It's usual to read that a healthy and balanced diet can be noticed by the colours in a plate. We always try to cook different vegetables here to make our meal full of colours. Try to consume, every day, at least one dish with these different colours: red, yellow and orange, purple and dark blue, green and brown. It's not that easy but you can get better day after day.
Here some example of food by colours:
Red: tomato, red pepper, watermelon, cherry, raspberry, blackberry, papaya, guava.
Purple and dark blue: grapes, plum, figs, beets, eggplant, cabbage.
Green: leafy vegetables, broccoli, green pepper, spinach, parsley, herbs, asparagus.
Brown: Nuts, oats, whole grains.
To me the hardest food colours are purple and dark blue because I really don't like some of them. I like grapes, but my husband hates them. The only one I learnt to like in the last years is eggplant. But I can't eat figs or beets. I remember that in Brazil I used to eat beets cooked with beans, but it's not good anyway...
This last weekend we did at home one of the things I like more when we decide to cook: try different versions of already known recipes. As I always say we are not great cook people, but we like to create, to try new options. Sometimes the final result is bad, but most of the times we do succeed!
On Saturday I cooked a green lasagna. We had a lot of spinach at home and, you know, we love Italian food! Well, first I decided to make a sauce with flavored soy protein mince (like a bolognese sauce), but I changed my mind and mixed some spinach with water and salt and then added the soy protein mince. First part done. When I started to layer the lasagna up, I decided to add one more layer of spinach leaves. I also mixed more spinach with soy cream to put on the top of the last lasagna filling layer, but I decided instead to use it right on each layer of lasagna base to leave it softer after baking. And as last layer, I used this mix of spinach and soy cream plus small slices of vegan cheddar. The final result was amazing (the picture is not that good, but believe me, it was delicious!).
Carrying on our experiences in the kitchen, on Sunday night Matteo decided to cook spaghetti for our dinner. First, he had decided to use eggplant for the sauce. Well, we still had some spinach left, so he mixed it with the eggplant and did a great and different sauce. It looked like a pesto sauce, green and with a strong taste. I liked it a lot!
This is something I tell everybody to do: try different things. Not just when cooking, but in your life. Small differences can make your day really better!
As I wrote here before, I'm not a great cook. Neither my husband. We like to cook sometimes and I just know how to do (fine) a few things like lasagna, pasta, sandwiches and cakes. But some days we are really inspired to cook and this is the best thing.
Nobody needs to love to cook to do it. Most of the times you need to cook (because you need to eat, of course!). Or you can choose to always go out to eat. We enjoy eat at home even when we aren't inspired to cook something special. I admire those people that love to cook. It's a talent. My sister-in-law is one of these people. Every time she goes in the kitchen we can expect great food and dessert. And I have a Brazilian friend that is like that too, but she cooks more food for parties (like snacks and sweeties). Not that we just eat them at parties, we used to go to her house every weekend to watch movies, chat and eat those delicious things. But when she cooks for parties is even better. Last week she did cakes and small sweeties for a reggae party. Everything yellow, green and red! Amazing. I wish I could be there.
Well, the thing is that after I started this blog and after I have had more time at home (I'm not working yet since we moved), me and my husband are reading more about recipes and watching some TV shows about cooking. And it's so inspiring! So we decided to try to cook more things we like. It will not be some kind of obligation because the best part is to make it with passion and having fun. Yesterday was a bad kitchen day. I was so excited to cook my classical pancakes and none of our frying pans worked. It was so frustrating. I got pissed off and we just ate junk food during all the day. But today was a great Sunday with my husband in the kitchen! He decided to go out to buy some special things and he cooked an awesome pasta that he called Penne alla Ferrari. I helped a little, but he did the hard work. And we have had a great time cooking together and an amazing meal!
So, this is our deal: we will experiment lots of recipes every day we feel inspired to cook. And we already have 3 recipes to start: Rice balls from Brazil Nut, pizza from What The Hell Does A Vegan Eat Anyway?and Polpettone from the Italian Veganblog!Thank you for all these inspiring blogs and I'll let you know our experiences some day.
I don't know exactly why (my friends can help me with this question), but a vegan person usually cares more about food and can be happy talking about food, going out to eat some good food or just finding a new vegan option for some kind of food. Maybe this kind of thing just happens in Brazil, because it is always hard to find vegan stuff there. Nowadays it's easier, mainly in big cities like São Paulo, but it's still worse when you compare it to most of the European or American cities.
So, because of that, my mother-in-law started to send to us (my husband and I) some packages when we still lived in Brazil. Those packages usually had pates, nutella, mayonnaise and chocolate dessert. Every time one package arrived, it was a reason to be happy.
And now, since we have moved to Europe, we have decided to do the same thing for our best friends in Brazil. Of course we can't send all the stuff we want, like vegan cheese or ham, because they need to be refrigerated, but we can send the same kind of things we used to receive from my mother-in-law. And the best thing is that in Dublin we have different stuff, things we don't have in Italy and vice-versa. So we can send different packages each time.
Yesterday one of my best friends received one of these small packages and when I talked to her I just confirmed that they really are small packages of happiness and it's so great that such a small act can make your friend's day better!
I wish I could have the money to send them every month to all my best friends, but I will keep on doing my best to give them, time to time, a small reason to smile.
After some days in Italy I realized that my husband's family hasn't the habit of eating food at lunch time. When I say food, I mean real food, not sandwiches or something like that. In Brazil, being vegan/vegetarian or not, people use to eat more at lunch time. I don't know if it is something cultural or if just my family and friends are used to that, but most of the people I know are used to do like this. We don't go to coffee shops or fast food places to have a fast lunch. We have one or two hours to spend away from work and we go home or to a restaurant.
First I thought it could be just in Italy, but here in Dublin it's the same thing. When we go out for lunch, we see lot of people at coffee shops or fast food or take away places. Some of them buy food (salads, for example), but must of them eat sandwiches. And also because of that they don't go home. There is no reason to go home in the middle of the day just to eat a sandwich, isn't there? Sometimes we do eat sandwiches, but not as a regular meal. Just those days when we have no time or no mood to cook something. To me lunch is the better and bigger meal. It's the time we eat more. It's the time to eat pasta, risotto, lasagna, rice and beans, the Brazilian feijoada (yes, there's a vegan version of this dish too). It is also the time to eat a dessert after the meal if you want.
Nutritionists and doctors say that the breakfast or the lunch are the most important meals you should have because you have to spend a lot of energy during the day. I never saw anyone saying the dinner is the right time to eat as much as you can. Because after a few hours, you go to sleep. Full. And this is not good. But I think maybe this is just a Brazilian way to see things. Here (and in Italy too) people eat more at dinner. When I was in Italy I started to eat more every day because we kept my Brazilian style of eat food during the lunch time and adopted the local style of eat food at dinner time. Which means, tones of food most of the days! Now I have my own place in Dublin and we're back to my Brazilian way. My husband has lived with that for the last 4 years and he likes it!
And I really think we're the minority here that goes to a supermarket to buy food to cook at home for lunch time. And I will keep this way as much as I can!
The first time I ate pancakes wasn't so much time ago. I don't remember when exactly it was, but it was after I became vegan, for sure. My family has not the habit of eat them. Moreover, they don't eat lot of things. My father is more open to try, but just him. I don't know from who I got this love for food and new experiences... Well, the thing is that I tasted the pancakes when I was living with a friend that is vegetarian and she had a vegan recipe! And it is so easy to do!!
The American style of making pancakes usually has honey or chocolate syrup on top. But in most countries of South or Central America, we have a different way to make them. They are usually salted and, while also having eggs or milk or both, are rolled and served with a filling of meat or chicken. Another difference is that we eat them at lunch or dinner and not for breakfast.
After this good friend taught me how to do them (in the South America style), I have never stopped cooking and eating them. The best thing is that you can fill them with different kinds of sauce! And to fry them is always fun too! It's an awesome food to cook to your friends or family. Well, maybe not for mine, but this week I cooked pancakes for my husband's family. They had never eaten them before and they loved them too, as all of my friends that tried my vegan pancakes before!
I cooked some salty pancakes first, with a sauce made of tomatoes, tofu, sausages and a kind of soy milk cream! These ones I suggest you to eat closed, filled with the sauce. Very, very good!! And to finish, I cooked some to eat as a dessert. We ate them with vegan ice cream and chocolate syrup and my husband's sister ate a pancake with two different flavors of fruit jelly. The sweet ones you can eat either opened or just folded in the middle. It's up to you!
I can tell you that pancakes are a guaranteed success! Try to cook some for your friends or family, then tell me if they liked them.
Today I started singing this Brazilian song, from Marisa Monte, which says “Chocolate, chocolate, eu só quero chocolate...” (Chocolate, chocolate, I just want chocolate..). Maybe because I really just want chocolate. I read a lot of times that a piece of chocolate brings happiness. If it is scientifically proved, I don't know, but I feel happy eating some pieces of chocolate. Some studies say that the pheniletilamina, that we can find in pieces of milk or dark chocolate, stimulates the production of serotonin, known as the "molecule of happiness". So it may be possible that the happiness we feel is not just psychological.
Since always I'm in love with chocolate. Before becoming vegan, I probably had tried all the existing chocolate kinds I could buy. And I'm pretty sure that I have never found a piece of chocolate that I didn't like. There are some I like less, like the white chocolate, but it's impossible not to like it. Well, to be sincere, it is possible. I know some people around the world that don't like chocolate at all, but I think they have a kind of (taste) problem!! Well, back to the point, for the last eleven years, I had my experience limited to dark chocolate. It was hard to find vegan chocolate in Brazil and I don't know how to cook “bombons” (small balls of chocolate, usually with some cream – of fruits or peanuts or hazelnuts or walnuts – inside).
But this year has been awesome and I have not just one but two friends that cook delicious “bombons” and I couldn't feel better! I ate lots of them before leaving Brazil. Now I miss them (the food and both friends!), but I found some different and new chocolates to prove here. In Italy it's pretty easy, if you see the word “fondente”, the chocolate is vegan. And there is one brand mark called Ritter that has the best one: fondente chocolate with peanuts. And the best part: you can find them at almost all supermarkets around! Well, in Switzerland you can find all kinds of chocolate you want everywhere. And in Dublin, well, I talked about Dublin in my last post... I just found the best chocolate bar ever! Ah, I found a white chocolate one in Dublin too. One of my friends, the one that makes the awesome bombons (including the paçoca ones which I will have to write about some day because paçoca, as açaí, is something you can just eat in Brazil) bought a lot of white chocolate pieces when she lived in Berlin and gave some to us. I was more curious than excited, but I liked it. So we decided to buy more in Dublin. But it's not the same good sensation... And I read these days that the white chocolate, because it doesn't contain cocoa mass, doesn't promote the positive effects as the milk and dark ones. One more reason to keep up with them ;-P
Another good thing about the dark chocolate: recent studies say that it is great for of the heart and blood pressure. But, of course, in small doses.
And if you think you are a chocolate addicted, you're not alone (neither am I). In an interview for the magazine "Health", the American nutritionist Kristen Bruinsma revealed that 15% of men and 40% of women have this behavior. And, yes, women usually are more addicted to sweet stuff too.
Last week we went to Dublin, Ireland, to spend five days. Before going, I had two different ideas in my mind: First: We could find a lot of vegan stuff there, because the country is close to England, the vegan paradise, or, second: we wouldn't find anything good and we would stay five days eating just potatoes, because Ireland is famous because of that! And I was fine with both ideas, even the second one, because I love potatoes too.
Well, after a search on Internet, we found some addresses to go first and try to find vegan food. The first restaurant we went to had nothing vegan. Sad... So, we decided to go to a store called Nourish, to buy some stuff to eat back at the hotel. There we found tofu, mayonnaise and sausages. And the best thing, which would make our days the happiest in Dublin: a nice girl who worked there and gave us lots of addresses of places that have vegan food!! Everything in the heart of Dublin center.
I couldn't feel better. The first place we went to have lunch to is a small and charming restaurant, with a take away style, called Blazing Salads. It has salads, for sure, but much more: hamburgers, pizza, snacks. We tried pizza, snack and an organic cola soda that is pretty good. Awesome! Then I saw a chocolate bar with “vegan” written in big letters, just the best hazelnut nougat chocolate ever! After that, we went to another Nourish store, bigger, to buy our dinner. And there we could find one of the best vegan stuff: fake cheese! We don't have vegan cheese in Brazil, neither in Italy, so this is really great. Of course we went to this store all days and bought all kinds of cheese we found: mozzarella, cheddar and cream cheese!! What I thought that could be the potatoes days turned out to be our cheese days!
We still went to another vegetarian restaurant called Govinda's (it's the same kind of restaurant we went the first day where we didn't find anything vegan, but there are lot of these in Dublin and the food is different from one to another, I don't know why). It is a big place with Indian and Krishna food. You pay a fix value and they give you a big plate with great food! Some people have told us that food in Dublin is expensive, but I don't think so. It's much cheaper than in Brazil and it comes a lot and it is delicious!
On our last day in Dublin we came back to have lunch at Blazing Salads, we bought more chocolates and we went to Nourish too to buy some cheese to bring to Italy so that yesterday I could cook an awesome vegan lasagna, with ham and cheese!
Since I became vegan, it's not so easy to find food everywhere. Some years ago it was worst and I was used to eat just french fries when I went out. That is not a problem because I love them, but during the last few years I have been having more options and I just eat them when I really want to. Of course, the best choice is always the combo hamburger + french fries + coke, as I told you some posts before ;-)
Last weekend we went to Switzerland to watch a hardcore show. It was happening in Luzern, but we decided to stay in Zurich (it's just one hour away). We just left our stuff in Zurich and we decided to hang out in Luzern before the show. My friends always say that there is a lot of vegan food in Switzerland, but we did a search in Internet before traveling and we couldn't find any vegan/vegetarian restaurant there...But we decided to go and try to find something to eat at least.
We arrived to the center of the city and we went to a chocolate store (oh yeah, swiss chocolate is really very good! I just can speak for the vegan ones, but you can figure out the rest!), we bought a piece and we decided to ask about some places to eat. At this point we knew we couldn't find a vegetarian place, but we were looking for some fast food or, at least, french fries! I asked the girl that was working there, in english. They speak German but usually in touristic places most of the people also speaks English. Well, not at all. That girl couldn't help us. But she asked to a woman that was buying some stuff there and she told me she could talk to us... in English, of course. So, I did my magic question: Hey, do you know where we can eat some french fries? She smiled and answered Yes, there is a really good place close to here! You need just to walk five minutes and you will find the best french food of the city! Is that what you want, right? Well, I didn't know what to say!!! She was so nice that I couldn't just tell her what french fries really are. We just said thanks and walked away.
We saw the center just thinking that we would have had to wait to eat at the show... But after some time walking around we found a place that had french fries!! It was a relief because I couldn't believe it could exist a city in the world that didn't have them!
Today is a happy day. And to match the mood of the day, I will talk about the best food in the world: ice cream! I don’t know if there are people that don’t like ice cream (maybe yes, because there are people that don’t like chocolate either ant this so weird to me…). But, OK, I am just crazy about ice cream!
Since I became vegan I have just been able to find (in Brazil) fruit ice cream. It was impossible to have a good chocolate one or similar. Just the fruit ones! No problem at all because I like them too, but they are made of water and they aren’t creamy. So, I have been years waiting for my first chocolate (or vanilla, or coffee, or nuts) vegan ice cream… And I still can remember when that happened! It’s something like being in heaven! Yes, it is. Ice cream makes people happy. I swear! And a creamy one makes people happier! I swear again!! And a milk shake is… I have no words for the milk shake! Someone please help me.
Now, imagine me, living in a place where you can find all kind of vegan ice cream even at the smaller supermarket in the smaller city of the country! Yes, I'm having ice cream every single day. OK, now it is easier because it’s summer time. But I really don’t care. The last time we came to Italy it was Christmas time, the weather was too cold for me (something between +2 and -4 degrees) and I could not stop eating ice cream. People thought I was crazy, insane maybe… But I didn’t care, I was so happy and that’s the most important thing.
And when I am sad or discouraged I find in ice cream a good stimulus. Most of the women use sugar or chocolate to feel better, I have an ice cream. It makes my day better. It makes the world better! And on some days, when my husband realizes I am sad and offers me an ice cream, if he gets the answer “no, thanks”, that is really a bad, bad day. A day when everyone around worries about me.
So, if you are having a good day, have an ice cream to celebrate. And if it is a bad day, have two to be happy!
I always wake up hungry. I’m not that kind of person who opens the eyes and think “Hmmm I don’t want to eat anything…” Moreover, I think I just really wake up after a good breakfast.
It’s usually said that in some cultures the breakfast is an important meal, which gives us the strength to spend the rest of the day. And I agree!! I’m nobody before putting something in the mouth. Of course, that idea of American breakfast, with millions of calories is not my case! Even before being a vegetarian, a dish of fried eggs with bacon couldn't make my day. But I really care about this first meal.
I’m not the “talking” type in the morning, so I don’t see the social side of a breakfast. You can talk about whatever you want, but during that time, it’s not my point! I just need to eat! Prepare everything, seat and eat. Without television, without music, without a newspaper or a book, without a dialog! Just me and the awesome company of an orange juice, bread, biscuits, jelly, chocolate soy milk, coffee… and that’s it, good morning life!
PS. In Italy I learnt an awesome way to eat bread or toasts: put first the butter (vegetarian butter in my case) and than marmalade. I prefer berry jelly, but you can taste some before you decide!
