Endive Intimidation

This morning I took my very first Bikram Yoga class, and I am glad to say that is was very doable. No fainting, no nausea, no collapsing, and no dying (hurray!). I like to think my Mexican roots make me more heat resistant, and ofcourse I was very well prepared (hydrated and with an emptyish stomach). Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I was any good at it. My body could by no means be called flexible and my standing leg was as wobbly as a bowl of jelly pudding. But afterwards I felt GREAT and I now get how that feeling is highly addictive ('look at the sky! I see clearer! I love this fresh air! I can smell better! I love everyone! Why the hell is it raining again and why are all these tourists clogging the bike lanes!').
Well, let's see how I hold up at my second class.

In the meanwhile I am on a slight 7 day detox of only fruits and veggies (and lots of green monsters), battling a last few excess pounds. So no recipes from me for you, even though I am very anxious to try some of the delicious recipes in my recently acquired copy of Veganomicon.

And I need your help. I picked up my vegetable subscription today and while unpacking at home I was confronted by a very intimidating killer monster sized head of endive (which has, in my humble opinion, no legit reason for being in a one-person-veggiebag). What's a girl to do? I cannot eat all of it as a salad, I'll turn green!

More Than I Can Chew

Oops! I've been taking an unexpected blog break, sorry for that! Life's been busy and I've been trying to (as Donny Hathaway sings) hang onto the world as it spins around. I've been singing, swinging, working, AND cooking a lot. I am also very pleased to announce that I've been hitting the gym again and (inspired by The Fruit Pursuit's Sabine) finally decided to try out Bikram Yoga classes starting this monday. For those of you who are not in the know: it's 90 minutes of doing 26 yoga poses in a heated room (approx 40 degrees celsius). Yep. I'll let you know how that went, IF I survive and don't drown in my own puddle of sweat.

All very well and all, let's talk FOOD. Good, lovely, comforting and nourishing veggie food that makes you feel like you've been hugged by a fluffy unicorn. I don't feel like typing out recipes so you'll have to do with a bunch of pictures. Food porn, as we bloggers like to say. Well if my pictures are food porn, I do hope they are on the classy side, not the cheapo german mustache kind.

We vegans love our tofu scrambles, this one's with tomato, mushrooms, garlic and fresh parsley.
(crumble tofu, fry in a pan and season with salt, pepper, turmeric and nutritional yeast)

My friend Marieke came over and because I love her very much I made her raw zucchini pasta with cashewsauce, grilled eggplant and oven baked sweet potato fries.

I visited my sister and because I love her very much as well I did a rerun on the raw zucchini pasta. She watched and learned and is now as hooked as I am.

Almost every single day I start off with a Green Monster. Yeah, that's the kind of health freaky girl I am. This particular one was a spinach, banana and coconut water mixture.

Some days my Mexican roots speak up and scream in my ear about baked black beans, guacamole, jalapeno peppers and cilantro (and green beans, and vegetarian nuggets). There is no escaping those cravings, so there.

And last but not least, a pasta (actually, a very fancy wild garlic spelt spaghetti) with parsnip, rocket salad, tomato and sunflowerseed pesto.

That's it for now people, I'll try and be a better blogger and be back soon.

Tuesday Juiceday Schmuesday

I really needed to do some detoxing and balancing out after all the food & alcohol last weekend. Luckily the scale didn't go all ballistic on me, but as we know weight is only weight and not an indication of health. So today I blessed with the name of 'Tuesday Juiceday Schmueseday'. Nothing but green monsters, fresh fruit juices and raw vegetables today. Let's see if I can do this on a weekly basis!

This morning started with a very friendly Green Monster consisting of fresh spinach, banana, blueberries and water.

It gave me plenty of energy to go and get a fair amount of vegetables, herbs and spices at the Albert Cuyp market, and pick up my bag of organic vegetables from my subscription. AND, while I was at the 'Blokker' in my ongoing search for a good and not too expensive salad spinner (in which I failed again, this is becoming a real quest) I picked up a lot of spice jars that were only 50 cents each. It's official now, I'm getting old, I get excited by just organizing my kitchen cabinets and putting labels on spice jars. And then taking pictures of them and putting them up on Facebook. This is not good, people.

Now I'm off to work, with a tupperware bowl of fresh tomato and bell pepper gazpacho. Tomorrow I will be back with a very special something something for which I just put some homemade seitan and some TVP chunks in a very spicy marinade. The game is on, and tomorrow, there will be only 1 winner. I'll let the tension build up from here...