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 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

Guess who's back ... back again...

....Shady's back, tell a friend...... hee hee

HELLOOOOOOO! It's been ages hasn't it, I'm bad! Honestly I just haven't felt like blogging lately, a few crap things happened at the beginning of the month but I won't bore you with that because life is starting to look a bit better now. So managed to finally kick myself into blogging mode! Which means I got a lot a pics for you!

Starting with a dinner this week - roasted veg an polenta. I think this is my new favourite thing to do with veg - hit them with balsamic vinegar after they've roasted. Last night I made more and they were even better but I didn't take a pic. Last night I mixed courgettes, sweet potato, mushrooms, butternut squash, red peppers and red onions with a little bit of olive oil, some dried herbs and chopped garlic. Then roasted them at 180C/350F for about 45 mins. Once done, I poured over 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar and a handful of chopped parsley and mixed. They were awesome!




Cookies! I know I know, I've blogged these before, but they are so damn delicious. They are the rocky roads from Vegan Cookies.... These were a present for a friend's birthday.



Pacakes!! Chocolate blueberry pancakes, they weren't great but they hit the spot with a good glug of golden syrup on (maple syrup is about £5 a bottle at the moment, so I had to cheap it!!)

This was a cake I made my friends and I for dessert a few weekends ago, it had big chunks of raspberry and mango in and a sugary, crunchy coconut crumb topping. It was lovely and I'm going to work on the recipe a bit before I post it.

Dinner that day was pie! I made a simple pie crust from 1.5 cups of flour, 3 tbsp of vitalite and 3 tbsp of shortening, a bit of salt and then cold water until it came together. The filling was linda mccartney mince, mushrooms, peas, onions, a bit of red wine and some stock with some bisto powder added. Delish! I just did some plain new potatoes and sugar snaps to go with. It was such a nice day that we ate this on the balcony in the sun! Where oh where did that sun go??

This was inspired by the news that my town is getting a wagamamas soon! YAY! I had a go at making something like one of their soups that i love - the name of it escapes me. But it has fried mushrooms, tofu, pak choi, beansprouts (which I didn't have) and other veg in a lovely broth with noodles. Mine wasn't as good as theirs but it was pretty freakin delicious.

Last month I went to the Sonisphere festival and we had quite a lot of tent-side barbecues. Most of the food was not really blog-worthy but there was a veggie food stand that did the best burgers ever..... In the words of Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction "MMMM HMMM, that's a tasty burger!"

Here's some muffins I made. This pic is so old, I can't even remember what flavour they were, but I have a sneaking suspicion they had spices and walnuts in.

Man, this pic is OLD! I made a lasagne, using Linda Mc mince and lovely white sauce. I topped it with a bit of nooch. The dough balls were awesome, I was winging it but I really wish I'd written down the recipe!! Next time I will I promise.

Close of the dough balls after baking and brushing with melted vitalite.

I tried making the crash hot potatoes that were all the rage on blogs a while ago. They were good but....

I dropped them getting them out the oven and lost a couple! :-(

And here is pics from a PPK meet up back in early July - look at all that food, it was awesome. There were sausage rolls, calzones, pasta salads, falafels, cheezly straws, cupcakes, cookies ..... and a baby! We didn't eat him though - he was too cute!

My contribution was the east coast coffee cake from vegan brunch - the jam swirl variation. I also made carrot falafels again, but didn't take a pic. They are in my last post though if you want to see them.

That's about it for now.

Laterz
xXx

Mini Me

Look at me posting after only 8 days' break!! hehe. It's a mini post from me today, because honestly, I really haven't cooked all that much this last week. I've been out for dinner a couple of times and instead of having the girls over here we went to Em's and she cooked - wonders will never cease!! :-)

So I'll start with the other day's lunch, roasted cherry tomato soup. This had a trip hit of tomatoes because I also added some tinned (well boxed actually) and some sun-dried toms. Recipe is at the end of the post. It was yummy.


Brunch today - I had some tofu leftover from the brownies that are coming up in a minute! So I made tofu omelettes from vegan brunch. I halved the recipe and the other half of the omelette batter is in the fridge for tomorrow morning. Once I spread out the batter I chucked on some chopped up sun dried tomatoes, spring onions, sweetcorn and a couple of rings of jarred jalapenos. Then flipped it to cook the second side. Then I flipped it back and sprinkled it with black pepper, dried oregano and grated on some cheezly mozz, then stuck it under the grill for a minute to melt. Soooooo delicious.

I said brownies.... I made these on Tuesday night to take to Em's for pudding. The recipe is from Vegan Cookies .... for the chocolate brownies and I added 1/3 cup of walnuts and 2 packets (50g total) of white chocolate buttons broken up. I cooked them for just the very minimum amount of time so they would be super fudgy and delicous and they were - best vegan brownies I've ever made!! SO EFFING GOOD. I must admit, when I first bought this book I was underwhelmed with it, but I've now made a few things and everything has been so tasty that I've really grown to love the book.

Dinner the other night, tacos! I sauteed a couple of spring onions and a clove of garlic and added a cup of sainsbury's frozen veggie mince (they didn't have any Linda McCartney, but this one is pretty much the same!). I added half a box of chopped tomatoes, a green chilli, some mild pepperdew peppers (I didn't have any red or yellow peppers!) and some cumin, coriander, oregano and paprika. I also grated about half a courgette in finely, then left it to reduce down. It was easy, nice and not too spicy. It made enough to fill about 6 taco shells, so I had leftovers. I had some salsa in the fridge so I topped it with that, some shredded lettuce and some soya yoghurt. Oh and some chopped, fresh coriander.

All ready to munch....

Close up of the taco filling...

Ready for assembling...

And here's the recipe for the soup:

Ingredients:
1 cup cherry tomatoes

2 fat cloves of garlic

olive oil

1 small onion

1/3 cup white wine

2 cups veggie stock

1/2 box (about 1/2 - 3/4 cup) chopped tomatoes in juice

4 sun-dried tomatoes*

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/2 tsp dried rosemary

pinch of sugar or splenda

Salt & pepper to taste

Method:
Put the cherry tomatoes and garlic on a baking sheet and drizzle on a little bit of oil then bake at 200C/400F for 20 minutes.

Saute the onion over medium high in a tbsp or so of olive oil, with a good pinch of salt, for 5 minutes until starting to soften but not too coloured.

Once the tomatoes and garlic are done, pop the garlic out of the papery skins and set aside. Don't bother taking the skin off the tomatoes.

Back to the onions! Add the wine the pan and let it bubble off for a couple of minutes. Then add all the other ingredients and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and leave to simmer for 15 minutes.

Then pour into a blend and blend till smooth.

I served mine with a small blob of soya yoghurt on top, just to look poncey but it's not essential.

* I used sun-dried tomtoes packed in oil and just gave them a good shake off of the excess oil and then chopped them roughly. If you use dried ones, just chuck them into the soup when you add the stock and they'll reconstitute as you cook it.

Laterz
xXx