Meals, Smoothies, Unicorns and Ditching Facebook

Hi all!  We had a bit of warm weather the other day, it was so nice!  Of course it's all gone now and it's grey and miserable outside again.  Hopefully we'll have some more sunshine again soon.

We got a new fridge freezer on Friday, it's great!  Nearly 2ft taller than our last one which was nearly as old as me :-/  We decided it was time to get a new one as the old one was freezing stuff in the fridge and it was a little on the small side.  We should hopefully save a bit on the electric now too as well be able to do a massive shop and stock up the freezer.  Woo hoo!  I really need to get out more...

Here are some of the meals I've had recently.  First is a tofu scramble with veggies and rye bread.  On the right is a salad I made using mixed beans, carrots, avocado, tomatoes, cucumber and milled flax and pumpkin seeds.  I had it with rye bread, oatcakes and little balsamic vinegar.

I went to Sandringham for a walk last week and I thought the flowers on this tree were really pretty.  I also thought I'd take a photo of the Queens seal printed on the gate cos I liked it :)  I love walking around there, we've only seen a bit of it so far, we'll have to investigate some more as it's really beautiful.  Especially now everything is coming into bloom.

When I went to Tesco recently I was really surprised to see a new, repackaged range of dairy free food.  They have loads now!  Even a soy cheese which I am still yet to try.  They have their own version of the coconut milk I like too and as it's cheaper I'll be getting that from now on.  They had soy yoghurts and chocolate puddings made from coconut milk too, I'll be trying them all I think! :)

Another couple of tasty dinners, chargrilled burgers made with Asda's burger mix served with baked sweet potato slices, baked courgette and lightly fried onions.  Next to it is my awesome Friday night dinner, burritos!  I used veggie mince, onions, peppers, mixed beans and some Old El Paso Taco seasoning to get the filling.  I put some into wraps and added in avocado, cucumber, cherry tomatoes and loads of vegan mayo and ketchup...they were so good!  I had loads of the mince left over so had some for lunch the next day too.  Definitely having these again, they're a new favourite.

I've decided to eat clean and ditch alcohol for the next six weeks.  I've been calorie counting using the Calorie Count website and app and lost 2lb's in a week which I'm pleased with.  I have about 50lbs more to lose though!  So I'll be eating clean, counting calories and trying to exercise more.  I did a Jillian Michaels DVD last week and found it hard to walk for a few days after!!  I'm trying to get the courage up to do that again haha!  The calorie count app is great and it's all free. It gives you an analysis of your day too with pie charts and graphs, I'm in geek heaven! I need to get out and do some more running too so I'll try and do a couple with Andy this week.

For breakfast this morning I had tofu scramble with some taco seasoning, mushroom stir fry veg, peppers, cherry tomatoes and a white tortilla.  I know the tortilla isn't exactly 'clean eating' but I have a couple left and I'm not going to throw them away.  The whole breakfast was about 350 calories which is pretty good as there was A LOT of it!!  

I went for a 4 mile walk and burned about 450 calories.  When I got back I made myself a mighty fine smoothie!  I used frozen mango, strawberries, banana, blueberries, water, cocoa powder and dates.  It was really nice!  Will make one of those again, although I might leave the mango out as it made it a little flowery.  Still good though :)  In the pic I have my blender resting on my new Salter scales, they were £14.99 and I think they're fantastic.  They're so easy to use and extremely accurate, I'm using them to measure everything so I can track my calories more easily.  Definitely recommend them.

I've also decided to ditch facebook for the time being, my personal account at least.  What do you guys think about Facebook these days?  I've not shut it down I'm just not logging on.  I got fed up of seeing idiotic and racist comments from my so called 'friends', or more likely someone I worked with for 2 months, 8 years ago etc.  I'm still in love with instagram and the blogging thing though :)  It's more positive and constructive!

Anyway, I'll leave you with this picture that makes me laugh!  Have a great week :)

Lana x

Vegan Meals Pt 2

Don't you just hate it when someone says they'll do something the next day and then they don't do it until a week later?!  Well, yes. Anyway, more food!

Here is a homemade Spag Bol.  We hadn't had one in ages and I had a real hankering for it.  I used Tesco Meat Free Mince, tinned tomatoes with basil and added garlic and onions.  For the garlic bread I sliced up a ciabatta loaf and buttered it lightly.  I then made a concoction of garlic oil, garlic pieces and basil pesto.  I spread that on top and put it in the oven for about 12 mins at 200C.  It was really nice but I think I will miss out the butter next time as it didn't need it.

One of my favourite snacks at the moment, a Cocoa Mint Nakd bar and a cup of tea! :)

I have just discovered Fruitus bars and they are much cheaper than Nakd bars (£1.49 for 4) and they're made from oats and fruit juices.  Not only that but they're organic and taste just like flapjack!!  I've only seen them in Sainsbury's so far but I'm hoping Tesco get them soon as it's a pain to have to go to Sainsbury's just for those and the Granose mix.

Also  below is a pic of my lunch one day this week.  In the bag is a Marmite sandwich on wholemeal bread and the rest is snackage!  Nakd bar, Fruitus bar, banana and plums.  My lunches have been pretty similar to this all week.  Keeps me going!

I took a trip to Asda last week (I've seem to always be in the sodding supermarket!)  I got some of their own brand burger mix and it was really good.  Almost exactly the same as the Granose version but about 60p cheaper.  I'll pick some more up next time I'm there.  I did these under the grill to see how they came out and I actually preferred it to dry frying. I served them with a new potato and sweet potato hash and a little avocado and plum tomato salad.

For breakfast I've been having either Shreddies with banana or strawberries or Weetabix with sultana's.  I need to get some more strawberries as they go really well with cereal :)  I bought some Tesco own brand veggie burgers and was pleasantly surprised.  I didn't expect much from them but they were good.  I even had to triple check the ingredients as they tasted really cheesy!!  Definitely vegan though and it even says so on the front.  So if you fancy a cheesy fix I'd wholeheartedly recommend them.

I had a little trip to Holland and Barratt.  I picked up a bargain Celebration Roast!!  Reduced from £5.69 to £1 as they were going out of date that day.  I picked up two and put one in the freezer (it's currently defrosting as we're having that tonight).  We weren't so keen on the sausage in bacon things but the white 'meat' stuff was really nice.  When we have it tonight I'm going to take the bacon off the sausages and see if that works better.

I also picked up some 'Fish Free Fish Style Fingers' whilst at H&B.  Not quite sure why 'Fish' has to be mentioned twice there.  They were ok but I think I cooked them for too long so a little crunchy.  I served mine with roasted peppers and butternut squash. Oh and the obligatory avocado and plum tomato salad ;)

It's worth noting that Andy had scampi for his dinner that night so I decided to compare the calories and fat etc in order to make a point that vegan is better.  Unfortunately I was really surprised to discover that they had the same calories and the Fishy McFish-Fish Style Fingers came out slightly worse.  Obviously I'm not going to dash out and grab some fish to feast on but it made me realise I need to check labels a bit more and not just assume that because something is vegan that it is a 'health' product!

Made myself another pizza last night for dinner.  It came out really well, I made the base myself again too but this time used half wholemeal and half plain flour as I was making it for Andy as well.  I left it until the last 5 minutes before I added the tofu this time and this stopped it from going crispy.  I added some nutmeg, pepper and garlic oil to it beforehand too to try and give a little flavour.  This was the best pizza yet!  I'll definitely be honing my skills in the art of vegan pizza making, it's so easy and tasty :)  The crust was perfect for me....even if it doesn't look very pretty!  This is something to work on hehe.

Last but not least.....*Fanfare please*....... I've started running again!! I ran 1.6 miles last Sunday, 1.7 on Tuesday and today I managed 2 miles.  Not very far in the grand scheme of things but I'm so pleased I've managed to get my arse off the sofa!  I run with Andy and we are trying to build up our fitness again.  Before we moved from Southend we were managing 4 mile runs with no walking.  Currently there is walking on these runs but it's either that or collapse/throw up/die/all of the above.  I love using the RunKeeper app on my iPhone.  It tells me how far I've gone, at what pace and how many calories I've burned.  I'll keep you updated with my runs because I always feel very proud about it :)  Fifteen years ago I was the fat kid at the back of the crowd in cross country.  Now I'm the fat adult but I'm definitely not at the back haha!  I also enjoy it these days.  I always feel great when I get back from a run even if I am the same colour as beetroot and find it hard to breathe.

On a random note.....when we got back from our run this morning there was a bumblebee sat in the door lock.  We couldn't work out how to open the door without smooshing it up.  It was a weird situation, the bee was dying we think....Andy poked it with a stick and that didn't work.  He ended up unscrewing the handle with his Tesco Clubcard keyring and then managed to entice the poorly bee onto a stick a put it in the field next to our house.  Ahh, and he's not even vegan!  I stayed in the car in case it tried to sting me!

Anyway.....have a great week all.  We're going to see Iron Man 3 in 3D tomorrow night! Very excited :)

Lana x

Vegan Meals Pt 1

Hi all, sorry it's been a couple (few?) weeks!  I finally found time to blog earlier and the internet was down too!  Typical.  Oh well it's up and running again now so I will blog while I can :)  Lots of piccies to get through!

First is a Food Doctor Wholesome Pot which although it may have been wholesome, was very bland indeed.  It was tomato flavoured and had no chemical nasties, it was only good stuff inside but it tasted of tomato and nothing much else.  It reminded me of the bog standard tomato and basil pastas you can get at supermarkets.  Very plain!  On the right is a pizza that was very far from plain!  I went to Pizza Express with my mum, dad and Andy (Mum and Dad came down for the weekend).  I had the Giardiana Romano without the pesto or any form of cheese and it was so good!  Really tasty and it gave me a taste for garlic oil.  This pizza had peppers, leaks, olives, tomato, mushrooms and artichokes.  I'm going to Pizza Express again in June and I think I'll have this again. I've also been told the dough balls are vegan if you choose them with garlic oil.

Below are a couple of dinners, the first on the left is gluten free pasta with cucumber, cherry tomatoes, olives, tofu, basil pesto, balsamic vinegar and lime juice.  I also had some hummus with this.  On the right is really good Shepherdless Pie that I made with veggie mice, mixed veg, vegetable stock and mashed potato and sweet potato.  I served it with cauliflower and loads of gravy.  A nice Sunday dinner :)

 Here we have a couple of great finds from Tesco!  On the left is a Salsa Bake, it's basically a bean burger with loads of spicy salsa in the top that comes oozing through when you cut into it.  They are my new favourite veggie burgers and since I have decided this I haven't been able to find them again!  Hopefully they're just sold out and will make an appearance again soon.  I've been having new potatoes a lot recently too as I've developed a taste for them.  On the right is a Strawberry and Vanilla Helter Skelter Lolly.  They are made with coconut milk and taste so creamy!  They remind me of Mini Milks and you can get two boxes of them for £2!  Love them, especially as they are only 65 cals each.  Not bad at all :)

I decided I want to make my own pitta's as lot of the shop bought ones have loads of horrible stuff in them that's used to preserve them.  This was so easy to do and I will definitely be making some again.  I used wholemeal flour, quick bake yeast, water and milled flax, pumpkin and sunflower seed.  They take 5 minutes to bake and came out perfectly. You can find the recipe here.  I adapted it by adding about a half cup of milled seeds.

The finished result

I also continued the baking and made my own wholemeal pizza base.  This came out just as well :)  For the topping I used chopped tomatoes, peppers, olives, onions and tofu.  I was somewhat inspired by Pizza Express for this one!  I also drizzled on some garlic oil at the end.  With hindsight I wish I left the tofu off until the last 5-10 minutes of cooking.  I think I put it in the oven for 25-30mins and this make the tofu a little crispy on top.  Other than that it was really nice! And filling!! :)

Well that's it for now!  I'll try and do another post tomorrow as I still have quite a few more pics to show you :)  Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Lana x

Vegan Easter Extravaganza!

Happy Easter everyone :)  It was very hard not to write 'eggstravaganza' I'll have you know but I restrained myself.  I have SOOOO many pictures so I will get straight to it.  Lots of food, some good, some bad!  This first one is the 'Godess Nicoise' I made from 'Appetite for Reduction'.  It was fantastic!!  I made it again in the week, the leftovers make a great lunch.  The chickpeas even look like tuna!  Cannot recommend this enough. It also helped me to discover that I like olives.  I've never really been a fan but thought I'd chuck them in as the recipe calls for and now I can't get enough of the bloody things!  I'm on my third jar already!

Below is dirty dinner and a clean lunch.  The dirty dinner is the Granose Burgers with fried onion in a wholemeal seeded bap and homemade sweet potato fries.  Worth every calorie.  The clean lunch was quinoa, plum tomatoes, red cabbage, cucumber, avocado, chick peas, olives (of course) and balsamic vinegar and lemon juice.

Here is a City Kitchen Bombay Cauliflower & Sunblush Tomato Salad.  I'd not seen these before, I picked it up in Tesco.  There were a few other vegan options available too from City Kitchen which I was quite impressed with although they are a little pricey at £2.35 each.  I really enjoyed it, the sunblush tomatoes and the tangy curry-inspired dressing were delicious.  I'd get this again and I'd like to try the other options too.

More tried and tested vegan products here!  The Cocoa Orange Nakd bars are an old favourite and they have just introduced a new crunch range that so far consists of a Strawberry Crunch and a Banana Crunch.  The strawberry is my favourite, I love it.  The crunchy bits are made from soy pieces I believe, another highly recommended product.  Really hit the sweet spot and there are no nasties in them.  The Cheezly Edam Style I bough from Holland and Barrett.  I wasn't so sure at first, but then I grilled some in a ciabatta and put some Branston pickle with it and it was pretty good.

Then I made another ciabatta roll up, this time with a slice of Cheatin' Bacon, vegan mozzarella and plum tomatoes.  This was VERY good!  So, so bad for me but so, so good!!  Hehe :)  The 'Edam' is much stronger than what I remember the real stuff to be.  Edam is usually a very mild cheese, I would say this was more of a mild cheddar flavour really.

I made another veganised version of one of my old favourites, Bacon and Leek Pasta.  I don't know why I've been fancying these creamy, cheesy sort of foods recently.  I definitely don't fancy the 'real deal' though.  Just old tastes of home maybe.  This wasn't as tasty as I wanted it to be, I think it needed more salt.  Some olives, perhaps!  I'm sure I will try it again at some point and try to perfect the recipe.

Yet more tried and tested products!  I've been on a roll!  These Granose Meat-Free Lincolnshire Sausages were ok but tasted more of stuffing than sausage.  Andy wasn't so keen, he said he'd had better vegan sausages before and I agreed.  Having said that I would have them again.  I think I made them bigger than they were meant to be and I happen to like the taste of stuffing ;)  I served mine with some baked sweet potato slices and some red cabbage, cucumber and vegan mayo.

Below is a salad I made for lunch and also some homemade garlic ciabatta bread.  The salad consisted of red and black rice, cannellini beans, cucumber, red cabbage, avocado, olives, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice.  My salads pretty much contain the same ingredients each time with just a couple of variations.  I've been skipping the olive oil recently though since I was reminded there is 135 calories in a single tablespoon!!  I actually prefer the lemon juice/balsamic combo on it's own, it's really good.  I made the garlic bread by mixing some dairy free Vitalite with chopped garlic and a little vegan basil pesto.  I spread it on the ciabatta bread and put it in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.

Another favourite dinner of mine is scrambled curry tofu on toast/rye bread.  I mix the tofu with curry powder, onions, peppers and now olives.  I always serve it with hummus on the side.  On the right you can see another Granose box!  We decided to make a roast dinner for Easter Sunday.  I fancied something other than the usual vegan sausages I have with a roast and so tried the Granose Meat-Free Chicken Style Roast mix.  It was really easy to make and really delicious.  Andy liked it too and I will definitely get it again.

It has a chicken/stuffing taste and texture to it.  Really yummy with gravy.  You can see my MASSIVE plate below!  As for pudding.....it had to be an old Granny favourite, fruit cocktail from a can with Swedish Glace vanilla ice cream.  OMG!!  This is officially my favourite pudding ever now!!  I forgot how nice fruit cocktail was hehe :)

Well that's it for now :)  Sorry about the sheer volume of stuff there, it's about 2 weeks worth.  I hope you've all had a lovely Easter holiday weekend with lots of lovely food and friends and family around you.  Here's one last pic, my mums dog Talli in the snow in Sheffield:

She looks like a wolf from behind!  The snow has finally gone here, we've had some sunshine but it's not much warmer.  Hope you all have a great week :)

Lana x