Urgh, the weather is horrible. Comfort food is called for. Plus I am still nursing a cold which followed a really horrible virus (hence no post last week).

So the menu this week is as follows:

Saturday - S and N had pizza and I had, erm, can't remember, but something easy, some pasta I think!
Sunday - Homemade pie, mashed potato and assorted veg
Monday - Tofu hash
Tuesday - Tacos
Wednesday - Stew and dumplings (from the freezer)
Thursday - Fish fingers and chips (yes, vegan fish fingers really)
Friday - Kidney bean pasta

So there's a lot of soya and processed food this week, but as I said I am still nursing a cold and needing easy meals.

This week I went over budget - £46 but that followed a bargain shop of £32 the week before, so it's swings and roundabouts I guess.

Here's my recipe for tofu hash (I'll try and upload a pic too)

1 block of tofu,
3 medium potatoes
2 tomatoes
half a can of sweetcorn
half a packet of green beans
2 small onions


Drain the tofu, wrap in kitchen paper and press witha heavy book on a plate.
Cut the tofu into cubes and fry, drain on kitchen paper.
Peel the potatoes and cut into cubes, parboil.
Saute the onion and tomatoes.
Add the cooked potato, it will mush up a bit.
Lightly blanch the beans.
Add the sweetcorn and beans.

Serve.

I also deglazed the pan with a bit of balsamic vinegar and put that on the side.

Hmm, I promise it was nicer than this looks. Must learn to take better food photos!

Why Do I Write This Blog

As I made my random granola I started to wonder why I write this blog. My granola was inspired by Jack Monroe's recipe. Jack writes a very succesful blog which documents her frugal food journey - much more frugal than mine and more accesible (a lot of her recipes are vegetarian, but she does include meat and fish) - who really wants to hear about my weird vegan food? Jack also calls herself a writer and justifably so with a column in the Guardian and a book deal. Do I want to be a writer? Yes, of course, a little bit. It was a childhood dream and I'm sure I've got a book in me, but I know I'm not really a writer. I haven't got the skill or the patience - this blog isn't an exercise in getting noticed by publishers or honing my craft.

So what's it all about then?

Well, I guess a little bit of me hopes that people I don't know might stumble upon this and find out something they wanted to know. Many of my ideas for my weird vegan diet and experiments to find natural cleaning and body products come from people's blogs I found through Google searches.

And it's a little bit about showing how you can eat cheaply (my food isn't the cheapest around, but less than £40 a week for 63 meals isn't bad). I know many people won't want to eat lentils, nuts and beans as often as I do, but as many of my meals substitute these things for meat, they could be reversed again.

It's also about writing stuff in general for other people to read, not as a career move. I'm lucky enough that I already have a career I quite like and don't have the pressure of needing to be good at this.

But most of all it's a project for me and I love project's (especially the ones that are a bit like school homework - what a geek). I can ramble on about food and turn it into a project - it doesn't hurt anyone or cost me anything. I get to have a go at blogging and when I've got some more time I look forward to looking properly at the design and maybe even do a bit of coding (I can be a super geek sometimes). So yes, it's pretty self-indulgent and I thank anyone who's reading this for indulging me, and cyber space for giving me the opportunity.

So if you find this blog and find something useful on it, then I am very pleased, but if you don't, then I don't mind either, I'm still having fun writing it and thinking about it.