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Wednesday, 19 December 2012

What will your daddy do when he sees your mama kissing Santa Claus?

"Ah haaaaah! Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall....."

Oh I love christmas! There's less than a week to go and I'm still not bored of christmas music yet!

I figured I'd try and get in a post before chrimbo so that I can clear my camera out before the xmas foodz.  So here goes...

Last week was my work xmas do. We went for an Italian meal and I gotta say, the menu was pretty lacking in veggie options, let alone veggie options easy to veganise.  So I went safe and got bruschetta without the cheese/pesto that normally comes with ....

please excuse my even worse than usual food photography, the light was terrible in there!
 
Main was more bread and tomato in the form of cheeseless pizza.  Better than a pizza of sadness but not as good as homemade.
 
The day after the party, I headed down to Brighton to hang out with my friend Jojo.  We had an awesome day hanging out in Brighton. We went to the new Duke of York cinema at Komedia and got hot dogs. Now I was sure I took a photo but I can't find it!  Damn. But luckily Jojo has posted a review on her blog and has a photo of the hot dog we both had that day. Lucky!
 
Later on that day, before we went to a late night viewing of Gremlins at the aforementioned cinema, we* made a roast dinner, it was pretty epic.  It was the seitan en-croute from 500 Vegan Recipes and it was good!
 
Here's the top of it - FANCY!
 
And the plate shot! (Before being covered in gravy)
*Jojo made it really, I just peeled some potatoes!
 
Speaking of roasts, I made one other week.  I used Julie Hasson's recipe from Vegan Diner for chicken style roast seitan and I REALLY liked it. In fact I liked it so much that I am making it for christmas day.  I will cook it a bit longer though as it was a little undercooked in the middle.  This also got Daddy Alien's seal of approval ("It's better than those slimy ones you made last week! Nicer texture") So there you go!  I had it with sage & onion stuffing balls (hehe balls), broccoli, mash, bisto gray and sprouts - which may look burnt but they're not. Honest.
 
Earlier than day I made myself a fry up for breakfast (I love Sundays). Scramble, sausage patties, bagel, mini potato waffles and hoops! YEAH.
 
Speaking of brunch foods... I bought some of the Redwoods smoked salmon style slices at the Veg Fayre the other week. 
 
I had them on a bagel with some tofutti cream cheese....
 
I thought they were GROSS!  SO GROSS!  But, a lot of PPKers seem to be diggin them.  For me it's the texture, they are very similar to what I remember smoked salmon to be like and it grossed me out.  I binned the rest of the packet.
 
Lastly, just because it was on my camera, last night's dinner. Scramble with roasted potatoes, asparagus and green beans with some reggae reggae ketchup to make it extra classy!
 
That's all for now, I'll be back after chrimbo with holiday foodz!
 
 
To all those that celebrate it, have a wonderful Christmas!
Laterz
xXx

Thursday, 6 December 2012

Wee chooky birdie so lo lo...

....laid an egg on the windy-so, the windy-so, began to crack, wee chooky birdy quack quack quack!
 
That silly song is in my head today, because I was trying to come up with chicken puns and all that came to mind is a song my Nan used to sing to us. She is in my thoughts today because it is 6 years today since she passed away. I keep remembering all the silly (and quite often rude) Scottish songs she used to sing to us as kids.
 
But yeah anyway, chicken!  Last week I decided to make the No Cluck Cutlets from Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day, because I had a day off and had a bit of extra time to cook on a Monday for once.
 
I am a pretty lazy creature and I was kicking myself a bit for picking a recipe that required more effort than my normal lazy attempts at seitan, (rolling out cutlets - SO tedius) but in the end I was really glad that I was 'patient' because these cutlets are AWESOME!!  I basically ate one every day for a week, luckily I froze half of them or I'd still be eating them and probably be bored by now.
 
The first one I had literally out of the cooking pot with some smash (yes I'm shameful, I know) and peas and sweetcorn. 
 
 
I know it looks a bit pale and dry in this pic, but that's because it was before I COVERED that shit in Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from VWaV. That stuff is the shiznit, is it not??  (My dad tasted some and his verdict was "that goop in the pot tasted good!" haha). So yeah, as you can see below, it needed a before pic to be taken too!
 

Another meal I had was a cutlet that I dipped in seasoned (just salt & pepper) flour and pan fried. This was SO GOOD.  I roasted up some potatoes, BNsquash and sprouts and steamed some broccoli to go with. The sauce is leftover Punk Rock Gravy.
 
Another meal I used them for was this accompaniment to fried rice.  The rice was awesome, I made a plain tofu scramble first to approximate the egg pieces then added cooked rice, peas and grated carrot and fried it up. Then a bit of soy sauce to season.  The sauce for the seitan I just mixed together some peanut butter, coconut yoghurt*, Chinese 5 spice powder and bit of water to thin it. Honestly it didn't blow me away but it was ok. I added some sriracha on top to de-bland it a bit. The rice was superrad though. (*that coconut yoghurt? yeah, he'll be back!)
 
Saturday night, my mum was out so my dad suggested getting a pizza. Honestly the thought of another pizza of sadness was too much for me so I bought the stuff and made my own.  I used the VWaV recipe for crust but instead of making 2 thin ones, made one HUGE fat beast of a crust.  It was filthy good.  The toppings were mushrooms, sweetcorn, fresh tomatoes, jarred artichokes, jarred jalapenos, a chopped up hemp spacebar and a crap tonne of Tesco's medium vegan cheddar, which melts SO well. This pizza was humungous, we actually had loads of leftovers, which never happens with pizza in our house.
 
On Sunday, it was Animal Aid's annual Vegan Christmas Fayre in Kensington.  I have been the last few years and although there's not much new there anymore, it's fun way to waste a couple of hours and gain a few pounds.  I was going to take photos of everything I ate that day but obviously forgot (blaming the jaeger bombs for that!). Although I did get a photo of the awesome cheesy potato pie that Jojo and I both got about 2 minutes after we walked through the door.  Hopefully she will remember the name of the stall, cuz I'm fucked if I can!
 
 OK so that yoghurt I' mentioned before... I'm pretty sure I've blogged about it before, but I love this stuff.  It's quite sweet but not so sweet that it can't be used in savoury dishes. 
 
 It's really thick, it's like coconut cream!
 
I use it quite a bit because putting in a couple of spoonfuls of this plus some water or veggie stocks is so many less calories than a tin of coconut milk!  My favourite way to use it is a noodle / soup type bowl.  I just chuck a bunch of veggies into boiling veg stock and some thair red curry paste, add a portion of dried noodles and cook it about 5 minutes then stir in the yoghurt. It's really good, this one had some cut up leftover baked tofu in too.
 
 And this was tempeh that I fried in hot jerk paste with steamed broccoli then I just stirred some of the coconut yoghurt into cooked plain rice. Really good.
 
Last night I also made a veg curry with the last of the pot, but I forgot to take a pic! Doh.
 
Anyways, hope you all have a fab weekend whatever you end up doing and that you don't get squished in the shops if you go christmas shopping! Cross your fingers for me!
 
Laterz
xXx

Tuesday, 27 November 2012

Opa!

AKA, my Dad's Big Fat Greek Birthday Feast!

My shiney new copy of Vegan Eats World arrived this month and I've been excited to receive it for ages.  So this month was Daddy Alien's birthday and we celebrated by me cooking us a fancy meal and because I love Greece and Greek food, I picked the Pastichio, Greek Salad with Cashew Feta and the Walnut Spice Sticky Cake to finish.

I started with a bit of a cheat, some shop-bought greek mezze type items.  I bought mini pittas, dolmades (stuffed vine leaves), chargrilled veggies and hummus. Also, those olives were stuffed with a big wodge of garlic and a jalapeno - they were AWESOME!  I made the tzatziki, because a vegan shop bought version is not an option. It was easy, just grated cucumber, garlic, soya yoghurt, chopped mint, pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon juice.


Here's the pastichio just out of the oven. Pastichio is a Greek pasta dish that is kind of like a lasagne only you use tube pasta instead of sheets and it has some greek spices in there.

There's 2 options for this dish, without or without aubergine/eggplant. I chose to include it and I'm glad I did, although I think it could have done with being roasted a bit earlier than called for so it could be cooked some more in the tomato sauce.  But it was still great. If you've read the recipe, you might notice I forgot to sprinkle nutmeg on top! Eek. Next time I'll remember!


Inside shot, with the cashew feta salad.  I wasn't sure my mum & dad would like this but they liked it all.

And for dessert, the Walnut Spice Sticky Cake.  This cake is SO GOOD. You must make it, now. Do it now.  Seriously, go now!

It was great leftovers for breakfast as well as being an excellent end to this meal, with a glass of wine and some X-Factor!  I should say though that it took way longer to bake than the book said, but I know that all ovens are not equal.  It was still liquid so I ended up turning it down and cooking it longer, because I didn't want to burn the top.

This pic is right after I took it out the oven and poured the syrup over
 
And after cutting
 
 
The following day, my brother and his fiance were round, so we all went for a lovely Thai meal in one of my dad's favourite restaurants.  As puddings are not normally something I can eat in a regular restaurant, I made my dad some birthday cupcakes for us all to enjoy when we got back.  They are the basic chocolate cupcakes from VCTOtW, I just upped the almond extract to a full teaspoon.  Then the buttercream I flavoured with Monin Cherry Syrup and stuck a glace cherry on top.
 
 
I'll leave you with a pic of the birthday boy enjoying his cupcake!
 
Laterz
xXx
 


Wednesday, 31 October 2012

Vegan MoFo Day 31: What I ate yesterday

It's the last day of MoFo and Halloween but I don't have anything spooky for you I'm afraid.

Instead I have a 'here's what I ate yesterday' post for you.  My friend Jojo has been doing these this MoFo and I love reading them.  So here's mine.

Breakfast was a new cereal (new to me anyway) that I found in Sainsburys. They have a couple like these are labelled vegan. I also got the maple & pecan crisp but I haven't opened that yet.
 
Unfortunately cereals like this are quite caloriffic and heavy, so you don't get much for your 50g! It was tasty though.
 
I had a bottle of OJ when I got to work
 
Lunch was a wholemeal roll with chickpeas salad in (chickpeas, mayo, sweetcorn, salt & nori flakes). The roll was still warm when I bought it on the way to work and it smelt sooo good. I love fresh bread.
 
I also had a packet of snack a jacks, which I'm a bit addicted to.

 
Mid-afternoon snack - some fruit!
 
And dinner, a marinated grilled portobello mushroom, steamed green veg, corn on the cob and some pasta with a quick noochy sauce.

And so endeth MoFo. It's been great blogging frequently again and I don't even feel that burnt out, maybe because I was too lazy to think of a theme! hehe.

Laterz
xXx

Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Vegan MoFo Day 30: Saucy Chickpeas

I can't believe it's almost the end of MoFo already!  I don't think any of my posts were especially inspiring this year, haha, but it has been great reading everyone else's blogs. I totally forgot how much inspiration blogs can provide for meals.

Case in point, yesterday's dinner.  Coronation chicken used to be a big favourite of mine in my pregan days and since going vegan I've made it with tofu and seitan, but never did I think of using chickpeas, like I saw over on the veghotpot blog yesterday.

I thought this idea was genius so I decided to make my own version.  I didn't add any dried fruit, mine was just about 1/4 cup of soya yoghurt, 1 tsp of korma paste and 1 tbsp of mango chutney, plus a bit of salt.  I added half a tin of chickpeas and served it over a baked potato.  It was awesome!


See ya tomorrow for the last MoFo post.

Laterz
xXx

Monday, 29 October 2012

Vegan MoFo Day 29: Pizzaaaahh

Friday night I decided to make pizza for dinner.  I bought yeast and everything!  The dough was really simple, just a cup of flour, a sachet of instant yeast and a bit of olive oil and warm water.  Unfortunately the toppings I had in the cupboard/fridge were a little thin on the ground so I had to improvise. 
 
I had no pizza sauce, so I whizzed up some sun dried tomatoes, tomato puree and a bit of water to get the right consistency and used that as my sauce.  I had no facon or chicken pieces etc or even any smoked tofu so I cut up what was left of my Fry's chicken nuggets and put them on along with some peppers and sweetcorn and fresh tomato.  Usually I put the cheese on last but this time I put it on under the toppings and I'm glad I did this, because the cheese stayed super gooey and melty, instead of going a bit hard and crispy like it does if you put it on last.  (I used the cheezly soy free cheddar that I bought by mistake, but it was actually really good!)
 

Laterz
xXx

Sunday, 28 October 2012

Vegan MoFo Day 28 - Jalapeno Cornbread

I had a few days off from posting because there's nothing more boring that a sick person babbling on about eating soup.  So yesterday I made some jalapeno & cheeze cornbread, it was pretty good warm out of the oven....


Even better when I made it into french toast and served with a scramble.  The scramble was really basic, all I put it in was a bit of turmeric for colour and then nooch and a bit of black salt, regular salt and some soya cream.  Yum.

Here's the recipe in case you fancy having a go too:

Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread
Ingredients:
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup of plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sweetcorn kernels
1 loose cup vegan cheese of your choice (I used Cheezly soy free cheddar)
1 cup almond milk
1 tsp vinegar
1/4 cup rapeseed (canola) oil
Chopped Jalapenos from a jar (I used 5 or 6 rings finely chopped, but adjust it to your taste)

Method:
Preheat Oven to 180C/350F.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients together, pour into dry and mix until just combined.  Pour into a loaf tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack until cool enough to slice.

Laterz
xXx

Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Vegan MoFo Day 24 - Llamas!

The worst thing about being off my food during MoFo is that I have nothing to show you really as all I've managed to eat lately is soup and smash.
 
But at the weekend I found these in my local Tesco. Llamas!!
 
 
Look how cute they are!!
 
I mainly bought them cuz I liked the little message on the side "Llamas don't go 'Bah, they hum'. BAHAHAHAHA. As my mum would say, little things please little minds!

Anyway, they seem vegan from the ingredients and they're not the greatest thing I've ever eaten but they're not too bad!  I reckon they'd be good dipped in hummus or something.

Laterz
xXx

Tuesday, 23 October 2012

Vegan MoFo Day 23: Sick Foodz

So I have caught a lovely strain of lurgy that is going around and because of this, I am totally off my food. This makes me super sad.  Basically dinner the last couple of days has consisted of a tin of soup I've heated up and then eaten 2 bites of.

Lamey Lame-O or what! 

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel like eating actual foodz.

Laterz
xXx

Monday, 22 October 2012

Vegan MoFo Day 22: Chilli & Cheesecake

Morning all, it's foggy and grey and crap out there today and I could just do with another bowl of this chilli that my aunty made me for Saturday night.


It was really good and I had it over a baked potato.

I didn't take any pictures of last night's tea, my mum made her awesome roasties and made me some veggie mince to go with it, why does mum's mince always taste better than mine?? 

Anyway, I did get a photo of dessert.  I found this lemon cheesecake in the freezer sectin in Tesco. (I will have to look up the brand when I get home).  I didn't have high hopes for it, because generally bought vegan cheesecake is mingin.  But it wasn't that bad.  The base was a bit rubbish, it was a bit too cakey and as you can see, all kind of fell apart which is why it's in a heap next to the slice.  We had some strawberries with it to make it less boring.

Sorry for the crappy pictures, it was really dark when I took these so the lighting was terrible.


Have a good day all.

Laterz
xXx

Saturday, 20 October 2012

Vegan MoFo Day 20: Birthday Cupcakes

Hello everyone.  I promised cupcake pics and here they are.  These are for my Auntie's 60th birthday party tonight, which is a barn dance and the food is a hog roast!! Blech, however my Auntie is making vegan food for me (she's awesome) and in return I offered cuppers.

I made the basic chocolate cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World which I flavoured with mint, then I added peppermint icing and some chopped mint cremes to decorate.  These are pretty much the same as I made for Daddy Alien's 60th Birthday 2 years ago.

 

I also made the Cookies & Cream variation of cupcakes except in the Basic Vanilla recipe instead of the Basic Chocolate.  I had to buy special american mini oreos, as UK oreos are not vegan! BOO.  But I think they came out pretty cute!

I found these in the American Aisle (which is basically 2 shelves) in my local big ass Tesco. Cute but they're £2.50 each and I had to buy 2 and I used them all!



 

This is my bro's 'creative' way to use up leftover minty icing, by putting it on the crispy cakes my mum made yesterday....


This then evolved to a double decker, mint creme topped, crispy sandwich of win!

And here's bellend creator himself enjoying the fruits of his labour!
 
I will leave you with a Jazzy pic. She actually laid there, still and looking at me and let me take 2 or 3 photos.  This is her all snug and comfy on her favourite spot - on her blanky!
 
Have a great Saturday all!
 
Laterz
xXx