Simply... vegan!

Our lunch last Saturday made me think about at least 3 posts I wrote here: best Brazilian combination (rice and beans), all about... colors! and cooking with pleasure. We had a delicious lunch and so simple, so easy to cook.


But the most important thing I'd like to write here today is about simplicity of being vegan. I always think that is easier to be vegan in a country like Ireland, with many british influences which include vegetarianism and veganism. Here we can buy vegan cheese, cream cheese, ham, ice cream, chocolate and a lot of other stuff. But these are not things you need to eat everyday, these are things we like. Day by day we eat the simple food: pasta, rice and beans with vegetables, lot of potatoes recipes, risotto, gnocchi, salads, etc. And this kind of food is easy to find and it's cheap.

Sometimes I think people like to complicate things. To make them seem more difficult that they really are. I'm not saying that it is easy to be vegan. It is a big change. But it's not impossible and everybody can be healthy, eat well and be happy being vegan. You just need to find the best way.

There are so many options of food that are naturally vegetarian (or even vegan)... First, concentrate yourself on the kind of food you like. Start eating a vegan version of them. And think about try new things. There is a lot of food that I didn't eat before and now I love. I'm not saying that you have to like everything that is vegan, this does not exist, but you can discover a new universe with new flavours.

Simplicity is a great choice of life, always! Just try it some times ;o)

My cupcakes NOW at Govinda's!

I'm proud to announce that my vegan cupcakes are now available at Govinda's (4 Aungier Street, Dublin 2)! This is the only shop where you can buy them and I'd like to thank Praghosa and Goloka for the opportunity they gave me.


So, if you live in Dublin, pop in there and try one (or two) ;o)

All about... (our) hot dog

As I promised here I am to write a little bit about the Brazilian hot dog. Yes, we have a different way to make it and I love it!

Basically, there are 3 differences:

1. The name is translated to Portuguese, so we call it “cachorro quente”. This is funny.

2. We cook the sausage with tomato sauce. You can choose use sliced vegan sausages or not (I prefer the first option). Cook a tomato sauce with onion, garlic and some herbs and add the sausages. Let cook for a few minutes. One good tip is to add corn too.

3. The final touch: make mashed potatoes. Cook the potatoes (in this case, I used 3 small potatoes), crush with a potato masher or with a fork. Return the potatoes to the pan, add salt, vegetable margarine and soy milk (or more margarine) and mix to combine.

The best bread is the hot dog one, but some times we don't find it, so (like yesterday) we make the sandwich with baguette. You can also add mayonnaise, ketchup and mustard.


I can garantee that this terrible picture I took can't show how amazing the cachorro quente Brazilian hot dog is, so you must try it!

Celebrate good times, come on!

We had a great time last Saturday!

Finally, we Matteo decided to cook our version of “Colcannon” and "Cock of the North". I'll never stop thanking What The Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyway for all inspiration.

He cooked mashed potatoes and did the sauce with mushrooms, onion, garlic and vegetable sausages. We also added some rice to complete our meal. It was so, so delicious and it's really easy to cook. Yes, I really love all recipes with potatoes!



And later at night we ate some pizza with a lot of vegan cheese ;o)


This week I wan to take some good pics of the Brazilian version of vegan hot dog that we always cook here. Let's see what I'll get!

Gluten free!

Lemon vegan and gluten-free cupcakes
with chocolate and strawberry frostin

Today we're celebrating 3 years of civil marriage. Always good have an extra reason to celebrate ;o)

Change Your Diet - Change the World!

MeatOut is an international event, organized by FARM (Farm Animal Reform Movement):

"On (or around) March 20 — the first day of spring — thousands of caring people in all 50 U.S. states and two dozen other countries get active to host educational Meatout events. Activities include colorful festivals, lectures, public dinners, feed-ins, cooking demos, food samplings, leafleting, information tables and more.

The occasion is Meatout, the world's largest and oldest annual grassroots diet education campaign. This year is the 25th annual observance! Every spring, thousands of caring Meatout supporters educate their communities and ask their friends, families, and neighbors to pledge to "kick the meat habit (at least for a day) and explore a wholesome, compassionate diet of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains."

This year's theme is Change Your Diet - Change the World!"

(Font: FARM)



How about changing your diet today and start changing the world?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Um pouco mais de informação em português: Cantinho Vegetariano


(Pic: FARM E-card - Send one to your friends!)

No potatoes today!

We were supposed to cook a recipe from What The Hell Does a Vegan Eat Anyway that I saw this week: Colcannon (mashed potato and cabbage). But we didn't buy the potatoes. First St. Patrick's day in Dublin and I have no time to try anything traditional.


We went out to see the parade (amazing!) and decided to just eat a sandwich back home (I'm so busy today baking stuff!). And this is a little bit Irish too: most of the people here eat sandwich at lunch time! So, our menu was vegan chicken cheeseburger.



I am thinking about some pancakes for tonight, let's see if I can cook them.

Happy St.Patrick's day!

"Stop Consuming Animals"

Propagandhi is an amazing band. And a vegan band. If you don't know them, check the songs and lyrics. They released a new album recently and you can check a small interview on VegNews.

Here one great lyric of the album "Less Talk, More Rock" (1996):

I speak outside what is recognized as the border between "reason" and "insanity".
But I consider it a measure of my humanity to be written off
by the living graves of a billion murdered lives.
And I'm not ashamed of my recurring dreams about me and a gun and a different species
(hint: starts with "h" and rhymes with "Neuman's")
of carnage strewn about the stockyards, the factories and farms.
Still I know as well as anyone that it does less good
than harm to be this honest with a conscience eased by lies.
But you cannot deny that meat is still murder.
Dairy is still rape.
And I'm still as stupid as anyone, but I know my mistakes.
I have recognized one form of oppression, now I recognize the rest.
And life's too short to make another's shorter- (animal liberation now!).

Propagandhi playing in São Paulo (Brazil) - 2007
Pic by Mauricio Santana

Do it yourself

My life is surrounded of do-it-youself things. We run a DIY label. We have DIY bands. And this is another great value that I learnt going to punk/hardcore shows: there are a lot of things that you can just do yourself and make things happen in a way you believe.

Since I started this blog I am cooking more and I'm loving it. So I decided to cook some sweet stuff to take to the gigs we go here in Dublin. And yesterday was the first one. I cooked a chocolate cake and some vanilla cupcakes. It was amazing. Everybody loved them and I came back home with a big smile on my face.


We need to believe in ourselves to make dreams come true. Sometimes we need to change our dreams, taking another path. But doing what we like, things will always go well!


I'll have more news soon ;o)

Life is sweet!

Run, Glauce, run!

These last days I'm doing a lot of things here. New ideas, great stuff on HUP and life goes on, faster and faster. Because of that I'm not experimenting too much in the kitchen.

Today I decided too cook a recipe that I love to eat and haven't cook here in Dublin yet: vegan strogonoff! It's so easy to cook it (one more fast and delicious recipe). We ate it with white rice, salad and roasted potatoes.

Vegan Strogonoff (serves 2 people)

100g soya protein chunks
250g tomato sauce
1 vegetable stock cube
½ cup soya cream
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Hydrate the soya in warm water for 20 minutes. Put the oil and the vegetable cube and let it fry for 1 minute. Drain the soya protein chunks and add them. Let fry for 5 minutes and add some herbs during this process. Add the tomato sauce and let for more 6/7 minutes, mixing with the spoon from time to time (if you think you need more tomato sauce, just add it or add a little bit of water). Finally, add the soya cream and mix for more 3 minutes. That's it!

This is where I belong

Sometimes I feel like I don't belong to anywhere. This happens since I was a teenager. I make too many questions, I have too many doubts about life and people. And being like that makes you different in most of the places you go. But when I started to go to punk/hardcore shows I found a place to feel better. After more than ten years living this life, living hardcore every single day, I can say it's not perfect and it's far from being a perfect “world”. I could write a lot of things (good and bad) but that's not the point here.

I'd like to write about one awesome thing I learnt going to hardcore shows: it was where I received all the first informations about veganism and animal rights and because of that I became vegan.

I started to go to hardcore shows not that young. I wasn't a teenager anymore. But I realized that there were (still) some things that I should change in my life. It was really easy to find bands and people talking about straight edge, veganism and also about social and politic issues. And I loved it. I stopped drinking and smoking and became vegan. After some time I started to write a fanzine (that I still write nowadays, a paper zine called Outspoken) and after some years I started a band (Out of Step) and then another one (Overstate).



In the late 80s, bands like Youth of Today started to associate straight edge with vegetarianism, also in their lyrics: "Meat-eating, flesh-eating, think about it. So callous this crime we commit". In the early 90s, most of the straight edge kids became vegan, with bands like Earth Crisis and Path of Resistance promoting the vegan edge.

Youth of Today

Earth Crisis

Now it is not that usual to find hardcore bands that also talk about or spread the vegetarianism/veganism in the hardcore scene, but there are some good examples around the world.

Even seeing a lot of people in hardcore giving up on veganism/vegetarianism, I can see new kids getting into it. And this is awesome. It means that, in some way, hardcore can still spread the word and make people think about their choices. I still believe in my choice. You can always see me at a hardcore show, there is where I belong.

“Just because you're not 21, that's not supposed to mean you can't have any fun. So, come out and raise your fists high, stage dive, and forget about what they say. Dance the night away.” (Kid Dynamite)

Wonderful colours and flavours in my life

"We are what we are till the day we die"

My post today starts with a piece of a Rise Against song in the title. I didn't write here about how music is important to me and that it was going to hardcore shows that I learnt everything I know about veganism. But this is a long history, for another post.

Today I'd like to just write a little about this band and share one lyric with everybody that comes here. They are an American punk rock band, from Chicago, formed in 1999. I saw them live at the beginning of February in Berlin and it was awesome. Two thousand people singing their songs. I Didn't know that they were so big.


The group members are vegans and active supporters of Peta2. There was a group of Peta2 people at the show in Berlin too. “Their video (below) for the single “Ready to Fall” addresses environmental degradation and its effect on animals, as well as animal cruelty inherent in factory farming and sport hunting.” (thanks Wikipedia). They support other political causes too and have really awesome lyrics.

These days I'm listening too much their last album, “Appeal to Reason”, and it's off it the lyric that I want to share with you. As I always say, being vegan is try to make the world better too. I'm not perfect but I'm doing the best I can.

Collapse (Post-Amerika)

When our rivers run dry and our crops cease to grow
When our summers grow longer and winters won't snow
From the banks of the ocean and the ice in the hills
To the fight in the desert where progress stands still

When we've lost our will
That's how we'll know
This is not a test, oh no
This is cardiac arrest
Of a world too proud to admit our mistakes
We're crashing into the ground as we all fall from grace

When the air that we breathe becomes air that we choke
When the marsh fever spreads from the swamps to our homes
When your home on the range has been torn down and paved
And the buffalo roam to a slaughterhouse grave
What more will it take

For us to know
This is not a test, oh no
This is cardiac arrest
Of a world too proud to admit our mistakes
Kissing the ground as we all fall from grace

This is a chance to set things straight
To bend or break the rules back into place
There is no middle ground, no compromise
We've drawn the line
With perfect aim, we stand back and throw
Glass windows break and it's all about to blow
Lights go out as we pass the torch again
In hope that is stays lit

Neutrality means that you don't really care
Cuz the struggle goes on even when you're not there
Blind and unaware

That's how we'll know
This is not a test, oh no
This is cardiac arrest
Of a world too proud to admit our mistakes
We're crashing into the ground as we all, yeah we all, all fall from grace

PS. This post is also to an amazing friend that always helps me to see the good side of everything and she loves Rise Against. Cinthia, thanks for being part of my life!

Fruit salad days

I'm pretty sure that I never wrote about fruits here. I like them. I love some of them. I just prefer when food or drinks with fruits come ready because I am a little bit lazy to prepare it. But in this my new life doing nothing all day full of inspiration in the kitchen I started to wrap up more fruity stuff!

So in these last days I'm preparing fruit salads for me and Matteo in the evening. It's a delicious way to eat at the right times (remember, it's always good to eat every 3 hours). One of the fruits that I love are strawberries. They're delicious ever and ever. And here it is easy to find them because of the cold weather. I didn't use all the fruits of this amazing picture that I found in the Internet to make our fruit salads. Just apple, banana and strawberry and it was enough. Well, to Matteo I added sugar and soy cream but I ate just the fruits.

Also with fruits, it is good to pay attention to the colours in your plate to guarantee vitamins. And here we go with some minerals and vitamins the fruits we ate this week have:

Apple: potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, selenium, vitamins A, C, E and folic acid (important during pregnancy).

Banana: potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, selenium, iron, vitamins A, C, B6, E, niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5) and folic acid.

Strawberry: potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, selenium, iron, manganese, vitamins A, C and folic acid.

Did you eat any fruit today?

For the Earth, the Oceans and all form of life

Here I am to spread some great news: the Italian hardcore band TO KILL, from Rome, is releasing a CD with to songs to support the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society:


"Evoking the Maelström

The defense of the animal rights always had an essential place in every heartbeat in To Kill. We always tried to spread this value as much as we could with every tool we had. through our songs, talking at our shows, in the interviews we did..... this, together with some other ideals, was a key issue of the band, as important as our music.

During all these years involved in the enviromentalist movement we've got to know so many organizations and collectives, together with a huge amount of hearts filled with this passion that we also share.

Of all those organization there was one that always caught our interest and that always received our support as individuals: the SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY. Since 1977 these people fight every day putting their lives in danger for what they believe in, defending the oceans and the wildlife from the violence that sometimes (more and more often actually) mankind is able to create. With direct action and passion as their main weapons in reaching their goals,with the lead of Captain Paul Watson, this group of bravehearts deserves all of our support.
So We decided to release a mcd and devolve all the income to this organization to support them in their daily struggles so that we can help them in their endeavour with what we have: the chance to express through the hardcore scene.

So we are writing this announcing to all of you the release of MAELSTRÖM. 2 new heavy and honest songs which are 120% Tokill.

We are really happy to share with you the first material we have done for our new record which is coming out in fall. these 2 songs are, as usual, the result of everything we are, we tried to push ourselves to the best of what we can, putting our hearts and our blood into our music.

To these new songs we added and old "classic" re-recorded to which we also added something new: the song "1001 days" which was the first song off our first record. and since we wanted something more we will also have a bonus track with a spoken word from none the less than Greg from Trial and Between Earth and Sky and music from our friend Christian Di Vito (myspace.com/christiandivito). We are so happy Greg agreed to work with us since he has been with his band and his lyrics source of inspiration in our hc life, so with this occasion we also had the chance to get to know him better or, for some of us, to know him for the first time in our life, and we are really thankful of having him as a friend... Greg is also going to be our guest vocalist in one of the songs and this is simply amazing to us.

The recordings have been done with the help of our friend Alex JM @ HellSmell studio, and mixed and mastered from Riccardo Pasini @ Studio73 (Ephel Dual, Memoryes of Apocalypse, This is a Stand off).

We have to express our gratitude to Matteo@Nexus Enterprises and Lexi@Desperate Days Designworks for taking care of all the visual aspects of this release, lending their precious time to the cause and wanting nothing more in return than being a part of this project.

Special thanks go out to Theo and Rob@Gsr records for letting us do this release in complete freedom and for always being more than supportive with us.

The cd sounds amazing and we really had a hard time deciding which song to put on myspace due to the fact that to us they are both amazing, heavy and catchy even if they are different one another.

Maelström will be totally self produced just to be sure that all the money will go for the benefit and at our shows you can obviously decide to overpay it and we will make sure everything will go to Sea Shepherd.

Make sure you'll get your own copy, support them with all the help you can give them and if you don't know the sea shepherd conservation society, please check them out.



MAELSTRÖM will be released in the end of april but stay tuned to find out a preorder and an online way to get a copy. it will obviously be available at all of our shows as well.

For the Earth, the Oceans and all form of life."

Fast and delicious III

It seems that this week is all about fast food. Today I cooked a lasagne with eggplant and it's delicious. No need to say how much I love lasagne and all the Italian food! You can use the eggplant instead of the lasagne pasta, but this time I used both and I liked it more.

So, here we go, with one more recipe:

- lasagne pasta (that one that comes ready to cook)
- 1 eggplant
- tomato sauce
- vegetable stock cube
- soya cream
- vegan cheese (I used the cheddar one)
- dairy free parmezano

This recipe takes between 5 and 10 minutes to be prepared! Cut the eggplant in small circular slices. Let it fry a little bit in the pan. Add the tomato sauce and the vegetable stock cube. Use a little bit of tomato sauce to make the first layer in a glass pan. Add the eggplant sauce. Add the lasagne pasta. Do alternate layers like that (three or four, depends of how much eggplant sauce you have).

Topping: add the last layer of eggplant sauce, than the soy cream and the vegan cheese.

Final touch: add the dairy free parmezano (you can use breadcrumbs too, it works).

Put in the oven for 30/35 minutes (180ºC). That's it!

Fast and delicious II

Some times all we want is something easy and fast to cook to eat. This is a delicious food, that seems to be something between a pizza and a bruschetta!


And all you need is:

- bread (if you have an Italian one, better!)
- spinach
- tomatoes
- garlic
- tomato sauce (optional)
- herbs
- extra virgin olive oil

Put everything over the bread (if you decide to use the tomatoe sauce, add it first with small slices of garlic). Bake it for 5 minutes and it's done ;o)