A soup in time saves 9

I went to a Halloween party at a friends house last night. So much fun! I was tired today and therefore dangerous. I managed to bump into a few things and knock over the mop and bucket filled with water all over our kitchen floor. I gave up on studying and decided to try and achieve simpler things so used my day to prep a little food for the week. This means when I properly get into studying tomorrow I will work hard and won't have to spend time trying to find energizing food.

For lunch I had left over cous cous from the night before and had it with chickpeas, sweetcorn, dressing (vinegar and soy sauce) and then half way through added vegan garlic mayonnaise.

There is still some cous cous left for another meal. Cous cous is super simple as you just put some in a bowl, cover with water (roughly one centimeter above the cous cous) and leave for a few minutes. Even simpler when its already had herbs and spices added so instant healthy tasty food.

I also made leek and potato soup. I made a big batch to use up leeks I had bought cheaply. I literally just used potatoes, leeks, stock cube and water. Cooked the potatoes for 10 mins in the stock and water, added the leeks for another 6 minutes then blended. I made enough for 5 cylindrical pots and some in a mug for a bedtime snack tonight. I will freeze most of them and defrost when I need to.

This was what I had for tea. Onion, garlic clove and peppers fried then water, noodles and kidney beans. I also put in ginger powder and peri peri hot sauce. I added a bit too much hot sauce.

It has begun...

 

Happy World Vegan Day!

Happy Halloweeeeen

This is what I had for tea.
Pepper/pumpkin

 ghoulish green Midori and lemonade

 The finished pepper stuffed with cous cous and eaten with salad and Jack Daniels BBQ sauce, which is labeled as Vegan. I left it a little too long whilst I made my ghost costume.

VEGAN MOFO!

I've signed up to vegan mofo (Vegan Month Of Food) for November. The idea is to blog all month about vegan food to spread the word about how great vegan food is. I've had lots of ideas for blog entries but haven't got into the habit of blogging regularly and think vegan mofo will help. It is also an exciting month as it is World Vegan Month. Get ready for November!

Sore Throats and Rainy Days

Its been the first rainy day for ages. I have a sore throat. I have lots of onion to use up where various family members have made things and not checked the fridge! I have onion covered in coriander left over from an Indian meal.
=
Carrot and coriander soup time!

I scanned the internet then came up with whatever I had around. I'm trying it with a bit of ginger after looking at a About.com recipe. Sorry all my measurements are mixed up.

1 tbsp Vegetable oil

Little omega 3 oil if you want

roughly one onion

1lb carrots chopped

1 potato

tsp coriander powder

a little ginger powder

1 ltr water and vegetable stock cube

Fry chopped onion in oil and add chopped carrots and potato.

Add coriander and ginger.

Fry for a bit longer.

Add water and stock cube.

Cook for roughly 20 mins or until soft.

Leave to cool slightly.

Blend and heat again if it has cooled too much.

Season with pepper. (There is already salt from the stock cube)

Tasty but I personally would have less of the stock cube or a reduced salt stock cube next time. My throat feels better and the sun came out. :)

GLASTONBURY!

I was very excited about going to Glastonbury Festival for the first time. I had heard about the atmosphere and was particularly looking forward to the Green fields after reading on forums about the great vegan food. I had also read that there wasn’t much point in cooking food and decided that my bag would be much lighter without pans and gas canisters. I packed a range of vegan snacks. The weather forecast was mainly sunny (surprising for Glastonbury considering its reputation!). I tried to pack food that would last as much of the weekend as possible and give me some kind of nutrients if I didn’t make it to the vegan food.

This is what I packed and how it survived:
Cheerios
Breakfast!
Pitta bread
Survived well, it seems to just dry out rather than go mouldy. In the heat it felt a bit too dry to eat much. I think next time I would buy bread when I arrived.
Packs of Raisins
Attempting to be healthy.
Little packs of juice
Attempting to be healthy. That’s two of my five a day!
Little packs baked beans
It was so hot that they were almost as warm as when cooked.
Pea pods
I had recently been introduced to eating peas in pods at work and loved them, sadly the ones I bought were not as sweet but a good option.
Various fruit bars
Quick calories.
Chocolate
Great! However, it was very hot and it turned into one giant lump that was hard to eat but quite fun to eat.
Crisps
Yum.
Oatcakes
Seeds
Mini sweetcorn tins
Ring pull lids so no need to bring a tin opener.
Small jar of peanut butter and a packet of rice cakes
Since the first year that I went to Reading festival, and my mum suggested I took these, I have never looked back. I could survive on most trips with these apart from when travelling with my boyfriend who is allergic to nuts…

Glastonbury was very hot and sadly I don’t cope very well with heat so I didn’t feel like eating much and brought a lot of the snacks back with me. I did venture to the Green fields and had a lovely pizza called ‘no cheese please’ in the Greenpeace field. I asked for no olives so had red pepper, red onion marmalade and fresh rocket. I enjoyed it in a tiny patch of (glorious, wonderful) shade. I hope to go again as there was way too much to do in just one weekend. I loved the atmosphere and really want to go back to explore more of the Green fields. I felt lovely and calm there. I would bring more junk food as it is only one weekend and when you have that yucky festival feeling (lack of sleep and overdoing things) then junk food is what I need! It would be possible to bring some snacks and buy more healthy food at the festival. The fresh fruit and juice stalls were everywhere and very popular.

Revision/Risotto

Revision time!

I have almost finished my second year. Thankfully! I put a lot of work into handing in the last few assignments. Somehow I had managed to end up with 7000 words left to write at the end of the last term so Easter was pretty busy. I don't know how that happened and will start on all work earlier next year! I will!

Despite all the words I did get to spend a lovely weekend on the coast in Devon with my boyfriend and some friends. The break really helped. We ate lots of chips and mushy peas!

Since handing in all the assignments I have one exam left to do and after the hard slog at Easter I really just want to have a break! I keep reminding myself that it is almost all over but until it is I am surviving by taking breaks from revision to eat yummy food. I must now always have a decaf coffee with a little treat. Before I went to uni my work friend said I would drink coffee all the time but as I rarely used to drink coffee I didn't believe her...at least its still decaf.

I've recently discovered some vegan waffles from a London health food shop which is making the afternoons go quicker. It says on the packet you can heat them in the oven or leave them on top of your coffee till the syrup melts. I was really excited about this so bought a coffee for the train home only to find the top of the cup was too big so had to wait a bit longer. Worth the wait.

I have tried to revise like a full time job so give myself the evenings off. I am using the evenings to cook yummy food to keep me going. Brain food? Today I tried making risotto with a recipe inspired by the recipe on the side of the packet. However, we had no onions and the coop had no onions so we ended up with a very large leek. The recipe also said parmesan but our vegan parmesan but never really got into that so vegan melty mozzarella was all I could find. I added a most of two peppers to add colour, healthiness and flavour. I've never even eaten risotto before so it was a learning curve. It took twice the amount of time it said it should. Tasted really good though!