Kris's cruelty free Kitchen

My other blog has arts and crafts...

2011-02-20T00:33:00.002Z

I have a new website and blog in addition to this vegan food one, where I'll be posting arts and crafts, at www.kscottcrafts.co.uk

I also found this handy guide while googling for info about which arts and crafts supplies are suitable for vegans, and thought some of you might also find it useful- http://allthosethingsandtheotherstoo.blogspot.com/2010/02/vegan-craft-supplies-in-progress.html

Potluck preview- Christmas Cookie Tree!

2011-01-29T19:51:00.002Z

It may be January, but since the Scottish Vegans' Xmas potluck was postponed due to snow, I've also made a xmas cookie tree to take to it!

The cookie cutters were a gift from my friend Sylvia (thanks again!) and I used the Mum's Sugar Cookies recipe from The Garden Of Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard since it said I could use cutters for it. I've used basic icing mixing icing sugar and water to glue it together, then drizzled some over the top for a snowy look, then sprinkled more icing sugar snow on top...

I'm hoping it survives the journey in one piece now! :)

My father-in-law's Broccoli and potato soup recipe

2011-01-04T22:44:00.001Z

No photos atm sorry, because I couldn't find the camera when I was serving, but I will edit and add one next time I make this- and there WILL be a next time!

1 tbsp sunflower oil
2 medium onions, finely chopped
450g broccoli florets and part of stalk, finely chopped
300g potatoes peeled and diced to 1cm cubes(about 1 medium potato)
2 pints vegetable stock
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1tsp garlic powder OR 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
ground black pepper and sea salt to taste

-sweat onion over a gentle heat till transparent
-add broccoli, potatoes, stock and seasonings
-simmer over gentle heat until potato is soft (about 15 minutes)
-liquidize the soup
-reheat if needed then serve

goes beautifully with croutons or crusty bread!

Meme stolen from Skint Vegan

2010-12-01T15:53:00.003Z

What is one food you thought you’d miss when you went vegan, but don’t?
Fried eggs with runny yolks- there's no substitute fake equivalent vegan thingy, but it just doesn't bother me

What is a food or dish you wouldn’t touch as a child, but enjoy now?

Not sure, I was a fairly adventurous child. My mum might remember if she's reading this?

What vegan dish or food you feel like you “should” like, but don’t?
Salty porridge with soya milk because I'm Scottish- but I'm a sassenach and only take a little porridge with my sugar!! :P

What beverage do you consume the most of on any given day?
ginger tea or black coffee

What dish are you “famous” for making or bringing to gatherings?
My coconut chocolate fudge

Do you have any self-imposed food rules (like no food touching on the plate or no nuts in sweets)?

Ordinary sliced bread is raw toast and may only be eaten if toasted.

Potatoes in potato salad salad must be cold.

Glasses must also be cold.

What’s one food or dish you tend to eat too much of when you have it in your home?

crisps or chocolate

What ingredient or food do you prefer to make yourself despite it being widely available prepackaged?

Fudge. The Fabulous Fudge Factories is nice, but my own homemade is better. And vegetable soup- there's nothing like homemade soup!

What ingredient or food is worth spending the extra money to get “the good stuff”?
Coffee

Are you much of a snacker? What are your favorite snacks?
Yes, and biscuits. I am a very naughty vegan indeed!

What are your favorite vegan pizza toppings?

Pesto- Stereo in Glasgow make a lovely pesto pizza! I also like a traditional cheese and tomato pizza made with mozzarella cheezly.

What is your favorite vegetable? Fruit?

Mushrooms and strawberries

What is the best salad dressing?

Ginger and lime- Marks and Spencers make a lovely one with their edamame salad pots!

What is your favorite thing to put on toasted bread?
Melting cheezly with black pepper and sea salt

What kind of soup do you most often turn to on a chilly day or when you aren’t feeling your best?
vegetable and lentil

What is your favorite cupcake flavor? Frosting flavor?

I don't know! I do love coconut heaven cupcakes though...

What is your favorite kind of cookie?

Choc chip cookies from Vegan With A Vengeance, they're lovely and chewy...or the sparkled ginger cookies from that book...mmm!!

What is your most-loved “weeknight meal”?
Nut cutlets with roast potatoes (both frozen), cranberry sauce and garlic roasted brussels atm- it's quick and easy but festive!

What is one dish or food you enjoy, but can’t get anyone else in your household to eat?
Aubergine, my hubby hates them!

How long, in total, do you spend in the kitchen on an average day?
45 minutes

Back in... red!

2010-11-30T20:03:00.004Z

After another long absence I'm back, and here's a pic of me with new-ish red hair courtesy of Superdrug's own brand BUAV-approved suitable for vegans hair dye which I'll review first...

It's called Colour Effects, it's a shampoo in and out temporary hair dye and it comes in a wee silver bottle (which very handily tells you on it that it's suitable for vegans!) and it's only 99p. My shade is rich red, and I've left it on for a full 20 mins for a vibrant colour, but you can leave it on as little as 5 minutes for a more subtle result. It's commitment free as it washes out within about a week, but you can just keep it topped up to stop it fading if you want to keep it in longer. I'm impressed by the vibrancy of the colour, the ease of use and the price, so it gets a 5/5 :)

After my last post I was back in hospital again with the same problem, but my health seems to be a lot better than it's been, not had another incident since then though, and I'm now back at work. They're still not 100% sure what's wrong with me, although they think it's either a congenital birth defect with the abnormal veins in my stomach, or endometriosis on my stomach, which I'm currently being treated for. All I can do now is cross my fingers that it won't happen again!

Sorry for such a long absence, and I'll hopefully be back with some food photos soon... x

Update- think I'm better now!

2010-09-18T15:49:00.001+01:00

Hi guys, I've not been on for a while because I've been back in hospital since
Tuesday 7th and was just let back out yesterday afternoon.

I had 3 more gastric bleeds during the time I was in, and had to get several
blood transfusions and more endoscopies (which I hate having as the sedation
doesn't work very well and I panic) to try and find the cause, and on the last
one they finally found an abnormal vein which they put me under general
anaesthetic and stapled the vein, and they are hoping that that is it sorted-
they said there's a 75% chance I'll be okay now, but I'm to go back for follow
up appointments, and also to see a gynaecologist as they think it may be related
to endometriosis.

I'm feeling a lot better than I was but still have inflammation and a borderline
low blood count so I'm a bit tired and need to take iron and proton pump
inhibitors for a while yet. Hopefully I'll be fully better and be updating properly soon though!

London... a great place for vegans!

2010-09-02T22:03:00.004+01:00

My new hubby and I went for a city break to London for our honeymoon and thoroughly enjoyed it! We visited Oxford St and Camden Market for shopping, went to the theatre to see Avenue Q, visited the Science Museum, British Library, and British museum... there's always loads to do there and we'd love to go back and see some more!

It is, like I said, a fabulous place for vegans, it must be so easy for people living there to convert... there are loads of veggie and vegan restaurants there, as well as most omni places catering for vegans- we found hummus sandwiches in the science museum's cafe, loads of falafels everywhere, we went to Pizza Express(there must be one on every street!)on the first night who made us a cheese-free pizza, and there are loads of huge branches of Holland and Barret, Julian Graves, and Wholefoods with a far bigger selection of vegan snacks than I've ever seen anywhere in Glasgow... the first photo is a selection of munchies we took back to our hotel room from Soho Wholefoods!

We also went to Tai Veg in Old Compton Street, Soho, twice for a £6.50 all you can eat, all vegan buffet. Very tasty indeed, with a huge variety of thai and chinese foods to choose from... they had noodles, curries and stir fries, special fried rice, soy and seitan fake meats with various dipping sauces, crispy seaweed, peanut rolls, sesame toast, fake prawn crackers, and a vast selection of fruit and veg, nuts and seeds... yum!

We also went to InSpiral cafe in Camden twice... just look at their patisserie menu! They had a fabulous selection of desserts, particularly their tiramisu cake, which I had with maple pecan ice cream from their huge selection of vegan ice creams. They also served hot savouries- I had a vegan lasagne with steamed greens, potato wedges and sweet potato on the side, which I shared with hubby and had some of his tempeh and cashew cheese panini(because we have started doing that married thing of ordering different things and having half of each other's... :)). I felt like a kid in a sweet shop in this place! :)

We wanted to visit 222 Veggie Vegan which had a load of good reviews, but sadly due to the Notting Hill carnival, a lot of the trains going there were cancelled so we couldn't get there easily. Next time- and there will be a next time!

I'm now a married woman!!!

2010-09-02T21:40:00.003+01:00

Here's a selection of my wedding photos... I had a great day, and I'm happy to be married to my lovely hubby! :)

There's one there of our vegan cupcake tower wedding cakes, made by the chef at Mar Hall, Bishopton as part of our all-vegan wedding breakfast menu- we had...

Starter- Roast Parsnip and Thyme soup

Entree- Open ravioli with wild mushroom and asparagus in truffle oil, with micro-herb salad

Dessert- Apple Crumble with Soya vanilla ice cream

...which was all absolutely delicious!

Stay tuned for the honeymoon report....

That's a big marrow...!

2010-08-09T20:05:00.002+01:00

I made some of these Golden Vanilla Cupcakes from the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World for my family at the weekend, and will also be having them made for us at our wedding by our new caterer to whom we gave the recipe.

After the recent drama with our last chef leaving, we managed to find a new venue, Mar Hall in Bishopton who gave us a list of vegan options to choose from for our new menu- we decided on parsnip and thyme soup for the starter, open ravioli with wild mushroom and asparagus in truffle oil for the main, and apple crumble with soya ice cream for dessert, followed by the aforementioned cupcakes, which sounded like a tasty menu. :) I'll try and get a few photos on the day to post here. ;)

Only a fortnight and one day to go now till I'm a married woman! I've not got much more to organise now, I'm having my hair trial tomorrow and bought the last of my favours today(I'm not telling what they are as they're to be a surprise for some readers!) All those cupcakes meant I've gained enough weight that I can now fit back into my wedding dress, which I tried on again at the weekend at my parent's house. :D
This here is a roasted marrow stuffed with golden vegetable rice (I cheated on this and used Uncle Ben's, which is vegan). My mum was given the marrow by a friend from work who grows them herself, and it was massive- to give you an idea of the scale, here's a photo of it in the fridge...
Big, eh? And that thing in the shelf above the marrow wrapped in the clingfilm is new Soya Free Cheddar Style Cheezly (I tried to find a link but it's not on their website as yet, I got mine in Holand and Barrett.). It uses pea protein instead of soya. It melts. tastes delicious and their best yet IMO. 5/5

Not food related- Why I've been away, and latest wedding gossip

2010-07-10T17:51:00.003+01:00

I've just got out of hospital on Tuesday after being kept in for nearly a week for observation following a gastric bleed.This is after being in for a fortnight in total 4 or 5ish weeks ago where I had about 3 bleeds (I was let out then took relapses within a few hours twice!) and I've needed transfusions of about 11 units of blood in total over this time.

They still don't know the cause of my gastric bleeding and I've already had an endoscopy, colonoscopy, half an enteroscopy(this had to be halted as apparently I took a panic attack while under sedation), and barium meal xrays which failed to show anything. On Tuesday I had a capsule endoscopy but it can take around 4 weeks for results.

The same thing happened 4 and a half years ago too and was just written off as unexplained gastric bleeding and not further investigated as I never took a relapse over that time until these more recent incidents. One doctor said it was possible they might not even find anything there (which I find rather worrying). I'm feeling a bit better now, just a bit run down and tired.

I'm hoping everything will be sorted by the time of my wedding- only 6 weeks to go now!

We found out last week that the chef who was going to make our all vegan menu had left the hotel where he rented his restaurant, so Jay and my mum have been looking into finding a new place to go for our after wedding meal. I'm really glad we're having an intimate(13 guest) family wedding on a Tuesday so it (hopefully!) shouldn't be too difficult to find an alternative place to cater for our meal- had we been having a huge wedding on a weekend I'd be panicking!

I'm back after a long break! And here's a Pongal-inspired pilaf thing

2010-07-10T15:55:00.004+01:00

I discovered Venn Pongal in Dino Sarma's Alternative Vegan book, and as he says himself in this post it can take a while to make. He has a few suggestions for new takes on it himself which I'll have to try out shortly. I came up with this pongal-inspired pilaf recently for a quick dinner- I've used the same spices(see Dino's blog) but instead of the traditional rice and split peas which take a while, I've used quicker-to-cook amaranth and a drained and rinsed tin of kala chana brown chickpeas for a speedier alternative. I'm very pleased with this experiment so I've tried a few variations and quinoa or cous cous also work well in it. :)

Photos from Cat's potluck

2010-04-20T20:51:00.004+01:00

Brian is skiing on the Nintendo Wii...
Morven's walnut banana loaf...
Penny's chocolate cake- recipe here
Just desserts(because we ate the starters and mains before I remembered to take photos!)
Isla, Cat and Brian's dog

Dad Brian and daughter Bree...

Potluck Food, and (more) wedding talk!

2010-04-17T20:39:00.004+01:00

I'm going to a Yahoo! Scottish Vegans' group potluck tomorrow, and I'm bringing this chocolate and coconut fudge. I used this 3 minute fudge recipe here with all coconut oil, and replaced the chopped nuts with dessicated coconut. I then lined the bottom of my tray with more dessicated coconut, then after spreading the fudge in, sprinkled even more coconut on top.

So I do hope everyone likes coconut- especially as the savoury dish I'm bringing is a mixed veg and mushroom korma!

I'm still wedding planning, and will be looking into booking a table at a venue for an all-vegan meal after our wedding this week- I've been emailing a few local hotels and restaurants asking if it was do-able, and The Watermill and Raeburns@ Ashtree House Hotel have gotten back to me saying they could cater for vegans- which might be handy for you to know if you ever need to book a table in the Paisley area!

Jay had been looking to hire a vegan kilt but we've been tring to find a hire service without any luck unfortunately- now there's a niche in the market if anyone is thinking of starting up their own business, kilt hire for vegans and vegetarians!

He's now decided he'll probably wear a suit instead, but I'm still going to post some of the information I've found on here in case anyone else reading finds it useful...

George, a member of the Scottish Vegans group(whom some of you who read The Vegan may recognise from the front cover of the Autumn 2009 edition wearing his kilt!) told me he got his tartan from Marton Mills, it's a polyester viscose named "Caledonia" from their Balmoral Range. His is a "Great Kilt" and here are instructions on how to fold it-

http://www.garbtheworld.com/pgs/foldkilt.html

Plus you-tube video instructions here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jE__DYSM6U

Some kilt tailors will also make you your very own bespoke kilt using a non-woolen tartan but of course this is very pricey.

Although many of the cheaper casual kilts available from tourist shops are not woolen, all of them we've come across do however have leather straps so unfortunately are not vegan friendly.

Vegan Sporrans to buy and belts- http://www.vegansporrans.co.uk/catalog/index.html

Bespoke vegan sporrans, kilt straps and belts- http://sporran-nation.co.uk/vegan.html

Cappuccino Cupcakes- with recipe! :)

2010-03-29T15:25:00.003+01:00

200g self-raising flour
150g sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tsp instant coffee
190ml hot water
110ml sunflower oil

-preheat oven to 180C

-make coffee by adding the hot water to the 3tsp instant coffee

-line a 12-cake tray with cupcake liners

-sift together dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients, and whisk

-spoon batter into liners, then bake for 22 minutes

-leave to cool then ice if desired

Icing recipe-

1/8 cup Pure marge
2 tbsp soya milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups icing sugar

-mix together then spread over cakes

- you can garnish these cakes using cocoa powder sprinkled on top, or alternatively grate chocolate over them, or pop on some chocolate-covered coffee beans. Best served with a nice cuppa! :)

Hope you enjoy these cupcakes if you decide to try them out! :)

In other news Jay and I have set a date for our wedding- 24th of August this year, and I've found my dress at last! It's a completely vegan heavy jersey material, but I'm not going to tell you readers any more than that, you'll have to wait for the photos! ;)

I've been getting a lot of spam comments left on this blog lately for me to moderate, is anyone else using blogger having this bother? At least, I think they're spam, as they're written in some sort of asian-looking script which I can't actually translate! Spam fail.

Illustrated Recipe- Fridge Cake

2010-02-21T22:29:00.004Z

Live cooking action photos by Jay!

You will need...

8oz vegan digestive biscuits(I use Morrisons' Value ones)
4oz vegan margarine
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
1 heaped tbsp syrup
2 bars of plain chocolate
dried fruits and nuts of your choice(optional)

Crush the biscuits into crumbs Melt the marge, sugar, cocoa and syrup in a pan. Now add the biscuits to the melted mixture
Now press into a sandwich tin then put into fridge to set (should only take 20 mins)
Melt the chocolate bar over a bain marie(or a makeshift bain marie using a pan and a pyrex dish like I did!)Spread melted chocolate with optional added fruit or nuts (I used almonds and dried cherries) over the biscuit mixture Now press more nuts, like these walnuts, on to to garnish if desired, then ut back in fridge to set

...Voila, you have a fridge cake! Slice into pieces and serve!

Chocolate Chilli Recipe (as brought to potluck)

2010-02-21T22:20:00.003Z

(serves 2-4)

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, sliced

1-2 cloves garlic, crushed

75g textured vegetable protein OR vegemince

1 ts yeast extract(eg, marmite, vegemite or equivalent)

1 can chopped tomatoes

2tbsp tomato puree

1 tin red kidney beans, drained

3/4- 1 1/2 heaped tsp chilli flakes(to taste)

1-2 squares high cocoa content(minimum 70% cocoa, the higher the better!) dark chocolate

optional vegetables (you could use chopped mushrooms, jalapeno peppers(sparingly! They're hot, so cut the chilli powder content!) or bell peppers)

Top Tip!- if someone you’re cooking for is a spice wimp and doesn't like their chilli quite so burn-the-roof-of-mouth-and-make-eyes-water hot as the others, the solution to this, is to move their milder portion of the chilli to a seperate pot once you've cooked it, then add extra spice to the other pot, then let simmer separately. Just remember which one’s which!

-saute onion and garlic (and vegetables if using) in olive oil until transparent

-add tin of chopped tomatoes, vegetable protein, kidney beans, tomato puree, stock, chilli flakes, yeast extract, and chocolate, and bring to the boil, simmer for 15 mins and serve!

~ideal served with rice, tortillas or other grains~

~alternatively, omit tvp and use a drained can of chickpeas or other beans, to make a bean chilli~

Honest Scrap!

2010-02-02T20:37:00.004Z

I've been nominated for an honest scrap award by Penny at Scottish Vegan Homemaker and DJ at Skint Vegan- so thank you both!

The rules of the award are simple:
1) Thank the lovely person who has nominated you and link back to them. Thanks again both of you! :)
2) Tell your readers 10 honest things about yourself.
3) Link to other blogs you feel embody the spirit of Honest Scrap and whose blog you find brilliant in design and/or concept.

So here's my honest scrap.

1- Pink Wafers are my latest food addiction! I've just discovered some of them are vegan(I'd always assumed they contained milk) so I'm making up for lost time, and am shovelling into some as I type!

2- I'm trying to grow my hair for my wedding(and to enjoy after it as well!), and as long as it looks nice and healthy, I'd like to get it down to my waist. Much easier and lazier than that traditional bride-to-be ritual of going on a diet and having a goal weight!

3- When I go shopping I tend to tidy things up- must be because I'm frustrated at people leaving stuff in a mess at their backside at work!

4- Hubby-to-be Jay is my toyboy at just 27- I'm 30 this September. And I do not feel nearly that old!

5- I love gently massaging Fudge the cat's front paws, and he loves having them massaged and puts them in my lap to be done! This makes Jay jealous as he also loves receiving foot and hand massages and asks if he'd get his done more often if they were covered in fur and he purred!

6- Despite being a vegan, I love all things vampire-related, from Buffy to Twilight to Anne Rice, and I watched Count Duckula, the Vegetarian Vampire duck when I was a kid! I'm currently reading the Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries series by Charlaine Harris(which the True Blood TV series was based on). I like werewolves too!

7- I honestly never imagined myself getting married- always thought I'd end up a crazy cat lady spinster type!

8- I have lots of things in the cupboard that I've bought for trying out a complex recipe I've read somewhere, and never got round to doing yet. I usually manage to squeeze in the recipe just before it's due to go past it's sell-by date!

9- My handbag carries a lot of nonsense, from a variety of medicines to an umbrella to a book currently being read and sometimes if I'm near the end, the next one in case I finish the first one before I get home, but I'm not taking anything out and making it lighter because I carry all these things "just in case" and if I do, I'll probably regret it!

10- I have a great memory for trivia and can often answer obscure questions on game shows etc, but anything important I'll probably forget!

My nominations are

Darmok The Green -

Kitchen Dancing -

Skint Vegan -

Scottish Vegan Homemaker-

Half Pint Pixie-

Two Vegan Boys-

I'm getting married!!!!!!!!!1111!

2010-01-23T21:00:00.004Z

I apologise to readers for not mentioning my engagement earlier, as I was engaged in November, I actually thought I had, although Penny did mention it in a reply to one of my posts! Jay proposed after he went shopping while I'd been at work, and said he'd bought me an early xmas present, then gave me this box......Which had this card inside...
He had looked at rings, but wasn't sure what style I'd like, so he wanted to take me shopping to pick my own. So I chose this ring, which is tanzanite(Jay's birthstone) with diamonds on white gold...
:) :) :) :) :) :) :D !!!

We haven't set a date yet, although we would like to get married ASAP, and are currently looking into the details(venues, dresses, honeymoon destinations...). It's going to be a small and intimate wedding, close family only, in a registry office because we're both atheists, and we're going to go for a meal after it(vegan of course!).

I've been looking at dresses, and so many wedding dresses have silk in them, but I have seen a few I've liked that don't and are vegan-friendly. This 100% polyester number from Debut @ Debenhams is my current frontrunner , although they didn't have a size 12 in stock. I tried a size 10 on, which I liked although it was a little too small, so I'm really hoping the 12 fits and I'm not, as I often irritatingly find to be the case, a perfect size 11!

A close runner up, which was a perfect fit and also my mum's favourite out of everything I'd tried on, was this dress here, also Debenhams Debut. I'd highly recommend a look in Debenhams Debut to vegan brides to be as they have a lot of non-silk vegan-friendly fabrics in their collection.

BHS is also worth a look as they have lots of animal friendly fabrics too, although nothing I tried on was a good fit on me- but that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be the case for everyone, as I should mention that I wear an unusual bra size anyway. I did see lovely shoes there though!

Back with more wedding gossip soon!

Yours excitedly,
Kris xxx

Kris's Cruelty Free... Bathroom and Make-up bag!

2009-12-27T16:58:00.003Z

For a change of subject, I love trying out new toiletries and cosmetics, so I've decided to post a list of my favourites. So, in no particular order...

Barry M 3-in-1 mascara- I don't wear a lot of makeup for everyday, but having very light blonde eyelashes, I feel rather naked without my mascara! (I've tried dyeing them, but I like the volume mascara gives too). Just one coat gives a nice amount of volume that isn't too heavy for everyday wear, and it also lengthens and curls, so no need for curlers. Fellow spectacle wearers will also love that it dries nicely and won't smudge all over your glasses. Available from their own website, as well as www.veganstore.co.uk and Boots and Superdrug on the high street.

Lush hair products for blondes- I absolutely love their The Blonde solid shampoo and Marilyn hair moisturiser pre-shampoo treatment. Like a lot of people's, my blonde hair has darkened as I've got older, and I've lightened it with highlights loads of times over the years. I was considering getting some more to brighten my mousy hair up a bit, but using these products gives me a a brighter, lighter colour after a while so I'm now a lot happier with my hair colour, and it's cheaper and less damaging than having it bleached at a hairdressers. They both smell pleasantly of camomile and remind me of baby shampoo.

I also really like their Veganese conditioner. I have very fine hair and I find a lot of conditioners can be too heavy, but this stuff is really light and leaves my hair soft and shiny but doesn't weigh it down. Has a nice fresh citrussy smell of lemons.

I love Montagne Jeunesse Moisture Miracle intensive conditioner and serum sachets. It leaves my hair in great condition and smells gorgeous and chocolate-y. Great stuff, I only wish they made it in big huge tubs as well as wee one use sachets!

Co-op own brand sensitive toothpaste- this stuff really works for my sensitive teeth, they had been incredibly sore for a while but after using this they hardly bother me. It's also cheap and tastes minty fresh.

I also love co-op's own brand anti-perspirant deodorants and body sprays, which come in a variety of light, freshscents, all of which I've liked so far. The anti-perspirants last ages and don't leave white marks, and are pretty cheap too.

I use Simple facial wipes or eye make up remover liquid(*I looked for a link and they seem to have discontinued this product :( , although they do have a new lotion version which I think I'll try next time), as I have very dry sensitive skin around my eyes and these are effective and don't irritate my skin. I also like their Kind to eyes soothing eye balm.

Jay uses Simple's Anti-Dandruff shampoo which is very effective at getting rid of dandruff. It's also unscented, which is a bonus as many anti-dandruff shampoos have a strong, often unpleasant medicated smell.

We both use Original Source shower gels which smell delicious. (And I use the men's ones as well as the women's!) Their minty ones are especially great for summer as they're cooling and tingly! They used to make a tingly mint deodorant spray, now discontinued, which I wish they'd bring back.

This weird and wonderful product, Montagne Jeunesse's Chantelle blueberry refreshing foot talc, which is a lotion that magically transforms into a talc when massaged into the feet, tingles and cools gently, feels great and is ideal for doing foot massages with. Jay and I both love it.

For Fox sake back the ban!

2009-12-26T17:56:00.003Z

http://www.backtheban.com/home

If you don't want want to see the hunting ban repealed, then please sign the petition at the link above, and write to your local MP and candidates about this issue(the site has a feature which allows you to do this online).

Xmas potluck pics! With added cute!

2009-12-22T21:36:00.004Z

I've got some photos from the Scottish Vegans' Xmas potluck, hosted by Penny of Scottish Vegan Homemaker and family, including this cute one of Susie the cat, above, peeking at as shyly from the stairs...
The cats might have been shy, but I got cuddles from doggies Daisy and Bobby, pictured above, snuggling in front of the heater....Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed 13 month old Bree, daughter of the Two Vegans at Leaves and Twigs, was singlehandedly proving that veganism IS healthy for kids of all ages! :)

Here's the spread of just some of our feast... I brought the vanilla sandwich cookies in the tartan tin. There's also lemon curd tartlettes, chocolate, pecan and pear cake, 2 pumpkin pies, banana cake with chocolate chips, nut roast stars, cranberries and oatcakes in the picture, and we also had soup, roasted veg, snow day pie, spicy carrot dip with breadsticks, stromboli, Catalan chickpeas, and cacao and peanut ice-cream (not pictured, sorry, was too busy eating!)

Apologies again for the lack of recent posts, I'm still alive and well, though I've been busy and knackered (being behind a till this time of year will do that to you! ;) ) doing overtime at work so I haven't had the time for doing experimental cooking and blogging about it, although my hours will be cut after xmas so hopefully I'll post more often in 2010!

Restaurant Review- Chapter One, Forres

2009-11-10T20:44:00.003Z

Jay, his parents and I have just come from a lovely meal in Chapter One, an omni restaurant in Forres, in the north of Scotland, as we're up visiting them. His mum booked a table in advance asking if they could cater for two vegans in the party, and was told that was fine.

The Vegan Banquet, made specially for us, went above and beyond our expectations. We're so used to getting measly portions and still being hungry afterwards in omni restaurants so we were delighted to receive huge, enormous potions, which included a spicy mushroom and nut paella, mushrooms in a tomato-based sauce, stuffed tomatoes with a caramelised onion filling, asparagus-filled filo pastry and vegetable skewers. We gave his parents a little off our plates to try and they both found it delicious as well. :)

I'm going to award Chapter One an impressive 10/10 for their efforts, and I highly recommend booking in advance and paying them a visit if you're ever up this way.

Animal Lovers' Fayre!

2009-10-31T22:02:00.002Z

There's a Fayre tomorrow Sunday 1st November from 12 noon-5 pm in the basement of Stereo, 20-28 Renfield Lane, Glasgow to celebrate World Vegan Day organised by The Glasgow Vegan Meetup Group. There will be animal welfare stalls (info tables/displays with free leaflets, etc), a vegan art & craft stall, charity jumble sale, free films & snacks & 4 competitions with prizes. And upstairs at Stereo as it's World Vegan Day there will be 1/2 price food all day! A great day out and celebration of being vegan! :)

I've made this batch of choc chip cookies for the Scottish Vegans' bakery stall, and Penny of Scottish Vegan Homemaker is also bringing a variety of goodies- so be there if you want to sample some of our baking!

Potluck pics, Po-Jay-Toes, "Cheese"cake!

2009-09-26T20:49:00.003+01:00

I was at another Yahoo! Scottish Vegans' Potluck today at Norma's, and here is a spread of just some of the tasty vegan food I was sampling...
I brought some Jammy Almond cupcakes, pictured above, my own adaption of Veganomicon's Jelly Donut cupcakes which I wrote about in my last post, and some chocolatey chilli, a spicier version than I usually make for Jay.
It was my 29th birthday a few days ago, and I got a birthday raspberry "cheese"-cake by Mama Cucina from Holland and Barrett, pictured above. It was expensive at £3-99, but delicious!
Sorry for the terrible photo here, I was halfway through eating dinner when i remembered to take it! I've been working late and coming home to tasty dinners cooked by my boyfriend Jay, like these baby potatoes, sliced into smaller pieces for extra crispiness and roasted in olive oil, black pepper, sea salt and thyme and roasted at 220C for 35 mins. I've named them Po-Jay-Toes after him and made him promise to make them frequently! They're served here with a grassingtons "peppered beef-style steaks" roast frozen parsnips, and there were some runner beans on the plate too before I took the picture.

Happy Accidents! Baked Tatties!

2009-08-30T19:42:00.005+01:00

A while ago I started making Jelly Donut Cupcakes from Vegaomicon... then realised as I'd started putting the ingredients together that I was out of vanilla extract! I ran to my local branch of Spar just across the road to remedy this, but they were also out of vanilla!
I wondered how I could adjust the recipe and decided to try flavouring my cupcakes using almond extract instead of the vanilla, and just omitted using the nutmeg- and it worked beautifully, giving my cupcakes a lovely combination of jam and almond sponge flavours reminescent of a bakewell tart.
Now, whenever I make these cupcakes, I follow my own almond variation, which I actually prefer to the original. I'm quite glad now that I ran out of vanilla that day!
Next time I make these, I think I'll try sprinkling some chopped almonds on top too...
There's a Lurpak butter ad showing on TV just now where they insist baked potatoes are best baked in the oven, and not in the microwave. To some extent I agree with this as I don't like microwaved tatties either, but I start mine in the microwave for 5-10 mins depending how many tatties I have to bake, then finish them off in the oven for about 30-40 minutes to speed up the process, yet still get that lovely crispy, baked jacket effect.
I refuse to put Lurpak on my tatties however, as it's definitely not vegan!
We had these with a coleslaw homemade with Mayola vegan mayo(sorry, we were too busy eating and I forgot to take another photo!), but there are also vegan alternatives to butter such as Pure or Vitalite that can be used.

I've made 3 posts in this week alone since I've been on holiday, but as I'm back to boring work tomorrow and out the house for about 11 hours a day, sadly they'll be less frequent again as all work and no play makes for a slow blog! :(

Visit to Wagamama's, and making cupcakes at my mama's house!

2009-08-29T20:33:00.004+01:00

This photo of me (sorry if anyone finds the image disturbing!) was taken at Wagamama's restaurant in Glasgow, where I was trying to eat some very tasty vegan Saien Soba with chopsticks and a wooden ladle-thingybob.

Although they are an Omni restaurant, Wagamama's cater for vegans as well as other dietary requirements, and even though many items aren't vegan on the menu, you can ask the staff and they will suggest how they can adjust things for you- Jay and I both had Saien Soba soup(which the menu describes as "whole wheat noodles in a vegetable soup topped with fried tofu, beansprouts, courgettes, asparagus, red onion, leeks, mushrooms, mangetout and garlic. garnished with spring onion") without the soba noodles as they contain egg, and had Udon noodles in it instead.

Our meal was delicious and we'd both definitely go back there. We were especially impressed with their deep fried tofu. Here's a shot of Jay getting to grips with some chopsticks...

This little bottle contains coffee flavoured balsamic vinegar, which may sound like an odd combination but it tastes great! I got it in Oil and Vinegar, where they sell many other kinds of weird and wonderful flavours of these such as chocolate or strawberry flavour balsamic vinegars as well. I tried a few of the tasters but I liked the coffee one best.

This is an experimental Triple Chocolate Cupcake which I made a batch of at my family's house while I was visiting a few days ago and my wee brother asked me to give him a hand making cakes. Alas, there was no vegan marge, soya milk nor baking soda, but there was plenty vegan chocolate so we managed to come up with this recipe, which worked rather well!

Triple Chocolate Cupcakes

(makes 12 )

200g flour
100g sugar
2tsp baking powder

4 tbsp cocoa

4 tbsp veg oil
200ml water
2tsp vanilla essence

50g vegan chocolate, broken into small chunks(alternatively use chocolate chips)

100g vegan chocolate(melted to ice- optional)

-preheat oven to 180C, arrange cupcake cases
-sift dry ingredients together
-stir in wet ingredients then add chocolate chips
-spoon into cupcake cases, bake for 25-30 mins, then leave to cool

-ice if desired by melting more chocolate and drizzling over the top of your cooled cupcakes. Leave to cool until the chocolate cools and hardens, then enjoy!

More from my new toy!

2009-08-26T13:45:00.002+01:00

Tasty homemade hummus, based on the recipe in Dino Sarma's Alternative Vegan, with some whole chickpeas on top for garnish. (I got the garnish idea from a ready-made moroccan style spicy hummus that I buy from Sainsbury's, but my chickpeas were a little bland so I don't recommend doing that unless your hummus is spicier- we enjoyed the hummus it underneath though!) Jay says it is on a par with shop-bought hummus- high praise indeed! :)

Tasty vanilla cupcakes (Golden Vanilla cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World) iced with my own experimental recipe of...

Extra creamy icing
2 tbsp vitalite,
2 tsp alpro soya cream,
1/2 a cup of vanilla essence
2 cups of icing sugar.

-combine the above ingredients, then ice cupcakes.
This tasty drink was a tropical smoothie, with frozen mango, papaya, pineapple and banana, with orange juice. The frozen fruit was bought ready to blend in a bag from Morrisons(see photo below, right) which I'd never heard of before but spotted while looking for frozen blueberries and was only £1-69 for a 500g bag- cheaper than fresh! And it's less prep work, plus being frozen as well as lasting longer it made the smoothie lovely and cool without needing any ice or refridgeration. I'd definitely buy this again. 5/5

My New Toy! (Cheers Norma! :))

2009-08-16T10:45:00.004+01:00

When my friend Norma got one of the legendary(amongst vegan bloggers!) Vitamix food processors, she very kindly gave me her Breville food processor- and while it may not sing, dance and heat up soup, it does make a nice smoothie!(see above pic) This is the first thing I've done on it, and there are more posts of processed food coming soon!

This here smoothie has plums, nectarines and orange juice(see below). For more interesting smoothie combos check out Penny's Smoothie Of The Day at the bottom of every post on her Scottish Vegan Homemaker blog.

Compassionate Living Fayre Food!

2009-07-24T20:39:00.002+01:00

Compassionate Living Fayre Summer '09
Sat 25th July 09. 10.30am – 5.30pm
St Augustine's Church Hall, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

I've been busy baking for the Scottish Vegans' Stall for this fayre(details above) tomorrow- the picture above is a very large stockpot full of cake batter as my usual big pyrex mixing bowl still wasn't quite big enough to fit multiple portions in at once!
Here are the finished cupcakes all ready to go- it's the Jelly Donut cupcakes from Veganomicon, and I've also made some Chewy Raisin Oatmeal Cookies from the same book (same ones as I made last week for the potluck, but following the recipe properly this time so without the cranberries!).

Reggae Reggae Review and Potluck Food!

2009-07-18T19:38:00.003+01:00

Although I haven't blogged since the last potluck a month ago, I am still alive- just been busy doing loads of overtime at work! Anyway, I'm taking this curry and these cookies, pictured above, to the Yahoo! Scottish Vegans potluck at Penny's tomorrow.

The curry is based on this vegan society leaflet recipe, but instead of using ordinary chickpeas, I've used brown Kala Chana chickpeas(they're Pride tinned, and I got them in Morrisons' ethnic foods aisle) and IMHO they're nicer than regular ones!

The cookies are Veganomnicon's Chewy Raisin Oatmeal cookies, and I've mixed up dried cranberries with the raisins, and added double the spices for extra spiciness!
This here is tofu and onions in Reggae Reggae cooking sauce, served with rice and peas. I've loved all the varieties of Reggae Reggae Sauce I've tried so when I saw their new cooking sauces, on offer in Morrisons' at 2 for £3, I bought them to try! It's a bit pricey, even when offer, but I loved this one too- very, very spicy but is absolutely delicious, and very similar to their ketchup sauce in taste. 9/10

Review for the Caribbean Curry variety coming up soon!

Potluck pics...

2009-06-20T23:02:00.003+01:00

The potluck was a sucess with lots of good company and tasty vegan food! On the spread on the table are Jane's peanut butter cookies, Penny's lentil and sunflower bake, Norma's Upside-down pear cake, Sooz's brownies and sausage rolls, as well my things I posted in yesterday's entry.

Not shown in the pic (as they were still heating up while I took it- d'oh!) but also worth a mention (and a thank you for bringing as they were yummy!!), were Norma's chilli and tortillas, and Sylvia's corn chowder and baguettes.
Sylvia with Johnny Norma and Sylvia
Sooz, Penny, Jane and John

Luckily there aren't any scary pics of me!! :)
Thanks again for coming guys!

This isn't a pic from the potluck, it's Ryvita with new Pure "cream cheese" spread and strawberry jam- very tasty indeed! I love the new Pure spread myself and would score it 4/5, although I've read mixed reviews for it. It is rather sweet and I'm not sure whether it'd work quite so well as a savoury, but if you're using it in a sweet dish like I did then it's delicious.

Potluck preview...

2009-06-19T22:33:00.004+01:00

Long time no post, but I'm still alive, just been super-busy lately! I'm hosting a potluck for the Yahoo! Scottish Vegans group tomorrow and here's some of the food I've made for it...

Pictured above are my own recipe lemon and poppyseed muffins...
A tomato-tahini pasta bake with breadcrumbs-( it's this recipe, then put in a casserole dish, cover with breadcrumbs and a sprinkle of nutitional yeat, and bake for 30-40 mins at 220 C)
Bird's eye chilli pasta salad, following a serving suggestion on the packet... definitely not for the faint-hearted as these chillis are HOT!
And last but not least, some chocolate cupcakes with vanilla icing! As seems to be compulsory when I make things for potlucks, this is the one that went a bit wrong as the frosting was a lot runnier than I'd intended it to be, and it was in an icing syringe by then so it was too late to fix! Luckily it still tasted fine though!

Nibbling on cookies with cacao nibs!

2009-04-26T15:23:00.003+01:00

I bought a bag of Suma cacao nibs- chocolate in it's purest form!- from a local health food store and decided to make cacao nib cookies with it. I made two kinds, a chewy chocolate cacao nib cookie, above, and oatmeal chocolate cookies, pictured below.

Here are the recipes for both...

Chewy chocolate cacao nib cookies....

115g margarine

125g sugar

1 tsp molasses

2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 tsp almond essence

250g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

100g cacao nibs

-preheat oven to 190 C

-in a small bowl, mix margarine, sugar, molasses and vanilla and almond essences

-in a large bowl, mix flour, cocoa baking soda and salt

-add small bowl of mixture and cacao nibs to large bowl and mix well

-scoop spoon sized portions into your hand, roll the dough into a ball and flatten then place on cookie sheet

- bake for 8-10 minutes until edges are slightly browned, and let cool before removing

Oatmeal chocolate cacao nib cookies

1/4 cup sunflower oil
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup soy milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 heaped tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups oats
1 cup cacao nibs

-preheat oven to 190 C

-in a small bowl, mix oil, sugar, maple syrup, soy milk and vanilla essence

-in a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, cinnamon and salt

-add small bowl of mixture, oats and cacao nibs to large bowl and mix well

-scoop spoon sized portions into your hand, roll the dough into a ball and flatten then place on cookie sheet

- bake for 10-12 minutes until edges are slightly browned, and let cool before removing

When Things Go Wrong In The Kitchen...

2009-04-17T21:55:00.005+01:00

I've not had a "when things go wrong in the kitchen" post for a while, so here it is, as luck would have it, the night before the potluck! Why is it that something you've made a few times goes smoothly when it doesn't matter and has hiccups the one time it does?

These rather flattened looking chocolate balls are supposed to look like the ones in the last picture of this post. The recipe is a work in progress and I seem to have used just a wee bit too much soya milk here so they haven't held a shape very well(as you can see!)! They do, however, taste delicious, so it's just the presentation that's an issue, but still, it's annoying nonetheless when I wanted them to be perfect!

I'm bringing them along anyway, but luckily I also have a perfect 3 bean chilli and backup plan peanut butter oatmeal cookies to bring as well!

Q- When can a vegan bite off a bunny's ears, eat them, and still call themselves a vegan?

2009-04-13T09:54:00.003+01:00

A- When the bunny is made out of dark chocolate of course!

How cute is this little display of easter bunnies my mum gave me for easter? I thought I'd better take a photo of her handiwork before I ate 'em! The wee daffodils are actually Marie Curie nurses' charity pins as well. She also gave Jay, who's diabetic, assorted nuts instead of an egg in a Top Gear mug (but they've been eaten already....). Thanks Mum! :)

Suck on my chocolate peanut butter fudgy balls! (Stick 'em in your mouth and suck em...)

2009-04-03T20:01:00.003+01:00

Sesame Street's Cookie Monster would love these bad boys- Big Crunchy Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies from Vegan With a Vengeance. I've made the smaller version before but decided to try out the full-size version. They were pretty huge already but spread even further in the oven- I snapped them still in my baking tray, beside the book, so you can get a good look at the size!
This here is a broccoli and onion frittata-style tofu dish, which is basically my quiche recipe without the pastry, served here with oven chips.
And last but not least, chocolate balls... Chocolate Fudgy Peanut Butter Balls. DJ of The Skint Vegan brought some delicious fudge with pistachios based on this recipe to a potluck and posted the link to the recipe, so I tried it out myself, and was very pleased with the result!

I experimented with the quantities(using 1/2 a cup of peanut butter instead of 1/4 cup of margarine, upping the soya milk to 8 tbsp and using only 1 1/3 cups of icing sugar), to try and make a moister fudge, and came up with something just a little bit too moist to be a true fudge, so rolled it up into balls and dusted it in cocoa powder to make these yummy balls.

I reckon it would also be very tasty rolled in chopped almonds, using almond butter...

And last but not least, I don't think i can make a post that mentions Fudge without posting a photo of a very cute kitteh who answers to that name...

Bakes, cookies... and toys...?!

2009-03-22T11:44:00.003Z

First up I have a product review for these Goodlife Mediterranean Bakes, pictured above with some brocolli (that's not all we had for dinner, we had lentil soup for a starter that day!). Sadly we weren't that impressed by these and found them rather bland. They were edible but I wouldn't bother buying them again. A disappointing 2/5.

Apologies for the f-ed up formatting on this post, as blogger is being weird and not letting me fix it.More poppyseeds this week, this time in these Lemon and Poppyseed Shortbread cookies from Garden Of Vegan. I thought the nutmeg in the recipe was a strange combination, and I don't think it done much for the flavour, which was nice enough but I think it would have been better without so I'm going to leave it out next time, and there will be a next time as I'll definitely make these again because the texture was gorgeous.Next up we have a toy deer... with a gun?! I was sorting though my old childhood toys last week and came across this sweet little toy deer... then noticed he had a little toy gun (I think it's off my brothers' toy soldier originally) tucked down his trousers! It amuses me that I was so anti-hunting and wanted the deer to take revenge at that age! Thought I'd take a photo of him holding his gun and share it here for everyone's amusement...

It reminded me a little of this Cows With Guns Song! ...So I then gave the gun to a toy cow... and a bottle to her friend to stamp on...

Poppy seed muffins and... Xmas dinner...?

2009-03-14T11:45:00.003Z

This is a very tasty lemon poppyseed muffin from Vegan with a Vengeance. I had wanted to try out this recipe for ages but for some strange reason had found it extremely difficult to track down any poppy seeds to buy anywhere, so when I was in Marks and Spencer with my mum a few days ago and finally spotted a bag of poppy seeds for sale, I knew what I was going to do with them!
Redwoods' celebration roasts aren't just for xmas! I never did post a photo of the one we had for our xmas dinner in my xmas post, but here's a belated one now, seeing as how I picked up a bargain-tastic reduced to clear roast for just £2.19 (they're normally a pricey £5.19) in Holland and Barret yesterday.

I served the roast, which contains vegan "turkey" slices, and "sausages" wrapped in "bacon" alongside sage and onion stuffing balls (from a Morrisons' value range box of stuffing mix that you just add water to), baby new potatoes and brussels' sprouts. Tasty even in the middle of March!

I've got a lovely bunch of coconut-ty food!

2009-02-20T22:28:00.003Z

To bring to the Yahoo! Scottish Vegans' group potluck tomorrow! There's some of my coconut sandwich biscuits...
Vegan With A Vengeance's Coconut Heaven Cupcakes... Since I'll be getting there by a shoogly bus they'd probably end up a mess if I iced them beforehand, so I nicked the ingenious idea of bringing them un-iced with the icing in an icing syringe from Annie who done this at the last potluck.
I also made a huge, double-sized, pot of korma so that Jay and I could have a portion each for our dinner, and I could bring along the rest, since everyone else would be getting korma and Jay wanted some too!

I served it here with coconut rice(Sorry to disappoint everyone reading this for a preview, the rice was just for us because I don't think it's safe to reheat rice? I didn't want to risk poisoning anyone!) based on the recipe in Alternative Vegan.

Being vegan needn't be expensive!

2009-02-15T17:17:00.003Z

...And a perfect example of a tasty, healthy, balanced and inexpensive vegan meal is this Venn Pongal, pictured above with a side of Basic Brocolli, both from Dino Sarma's book Alternative Vegan. (He recommended this recipe amongst others himself on his recent blog and podcast on "I'm Broke food"! Worth a listen if you're skint... or even if you're not.)

I think a lot of people have this misconception that a vegan diet is expensive to follow, and this just isn't true. Sure, some ready made vegan products, like the Grassingtons foods which I recently reviewed, can be quite pricey, but I tend to see these things as a treat to splash out on occasionally rather than everyday foods. Obviously if you ate stuff like that every day it would soon add up.

Vegan basic essentials such as legumes and grains are about the cheapest things you can buy! The cheapest way to buy them is dried in a bag- I mean, you can pick up a kilo bag of lentils in most which will make several meals foraround a pound, often less! Even if you buy the more expensive tinned legumes, which are handier if you're in a hurry, you can pick up super-duper bargains like a 15p tin of red kidney beans from most supermarkets' basic ranges, or deals like 3 tins of beans for £1.

I was shopping with my mum last week and she spotted expensive ready made chilli con carne, and I commented that I could make a whole pot of my vegan version myself for round about £1!

Don't let this financial climate put you off going vegan if it's something you've been thinking about- ditching the animal products might even save you a few quid!

How to be a Vegan Junk Food Junkie.

2009-02-05T22:13:00.002Z

The Seitan Cutlets from Veganomicon make great burgers. I've served them up in traditional white, sesame seeded burger buns, and had them with lashings of Reggae Reggae Sauce. Yum.Up next in the vegan junk food post, I made a mushroom and pea curry using Yeung's concentrated Chinese Curry Mix, which tastes just like the stuff you get in Chinese Take-aways. (Please note- while some chinese take aways' curry sauce can be vegan, many others aren't and may contain meat stock or milk so do be sure to ask first. Or alternatively, just do what I've done here and mix some up at home!).
This was really easy- I just threw 250g sliced mushrooms, 3 chopped medium onions and a drained and rinsed tin of peas into the curry sauce mix and simmered for a few minutes, then served it over (nice, healthy!) brown rice. If I was going to be really naughty I could have fried my rice as well... hmm, I think I'll try that next time...

Last but not least, here's a close up shot of some amaranth with lashings of maple syrup. I'd never heard of amaranth before going vegan, but it's a super-nutritious grain which is high in protein and minerals, and makes a rather nice cereal. It's quite nice, and like a much smaller version of quinoa.

Vegan Haggis Fritters!

2009-01-26T19:24:00.003Z

Here's some traditional Scottish artery clogging yumminess (Trust me, they tasted a lot better than they look in the photo!). Jay and I love the haggis fritters in Stereo, so I fancied trying to make some myself. I made the haggis fritters using a ready-made Simon Howie vegetarian haggis, cooked it in the microwave and left it to cool, then shaped handfuls into fritters, dipped them in Lelly's famous recipe batter, and shallow fried at a medium-high heat for 10 minutes.

Served with roast potatoes, and Tesco's own brand (radioactive-looking) mushy peas.

Potluck preview... plus some Scottish Shortbread!

2009-01-23T20:43:00.004Z

I've been in the kitchen baking some goodies for tomorrow's Yahoo! Scottish Vegans group potluck. There are mini crusty sesame rolls (I used the French Baguette recipe from Garden Of Vegan, divided it into roll sized pieces, and rolled them in sesame seeds), Blueberry Jam Donut cupcakes(the Jelly Donut cupcake recipe from Veganomicon, using Hartley's Blueberry jam) and some shortbread, using a recipe I experimented with....

Scottish Shortbread

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 cup margarine
1 tsp vanilla essence
tiny drop of almond essence
pinch of salt

-combine ingredients into a dough
-press dough into a greased9x9 sandwich tin
-using a knife, mark into bars so it's easy to break later, and using a chopstick or skewer, press a pattern of dots into shortbread(see photo).
-bake at 200C for 10-12 mins, then leave to cool before serving

Pictures that might make you hungry, and a creamy mushroom sauce recipe

2009-01-10T13:23:00.003Z

This tasty little treat pictured above is a Delightful Date Square from How It All Vegan. Very easy and tasty, and the authors noted that all the dates and oats provide plenty iron...! Thanks, that makes me feel better about digging in, then! :)
Garlic Granary Bread! As Peter Kay would say, it's the future! I photographed this because it looked particularly pretty and appetising. The Granary Cob was from Morrisons' bakery- there aren't any ingredients listed on it but I quizzed one of the in-store bakers and he assured me it was vegan. I just make the garlic marge freestyle by getting enough Pure marge that would give each slice a thick coat, and mixing in a few clove-sized squirts of garlic puree, plenty sea salt, and a pinch of black pepper and basil.
After a healthy watercress salad starter, I made a rich and not quite so healthy entree of my creamy mushroom pasta(recipe below) and (since I'm taste-testing my way through all the vegan items in the range!) a Grassingtons Chicken-style fillet in tomato and herb marinade, which was delicious but quite pricey and small. We thought it was quite "meaty", though I've not eaten meat in about 15 years, Jay in about 3, so we're not sure whether it'd fool an omnivore, but who cares? It was tasty for what it was. 3/5, only losing points for price and stingy portions!

Creamy mushroom sauce

(serves 1-2)

150g mushrooms, sliced(I used button, but most varieties would do I think)
15g vegan margarine(I used Pure)
1 clove of garlic, crushed (or equivalent garlic paste)
8 tbsp soya cream(I used Granose Soya Creem)
pinch of nutmeg
pinch of salt
pinch of black pepper

- fry the mushrooms and garlic with the margarine in a pan over a medium heat for 5-10 minutes until cooked through

-add the soya cream, nutmeg, salt and black pepper, and simmer for a few minutes, then serve

Seasons' Eatings!

2008-12-28T22:21:00.002Z

And a belated merry xmas to you all!

Now, these chickpea cutlets from the Veganomicon recipe weren't our actual xmas dinner, but they would have made a really nice one! I quadrupled the sage to give the flavour a nice hint of xmas stuffing and served it alongside some very festive cranberry sauce.

For our actual xmas dinner Jay and I went to his parents and had a very tasty vegetable soup with crusty rolls for starters(sorry there's no photos, I was too busy eating!) and a Redwoods' Celebration Roast for all of the non-meat eaters, served alongside all the trimmings(brussels' sprouts, roast tatties and parsnips, mashed turnip, cauliflour, carrots) for our main course.

For pudding we had a tasty vegan xmas pudding with squirty soya cream- yummy!

And after that- as if we weren't already well and truly stuffed!- we had this lovely black forest gateaux homemade by Jay's parents, pictured below for you to drool over...

100th post, so here's some cake to celebrate!

2008-12-07T17:25:00.003Z

Blogger is being weird and not letting me write directly under my first picture, so I'll just have to write here!

Since it's Jay's birthday in a few days, he wanted some cake to celebrate. (I think I may have mentioned this before, but he's type 1 diabetic so isn't normally allowed sugar, although his doctors have said to him that it's okay to take a little extra insulin and have a sweet treat on special occasions like birthdays and xmas etc). So I made the chocolate wacky cake with nut butter icing from How it all Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. This may not be the fanciest cake in the world, but it was delicious, especially to a peanut butter lover like Jay!

The second picture is of Grassingtons' Beef-style peppered steaks from their new vegan Gardein range, which I'm gradually working my way through and taste testing, as you can probably tell from my last post! They were delicious and get full marks for taste, but sadly lose they some points for being very expensive at £1-99 and quite small, and don't make a very filling meal for all that money. 3/5

Reviews for Grassingtons new vegan foods! And Over 150 Cookies!

2008-11-27T19:46:00.003Z

Jay and i were quite excited when we came across new Grassingtons' vegan frozen foods in our local Morrisons' recently, so we bought some and have reviewed 'em for you! Above we have some Multigrain Vegetable Bakes, with "a healthy selection of fresh vegetables with nutritious cannellini and haricot beans into a crispy wholegrain, quinoa and oat crumb coating", served with roast potatoes, baby corn on the cobs and green beans.

These are quite nicely spicy and rather tasty and filling, so we'd definitely buy them again. Pricy, but not that bad, at £1-89 for a box of 4. We rate them 8/10.
We also bought some of these Beef Style Meatballs. They're super-easy to cook, you only have to heat them up in the microwave for a few minutes! They were quite pricey at £1-99 for a bag of 11, but they were really tasty. Another 8/10.

I served them with an Italian-style tomato-mushroom sauce, wholewheat spaghetti, and some nutritional yeast sprinkled on top(see photo below). Here's my sauce recipe...

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, sliced

125g sliced mushrooms

2-3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 can chopped tomatoes

2tbsp tomato puree

1tbsp yeast extract (optional- gives a richer taste)

pinch of black pepper

1 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp thyme

-saute onion and garlic and mushrooms in olive oil until transparent

-add tin of chopped tomatoes, tomato puree and herbs(and yeast extract if using), bring to the boil, simmer for 25 mins and serve! (Just stir in our preheated meatballs if you're having them with it)

There's over 150 chocolate chip cookies in those boxes! I made them for the Scottish Vegans' stall at the recent Bunnyhuggers' Compassionate Living Fayre a few weeks ago, and they seemed to go down well :)

I also handed out recipe leaflets for aforementioned cookies and variations, so here's the recipes for my readers...

2 and 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
A tiny drop of almond extract

· Sieve flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl

· In another large bowl, cream together the rest of the ingredients

· Combine both bowls and mix well

· Take tablespoonfuls of the cookie dough and place 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, then leave to cool

A few variations…

For chocolate chunk cookies, take a 100g bar of vegan dark chocolate (I use Divine brand), break and slice it into bite-size chunks, before mixing through the cookie dough and baking as usual

For a Butter-cream-style filling to make Cream Sandwich Cookies

4 tbsp cup Pure margarine
2 tbsp soya milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 and 1/2 cups icing sugar

· Mix together the margarine, soya milk and vanilla, then gradually add the icing sugar until it's mixed through

· Spread "butter-cream" on just half of the cooled biscuits, then sandwich another biscuit on top, and then serve! :)

For a coconut sandwich variation, add 1/2 cup of desiccated coconut to the cookie dough before baking, and another 1/4 cup coconut to the "butter-cream” filling, and then assemble as usual.

"Cheezy Peas" Risotto recipe, and jazzed-up oatmeal cookies

2008-11-02T21:22:00.003Z

These are Veganomicon's chewy raisin-oatmeal cookies, but instead of using ordinary run-of-the-mill raisins, I used a mix of golden raisins and dried cranberries (in a bag from from Marks and Spencer) which are a lot sweeter, and doubled up the quantities for all of the spices, making these cookies extra sweet and spicy! I took these to Yahoo! Scottish Vegans' potluck yesterday.

This is a really easy and tasty risotto recipe! Serves 4

320g arborio rice
1 litre vegetable stock
2 onions, chopped
1 tin peas, drained and rinsed
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp dried basil
sea salt and black pepper to taste
1/3 cup nutritional yeast, plus extra to garnish

-in a large saucepan over a medium heat, saute onions, and garlic in olive oil for a few minutes until onions become translucent
-add arborio rice and stir well, then pour stock in, and add basil, salt and pepper
-bring mixture to boil over a high heat, stirring continuously,then lower heat and simmer over a medium-low heat for about 20 mins until the rice absorbs almost all of the stock, continuing to stir
-add peas and heat for a few more minutes till they are warmed through
-take off heat, fold in nutritional yeast and serve, with a little more nutritional yeast sprinkled on top to garnish :)

Yet another meme...

2008-10-26T11:14:00.003Z

1. What was the most recent tea you drank?

Yogi tea's Choco flavour

2. What vegan forums do you post/lurk on? If so, what is your username? Spill!

I post on the Vegan Freaks' Forum and Yahoo! Scottish Vegans, also as Kris Dove.

3. You have to have tofu for dinner, and it has be an Italian dish. What comes to mind first?

Marinated italian-style tofu from Vegan With A Vengeance.

4. How many vegan blogs do you read on an average day?

Loads! I visit most through Planet Freak

5. Besides your own, what is the most recent one you’ve read?
Punk you Japan!

6. If you could hang out with a vegan blogger that you haven’t met, who would it be, and what would you do?

I'd like to eat out of an arty bento box with Peggy The Veggie at Vegan Teen Cuisine.

7. If you had to base your dinners for a week around one of the holy trilogy – tofu, seitan or tempeh, which would it be?

Definitely tofu, so adaptable.

8. If you had to use one in a fight, which would it be?

Well, seitan would be the heaviest...

9. Name 3 meals you’d realistically make with that tough protein of choice!

Chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon, seitan cutlets, served up as burgers, also from Veganomicon, or Bryanna Clark Grogan's "Neatballs"

10. What’s a recipe in vegan blogland that you’ve been eyeing?

Vegan Bear's Tiffin.

11. Do you own any clothing with vegan messages/brands on them?

Oh loads!
-an arty cows face with "if it's got a face I don't eat it" in light brown, ,
-a black t-shirt with "Go Vegan" in red letters and go-faster stripes on the arms, and
-a black vest with a pigs face that says "DON'T MESS WITH THE ANIMALS"
-a black "Meat is murder" from Viva,
-a grey one I bought in Cult clothing with a pig that says "we are friendly animals- don't eat us",
-a black one with the vegan society's logo which says "against animal tasting"
-and several ancient t-shirts I got when i was a teenage vegetarian, which I still a wear as pyjamas!

12. Have you made your pilgrimage to the 'vegan mecca' yet? (Portland, duh)

Nope, one day maybe.

13. What age did you first go vegan? Did it stick?

24, and yes, I'll never go back.

14. What is the worst vegan meal you’ve had? Who cooked it?

Some hotel I went to for my gran's birthday (cant remember the name) that never had anything for my main course, so i ended up eating other people side salads and chips! My aunt had called in advance to say there was a vegan in our party as well!

15. What made you decide to blog?
I started photographing a lot of things I'd made to post to vegan freaks' "food porn" albums, then decided my own blog would be a good place to show all the pics. That and everyone else was doing it! :P

16. What are three of your favorite meals to make?

Pizza with tofu ricotta, tomato rice soup with french baguette, or seitan cutlets

17. What dish would you bring to a vegan Thanksgiving-themed potluck?
I don't celebrate thanksgiving because I'm in the uk, but as far as I know thanksgiving meals are similar to xmas dinners?
When I go to potlucks I usually have to travel, and go by the "will travel well" rule, so maybe VWAV sparkled ginger cookies(I'm sure the author mentioned they were festive in the book?) and my mini-quiches, as they're party food.

18. Where is your favorite vegan meal at a restaurant?

I'm just loving Stereo's (Glasgow) tapenade and artichoke calzones and have ordered them the last couple of times I've been :)

19. What do you think the best chain to dine as a vegan is?

Wagamama's are really good as they've got a list for their waiters explaining what's suitable, or how it can be adjusted, to accomodate different diets, including vegan. I love their spicy tofu and veg dish with rice noodles replacing the veg. They even have sorbets and fresh fruit lollies available for dessert.

20. My kitchen needs a………
really powerful food processor

21. This vegetable is not allowed in my kitchen…..!
I don't have that rule, but Jay has one barring Aubergines(eggplant) from our kitchen!

22. What's for dinner tonight?

I've not decided yet, last night was tofu ricoota and broccoli calzones. Maybe a curry as i have poppadoms and loads of fresh veg?

23.What's a blog you read that has not yet been mentioned?

Skint Vegan

24.Add a question here!

What do you make that people always ask for more of?

(In my case, Jays' been asking for more French bread atm)

Ooh la la!

2008-10-19T12:50:00.003+01:00

This is a tasty, half-size(because my oven's only little!) French Baguette from Garden Of Vegan, using wholewheat bread flour for added healthiness. It was lovely and crusty, and really easy to make, so I'm definitely making this again soon! Jay and I scoffed the lot (with Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen's Tomato-rice soup) when it was warm out the oven, but I think I might try letting it cool next time and making into a garlic baguette...
For our entree we had this Kale and Cannelini bean dish from Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen, which was really quick and easy, as well as super-healthy. Because we'd had a big starter already I just served it on it's own, but it'd also be nice on top of pasta.

I can't give Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen enough praise! Jay is finding the handy nutritional info given at the end of every recipe to be really useful, as he's a type 1 diabetic and it lets him know exactly how much insulin he needs to inject for what he's eating. This would also be useful for anyone on a diet, and since the most of the book's chock-full of healthy recipes, it'd be a great buy if you're going on a diet.

I think I've already mentioned that it uses naturally vegan ingredients (rather than fake omni substitutes) in traditional mediterranean recipes, so this sets it aside from a lot of the other cookbooks on the market which try to recreate non-vegan dishes, making a nice change for vegans, and that also will probably make the foods more appealing to any omni friend or relative you're cooking for who might turn their nose up at the very idea of tofu (...often never having actually tried it, but that's a whole other story!)!

But tasty though healthy food may be, I still love my sugary treats, so I'll end this entry with a delicious Garden Of Vegan Carrot and Ginger Muffin, pictured above. I've adapted mine slightly replacing the nuts, because I didn't have any, with sultanas, and sprinkling the top with a dusting of icing sugar.

2008-10-17T07:21:00.004+01:00

I found this quiz from Vegan Teen Cuisine blog.

1. Name a song that involves food in some way.
Caramel by Suzanne Vega

2. What criteria do you use when choosing a new cookbook to buy?
Recommendation of vegan friends, good reviews.

3. What did you eat today?
Granola with freeze dried strawberries, and a glass of OJ, since it's only 7am! Probably having lentil soup for lunch and a mixed veg stir fry for dinner though.

4. Name a vegan food that you know exists but you have never tried.
Truffles (too expensive!)

5. The Food Network just called and needs you to start your new show tomorrow. What will the title of the show be?
Kris's Cruelty Free Kitchen!

6. Favorite hot sauce or other spicy condiment?
Reggae Reggae Sauce

7. How old were you when you became vegetarian/vegan?
I went vegan at 24 in new year 2005, I'd already been a vegetarian since 1993 in high school!

8. Favorite vegan cheeze?
Cheezly Mozzarella-style

9. Cutest baby animal?
Kittens!!! (Ageism aside, cats are cute every bit as cute, and the grown-ups are less likely to be adopted from shelters...)

10. Favorite type of jam/jelly/marmalade/preserves?
Ginger jam!

11. Do you take any vitamins/supplements?
yepp, gotta make sure I get that B12 for sure!

12. What food/dish most embodies the Fall season?
Soup

13. What food would you have a hard time living without?
Soya or pasta or chocolate

14. Coffee, tea, or hot chocolate?
coffee

15. It's 10PM and you're starving. What do you eat?
cookies or toast

16. If you have an animal companion, what is his/her favorite food?
Fudge The Cat likes any really smelly sachet of fishy cat food, ewwww!

17. Worst injury you've gotten in the kitchen?
Burning my arm when the lid spun off the blender when I was blending soup... and what a mess it made too!

18. When you have a food-related question, who do you call?
The Vegan Freaks Forums or Scottish Vegans!

19. Summer is ending- What food will you miss most?
Fresh strawberries, I know you can buy em all year round these days, but they're just not the same!

20. What snacks do you keep in your purse/backpack/desk at work?
I don't, I only work part time.

21. Favorite soup to make on a rainy day?
Tomato/risotto rice soup from The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen by Donna Klein

22. What's your favorite combination of fresh vegetable and/or fruit juices?
Mango, Orange, Apple, Ginger

23. Favorite brand of root beer?
Is it Geo Organics or something? The silver can

24. Make up your own question!
Favourite cupcake?

25. Hmmm....
The great debate: which do you prefer, tofu, tempeh, or seitan?
Tofu! It's soooo adaptable, you can make it into desserts like cheesecake or yogurts, as well as havung it savoury in tofu ricottas or quiches or scrambles, or stir-fried or baked... mmm!

Unlucky Black Cats and Black Dog Syndrome...

2008-10-08T16:42:00.003+01:00

Quote from Start Seeing Black Dogs-

"Did you know that Black Dogs are generally the last to be adopted and are euthanised in shelters in much larger numbers? People may consider them too “plain”, think they are menacing, or simply don’t notice them because their dark color makes them disappear in their kennels. Those involved in animal welfare have dubbed this phenomena "Black Dog Syndrome.""

More info at Black Pearl Dogs.

The same is true for black cats, as well as other black animals. If you are considering adopting an animal from a shelter, please consider giving an often overlooked black-furred animal a good home!

Please repost this in your own website to spread the word!

(Image from www.icanhascheezburger.com)

If I get fat then I'm blaming Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard...

2008-10-05T22:32:00.002+01:00

...because their Garden Of Vegan cookbook has far too many delicious sweet recipes! Pictured above are their Coffee Break Muffins, which I've modified by adding half a cup of sultanas and sprinkling with icing sugar. These were delicious and really easy too. I used cornflour and water as the egg replacer as per one of their suggestions, since it's far cheaper than commercial egg replacer and does the job just as adequately for most baked goods.
These are cranberry almond cookies(well, mine are actually cranberry, almond and blueberry cookies since I had a bag of mixed dried cranberries and blueberries!). Lovely, and as they said themselves, the sweetness of the almonds and tartness of the cranberries balance one another beautifully!
Jay, my boyfriend, tried some of these cookies pictured above thinking they were chocolatey, but he was (pleasantly) surprised to discover they were actually gingery molasses cookies! Delicious.

This book also has loads of healthy recipes in it, so if you're trying to be healthy just avoid reading that naughty chapter near the end if you buy it!

I turned 28 on Monday... :O

2008-09-27T18:59:00.002+01:00

Which makes me feel old. :( But I did get some lovely prezzies, including a few kitchen-related ones which I'll blog about on here! :) These included what must be the cutest kitchen tool in the world, ever- a G'Rabbit pepper grinder!

I also got a couple of cookbooks, The New Farm Vegetarian cookbook and The Garden Of Vegan! I already have, and love, How It all Vegan by Garden of Vegan's authors, Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. This sequel looks pretty impressive so far, and there's loads of things I'm looking forward to try out! Like it's prequel, it has a chapter on homemade toiletries and cleaners, which includes a recipe for making your own bath bombs! Can't wait to try that one out...

I'd already been introduced to the New Farm's legendary macaroni cheese recipe by Lelly at a potluck and made this recipe myself, so on the merit of that alone I was already impressed! This book was written way back in 1975, so it's even older than me, believe it or not. And it has photos of hippie-looking people too! Being re-published so many times you can still buy a copy now 33 years later says a lot! While it's vegetarian, rather than completely vegan, it does not actually have any dairy or eggs listed as ingredients in it's recipes, and the only non-vegan ingredient it lists is honey, and that can easily be substituted with agave nectar, golden or maple syrup anyway to veganise it!

It has a recipe for melty cheese for topping pizzas which I tried out with these mushroom pizzas, pictured below. It was yummy, although probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but I'd definitely make it again for a treat anyway! The cheese is also great on tortilla chips... which I ate before I remembered to photograph, sorry!

Vanilla "cream" sandwich biscuits recipe at last

2008-09-20T21:16:00.002+01:00

For the biscuits...

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
a tiny drop of 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, then leave to cool

For the "buttercream" filling

1/8 cup Pure marge
2 tbsp soya milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups icing sugar

-mix together the marge, soya milk and vanilla, then gradually add the icing sugar until it's mixed through

-spread "buttercream" on just half of the cooled biscuits, then sandwich another biscuit on top, then serve! :)

-for a coconut variation, as photographed in my last post, add 1/2 cup of dessicated coconut to the cookie dough, and another 1/4 cup coconut to the "buttercream", and (optional)replace soya milk with coconut milk

Tasty things!

2008-09-15T20:33:00.002+01:00

First up are my experimental homemade coconut sandwich biscuits! I made coconut biscuits then sandwiched them together using a buttersque icing made from icing sugar, Pure vegan marge, coconut milk and vanilla esssence. I'll post up the recipe once I perfect it, it still needs a bit of tweaking!
Next up is Stromboli, from a recipe shared by friends from the Scottish Vegans group, after they'd brought their delicious creation to our potlucks and got everyone hooked! Here's the money shot below- and don't worry, there's no real meat or cheese, I've used Redwoods' Cheatin' ham slices and their mozzarella Cheezly.

A tribute to Sophie :(

2008-09-14T10:10:00.002+01:00

I am sorry to say my parents' guinea pig friend, Sophie, above, passed away yesterday. She had been unwell so was promptly took to the vet, who found she had an enlarged kidney, likely to be a tumour. My parents were forced to make the difficult decision to end her suffering. :(

Rest in peace, Sophie. :(

The vegan hundred!

2008-09-08T22:01:00.003+01:00

I got this from http://twoveganboys.wordpress.com/ Apparently there’s the omnivore’s hundred out there and there should be a “vegan’s hundred” too! When it says something like "haggis" it means "vegan haggis" as there are vegan equivalents to these foods out there!

1) copy this list into your own blog, including these instructions.

2) bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

4) post a comment here once you’ve finished and link your post back to this one.

5) pass it on!

1. natto
2. green smoothie
3. tofu scramble
4. haggis
5. mangosteen
6. creme brulee
7. fondue
8. marmite/vegemite
9. borscht
10. baba ghanoush
11. nachos
12. authentic soba noodles
13. pb&j sammie
14. aloo gobi
15. taco from a street cart
16. boba tea
17. black truffle
18. fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. gyoza
20. vanilla ice cream
21. heirloom tomatoes
22. fresh wild berries
23. ceviche
24. rice and beans
25. knish
26. raw scotch bonnet pepper
27. dulce de leche
28. caviar
29. baklava
30. pate
31. wasabi peas
32. chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. mango lassi
34. sauerkraut
35. root beer float
36. mulled cider
37. scones with buttery spread and jam
38. vodka jelly
39. gumbo
40. fast food french fries
41. raw brownies
42. fresh garbanzo beans
43. dahl
44. homemade soymilk
45. wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. stroopwafle
47. samosas
48. vegetable sushi
49. glazed doughnut
50. seaweed
51. prickly pear
52. umeboshi
53. tofurkey
54. sheese
55. cotton candy
56. gnocchi
57. piña colada
58. birch beer
59. scrapple
60. carob chips
61. s’mores
62. soy curls
63. chickpea cutlets
64. curry
65. durian
66. homemade sausages
67. churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake
68. smoked tofu
69. fried plantain
70. mochi
71. gazpacho
72. warm chocolate chip cookies
73. absinthe
74. corn on the cob
75. whipped cream, straight from the can
76. pomegranate
77. fauxstess cupcake
78. mashed potatoes with gravy
79. jerky
80. croissants
81. french onion soup
82. savory crepes
83. tings
84. a meal at Candle 79
85. moussaka
86. sprouted grains or seeds
87. macaroni and “cheese”
88. flowers
89. matzoh ball soup
90. white chocolate
91. seitan
92. kimchi
93. butterscotch chips
94. yellow watermelon
95. chili with chocolate
96. bagel and tofutti
97. potato milk
98. polenta
99. jamaican blue mountain coffee
100. raw cookie dough

Clearly there's loads of vegan foods out there I've never even tried yet! I'm pretty much up for trying anything so long as it's vegan!

From The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen

2008-08-30T21:20:00.002+01:00

I've been trying out recipes from my new cookbook, Donna Klein's Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen and I'm quite impressed so far! The tomato-rice soup photographed above was gorgeous, and I'll definitely be making it again! It's a great book for pretty much everybody, from beginners to pros, it uses fairly easy to find ingredients for most of the recipes, and no fake meats etc, just traditional foods that happen to be vegan, so it's also good for any vegans who don't like omni-subs, or if you're cooking for omni guests who are a little freaked out by the whole idea of tofu! I give it a 5/5, and I'll be posting up some more pictures soon, so watch this space!
This here is a variation on the Enraged Penne, I've added a drained can of cannellini beans and some broccoli to make a balanced meal, and used extra-healthy spelt pasta. I thought this was absolutely delicious, but Jay found it a little too spicy. Spice wimp... :P
Last but not least, this isn't from MVK, it's an experimental chilli I made using tamarind and marmite instead of my usual chocolate, cocoa or molasses to add flavour, and it worked quite well indeed. :)

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped,
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 cup frozen Vegemince
4 tbsp tomato puree
1 can red kidney beans, or other beans, drained and rinsed
1 tbsp marmite
1 tbsp tamarind paste
1 tsp crushed chillis

-saute onion and garlic in olive oil until transparent

-add tin of chopped tomatoes, vegemince, tomato puree, chilli flakes, tamarind, marmite and curry powders
and bring to the boil,

- add beans, then simmer for 20 mins and serve!

I've been eating lots of ethnic-inspired food lately...

2008-08-19T20:55:00.003+01:00

First up is the mushroom and chickpea curry recipe from the vegan society's new recipe leaflet which I got with my copy of The Vegan magazine. It was gorgeous, yet really simple. I just tried to look for a link for a PDF for it, but seemingly it's not up yet. But seeing as how it's a leaflet they wish to be distributed as widely as possible, I'm sure they won't mind if I copy the recipe(with my commentary and variations in brackets!) on here for my readers!

1 large onion, chopped (I used 2 red onions!)
2 tbsp vegetable ghee, or oil (I used sunflower oil)
2 cloves garlic, crushed (I used 3!)
2 large tomatoes, chopped (I used half a tin of chopped tomatoes instead!)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
chilli powder, or finely sliced red chilli to taste(I used chilli flakes)
1 420g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
500g mushrooms, sliced (I only had a 250g punnet, so that's all I used)
2-3 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped (I used 2 tsp dried coriander leaf instead)

-fry onion in oil over medium heat until soft, then add garlic and tomato
-after 2-3 mins, stir in salt, spices, then add chilli, chickpeas, shrooms, and 2 tbsp water
-simmer with lid on till shrooms are soft(about 10-15 mins)
-mix half the coriander leaves then sprinkle the rest on top before serving. If you prefer more sauce add some tomato puree with a little vegetable stock and adjust the seasoning.

Next up is the tamarind lentils from Veganomicon, served here with coconut rice inspired by Alternative Vegan. This was delicious! It's the first time I've tried cooking with tamarind, but it definitely won't be the last! I planned to eat the leftovers for tomorrow's lunch, but... there weren't any! :P
These things here are rambutan stuffed with pineapple (and they're from a tin, which I bought from Tesco's exotic foods section). I first tried (and fell in love with!) rambutan in Wah Wah's Thai Noodle Bar, when I was in Blackpool. This was the first time I've spotted them available to buy anywhere since, and these tinned ones are absolutely lovely. It's hard to describe rambutan, but do try it, it's delicious!

Cookin' with kale...

2008-08-16T22:04:00.002+01:00

Kale seems to be an important part of the vegan diet going by other vegan food bloggers' blogs, but although I've tried it a few times and thought it was okay, I've (shockingly!) never before now cooked with it, because I've rarely seen it available to buy round this neck of the woods, and because I've been quite happy with the other leafy greens in my life, I've never felt particularly inclined to hunt it down.

But when I came across a bag of organic curly kale quite by accident( in Asda; we usually go to Morrisons or Sainsbury's these days) I had to buy it. I made a braised tofu, kale and sundried tomato stew(inspired by the braised seitan, kale, brussels and sundried tomato stew in Veganomicon) pictured here, with roast potatoes, which was quite delicious. The following night I finished the bag of kale by putting it in a tofu, kale and bell pepper balti with quinoa, (not pictured because the photos I took never turned out well, sorry!) I'll definitely be buying kale again. :)

In other (exciting?) news, I got a voucher from Amazon, which I've put towards buying 3 new vegan cookbooks - The Mediiterranean Vegan Kitchen by Donna Klein, Vegan Feasts by Rose Elliot, and Vegan Cooking; Recipes for Beginners by Eva Batt. Their estimated arrival is on Wednesday, so new dishes and reviewscoming soon, watch this space!

Yahoo! Scottish Vegans' potluck goodies...

2008-08-10T14:01:00.003+01:00

Here is a large broccoli, sundried tomato and onion eggless tofu quiche, with a litter of baby sundried and tomato quiches! My own recipe mini quiches are one of my potluck staples, so when I made these the night before I just added more ingredients and made a big one for Jay and my dinner while I was at it.

I also made some of Terry's favourite almond cookies from Veganomicon for dessert. :)

Apparently my blog is Brillante...

2008-08-01T21:00:00.002+01:00

According to Lelly at Lelly's Vegan Kitchen who nominated it!

Ok, so the banner's up and her blog's linked, so what i have to do now is nominate 7 more blogs for the award. And the nominees are, in no particular order...

1 DJ over at Skint Vegan...

2 Jillian at Bitchin' Vegan Kitchen ...

3 Tori at Herbivious...

4 Pamela and Sarah at Punk You!

5 Peggy The Veggie at Vegan Teen Cuisine

6 Kristin at Beans And Greens

7 ...and last but not least, Nancy at Veganica!

I'd better go leave comments on their blogs to tell them! Go check the links out! :D

Chickpea cutlets again!

2008-07-24T20:29:00.002+01:00

I love this Veganomicon recipe after trying it fried, because as I said in my previous post, I found them slightly dry when baked, but frying them made them absolutely gorgeous. This is very quick and easy to make, and I think it's quickly going to become a cruelty free kitchen household favourite. :) Served here with baby potato salad made with Plamil vegan mayo and dill, and mixed Italian-style salad leaves.

Bananas...and Fudge!

2008-07-20T23:18:00.002+01:00

This week I had a massive bunch of bananas...

Bananas are the perfect accompaniment to the world's easiest vegan crepe recipe(below). Although any healthiness bananas added to my plate is balanced out by the obscene amount of maple syrup I drizzled on top...

(Makes 2-3 10" pan-sized thin pancakes or more or thicker smaller ones)

300ml soya milk
100g of plain or wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla essence

a little vegetable oil

- blend or whisk all ingredients except the oil till frothy

- wipe the oil onto a preheated pan, then pour enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan, wait till it all the batter is "dry"(should only take a few minutes) before attempting to flip it or it will fall apart!

-flip and fry other side of pancake for a minute or so, then serve

This here is banana bread from Dino Sarma's Alternative Vegan which I've made loads of times before. I've sprinkled sugar on top this time to make it more cake-like. Sadly, sugar is not the best thing for a type 1 diabetic like my boyfriend Jay to be eating, even though the scent of freshly-baked banana bread was so tempting he took a little extra insulin so he could indulge... naughty boy!

...but wait! Now this banana bread can still be successfully made by subbing the 3/4 cups of sugar for 1/2 cup of agave nectar! Here's the sugar free version below...

And last but not least, here's a photo of Fudge (The Cat, that is... you weren't expecting a veganised version of fudge after all those sweet banana dessert thing were you?)

Meet Rosie and Sophie...

2008-07-13T19:44:00.003+01:00

These gorgeous guinea-pig ladies are Sophie, left, and Rosie, right. But no, they don't live with me(don't think that'd be safe anyway with Fudge-puss running around my flat!) but with my mum. Posted here because all vegans love looking at cute critters :)

Now for a step-by-step pie...

This is the Graham Cracker Pie Crust from How it All Vegan. Only I've used the british answer to American graham crackers, Morrisons own brand "Value" Sweetmeal Digestive biscuits. (Note; not all digestive biscuits are vegan, some, usually the more expensive shops-own ones and McVities, contain whey powder-from cows' milk- so do be sure to check the ingredients first. AFAIK Asda's cheaper own brand are vegan too btw).
The pie filling is Everyday Dish's Chocolate Espresso Truffle Pie- this website has a brilliant selection of vegan cookery shows- check it out!

Then I sprinkled chopped toasted almonds on top and put it in the fridge overnight. I've yet to taste-test it so watch this space...
I've made this Italian Marinated Tofu from VWAV before, but this time I used the leftover marinade to bake some mushrooms in (for 15 mins at 220C) and they turned out lovely.
And last but not least, Veganomicon's chickpea cutlets, served here with some broccoli and roast baby potatoes. I ate this with some ketchup, I baked mine as the book said you could do this and thought they were okay, if a little on the dry side, so I think I'll try frying them next time.

Devilishly tasty seitan cutlets!

2008-07-05T19:36:00.003+01:00

No, don't panic, it's not meat, although Jay and I both thought our seitan cutlets looked scarily like a piece of dead animal when we saw them! It doesn't taste as we vaguely remember corpse tasting either, for it's a lot less chewy. It is, as I mentioned in the title, devilishly good though! (I do believe there's a law somewhere on the internets which states anything written about seitan must contain a poor satan pun? Right..?)

I used Veganomicon's recipe, then as they suggested, dredged the prepared cutlets in flour and fried them. This is my first attempt at making my own seitan using gluten flour(although I have tried ready-made vegan foods using it before) and I'd definitely do it again. It's very simple to make, although it is fairly time cionsuming and creates a lot of dishes(!), so it's probably best to make large batches so you can refridgerate the leftovers and use later.

I bought my gluten flour from a friend at the Yahoo! group, who'd bought a large batch of bags from the flour bin website for all in the group who were interested in buying some, so we could all save money on postage. If you have other vegan friends, then this is a great idea for ordering these hard to find items online. :)

Potluck muffins and super-easy tomato, bean and herb pasta sauce recipe

2008-06-22T17:11:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I went to a meetup and potluck with the Yahoo! Scottish Vegans group where I got fed lots of yummy food! Sadly I forgot to bring my camera with me, but I took a photo of my own contribution before I went.

I made two kinds of muffin, Apple Pie Crumble ones from Vegan with a Vengeance, right(I used white sugar because I'd ran out of brown for the crumbly topping, they still tasted okay but the brown sugar they advise does work a lot better), and chocolate chunk muffins, left. The chocolate chunk ones were adapted from the cherry-almond recipe from the same book, by omitting the cherries and almonds, and replacing them with a bar of chocolate diced into small chunks, and replacing the almond essence with vanilla essence.

This is a really quick and easy pasta dish, with italian style herbs and pinto beans.

Cook 250g wholewheat pasta according to instructions.

Dice 2-3 onions, crush 3-4 garlic cloves, then saute both in 2 tbsp olive oil in a large pot over a hot hob, until onions are transclucent. Add a can of chopped tomatoes, 140g tomato puree(about 6 heaped tbsps), 1tsp oregano, 1tsp basil, 1/2 tsp thyme, a few pinches of sea salt and ground black pepper and stir sauce. Bring to the boil, then turn down temperature to simmer.

Drain and rinse a can of pinto beans(any kind of bean would work really) and add them, plus the cooked pasta to the sauce. Stir through then serve!

You might want to adjust this recipe by adding sundried tomatoes, or any kind of vegetable that takes your fancy :)

Mmmm caaaake...!

2008-06-18T21:34:00.002+01:00

This here yummy cake is from How It All Vegan, using the recipes for the Auntie Bonnie's Wacky Cake and the Maple Butteresque icing, with some walnuts on top to garnish. And it tastes as good as it looks!

Back from Blackpool!

2008-06-16T17:13:00.004+01:00

Just back from my hols to Blackpool with Jay!

Sadly we never got to go to the all-vegan wildlife hotel that we'd booked over a month in advance after all On booking, the hotel owner asked us to call in the event that anything come up and we couldn't make it for any reason so she could rent out the room- which of course I would have done anyway.

Shame really that she couldn't take her own advice, because when we called on the morning to say we'd be arriving after 6pm, she asked if we could come later in the month instead? Apparently her companion dog had been ill a few weeks ago and so no staff were working in the hotel atm, and fair enough, it's understandable that these things happen- but we wouldn't have minded so much if someone from the hotel had at least been professional enough to give us a call and let us know all those weeks ago so we had more time to make alternative arrangements!

She said over the phone that perhaps she'd be able to let us just stay in the room at a discounted rate if we were unable to find alternative accomodation and that she could give us a call back later so I said I'd call if if we couldn't find anything else, though luckily we were able to find somewhere else at the short notice with less than half an hour to go before we left for our trains- the omni Chequers Plaza hotel. While it was a bit more expensive and had little in the way of vegan options, although to be fair we didn't actually expect any at such short notice, we did get a room with a great view, as you can see from our first pic! Although if we'd had more time we'd probably have tried to find self-catering holiday flats with a kitchen, or went to another entirely vegan hotel altogether in a completely different location.

However, we still had a good time anyway despite all the stress of sorting this out at the beginning, and Blackpool was a very nostalgic holiday for us since we'd both been there as kids
And, we've decided that we're going back as we've got a hot date in 2033 to visit Blackpool when we're older! :D

If anyone's looking for a good place to eat with vegan options in Blackpool, we can personally recommend Michael Wan's Mandarin, where they made us a vegetarian banquet, making it vegan by replacing the egg fried rice with boiled rice, or Wah Wah's Oriental Noodle Bar, and their gorgeous, but spicy Tofu and chilli dish with which my Jay has officially lost his spice wimp title by gobbling all up!

Let the holiday pics commence!

Jay bumped into Gordon Ramsay at Louis Tussaud's Waxworks but wasn't too happy to see him... btw, does anyone know what kind of wax waxwork figurines are made from? Never occured to us till later that it might possibly be non-vegan beeswax or something... :( I googled but couldn't see anything...

Here's one of me beside the seaside- please excuse the messy hairdo- it was windy!
Another from the waxworks of me dispensing some good advice on my T-shirt to Hannibal Lecter...

Veganomicon and VWAV goodness- and some leftovers!

2008-06-02T19:57:00.002+01:00

Last night's dinner was baked curried tofu served with messy rice, both from Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. I served this alongside the yogurt dipping sauce (not pictured, sorry!) and saved my tofu marinade in the fridge for later as Isa and Terry advised...
These are Vegan with a Vengeance's quinoa and black-eyed bean croquettes. It's my second attempt at this recipe, since the first time I tried it they fell to bits! While they're quite photogenic here, as soon as I cut them they begun to crumble :( They were, however, quite tasty :) I've served them with onion rings(Morrisons' own brand frozen) and a cauliflower and broccoli bake in a "cheesy" nutritional yeast sauce(recipe in archives).

I had leftover cooked quinoa from making the croquettes and marinade from the curried tofu, so I made these into a quick stir fry for my lunch with some broccoli, an onion and a couple of spring onions, which was very tasty indeed :)

If I don't have an ingredient, sometimes I just replace it almonds...

2008-06-01T19:45:00.003+01:00

Apologies for the quality of this photo, but this was a seriously yummy dinner! It's my take on the coconut rice recipe from Alternative Vegan by Dino Sarma with a couple of alterations- I've used brown rice and owing to the fact I didn't have any, I replaced the cashews with chopped almonds. I've served it alongside a korma with tofu and mixed veg(there's asparagus, boccoli, mushrooms, leeks, bell pepper and spring onions in there!)
And these here are almond muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance, well, the cherry almond muffin recipe without the cherries anyway! I just used a few extra almonds in it.

I've ran out of almonds now... whatever shall I replace them with...?

Teetotal Italian Tofu

2008-05-27T22:45:00.002+01:00

This is an adapted version of the Italian Marinated Tofu from Vegan With A Vengeance. It's teetotal, because instead of using the white wine in the recipe, I've just used vegetable stock instead. Not that I'm teetotal or anything, I'm just not a wine drinker(vodka ftw!) so never have any in the house! It's served here alongside a leafy green mixed leaf salad, some baby potato salad(in vegan mayo, with spring onions and some dill) and a mixed bean salad(tinned stuff from Morrisons).

These are cinnamon rolls. I adapted the pastry recipe from Veganomicon's Maple and Brown Sugar pinwheels, by omitting the orange zest and replacing the cardamom with cinnamon. For the filling I used 4 tbsp margarine, 4 tbsp brown sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon, and the icing is just ordinary icing sugar and water. Very more-ish... so not very great for the old waistline! >.<

Braised tofu stew with roast baby potatoes

2008-05-23T19:55:00.002+01:00

I adapted this hearty stew myself using the best features of various stew recipes. For the potatoes I just roasted some baby potatoes, (with the not-so-baby ones chopped in half to make em smaller!), in a couple tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of thyme, and some whole cloves of garlic at 220C for 45 minutes.

For the stew(serves 2-4, takes about 25 mins)...

1 tin braised tofu, drained and sliced into bite sized pieces
2 large onions, sliced
5 cloves of garlic, minced
1 large leek, sliced
500g brussels sprouts OR a cup of peas-frozen are fine(optional)
about 8 sundried tomatoes chopped into bitesized pieces(usde kitchen scissors to do this- it's easier! :))
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp basil
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp oregano
a few pinces of sea salt
300ml vegetable stock

-saute onions, braised tofu and garlic in olive oil over high heat for 5-1o mins
-add leeks, brussels(if using) and saute for a few more minutes
-add salt, pepper, herbs and sundried tomatoes, then pour in stock and peas(if using)
-mix, and then, once it boils, reduce heat to lowest and simmer for 10 minutes, then serve

PB squares and homemade rolls!

2008-05-19T17:24:00.003+01:00

These were made using this super-easy RecipeZaar recipe for PB squares. They're extremely sweet, but the peanut butter makes them tasty and more-ish. Lovely, but fattening, so I'd better not make these too often!
These are homemade "breakfast rolls" (although I'll be serving mine with lentil soup!) I adapted the recipe off the back of a packet of flour, so here it is...

450g wholemeal flour
225ml warm water
6g baking yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp agave nectar (or you could use 1/2 tsp sugar instead)
2 tbsp olive oil
100g sesame seeds

-dissolve yeast and agave nectar or sugar in warm water
-sieve flour and salt
-add flour, salt and oil to wet ingredients and mix into a dough
-knead dough for about 5-10 mins
-put dough in clean bowl, cover and leave for 30mins-1hour
-divide into 16 rolls, dampen tops of rolls slightly with a little water using your finger, then press into small bowl of sesame seeds
-leave rolls for another 30 mins
-bake at 230C for 15-20 mins, then serve!

Restaurant review- The 78, Glasgow

2008-05-04T16:23:00.002+01:00

The 78 is a fairly new-ish, 100% vegan restaurant located at 14 Kelvinhaugh Street, Glasgow. It's under the same ownership as their King Street place, Mono, but has a different menu.

Not the easiest of places to find, Jay and I got slightly lost getting there! However, it was worth the walk! The restaurant itself is beautifully decorated in a retro style, and has a nice, relaxed feel to it.

We both had spring rolls for starters and an all-day breakfast for our main courses. The presentation of our food was beautifully done, with the chilli and soya dipping sauces, for example, made into an arty squiggle on my plate and a heart-shape on Jay's (which led to his being teased by me that either the waiter or chef fancied him! :D). I wished I'd brought my camera to take pictures!

Both courses were lovely, though I must admit that I prefer Mono's all-day breakfasts since the 78's lacked the tempeh rashers and potato scones! The herby sausages, beans, toast, tomatoes, asparagus and mushrooms it had were still very tasty however.

I had the chocolate torte, with mocha ice-cream and a cappuccino for dessert- it's gorgeously decadent! I felt so sorry for poor Jay being diabetic while eating this! :(

The staff gave good, friendly service, and eating here was a very pleasant experience indeed. I'll still eat in Mono more frequently, but that's simply because it's nearer and there's not that much of a difference between the two, although I'd most certainly go back to The 78 now and then for a change.

The 78 gets a thumbs up from me, so go check it out! :)

Potluck preview...

2008-04-26T16:59:00.002+01:00

I'm bringing these here cookies to the Yahoo! Scottish Vegans' group potluck tomorrow which I've just finished baking, and, more importantly, taste-testing!

On the left are the more grown-up sparkled ginger cookies, from Vegan with a vengeance, and on the right, the kids can have first dibs on the strawberry jam thumbprint cookies, also a variation on a VWAV recipe.

When I was baking these I was a little concerned they were going to go disastrously wrong but, hurrah, they pass the taste test! The thumbprint cookies turned out just fine, however, they were sticking to the greaseproof paper sheet and I accidentally broke a few trying to remove them- I think I'll just grease a baking tray if I make these again! The ginger cookies did not crack on the top so quickly as usual, perhaps it was the hot weather, perhaps the fact I used a measuring cup instead of scales, I don't know, so I left them in the oven to bake a little longer than usual, and so they are quite hard rather than chewy, but they're just like ginger nut biscuits so it's all good! They'll be ideal for dunking in a cuppa! :o)

I've still not got any batteries for my camera(sorry guys!) and a food meme

2008-04-19T01:14:00.001+01:00

I'm not gonna bother tagging because I'm lazy, so open invitation to do this on your own blog to all my readers :)

Your three favorite spices, oils, or food flavorings:
1) cinnamon
2) coriander
3) vanilla

Your three favorite dishes, baked goods, etc. that you make:
1)my tofu quiche
2)tofu ricotta and mushroom pizza
3) lasagne

Your three favorite foods you buy at the store: (as in, already made, not whole foods)
1) zest vegan pesto
2) redwoods' cheatin' rashers
3) nakd cocoa loco raw food bars

Your three favorite meals to order in a restaurant:
1) big mono burger
2) tofu "cheese"cake
3) vegan sushi

Your Three Favorite Vegetables:
1) broccoli
2) bell peppers
3) aubergine

Three Favorite Fruits
1) Apples
2) Pineapples
3) Grapes

Three Places You Most Often Buy Food:
1) Morrisons
2) Holland and Barret
3) Grassroots

Top Three Things You Consider When Buying Food: (I left this the same because I do the same)
1) is it vegan?
2) use by date
3) price

Three Things You'd Probably Want me to Make For Dinner, if you came to my house??
1) my lentil and tomato soup with garlic bread
2) my tofu quiche with sundried tomatoes mushrooms and broccoli, with a side of baby potato salad and leafy greens
3)vwav coconut heaven cupcakes with cherries on top

I need batteries for my camera, and when can you feel good about eating cupcakes??

2008-04-12T18:08:00.003+01:00

Yep, sorry, no photos today till I get round to putting the new batteries in the camera.

Cupcakes may not be the healthiest things in the world with all that oil and sugar, but they're certainly one of the tastiest! I must be one of the few vegans who haven't bought the Vegan Cupakes take over the world book yet (FWIW- of the cupcakes I've featured on here, some are from Vegan with a vengeance, The Cake Scoffer booklet from Animal Aid, and my own adaptions of recipes, veganised!) but I still get through my fair share!

I tried out the recipe for chocolate cupcakes from How It all Vegan last week, and I love it! The recipe says it makes 6, but actually it makes a generous 12 with plenty batter to spare/lick out the bowl while you bake! I iced it with the maple butteresque icing(also from HIAV). Delicious!

So what's better about these than your average cupcake? Well, they have a cup of blackstrap molasses per batch, which is bursting with iron (a whopping 3.5mg per tbsp!), so you're not just eating empty calories- if you want a chocolate cupcake, these are one of the best options to go for since they contain some nutrition in there too! Ideal for that time of month when we have choccy cravings and need an iron boost, ladies ;) You could serve them with some fruit or fruit juice for vitamin C for maximising iron absorbtion too. But do of course eat sensible food too and not just cupcakes!

Food for the Scottish vegan freaks meetup tomorrow!

2008-04-04T22:46:00.005+01:00

No, I didn't! I've kept them safe for you!
Anyone tempted to come at the last minute and get some of these? ;) Above, peanut butterless ginger sesame cookies from Veganomicon. One of the vff-ers has a peanut allergy so I replaced the peanut butter with tahini (disclaimer-now, he's fine with seeds but not all nut allergy sufferers are, so do check with people first if you're cooking for them the nature of their own allergy). Because the tahini is runnier than PB I used 1/4 cup more flour to balance it out.

I also had no vegetable shortening so I simply used Pure sunfloer margarine, and no brown rice syrup so I used agave nectar. But I taste tested one and it's absolutely fine like this. The rest have been safely hidden away in my tin so there are some left for everyone else so I'm not gonna be like the lol kitteh when I arrive on Saturday!

And here's some Thai Red Curry, same one as a few posts ago, all tupperwared up in the fridge and ready to go...

Banana-ginger-bread with recipe!

2008-03-31T21:39:00.004+01:00

2-3 bananas, mashed
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3 tbsp blackstrap molasses
1/4 cup sunflower oil

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

1/2 cup crystallised ginger, diced into cm-ish pieces
2 tbsp brown sugar

-preheat oven to 180 C
-grease an 9x5 loaf tin
-sieve flour salt and baking soda in a bowl then set aside
-mash bananas, then stir in sugar, ground ginger, nutmeg, molasses and oil
-add dry ingredients from bowl and mix into a dough, then mix through the crystallised ginger
-transfer to loaf tin, then sprinkle the 2 tbsp brown sugar over the top
-bake for 45-55 min, checking with a skewer to see if done
-leave to cool then slice and serve!

Thai red curry, and I've been tagged!

2008-03-26T20:16:00.004Z

Last night's yummy dinner was Thai red curry (using Geo organics Thai red curry paste and the recipe on the jar, with tofu, brocolli and bell peppers) alongside the coconut rice recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

DJ over at the Skint Vegan blog just tagged me, so, in keeping with the rules, I'm going to do as follows:
1) Tell you 5 things about myself
2) Tag 5 others and let 'em know via this blog and theirs.

So here's my 5 interesting facts.

1) I have 5 tattoos, which are chinese writing on my tummy, a fish/eye optical illusion on the small of my back, a cat silhouette and moon on my shoulder, a unicorn on my thigh and the UK vegan society's sunflower logo on my ankle.

2) Before I went vegan, I could barely cook at all- I lived on vegetarian ready meals and about the only things I could cook were omelettes(NOT VEGAN!) and stir fries! Now I'm vegan and I blog- yay!

3) Once upon a time I was a wannabe art student and did a portfolio prep course at college- it wasn't quite what I imagined it to be, so I quickly gave up on pursuing an artistic career.

4) When I first went vegan, I had never met any other vegans IRL- I was the only one I knew! Thank goodness for the internets!

5) My starsign is Virgo, and my Chinese starsign is the Monkey. Not that I actually believe in any of that!

And my tagees will be: vegan bear, weeg @ comically vegan, dangeroushabits, John @ John's Blog and Reverence Lily @ Element Fun.

Tomato-ey tahini pasta sauce with recipe!

2008-03-23T13:54:00.003Z

I made this for lunch this morning adapted from various recipes... it only takes about 15-20 minutes(serves 2-4)

250g pasta (I used wholewheat fusilli)
3 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, finely diced
optional 250g sliced mushrooms (I used button)
4 tbsp light tahini
5 tbsp tomato puree
1 tbsp yeast extract (ie marmite, vegemite, etc)
400ml boiled water
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
1/2 tsp thyme
pinch of ground black pepper
optional nutritional yeast or vegan "parmesan", to taste

-cook pasta according to instructions; while waiting for it to boil...
- saute the onions (and mushrooms if using) in olive oil over medium-high heat for5 minutes, stirring often
-remove pan from heat for a moment while you add tomato puree, tahini and the boiled water
-return pan to hob, then add yeast extract, herbs and pepper, and bring to boil, then reduce heat to low and let simmer for a few more minutes
-drain pasta, add to sauce and stir in, then serve! Sprinkle with nutritional yeast or vegan "parmesan" if desired

Back with some tofu!

2008-03-19T21:39:00.004Z

Apologies for the lack of recent posts- I'll try to make up for it though! Here I have some scrambled tofu heaped on toast. This is my own recipe I've experimented with for it(whyowhy do so many recipe books use grated carrot?! Ewww!)-

250g block tofu(I use cauldron 'cos it crumbles really well so it's ideal for scrambles!)
One onion, diced
1 heaped tsp turmeric
4 heaped tbsp nutritional yeast
6 tbsp olive oil
salt, to taste

-saute the onion in 4 tbsp olive oil in a pan over a high heat
-crumble the tofu in with your fingers
-sprinkle the turmeric and nutritional yeast over the top, then the other 2 tbsp olive oil, then stir till it's well absorbed
-stir-fry for about 6-8 minutes or until golden brown and crispy, then serve over toast and sprinkle with salt

This here is Veganomicon's Curried Tofu, served with Vegan with a Vengeance's garlicky roasted brussels' sprouts, and some frozen onion rings (Morrisons own brand- they're vegan! ;)) It was quite nice, and I meant to use the leftovers for sandwiches with the curried mayo serving suggestion, but, er..., as the lolcats would say, the leftovers; we eated them...

Long time no post- sorry! Back soon!

2008-03-08T21:45:00.003Z

I've been full of the cold lately and feeling tired and lazy, not much of an appetite, so I've been sticking with old faithfuls rather than trying anything new. Will be back cooking and blogging asap though, so stay tuned!

Special mac n "cheeze" and chewy chocolate cookies

2008-02-17T21:24:00.006Z

It's the mac and cheese recipe from the new farm vegetarian cookbook, using only 1/8 cup of oil instead of the 1/4 recommended, and with an additional 2 cups worth of brocolli florets and 1 cup of frozen peas thrown in before baking, for added green leafy and legume-y goodness. Tasted great and we were both back for seconds!
ETA- just realised I forgot to list the 125 sugar before! Sorry if anyone tried this without and it ended up being a disaster. :(

I come up with the recipe for these Chewy Chocolate Cookies myself. Here it is...

125g sugar
11og vegan margarine
1 heaped tbsp molasses
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 tbsp cocoa
250g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

-cream together the sugar, marge, oil, molasses and both extracts in a large bowl
-in another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, then add this to the wet ingredients
-mix well, then take tablespoons of the cookie dough and form into cookies on a baking sheet
-bake at 180C for 8 mins.

Lovely things! Lots of!

2008-02-11T20:17:00.000Z

First up, Vegan with a vengeance's thumbprint cookies made diabetic friendly! I got the idea from my friend Drea who very kindly brought some to the last vegan freak forums' meetup for my diabetic boyfriend Jay.These aren't chocolately, I just omitted the cocoa powder and used a little more flour till I got a nicely textured dough(about 1/2 cup-ish), replaced the sugar with agave nectar and used diabetic jam. Cheers Drea! =]
These cookies aren't diabetic friendly, unfortunately (although I'm sure I could probably try to tweak the recipe). They're Veganomicon's chewy oatmeal raisin cookies, but actually, they're chewy oatmeal cranberry cookies since I used dried cranberries instead of raisins. Very nice.
It was pancake day last Tuesday... but I forgot, and didn't get round to making the pancakes until Saturday morning! Here is the easiest crepe-style pancake recipe in the world, ever, that I used for these...

(Makes 2-3 10" pan-sized thin pancakes or more or thicker smaller ones)

300ml soya milk
100g of plain or wholemeal flour
tsp vanilla essence
pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg
a little vegetable oil

- blend or whisk soya milk, flour, vanilla essence and spices till frothy

-flip and fry other side of pancake for a minute or so, then serve

~try serving this with lemon juice and a sprinkle of sugar, or a little syrup or agave nectar, as pictured below~

I bet you're thinking I should reeeeaaaally go on a diet for the rest of Lent after seeing all those pictures... (not gonna though- I'm an atheist, I just happen to love pancakes and think Pancake Day is as good as an excuse as any to eat 'em!) but there are a few slightly heathier ones coming up!

Here's my new kitchen toy, a ginormous stockpot I got in Ikea at the weekend! Ideal for making massive batches of soup for grazing on for a few days! It's first mission was to cook this butternut squash and lentil soup.

Last but not least, some muffins! But these are healthier than your average muffin, as it's Veganomicon's almond-quinoa muffins again, but this time with fresh blueberries! There's loads of good stuff packed into these... quinoa(which is so chock- full of nutrients, like protein, calcium and iron, that I always feel almost virtuous when I eat it!), flaxseed, wholewheat pastry flour, almonds and blueberries, only agave nectat to sweeten, and only 1/4 cup oil for the whole entire batch!

Lelly's famous stuffed tofu yet again, and... Barshaw Park potato salad?

2008-02-04T19:53:00.001Z

Don't think 'shroom-hater Lelly'll be pleased that I've defiled her recipe with baked 'shrooms (sorry Lelly!) marinated in the filling on top, but they were damn tasty! :P

I've served this with a tweaked variation on Veganomicon's prospect park potato salad dressing. I thought it was too vinegary last time so I just omitted the vinegar altogether and used a wee drop of agave nectar to sweeten instead of sugar. I've used baby new potatoes instead of chopping up bigger ones since they're really tasty, and a bit healthier too due to the fact there's more skin and thats where all the nutrients are in a tattie! I've name-changed it after a park in Paisley, lol.

I usually buy Maille brand Dijon mustard but today I'd bought Morrison's own brand dijon mustard since it was a lot cheaper, but wow, they taste a lot different, the latter is far spicier than Maille's which is far milder. It was nice enough, but I much prefer the milder Maille's stuff.

I popped my cherry...

2008-02-03T21:07:00.000Z

...atop my cupcakes to garnish 'em :) They're coconut heaven cupcakes from vegan with a vengeance and I've made them many times before, but oh my, they're heavenly! More posts coming up asap, once I pop my cherry to some new recipes!