Summery food

It's been so warm and sunny the past few days all I've been craving salady type foods, I made a really yummy salad platter today! A HUGE lunch! Mike didn't think I would manage it all but I did (with only a teeny bit of help from him hehe...didn't want any til he saw it!!). I love a plate of food which has lots of variety on it! This plate had spicy couscous (shop bought), penne vodka (from vcon, homemade minus the vodka), roast veg, mixed seasonal baby leaf salad, and tabouli, everything was homemade except the couscous.


Penne Vodka


Roast veg and baby leaf salad


Spicy couscous


Tabouli (recipe follows)


Tabouli
My tabouli recipe is based on the one my local vegetarian restaurant cooks and doesn't have mint or spring onion as other, perhaps more traditional recipes do but it is really yummy, Mike doesn't like tomatoes and he ate loads hehe
1 cup bulgar wheat
1 cup boiling water
1 scant Tbsp lemon juice
1 small red onion
3 smallish cloves of garlic
3 big vine tomatoes
big bunch of parsley
salt to taste

What you do!
Measure out a cup of bulgar wheat into a large mixing bowl, pour over the boiling water, a teaspoon of salt, crushed garlic and a few drops of lemon juice. Next finely chop your red onion and pour over the rest of the lemon juice, the acidity in the lemon juice will cook off the red onion a little bit and take the edge off. This step is not necessary but I don't like a strong onion flavour so I like to do it this way. Leave the bulgar mixture to soak up the water for about half an hour and the onion to cook down in the lemon juice if you are using this step. When all the water is absorbed and the mixture has cooled add in your chopped up vine tomatoes and parsley, check the seasoning and add more salt and lemon juice if necessary, enjoy!

Mango, Pineapple and Strawberries = yum!


Closeup!


It's competition time at Life, love violin's blog for a yummy bar and peanut butter giveaway so head over to enter and have a read of a fellow musicians blog!

Pizza Night!

What two posts in one day after nothing for so long?! Yeah... I know! I've been meaning to upload these pictures for aaaages! These are the pizzas Mike and I made about a week and a half ago now!!
Veg ready for roasting (in the oven at 200c for about 20 minutes then 230 for 20)


Wholemeal and yeast free pizza dough
Makes 2 mini pizzas (thin crust)

1cup wholemeal flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup water

Mix the dry ingredients then add the water, roll out into one big pizza or two mini pizzas and pre-bake the base for about 10 minutes just to help it cook, top with your choice of toppings and put it back in the oven for another 10-15 minutes until the base is crispy and yummy!


The topping station!
Grilled tofu
kalamata olives
sundried tomatoes
red pepper
mushrooms
not pictured but used;
hummous (me)
fake tuna (Mike)


The base with tomato puree, oregano, rosemary and onion powder


add some mushrooms


and sweetcorn


Mike added mushrooms, sweetcorn, red pepper and fake tuna


He couldn't help but lick the spoon (caught ya!)


Next up for mine was some grilled tofu


Sundried tomatoes, kalamata olives and red pepper


Almost ready for the oven (mine had a few dollops of hummous added before cooking but I forgot to take a pic oops!)



Roasted veg from the oven



Being served up by Mike, served with some homemade ketchup. We were going to have these with the pizza but someone couldn't wait..not me haha!


The kitchen was pretty messy by this point!!


Finished pizzas



Managed to snap a quick pic of Mike's as he impatiently waited to eat it!


And here's mine


Yummy!

If anyone remembers me stressing a few posts back about a clarinet exam I got my results this week, I passed with distinction :) what a relief! I didn't think I had played my best, I never do, I'm always so nervous!!

Some workouts

I seem to start every blog entry with an apology for being so rubbish at updating! I don't know why it's been so long since my last entry.. I have no excuse! Anyway... here's a few workouts I've done since I last updated, I've been interval running twice and done the barbell complex twice, with dumbbells as Mike uses the barbell but you've heard about those before so I'll tell you about some new ones!

This workout absolutely fried my legs, I was out of action for three days!!!! If you do this I would recommend lowering the number of squats if you struggle with them like I did otherwise you will not be able to get down onto a chair for the next three days (not a good look..) anyway here's how it goes, you do it in the order written;

50 chair dips
200 resistance band slams
200 squats (we were going to do 300!!! silly idea!)
200 crunches
50 chair dips

Amazingly only my legs were sore after this, I was really surprised as I normally think of squats as a fairly easy exercise! Oh I did three planks to finish too! just in case I hadn't done enough..?!

Magic 50
This is a workout by Ross Enamait see his website ross training for lots more useful workout info he also has three books out, all of which have great workouts for strength, endurance and conditioning and are well worth buying. For this workout I did Clean and Press instead of Snatch which slowed me down a bit but not too much. I used a dumbell with 11kg and finished the workout in 10.55.

10 Burpees
5 Clean and Press each arm
5 Swings each arm
repeat 5 times... it's harder than it sounds!!

After this I did a deadlift hold with 40kg three times for as long as I could.. then Mike wondered if he could deadlift me... he could of course! So I decided to see if I could deadlift him and to my surprise I could!!!

Max strength
Push press with the barbell 25kg 4x4
Wall band press
Calf raise using resistance band
Ab Rollouts
Tabata punchouts as a finisher

This was a pretty rubish workout, I was completely bored and I hurt my wrist so I don't think I really did as well as I should have done but never mind.. win some lose some..

ICT
10 Medicine ball Burpees (aka hell on earth)
20 Lateral jumps
30 Star jumps
20 Knee push-uos
10 Burpees
I managed 4 rounds in 14.01 and Mike did 5, I was a bit dissapointed at not keeping up with him but the medicine ball I used was the same weight as his so way too heavy for me considering he usually lifts more than double what I lift. I was still frustrated though, I don't like getting behind!!
After this we did a finisher
55 chair dips
70 resistance band slams
210 chinnies


On top of these workouts I've been working at my pushups and chinups, I can now do 2 chinups in one set and my max pushups in one go is 10 with good form not on my knees like I do in some workouts!

Penne... vodka?

We had absolutely no idea what to have for tea tonight so I pulled out my copy of veganomicon and started flicking through, after several meal ideas we couldn't agree on we settled on trying the Penne Vodka. I've been wanting to try this for a while as I was interested to see how the almonds worked in the sauce. We only had one problem, no vodka... I've probably comitted some cooking blasphemy here but we went ahead anyway, it's unlikely I will ever have vodka in the house, neither of us like it or drink it so I figured it couldn't be bad without. It was really yummy! Since I'd already ignored the recipe and omitted the vodka we decided to ignore it a little more and add spinach and sweetcorn to get a bit more veg action into the tea! It was really good and reeeeaaally filling, we'll definately make this again!


This is the pasta we used, it's yummy and v. healthy!


I haven't done much baking lately :( I need some willing guinea pigs! I'm going to make Mike some truffles later that'll have to do for now!

I mentioned in my previous post about the 20 pull-up challenge and the 100 push up challenge, see links for more info. I'm starting the push ups tonight and I'm in week -2 of the pull-ups, the only thing I don't like about it is that it starts at -2, that's kind of annoying to have to start before week one! It would have been better to just add 2 weeks IMO, but that's just me being penickety! According to these websites I should be doing 100 push ups in 6 weeks and 20 pull-ups in 8!! I'll keep ya posted, I hope I get these results it does seem a bit optimistic but I'm gonna give it a go.

We've been having a back-off week this week to let our muscles recover, on Wednesday our workout consisted of 100 chair dips, 100 push ups (girly style on my knees!), 100 squats and 100 sit-ups.. doesn't sound too bad does it... it was!!! I'm still aching! I didn't even feel too bad when I'd finished but I woke up on Thursday sooo sore!

On Thursday I played badminton with Mike and my dad, they both always beat me but it's still fun, anyway this week I beat my dad, amazing lol I'm not sure if he was being kind though I told them not to let me win though, it's not so sweet that way hehe

Today, Friday I did the Randy Couture circuit I've mentioned before, I did it light and had 3.5 kg on each dumb bell as opposed to my usual 6kg so it gave me a light workout without stressing my muscles too much, my legs still hurt today and I'm hoping to go running tomorrow so I didn't want to burn out..

Cupcakes and workouts

Here's some cupcakes I made for my cousin's birthdays they both visited this weekend, so any excuse to get baking! They're the basic chocolate recipe from every vegans cupcake bible, vegan cupcakes take over the world, they seemed to go down well I didn't have one cause I didn't really like the frosting, my dad said it was good but I thought it tasted fatty.. Maybe the shortening I used wasn't right, I used Trex any UKer's use trex and have good/bad results? It's the first time I've used it..




Trudy likes the sun!


A Few Workouts I've done since I last posted
Running
Jogged to uni 1 mile
15 50m sprints with 50m jogs in between each sprint
jogged home

Strength Work
I did the nightmare workout again!! This time I kept it closer to the original and it was maybe even more horrible than last time but I felt great when I completed it, I did 5 rounds with 2 6kg dumb-bells.
-Bent Row
-Upright Row
-Military Press
-Split Squat (left/right)
-Thruster
-Straight-Legged Deadlift

I did a few other strength based workouts too but they weren't terribly exciting, I've been really tired lately and I've been finding the strength stuff harder than usual.. I've started a pull-up programme and a push-up programme so I'm hoping my numbers for each exercise will begin to improve soon, I'll keep you all posted!

Baking galore!

Wow this post was promised aaages ago wasn't it! I hope it was worth the wait! How's everyones week been? I had a better week, busy with uni work and I have a clarinet exam on Saturday so I'm feeling a bit stressed, I'm prepared for it but I always feel I could do more, it's always the case though, a bit more time probably wouldn't change a thing! Anyway on to the food! That's what you're here for right?

Maple cupcakes with sugared cashews (instead of walnuts) from VCTOW
These were really good actually, I didn't think I would like the sugared cashews but they turned out really nice. I also made a frosting based on the one in VCTOW but I don't really like cooking with fat, I always sub apple sauce for oil and don't often do proper frostings unless they're for other people.. So my frosting recipe, basically it was soy protein powder added to maple syrup until the consistency felt right and it tasted right, i.e. not too protein-y! It needs some work, it tastes great but it doesn't stay on the cupcakes so they don't look too pretty!! Maybe some powdered sugar would help but I think that might make it too sweet.. If anyone tries this let me know how it turns out for you!



Next up, another modified VCTOW recipe.. The cake recipe is the Almond version of the Hazlenut cupcakes, the first set is topped with a chocolate ganache and vegan crunchie (honeycomb - recipe below) unfortunately the crunchie pieces melted into the ganache but I'm assured by my Gran who I baked them for, that the taste still shone through, in fact I know it did because I didn't tell her what it was and she knew! The second lot are topped with a lemon cream cheese frosting leftover from the carrot cakes shown below. I had also made a blueberry compote to go with the lemon ones, recipe in VCTOW but my gran forgot to serve it with the cupcakes so my grandad will be getting a treat with his breakfast!



Mother's day Carrot cake cupcakes from VCTOW
As you may remember from earlier posts my mum loves carrotcake so what better to make her for mother's day? I had the bright idea of spelling out Happy Mother's Day in marzipan carrots, it took aaaaaaages but she loved it so it was worth it, she did point out I'd missed the apostrophe out though cheeky mum!




Vegan Crunchie/Honeycomb
These were sooo yummy! I'm kinda scared to make them again for fear of eating them all!! I'm failing to find where I got the recipe from so I'm sorry to the person I'm not crediting, I did modify it though... I used one cup of sugar and half a cup of water and I think 1 tbs of baking soda. In a deep pan heat the sugar and water to hard crack stage, with a thermometer around 300° F– 150° C I actually took it off before it reached that heat as it smelt like it was burning and it still worked well, once off the heat add the baking soda it will fizz up a lot (that's why you need a deep pan!) then chill the honeycomb until it's hard, it didn't take long at all for me. I then broke it up and coated it in melted dark chocolate yum yum!




Soda Bread
My Gran saved me a recipe for soda bread in the Daily Telegraph Magazine, it was not vegan but I made some changes and it turned out great!
500g wholemeal flour
10g salt
15g baking soda
150g oat flakes
1 tbsp molasses
500ml oat milk plus 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

mix the oat milk and vinegar so it has time to curdle
preheat the oven to 200°C
line a baking sheet
mix all the dry ingredients
add in the wet ingredients
shape the dough into a loaf with floured hands and mark the top with a knife
bake on the top shelf for 45mins until the loaf sounds hollow when tapped
transfer to a wire rack to cool, the recipe suggests draping a damp cloth over the loaf to help it stay moist but I like a really crunchy crust so I omitted this stage. (Sorry for the bad lighting!)



Sugar free, no added fat almond choc chip cookies
I'm working on this recipe and a PB variation, it's not quite there yet but I promise I'll let you know as soon as I nail it!