Getting practical

If you were wondering if I already had my baby the answer is not ;-) But I'm not cooking or doing anything special in the last weeks besides trying to get as much rest as I can before the big day and that's why I'm not blogging too.


But today I'd like to share two Redwood products that we'd bought recently and are really good:


Celebration Roast: this is a Cheatin' Turkey Roast with Vegetarian Rashers. Matteo bought it thinking about Christmas but we ended up eating it a few days after and it is really good. Easy to prepare, soft and tasty.

Mixed Meat Free Sausages: this set is great for snacks and part of it was gone during a football (soccer) game last week with my mum here (she's staying 40 days with us). Once again, soft and tasty - and you can also eat with your favourite sauce (we've eaten them just with mayonnaise).

We found both products in The Health Store (located at Dundrum Shopping Centre). One more useful tips for vegans in Dublin.

Yesterday night we had friends coming over for dinner and Matteo prepared his almost famous cotechino servito con polenta e lenticchie (sausage served with polenta and lentils) and pizza and the guys brought chocolate and vanilla Swedish Glace ice cream and chocolates. It was a funny night and it was amazing for me to have friends around before the baby arrives.

Vegan job? I wish!

As you can read in my bio here I love to cook and to write and it's great when I can do both. Lately I'm not cooking that much (well, I'm cooking basically everyday but nothing special or fancy, just regular meals to give me energy and everything I need in the end of the pregnancy) but in the last months I've started to write more.


Having a vegan job is like a dream to me but it's not my priority now considering that soon I'll be a full time mom for a while! But from time to time I write articles to vegan or vegetarian magazines about vegan subjects and this really makes me happy. In December I got my first freelance article for the biggest vegetarian magazine in Brazil (called "Revista dos Vegetarianos") and I wrote about vegan paradises around the world (not places to eat, but new initiatives such as supermarkets). I was pretty happy with the final result, it's a four page article mentioned in the cover and I was even happier when the editor said I could keep sending suggestions. And now I'm finishing the second one, which will be published in their February edition :) I really hope I can find time and energy too keep doing this even after baby is born.

Also, a while ago I've written an article for the Canadian vegan magazine T.O.F.U. and the issue came on line a few days ago. It's an article about how to be vegan in Brazil and where to eat in Sao Paulo (the biggest Brazilian city), with tips from my last trip there, in May 2011. You can download the magazine here!

Let's see if 2012 brings me more writing about veganism ;-)

The simple life

Happy 2012 everyone! I hope you all had an amazing end of 2011 and are ready for this brand new year. I was always a big fan of New Year's Eve and I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's summer time in Brazil and I always celebrated it with friends and family. But since I'm in Europe I'm not going to big celebrations anymore (went one year and that was it) and this year wasn't different. But this year I've made a very conscious decision to spend the NYE at home with just Matteo and his mother who is visiting us. And this decision has all to do with my only resolution for 2012: to live the simple life. I think the most important thing pregnancy have taught me is to take it easy and enjoy simple things. And it worked pretty well for me in 2011 so I want to do it more and more in 2012.


For our NYE we decided to have simple (here ya go!) food and not any kind of complicated meal. We'd have just appetizers and alcohol free drinks (both me and Matteo don't drink alcohol at all). Matteo would help me with the preparation and we'd play cards. We ended up having Tomato Rosemary Scones from Vegan Brunch, Sun-Dried Tomato Dip from Veganomicon, pistachio nuts, hummus (this was the only thing we didn't make ourselves) and a lovely Capers Dip which Matteo came up with the recipe from his mind while he was preparing the other dip. Everything was delicious and 2012 arrived just like that: simple and bringing us happiness.

Here's the recipe of the Capers Dip:

Ingredients:

1 cup white beans, drained

1/4 cup capers

2 tablespoon olive oil

1/3 cup nutritional yeast

3  tablespoon water

salt

1  tablespoon French's mustard

Put the white beans, capers, mustard, olive oil and water in the food processor or blender and mix it until smooth. Add the nutritional yeast and salt and blend it again. Check if it's salty enough to your taste.

Cover and chill for at least half an hour. Serve it with crackers or slices of fake meat or vegan cheese.