Ginger

I grew it myself :)

Balls.

I made these up on the spot tonight because I wanted some sort of energy snack to eat before I run/exercise (and to stop myself from just eating the delicious organic fresh dates I'd bought to make them all at once). These are probably very similar to a million other recipes on the internet.

Ingredients:

1 cup raw almonds
1 cup sultanas
10 fresh dates, pitted
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp spirulina powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp tahini

Pulse the almonds until they are evenly chopped. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until combined. If the mixture doesn't stick together, add a tablespoon or two of water until it does. Form into balls and keep in the fridge until ready to eat!

Spirulina tastes like what it looks like - Green. I like the taste, some people don't like the taste of Green. If you're not sure, perhaps start with a smaller amount :) I put it in my porridge everyday with cocoa powder and it looks like disgusting grey sludge but tastes pretty good. Green, I mean, spirulina, is full of iron, B12, calcium and other good things. As a plus it is easily absorbed.

Meal planning!

Every week we try our best to write a meal plan and stick to it. This saves us a helluva lot of time and money. Time because it means we go to the shops once, and money because we aren't tempted to buy random stuff.

I either go for cookbooks or blogs first. Blogs I tend to use if I see something really inspiring or something that sounds particularly delicious. This week I went for cookbooks (mainly because Nadine bought me a new one - Quick Fix Vegan).

This week I picked out three - depends on how many I can be bothered looking through :)

Then we flick through and pick 2 salady things for work lunches, and dinners to cook every other night with leftovers in between. This way our fridge doesn't keep piling up with leftovers and we don't have to cook every single night. I also write the shopping list as I go so I don't miss anything. It generally isn't very long because I try to keep staples stocked in my pantry (tin tomatoes, beans, rice etc.) 

So this weeks food:

Snow balls in Hell from Quick Fix Vegan. Very tasty, though the balls were a little dry and ther ecipe didn't make much saue really. I'd double the sauce next time.

Moroccan Spiced Couscous from Quick Fix Vegan. This was for lunched and SO SO GOOD. I love cous cous salads and the combination of all the flavours made it pretty amazing. I like to look forward to my lunches while I'm at work.

Fettucine Alfonso from Ultimate Uncheese.  I can't really remember this. It wasn't bad :P

Vegetable Biryani from the Oxfam vegetarian cookbook. Now this one fed us for days - and tasted better the next day then even better the day after that! We used quinoa in it instead of whatever was supposed to be...rice I think. I was sad when it ran out.

Another salad for the week was Soba Slaw also from Quick Fix Vegan. No pictures but that salad was so incredibly good. I could have eaten it all day.

So there you have it. How we organise our kitchen time :)