The Good The Bad and the Fugly

I haven't blogged in a while so I have lots of pics. This week has been a weird one and a lot of it has SUCKED! but there have been some good parts too.

Bad - I'm a gimp!! I got a blister on the ball of each foot, no word of a lie, an inch long each one!! I never knew that blisters could be so painful. This is not run of the mill pain - this is my entire foot and some of my leg is sore and I can hardly walk!

Work has been rather shit this week.

Also I get up this morning, get in the car, put on the radio and hear the sad news about Michael Jackson! I am a big fan of his music and have been since I was a little girl. I got really tearful when they played Beat It on the radio this morning and then nearly busted out crying at work when I watched Jermaine's press conference on the internet. It's so sad. RIP Michael.

But onto the good stuff - I saw Eagles of Death Metal Live on Wednesday night. They are just so awesome, great live and Jesse is the shit. I lost count of the number of times he shouted CAN YOU DIG IT! It's a good thing I'm single or I'd be trying to convince the man in my life to grow a Mo like Jesse!! (I know they sound scary but they're not so if you are not familiar with their music go download Death by Sexy now, like right now!! then download Peace, Love, Death Metal & Heart On after that.)

The other good stuff? My PPK swap package arrived from the very awesome Vijita from Canada. she totally made my crappy day good - I got a buttload of swag....

So onto the food. I had a go at making some raw bars and they're good but they were a little too soft and fell apart a bit. I need to try again. They had dried apricots, cranberries, sun-dried bananas, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, brazil nights, walnuts, peanut butter and maple syrup. So technically I dunno if they are really raw - does maple syrup count???

When I was younger, mum had this recipe for pasta with roasted peppers and bacon and mushrooms. It was good and we used to make it a lot. So I thought I'd have a go at veganising it. I couldn't remember all the ingredients and I so I added some stuff I know wasn't in there. But it was really good and even better cold for lunch the next day! Recipe at end of post.

This was dinner on saturday night for me & my friend and it was seriously rad. Guava's post about pot pies had me craving pie and the idea of a mushroom pot pie was just genius. So I gave it a go and it was awesome. I don't have the recipe 100% yet but when I do i'll post it.

Dinner on Monday for me & my friend was this mixture of veggies, tomatoes and white beans - I served it over wholewheat rotilli pasta.


And also I made some garlic knots to go with it.

Dinner on Sunday night had to be quick, because it was 8ish by the time I got back from the gym. So I went with a Sunday Soup & Sarnie. I made a quick hummus with white beans and dijon mustard.

And I made my fast pea soup.

The last couple of days, because of my feet, my food has been spectactularly un-interesting and some of them - down right FUGLY!! Mainly because I can't stand up for very long. This was some brown rice cooked with tomatoes and some nooch sprinkled on top.

I found these in Holland & Barrett and thought I'd try them. They have a weird texture, like most fake meats do. They need a bit of frying to make them a nicer texture. Overall they're not bad but I wouldn't buy them often.

Inside shot...

I threw in some peppers, courgette, spring onion and some jarred salsa.

Then threw it on a wrap with some guac and sour supreme. Not bad, not great either.

Last night, my feet were particularly sore, so all I could manage was throwing some basmati in a pan with peas, sweetcorn, tomato puree and some spices. It was surprisingly not bad for such a lame effort.

Today, my feet felt marginally better so I made some mac n cheeze and threw in some peas & sweetcorn too.

Ooh and I just had to share..... It's been a long time but on Sunday, I made some soap! I know it's not the prettiest soap in the world, but serously it's been about 2 years since I made soap. It smells like a piece of heaven though - I scented it with dreamsicle fragrance oi. Up close it's pretty and shimmery too because I added some pink and gold mica to it. I am looking forward to getting back into making some products again!


Here it is in the moulds....

And here it is cooking away in my crockpot! (don't worry, I have a separate one for soap!!)

OOh I almost forgot. Here's the recipe for the pasta dish:

'Bacon', Mushroom & Roasted Pepper Pasta
2 tsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 pack mushrooms (about 125g/1.5 cups), sliced
2-3 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp tomato puree
1/2 tsp dried thyme
2 tbsp white wine
2 tbsp water

1 cup of roasted red and/or yellow peppers (if you're roasting them yourself, about 2 big peppers*)
About a cup of vegan bacon, cooked, in bitesize pieces**

Salt & Pepper to taste
100g (1.5 cups) pasta - cooked according to package instructions

Method:
Start by sauteeing the onion for about 5 minutes over a medium heat till it starts to get transluscent. Then add the mushrooms and cook down for about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, tomatoe puree and thyme and cook for around a couple of minutes. add the wine and scrape up all the bits off the bottom of the pan until the wine reduces till pretty much gone. Then add the water and mix well.

Add the peppers, 'bacon' and pasta and heat through for a couple of minutes, then season to taste and serve.

*The peppers - if you're doing your own, spray them lightly with oil, put on a baking sheet and bake at 250C/500F, basically the highest your oven will go for about half an hour till they are good and black. Then chuck 'em in a bowl and cover them with clingfilm. When cool enough to handle, the skin should peel off pretty easily.

** The bacon - up to you what you use. I used the marinade for the tempeh bacon recipe in VWAV but used thinly sliced tofu instead, cuz I can never find tempeh. I marinated it for about an hour, then fried it in a dry frying pan for a few minute until lightly browned on each side. You could use veggie rashers too but I personally think they're repellant! I used one 200g block of taifun tofu and I put the whole lot in the pasta.

I know i've been shit at commenting on blogs this week too - sorry! I have been reading though, so I'm off to do some catching up.

Laterz.

xXx

Bank holiday comes with a six pack of beer ....

...... then it's back to work.... A-G.... A-I-N!! ooh that's made we want to dig out ma Blur albums!!

You know what I love about May? TWO bank holidays! So bank holiday number 1 was this weekend and it was nice to have an extra day off - even though I had to work for some of it.

This was yesterday's lunch. I had some cooked quinoa in the freezer leftover from the last time I cooked it and made too much. I just chipped some off and poured boiling water over it and it was ready to go. I mixed it with julienned carrots, cucumber, spring onions, salad leaves, sweetcorn and the tahini yoghurt dressing from this post. Topped off with crunchy pumpkin seeds and brocco-shoots (Sainsburys has started selling different types of sprouts - I'm loving them!). It was pretty good for a salad.

Dinner on friday night I wanted some trash! I made something approximating the country fried tofu from hot damn & hell yeah (I couldn't be bothered to get out the book so was wingin it a bit!!) and had some mashed taters and mushy peas with it. I love this tofu recipe - it's so good although not all that healthy. I try to use as little oil as possible though and to make it extra good I double dipped the tofu in the soymilk/seasoned cornflour.

I made some muffins yesterday. They were just my basic muffin recipe with a banana and some peanut butter thrown in.

Last Sunday I really enjoyed my soup & sarnie for dinner, so I think I might make it a regular thing. This week my sandwich was a portabella mushroom that I got from the farmers' market shop in town (so excited to have found that place!!!), reggae reggae ketchup and salad.

The soup was creamy cauliflower soup. It was reallllllllly good. The recipe is at the end of the post. I surfed for a few recipes and found this one by gordon ramsay. As you can see it's pretty veg-unfriendly (a bit like the man himself). I took out the animal yuk and replaced it with light soymilk and soya yoghurt. I kind of liked the idea of the wild mushrooms on top (which is what gave me the idea for the sarnie).

Today's dinner was some wholewheat spaghetti and I had some leftover sauce from the balls (hee hee!) from my last post that I froze, so I just put that in and added some fresh basil and toasty pine nuts. I made some garlic knots to go with (recipe also at end of post) which where really really yummy. I made them with 50/50 wholemeal & white bread flours, as I've only made them with all white before. Next time I might try them with all wholemeal as I've pretty much cut out using white flour where I can.

HURRAH - it's UK strawberry season! I bought some strawberries as they were on special and they were amazing. Sweet and delicious. I ate a bowl of them plain yesterday and today I was going to do something fancy pants with the other half of the punnet. but then I realised I had a massive ripe mango and a ripe cantaloupe to use up so I just made a simple fruit salad and it was freakin rad!

This was dinner one night last week. Polenta with tomatoes, spring onions and sweet corn added then left to set for 5 minutes or so with steamed mange tout with nooch on and some roasty butternut squash. Yum.

And lastly, I have a new obsession - raw snack bars. I found the Trek & nakd bars in my local health food store and then found the 4 pack of mini nakd bars in Sainsburys along with... Larabars! YAY! I didn't think you could buy them over here and I must say they're pretty good.

The nakd ones are nice, although the chocolate ones are not the best. My favourite so far are the peanut & oat Trek bars. They rule.

And here are the recipes I promised.....

Creamy Cauliflower Soup
1 small onion (I used 4 fat spring onions)
1 tsp olive oil
1 fat clove garlic
1 x 300g bag of cauliflower florets
1 medium potato (about 150g)
2 cups (500ml) veggie stock
1/2 cup (125ml) unsweetened non dairy milk
1/2 cup (125ml) soya yoghurt
Salt & pepper to taste

Method:
Sweat the onion in the olive oil for about 5 minutes, until starting to get transluscent. Add the garlic and cook for only about a minute.

Add the cauliflower (chop it up a bit) and the potato, mix around and then add the stock. Bring to the boil, then turn down and cover.

Leave to simmer for 20 minutes (or until potatoes are tender). Pour into a blender and blend well (be careful, it's hot), then add the milk and yoghurt and blend again until smooth and frothy.
Then season to taste and serve with a few snipped chives if you like.

Garlic Knots (makes 6)
3/4 cup (120g) strong wholemeal bread flour
3/4 cup (120g) strong white bread flour
1 sachet (7g) fast action yeast
1 scant tsp garlic granules
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup (250ml) warm water
To finish
1/4 cup (4 tbsp) vegan margarine
1/2 tsp garlic salt

Method:
Mix together all the dry ingredients. Mix together oil and water and add about half into the dry and mix unti a dough forms, adding more liquid if needed.

Knead in the bowl lightly and then leave aside.

Preheat the oven to 210°C/410°F. While it's coming up to temp, split the dough into 6 pieces and roll them into a sausage. Then tie into a knot shape and place on a baking sheet. Spray the knots with olive oil and bake for 15 minutes, or until they are just starting to brown and sound just hollow when you tap the bottom.

Take them out and put onto a wire rack. Melt the margarine and mix in the garlic salt. Then brush it over the knots. I froze half the dough, as otherwise I would have eaten 6 garlic knots for dinner!!

Hope you all had a great bank holiday!!