Surprise birthday lunch for my mom!

Phew! I have been planning and re-planning a surprise birthday thing for my mom. It started out as a birthday dinner party and I had invited my brother and his girlfriend but because my mom kept changing her schedule I was forced to find every imaginable excuse and really work some magic to get everything together. It worked out great in the end though. Her original plan was to have a birthday dinner this eveing but I told my sister to say she was working and wouldn’t be home and I told my brother to tell her he couldn’t come for whatever reason. She had a meeting this morning and I had told her I was going to make a lunch for her when she came home. When she got home my brother and sister and I were all waiting and jumped out and screamed “Surprise!” She was so shocked! I’ve got a ton of pictures to show you from today so let’s get to it…

My sister and I got up this morning and had breakfast before heading over to the grocery store to buy some neccessary ingredients for the surprise lunch. It was pouring rain!

09:25am Breakfast. That’s my usual yoghurt (soy yoghurt with a kiwi and ground flaxseed), only I took the picture after I’d mixed it all together. On the side I had a thin rye cracker with cucumber and alfalfa sprouts and 1/8 of a small-ish galia melon.

I took this picture this morning just because I think it looks so pretty. We’ve always got a really lot of fruit at home but we’ve been stocking up extra much this week on melons and fun fruits because they’re finally coming into season here. Yum!

When my sister and I got home from the grocery store we started fixing everything for the lunch. I ran around and picked up and decorated the place with balloons and set the table all nice while my sister made the big Monsoon salad we were having for lunch. Here she is demonstrating how I made the “string”-carrots in my salad yesterday since someone asked how I got them like that. Simply peel the carrot!

Here’s the finished Monsoon salad it’s got lettuce, spinach, carrot, mango, strawberries, clementine and cranberries in it. My sister also made a great kind of sweet balsamic dressing to go with it and on the side we had…

…some extra mango and strawberries to add in/on and walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, shredded coconut and pumpkin seeds (all roasted). We had the nuts on the side because my brother is allergic to nuts but normally they’d go right on the salad. On the side we also had a lovely baguette, some blue cheese and the dressing along with some bubbly fruit sweetened water that we poured into glasses with frozen raspberries.

And this was dessert! My mom has mentioned this Valrhona cake several times and said she wants to try it so my sister and I decided we’d get it for her birthday. It was divine! Soooo deep chocolate. This cake is tiny-ish (about the size of my hand with my fingers spread out). I had a portion of the monsoon salad with dressing and nuts on, and a piece of baguette with (gasp!) blue cheese on (yes, I eat non-vegan sometimes), a glass of bubbly fruit sweetened water (with no added sugar) and a small piece of the cake. It was all lovely!

We had lunch around 1:30pm and I wasn’t hungry at all for the rest of the day. My sister and I went for a walk for 1h and 20 minutes in the afternoon including about 2×12 tricep dips on a bench during our walk and I did my 100 crunches when I got home. Then I did some writing and working on my computer and in the evening I put together a little fruit snack just to eat something basically even though I still didn’t feel hungry!

08:00pm Evening snack. Four tiny strawberries, 1/8 small galia melon, 1 sliced up apple and a cup of Celestial Seasonings honey vanilla chamomile tea.

Exercise today:
1h20min powerwalk
100 crunches
2×12 tricep dips

Thank you all for your opinions about whether or not I should document my calories in the blog. Everyone seemed in favor of me doing so. I’ll start posting my calories as usual again tomorrow as I’ve guesstimated most of my calories today since lunch was a little hard to determine. I’m sure I had well over enough though considering the slice of cake, even if it was small.

Also, just to clarify about rockstar guy – we do actually talk and we hang out together. Haha, I guess I wasn’t clear about that in my last post and made it sound like I’m some kind of groupie or freak stalker or something. No, no, I was friends with him before even finding out he was in a band. We just weren’t able to chat yesterday because he was busy performing and mingling around with everyone who wanted to give him and the band congrats on their new album.

Question of the day: Have you ever planned a surprise party for someone? How did it go?

Audition tomorrow and mom’s birthday!

It’s my mom’s birthday today! We haven’t really celebrated at all today since my mom was working. I did however make dark chocolate covered strawberries as a little surprise that we had together this evening.

I’m planning a surprise birthday dinner for my mom on Thursday. She has no idea, hopefully it’ll all work out as planned. I’ll tell you all about how it goes on Thursday!

In other news, I’ve got an audition tomorrow! I just got a call this evening from a radio show that wants me to come and audition for an english radio show they’re doing. Fun! It’s tomorrow morning so I’ve gotta wrap things up here and get to bed!

10:00am Breakfast. Two thin rye crackers with tofu papricano and cucumber. Soy yoghurt with a kiwi and a tablespoon of ground flaxseed. Green tea with aloe vera.

Went for my powewalk/jog after breakfast because it had finally cleared up and got all sunny and wonderful! Got home and loitered for a while and then made my crack lunch.

1:50pm Lunch. A small carrot, a flatbread filled with tofutti vegan cream cheese, lettuce, cucumber and smoked tofu. And a shake with soy protein.

After lunch I took a powerwalk to the grocery store to get strawberries and chocolate to make my dessert surprise for mom. The weather was so lovely I felt all happy and fuzzy inside.

Pretty weather and an abundance of colorful flowers and trees!

4:45pm Dinner. I was hungry early for dinner and was really craving an apple for some reason, so I made the first thing that came to mind that would go with an apple – oats! (Breakfast for dinner is by the way a given on a Sunday evening. Like, duh.) With a spoon of peanut butter and the obligatory cup of green tea.

8:30pm Dessert. This is how the chocolate covered fruit turned out. Sorry it looks a little bleh, I had to snap the photo quickly before surprising my mom with this. I had about two chocolate covered strawberries, two plain strawberries and one slice of chocolate covered kiwi. I also had another apple (not pictured). I don’t know why but I’ve been craving apples like there’s no tomorrow.

Exercise today:
1h powerwalk/jog
100 crunches
40 minute powerwalk to and from grocery store

Hope you’re having a wonderful Sunday!

More than just food?

I’ve been thinking… maybe I should incorporate some other features than food to the blog. What do you think? What would you like to read about? As some of you may know I’ve worked in the fashion industry for a couple of years, writing for various magazines and I’ve interviewed a lot of artists – is that something you would like to hear more about? Fashion, trend and beauty tips? Stories about the people I have interviewed? More stuff about my life in general? Let me know!

I had Bikram yoga this morning and I haven’t been for a really long time, a week and a half to be exact. Things didn’t go as well as I would have liked this morning, I was feeling really unmotivated and just irritated about the whole thing. I completed the class and did all the asanas but I felt like I couldn’t get my energy level up and really put the energy I wanted into the asanas. My membership ran out today and I didn’t renew it. I both do and don’t want to renew it, the membership is rather expensive and now that the weather is nice I’m thinking I’m better off running instead, I’d really love to get back into that routine. I love Bikram yoga and I am sure I’ll do it again some time but right now I’m just in a place in my life where I’m having a hard time motivating myself to do much of anything, so I’m going to hold onto my cash for now.

12:30pm Breakfast. As usual I didn’t eat before yoga. I got home and made what I usually have for lunch. A flatbread with smoked tofu, arugula, cucumber and Tofutti vegan cream cheese. On the side I had plain soy yoghurt with 1/2 scoop of soy protein mixed in and a small cubed apple.

3:25pm Afternoon snack. Instead of actually making lunch I just had a snackplate. A small apple with cinnamon, two small strawberries and a rice cracker with raw cacao bliss.

6:45pm Dinner. My dinner was my usual salad (lettuce, carrot, tomato, sundried tomato, cucumber) that I added some small white beans to today. I topped it with my regular soy yoghurt+strong mustard+ water dressing.

8pm Dessert. For dessert with Ugly Betty this evening I put together a little platter of goodies. A carob rice cracker, a mini Tofutti ice cream sandwhich and a small slice of carrot raisin bread with raw cacao bliss.

Unfortunately, when 9pm rolled around and House came on TV I was feeling snacky and still a little bit hungry which resulted in me going the bad route – I attacked a bag of choc-chocolate chip cookies my mom baked for my sister’s birthday last week. I won’t disclose how many I actually ate (too embarrassed) and on top of those many cookies I had another piece of flatbread with a little bit of (gaaasp!) butter… needless to say, I am NOT proud of myself right now. I don’t know if I would call this a “binge” though, in that case it was a “mini binge” because in comparison to how my binges usually look this was very “mild”.

Total calories today: 2 101 kcal
(I’m guesstimating the choc-chip cookies to about 100 kcal each although I’m pretty sure they’re less because they’re small)

Exercise today:
40 minutes powerwalking
1,5 hours Bikram Yoga
100 crunches

Question of the day: What would you like to read about on Facineating besides from food?

Review: Booja-Booja Raw Chocolate Ice Cream

Review: Booja-Booja Hunky Punky Chocolate (Raw Cashew Ice Cream)

Ingredients: Water, agave, cashew nuts, cacao powder. All organic ingredients.

Nutritional facts (per 100ml):
185 Calories
9.4g Fat
17.6g Sugars

Review:
Let’s start with appearance; the raw cashew ice cream is neatly packaged away in this 500ml tub with a sleek black covering. The playful name, “Hunky Punky Chocolate”, adds to the fun experience of eating ice cream. Digging deeper now, it is a wonderful feeling to indulge in something so pure and free of nasty ingredients I cannot pronounce. Four simple, pure and organic ingredients is all it takes to make, dare I say, the best ice cream I have ever tasted. The chocolate flavor is undescribably rich, the texture smooth and thick, reminiscent of the ice creams I have had in the past claiming to be “real” Italian chocolate ice cream. Booja-Booja’s Hunky Punky Chocolate ice cream is proof that pure and organic is better, there is not one additive-infused versions out there that can top this!

Overall (5/5):

Review: Raw Chocolate Coconut Butter

Review: Artisana Raw Chocolate Coconut Butter

Ingredients: Raw coconut, raw agave syrup, raw cocoa beans, raw cocoa butter.

Nutritional facts (per 100g):
212 Calories
19g Fat
2g Protein

Review:
I was imagining this to be a creamy and spreadable consistency but as it turns out, it’s stone hard! I’ve used it on toastead bread and in warm oats which work against the raw quality of the product but is the only way to get this “butter” soft. I also warmed some of it and spread it on a banana, which turned out to be my favorite way of eating this. The flavor is slightly bitter because of the pure cocoa in it, and it has a clear hint of coconut. The nutritional information is of course fenomenal, I almost fell backwards reading the ingredients and nutritional information – 212 calories for almost half the jar? No way! Although this is a healthy and tasty treat it is frustrating trying to get the butter out of the jar, and not only that, it’s outrageously expensive too and unfortunately does not feel worth the price for such a small amount.

Overall (3/5):