Cookie Parties! And other fun this week.

Welcome back!
Schools opened again on Wednesday and everything seemed mostly normal except a lot of schools held their own Hari Raya parties. One in particular (I attended) had all of their students dress in their finest (and brand new) Hari Raya clothes as well as each student brought a box of cookies to share with their school. The teachers also know how to get down with their bad selves and brought food to share as well. I only ate a few things (that were vegan of course). None of the cookies I could trust and even some of the curries. I ate a peanut curry (which is pretty yummy and popular here in Malaysia) with some sticky rice and a veggie curry another teacher made which I discovered wasn't all vegan--no biggie. There was one dessert that was a gluten green jell (looked like tadpoles) swimming in coconut milk. That stuff was yummy!

two tables full of cookies

adult food and durian-blah >o<

Oh how cute!

As for food this week I had a bit of a sweet tooth attack and made a few vegan desserts. Granted all those cookies and cakes I was surrounded by I didn't get an opportunity to consume. I tended to eat a few of the same things this week with the occasional exceptions below. However, I sometimes ate them for both lunch/dinner or breakfast/lunch etc.  So, I won't divide them up today.

My Usual Quiche plus Greenery
I took my quiche that I make weekly (cause it's delectable) and added a salad to it. This week's quiche that's currently in the oven is entirely comprised of spinach, mushrooms, onions, and potatoes. I limited the amount to just four veggies. The one here has everything that was in my fridge (broccoli, carrots, sweet potatoes, garden veggies, onions, and who knows what). It wasn't even flat when I placed it in the oven, it was gigantic and bulging! So, this weeks quiche will be slimmer looking. I actually was listening to an article from one of my new favorite YouTube channels NutritionFacts.org about how spinach and garlic are pretty powerful foods. I suggest looking at his stuff online.







Japanese Nom Nom!
We visited our local Japanese spot and I noticed something on the menu that caught my eye! They had a green symbol like this veg 斋 (though there are a variety of versions of this symbol) right next to a dish. This means vegetarian. The symbol so happened to be on a curry item! Woohoooo! It came with a potato salad I gave to Frank and got a few seaweed/nori rolls for some added a nutrition (nori/seaweed is full of vitamins and stuff and stuff). Sooooo yummy and diverse from my usual order--however I think I'll switch back to my other items next time. But it's nice to try something new.

Thrown Together Dinner
I didn't feel like eating but decided I should have something. Knowing I had some salad that needed to be eaten, I placed that in a bowl with some beans, tomatoes, and onions. Mixed a garlicky vinaigrette together, toasted my last flaxseed bun, and there it was: A thrown together dinner. My vinaigrette was overwhelmingly vinegary, however all and all it was a fine dinner.

Zucchini Noodles in Cauliflower Curry
I wanted to make a curry with cauliflower and peas that I've seen in Indian restaurants, so I did. I also added the rest of Haza's curry I had in the fridge to the pot. This particular time I added some zucchini noodles I had leftover in the fridge. The noodles made things a bit bland. In general though the curry wasn't very strong but still good. There's a lot of recipes online on how to make this particular curry, but I just did what I wanted because I used to make curry often and felt confident in my curry making ability.

Coconut Chai Ice Cream

This wasn't horrible (because my ice creams of the past have been). This was a light flavor, not too sweet, and I am hopeful not too full of fat because I used the light canned of coconut milk stuff. However, the recipe that I got from Raw. Vegan. Not Gross. called for seeped chai tea. When you add water to a cream to make ice cream unfortunately ice crystals will form. This was the only disappointment I had. No matter what, you tend to crunch into them. In the future I will heat the coconut cream with the chai tea (no water) directly to absorb the flavor so I can avoid water in the mixture.
Chickpea Blondies
I found a recipe a while ago on how to make Chickpea Blondies and a ton of other chickpea recipes. This was totally yummy mostly because I melted a dark chocolate bar on top of it as it came out of the oven and sprinkled some sea salt on top of that! (sorry I don't have the link to this recipe). It's a bit healthy because I didn't make it too sweet and added flaxseed to it-of course.

Chocolate Nibs Cookies
That's right... NIBBBS....! Why? Because I wanted to try them out. The recipe I got from Mary's Test Kitchen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK3-w5CGVEU whom she subsequently got from another person. I like her version of the cookie because she adds less sugar to it then whats called for. I also added flaxseeds to mine... because. These weren't bad cookies at all! Perfect texture actually except the chocolate nibs were pretty strong. I had put a tiny bit of chocolate in it, but apparently not enough. I used them to make an ice cream sandwich below.
Vegan Chocolate Cupcakes
This recipe was all over my Facebook. So I had to try it out! Granted I made two chocolate cakes in the last week I couldn't eat so I had to go for it. The frosting in the recipe I may have messed up on because it's grainy.... so powdered sugar instead of regular sugar. The cake is also yummy though some ended up cooked and other ended up a bit fudgy (no harm there right). It's a good recipe I highly suggest it. Make sure you cook them for 25-30 minutes, as recommended (I didn't because that was for the cake and mine were cupcakes--I'd say just keep an eye out for them). http://www.instructables.com/id/The-BEST-chococlate-cake-ever...that-happens-to-be/

And now for a taste of things to come: Vegan Kombat!!
My seitan and spinach quiche are done! This week is looking nom noms!

This week weight loss was nothing, I guess this month is slow. However, I've gotten back into running and ran about 22 minutes this week with 3 hours of home zumba and an hour walk. Not a lot but hopefully next week it'll pick up.

Thanks again see you next week!