A whole month since my last vegan post! Shocking! Blame it on moving house, apathy or laziness, alternatively, blame it on all three!
So, it’s Christmas Day tomorrow and apart from making a nut roast earlier, I don’t really know what we’ll be having. I’ve never been one to decide on a meal weeks in advance as I don’t know whether I’ll feel like eating it in on the day. I know nut roast sounds a bit of a veggie cliche but I haven’t had one for years and they always taste really good cold (especially with the pickled walnuts I got from www.britishcornershop.co.uk). For breakfast we’re definitely having banana pancakes which have become an absolute favourite with junior since I first made them last week. They are just so quick and easy to do and junior likes to smear them with ‘Sweet Freedom Natural Sweetener’ from www.veganstore.co.uk

Something traditional that I always do at Christmas is the cake. Now, when living in England it was so easy to get vegan marzipan ready to roll out and place on my cake. Not in Skopelos. Was I able to find any almonds that weren’t still in there skins? No I wasn’t. Hence my fingers are worn to the bone from slipping skins of flipping almonds and then breaking them into pieces and trying to grind them fine enough to make into marzipan. You will therefore have to excuse this picture of my cake with the rather ‘rustic’ looking marzipan layer on top.

It may not look like the sanitised version of marzipan that I am used to but hey, it tastes fine (although junior declined to finish her piece earlier - fussy child). I dispensed with the icing because, who likes icing? I’ve always found that the icing on top pushes the cake over from sweet to sickly sweet.
Whatever you’re eating tomorrow (hopefully vegan!!) I hope you have a fantastic time and a very Happy Christmas.

Since my last post Junior has metamorphosed into a child who will try anything. This sudden turnaround has been as welcome as it has been unexpected. The only explanation I can find for her change in attitude is because with Sean being away most of the time in Volos, I’ve been saying how lonely it is eating on my own with no-one to talk to and how much nicer it would be if we could sit down together and share the same food. Well, whatever the explanation, it’s worked and she is now prepared to try everything I put in front of her. She may not eat it all but at least she’s trying.
The potato I was going to try her on last time went down moderately well in the form of mashed potato (which is my ultimate comfort food), although the carrot with it went down even better of course. I’m pretty convinced junior is part rabbit! When Sean returned from Volos he witnessed junior putting a homemade vegeburger in her mouth without first forensically examining its entire contents. She just picked it up like she hadn’t been a complete foodie nightmare for the past 3 years’. Sean’s convinced that she’s been swapped with another junior but I don’t really care as long as I can keep this one!
Last week she was off all week with a stinking cold so I didn’t try and push too many new foods on her as I didn’t want her getting any more upset or whingeing at me any more than she already was doing. In situations like these you have to fall back on the old favourites like carrot, except this time I made it into a soup. Just what you need when the weather has turned a bit cold and miserable.

Very wholesome and nutritious and so successful with the small one that I’ve bought her a thermos flask so she can take some soup to school for her lunch. Less successful with junior was the marrow and tomato and the mixed vegetable stew with rice. To give her her due she did try both of them, no point blank refusing like she used to do only a couple of weeks ago. I’m still in a state of shock as to this dramatic turnaround so I suppose I shouldn’t get too blasé in case the old junior returns!

Following junior’s decision to try pineapple, Sean brought one back from Volos which was cut up and presented for her approval. Well, her face was a picture, Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ to be exact, you’d have thought I was trying to get her to eat poison from the pained expression on her face. The upshot of this was she licked a piece of pineapple and ate a piece the size of a hamsters toenail. Result (said in a sarcastic tone). Refusing to be defeated, I asked what she’d like to try next from the Vegan food pyramid. She picked a cauliflower. I dutifully made cauliflower cheese of which she ate 2 mouthfuls - well they would be mouthfuls if her mouth was the size of a pin head! So not such a great success then. Yesterday was lentil soup and crouton day

which I have to say was absolutely yummy. Junior was pleased with the croutons but less awed by the soup. She ate 6 croutons from her soup but refused to try any of the soup on its own. Defeated? Not yet! Today is potato day. I love spuds, especially mashed and so that is what junior and I will be doing later.
I made cinnamon and raisin bagels yesterday which are really not photogenic enough to be shown here. It was a different recipe to the one I normally use and I don’t think I’ll be using it again. They are edible though so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. Junior ate half of one but when I offered her the other half, she politely declined. She’ll always try sweet things and give the impression of enjoying them and then won’t eat any more. Similar scenario with the fruit loaf below,

she ate one piece when it was fresh out of the oven but has refused to have any since. With Sean in Volos most of the time it has fallen to me to work my way through the loaf on my own. It’s been tough but I’ve nearly finished it
Talking of Volos, Sean came back on Saturday with a vegan treat for our dinner.

He even prepared it himself with artistic ketchup design. Oh it’s nice to have some fast food once in a while.

Now if you’ve read this part of the blog before you’ll know that junior is rather particular (i.e. fussy) in what she eats. Unfortunately things seem to be going from bad to worse. I know they say when children are fussy eaters they’re merely seeking to exercise some control over their environment in the only way they know how, but as junior seems to control every other aspect of her life I don’t see why she has to control this one as well!
Yesterday morning she had the normal coco pops with soya milk and a drink of chocolate soya milk and then I packed her lunch and took her off to school. On her return over 6 hours later I find the only thing she’s eaten out of her lunch bag was a banana. In spite of only having her cereal and a banana all day she was bouncing around with energy and as lively as ever. Now, I like bananas and yes, they do give me a bit of energy but not that much. I wondered if she was eating other food at school but she says not, I even asked her if she’d like to try some food like daddy eats (i.e eggs or meat - showing how desperate I was feeling) and she just said “why are you asking me that?” I tried to explain that I was concerned about the restrictions she was placing on her diet (she’s a very wordy 5 year old with a large vocabulary so I can use bigger words!) and wanted her to try some new things. I then suggested we make some soup with carrots and lentils to which she did her usual thing of saying it sounded yummy and she’d be happy to help make it but she wouldn’t want any to eat. The conversation deteriorated after this and I ended up taking deep breaths whilst she sat in her room screaming. Oh joy!!! After a good 5 minutes’ of venting her spleen she decided she was hungry and I bribed her to eat grated carrot, sweetcorn and wholemeal toast by promising her a square of chocolate if she finished it all. Oh the depths I’ll sink to, they really know no bounds.
Later on we printed out a picture from the net of a Vegan Food Pyramid which we are going to study together later today. After a cursory glance, junior decided she’d try pineapple! Odd one I know but I think it’s because I love pineapple and she’s seen me eating it often enough. Next week I’m aiming for a vegetable!
With Sean working away I’ve not really been bothering much on the food front though I did make rice pudding last night as that is something junior will always eat. She won’t eat rice at any other time but stick it in a pudding and she’s happy! On Halloween (in lieu of a pumpkin, which we couldn’t find) we made some Zombie cupcakes with real zombie blood inside (aka jam).

Junior decorated hers with raisins and then ended up just eating the raisins because she didn’t like the jam inside! I tried to tell her it was only blood but that didn’t seem to help funnily enough. Never mind, I got to eat a lot of them so that was okay.
Due to my fondness for mushrooms I like to find different things to do with them (I mean edible things!!) and the latest favourite is a curried mushroom and tomato thing which reminds me of a takeaway dish I used to have in Blighty. As you’ll see from the picture I’m not heavy on the presentation side of things but as long as they taste good I don’t really care!

Sean will be back from Volos either today or tomorrow so hopefully I’ll have some more nice veggies to tinker with. If I make anything worthy I’ll let you know!!

Now if you don’t live on a small island with limited local produce and vegetables which look like they’ve travelled the length and breadth of Greece before they’ve arrived at their destination, then you won’t be excited by the above picture. Obviously, living on Skopelos, the above picture fills me with a warm glow and happy thoughts! These and a bunch of runner beans were brought back from Volos by Sean from a greengrocers displaying such a plethora of edible vegetables that he forgot to get the one thing I asked him for - onions. He was thus sent out into the dark corners of the Skopelos purveyors of vegetables in order to get an onion so I could make dinner which was chana masala (with added cauliflower just because I like it!).

I love chick peas and I love curry so it was a win win situation really. Needless to say we scoffed the lot in one sitting!
The tomatoes in Sean’s Volos offering have been eaten just mixed with onion and some olive oil because he loves his tomatoes and doesn’t like them messed with too much. The red cabbage was cooked and then cooled before I mixed it with lots of flavourings, put it in the fridge, took it out the next day, tasted it again, and then put loads more stuff in with it. Trouble with doing that is I have no idea what I put in so I’ll never be able to do it again. Tasted good though and makes rather a pretty picture.

Some of the courgettes were lightly fried in oil with mushrooms and garlic and then tossed in a pan with some spaghetti. Simple, quick and tasty. It was quick to eat as well so no picture. The rest of the courgettes along with some of the beans went into last night’s tea which was supposedly a green vegetable and lentil kedgeree.
After deviating from the recipe, as I always do, it still didn’t taste how I thought it should. Probably because I have fond memories of kedgeree from childhood as my mum used to make it so well. She was a great cook and a great cake maker so all my expectations of food are based around those memories of childhood meals. It’s not just the tastes but the smells that evoke that kitchen I used to stand in as a child helping my mum by peeling onions or chopping up fruit. I’m trying to pass on to my daughter what my mum passed on to me, the naturalness (can’t think of a better word) of getting some good raw ingredients and making them into something wholesome and nutritious. Good honest food is what I suppose you’d call it and it sure means a whole lot more to me than some fancy dressed up plate or poncy little portion. So with the 21st anniversary of my mum’s death this Wednesday I’d just like to say, thanks mum, for passing on your knowledge, skill and enjoyment of food.

So, as mentioned in the previous post, the day before junior’s party was to be taken up with baking. It’s not so much the actual making of things that takes so long, it’s the waiting for them to cook and then cool down. The gingerbread men were first, all twenty odd of them, then the carrot muffins (which I could make with my eyes closed) and then mini disaster struck with the double chocolate chip muffins. I don’t make these particular muffins very often and I’d forgotten that they actually take a good 10 minutes’ longer in the oven than the recipe states. So soggy muffins soon became droopy muffins and could not possibly be presented to the world in that state! Another chocolate muffin recipe was found and everything was okay again. Coconut muffins followed and then I had to go and collect junior from school which put paid to any more baking for that day.
The next morning found me in the kitchen making chocolate brownies and then deciding that maybe there weren’t enough muffins and so making some lemon ones. The idea of shaping the muffins into the number five was abandoned and instead this is how they were laid out.

The lemon ones went down very well with the adults, so well in fact that I didn’t get the chance to try one although, of course, Sean did, and he pronounced them “yummy”.

Junior grabbed a carrot one and wolfed that down, followed by a chocolate one. She’d already had a couple of gingerbread men, a brownie and a banana so no wonder she was full of energy.
The only non vegan articles on the table were a couple of cheese pies supplied by the cafe for a ’savoury’ taste. Of course not many people eating the cakes and brownies knew they were vegan but they all pronounced them delicious which just goes to show that you can make great tasting cakes without using eggs or butter.

Well I didn’t get the care package of veggies from Volos as Sean was in too much of a rush for the boat! However he is back there next week so hopefully this time he’ll deliver.
Of all the things in the world that junior loves to eat (which aren’t many admittedly) pasta with pesto is top of the savoury list. I’ve been meaning to make it for her ever since we’ve moved over here but have been deterred by the price of pine nuts. For the amount I wanted we could have had a holiday in a 5* hotel! However I did manage to come by some and quickly made junior her pesto. She ate it but did comment that it looked a lot greener than the pesto she was used to which I told her was because it was a lot superior and fresher than shop bought pesto. She seemed to accept this as perfectly reasonable and polished the bowl of with some alacrity.

Yesterday, being her birthday, meant cake. Carrot cake to be precise. There’s a photo on the living in Skopelos bit although it’s only of half of the cake as we’d already eaten half before I thought of taking a picture!
Party on Saturday means more cake baking but due to Junior’s previously mentioned aversion to icing, I am dispensing with the traditional cake idea and instead I’m making lots of muffins which I’m then going to shape into the number 5! That’s the idea anyway. So tomorrow’s to do list reads as follows; 1 batch of gingerbread men, 2 batches of chocolate brownies, 6 carrot muffins, 6 double chocolate muffins and 12 coconut muffins. It’s a good job I like baking!

I am shocked to see that it has been over 3 weeks’ since I last posted. Obviously I have been eating in this time though not always taking pictures. As the weather has been cooler it’s been time for filling stews which last a couple of days (I don’t mean they’re that filling that you can’t eat for a few days’, I mean I always make loads!) and curries. My quick and easy curry which I’ve been making for more years’ than I care to remember is ‘hot touch curry’ which turned out rather more hot than usual in the latest batch as I had a minor slip with the curry powder.

The bluriness of the picture is due to the steam rising off it. I love it and it tastes even better the next day when it’s had time to ‘curry up’ a bit more. Stews also seem to taste better the next day, in fact the last veggie stew I did was so good the next day that I ate it cold so I could really taste the flavours. You’ll just have to take my word for it as I forgot to take a picture. I’ve always enjoyed bunging loads of veg in a pan and letting them all cook together although I have to say that the veggies here on Skopelos leave a lot to be desired. In England we used to get an organic veggie box delivered every fortnight and it was really good trying all the stuff that I maybe would not have bought otherwise. Here however, the shops seem to get the dregs of the vegetable world. I don’t know what this is due to - transportation from the mainland being too slow, poor shipping conditions, lack of local availability - whatever it is, it makes the prospect of vegetable buying a chore rather than a pleasure. I know that growing our own would be the ideal solution but until we have a place of our own, that is not a possibility. Sean is in Volos on the mainland and he says the choice and quality of the veg over there is really good, so I’m getting him to bring me a care parcel back!

As the evenings have started to get a little cooler, the thought of standing over a hot oven has become a little easier to bear. This means I’ve been making a bit more of an effort on the old food front. Having some manky bananas and not wanting to make the usual banana brownies I searched around and found a couple of recipes, one for banana bread cookies and one for banana and sultana loaf. The cookies were (and still are) a great success

however the loaf was not such a success. It tastes fine but its appearance leaves a lot to be desired hence there is no photo. I don’t think it was the fault of the recipe more operator error due to the fact that whilst I was trying to work out weights and measures I had a cat screaming at me for food and a small child constantly talking drivel!
Last night I made cheeseless macaroni which tastes great (not to junior of course who viewed it with distaste and a wrinkle of her nose).

The recipe didn’t state how many it was for so we’ve got plenty left for lunch today which is no bad thing. Saves me having to think of what to make.
I’m currently awaiting the arrival of a breadmaker, something I’ve been meaning to get for years but which is even more necessary over here as the cost of buying fresh bread soon adds up. I’m hoping the instructions will be in english as well as greek or God knows what will end up coming out!

I could seriously kick myself (if I didn’t already have a broken toe) for not taking my camera with me when we went out to eat last night. We went to the Ditropo Restaurant, which is in Ditropon, with a friend Rosie who has a house she’s renovating over here and who is going back to England today.
The Restaurant only opens at 7.00 in the evening and they also have a cafe and a shop on the same site. James Villas also have two rental properties there and if you’re going to stay in one of them, you must eat in the restaurant.
So, let me set the scene. We arrived as the sun was setting which gave a lovely sight of a beautiful redness sinking down behind the hills and into the sea. Being away from Skopelos Town, it’s quieter and feels more relaxed and eating outside was lovely and cool. The menu is pretty comprehensive and it’s not cheap but the food and the presentation are excellent. We ordered (omitting the one meaty thing Sean had) aubergine salad (which was actually like a dip and was so beautifully flavoured), vegetable balls, stuffed vine leaves, stuffed pumpkin flowers, summer salad and a greek salad (last two not vegan due to cheese). The flavours were delicate and each dish had its own distinct taste. Absolutely delicious.
To add to the general ambience, there was live music too with two guitarists which, of course, junior greatly enjoyed. A very pleasant evening out.
We’ll be going again towards the end of the season next month to discuss doing a brochure and this time I promise I’ll take the camera!