It's not going to be easy...

I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome). Not really a huge deal but it's also not something that can't be cured.

I haven't really read a lot about PCOS other than when I happened upon an article about it in Cosmo which made me get checked out for it, which is nearly 10 years ago now, although I didn't find out that I actually have it until a few months ago. So I decided to do some reading about it to find some other way of controlling it than having to be on the pill all the time.

Turns out that, like with most things, I can control it by diet and exercise. So now I have a whole list of foods I am supposed to avoid. I have however decided that, while I will avoid the foods on the list when I'm at home, when I go out for meal with friends I will eat whatever I feel like.

The stuff I'm supposed to stay away from is; crisps, chocolate, biscuits, potatoes, white rice, pasta, dairy, frozen ready meals, rice cakes, soy and gluten.

After hearing the list quite a lot of people have said: "You're already vegetarian! You won't be able to eat anything now!"

It is true that the items on the list makes eating a lot easier, especially pasta and things with gluten like bread and cereal, but there is still plenty of things to eat. Instead of having toast or cereal for breakfast I have a smoothie, which also helps me getting some of my 5 a day.

It's an adjustment. It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change. I'm not saying it's easy, far from it! It's especially difficult when I'm at work and see all the chocolate, biscuits, baked-goods and ready-meals I should stay away from. The cravings are a nightmare!! How do people manage not to give in to their cravings?! I must admit I've had some dark chocolate a couple of times to satisfy the cravings, justified by telling myself at least it doesn't have dairy in it.

In a strange way I'm kind of happy I have to stay away from all of those things though, it forces me to eat healthier, something I've been meaning to do for years. I mean, how can a home made meal every night with healthy ingredients and lots of fruit and vegetables be bad for you? At least now I might actually get my 5 a day every day.

Now I just hope that I will be able to stay away from the things I'm supposed to stay away from and that maybe the cravings will ease up, or that I will at least have the willpower to stay away from them unless I go out for dinner.

Smoothie week - day 7

For the last smoothie this week I decided to just throw together some leftover fruits.

The things I ended up throwing into the blender are: 1 mango, 1 banana, 3 kiwi, 3 tablespoons low fat natural yoghurt and a splash of orange juice.

Quite tropical so I decided to call it tropical goodness.

This brings an end to my smoothie week, for now anyway, maybe I will have another one later. Have you tried any of the smoothies?

Like I said at the start of this week I do usually make a smoothie every day but normally I just throw whatever I have into the blender without following a recipe. It has been fun to use some fruits I don't normally use in my smoothies this week, and there are still so many different smoothies to make like all vegetable smoothies, or dessert smoothies with ice cream, maybe I'll do that another week. I will probably go back to just throwing some frozen fruits and orange juice together now for my smoothies as it's cheaper and easier but at least I know a little more about what I like in smoothies and not.

What kind of smoothies do you like?

Smoothie week - day 6

Today I made a booster smoothie.

For this smoothie you need 1 apple, 1 pear, 1 handful of frozen berries, a splash of orange juice and 2 tablespoons of low fat natural yogurt.

The smoothie was really nice but had a slightly weird consistency, I don't know if it's the apple or pear, maybe both, or the peel from them since I didn't peel them, I will have to try and remember to do that next time I use either of them and see how the consistency is then.

Smoothie week - day 5

Today I made a banana smoothie, very nice and easy to make, but the worst tasting smoothie so far! I will not be making it again! It was much worse than the banana and mango smoothie, at least I didn't want to pour the banana and mango smoothie out.

This is the ingredients you should not mix if you want to make a tasty smoothie for 2; 1 banana, 1 kiwi, 1 small apple, 1 pear and a splash of orange juice (approx 100millilitres).

I have drawn a big X across this recipe in my recipe book as I don't want to make the mistake of making it again!

Smoothie week - day 4

I decided to make my own recipe today, I had some strawberries that needed using.

I named it Smooth Citrus Kick, if you make it you'll understand why. This recipe is for two people. You need 150 grams fresh strawberries, 100 grams frozen raspberries, 1 banana, 1 kiwi and 300 millilitres orange juice. You could probably use less juice if you wanted to, 250 millilitres should be enough as it wasn't very thick.

I really enjoyed this smoothie, it was cold like I like it because of the frozen raspberries and very fresh.

Smoothie week - day 3

Today I made a Mango and Banana smoothie.

When I found the recipe it said it was for two people but I only got one glass out of it. You can use either mango or papaya for this smoothie, if you use papaya; discard the seeds. You need 1 mango, 1 medium banana, 1 tablespoon of tahini, tahini is sesame seed paste, I struggled finding it but apparently it lasts for ages and now I can try some more new recipes as I got a big jar! You also need 100 ml of orange or other fruit juice, 1 tablespoon of honey and 1 small pot, approx 125 ml, of natural plain low fat yoghurt.

Not my favourite smoothie so far, the first few sips weren't very nice, I don't know if it was the tahini or what, it was drinkable though and I would like to maybe try it with papaya one time. I also think it would have been better if it had something frozen in it to make it colder. If you don't want to hunt down tahini you could probably substitute it with peanut butter.

Smoothie week - day 2

Today I made a Raspberry Smoothie.

For one person you will need 125 grams raspberries, 150 grams low fat natural yoghurt, 2 drops vanilla essence and 1 teaspoon of honey. Because I used frozen raspberries, and I put those in before the yoghurt, not much happened when I turned the blender on, so I put a drop of milk and orange juice through the top hole of the blender until there was enough liquid to make it go round.

Joe thought this was the best smoothie I had made so far and I really enjoyed it as well, I couldn't really taste the vanilla but it was very fresh because of the raspberries, I wouldn't mind making this again maybe I'll try making it with fresh raspberries instead.

Smoothie week - day 1

I've decided that this week will be smoothie week. I usually make smoothies every day for breakfast or just for something to drink other than water during the day, normally I just put something random in it but this week I will actually use recipes and try some new ingredients.

This Banana and Strawberry smoothie recipe is for 1 person.

You need strawberries for this recipe, 50 grams. Do you know how little 50 grams of strawberries is?? 2 strawberries, it's nothing! You also need 1 small banana, 100 millilitres semi skimmed milk, 2 tablespoons orange juice, 4 tablespoons low fat natural yoghurt and 1 teaspoon of honey.

Put all the ingredients in the blender, blend until smooth, pour it into a glass and put the glass in the fridge for 10 minutes.

I thought it would be boring to have to wait 10 minutes before being able to drink it but I decided to sort out the rest of my breakfast and do the dishes while I waited.

The smoothie was ok. I wish I had frozen the banana or strawberries first as I've gotten used to proper cold smoothies but it was still nice. Very creamy. I'm not a big fan of natural yoghurt but I couldn't taste it at all in this smoothie. I think if I make it again I will put something frozen in it to make it colder but other than that it was very nice.

Lots and lots of recipes!

I've been sitting at the library the last couple of days reading about exercise, which lead me to read about healthy eating which in turn of course led me to just "regular" eating. And it gave me an idea for this blog.

Once I (hopefully) get the house I can have themed weeks, food-wise. I can have an Indian week, Italian week, vegan week, soup week, the list goes on... During the themed week I will try to post at least one recipe every day to do with that weeks theme.

Hopefully this will make me try foods I may not have thought about trying earlier, and also eat proper meals instead of just doing something quick like fried eggs or something.

It will have to wait a few weeks though as I would like to have a proper kitchen to cook in and a fridge to store the food in.

I already have a long list of themes for my cooking, but if you have any ideas feel free to let me know!

The basically obscure meme

Another meme from Sunday Stealing

1. Do you notice a person's eye colour? I usually do as I'm talking to them as I try to maintain eye-contact, but I often forget the eye colour, unless it's quite special...
2. If you could get a tattoo free, would you do it? What would it be? Yes, I would get a small pink breast cancer bow.
3. What kind of smoothie sounds really good right now? The one I usually make; frozen tropical mix, blueberries, avocado, banana, egg, hazelnuts and orange juice. The last few times I've also put some passion fruit in it.
4. Have you ever fired anyone? No, but I think I might have contributed to someone getting fired or leaving, I don't like it when people don't do their jobs properly and so I will tell the manager about it.
5. Did you like swinging as a child? Do you still get excited when you see a swing set? I did, not sure if I get excited but I do like to get on them if they are proper "strong" ones.
6. If you could have any pet in the world, illegal or not, what would you get? A tiger! They are so beautiful and majestic, but since they are illegal I will settle for a regular house cat.
7. Have you ever watched the Superbowl all the way through? I've never watched it at all.
8. Which continents have you been on? In a few weeks I will have been on all except South America and Antarctica.
9. Why did you name your blog whatever you named your blog? I used the name Lilly on the blog for myself as I didn't want to use my real name, so I named my blog "The Lilly Pad" as in lily pad; my own personal space.
10. Longest plane ride you've ever been on? Flying to Australia, I think the last flight was 14 hours!
11. If you had to move to another country, where would you move? I am moving to another country! The United Kingdom.
12. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? He would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
13. How did you spend Valentine's Day? I was at work and then I was at home relaxing and playing with my new camera. Valentine's Day
14. Do you eat enough vegetables? Probably not, which is a bit rubbish of a vegetarian...
15. Do you like horror movies? What about thrillers? I used to love them both when I was a teenager but now I seem to scare a lot easier, I could still watch them though but I need a safe pair of arms around me.
16. If you could change your natural hair colour, would you? To what? I liked my hair in the summer when I was younger, it went a nice golden colour. Now it's usually just mousy brown, so I guess I would change it to be that golden colour again maybe.
17. What subject would you take if your were forced to take a free class? I would love to study but I keep changing my mind about what all the time, at the moment I'm thinking maybe a health and fitness class.
18. Do you use a reusable grocery bag? When I remember to bring one with me yes. I used to always keep one in my bag, but now I keep forgetting to put it back in after I've used it.
19. City or nature person? Nature. Cities can get too busy for my liking.
20. Do heights bother you? Can you look out the window on the top floor of a skyscraper? Heights doesn't really bother me. I don't like it on top of a cliff because there's the chance I can fall over and die but I don't mind looking out of windows of a skyscraper.

Shrovetide "Boller"

I know in the UK you have Pancake Tuesday, also known as Shrove Tuesday, here in Norway we have Shrove Sunday, which is today. We make the above "bolle", or sweet bun if you will, filled with cream and jam. I can't even remember the last time I ate those, so of course I had to make some! I was worried that it wouldn't be enough when I used the following recipe, but just one of those babies is enough food for a whole day!

I got the recipe from this website: Tine

Ingredients:

50 grams yeast (or 1 small packet of dry yeast)
3,5 decilitres of full fat milk
100 grams butter
100 grams sugar
500 grams sifted flour (approx, I had to use about 550/600grams)
0,5 teaspoon cardamom
0,5 teaspoon salt
0,5 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg whisked

3 decilitres whipping cream/double cream
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar

Method:

Start by melting the butter in a small casserole, careful so it doesn't burn. Once the butter is melted add the milk and heat it to 37C (for Fahrenheit... just like babies milk; check it on the inside of your wrist). Put the yeast in a bowl, if you're using fresh yeast crumble it. Add the liquid and stir it so the yeast disintegrates

Add the sugar, salt, cardamom, baking powder and flour and knead to a smooth dough. Don't put all the flour in at once in case you don't need it. Cover the dough with some cling film and leave it in a nice and warm place to rise to twice it's size, approx 30 minutes.

When I made it I got 10 "boller" of the dough, although I could have probably gotten 12 if I had made them smaller. Divide the dough into parts (just under the size of a handful), and shape them into balls. Put them on a tray with baking paper, cover the tray with plastic and let it rest in a warm place for another 30 minutes. Sometime within these 30 minutes turn your oven on 250C.

Glaze with the whisked egg and put them in the oven for 8-10 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Whip the cream and vanilla sugar to a fluffy cream, spread the "boller" with jam ( I prefer rasberry) and cream, sprinkle some icing sugar on top, which I forgot, and enjoy!

Hot Lentil Soup

When I was younger I used to eat a lot of soup; meat soup, tomato soup, cauliflower soup, vegetable soup.... Usually, only the meat soup was home made, the rest was usually dry powder instant soup. I remember we used to put macaroni in the tomato soup to make it less boring... I still got sick of it after a while, I still can't eat tomato soup.

When I moved to England I just seemed to stop eating soup. The family I worked for didn't really eat it, I tried a canned soup once when I moved on my own but it was terrible and put me off soups for a long time, so until I started making the extremely simple Potato Leek Soup I hadn't eaten soup for ages. I also tried this Pumpkin Soup, but pumpkin isn't really something they have in all stores in Norway and I have been to lazy to get on the bus to go where I know they might have it just to make the soup as I don't really use pumpkin for anything else.

Anyway. I decided it was time to try a new soup. We have a website in Norway called MatPrat (Food Talk), it's full of recipes, usually with meat, but some of them just need a few changes to make them vegetarian. It's there that I found the following recipe for Hot Lentil Soup. The original has chicken stock and pork in it, but I just omitted the pork and used vegetable stock instead.

I was a bit worried about the amount of tomato in it, and also the lentils as I'v never cooked anything with lentils before, but it turned out really tasty! I made a four person batch and ate myself it all in two days! Of course I guess it might be more filling with the meat in it, I did eat it with some nice bread the second day though and filled up much quicker.

The recipe can also be used as a pasta sauce, just use less or none of the vegetable stock. I think I'll try that one day as it was the first thing that popped into my head when I sat down to eat it.

Ingredients:
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 red chilli, deseeded and cut into thin strips
1 tbs oil for frying
1 can of red lentils ( I think the one I used was just random lentils...)
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 litre vegetable stock
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
1) Sauté the onion, garlic and chilli in a pan with the oil until the onion is glossy.
2) Rinse the lentils thoroughly in cold water. Add the drained lentils and tinned tomatoes to the pan and stir well.
3) Add the vegetable stock and let it simmer for 10 minutes, season to taste with salt and pepper.

A very nice and healthy soup suitable for vegetarians and vegans.

Happy New Year!!

How was your 2012? 

Mine was amazing! I travelled around Australia, visited Kuala Lumpur, Rome, Paris, Dublin and the UK. I made several new friendships that I hope will last a whole lifetime! I hope 2013 will be just as magical!

I saw a great idea on Tracy's blog, Pen and Paper, it's called the first lines meme. Want to join me? What you do is:

"Take the first line of every month's first post over the past year and see what it tells you about your blogging year."

January: Before I start telling you all about my holiday and stuff I thought I'd do a wrap-up of the reading challenges of 2011.

February: Continuation of last week's Sunday Stealing.

March: The highest tide.

April: Living with the carnivorous host family again after I turned vegetarian was a lot easier than I expected.

May: I arrived in Perth around 11pm, I had called Planet Inn Backpackers in advance to ask if they had free airport transfer, which they did, but as I arrived late it might not be available.

June: A Norwegian TV program is currently filming in the place that I'm from, Vestnes.

July: Do you know what's great to have when you have one present that's made up of loads of little things?

August: I'm heading to Paris in the morning!!

September: September has started, this being Norway, the snow might come any minute!

October: I've been wanting to try pumpkin soup for a while now, and when I saw some pumpkin at the local fruit and veg store I just had to buy some.

November: I always get in a bad mood when I get back to Norway after being abroad, probably because I don't actually want to live here.

December: Even before I worked for them I had always enjoyed XXL's ads on TV.

It's been fun to look back at my old posts, and I think you get a good representation of what my blog is: Book reviews, travel, reviews of places I've stayed, memes and the randomness that is my life.

My Christmas

I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas! I know I did!

It was really nice to go back home and see my family as well as my best friend, I will have to try and get up there and see them more often while I'm still in Norway.

In Norway, as I might have written before, we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. When we get up in the morning Santa's been to fill up the stockings with sweets and put one present for each under the tree (My family usually puts the rest of the presents under later in the day).

After we've had a nice Christmas breakfast, and as long as we're not working (downside of not celebrating on the 25th I guess), we read Christmas comics and watch some TV. The Norwegian Brodcasting Corporation (NRK) every year show some Disney favourites as well as two films that I have been watching pretty much my whole life. I think I will have to get them on DVD as I missed watching them when I lived in England and Australia. I also want to get them on DVD so that when I have kids they can grow up watching it as well, no matter which country I live in.

One of the films is a Czech version of Cinderella. Cinderella gets 3 hazelnuts and in each of the hazelnuts there is an outfit; a hunting outfit, a ball gown and a wedding dress. Even though it's a rubbish film by today's standards and it's dubbed with only one man doing all the voices I just love it! I guess it's because I've been watching it probably since the year I was born. The film itself is from 1973.

The second film that's traditional to watch is "Reisen til julestjernen" (Journey to the Christmas Star). This is a Norwegian film from 1976. It's about a little princess who wants the real Christmas star on the top of the Christmas tree (we have stars not angels on our trees). Her evil uncle tells her to go out and look for it in the middle of the night and so she disappears, so does the queen, and so the king curses the Christmas star so that it disappears too! Years later some travellers come to the city and with them is a young girl, Sonja, she tells the king she will find the Christmas star again and when it appears the princess and queen will come back as well. Sonja gets some help from Santa, The evil uncle finds out that Sonja is the missing princess and tries to stop her. But all ends well in the end.

They have also made a new version of this film earlier this year, I'm not sure I want to see it, they've removed the song everyone loves in the original apparently, but then again I guess it's hard to be impartial... I at least hope that if they decide to start showing that one on TV Christmas Eve that they also keep showing the original.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked.

At 5pm the church bells rings Christmas in and a lot of people goes to church, we on the other hand have our dinner at 5pm. At Christmas we dress for dinner. I almost got a bit stressed this year as I was making my own dinner. In Norway Christmas dinner is often lamb or pork ribs, or both as my family has, I've never really liked either so even before I became vegetarian I usually had rice porridge for dinner. This year I made potato and leek soup, very simple but quite filling because of the potatoes. The reason I got a little stressed is because I was getting ready while cooking dinner, so I had to run into the kitchen a few times as I was getting ready to make sure I got everything I needed into the soup. I wasn't just getting dressed, I was also doing my hair, which I didn't decide to until one hour before dinner was supposed to be done.

My grandparents on my mum's side both had dinner with us this year. They get along really well with each other even though they're divorced. My sister was also celebrating at our mum's instead of our dad's this year. It was really nice to be able to spend time with everyone.

After dinner we stayed at the dinner table for a while, everyone was too full to move! That's the problem with Christmas, to much tasty food, it's hard to stop eating! When we were able to move we just moved over to the sofa while some put the dished in the dishwasher. We had a really simple dessert, after all that food I don't think it's possible to have a heavy dessert as well! It's difficult to say what we had because it's all very Norwegian, although one of the things was home-made rice pudding with strawberry sauce.

After dessert we often play boardgames, like Trivial Pursuit,  but this year because there was so many of us (in my family 6 is many) we would have had to move to do that, which nobody wanted, so instead we had a little quiz (my mum, sister and I played a board game Christmas Day instead). I read the questions and whoever answered first got a point. It was really fun, even though I was the one reading the questions I didn't know who was winning because my sister was the one writing the score down. My mum's partner won with 17 points.

We stopped the quiz at 8pm to start opening presents. It kind of varies when we open the presents depending on how old the kids are and how many presents there are but as far as I can remember it's usually always after 8pm.

I have found out that every family opens their presents differently. In some families everyone opens their present at the same time, while others might make the brother open all his presents before the sister opens all hers and the the mother and so on. I my family one person gets the presents from under the tree, usually my sister as she's the youngest, she reads the label; who it's to and from, and then gives it to that person to open while everybody watches. My sister of course gets the most as she's still fairly young, and it's really nice to see her open her present as she's so excited!

The way we open our presents of course means that it takes a while to finish all of them, which means I was really tired by the time we finished. I usually go to bed at 9pm! It was nice though, I love watching people's faces as they open their presents, not just the ones from me but other ones as well. Some people stop giving presents to their siblings or parents as they get older, they focus on the kids, nieces, nephews, grand-kids, etc instead, which is understandable, it can get quite expensive if you have a big family, but I hope I will always give to my parents and my sister, even if it's just something small, it doesn't have to be expensive, just to see the look on someone's face when they get a present they like. You can't put a price on that.

When we did finally finish with all the presents we all just sat and chatted for a bit, or played/looked at our presents before my grandparents left and the rest of us one by one went to bed.

How did you celebrate your Christmas? Do you have any special Christmas traditions?

Pumpkin soup

I've been wanting to try pumpkin soup for a while now, and when I saw some pumpkin at the local fruit and veg store I just had to buy some. 

I did try to find a recipe online, but in the end I mainly just threw something together, I did look at this recipe but mainly just for the method. I've only lately started making soup from scratch, it's SO quick and easy, and the ones I've tried so far have been really yummy as well.

Here is what I used, which was a perfect portion for just me:

Some pumpkin, diced

1 carrot, diced

1/2 small onion, diced

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 small chilli, chopped

1 cube of vegetable stock

a bit of oil

a dash of pepper

Heat the oil in a saucepan over medium heat.

Combine the pumpkin, carrot, onion, garlic and chilli in the saucepan. Cook until the vegetables begin to caramelize and slightly change colour, then cover with water. You want them to be completely covered, but at the same time be careful not to use too much water.

Bring the liquid to a boil, add the vegetable stock cube, then turn down to a gentle simmer and simmer for 20-30 minutes until the pumpkin is soft and breaks up when cut with a spoon.

Put the cooked pumpkin soup in a blender and blend until smooth.

I did put some pepper in the soup, but I didn't really need it since, because of the chilli, it was quite spicy. I will definitely make this again, but with a bit less water as it was a bit too thin for my liking.

I really need to learn to control myself...

Just two stops away by bus, or a fifteen minute walk, from where I live there is a big fruit and vegetable shop. It also sells lots of foreign food, but I've only been there a couple of times and I've mainly focused on the fruits and veg as it's cheaper to buy them there than at the grocery store, and also they have a bigger selection. That is actually one of the things I like about Oslo, there is a much bigger selection in everything than what they have back home. I've got a feeling that if I feel like making a curry or something from scratch one day I will be able to get all the ingredients at that place.

Anyway.

I went down and got some vegetables yesterday, I wish I had brought a backpack or something with me as I wanted to get much more, it was just to heavy to carry everything! Something to try and remember for next time.

I found a recipe for a vegetable lasagne here that I kind of wanted to try out. But I didn't feel like adding the lasagne sheets and a few of the other ingredients, so instead of writing down the ingredient list I just wrote down the procedure and improvised a little bit. It was actually really tasty. I thought it would just taste okay, but it was so tasty I actually ate the whole thing myself, and right now I'm sitting here with a bellyache because I've eaten too much! I thought I would save at least half of it for tomorrow, but I guess I will just have to make it again. It would probably have been a lot more filling if I had added the lasagne sheets, but I also think it wouldn't have tasted as nice.

Here is what I used, sorry, I don't really measure things unless I'm properly following a recipe, and for those of you that are interested I'll put the original recipe at the very bottom.

2 carrots

2 thick slices of swede

A little bit of broccoli

1/2 red onion (I didn't have any "normal" onion)

2 sticks of celery

1 small chilli

3 small squares of frozen spinach

dash of milk

1 box of chopped tomatoes with oregano and basil

1 teaspoon of tomato puré

1 cube of vegetable stock

a handful of grated cheese

about 2/3 of a box of cottage cheese

 - Peel and grate the vegetables. you can use any kind of root vegetable except for beets.

 - Chop the onion. Sauté the vegetables and onion in oil. Stir in the tomatoes, tomato puré, vegetable stock cubes, milk, (cream, spices) and salt (I used lemon juice instead as I don't like adding too much salt to my food.) Bring the sauce to a boil. ( I also added some garlic powder, pepper and freshly chopped chilli)

 -  Sauté the spinach for just a short moment in some canola oil and give it a sprinkle of salt.

 - Layer vegetable sauce, (lasagne sheets), spinach and cottage cheese in an oven proof dish. The top layer should be the sauce (I added a handful of grated cheese but it would have been yummy without it as well.). Cook at 225C on the bottom shelf for about 30 minutes

I wish I had had some nice bread to go with it when I ate, that would also have helped fill me up. I will definitely make this again!

As promised here is the original recipe, it's intended for 4 people;

Vegetables:

400 grams raw grated root vegetables (for example 2 carrots, 1 swede and 1/2 stick of celery)

1 big yellow onion

400 grams fresh or frozen spinach

400 grams chopped tomatoes

For frying:

1 tablespoon canola oil

For the sauce:

0,5 decilitres tomato puré

2 teaspoons vegetable stock

2,5 decilitres cream

2,5 decilitres milk

salt, white pepper, basil

12 green lasagne sheets

500 grams cottage cheese

If anybody tries it, let me know what you think!

Potato Leek Soup

I decided to try something new for dinner today. I found a recipe for potato leek soup on Peta.org, I've not found many soups that has been blended that I like, I normally like to have something to chew even in soups, but this one was actually really nice. I did cut down on the ingredients since I was making it only for myself, I ended up getting two big bowls of soup, since it has potatoes in it it was really filling, one bowl would have been enough, but it was really tasty so it didn't really matter.

Click here for the original recipe. Below is the amounts I used.

1 big leek, white part only, sliced (I chopped some of the green part as well since the white part was so short)
2 medium potatoes, diced
1 vegetable stock cube
Salt and pepper to taste

- Place the leeks and potatoes in a pot. Add water to cover. Bring to a boil. Add the stock cube and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.
- Remove from the heat. Transfer to a blender or food processor and process until thick and smooth.
- Put in bowl and add salt and pepper to taste.

Paris - Day 3. Eiffel Tower, Montmartre and Notre Dame

J and I went to the Eiffel tower Saturday. We got there about 10 minutes after it opened and the line was crazy long! There was one really long line and one short line, but we thought the short line was for people that had pre booked their tickets or something, although thinking about it afterwards I think it might just have been for the people that took the stairs up to the second floor. We did take the stairs down from the second floor though, and I have to say I'm glad I didn't take them up! I would have needed at least one bottle of water for the walk!

We went all the way up to the third floor. The view was great, from all three floors. Although, of course you see more the higher up you get.

After the Eiffel tower we headed to Montmartre. D had told us yesterday that there was a walking tour at 2pm, starting near Moulin Rouge and ending at the Cafe from the movie Amelie. The people leading the tour was supposed to be wearing red shirt and "we couldn't miss them". Well.... You know how when you're looking for someone is wearing red, EVERYBODY is wearing red?! Well that was the case with J and I while we were waiting outside the Moulin Rouge. We waited outside the Moulin Rouge for a while without seeing anyone looking like they were doing a tour, so in the end we got a map from the mini-train-tour and we did our own walking tour of Montmartre.

The cafe from Amelie, Cafe des 2 Moulins, turned out to be right around the corner from the Moulin Rouge. I couldn't remember the name of the cafe from the movie, we just headed inside to see what they had to eat and I recognised it immediately. We didn't eat there though, J and I are both vegetarian and they didn't have any options for us.

I loved the feel of Montmartre, it's really chilled and Bohemian even though it's really busy and touristy at the same time. There were loads of people doing caricatures, and loads of cosy little shops and patisseries.

We also went to Sacre Cœur, it was amazing to see from the outside, we were going to go inside but we weren't really dressed appropriately and, although we did see other people in short shorts going in and out, we didn't want to be disrespectful.

While J was having a rest after out busy day I headed to Notre Dame. It's one of those things I just HAD TO see in Paris. It was even more beautiful than I had imagined from the outside. There was a park outside it which was beautiful and just perfect for hanging out in, and there was a playground for the kids, there was even free WiFi there! 

The line to get in was long, but it moved quickly and since the Cathedral is so big it didn't see crowded once I got inside. It was free to get into the Cathedral, You only have to pay to go upstairs, which is a different entrance, which I didn't do as it was closing in a short time.

Notre Dame was beautiful inside as well, and so BIG! There was a mass or something going on inside, it was pretty amazing to walk around this really old Cathedral and actually listening to something going on even though I couldn't understand it.

When I got back from the Notre Dame we decided to head out for dinner and to maybe sit down by the Eiffel Tower again with some wine. We decided to start out with taking a few pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower again. We saw a bunny sitting in front of the Eiffel Tower, I don't know who it belonged to, didn't look like many people except tourists were keeping an eye on it. Maybe it was on holiday.

There was a guy performing as Michael Jackson in front of the Tower as well. He was actually really good.

It was a good idea we wet to take some pictures before food as it started raining while we were there so that ended our plan of sitting there with some wine. It was kind of funny seeing the very full lawn suddenly empty in 10 seconds as soon as the rain started.

\We found a restaurant close to the Eiffel Tower for dinner, I had some extra money left and decided I wanted to treat myself, but as it turned out the prices wasn't actually that bad! 

Courthouse wedding

My dad got married yesterday. It was just a quick affair at the courthouse. After the long Tamil ceremony at the weekend it was very different with one that only lasted 10 minutes. I think the Tamil one is better for kids though, they don't have to be quiet and sit still, which is good as that would be very difficult for them to do for so many hours!

Anyway.

I think the biggest reason for my dad and his girlfriend to get married was because his girlfriend is waiting for her permanent visa (or something) and a piece of paper that she got from the Philippines stating that she isn't married was running out (it only lasts 4 months), so instead of having to fly back to the Philippines to get a new one it's easier to just get married.

At the courthouse there was me and my sister, a friend and an aunt of my dad's now wife and some colleagues of my dad's as well as one of the colleagues son. I think the little boy was happy that the ceremony only lasted about 10 minutes as well, and that the seats are much more comfortable than in a church!

After the ceremony at the courthouse we went to Vigeland sculpture park and took some pictures of them. I would like to go back to the park one day and wander around as I haven't done that in about 10 years and I've never walked aruond at my own pace and looked at all the sculptures, so the next day I'm off (or feel like it after work) and the weather is nice, I will head down and take a look around and share the pictures with you.

It stopped raining for the pictures so we were very lucky!

After we had taken some pictures we went to Christiania, a restaurant in the city for the wedding dinner. It was only my sister and me as well as my dad's wife's friend then as the others had left after the ceremony. The restaurant didn't have anything vegetarian on the menu, but when we asked them they had a lemon risotto that I could eat. I don't normally like risotto but I have to admit that that one was really nice!

After dinner we went back home and had some cake. Some more people came today for dinner and cake, but we've still got cake leftover. There is always too much cake in any party arranged by people from the place I'm from. If the cake gets eaten up it means it was too little!