…but turned out ok. At least the color is really fun. I used what I had in the fridge and cupboards, not too much stuff, but I was too lazy to go shop for groceries. So, this is rice cooked with soy sauce, onions, celery, red cabbage, canned jackfruit and some walnuts that were previously boiled. It’s filling, kind of healthy and my favorite color :).
I was so busy these last few weeks and it seems that all I did was go to school and than wait for the evening to come so that I can go to sleep. Not all the time, I also met friends several times this month and I did embroider and draw a little, but still I had low energy levels in general. But I hope in December I will have more energy to do fun things, too. We had a national holiday and days off from work and we finally tried making sushi rolls, something I wanted to do in a long time. We used rice mixed with apple vinegar with sugar and salt, avocado, carrots, peas and fried shiitake mushrooms. They came out a bit wonky, as we needed some practice for the rolling part, but they tasted absolutely great! And of course, we had the rolls with soy sauce, wasabi and pickled ginger.
This is not a recipe, I only wanted to document 🙂 our first use of a huge cast iron pot we have bought this summer. Our friend gave us fall peaches from her garden, tiny, flavorful peaches that we used to make a jam. We put also a few pears in the jam. It turned out really good. We have plans to make also some other preserve in this pot this autumn (maybe some different jam or some tomato juice), but we will see if we can include this in our really busy days.
Both vegan, of course. We made soooo many cabbage rolls yesterday, we have two big pots that we cooked for this time and the content for another pot in the freezer for another occasion. They are really good. The stuffing is made with chickpeas, soy granules, onions, carrots, pleurotus mushrooms and champignon mushrooms. The cake has nuts and bananas.
It’s vacation already and even if I still have things to do, it will be nice to sleep longer in the mornings. I also plan to draw things, mostly everyday stuff from our home.
My friend made the veganized version of this very usual dish. A comfort food for me and something that I used to eat all the time before being vegan. This version came out delicious and very similar to the non-vegan one, only cruelty and guilt-free.
These are the ingredients: 4-5 potatoes (boiled in their skin and then diced), 1 sliced onion, 4-5 mushrooms finely sliced, the juice of 3 smaller lemons, olive oil, salt, pepper, homemade vegan mayonnaise.
We sliced the mushrooms and marinated them for an hour in the lemon juice and olive oil with some salt. We kept them in the fridge, while the potatoes were boiling and my friend made the mayonnaise.
For the mayonnaise she used corn powder, 4 spoons of boiling water, half of a boiled potato, 3 spoon of mustard, salt, pepper and sunflower seeds oil. She mashed the potato (while the potato is still hot), added the boiling water and then she added the corn powder. Mixed everything and then she added the mustard and the oil, the salt and the pepper. It is a very nice vegan mayonnaise.
At this point all that was left to do was to mix the diced potatoes, the sliced onion, the marinated mushrooms and the mayonnaise and she added a bit more salt and pepper. It was very delicious and comforting.
This is another random dish I have made using all the things I have found in the fridge. It turned out quite delicious, so I write this here to be able to replicate it sometimes. I have used for this dish:
4 small diced onions, 1 large diced carrot, 1 small diced potato, approximately half of a medium sized pickled cabbage that I shredded, 1 smaller cauliflower that I cut in small, rice like pieces, 1 cup rice, cooking oil, some salt (not much, as the cabbage is very salty too), 1 spoon curry powder, 1 spoon smoked paprika powder.
I stir fried the onions, cabbage and carrot with the curry powder, salt and smoked paprika powder until the onion became translucent. I added the cauliflower, the potato and the rice and water to cover everything up and I let it boil till the rice and potato were cooked. It was very tasty and creamy. We added later chickpeas from a can (not pictured in this photo) for some protein and texture.
While many improvised vegan dishes that we make go undocumented :), I randomly took photos of this soup I cooked yesterday. Actually my friend really liked it and she said I should post it here so that we can make it again sometime. So, this is a very simple soup, made with the few ingredients we had in the house on a Sunday afternoon when everything is closed.
The ingredients are: 4 chopped onions, 6 chopped garlic cloves, 4 very large carrots sliced, 1 large parsnip chopped, 6 diced potatoes, cooking oil, salt, 1 tablespoon curry powder and 1 teaspoon cumin.
I stir fried the onions, garlic, carrots and parsnip with salt, curry and cumin in some cooking oil. When the onion became transparent, I added the potatoes and water and let it boil till the potatoes were cooked. That’s it :). It’s the simplest soup, but the taste is interesting, quite sweet from the carrots and flavorful from the curry powder and cumin.
We ate these in different dishes for a week :). 
My birthday was 10 days ago, but I was so busy these days and I neglected my blog. I took a sick day today, in order to heal from a flue, that kept nagging me for some time now. So, I have found the time to take pictures of some of my birthday presents, of the hand made, vintage and second hand ones, my favorite kind of presents.
My friend Rodica made me these beautiful bags. The bigger one is from an interesting fabric that looks like paper.
She also made me the white blouse in this photo. The vintage Japanese yellow cardigan is also a gift from her, but form last year.
This beautiful fancy dress is also made by Rodica, initially for her sister who wore it for some special occasions. But her sister decided to give it to me, as I usually wear fancy dresses with cardigans and such in informal situations, too. I was very glad to receive it. 
My friend Maria gave me a ring for my figural jewelry collection. Also, she transformed for me a nineties troll doll without any hair or clothing. She made the hair out of a mineral and she created for the doll a cosmic dress :). She never liked troll dolls but I like them a lot, so she spend a good deal of time on it :). 
Also, she transformed the cover of a notebook that I used to have since a long time ago, but I didn’t want to use it as I was embarrassed by the colonialist map on its cover. This transformation deserves its own post, in details. 
My favorite coworker gave me this set of geometric shapes used by teachers in the eighties. I wanted such a set for a very long time, but it is kind of expensive to buy online and I have never found it at the flea market. I was very happy to finally have them! They were produced in a factory from the town I grew up in. 
Another coworker gave me also a beautiful gift of a book she illustrated, a tasty syrup and this soap she had made herself and wrapped in a doily. 
Oti found at a second hand shop this cute t-shirt. 
And the kids at school gave me these flowers that we have planted in our urban garden. 
It wasn’t only my birthday last week. Our dog Cici was born sometimes in October, this is the time frame our vet estimated. So, he put down in her id the same birthday as mine. We had celebrated together :). 
I made this salad today. It’s some sort of variation on a tabbouleh salad, a dish that we really like, but I’ve made it with the ingredients I had in the house. We had a long walk with our dog Souris who is in training these days (he learns to socialize with people and dogs), so we were too tired and hungry to go grocery shopping for lunch. We had in the fridge only some onions and a large bag of cilantro. So, I came up with this rice and cilantro salad.
I chopped two large onions and a small piece of ginger (that I tried to chop finely). I stir fried these in cooking oil with salt, a tea spoon of cumin and 3 table spoons of capers. After a few minutes, when the onion became translucid, I added one and a half mugs of rice with water. I let the rice cook and meanwhile I chopped the cilantro and one large onion.
After the rice was cooked, I let it cool and then mixed it with the cilantro, the onion and 2 more spoons of capers.
It came out really good, the ginger adds a nice flavor and the capers add the salty and sour taste that this salad needs. It’s really healthy too with so much cilantro that would have been otherwise difficult to use before it goes bad.
We also had blueberries mixed with vegan yogurt for desert.
stories of objects 