Playing with adjustments

Today is gone so fast! And I didn't even begin to pack for my trip to Paris; I'm kinda sick of the packing-unpacking routine, but I can't wait to be there tomorrow night!

I ate

• Breakfast (still in San Valentine spirit!)
• Lunch

Grilled Eggplant on grilled Bread

with Hummus

Green and Carrots salad

with mixed seeds and honey

Apple Pie filling

with vanilla Kefir

and Pomegranate seeds

• As snack I had some a lot of greek yogurt, along with two Cookies and Pomegranate seeds (again)

I played a little with the exposure/saturation and other random adjustments; not sure of the result... Do you like it?

• Dinner was meh... I made a kind of pasta salad that turned out more flavorless than I expected since I put a lot of chili pepper in it.

Whole wheat Pasta

with Brussels sprouts,

Broccoli,

1/2 potato

Chickpeas

Tomato salsa

***

I ran

3 miles as planned. I urgently need to change my playlist since it's becoming boring! I also did some yoga while studying.

After this really interesting post (AH!), I'm off to packing a little, at least!

Mmm I've just noticed that I never register my glass of milk before going to bed (I drink it since I was a child), so I was wondering:

Do you also eat/drink something before going to bed

just because it's an habit and somehow it feels so good?

Mascarpone cream chocolates

I made this uber-easy chocolates the last Sunday to bring them to my Dad's dinner since he doesn't like Apple Pie (more for me, ah!). After doing them my kitchen (ok, my Mom's kitchen) smelled like a chocolate factory and the best part is that you can lick the spoon after!

Ingredients

(shortest list ever!)

200 gr good quality Dark Chocolate

200 gr Mascarpone

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Chop 100 gr of chocolate, put it in a small pot and place it on a bigger pot filled with lightly boiling water (water bath). Mix it with a spoon until completely melted.





2. Spread the  melted chocolate on 20 small muffin-cups, turn upside-down the cups to let them dry.



3. For the filling, melt the remaining chocolate; put the mascarpone cheese, the melted chocolate and the vanilla extract in a bowl and amalgamate well. Put the cream in the fridge for a while.





4. Put the cream in a pastry bag and fill the cups. Garnish with cacao powder and almonds.



Yum Yum.

No one were left!

Today's summary

I'll be brief since I have two new cooking magazines on which I need to droll, a serious session of blog reading and a "the biggest loser" episode to watch. Matter of life of death!

Daily food

• Breakfast (totally random)
• Lunch. I munched on some cauliflower before lunch while trying to figure out what to do with them, I thought that maybe with the taste I would have discovered a brilliant and revolutionary recipe, this obviously didn't happen and I ended up cooking them in the oven with chickpeas and black olives, tossed with oil, white and chili pepper.

This was actually the side dish. The main dish was this

Veggie Burger

with mustard and cherry tomato

on whole wheat grilles Bread

plus an Orange

and a Caffèlatte (with soy milk)

• As snack, I had a almost burned grilled (I'm going a little grill-crazy here =) banana with vanilla Kefir (yum yum) and Pomegranate seeds
• Dinner was as easy as fabulous!

grilled spelt Flat bread

with cottage cheese

grilled (ah!) eggplants

mixed Greens

with Pomegranate seeds

oil and honey as dressing

along with a Pear

Daily Workout

I walked on the inclined treadmill for about one hour (3.5 km) while reading some school stuff, then I stretched a little bit. Nothing special, but I was too much concentrated on my reading for really caring about what was going on with my legs!

***

Just a question to finish:

Do you read cooking magazines?

I read them for the fab food, but mostly for the gorgeous photos. I would soo much being able to produce such beauties!

DIY: Light box (like a pro)!

First of all:

What is a light box?

A light box is simply a white box used in product photography to show details of an object clearly. Lighting an object well brings out details and provides pleasing highlights. Light boxes are also particularly indicated for food macros and, in my case, I built one for taking better picture of dish when the natural light isn't available, since the yellowish light of bulbs of my lamps is U.G.L.Y.!

Some time ago, I found a really handy guide explaining how to make your own light box (since the professional ones are really pricey), but I'm so sorry I couldn't find the link again.

Materials:

5 sheets of foam board

white tape

2 (or more, if you like it) lamp

daylight bulbs

razor knife

straight edge

1. Attach the left and right side to the bottom

2. Attach the top and the background

It's simply a cube, nothing too difficult! (if I can do it, everyone can!!)

3. I waited this evening to try it. These are the result (I'm not sure I've done everything right, but ate least the yellowish light isn't more a pain in the ass!)

(I actually put that thing in my hair)

Before

After (maybe too much fluorescent)

The whole thing looks like this

I bought to lamps with clips so that I could move them as I like it; while shooting they were hung on the left and right side.

So that's it! I'll probably add a kind of hole on the top to shoot in bird's-eye view. If you have any suggestions on how to do things better please tell me!

For me, it's just a success the fact that I didn't cut my finger off with the razor knife! =)

I think I'll use this on cooked food tomorrow evening, let's see!

Tuesdays are boring

Am I the only one or do you also think that Tuesdays are worse than Mondays?

The fresh start feeling of Monday is gone and the weekend is so far away. Definitely the worst day of the week, in my opinion.

So, to just confirm what above said, today was totally meh

The eating

• Breakfast
• Lunch started following a recipe until I realize mid-way through that I didn't have almost half of the ingredients (this is what happens when you choose only looking at pictures and not reading the ingredients!). I ended up having a very nice meal, my cooking skills are finally improving!

Quinoa and Spinach Casserole

made with cooked quinoa,

frozen spinach,

sautes with oil, garlic, chili pepper and pepper

a spoonful of cottage cheese

1 egg white

and more oil for grease the ramekin

Brussels sprouts as side dish

and an Apple

• I had a super-early mid-afternoon snack before heading to the gym of coffee with almond milk and some too much mixed cereals
• Dinner

Dipping your hand in a sack of grains

Minestrone del Contadino

with Spinach, extra-virgin olive oil,

whole wheat Bread

and a Pear

***

The working-out

I ran 3 miles as planned, but it was much tougher than I thought, I totally blame my new shoes since after my huge snack I had all the necessary energy! Maybe I just need to get used to them.

***

Now I'm off to watch Gossip Girl.

Have a nice evening. Or day? Or whatever!

Book Review: The Vegan Girl's Guide To Life

I've finally put my hands on this book and I read it cover to cover in no time. It's fabulous!

Premise

I'm not vegan and I'm not yet sure if I want to become it, but this book made me think more seriously about it and it'll surely be a HUGE help if I'll decide to do so.

I won't enter the merit of the choice since I think it's a totally personal area (and I also find it annoying when someone ask it to me) nor of the cruelty towards animals, you are free to inform yourself about these themes (check this GoVeg.com). It's more a "point per point" review since the book isn't new and I'd like to share with you my impression and thinking about it rather than writing a full review (you can find one here).

The Vegan Girl's Guide To Life

1. The book is full of helpful advices and cover pretty much all the issues that you could face in dealing with a vegan diet and lifestyle. But these tips are really US oriented for the majority, I know I'll face a lot of different issues as a European (especially since I divide my eating between Italy and France).

2. I loved the shopping session. I had no idea there were so many cute cruelty-free clothes and shoes out there; I've always thought: vegan= boring and hippie clothes, I know it was stupid but until I actually  saw how cute a vegan shoe could be, my idea remained the same. I'm already checking all my clothes labels =)

3. The nutrition chapter is well-written, but, as a vegetarian, I already knew and tried to comply all the nutritional fixes and escamotages to have a complete diet and vitamins spectrum (it's absolutely not difficult!). I found really funny the "ask a vegan" section since most questions were directly asked to me many and many times. My always fav is:

Random person:"Do you eat fish?",

Me: "No, fishes are animals too"

Rp: "And tuna?"

Since we all know that tunas are cans and not fishes!

4. I'm dying to try the yummy recipe section, especially the baking part since vegan baking can be tricky (hello eggs!)

5. I loved the fact that he whole book is full of links to useful blog or websites, life experience and mini-interview to people

6. The beauty section was enlightening since I had no idea of how many beauty products use animal products as ingredients. I also think that this will be one of the harder task, if I ever decide, since the ingredients names aren't exactly the most easy thing to read and remember (Cocamidopropyl Betaine anyone?)

So, do I suggest this book?

Totally! It's funny, useful and informative. I'm so into "guide to life" books!

Will I become a vegan after reading it?

Not sure yet, there are more few things to figure out (like, how to tell it to my parents, what to do with my wool clothes...) and more serious research in and out that need to be done, but I'm definitely more ready now than I was before!

For more info this is the blog of the author Melisser Elliott: the Urban Housewife

Have you already read this book? What did you think?

Weekly resolutions

Well, new week, new resolutions, and since the flossing one was a complete FAIL, it'll appear this weak as well (becoming tonight!)

1. FLOSSING

2. Take vitamins every day (don't skip it and then take to pills in one day, yes, I did it)

3. morning Sun Salutation

Now I'm off to... guess what?

...

Flossing =)

I haven't realized yet that on Friday I'm going to Paris for the weekend and I need to packing AGAIN (note: I haven't finished yet the unpacking since my moving, ehm ehm).