Christmas Party

Gosh.  Where does the time go?  School really has taken over for the past few months and has been all consuming.  However you will be glad to know I am still vegan and have only had one tiny slip up (who'd check a bag of nuts for milk powder? I threw them away as soon as I saw they contained cow).

Being a busy teacher and accomodating a new diet has been hard at times.  Meals do need extra effort and lunches can get repetitive.  However, if I can do it in the busy autumn term - I can do it anytime! 

I also have been slowly losing a few pounds because my eating habits are so much healthier now.  I don't crave chocolate - but I am desperately craving cheese, especially at this time of year.  Mmm, Wensleydale and cranberries... Wensleydale and pear...  cheese and crackers...

It has been about four months now and I cannot see another way of life.  Armed with my Animal Free Shopper and the tip from new Vegan friend Sally to check allergy advice as a quick way of gleening if something veggie is vegan I have been doing well.  I have a few fall back ranges of food and am a frequent visitor to VX in Kings Cross.  It is a tiny little shop stocked full of vegan foods, drinks, pet food, clothes and shoes.  It's my new Mecca.  They even sell Ms Cupcake cakes!

Last night was our staff Christmas party at the Elstree Village Hotel.  It was in the Italian restaurant, Bucca di Beppo or whatever it's called.  It was my first vegan Christmas party.  Add into the mix I am allergic to garlic and a fussy eater then things get even trickier.

There were four courses.  The first was the best, as I love avocado.  In the end though there was too much tomato (a bit hard as well) and not enough avocado.


The pasta course followed.  I had rigatoni with olive oil, a crap load of minging artichoke, a few tomatos and the tiniest slivers of black olives.  I seem to have forgotten to have taken a photo of the main course - it was the most uninspiring of the lot; a small dish of roasted peppers, artichokes and aubergines.  I ate a couple of pieces of pepper.  However, the vegetarian of the party had the same 'dish' so I hadn't particulary missed out on anything by being vegan.  I was grateful I had hoovered up most of the pasta during the previous course.  And the best thing was - it was all garlic free so I didn't get ill!

I told my companions during the meal I already knew what the dessert would be.  Fruit salad.  Guess what...

Almost two months now

This will be a brief one as I am swamped with work.  It has been almost two months now and I don't regret my decision for one second.  I feel healthy, my skin is good, as is my hair and my nails seem to be whiter and stronger than they have been for a long time.

The only frustration is when I am not prepared.  If I get hungry and don't have a vegan snack to hand it can get pretty annoying.  Thankfully London is stuffed full of vegan eateries just waiting for me to try them and I have also looked ahead and planned where I am going to eat on a trip to York.  I even have options (plural)!

London vegan fair

I wrote this on 25 August, I just didn't have broadband to upload it before.

Today was the vegan fair in London. I rocked up first at half ten and bought cupcakes and ordered my ice cream to collect later. My friend and I weren't hungry then, so we decided to go to the Shakespeare exhibition at the BM and come back later for lunch. When we did return, at one, the hall was thronging with people. We bought rainforest boxes full of amazing salads and sat in the square and ate them. We then split a Ms Cupcake Ferrero Roche cupcake and it was amazing. Later on I got to meet new vegan friend Sally who I'd been speaking to online for three weeks since being virtually introduced by a mutual friend.

What was very noticeable at the fair was that there is no typical vegan. As much as my friend and I joked we could play a drinking game based on tie dye and dreds, there were people from all different backgrounds. Sally pointed out the middle aged 'National Trust' contingent and there were lots of healthy children running around. Who'd have thought there were so many vegans in London?

Pretty Pink

So, I am over my withdrawal symptoms and my skin is still as soft as a baby's - well, you know. Has anything else changed now you have been dairy free eighteen days or so? I hear you ask. Funny you should ask that. I have the pinkest and healthiest tongue I can ever remember seeing. You have to understand I have always had a bit of an obsession with trying to maintain a pink tongue, but I always failed and always ended up with something rather closer to white than pink. It must have been something in milk clinging to my tongue (yes, I know - yuck) because now that white layer is all gone and all I had to do was give up dairy! Bargain!

Prejudice

I very much believe we are all different and we all have the right to make our own choices about our lives, from what gender of person we sleep with to what we feed our bodies with.  It makes me quite mad then, to discover that there are so many websites out there feeding bad information and unsubtle propaganda against those of us who choose to live peacefully in respect with our planet and the living creatures on it by being ve*gans.  I have never tried to convert a meat eater, I answer questions when they are asked - but I never weight this information with emotional blackmail or poor data to back me up.  I respect that we are all different and yes, there are some people who will always choose to eat meat - that really is their business not mine.

Some websites (sadly many American and funded by some kind of church groups or meaty messiahs) are full of poor information and downright lies or ignorance.  I suggest to these people they don't make sweeping statements about where the body finds nutrients without doing the research or talking to someone who has trained to do so.  I suggest they stop using stories of 've*gans' who sound like people who actually had emotionally based eating disorders that needed dealing with rather than blaming the fact they tried to lead a ve*gan lifestyle.  I suggest they stop weighting their words with vittriol and try to appear balanced and reasonable.  These websites are dangerous, not only because they are badly researched and written, but because they pass themselves off as an 'authority'.  My parents thought I was mad at thirteen to become vegetarian and doubtless think I am now completely crazy having become vegan at thirty five.  They are meat eaters and have never thought deeply about the kind of lifestyle I follow because it is not for them.  If they found a bad website it would cause them an incredible amount of concern as they would literally expect me to cause myself some serious damage through my diet.

Please guide people towards reliable sources of information like the Vegan Society, where people can read the information for themselves and make their own minds up.

Homemade salsa verde

Most weeks I get an organic vegetable box from Riverford. They deliver all over the south as far as I know, I also used to get one when I lived in Hampshire. They work with local organic farms to produce boxes of seasonal fruit and veg for reasonable prices and all delivered to your door.

It's a really good idea to keep an eye in the website as they often feature seasonal specials and last week I noticed they had a salsa verde pack featuring tomatillos from their farm in France. I quite fancied a nice bit of salsa and I could make it without garlic, unlike most of the shop bought salsas around.

My salsa pack arrived with my veg box on Tuesday and thankfully contained a recipe to make salsa verde. In my pack were all the ingredients needed including the tomartillos which I had never encountered before.

I made guacamole to accompany it and dipped tortilla chips into both. Very nice.

Skin!

I hope I didn't put off anyone considering a Vegan way of life with my previous post, in case the down side (the side effect of ridding your body of nasties) made you think twice today I am going to give you an upside. 

It is day fifteen and for the past couple of days my skin has been amazing; it is soft and even the keratosis pilaris seems to have gone from my upper arms (those annoying red bumps so many of us get).  And when I say soft I mean soft as in never felt this soft before!

So, going through the dairy detox has pleasant upsides!  I'm off now to let my skin glow a little more.

Dairy Withdrawal - Cold Turkey

Yesterday was day eleven of my vegan life and the hardest one. It wasn't hard finding things to eat because I couldn't eat at all! I went through what I can only describe as cold turkey, the last time I felt the same way was when I gave up the hot lava java coffee that got me through my final year at uni.
I felt tired, achy, fluey, had the headache from hell (and I never get headaches) and generally felt wretched. Part way through the day it struck me that I might be having withdrawal symptoms and went to my trusty friend google to see if this could be possible. Indeed it was and many people listed the very same symptoms. Most of the blame seems to lie with the caseomorphines and giving them up is like giving up morphine. From my experience yesterday that seems entirely possible.
Hopefully this will be out of my system soon and I can move on dairy and morphine free!

Vegan non sausage rolls

Man these were good. 

I read on another vegan blog that puff pastry is vegan so I thought I would make some sausage rolls of the vegan variety.

Wouldn't you know it, the first shop I visited only had 'butter enriched' puff pastry so I had to venture to a larger supermarket where a huge choice confronted me.  I opted for a 'lighter' version and I couldn't tell any difference between 'lighter' and normal version when I cooked it later.

To make the filling I finely chopped carrots, celery, mushrooms and courgette and threw them into a pan.  When they were cooked I added some raw spring onion and some vegan mozzarella style cheese I had picked up earlier.  I then mashed up some borlotti and kidney beans and added them to bind the mixture together.  I put small amounts of this mixture on the puff pastry and formed them into sausage rolls which I then baked at mark six until they were golden.

The different contents of the mixture meant no bite was the same and they were absolutely lovely.  I have some mix left so I'm going to buy some more pastry and cook them up for easy lunches.

Vegan fairy cakes

'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World' arrived, so did my American cup measures.  I love baking cakes so it means a lot to me to find tasty, easy to bake vegan cakes.

Whereas with regular cakes the ingredients are few and pretty straight forward vegan cakes take a few more ingredients and a couple more steps.  For example using cider vinegar to curdle soya milk and plain flour with the addition of bicarb, corn starch and baking soda.

The cakes don't rise very much and don't have such a fluffy texture as egg-made cakes (or taste as sweet) but they are okay.  To jazz them up a bit I added blackcurrant jam and vegan 'butter'cream flavoured with almond essence.  I guess cakes are all made by what you dress them up with because the jam and cream turned the cakes from okay to amazing!

I think it'll be chocolate cakes next...

The Panda Cafe - Health Matters, High Barnet

Tropical Colada

This is as local as I can get for a vegan cafe, it's two miles up the road in High Barnet which, for a new convert, is very handy.

The shop was quite busy when I went in and I like this, as it shows small businesses can thrive when they cater to the needs of the local people.

As well as the shop and cafe there is also a herbal dispensary.

The menu features vegan and veggie dishes, clearly marked.  The desserts are all vegan and many of them raw as well.  Prices average at £3.95 per item.

I ordered a tropical colada from the juice menu and a chicken style burger for lunch. The juice was made within five minutes although I had to wait a little longer for my meal because it was fairly busy and there was only one lady running the shop at that point.

Not a chicken burger

The juice was lovely, really smooth and creamy without being overwhelmingly coconutty. The burger was simple, but tasty with vegan mayo and chilli sauce. The roll was fresh, although it was white bread.

I quite enjoy people watching, so it was nice to sit in the window and watch the world go by or read and not feel any pressure to eat up, drink up and leave.

I will definitely be visiting here again  and giving them more business.  After all, it is perfect for me that there is somewhere so local where I can order of the menu with no hassle!

My First Soya Latte

As followers of my other blog (Writing, Writing, Writing) know I am a little bit of a Starbucks fan.  I go there A LOT.  At school we go for breakfast every Friday and sometimes in the week after school to chill out.  In the holidays I often go there and nurse a large mug of green tea for several hours whilst reading on my kindle or tapping away a new chapter on my laptop.  I like Starbucks.  I guess you could say I like the ambiance - I like the fact I can sit there for hours and there is never any pressure to leave.  I especially like the High Barnet one as it has an upstairs section where you can sit quietly on the comfy chairs.

Today I was going in to school to do some work and had coordinated to meet a friend and colleague there as it is really miserable to be kicking around a large school on your own.  We started the day with a walk to Bucks.

So, love for Starbucks aside - I'm not the world's biggest coffee fan.  I don't think it really likes me as it can cause headaches, stomach aches and can make my temperature shoot up.  Of course, this doesn't mean I NEVER have one - just not often.  I had green tea bags with me so I didn't want to pay for what I could make myself.  I asked the barrista if they had soy milk and they did so I thought I would try a soy latte.

The milk frothed up surprisingly well and whilst it was hot there was none of that usual soy flavour so distinct of the milk.  Not a bad coffee in all and I have to say much nicer than one made with cow milk! And no side effects (although I did ask it to be made with only one shot to be safe).

Vegan Vegetable Curry

Vegan Vegetable Curry (garlic free)

At Village Wholefood in Enfield I managed to find curry paste that was not only vegan, but garlic free.  Since finding out garlic was giving me problems I have had to make do with curry powder as all the pastes seem to contain garlic - as do most other things unfortunately.  Powder is just not as good as paste in my opinion.

Ingredients:

Ferns mild curry paste

olive oil

onion

green beans

baby corn

yellow pepper

sweet potato

carrots

button mushrooms

tin of tomatoes (to bring down the heat!)

I threw the onion into the olive oil to cook first and then added all the other ingredients, adding the paste last.  I then added a tin of tomatoes as I overdid it on the paste and it was extremely hot!

This made a nice curry, although it was rather hot!

Sainsbury's Free From Vegan Chocolate Buttons/Beyond Dark 70% Cocoa

Vegan food review #1.

 As a chocoholic I don't want to give up my chocolate hit.  I found these in Sainsbury's today when shopping for vegetables for my homemade curry.  I thought they were worth a try as they are 100% vegan friendly.


They look like chocolate but they do not smell, melt or taste like chocolate.  The best thing I can compare them to is a thin, cheap cooking chocolate - but not as good.  I will not be buying them again - not even for 43p a packet and 4 Weight Watchers Pro Points!

Vegan food review #2.

On day one of the vegan month I found these in Sainsbury's on special for 71p.  Checking the ingredients I saw they were vegan friendly and thought they were worth a go.  I worked them out at 5 WW PP which is not dreadful for a treat.

I have never been a fan of dark chocolate, white chocolate has always been my favourite.  Dark has always seemed too bitter to me and I guess just not sweet enough.

I opened them to have one and found one tiny drop just the right amount of dark chocolate to have in one hit.  The little bag kept me going all day as I'd leave them in the kitchen and make myself take a walk if I wanted one.

I highly recommend these and think the tiny drops are perfectly sized.  The chocolate is 70% cocoa which is meant to be good for you as well apparently.

Additional note on chocolate

I don't believe everything I read, but I thought I would pass this on so you can make up your own minds.  Some people report that chocolate containing milk contains something called casomorphin, an opiate that leads to addiction.  I don't know the truth of this, but I do agree there is something addictive about chocolate.  I don't know what causes it, but I shall be interested to see what (if anything) changes now I am eating chocolate that does not contain any milk products.

Vegan Cakes

I knew it wouldn't take long for my sweet tooth to beg me for some goodies.  I confess - I like cake and would like to eat some please.  To this end I have ordered 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World' from Amazon so I can make my own - that is if I can get to grips with American 'cup' measurements.

Whilst my new book wings it's way to me I did some more googling about Vegan cakes and found there was a local company over in Enfield catering for sweet toothed vegans - Rebecca's Cakes.  Even better - they are available at a healthfood store in Enfield.

Today I was out and about so I thought I would totter over to Enfield and find this healthfood store.  I filled my arms with vegan garlic-free curry paste, tofu and marshmallows.  Then at the till I saw them - cakes!

I chose a toffee cupcake and a black forest cup cake, both vegan.  I should have taken a photo, but you will have to just trust me that they were beautifully presented.  I ate the toffee one there and then, it was a small sugar hit but the cake itself was a little dry and had an odd flavour - probably the use of oil?  Later on I had the black forest one and this was much nicer, the chocolate hid the odd flavour and the cherry jam kept it moist.

I shall keep searching for the ultimate vegan cake as long as this month lasts and I shall keep you posted!

The Decision

It started this time with a Pappa John's pizza.  After eating it I coughed again.  Normally it is ice cream that gives me a phelgmy cough, but now I was getting it with other types of dairy as well.

I went to Google to see if this was common after eating milk products and it seems so.  I also saw that if you are intolerant to dairy this can also cause fatigue and as I live in a zombie-like state most of the time I wondered whether it might be an idea to try going dairy free for a trial period.  It might do nothing, but it couldn't hurt to try.

Then I found an American website all about the amount of pus in milk and other horror stories, I took them all with a pinch of salt but even so they are not pleasant reading.  After that I ended up at the Vegan Society's website and they are running a pledge scheme, whereby you commit to trying a Vegan lifestyle for a certain amount of time and they give you a mentor to help you through.

I signed up for the Gold Pledge (one month) because it is Olympic season and we all want to win gold after all.  As suggested by the VS I set a date (2nd August, although I then moved this to 3rd as I was out for dinner on the 2nd and as I already cannot eat garlic didn't fancy the extra challenge).  This gave me time to get paid and go to the supermarket.

So - one month - will I manage it?