Vegan June anyone?

My eating in the past month has been proper shocking.  Scrap that since I went away in February.  I generally eat pretty healthy meals but snack terribly on biscuits and chocolate.

In an attempt to get back to a healthier me and to try and reduce my diary consumption (the impacts of it on the planet are pretty bad) I thought I would try a month of living vegan.  At the same time I thought I would also try and go back to a sugar light way of living.  As I won’t be able to eat a lot of the normal store bought junk of chocolate and biscuits with trying vegan I figure it might be easier to bring the two together.

I am going to be consulting with a couple of food blogs:

• Scandi Food (who has recently turned vegan herself and was the inspiration for my earlier sugar free ways)
• A First Mess

Too be honest I don’t think I would ever be a full-time vegan I just love gelato and cheese too much.  So this isn’t a shift to that but I think we can all do with the occasional challenge and giving the planet a bit of a break some times.

Any advice on favourite vegan meals or other resources would be gratefully appreciated.  This week is for preparing and eating the eggs that are left in the fridge (waste is worse).  If you want to join in that would be great too.  Even if it is for a week?  I haven’t been able to convince my sugar-free buddy yet but maybe I still can.

Zucchini Banana Cocoa Muffins

Yup that is a bit of a mouthful of a name.  I had some over-ripe bananas and some extra zucchini that I hadn’t got around to using.  A little searching on pinterest (are we ready to start use “pinteresting”?) and I came across The First Mess, which is another brilliant food blog full of yummy veggie and vegan food.  These brownies have me thinking of doing a vegan June…

I didn’t have all the ingredients for the original so made a few changes.  They are really moist and I am looking forward to my mid-morning snack every day this week.

Zucchini Banana Chocolate Muffin

Adapted from The First Mess

Ingredients

• 2 ripe bananas
• 1 cup oat milk
• 1/3 cup coconut oil (melted)
• 2 cup spelt flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 grated zucchini
• 1/2 cup chopped pistachio nuts

Method

1. Blend bananas, milk and coconut oil
2. Combine dry ingredients
3. Add wet to dry and stir in zucchini
4. Put into greased muffin tin and cook on 180°C for about 20 minutes

Makes 12

p.s. I really need to start baking things aside from muffins so I can take prettier food pictures.  It is the only reason for baking right?

Aubergine pizza

I was recently inspired by a pizza recipe on Sprouted Kitchen to come up with my own idea.

Instead of doing a tomato base I used an aubergine paste.  If I had the ingredients I probably would have made a more precise babaganoush but for this I just whole roasted aubergine (one per pizza) and some whole garlic.  I then squeezed the excess moisture out the aubergine and pureed with some roasted garlic.  I went Greek for this option with sundried tomatoes, olives and feta.  I also found out about za’atar and sprinkled that on top (shop bought because I couldn’t find sumac.  Anybody spotted this in a store?).

If you are vegan you could easily leave off the feta.  I used the spelt pizza bases from Biona but also made this on wholemeal pita breads which make nice mini pizzas.

One Recipe Three Ways

For my birthday gathering I made some of this really good rosemary lemon white bean dip.  The great thing about it is that it is really versatile.

I first had it as a dip (duh).

Then I had some on a grated carrot sandwich – the lemony zing and carrot worked really well together.

And then with what was left over I made myself a cup of soup by adding some hot water and a little bit of stock.

The soup was so good I think next time I am just going to make it as a soup.

Do you have any multi-tasking recipes?

Sugar free breakfast

So I have been struggling with boring oats and thought I would spice things up a bit with some pumpkin puree.  Unfortunately a couple spoonfuls in my porridge made it taste like baby food.  So I made some pumpkin soup with some turnip, but it tasted bitter.  I just don’t think turnips and I are going to be friends.  So instead I had the weeks healthiest breakfasts (lies, all lies).

First up.  Pumpkin French Toast.  I just added some of the puree to the egg mix and stirred it in.  Then fried as normal in coconut oil.  Served with chopped almonds and some butter.  One egg, some oat milk and 2 teaspoons of puree is enough for two slices of bread.  This was so yummy I made it twice.

Number two. Pumpkin Pancakes.  I have seen some recipes out there but thought I would just do something along the lines of my vegan banana pancakes.  Unfortunately they don’t really “cook” all the way through but because they were vegan it didn’t bother me.

This week I need to try some healthier (translate as less carby) breakfast options I think.  I’m pondering bringing one piece of fruit a day back into my diet but will probably ponder it so long that another week will have gone. I don’t feel like I have had any sugar cravings though have felt the need for some biscuits as an emotional crutch this week.  I have successfully ignored them though, I don’t want any future “treats” to have any emotional relevance.  Know what I mean?