Breakfast of Champions

After my Café Bar Deli dessert experience (well, not so much my own experience, but the stealing-off-my-friends experience!) I decided to concoct my own breakfast recipe. I went to the doctor's this morning, so feeling sorry for myself I went to the supermarket and bought myself two tantilising punnets of fresh Irish strawberries with the intention of marinading them in balsamic vinegar. I looked up a few recipes online and saw them served with such things as yoghurt, cream cheese, jelly, chocolate mousse, etc. so decided to make my own variation and serve it with Alpro raspberry and vanilla soya yoghurt and mixed pumpkin & sunflower seeds.

I marinaded 6 halved strawberries in 2 dessert spoons of balsamic, drained the excess vinegar off and then sprinkled a heaped teaspoon of xylitol (healthy and all-natural sugar substitute) over the top of the strawberries and stirred it in. I then put the yoghurt and seeds in a glass and garnished it with the strawberries. Admittedly I was lacking a decent glass for serving, so the strawberries ended up poking out of the top, but it was still out-of-this-world delicious and worked very well together. It would be even nicer with a few shavings of dark chocolate, or a sprinkling of some dessicated coconut and a sprig of mint..... feel free to experiment! This is definitely going to be my breakfast for the next 3 days, and my hamster LOVES the taste of Alpro soya so I always scoop a small amount onto my finger after I've finished and let him lick it off! ^_^

In other news, I have been suffering from dermatitis recently. My face has become dry, itchy and bumpy. It's not very noticeable but at times it has really been bothering me. I'm not sure why this is, as I've never had a problem with it before, although my mother did suffer from ecsema and skin allergies so I know I have to be extremely careful. I am currently on antibiotics for this condition for 3 months, and I am relieved that I am able to do something about it, but also not sure if my medication is vegan. I hate the thought that my meds may have been tested on animals. Seeing animals suffering for humans breaks my heart. I have chosen not to Google the companies' names in fear that I discover something I don't like. I know this is literally turning a blind eye, but what am I to do? I either have to put up with this infuriating and irritating condition on my face in hope that one day it will magically disappear, or I have to do something about it. I have been using Dream Cream from Lush which is vegan and really helps to moisturise my skin, as well as Calamine Lotion to stop it itching, but they can only soothe the dermatitis, not completely cure it. I wonder what other vegans do in my situation? This is a totally new aspect of veganism that I have come across, something like this really hasn't been an issue for me in the past but now I'm beginning to realise how difficult things can be.

Raw Food Bars

These raw bars are by Nakd and cost €1.15 each in Tesco. I thought they were worth a try as they contain no added sugar (I guess only the sugar from the fruit itself) and I've heard many good things about them! I picked up the chocolate, berry and nut varieties. I saw smaller Nakd bars in a different shop with either pecans, ginger or chocolate in them, but they were more expensive than the larger bars so I didn't bother buying any. Gillian McKeith's organic hemp seed bars were reduced in the health food shop so I picked up a couple as they sounded delicious and pretty healthy with the only sugar coming from organic apple juice and organic raisins. I'm not a big fan of carob but thought I'd also give it another try as it's been years since I had any - it was pretty expensive at just over €2.50 for a large bar but might prove to be an interesting alternative to chocolate. However, I'm a little worried that it won't be sweet at all and I might hate it! I'll report back...



***REPORTING BACK!!!***

So the carob is definitely different. I do like it, it has a real chocolatey "bite" to it and the texture of real chocolate - but it really does lack sweetness. I often eat chocolate if I want something sweet, so I don't think this is going to do the job! If I could find bars of it cheap enough I could probably use it in cooking (if it melts well?!) and mix in some xylitol to sweeten it up, but at the moment I think I will have to have a small square of it with a small spreading of peanut butter on top as a sweet treat!

Salads Are Not Boring!

In the past I had to practically force myself to eat a salad, until I discovered lovely ingredients to put in it. I'm not a huge fan of lettuce and neither is the boyfriend, but we both love rocket. Cherry tomatoes, baby corn cobs, pickled beetroot, grated apple & carrot, and cucumber are always staples in my salads, as well as mixed seeds, beans or nuts to add a bit of protein. Sometimes I add a bit of marinaded tofu, fried polenta or seitan to the mix. I've never seen the point in eating anything drenched in dressing either, so it's great when I discover some nice vegan chutney to go on the side or ingredients which have been preserved in vinegar that add great flavour without the fat of a high-calorie dressing (and great colour too, if you use beetroot!). Here are some good ideas for ingredients to add to salads, which are healthy and flavoursome, to make your meal a little more interesting than the conventional garden salad:

Grilled pickled sweet pimento peppers and picked shredded cabbage, from Lidl:



Mixed bean salad from Aldi and a three bean salad from Tesco:



Mixed sunflower and pumpkin seeds from Aldi:



Aldi chutneys are lovely, especially the tomato, mint and lime one (the one on the left is not vegan as it has honey in it, but belongs to my boyfriend!):



The main thing is to be creative with salads. The first thing that comes to most people's minds are that salads are "boring" and "tasteless" and only for people who are "on diets". This may very well be true for most salads out there, but that doesn't mean you have to make your own salads boring! Salads are, I'd have to say, one of my favourite foods now. There's nothing nicer than a a salad dish where the ingredients combine to give a wonderful, fresh experience leaving you wanting more!