Composition Biscuit-Chocolate Box

I hate to write it, but it wasn't too great, probably because I have a lot of alternatives that make this chocolate box pale in comparison. I'm sure that under normal circumstances it's good, but as it is, only one type of chocolate felt right: the waffles of which there were only two. The others just tasted boring.

Salty Cheese Cake

I put it in the pizza maker as opposed to the oven. It wasn't that great of an idea because the dough was too big and it got burnt on top, but it was nothing a few scrapes with a knife couldn't fix. I thoroughly enjoy melted cheese.

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

This must be the ultimate anti-fasting food with dairy (-parmesan cheese), eggs, and meat (-pancetta, Italian bacon). It's my favorite spaghetti recipe out of the six I currently know.

Chocolate Bars: Toblerone, Lion, Kitkat, Marzipan

My favorite would normally be Lion, if only it was the original one without peanuts. In this case, my fave has to be Toblerone with its hard honey chocolate which houses small crunchy pieces of almonds.

Steak with Mashed Potatoes and Vegetable Sauce

Some foods just beg to be eaten and they end up giving your taste buds the time of their lives. This is one of those foods.

Baguette with Sausage and Ketchup

When I eat sausage, my first choice is Kabanos, but this sausage is the closest to it that I ever ate and it's cheaper. Microwaved for about a minute until it starts to sizzle and it gets the same taste as kabanos.

Ferrero Rocher and Raffaello

Two of my most favorite and most expensive sweets Santa brought me.

Fruits Yogurts

Strawberry, Blackberry, Peach&Apricot, Raspberry, Sour Cherry. I cannot choose a favorite. I love all yogurts with pieces of fruit in them.

Chocolate Balls: Hazelnuts, Liquor, Raisins

The ones with liquor are my favorites. I like to bite them in half and drink the liquor first leaving me with just the delicious chocolate, but I also enjoy melting the chocolate in my mouth so that I'm left with only a ball of strong liquor.

Grilled Meat with Potatoes and Onions

I have found that the delicious taste of the grilled meat comes mostly from seasoning, of which I put three different brands.

Stracciatella and Truffles Yogurts

I ate the stracciatella yogurt first which was a mistake because the truffles one felt sour in comparisom. But the sweetness of the truffles definitely diminished that.

Cordon Bleu with Mashed Potatoes

I love how melted cheese just slides out of the cordon onto the potatoes with each bite; the tenderness of the juicy ham pleasuring my taste buds..

My Christmas Tree

And under it there are most of the desserts and the snacks I will be eating the next few days~

Mini Éclairs Pastry

Nothing too fancy, just the egg yolks-based cream and a little whipped cream inside. I used to cut the pastries in half after they were done baking in the oven and then add the cream, but this year I just drilled a small hole into each and added the cream through with a syringe-type mechanism which is easier.

Sarmale

Today the fasting is over and I can start eating animal products once again! Oh, meat, how I missed thee. Sarmale are a Romanian food; minced meat and rice rolled into cabbage leaves. I added sour cream on top.

Bread with Smoked Salmon

I also spread margarine on the bread and sprinkled dried salvia leaves on top. The pieces of salmon must be scarce or otherwise the taste will overpower everything else - had to learn this the hard way the first time I ate this meal.

Grilled Bread Rubbed with Garlic and Olive Oil

And tomatoes sprinkled with basil. Very simple and very delicious!

French Fries with Fried Seafood

Whenever I eat sea food, I like to keep the taste at bay as much as possible by eating small quantities at a time. I enjoy sea food, but unlike other meat products, the taste can be too much. My favorite is either the shrimp or the oyster.

Creamy Pastry with Walnuts and Raisins

The crunchiness of the walnut chunks goes well with the soft raisins scattered throughout the vanilla flavored cream.

Dried Dates, Vanilla Soy Milk

In its dried state, the date is one of my favorite fruits. Not in the photo, but I also ate a bag of chilli chips which, in conjuction with the soy milk, lost their spiciness and tasted like barbecue. It was pretty surreal.

Jalapeno-Tomato Salad

Also onions, cucumbers, lettuce and lots of balsamic vinegar making for a hot acidic salad.

Lemon Wafers, Almonds Chocolate, Tangelos

The tangelos are a hybrid of mandarin oranges and grapefruits/pomelos. They were a bit sour.  Speaking of sour, I'm quite thankful the lemon wafers weren't in the same situation. Tough I can't say I tasted much lemon while eating them. The chocolate bar is similar to another one I ate a few days ago, the only difference being that this one has almonds instead of marzipan. It was good, but I prefer marzipan.

Potato Soup

A whole lot of vegetables shoved inside like jalapeños which made the soup pretty spicy. I especially like the texture that the potatoes get in soup.

Chocolate Rice Pudding

I also added a few drops of rum and vanilla essences for a funkier taste.

Meatballs Baguette Sandwich

With cheese, pickles, mayonnaise and ketchup.

Chinese Vegetables Mix

Besides more common vegetables, it also contains bamboo. I added a sweet-spicy sauce on top. The bag I got the vegetables from said it was enough for four servings, but I ate it all in one sitting and still felt hungry. Nevertheless, the meal tasted great - maybe this is the reason why it didn't feel like it was enough.

Strawberry Wafers, Seeds Mix, Sandwich Cookies

A fairly varied desert/snack, if also taking into consideration the banana, oranges and clementines. The seeds mix has become one of my favorite snacks and I only tried it for the first time a few weeks ago. My favorite seed has to be the flax, for it has the strongest taste.

More Raspberry-Pudding Pastries

This time I added slices of bananas instead of dried apricots. It tastes even more delicious. The only complaint I have is that it gets real messy when eating due to the nature of the puff pastry sheets.

Pasta with Tuna and Tomatoes

I used both normal and cherry tomatoes. The tuna was canned and soaked in olive oil. The type of pasta is penne rigate.

Pudding-Raspberry Pastry, Pretzel Sticks

This is a new type of pastry I tried out, my own recipe. It's vanilla pudding with chunks of pineapple and dried apricots between sheets of puff pastry and on top there's a layer of whipped cream + a layer of raspberry sauce. It was delicious!
The pretzel sticks were ok, too, though they seemed a little bitter after spoiling my taste buds with the pastry.

Soy Schnitzel with Mashed Potatoes

The soy schnitzel is, as you can probably imagine, very different in taste than the meat schnitzel. The textures are also different, mainly because the soy schnitzel is boiled in water, not fried. That being said, it tastes better than you might expect.

Chocolate-Vanilla Pudding

It's been a while since I've had pudding without fruit inside. Unlike the previous puddings which I made with soy milk, I made this one with vegan sour cream. Didn't notice much of a difference other than the lack of soy taste which didn't bother me to begin with. It was still good.

Vegan Pâté, Zacuscă, Eggplant Spread

Most of what you see in the photo is vegetable-based. Zacusca, the red vegetable spread, is popular in Romania. Out of everything on the plate, my favorite was the pâté which I deem better tasting than the traditional meat-based one. It's best in combination with pickles.

Spicy Peanuts, Kiwifruits, Chocolate Wafers

I consider those roasted peanuts with spicy seasoning to be better than the unaltered peanut. Though I have yet to discover a seasoning that would make them spicier and that would go well with them. The kiwis weren't as sweet as I had hoped sadly. Then again, I did eat them right after the wafers confusing my taste buds. I also have a few "Christmas tree" chocolates which are decent considering they were made without milk.

Baked Potatoes with Vegetables

I put carrots, tomatoes, bell peppers and onions. Normally I would also throw in the oven a few bacon slices, but due to fasting I was unable to do so this time. Nevertheless, the lack of meat did not take away much from the meal.

Fruit Rice Pudding

The red sauce is made from strawberries and the pudding has chunks of pineapple. Definitely today's highlight after the vegan hotdogs I struggled to eat earlier. Cannot wait for Christmas when fasting will end and I'll be able to eat -real- food!

Vegan Hotdogs

I went a bit crazy when adding the vegetables and sauces because I wanted to cover the not-very-good taste of the vegan sausage. Fasting meals are often not pretty .. this is one of them. Lettuce, pickles, mayonnaise and ketchup were barely enough to cover the taste. Vegan cheese is also present so I guess it's more of a sandwich than hotdog, eh? One thing is for sure: it's something that no one should try ever.

Fried Dough Pastries with Powdered Sugar

I just made them after leaving the dough to grow for 5 hours. The pastries have a sponge-like consistency and are fairly simple. I didn't bother making fancy shapes because the result is the same: an easy, delicious pastry.

Spaghetti al Tonno

A quick, tasty meal with tuna that was dipped in olive oil. There was more spaghetti, but I ate a lot while trying to decide on the right amount of seasoning.

Orange Peels Chocolate, Sour Cherry Jello

This dark chocolate with orange peels is surprisingly good, but the best thing that I ate today is the jello-like consistency of the sour cherry from the chocolates which resemble the choco bananas. As for fruit, there's a new addition to the citrus family: the mandarin orange - the ones that have a lighter shade of orange. There are three types of citrus in the photo .. it takes experience to be able to tell the difference between them.

Pasta with Smoked Salmon in Sour Cream

Also, the sauce contains chunks of red bell peppers and leeks. This is the second time I prepare this food and for good reason: everything about it is perfect. Every ingredient complements the others, the taste is heavenly. It's my favorite food whenever I'm fasting. Yes, the sour cream is vegan.

Roasted Pumpkin

This is my second attempt ever at roasted pumpkin and I can safely say that I improved. This batch definitely deserves the title "Roasted" as opposed to "Burnt". The only thing that I would change next time I put pumpkin in the oven is the size of the chunks. I will try making relatively thin slices which should guarantee even and fast roasting.

Tortillas with Tuna and Arugula

As opposed to the similar meal that I ate a few days ago, this one is made with tortillas not piadinas and the leaves are arugula not lettuce. Also, in this meal I added cheese and was not disappointed with the outcome. Everything else is the same, mayonnaise, cherry tomatoes. The arugula leaves are bitter on their own and have a strong taste, but mixed with food they are surprisingly delicious.

Whipped Cream-Strawberry Pudding

The above layer is the whipped cream pudding, the one below is strawberry pudding and between the two, poking out in the form of red liquid, I put frozen strawberries. Before putting them in, I like to heat up the frozen strawberries in a bowl in the microwave with a few tea spoons of sugar because otherwise the taste is slightly sour.

Parsley Potatoes with Shrimp and Hake Fish

Yes, those are some awfully maltreated shrimps. I took the stick out of the shrimp before eating; I tend to take big bites out of food and because of the wooden stick, I would have had to take small ones. They tasted fine, they were good, but I am of the belief that, in combination with the potatoes, the hake fish tasted better.

Vegan Burgers

with vegetable-based "meat"balls which are tons better than soy based ones, in my opinion. Two buns with poppy seeds and one with sesame filled with pickles, mayonnaise, ketchup and vegan cheese.

Pistachios, Chocolate Wafers, Persimmons

Roasted and slated pistachios are amongst my favorite nuts next to cashews. I emptied an entire 300 grams bag in that bowl and every single one of the pistachios was easy to open, which, is not always the case. In previous bags, I encountered quite a few nuts still fully enclosed in their shells and, believe me, they are not easily cracked.

Vegetable Fried Rice

A wonderfully healthy, easy to eat meal with red and green peppers, tomato cubes, carrots and onions. I would have added peas and corn, as well, but I didn't find any more in the freezer.

Coca-Cola Toy Truck, Vegan Pizza

So the truck is not food, but you have to admit that it's pretty fancy. I got it with the purchase of a pack of two bottles of coke. The text says: "Make someone happy!".
I've decided to make more vegan pizza because it's delicious. This time, I added thin potato slices that I dipped in olive oil and rubbed with garlic - I got this idea from an Italian recipe. The other half of the pizza got stolen~

Fornetti Pastries

Fornetti is a chain of pastry stores in my country and several others. They have a wide variety of puff pastries, both salty and sweet, but I got only a few that are edible by the fasting individual. What I have here contain apple, cherry, respectively walnuts. One thing that I'd like to point out: the apple pastry (-rectangles on the left) taste like real apple, something which is not very common in bought pastries.