Re-solutions, February

January has come and gone and I have been loving my green smoothies for lunch. This will definitely continue!. I can't say I feel skinnier, fitter or less tired but it tastes good and I feel good for doing it. I guess those things will just happen right?! 

So now to February. Dairy free February to give its proper name - which is actually where this whole idea of Theme16 (can I make this a hashtag?) came from. 

I'll be honest, I spent the weekend in Hawkes Bay staying with a friend's parent who was terrified by the idea of cooking for a vegetarian. So it would have been rude to have turned down the gorgeous cheese and onion quiche or the cheese platter at the vineyard. And definitely the ice cream after our day at the beach. But now I'm back in Auckland I have been taken this dairy free thing pretty seriously.....well, except for milk in tea. I love tea and I have probably 3 cups a day with maybe a teaspoon of trim milk in each one.....I doubt that tiny amount is going to fuck up my experience of no dairy for 20 something days....but if anyone knows of a good milk substitute for tea please let me know! 

Anyway, I wanted to use this as a chance to get into vegan cooking - I have the magical Grit diner cookbook of which I have maybe used 3 recipes (but I make them all the time, nom!) that I want to play with. Their tofu bacon is a revelation for us veggies who hate missing out, it means I can have a BLAT whenever I want one! This morning for my Saturday breakfast I made this,

http://minimalistbaker.com/southwest-tofu-scramble/

And it was gorgeous! I guess the time thing is what I'll find it the hardest - a scrambled egg takes 5 mins tops, this was around 20 mins. But tofu is a good substitute for eggs and at the weekend I have time. 

I don't miss cheese yet........but I suspect I'll be craving a pizza soon. As a self professed queen of pizza this is what I'll miss the most. But I need to keep repeating the motto "cheese is what makes westerners fat" (a brilliant piece of truism from an Indonesian guy we met in Flores. There's very little dairy over there and when we were there for 2 months eating nothing but rice, tempeh and eggs, I got pretty healthy looking!). I am tempted to give a vegan pizza a try, as I'm not sure Andy will want to go a whole month without pizza even though he'll face the wrath if he eats one in front of me! 

But I am open to recipes to feel free to send some my way!