Some recent weekend foods

I decided to show you some of the food we've eaten over the last couple of weekends, as there's been some good stuff!

We decided to make pizza! After unsuccessful trips to 2 supermarkets looking for dough or pizza bases that didn't look total crap, we settled for ciabatta for the bases. Which I love, Simon's not so keen. I added tofurky italian sausage, peppers, mushrooms, sweetcorn and a mixture of Follow Your Heart cheddar shreds and Daiya mozzarella shreds (the daiya is still in my freezer from New York!)

Last weekend we took my parents to see our wedding venue (it's booked you guys and it's soooooo pretty!) and afterwards we went over to the Golden Lion in Winchester for a roast. It's a lovely pub that has a vegan menu! (I've blogged about it before if you want to see the non-Sunday menu!) It's a bit of a trek for us but totally worth it.

They do desserts too. I'm 99.9% sure these are Lazy Days millionaire's shortbreads, which I suspected before I ordered it, because the other option was tiffin! When I tasted it my mind was made up. However, I'm a fan of the Lazy Days products so I enjoyed this. It was served with soy cream.

I bought this the other week from a store in Portsmouth and it had been in the fridge a while. I'd sneaked a few bits. But I took it out and ate it at room temperature and OH EM GEE it's amazing (totally better at room temp than cold too and I normally like my choccy chilled!) This is too dangerous to buy often because it's really really good. I've also tried their white nougat crisp variety which is also excellent!

On Friday I saw on Instagram that Lola's Cupcakes (stalls/stores dotted around London) do vegan options. I casually mentioned it to Simon and he brought me cupcakes home from work with him to cheer me up after putting my stupid back out. What a winner.

Obviously these are chocolate flavour and they were excellent. The frosting was fluffy and delicious and not so dense with sugar that I wanted to collapse into a sugar coma afterwards. The sponge was delicious too and not in any way dry!

Then on Sunday, as my back was still out and Simon wasn't feeling great either, we were lazy and ordered pizza. We usually order from Pizza Hut but we decided to give Papa Johns a go after looking at their allergen menu. We are so glad we did because this kicked Pizza Hut's butt!

We got wedges and dips. All those dips are great, especially that garlic dip (there's 2 garlic dips, one is vegan and one isn't so check the allergen menu) - it is DIRTY! Dirty good though.

I got the regular veggie pizza and when it arrived we sprinkled on some grated violife and let it melt in the oven for a bit. I don't normally bother adding vegan cheese, but that day I was feeling it and it was SO GOOD!

There was dessert too. The cinnamon bun things which do seem to be vegan from reading the allergen menu! These are basically croissanty shaped dough covered in a tonne of gooey cinnamon icing and they are dirty amazeballs. 

So that's that for some weekend eats.

Anyone going to the new Forest Vegan Fayre this weekend? If my back is up to it, I'll be there to sample some delights!

Happy humpday all
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 22: Cupcakes (again!)

Hello people. It's Monday again and Mondays are poo. So here are some cakes to brighten up your day!

I made these for work as they were raising money for charity and asked for volunteers to bake.  I was the only one that volunteered apparently. But hey, any excuse to spread the vegan cupcake love.

These are vanilla cake with strawberry icing and a mini jammy dodger

And chocolate with mint icing and a mint fondant choccy on top

The lighting was terrible which is why the icing looks yellow when it was actually a fetching shade of minty green!

Laterz
xXx

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.

I can't think of a post title.

Woo woo it's Friday.  I hope everyone's week has been mighty fine.  We actually has some lovely weather over the bank holiday so we decided to have another barbecue.  You have to make the most of the weather in the UK as it seems to have buggered off again and we're not sure when it will return!

 

My plate was pretty similar to the last post, only I made a bean salad with green & kidney beans, some fresh sweetcorn and a bit of red pepper.  We ran out of garlic so had to make do with regular bread - oh the hardship!



 

This was just a quicky dinner I did last week. I was gonna make risotto but I did have the rice I thought I had so I used bulghur wheat instead. Pretty simple, I just cooked the bulghur in veggie stock and while it was cooking I roasted up some chunks of butternut squash, some asparagus and some mushrooms.  Then add the end I stirred in the squash and some peas. 

 

Last Saturday was my gorgeous Godson's christening and my best friend asked me to make cupcakes for the do afterwards.  I did chocolate with coconut icing (pink wrappers) and choc chip with orange icing (blue wrappers).  They went down pretty well, but then who doesn't love a cupcake?

Last night I was gonna make sausage & mash, as I bought some Linda Mc sausages on my lunch break, but instead I decided to cook the potatoes with a bit of onion in veggie stock.  This is something that was in an ancient weight watchers book that mum & I used to love once upon a time.  I forgot how good potatoes are when they are cooked this way. Plus you get gravy all cooked into it, so don't have to dirty a jug making bisto! WIN.

 

This meal was one that I got 2 meals out of, yay leftovers!  I made up a quick bolognaisey type sauce with some Linda Mc Cartney Mince, chopped onion, courgette & pepper and some jarred tomato sauce for a super quick tea.

 

Then the next day, I added some spices and lots of chilli and fresh coriander and used it to fill tacos. Perfect for when you're running short of time, like I often am on a week night.

And lastly - breakfast from Wai Kika Moo Kau the other weekend.  I went to Brighton to hang out with Jojo as it was the last time I'll see her for a bit, as she's off on her travels to America for a while.  This was a pretty good brekkie, although the tofu was a bit soft for me.  I have a weird thing about tofu texture (remnants of gallstone-inflicted food aversions!) and I tend to overcook it a bit so it is chewy!  But the rest was good and I really like it in there.

Have a rad weekend!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 20: Birthday Cupcakes

Hello everyone.  I promised cupcake pics and here they are.  These are for my Auntie's 60th birthday party tonight, which is a barn dance and the food is a hog roast!! Blech, however my Auntie is making vegan food for me (she's awesome) and in return I offered cuppers.

I made the basic chocolate cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World which I flavoured with mint, then I added peppermint icing and some chopped mint cremes to decorate.  These are pretty much the same as I made for Daddy Alien's 60th Birthday 2 years ago.

 

I also made the Cookies & Cream variation of cupcakes except in the Basic Vanilla recipe instead of the Basic Chocolate.  I had to buy special american mini oreos, as UK oreos are not vegan! BOO.  But I think they came out pretty cute!

I found these in the American Aisle (which is basically 2 shelves) in my local big ass Tesco. Cute but they're £2.50 each and I had to buy 2 and I used them all!

 

This is my bro's 'creative' way to use up leftover minty icing, by putting it on the crispy cakes my mum made yesterday....

This then evolved to a double decker, mint creme topped, crispy sandwich of win!

And here's bellend creator himself enjoying the fruits of his labour!

 

I will leave you with a Jazzy pic. She actually laid there, still and looking at me and let me take 2 or 3 photos.  This is her all snug and comfy on her favourite spot - on her blanky!

 

Have a great Saturday all!

 

Laterz

xXx

 

Vegan MoFo: Birthday Cupcakes

So I promised baking pics and here they are!

Today is Daddy Alien's 60th birthday! And we are having a big fancy dress party tonight to celebrate and I spent all of this morning decorating the 48 cupcakes I baked yesterday! (There are 3 boxes in total but I only took pics of two as it still shows all the flavours). All recipes from or tweaked versions of recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.

Rosewater & Pistachio & 'Elvis'

Basic chocolate filled with cherry pie filling, vanilla buttercream, a glace cherry and chocolate sprinkles on top and basic chocolate with mint buttercream and a mint fondant chocolate.

Up close & personal shots:

Mint choc

Chocolate cherry (black forest)

Pistachio rosewater

Elvis (banana, with pb frosting)

Gotta go - I got a hotel to decorate!

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