What I Ate Today

Hello everyone, happy Friday! I am going to gloss over the shitstorm of a day it's been in the UK and just tell you what I ate today instead.

I started with a bowl of my maple sunrise cereal, the Nature's Path brand. Same as my last WIAT post, I know and I promise I don't eat it every day, but today I'd run out of the bagels I'd been eating the rest of the week. 

For lunch, I had a toastie; this had violife pizza cheese, tomato puree and a bit of oregano sprinkled inside. Super simple but really good. It's been a while since I dug out the toastie maker.

For a snack I ate this Lenny & Larry's cookie. Apparently one cookie is 2 servings, haha yeah right. Not in my world. I thought this was OK. I bought 3 of these to try; this peanut butter flavoured one, double chocolate and regular choc chip. The double chocolate was my favourite; I found the other two a little powdery, like you could taste the protein powder in them. But not horrible. I probably won't buy them very often, but when I do, it'll probably be the double choc ones.

For dinner I had a red Thai curry that I actually made yesterday. I roasted the cauliflower separately to give it a bit of extra flavour and then I sauteed an onion and added one of these little pots of red Thai curry paste. Then I added veggie stock, half a red and half a yellow pepper, a couple of carrots, half a block of cubed tempeh and a bit of salt. I cooked it for about 20 minutes and then added some peas for the last 5 minutes of cooking and a carton of the Coconut Collaborative plain coconut yoghurt (I do this instead of adding coconut milk to cut back on the fat a bit). I added in the cauliflower and then served it with basmati rice.

And that's about the size of it for today.

Have an awesome weekend.
Sal xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 13: You got cookie, so share it maybe?

Do you remember a couple of days ago I said I was baking cookies, well here they are my friends.  I made these to give me and my workmate at least one piece of awesome while we are away onsite.

 

They are the peanut butter oatmeal cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, that I modified slightly.  I didn't add the step of rolling them in chopped peanuts. Frankly this is because that step annoyed me last time and I didn't end up using even half of the peanuts that I chopped up.  And I dislike chopping nuts, I don't know why it's just one of those kitchen jobs I cannae stand.  So yeah I didn't do that.  Also I added a couple of handfuls of semi-sweet chocolate chips, because what isn't made extra awesome by the addition of some choccy?

 

I really struggled not to eat ALL THE DOUGH before it got to the oven, because it is so freaking delicious, I mean just look at that sexy mama.....

 

 

Seriously, I'm a dough-eatin' fool!

 

The dough that did make it to the oven came out very nice indeed. I believe Animal agrees. 

Post title borrowed from this piece of genius.

Laterz
xXx

A whole heap of crap and I hate you blogger

So I just typed this muthafucka and then blogger deleted the whole. damn. thing! GARRR! So forgive me if it's less than informative! hahahaa.

Ooh I been busy lately from work to hen nights to planning a holiday to starting another blog!! More on that later though.

Onto the food. I got hold of some taifun tofu (which in my opinion kicks Cauldron's cack excuse for a new recipe's arse!!) and I sliced it up and brushed with a glaze of mustard, miso, rice syrup and a bit of olive oil. Then I sprinkled it with sesame seeds and baked it, brushing it again with loads more glaze half way through so it was good and sticky. It was delicious with steamed veg and herbed butter, well vitalite anyway.


Leftovers the next day - with some tabouleh.

Microwave cupcakes! I quartered the basic chocolate recipe in vegan cupcakes take over the world and split it between 4 silicone baking cases and nuked them for 1 min and 40 seconds in total. The glaze was a mix of heated cherry jam that I seived and then mixed with icing sugar.

This week's dinner with the girlies. I made us a sweet potato and butternut squash curry (which was awesome).....

With some raita (strained alpro yoghurt, lemon juice, cucumber and fresh mint) with a wee drizzle of olive oil on top.....

some mushroom rice (I made it foofy and fancy by dying a little bit yellow, a little bit red and mixing it in to look like takeaway rice)....

And homemade naan breads. As usual I was winging it, one day I'll remember to write down when I make up a recipe.

Dessert was ice cream - the easiest ice cream EVER. The flesh of a large mango, blended with 1 carton (250ml) of alpro fresh single soya cream and a tablespoon of rice syrup then put in the ice cream maker. Delish and easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Onto seitan. I finally got around to makng the red seitan from Viva Vegan and yes, it is as awesome as everyone says it is. It makes 4 logs and you get 2 servings from each log. So I froze 2 and here are a couple of the meals I made with the other 2:

I brushed it with barbecue sauce and baked it for 15 mins. Served it with a baked potato topped with coleslaw.

This was my favourite thing I did with it. I veganised Nigella's Moroccan Lamb & Cacik. Basically I took one log of seitan, just opened up the foil and poked holes in it then poured over and rubbed in a mixture of: 1.5tsp of ras-el hanou spice mixture, juice of 1/2 a lemon, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 grated clove of garlic and a pinch of salt. Then I sealed the foil back up and baked it at 180C for 10 mins, then opened the foil and let it carry on cooking for another 10 minutes. I served it with bulgar wheat just cooked in veg stock and cacik (which is exactly the same as my raita above, but with a clove of garlic also grated in).

This is what the seitan looked like after baking, isn't it pretty with the rose petals from the ras-el hanout?

Here, I pressed the seitan into some ground peppercorns and dry fried it. Steamed veggies, mashed potatoes and stuffing with a tonne of gravy completed this awesome sunday roast!

I made spelt bread. It was awesome but I've not got the recipe exactly how I want it yet, will report back with the recipe when I've got it right.

I also made some cornbread for a chilli the other week. But I love it most with jam! YUM. This recipe is from La Dolce Vegan. It always works perfectly for me every time, great recipe.

Remember that hen night I mentioned, here's a jug of pimms royale: pimms, prosecco, lemonade and a crap tonne of fruit. YUM!!!!

And some of my contributions to the food: cupcakes, rock road cookies and peanut butter cups.

Close up of the cupcakes - it was a 90s weekend and we were doing a ravers theme - hence my aceeeeeed cupcakes!

I also mentioned another blog! Totally separate from this one, I'm still keeping this one!! My new one is my beauty blog - mainly about make up but really is my showcase for make up work which I'll be adding to the more weddings / occasion make up that I do. Head on over and have a look if you're curious: http://sjbeauty.wordpress.com/. Blogger deleting my posts is just one of many reasons I decided to put the new one on wordpress!

I'm off to Dallas on holiday in a few days and I can't WAIT. So this'll be the last post before then, see you next time with pics of Dallas foodz!

Laterz
xXx

Oops! I did it again.....

... I left it too long between posts! Bad Sal!

Well I'm making up for it with lots of pics. Starting with pictures from a recent PPK meet up. I was in Brighton to see Ash playing at Concorde 2 that night (they were freaking awesome by the way) and all the food in the day made this one brilliant weekend.

It was supposed to be in the park but the weather was decidedly dodgy, so JoJo graciously hosted for us. But, as if you didn't already know, I'm a bad blogger and I forgot my camera, so I took a pic of my (first!) plate with my phone. I've totally forgotten who made what so here's a vague outline. Cheesey feet crackers! hehe they were awesome, carrot tart which was delicious, salad with pasta / seitan sausages and rocket, sausage rolls, potato wedges with barbecue sauce, rice salad, spanakopita (sp?) and home made bread. All delicious. The potato wedges, barbecue sauce and rice were my contributions.


Then the important stuff - the dessert plate - Clockwise: Kip's fortune cookie (with added snarky defensive omnivore / vegan sayings inside - brilliant!!), Helen's rocky road cookies, Jojo's rocky road brownies, Holley's vegan jaffa cakes (AWESOME!) and my apple / custard mini pies.

Those rocky road cookies were so good - you're gonna see them again in a couple of pics' time!

A close up of my rice salad that I took just after I made it. Sauteed peppers, onions, mushrooms, redwoods bacon style rashers, sweetcorn and peas with brown basmati rice.

And my pies. Totally cheated on these - I cooked up some granny smith apples with sugar and spices and then rolled out shop bought shortcrust pastry and cut them out and put them in muffin tins. A spoonful of alpro soya custard and apple mixture with a cute heart of pastry on top and a sprinkle of sugar and they were ready for the oven.

I had som pastry left and I love pastry so hate to waste it, so I made a turnover with the leftover apples and custar. It came out weird looking but yummy.

The next morning, my friend and I were planning to go to Wai Kika Moo Kau for a veg brekkie but as my bro and his girlfriend came with us, we went across the road to Bubble Kitschen. They serve a vegan breakfast alongside their vegetarian and omni versions. It was MASSIVE and the coffee was pretty bad but the breakfast was pretty damn good!


Onto some randomness. Dinner the other night. I saw Levi Roots make pumpkin rice the other night and thought it looked pretty good. And I had a butternut squish (hehe) in the fridge already so I made my own version. I also had some orange pepper and sweetcorn leftover in the fridge so I chucked them in too. It was good but I think I need to play around with the spices before I post the recipe. I just had it with some steamed tenderstem broccoli.

I made some seitan sausages on Sunday and for a quick dinner I blitzed up some tomatoes and mixed them with wholewheat penne, sugar snaps, asparagus (HURRAH for UK asparagus season being in swing!!), cannellini beans and some herbs and spices. Oh and one of my sausages - pretty good for a quick dinner.

I made the sausages because I fancied sausage and mash. So that's what I had sunday, with onion gravy. YUM.

Remember those rocky road cookies I mentioned before - well I dreamed about them for a week after having them in Brighton. So I dug out Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar and made a batch. Me and my friends ate some when they were round for dinner and I made them take a load home so I didn't eat the whole batch myself. I froze some because I was in danger of eating them all. They are SO good! My friend's hubby who I sent some home with my friend for, said they're my best baked good yet, so thanks Isa & Terry!! I made sure to only cook them the minimum time so they were fudgy and soft. If you have this book you gotta make them!!

Here's the dough, I had to seriously restrain myself from just eating all the dough straight out the bowl.

When I was in Brighton I went into Infinity to buy some Tempeh and all they had was the one with sea vegetables in. Boo, but I bought one anyway! And thought I'd make the chesapeake tempeh cakes from Vegan Brunch. The only complaint I had with these is not to do with Isa's recipe - it's my own fault - I added some old bay seasoning because I found it in the American shop near where I live. And so they pretty much just tasted of celery - and I don't like celery! Dummy. So I'm going to try making them again without the old bay and I think they are going to be awesome.

I made a potato waffle to go with them. I haven't got these quite right yet but I'm working on it and I will post the recipe as soon as I have it right!

This was a quinoa pudding that I got the recipe for from the GI Vegetarian cookbook. It was spectacularly underwhelming. But I like the idea of it - so I'm going to play with it and report back next time!

Simple dinner of rice salad and some tempeh that I baked with a bit of all purpose seasoning sprinkled on it and had in a big floury roll with barbecue sauce. yummy.

This was a recipe I got off sparkpeople for tempeh carrot salad. It had ginger and orzo pasta in in. I changed it a bit by adding some lime juice and adding shredded cabbage and sugar snaps. It was really really good but I think it needed more tempeh. I'd make it again definitely.

And finally, a quick dinner of spaghetti bolognaise - made with linda mccartney mince and sprinkled with nooch. Yum.

I will try not to leave it so long next time.

Laterz
xXx

These aren't the droids you're looking for!

EDIT: I've just realised that on the 5th of March this blog was 2 years old! Thank you thank you everyone who reads. I love yous.

I finally have an excuse to use that post title - I got a new phone – it’s an android phone (similar to iPhones but cooler!! Hahah). I’m very excited about it and not just cuz it’s pink....

It's actually that light pink colour, the hot pink surround is a skin I bought for it to protect it when I drop it, which will happen - I'm clumsy.



I thought I’d start off with a pic that I took on the phone – this was brunch on Sunday, not bad for a camera phone. I went down to visit my brother and his girlfriend in their new flat in Hove. Sunday morning we caught the bus into Brighton, which is awesome because it’s so vegan friendly. We went to Wai Kika Moo Kau – I’ve wanted to go there for ages because I love the name of it! It’s a vegetarian cafe with vegan options as well. I had the full vegan English breakfast: sausages, marinated tofu, oven baked butter beans (instead of tinned baked beans which are the devil’s work), tomatoes with pesto sauce and a yummy hash brown. It was awesome and I had a soya latte with it. My bro and his girlfriend had the veggie breakfast, he wasn’t getting bacon or ‘proper’ sausages so he needed eggs - I think tofu would have finished him off!


They haven’t lived in their flat very long so I made them a little housewarming present – cookies. These had white chocolate, cranberries and walnuts in and they were super yum. I played with Dreena Burton’s recipe again and I think I changed it up enough so I’ll put the recipe at the end of the post. Dreena’s original chocolate chip recipe is online here though (and it’s AWESOME and really adaptable).

Mum and Dad came over for dinner last week and I made us some nice chunky soup for dinner. It was lovely and I made a massive pot so I could live off leftovers for lunches for a few days. It had butternut squash, turnip, onions, parsnips, red lentils, celeriac and a teeny pinch of chilli flakes.

Random dinner last week. I bought this tomato in waitrose that you're meant to eat while it's still green. But as you can see I left it in the fridge a wee bit too long. It was pretty though I thought. I roasted half of it (the other half went into the aforementioned soup!). I had it with some firm polenta with sweetcorn in and some roasted brussels and celeriac.

These were a birthday present for my friend last weekend. Coconut cupcakes with raspberries. I poked a hole in them and put some mushed raspberry & cointreau in, then piped coconut buttercream on before decorating with a fresh razza. They were yummy but fell apart a bit, probably because of the extra liquid from the raspberries. I'm working on this recipe, they'll be awesome one day!

This was last friday's dinner. Rachael Ray made these german style potato wedges which looked great, aside from being cooked in bacon fat. Blech. So for mine, I doused the potatoes in cider vinegar and sprinkled on some sugar and bacon salt! I found bacon salt in the american sweet shop not far from where I live. The plain one has milk in but the one with pepper is vegan. So it took care of the bacon flavour, salt and pepper! Triple threat!! They were pretty good, maybe I should have sprinkled some bacos in after they'd done cooking, or then maybe that would be gross??? The burger on the side is a Frys Chicken Style burger, my new favourite thing - and that comes from a hater of most fake meats!

Another random dinner. Remember the tempeh stuffing balls from last time? I had some leftover tempeh and decided to try my hand at a white chilli. It was good but not quite right, so I need to work on it before I post the recipe.

And as promised, the cookie recipe:

Cranberry, Walnut & White Chocolate Cookies

Dry Ingredients:
150g (1 cup) plain flour (I often sub this for white spelt flour and it works perfectly)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
1/4 tsp ground allspice (optional, but yummy)
1/4 tsp sea salt (if using table salt, half that)
4 tbsp (1/4 cup) dried cranberries
4 tbsp chopped walnuts
50g vegan white chocolate buttons or chips (about 1/3 cup if I had to guess - I used 2 bags of the dairy free white choc buttons they now sell in the free-from sections in tesco & sainsburys!!)
Wet Ingredients:
4 tbsp (1/4 cup) malt extract
20 ml (ie make the malt extract up to 1/3 cup) golden syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp (1/4 cup) rapeseed (canola) oil
1/4 tsp blackstrap molasses

Method:
Preheat the oven to 190C/about 360F.

Whisk together the dry ingredients (I always sieve the baking powder and soda through a little tea strainer as you can get lumps of soda otherwise in your cookie). Add the cranberries and walnuts. Smash up the buttons a bit, but don't make them too small - some big pieces are good! Add to the dry ingredients and give it all a good mix.

Whisk together the wet ingredients (be patient, it'll happen!) and then pour into the dry. Mix with a fork till you can't anymore then get your hand in and mix it till it comes together in a ball of dough.

Pull off pieces about a rounded tbsp (walnut sort of size) and roll into a ball. Space them apart on a cookie sheet lined with parchment. Then wet a fork and press it lightly one way then another, for cross-hatches! Bake for 5-6 minutes for a chewy cookie, 7-8 for crispier. (dreena's recipe says 10 or 11 but that's for bigger cookies). Leave them 5 minutes on the sheet to firm up then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

That's all folks.

Laterz
xXx

Oh balls!

Hellooo everyone. Did you have pancakes last Tuesday??? I did, more on that in a minute though.

I'm starting off with last night's dinner. In my mind for weeks I've been dreaming of balls. Ahem, what I mean to say is meatless balls!! That doesn't sound any better does it? Well these are a mixture of tempeh and sage & onion stuffing mix. Sounds gross, tastes like a little ball of heaven! tee hee. Recipe is at the end of the post but I think this recipe has potential to be great just as a way of awesoming up stuffing mix or even flattened into patties and baked for a burger.

I served them with mushroom sauce (thought tomato would be too heavy) and quinoa pasta. Yum.


Dessert was simple. I cut up a nectarine and put it into a foil package with some rice syrup and baked it at 180C for 15 minutes. I served it with a blob of plain soy yoghurt and a wee sprinkle of ground allspice and then poured the fruity syrupy juices from the package over it.

These were some oat crackers I made last week. They're pretty good but I haven't got them exactly right yet. Recipe will follow once they're better.

I made some cookies last week. I played with Dreena Burton's homestyle choc chip cookie recipe by taking out the choc chips, swapping the plain flour for white spelt, swapping 1/4 cup of the flour for cocoa and using rice syrup instead of maple syrup (WAY cheaper!). I also made them smaller, a round tbsp or so each so I got 23 out of the mixture instead of 12! I baked them 8 minutes and they were nice and crispy.

So I mentioned pancake day last week. I prefer the fluffy american style (drop scone) pancakes for breakfast but on pancake day, it's only right to have flat ones. I didn't attempt to flip them, I suck at that! Here is one, ready for a rollin.....

And rolled up with the traditional filling of some lemon juice (bottled - tee hee) and sprinkled with sugar. Yum.

This was dinner one night last week. Oh that pile of horrible looking green mush was broccoli smashed potatoes. An idea I stole off Rachael Ray! But she put in a crap tonne of cheese and cream. I just added a bit of soymilk and salt & pepper and a sprinkle of nooch - they were really really good. Reminded me of when I was little and my mum used to mix mashed swede in with the potatoes so I would eat them! :-)

I feel bad for this lentil soup because he was oh so tasty but I don't think is a way to make a soup made with brown lentils a pretty one! Ugly? Yes. Tasty? Oh yes!

This was dinner on Friday night. I made a basic risotto with some onions and sun-dried tomatoes in and then at the end stirred in a bunch of steamed green veg. It was soooo tasty. I added peas, green beans and broccoli.

Here's that recipe I promised:

Sage & Onion Tempeh Balls
Ingredients:
100g (1/2 a pack) tempeh
1/3 cup (40g) sage & onion stuffing mix (paxo and sainsbury's own are both vegan)
1/2 cup (125ml) boiling water
1/2 a medium onion (about 1/2 cup)
1 tbsp olive oil
Braggs or soy sauce
1/2 tsp dried thyme
Salt & Pepper to taste

Fry Light / cooking oil spray

Method:
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F.

Then start with the tempeh. Cut it up into rough chunks and throw it in a pan (I used a frying pan) and fill it with enough water to just cover the tempeh. Bring to the boil then leave it for 1o minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the stuffing mix with the boiling water and cover with a plate. Set aside for at least 5 minutes.

Once the tempeh is done, remove from the pan and dry out the pan. Add the oil and saute the onions for 5 minutes until just starting to get some colour. Crumble the tempeh up nice and fine and add it to the onions, cook for a good 5 mins or so to get some colour on the tempeh. Then add the thyme and spritz with braggs (about 10-15 sprays) or add a tsp or 2 of soy sauce or tamari. Mix well and then remove from heat and tip into a mixing bowl to cool. Add the stuffing mixture and mash it all together with a fork.

Once cool enough to handle, roll about a heaped tbsp at a time into balls (you should get about 18). Then spray a baking sheet with fry light and put the balls on ready to cook. Spritz the top of them with fry light (optional) and then bake for 15-20 minutes (until lightly browned). Then serve with whatever you like!!

If you make larger balls (hee hee) or patties, you'll probably want to bake them 20-25 mins!

That's all for now aside from saying that I'm on Twitter now (sal_on_toast) - feel free to add me if you're on there, I only have 3 followers! hahaha.

Laterz
xXx