It’s already been a long week and it’s getting worse still. I’m booked up all day today; work, helping a friend with his move to a new flat and then home to eat something and sleep. Tomorrow’s all work and no play. Not to mention how I feel mentally. One of my work colleagues (and an incredible friend) had surgery yesterday. She had a gastric bypass and I spent all of the day thinking ‘what if she dies what if she dies what if she dies’ and then decided to cry and cry. Hopefully it’ll all turn out well and hopefully I’ll hear from her within a few days.

Anyway, in her honour I’m posting this super delicious soup recipe. She’s not going to be able to eat anything for a while, but when she can it’ll have to be puréed food and soup. I swear Gabbi, I’ll make this for you as soon as you get well again!

This soup is über delicious. Just don’t eat all the lovely roasted bell peppers before putting them in the soup! When I made this soup I started thinking about making a roasted bell pepper dip/spread. Let me get back to you with that.

Roasted Yellow Bellpepper Soup: Serves 6

• 8 yellow bell peppers
• 4 tomatoes
• 1 yellow onion, BIG
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 litre (4½ cups) vegetable broth
• 1/2 chilli pepper
• salt and pepper, to taste

1. Turn the oven on for 250º C (480º F)
2. Cut the bell peppers in half and de seed them. Put with the peel upwards on a baking tray with baking paper.
3. Grill in the oven until they turn a blackish brown, about 20 mins.
4. Put them in a bowl and cover with plastic foil for 20 mins, until they cool off. Peel the paprika.
5. Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water, peel them and de seed them.
6. Chop onion, garlic and chilli. Sauté in oil for a few minutes in a large pot. Add the paprika, tomatoes and stock. Boil for ten minutes.
7. Mix the soup in a blender or with a hand held blender/mixer.
8. Reheat and add salt and pepper to taste.

THIS is the best thing ever invented in America (was it actually invented there?) It was a nice decadent breakfast for me who usually eats just a sandwich and a glass of water. Pancakes in Sweden are the typical thin crepes and we eat them with jam, whipped cream or maybe sugar. Usually as a dessert after a soup. I love Swedish pancakes but a few years ago I discovered the American version (up until then I had only ever seen them on tv) and fell in love. They’re so ‘bready’ and delicious!

Mine are served with maple syrup and some awesome fresh strawberries that I found at the market.

I’ve been horribly busy lately for some reason. Watching kids, taking long walks, running around in town trying to find presents for people. I don’t know. I haven’t been cooking much but for some reason I’ve still been fed. Yesterday I gave up on weight watchers. I emailed them saying I didn’t want to do their dieting thing any more. I did good with them, but I haven’t been there in almost 2 months but have still been paying. Also, I’m sick of dieting and self hating. No more dieting for me, instead I’m going to be loving my body and giving it what it needs.

Today is pay day! The only day of the month when we actually have money to spend. So we did what any smart person would do, we went to town with the kids (two lovely and annoying girls that my mother takes care of on the weekends and that we sometimes babysit), visited their favourite place McDonald’s and then hit the market to buy some fresh vegetables.

Our evil little cat familiar enjoys sitting among fresh greens and lovely fruit.

We cooked SusanV’s Seitan Ribz for dinner. It was MUCH appreciated by Alex and I loved them too. Served with some beautiful artichokes bought at the market, lettuce, steamed broccoli and some more of those lovely Swedish tomatoes. they’re so full of flavour and so sweet! I made a dip for the artichokes with oil, lemon juice, garlic and herbs. It was absolutely perfect. It’s been quite a while since I was this satisfied after a meal.

We were discussing today how much we love the vegetarian lifestyle. Our plates are filled with an abundance of lovely plant food, we enjoy more diverse meals than we used to and we don’t feel deprived of anything, rather the opposite. There’s SO much to choose from. I could never go back to eating meat. Or for that matter to go back to eating that boring, uncreative food we used to have.

Now go! Make some ribz, steam some vegetables, enjoy all the beautiful foods we have and watch out for the evil lettuce eating cats.

This Saturday me and Alex went into town to check out the flea market and to see what fruit and vegetables were available at the market. It was raining horribly so the flea market was empty. We had a nice breakfast at a nearby café and then went to the market to see what we could find. I found some really nice organic beetroots and onions. There were also lots of different kinds of Swedish grown tomatoes. They looked so amazing I had to buy a few. There were lovely artichokes and aspargus to buy but the price was way too high for us to afford right now. It was a nice day despite not getting to buy any junk at the flea market.

Now, I’m not a vegan, but reading all of your lovely blogs about food certainly makes me want to try out new things. I decided to make a beetroot and lentil pie but instead of using a mixture of eggs, milk and cheese for it I used soymilk, cornflour and some nutritional yeast. Was this a good idea? It tasted great and the colour was amazing. What do you normally use for your pies?

I also used the beetroot to make some nice pink tofu balls! PINK TOFU! They tasted great and looked silly

Yesterdays lunch/dinner was the Butternut Squash soup from Vegan with a Vengance. I liked it but I’ll likely never make it again as butternut squash is a rare occurrence here in Sweden. Incredibly easy to make, tasty and filling. Yum! I wanted it fat free so I just left all the oil out. It worked well without it too.

We had a very mixed culture breakfast this morning. An exotic mango, banana and blueberry smoothie in our terribly Swedish viking glass served with some delicious French croissants made by an American company and baked in my Swedish oven. All of this served on a lovely plastic tray with an eastern motive featuring some flowers and the text ‘feng shui’. It just doesn’t get much more multi culti than that.

Mango-banana-blueberry smoothie: 1 big glass

• half a banana
• half a mango
• 1 dl (just under ½ cup) orange juice
• 3 tbsp blueberries, frozen or fresh

Dice the mango, put everything in a blender and whiiiizzz. It’s filling, healthy and gorgeous!

We’re finally done with the moving and we’ve settled in. There are still shelves to be out on the walls, a box or two to unpack and a few small things that need fixing but other than that we’re pretty much done. It’s taken a while!

And here’s what we’ve been up to other than moving boxes about. Smoothies! (My blender is godly, I don’t understand how I could live without one). Burritos, risotto, tivoli with the kids and tabbouleh.

Other than that it’s been rather crap food wise. Pizza, pizza, pizza, crisps, burgers, falafel, burgers, falafal. Falafel. Pizza. So, pretty bad. And expensive!

Now I’m trying to catch up on what you people have been making and blogging. There’s so much! Next time I’m without internet could you please slow down?