Birthday Food (and a bit of makeup!)

So last Friday was my 38th (fuck!) birthday and unlike most years when I ask for a tonne of makeup, or vouchers to buy a tonne of makeup, I mostly asked for gym stuff. Yes I've become that bellend! I got a new fitbit...

Ooooh shiny!

My trainers are on order and my best friend bought me a gym towel that I asked for. Also I spent this morning browsing Fabletics for gym leggings (I forgot to skip the month, duh), but I digress.

I did get some makeup, my awesome Bro and Sis-in-law brought me this lovely lot and I need to play with it all soon so I can organise my thoughts on it!

Simon also bought me a beautiful bracelet and a cute Penguin called Pongo to add to our collection, seen here acting as my glamorous assistant, showing off the Vegan Tuck Box that my rad friend Jojo sent me.

But onto the food.

We went to Las Iguanas, which is a chain restaurant here in the UK, for those of you not on this side of the pond. They have a separate vegetarian menu, that has all the vegan options marked on it.

We shared a couple of starters. Firstly, chips & guac:

Then we went for the Taco Plank, which had coconut squash on (so good!)

For my main I picked the Moqueca de Palmitos, which I'm pretty sure I have every time! It's a lovely mild curry type dish, with coconut milk and tonnes of veggies in, including squash and hearts of palm. They serve it with rice and some green beans.

We also shared some curly fries :)

I spent the rest of the day drinking birthday prosecco, but I also wanted to show you the cake that Simon had made for me! How awesome is this! He sneakily asked me some of my favourite cruelty free makeup brands and so this cake features Nars, Anastasia Beverley Hills, Charlotte Tilbury and Nabla! So cool. My photo doesn't do it justice at all.

Also this cake was HUGE! Inside was layers of chocolate sponge, with chocolate frosting and also a top layer of speculoos spread. It was delicious.

Overall I had such a good birthday. Even more so because I feel super grateful for how things have changed in a year. Last year on my birthday, I was basically in tears on the couch most of the day due to a back injury, that meant I was in so much pain, I could barely walk to the loo! After that, a load of other stuff went wrong and the rest of 2016 was a complete shower of shite.

So far, 2017 has been awesome and I feel unbelievably lucky that my back is pretty much better. 10 minutes of walking at Christmas had me in agony; now I'm doing my 10,000 steps every day and going for 3 mile walks whenever I can (with no pain!). I am back at the gym and feel better than ever. My fiance has a new job that he loves and is happy in and in a few short months, we'll be getting married.

So 38 is looking like being a good year and I'm super excited for what's to come. If I had a drink in my hand I'd cheers ya, but apparently it's bad luck to cheers with water, so I'll not do that, I'll just bugger off and stop rambling.

Love & stuff
Sal xXx

The Lady Luck, Canterbury (and some other food from the weekend!)

This past weekend was Simon's 40th birthday and also my Dad's 65th on the same day. So us two, my parents and my brother, sister-in-law and 18 month nephew all went away for a long weekend together in Canterbury.

We ate a lot. Here are the photos.

On the way down, we stopped for a coffee at the motorway services, so I grabbed the new Starbucks wrap that I've seen so many times on facebook. It's a limited edition one for the festive season (thank GOD!...) and despite debates, it is vegan.

Unfortunately, not only is it really expensive and SMALL, it is fucking vile. The butternut squash was hard, there was no discernible seasoning (the same problem I used to have with their falafel wrap) and there was an odd sour taste to it. I managed a few bites before giving up and getting nachos. In fact the picture above is how much I left of it. ERGH.

Which were WAY better! Motorway service stations are getting a lot better!!

I got extra guac, as you do!

When we got there, my bro cooked dinner. Everyone was having meat so for me, we agreed on a big stuffed mushroom. I was totally unprepared but managed to cobble together a stuffing of a sauteed, broken up, Linda McCartney sausage, some breadcrumbs and some violife Parmesan style cheese. Which I was pretty impressed with, seeing as I'd had a couple of celebratory proseccos by this point.

Next, the cakes. The birthday boys were not happy to share a cake (bad enough they share a birthday I suppose) so I made two. A 3 layer chocolate cherry gateaux type affair for my dad:

Seriously, I think this is the best decorating job I've ever done on a birthday cake. I'm far from a pro at this but I was really happy with how this came out.

Simon loves apple pie and fruit desserts so this was an apple cake with caramel icing and salted caramel drizzle. (The little bits on top were salted caramel nuggets that I found in sainsbury's, I think they're Dr Oetker.)

This was by far the most popular of the two cakes. The apples kept it really moist (ergh, I hate that word) and it wasn't too heavily spiced. I almost have this perfect! So at Christmas when I remake it, I promise to write it down and post the recipe!

Obviously I had to try a bit of both, it would have been wrong not to!

The next day, for lunch, we walked into Canterbury town centre, which was a short walk from our accommodation. My mum had already been on Happy Cow and found a pub that did vegan food, including dessert!

It's called the Lady Luck and it was a lovely place. I loved the pub itself and the food was brilliant and the staff were super friendly and helpful.

pics of the menu

I had the vegan sausage and mash. They make their own vegan sausages, which I was super impressed about. They are delicious too! Also, great mash!

To go with it, I had to have a milkshake. I had vanilla, with a shot of amaretto in! It was brilliant!

Simon got an oreo milkshake with a shot of cointreau in. (the menu says that the oreo milkshakes could not be made vegan but Simon double checked with them and it was due to possible cross-contamination, as per the label on packs of oreos. As I'm ok with this, he got a vegan one so i could try it!) This was sooo good. 

We went back again the next day and I got a chilli dog! I was only mildly disappointed that it wasn't spicier. But it was really tasty!

I got crispy fried potatoes on the side. These usually come with sour cream but I got barbecue sauce instead! :)

We got milkshakes again too. I got a strawberry one with strawberry liqueur in and Simon got the oreo one again.

We also had to get a pud to share, as I was too full to eat a whole one! So we went for the apple tart, which was lovely pastry with apples and cinammon sugar dusted over it. It was delicious. (They also do a vegan brownie!)

If you're in or anywhere near Canterbury, definitely give this place a go. It's awesome!

Have a good weekend all. 

Sal xXx

Birthday - 33 and a third!

Saturday night was the last of the 3 celebrations for my 30th and it was a joint celebration as my best friend's 30th birthday is exactly a week after mine (tomorrow) and tonight I'm cooking her a dinner for our celebration for that! So many dinners in June!!

Anyway, back to Saturday and we had a fantastic night. We went to a little spanish tapas restaurant, not far from where I live, called El Pic and then onto a local nightclub to dance to cheesy 80s crap until 2am!

The restaurant is a great place, a tiny hole in the wall but it has such great food and it's really got a great atmosphere, the owner is lovely and the staff are friendly. It was fab.

I booked the party menu for the omnis and I just had to pick out my dishes and I had.....

Habas Al Moro - broad beans with paprika, onions and herbs. DELICIOUS!!


Patatas Bravas - always my favourite tapas dish and they were gorgeous, really spicy and yummy.

Arroz Andaluz - vegetable paella


And Champiñones en Vino - mushrooms cooked in wine and garlic. These were soooo good but I forgot to take a pic till after I'd cherry-picked out most of the mushrooms. Just look at all that garlic!?!? I must have smelt GOOD! mmmm.


Here are a few pics from the night, if you want to see them all, go to the album on facebook.

Here's me (middle) with my 2 best friends - Maz (left) and Em (right).

Left to right: Vicki, Me, Kelly (pouting at the front), Maz, Em)

Me & the other birthday girl looking sexeh!

Oh and here is the gorgeous bunch of flowers my workmates had delivered to me at work last week. They were gorgeous and I was all happy until I started getting phone calls from Stannah stairlifts and plastic surgeons about my 'enquiries'!! They signed me up for a bunch of old people stuff and then when the calls came, they hid in the next room giggling like 5 year olds!! Boys!! I miss working with girls sometimes.

Bonus pics of last night's dinner. I had planned to make pizza but before i knew it, it was 8pm and I was still lying on the couch watching Grey's Anatomy. So I scouted around the kitchen and saw half a baguette left. It reminded me of the frozen french bread pizzas we used to have when we were kids and so I gave it a go and it was awesome.

Just hollow the bread out a bit, spread it with tomato sauce (I used Reggae Reggae Love Apple Ketchup) and then put your toppings on. I had sweetcorn, orange pepper, tofu pieces, fresh tomato and nacho cheezly with a sprinkling of oregano, black pepper and nooch on the top. It was rad!



Laterz

xxx

Birthday Foodz - part 2 of 3

The second celebration for my birthday was just me and my two best friends. I had the day off so I started it as I did last year.... with french toast and ketchup. And a cup of earl grey (I found decaf earl gray! YAY!)

The most important thing in the post? The birthday cake. I made a really great vanillary cake with orange icing, flavoured with orange zest, orange juice and orange liqueur! It was awesome and once I've perfected the recipes I'll post them.

Close up! I grated some orange chocolate on top with a microplane, to make it extra sexy.

Inside shot....

This glass was a pressie off my friend Maz. Here it is filled with sparkly rosé.


Tuesday was a gloriously sunny day (which is unusual as I don't remember a year when it hasn't rained on my birthday!!) so I made a rad playlist of mid 90s dance and 80s music and we sat out on the balcony. I bought a disposable barbecue and made some ace food to go on it. It was awesome and just soooo freakin hot. We all got a bit of a tan line! :)

The food I did was the last of my jersey royal potatoes, cooked till tender. Then splashed with olive oil, some fresh rosemary and thyme from my garden, lots of sea salt and 3 or 4 smashed garlic cloves. Then you wrap them up in foil and either chuck 'em on the barbie for half an hour or in the oven at 200C/400F for about 35 mins (which is what I did). This is Jamie Oliver's method that I saw on TV about 5 years ago and it rocks so hard, I used to make them all time.

I wanted the food to be awesome, but didn't really want to spend the whole of my birthday morning in the kitchen. So I took 2 packets of cauldron tofu and sliced them up into big triangles. Then I poured a jar of reggae reggae cooking sauce over them and left it to marinate. I love Reggae Reggae Sauce and the new jars of cooking sauces (which I can't seem to find on the website) are on special at Sainsbury's this week - £1 a jar!! I bought two and this was reallly good! I just chucked them on the barbie until it was starting to char.

To go with - garlic bread and that is a sauce I made out of soya yoghurt, fresh mint, a squeeze of lime and some salt & pepper, just because the tofu was really spicy and needed something cooling on the side. I forgot to get a pic but I also roasted some asparagus on the barbie too and it was delicious.

I made some simple veggie kebabs with mushrooms, peppers & red onions.

This salad looks like a right old mess but it was delicious!! I soaked some finely chopped red onion (a couple tbsp, just what was left after making the kebabs) in the juice of a lime. Then I added a small avocado, chopped and mashed it so there were just a few chunks left in it. then I added some orange pepper (what was left after making kebabs), some fresh mint and coriander and a bag of salad leaves (rocket and baby chard). Then I added butter beans and a lemon vinaigrette. Simple but it was really REALLY tasty!

Maddie (my friend's pup) was happy too, she got to spend the afternoon soaking up the sun and swapping between different laps!! She likes those cushions!!


OK and yesterday's dinner. I got home and was really not in the mood to cook much but I threw brown rice on to cook while I cleaned up the kitchen. I made Jessy's cilantro / lime rice (awesome stuff!!) and some guacamole. I got some canned sweetcorn and dressed it with a bit of chilli sauce and white wine vinegar and then cooked the rest of the butterbeans with some red pepper, tomato puree, onion and some spices. It was pretty good for something I chucked together.

Really yesterday I was craving nachos, as I'd picked up some Nacho Cheezly at the weekend but I didn't have any tortilla chips. So I bought some today and made nachos. I used up the leftover rice from yesterday and threw in some onion, red pepper, tomato puree, spices and tomatoes. I used up the leftover guac and some sour supreme that I bought when I got the cheezly. They were good but I was a total pig and made 2 layers - It was way too much for one, I only ate about half.

I actually enjoyed the Cheezly. Normally I don't really like vegan cheeze but the nacho stuff is pretty tolerable and went really well with the nachos.


The 3rd celebration is a meal out on saturday so I'll post the pics of that next week!