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Greetings! I'm Annastasia
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I'm bit keen on the colour green and like to ramble on about food, cooking, veganism, refashioning, sewing, clothes, list making, music, reading and anything else that pops up in my overcrowded existence! I'm also one half of Ink Drops because stationery makes the world a happier place.
Category Archives: midorigreen
The handbag 5:2 – make up
My initial plans for the 5:2 handbag project were to go absolutely minimal 2 days each week. So I’d pretty much be carrying keys, purse, phone, glasses and handkerchief. However the thought of continuing to cart so much junk for the other 5 days becam… Continue reading
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What’s in my lunchbox? Best in the sun
Given the amount of meals I base on pantry, fridge and freezer clearouts you could be forgiven for thinking that I either have massive amounts of food hoarded, or that I buy so much food I can’t keep track of what I’ve got.
I must confess I’m pretty amazed myself when I consider what to make for lunch, and uncover ingredients that compliment each other beautifully. It’s almost like I planned it. Maybe I’m subconsciously batch cooking!
Clockwise from top left:
Pasties made with sesame seed pastry and filled with home-made vege burgers (made from tofu, soy mince and …who knows). Both pastry and burgers were in the freezer just waiting for me to put them together.
Salad dressing (in red pot) – a blend of Safflower oil and balsamic vinegar.
Twiglets – I was given a box of these last week and decided they are excellent nibble sized food.
Snack mix – my favourite combination of dates, salted almonds, pistachios, dark chocolate.
Salad with spinach, rocket, red pepper, cucumber, hazelnuts, and the last of the Field Roast meatloaf. Utterly glorious sprinkled with dressing.
Best eaten in the sunshine. Preferably with grass to sit on and a cool breeze from the river.
Wishing you green ink and good food,
Annastasia
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Presumed having a good time
I had a fantastic weekend. It started with lunch at Pogo café on Friday lunchtime. I was delighted by my first visit to this vegan café, run by very chilled out volunteers. A tofu burger and wedges, was thoroughly enjoyed. Desert followed in the form of gooey chocolate tart.
Then I headed into central London for the annual reception for Friendship and peace held at the Japanese embassy. Never mind the UK having a special relationship with the yanks; we’ve got one with Japan too. The Ambassador’s beautifully crafted speech touched on the five pioneers, and William Adams. I had a marvellous time reminiscing with other Pacific Venturers, and chatting with embassy staff about home-made tofu.
I spent Saturday with my burlesque troupe, The Paper Dolls, at the Fling festival in Chelmsford. We were hosting a tent with a mix of performances, crafts and opportunities to dress up. I also managed to wander round and spotted Juke Box Jenny, a beach, the Legs Akimbo sports day, a silent disco, trash to treasure craft (an opportunity to create fabulously crazy home made hats), and a cabaret tent (with performances from Helles Belles burlesque, and Ginger Blush). Happily we were right next to the acoustic stage so I got to enjoy live music throughout the day.
Late on Saturday night I waved goodbye to the fire garden, loaded the equipment into my car and drove back across the deserted park weaving between tents. It was eerie but beautiful.
I then proceeded to spend Sunday picking large quantities of allotment produce, making lots of jam, reading in the sun in the garden, and playing Bass in a hot attic.
And the only photo I took all weekend is the one at the top of this post which is my lunch on Friday. During the busiest and most exciting periods of my life I’ve often failed to keep a diary. Hence I can only assume that this weekend I was lost in the moment. Just too busy enjoying myself to record anything.
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Are you coming to the Fling?
My burlesque troupe, The Paper Dolls, were asked if we fancied doing our stuff at The Fling. As the Fling is a fabulous festival of music, arts and curiosities for over 18s we said ‘yes’, despite the rather tight time scale. If you are going to the Fl… Continue reading
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Things I love Thursday
- My new spectacles – great service from Braintree Specsavers, especially Julie. I’ve never enjoyed choosing glasses so much.
- Getting ready for The Paper Dolls to appear at the Fling – 59 and a half minutes of burlesque here we come.
- Fabulous produce from my allotment – strawberries, rocket, spinach, and oregano.
- Nettle and Plantain tea – still loving the taste and think it is helping with my hayfever.
- Mexican millet – another amazing recipe from Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Veganomicon.
- Reading in the sunshine – something I need to do more of (sunshine permitting).
- Being complimented – on my speed and efficiency at tyre pressure checks by another driver!
- Dark shadows – I found time to watch a little TV and this was a most amusing take on vampires (and it featured Alice Cooper).
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What’s in my lunch box? With extra ingredient
There is something momentous about the dessert in this lunch. It’s not that my allotment is having one of the years where it produces mounds of fantastic strawberries. Or that this is the first time I’ve tried Field Roast meat loaf, and it is as good as I’d heard.
No, this is to do with the Gingerbread rhubarb pie. I’ve made this recipe (based on the apple version from Vwav) many times, and it always tastes delicious. However, I’ve never actually put ginger in it because I’ve never had any to hand. Well no more –this time ginger was present as indicated in the recipe and I must say it did add a certain tang to the mix of spices.
Clockwise from top left:
Gingerbread rhubarb crumble and strawberries – home grown strawberries and rhubarb
Dates, pastachios, salted almonds and dark chocolate – I still can’t get enough of this combiantion
Salad with new potatoes, rocket, spinach, asparagus, spring onions, red pepper, cucumber, Field Roast meatloaf – this was an awesome combo. When I was ready for lunch I tipped it into a bowl to mix it up and poured the dressing over.
The passage by Justine Cronin – reminding me of Stephen King but with less hope
Salad dressing – cold pressed Safflower oil with cider vinegar and garlic powder
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June photo challenge
At the start of June I took up the photo challenge set by Nina from Purplenina. The challenge was to take a photo every day on a theme. You could choose your own time but Nina was going with ‘green’, and that seemed a natural choice for me. I have ma… Continue reading
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The 5:2 handbag challenge
My handbag has tendency to feel uncomfortably heavy. I seem to feel the need to carry ridiculous amounts of stuff around with me ‘just in case’. Being prepared for every situation is never really going to be goer. There’s no way I can be prepared for… Continue reading
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What’s in my lunchbox? Hello Okara
What’s exciting about this lunchbox is that it makes use of the leftover pulp from my soy milk experiments. My first attempt at making soy milk resulted in a huge quantity. I was overwhelmed with the amount of beans and liquid. As a result I don’t think I squeezed out the pulp (Okara) quite as well as I could have. Instead I put it in a tub, and flung in the freezer to use at a later date. And clearly that day has come.
When I’ve had Okara previously, I’ve been able to fry it and get something quite crispy to serve with soy sauce and onions. This time it clearly wasn’t going to work like that. This stuff was extremely moist! So I added some peanut butter and chilli. The result was a thick, creamy satay type sauce. Delicious served immediately but even better with marinated soy chunks mixed into it before baking.
Clockwise from top left:
Strawberry and rhubarb compote with macadamia cream – I wanted to enjoy the first of this year’s allotment strawberries all week so I made compote. I did add some coconut sugar but won’t bother in future as they don’t really need it. I made and froze the macadamia cream (from VWAV) in December so just needed to defrost it.
Spinach and rocket, marinated soy chunks in Okara peanut sauce,and rice noodles – this is such a good combination. A blast in the microwave wilts the greens slightly, and makes this ideal for a ‘summer’ day in the UK.Dates, dark chocolate, pistachios, and salted almonds – my top snack combination at the moment. The flavours all play together very nicely.
Wishing you green ink and good food,
Annastasia
P.S. this week’s lunchtime reading is Attack Alarm by Hammond Innes.
Sent from my iPad
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Sleep buddy
Life is wonderful when it’s absolutely packed full of exciting and enjoyable things to do. As a result one tends to get to one’s bed a little later in order to do more stuff. Which results I less sleep. Now sleep is definitely enjoyable and a lack of it makes the aforementioned exciting and enjoyable things less so.
I like to get up very early (because I obviously need to get on with my exciting life) so I need to go to bed suitably early. However this is becoming less and less the case. It’s resulting in very dull conversation from me as I natter on about how I’m tired, and have a lot on and need more sleep.
So in order to take action on this situation Carla of Ducking Fabulous and I decided that we would operate a sleep buddy system for a week.
I hasten to add that this did not involve us sharing sleeping quarters in any way, or even being in the same location. Instead we used the marvel that is the mobile telephone to send text messages from 9pm entreating the other to begin making preparations for bed.
The great thing about this is that it makes you head in the direction of that wooden hill. You don’t want to have to confess that you haven’t gotten anywhere near your nightcap of hot chocolate/camomile tea/whisky, but are instead pinning images of vegan lasagne. You want to be able to honestly say you are in your PJs and preparing to count sheep.
It’s definitely a move towards more sleep and fewer late nights. Now if I can just find a way to make all the other things in life manageable then there are truly glorious times ahead.
Wishing you green ink and good food,
Annastasia
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