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Sunday 26 July 2009

Skip to the end.....

I'm starting at the end of the week's food instead of the beginning - Saturday! Saturday I got the train down to Brighton for the UK PPK Meet up. We had a picnic in the Pavilion Gardens. After a week or 2 of rain and black clouds, we had one day of glorious sunshine. It was so hot that I got sunburn (it's back to rain now though!), we were so lucky.

6 of us turned up in total; myself, Jojo, the_purple_peril, MessyVeggie, holylopez & interrobang?!.

It was great fun and there was so. much. food! Not sure if we even ate half of it, although luckily that meant leftovers for all! So here's a run down (christ it took forever to upload these, I HATE blogger!!)

Cranberry Walnut cookies that I made. I used Dreena Burton's recipe as my base and swapped light spelt flour for the wheat flour, took out the chocolate chips and added in a 1/4 cup each of broken up walnuts and dried cranberries. I also added about 1/4 tsp of allspice.




Peanut butter cupcakes. These were SO good!

I think my deer / reindeer (??) was a bit drunk!

Banana bread - we didn't actually eat this as we'd already had so much sugar!

Fruit! Pretty much the one healthy thing there.

Vegan Brunch broccoli quiche - this was soooo good, I definitely have to have a go at making this soon (so do you if you have the book, ok!).
Quinoa salad
Jojo's epic mint choc cake, with mint Newman O's and chocolate skulls. I'm kind of glad Newman O's are not available over here or I would eat them very often!

Jam donut cupcakes - mmmmmm!
Awesome brownies! I was too sugared out to eat one then & there, so I took mine home and ate it later, it rocked.

VCon Brooklyn Deli Macaroni Salad, this stuff is awesome.


Mezze inspired goodness, tabouleh, hummus and pittas and tempeh bacon. First time for me trying tempeh and I loved it. I was super excited to have a bit leftover to take home with me.


Seitan sausage and peanut noodle salad (my offerings, along with the cookies). Considering I just chucked peanut butter and other stuff in the mini-chop and whizzed until it tasted good, the noodles came out pretty well!


This cute pigeon was a fan of vegan cake!

This birdie preferred to eat the cake wrapper. He actually did eat the wrapper too!


OK back to normal food. This was dinner for me & my friends last week. I got the idea from La Dolce Vegan (I think!) - it was chilli with gluten free cornbread on top. I wasn't sure how it would come out, having only had very VERY limited experience with GF baking but it came out really well, I was so pleased. I forgot to bring my book to work with me - I was going to post the recipe. I'll try to next time, if I remember.
Served with guac - my avocado was not very ripe, even though I'd had it for over a week and it felt soft. Grrr, it was still pretty good though, just not as creamy as I'd have liked.

And another gluten free success. I tweaked my savoury muffins again. I replaced the wholewheat flour with brown rice flour and added 1 tsp of xantham gum. They worked really well, I was happy.
Lastly, I had a go last weekend at the Vegan Brunch omelet, as I got some black salt! They were really good and surprisingly easy to make. Mine isn't as pretty as Jeni's but it was tasty - I sauteed some mushrooms and spring onion in thyme and tamari for my filling. I halved the recipe and froze the other half of the batter, so I'm going to try defrosting it and cooking it up this week - will let you know how it does.
I dunno about anyone else - but the smell of the black salt - ERGH!! Gag me! It was gross, it wasn't too bad adding it to the mixture but when I turned on the blender I almost puked. The smell of it in my kitchen was making me feel sick. But it tasted good so it was worth it.


Laterz
xXx

22 comments:

  1. OMG - that is a MOTHERLOAD of food!!! My knees went all wobbly when I saw that mint-choc cake!!! And what the funk is black salt???!

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  2. A) That cake WAS epic looking!
    B) Mwhahaha... and I thought I was the only other adult person who had plastic animals around for special occasions (mine tend to be dinosaurs...)
    C) Grr...I've totally had that tricky 'cado experience... glad yours turned out okay I did that with zutanos once and it was pretty gross...

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  3. Insanely jealous over here... Between the amazing food and good company, that sounds like a perfect get-together!

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  4. You beat me to it with the meet up post! Interrobang?! just left this morning and I've been working all day so I'll have to crack on with it later. It was so rad to finally meet you I've been reading your blog for ages, we'll have to meet up again soon.

    I always have that problem with avocados, rubbish!

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  5. Looks like you had some awesome food at the meetup! I am glad you guys had fun. I went to a PPK meetup on Saturday too.

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  6. Wow! what a post!! some great looking food there!

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  7. OHMYFREAKINGGOD!!!!!
    What an awesome vegan meet up. I'm so happy for you that the sun shone - the sun obviously smiles down on vegan meet ups.
    :)
    Such AWESOME food I don't know where to begin.
    Glad you liked the Omlette - though the smell is a bit gagsome isn't it. I'll be interested to hear how the frozen half fares.

    I'm off to look at the other photos on PPK.

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  8. that was a hella post. hella. post. i'm really jealous you were able to connect with other ppkers. i think i might have to rustle up a midwest ppk vegan gathering--soon before i get to uncomfortable to travel!

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  9. I am now starving after reading your post! Wow, peanut butter cupcakes?! And that chocolate mint cake, too? I would have been in heaven!

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  10. sweet shit, Sal - that's one glorious post full 'o awesome! mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! huzzah for a rock'n PPK meet up full 'o ridiculously good yummies! i love the chocolate skullz, and your cranberry cookies look most stellar! that bird is just too funny, and pigeons are the cutest! i raised one once (it had fallen out of a tree) - they're my favorite! :) we've never gotten our hands on black salt, but i keep meaning to look for some - i don't know if i could handle the smell either though. ick! your omelet is perfect (hooray for mushies!) and i'm glad the muffins were so good! i'd love your gluten-free cornbread recipe! superw00t!

    your post has me wanting dinner now, Sal. damn, you're too awesome with all the fantastical eatz!

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  11. ooooh this is making me hungry all over again!!

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  12. Awesome to see the PPK is alive and well in the UK! The selection of food at your picnic is amazing- lovely quiche, fantastic spread of mezze dishes, and all of the sweets look delicious. I just started using black salt too - I agree...at first, the smell made me think "why bother...this is kind of gross"...but it's so evocative of eggs, and anything to convince curious maybe-vegans that they're not missing anything by changing their diet it a good thing in my book. Anyway, glad you had such fun at the PPK picnic!

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  13. Whoa, that is a seriously awesome picnic spread!

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  14. Awesome meet up food! I am insanely jealous!!!

    And ugh, I've never smelled black salt but asafoteda (sp? Hing) Powder does the same, but it's kind of onion-y. Gross.

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  15. Deer cupcakes rule! Soo much good food! I wish i was there!

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  16. wtf Brighton? I have to go to the PPK forums more often... nah, would've been too broke this month anyway, but tell me when there's another one!

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  17. AWESOME! I want to go to a vegan picnic in Brighton. Followed off by a delivious dinner at Terre a Terre... *big hearts*

    I need to hunt down some black salt. I think I know where to go, just a matter of actually getting there!

    I wish I could partake in all that nomming.

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  18. Ohmygod, that's just mind melting amazingness. Every little bit looks incredible. Yay for meet-ups and for you trying tempeh!

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  19. I LOVE that idea for the chili being baked w/ the cornbread crust on top!!!

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  20. WOW!!!!!! that picnic rocks! I can't believe how much incredible food there was. I think I would have gone into a food coma.

    chili in a pan w/ cornbread baked in? sounds awesome.

    I've made the omelettes from vbrunch twice now sans black salt because I've been to lazy to get some. your omelettes look much better than mine. I think I need to thin out the batter a bit first. still tasted great.

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