What's in my lunchbox this week?

I've been very busy of late. Hence the lack of blog posts. One of the more pleasing side effects of extreme occupation is that I don't plan every detail of life in an obsessive manner. So I open the fridge and find food that I bought and forgot about or ran out of time to do something with. the unexpected half cauliflower at the bottom of the fridge combined with an unexpected BBQ forcing me to remember dishes I haven't made for ages has made for a packed box this week.

Clockwise from top right:

Cos lettuce (new season) and roasted Asparagus (new season)

Boiled potatoes (from the allotment)

Easy Cauliflower dahl from a Linda McCartnery book. The spinach just keeps on coming so I threw a couple of huge handfuls into the lentils towards the end of cooking.

Buckwheat with Marinated mushrooms. The mushroom recipe is another Linda McCartney one and tastes so good BBQed. It's not bad made in the oven either.

What’s for breakfast?

I love having a routine. I also love reading about other people’s routines, menu, bag contents and so on. So last week I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gala Darling’s post on how to have a fabulous routine.

My morning routine has actually become even easier with my laptop lunchbox. Mornings for me go something like this:

Alarm rings, get up, stumble down stairs while belting dressing gown, feed cat, put kettle to boil, brush teeth, make pot of tea, open front door for cat, shower, dress, collect handbag from study, throw food into laptop lunchbox while slurping tea, put contact lenses in, bid farewell to Dear Heart, put on shoes, exit house to get bus.

I then do a sudoku puzzle and apply my make up on the bus.

The snag I have hit is over what to eat for Breakfast. I don’t want to stop and eat before leaving the house unless it’s something that I can eat while throwing food into boxes. And quite frankly if it’s that easy to eat I’d rather eat it in a more leisurely fashion when I get to work!

I’ve tried various things over the years: Home made muffins, porridge, home made muesli, a concoction of carrots, lemon juice, honey and oats, watercress/cucumber sandwiches.

I don’t eat very much bread and I’m not very excited about the though of making toast at work every day. It would mean either taking bread to work or keeping a separate loaf at work, plus I’d need the stuff to go on it. I don’t really like cereal very much and find that I never finish a carton of Soya milk on cereal before it goes off. Fruit is fine but there’s not much in season at this time of year plus I think that some carbs or proteins to go with it would be helpful.

Today I had some dried apricots and nuts because I was stuck for ideas.

Maybe I could make up a batch of scrambled tofu and freeze in breakfast sized chunks? Or make up some kind of vegan breakfast muffin? Or make and freeze pancakes? I did find some breakfast idea over at fatfreevegan and like the tofu quiches

What I need are a couple of ideas that I can fall back on even when I’m pushed for time and if that means that I need to make stuff up in advance so be it – it’s all part of having an effective routine. Any suggestions?

Gone too quickly

Today has flown by. I almost forgot to blog. My Monday post seems a lifetime ago and I'm sure Monday morning will be here again in the blink of an eye.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. I'm going to have a couple of beers tonight and turn my failed cupcakes into truffles.

Saturday I have my usual walk and visit to the local deli and bakers scheduled. Then I'm spending the rest of the day over at my sister's place and my parents are coming up from Somerset. I haven't seen my folks for more then ten minutes since Christmas so I am quite looking forward to it.

Sunday a spot of allotmenting and preparing for the week ahead.

If time goes quickly I think it must mean that you are living in the moment?

Bank holiday TV

I came across this on the BBC website this morning and it makes me sad that people choose to spend their day off watching TV. I suppose if they weren't watching TV they would be shopping.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend and I've got so many things on my activities list:

• Met my sister and her man for lunch and drinks and hear about her holiday and have a general catch up.
• Cook pittas from scratch and store in freezer
• Visit my allotment for a digging session and harvest veg to give to my sister
• Hang new sash window in bedroom (if it's delivered on time)
• Eat long breakfasts with Dear Heart
• Go for a country walk and pick blackberries (and apples if they are ripe)
• Play with my sewing machine
• Sit around reading and drinking wine while my face pack dries
• Put henna on my hair
• Take some time to think about the next few months and plan out things I need and want to do

I hope I can fit it all in!

The five a day diet

Back in 2005 the Guardian did a focus on healthy living (although I have no doubt that they've looked at the subject since). One piece challenged 3 volunteers to eat nine a day and see how they got on. Amit's comment really sums it up for me

"To fit in nine portions, you have to have breakfast, otherwise you end up with too much to eat later in the day. You have to drop the junk snacks, which I am fond of. You can't even think about a nice bag of crisps when you've still got an apple or a banana to eat on top of your lunchtime sandwich. "

Fitting in five a day has been on my mind recently. I was really very keen on a few years back when I looked at my (then vegetarian) diet and realised that I wasn't consuming much in the way of fruit and veg. After a few months I had gotten into the habit and stopped worrying abut it. However, I recently purchased Glamour (just for the Benefit lip gloss - this was before the days of The make up diet) and it had an article about five a day.

I realised to my horror that I had slipped. This was mainly due to eating more than five on some days and rather less on others. I got to work on making a few alterations to my diet and discovered that if you are eating your quota you don't have room for much else.

The problems of what a portion was has continued to plague me. I have a handy portion guide on the side of my fridge. However what do you do when you have a bunch of 18 radishes and (according to the chart) a portion in 10? Do you eat 9 on each occasion? Or 10 in one go and 8 later? Eat all 18? Buy more radishes? What exactly does a bowl of salad look like and how does a bowl translate into the square, deep container that I am putting my lunch in?

After faffing around with bowls and the like a simple solution presented itself. I would just weigh the stuff. My 8 radishes that I prepared as a snack for today turned out to be well over the required 80g. I rather suspect that yesterday's carrots were a great deal more than 80g.

So I'll carry on using the scales, work at that 5 a day and maybe (very unsure about this) try 6 a day at some point in the future. I do agree with Helen in the article though - eating this takes some planning! But do Iahve anything that much better to do???

Recent web wanderings

I thought I'd share with you a couple of websites I've wandered across recently.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/thread/ I'm not quite certain about this effort from the BBC. It looks interesting but I find the video format rather annoying. Still it's good to know that the BBC are taking an interest in such things. Guess this is a watch this space.

I've suggested this one http://www.mealopedia.com/ to friend who wants to shift (quite) a few pounds, isn't terribly experienced in the kitchen and is cooking for one. I'm disappointed by the lack of vegan options. However, I thin it could provide real inspiration via the random menu selection.

I've spent the last few days trying to find a cannelloni recipe that doesn't include spinach or mushrooms as Dear Heart isn't keen on either of them. I'm not terribly keen on simply pumping pasta tubes full of cream cheese (vegan or otherwise) so this has been a bit of struggle. I finally decided to just make a really thick tomato and soya mince sauce to stuff the tubes and to top it off with white sauce. I hope it comes out OK.

Twitter

I have signed up to Twitter and you can find me at http://twitter.com/midorigreen

I have mixed feelings about whether this was actually a good idea. On the one hand it's a like the best bit of Facebook with any annoying applications. However, I'm rather uncertain as too why anyone would actually be interested in odd statements confirming that I'm eating lunch or listening to music or have just seen someone in a pink hat.

Is this the shape of things to come? Will we all sit in our houses in years to come (apart from some kind of service class who will be actually doing stuff like growing food and removing waste) just updating our activities moment by moment?

I do hope that doesn't sound too depressive. I iced the cupcakes last night and consumed quite a bit of icing while trying to get the correct consistency. I don't usually eat much sugar so I think it might have disturbed my equilibrium today. Note to self: do not consume cupcakes (even if vegan and homemade) for breakfast.

Lovely lunches

I've been having the most delicious lunches this week Yummy salads with lots of spinach. Then for dessert a tub with a layer of cooked rhubarb (from the allotment), sliced strawberries and topped off with shavings of home made melon sorbet.

Tomorrow I'm going out for lunch because our staff sports and social club has a new chef. I ran into him on the way to my yoga class on Wednesday and he told me about the yummy stuff on the menu including three meat free salads. I thought it would be rude not to give it a try.

Other exciting lunch based news is that I've joined force with a couple of the girls at work and we are going to take it in turns to make each other a packed lunch on a Thursday. Results will appear on our new blog http://librarylunches.blogspot.com/ No entries yet but do visit it in a few weeks once we've got going.

Now I'm off to ice the lovely vegan cupcakes I made last night following (very loosely) the recipe from galadarling.com I think mine will be somewhat less colourful!

Etsy and Easter

I've had a lovely Easter weekend. I've worked on my allotment (chilly but bracing!). I've been busy sewing while the snow fell outside. I finished off a skirt, turned a top into a sort of jacket for summer wear and put the finishing touch to a bag or two.
I was quite pleased to find inspiration to sew returning. Last week it took me three attempts to do a present bag, although I did finally come up with this. It doesn't show up brilliantly in the photo but it's a cocktail glass. I've also finally got around to putting some of my stuff on Etsy (Do feel free to visit http://www.prettylittleparcels.etsy.com/).

My sister came for a late lunch on Saturday so I had a go at the pot roast from vegan lunchbox. As I followed the instructions exactly and didn't make any changes as I'm prone to do, I'm mystified by the result. It was delicious but it served two with a scrap barely big enough for a sandwich over, not the serves 4 with left over for lunch as the book claims! Pity as it really was very tasty.

I'm feeling quite refreshed and ready for a new week at work. Let's hope there's some sunshine so that I can give one or two of my new wardrobe items an airing!

Vital Wheat Gluten

I've often read about vital wheat gluten in American cookbooks. It seems that rather than knead a ball of flour in a bowl of cold water for hours to get seitan, you simply mix the powder up with water and you're good to go.

You can buy it online, but it would mean ordering a load of other stuff to make the postage worthwhile. Then today I wandered over to the market to purchase some oats and noticed they had gluten powder! I can't wait to give a go. I'll be able to make loads of recipes I've dismissed in the past. Yippee!

I tried the cauliflower and millet mash again last night. This time I dipped it in flour prior to frying ass suggested by Rose Eliot. It ended up being more like a hash and actually rather reminded me of my Dad's corn beef hash. This was probably due to the large quantity of veggie Lea and Perrins added. It was certainly more tasty then the original but still not something I'll be breaking my neck to produce one the two tubs in the freezer are gone.

Cauliflower and millet mash

I bought some millet a while back for making a lemon tease cake. It turned out OK but not something I'm rushing to make again. I was flicking through Rose Eliot's Fast, fresh and fabulous last week when I spotted a recipe for cauliflower and millet mash. Cauliflower is in season so it seemed the ideal lunch solution.

Alas I had a portion for lunch today (and there are 3 more in the fridge) and it wasn't very nice. It was edible but not something I'd want more than a small portion of. It's left a funny taste in my mouth.

I take great pride and pleasure in lunch preparation so I really dislike this sort of thing happening. The other three portions will be going in the freezer (think it might be OK as a shepherds pie topping on night's Dear Heart is out) and I need to think of something I can eat for lunch for the rest of the week. I have two frozen portions of nice soup so I'm half way there.

The moral of this tale is never cook huge portions of a new recipe. Maybe it's something about millet? I've still got a bit left so I shall be visiting vegweb in my ongoing quest to discover a way to make it tasty.

Use it up...quick

Every so often I am gripped by an urge to use up all the foods that are in the freezer and the pantry. I can see that at one point this probably prevented the cupboards from over flowing. I did have a tendency to pick up new and/or interesting looking products while wandering around the supermarket. I'd buy just in case the shop never ever had it in stock again (that's logic, right?).

However as I've moved away from shopping in supermarkets I tend to buy stuff as I plan to use it. I impulse buy less. The types of food I'm buying have also changed. The pantry is much more likely to be stuffed with dry goods than anything else.

However, I'm still feeling that I need to use up stuff. This ranges from the last spoonful in the jar to any unopened packets (why aren't they opened? I can't have needed to buy them that much). The freezer is quite full at the moment with frozen beans, blackberries and peas.

Then I spotted an item that I could use up and satisfy my urge (for the present anyway). I bought a load of bananas really cheaply at some distant point in the past. I prefer my bananas green instead of ripe so I froze the lot. I'd eaten most of them but there was half a box just waiting for me to get the urge to eat them. Trouble is where the weather wasn't too warm this summer the urge for frozen stuff wasn't too strong.

I put them to defrost and then made banana choc chip bars from one of the Sarah Kramer books. 4 minutes in the microwave and - yum!

My busy weekend

Dear Heart’s mother and sister were visiting on Friday night. I made my completely fail safe leek and cider casserole. I can’t actually remember where I got this recipe from. I’ve also made a number of alterations to remove the animal products. It always disappears whenever I serve it. Essentially, you chop and fry and onion, stir in a spoonful or so of flour, add most of a can of cider and a cup or two of stock. Let it cook for a few minutes and add some kind of chicken substitute, a peeled chopped apple and a sliced leek. Cook until the leek and apple are tender and serve.

I served it with mashed potato and Really big bread. The bread recipe is astoundingly easy and I suspect I will be making regularly. I got it at the marvellous vegweb.

Saturday was my day to be a rock chick as I had tickets to see Alice Cooper. It was completely amazing. Dear Heart and I had a really great night. It's ages since we've been to see a band and we've decided that we must do it more often.

What a show it was. I've wanted to see Alice Cooper from years but I've never had spare money for tickets during previous tours. It was fun watching the crowd too. It used to be cigarette lighters that appeared in the dark at concerts. Instead one could see the lights of mobile phones appearing among the crowd. They looked like constellations.

I got a t shirt which I intended to cut a v-neck into and make more fitted. However, I was delighted when I tried it on at home to discover that it fits perfectly and doesn't actually need any further alterations. Only snag is finding something suitable rock and roll to wear over the short sleeves during the winter months.

We got home around lunch time on Sunday and chilled out for the rest of the day. I finished reading Set this house in order by Matt Ruff. It's a great novel about Multiple Personality Disorder. I made some Hearty Winter Potato soup for dinner. Then we watched another couple of episodes of Lost. It's probably this combination that bought on such strange dreams.

Tempeh

I love tempeh. However, it's quite difficult to buy (generally only independent health food shops stock it) and then it needs to go into the freezer (which means trips to purchase it need careful planning and cool bags). Hence I was delighted when Dear Heart suggested that I should consider making my own.

The only snag seems to be purchasing the culture. The closest place I've found it for sale is Belgium! However, I've signed up for the yahoo Tempeh group so maybe they will be able to direct me to a UK source.

Apparently Tempeh used to be widely available until the growth of the vegetarian foods market which saw a much greater variety in a wider range of locations. Thinking back I used to buy Tempeh 'bacon' at University, only I didn't know it was tempeh I just called it 'the bacon stuff with grains in it'. It was actually much nicer than the stuff that is just about everywhere now. You know the stuff I mean - it turns into cardboard in the microwave!

I'm still wondering what's going on at my local Holland and Barrett. Their chiller cabinet is empty most of the time. I'm eating less tofu than I have for years because they simply don't have any in stock most of the time.

This weekend I'm going to have a crack at making some cookies from The everyday Vegan. I've also purchased some rye flour and I'm planning on using that with my sourdough starter. I've got a new leek and potato soup recipes to try (Dear Heart has revealed it's the chunks he doesn't like in soup and that practically any flavour would be OK if it was blended). I've begun work on the Christmas present bags so I am also looking forward to a few hours of sewing.

Have a splendid weekend and enjoy the nip of winter in the air.

Casserole or stew?

I'm much perplexed by what the Americans call a casserole. To me a casserole is a load of vegetables (and meat if you are inclined to eat such things) in some kind of gravy like sauce. An American casserole seems to run something along the lines of mixing grated vegetables in mayonnaise, adding some grated cheese and topping with breadcrumbs or crushed crisps. Not that American style casseroles aren't delicious, just that I would call them a bake.

I certainly can't grumble as I've tried some delicious recipes from American and Canadian cookbooks recently. My (almost) father-in-law kindly gave me lots of produce from his allotment when we saw him last. Hence I've enjoyed a variety of salad leaves, cucumber (great with peanut butter), aubergines, beetroot and chillies.

The beetroot I used to make Garden Vegetable Borscht from How it all vegan. It's utterly divine. Such a shame Holland and Barrett are out of Better than sour cream because that would really set this off a treat. It would also go nicely with tonight's tortilla chip soup (from the same source). The fresh chillies were marvellous in this. Just the thing to eat as the cold begins to set in, here in England.

Other 'interesting' cooking was Cobb nut and spelt fairy cakes. I shelled and roasted the nuts a few weeks ago. I was expecting friends for Shepherd's pie and mulled wine after fireworks on Saturday night. I needed to get organised on Friday night as I was expecting to spend most of Saturday carting wheelbarrows of manure around my allotment. Friday night I rolled up my sleeves ready for a few hours in the kitchen. I whizzed through the preparation for the Shepherds pie, stuck the oven on to bake some potatoes for dinner when it occurred to me that I needed to make some kind of dessert. I had a quick rummage in the bottom of the newspaper box and dug out this recipe. They didn't turn out quite perfect (I'm useless with desserts) but I renamed them chaos theory butterfly cakes and enjoyed icing while listening to Alice Cooper.

My preparation paid off and I was able to enjoy fireworks and serve dinner to my lovely friends despite spending all day behind a wheelbarrow. Next project: preparation for a Thanksgiving themed lunch.

Soup and sourdough

I made some bread from my sourdough. I was really worried that the starter wasn't actually ready because the bread was didn't seem to rise very much, but then I popped in the oven and it began to swell. Next time I need to put it some where warmer to prove. It tasted good anyway. I always thought that tang it had came from rye or something. I now realise that is the taste of sourdough.

Dear Heart has been reading Bad Food Britain. It appears to be having a bit of an effect on him. Often we have a takeaway on Friday and Saturday night. This week we enjoyed stir fry and pizza - both totally homemade. Sunday I wold normally make a big chilli or stews that we can eat it over two nights. Dear Heart suddenly announced he fancied soup. What kind?, I inquired. Potato he stated. Well, I have lots of potatoes because they are the one thing that grows well on my allotment whatever. I suggested the hearty winter potato soup from How it all vegan. So that' s what we ate it was delicious. I hope this will be the start of even more home cooked meals.

Food is a simple pleasureand since we have to eat we may as well enjoy it as much as possible. We're eating the other half of the soup tonight. Yum!

Nasty 'n' nice

I have a horrible secret. I like sweet and sour sauce. The nasty type that's all sugar and colouring and cools to a kind of gel. I ordered a pot on Friday night to go with my boiled rice and tofu.

It's been a while since I've ordered it but a book I was reading made me crave it. Amusingly the book was Bad Food Britain: how a nation ruined its appetite by Joanna Blythman. The left over sauce took revenge on me this morning when the polystyrene container it was in split on the bus and smeared itself all over the inside of a cotton bag.

So let me whisk you away from orange coloured nastiness and instead tell about my Sunday afternoon. I often cook on a Sunday afternoon and just as often feel that maybe I should be doing something more important instead. Blythman's book points out that in Britain we are taught to worry more about the cost of food (it's got to be cheap) than the what it actually tastes like. We are taught (by adverts and marketing campaigns) that cooking is something difficult that we want to avoid doing if we possibly can. But an afternoon of cooking delicious things to consume over the following week should be something to celebrate, not seen as a time wasting eccentricity.

So here's what I cooked on Sunday afternoon:

• I made a big pot of popcorn.
• I started my sourdough (which looks marvellous in one of the kilner jars from my Grandma's).
• I made caraway crackers (following Hugh F-W's recipe in Saturday's Guardian).
• I whipped up some fruit and nut bars. I've done these several time now and have started adding a variety of fruits.
• I also had a go at classic white uncheese (the shop I buy canned tomatoes from most unexpectedly had agar on the shelf). It didn't come out as firm as I expected. Maybe I need to add more agar. It tastes delicious anyway.
• Then I made a big vegetable casserole with lots of herbs for flavour and mashed potatoes for dinner.

Next weekend I hope my sourdough will be ready to make bread with. I'm also planning to make some digestive biscuits. If they turn out OK I'll use them as a base in future for lime tease cake.

so, dear readers, respect yourself, rise above the hype and adverts and cook yourself food from scratch at least once a week. Cherish time preparing and eating. Food is a necessity, so it may as well be a pleasure.

Bliss is...

I seem to have had a very busy weekend what with one thing and another. I'm not quite sure that I am fully ready for the coming week. Last week seemed to be crammed with activity as well.

However, let me tell you about Wednesday night. I arrived home as the rain started and it was cold and grey outside. Dear Heart had gotten home before man and had made a fire (the first of this autumn). He insisted that I sit by the fire and warm up while he made me a cup of tea. It would have seemed rude to refuse so I did just that until he went to his Round table meeting at 8.30 p.m. I read the marvellous Bread Alone by Judith Ryan Hendricks and felt inspired to start making my own bread again ( I want to play with sourdough).

Anyway after Dear Heart had gone I needed to make myself some dinner and sort out some lunch for the next few days. I had a look in the fridge because I do like to see what I have in the way of leftovers and create from them. I found 2 rather dried out sweetcorn cobs, some melty pizza uncheese and a spoonful of chillies. So I boiled the sweetcorn until it looked a bit fatter, let it cool and then sliced it off the cob. I made a batter from gram flour and water and added in my leftovers. Ideally this batter would make little pancakes but mine always break up so I go for something that looks more like scrambled eggs. With lunch for the next couple of days sorted I popped some gnocchi from the freezer into some boiling water and enjoyed them with a splash of olive oil, salt and pepper.

Feeling blissfully warm in my belly I washed up and headed off to bed where I feel asleep with a contented smile on my face.

Here's to the week ahead.

Leafy greens

I went to the Vitality Show at the end of March. I was delighted to find a stand selling laptop lunch boxes. I resisted the urge to purchase one (Dear Heart would faint if I added any more containers to my fantastic plastic drawer). However, I did buy the Vegan Lunchbox book. It is every bit as good as expected and I’ve made a number of the recipes, most notably Veggie Wellington. I didn’t think it was available anywhere in the UK so this was really good to find it.

I’ve been really working on the eating seasonally thing and have also been to trying to buy from outlets other than supermarkets. I love the covered market near where I work. Recently I’ve been purchasing Spinach, Watercress (so divine in a sandwich for breakfast) and Kale. Buying what is in season is giving new value to my cookbook collection as I try to find the best to way to cook vegetables that I’ve never really tried before. I think my tastes are changing as well.

I find it hard to believe that I’ve never eaten Kale before. I tried out Emira’s speedy gourmet Kale and Tofu delight (picture below), from Dolce Vegan and was so impressed. I had to resist not eating the whole pan at once instead of packing it up for lunch. Dear Heart said it looked so good I had to take a picture (although he doesn't seem keen on eating it).

I really want to try Jennifer’s recipe for Asian Spinach but, keep getting distracted by the delights of mixing spinach with green lentils. I've also made watercress pesto (so easy, so quick and so delicious).

I’m looking forward to the first tomatoes of the season but quite frankly am very happy with spinach, kale and watercress for the time being.

Kenny's back!

I'm so thrilled. Kenny at http://veganlunchcast.blogspot.com/has returned. I still have him listed on my favourites, but had stopped checking his site on a regular basis because I thought he was gone forever.

This morning I clicked on it by accident and discovered that not only is he back, he has been for almost the whole month. That meant that I had several weeks of yummy looking lunches to catch up on. He's such an inspiration. I've recently gotten into the habit of making something (like fake tuna salad) and eating it over the course of a week. I need to make my lunches more varied.

I also discovered 2 new sites through looking at Kenny's links. Flippantly Vague Musings of a Quirky Vegan looks like one that I will be reading everyday. I also liked this recipe site http://www.pakupaku.info/

Talking of recipes I had a go at making vegan sweets at the weekend, using recipes from La Dolce Vegan. My truffles were a bit of a disaster. I couldn't get either the Carob-almond or the Chocolate-Walnut to set. I'm sure I'll find another use for them as even unset they are delicious.

However my mint chocolate fudge (minus the mint essence) did set and tastes amazing. I've never been able to manage fudge before. This time I used my Grandmother's cooking thermometer and so actually boiled the stuff for long enough (rather than getting scared when it foamed up).

I've been doing lots of walking (managed at least 4 session last week in excess of 30 minutes) so I deserve all this sweet stuff! Well, some anyway!