Vegan MoFo Day 5 - Veganising... Chicken and Chorizo Jambalaya

For the first instalment of veganising for this year's  MoFo, I made this 'chicken and chorizo' jambalaya.

This is the recipe I used and it was super easy to veganise. I swapped out chicken for the Vegetarian Butcher NoChicken chunks, the chorizo for 2 Sainsbury's chorizo style shroom dogs and I subbed a 'not-chick'n' bouillon cube for the chicken stock. (I also used an orange pepper instead of red because that's what I had.)

This came together really easy and tasted delicious. I will definitely make this again for a quick and easy weeknight dinner.

Not the most photogenic dinner every, but super tasty!

See ya on Wednesday :)

Laters
Sal xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 2 - pea speltotto with lemon and hazelnuts

My Friday theme is testing a recipe from a vegan blog or cookbook and the first one I've got for you is the Pea Speltotto with Lemon and Hazelnuts from Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall's 'Much More Veg'.

This cookbook is all vegan, which is unusual for a non-vegan chef and so I was curious as to whether it'd be any good.

As the title would suggest, it places most of it's emphasis on using veggies as the star of the show. Which I kind of love and it makes a change from a lot of cookbooks that tend to focus on heaver 'comfort food'. Not that I don't love those, I do - but it's nice to try something a bit different.

This recipe appealed to me right away because I love peas and spelt. YAY.

So this my attempt (served with some baked tofu):

This is Hugh's (screenshot from the kindle book). So mine's not a million miles off.

Overall it's nice but I found it a bit lacking in flavour. I'd make it again but I'd probably add a bit more lemon juice and maybe some more fresh herbs, just to perk it up a bit. This does have a spritz of lemon and some fresh parsley at the end, but it could have done with MOAR.

I loved the lemon and hazelnuts on top, that worked super well and I'll be using that idea again!

Overall, there's some interesting looking dishes in this book and I like that there's lots of recipes using veggies I rarely or never use. I'm planning to try some more of them out over the summer, including the roast fennel, new potato and tomato stew and the new potatoes and lentils with coriander and tamarind sauce.

Have you got this book? What do you think? What have you made/liked/disliked from the book?

Hope you have an awesome weekend, all.

Laters
Sal xXx

Vegan MoFo 2019 - Day 1 (ish)

Hi you and happy MoFo!! I'm only a day late, what? It's been 4 years since I last participated in MoFo and I decided that I wanted to do it this year to ease myself back into blogging. haha.

I swear i'm not naked, my top is just strapless because my house is a million degrees today!

I have decided not to follow the daily prompts and to come up with my own themes instead. I also, being realistic, don't think I will manage to blog every day, so I've set 3 themes and my plan is a minimum of 3 posts a week, with the odd bonus post if I get extra time.

It's always difficult picking themes and it's great that the MoFo organisers help you along with that, if you don't want to come up with your own.

But I had the most fun with MoFo when I picked themes such as veganising Jamie Oliver's 15 minute meals (see those posts HERE) or the year I decided at the last minute, my theme would be cockney rhyming slang! (HERE!)

This year's themes are:

- Monday: Veganising....
- Wednesday: What I ate
- Friday: Testing a recipe from a vegan cookbook or blog

I picked the first one because, as mentioned above, one year for MoFo, one of my themes was veganising Jamie's Oliver's 15 minute meals and I loved doing that. So, not wanting to just totally rip myself off and do the same theme again, I decided I would enlist Mr Alien to help me pick some non-vegan recipes to veganise.

The second I picked so I could eek out my holiday food pics. hehe

Lastly, I had the idea a while ago to start a series on the blog, of testing out recipes from other blogs and so if it goes well, this may be the start of it.

I'll be doing a second post today, because it's Friday and I have tested a recipe from a vegan cookbook for you. But for now, i'm gonna tell you a bit about me.

If you've been following me for ages, you know some of this already but if not, hi! I'm Sal. I just turned 40 this year and I live with my lovely husband, Simon, in the south east of England. We don't have any floofy companions (yet!) but our neighbourhood does have a lot of cats, so there's usually one lurking around to pet.

I've been vegan since 1 January 2008 and I started this blog a couple of months later, because at the time I found blogs super helpful for getting ideas of what to eat and how to cook it. There was very limited vegan options in restaurants back then and the only easy to find meat subs were soya mince, granose sos-mix (remember that?) and tofu. Meat subs were really only available if you were lucky, in Holland and Barrett and also in fancy health food stores, in cities way cooler than mine.

So I learned to cook again and I learned to bake. And now there's vegan options in pretty much every chain restaurant and pub on the high street and even the supermarkets have whole coolers dedicated to veg*n food; what a time to be alive :)

I won't ramble on too long about why I don't blog as much anymore but I do miss it and am looking forward to the challenge of regular blogging again, for MoFo.

So, let's do this.

Laters
Sal xXx

I can feel it comin in the air tonight....

MoFo oh MoFo....

If you want to air drum (mandatory) - here you go: YOU'RE WELCOME.

See ya in August MoFos!

Sal
xXx

Poundland / Makeup Gallery Updated Vegan List

Hello everyone.

I know, long time no post and all that. Let's skip over that!

I heard in one of the FB beauty groups today that Poundland's liquid eyeliner is no longer vegan, so I asked them for a new list, as THIS POST is a popular one of mine. I'm sorry to say it's true. So I'm going to put together a post about vegan eyeliners for those of you that like this one but in the meantime, here is the updated list of vegan items from the Poundland Makeup Gallery range:

Vegan

• Intense Lipgloss
• Lip Liner
• Kohl Eyeliner
• Cuticle Care
• Top Coat
• Healthy Nails
• Nail Hardener
• All Coloured Nail Polish
• Ridge Filler 

Vegetarian, not vegan

• Lipstick
• Foundation
• Liquid Eyeliner

  

Not Vegetarian or vegan

• Sheer Lipgloss
• Pressed Powder
• Concealer
• Bronzer
• Blusher
• Eyeshadow
• Eyebrow Pencil 
• Lengthening Mascara
• Volumising Mascara

 

See ya soon
Sal
xXx

BOOTS/NO.7 etc

Hi there, long time no speak, just popping in to post a quick update on Boots.


As of today, I'm officially removing Boots/No7/SEVENTEEN/Botanics etc from my list of brands I'm happy to buy from. I've seen numerous comments on facebook from former employees saying they have seen correspondence referring to use of animal tested ingredients. Also today I've seen a response from Boots to someone saying outright that some of their suppliers 'may' have to test ingredients or components on animals.


They're straight up too shady and 'grey' for me to trust them and so I can no longer be confident they're cruelty free. So they're now a no-no for me.


I'll be back properly real soon - I have some epic eats to share with you from my recent trip to San Diego and Las Vegas! It's gonna be a good one!


Have an ace weekend. It's raining here after a month of a heatwave YAY - I'm off to dance in it!


Sal x

Alien on Toast is 10!

So this Monday just gone, my blog turned 10. TEN!! I can't believe I have been blogging for a decade, where did that time go?

Back then I had only been vegan a couple of months, was living in a little flat, on my own, in my late 20s, finding my feet with veganism. I found it frustrating to eat out as NOWHERE really understood vegan!

Skip forward 10 years, I'm a newlywed (technically still? I dunno), about to move house again hopefully in the next few months with my awesome husband. Still vegan YAY but in a world where it is SO much easier to be vegan.

New products being released all the time, almost all chain restaurants and even pubs (which were always the most difficult) releasing vegan menus.

My blog has changed a lot over the years. It started off with this POST! Most of my posts back then were just pic spam of what I'd eaten recently. Usually terrible photos taken with flash!

I can't say my photography has improved that much, but the pic spam has gone, as now we have Instagram, that's really replaced those kinds of posts.

I blog about food and beauty now and I have a youtube channel, something I never thought I'd wanna do back then.

I guess all this waffle is really to say THANK YOU! To whoever is reading this. Whether you've been with me since 2008 or since today, I appreciate every single one of you that clicks on a blog post or watches a video.

And because I love you so much, I'm doing a giveaway. Maybe more than 1, stay tuned. I haven't exactly figured out what will be in it yet, but I've started putting it together. So watch this space or follow me on Twitter / Instagram or Youtube if you want to know about it when it's ready.

Sending you all love and cake! Hey maybe I need to make a blog birthday cake?

Sal xXx