strawberryelmo | Tiny Kitchen Blog

Diet week in January – veganism

I thought it would be fun to make a new category on this blog, which gives the readers an insight into my life. The category ‘diet week’ does not contain the aim to lose weight, but to discover new ways of eating and personaly for me, to get back the joy of eating which was destroyed by my eating disorder.

I felt very uncomfortable in my body, so I decided to make a start from point zero. To achieve this effect, I fasted for four days, which means that I only fed myself liquids, such as tea or juices. I cheated the last day by eating some spoons of rice, but nevertheless, I got the effect I wanted – a healthy curiosity about what the world of food might offer.

There are a lot of people complaining about vegans and their way of life just because they ‘Can’t imagine living this way.’ I think this is the wrong way to deal with people on a diet and it is not impossible at all to live the vegan lifestyle. So for a whole week, I kept the rules and actually liked it. There are so many substitutions for eggs and dairy products that it is not difficult to change e.g. youghurt for soy yoghurt. The only thing I missed a little was cheese and milk chocolate, but it was bearable. It was really easy to prepare all the meals like soy scallop or falafel.

Since I do not like the taste of Tofu, I did not have it in my nutrition. Wanna know, what I ate the whole week? Here is the list.

Day 1:

soy yoghurt blackberry
honeydew
noodles with tomato zucchini sauce
apple
apple pie cookies
bread
salad

Day 2:

apple
cornflakes
soy rice pudding
melon
cookies
sandwich with vegetable burger
couscous salad

Day 3:

soy rice pudding
pineapple
soy cocoa
baked sweet potatoes
baguette
apple

Day 4:

oatmeal with soy milk
oatmeal cookies
orange
apple
chili con seitan

Day 5:

chocolate flakes
soy scallop
soy yoghurt raspberry
apple
oreos
bread
baked peppers

Day 6:

apple
orange
oreos
bread
pumpkin soup with coconut milk
grilled zucchini
falafel
hazelnuts

Day 7:

apple
bread
soy cocoa
almonds
semi-sweet chocolate

The evening of the 7th day I quit the vegan diet by eating some ‘milinki’, a Bulgarian bread-like food containing milk. I think I will consume some vegan products more often from now, e.g. the soy cocoa which was really yummy. Hope you liked this post and look forward to seeing more diet weeks.

Plum Tiramisu

I hope you had a good New Year’s celebration and are not too clumsy with your resolutions for 2014 to not try out this dessert someday. A tiramisu with fruit is totally my sort of thing, as it is creamy, light and full of taste. I created this recipe for Christmas to please my relatives who were actually very happy with it. Even my cousins tried it, who have denied eating fruit in dessert so far.

I used an original Italian tiramisu recipe as a basic, but substituted the espresso and amaretto for plums with sauce (I don’t like alcohol and coffee in dessert).

I am sure you can do this as well with blueberies or peaches with the same delicious result. So.. when you have stopped dieting because of your new year’s resolutions – try this, you will not regret it.

Plum Tiramisu:

3 eggs
75 g (1/3 cup) sugar
250 g (8 oz.) ladyfingers
500 g (18 oz.) mascarpone

2 ripe plums
300 ml (1 1/6 cup) orange juice
1/2 tsp cinnamon

cocoa powder, for dusting

Cut the plums into thin clices and then the slices into smaller pieces – this will make the tiramisu easier to eat. Put the cut fruit together with orange juice and cinnamon in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Cook for about 5 minutes, then remove from the heat.

Seperate the eggs and beat the eggwhites with half of the sugar in a bowl until stiff. In a second bowl, stir the egg yolks with the rest of the sugar and mascarpone. Now carefully integrate the beaten egg whites in the creamy mass, trying to keep as much air inside as possible.

Put a layer of ladyfingers at the bottom of a rectangular pan. Pour half of the orange sauce and half of the plums on it. Cover with half of the cream. place a new layer of ladyfingers on top and repeat.

Let the dessert cool for at least two hours, but not for more than a day, since it contains raw eggs.

Tiny Kitchen Blog on Facebook

Finally made it to create a Facebook page for my blogs. Both the lifestyle and the foodblog are tagged on Strawberryelmo. If you give the site a thumb up, you will be informed about new posts and, since a lot of people have shown interest, contests. Your first chance to win something will be in December. If this sounds good to you, hit like for Strawberryelmo.

#strawberryelmo