It’s a beautiful sunny day in Paris, and I am cooped up in my room waiting for British Airways to deliver my bag – I made the Heathrow-Charles Du Gaulle transfer, but my bag didn’t. I’m here for a week for work so I REALLY need my stuff – I’m desperately hoping it turns up in the next hour.
I did a bit of research online before I left, and found some good tips. I thought I’d share a few of mine in return.
Food
As is pretty obvious from the food posts in my blog, I’m vegetarian, mostly at the vegan end of the spectrum (but not strictly). This can make travel tricky, so I was thrilled to find the Vegan Paris blog and ebook.
I sometimes find it hard to get enough protein while I’m travelling, & I can’t afford to be woolly-headed on work trips, so I packed individual Vega shakes & protein bars. I buy them online, and use them for early morning protein hits, and as backups in case of conference lunches composed of white flour and lettuce (alas, these are frequent). The shakes & bars have a ton of fibre, omega 3 & multivitamins included, too, so they’re good insurance against getting rundown/clogged up while travelling.
My final food tip is self-cater wherever possible. This trip I was fortunate to find a small studio for the same price as hotel room. It has a tiny kitchenette with a bar fridge, cooktop, kettle, microwave & very basic pans, plates, knives etc. I’m really happy to pay for delicious food & coffees, but I don’t like to have to go out for breakfast, and sometimes I’m too jet lagged to sit in a cafe after a big day of work or touristing. I buy ingredients from local grocery stores and markets…mainly nuts, fruit and salad basics, or soy milk/soy yogurt.
Even when I’m in a basic hotel room, I take my little lightweight camping kit, so I can have in room breakfasts & snacks.
Clothes & toiletries
This is not my first ‘lost luggage’ experience. As a result I always pack my toothbrush, deodorant, basic makeup, moisturiser and a clean shirt & underwear in my carry-on. I am always desperate to scrub up & get changed after a long-haul flight, so I was super grateful I had packed my insurance supplies yesterday. I also carry saline nasal spray… fantastic for dealing with the dry air on a plane.
I change into knee-high travel socks as close as I can to boarding time, to prevent puffy feet and cankles. I’m not high risk for DVT, so don’t have a custom pair of compression socks, but I do try & stretch and wriggle my feet to keep my circulation moving.
Girl Stuff
Getting your period while travelling is not fun, but it happens, I always pack pantyliners in case of spotting, and when I know my period is due, I pack the wonderful diva cup, and a packet of flushable wipes for cleanups. I’m not generally a clean freak, but I always carry antibacterial wipes (and tissues) on the road, in case of hideous public toilet experiences.
Earplugs & noise-cancelling headphones
I have dodgy eustachian tubes, and have had painful take-offs and landings my whole life. A few years ago, I discovered that wearing regular foam earplugs helps stabilise the pressure in your ears, and yes, it most certainly does. Earplugs also mute the sound of one’s fellow passengers, which can be a blessing at times, (and are good for getting sleep in noisy hotels).
I have borrowed my mother’s noise-cancelling headphones on the last few trips (thanks Mum!), and they are fantastic – they filter out the rumble from the plane, and not only help me sleep, but allow me to turn the volume waaay down on the inflight movies. The only drawback of my Mum’s set is the size… they are large, & pack into a solid case that takes up a lot of room in my carry-on bag. I think it’s time I lashed out & bought a folding pair with a smaller case.
Jet Lag
I’ve tried homeopathics and other supplements, and frankly have never found any especially useful. My general jet-lag prevention tips are similar to many travellers: Eat lightly in flight, go easy on the booze, try and get out and walk around (ideally in the sun) as much as you can on the first day to help your body adjust.
After much planning and plotting, my friend Fluffy & I went shopping at Costco this morning. We split the cost of the membership, and considered the trip to be part shop, part adventure.
We weren’t convinced that a DINK & a single girl would find huge savings in the land of Big Family Bargains, but we were pleasantly surprised. We were both determined NOT to buy anything that we didn’t need, wasn’t cheaper than elsewhere, and/or wouldn’t store well over a period of months.
My good buys included
– a 3 pack of Rinse Aid for the price of 2;
– 300 gm packs of Australian goat cheese for the price I’d usually pay for 200gms. These were good til October, so I bought 4.
– a catering pack of baking paper;
– a 4 pack of Calvin Klein Boxer trunks (for Mr B) for the price I used to pay for 1 pair;
– organic salsa and small tins of Ayam Malaysian satay & curry sauces ( a good quick dinner option);
– a bulk pack of freezer bags;
– a 1.7 litre bottle of Smirnoff vodka for just $10 more than the cheapest 750ml vodka I could find locally ( this is the base for next year’s batch of Christmas Pudding Vodka).
Fluffy’s big bargain included big boxes of clumping kitty litter $5 cheaper than she usually buys, a BIG block of haloumi, a big tub of yogurt and a big bag of muesli, and some lovely new pillows. We split a big bag of walnuts between us ( I bought a big bag of pecans, too).
The verdict: we will definitely get our money back on the membership. We’ll go back, though probably not SOON. Mr B & I have discussed hosting his family Christmas this year. If we do, we’ll certainly head to Costco to stock up on party food.
Filed under: budgeting, food, learning, vegan eating | Tags: food, vegan eating
I was thumbing through Robin Robertson’s Vegan on The Cheap, and her Seitan Pot Roast caught my eye. I’ve made seitan by the ‘boiling on the stove’ method before, and I found it a bit fussy. I have also made oven baked and steamed seitan sausages, but they have a very dense texture, and are less chewy than ‘classic’ seitan. The seeming ease of a slow cooker ‘roast’ intriqued me. However…
I am a fan of seitan, but the omnivorous MrB is more ambivalent. Still, we had all the ingredients, so I thought I’d give it a try (there’s a slightly less ‘on the cheap’ variation of the recipe here).
The dish only took 10 minutes to put together. I made a few substitutions – fresh thyme from our garden instead of dried, sweet potato rather than carrots, crushed fresh garlic instead of garlic powder, flaked chillis instead of pepper, and a tablespoon of barbeque sauce instead of ketchup. I have a smaller slow cooker, so I used a quarter cup less vital wheat gluten flour than recommended, and fewer veggies than the large cooker version.
I also cooked it for the recommended 8 hours, but could have gotten away with 6 or 7, I think – my slow cooker is pretty warm, even on ‘low’.
The veggies were a bit mushy at the end, but I solved that by tipping them into a bowl and mashing them with a little soy milk instead of presenting them whole. I also tipped the cooking juices and beautifully soft and caramelised onion slices into a pan, added a little red wine, reduced them a touch, and served them as a gravy over the seitan slices. Even with the extra steps at the end (including throwing together a salad), the whole process was very easy, and it’s definitely a dish I’ll cook again.
MrB approved (though he will probably never request seitan, he is willing to eat this dish again), and even though we ate all the veggies, there was plenty of leftover seitan for my lunch the following day, and even more for the freezer.
The verdict – this was a tasty, simple, high protein ‘meat and potatoes vegan’ winter dinner with a short prep time. Robertson estimates the ‘on the cheap’ version is about a dollar a serve, & I think our dinner would have come in under $2 (especially as I used our home grown herbs and lettuce). I declare the experiment a success, and I’ll certainly cook it again.
I have been making chilli with dried black beans ( aka black turtle beans) for a few years. The beans are not common in Sydney, so I used to buy 5 kilo bags from the Fiji Market in Newtown whenever I spotted them. Now we no longer live in Newtown, my spotting opportunities are limited, so I buy them online from Honest To Goodness ( again, in 5 kilo bags).
Black beans have a great, earthy flavour, and they’re quite high in protein ( around 14 grams per cup). I used to make the chilli in 3 stage process, that involved soaking overnight, precooking the beans, then cooking again with veggies & seasonings. However, this process was a bit fussy, and often led to slightly runny chilli, because the beans were so well hydrated when they went into the slowcookerfor the last time ( slow cookers trap condensation, so you often get extra liquid in the meal as a result).
Emboldened by an experiment with slow cooker baked beans that used pre-soaked but not pre cooked Cannellini beans, I decided to cut the precook stage from my chilli recipe. It was a great success, and the process will be simpler forever more.
My new recipe (based on the approximate amounts I use in my smaller slow cooker) is:
Pre soak about 2 cups of dried blackbeans overnight or longer
Add drained, soaked beans to the slow cooker with:
2 onions, 4 cloves of garlic and one chopped red chilli, sautéed in olive oil
One chopped red capsicum ( no need to pre cook)
One tin chopped tomatoes
Veggie stock to cover bean/veg mixture by about 2 cm
Seasonings to taste: I used a harrissa spice mix and about a teaspoonoff cumin seed. Sometimes I add smoked paprika and/or dried oregano
Optional: a 2-3 cm square of kombu sea vegetable. This is an old macrobiotic trick for cooking beans. It adds minerals and flavour to the broth, and increases digestibility (ie reduces farting).
cook on low for at least 10 hours.
I freeze in 200 gram portions, and we get about 4-5 taco dinners for 2 out of this amount… It makes about 2 litres of chilli in my 3 litre slow cooker.
The weather has been delighful so far this Autumn… much better than our grey, miserable summer. We’ve still had a lot of rain, though, & the black taro is thriving in the back yard (though it doesn’t look quite as good as this stock pic yet!).
Having planted so much taro we thought we’d better try some, so we bought a tuber from the fruit and veg market. We roasted it in our usual pumpkin/potato/sweet potato combo, with olive oil, salt and pepper. It tasted good, & was super fluffy inside, but was very dry… the outside of the cubes toughened up while roasting, rather than crisping or caramelising like the other veggies. We speculate a sauce or gravy might be needed next time – though we’re still a long way off a harvest.
We also planted broccoli, collards, fennel, parsley, beetroot, coriander & leeks in seed trays; and more rocket, turnips & beetroot seed direct in the beds. So far the collards & broccoli are ramapging along, the rest is creeping along.
It’s been a while since I visited Susan Voisin’s blog, but I’ve been browsing it a lot lately, as I’m trying to lose a couple of kilos. I’ve been tracking my food & exercise using the myfitnesspal app for about 3 weeks, and while I haven’t actually weighed myself yet, I am feeling stronger & a bit leaner, and I’ve lost a couple of centimetres from my hips & waist. Last week, though, there were a few days where I really over-snacked, and I’d like to cut back on that.
I discovered a couple of good tips on Susan’s blog; including her recommendation to make up a huge pot of veggie soup for snacking. I love soup, and we’re having a mild, wet summer, so there are lots of days where a cup of soup makes a good alternative to veggie sticks.
The other new feature on the site (which has probably been there a while, but is new to me), is the ‘Recipe Box’ function, where I can favourite the recipes I like while I’m browsing. So far the chickpea crackers and low fat version of Annie’s Goddess Dressing (a delicious, but very rich dressing, not actually sold here in Australia) are my faves.
This will be my first week back after 5 weeks of leave (sick leave post surgery, then regular rec leave.
I am a bit daunted, so am pre- planning meals and snacks to help me get on track as painlessly as possible.
Dinners:
Saturday: roast veggie salad and fresh bread
Sunday: bean & veggie wraps (Sunday update: have swapped these meal, but wraps are prepped and in the fridge for tomorrow night)
Monday: veg curry, dal and rice
Tuesday: chickpea cutlets (from the freezer), roast veg, salad
Wednesday: veggie pie and salad
Thursday: stir fry
Friday: pumpkin & walnut risotto
Lunches:
Sunday: leftover paella
Mon- Wed: roast eggplant/cauliflower/quinoa/tofu salad
Thurs: leftover bean wraps or veggie pie
Fri: leftover veggie pie
Breakfasts: smoothie or toast with hummus and tomato
Snacks: almonds, carrot and celery sticks, kale chips.
Prep
Saturday: roasted veggies for salads, baked bread.
Sunday: Prep kale chips, bake with bean and veggie wraps, cook quinoa, chop, make hummus and mix salads for lunches.
Sunday update: kale chips too good! All are in my belly 🙂 the rest is on track.
I had my surgery in early December, and while I’m not 100% fit yet, I must say, I’m feeling pretty good!
MrB and I wrapped all the presents today, and I made 2 cups of maple walnuts to go with the Christmas Pudding Vodka gifts. They were a little sticky (the humidity is pretty high), but they look very cute in recycled bottles, and they will taste good.
The Christmas Pudding Vodka would have benefitted from an extra stage of filtering before it went into the final bottles (just for appearances) – I will certainly remember the extra step for next year. We’ve already given away one bottle and the recipients were *thrilled*. I’ll start hunting down little bottles & cheap vodka early in the year next year.
I found a little flip top bottle in St Vinnies yesterday, so have filled it with maple syrup, and made up a batch of bulk gluten free pancake mix for our neighbor, who has ceoliac disease. I was going to give her a boozy gift, but given she has a toddler, I thought a ‘just add water’ meal might be appreciated, too.
I’m just starting phase one of the ‘tofurky’ for my family Christmas lunch tomorrow. I’ve made a quinoa pilaf for the stuffing, I’ll stir in chopped coriander, nuts and dried fruit, tomorrow before I roast it.
The next step is blending a block of firm tofu with some veggie stock, nutritional yeast and smoked paprika, then letting it drain in a colander overnight. In the morning I’ll scoop out the centre, add the stuffing, and cover with the extra tofu. Then the whole lot needs to be carefully transferred to a baking tray. Or that’s the plan, anyway. I’ve already made a pomegranate molasses and walnut sauce for it… I may or may not add a glaze as well.
If all goes well, I’ll post a photo tomorrow!
Filed under: budgeting, food, vegan eating | Tags: budgeting, food, vegan eating
A couple of months ago I bought 5 kg of chickpea flour from the magnificent Fiji Market in Newtown, source of all my great bulk legume purchases. I love chickpea flour, but I tend to use it in just a couple of recipes (specifically pizza bases, & homemade seitan chorizo), and I began to suspect I had overdone it with the bulk-buying thing. However, a bit of websearching revealed this fabulous tip – chickpea flour can be used as an egg replacer.
Since I was out of soy flour, and hadn’t yet opened the box of commercial egg replacer I had on standby, I decided to try chickpea flour in an experimental batch of pancakes. The results were great, so the next experiment was a batch of savoury muffins – superb. It adds a little extra protein golden colour, & an earthy undertone to dishes that I really like. And it makes gluten free, soy free, egg free baking much easier (if you’re into that sort of thing). And it’s cheap! So yes, three cheers for chickpea flour, a revitalised pantry staple.
Ms Betterhome 