ERMAHGERD I Blerged!

Does anyone else find the Ermahgerd memes as hilarious as me?  They crack me up for some silly reason.

 

 

So anyway next month is MoFo and I figured I should probably try and get a couple blog posts in as I’m going to try and commit myself to doing MoFo this year. Last year I was WAY too lazy.

So I’ve cleared out my camera and here we go…..

Remember last time I was talking about me and my friends doing Come Dine With Me? Well here are the pics from my friend Holley’s night. For some reason I don’t seem to have one of the starter or of dessert but I did get the menu….

 

The bread 

  

The main (she made smash and a frys chicken burger look all fancypants)

And the vegan white Russian that Holley’s boyfriend made for us. They were good!

I found this pic on my phone and thought it was funny.  We went to my cousin’s birthday party a while back and it was a bit of a drive, we all took a sarnie each.  My brother wrote on all the packs so we knew who’s was who’s – this is what he wrote on mine.  His girlfriend tried to be nice by putting a vegan sunflower on but really, I think the big turd in the middle of the bag is what draws the attention!

Here are some cupcakes I made for my friend’s mum’s 60^th birthday.  The ones that look a little like boobies are coconut and cherry.  I tweeked the basic vanilla cupcake recipe in vegan cupcakes take over the world to use coconut milk instead of soy and I added some coconut extract.  I dug a little hole out of each one and put in a spoon of cherry jam then topped them with coconut butter cream and a glace cherry.

These are the peanut butter cupcakes from VCTOTW with a basic chocolate buttercream on top.

Some pics now from a day out in London with my ladybros, before I went off to Greece in June.  We went to InSpiral and I got this rather awesome bagel.  It had avocado and raw cheese and some other goodness in it.

And because you have to when you go InSpiral, I had a side of their wedges and garlic mayo, both of which are just fucking amazing.

These pics are from a day in brighton.  We were supposed to have a picnic but it pissed it down, so instead we went to WaiKikaMooKau and I ordered a salad as I knew we’d probably eat again later.  But that was daft because it was massive.  This was the falafel salad and it was really good.

Then we got gelato from Boho Gelato.  If you’re ever in Brighton, give this place a visit.  They always have about 5 vegans flavours on the go.  This was bellini flavour and lurking underneath is their coffee and amaretto (I think!!) whatever it is, it is freaking awesome.

Then we went to the pub and got some Rekorderlig cider.  I fell in love with this stuff when I was on holiday, as they sold cans of all different flavours for 1 euro in the little supermarket down the road.  Our post-lunch cider run became a bit of a tradition! Kip is excited as you can see!

Here are some photos of food from a picnic with my vegan ladybros, Kip, Jojo & Holley.  We all met 3 years ago on the first PPK Brighton picnic and since then they have become 3 of my BFFs.  I feel very lucky to have made friends with such funny, intelligent, lovely, awesome (and slightly ridiculous) ladies. 

What’s funny is that at the first picnic everyone was showing off with making fancy foodz.  At this one I was just “I made hummus and bought bread but I was too lazy to make stuff with pastry so I bought linda mccartney sausage rolls…” hahah  Although Jojo did actually make a quiche and coleslaw.

 

I did make cookies though, they are the peanut cookies from the book you can see in the pic!

After eating we went to our favourite pub and when Jojo told the barman it was our ‘best-friend-aversary’ (he looked at us funny but then) he gave us free shots.  They are fishermans flavour and are absolutely DISGUSTING. But hey they were free.

Here is a dumb shot we tried to take of us in the pub using the timer on my phone. FAIL. Yes we are wearing matching t-shirts.  Kip & I found them in H&M and got over-excited and bought them. Somehow we managed to keep quiet about it for about 2 months so we could surprise Jojo & Holley with them on the day.

And here is the awesome brunch that Jojo & her husband Nick made us the next day – muffins, pancakes, sausage, tofu scramble and taters. It was radder than it looks!  Bonus pic of my knees!

I shall leave you with a picture of Jazzy.  She sat and stared at me like this for hours when I was off sick last week.  Inching closer and closer and squeaking at me until I got up and fed her.  Pain in the ass cat, but I love her.

Next time, I have some wedding food to show you. I have been to 2 weddings in the last 2 weeks and remember to take pics, even though some of it was uninspiring to say the least.

 

Laterz

xXx

HEYYY YOU GUYZZZ!

HELLOOOOOO! I haven't posted in a while, I didn't even remember taking any pics until I looked through my phone this morning! ahahaha.

Recently some friends and I have been doing our own version of Come Dine With Me (2 done, 2 to go!) and I was first.  Here's some horrifically bad photos of my offerings!

Starter - Patatas Bravas.  I just fried up some par-boiled potatoes, made a spicy tomato sauce and the garlic mayo from Vegan Diner instead of non-vegan alioli.

For the main, I made the Orange Mojo Tofu from Viva Vegan and just some greens that I blanched and then fried off.

To go with it, Veganomicon's Chickpeas Romesco (LOVE this dish soooo much and it's great for feeding hungry friends).

I'm not even going to bother posting the pic of the rice, because if you think these pics are bad, that one was ridic!  It was basically just steam and a bit of yellow! hahaha.  It was the saffron garlic rice also from Veganomicon.

Dessert - I played with the brownie bottom pb cheesecake recipe in Vegan Pie in the Sky.  I swapped the brownie base for a speculoos biscuit base and replaced the peanut butter in the filling with smooth speculoos paste.  It was pretty good!!

OK Jojo's (head over to Jojo's blog for better pics!! haha) turn and she made Barbecue Ribz, Mac & Cheese and coleslaw.  I believe the ribs and Mac recipes are both from Vegan Diner.  Either way they were awesome!  I'm sure I've made these ribs before and they were cack and dry, so obviously I did something wrong because Jojo's were great!

Dessert was a chocolate mousse pie and a deep fried oreo. Yes, a deep fried oreo and let me tell you friends, it was as awesome as it sounds.  If I wasn't full to busting I definitely would've had a second.

OK and on to something else.  A few weeks back I was seeing Steel Panther in Brixton so I met my friend Kip during the day for some food and drinks.  We went to Ms Cupcake first and I bought a pb&j cookie sandwich.  These things are SO good that I couldn't even wait to take a photo before I took a bit.  They are super sweet though, I can only eat about half in one sitting.  I ate the rest on the train home when I was drunk. hahaha.

For dinner, we went to the little Japanese curry place that is about 3 or 4 doors up from Ms Cupcake.  I had a terriyaki tofu curry.  It was really good!

This was a tempeh scramble that I made a couple of weeks ago.  I took a pic because it was sooo pretty.  I did exactly as I would do for a tofu scramble but I boiled the tempeh for 10 minutes before I crumbled it into the pan. Served with roasty potatoes. YUM.

And a baked potato! hehe.  I made some spaghetti bolognaise with Sainsbury's frozen soya mince and the next day I turned the leftovers into chili and put it in a baked potato with a tonne of nooch underneath and some grated vegusto on top. It was awesome and because my dad put the potato in the oven while I was at work, took me about 5 minutes to put together. Bonus.

Hope everyone is good, I have an epic job of blog reading to do during my lunch break today I think!

Laterz
xXx

Hello hello you called baby I can't hear a thing.....

So I cleared all the pics off my android phone and found a bunch of food pics!  Lady Gaga title making a bit more sense now? No... OK I'll move on.

A while back, myself and my awesome vegan friends went to Moshi Moshi in Brighton. Although the highlight of this day was really giant Jenga and Gin in a Tin, I am just going to show you the food, because it was excellent.



Moshi Moshi is a sushi place that has lots of vegan options, including dessert (which I was too full for to be honest.


I’m going to start as I mean to go on, with a blurry picture of a half-eaten piece of food. I know you guys love seeing these, so here it is. This is something that has a fancy name that I can’t remember, but it’s tofu skin filled with rice and veggies. Everytime we saw one go round the conveyor we nabbed them, no one else got a look in! hahaha

For the rest of my meal I ordered deep fried dumplings. These were so good, that we all got another round of them.

I also had something with mock duck in it and hoisin type sauce, I think. It was excellent and I had it with a side of brown rice, to be healthy ya know.
 

As I said, I was too full for pudding and besides, those glutinous rice ball things look like dead baby hamsters anyway. ERGH.


I also found this pic of pizza on my phone. I remember that instead of tomato sauce, I used a base of Sacla’s Aubergine pesto (good shit and no dairy!) then I added facon, peppers, mushrooms and sweetcorn. Then a buttload of cheezly. My dad was happy to inform me that it was good pizza, after he stole some of the leftovers.

This past Saturday, I met up with some other PPKers and we went on a lovely day trip to London.  Some of us met at Ms Cupcake in Bristol and I got a PB&J Cookie sandwich and coconut almond cupcake to go.  Then we went onto InSpiral, 4 of us ordered lasagne but only one of us go it!  The rest of us got this veggie bake thing.  Not lasagne but still pretty tasty.  You get to pick 3 sides, so I went for the bean salad, wedges and Greek style salad and also some garlic mayo – which is what that bright yellow stuff is.  Didn’t taste anything like garlic mayo to me but it was yummy.  I've been dying to go to InSpiral for ages and I wasn't disappointed.  I also had some Maple & Pecan icecream, their ice creams are all raw and very tasty.  I didn't get a pic though.

And just because she's so flippin cute.... a bonus pic of Jazzy!

Happy humpday all!

Laterz
xXx

Happy New Year!

Did everyone have a good Christmas?? 

I know I know, I'm over a week late, but here is the pictures of my christmas food and a few things since then.

I make a yule log every year and here was this years (VCTOTW basic chocolate recipe and store bought frosting - I was lazy!!) It fell apart a bit when I rolled it, so I just covered it with a tonne more icing.

Christmas day - first drinky!

My Christmas dinner. I took the pic before I slathered it with gravy.  This was a Redwoods celebration roast (fake turkey and pigs in blankets).  It was pretty gross and I wouldn't buy it again.  To be honest though, I'd have been happy with just the veg, sage & onion paxo stuffing and gravy, which is what I will probably have next year, if I'm too lazy to make something seitan based.  My Mum makes the best roast potatoes ever. Ever.

Christmas cake!  I never write down the recipe or follow one for that matter, I just wing it and if I'm lucky it turns out good.  This year was a good-un.  The decorations on top were not vegan (egg-white), so I picked them off my bit.  I just decorated it with a layer of marzipan then a layer of ready-made fondant icing, as cake decorating is not really my best talent, as you can see!

Dinner on boxing day was a puff pastry concoction I made.  It was mushrooms and onions sauteed and then I made a white sauce and added some cooked potatoes to it, then just wrapped it in puff pastry and baked.  It was pretty good for something I didn't put much thought into.

The next day I fancied soup, so I used some of the leftover veggies from boxing day...

I added the veg to veggie stock, a bit of tomato puree, some sauteed onion and garlic, lentils, a chopped up Wheaty Hemp Spacebar and some smoked paprika.  It was yummy and kept me in lunches up until I went back to work.

OK jumping forward a bit, this was dinner for my 3 besties, who came over on Saturday night.  I made the coconut lemon bundt cake from Veganomicon.  I ordered a bundt tin from amazon, but it didn't arrive in time, so I made it in a regular tin and it burnt a wee bit. Sadface!  However, it was still really really good!  I can't wait to try it again in the right tin, if the sucka ever arrives.  I used lite coconut milk in this.

It was a Veganomicon kinda night, because I decided I do not cook from that book enough, and it's awesome.  So I made the saffron garlic rice (although I only used 2 cloves of garlic, as my friends are not as into it as me).

And the Chickpeas Romesco.  I LOVED this.  I think the only change I would make next time is to maybe use ground almonds, as my food processor didn't get them as fine as I think they need to be.  Aside from that it was delicious. 

The side dishes were just some blanched green beans that I then sauteed with shallots and some baked tofu.  I made the marinade up as I went along, so I can't remember exactly what was in it, but from memory I think I added some wine, sherry vinegar, agave, paprika and vegan worcester sauce.  I burnt it a bit (theme of the night??) but it was still not bad and all got eaten!

And this was yesterday's lunch.  A quesadilla I made with cheezly white cheddar and jarred salsa.  Easy and quick (and yummy!).  My dad said I shouldn't post it as it was burnt (recurring theme...) but I think it was just well done! :-)

Hope you all had a fab break and if like me you celebrated an anniversary of being vegan on 1st January - Happy Veganniversary!! Mine was 4 years! :0)

Laterz
xXx

Crap party food and awesome cheesiness

Morning all!  Can you believe it's less than a week until Christmas already??  Scary!!  Well I thought I'd show you some of the christmassy themed stuff I've eaten lately.  Starting with the food from my work Christmas do last Tuesday.

Unfortunately for yours truly, the vegan food pretty much sucked.  I was very grateful still to actually have a vegan menu offered to me, but wish it was better executed!!

The appetiser was the best bit... bread & hummus.

The starter was a (small) piece of melon.  At least it wasn't gross and hard!

 

The main was a potato thing (that really is the best I can describe it, as I'd had a few glasses of wine by this point) that was pretty good, but cold.  The sauce was cold, the veg were cold.  The peppers and aubergine were not properly cooked or seasoned at all.  I struggled to get my knife through the pepper!

Dessert was really REALLY imaginative - fruit salad!!  It was ok, but boring.

Aside from the food, it was an awesome night though!!

Onto some good GREAT eats.  My friend Jojo had a vegan wine & cheese party at her house, this past saturday and these were my offering - cheese & potato pasties.  I have given a vague recipe for this at the bottom of the post if anyone's interested.  They were good!

There was leftover pastry so I decided to make some mini pastries - these were filled with smooth speculoos paste and a few chocolate chips. YUM!

Onto the rest of the food.  Obligatory cheese & pineapple on a stick!

My friend Kip's awesome cheeseball, which is amazing and rolled in cranberries and nuts.  We always ask her to make this for parties because it is SO. FREAKING. GOOD!!  One day I will remember to ask her for the recipe for it!

In this pic is Kip's blue cheese dip, cheezly blue and cheddar with cranberries that I bought (it's their Christmas selection) and crock cheese from the uncheese cookbook - not sure who made the crock cheese, I think it was Jojo? I have that book and have never made anything from it, but the crock cheese was really good so I'm definitely going to have to make some soon!

Kip's awesome artichoke dip. This stuff was GOOD!  Also in this pic is my balsamic onion chutney. It was a recipe I found on the interwebz and was pretty good, but a bit too sweet for me.  My dad seems to like it though!

The spread!

The wine!!

After the party me and our friend Hana both stayed at Jojo's, so the next morning we all went for breakfast.  Although actually it was lunch really by the time we motored ourselves out the door.  We decided to go to Wai Kika Moo Kau, as Iydea stop serving breakfast at 11.20 - stupid time or what!!  Anyway, I got the brighton deli wrap, which was good, but just a bit too much salad for my liking.  The sausages were good (they tasted like Linda McCartney's to me!). 

Chips in the wrap - yes I am a genius!



Recipe for the vegan cheese pasties

Filling:

2 large potatoes (I used 2 bakers)

1 large onion

1 pack of cheezly (I used half a pack of white cheddar and half a pack of red cheddar) or whatever vegan cheese you like.  About 200g!

2 tbsp olive oil

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp paprika

Salt & pepper to taste

Chop the potatoes into small dice and par-boil for 10 minutes (until JUST cooked but not too soft).  In the meatime, saute the onion in the oil and a pinch of salt for 5-10 mins, until cooked and starting to brown.  Add thyme and paprika and season lightly.

Mix together the potatoes, onion mixture and grated cheese then test for seasoning (I didn't need to add much salt as the cheese is pretty salty).  Chill the mixture (I left it overnight).

To assemble, I rolled out ready bought frozen puff pastry (I used the big pack of Jus-Rol) and cut around a cereal bowl for each one.  Then wet the edges of the circle and put a generous tablespoon of filling in the centre.  Folder over, press to seal and then use a fork to crimp the edges shut.  Place on a baking tray lined with parchment and spray lightly with olive oil. Bake 20-25 minutes at 180C/350F or until lightly browned. 

Cool on a cooling rack and try not to burn your tongue when you eat one too quickly because you are too hungry to wait (like I did)!

This filling makes a lot!  I used about 3/4 of the pack of Jus-Rol and got about 16 pasties, but it depends on your bowl size!  There was quite a bit of filling left so I have frozen it for future pasty making over christmas!! 

The rest of the pastry I used for the sweet pastries, which I cut out with a 1 cup metal measuring cup and filled with a tsp of speculoos paste and about 3 or 4 chocolate chips. These took about 15 minutes to bake.

That's it for now - hope you all have a fantasmical Christmas, if you celebrate it and I will see you after chrimbo for pics of Christmas dinner! YAY.

Sing it now.... "When the snowman brings the snow.... well he just might like to knooooowwww he put a great big smile on SOMEBODY'S FACE."  Yeah that'd be my face!! 

Laterz

xXx