As many of you may know I've tried multiple times in my life to not eat meat, and I think the reason that it's been hard for me (and also the reason why I've fallen back into eating meat each time) is that I've lived at home with my parents every time I've previously tried to go vegetarian, and I grew up in a family where pretty much every single meal was based around a piece of meat.

I've talked about this before in previous blog posts, that I sometimes feel sad because I eat the animals that I love so much, and last week I compared it to eating my sister's puppy Hugo - that it feels the same to me, it doesn't matter that it's a chicken/pig/cow that I don't know. So last weekend I decided to stop eating meat and see how it goes, my meat free week is now over and I've done pretty well (except on tuesday night when I did have some leftover chicken,  but I didn't wanna throw away food that I had already bought and cooked). 

I have spent this week eating meat-free substitutes such as vegetarian hamburgers (very tasty), falafels (delicious), vegetarian "meat" balls (also tasty), vegetarian schnitzel (also delicious), and meat free ham and pepperoni (not so delicious, but it works on a sandwich along with some cheese and vegetables).

To be honest I feel pretty great about it. I've had the first guilt free meals I've had in a very long time, knowing that no animal had to die for me to have my dinner. 😊 I also get stomach cramps a lot of the times where I eat meat, and I haven't had that at all this week which I think is pretty awesome. So I'm gonna keep this going for as long as possible. Eventually I wanna make proper vegetarian meals without any "meat substitutes" but I think that this is a pretty great way to transition while learning how to cook meat free meals. ​😊

Breakfast:
Because I ate at my sister's last night I didn't prep breakfast for this morning, so my breakfast was the same as it was most of last week - kesella, orange juice, and a cup of tea. I get the kesella from a machine we have at my office. It's perfect for days when you haven't prepped breakfast, but it's also a trap because it's so easy to get something from that machine. You can't let it become a habit. 

Lunch:
The lunch I brought today was actually leftovers from dinner with my sister last night. Her boyfriend had made meat balls with mashed potatoes and a cream sauce. Which we of course ate with lingonberry jam (calling it a jam is a bit misleading since jam is usually something sweet, in this case it's not. It's just one of those things you have to try to understand ☺). 
Anyway, we finished all the mashed potatoes so when I got home I fried up some broccoli to bring with me instead, which is fine by me. I love broccoli and it's also way healthier than mashed potatoes anyway. ☺Unfortunately the sauce cut when I put it in the microwave so what was an absolutely delicious dinner, turned out to become one very buttery lunch. Which was unfortunat since it was so tasty last night.

Dinner:
I'm not big on dinners unless I haven't had a proper lunch, so tonight's "dinner" consisted of what's usually my weekend breakfast - a bowl of processed sour milk (it's like yoghurt, but more liquid and not as sweet, kinda tangy, in flavor), whole grain cereal, crushed flax seeds, and whole sunflower seeds. I'm sure there are healthier/better options for an evening meal, but this workds perfectly for me. I don't go to bed hungry or completely stuffed. Works like a charm! 

So after today's awful lunch fiasco (which can be seen here) I had to do some meal prepping for the rest of the week. Friday this week is pay day which means I don't have that much money left, so I had to work with what I had in the freezer, and that happened to be more fish! So I decided to make the same meals I had last week, but I decided to not make the batter with regular bread crumbs but with oats instead. And here's how it went:

I started out with eggs and regular (whole grain) oats. At first I just dipped the fish in the eggs and then coated it with oats. But I quickly realized that the oats were too big, they didn't stick to the fish that well and fell off into the eggs when I attempted to double dip. As you can see in the second photo below, this didn't work out too well. I then poured the oats into my blender and mixed until it was smooth and flour-like in texture (picture #3), and this worked like a charm! As you can see in the fourth picture, it looks like regular batter. I'm super pleased. ☺ Unfortunately I got a bit caught up in the battering and frying that I totally forgot to season the oats (normally I would just salt and pepper the bread crumbs and mix with a fork before battering the fish), but I'm pretty sure it'll work out ok either way. 

So this is what I'll be having for lunch for the next five days. I didn't make a salad for each of the lunches right now because I don't want the salad to go soggy and wet, which is also why I took out the seeds of the cucumber before adding it to the box for tomorrow, so I will make the side salad for each lunch the night before. But there you have it. ☺ It's super simple to make, it takes less than an hour and gives you food for almost an entire week. I also find that by prepping the main part of the meals like this makes it easy to alternate the "side dishes"/salads to have with each meal which makes it more interesting than eating the exact same thing every day for a week. 

I had a friend come over last night to watch the season premiere of Game of Thrones (because I hadn't seen it yet), so we decided to get takeout. Normally I don't like to eat dinner, I usually just have a couple of hard boiled eggs or a bowl of cereal for dinner, so I went for something light - sushi! And it was delicious. ☺ I was contemplating getting sashimi instead, since that's healthier, but that was a little more expensive (and I wasn't paying). 

Here's what I decided to have when I got a little bit hungry and tired at about 2:30 (p.m). Again, high sugar content - I'm aware. But even though both of these have high sugar content I feel that I could have chosen something a lot worse. 

So this is what I had for lunch today; two fish fillets (Plaice) with salad and balsamic vinegar creme. I think it's a pretty tasty meal, though I think it would be nicer with chicken. And next time I might wanna use something like whole grain oats instead of bread crumbs. There are ways to alternate this recipe so just use it as a guideline. ☺
Also, before I get started on the recipe I wanted to point out that I fried up an entire bag of fish (approx. 8-12 fillets) so that I'd have lunch for the entire week. So alter the amount of eggs you use if you're only making one meal.

Recipe:
- Fish fillets (in this case Plaice, but it'll work really well with another fish or chicken)
- Breadcrumbs
- Eggs (I used three for 8-12 fillets)
- Butter/Olive oil for frying

01) Put the egg/eggs in a bowl/on a plate and whisk until they're all mixed
02) Pour breadcrumbs onto a separate plate (if you'd like just use the egg whites ☺)
03) Put the skillet on the stove with the oil/butter and let that heat up while you batter the fish
04) Dip the fish into the eggs and then the bread crumbs. I coated the fish twice
05) Fry on medium-high heat until golden
06) Serve with salad

And here we have it folks, my breakfast. This is pretty standard on any given work day, some kesella (which is a curd/cottage cheese kinda thing), some juice, and coffee. Now I know that both the kesella and juice contain quite a lot of sugar, but normally I'd make a sandwich at home and bring with me, but I didn't have any bread so I bought this on the way to work. ☺

It's a new category everyone! ☺ Ok, today I relized that I have approximately 130 days left until I go on vacation, so I decided that I need to up my game in regards to health and what I eat. So in the spirit of weightloss and being healthy I thought I'd add a new category where I can post pictures and details about my food intake each day.

Now before I get started I wanna point out that this is by no means a guide or diet plan, I am not a dietician, and I don't necessarily think that the way I eat is great (and let's be honest, it's probably not). Also, I want people to keep in mind that I have several food allergies which makes it hard for me to eat "clean" in the sense that  I cannot eat raw avocados, carrots, apples, pears, kiwis etc. This is basically me doing as best I can in regards to my food allergies. 

If this takes off and people are interested I can definitely do a post about what specific allergies I have and how I go around them. I'm sure there are more people out there with the same allergies and problems that I have who struggle to eat healthier foods.