I'm forever blowing bubbles

A couple of weeks ago I was very jammy and got invited to go see an advanced screening of Cuban Fury in London, the day before it came out (a friend from salsa class won the tickets; there was a raffle at our class, as the guy who choreographed the movie was there teaching us a bit of the routine from the film - very fun!  Anyway I spent the day in Soho as that's where it was and Soho is a good day out.

First thing I did was go get bubble tea from Bubbleology. My friend Kip introduced me to bubble tea a couple of years ago and I can't walk by that place without getting one now. This is Taro flavoured, it kind of tastes like cookies! So good.  I also went back to the chinese/thai vegan buffet place that I posted about in my last post, but the pic is basically the same as last time. (It's called Tao by the way if anyone's in that area; it's on Great Windmill Street and it's super cheap and awesome! Everything's vegan on the buffet, they do serve dairy ice cream though apparently.

Then because I'm a nice sister, I made a cake for when my Bro & Sister-in-Law came to dinner. This is the vegan cupcakes take over the world basic chocolate recipe x 1.5 and baked for half an hour in 2 sandwich tins.  I also tweaked the recipe and used coconut milk instead of soy and added 1 tsp coconut extract, 1/2  a cup of dessicated coconut and a tin of cherries chopped up (less enough to decorate the top with that I didn't do in the end!)  The icing is the one from Nigella's Devils' Food Cake Recipe - I just replaced the butter with vitalite. The chocolate I used was a bit bitter (it's all my local shop had) but I really like this recipe.  It's way less sweet than buttercream, which I like but it's so sickly.

V for Vaygun! (My brother is rude)

SOUP! I love soup when the weather is crap and with the exception of today, the weather's been pretty crap.  This is a recipe I've posted on here before and I love it with crusty bread.

The other week I went to meet a friend I met on holiday last year in her home town and the first night we were pretty drunk so I probably couldn't have worked my phone to take a pic of the food, even if I had remembered. But I got pics of the next day's lunch. We went for thai food!

I started with Tom Yum soup. This was SOOOOO spicy, totally cleared my nose out! hahaha. It was great.

Then a thai red curry with steamed rice.  Loads of veg and lovely sauce, I really enjoyed this. (As with all Thai restaurants, just be sure to ask them to not put in any fish sauce, as they tend to put it in everything, even if it's marked vegetarian!)

Last weekend was my friend's birthday, so I offered to bring dessert as she was cooking dinner. I made the peanut butter criss-crosses from vegan cookies invade your cookie jar and to be honest they were a bit of a fail.  The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of molasses. I only put in one but it totally overpowered everything (maybe UK molasses is different??) so I added more PB and it was better. But I burnt the first batch. DAMMIT!  The second batch was a bit better. I sandwiched them with vanilla buttercream.

So because I felt bad about the crappy sangers, I made a cake too.  I was totally winging this, just chucked some stuff in and hoped for the best. It was some leftover coconut milk and lemon juice/zest that I used for the wet ingredients. I was kinda going off the lemon coconut bundt recipe in veconomicon but I was too lazy to get out the book. I also baked it in a loaf tin. It was a bit dense but surprisingly nice!  haha. I drizzled the top with a simple glaze of lemon juice and icing sugar.

And just to prove that even cute kitties take bad photos (just like their owners!), look at this stupid photo of Jazzy. BAAAHAHAHAHAHAH. It cracks me up. Snaggletoof!  haha.

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 Day 17: Dude, you're fugly

I felt like I was staring into the fridge for hours last night trying to find inspiration to cook something awesome and not just throw a fry's chicken burger in the oven. In reality it was about 5 minutes.

 

I came up with a use for this mock chicken I bought in a Thai supermarket recently.  I didn't notice when I bought it that it's tofu, not fried gluten as I thought, so I was a little wary.

 

When I opened it, this was staring back at me! EEK.  It was massive lumps of gross looking stuff.  I tasted a bit, it tasted strongly of soy, but not completely unpleasant.

 

Despite its fugliness, I pressed ahead with my idea for "chicken" and dumplings and I'm glad I did, it was ACE!

 

I didn't measure anything, I was winging the lot, so here are some guidelines, rather than a proper recipe:

 

I chopped 2 large carrots into small dice and boiled them for 10 minutes, while I got everything else ready.  I sauteed a large shallot in a bit of olive oil with some dried thyme and rosemary and then added the carrots and the drained mock chicken that I broke up into chunks.  I then added about a tbsp of flour and stirred it around, then added 300ml of veggie stock and about half a cup of soymilk.

 

Whilst the carrots were blanching, I made the dumpling dough from 1/2 cup of plain flour, into which I rubbed 2 tbsps of vitalite, then mixed in a pinch each of thyme and rosemary and a bit of salt. Then I added soymilk a splosh at a time until it came together as a soft dough.

 

I rolled the dough into about 6 or 7 ping pong ball sized dumplings and dropped them into the stew.  Then I cooked it all for about 15/20 minutes.  I then added some frozen peas and because it wasn't thickening enough, I mashed a tbsp of vitalite with a tbsp of flour and added this to the stew to thicken it.

 

I served it with steamed cauliflower and mashed potatoes.

 

My little kitchen friend has taken to sitting and watching me cook lately (I think in the hope that she's going to get a titbit) and I took a pic yesterday just as she squeaked at me! hehe FEED ME SAL!

Laterz
xXx

Post title taken from this scene in Supernatural