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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