I'll have the salad please

Urh, well I originally wrote this whole blab about struggling to understand social perceptions of vegetarianism and veganism and my personal experience (somewhat horrible) of unseen pitfalls once I tried labeling myself as vegetarian when I first started having kind of an identity crisis about what I eat. Anyways, I guess it was a clumsy distressed ramble that went nowhere and I'm not ready to discuss it with friends who may have read this post, because I don't know what the heck I'm doing yet. So I've deleted it. Suffice to say that I  discovered this blog (http://aliensdayout.com/), that really opened my eyes to a different lifestyle which appeals to me, so I've been dabbling in it.

Now look at some food I've been stuffing my face with :)

My new found love of oats :) I like making it with soy milk, I'm not a big fan of that warm milky taste. Sprinkled with toasted flax seeds, sesame and wheatgerm (new nutritious things I learnt about recently)

A super huge tasty sandwich I had for lunch a few weeks back :) Its filled with: Chinese greens, tomatoes, garlic mushrooms, olives, brinjal, tofu and Greek yogurt. I really get too excited and pack too much so my sandwich can hardly close (its even worse with wraps)

I found these nommy glutinous rice balls at the Chinese supermarket. They are really tasty! It has a little chocolate filling with peanuts in the center :) I will definitely buy them again.

 

I made dahl the one night, but I got impatient and didn't cook it for long enough for the split peas to break down, Gawd it takes forever! It tasted alright though, I had it with some pumpkin and a simple cucumber tomato and olive salad with a wrap. I like how colourful my bowl is :)

Potato pumpkin gnocchi with mushroom parsley sauce. I bought ready made gnocchi - the best gnocchi I've had so far. I always find gnocchi to doughy and it sticks to the roof of my mouth. This was alright, it's got a really strong potato taste which bothered me though. The sauce was tasty.

So far I've been enjoying myself, I have this thing about having colourful food, its pretty awesome.

Sping time!

I finally cleaned up my balcony this past weekend! There is now space to walk! I also planted some carrots, radishes (a recent discovery and now firm favourite), lettuce and bright orange poppies. I find it very convenient to have vegetables growing so near at hand, and have greatly enjoyed my parsely and basil already established on the balcony. I've had varying success planting vegetables, but hopefully the warmer weather will help.

If you have a bit of a green thumb (or a wanna be green thumb like me), you'll enjoy this.

Pasta a la Norma

I drew this picture imagining this playing in the background ^_^ I used to struggle with cooking aubergine, I like them, but couldn't find a vegetarian recipe that was...tasty enough? I always associated them with the taste of salty fish - that is what my Mom mostly made aubergines with - yes if you are a meat eater, try this recipe! (I think you can potentially substitute salted fish with some fish sauce). But I have finally found a great vegetarian recipe! Pasta a la Norma is super delicious! I think the trick is lots of garlic and giant handfuls of basil. Yum...

It a massacre...

When I made beetroot soup the other night, the resulting pot of soup looked like a horrific blubbing mess of chunky blood gruel...it was quite grim! But that aside, it was delicious! Just one thing - I followed this recipe, and its absolutely crucial to chop finely/grate the beetroot, as it takes forever to cook!

New veggies!

I'm on a mission to incorporate new (and hopefully exciting!) veggies into my recipe arsenal! I very rarely eat beetroot, and have never had parsnip or brussel sprouts before (it's what I'd like to call "white people food" ^_^). I found some recipes online to try - they look delicious! The recipes are as follows: Beetroot, Brussel sprouts, Parsnip).

This drawing also happily coincides with this week's Illustration Friday theme! Man did I fall off that band wagon...But it's ok! I'm participating again!