Update- think I'm better now!

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!

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!!!

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...!

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

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

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

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...