Vegan MoFo Day 11: Veganising Jamie

Today's veganised 15 Minute Meal is thai chicken Laksa with mildly spiced squash broth.  I made the full recipe which is meant to feed 4 and not only did it comfortably feed me and my bro & sis-in-law, but there are enough noodles left to do 2 more portions.  

I used RealEat Chicken style pieces in place of the chicken and I left out the fish sauce (just added a bit more soy to compensate).  

I used less noodles than it said to but I think that there were too many for 4 and I only used 1 bunch of asparagus not 2, as a second wouldn't have fitted in my pan.  There definitely wasn't as much liquid in mine as Jamie's seemed to have. So I'd add a bit more water (or less noodles next time).

Also, it's not a very specific recipe when it comes to the amount of squash; mine was kind of a monster and I didn't even cut half of it off, but it still completely filled up the bowl of my food processor, packed.  I used about 3 good handfuls of it, the rest is gonna go into my freezer for future laksa emergencies! :)

As 3 of us loved this, as demonstrated by the 3 empty bowls!

Recipe Link: Thai Chicken Laksa

Actual Time Taken: 19 minutes ish (well about 17 minutes till I turned off the stove top and about another 2 minutes to tip out the chicken and scatter with the garnishes) once all the ingredients were out and the food processor was ready etc.  I cheated a wee bit... I stopped the timer twice when I forgot to get a couple of ingredients out. But I figure had I got them out in the first place this would be about right.

My substitutions:
- I subbed Real eat chicken style pieces for the chicken.
- I left out the fish sauce and added a bit extra soy sauce
- I subbed agave for the honey

Verdict: Awesome, really really awesome.  AND omni-family approved.

Bonus dumb selfie of the day... do you guys like my new tiny mug?  Excuse me, I believe I ordered the large cappuccino! HELLO!?

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 10: What I Ate Wednesday

It's Wednesday again, so time for another What I ate Wednesday.  

Starting with my juice this morning; which consisted of a beetroot, a couple of carrots, a hunk of cucumber, a hunk of ginger and a pear!

 I was too lazy to make a smoothie so I had pb & jam on toast. Also I had Bergen bread which is the good shit.  I know that is dirty peanut butter but it's what I found first in the pantry!

My mid-morning snack was a chocolate orange nakd bar and a cuppa

Lunch was soup and a leftover coconut bun from yesterday's dinner! (BTW they are good the next day but are basically stodgy stodgeness!)

This was the soup I had; I prefer homemade to tinned but this was also really good.

I also had a diet coke, mainly because I actually found one with my name on! That never happens because I have such a common name! I try not to really drink diet coke in the week because otherwise I drink WAY too much of it!

I also had a bag of hula hoops! haha not the healthiest day ever.

Mid afternoon snack was a banana - it was only mildly scabby so I ate it!

Dinner was a really quick curry made with red lentils, grated carrot, korma paste and some coconut yoghurt (among other ingredients).  And brown basmati.  Easy and tasty.

Later on I will probably have a smooze, as I did last night whilst catching up on Banshee!

That's all for today. Happy humpday!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 9: Veganising Jamie

Tonight, another installment of Veganising Jamie!  And this is the recipe that made me want to do this as my theme in the first place. Yes, I've been lusting over Jamie's steamy soft buns for months now. Steady!! I'm talking about coconutty, bready goodness here! Dirty birdie.

This was sooooo easy, plus I got to use a new toy - my food processor.  Maybe I should name him Jamie, as that's pretty much why I bought it!!  And if it wasn't for the fact that I needed a little more flour than called for, I think I could've got this done pretty much within the 15 minutes, if not slightly over!

I subbed vegan chicken style pieces (Realeat ones) for the chicken but that was the only non-vegan item in the recipe.  Although check when you're buying hoisin sauce that you get a brand without honey.

SWOON! Sweet sticky chicken & mushrooms, fluffy buns and tangy pickle. This was freakin FREAKIN amazing!  The buns are seriously easy and I would have no qualms serving this up to any of my omni family or friends, even with the vegan chicken pieces.

Chicken Dim Sum with Coconut Buns & Cucumber Pickle

Recipe Link: It's not on his site (WTF Jamie?), I can't find the episode on youtube and I'm not about to post someone else's recipe without permission. But someone has posted the recipe here so I'll just link you to that if you don't wanna buy the book!

Actual Time Taken: 18 minutes from when all my ingredients and equipment were out and ready to go. I actually think this could be done in 15 minutes, but my bun dough was too wet and I had to go search for more flour and wash my hands about 4 times because the dough was so sticky.   

My substitutions:
I subbed Realeat Chicken Style Pieces for the chicken
I couldn't find mixed mushrooms in my crap local sainsbury's (that's becoming an issue!) and so I just used chestnut mushrooms, as that's what I had.
I subbed black sesame seeds for regular ones because I'm too lazy to toast them (and by that I mean wash an extra pan!)

Verdict:
Love LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this dish. I think it will become a regular and I plan to feed it to people next time I have someone to cook for. So ridiculously easy, as long as you don't mind washing up a food processor.  And a lot of the ingredients were already in my fridge or store cupboard, so I didn't really need to go to a decent supermarket. Win win.

A Few notes:
My buns are in pink cases because I didn't have any white ones and the pattern did transfer a bit. Also I ignored when Jamie said to put the chicken steamer under the bun steamer because my chicken wasn't raw meat and I figured it would be fine. They were fine but some of the hoisin mixture leaked onto the top of the buns beneath. No biggy, just an aesthetic thing.  And also foils my plan to eat the leftovers with jam.  OK it doesn't but I'm lazy and cutting the top off is just gonna but me!

Also, hot buns makes me think of THIS, which is never a bad thing!  If you'd forgotten about this too, then you can thank me later for the reminder!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 8: Toby Carvery

09/09/2014 - An update!
I heard a rumour that Toby are discontinuing this dish from their menu.  I asked them and this was their rather unhelpful reply:

"Hi Sal. Many thanks for getting in touch. The shepherds pie has been discontinued unfortunately We do still have the Nut Roast Wellington available which is suitable for vegans but the other new dish we have introduced on this part of our menu is only suitable for vegetarians."

So there is still an option for vegans but it is, in my opinion, the less yummy one! :(


Back now to the original post...

A carvery, you say?  I know ... they are like the most unvegan place you could eat, right? Well not anymore because Toby chains now have 2 vegan options on the menu; not only are they both marked vegan but they're both good!

I've been there before and had the nut roast wellington, which was nice. So I decided when I went last night to try the other vegan option, the Lentil Shepherds Pie and it was really really good!

It had lots of flavour and the mashed potato/bubble & squeak thingy on the top was delightful. You also get to go up and get a plate full of veg from the carvery and they really do have great roasties (not as good as my mum's but no one's ever managed to beat those!).  I ate far too much, as you can see!

Not that I could have eaten one after all that stodge, but they don't have a vegan dessert yet.  I think it might be time they get a crimble crumble or something on the menu - that's an easy pud to make vegan.  Let's write to them, fellow vegans and ask them to get on it!!

Laterz

xXx

Concrete Minerals Sugar and Spice Collection

Over on my other blog, I'm participating in Vegan Month of Food (or MoFo for short) and so I feel I've been neglecting the makeup a bit. So to make up for it, here's a quick swatchfest of my latest purchases from Concrete Minerals.

You can buy Concrete Mineral in the UK from CutECOsmetics, however they still have the old primer in stock, which isn't vegan. The official site has the reformulated primer and everything on there is now vegan so I decided to order from there.  The shipping was free because I spent over $50 and it arrived quickly and with no customs charges!! Win.

My main reason for the order was this; the Sugar & Spice collection. Look how stinkin adorable that packaging is!!

The inside: you get 4 loose shadows and a sexy lips tint.

The colours includes are Brat, Wicked, Rocked & Lolita and the Lip Tint shade is Tease

Swatch Fest

Starting with the lip tint

Rocked

It looks like a pale orangey yellow in the pot

It was hard to get a swatch of this but it's a lovely sparkly peachy shade

Brat 

A lovely hot pink

Lolita 

a sparkly steely grey

In the pot this one looked the most 'eh' to me, but it's beautiful!

Wicked 

an absolutely goregeous sparkly, lavender grey

The artificial light pic shows up the shimmer a little bit better

As I mentioned before I also ordered the primer and I got two more shadows as well

I got one of the Pro Matte shadows in Ember and White Rabbit shadow

White Rabbit 

A stunning sparkly white which looks amazing on the inner corner to add some shpangle!

Ember 

A matte darker orange. I thought it would be more neon when I ordered it but it's more of a brick orange. It's lovely and will be perfect for autumn!

Concrete always send you a couple of samples too and I got Storm (left) & Lolita (right)

Storm (top) is a beautiful dark gun metal grey and Lolita (bottom) looks olive green in the bag but is a grey colour with a sparkly flash of the green. Both are lovely.

Keep an eye out later in the week for a look using some of these shadows!

Love & Stuff
Sal xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 7 - Sandwich Sunday

Got home today from my weekend away and was glad that I had planned to make Sundays, 'Sandwich Sunday' during MoFo, as that's pretty much all I had the brain power for today.

So I'm starting slowly with my filthy sandwich recreations. You might recoil a little at first but then think, 'yeah Sal, this isn't that bad'. This was a real favourite of mine pregan and I had to do a fair bit of googling to find an alternative for one of the ingredients.  

Cheese, Peanut Butter and Cheesy Wotsits

The cheese is a no-brainer, I used Violife slices my favourite cheese for sandwiches, but the wotsits proved to be trickier. The nearest thing I've ever had to Wotsits since going vegan were these filthy dairy free puffs I found in a kosher store in north London. But I haven't had a chance to go there in so long and I couldn't find these online.  A bit more googling revealed a South African crisp called Flings, which sounded like they were very similar.  So I ordered a couple of bags from Amazon, not realising how HUGE the bags are!!

Huge right haha.  Anyway I opened them and texture-wise they are spot on as to what I remember wotsits being like. However, they're not cheesy at all. Maybe I got the wrong thing. But anyway they are pretty yummy and they did a good job of standing in for the wotsits, I just added a bit of nooch to the sandwich to make up for the lack of cheesiness!

Finished Article

See ya tomorrow!

Laterz

xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 6: Bella Italia

I apologise in advance for the lameness of this post.  I am currently away for the weekend probably drinking too much and behaving badly so instead of posting nothing, I thought I'd show you what you can eat if you're vegan, you go to Bella Italia with your omni workmates and you don't wanna eat another bowl of pasta arrabiatta!

I had the portobello burger and just got them to take out the goat cheese and the mayo. So essentially it's a mushroom in a bap. But I kind of like that. It has some other roasted veg in their too and the chips were really good.

I also had bruschetta for starter but didn't take a photo. Sorry. However, I did take a pic of my workmate's starter who also ordered bruschetta 'without the tomatoes'... erm yeah so bread then?  They asked if she was ok with onions and then brought out this....

She brushed off all the onions, took a bite and said 'it's a bit like toast really'. Still giggling when I think of it!

Laterz

xXx