Day Fifteen

Almost halfway with my forty day fast but already I'm wondering about taking this experiment further. I feel that this diet really suits me - my skin looks clearer, I don't feel heavy or drained after eating, I have more energy and am getting up earlier. Self-denial is also such great spiritual discipline. I feel sharper and more attuned to God, more ready to make an effort rather than take the lazy way out.

This morning I'm really excited about making pancakes for breakfast. Pancakes are probably my all time favourite food! Crepes, drop-scones, american style, rolling crumpets. If it's a pancake I'll eat it! And my top two breakfasts of all time are drop-scones with butter, banana and maple syrup, or American-style pancakes with hot blueberry compote. Well I have blueberries in the house and I feel a need for some nurturing this morning so I'm going to try this this egg-free pancake recipe from a blog I just discovered: http://artofdessert.blogspot.com/2010/06/egg-free-pancakes.html

I'll report back....

Day thirteen

Week two has gone pret well, I'm getting into the swing of things now. My mind goes more rapidly to a balanced diet without meat now, I no longer experience momentary panic about what to include for protein. I have noticed that one of the great advantages of vegetable cuisine is its speed. I takes far less time to knock up a quick pasta supper or tasty salad than it does to cook mince or sausages, even to stir fry chicken. There's less messy clearing up too, and I am loving not having to throw out the soggy veg from the bottom of the drawer because we didn't get round to eating them in time. There are no leftovers, everything finds its way into a meal.

We've had some successes this week. On Thursday I made wee beetroot tarts, very simply, with puff pastry, goats cheese, sliced striped beetroot pan cooked in garlic oil, pepper, sugar and raspberry vinegar, a little more goats cheese, and then pinenuts and chives added at the end. With purple sprouting broccoli and a sour cream dressing it was lovely. Even better though was our vegetarian Mexican feast - so good! We made guacamole, tomato salsa, refried beans (from River Cottage veg), green rice (from Thomasina Meyer's Mexican cookery book), sour cream and chives, grated cheddar, salad and peppers, and little cubes of potato in garlic. It was delicious, much the best veggie meal we've had. And I enjoyed the leftovers as a rice salad and fried wrap at work on Friday. To meal that meal was proof that variety is what makes vegetarian food satisfying.

Day Ten

I mentioned the other day about eating out. I was in Edinburgh all day for back to back meetings and had to grab something in the move. I chose to eat in the cafe where I was having my third meeting - a chain cafe in most university areas with a fairly good reputation. To be blunt, the veggie options were grim. The choices were a vegetable pizza, a baked potato with beans, or the ubiquitous mozzarella panini ( always too much bread, very little rather stringy and flavourless cheese). I opted for the potato, which was as exciting as it sounds. This was quite clearly a case of token options for the occasional person who doesn't eat meat. How awful that our food culture has become so predicated on the idea that we can't be satisfied without some kind of flesh in our sandwidges and salads.

Today I'm back in the big smoke and I picked a vegetarian and vegan takeaway place to get some portable lunch - I actually didn't make myself something deliberately in order to try it. The chap told me they had been there for 28 years and were rated 5star. Certainly it all looked much better - a cabinet of different salads, vegan flapjacks and cakes make with free-range egg, baked potatoes with exciting toppings. I opted for a medium salad tray which contained three types of salad, and a vegetarian haggis samosa (how could I not!) I was so excited to find somewhere that actually specialised in vegetable-based food.

The samosa was amazing - I actually stopped eating to check that it really was veggie because the flavour was so authentic. From what I could tell it had potato, swede, brown rice, oatmeal, nuts, possibly lentils, cayenne, black pepper, mace, nutmeg...

The salads, however, were a huge disappointment. I really couldn't taste the vegetables in any of them. The spinach and mushroom salad was coated in chilli and I couldn't eat it, the rice salad was sloppy and sweet with mango chutney and I wish I hadn't eaten it, and the Greek salad was simply uninspiring. I am so disappointed. I would still go there for a baked potato or samosa!

Why is it apparently so difficult to produce good vegetarian food? Surely in a country with such fantastic agriculture and weather we can do better than this?

Day Nine

The day of the lentils: I ate two types of lentil today, almost a protein overload on this diet. Today was the first day I have felt a little hard done by. This had much to do with defrosting and heating some lamb mince chilli for David for supper - it really did smell very good. But it's also been a day of very hard cognitive work and bitty eating. Breakfast was a wash - the porridge was sloppy and the toast without substance. And after swimming 40 lengths (go me) I just desperately wanted cake. Should have given in and bought a donught.

Nevertheless I was pretty pleased with lunch, so here's the recipe. I just wish it wasn't 8 hours ago...

Rice pilaf and salad - sauté an onion and four cloves of garlic, finely chopped. Add two stems of lemongrass also finely chopped. Add a sprinkling of dried chilli flakes and a shake of ground coriander. Stir in some brown rice, cook for a minute and pour over veggie stock. Cook until the rice until almost fully cooked. Add frozen peas, a few spoonfuls of cooked lentils, chopped dried apricots, and a handful of nuts, toasted and finely chopped. Put the lid back on and cook until e rice is tender and the stock absorbed.

Meanwhile mix leaves like spinach and pea shoots with a thinly sliced avocado. Grate a small knob of ginger into a jar. Add virgin rapeseed oil, soy sauce, a few drops of sesame oil, honey and lime juice, tasting and mixing until it's how you want it. Toast some sesame seeds in a dry frying pan. Toss the salad with the seeds and dressing. Serve the rice topped with the salad and with a pitta bread.

This would work well in a mezze with an aubergine dip, humous, mixed salad, olives and flatbread.

Day seven

It's been quite a few days since I updated - last week was a busy week, but when do I have a quiet week?! So far I'm not missing meat or eggs at all, maybe fish a little. But I don't really feel like the full effects of the fast have kicked in since I visited my MIL's twice and both times was given cake. Of course it would have been rude not to eat it...

The biggest challenge was for sure the tiredness factor. A day in the office followed by a day of back to back meetings in Edinburgh and then a very busy Saturday all contributed to an overwhelming reluctance to cook, or even frankly to think in a more than 'ug, food' way about supper. The result was a pizza and less than fantastic salad on Thursday, a collection of rather better salads with cheese, bread and olives on Friday, and an Indian takeaway last night.

The plain fact is that cooking without a central piece of meat or fish, or even eggs, is simply more complicated. You have to think more about the balance between vitimins, carbs, proteins. You need more ingredients in a meal to make it a stimulating and satisfying dish. Without that dominant dish you need to cook more in general so as to have several equally weighted plates of food, all of which should hopefully complement and spark off against each other. When I'm feeling well rested and in the pink I find such a challenge stimulating to my culinary juices. But once the pressures of two jobs, travelling and so on kick in I can easily lapse into the kind of foodie somnulence I did last week. The best way I can think to deal with this right now is to make ahead some 'ready meals' to keep in the freezer - more on this later...

For the moment here are a couple of good things I cooked in the last few days:

Chargrilled Aubergines - slice an aubergine lengthwise into half centimetre thick slices; lay them in layers in a colander, sprinkling with salt as you go, and leave for 20 minutes. Heat a ridged griddle to high and drizzle on some garlic oil. As you cook, rinse the slices VERY briefly, pat dry and cook on the griddle on both slides until striped and soft. Once you have cooked them all dress the hot aubergine slices with extra virgin olive oil, lemon zest, finely sliced fresh oregano leaves and Saba or sweet balsamic. Leave to marinate for a while and serve at room temperature as part of a mezze or on good chewy bread with crumbled goats cheese.

Apple and port salut salad - core and thinly slice a small tangy apple, and sprinkle with lemon juice. Slice some red chicory leaves lengthwise, and a stalk of celery into thin half moons. Add to the apple slices with two handfuls of baby leaves. Toast a few walnut or pecan halves and cube some port salut or similar cheese. Dress the salad with virgin rapeseed oil and saba, add the cheese and nuts and toss again. Serve with slices of toasted focaccia.

Day Four

I think I am in love with this meat-free eating thing. After only four days I feel really great. My skin is glowing and I have noticably more energy. I had been worried about not feeling full or satisfied between meals but actually I think my overall eating pattern has improved.

Yesterday was a revelation. For breakfast I fancied something with more protein than my usual porridge or musli. Normally that would mean eggs of some kind, but obviously I'm fasting those right now. I chose to try a recipe from the excellent River Cottage Everyday for a banana and oat thicky -that's like a smoothy but with oats to give it heft. The recipe was banana, a tablespoon of oats, an ice cube, and a small glass of milk. I added a shake of wheat germ for extra vitamins and a squeeze of acasia honey. Alongside I had two small slices of a lovely mixed flour and seed bread from an organic shop in Edinburgh. I was so amazed - 3 hours later I still wasn't hungry! For me I think that's a record!

Lunch was also a lesson - who knew that puy lentils were incredible energy food? I made a delicious soup from another River Cottage book, River Cottage Veg Everyday - a puy lentil and spinach soup, though I used kale instead. Going for a swim an hour later I felt so energised. And I repeated the experiment today, taking the leftovers for lunch to the office - another real energy burst.

Tomorrow is going to be a new challenge, it will be the first time I have tried eating out on my new diet. I know from looking at cafe menus in the past that decent veggie options can be difficult to find. The added complication is that I'll be grabbing something quickly on the run between meetings. Here goes...

Day Two

Yesterday went really well. I can honestly say that I didn't notice the lack of meat or eggs, although possibly I was buoyed with enthusiasm at the start of a project. But there was a real excitement about needing to think more creatively about what I was eating. And that is the immediate difference between vegetable and meat based cooking, you can't be lazy. The first thing I noticed was the need to bring more variety to every plate of food, both in terms of the number of options on the table and in the complexity of the individual dishes. Last night we ate a meal made from the remains of the vegetable draw. We roasted chunky potatoes with crushed bay leaves, thyme and paprika. Alongside we roasted some cored bell peppers, and then stuffed them with a mixture of finely chopped red onion, garlic, leeks, rice, paprika, cheddar cheese and basil. The stuffed peppers went back into the oven to warm through and crisp on top, and we ate the two dishes with some baby peas from the freezer.

It was a lovely meal, but the noticeable thing was the way the peas became totally necessary. They provided a splash of vibrant colour and fresh sweetness alongside the two roasted dishes. I have found a similar principle on operation at lunch today. I made a lunchbox of the remaining stuffed

pepper and spare potatoes with salad leaves. For extra protein I threw in some cashew nuts, and then I added half a dozen green olives for variety. It was a delicious mixture. Surprisingly however, it was the bunch of sweet, juicy black grapes I had brought along and spontaneously ate alongside the salad which really made the mixture work. It seems that the key to satisfaction in vegetable cooking is finding a balance between sweet/salty/savoury/sour and between textures: soft/crunchy/juicy/creamy.