maple syrup. Oh the delight! Even omni boyfriend liked them alot, despite their healthy appearance due to oat bran and wholegrain flour hehe. but don't tell him :-)


And finally, after running 18km this evening, I treated myself to this fabulous salad: lettuce, avocado, pickled peppers, tomatoes, sprouts, grilled sweet potato, fried tofu and sunflower kernels. Fresh dates and 4 pieces of dark chocolate for dessert :-).


How can people not be vegan?