Vegan Life Life: Saturday: Day 1

Saturday morning i got up early (early for a Saturday Morning) and jumped on the tube up to Ally Pally! (Alexandra Palace to most people) for Vegan Life Live!

I'd had tickets for this for a while so was super excited to go! My bestie from the North had tickets too, for the Sunday, but ended up not being able to come, she gave me her ticket so i'll have a second blog up about Sunday too!!

First things first, downloaded the VLL program and tried to make a plan on what i wanted to see...

My plan looked like this: (I say looked cos it did change!)

Saturday:
12:15: Clea Grady (From Veganuary)
12:30: Cinema - Food Choice
1pm: KingCooksDaily
2:45: How to eat well with Veganuary
5pm: Cinema - Ghost in our Machine

First things first: goody bag!! (not pictured Ape, coconut curls, i ate these on the way in as i missed breakfast!)

Second thing: Foooooooodddd!! Happy Maki

Straight to happy Maki!! I've been following Happy Maki on Instagram for a while now and by God do i love sushi! After putting my goodie bag into my tote i made my way straight to the back to find their stall, as soon as i get in the queue it doubled, and from what i saw the rest of the day, it didn't look like it got any smaller! For those who don't know Happy Maki  They are a vegan Sushi stall that have been making their way around Veg festivals for a while now....but the exciting news is they are opening a restaurant down in Brighton (another other vegan hub of England)





I had the Fully Loaded: It was awesome, super tasty and really filling! I highly recommend going to see them!

There were so many cool stalls at the event, too many to do a in depth section on all of them or this blog will be far too long for anyone to get through, so here's a quick run down of some of the samples i had mooching around.

Morgan's Brew - I had a taste of the green tea gin. I'm not really a massive gin lover! But add green tea and i'm excited!!

Treevitalise - When i heard "Made for hangovers" I tried some....i'm sure its good for you, but i think i'll just stick to drinking regular H2O.








Mobile Massage were there for the day, and I've been hitting the gym for a few weeks now, so i decided to treat myself to a massage, they have a deal where you pay anything from £10 to £20 depending on what you feel the massage was worth. It was a great 20 minutes of heaven, they lady who massaged me did my back, shoulders and head and i felt every knot worked out.

As for my plan, it kind of went out of the window, The room by about 11:30 was so busy you pretty much had to shuffle everywhere.

I did manage to get to see Clea from Veganuary which was great, she talked through why she became vegan, and how she'd been veggie most of her life. And what i thought was most important, was how we need to be positive on social media, as Vegans, I also think this goes for everyone. There's so much negativity online, and negativity breeds negativity. Vegans are known for compassion and we need to show that to everyone and everything. You'll never win friends by shouting at them.
Later I went to see the how to eat well with the founders of Veganuary, they talked a lot about Dr Michael Greger's book "How Not to Die" Including giving out a hand out on "The Daily Dozen" (laminated no less, ohh fancy)

I missed @Kingcookdaily But that's ok, just means i'll have to take a trip to Shoreditch to try his food.

With the 2 movies i wanted to watch i was worried i'd miss out on other things if i sat for an hour and a half to watch them and figured i could watch them another time. So most of my time was spent checking out all the stalls...I bumped into Wear Your Voice And i was wearing a t-shirt of theirs which i got from York Veg Fest.










So i went on the hunt for some more Vegan tops. and i came across Ethics & Antics and grabbed an absolute steal of a bargain! (picture to come on the next blog!)

Phew that was long, hopefully you made it this far! I'll be writing up Sunday antics soon!

Keep it positive

Nessa

Instagram : @endless_night07
Twitter:  @endless_night07
Pinterest: endlessnight7
Snapchat @endless_night7

One Bowl Vegan Chilli

Hey Peeps!!

This weekend i decided to embark on a massive cooking fest!! Since the holiday month I've been pretty slack at cooking big batches of food to freeze. Relying on rice packets and kohinoor curry packets (which by the way, if you haven't tried these, they're an amazing alternative to a take away, half the cost and half the calories, I'll pop a post up about them soon)

Anyway i digress.

I ended up making what I'm calling a one bowl chilli. Meaning i don't need to put any rice with it as it's packed full of goodness which should keep me full!!

I got the original recipe from Jamie Oliver and as with most of my cooking, i added extras, because i can!!

The ingredients in black are as per Jamie's recipe, the ones in grey are my own addition or tweek.

3 Small Onions
1 Tablespoon of Garlic Powder

1 Teaspoon Chipotle Paste
2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil
2 Tablespoons ground cumin
2 Tablespoons ground coriander
2 Tablespoons smoked paprika
½  Teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 Tablespoons tomato purée
500g Tried Green Lentils
2 x 400 g Tins of red kidney beans
1 x 400 g Tins of black beans
4 x 400 g Tins of chopped tomatoes (Extra’s as i’d added so many beans!)
1 litre Home Made Vegetable Stock

400g Frozen Peas

150g Frozen Sweetcorn

50g Frozen Broad Beans

As a total (rough guesstimate) the total pot came to 4535 calories.

I managed to get 11 portions out of it. You could get more if you wanted to have a side of rice or tortillas with it.

So that came to 412 calories per portion, which with a 30g serving of some Gary (Vegan cheese) comes to a well balanced lunch or dinner.

Enjoy cooking (promise I'll get better at taking pictures of my food!!)

Keep It Positive

Nessa

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!!

So last year was pants in the blogging department….apologies about that, but it's a new year and it's a new…..nah!! Not going down the road of a new year new me, but i do want to get back into this again.

As you’ve seen my blog has been a mashup of life events so far….so this year is going to be the same a mashup of life events. But….from a renewed, back to not giving a **** about what anyone else thinks, view of my still fairly new vegan life!!

AAGGHHH she said Vegan!!!

Yep, thats right, vegan…..scared...are ya...are ya??

Well don't be, it's something no one ever thought i’d be able to add to the list of labels i have. Me included!! But it is a way of life for me now.

As i write this it's the second of January and therefor Veganuary….

Veganuary is maybe something you’ve heard of, especially if you live or travel in London, they have loads of posters on the underground this year, which is great exposure.

Check them out if you want to find out more….

Veganuary

I’ve got Vegan Life Live coming up on the 7th and 8th of January, so I’ll be trying my best to document how that goes.

Vegan Life Life

Got a little trip to the Steal City (Sheffield) for some epic burger action in February. 

I’ll be throwing up some recipes I've been loving and working on, some views on eating out (which for Veganuary is looking super exciting!!) and some updates on getting fit!!

Keep it positive

Nessa

Sun - It Makes Us Happy, But We Don`t Know How To Use It Well.

I write this on my phone while on a 4 hour Shinkansen journey from Hiroshima to Tokyo...the last leg of my trip. I did start writing this in a tiny little note book i had, but then i remembered i still have the Blogger App on my phone.

So I've plugged my headphones in and i wanted to write a post on the sun, or rather the effects the sun has on our bodies.

Now a lot of people won't listen to my advice on suntans as im pale, but this is forced, I'm not naturally pale....

My eyes are green, my hair (naturally) is super dark brown with hints of red, which means, i actually take the sun pretty well, like my dad, i always had a great tan when we went away when i was younger. But from my super late teens early 20's i decided tans weren't for me, it didn't suit me, my style, who i am. And also i learnt a lot about what it does to your skin.

My mum burns, every time the sun comes out, know why, cos when she was my age, she didn't have the high factors we have now and she probably only ever used something stupid like a factor 10 tanning oil!! She's just come back from a trip with her bestie and sister from Italy. I skyped her while she was there and she had a bright red nose... So i said to her, how come I've been out in 25+ degrees for almost 2 weeks and I'm only just starting to get a little but of colour, you've been out 1 day and you're red....here came the "well we didn't expect it to be so sunny. we got caught out." 

She's turning 60 next weekend and i thought she'd have learnt by now.

I only 'have a go' because i want her to stay healthy!!

Its a known fact that once we burn we are always predisposed to burning in that place more than somewhere we haven't burnt before, so you always burn your nose, because you've burnt it before. The high points on your bodies or the bits that are usually exposed on holidays, shoulders, noses, heads. These need protecting so much!!

I will never use anything less than factor 50, i want the best protection for my skin, after all its the only one I've got. 

Most people think this is cos i want to be pale, a small factor, but wanna know how i actually stay pale, i stay out of the sun at its hottest, i sit under a parasol, or go to the bar or put a towel over me!! I avoid the hell out of the mid day sun!!

The girls i know who want a perfectly golden tan don't do anything to gain a long lasting, fairly "safe" good looking tan...

Want to know where that starts, exfoliate!! The sun is only going to hit the dead layer on top if you don't exfoliate, whats the point in that.

Second moturise (inside and out!!), if your skin is well hydrated your tan will last longer and not just fade as soon as you get home.

Third, the harder the sun effectively has to work to give you a tan, the deeper it will be and the longer it will last. So using a low factor, which is so fucking stupid, (apologies for my language, this really gets my goat!!) Will give you a superficial dangerous tan....

Now you might be lucky and the sun will never do anything harmful to your body...but if you're not so lucky and you end up having something cut from your skin because you didn't wear a high factor sun cream, and avoid the midday sun, you'll wish you had. I know people who's parents have had to have bits of skin removed because it was cancerous, and they wish they'd known more about the sun when they were younger.

There's so much advice all over the interweb on how to protect your skin please, i stress this, pleaseeeeee use it, and stop thinking that if you wear factor 50 you're going to stay pale!!

Being brown after going red might be "fashionable" but you wont think that if you end up with a chunk missing out of a shoulder....

Going on Holiday on Your Credit Card....

*WARNING*

This may offend some people....so if you feel you may be offended, you have two choices, read it and be offended, this after all is my opinion, not yours, and i am not forcing my opinion on you in any way, i am just stating it; or don't read it so you wont be offended...

In my opinion, people need to be offended more, it's totally ok to have a different opinion to someone else!!

Right on with the blog in hand.....

While writing this i am sat in my 5th Hostel after an amazing dinner in Hiroshima, Japan.

I have saved for this trip for years, also helped massively by the sale of my old car when i moved to London from the north!

I am not the kind of person who lives on their credit card, i mean, sure i use it, i use it monthly, but at the end of every month it gets paid off, i don't have a greatly paid job and i live in London so i know how hard it is to manage all the things in life i want to do vs how much money i have.

I was brought up with 2 parents who until i was in my late teens had never had a credit card, couldn't get one (unlike these days) so i was brought up to live within my means, and to this day it is still a thing my mum likes to throw at me every so often.

So i am struggling to see how people live totally outside of their means 11 out of 12 months a year. Sure unexpected things happen, but i always thought that's what savings were for?! I mean this trip has taken almost every last bit if savings I have so i know when i go home i'm probably going to have to miss out on a few nights out, a dinner here and there to start getting some money behind me again, for those unexpected things.

When i get home within a week i'll be heading off to Download Festival (woooo!!!), but that's been paid off for months and the spending money already planned within next months pay packet. Is it just me that forward plans??

I know so many people with overdrafts not paid off, from uni or just life in general, and they live inside them, until payday, when they're back in the black, then as soon as that's done, back into their overdraft.

But my bug bare is people going on holidays, or trips of a life time on borrowed money, sure i'm all for not being able to take it with you when you die, don't have savings and never spend them, but i don't want to live my life on someone else's money....just me??

Sure i wanna go on holiday all the time, who wouldn't, My friends have already asked me to plan a trip to Poland or Iceland this October, and i so want to go!!! but I've had to say that i'll need to check my funds once i'm back from Japan and Download Festival.

In my eyes...Cant afford it, don't go. Simple!!

Again, all my own opinion.

Keep it positive

Nessa

xx

Japlanning - So it Happened!! - First Update

As i type this i am currently sat in my second hostel of the trip, in Kyoto....


A little over a year ago i started thinking about the money i had in my savings account and what i wanted to do with it, i dont want a car in London so my next natural thought was, why not go traveling, at 28 i`m a little old to be starting....if you go by the whole "gap year thing" but you`re never too old to start anything!! Mental note to myself, please remember this!!

Being me, i procrastinated about it for months, and months till one morning i woke up at home in Yorkshire (I was back for easter to see my mum and Northern friends!) and i just booked the flights, done, dusted. that was it, no going back....  

Dont get me wrong, i wasn't scared of coming here, i wasn't scared of the flight, i wasn't scared of being on my own for 3 weeks, i can take all that in my stride. But I was terrified of spending this nice cushion of money i had saved and saved.... i was terrified of not having any savings after my trip! But the more i thought about it, the more i realised that i would miss out on so much if i sat on this money, as my Dad always said, you can't take it with you when you die!

So once i booked the flights, i had to figure out where i was going, i knew i wanted to go to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima and somewhere in there i wanted to go on a Bullet train!

Simple plan but it worked!!

So i booked 5 hostels, one in each place i visit. I`m hitting Tokyo twice, once on the way in and once on the way out.

I`ll do another post with my itinerary once i`ve completed my trip and where i actually visited...but so far 8 days into my trip, i`ve seen everything i wanted, and more!!

For now this is me saying, if you want it, go for it!! Life is too short, many of us have learned this the hard way, so if it makes you happy do it, dont worry about what anyone else thinks, or says, this is your life! and you are big enough and strong enough to go do anything if you put your mind to it!!

Keep it Positive

Nessa
xx

Japlanning - It's terrifying me!!

For ages i have longed to go to Japan!! I love everything (aside from what they do with Dolphins) I love the culture, the fashion, the gaming, the history, the city sky line.

So I have saved, and saved, and saved, and i have booked 3 weeks off work to go!!

Exciting right!!

Well... yes, and no....

I have been Japlanning for ages now, I know where I want to go, I know how long I want to be there, I know how much flights will be.

But......

I am struggling to book it, to spend all that money I've saved for so long. Its been a cushioning that I am terrified to let go of.

But as I write this I am going home for Easter, back to Gods Own Country, Yorkshire!!

I am going to enlist the help of my Mama and we are going to spend all the money I have in a three week trip to the country that has fascinated me for so long! 

So until there is an update that it's all booked....please cross your fingers for me!!

Keep it Positive

Nessa

x