A Colourful Spring Salad

The thing I’m liking the most about my new diet is how bright and colourful the inside of my fridge looks. It’s full of greens and purples, yellows and oranges, reds and even more greens. And I like knowing that every bit of that food is going to be eaten. Nothing will go to waste. Because my veg is carefully chosen to go well with both lunches and dinners.

I love raw veg in a salad. A crunchy carrot, and sugarsnap peas that I can’t help but snack on because it’s too hard not to. A new favourite of mine is red cabbage. I love the texture of raw red cabbage, and equally love the colour it brings to a dish.

On Saturday afternoon, I whipped up a salad with something of almost every colour in my fridge. Red cabbage, celery, radishes, apple (don't forget the apple) and carrot, topped with toasted nuts and seeds and dressed in olive oil, lemon and a dash of honey. There was a lot. So much, in fact, that I couldn’t eat a plate of it, but I had a lot of fun in trying.

There is something so satisfying seeing a plate of colours. Particularly when you know that a variety of colours means that it’s very healthy indeed. I can think of nothing worse than a plate of beige food.

It’s deliciously crunchy and full of flavour. I imagine it would be an excellent addition to a summer barbeque – a sort of coleslaw without the mayonnaise.

I’m on the lookout for super healthy and delicious salads that I can take to work. If you know of any, please let me know!

Roasted Butternut Squash & Rocket Salad

I think the thing I'm finding most interesting with my new diet is that for the first time, I'm actively looking in the fridge to see what I can whip up with what is in there.

Since my weekend away, I haven't been shopping and usually that means I end up picking something up from the supermarket on the way home. But that's not really an option now, as they don't have anything I can eat - so it's off to the fridge to find something interesting.

I had a butternut squash and some spinach, rocket & watercress salad leftover from last night's pancake day feast. A quick google and I found some recipes that looked good. Although I didn't have the feta cheese, nor the puy lentils that some asked for (which made me think that I needed to get some in for back-up), I got to work roasting the squash with some chili flakes.

I made a dressing with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, honey and tamari. I didn't measure - just threw it in to taste. Then lightly toasted some pine nuts and seeds that I had in the cupboard, chopped up some spring onions and popped it all on a plate.

The result was a beautifully light dish. Perfect for me, though Matt did say he needed a bit more to fill him up. We came to the conclusion that next time I made it, he could have a steak on the side. Which is fine by me because even though I do love the taste of a good steak, the thought of one sitting heavily inside me really doesn't fill me with pleasure at the moment.

I will definitely be making this again. Especially for lunch. Mmmmm.

Muesli with Rhubarb

I usually eat my breakfast at work. I eat Eat Natural Muesli with Buckwheat with a dollop of natural yoghurt and some honey. And it works for me. Oh, does it work for me. But on Friday night I dropped in at Infinity Foods on the way home from work to pick some up and there was none left! I wasn't very happy.

So this morning I had to improvise (I had some fruit yesterday but there was none left this morning). Initially I was going to go without breakfast - something I never do - but I didn't want to eat anything I shouldn't. Nope - no milk for me this morning! And then I remembered a blog that Cherry Menlove posted the other day and it got me excited. Honey Oat & Rhubarb Breakfast. I had gluten-free oats. And a few nuts and seeds. And rhubarb. I'd initially wanted to just put rhubarb on my breakfast at work, but I could make this from scratch today!

It wasn't exact. I threw in whatever I had in the cupboards, but my goodness it was lovely. I did use honey, I'll admit - but you could easily substitute with some other form of sweet syrup. I've substituted natural yoghurt with Alpro Soya Plain Yoghurt, and it tastes fantastic - seriously, it's good stuff. The rhubarb was perfectly tangy and delicious and it was a great breakfast.

Check that beauty out!

This vegan thing is easy! If I can eat like this every day then I am happy. And I'm now seriously considering making a huge batch of muesli myself instead of buying it. That will probably be cheaper and I'll know exactly what's going in it and match it to my own personal taste! The huge batch of rhubarb is just staying stored in an airtight container in the fridge. I'm sure that won't last long - not because of shelf life - but because I'll gobble it all up!

The Kind Diet

My book finally arrived!! Last night, I spent over 3 hours reading it when I got home, as well as reading it on my lunch break as soon as I got it, and whilst waiting for the bus this morning (it was raining – I normally walk) but I was quite happy to get to spend that time reading.

Look at it, happily sitting on my desk at work.

It’s such a good read – and hard to tear your eyes away from. I found myself questioning the things I was eating and if I was to blame for my bad health? I wouldn’t say I ate badly,  I stayed away from processed things because I knew they were full of rubbish, but I didn’t actively seek out good things, either. I didn’t think about why we needed to eat our greens, and the importance of adding extra ingredients into our food in order to hit our dietary requirements.

I’d snack on chocolate bars – but why wasn’t I snacking on dried fruit? At least that way I’d still be snacking but getting some goodness from it.

So as of today – I am going 90% vegan for a month. I say 90%, because I’ll still be eating fish. Fish is the easiest ‘meat’ product for the body to digest – and hopefully that should help the phasing in process – going 100% hardcore might push the cravings a tiny bit and I don’t want that. Also, the fish dish I’ll be cooking is salmon, brown rice, and vegetables so it’s still good and healthy and something I cook rather often – great for the one night of the week when I need to not be concentrating on what I’m cooking too much!

So because of this transition, I had to shop online. I usually go to the Tesco down the road, but it isn’t a huge supermarket and doesn’t stock everything I’d like. Instead, I logged on to Asda online and bought my shopping from there. Vegetables, yoghurt, brown rice, salmon, spices, maple syrup and a few other treats. I tried to get organic wherever possible and was waiting for the huge bill at the end when I saw this:

Can you see that there? Probably not because it's tiny, but it says "£32.12" Can you believe it?! Just over £30. For organic vegan food. £32.12 for a week’s shopping!! I try and get in budget of £40 when I normally shop and more often than not I do not hit target. Sometimes I end up spending as much as £60-70 if we have a week free of veggie meals (which I’ll admit we haven’t been doing since Christmas!!) so a £32.12 shopping bill was a wonderful surprise. Even with the £5.50 delivery charge – I think I’ll be doing my shop on a Thursday evening more often to save both pennies and precious time on a Saturday!

So to break down the bill: here’s what I bought:

1 Mange Tout & Babycorn £1.50  

1 Clipper Fairtrade Green Tea £0.86  

1 Organic Salmon fillets £3.47  

1 Billington's Fairtrade Natural Golden Granulated Unrefined Cane Sugar £1.48  

1 Rhubarb £2.97  

1 Organic Red Kidney Beans in Water £0.55  

1.0kg Butternut Squash £0.97  

1 Courgettes pack £1.00  

1 Lemon £0.23  

1 Easy Cook Brown Rice £1.26  

1 Whole Earth Crunchy Peanut Butter £1.50  

1 Organic Watercress, Spinach & Rocket Salad £1.24  

1 Celery Sticks £1.00  

1 Garlic Granules £0.58  

4 Organic Chopped Tomatoes in Tomato Juice £2.28  

2 Alpro Soya Plain Yogurt Cultures £2.00  

1 Ground Coriander £0.32  

1 Vermont Canadian Maple Syrup £2.50  

1.0kg Sweet potatoes £1.18  

1 Curly kale cabbage £0.97  

1 Eat Natural Free From Almond Bars £1.98  

1 Morinu Silken Tofu Firm £1.00  

1 Strong & Absorbent Kitchen Towels  £1.28  

And with all this I shall be making:

Spicy Chick-Pea Stew with Brown Rice

Brown Rice Penne with Tomato Sauce, Kale & Salad

Kale, Sweet Potato & Peanut Stew with Brown Rice

Salmon, Brown Rice & Vegetables

Brown Rice Spaghetti with Courgette & Lemon

Butternut Squash & Chilli Stew

I bought some Alpro Soya Plain Yoghurt to go on my gluten-free muesli for breakfast, and I snapped up some rhubarb which I’m going to make into a compote by simmering it down with some organic unrefined sugar. This will probably make a lot of compote and if I have too much I’ll just bring it in to work to share with the girls.

Speaking of which – me chattering on about healthier eating has spurred on some of the others in the office to try it along with me! It’s great having the support of other people - especially when there so many negative connotations surrounding veganism.

And I hopped on the scales this morning – I’ve lost 4lbs! In a couple of days of not even trying and not even cutting it out altogether. Just eating salads at lunch time and snacking on healthier things. I’ve not had a glass of wine in over a week.

So I am completely sold. I’m feeling better, I’m losing a few pounds, and I’m saving money – what’s not to like?!

I’ll be sure to keep you posted on this journey as I go along and I hope to inspire some of you to consider even becoming a part-time vegan to make some pretty good improvements.

Flirting with Veganism

So this weekend I've been sat reading cookery books. There's a bookshop near me that is closing down and all the books are less than half price, so I figured that now would be a good time to stock up on some as I'd be saving a bit of cash (as I'd no doubt by them at some point anyway).

I picked up some Jamie Oliver books, Gizzi's Kitchen Magic (which looks absolutely incredible) and another book which I didn't really look at properly before buying, but it looked good so I bought it anyway.

This book was Skinny Bitch, by Kim Barnouin. I got home and started to flick through it when I realised that all the recipes were vegan. No big deal - I quite like going veggie sometimes as it saves a bit of money - but I've never actually bought a vegan cookbook before. I haven't even got a vegetarian cookbook, so this was quite a new read for me.

The book starts off by explaining the ecological benefits of eating vegan and organic... and I lost interest and put the book down. I hate to say it, but I'm just not drawn in by the whole 'save the environment and save our animals' argument. I'm selfish and if I enjoy eating meat, I won't feel bad because it's an animal. I've known this all my life and haven't felt bad - so why would I change now?

But I picked up the book again. Why? I think it was because I'd been eating a lot of salads that week and fancied reading some light recipes, but I got hooked into the text. This bit wasn't about the environment - this was about health. So I kept reading.

When I found out I would have to eat a gluten-free diet back in September last year, I didn't find it that difficult. Sure, for the first couple of weeks I missed pastries, and I would occasionally indulge in the odd office birthday cake, but then feel my poorly tummy and realise that it was a silly thing to have done. But I got through that and now I don't really miss it. I've had fun experimenting with different brands of gluten-free foods and finding my favourites. Good. Really good. Bad. Awful. There are lots that fall into every category and it's proved to me that by experimenting and trying different things, I could find something both my palate and body agreed with.

Unfortunately, the stomach cramps started again and I spoke to my doctor. Apparently my gut hasn't been working properly for years and it's going to take a rather large diet change to get it working again. My determination to feel better again has seen me eat an incredible amount of fruit and vegetables this past week. Gluten-free muesli with natural yoghurt and honey for breakfast, salad and a portion of fruit for lunch, dried fruit and nuts to snack on, and a home cooked meal for dinner. No alcohol for the latter end of the week (Monday was Valentines, Tuesday was spent finishing off the super expensive champagne...) and only one slice of cake.

I have felt amazing.

So I carried on reading. And I found a page that mentioned Alicia Silverstone, and it had an address for her website, The Kind Life. Naturally, of course, I picked up the laptop and had a bit of a look.. and a bit more of a look.. and a bit more.. and before I knew it, I'd spent the past two hours looking around this site and watching youtube videos of Alicia and her book, The Kind Diet. I also went as far as buying the book from Amazon because I was so impress with what I'd seen.

Skinny Bitch is a little bit more... judgemental than what I've read and watched from Alicia. She suggests 'flirting' with veganism to see how you find it. She doesn't judge those who take on the diet for health benefits, and instead she is happy to see anyone take steps towards any form of vegetarianism as no matter what the reason, it's doing some form of good for the world and the animals that live on it. This is an approach I like.

I want to save my body. Of course saving the environment and being kinder to animals is a definite bonus, but ultimately I want to save me. I want to be healthy again. I want to consciously think about each item I put in my body. I already do this to an extent as I hate cheap meat, processed foods and any kinds of crap already so I can't imagine it'll be difficult for me.

I am so excited to get this book next week, and I definitely see that I'll be taking a step forward to a healthier me.

(please take a look at the video of Alicia talking about the book and the health benefits of changing your diet)