Gimme gimme s'more, gimme gimme s'more

We actually have had some sunshine the last few days, which after months of unseasonable cold and snow, was lovely!

In fact it was so nice yesterday, we busted out the barby for the first barbecue of the season.  I had just bought some vegusto sausages so I knew what I was having, and to go along we also had:

The corn & edamame salad from Veganomicon.  I don't make this much but I need to, it's so simple but it's delicious! My mum and dad both loved it too.

I made a salad of just lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and radishes and just dressed it with a simple olive oil and lemon juice dressing.

 

I also did some potatoes Jamie Oliver style (boil them, then put them in foil with lightly smashed garlic cloves, rosemary (I used dried) and salt & pepper), then put in oven for at least 20 minutes (mine had about half an hour). So good.

 

Also, I bought some fancy olives from Waitrose. They don't always have these because they're obviously popular but that is because they are AWESOME! They have a fat wodge of garlic and jalapeno in each one. YEAH.

 

 I also did some garlic bread (just a Sainsbury's basics one, which is accidentally vegan) but I forgot to take a pic, so you'll have to settle for seeing it lurking on my plate...

 

And for dessert I joyously remembered that ages ago I bought some vegan marshmallows, for no other reason than I found them in a shop near where I live!  But we didn't have any graham crackers (well we did but they were 2 years out of date) so we used speculoos biscuits instead (Lotus Caramel biscuits) and it was awesome.

 

Inside Shot

 

The first one I was mucking around with so it didn't melt enough.  I did better on the second attempt though but I ate it too quick to get a pic.

 

 

Fingers crossed the warm weather stays with us for a while.

 

Laterz

xXx

 

Thread title inspiration: It's Britney Bitch

FIVE... what you waitin FOUR....

.. if ya wanna three three two two one, LET'S DO IT!

I miss the 90s.

HELLOOOOOOOO!

So this blog turned 5 years old in March (dodgy 90s song reference duly explained?); I can't believe it.  If it were my baby s/he'd be in school by now - and sorely neglected, but that's a whole nother matter and this just started to get weird. 

So yeah food.  I haven't posted in so long that it is feckin April already and I haven't even shown you my christmas dinner. By this point I know you're thinking 'no one gives a shit Sal'.  And I could probably keep the pic and post it this year if my christmas dinner turns out shit.  But I won't.  Here it is!  I used Julie Hasson's awesome recipe from Vegan Diner for the chicken style roast.  I've made this 3 or 4 times now, it is so easy and tasty!

Merry Christmas! :o)

 

I made a Christmas cake too but I forgot to take a pic.  So here are the gingerbread cupcakes with lemon icing that I made instead of my usual chocolate log (recipe from vegan cupcakes take over the world).

 

 

A few weeks ago I went down to Brighton for VegFest where my awesome friend Jojo had a stall for her not-for-profit bakery. Look at all those cakes!  They were amazing and she was sold out about half way through the day.  There were a lot of disappointed faces on those that didn't have the sense to get there early I can tell you.  This doesn't even show them all but as you are all well aware, I fail at photography.

 

 

Afterwards, I went over to my Brother and his Fiancee's place to spend the night and so I decided the night before to make them some cookies.  I wanted to make chocolate cookies with mint extract and chunks of minty chocolate in, because my bro is a fan of mint chocolate. But I couldn't find ANY minty chocolate!  So I bought these things....

 

 

Genius right? No.  They are basically just sugar so they turned into a caramelly hard sugar mess instead of cookies.

 

FAIL

 

COOKIE FAIL SAD FACE

 

 

Speaking of fails - PASTY FAIL!

By the way my pasty fail face is similar to aforementioned cookie fail face. Only less bovvered. Cuz I still gonna eat it.

 

And just so this isn't a post full of fail - JAZZY UNFAIL. Cuz who doesn't like a cat in a box with laser eyes? Weirdos, that's who!

What else can I show you.... oh yes. Pie!  This is the wonderfully fabulous Mixed Mushroom, Porcini & Ale pie from Mildred's in Soho, that I had on a day in London with my BFFs. It comes with chips and my favourite vegetable: mushy peas.

I had dessert too: it was some sort of chocolate truffle cake but looking on their menu now I don't see it, so I dunno the right name for it. GAH.

This next pic was a jolly nice pasta dish that I knocked up when I was trying to think of something to do with the half a leftover vegusto sausage!

So I fried it in a wee bit of oil then added a chopped tomato, some chopped (jarred) roasted red pepper, garlic, a shallot and a good squeeze of tomato puree.  I added a bit of pasta water to make a sauce, some light soya cream and a crap tonne of nooch.  Oh and lots of red chili flakes.  Then some fresh basil on top to make it seem fancy.  It was GOOD.

And lastly but not leastly I made a massive shepherds pie, because my friend was coming over and I figured I would eat leftovers for a day or so. But she didn't end up eating at mine so I had to finish it off myself.  After 6 days I was kind of glad to see the end of it, even though it was super delish.

I used lentils as the base and the topping was half regular and half sweet potato, which is a magical combo!

I'm outta here.

Laterz
xXx