Lazy Sunday Baking.

Yoghurt lemon drizzle cake.  Oh, yes please.  I adore this cake, now, I live in a vegan co-op, so I needed a vegan recipe - I used this one.  I also read the comments, and noticed one lady mentioning adding lemon oil extract; well okay, I have that too.  Notice this recipe doesn't mention drizzling lemon syrup over the top - me I like my lemon cake drizzled and sticky; so I took a lemon, squeezed it and added a heaped tsp of icing sugar and mixed together until the sugar dissolved.

Then take the cake from the oven, pop a few cocktail stick holes in it and pour over the lemon syrup.  Leave it in the pan for 20 minutes or so; then turn it out onto a wire wrack and leave to cool.  Of course you could eat now; but it will be very soft; leave it to cool and the cake will slice much easier...so hard I know...but mmm worth it.  This cake is moist, soft and oh, so lemony - honestly, vegan cake - baked well is as good as normal dairy & egg made cakes.

Now, in Rose Howey, we share our evening meal together - Mon-Thurs, and Fridays, those of us who are in, tend to order take out together; and the weekends occasionally someone will cook; I though, like to cook in my flat just for Rye and myself.  Communal meals are loud and chaotic, so I really enjoy our weekend evening meals together, where we can talk in peace, and I can hear Rye properly and he's not distracted by the chaos around us.

Yesterday I made colcannon and vegan sausages for tea, yum.

Today I've put on corn chowder in the slow cooker, and after noticing an American friend on facebook mention her biscuits, (This is the recipe she used) I decided to have a go - basically its drop scones baked - they look fabulous and I hope, will go beautifully with our chowder.

These are so tender and crumbly; thinking on, its basically a short crust pastry recipe but with baking powder added.  I always follow the recipe properly once, after that I tend to tinker.  I did wonder about the amount of salt; and I was right, too much for Rye's and mine palates.  Although, I did find crumbled into the chowder the saltiness wasn't as profound.  However, wee bit less salt and these will make future quick and easy, delicious biscuits for soup.   

(Yup, that's the cake up there too... we had two large slabs each, beautiful!)

Why mostly raw?

Simple.  It's working for me, and I feel amazing.  Week and half in, and a sneak peak at the scales tells me I've lost over 14lbs now  and oh, how nice it is to potter without needing to constantly sit down because the pain in my back is doubling me over.  How lovely not to be nearly crying in pain as my left knee crumbles under my weight yet again - the joint becoming ever more sore, my right knee aching from taking the extra pressure of me hobbling.

How lovely to swim with my son, go on, albeit a short, bike ride.  Wonderful to sleep properly at night and wake up feeling rested.  Lovely to feel energy and once again have it affirmed that a lot of the lethargy that dogged me was food related.  For sure, the weight I carry does not help, effectively, I am giving a constant piggy back to two full grown women... and I was constantly telling myself I'd do this and that when I'd lost a bit of weight and felt better....

Well 3 days into juicing and raw eating and I felt better...  I'm doing things I thought I'd need to loose a fair bit of weight before I'd be able to.

I'm also enjoying creating new recipes for Rye and myself.  Tonight we ate mostly raw chilli.  This is what I did - and wow it was tasty.

Rice:  1 finely chopped (processed) cauliflower & 1/2 spanish onion, finely chopped.

Raw veggies of choice cut up into bite sized pieces.

Dressing:  

4 ripe tomatoes

2 cloves garlic

3 spring onions

large handful of cashew nuts

tbsp of creamed coconut.

1tsp of chilli powder

1tsp of cumin powder

1tsp of ginger

1tsp of corriander powder

1.5 tsp of paprika

1/2 cup of water

1 roasted pepper (Jarred, add some of the jar juice too)

Mix raw veggies with the "rice" and blitz the dressing ingredients in the blender or processor, until the cashews are well processed.  Pour dressing on top of veggies and rice, mix through thoroughly, and leave to marinate for at least half an hour.    

To serve, chop up an avocado and pop on top of the chilli, with sliced lettuce, and a dollop of yoghurt, or cashew cream, and nom.  I also lightly steamed 2 mini corn on cobs too.

Oh, yeah, I added some of my marinated mushrooms too, as a kind of side dish.  Gosh this was tasty - the dressing with cashew nuts had a real hint of chilli mince flavour, it was really delicious.  

A typical day is beginning to look like this:

Late breakfast:  

A green juice, and an avocado, or I blend the avocado into the juice and have a smoothie.  

Rye tends to make his own fruit, sweet juice and then have a small glass of my green juice.

Lunch/afternoon snack:

 I normally make fruit "ice cream" in my vitamix - but to do so, one needs to add some liquid... well my masticating juicer is able to deal with frozen fruit, so for the first time I decided to use it to make ice cream.

Frozen banana mixed with frozen raspberry.  Delicious.  Rye also had a chocolate fudge chopped up and added to his ice cream.  (the fudge is the old pinterest recipe of a can of condensed milk, 2-3 100g bars of dark chocolate and butter, microwaved for 3 mins - except I simply melted it in the Kenwood chef, used most of it as a frosting for birthday muffins, and what was left over I popped in mini muffin silicon cases and froze.. I confess to trying one, and gosh, very fudgy, freezing really improves the fudgy texture)

And then tea is a high raw veg meal, perhaps the chilli above, or courgette noodles, with a tasty dressing or sauce, I've also had a nut pate and crudites.   I have to say the noodle salad below is one of my favourite meals, and I've had it LOT these past few weeks.  I do sometimes add a cooked component, perhaps some roast chicken, or prawns, one evening we had vegetable omelet with raw veggies accompaniment.

There's lots of other flavours, and recipes I'm looking forward to trying and so far Rye has enjoyed the raw meals too, tho his meal was a little different to mine tonight, as I wasn't sure he'd like the chilli:

This was his tea:  some of the chilli with yoghurt on top, cucumber sticks, 2 corn on the cobs, and some grapes and a buttered seeded roll.  And for supper he's had a veg chocolate muffin (i.e. normal chocolate muffin with the pulp from juicing added to the mixture).  The real joy here, is that Rye is mostly eating what I eat, no need for a separate meal - sure he has other things I'm choosing not to eat at the moment, bread, potatoes, cheese, chocolate...in the main, he is eating what I eat and it is just making it so much easier to changing my eating habits - plus of course he is also eating a super healthy diet.

This is how I choose to nourish myself going forward, I'm not claiming to be vegan, vegetarian, raw foodist etc, I simply acknowledge that for myself personally, I am feeling bloody amazing eating a diet that is predominantly raw - and the happy side effect is weight loss.

Its probably taken me a year to get to this point, mind, and I'm looking forward to seeing where the the rest of this year takes me :-)

Btw, quite a few people have been asking about my spiraliser; I have this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lurch-210215-Spiralo/dp/B002USUAH8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1369255880&sr=8-2&keywords=lurch+spiralizer

Orange / Lemon Muffins recipe.

cups = american measuring cups and are level measures.
In one bow sift/add together:

2cups of plain flour
3tsp (level) baking powder
1/4 - 1/2 cup of caster sugar (depends how sweet you like them)
zest of 2 medium sized oranges
1/4 tsp of salt

In another bowl mix together
1 egg
1 cup of orange juice (squeezed from the two oranges - if not enough make up rest with water)
1/4 cup of oil or butter

Makes enough for a standard 12 cup muffin tin.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until the flour is just incorporated.  A lumpy batter makes lighter muffins.  Pop in muffins pans (well greased or use papers or silicon cups), and bake for approximately 20 mins at 200 c  (I tend to do mine for 16 mins on 160 but I have a fan oven that is viciously hot.. plus the silcon means heat is distributed more eveningly so cooks a bit quicker too).

Same recipe for lemon muffins, which actually I think taste better. (although Saville Oranges, when available in January, are good for this recipe). Although a few drops of orange essential oil will certainly help to add to the orangy flavour, (must be 100%, preferably organic, orange essential oil).  Orange icing helps the flavour along too - 1/2 cup of icing sugar to 1-2tsp of orange juice and then drizzled over the muffins when slightly warm (too hot and the icing will just soak into the muffins)

P.S Vegans the egg can be left out just add 1/2 tsp of bicarb instead.

Kiddy free weekend Saturday 20th Feb

Rye is at his dad's this weekend; bless him he was so excited when I told him his dad was coming down.  He's been asking for a few weeks now about his dad because he's not seen his dad since Christmas, who had hurt his back and was unable to drive.

I confess, to a squidgeon of excitment at the prospect of a weekend kiddy free, well at least from 1:30pm today, which is when my charge is picked up.   I've been wanting to sort my room out for a while; and have a bit of a move around; partially because some dear friends are visiting in April and will be staying in my room.  Having the bed pushed up against the wall is fine for me; but not so convenient for a couple.   Makes changing the bed much easier too :)  The room isn't how I invisage in my mind eye; but that will happen when I buy some more shelving so the piles of books on the floor, under the bed , on the window cill etc can all go on the shelves.  I may even put some of my own art work up.

Mmmm, and I've eaten some delicious food today.  I've become a bit addicted to 30 Minute Meals by Rachel Ray.  Very American of course and the meals are mainly meat based; but she has such a wonderful presence, and I do like the little stories she tells while she's cooking.  Anyhoos, today she made a marmalade sauce for chicken; and inspiration hit.  As I'm trying to keep my lunch mainly raw I decided to have a big salad and make a lime marmalade dressing; and oohhhh it was suprisingly yummy;

1 heaped tsp of lime marmlade, warmed in the microwave.
1tbsp of omega oil
1-2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp of red wine vinegar (I would have used white if I had any - or lime juice)
Crushed black pepper
Salt

And I just mixed it all together and then poured that over a pile of salad leaves, cucumber, red pepper and sliced in half grapes (needed using up), tossed it to coat all the leaves, then added the sprouted seeds and some parmasan shavings.  OH MY GOSH!  Wonderful.  Tangy, sweet and just wonderful.

Then this evening I fancied curry.  I resolved not to buy takeaways during Lent; and besides I need to spend at least £12 to qualify for delivery - so I thought, "what the heck", and made myself a Red Lentil Dahl.  Oh WOW!

Oil
1 medium onion chopped
1 large carrot quarted and chopped
1 small beetroot chopped
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1/4 tin of coconut milk
1 tin of water (use the tomatoe tin)
1/2 cup of red lentils
pinch of dried chilli seeds
3 green cardamons pods crushed, seeds removed and the seeds crushed.  (I love cardamon if you’d prefer a less flora taste reduce to 1 or 2 pods)
tsp of ground corriander
tsp of cumin seeds
aprox 1/2 tsp of fresh grated ginger
1/2 tsp of dried garlic powder (not salt)  (could use fresh garlic if preferred)
approx 2 tsp of freshly ground black pepper

I just sauteed the veggies in the oil until soft added the seasonings and spices, cooked for a minute or two; then added the tomatoes, water, and red lentils, covered and after ten minutes added 1/4 can of coconut milk; left to fast simmer for another 15-20 minutes.  I boiled rice with cardamons to serve with, naan would have been nice too; but I decided last thing to make this and couldn't be bothered to faff making Naan.

I've been really slowing down my eating too, and taking the time to really taste and explore the textures and I am amazed how stupendous food is tasting!  I have a few golden rules, lol, well actually, they are Paul McKenna's rules; which compliments beautifully what I've been trying to do myself anyway.  So the rules are:

1.  Eat when hungry
2.  Eat what I want not what I think I should be eating.
3.  Eat Consciously
4.  Stop when you're full.

Whether I loose weight, remains to be seen; although I suspect I will.  I've only been following these golden rules 2 days now; but already I am amazed by the change.  Food tastes absolutely stupendous; the kids look at me bemused when I eat because I'm grunting & moaning in appreciation  seriously, far better than sex!

I only eat when I think I'm hungry, and the idea is not to let myself get too hungry; so when I start to feel hungry that is when I eat.  Although I have a drink of water first because the signal for thirst and hunger are the same.  If, after a drink I'm still hungry; then I eat.  After I'd eaten my salad a few hours later I was feeling peckish and decided to use the rest of the salad up in a sandwich; I spread the bread with homemade humous; added the left over dressed salad.. and blimey, best sandwich I can remember having in a long time.  All this from simply slowing my eating right down and as much as possible, concentrating on what I'm eating and really enjoying every mouthful.  I can't always tell when I'm full; but I have noticed that McKenna is right; when I am getting full each mouth is less enjoyable.  And the crazy thing is, now I'm purely listening to my body I have eaten far, far less that I would normally and I am full much sooner than I would have thought.

The lentil Dahl I made this evening; normally I would have polished it all off myself.  I had a bowl full, ate consciously and with enjoyment and it was enough.  There was temptation to have seconds anyway; 
I suppose knowing I can eat whenever I want, solong I'm hungry, is giving me that degree of control.  Why have a second bowl of the dahl when I'm full, and it won't taste as good. Might as well wait until I'm hungry and it will taste phenomenal again - perhaps have it for lunch tomorrow over a jacket potatoe?

Seriously, whether you want to loose weight or not; give the golden rules a try for a few days or a week.  And yep it can still be done when eating with children and indeed I've come to realise that young 'uns tend to naturally eat this way anyway.

I will weigh myself in 2 weeks time and see how it's going.

Lemony Shortbread Buscuits (Recipe)

2 2/3 level cups of plain flour
1 cup of room temp unsalted butter (I reckon this is about 3/4 of a 250g pack)
1 large lemon
pinch of salt
2/3 cup of icing sugar.

Cream the sugar and butter and salt together.  Then add the flour and zest of the lemon and combine, if a bit too dry use the juice from the lemon to bind.

Either pat into a tin at about 1/2 cm thickness, or roll out to said thickness and use cutters to make shortbread buscuits.

My oven is fierce, so I had it set at 160 and these cooked in 8mins.  For a normal oven probably about 180 for a similar time.

Yum