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

FAIL cake!

Well I had planned to blog last week but I don't have many pics to share.  I've decided to do a short post anyway.

Remember I mentioned last weekend was my dad's birthday and I was making cake. Yeah that was a FAIL!

My cakes cracked .... :-(

I tried to salvage it with buttercream and cherries but even cocktail sticks couldn't hold this volcano together!

So we had a laugh and stuck some candles on it anyway.  I was pretty gutted, not gonna lie. I wanted to cry and the state of the cake!  My mum suggested putting a ribbon around it, not sure she was impressed with my response of "what's the point, you can't polish a turd mum!"

Having said all that, once we sliced it, it was pretty damn delicious.

Dinner at the weekend, pizza! Haven't had pizza in a while.  This was a pre-bought based (Tesco Value I think!! haha).  I added some shop bought sauce, broken up facon (RealEat), sweetcorn, peppers and about half a block of cheezly white cheddar. It was good! My dad even snuck some of the leftovers and said it was good.

EXTREME CLOSE UP! WAAAAAOOOOHHHH!  WAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOHHH!

And soup.  I made this Sunday and am eating the leftovers this week for lunch.  It's the Bodacious Bean & Barley Soup from Garden of Vegan, that I have blogged about before and made many times. It is THAT awesome.

Enjoy the rest of your week peeps.

Laterz
xXx

Hello?*

Hello - I've been neglecting this poor blog. I'm going to try and get back into a routine of posting again though, so I don't keep leaving it so long.

Well since the last post, my birthday came and went rather unspectacularly and we've had some gorgeous weather. That's about it. hahaha.

I did have a month's worth of food pix but rather than bombard you with crap, I just picked out the stuff I liked.

Starting with this pasta bake. I made the vegan yum yum sauce (but without the basil cuz I didn't have any, so I used dried thyme and rosemary instead) and mixed it with wholewheat penne. Then topped it with cheezly mozz, breadcrumbs and nooch and then baked it for 20 mins until the cheezly melted. Good stuff!


This was a salad I made last week, with red, yellow and orange cherry tomatoes, cucumber, sun dried tomatoes, cucumber, carrots and a simple oil & vinegar dressing. The tempeh, I boiled for 10 mins then marinated in lime juice, soy sauce and hot sauce then baked it in the marinade, under foil for 20 mins. Then flipped it, took off the foil and baked another 10 mins. It was really tangy and yummy.

Mini muffins.... I am dieting so I thought if I made them small, theyd be less calories. Which they are but then I eat 2!! hahaha. Ah well, the thought is there.

This was a riff on something that Giada De Laurentiis made on everyday Italian. I cooked a cup of orzo pasta then sauteed some spring onions and a couple of chopped up plum tomatoes, then added a cup of peas and about half a cup of alpro soya cream (the fresh one). I also put in some nooch and some thyme if I remember rightly and added some pasta water to make a bit more sauce. When you first mix in the sauce it's quite erm, well saucy! But as it sits the pasta soaks up all the sauce and so it makes really yummy cold leftovers.

This was dinner for me and my friends a coupleof weeks ago and also, the first thing I made from Viva Vegan. That book is awesome and this was the Guatita (creamy peanut / potato stew). SO FREAKING DELICIOUS!! I made a salsa to go with it with sweetcorn, black beans, avocado, cucumber and cherry tomatoes and served it all with some brown basmati rice.

It makes a lot - about 6 servings worth. My friends and I ate about 4 servings between us by the time we finished off what was in the serving bowl and then I had loads of leftovers :-)

For pudding, I made us cupcakes. It was my friend's birthday so that's why one had a candle in.

Speaking of birthdays, mine was at the beginning of the month. I decided the theme for my cake this year would be a hot mess! hahaha - I think I pulled it off with the aid of a shit tonne of sprinkles and jelly tots:

Even the inside was a mess! I coloured portions of the cake with food colouring:


And swirled it....


The only colours that came through well though were the blue and the green. Next time I know I'll have to put in way more. You could see the orange a bit, but it wasn't much darker than regular cake colour! And you can see a bit of the pink but the purple kind of disappeared. Ah well, it was still a hot mess and it could have sent even the biggest sugar love into a sugar coma if they'd eaten enough!


Onto a random dinner - mushroom parm! Something else I saw Giada make (I think). I made a quick tomato sauce with some cherry tomatoes that weregoing a bit soft in the fridge. I grilled some mushrooms and then topped them with the sauce and a topping made of breadcrumbs, nooch and cheezly mozz mixed together. Under the grill they went for 5 mins u ntil the cheese melted and I served them with a rocket salad dressed with a tahini and lemon dressing. DELISH.

That's about it for now. Have a great week in the sunshine everyone.

Laterz

xXx

* dammit I'm gonna be singing Lionel Richie all day and now hopefully - so will you! BAHAHAHAHAAHA!

I've got a big one for ya!!

haha did that sound dirty enough? Good.

So like I said, I have a tonne of pics for you because I've been a lazy/busy bint and haven't blogged in a month.

So I'm gonna start with a trip to Terre a Terre in Brighton with some PPKers last month. I had the smokey soul in a bowl - a jamaican inspired dish. It was good but way spicier than I thought. It was a corn cake filled with spinach. The absolute best thing about this was coconut spinach it was sitting on - SO good.


For dessert I had the fragipane tea & cake. It had amaretto ice cream (which is what sold this for me) and the cake was absolutely delicious. The glass was spicy fruity tea - weird but yummy.

Yesterday I went for vegan pizza (among other stuff) at fellow PPKer Kip's house with a couple of other PPKers including Holley and JoJo and her hubby. Kip brought some daiya cheese back from a recent trip to the states and can I just say - it's pretty freakin awesome!! It actually melts and tastes like proper cheese. These pizzas rocked, but I only took a pic of one. This one had garlic, frys chicken style burgers and vegan bacon on. Yum.

My plate: salad, pizza, dough ball, bean salad and a vol au vent.

Dough balls - so freaking good.


Fancy vol au vents. These had some cheesy stuff made with cashews (if I remember right), vegan bacon and a piece of apple. Kip is awesome! She also made this lavender lemonade which was so freakin amazing I can't tell you, but I forgot to take a pic!


So remember I said Kip was awesome - further proof as if needed, oreo ice cream.


And a crap tonne of home made cookies. They were all delicious.


And my contribution - chocolate pie with hob nob cookie base. It didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it to and was a bit too crumbly, but it was still pretty good. But my poor pie did feel a bit intimidated next to all the amazing stuff that Kip made!

So I've been onsite for a few days for work and was really looking forward to eating decent food when I got home, even though I did not too bad in the hotel for food.

I went to waitrose on my way home as I heard their iced buns were vegan and really fancied them. Only they didn't have any! Poo. So I thought I'd make my own. I'm not posting the recipe because I really didn't get them right. They were way too chewy, but I'm willing to work on them till they're right.

Dinner when I got back had to be something easy and quick. So I made a curry to use up the really overripe tomatoes in my fridge. I added a tonne of spinach, a tin of chickpeas, a small tin of new potatoes and some home made curry powder. Then added som soya yoghurt right at the end. It was yummy.

This was dinner before I went onsite for my friends and I - chili, that I made using the new Linda McCartney soya mince, which used to be Realeat apparently. I really REALLY like the new recipe (or old one if you were ever able to get hold of Realeat which I never have been!). There's a couple more pics featuring this mince.

To go with it, I made us some corn muffins, these were AWESOME. I've posted the recipe at the end of the post.

For pudding, I made us a low fat chocolate cake. I used this recipe off spark people - my mum uses this recipe a lot and it's really really good! I sandwiched it with some cherry jam and just dusted it with some icing sugar to make it purty! I took the leftovers onsite and myself and the safety manager polished it off when no one was looking! :-) I made a couple of changes, I used cider vinegar instead of balsamic and I only used half a cup of sugar insteadof a whole one and added in 6 tbps of splenda to make up the sweetness.

OK onto some random pics that were on my camera.

I wanted to make some coronation tofu but I did't have any mango chutney, so I just used yoghurt and curry powder. It was still pretty good. I used the new cauldro tofu, which is WAY soft and I don't really like it. But it was ok. I mixed the remainder of the sauce into some leftover cooked rice and some veggies.

I made some chickpea burgers when I wanted something quick one day. They were alright but nothing special. To go with though I had some broccoli that I steamed and then dressed with a tsp each of sesame oil, soy sauce and sesame seeds. YUM. And some butternut squash roasted with a bit of curry powder.

Dessert last Sunday, a quick crumble for one! I had a rather mangy looking apple in my fruit bowl and found some frozen peaches in my freezer so I mixed them with some lemon juice, spices and some dried cranberries. Then added a crumble topping and baked it. I had it with soya cream, well about half of it anyway. It was not bad.

A quick dinner one day, I had some coriander and mint in the fridge and some leftover rocket leaves so I whizzed them up with a small clove of grated garlic, some pine nuts, olive oil and nooch to make a pesto. Then I had it with some pasta with some peas mixed in. YUM.

I made spaghetti bolognaise with the linda mc mince for a friend and I a while back and I forgot to take a pic. But the next day I mixed the leftovers with some black beans and some tabasco to make a quick chilli and had it on top of a baked potato. Good stuff.

Oh look - more soya mince!! Old fashioned stylee. This is what got me to buy the stuff in the first place. My mum used to make the best mince ever when I was a kid. Obviously now I don't eat beef anymore so when I went over there a few weeks ago, she made me some with the Linda Mc mince, which I never would have bought because I hate most fake meats. She added bisto granules (GENIUS!) and some veggies and it was so freakin good I ran home and bought a bag myself to have a go. And here it was with tenderstem broccoli, green beans and potato/sweet potato mash - which by the way is a little piile of heaven. So delicious, low fat and proper comfort food!

Leftovers - some tofu that I just sprayed with braggs and dusted well with bacon salt and then baked. It really did taste bacony! It was yummy. I had some cooked rice leftover so I just mixed it with some veg and a vinaigrette.

Sunday lunch a few weeks ago, lentil & veggie soup and a toasted cheezly sammie.

These were some cupcakes I made a few weeks back. I saw Giada de Laurentiis make cupcakes out of brownie mix (cheater cheater compulsive eater!!) and they looked pretty good. But I don't know if any box mixes are vegan plus honestly, it's not that hard to make chocolate cakes!! But I stole the flavouring ideas. I added walnuts and chocolate chips to the batter and then topped them with cream cheese frosting and more choc chips. I used the new Pure cream cheese. It was not bad, not as good as tofutti though. Plus it's really sweet so no good for savoury stuff.

Oh and I bought some tiger bread one day and I had french toast for breakfast. With ketchup, the way it should be, none of this maple syrup crap. OK!

Oh and I forgot about this till I saw the pic but in the words of Janice.... OH. MY. GOD!! This was an african sweet potato / peanut stew and it was SO effing good, make it - make it NOW! I got the recipe off spark people again.

And as promised the corn muffin recipe, I did it all in cups - sorry UK people, I was too lazy to weigh.

Dry Ingredients:
3/4 cup plain flour
3/4 cup fine cornmeal
2 tbsp splenda
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine sea salt (if using table salt, use only 1/4 tsp)
5 or 6 sun-dried tomatoes, rehydrated in hot water
3 or 4 small spring onions (or 2 fatties)
A small (160g drained weight) tin of sweetcorn
Wet Ingredients:
3/4 cup unsweetened soy or other non-dairy milk
1/4 rapeseed (canola) oil
1 tsp vinegar or lemon juice

Method:
Mix together dry ingredients. Make sure the spring onions, s-d tomatoes and sweetcorn get a good coating of dry ingredients to stop them sinking to the bottom of the batter.

Whisk together the wet ingredients and then pour into the dry and mix until just combined.

Spray a muffin tin with oil and then divide the mixture between six holes. I filled them pretty much full to make 6 bigger muffins, but you could probably eek it out to 7 or 8 if you make them smaller.

Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave in the tin a few minutes until the muffins are cool enough to remove from the tins. Then put on a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Hello? Hey WAKE UP!! Told you it was a long one. Congrats if you're still awake!!

Laterz
xXx