Week Four, Monday.

Yep, I'm feeling about as flat as that title, but that has nothing to do with my wonderful new lifestyle choice :-) It's nearly a month, see, and female readers will read between the lines. Even vegans get PMT, it seems :-)

Anyway, I'm well into the swing of DELTA assignments - did I already mention, 18 assignments in 17 weeks? Oh, and it isn't just "write something, hand it in and wait for feedback..." It is "write something, hand it in, read what everyone else has written, give feedback, wait for feedback on both what you've written, and the feedback you gave..." I'm loving it, really :-) Trying to absorb all the terminology so that I can fling it down on the page on June 1, and sound knowledgeably concise ... My 40 year old brain just about wants to tell me what I can do with the DELTA.

Anyway, today's menu. Chaos. I just wanted to mention again, because I haven't for quite some time, my vegan breakfast of choice: Overnight Oatmeal. The wonderful and very tasty cereal I've been eating for years (oh, how I miss the freeze-dried red fruit pieces!) was riddled with dairy, so it had to go! Now I roll my oats before I go to bed, mix them with sunflower seeds, linseeds, sultanas and cinnamon, and pour soy milk over. Put it in the fridge, covered, and in the morning, I give it a stir and add some agave, or maple, or malt syrup for sweetness. That's it. Delicious, and it really keeps me going until lunch time.

Lunch today was a really thick and creamy mushroom noodle soup, of which I ate MUCH more than I should have done! Fruit then followed, of course (I have stopped mentioning the fruit, but am eating at least 5 pieces a day!).

Dinner was hurried - daughter had dance, and it is my week to take the girls. I made a soup from barley, buckwheat and yellow lentils, flavoured with spring onions, grated carrots and a little celery, and a potato. By the time we got home, it was more of a grainy stew than a soup, but it was delicious, and there is enough for hubby's lunch tomorrow, and probably mine, too, so BONUS!

Okay, off to do more work/study...

Work always expands to fill all available time...I officially have NO more available time, but more work keeps on arriving. At some point very soon, the balance is going to tip, and I am going to run screaming mad ...

or else I'm just going to keep on getting everything done, keep on smiling, and on June 2, sit down quietly in the theatre in Viterbo to watch my daughter's ballet recital, happy in the knowledge that, whatever the result, I did the best on the exam that I knew how to do at the time.

I vote for option two :-)

Vegan Baking (which nearly rhymes when said in my accent...)

Very quick post today. 

Made some chocolate apricot almond cookies which were wonderful (better warm than cold though.)

I then made pineapple and carrot muffins (again...can't remember if I've already posted a pic of them, so forgive me if this is a repeat!). 

And I turned out the vegan "cheese" and took it along to the lovely afternoon tea at my dear friend's house.

It is really only "cheese" in the fact that you can cut it and stick it on crackers. Otherwise, I would say it tastes more like the old Kiwi favourite dip, made of Nestles Reduced Cream and a packet of Maggi Onion Soup, with a dash of vinegar - solidified....

If I ever make it again, I wouldn't put in the onion - I would put in a selection of fresh herbs instead. I think that would raise it from "ho-hum" to "give me more" status. 

As for other food today, lunch was the standard wholemeal spaghetti with Puttanesca Sauce (without the anchovies, naturally), and leftover tapioca pudding (very starchy meal!), and I didn't bother with dinner. Bonus, because that means what was meant for dinner tonight will be dinner tomorrow night! It will have to be...otherwise it would need to be tossed, and I am not going to start wasting food like that! Actually, am now thinking it might be my lunch, and I will make something else for dinner...

On to the weekly menu planning now! 

The Offensive Vegan

The menu for today wasn't mine. And I think I offended my mother-in-law, but I really didn't mean to do it! I've mentioned before that Saturday lunch is the meal we all share as an extended family every week, and M-I-L cooks. She had been going to make her wonderful spinach risotto, but when she checked, she found that she'd thawed out Chicory instead of Spinach (she's having her cataract operation on the 14th of next month...). Chicory is too bitter for risotto and I'm mildly allergic to it anyway, so we decided on pasta and tomato sauce, followed by vegetables. Fine.
Only today she did something she has NEVER DONE BEFORE!!! She mixed parmesan cheese through the pasta before pouring the sauce over it. Why??? Only yesterday I'd managed to slip into the conversation the fact that I'm currently not eating cheese, in such a way as not to elicit any unwanted comments (I congratulated myself on that one...obviously too soon!).
So I sat down to my big plate of pasta...and then had to push it away. I wanted to tip it back into the bowl, but she was watching :-) So I had to say "I'm sorry, but I'm not eating cheese right now...", and of course, she shot back, "How ridiculous. It is only a little bit. Just eat it. You SHOULD have told me."
Two options at that point. One - shrug, think "Well, it's only 30 days anyway, what's a little parmesan going to do? I'm not REALLY a vegan." and eat the darned pasta. Or TWO - stick to my principles, smile sweetly, say "You're right, I'm sorry, I should have told you. I'll just eat the vegetables."

I went for Option Two! And she slammed a few pot lids around, dropped one on the floor, SWORE (jeez, she NEVER swears....all for a little parmesan?)... So I apologised again, said that I hoped she wasn't offended, but that this was a choice I've made and that I thought I'd told her yesterday, put the pasta from my plate in my hubby's plate, and dished a plate of all the wonderful vegies she'd prepared. I mean, come on! Her main worry, of course, was that without the pasta, I wouldn't have enough to eat! HAH! She'd made cardi, roast pumpkin, roast potatoes, AND a big bowl of silverbeet. What more could a vegan want, I ask you?

And after that lunch, who would want dinner? My daughter is out on a dinner date at her friend's house. My son just wanted tapioca and fruit (easy!), hubby just wanted to lie on the couch in peace, and I just wanted to finish the leftover silverbeet and pumpkin from lunch :-)

I used what would have been my dinner cooking time to prepare tomorrow's dinner, because we have a special afternoon tea to go to in the afternoon. I also experimented with a vegan cheese recipe, and if it works, I'll post the link to the recipe tomorrow.

Now I'm off to work on DELTA Task Three, which right now, is making my brain hurt...

Mexican Vegan or Vegan Mexican....and peanut butter

When does a "day off" not mean a "day off"? When you're doing the DELTA and learning to be a vegan at the same time, that's when! Today was supposed to be a study day. So far today, I have read half a chapter of "Beyond The Sentence" (Scott Thornbury), scribbled some notes on the print-out of Assignment Two, tried to figure out how I'm going to write this with the teacher in my group, done the shopping, weathered a trip into the depths of the spaghetti bureaucracy that is the Italian Health System (and come away screaming, wailing and gnashing my teeth, facing ANOTHER trip to the same place tomorrow, to try and sort out what went wrong today)...

Lunch on the run - the last wholemeal bread roll with the last black bean burger, plus lots of fruit...

and because I had a spare five minutes, I made peanut butter!

I used this recipe, which is hardly a recipe at all, considering I bought roasted, salted peanuts :-) 300gr packet, 1.5 tbsps of our good olive oil, in the food processor for about five minutes. It's never going to have that store-bought consistency, but then...it ISN'T store bought, and I know exactly what is in it - there is no hydrogenated vegetable fat here, folk, nor sugar, and next time, I'm going to rinse off the salt, too.

Inspired by the kidney beans in the cupboard, I decided we'd have a Mexican Vegan night. I have a great recipe for low-fat guacamole, made from peas (500gr frozen petit pois, thawed out, 2 cloves crushed garlic, 2 tbsp lemon juice, or 1 of lemon, 1 of lime, chopped fresh parsley and chopped fresh coriander (cilantro), which I didn't have, so I used the spice, which gives a different flavour, but is still good. A little salt, and I added some cannellini beans, just for extra protein and creaminess. Whizzed it all in the food processor and there you go! Low fat guacamole! 

I still wanted to use those kidney beans, but we had refried beans just yesterday. Thinking along the lines of "salsa", I chopped up some black olives and sun-dried tomatoes, mixed them with the beans, then drizzled over some lemon juice, and let that sit for a bit.

And of course, completed the meal with our favourite carrot salad. I thought the plate looked very colourful and inviting, and the kids were very happy. There wasn't a single "yuck" from my son tonight.

Here endth (food-wise), day Nineteen! 

For my LICEO BIOLOGICO STUDENTS!

Thanks for stopping by. Here is a link to YOUR class wikispace, where you will find a copy of the important language from today's lesson, to help you with the homework task.

http://sticherydell.wikispaces.com/Liceo+Biological+PET+Class

See you next Thursday :-)

PUDDING!!! VEGAN PUDDING!

But I forgot to take a photo.

As I write, I feel like a well-wrung-out floor rag. Not the fault of the diet though, that's for sure! VERY busy Thursday (as they all are), compounded by the fact that I carried my laptop and projector all over Viterbo :-)

Menu: Lunch, standard wholemeal pasta with carrots and broccoli (I was at work, after all).

Dinner: Total panic on way home - next time I say "I'm going to do this week without a menu plan and see what happens" could someone please remind me of today's post?

I called my mother-in-law from Viterbo, and asked her to put a big pot of water on to boil. Then I planned the meal around that ;-) It was boiling when I arrived. A quick glance at the five (FIVE!!!!???!!!!!) different kinds of brown/wholegrain rice we have in the cupboard showed me that the GANGES River Brown was going to cook the fastest (35 minutes as opposed to 45 or even 55 for one type!), so I rinsed 300gr of it and threw it into the pot with a bit of salt. After 20 minutes I added two handfuls of frozen peas, then after another five minutes, two chopped carrots.

In a pan, I sautéed a small red onion, a couple of garlic cloves (not chopped, so that I could find them and make sure they didn't end up on the children's plates), then some ground cumin, ground corriander, garam masala, and ground cardamom (thanks, Heather Mc!), toasted that, added half a cup of red wine (remember, I was just grabbing wildly for anything I had...), then threw in some borlotti beans. Probably not the best type of bean for Indian spices, but we had black beans last night, and cannellini a few days ago, and I want to use chickpeas tomorrow (yes, I DO have a plan for tomorrow!). I just let them simmer away, and they got all mushy and toasty and spicy and surprisingly, very, very tasty.

And because, my female readers will understand, it is a time which requires, no, DEMANDS chocolate, I invented Vegan Chocolate Custard! 2 spoons potato flour, 1 spoon cocoa powder, 100ml agave syrup, some cinnamon and nutmeg, a pinch of salt, a little vanilla essence, and 2 cups of (homemade) soy milk. Whisked it all up, then stirred it over low heat. It was pudding, all right! Next time, I think I'd use less potato flour, as it was a stick-to-your-ribs kind of density. If you wanted more of a pouring custard, you'd need either less flour or more milk. And you could use cornflour instead of potato flour, but I don't have any right now. So a gluten-free, low-fat, vegan dessert, which everyone really enjoyed!

I've just noticed that this is a post which seemingly requires many, many exclamation marks. I'll put that down to the fact that I've been non-stop busy-bee since my feet hit the ground at 6 a.m. this morning...and I can't stop yet.

Now I'm off to create a Wikispace for my high school students to check in to for a copy of today's Mimio lesson. Embracing the teaching technology....

Day Eighteen - Oh so busy...

On days where there is just SO much to do, I just get SO much done :-) I love that!

I wanted to try making bread with my new grain (so far I've only used it for muffins). It was great! Wholemeal flour though - perhaps I needed a little more yeast? Or a little more rising time? It was a bit too chewy for our tastes - heavy, not light bread (but then...it IS wholemeal...). It was also a little too sweet for me - I used agave syrup instead of honey (of course - honey is not vegan friendly), and I probably should have halved the dose. However, hubby ate two rolls, and the kids loved theirs!

I thought they looked pretty cute and wholesome :-)

Another thing on my to-do list for today was making more soy milk. I'm still using the recipe from the aforementioned "Meals Without Meat" (yay, Ms Holst!), but I might just try another one next time - one where you soak the beans for a bit longer. However, it turned out much better this time - and I didn't bother adding any flavourings - not even cane sugar. I want to be able to use it in cooking, and it is better if there is no sugar in it. There was more, but one of the bottles exploded - the soy milk was too hot, and I poured it in too quickly. I think I lost about a cup and a half.

Lunch was the leftover couscous from last night, which I turned into a kind of cold pilaf, with chopped sun-dried tomatoes, capers, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and some walnut pieces. I also had a plate of steamed broccoli :-) And some kiwifruit. And some mandarins. (and I wonder why the pounds are not just melting away!).

Dinner was a different kind of burger - they were supposed to be sausages, but didn't want to form sausage shapes. Then I realised we had two meals practically the same in the space of a week - which is a reminder of WHY I should/must do weekly menu plans!! So a black-bean burger (15oz can black beans, drained, a cup of finely chopped fresh mushrooms, half cup of flour (I used a mix of oat and potato), some tomato paste, some garlic, some dried herbs, a tsp of miso, and some nutritional yeast - mix all of that together, and form sausages or patties, cook in a little oil), salad, carrot sticks, and a bread roll.

I did have ambitions of making proper burgers, but ran out of time and energy! It still looked lovely plated! (if not almost identical to one day last week!)

Store cupboard cooking today.

As my mum would say..."DID YA SEE THAT BUS GO BY???"

Got home at 6.10, dinner on table at 6.50 p.m. Planned it in my head on the drive home. I first cut up the huge head of broccoli from our garden, and put that on to boil (I know, healthier to steam, but it wouldn't have all fit in the steamer pot, and sometimes we just like it boiled.)

Chopped up the last of the scallions (bought from market last week, so they lasted well! Worth buying again. They seem to be easier to digest that the red onions from our garden that I've been using, although it is back to them tomorrow.) Added some garlic after ten minutes, then two tins of tomatoes, three boxes of cannellini beans (yay for cannellini!), a dessert spoon of barley malt (because I don't have molasses), some herbs, salt, pepper, and set that all to simmer.

Then I whipped out the couscous, toasted it with a little garlic and olive oil, poured on the boiled water and a little salt (1.5 cups couscous to 3 cups boiling water - made enough for dinner, AND my lunch tomorrow), and covered the pot. Easiest side dish of carbs I can think of!

That was dinner, folks - eaten and enjoyed by everyone (oh, the broccoli was just dressed with a little olive oil - keeping it simple.)

And what about lunch? Busy day at work, so this morning in the middle of the madness, I put two chopped up carrots in a pot, brought that to a boil, added a few broccoli trees, and then a couple of handfuls of wholemeal pasta. Dressed with oil, and nutritional yeast, it was the perfect, tasty, full-me-up lunch I needed when 1 p.m. rolled around.

And that, my friends, was Day erm...let me count on my fingers....17?? Really? Wow.

The day got better...

Just.

The pre-school class was a little bit of a nightmare this morning - the teacher was distracted by parents coming in for enrolment for September, and the pupils certainly take advantage! I solved the problem by teaching them the Hokey-Tokey (thanks to my colleague and great friend Heather for that idea!), and that passed a full half-hour! All the body parts! Excellent stuff.

As to the diet etc...

Acidy all day (need those ulcer test results to confirm my suspicions...)

Lunch was the last of the wonderful Beetroot, Orange and Cannellini Bean salad - the beans were pink all the way through today :-) The usual fruit to finish.

Dinner was a wonderfully rustic soup - Spelt (Farro), Split peas and yellow lentils. I sautéed a little spring onion, garlic and diced carrots in olive oil, then added the rinsed grain and legumes (grain+legume=complete protein), "enough" water, a little salt and voilà! Left it to simmer for 35 minutes, then put the lid on and let it rest for another ten. Creamy, tasty, and warming. As a side, I sliced some button mushrooms, and sautéed them with oil and a mix of dried rosemary, oregano, basil and a little red hot chilli pepper (at this point, I give up on the stomach. It will either be bad or it won't - there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason). For a salty taste, I added half a teaspoon of Miso. TASTY!!!

An apple to finish, and another Happy Vegan Day to  me!  

Disappointment

(This might be a too-much-information kind of post, so don't read on if you don't want to know too much!)

I was on a high - I'm loving being a vegan. I feel so good on this diet/lifestyle. So I was (perhaps naively) thinking that my tummy troubles were behind me...

Until I woke at 5a.m. this morning with severe heartburn - in fact, it felt like the beginning of a gallstone attack, and I know that can't be possible, because I had that operation in September.

It is either the hernia or an ulcer - must get my results from the hospital this week. However, I'm blaming it on the packet of crisps I had at the cinema yesterday, because otherwise it was the white bread bruschetta I had with my beetroot salad for dinner, and I don't want to give up that Sunday evening treat just yet...

I'm writing at 9 a.m., and am still shaky and acidy, which happens after an attack. Luckily I only have the pre-schoolers this morning, then can rest.

This is just a wobble. Every day that passes, I am more convinced that I've made the right decision for my body. Health-food shop/guru guy says 21 days is the magic number, so let's see if one more week makes a difference.

Day one of a new fortnight...

I think I had too much to eat today :-) 

Lunch was wholemeal spaghetti with Puttanesca sauce. I sautéed a little garlic then added chopped black olives and capers, tomatoes and a little tomato paste, salt and pepper, and cooked that for about 20 minutes. 

As a "seconda", I made braised cabbage with cumin seeds, and a beetroot, orange and cannellini bean salad, which was so simple, yet delicious, it was a shame no-one else loved it (real shame! Meant I could eat more of it myself!

). 

Okay, so the beans went pink, but that didn't matter at all. I just chopped the cooked beetroots (four medium), two oranges, and about a cup and a half of cooked cannellini beans, then a simple vinegrette of olive oil, apple cider vinegar and salt and pepper. So easy! 

And that was dinner, too. Leftovers :-) Hey, it's Sunday!! 

I'm still not missing any particular vegan-unfriendly foods, but I really am craving fruit! I don't know if it is because we're moving into the spring, and my body wants the vitamins, or if it is a side-effect of my body changing and having different requirements now. What I do know is that two Kiwifruit, an orange, some mandarins, and an apple are starting to sound like a complete meal. 

Taking a deep breath and diving into what is going to be a VERY busy week - deadlines all over the place, final edit of my book before I send it off to the RWNZ full manuscript competition...and the normal teaching load. I don't have a menu plan worked up yet, but I no longer think that matters! My fridge is stocked, my pantry is stocked, and we're good to go! 

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.

---------------------------------

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!

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.

The Beginning of my Thirty-day Vegan Adventure

I became a vegetarian at university, 18 years ago, and I remained a strict vegetarian (lacto-ovo) for 13 years. Because of low iron levels during my first pregnancy, I began eating meat again. We’re careful to get our meat from a known source, avoiding factory-farmed meat. We also keep chickens, so know that our eggs and chicken meat are free-range.

That being said, eating meat doesn’t sit comfortably with me, and my husband has been slowly moving towards a meat-free (or at least, a meat-lite) diet for the last two years, after reading Dr Ehret’s book “A Scientific Method Of Eating Your Way To Health.” That is too extreme for my tastes, but the idea of going vegan has appealed for years. My reasons for not doing it are that it seems too labour intensive, too complicated, too difficult, and too easy to get wrong.

So why now? The coming year is going to be very busy. I’m teaching full-time, raising two lively children, keeping house, AND beginning the DELTA (Diploma in English Language Teaching). So WHY is now the right time to add a “complicated” diet into that mix?

Health. That is the main reason. In September I had my gallbladder removed after many years of trouble. I hoped that would solve the other issues (mostly digestion-related), but it didn’t. Then I found out that I have a hiatus hernia as well, which probably explains a few of those other issues, but still not all. While doing this challenge, I’m going to be monitoring these things: the acid reflux, the aching knees, the brain fog, mood swings, hair-loss, and general energy levels. I'm hoping that weight-loss will be a welcome side-effect, so will be monitoring that as well. 

There is another reason why “NOW” is the time. I found this article by Steve Pavlina while in the “going vegan right now” mindset, and it really lit a fire under me. I know about creating habits from being a flybaby, and so I know this works. 30 days? I can do anything for 30 days. Then I can reassess the situation. No harm, no foul, as Steve Pavlina says.

My goals for this month are to KEEP IT SIMPLE. I’m not looking to replace meaty meals that I make now. I’m trying to keep things as easy and healthy as possible. I’m going to be thinking about cooking methods (steaming, stir-frying, slow-cooking), ingredients (heavy on vegetables, low on processed “vegetarian food”). I’m also going to be experimenting with making soy milk, making vegan “cheese”, and making our own bread – starting with this wholemeal pita bread recipe.

The main recipe book keeping me company on this month-long adventure is The Veganomicon, by Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Romero, and I’ll be reporting on recipes I’ve tried, and the reaction the family has had to them.

Oh -  the family! I’m not making my family do this with me. I still am not convinced that children should be vegan (which may sound strange, considering that I am doing it for MY health). I think my children have a very healthy diet, with lots of fruit and vegetables, and hardly any processed food. I think they will benefit from the changes I’m going to make, but they will still be getting everything that society thinks they need. If we do decide as a family to go vegan, I’ll be taking them to a doctor who specializes in children’s diets, and making sure we do it right.

The Challenge So Far:

Day Zero:

Breakfast was Overnight Oatmeal (delicious! A keeper for sure!)

Lunch was not vegan. (mother-in-law made lunch).

Dinner: I steamed cauliflower and pumpkin cubes, grated a carrot, and mixed them together to make a warm salad. Sprinkled with sunflower, pumpkin and linseeds, and made a dressing of tahini, lemon juice and a little soy sauce. I thinned it down with the water from the steamer, to add back in some of those nutrients which may have been lost. I loved it. The rest of the family (who had pan-fried halibut with carrot sticks and a little taste of my salad) were not so keen. Hubby said that there were too many tastes mixed in there for him. He prefers cauliflower alone, just dressed with olive oil. I like it like that, too, but wanted something that looked and felt vegan for my first real vegan dinner.

Today is the first full day (Day One), and although I have my menu planned, nothing is carved in stone, so I will write the menu for each day the day AFTER, as a record of MY THIRTY-DAY VEGAN ADVENTURE.

Any questions, comments and advice much appreciated.

The First Annual Paliferi Family Very Rustic New Year Picnic

...bring your own damper.

It may have been the strong Pugliese wine I drank last night, or the fact that it was 2 a.m. before I got to sleep, but when I awoke this morning, all I wanted was Damper.

Not entirely true. I knew that a trip to our difficult piece of land (called "La Bastarda" for a reason) was on the cards. Mr Hubby had to burn some clippings and general undergrowth after he and his dad cut down an unwanted tree yesterday. I also knew that I didn't really want to go - the pull of studying for the DELTA is getting very hard to ignore, and the idea of a morning kid- and hubby-free was admittedly appealing.

Then I got to thinking about the OTHER book I'm reading right now - Dale Carnegie's very famous, very old, yet still very relevant "How To Win Friends and Influence People", and I thought "What does everyone want today?".

My answer was DAMPER :-) And potatoes cooked in the embers.

Mr Hubby in charge of the fire

Yes, I was a Brownie, and then a Girl Guide, and yes, some of those memories are the best of my life. I was up before everyone else anyway, and it wasn't hard to find a recipe on-line for Damper. I used this one, and it was perfect. Very light, cooked very well, and tasted wonderful. (Next time I would double the mixture, even though this made six good sized rolls. 

Potatoes cooking in the embers

Our potatoes are quite big, so I cut six in half, and also cut crosses in them, because we didn't want them to explode out of the fire. I oiled and salted them before wrapping them individually in tinfoil (al-foil for those non-Kiwis reading this!).

Then it was off to La Bastarda, where we gathered large handfuls of damp leaves to get that fire going. It was smoky, and it was hot, just as I remember Girl Guide camp-fires being. I also remembered saying "I hate rabbits." to make the smoke go in another direction, and some rather silly camp-fire songs came back, too! Quartermaster's Store anyone???



 

Showing the children how to cook their damper