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Thursday 12 December 2013

My current obsession is....

So like every other PPKer/vegan on the planet, I got my excited hands on the latest offering from Isa Chandra Moskowitz last month, Isa Does It and I'm a bit in love with it!  So here are some meals that I have made from (and inspired by) this book, over the last couple of weeks:

First up the tempeh balls (hehe) and sketti.  Now I didn't use the sauce recipe in the book, I just made my own by wingin it.  I made these for me & by bestie at the weekend before a night on the sauce and we both liked it a lot.  Although I'll probably bake them next time as they were a bit soft. But still delicious. I  love me some tempeh.

Next up, Coconut Chaana Saag.  I picked this to make for dinner for myself and my mum and dad and it was great. But it was so similar to the type of curry I normally make when I'm wingin it that I wish I'd picked another recipe. But still, we all loved it.  I used spinach instead of kale, but aside from that, no other subs.

Then the Roasty Soba Noodle Bowl with Miso Tahini (this recipe is on Isa's blog if you don't have the book yet). OH MY GOD - GOOD! That sauce I could chug (to coin a Guy Fieri-ism*) and why have I never thought to roast cauliflower before because roasting cauliflower turns it from crunchy, cruciferous, crudité into a magical tray full of win!!  (*I know he's a bit annoying but I can't help it, I love Guy on DD&D and his Arnie impression ... and alliteration apparently!)   Anyway I halved the recipe but still got loads of sauce, enough to make 2 bowls and use the leftovers for salad dressing, which was AWESOME!

And here's some that were inspired by this book because I was too lazy to follow the recipes exactly.

This book is cashew cream heavy. I mean seriously, there are a tonne of recipes that call for soaked cashews and I LOVE that about it.  So following that lead, I roasted some orange pepper, garlic, shallots and tomatoes while my cashews were boiling for 15 minutes (I was on the fly, I didn't have time for 2 hours of soaking!)  Then I whizzed them all up together with a bit of veggie stock and some tomato puree to make this ace pasta sauce.
 
This was inspired by the butternut alfredo sauce, I just did the first bit - blending cashews, roasted butternut squash and stock - to make my sauce. I need to try again but making the recipe as written because I liked this a lot.


Scrambled Chickpeas. I didn't follow the recipe, I did my usual seasonings of a bit of turmeric, black salt and a crap tonne of nooch instead. This was a genius idea! 

And lastly.... this is the recent recipe from Isa's blog for gingery coconut stew with brussels & rutabaga* (which I am a bit obsessed with at the moment!) and my only regret with this is that I halved it, because it was AWESOME.  *Swede if you're on this side of the pond!

That's it for now.

It's nearly Christmas peeps! EXCITING!!! Almost time to start my Christmas baking.  What are you making this year (so I can totally steal your ideas! j/k)

Laterz
xXx

Thursday 28 November 2013

Of all the silly nonsense, this is the stupidest tea party I've ever been to in all my life!

Actually it was a lovely tea party, but I just wanted an excuse to quote Alice in Wonderland, because it was my favourite film as a kid.

Now I must start by apologising because the pics I'm about to post are fucking dire - even by my standards - and don't really do the food justice but I wanted to post about it anyway.

Last weekend, my cousin and I met up in London and she had booked us into the restaurant of La Suite West in Bayswater, London for Vegan Afternoon Tea.

From what I could gather from chatting to the (lovely and super passionate) Maitre D, the restaurant changed to an all vegan and high raw place earlier this year.  Also, there's no alcohol served at any time there, much to the chagrin of my cousin, but as there were pubs right around the corner, we managed to make do without for an hour or so for afternoon tea.

So here's the menu:
 
I chose earl grey for my tea and as it was a vegan place I didn't have to worry about the lack of soymilk!  (I did warn you the photos were crap - the lighting was terrible in there and I didn't want to use flash....)

Sandwiches... My favourite was the Portobello mushroom & pesto, but all of them were nice. The only one I didn't love was the butternut squash one, my cousin felt the same about it - nice but the flavours didn't quite work. Also the aubergine could've done with a bit longer cooking, but still tasty.
 
Then the star of the show for me - warm fresh scones!  Delicious and they came with a side of coconut sauce (they say whipped coconut cream but it had a more pudding-y texture, it'd obviously had cornstarch or something similar added to set it) and fresh strawberries. The texture of the sauce was a bit off but the taste of it was lovely and went really well with the fresh strawbs.
 
 
The last one was a trio of chocolate thingies. I am not sure if they were all raw, I don't think the sesame halva one was, but they were all really good.  The raw coconut/chocolate cake - I'm still not convinced that was raw because it tasted like sponge and it was delightful. (that's the one at the back with the strawberry 'hat' on!) I took this pic with flash because it was so dark by then that without it, you couldn't see anything at all - yeah I know it doesn't help much! 

So my take on this place is that it's not perfect but it's pretty damn good and their evening meal selection looks really interesting, so I'd be into trying it out for a full meal sometimes too.

Have a good weekend all.

Laterz
xXx

Monday 18 November 2013

DUDE. SWEET!

Hurro everyone.

Mondays suck, so here's some pictures of a couple of sweet things I've made recently.

Starting with the fluffy pancake pillows from Isa Does It. I've been dying to try these for ages and I was not disappointed.  Although I did accidently leave out the half cup of water you're meant to add in, so I was wondering why I only got 5 instead of 6.  But actually the thicker texture meant they were even bigger! WIN.  (I've since made them properly and they are just as rad, just a little thinner and larger because the batter spreads out a bit more.)

Instead of maple syrup, I boiled a punnet of blueberries with half a cup of rice syrup for about 10 minutes for a lovely fruity syrup.  The rice syrup meant that it wasn't overly sweet.

And last week was Daddy Alien's birthday so I asked if he would like a cake or cupcakes and he said cupcakes. Then went on to talk about the awesome black forest gateaux that my mum used to make for his birthday years ago. Apparently there were fisticuffs over the last piece of cake!! haha

So taking that as inspiration I made the basic chocolate cupcakes from VCTOTW and modified them a wee bit. I took a pack of cherry pie filling and sieved out the cherries, then reserved 12 for the tops and the rest went into the cake batter.  The topping was just plain vanilla butter cream with the reserved cherries to decorate and the cherry syrup drizzled over, with some choccy sprinkles to finish. 

These went down really well with everyone, but then, who doesn't love a cupcake?!

Hope that makes your Monday a little sweeter. Have a good week everyone. 

Oh and shameless plug - but if you're on Instagram, come follow me for more food pics, make-up and pics of Me Jazzy* (I don't think the button on the right works properly but this blog is way overdue an overhaul anyway!!).  I'm @sal_on_toast if you're into Instagram.

*Jazzy is my cat, you dirty birdie!!

Lotsolove.

Laters
xXx

Thread title courtesy of this awesome piece of ridiculousness.

Wednesday 6 November 2013

I'm gonna pop some tags, only got 20 dollars in ma pocket....

Helllloooooo everyone. Has it really been over a month since MoFo ended?  October was a really busy month, ending with a fantastic holiday. I spent a glorious week in Ölüdeniz in Turkey and totally fell in love with the place, the weather and the people .... but not so much the food. 

The food was ok, don't get me wrong, but it's a fairly meat-centric (kebab) food scene out there. So I ate a lot of vegetable shish!  But I did have some lovely food too.  However, I am a massive numpty and didn't realise until I was half way to the airport, that I had left my phone at home. So no food pics.  To make up for this, I'm going to recreate some of the better things I ate when I was there and veganise some Turkish food and do a post or 2, at some point in the future.

Anyway, this past weekend I got it into my head that I needed to make fresh pasta, as it's something I'd never done before.  I was hoping to find a second hand cheapo pasta machine in a charity shop (mainly so I could use this song as inspiration for the post title - I'm using it anyway because I can't think of anything funny and pasta related!). I had no luck though and I'm impatient, so I went into TK Maxx and bought a Jamie Oliver one for £25, which I thought was pretty good.


Everybody - meet Jamie.... Jamie - meet everybody.  Charmed and all that. 
Moving on.

I haven't quite got this pasta recipe right yet and my filling was pretty predictable (tofu ricotta & spinach), so once I've perfected it I'll post a follow up and a recipe. I'm pretty sure I can come up with a more inspired filling! haha.



Also, I think that rolling the dough out all the way to the lowest setting made it too thin.  The pasta was soooo delicate and I think it needed to be a wee bit thicker, so next time I will stop on 3 or 2.

Doesn't look that great in this pic does it. Looks kinda like a bowl of brains. BRAAAIIINNZZZZ!

Saucy!

I added some pan-fried pieces of Cauldron's new Italian Tofu as well for a bit of extra tofuiness.  Yes that is a word.  (I can't find this on Cauldron's website, which is weird, otherwise I'd link to it! I swear I didn't make it up!)

I also made tagliatelle, which is super easy because this machine has a cutter for this.  Unfortunately I have no pic of the dinner I made with it because I overcooked it and it was proper mooshy!  It really only does need about a minute in the water, not 3! But here's a pic of the uncooked pasta!

"I wear your granddad's clothes, I look incredible, I'm in this big ass coat, from the thrift shop down the road!"

ehhheheh, good luck gettin' that out your head!

Hope you're all having an excellent week & happy humpday.

Laterz
xXx

Monday 30 September 2013

Vegan MoFo Day 30 - Tom & Dick

So I had a wicked weekend away with my gals, having some Britneys, putting on crazy makeup and dancing to 80s music.  The fact that I'm now sick in bed with lurgy means I don't have much for my last MoFo post.  So here's a few pics of some of the food we took with us when we went away.

I was gonna cook up some Linda McCartney sausage rolls but I couldn't find any in the 2 supermarkets I went to. So I grabbed some ready made puff pastry and made a tempeh filling and made my own.  Not great enough to give you a recipe but filled a gap.

Straight outta the oven


I did the cooking Thursday before we went away and I gotta say it was an evening of fails. I made some muffins that I overmixed - badly. They came out like hockey pucks so had to be binned.

Also, I had planned to make some tabouleh but it wasn't until after I'd poured the water over the bulghur wheat that I realised I didn't have the other ingredients to go in it! Doh.  Luckily my bff made a bean salad and so we mixed the 2 together and it was great.

I also made us the rocky road cookies from vegan cookies... and a veggie curry for Saturday night - both of which I forgot to take pics of. I suck, I am sorry.

Anyway, I've had a great time posting (almost) every day during MoFo. Thanks to everyone who read and commented and it was great reading so many new blogs as well.  MoFo always makes me super inspired to blog more but it doesn't always work out that way.

I am gonna try though but I also want to get my makeup blog back up and running and rededicated to just vegan makeup/beauty products.  So if you're into that, keep an eye out here for a link when it's ready to go again.

I'd also like to thank this website for providing me with lots of giraffes and helping me come up with post titles for MoFo.

Kat Slaters
xXx

Cockney Translations of the day
Tom & Dick = Sick
Giraffes = Laughs
Britneys = Britney Spears = Beers

Sunday 29 September 2013

Vegan MoFo Day 29 - Hangover Reg Varney

This was meant to go up yesterday but I couldn't get a good enough signal on my phone to publish it and today I'm sick so I am posting yesterday's rubbish snack.

About all I had brain power for yesterday.... PB & crisp sarnie.

Tomorrow I'll post actual food!

Kat Slaters
xXx

Cockney translation of the day
Reg Varney = Sarnie

Friday 27 September 2013

Vegan MoFo Day 27 - Robin Hood

OK Crossing fingers, toes etc that this publishes on Friday because I'm away having a few Britney Spears at an 80s weekend (my friend's birthday celebrations) and can't guarantee I'll have internet connection on my phone.

So can you Adam & Eve it, it's almost the end of MoFo and as dull as most of these posts have probably been, I've enjoyed it as much as I do every year.

So as tomorrow's post will be about some of the food we're taking away with us, today's is a little post of my favourite things / store cupboard essential type things.  Not gonna lie, I'm totally ripping of Jojo & Mandee who've done similar posts this MoFo.

Starting with .. Nooch.  It'd be wrong of me to leave this out and also to not put it first considering my love for this flaky, funky smelling jar of rad.  To some it up, Daddy Alien once asked me "what does that bring to a meal?"  I said, "Dad, it brings the AWESOME!" And that's all I'm gonna say about that.  (OK Forrest, move on!) I don't have a pic so I'm stealing one off the interwebz.

Next up, Fry's Chocolate Creams. These come in plain, Mint & Orange flavours and although they're not the bested vegan chocolate you can find (and also they have some annoying labelling which might make you think they're not vegan) they are generally the only vegan chocolate bar to be found it crappy little shops / garages etc.

Lazy Days Chocolate Ginger Truffle Slices. You can find these in the 'free-from' aisle of your local, better stocked sainsburys or waitroses and they are GOOD.  Fudgy and gingery. Yum.  They make a vegan millionaire's shortbread and also a chocolate orange slice and slices of tiffin. All of which I'll happily scoff.

Mushy Peas.  I totally used to be a Bachelors Mushy Pea kinda gal but the last few tins we had were sucky as hell, so we switched to Harry Ramsdens and they are just as good.  I like them best on a potato waffle or two. 

Speaking of, Birdseye Potato Waffles. Because they're waffle versatile.

Tea. I prefer Earl Grey to regular tea nowadays.  I bought it as a change one day and I'm now addicted to it.  I normally just buy supermarket own brands ones but the ones pictured are good too - I think my dad nicked them from a hotel! ha.

Broccoli. You might have noticed that broccoli features in the background of about 90% of my main meals.  I love it. Easy, quick to cook, tasty - what's not to love?

Jazzy. I know she's not food but isn't just so freakin adorable.  This is her "Why are you talking to each other - LOOK AT ME!" face. Or "Blue Steel" for short.

OK I'm outta here. Time to heat up the crimpers, put on the leg-warmers and start the Duran Duran blasting!

Kat Slaters
xXx

Cockney translations of the day
Robin Hood = Good
Britney Spears = Beers (my favourite phrase so far!)
Adam & Eve = Believe

Thursday 26 September 2013

Vegan MoFo Day 26 - Dinner in a Bob Murray

This is what happens when you get home late and can't be arsed to cook.... A couple of slices of seitan dipped in cornmeal and then pan fried, green beans and pasta tossed in vitalite and nooch and big fat mushroom!

Easy, tasty but a bit Pirates of Penzance.

Kat Slaters
xXx

Cockney translations of the day
Bob Murray = Hurry
Pirates of Penzance = Pants

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Vegan MoFo Day 25 - Red Red Rubies

So it's What I Ate Wednesday. Or technically Tuesday because it's what I ate yesterday.  Honestly I should probably do these at the weekend really when I eat more interesting stuff because weekdays are usually pretty samey.

Let's start when I get up at the buttcrack of dawn (ok, 6.15 am, ish) to make my food for the day and go to the gym.  I mix 2 tsps. of instant espresso powder with a little hot water to dissolve it then make it up to 500ml with cold. Then add a scoop of chocolate protein powder and shake that bad boy.  This gives me some caffeine to wake up with and some protein to get me through my workout.  Also, I'm generally not ready for solid food at that time of the morning and I can drink this on the way to the gym.
I use this one at the moment, it's Holland & Barrett's own chocolate soy protein.

Breakfast when I get to work - porridge. If I remember, at night I mix together the oats and soymilk and leave it in the fridge overnight. That way it just needs to be nuked for 2 minutes in the microwave, in the morning, some additions added and it's done.  I put in 2 tbsp. powdered peanut butter that I  mixed with water and a tbsp. or so of agave nectar.

I had a yoghurt at about 11.

Lunch and it's cold enough for soup again.  I didn't have time to make a pot of homemade this week so I had a tin. For tinned soup this ones actually pretty good! I had a couple of slices of bread too as it's basically just broth with some wantons in, so I'd be hungry after 5 minutes!

Snacks during the afternoon were a pack of snack-a-jacks and a pink lady apple.

Dinner was AFR's brussel sprout & potato hash, which is pretty rad.  I had it with steamed broccoli & green beans sprinkled with nooch and some sticky tempeh (basically just marinated in veggie stock, balsamic, soy, agave and a bit of thyme, then fried in a bit of cooking spray then throw in the marinade and reduce it till it's thick and coats the tempeh - this is my go-to tempeh recipe when I'm in a hurry and it rocks!)

Tempeh close up WAAAHHHHHHHH!  Saucy.

Hash close up WAAOOOOAAHHHHHHHHH!

When I got home from salsa/kizomba class I was Hank Marvin' so I shcoffed the last pizza tofu fillet. yes.

I'm sure I don't normally eat this much processed food. Or maybe I do - eek!

Kat Slaters
xXx

Once again, today's post title has no relevance, just picking funny ones at this point!
Cockney translations of the day
Red Red Rubies = Boobies (heheheh)
Hank Marvin = Starvin

Tuesday 24 September 2013

Vegan MoFo Day 24 - Patrick Swayze

So when I'm feeling lazy or am in a rush (this happen pretty frequently and usually it's the former!) I bust out some version of what I had for dinner last night, depending on what I have in the fridge.

Basically it's just egg-free wheat noodles, they only take 5 mins to cook and I chuck a stock cube and usually some red or green thai curry paste into the cooking water. Then some chopped up veg and something proteiny like leftover tempeh, tofu or some beans.  Then add whatever I've got open in the fridge to cream it up a bit like some coconut milk, soya cream or yoghurt.

It's done and in the bowl in less than 10 minutes and it's usually pretty yummy.

Last night's was really basic:  noodles, red pepper, asparagus, broccoli and a bit of thai 7 spice powder and soya yoghurt at the end.  It was nice  but was lacking the protein element as I didn't have anything that went with it.  So I ate one of these Taifun pizza tofu fillets while I was cooking, which I LOVE.


Told you I'm lazy!

Kat Slaters
xXx

Cockney Translations of the day
Patric Swayze = Lazy

Monday 23 September 2013

Vegan MoFo Day 23 - Arthur Fowler

I'm struggling for a post title so I decided to just pick one that made me laugh. 

I wasn't gonna post a pic of yesterday's dinner because it was another Sunday roast and very similar to the one I posted before.  But it was slightly different so here it is (same Seitan recipe, Vegan Diner chicken style roast, but this time with no tinkering).



Dessert and I had a Pudology vegan pudding.  I thought these were only available in Waitrose so I was excited to find these in Sainsburys.  I probably wouldn't have picked Banoffee but the other flavours were completely sold out!  So I'm keeping my eye out for the others.



Honestly I wasn't blown away by it. It was nice and I'm glad it was small because it was pretty sweet. Obviously I'll try the others for research purposes but to me it was not really worth the 290 something calories that are in that little pot.  Still a nice way to end a meal though. 


Kat Slaters
xXx

Cockney translations of the day
Arthur Fowler = Growler