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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Vegan MoFo Day 19: Lamey McLame Pants

Last night, I literally had about 30 minutes to get dinner cooked and in ma belleh. So I lamed out and cooked a frys chicken burger and some smash.

It was good because I love dirty food like that but it was so amazingly lame that I didn't bother taking a pic.

So salvation lies in an old photo of dinner from about a month ago.  I made the Portobello Feijoada from Viva Vegan.  I LOVE this book but I really haven't tried enough of the recipes yet.  I made this recipe a while ago when I had friends over for dinner and it went down really well.  So I'd been dreaming of it for a while.  I bought the dried beans, got the TVP chunks and even remembered to soak the beans overnight so I could crack on the next day.  It takes a while to make this dish but it is so worth it.

I served it over brown rice, with some diced avocado on top. I was gonna make guac but I literally had none of the ingredients to go in it, except the avo!  Rubbish.  It didn't matter, it was still great. 

This recipe makes LOADS and I didn't bother halving it this time, I just ate the leftovers for lunch for a few days.  So. Good.

Tonight I am cupcake making for a party, so hopefully I'll have pics of them for you tomorrow.

Happy Friday all!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 18: Eggplant Parm

Yesterday was one of those days when I had already decided what I was going to cook for dinner before 3pm, so I spent the last couple of hours at work dreaming of it! 

 

I had an aubergine in my fridge that I bought a week ago, so it was starting to look a little sad.  I turned it into Aubergine/Eggplant Parm.  I'm sure I've made/blogged about this before, but anyway.  I looked up a couple of recipes to get the general gist of how it's done and then went my own way, like I normally do.

 

I didn't have any dried breadcrumbs and I was too lazy to make any (and to clean the food processor) so I used cornmeal instead.  I dipped the slices of aubergine in flour, shook it off then dipped in almond milk then seasoned cornmeal.  Then they are fried til they get a little brown and crispy.

 

To assemble you just lay them on top of a bit of tomato (marianara if you're in the US) sauce; I used a jar of Dolmio, as I didn't fancy spending ages making my own.

 

Then it gets more sauce and a crap tonne of cheese.  I used tesco cheddar style and some cheezly parmesan.

 

Then it got baked at 180C/350F until this gooey saucy little minx came out the oven!

 

I was googling things to serve with it and some people were saying pasta, which I thought would be way too much. Others said green salad, which I'm not a massive fan of. So I made a bean salad with blanched green beans, black eyed beans, tomatoes, red peppers, cucumber, sweetcorn and sun-dried tomatoes.  The dressing was easy, just some of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes, cider vinegar and salt & pepper. Simple and tasty.

 

I also made some cheater garlic bread (a ciabatta roll, split down the middle and spread thickly with vitalite, then sprinkled with nooch and garlic powder and wrapped in foil, then baked along with the aubergine for the last 10 minutes). 

This meal was great, I really enjoyed it and I'll be making it again soon!  But I couldn't eat it all, it was super filling!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 17: Dude, you're fugly

I felt like I was staring into the fridge for hours last night trying to find inspiration to cook something awesome and not just throw a fry's chicken burger in the oven. In reality it was about 5 minutes.

 

I came up with a use for this mock chicken I bought in a Thai supermarket recently.  I didn't notice when I bought it that it's tofu, not fried gluten as I thought, so I was a little wary.

 

When I opened it, this was staring back at me! EEK.  It was massive lumps of gross looking stuff.  I tasted a bit, it tasted strongly of soy, but not completely unpleasant.

 

Despite its fugliness, I pressed ahead with my idea for "chicken" and dumplings and I'm glad I did, it was ACE!

 

I didn't measure anything, I was winging the lot, so here are some guidelines, rather than a proper recipe:

 

I chopped 2 large carrots into small dice and boiled them for 10 minutes, while I got everything else ready.  I sauteed a large shallot in a bit of olive oil with some dried thyme and rosemary and then added the carrots and the drained mock chicken that I broke up into chunks.  I then added about a tbsp of flour and stirred it around, then added 300ml of veggie stock and about half a cup of soymilk.

 

Whilst the carrots were blanching, I made the dumpling dough from 1/2 cup of plain flour, into which I rubbed 2 tbsps of vitalite, then mixed in a pinch each of thyme and rosemary and a bit of salt. Then I added soymilk a splosh at a time until it came together as a soft dough.

 

I rolled the dough into about 6 or 7 ping pong ball sized dumplings and dropped them into the stew.  Then I cooked it all for about 15/20 minutes.  I then added some frozen peas and because it wasn't thickening enough, I mashed a tbsp of vitalite with a tbsp of flour and added this to the stew to thicken it.

 

I served it with steamed cauliflower and mashed potatoes.

 

My little kitchen friend has taken to sitting and watching me cook lately (I think in the hope that she's going to get a titbit) and I took a pic yesterday just as she squeaked at me! hehe FEED ME SAL!

Laterz
xXx

Post title taken from this scene in Supernatural

Vegan MoFo Day 16: Pizza of Sadness

I mentioned in my previous posts that when I'm onsite for work, I have to take provisions.  But there's only so many pot noodles a girl can take before she needs actual food.  So on Sunday night we decided to book a table in the hotel restaurant.  Premier Inn is really not that veggie friendly, although they do have soy milk in the mornings if you ask for it!

 

There are 2 things on the menu (main dishes) that are veggie; a pie that has cheese baked into and a pasta dish that has pesto and parmesan shavings.  So I asked what could be made vegan and the waitress looked terrified, like I'd just threatened to batter her puppy.  I suggested maybe they could do the pasta with a different sauce instead of pesto and off she went to ask.  They can't do this, it's cooked in it (ie, it's frozen and they microwave it!)  The following conversation was one of the most painful ordering experiences of my life which consisted of her asking me what I want(!!) and me trying to explain that I'm not sure because I have no idea what they have in the kitchen as everything seems to be pre-made!  After no suggestions were forthcoming, I asked if the pizzas were fresh and could they be made without cheese, they could so I went with that.  I looked on the list of toppings and the only veggie thing on there was mushrooms.  So yeah I wasn't that hopeful.  I told her just put whatever veggies they had on there.

 

This is what I got, tomato sauce, onions, mushrooms and ... tomatoes.  I can't lie, it wasn't that bad and it filled me up, but it was pretty sad.  Tonight I am looking forward to making actual food!

 

Here it is in all it's glory? sadness

 

And in case you ever find yourself stuck at the NEC in Birmingham and need some food; look in one of the restaurants inside the hall!  There is subway (if you want veggies and nothing else), there's a couple of Wetherspoons pubs if they're open and there's starbucks if you want a latte.  But as Starbucks don't do their vegan sandwich anymore you need to go inside the halls for a vegan sarnie.  The NEC caterers do a hummus and veggie sandwich that's vegan.  I know, not that exciting but it's actually not bad for NEC food.  After 3 days though I gave up and had chips! haha

 

 

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 15: Conveyor Belt of Win

So carrying on from my post yesterday about surviving onsite, we have discovered another way to help the days go quicker when we're bored.  And that is, what my workmate and I affectionately refer to as the Crap Bag.

Usually it consists of stuff along the lines of dirty instant noodles, loads of crisps, snack a jacks, 2 or 3 varieties of biscuits and a crap tonne of sweets.

Here is a pic that I took earlier this year when we were onsite.  I posted it on facebook with the caption 'Conveyor Belt of Win' and my brother for some reason found this hilarious.  Sometimes when he is eating crisps he'll just say to me "conveyor belt of win?".

How I got this through expenses I still don't know!

 

This time, I think we surpassed this!!

 

 

Going home tonight so hopefully I'll have actual food to post tomorrow! :o)

 

(I named it the Crap Bag because it still makes me chuckle thinking of one of my favourite Friends scenes!)

 

Laterz

xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 14: The last known survivor stalks his prey in the night...

And he's watching us all with the EEEYYYYYYYE, of the tiger.

Ahem, sorry.  Was trying to think of songs with Survivor in the title.  Sorry Destiny's Child - Eye of the Tiger out-awesomed you!

So, survival.  I'm talking surviving being onsite in a crap hotel for work.  Generally I struggle onsite and end up eating cereal in my room in the morning and living on hummus sandwiches or PB&J.  Sometimes, I'm not even that lucky so I bring some provisions with me.

My provisions include: some longlife soymilk, some cereal packets, snack a jacks, some cup a soups*, peanut butter, some vitalite, cookies that I made (see yesterday's post), some earl grey tea bags and of course - NOOCH.  I couldn't go the weekend without this.  After 2 nights of gross pot noodles and crisps for dinner I am wishing I bought some Smash with me!!

*The soups - I found these at Morrisons.  They have a new range out called NuMe or some crap, which seems to be lower fat stuff. They have about 5 flavours of cup a soup and at least 3 of them look to be vegan.  This is unusual as most cup a soups, even own brands, I've found have milk in them.  Bad news is, I tried the pea & mint ones last night and they were vile.


Just in case you didn't already think eye of the tiger was awesome, you will now... best outtake EVER!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 13: You got cookie, so share it maybe?

Do you remember a couple of days ago I said I was baking cookies, well here they are my friends.  I made these to give me and my workmate at least one piece of awesome while we are away onsite.

 

They are the peanut butter oatmeal cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, that I modified slightly.  I didn't add the step of rolling them in chopped peanuts. Frankly this is because that step annoyed me last time and I didn't end up using even half of the peanuts that I chopped up.  And I dislike chopping nuts, I don't know why it's just one of those kitchen jobs I cannae stand.  So yeah I didn't do that.  Also I added a couple of handfuls of semi-sweet chocolate chips, because what isn't made extra awesome by the addition of some choccy?

 

I really struggled not to eat ALL THE DOUGH before it got to the oven, because it is so freaking delicious, I mean just look at that sexy mama.....

 

 

Seriously, I'm a dough-eatin' fool!

 

The dough that did make it to the oven came out very nice indeed. I believe Animal agrees. 

Post title borrowed from this piece of genius.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 12: I'm Souper, thanks for asking

Happy Friday peeps.  I can't believe we're almost half way through MoFo - it's bananas!

 

Yes yes, I'm aware that I'm HILarious!  But enough of my razor sharp wit, onto the food.  I spent AGES yesterday looking through cook books and trying to work out something rad for dinner and in the end I decided just to wing something quick out of the contents of my fridge.  I had less than half a tin of chickpeas left that I opened to make the chickpea cutlets, so I smushed 'em up with some vegan mayo, some nori flakes and some sweetcorn to make a faux tuna salad. I stuffed it into a roll and put a tonne of vegan cheese on top for a riff of a tuna melt.

 

Cheesy goodness before being blasted under a hot grill.  I used Tesco's red cheddar, which I surprisingly like. I say surprisingly cuz I always thought Sheese, which this basically is, tasted like butt.

 

Melty Goodness!

 

There was so much filling it was bustin out!

 

To go with it I made a really easy soup by just sauteeing a clove of garlic and a shallot in a teeny bit of oil, then chucking in a tin of chopped tomatoes, half a cup of basmati rice, some dried thyme and some veggie stock.  I cooked it for 15 minutes and added some sriracha so it was good and spicy, et voila!  Easy as pants and plenty of leftovers for lunch today.

 

I'm leaving to go onsite for work today, so I'm not sure how good internet access will be, but so far I'm still planning to blog every day.  Food onsite is SUPER exciting*, so I bet you guys can't wait for that!

 

(* = shite!)

 

Have a good weekend all and think of me walking round yawning and pretending caravans are really interesting, while you're enjoying yourselves! ;o)

 

Laterz

xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 11: chickpea cutlets of radness

I decided not to go to the gym last night, as I'm going to be away with work from tomorrow night over the weekend, so won't really have a night to myself for a bit.  And because of this I decided to spend a bit longer making dinner. Also I thought my attack class was tonight and it was actually last night! haha oops, that's a fine I'll have to pay next time I book! :(

 

Anyways.... I went with the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon.  I don't make these that often because I always think they take ages to make, but actually if you have all the ingredients, they really don't take that long at all.  I always bake them, I've tried frying like it says in the book but there is ALWAYS gluten strings inside when I've fried. And uncooked stringy seitan makes me wanna barf.  So oven it is.  But that's good because it gave me time to prepare and cook some mushroom gravy, broccoli, mashed potatoes and green beans.

 

The gravy was suuuuper easy.  Just sauteed up about half a cup of mushrooms with a shallot and a clove of garlic. Then added about half a cup of veggie stock and some thyme.  To thicken I mixed about a tablespoon of flour with a couple of tablespoons of soymilk, I added this in then stirred till it thickened.  I also (of course) added some nooch! A couple of tablespoons.  Quick, easy and yummy.

 

Leftovers make a great sarnie for lunch the next day by the way!

I also had a bit of an experiment fail, but I'm trying it again, so that is a blog post for the future! 

Making cookies tonight - YAY.

Laterz
xXx