Jay's sammiches!

For a change from my cooking, here's some of my n00b vegan boyf Jay's handiwork! Redwoods' cheatin' "beef"-style deli slices, vegenaise, bistro salad, and pure margarine. Nearly as tasty as he is! =]

Redwoods' vegan "roast beef" review

Served up in the pic with baby potatoes roasted in olive oil, and rosemary, carrots and broccoli, and gravy (Bisto original is vegan, but do check packs of gravy mixes before buying 'cos not all are). This was pretty damn tasty, and very rich and filling. Does it taste like the real dead animal though? Not sure myself since it's been so long since I've touched meat- but who cares- it tasted good! It's pricey at £4, but no more pricey, in fact less so, than the dead animal version! It gets 5/5 =]

Oooh, this was yum!

This creation is 2 pasta shells, stuffed with VWAV's tofu ricotta, the centerpiece of a plate of fusilli in tahini sauce from Leah Leneman's Easy Vegan Cooking, topped with more tofu ricotta, then baked at 200C of 20 mins. A rich and satisfying combination!

Ooooh- I received a copy of Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero for Xmas, so I'll be posting pics from that soon! =]

Festive dinner!

Since we're going to visit my mum for my xmas dinner, I decided to make us a festive dinner tonight instead. We had Lelly's stuffed tofu, potatoes roasted with olive oil and rosemary, sage and onion stuffing balls(Morrisons own brand mixture) and the obligatory brussels' sprouts. It was pretty damn tasty =]

So I got some dairy free chocolate spread...

...and I made some biscuits(that's cookies for non-UK readers btw!) to sandwich the chocolate spread inbetween, nice though it is to spoon straight from the tub!(Admit it- you must've tried this at some point!). Here's my biscuit recipe-

2 1/4 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar (Tate and Lyle brand is vegan)
1/2 cup margarine (I use Pure)
1/2 cup sunflower oil
2 tbsp water
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

-sieve flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl
-in another large bowl, cream together the rest of the ingredients
-add dry ingredients and mix well
-spoon tablespoonfuls onto 2 baking sheets covered in greaseproof paper(makes about 30-ish) and flatten to about 1/2 cm thick, or alternatively roll out with a rolling pin and cut into shapes
-bake at 200C for 12-15 minutes or until nice and golden

-serve! Tastes lovely with chocolate spread, as pictured, or just on their own!

My camera sucks, and a cookbook review

Apologies again for the lack of recent posts, but I've not managed to get a decent photo recently and will have to take a look at the camera. :( Will be back with the food fotos asap!

In the meantime, a cookbook review for The PETA celebrity cookbook-

I'm no longer a PETA supporter since I disagree with a lot of their tactics, but I came across this in my local library, and being a vegan cookbook, it intrigued me, so I borrowed it. And to be honest I'm pretty glad I borrowed it instead of buying, since it was fairly disappointing. The recipes in themselves- and there weren't very many of them- were fairly mediocre, a lot of them featuring ready-made food products unavailable in Scotland. From such a large book with full colour pictures, I expected some food photos, but alas, there were none, although there were plenty of celebrity photos instead! This cookbook is just typical of PETA as an organisation, it seems to concentrate so much of it's focus on celebrity endorsement that it loses sight of more important things! A disappointing 2/5