I’m thinking of going vegetarian for a while — I’m not going to be as strict about doing it for the whole year, instead taking it week by week. At the end of each week if there’s no reason to go back to meat-eating, I’ll continue with the veggie diet.

Photo owned by Jay Tamboli (cc)

I tweeted my plan (to go veggie) last night to see what people thought and found that I had a lot of vegetarian followers who I can get tips off as to what’s the best meat substitutes or how to get the best balanced diets etc.

Because I’m only doing this as an experiment, I’ll have no qualms stopping and starting eating meat if the situation comes up. If I’m at someone’s house and they don’t know I’m a vegetarian, I don’t want (or expect them) to go out of their way to cook a veggie-friendly meal, and so I’ll just eat the chicken or whatever. If I’m at home and cooking my own dinner or at a restaurant, I’ll choose the non-meat option.

I’ve heard a lot people with stories of having no energy and not getting enough of the nutrients that they need so I’m being really careful that I don’t suffer any adverse effects from this. My Mum’s really interested in nutrition and the like so I should have a good shot at doing this experiment with no adverse affects!

Photo owned by missmeng (cc)

Before I start, I’d just like to give a quick shout-out: Hey Mandi, my favourite new Twitter account to follow!

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Today was a day for attempting chocolate milkshakes, it was decided.

Attempting is probably the operative word, because they weren’t the greatest of successes.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup of milk
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons of chocolate syrup
• 1/2 cup of vanilla ice-cream
• 1 teaspoon of sugar

Combine ingredients and blend until smooth, above serves 1.

Our ones kind of sucked as we’d no vanilla extract or proper chocolate. We melted 140 grams of Galaxy counters as our chocolate, which seemed like enough at the time. Upon drinking, it was clear that it weren’t enough.

You will need:

- 2 eggs
- 110 grams of flour
- 300 millilitres of milk

Firstly, put a pan onto medium heat.

Place them all in a bowl together and mix. If you have an electric mixer, well and good, if not, try this:

Place/Pour the mixture into a jug and put a sieve over the bowl. Pour the mixture onto the sieve and use a fork to work out the lumps.

Once the mixture is fully liquid, use a piece of kitchen paper to rub a small amount of butter onto the pan. Using a ladle, add mixture to the pan. The amount of mixture in each ladle will depend on how thick and big you want your pancakes to be.

Watch the pancake cooking as it changes from white-ish to golden brown. When it’s fully golden brown, flip (or otherwise turn over) your pancake.

Use your flipping skills or a spatula to transfer your pancake to a plate. Add sugar/lemon/nutella/honey/maple syrup as desired.

The quantities given make four medium sized pancakes. To make more, simply double the mixture as needed.

Tasting is an integral part of the process.

Cook for 20-25 minutes? Gotcha.

Serve with New Yorker and side of Twitter.

Om nom nom

Right now, there’s almost a sense of… ‘how’d I manage that?’. Seriously, an entire year without chocolate. 365 days. 8,760 hours. 525,600 minutes.

Was it easy? Yes and no. When undertaking this, how easy you find it is directly proportional to how much chocolate you eat. I ate relatively little – we never stocked that much of it at home so my intake was mainly at parties and the like. That made it easier than if chocolate was always kept in the house and I dipped into that cupboard regularly.

The hardest part was when you were with people and they offer you some. As I’ve mentioned before, people can’t seem to get their head around that you’re not doing this for a specific reason. Explaining “well I was just wondering if I could go without it for a year” doesn’t seem to satisfy them, insatiable things…

Even when Mom’d make nice desserts I wouldn’t feel too great a pang, unless I really liked what she was making, such as toffee shortbread.

Up until about July, I always maintained that I wouldn’t be hovering over a chocolate bar on 1/1/10 at 00:01AM but now I think I just might. My parents getting me chocolate for Christmas may have influenced this decision.

What about next year? I jokingly suggested staying off it for another year; a notion greeted without enthusiasm in most corners. I don’t drink, so I can’t give that up, nor smoke.

Oh the conundrums I have to deal with…

This is well tried and tested recipe in our house and never fails to impress. What’s really great about it is that its easy to prepare and keeps well without even being refrigerated.

As with making anything, the key is good fresh ingredients. Here’s Dad in the store:

Making doubly sure they’re the best money can buy:

Yes, they seem to pass our rigorous inspections:

As regular readers of Lily’s blog will know, presentation is key, so as we carefully prepared our fig rolls, we also made ready the ornaments that would create the backdrop of our pictures:

A quasi-guest post by Denis Collison

…since I made pancakes. Who wants some?

Well, come back later, they’re all gone! :) Almost had to wrestle the first one out of Mum’s hand to get a picture of it… kidding Mum! :P

So in the evenings, when I’m craving something sweet, it’s not a Hershey’s kiss I’m craving, not least because it tastes like a baboon’s backside (tried one in 2007), but simply because it wasn’t what I liked in 2008 when I ate chocolate. That honour goes to Dairy Milk.

Yeah, the only times when I came into close contact with chocolate was on the ride home when they served that brownie something or other with the pasta.

The only two desserts I saw in the US were at the Science Museum:

Caramel apples, quite expensive. (4.29 dollars)

Yes, that’s an apple coated in chocolate sauce, with M&Ms glued to it. Eww.