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

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

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...

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!

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.

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...

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...

...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!