Project 365: February 2012

Another month is past so it is time for my monthly 365 update. Still going strong :) Oh and yes, my 365 app thinks February has 31 days. I wonder how it is going to respond tomorrow ;)

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1) Strawberry Smoothie
2) Zoey is making a face ;)
3) Vegetable bag
4) Snow
5) New nail polish
6) Shopping loot
7) Candy
8) Snacks for review
9) Dinner: Bean burgers
10) Vegetable bag
11) A surprise package!
12) Edwin building up the Abunai stand at Tsunacon 2012
13) Cleaned out my nightstand
14) Dinner: Black Salsify-avocado salad
15) Choco bananas match my nails ;)
16) A beauty package I won
17) My first Lush Shampoo bar
18) Dinner: Bean burgers (different recipe)
19) Cat picture
20) Dinner: Pizza
21) Breakfast: home made bread with cheese and cucumber
22) Lunch: Bento with sweet potato curry, red lentil falafel and tomatoes
23) Dinner: Sweet cabbage stir fry with noodles
24) Dinner: Sweet potato mash with green cabbage
25) Breakfast: Home made bread with cheese, cucumber and tomatoes
26) DIY: Braided headband
27) Dinner: More bean burgers with tahin-yoghurt sauce
28) Baking: Arretjescake
29) Owl painting

I spend a lot of time indoors and I have been sick quite a few days this month. This resulted in easy meals and lots of indoor pictures from my new beauty stuff. I hope that with spring arriving, my pictures might get more interesting. However, I mostly forget to take pictures when I am outdoors ;)

How was your month?

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Project 365: January 2012

So I am 3 months in and still going strong. I never have been able to be this consistent with the challenge, so I am happy :)

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01) Saying goodbye to the angry owl that hung on the toilet for over a year, because I got a new calendar now.
02) My new addiction: Nail Polish!
03) New Years Leftover bento
04) Dinner: Baked potatoes, broccoli and fish fingers, all from the oven because our stove broke.
05) Testing my new eye shadow
06) Vegetable bag
07) Trying a new color of nail polish
08) Dinner: Pumpkin-Cranberry Risotto (recipe on my other blog: She Likes Bento)
09) For the stash: Cranberry Muffins (recipe on my other blog: She Likes Bento)
10) My first homemade bread from the machine
11) School day, working with clay
12) The kitty also likes the homemade bread ;)
13) Vegetable bag
14) Pretty colors in the sky
15) Dinner: BBQ Tempeh sandwich (recipe on my other blog: She Likes Bento)
16) Lunch: Homemade bread with cheese and egg. 
17) Dinner: Broccoli Soup (recipe on my other blog: She Likes Bento)
18) Veggies from the market
19) Kitty!~
20) Me before going outside, it was cold!
21) Dinner: Takeout Sushi
22) More kitty~
23) My Round Robin booklet came home!
24) Bento
25) School day - one more lesson in clay
26) Boring picture of my clean table
27) Visiting a farm
28) Having fun at the gopher dinner ;)
29) Lunch - Homemade bread with cheese, tomato and cucumber
30) Dinner: Oven dish with nachos, avocado, bell pepper, corn and sour cream (recipe to come)
31) Dinner: Gnocchi with mushroom-cream cheese sauce (recipe to come)

How was your month?

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Joining the Foodies Reading Challenge 2

I think most of you already heard of this challenge, but in case you don't you know it now :)

This is the second year that Margot of Joyfully Retired hosts this challenge. It is for everyone who loves food and to read at the same time :)

Here is how the challenge works: (copied from the blog)

1. Decide how many food books you want to read in 2012. Pick one of the reading levels below. Remember, this is a challenge, so try pushing yourself. Participants from last year, please notice I’ve pushed the numbers up a bit. Levels:

Short-Order Cook: 1 to 3 books
Pastry Chef: 4 to 8 books
Sous-Chef: 9 to 13 books
Chef de Cuisine: 14 to 18
Cordon-Bleu Chef: More than 19

2. Grab the challenge button and write a post on your blog so we can spread the word. No blog? That’s okay. Sign up in the comments section.

3. After you read each book for the challenge, come back here and tell us about it. On January 1st I’ll provide pages so you can post links for your reviews. We’ll use the same categories as last year: Cookbooks, Memoirs/Biographies, Fiction, and Nonfiction. I’ll also include a page where you link up your Challenge Wrap-Up post.

Guidelines:

The challenge runs from January 1 through December 31, 2012.
You don’t need a pre-selected list of books.
It’s okay to cross over with other challenges.
Any book format is allowed (print, audio, ebook)

Sign Up Here: at the Foodies Read 2 blog.

I will join in at the highest level again which means I will have to read more than 19 books. Because you may also include cookbooks, this is doable for me. The food novels will be reviewed here and the cookbooks on my other blog She Likes Bento. In fact I am reviewing a cookbook there today! So if you are curious, hop over to check it out! I also have read The Kitchen Daughter already and I have borrowed The School of Essential Ingredients from the library. So look forward to reviews of those in the next Weekend Cooking posts :)

My list:
- The Rabbit Food Cookbook - Read
- The Kitchen Daughter - Read
- The School of Essential Ingredients - Read
- Papinette - Read
- Everyday Happy Herbivore - Read
- Home Made Winter - Read
- Veggie Burgers Every Which Way - Read
- The Colour of Milk - Read
- Healthy in a Hurry - Read
- Best Veggie Burgers Around the World - Currently Reading
- 500 Vegan Dishes - Read
- The Restaurant of Love Regained - Read

9 more to go.

Will you be joining the Foodies Reading Challenge?

This post is part of Weekend Cooking. Make sure you check out what other participants are up to, and maybe you will find the perfect book to start off your Foodies Reading Challenge with :)

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Project 365: December 2011

My 2nd month of project 365 completed! There are slightly less food pictures towards the end of the year simply because I only made very easy dishes when the busy holidays approached.

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1) Dinner: Sweet Chili Rice with celery and mushrooms.
2) Vegetable bag
3) Sweet Potato Onigiri
4) Belsammael acting silly
5) Dinner: Carrot Lasagna
6) Bento: Chimichurri rice and muffins
7) Cat in the laundry basket
8) Dinner: Creamy leek and spinach pasta
9) Vegetable bag
10) Bento: Falafel, shii take puffs and muffin
11) Dinner: Gnocchi in courgette sauce
12) Dinner: Baked potatoes, bean burgers and coleslaw
13) Bento: Rice and sajoer beans, bean burger, muffin and apple
14) Dinner: Mini broccoli leek quiches
15) Homework assignment
16) Vegetable bag
17) Dinner: Sushi in a restaurant for Fhants b-day
18) Decorated x-mas tree
19) Homework assignment
20) Bento: Gnocchi in courgette sauce, white bean pate, cucumber and muffin
21) Dinner: Mushroom ragout and Turkish bread
22) Started to read the Night Circus (and still not finished, oops)
23) Random cat picture
24) Chocolate for x-mas
25) X-mas kitty
26) Dinner: The leftovers from family x-mas dinner
27) Silly picture of me with an owl hat
28) Loot from shopping day with friends to spend x-mas money
29) View from the balcony
30) Sleeping kitties
31) Dinner: "Gourmetten" with friends

If you are interested in certain recipes, go take a look at the recipe index on my other blog: She Likes Bento. If I liked something enough to make it again, it is probably on there :)

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Project 365: November 2011

Or I should say: my month in food because most pictures that I took are from food. Anyway, I attempted project 365 before, where you take 1 picture every day. But it was too much hassle, getting my camera out and such, decided what to photograph and when I finally went somewhere, I forgot to bring my camera ;) Now there is an project 365 app on the iPhone and I tired again on my 3Gs because I had it with me all the time. It went better, but the 3G couldn't do any night pictures or indoor pictures so that didn't work either. Well now I have a iPhone 4 which makes better pictures (not that great but it is acceptable to me, I tried again in November and guess what?! I managed to take a picture EVERY day in the past month. Soooo even if it is mostly of food, which is the highlight of my mostly indoor days, here are my project pictures for November 2011.

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1) Dinner: Rice with mixed beans
2) Dinner: Homemade vegetarian sushi
3) Breakfast in bed with cat-table
4) Vegetable bag
5) Cookies!
6) DnD Sunday (Dungeons and Dragons with friends)
7) Workshop painting at by Kris
8) Lap-Warmer while watching TV
9) Dinner: Pasta with Quick Tomato Sauce
10) Dinner: Roti with potatoes and beans
11) Vegetable bag
12) Gooood morning to you too!
13) Bomb and tentacle in my shoe from Sinterklaas
14) Dinner: Mushroom Stroganoff
15) Dinner: Quick Lo Mein
16) Lunch: "Beschuitjes" with cheese, tomatoes and rocket lettuce
17) Lunch: Pizza Muffins
18) Vegetable bag
19) Lunch: Kohlrabi Soup
20) Cat demands attention
21) Dinner: Stuffed Pumpkin
22) My bento for school
23) Sick day with cheeky kitty
24) Snack: Cucumber with nori and soy sauce
25) Vegetable bag
26) Dinner: Samosas with cucumber-yoghurt dip
27) Celebrating Sinterklaas with friends - these are the snacks
28) Dinner: Pesto Pasta and Fennel Beans
29) Dinner: Baked potatoes and rutabaga in peanut sauce
30) Dinner: Sunchoke Soup and bread

So how was your month? After seeing this, I wonder if I shouldn't have posted this on my other blog: She Likes Bento. But I used to post my project 365 pictures here before. Speaking of my other blog, if you are curious about some of the above dishes, you will be able to find a recipe for most of them there. Here is a link to the list of recipes on She Likes Bento :)

Don't forget to visit Weekend Cooking if you are interested in anything food related. The posts from all the participants are a great source for new inspiration!

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Weekend cooking: Durable grocery bags

Normally most of my weekend cooking posts are made on my other blog: She Likes Bento, however for this week I want to turn the spotlight on something different, namely a greener way of shopping for groceries. I think you all know the problem of getting loads of plastic bags while doing your groceries. For example all the plastic around your fruits and veggies or bread for example. I like to look at alternatives myself to reduce the plastic I use in the household and one way to do that is bring your own bag while shopping. And getting my fruits and veggies on the market where they use mainly paper bags.

Copyright Daisy Janie

Janneke of Eco Beauty has brought something to my attention that is even better than paper bags and I would like to share that with you. Since it requires creativity in some cases, I thought this blog would be better suited :) This fabric produce bag shown above is one of the great alternatives that Janneke featured on her blog and you can find a pattern for free on Daisy Janie.

Copyright by LunchSkins

Another great alternative to save plastic is by replacing the plastic sandwhich bags. Those are almost used daily and you can only imagine how much pastic is used by all those families. I don't used them myself very often because I mostly use bento boxes, but on the rare occassions that I do use them I find these sandwhich bags from Lunchskins a good and pretty alternative. And us Dutchies can buy them at Gezinnig.

Copyright by Pink and Green

Lastly I want to focus on these reusable fruit, veggie and bread bags by Again and A-gain. It seems to me that these will come in handy to save a lot of plastic packaging while buying the food we use the most. For the Dutchies available on Pink and Green.

I have to say that I do not yet own any of these items myself, but I hope I will be able to save up and purchase them soon because this is one of the easy ways to make a difference :)

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Foodies reading challenge sign-up!

This will be my sign-up post for the foodie's reading challenge. This challenge is a reading challenge hosted by Margot. The purpose is to explore the world of good food writing. Since I love food & reading, this is a challenge to my heart and I am meaning to do some serious food reading! This is also a chance for me to read and review some lunch & bento related cookbooks for She Likes Bento, my other blog.

I hope to reach the level of a Glutton, which means I have to read 12 or more books in this genre. But it can be anything food related from cookbooks to novels. It doesn't matter really, as long as it is about food. I have made a good start on this and have found some interesting books, I would love to read. I will be including a few bento books and I want to include some food related manga as well. But it will depend on which books I can get my hands on since I mostly read through the library, bookcrossing or buying used books. A list of books will be added here as soon as I know, read or have reviewed the books.

What I have read:
Face food by Christopher D. Salyers
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Runaway by Wendelin van Draanen
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen
Hawaii's Bento Box Cookbook by Susan Yuen
Life from Scratch by Melissa Ford
Ravenous by Dayna Macy
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Fresh & Fast Vegetarian by Marie Simmons
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender 
Vegan Family Meals by Ann Gentry
The Vegetarian Student Cookbook
Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson

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More muffins!

Today I made tomato-mozzarella-basil muffins! They were good!! ^^ I really like these kind of muffins since they are easy and fairly cheap to make :) And of course they taste yum!

I am getting ahead with several goals in a steady pace. I am still watching movies, reading books but now I am in a cooking mood so better make good use of it.

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Potato Muffins

I made potato muffins for my: learn to make 10 different kind of muffins from scratch goal ^^ they tasted good! But it could use some more spices next time. Will make them again probably because they are fairly cheap to make and there are lots of variations possible. I also made a bento in a long time again, and since I want to pick up that habit I have turned it into a goal :) I have to make 50 of them.



As you can see it contains the potato muffins, along with left over chili con carne and tiny sausages. I am a vegetarian so it is not for me, but I like making them. I hope to have updates like this more often on the bento :)

I also have read another book about a girl with a muscle decease and I watched the movie The Island for my movie goal. I am also busy with getting insight in my finances. Which is a big thing for me. Since it scares the crap out of me. But I am getting help within 3 weeks from an organisation, so I am pretty pleased.

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Another update

First off some more wrecking! I collected my hair when I cut my own bangs some time ago. Now I don't normally cut my own bangs because I am not that good at it, however when it gets too long and I have no time or money for the hairdresser, it just need to go XD

Today I planned an activity that did cost less then 5 euro's :) Nick and I went to the petting zoo by bus (4,40 to get there by bus). It was fun ^^ I love animals :) We brought our own drink and something to eat. And we bought 6 eggs for 0,90 cents. And I donated 1 euro there.

I read 2 more books in the meantime :) But I don't feel like writing about it so much. I also tried out a new recipe today :) Spinach, garlic and different kind of cheeses in dough. Loved it :) I need to post it to my cooking blog still.

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Wrecking and new products

I tried out these healthier chocolate crunch cookie sticks last weekend. I really liked them especially the one in the red package. I thought they were so good, i bought 2 more packages today ^^ So yeah this one was a success.




And finally some more wrecking from me ^^ I painted my hands with golden glitter paint and pressed them down, but it does look a bit orange on the photo. I also finally burned the page. It smelled XD The page burned really well, must be more careful next time XD

I also visited a place where I have never been before last wednesday. Went to meet up with a friend I met through twitter in Alkmaar. I did see some of the city center then heading to the toko to get some forgotten ingredients from the local toko and got lost doing so. Luckily my iPhone could give me the right directions and I did find it anyway :)

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Food goals

I went to Bagel & Beans in Sittard when I was visiting Nick. It was my first visit to a Bagel & Beans and I was very impressed. I had a bagel with pesto-cream cheese & avocado. It was delicious! It is my first restaurant I never tried before from the 5 to complete the goal :) Techically it is a lunchroom, but it counts :)



I tried these vegetarian snacks from the supermarket yesterday. Bought them earlier but didnt make them until now. I only liked the half moon snacks. The rest was kinda tasteless. Too bad that my first supermarket goal didnt turn out so well ;)

The pics are blurry because I used an iPhone to make them ;)

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Project 365 - Thursday - Sunday

Oops I forgot to make a picture on wednesday XD So here is thursday till sunday ^^;



I have discovered a new online game! It is called Molehill Empire and it is about farming. I thought it would be boring at first but it is strangely addicting XD I think it is because it is a game you can play inbetween other things ;)



I made another batch of muffins! Chocolate this time. They turned out really good! I took them with me to the Elf Fantasy fair I attended with Abunai last weekend.



Here are the dishes from the sushi workshop XD We had a shortage on warm water and doing the dishes was therefore a real challenge. Somehow I thought this was a funny sight ;)



I had to do some promotion to lure people in our tent. So when these people here catched quite a crowd, I took the oppertunity to hand out flyers to everyone who took a free lollypop XD This is also the first photo that is actually taken from me and not by me. I am very camera shy and I mostly dont approve of the pictures that are taken from me XD

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Project 365 - Sunday till Wednesday

More project pictures from me :)

On easter sunday I didnt crave eggs but sushi ;) So with some improvised ingredients I did make a badge! It holds sundried tomatoes, mackrel and cream cheese.



On Easter monday I went to an amusementpark with mom, het boyfriend and my boyfriend ;) Who is the nutcase on the rollercoaster?



I received more spring themed mail yesterday ^^ I love getting mail!



And todays picture is a blossoming tree on my way to the social worker.

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Project 365: day 3

I made sushi! I stumbled across this ball shaped sushi one day and this is my 2nd attempt at those. The Salmon is on the outside and inside the rice there is avocado-cream cheese filling. I love making these and other kinds of sushi.

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