Long time, no see...

Well, it has certainly been a while since my last post but finally exams have finished and I am free! I am absolutely raring to get back into the kitchen! At the moment a lot of my cooking time goes into making food for my 8 month old Little Miss. Because of this I have created a new blog about vegan baby-led weaning so please check it out if you are interested. You can find it at http://forminiveganfingers.blogspot.co.uk/. However I am still going to be updating this one with recipes and ideas too so don't abandon this blog!

On Sunday we went to the V-delicious show in London which was also in the same hall as the Allergy and Free-From Show. There were plenty of vegan options and stalls to look at and so many people and products it was hard to know where to start. There were also plenty of samples to try. So much so that we did not need lunch at all!

Some of my favourite vegan products were there such as the Nakd bars which had the new crunchy bars I had been struggling to find in shops but there was every flavour to sample at the show (and I think I did sample every one! Yum!). On the same stall were the Trek bars. I have previously only had the peanut and oat bars but there were several other flavours at the show which I had not tried. Unfortunately not all of them are vegan but the ones I found which were included original, banana, oat and raisin and morning berry. There were great offers on so I bought quite a few (and enjoyed the morning berry one after my dinner tonight).

One of my favourite things that we bought from the show were some gluten free cookies from Against the Grain. I think they are my favourite shop-bought vegan cookies ever. They are so crumbly and delicious. We tried the chocolate chip and hazelnut, the chocolate and orange, the ginger crunches and also the almond cookies and all were incredible. They were doing a deal for 3 packs and I can tell you it was really hard to choose which one not to get! http://www.againstthegrainfoods.com/

One stall we came across had samples of this delicious new product called Rita's Fugasun. They are not all vegan but the one we tried was and it was amazing. It is a vegetable and rice pie-like thing but not with pastry. It is actually really hard to describe but if you ever get the chance to try some you must. Not only is it delicious but it is very low fat and also low calorie! http://www.ritasfugasun.com/

Another new company we came across was Dee's. Dee's food includes some vegan sausages, burgers, veg pots and quinoa pots. We got to taste two types of sausages which were the leek and onion sausages and the roast garlic and mushroom sausages. My sister and I both had different favourites and an even bigger surprise was that my sister's favourite was the mushroom ones as she hates mushrooms (the moral of the story being you have to try these even if you hate mushrooms!). We were also very kindly given a pot of the Tex-Mex veg pot to take home. My sister took that so I will update you on the verdict of that. I am really excited about finding these products in the shops as the sausages we sampled were delicious and looking on the website it looks like everything else is going to be just as good. Check it out at http://www.dees.ie/#1

Now, lets talk marshmallows! One of my favourite samples of the day (and then HAD to purchase a bag) were the freedom mallows! There are many delicious vegan marshmallows out there but never have any quite hit the spot for topping a hot chocolate than these little beauties. If a taste test was done between these and "normal" marshmallows I seriously doubt anyone would pick up that these were vegan, they are that close to the real thing. I am really going to have to ration these if I want the pack to last!! http://www.freedommallows.com/

We didn't just look at food though. One of the best non-food stalls we found was for ecozone. Their products are environmentally friendly, effective and carry the vegan society logo. There were plenty of products and from the demonstrations they looked brilliant. I bought some ecoballs (used in place of detergent in the washing machine and last for 1000 washes!), some stain remover and some powder for getting whites white! I haven't had the chance to use them yet but will update you when I do. I will almost certainly be buying from this company again. http://www.ecozone.com/

There were plenty of other stalls with delicious vegan food but I don't have time to write about them all. But here is a picture of part of my haul! I also got a vegan society bag and a chart to put on the wall about vitamins. (I've just realised it is a really poor picture taken on my phone so sorry about that).

The picture just reminded me, if you haven't tried Vive Soy then you should. I had previously only tried the cappuccino flavour (which I love) but got to sample the chocolate and vanilla ones at the show and they are really really really nice! We found them in Tesco but apparently they are soon coming to other major supermarkets. I have heard some people unsure as to whether they are vegan or not because they do not specify the source of the vitamin D but I emailed them and was reassured that they are indeed vegan!

Vegan Fudge

You may have seen that in my Christmas gifts I made some "fudge". Although really delicious it was more of a sticky chocolate sweet and doesn't quite live up to what I consider to be true fudge- the buttery vanillary light brown crumbly fudge that gets sold at seaside resorts with a postcard on the front!

One day after perusing the Internet for baking inspiration, I came across a recipe that looked exactly like the style of fudge I was after and I just had to try it. For some reason I thought I might be disappointed by the recipe and that it wouldn't be up to scratch but it was AMAZING!!

In this recipe it does recommend a thermometer but I didn't have one to hand but if you follow the instructions of how to tell when it's ready it turns out just great without using one. Although I do think I will be investing in one as it would make it easier! I didn't have any vanilla essence in so I used almond instead.

I found the recipe on viciously delicious here,

I sent this in my food parcel for the Vegan Food Swap to Sarah from Vegan Girl on a Mission who really enjoyed it too!

It would make a great gift and I am looking forward to trying some different variations like rum and raisin which I think would taste awesome!!

Be warned: it is very sweet and very addictive.

The vegan food swap

So as you might have seen, there has been a lack of posts recently. I am knee-deep in revision right now and that coupled with looking after the little one means I barely have time to cook let alone blog about it.

Despite having all this work to do I decided to sign up to The Vegan Food Swap run by To Happy Vegans.  The basic idea is every month you send someone a parcel with £10 worth of bought/made vegan goodies and someone sends you one. Awesome!

I got to send mine to Sarah from Vegan Girl on a Mission. The only requirement was no vegan milk chocolate. In the box I sent was: some Zest vegan pesto (my favourite), some gluten free seaweed rice crackers, some dark chocolate with raspberry, an Organica Golden Coconut and Dark chocolate bar, some lovely looking biscuits (completely forgotten the brand but they looked yummy!) and some homemade fudge which I will try and blog about soon. I really hope she liked them!

Crumbly Vegan Fudge

In return I got a box from Jhenn from The Vegan Ronin
In it was:
*Some cherry Pez sweets- I can remember loving the Pez sweets and toys when I was younger so these were a great trip down memory lane
*Some Gianduiotti chocolates. These disappeared into mine and OH's mouths within seconds of opening the box! These are so delicious- a rich chocolate and hazelnut taste and so creamy you wouldn't know it's not milk chocolate!
*A hot chocolate spoon- if you don't know what this is it is basically a nice big lump of chocolate set on a spoon which you stir into hot milk to make hot chocolate. I had mine with almond milk and it was yummy. As I am a chocolate fiend this went within the first few days too!
*Some bacon flavoured popcorn (but definitely vegan!). I was very intrigued by these! I have always been veggie but I do like bacon flavoured crisps so I was looking forward to these. The bacon flavour was quite subtle but it was still tasty
*A buccaneer bar- basically a vegan Milky Way. You definitely can't go wrong with that!!
*Some mushroom flavoured salt. I have to admit I haven't had this yet. I am really looking forward to it though so will blog about it when I have.

Thank you Jhenn!

Yum!

My Gluten-Free Week

I have always dreaded the thought of one day having to go gluten free; I mean I love bread and baked yummies and the gluten free bread I see in the supermarkets always looked so sorry for itself (and I was later to find out almost invariably contained egg anyway). However, my new 10 week old vegan was having a hard time with colic and I had already tried other diet options which hadn't helped and gluten was next on the list. Typically I had just made some awesome looking seitan burgers (if you don't know, seitan is pretty much 100% gluten central!) so my one ended up going in the freezer and I was left salivating over my other half's burger as I ate some baked beans and veg I had managed to rustle up (for some reason I forgot that things like rice and potatoes were gluten free! i blame the baby brain!). Even more typically, that night my little vegan got a lot better and was nowhere near as bad the next day (too early for the diet change to have made a difference; a lot of babies just grow out of it). In spite of this I decided to persevere with the gluten free week challenge as a little experiment to see how hard it was and to see if it made me feel any better like other people often claim it does for them.

My first port of call was obviously BREAD! I looked through quite a few recipes online- there are tonnes and I can't even find the one I made but of the ones I looked at they were all quite similar. My bread didn't rise as much as normal bread does and I also think I must have underdone it slightly as it was still quite doughy inside but I have to say it was actually quite tasty and with a bit of practice would be perfectly adequate to be a replacement for my gluten bread addiction. I think I would have to buy a bread maker if I was to continue as making enough bread for me and my mr (he eats even more bread than me) would probably take half my week up!

Being a new mum, a lot of my daily meals were nothing much to blog about; I had baked beans on my gluten free bread, vegetables and rice, a few soups and the list goes on- when I am only cooking for myself it doesn't tend to be too exciting- especially when I just want something easy and fast.

At the weekend however we were having people round for dinner. I still really wanted to try those stuffed seitan burgers I had missed out on before. I remembered I had seen some gluten-free "seitan" (an oxymoron if ever I saw one!) on pinterest and the mushroom filling would be easy to deglutenise with swapping flour to a gluten free version so I decided to do this. The recipe for the seitan that I used (although there are others) can be found here from Wellsphere and the basic recipe I was making was from The Best Veggie Burgers on the planet. In addition to the mushroom, garlic and onion mixture for the centre I added some fresh spinach leaves and mozarella Cheezly for an even more decadent effect and added some red wine whilst cooking the mushroom mixture. Along with the burgers we served homemade sweet potato and normal potato wedges and salad. The other guests all had a bread roll as I decided my gluten free bread making was not quite perfected enough for guests yet! Everyone really enjoyed these burgers. There aren't proper measurements for the spices in this recipe so it was a bit of guesswork. For me, the end result was a very cumin tasting burger (which in my mind was awesome) and they also can out a lovely dark orange colour. The filling was a little overtaken by the taste of the burgers themselves but it was still lovely and the texture differences really made this burger special.

For dessert I made the most heavenly ice cream I have ever tasted- Peanut Butter Ice Cream!!! I have had a second hand ice cream maker for ages and haven't got round to properly using it properly so this was an awesome excuse. You seriously MUST make this recipe..it is so melt-in-the-mouth perfect! Along side it we had the gluten free cookies I had blogged about in December here.

With timings and people being late I was in such a rush to serve these things I forgot to take photos. Instead, this is the actual seitan burger that I hadn't got to eat taken my my darling other half with as much photographic skill as the next door neighbour's cat (although I can't say I am much better!)

If you look closely you can see the filling but it blends in a bit!

Add a lettuce leaf to boost up the healthiness!!

The next day we had my other half's godson and his mother over for lunch. You might remember that the cookies I had baked before were for a gluten intolerant boy; well this is that boy! We never got to go round and see him for his birthday as him and his mum were ill so we decided to have this lunch instead. For the main course we had homemade pizza and chips. I used a pizza dough recipe from What's Cookin' Chicago? which you can find here. It made a lovely thin pizza base and cooked perfectly. One side was topped with tomato puree, tomatoes and Cheezly mozarella and the other side also had mushrooms, fresh spinach and peppers.

For dessert we had cookies and ice cream again but I made a plain vanilla ice cream by omitting the peanut butter from the other recipe as the little boy had never had peanut butter before (and as it turns out he is not the biggest fan of ice cream- more for us though!). Once again I forgot to take photos *facepalm* but it is my mid-January resolution to do better at this from now on!

At the end of the week I realised I hadn't really felt any different on my gluten free diet so decided to not carry on completely omitting gluten however I will use these recipes again as all of them were successes and went down so well with our guests!

Christmas Gift #4- "Cheesy" Oatcakes

Well, it has now come to the last gift in my Christmas baskets. As the rosemary shortbreads were a little sweet I wanted to cook something very savoury. Oatcakes seemed a good choice but I wanted something a little different. Most recipes I looked at added things like cranberries which would make the oatcakes a bit sweet so didn't fit the bill. I decided to do "cheesy" ones as I am the only vegan in my family and cheese is almost always the thing that people say they would miss most when going vegan.

I took a plain oatcake recipe from delicious magazine website which you can find here. Other than swapping the butter for vegan margarine, the only change I made was to add 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast and then once I had cut out the oatcakes I grated a sprinkle of Cheezly Parmesan on the top of each one.

These were the perfect addition to my gift as they really brought a savoury touch to everything and was the first thing that people commented on with the cheesy flavour. These are really simple to make and I think make a classy present and a talking point for non vegans.

"Cheesy Oatcakes"

Christmas Gift #3- Fudge- Orange & Walnut and Rum & Candy Cane

I was actually looking for a fudge recipe for the type of caramel coloured vanilla fudge you think of when you first think of fudge but when I came across this recipe I had to try it and decided it would be perfect for the Christmas gifts.

The recipe is from Go Dairy Free and can be found here.

The changes I made were orange essence and crushed walnuts in the first flavour instead of vanilla and coconut. On top of the fudge I put one half of a walnut onto each piece that was going to be cut. For the second flavour it was rum flavouring with sprinkled crushed candy canes on top.

I thought the end result looked really impressive and the taste is just phenomenal. Very sweet but perfect for a Christmas indulgence!

Orange and Walnut Fudge

Rum and Candy Cane Fudge

Christmas Gift #2- Rosemary Shortbread

This is one of my savoury gifts in the Christmas hampers but in fact they have some sweetness from agave nectar and icing sugar. Rosemary must be one of my best-loved herbs (possibly even my number one) and coupled with me having a sweet tooth these turned out to be my favourite things in the gift. Now, "shortbread" might be a bit misleading- these turned out as soft, melt in the mouth biscuits rather than hard and crumbly but in my mind their texture was perfect! With the amount of butter and sugar in these they can't be very good for you but well worth it for a treat- and you can always treat yourself at Christmas.

The recipe I used can be found here from epicurious. I substituted the butter for vegan margarine and the honey for agave nectar. For those in the UK confectioner's sugar is icing sugar (that's what I used anyway!)

Enjoy!

Christmas Gift #1- Chocolate & Walnut Biscotti

For a lot of my family I am never sure what to buy them for Christmas- they seem to have everything they need and I always think my gifts will be wasted. This is why I have taken to making them food baskets as gifts (you may have seen a couple of posts from last year). This year I chose to do two sweet things and two savoury. The sweet things were Chocolate and Walnut Biscotti and 2 flavours of fudge and the savoury things were Rosemary Shortbread and "Cheesy" oatcakes. I have to say this has been my favourite gift basket I have done so far and I have had some really good feedback. Over the next few days I will be posting the recipes and pictures.

Today let's start with the biscotti. I did almond and cranberry biscotti last year and they were everyone's favourite thing in the present so I decided to do another biscotti this year but I wanted to do a completed different flavour. I perused my recipe books and the internet for hours looking for flavour inspiration. As we have just had a baby and so don't have quite as much money as usual to spend on ingredients I had to be a bit careful of what I chose- there were some wonderful sounding recipes but for the quantity I was making, the ingredients would have cost a fortune. Then I came across this recipe. The picture of them looked fantastic and I loved how instead of just being cocoa for the chocolate, there were also dark chocolate pieces inside and the biscotti was also flavoured with a little bit of coffee and cinnamon. This recipe isn't actually vegan due to the eggs and butter but I used an egg replacer and vegan margarine in place of these. I also didn't glaze them with anything before cooking- they really didn't need it. I trialled all my recipes a week before making them for the gifts to make sure I liked them and to see if any adjustments needed to be made. When I tasted these I was a little disappointed that the cinnamon didn't come through very well and I couldn't  taste the coffee at all. I decided to take out the coffee and double the cinnamon and when I tried them again they were perfect.

From the picture in the recipe it showed the biscotti with drizzles of white icing on. I really wanted to carry on the chocolate theme and didn't have any white chocolate to hand to make a contrasting icing so instead I did a dark chocolate one from this recipe (subbing the butter for vegan margarine instead). I tried to pipe the icing on a little like in the picture but I didn't have a thin enough piping insert so instead I coated one side in the icing. It didn't look quite as impressive (thinner piping bag insert is now on my shopping list for next time) but it took these biscotti to another level in taste! With a little creativity and time (four recipes in one day with a baby was very hectic!) I am sure these could have been made more pretty even without piping.

These biscotti are not difficult to make and really impressive as a vegan gift or as after dinner biscuits with coffee. I have had lots of compliments on these and many have asked for the recipe- so here it is!

**I either can't find my photos of these or I completely forgot to take them. Check out the images in the recipe though as they look very similar to how mine turned out minus the icing. Sorry!**

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

It is a very special little boy's birthday on New Year's Day. He can't have gluten or dairy so I decided to make some gluten free vegan cookies for him. I have only used gluten free flour once in a sponge cake and although other people liked it I definitely thought something was slightly strange in taste (although I was pregnant at the time and weirdly some things tasted slightly different). As I wasn't completely happy with the cake I was a little apprehensive about this cookies but I really like these ones!

I chose a vegan recipe from vegweb which you can find here and the only substitution I used was gluten free flour in place of the regular flour.

The dough was quite crumbly when attempting to make cookie shapes but I found the best way was to mould with my hands. They were also quite crumbly when just cooked and when I tried them warm I wasn't so sure but as they cool down they harden and when I tried them the next day I thought they were really nice and definitely something I would bake again! As you can see from the picture they still look as if they are very crumbly but as they have hardened they toughen and you can break them (rather than crumble) quite well.

I will report back with the opinion of the birthday boy- 3 year olds never lie!

OMG...vegan omelette??

As a child I was never really a fan of omelette but I love the way they are simple and can taste so different with what you add in to it. I recently saw another blog who had tried this recipe out from Chocolate and Beyond (a great blog to read; absolutely divine recipes) and decided I had to try it too. The recipe can be found here under number 5.

I didn't quite have all the ingredients- no chillies or curry powder- but I made up for this by having it with sweet chilli sauce (which went with it very well). The mushrooms with it were excellent int texture and taste and the spring onions added the perfect oniony taste without being too overpowering. The texture of the omelette was very similar to actual egg omelette (as far as I remember) and was very satisfying to eat and filling. The pictures on Chocolate and Beyond look amazing but I am sooo bad at frying things which stay in shape (pancakes never turn out well!) so my omelette turned into more of a scramble. I didn't take any pictures- take a look at the photos on Chocolate and Beyond!

This recipe makes and excellent meal at anytime of the day and would be great to serve to guests. I would love to see what non-vegans thought of it! I will be trying it out on my other half soon!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles

I hadn't made any cookies from "Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar" (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz & Terry Hope Romero) for a while and even the ones I had made were some of the more simple and usual flavour cookies in the book. As I was going to a family gathering at my Aunt's I decided to take over some cookies for everyone to try and chose these ones as with the spice in them they are a bit more "adult". You can actually find the recipe online from the Post Punk Kitchen here.The teaspoon of cayenne pepper did not seem like it would be very spicy at all but these cookies definitely had a kick and the cinnamon complimented them perfectly. I also loved how the cookies look and I definitely made an effort to make them perfectly round and uniform so they looked very professional when I brought them out at the party. I had many comments about how good they were and where I got the recipe from them. These are a must bake recipe!

Easy lunch for guests!

Well, as you may have guessed, I am now a mummy! It is still sinking in even though our little one is over 3 weeks old now. Even though I thought I would be much more tired I still haven't had much time to cook, let alone try things out for the blog. Even the few things I have made which are worth writing about I forgot to take pictures of but I will tell you about a couple anyway and direct you to the recipes as they were delicious! And hopefully as we get into more of a routine here I will manage a few more recipes and remember to take photos.

As we had my boyfriend's brother and his new girlfriend coming round to meet our new addition I decided to make a nice lunch. The only instruction I was given was that he didn't like cheese which wasn't a problem! I had an idea to do stuffed peppers as they look great and most people I know love peppers. My boyfriend is not a massive fan of rice so that was out for the stuffing so I set about searching the internet for other options. I came across this recipe from Fat Free Vegan Kitchen for Chilli-Stuffed Peppers which seemed perfect and full of flavour. I followed this recipe as closely as I could but there were a few changes due to cupboard ingredients- I used pickled jalapenos as I had half a jar which really needed using and I also used red kidney beans because there weren't any black beans in the shop. I also added some chopped courgette into the mix.  Another slight change I made was that I just cut a lid off the peppers instead of slicing them in half as I really like the look of this.

These peppers were super delicious and perfect for an impressive but easy lunch/dinner. In fact we have decided to make this a regular meal at ours. The chilli mixture was such a good change to the usual rice or couscous stuffed peppers I am used to. I really enjoyed how full of vegetables this dish is while being super filling.

On the side we had potato salad made with vegan garlic mayo and some paprika and also a fresh green salad. I think there were probably about 3 portions of vegetables in this meal!

For dessert I made a lemon drizzle cake from this recipe from food.com. I added the zest of an extra lemon to make sure it was very flavourful. This cake went down a treat with everyone and my boyfriend already wants me to bake another!

I really wish I had taken pictures of this food as it did look really good and is perfect for guests but hopefully you will try these out anyway!

***UPDATE*** I made the peppers again with the addition of some veggie mince (I actually preferred the original version without the mince though) and remembered to take photos! So here they are:

Hawaiian Pizza!

Over the last week I have been buying and eating a lot of pineapple (it's an old wives tale for the promotion of labour!) and was getting a little bored of just eating it on it's own. My boyfriend mentioned he used to love Hawaiian pizza (ham and pineapple) and as I had never had pineapple on a pizza I thought we would try it. I used my favourite pizza base recipe which never seems to go wrong and you don't have to pre-cook it before you put the toppings on. You can find the recipe here! If you love thin and crispy bases you may like to find a different recipe as this tends to be a bit thicker than that but I love it. Be prepared that you do have to let the dough rise for a couple of hours so don't make this if you are starving already!! This amount of dough serves around 4 people. We tend to make 2 pizzas and freeze one which works fantastically and is great for an easy dinner.

For the topping I put some tomato pasta sauce we had (although it would have usually been tomato puree but somehow we had run out- we tend to buy tonnes at a time!) then ripped up Redwoods ham, sliced mushrooms, chunks of fresh pineapple, sliced mushrooms (the addition of mushrooms to any pizza is always a bonus in my opinion!) and then grated Cheezly mozzarella. It's so easy to prepare once the base is done and can be a fun activity with children- you could split the dough into smaller pizzas and have each person design their own (good for picky eaters!). This was baked at around 180 degrees (celcius) for 10-15 mins (until it all goes lovely and brown!).

As you can see from the picture below my pizzas are a bit rough and ready and rectangle as we only have rectangle baking trays but I kind of like my pizzas a bit rough around the edges!

Another pizza we regularly make is: tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms and olives (and "cheese"!) which is super delicious and there is always an absolute mountain of veg on top of the pizza which makes me feel a little less guilty in having pizza!

Artichokes are also a much loved pizza topping of mine. What is your favourite pizza topping? Inspire me!

Spicy Parsnip and Butterbean Soup

With my due date in less than a week and soooo much to do beforehand I haven't had much time to do any non-boring cooking. We have had a lot of basic meals like stir-frys, pasta dishes and jacket potatoes which are definitely not worthy of a blog post. I have also been making big batches of soup to freeze in portions for my lunches so I get lots of veg in me and also so I will have some easy lunches for once the baby is born. They haven't been very exciting as if it is for me I tend to use little oil and salt and also don't tend to make them "creamy". If I was making them for other people they would be a bit more extravagant.

I made a delicious leek and potato soup from a recipe by the fiance of the guy that did Supersize Me which you can find here. There is a suggestion in the comment section to add non-dairy milk to make it really creamy which I might try when I make it for guests but with the potatoes in this soup it feels quite creamy anyway. I have been enjoying this soup pretty much daily without getting bored.

Anyway onto today's experiment- Spicy Parsnip and Butterbean Soup, perfect for those cold winter days! For this I was using things I already had in my cupboard..including a couple of shortcuts. The amounts are estimated as this was very much a shove in what looks good kind of recipe but here are the basics (this serves about 6)

1. Soak 250g dried butterbeans overnight and then cook them as per packet instructions (mine said boil for 10 minutes and then simmer for 40 minutes)
2. Roast 750g chopped (into sticks as if you were going to eat them roasted) and tossed in a little olive oil for around 30 mins in a hot oven. (I might try more parsnips next time)
3. Make up 1 1/2 litres of stock with any veggie stock cube.
4. Put all of this in your blender along with 2 tbs curry powder, 2-3 chopped chillis (I actually used some chopped jalepenos from a jar because they have been sitting unused in the back of the cupboard for so long) and either 1 tbs of garlic powder (another random cupboard find!) or 3-4 fried minced garlic cloves. Blend until smooth and creamy. 
5. Add more stock or water to make thinner. Add some soya cream for a more decadent soup.

I didn't add any salt or pepper while cooking and think it is fine without but you might want to add some to your own taste.

I was expecting a much paler colour but with the addition of the red chillis it went a wonderful orange!

Dinner for 10!

My lovely boyfriend and I thought it would be great to have a dinner party before the baby arrived with some friends we hadn't seen properly in ages even though they live really nearby. I happily invited them without really thinking of numbers and our small flat with our 6 person table. Counting them up we had 10 people..at this point I was much more worried about seating them than feeding them! But when I reached the supermarket to buy all the ingredients and was trying to work out how many vegetables it would take to feed 10 it all became clear that this would not be a walk in the park. Luckily a few weeks before I had 2 friends and my sister (who I also consider a friend!) round for dinner and had done a 3 course meal that went down really well so I thought I would do the same as I hadn't blogged about the starter and the main before but change the dessert as that time we had bakewell tart which I have written a post about previously.

So the menu was:

Starter: Marinated tofu, red pepper & red onion skewers (and some cheating vegetable spring rolls in case people were not a fan of tofu) with a homemade peanut satay sauce (and also some ready-made plum sauce and sweet chilli sauce). If I had the time and money I would have made everything from scratch but being almost 8 months pregnant (read completely knackered) I decided to give myself a break.

I used recipes I found from about.com for the Satay Sauce and the Tofu Skewers. (I would just like to add that I have just added to my blogging skills by being able to do those links!!)

Tofu Skewers before they went under the grill

I have to say I was quite worried about how tofu would go down with some of the guests (I was the only vegan) and that was the reason I cooked some ready-made vegetable spring rolls as well but everyone LOVED them...seriously loved them! Everything was eaten and even marinade eaten off the serving plates once they were gone. The peanut sauce is also the best peanut sauce I have ever eaten (and I love my peanut sauces)- it may look like a lot of ingredients but I would seriously recommend you try it. Now everytime I make it I have to make extra to give to my sister!

Main: Thai Green Curry. Once again I used a little cheat by buying the Green Curry Paste but I went specially to an oriental supermarket to get something really authentic (minus the fish sauce of course- you need to watch out for this) and got one which just had the ingredients I would have put into it myself- i.e. none of the additives I often see on jars, just fresh ingredients (the one I used is from the Lotus brand) . I didn't particularly follow a recipe for the Thai Curry other than from some guidance on the side of the jar. I used about a jar and a half of the curry paste (each jar being 210g)  and 3 tins of coconut milk. To this I added some Fry's "chicken pieces" (although I prefer it with just the vegetables) and sweet potato chunks. After the sweet potato was getting soft I added carrot pieces, cauliflower pieces and courgette pieces and then nearer the end I also added sliced mushrooms (the reason for the order is how long the vegetables need to cook- in general add the hardest ones first and the softest last). I ended up using 2 pans (one of which was absolutely huge!). I served this with rice.

Sorry this picture isn't particularly appetizing but I forgot to take a
nice picture of it in the bowls so this what was left in the pan!

Everyone liked the Thai Green Curry but I would have liked to have had a bit more of the paste in it- probably adding both jars. I also prefer the curry to have only vegetable in and not fake meat but I think that's just because I am not particularly a fan of the chicken pieces but wanted something to satisfy the meat texture for the others. But Thai Green Curry is very good for a dinner party- I would definitely recommend it- it's not too difficult and you can have it cooking while people eat the starter. I had cut up all my veg in advance so all I had to do was chuck it in and check on it once in a while. There are plenty of ideas of recipes online with lots of different vegetables listed- pretty much everything works with it!

Dessert: Maple Pecan Pie from "Vegan Pie In The Sky". I did use some walnuts instead of all the pecans because the pecans were about twice the price and it was already getting expensive to feed the masses but next time I would definitely like to try it with pecans only as you could tell it would really make this pie amazing! I think this is my favourite dessert I have cooked so far. I hadn't delved into "Vegan Pie in the Sky" yet- I have the other two in the series ("Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" and "Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar") and they have both been used quite a few times but I am now going to make an effort to make more from this book as I was truly impressed. One thing I would mention which the book doesn't is that when you pour in the mixture it seems really liquidy- I was expecting a more viscous mixture and was worried I had done it wrong. I persevered however and the pie came out beautifully. I served this with some soya cream and every scrap of it was eaten.

Not showing it in it's best light but people were desperate for dessert
so I didn't have time to retake.

I also discovered this non-alcoholic drink made from hops and citrus so it tasted like a citrus beer. I have never been a fan of beer and never had what this drink is meant to replicate so I can't comment on how good an imitation it is but I really enjoyed it and might try an alcoholic version in the future!

 

Loving Hut- Archway

I have been wanting to go to Loving Hut for so long but we don't eat out very often and when we do make plans just involving us we often get too lazy to go. Luckily for me, two really good friends just moved to Archway giving us the perfect excuse to organise a meal out with them.

I checked out the menu before hand and the choice was overwhelming- I hardly ever get to choose from more than one thing on the menu which actually works out well for me as I am terrible at deciding. I still was nowhere near choosing by the time we got there and opening the menu for real put me right back at the start of what to choose. I was very intrigued by the vegan fish and chips but my boyfriend decided on that so in the end I decided on the crispy "duck" and pancakes. We also ordered the sticky "ribs" for starter. My friends had the Pad Thai and a dish that I cannot spell or pronounce but it had noodles, veg and a few types of mock meat in it.

The sticky ribs were remarkably real looking- so much so that it took me a little bit of encouragement to actually put it in my mouth! I have never had ribs before (I was a vegetarian from birth until I decided to become vegan) but the texture seemed like it would be what ribs are like and the sauce was delicious. The other 3 really liked them too (and were also very impressed with the similarities with the real thing).

When my main course arrived I couldn't believe the size of it! I didn't think it looked very much like meat but the others said it did a bit. It came with thin slices of cucumber and spring onion (I think?) and a delicious sauce. I enjoy making up my food at the table (like fajitas etc.) so I can make it exactly how I like it. I was very impressed with this meal but I tend to enjoy more vegetables with my meal (I knew it wasn't veg laden when I ordered it so it is not a complaint about the dish- it was exactly how it was meant to be) so next time I think I will choose a more vegetable dense dish.

My boyfriend's fish and chips were very impressive. There was even a grey "skin" on the fish. We all tried a bit and were surprised at how like fish it was (let me backtrack slightly and say actually I was a pescatarian until I was 10/11). The chips were nice and they had made their mayonnaise in house which was a nice touch and this was also in the coleslaw that came with it. I would say this is perfect for a vegan who misses fish and chips now and again. My boyfriend polished it off rather quickly and also had one of my pancakes.

The other two really enjoyed theirs too. One thing mentioned was that the Pad Thai could have done with a little more spice but when we were talking to the waitress at the end (she was lovely and asked for our feedback on everything) and mentioned this she said that we could have just asked for some more chilli or next time say when we order and they will make it spicier.

We looked at the dessert menu which looked lovely (a cheesecake particularly jumped out at me) but we were defeated by the savoury food.

All in all I was VERY impressed with Loving Hut and will definitely be going again and trying something different. One thing I would mention is that they don't serve alcohol there (obviously not a problem for me in my current state!). They do have some non-alcoholic beer and some Rose Shloer which tastes a little like wine but if you were hoping for some alcohol with your meal then you will be disappointing.

My Crispy Duck and Pancakes

The Vegan Fish and Chips

Spanish Omelette

In our household for dinner we have a fair few regular meals that we do; the type where we don't need recipes and tend to always have the ingredients in the cupboard. In order to bring a little excitement to our meals OH and I decided to try and cook at least one new recipe a week...particularly since I have a collection of about 20 fantastic vegan cookbooks that seem to only get opened to make sweet things or bypassed for a google search for a specific dish. OH has been saying for a while that he would like to cook for a change and not make ratatouille/bolognaise (which are his 2 specialities and the only difference is the veggie mince added for the bolognaise!) so he looked through "Vegan With A Vengeance" and chose Spanish Omelette. We are not massive tofu eaters (I know, I know...a vegan who doesn't eat much tofu!) so  didn't have the ingredients in right away so postponed it for a few days. By this point OH decided maybe I should make it after all! As I love cooking, this was not a bad thing for me but with a newborn on the way cooking duties may change hands..I am anticipating a lot of ratatouille (which I love by the way)!

Anyway back to the omelette. I did make a few changes 1) I used 1tsp Vegg powder and 1/4 cup of water instead of the saffron & soya milk mixture as I had this in and thought it would provide the colour and an egg-like taste 2) I used a firm tofu instead of "soft"- I wan't sure if this meant silken or not in the recipe and there was only one type of tofu in the shop we went to 3) I think I cut up the potatoes smaller than the recipe- not for any reason, just being distracted! 4) I added some dried herbs (de Provence I think) to the mix. Other than this I followed the recipe.

The results were very good. When I had the first taste I was worried that OH wouldn't like it as I could tell it was tofu and if we are having something called omelette I think he wants it to taste like actual omelette. Perhaps it did- it has been so long since I had one I have no idea! But he LOVED it! We ate what was meant for 3-4 people for dinner (the remainder was meant to be for his lunch the next day but he insisted on second helpings). The texture looked and,  from what I remember felt, really like a real Spanish Omelette and OH described it as "really comforting" which I agree with- it makes a good warming comfort food for dinner.

A couple of things I would mention is I would have quite liked a vegetable in it (other than potato & onion)- maybe tomato or peas , so next time (yes we will definitely be making it again) I will try it with these. We ate it with green beans on the side to get some veg in the meal but I like to have more than one portion for my meals plus I think it would add a lovely colour through it. Another thing is that although it is really easy and not labour intensive you do need to plan a bit as it takes about 1hr45 from beginning to end so not the best if you are hungry before you start!

Other than that I would really recommend it. Bound to be a hit all round!!

One note of caution!: Careful of the pan handle after it comes out of the oven! With my baby brain I kept forgetting it had come out of the oven and kept touching the handle..luckily no damage done- I could just imagine myself dropping the whole thing on the floor!

Some simple dishes we have been eating

Recently I have been so busy/so exhausted I have not had the time, nor the motivation, to try new recipes or do anything experimental. The main aims have been simple but delicious nutritious meals for me, OH and my growing bump. Here is a sample of 3:

Shepherd's Pie, or what we decided to call it "Animal-Rescuers Pie" full of vegetables with gravy and a mashed potato topping.

 Brocolli and Pasta Bake with a "cheesy" (nutritional yeast) white sauce and topped with melty vegan cheese.

 A Rainbow Risotto- lots of colourful vegetables in this simple recipe risotto.

Over the coming weeks I am going to be looking for more easy recipes which will be much easier to cook once our new little vegan is born! Preferably ones that can be cooked in big batches and frozen!

Any suggestions very welcome!!

Our Full Vegan Breakfast

My OH mentioned a while ago how long it had been since he had eaten a cooked breakfast (there's no particular reason for this it just hadn't happened). Today we were both going to be in all day (studying hard) so I thought it would be a nice break and treat to have a cooked Sunday breakfast (but for lunch as I had to work my hunger up).

And here it is:

Simple breakdown:

• Linda McCartney Sausages
• Redwoods "Bacon"
• Scrambled tofu + vegg
• Herby grilled tomatoes
• Garlic Mushrooms
• Doorstep Granary Toast
• Spaghetti hoops (I hate these but OH had them and his plate looked better!)

Banana and Cranberry Bread

The last few days I have been a bit of a cooking machine...mainly when taking breaks from my research project. I have got a few things to post about but the only photos I have prepared are for today's creation- Banana and Cranberry Bread. Those of you who have had banana bread before will know it is more of a cake really and I think this one turned out even cakier than usual! The main resemblance to bread is the shape as I make it in a bread tin and perhaps the colour. I adapted a recipe from about.com; changing a few ingredients and quantities to suit my needs.


Ingredients

1/4 cup oil (I used sunflower)
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 really ripe bananas (the browner the better!)
1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I used hazelnut as that is what was open)
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g dried cranberries (sorry for the change in measuring system- it was just the size of the packet. i reckon it was probably at least 1/2 cup but use as many as you want)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius
2. Mix the sugar and oil together
3. Stir in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda
4. Mash the bananas. It can be quite nice to leave this quite rough and have some pieces in the cake to bite into.
5. Mix in the bananas and all the rest of the ingredients. If it is a bit stiff (it should be a little bit sloppy rather than a stiff dough) then add some more oil
6. Pour into a lined/greased bread pan
7. Cook in the oven for around 50 minutes. A knife should come out clean when stuck into it.
8. Enjoy!

Damn, the picture looked better on my camera!