Chocolate and Beyond

Live Below the Line: Day 4 - Breakfasting on Bean Burger & Banana!

After realising I was going to have jiggle my menus around somewhat to ensure I eat the things I've made, and keep within my £1 daily limit, breakfast today was one of my chilli bean burgers, an eighth of my home-baked soda bread, and a half banana. Strange combo, I know, but at least it's relatively healthy and if I was really living in extreme poverty, would I be grumbling? I think not.

Lunch was the remaining portion of sweet potato & lentil curry I made, with only a spoonful or so of rice, since I dipped into it yesterday to make the bean burgers. I had another eighth piece of bread to pad it out a little. And guess what dinner was? Oh yes, the dreaded pasta and sauce, with a sprinkle of chilli flakes as suggested by Kristen in her comment on my post about this meal. But I DID decide to put it on a square plate, and what a difference that made. Appearance is everything!

Live Below the Line: Day 3 - Chilli Bean & Carrot Burger Budget Recipe, 11p Each

I started the day rather late today after sleeping in past 10am. Bearing in mind I still had to get up at 6am with the dog - though came back to bed, obviously - and most other mornings for the last week I've been waking at an unearthly hour like around 5am, I am not going to feel guilty about it. It is the rarest occasion that I sleep as late as 10am (once every three months?!), but it meant by the time I'd had a shower, got the dogs out and so on, it was already lunch time.

So I ended up eating my lentil, sweet potato  & pea curry, with rice as my first meal of the day, at lunch. It's not the first time I have had curry as my first meal of the day, and I'm sure it won't be the last. But it meant I had 'saved' some budget by not having porridge, so I decided to offer myself a generous three 'builder's brew' teas with soya milk today. Heaven! Though I still saved each of the teabags for weak, black, drinks afterwards.

Live Below the Line: Day 2 - Oh Yum. More Crappy Pasta Sauce.

Gah why did I buy that awful pasta sauce? Oh I know. Because it was CHEAP. Urgh. Now I have two more meals to face with it, after lunch today finished my second portion. I really wished I'd thought more before making that purchase. Though to be fair, with a huge pile of pasta and the handful of salad leaves (friend's garden, accounted for in budget), it's not that bad. It's just so...um...glossy! 

I am not hungry while doing this challenge, due to the pasta, rice and oats I have been filling up on, though I am craving the fresher food I normally stack my plate with. And also, I'm missing the freedom to eat with more variety in my day - already I have had this sauce and pasta twice in two days, and have to have it twice again. Usually, I eat what I fancy rather than to any rigid plan.

Live Below the Line: Day 1 - When Drinking Tea Becomes a Luxury!

Today is Day One of my Live Below the Line challenge, which I signed up for to raise funds for Action Against Hunger and awareness of the issue of extreme poverty. I know already I'm the one getting it easy. My £1 a day budget only has to account for food. Those in true extreme poverty living on this amount, have to account for EVERYTHING from that. And therefore, might not even eat.

Yesterday, I did some shopping in preparation for the challenge. This was mainly in Aldi because it is the cheapest supermarket for a lot of things, and though I had some ideas already of what I wanted, I decided to shop according to offers as well (like, aubergines are currently 49p each, so I thought this would make a nice basis of a pasta meal). It seemed not to make sense buying things in that I already have, so where that is the case, I am proportioning out my expenditure and budgeting it accordingly.

Recipes: Gluten Free Cheesy Vegan Potato Cakes

Well, my dad - who cannot eat gluten - gave these potato cakes the thumbs up and asked me if I would make him some more. I told him I would post the recipe and he can make them himself, one batch is more than generous :) They are rather good. I am a potato cake fiend, but the potato cakes that are commercially bought can be loaded with additives and sometimes contain animal products. And it's rare to find gluten free ones.

This recipe doesn't need to be made gluten free though. I haven't yet tried this recipe with standard flour, and even those these are nice, I do think the standard flour ones will be a little better. So, if you don't have any reason to opt for gluten free, go ahead and use plain flour to make these potato cakes, if you wish. Then let me know what you think.

Recipes: Delicious Low-Fat Vegan Mayonnaise

Oh my! I have been trying out various vegan mayo recipes for a while, and haven't yet been altogether satisfied. I have been using commercial vegan mayonnaises such as Granovita Mayola (which admittedly, is my favourite ready-made vegan mayo), but I'm very much all about making my food myself, wherever I can. And also, the fat content of most shop-bought mayonnaises (just like the standard egg mayos) can be rather on the high side.

So how pleased I am to have stumbled upon Susan Voisin's recipe, from her fabulous blog Fat Free Vegan Kitchen! This recipe is so yum and extremely versatile! My version here is a very slight variation on Susan's Tofu-Cashew Mayonnaise, and I do mean slight. My only addition is a small amount of black salt, which gives a little more egginess to the mayonnaise with its sulphuric smell and taste. And I used Dijon mustard too, as I like the flavour and smell.

Recipes: Caramelised Red Onion & Aubergine (Eggplant) Dip

This Caramelised Red Onion & Aubergine (Eggplant) Dip is a tasty and easy summer dip that has child appeal with the sweet flavour of red onion, and is fairly budget with the use of canned kidney beans to add thickness and texture. It's also gluten free. I came up with this recipe basically because I needed to use up an aubergine, and being a lazy cook at times, one of my favourite ways of cooking aubergine is to blast the whole thing in the microwave.

I don't use the microwave that often in my cooking, but preparing an aubergine like this - with the skin intact - is one of the simplest ways of using aubergine for recipes. It means the inside goes all soft and is very versatile for dips or sauces, but you also get to retain the skin, which doesn't char.

2000 'LIKES' Appreciation RAWR Chocolate Giveaway!

Oooooh, RAWR vegan chocolate, new and improved. What's not to love? And how about winning the above selection of this yummy stuff as a thank you for helping my Facebook page get to 2000 likes? It's like all your Christmasses have come at once!

I am delighted to report that I had the pleasure of sampling all these wonderful bars of RAWR choc over the last few weeks, including their new Gold bar, and like the first time I tried it, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I really love this chocolate, and now it's even better, since RAWR have recently made all their recipes smoother by using finer granulated coconut sugar (the flavour is still the same, just the texture is less crunchy).