tofu chocolate mousse... sugar free?

i don't know if tofu chocolate mousse that is also sugar free (possibly - more on that in a bit) sounds appealing at all to anyone?

but i liked it.

this is what happened...

I've had a bad throat, I was home and I wanted something easy to eat and cold and maybe sweet too. Really I wanted (vegan) ice cream but I didn't have any.

but I did have tofu... so I made mousse!

really, it's just blending stuff together to your taste. The main things you need are some soft tofu, some sweetener and some flavour (I think lemon mousse would have been good). 

I blended up tofu, raw cocoa (not that much - maybe 3 teapsoons), some agave and some maple syrup 

(not that much - a good squirt of each - again make it to your taste!)

vanilla essence, some vegan butter (about a tablespoon and a half) and a little bit of vanilla rice milk.

that's it! so far so sugar free....

ah, but then i added a glug of amaretto and am now doubting if that is sugar free. 

it would have been fine without, we just had some amaretto in the cupboard.

once it's made, chill for a couple of hours. eat plain if you have a fruit phobia (hi bert!) 

or with blueberries or raspberries if your fruit phobic husband is at work.

pastini soup

i have absolutely lost my voice - I have self diagnosed it as laryngitis...

so bert made pastini soup.

it's made by frying garlic, onion and chilli in olive oil with cumin and smoked paprika.

then veg stock was added along with some sliced carrots, parsnip and cubed sweet potato.

the pastini was added along with tomato puree, some balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper and then it was simmered until everything was cooked but the carrots had a little bite.

it was garnished with some chopped spring onions and fresh coriander.

it was the best thing ever. so far i have eaten two four bowls of it.

book group

hello!

I am starting a book group (a real life one not on online one... although come to think of it, why not online too?? we could all read along!!)

we are going to be reading books with an historical and or Welsh angle to them.

Let me know if you are Cardiff based and interested in coming along.

The first meeting is on March 16th and we will be discussing The Rebecca Rioter by Amy Dillwyn.

If you are not Cardiff based and would be interested in making this an online reading group too, please let me know as well and we could discuss it mid march!

happy reading.x

dreaming

image credit

other peoples dreams are pretty boring aren't they?
here's mine from the other night....*

i dreamt i was in a house for a wedding of someone i didn't know... i didn't really know anyone there and it was the morning of the wedding. we were around a table and i noticed that there was broken glass on the floor and lots of us had bare feet. i asked someone where the brush and pan was so i could clean it up and she said it was in the kitchen. i left the room that we were all in to find the kitchen but it was just room after room after room and i couldnt find it. i asked a guy and he said it was the next room... to get there i had to unhatch a door a little like the front of a dolls house... i pressed a switch and all the lights went out and smoke started to come out. i heard people groan as the switch had turned off all the lights in the house, so i quickly turned it back on.

later in the dream i was in a room with a friend who is now dead. in the dream i knew she had died but didnt know if she knew she was dead and wasnt sure if i should mention it. instead i just told her i missed her and we hugged.

*i was possibly feverish

cake

it's been snuffle-city at the lile-pastore house the last few days.

I did make some vegan sugar-free (used agave instead) cupcakes though and they were good and light and the frosting was delicious. 

I used Alicia Silverstone's recipe...

anyone got any sugar free vegan baking tips???x

avocado, girls, books, dolls and a cat....

I like mornings. and coffee. and maybe avocado on toast.

I like taking it slow in the mornings... I like to have tea and read, then have coffee and toast and maybe look online and watch television. it takes hours before I leave the house.

Today I have a day off so I'm super slow this morning. 

I've had a really busy week of making valentines cards with children.

We've also been sewing little felt hearts - children sewing are the cutest, especially when they get to choose buttons! I usually give them a  limit of three buttons... mainly because a lot of the time it will be me doing the button sewing.

have you seen Girls? we LOVE it here. 

I'm not sure it's on television in the uk... it's not on ours anyway.

we first saw it on our flight to San Francisco and loved it so much that we had to buy it when it came out on dvd. If you've seen it what do you think? 

I think it's amazing, it's funny, smart, has great dialogue, it feels real and Lena Dunham who writes and stars in it is just perfect. 

last month I mainly read non-fiction, but this month I'm back into stories.

This Sheila Heti book leads on quite nicely from Girls, as it has a Lena Dunham quote on the back.

Bert found this book for me (Bert says all the hipsters are reading it) and I'm really enjoying it. It also has a Miranda July quote on the back  - Miranda says it's 'a new kind of book and a new kind of person. A book that risks everything... a major literary work.'

yep. I'm not sure i'm finding it to be a major literary work (although am only half way through) but it IS really good, and kind of different and interesting, and it sort of reminds me of Miranda July's writing too.

aw look! a little momiji doll

bert bought it for me. She is called Danielle and loves 

'turning the pages to happy times, cookbooks and dreaming of becoming a pastry chef.'

she is so cute and there's a space where you can hide little messages. cutiepie.

we got new sheets too.

lime green and grey. Little sadie is modelling them for us above. Can you see those little bald patches she has? oh, Sadie! she had to go back to the vet again because of her itchy skin. She had an injection and then feels better straight away but it takes a little while for her fur to grow back. She's been so sweet recently and as soon as we sit down she jumps up onto our laps.

in other news I have been really enjoying the new Shugo Tokumaru cd, and have become a little obsessed with Nadia G on Bitchin Kitchen. There are guys doing stuff on the roof of our flat at the moment....I don't know what they are doing (something roofy) but I do know that I want to have a bath and I can't until they move as the ladder is right by our skylight... 

they've already seen Bert naked.

window update! have covered the skylight with old xmas wrapping paper and washi tape in the style of a crazy hoarder! 

i'm a piece project

us cardiff craftivists have been sewing jigsaw pieces for the I'm A Piece project.

Read all about the project right here

photo by jen

there i am sewing. it looks like i'm all alone, but i'm not - jen and reynette (lovely craftivists both) are sitting opposite and it was really busy a bit later on....

this craftivist project is part of a campaign with save the children which wants to make sure that children everywhere have enough to eat.

we spent a day sewing....

but i've also left them out for people to add their piece to the jigsaw this half term week.

you could make your own piece too - the instructions are here

I'll be sending all the collected jisgaw pieces off to the craftivist collective to be part of their installation in the next few days.

hello weekend!

enough about bert, this is MY blog!
it's the weekend! in a minute i am going to go to hot yoga! i've never been to hot yoga before....*

source

I hope Robert Downey Junior will be there.

although I imagine it will be more like this....

source

are you a hot yogi?

what are you doing this weekend?

I am also going to learn to crochet....

happy saturday!xxx

love sian

*and i still haven't been to hot yoga.... it took me so long to find the place (on a little street in a part of town i don't know) that i was too late to go in!!! now i know where it is tho- so will try again next week!! ha ha.x

what bert wore

Bert is taking over the blog today. hey Bert! 

what ya wearing?

 Hi. This is me outside our flat, i'm wearing my new Grace Slick t-shirt!  It's been nice and sunny today.  

I think my style is kind of a cross between Woody Allen and Jim Rockford.  I love Woody Allen's clothes and James Garner's got some great facial expressions which i try to use.

                                         

Other fashion icons of mine include Bud Cort in Harold and Maude (lots of browns), Adam Green (great hair) and Kris Kristofferson around the time of Convoy (i totally would).

My favourite colour is definitely brown.  Which i guess is quite Seventies.  

Here's me again, pretending to read.  

  See how my book fits in my pocket?

january books

Hello!
this is what i read in january. it was a lot of non fiction.... it was kind of health and spirituality with a sneak of teenage immortals and a comic thrown in.

I so loved the rookie yearbook. I mainly read it in december but finished it in January.

It's written for teenage girls but I am pretty sure that you will enjoy it if you are a neither.

it's packed full of amazing writing, interviews, great articles etc etc. really it's so good.

the Donna Farhi book was so great, I found it to be kinda revolutionary for me. it's about yoga but it talks about how to be happy and how to be a good person (the happiness project tries to tell you how to be a good person too.. but it's nowhere near as good).

the book on the bottom right 'Brain on Fire' by Susannah Cahalan was fascinating - it's a memoir about a woman who was perfectly healthy and then went completely 'mad' for a couple of months. I thought it was great and thought provoking and jam packed full of interesting.

what ya been reading?