Food Friday: The Cousin Anne-Inspired Salad

Hello again!

So sorry for my inconsistent timing with the Food Fridays.

If you follow me on Instagram you would be have been expecting this recipe. This is a salad that I have eaten practically every day for almost a whole week now. I have it as a second part to my dinner and it tastes so good!

I decided to call this 'The Cousin Anne-Inspired Salad,' because it was inspired by a salad my aunt made for me which she said that my cousin had made for her some day and everyone loved it. This is not 100% my cousin's recipe as hers contains dairy (which I'm allergic to) and I added ingredients to the recipe.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do!

Bon Appétit!

Food Friday!!: Easy Quick "J-Rice" Burrito

I know I missed a Food Friday and I am so sorry about that. I need to set reminders for myself as I am so out of routine, at the moment.

This week's Food Friday recipe is not a conventional one. As a matter of fact, it raises quite a number of eyebrows, but I promise you, it tastes pretty good. It was inspired by both a Nigerian and a Mexican dish and...well....you just have to try it! :)

Bon Appétit!

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Food Friday!!: Coconut Rice

I am so so so so sorry I haven't uploaded a Food Friday recipe in weeks! I have been pretty busy, not sleeping well, away (in the forest) and...well....I'm back now.

Today, I am going to share with you a recipe for my beloved coconut rice. It is and easy to prepare and cook and it tastes SO SO GOOD!

Bon Appétit!

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Food Friday!!: Potato Parcel Meal

Parcel meals have become things I really enjoy to prepare and to eat now especially as I am at uni till quite late at night often (some times I don't get home till 11pm). With parcel meals, you don't have to keep standing by a stove. All the work you need to do is to just cut up some ingredients, pile them together, wrap them up and stick them in an oven. It's so simple! Here's my recipe for a delicious potato parcel meal.

Bon Appétit!

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Food Friday!!: Nigerian-Inspired Dishes (in Collaboration With VegansOfNigeria)

Picture got from UnleashInternet

Food Friday is here again!!

This week, I have collaborated with Wandoo Ityavyar of VegansOfNigeria to bring two Nigerian-inspired dishes to you (well....their recipes).

My inspiration for deciding to have this theme for this week's Food Friday was that, unfortunately, I am not particularly in touch with my Nigerian culture, especially as I do not live in Nigeria. I am not much of a fan of Nigerian foods, to be honest, but I am a fan of foods inspired by Nigerian dishes. Maybe it's because I don't like the taste of meats (or that I am just a picky eater ;) ).

Wandoo and I both do not eat meats and we both happen to be Nigerian so, we are bringing to you our take on vegan versions of Jollof Rice and Groundnut/Peanut Soup, respectively.

Let us know if you try our recipes and don't forget to check out Wandoo @VegansOfNigeria on Instagram!

Bon Appétit!

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Not Another Salad! - Tips and Tricks for Eating Out

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For my birthday, I decided to have a dinner at a posh restaurant with a few friends. I had a look at the menu for said restaurant and there wasn't a single vegan main on that menu, but I was not worried.
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Eating out is one of the most challenging things for vegans as many of them don't want to feel like burdens by finding nothing to eat on the menu and it's just frustrating to not find a place to eat in a hurry or to inconvenience others because you can't find anything suitable for your preferred lifestyle.

It's time to stop stressing out over eating out. Today, I am going to share a few tips on how to eat out at a non-vegan restaurant hassle-free especially when invited to eat out.


Enjoy!

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Food Friday!!: Gluten-Free Pancakes (in Collaboration with Dubai Fit Foodie)

It's another Food Friday!!!!

This week I have collaborated with Dubai Fit Foodie to bring two awesome gluten-free pancake recipes to you.

When I decided to make this week's Food Friday recipe a pancake one and asked Gbemi, of Dubai Fit Foodie, if she would like to collaborate with me, I didn't realise that Tuesday's going to be Pancake Day/Shrove Tuesday! So, these recipes are coming to you at a good time.

As usual, my recipe is vegan. However, Gbemi's is vegetarian, but I will put vegan alternatives to the two ingredients that make it vegetarian in parenthesis.

Let us know if you try our recipes and be sure to check out Dubai Fit Foodie!

Bon Appétit!

Quick Reviews: Restaurants

Hello!!

I'm going to give you a quick review of two vegan/vegetarian restaurants I have had food from - Mildred's and Ethos.

Enjoy!

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Food Friday!!: Cinammon-Vanilla Chia Pudding

This has become my favourite thing to eat in the morning. It's so delicious!
I hope you try it and I hope you fall in love with it too!

Bon appétit!

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Ingredients

• Chia seeds
• Almond milk
• Vanilla paste
• Cinnamon
• Maple Syrup

Method

• In a cup/mug containing some almond milk, add the cinnamon, vanilla paste and maple syrup to taste and give the milk a good stir to ensure the ingredients have been well incorporated into it. I like to add enough cinnamon, vanilla paste and maple syrup to make the almond milk taste like melted vanilla ice cream.

Food Friday!!: Coconut Curry + Cauliflower Buffalo Bites

It's a new Food Friday post!!

This has got to be the best curry I have ever made. I had it for three days and loved it more every day. It is awesome with rice and awesome with boiled potatoes too!

The buffalo bites (which were gluten-free) tasted much better than I expected they would too! You might not know this, but since I was a kid, I've hated cauliflower. This might be because my mum forced me to eat it, who knows?

As I have become more plant-based and started eating fruits and vegetables in MUCH larger quantities, I felt that my palate might have adjusted a bit and like I could be creative with the vegetables I hated as a kid. So, I added my worst tree monsters to this dish - broccoli and cauliflower and guess what! I loved it! I even added broccoli to a vegan stroganoff I made about two days ago and it was so good!

Anyways, enough with my rambling.

I hope you enjoy this recipe!

Bon appétit!

Food Friday!!: Vegan Pizza

Welcome to another Food Friday!!

Today, I am going to give you the recipe to the first pizza I ever made. As I am allergic to dairy (as seen in my previous blog post), this recipe does not contain cheese on it and is therefore a vegan pizza.

This pizza was so good that my non-vegetarian/non-vegan family ate it! Honestly, each time I've made pizza, the vegan one just seems to vanish within seconds! I'm glad my family (including cousins, aunties and uncles) love it!

Let me know if you try the pizza!

Bon Appétit!

Dealing With a Dairy Allergy

Hey,

So, today (it's 00:23 so.....more like 'yesterday'), I went through a really traumatising experience and that is what inspired me to write this.

Introduction

As some of you know, I am actually vegetarian although I do prefer to eat vegan foods and I cook/eat vegan food most of the time. Why I do not refer to myself as a vegan is mainly because if the only non-meat thing available contains eggs or dairy, I might eat it (more likely with the eggs). However, I am allergic to dairy.


I'm Allergic?!

I haven't always been allergic to dairy. This allergy started about two years ago when I pretty much cut out all dairy products due to performing or rehearsing often (as dairy products increase the production of phlegm while singing which makes it less likely for a singer (I specialise in opera) to hit all his/her high notes perfectly). I cut out dairy products for about a year, not really intentionally, but just because I knew that I had to sing.

I realised I had become allergic to dairy when I went home on a break from school, had a bowl of cereal and shortly after, had a runny nose and felt a bit odd. The runny nose wasn't like having a cold or something like that. It was more like a tap had been opened up a bit and my body was draining water through my nose to the point that I had to hold a tissue to my nose for some minutes. It was weird, but initially, I did not associate it to dairy.

This symptom occurred a few more times and I was confused because I hadn't experienced it while at school so I decided to look at what I ate often at school and what was different between that and what I ate at home. I then realised that I had barely had any dairy at school so I decided to test that out and the next morning, instead of a bowl of cereal, I had some bread (most breads are vegan) with some strawberry jam (my favourite) and I felt perfectly fine and didn't have a runny nose. Could this just be a coincidence? Maybe. Due to the possibility of it just being a coincidence, the next day, I had a bit of a cereal and guess what - I had a runny nose, felt slightly odd and was a bit bloated.

Food Friday!!: Crumpet-Hot Cakes (Crumpet-Pancakes)

Welcome to the first edition of Food Friday!!

Today I made some vegan crumpet-hot cakes not once, but TWICE! The second time, I gave some to my family (and y'all know they aren't vegan/vegetarian) and they actually liked it!

The reason this is called Crumpet-Hot Cakes/Crumpet-Pancakes is because on one side, they look like crumpets and on the other, they look like pancakes/hot cakes. Oh! They also feel fluffy like crumpets do! (by the way, I'm not a fan of actual crumpets, they taste....yeah....not a fan of many things).

Bon Appétit!

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Makes 6 Crumpet-Hot Cakes
Ingredients

• 5 heaped tablespoons of self-raising flour (or a flour of your choice with about a teaspoon or so of baking powder)
• 1 heaped tablespoon of oats

My Favourite: Youtubers (Food Edition)

Picture from Melody Queen - Shreya Ghoshal

I love YouTube! I watch at least one YouTube video every day. You have to agree, YouTube is not only entertaining, but it's also informative and at times, educational.

I have been inspired by quite a number of YouTubers, especially when it comes to my lifestyle choice (mainly in the food department). So, without further ado, here are my favourite YouTubers!

• FullyRawKristina
• Rawvana / Rawvana English
• Jenny Mustard
• Mango Island Mamma
• CookingWithPlants

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Picture from JennyMustard.com

I always look forward to their videos and nowadays, I look forward to Jenny's the most (and MangoIslandMamma) as I discovered her most recently, she is a minimalist and her food always looks really good. She also mainly makes cooked vegan dishes (so does Anja on CookingWithPlants) and as I live in ye ol' England, I like to have warm-hot cooked vegan meals especially in the evening (I tend to be raw vegan for breakfast on most days). Jenny is also such a sweetheart. She is one of the sweetest YouTubers, in my opinion. When you read her replies to your comments, be it on Instagram or on YouTube, you can't help, but smile.

Moving to London + My Plans + My Lifestyle + More....

Picture got from UrbanPath

I am in the kitchen eating something that I don't feel I should call a 'curry,' but was inspired by the idea of making a curry. What I made was completely oil-free and yet, it's perfect. This got me to think about my life next month and the months/years following that.

Honestly, I haven't felt my best this summer as I am living with family and my family doesn't eat the healthiest of foods. I really miss feeling awesome all the time and always being full of energy. I also miss cooking for myself and sorting out what I eat through out the week and having access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

I haven't mentioned this on any of my blogs, but next month, I'll be moving to London and I plan on eating even much more healthily than I did back when I was in the west country. I plan on eating more raw foods than I did before and I ate at least on raw meal (usually dinner). I plan on waking up in the morning and having a melon for breakfast or a bunch of mangos or a papaya filled with clementines, apples, berries and passionfruit, coming back from school or wherever, in the afternoon and having more fruits or a nice, healthy home-cooked meal and having a huge fruit and veggie salad for dinner.

The thing is, London is an expensive place. This got me to think of how I can continue this lifestyle and make it even healthier without being broke often. I started looking at nearby farmer's markets, looking for a nearby Morrisons, online stores that deliver fresh and organic produce to people living in London, such as PlanetOrganic, et cetera. All of this could still be very expensive.

Here's where my curry-like dish comes in. Some of the ingredients I used were frozen. Therefore, this meal cost less than a pound and was also relatively quick to make and the ingredients had already been chopped up (and had nothing added to them). As some of you know, some frozen produce tend to be cheaper than the same products, but when they have not been frozen. Also, freezing produce prolongs its shelf-life and keeps the food fresh and with its nutrients longer.

So, I have decided that I am going to purchase quite a number of frozen produce and for the items that are cheaper to buy not frozen, I will purchase and keep them in a freezer till I need to use them. I have also decided that I will buy quite a number of unripe produce if they are on sale and ripen them at home and of course, eat out and order food as little as possible too.

If I do order food as I know I will some times because I know I did it this past year and I wasn't even an architecture student then, I will order and support vegan restaurants such as Juicebaby.

I plan on 99% of what I eat being vegan. Why I did not say 100% is because I know that if I go out with friends, if I can't find a vegan meal on the menu and wherever we're eating can't make the food vegan (for some reason), I will eat vegetarian food. Also, I don't plan on telling my family that I might be going vegan as they still haven't accepted that I am vegetarian and haven't accepted how I eat yet and my grandfather actually offended me yesterday when he said something about "how I should eat." So, if I can cook my own food while with family, I will and if I can't and there happens to be vegetarian food available, I will eat as a vegetarian.

So, yeah, I've finished eating my curry-like dish and I think I've pretty much said all I thought to say in this blogpost (and more) so, I'm going to end here.

I will upload a few more posts this week.
Talk to you then.

~Sammy

Juice Bar

Picture from SuperJuiceBars.com

Hey everyone!

Okay! So, first of all, this is not a sponsored blogpost. I am simple letting you all know about a wonderful place because I can't keep it to myself. We should all be healthy and happy together!

So.....some of you know that I school in the south-west of England and well.....I saw a little place called, 'SuperJuice' and it seemed to catch my eye because of all the fruits and vegetables on the menu. So, when a friend felt like drinking something and almost bought a fizzy drink (what some of you call, 'soda'), I said to her, "I saw a smoothie and juice place, why don't we just go there and get something to drink." My friend has been trying to eat and drink healthier so she gladly agreed and we started heading over there. She ordered a cranberry smoothie and I couldn't decide what to order, but I knew I wanted something green so I decided to recall a recipe from back when I first got into green juices and the ladies who worked at the juice bar gladly made a green juice for me following my recipe. I will just say that that juice tasted yummy, my friend tried it and loved it and loved her juice too and the ladies who worked at the juice bar tried what was left in the blender and loved it too! (I felt like asking them to put it up on the menu and name it, 'The Samantha' (and yeah, if for some strange reason, you didn't know, my full name is 'Samantha')). Fast-forward, less than a week later, I headed over to the post office to send off another copy of my portfolio for the school of Architecture (my portfolio originally got lost in the mail) while that same friend went over to Lloyds (the bank) which was about 5-10mins away from the post office. When I was done at the post office, I started walking towards Lloyds, but then just went past it and went over to the juice bar where I saw my friend standing. I ordered a nice green smoothie after not being able to decide what I wanted again and I headed back to school as a happy girl :).

SuperJuice is an awesome place to buy smoothies and juices. They're quick at what they do, clean, and the people who work there are so lovely, sweet and nice, like even if you end up not buying a smoothie, you will leave there happy just from interacting with the people working there.

My advice, if you find yourself in the south west, in either Taunton or Bristol go to SuperJuice! Their juice bar is in town, on the high street in both places.

You won't regret getting something at SuperJuice!

Oh! and they make soups, veg pots and organic porridges too! :)

I love SuperJuice :)

~SammyWithTheBod

p.s You can find Superfood on their website: SuperJuiceBars.com and on Twitter: @SuperjuiceBars

I'm Baaaaaack

Hi,

So, I'm sorry I took this blog down. I was just pissed and stressed out and.....anyways, I'm back and I'm the healthiest I have ever been! :)

Here's a quick update on my life thus far:

• I have overcome one of my allergies! Yay! Isn't that wonderful? :)
• My weight is good and I am actually not worried about my weight right now. I like my body and I like where I'm at right now. Like even when for some reason, I feel bloated, I know by morning, I won't neither would I look bloated.
• I am full of energy and like no matter how late at night it is or how tired I am, I can drop and give you 20 pushups or 100 squats or sit ups!
• I haven't worked out as much as I used to because of stress and school and performances. However, I have started ensuring I do at least 100 squats and 50 pulses in squat position without breaks in between at least once everyday and also, some push ups. I seem to love pushups now and for a while, I was working out only my arms because I just like working them out. However, I was forced to remember that I need to workout my entire body especially my thighs and abs which aren't as toned as I'd like them to be right now. My arms look awesome flexed. Those biceps are on point! I can also balance on just my hands a little longer than I've ever been able to without spraining my wrists. That's amazing! Now, I'm just working on toning up everywhere and getting a faint 4-6pack :)
• I eat 4-6 times a day now. Yup! Not 2 or 3 anymore. Now, I eat 3 cooked meals and 1-3 raw vegan meals a day and I snack on raw fruits and vegetables and I seem to have a newfound love for Medjool dates so I love nibbling on them whenever! :) The raw fruits and vegetables help with digestion and bowel movements and it just cleanses me from the inside out.
• My skin looks awesome! I still get 1 or 2 lil zits towards that womanly month of the week, but once that week's ending, the zit(s) go and I'm left with awesome skin again. Mind you, I still have dry skin that peels in some areas if not moisturised after a few minutes out of the shower. It takes a bit longer before it starts peeling now and not all the places that peeled on my face are still peeling. I lock in moisture on my skin using just raw, extra virgin coconut oil now and as for my face, I use coconut oil on my lashes, lips and eye lids and organic shea butter (sent over from Nigeria by my grandmother. bless her) on the rest of my face. I use very little of the shea butter because I don't want a shiny face neither do I want to darken my face as my mum gets a dark film on her skin from shea butter and I've heard of some people darkening from it. So far, I haven't darkened. I don't use the coconut oil on the rest of my face because, as once mentioned on this blog, I seem to react to it on all other parts of my face (same with my cousin).
• Also, I'm going to end here as this is getting very long, I am no longer anaemic, I don't get dizzy, daily/frequent headaches or any of those things anymore! I am not excessively tired all the time. My immunity is up! Like the old me would get sick once someone coughed or sneezed around me, but now, people are getting sick at my school as a bug is going round and I feel just fine! I even went to the health centre to visit a friend who was very sick and I'm still fine! I haven't seen a doctor or nurse because I've been sick since the whole detox and lifestyle change! I haven't had any medications or supplements whatsoever! Even vitamins and paracetamol! Nada! I don't need them! I am healthy and I am happy and I'm glad my parents seem to be accepting my lifestyle and vegetarianism a little more now that I've been updating them on my health and everything. I wish I had learnt more and done more research on my diet and all that when I stopped eating meats as I could've reaped all these benefits a long time ago! It's terrible always being sick and now, I'm happy not to be anymore! It feels awesome being healthy for once! :)

See y'all later!

~Sammy :)

Day 3: 14 Days Raw Vegan

Picture gotten from RawOn10

Today started off well! :) I had a salad which contained a quarter of a gigantic watermelon, 2 peaches, 1 nectarine, a few freshly picked blackberries and freshly picked basil and on the side, I had a plate of  spinach and kale (stems on! :) ). I had over 699 calories just for breakfast! That's a good start! :)

For lunch, I'm going to have zucchinis with fruit and I need to remember to soak the zucchinis this time them leave them to air dry (drain out the excess water). I might sprinkle some seeds over them, dunno, I'm not a fan of nuts and seeds.

For dinner, I'll just eat fruit or depending on how busy I get, I'll drink a green juice!

What I've learnt from this so far is that raw foods are not just healthy but awesome and they're like the perfect fuel. Instead of having the groggy feeling after eating loads of processed or cooked foods (especially the rather unhealthy ones), you become so awake and full of energy - read to take on the world! You can also get all your calories and all your nutrients from eating raw and you learn more about what you eat and more about your body and mind and how simple things like the quantity you eat affects your feelings or appetite. For example, I struggle to eat in large quantities. It can take me over 2 hours to down half a watermelon if I'm eating the entire half and I know that I'm eating the entire half because I see it right in front of me and I'm eating it out of the fruit with a spoon. It takes me a little less than that amount of time to eat zucchini pasta made with 3 zucchinis and a raw pasta sauce because I'm eating it all at once in a big bowl and that freaks me out (I don't know how FullyRawKristina eats so much at one go). However, if there's cut up pieces (like wedges cut in half) of watermelon in a tupperware or whatever and it's in the fridge (I didn't cut it, but I know a whole watermelon was cut) and all I have to do is pick one out and eat it and if I feel like having more, pick out another one and so on, I am pretty sure I can eat over half a watermelon in less than 10 minutes.

Being raw vegan is awesome, but I'm not going to stick to it. However, once I'm done with this, I'm going to go back to being vegetarian, but as I always have, I'm going to eat more like a vegan (cooked meals) than a vegetarian. I am also going to incorporate more raw meals into my diet 'cause they're awesome. Maybe I might even become a vegetarian who eats raw till 4. Who knows?

I'm happy.
Keep Smiling!

~Sammy

p.s I have lost about 3kg these past 3 days.
I'm not really concerned about my weight, what I'm concerned about is my health and my weight changes as my health changes. So....that's that :)

Day 1: 14 Days Raw Vegan

Picture gotten from Healthkismet.com

Okay! So, it's my first day on my 14 days long raw vegan diet and it started off pretty well with my pink salad which contained pink lady apples, strawberries and fresh basil (yum!). I ate that on my way to a wholesale food produce where I bought 4 gigantic watermelons (couldn't buy less), boxes of other fruits and courgettes (zucchinis).

Once I got back home and stored away what was bought, I cut a watermelon in half and ate one of the the halves. That was torture! Honestly, it was like a cruel punishment. You see, I like watermelon, but this wasn't as sweet as the watermelons I've had recently and well, it was HUGE! I must have eaten over 685.5 calories in just that half of a watermelon! I got bored of eating it after eating a bit over half of that half, but I knew that I had to finish it up so I stopped eating it with a spoon, cut it up and started eating into the watermelon wedges. I got bored of it :/ I got bored of chewing and it just became a total struggle. You see, my throat shuts food out some times like it makes it so difficult to swallow and that topped off with being tired of chewing was horrid so, I brought out a blender and whizzed up the little bit of watermelon left with the 3 cherry plums I had (I had already eaten one earlier) and drank it up. It was easier to drink than chew and it tasted pretty good so, yeah, I can finally say that I've finished half of a watermelon. Half of a watermelon that's larger than my head!

I feel a tad bit sick right now so I'm in bed. I won't blame it what I've eaten because I've been getting this sick feeling from time to time for some days now. I should be fine soon. My body is releasing a whole lot of..... liquid (tmi). Like, it was crazy after eating the watermelon (tmi).

Anyways, I've prepared half of my lunch/dinner. I'm having zucchini pasta! I haven't had raw zucchini in forever so I'm a tad bit nervous. I'll soak the zucchini for a few minutes before eating to get that al dente texture before eating it. The pasta sauce is "marinating." I blended up some carrots, tomatoes, spicy yellow peppers with garlic and a tad bit of water then poured it into a glass cup, covered it up with cling film and left it by the window. I wish I had some onions to add to it, but....oh well.... the sauce tasted good so that's....good. Dinner's going to be a fruit platter of peaches and nectarines.

This is slightly harder than I thought especially with my family making cooked foods I like like chips (made with a frier that uses just 1tbsp of oil) and waffles! Gaah! I'm being strong though. What I don't understand is why it wasn't this hard going on a liquid diet. WHY? LIKE I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE SOLID FOOD! LET ALONE COOKED FOOD!

Anyways, hope I can do this.

My cousin's girlfriend may or may not be coming over this weekend (dunno) and she's pescatarian (a vegetarian who eats fish) and I think she eats pretty healthy too so it'll help if she comes because I won't be the only person okay with eating the way I'm eating. She can join me with a salad or share recipes or something. I hope she comes. Everyone else in the house is a full-on meat eater so it'll be nice to have someone who's diet is this close to mine in the house for once.