I have some explaining to do...

So it has been quite a while since I last posted, but sadly this is not because I have been off sunning myself on a Caribbean island. I have in fact been back to the UK to get my visa renewed (luckily no awkward questions this time) and to discuss with a few people ideas for my PhD (on the DRC conflict). Then I was in Hong Kong for a weekend, partying with family. I definitely felt old when I had to admit I couldn't keep up with my 60 year old mother and retired home to bed at 1am! But Hong Kong was amazing - I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, despite being someone who generally likes wide open spaces.


But back to more important things. First, a report on the raw challenge. I didn't make 21 days - at day 13 I gave up! Partly this was due to an unexpected trip where I was separated from the blender that had become essential to me, but in large part it was due to a realization that I was indulging my less-than-healthy perfectionist tendencies in pushing myself so much. I definitely wanted to incorporate more raw food into my diet, and 13 days ended up being enough to really introduce me to the wonders and variety of raw food without getting fed up or bored. The challenge is definitely something I'd like to try again, but at this time it's been a great lesson for me in just enjoying new things, not feeling the need to be so madly hardcore about everything, and so hard on myself if I don't stick to it 100%. I recently read Eat, Pray, Love (despite the fact that my inherent obtuseness means my knee-jerk reaction to something a lot of people are raving about is usually outright hostility) and something Ms. Gilbert said really resonated with me: "Never forget that once, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend." I think many of us are far harsher with ourselves than with our friends - certainly I would never dream of reprimanding my friends the way I do myself internally - and I'm trying really hard at the moment to recognise that and not beat myself up so much over small failures.


In terms of cooking, I've been pretty obsessed with a few recipes by Angela Liddon at ohsheglows.com. This lady is seriously inspiring, I love her upbeat posts and cooky style, and I'd really recommend her blog for anyone unfamiliar with it. I've been pretty much living off her chili (made as part of her endurance lunch) and her chocolate brownie recipe for the past couple of weeks now that New York is getting cold...


Chili

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 1 medium onion, chopped

• 3 bay leaves

• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

• 2 tablespoons dried oregano

• 3/4 tablespoon salt

• 3 stalks celery, chopped

• 2 green bell peppers, chopped

• 4 cloves garlic, chopped

• 2.5 (28 ounce) cans crushed tomatoes

• 1/4 cup chili powder

• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper

• 1 (15 ounce) can kidney beans, drained

• 1 (15 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained

• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans

• 1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn

Directions: Heat the olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in the onion, and season with

bay leaves, cumin, oregano, and salt. Cook and stir until onion is tender, then mix in the celery,

green bell peppers, garlic. When vegetables are heated through, mix in the walnut burger

crumbles. Reduce heat to low, cover pot, and simmer 5 minutes. Mix the tomatoes into the pot.

Season the chili with chili powder and pepper. Stir in the kidney beans, garbanzo beans, and

black beans. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, and simmer 1-1.5 hour. Stir in the corn, and

continue cooking 5 minutes before serving.

I made a few changes - left out the corn, used one red and one green pepper instead of 2 green, and used canned tomatoes with chili peppers in them.

Brownies

Angela's brownies were made as part of a brownie-pumpkin-pie recipe. I have been making them just on their own, as brownie cupcakes.

Ingredients:

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/2 cup + 3 tbsp sugar

1/4 cup coconut oil, softened

3/4 cup white kamut flour (or white)

1.5 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tbsp cornstarch (or arrowroot/tapioca)

1/4 cup dutch processed cocoa powder

1/2 tsp sea salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

I substituted the pumpkin for apple sauce (when I ran out of pumpkin - these have been made many times), and vegetable oil for coconut oil (though for health reasons I'd recommend the coconut). I also used a mix of white flour and whole wheat pastry flour instead of kamut flour, and brown sugar rather than white. My one tip is do not forget the salt - it makes the world of difference.

Next up books. Or fashion. Or both. 

21 day raw challenge

I am about to start a 21 day challenge involving eating purely raw foods. I will be planning meals and writing up my experiences here. Hopefully I will manage to stick to it. It's something I've been planning to do for a while now, but the weather has started cooling down (finally - New York has been baking!) and I've realised that if I don't do it soon I will be right in the middle of carb-loading, cashmere-swathed, hot soup slurping, warmed chocolate cake scoffing autumn/winter (yes, being British I still say 'autumn' rather than 'fall') and my chances of success will be slim to none.

As I started to look at easy recipes, I noticed that I had cleverly lost my immersion blender*, so I've ordered a new one to arrive on Wednesday. I'm convinced this will be key to my success, though I was planning on starting on Monday so I'll have to make do for a few days without it. I think the key will be to have lots of easy things on hand, including lots of sweet (raw) snacks so I don't go running for the Teddy Grahams! I will post a list of great links, and of course key recipes for the challenge. I may go on longer - I'm hoping I can also do Jillian Michaels' 30-day Shred along with it, but at the moment 21 days seems more manageable!


* I have a big preference for immersion blenders. I've not tried a vita-mix - waiting until I win the lottery - but have generally been disappointed with other blenders, none of which seemed good enough to justify the space they take up in my tiny kitchen (and I'm a messy cook - I need mucho counter space). Then I came across an immersion blender in my Grannie's flat that was about 10 years old and better than anything else. Yes, if held at the wrong angle my soup would end up splattered over me and the ceiling,  but nothing beats the versatility. So yey, I'm getting a new one!

Awesome

Found over at India Knight's blog. Well worth a read - I have yet to read anything by her that I haven't enjoyed, and her book recommendations are spot on.

Despite not being a morning take-out coffee/tea fiend, I love this Tea Lover's Eco Cup - I've always liked the idea of re-usable cups, but they're normally so ugly. Now I just have to move back to London to get back to my Pret-a-Manger soy milk hot chocolate habit. After all, with something this pretty it'd be a shame not to put it to use...

Favourite photos...

I've been going through some old photos and thought I'd share - they remind me of travels, times come and gone, and both happy and sad memories. I love taking photographs and wish I was better. Another photography course is definitely on my to-do list!

"Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul"

As anyone who knows me can attest, I'm worrier, and tend to carry the woes of the world on my shoulders which is, to be frank, utterly exhausting and completely unhelpful (not to mention somewhat self-indulgent). Anyway, I love things that make me feel motivated, remind me of how I want to live my life, and what I want to contribute to the world. I'm a huge fan of doing something tangible on an individual level - some of the most amazing development projects I've seen have been small scale. One orphanage, one village, one hospital. But they make all the difference. So today I wanted to share a few videos that have made an impression on me. I can't claim to know much about the organisations behind them, nor their working practices, but the hopes expressed in these videos has re-motivated me at a time when I've started to feel overwhelmed.

First, FOUR YEARS. GO. I always find a sense of urgency to be a huge motivation for me. This definitely does the trick.

Next, I'm a HUGE believer in girl power (Spice Girls were my era after all!) and I really truly believe that a teenage girl is one of the most powerful drivers of change our world has.

And this last one. Not a video full of hope, but beautiful and hugely disturbing and one I'd recommend everyone watch. I looked around the bathroom this morning and all I could see was plastic. There are more videos which explain the work of Midway and include trailers for their upcoming film at their website.

Sorry!

First, apologies for being away for so so long. Well actually I don't feel too bad, since I have not given one single person ever the link to this blog, so I don't feel like I'm letting anyone down! Anyway, the main reason has been the fact I have been working like crazy, have adopted a dog (Sherman) from death row at animal care & control, and have been living in an apartment that had a kitchen composed of a fridge, stove and sink and NO SURFACE SPACE! So I've barely cooked, and I haven't been very judicious in my reading (thanks work...) so all in all felt I had very little to contribute.

But... I do have things to say. First I got a job in international conflict resolution - only for a year but still, yey for me! Second, how could I not share photos of my lovely Sherman? Third, I have started reading more, and I've started cooking. First I want to share 2 recipes that have become mainstays very quickly.

The first is from the Mayo Clinic cookbook, and is a fresh tomato sauce intended to be served with pasta (which is delicious) but which is a basic tomato salad. I use baby vine, bay plum, or just plain baby tomatoes for this - the texture is better, they're sweeter which contrasts more with the other flavours, and to be honest I'm a bit weird about big tomatoes! The best thing about this recipe is that it gets better over time, and stores (in the fridge) wonderfully. Make sure to get a good quality cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil otherwise it goes a bit clumpy in the fridge.

Just throw everything together -

4 tomatoes, about 2 pounds total weight, peeled and seeded, then cut into 1/2-inch dices
1/2 cup fresh basil cut into slender ribbons, plus whole leaves for garnish
3 tablespoons chopped red onion
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 clove garlic, finely minced
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

The second recipe is from Kristen's Raw blog - I've been trying to incorporate more and more raw foods into my diet, and came across this recipe. Even though it's cooked (and is ratatouille which I always hates, AND it involves fake meat which I generally avoid like the plague) it still appealed to me. Made this for a dinner party where I was the only vegan, and had lots of approving comments and even requests for recipes. The 'chicken' scallopini don't taste like chicken, whatever anyone may tell you - they don't have much taste (all the better to absorb the taste of the ratatouille as far as I'm concerned) and have a texture somewhere between tofu and chicken. Incidentally, I find telling any meat-eater that a substitute "Tastes just like..." is a sure-fire way to have them dislike your dish. Acknowledge it's different and they might actually approach it with less prejudice. So here is the recipe:

1. Heat a pot to medium heat and drizzle a bit of olive oil in it.

2. After about 30-60 seconds, add 2 cloves of chopped organic garlic and saute for a minute.

3. Then, add 4-5 medium organic chopped tomatoes and get them cooking for about 5 minutes or so (I have not timed this all, so these are approximations).

4. Add salt, black pepper, dried basil, dried oregano, onion powder, couple dashes of cinnamon, and a dash of vanilla extract - no exact measurements, just do it to taste. Start small and build from there.

5. Add 1 chopped courgette/zuchini. Continue cooking a couple of minutes. If it starts to boil, reduce the heat to a lower setting.

6. Add about 1/3-1/2 bunch of kale (mostly destemmed and then chopped) - cook this for a couple of minutes.
7. Put a saute pan on medium heat - add a little oil and saute the Gardein Chick'n Scallopini Breasts (available in the freezer aisle of Whole Foods Market - not sure if they're available in the UK yet) and saute them for 2 minutes on one side (at this point is when I add the kale to the sauce pot mentioned above).

8. Flip the breasts and continue cooking another 2 minutes (now the kale has had time to cook a bit).
9. Take an 8X8 glass baking dish and put the 4 faux chicken breasts in it - pour the sauce on top. Then, sprinkle Daiya or another vegan cheese on top and put it under the broiler to melt the cheese for a couple of minutes. All done! This makes 2-4 servings depending on whether you're hungry for 1 or 2 faux chicken breasts.

I'd really recommend heading over to Kristen's blog - she has amazing ideas, photos recipes and tips on how to get the most nutritional value from your food. http://kristensraw.blogspot.com/

Enough for today - I'm home from work sick and m off back to my bed. Books tomorrow, 'things I'm lusting after' sometime this weekend.