Alien on Toast

I can't think of a post title.

2013-05-10T08:51:00.001-07:00

Woo woo it's Friday. I hope everyone's week has been mighty fine. We actually has some lovely weather over the bank holiday so we decided to have another barbecue. You have to make the most of the weather in the UK as it seems to have buggered off again and we're not sure when it will return!

My plate was pretty similar to the last post, only I made a bean salad with green & kidney beans, some fresh sweetcorn and a bit of red pepper. We ran out of garlic so had to make do with regular bread - oh the hardship!

This was just a quicky dinner I did last week. I was gonna make risotto but I did have the rice I thought I had so I used bulghur wheat instead. Pretty simple, I just cooked the bulghur in veggie stock and while it was cooking I roasted up some chunks of butternut squash, some asparagus and some mushrooms. Then add the end I stirred in the squash and some peas.

Last Saturday was my gorgeous Godson's christening and my best friend asked me to make cupcakes for the do afterwards. I did chocolate with coconut icing (pink wrappers) and choc chip with orange icing (blue wrappers). They went down pretty well, but then who doesn't love a cupcake?

Last night I was gonna make sausage & mash, as I bought some Linda Mc sausages on my lunch break, but instead I decided to cook the potatoes with a bit of onion in veggie stock. This is something that was in an ancient weight watchers book that mum & I used to love once upon a time. I forgot how good potatoes are when they are cooked this way. Plus you get gravy all cooked into it, so don't have to dirty a jug making bisto! WIN.

This meal was one that I got 2 meals out of, yay leftovers! I made up a quick bolognaisey type sauce with some Linda Mc Cartney Mince, chopped onion, courgette & pepper and some jarred tomato sauce for a super quick tea.

Then the next day, I added some spices and lots of chilli and fresh coriander and used it to fill tacos. Perfect for when you're running short of time, like I often am on a week night.

And lastly - breakfast from Wai Kika Moo Kau the other weekend. I went to Brighton to hang out with Jojo as it was the last time I'll see her for a bit, as she's off on her travels to America for a while. This was a pretty good brekkie, although the tofu was a bit soft for me. I have a weird thing about tofu texture (remnants of gallstone-inflicted food aversions!) and I tend to overcook it a bit so it is chewy! But the rest was good and I really like it in there.

Have a rad weekend!

Laterz
xXx

Gimme gimme s'more, gimme gimme s'more

2013-04-22T05:08:00.000-07:00

We actually have had some sunshine the last few days, which after months of unseasonable cold and snow, was lovely!

In fact it was so nice yesterday, we busted out the barby for the first barbecue of the season. I had just bought some vegusto sausages so I knew what I was having, and to go along we also had:

The corn & edamame salad from Veganomicon. I don't make this much but I need to, it's so simple but it's delicious! My mum and dad both loved it too.

I made a salad of just lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and radishes and just dressed it with a simple olive oil and lemon juice dressing.

I also did some potatoes Jamie Oliver style (boil them, then put them in foil with lightly smashed garlic cloves, rosemary (I used dried) and salt & pepper), then put in oven for at least 20 minutes (mine had about half an hour). So good.

Also, I bought some fancy olives from Waitrose. They don't always have these because they're obviously popular but that is because they are AWESOME! They have a fat wodge of garlic and jalapeno in each one. YEAH.

I also did some garlic bread (just a Sainsbury's basics one, which is accidentally vegan) but I forgot to take a pic, so you'll have to settle for seeing it lurking on my plate...

And for dessert I joyously remembered that ages ago I bought some vegan marshmallows, for no other reason than I found them in a shop near where I live! But we didn't have any graham crackers (well we did but they were 2 years out of date) so we used speculoos biscuits instead (Lotus Caramel biscuits) and it was awesome.

Inside Shot

The first one I was mucking around with so it didn't melt enough. I did better on the second attempt though but I ate it too quick to get a pic.

Fingers crossed the warm weather stays with us for a while.

Laterz

xXx

Thread title inspiration: It's Britney Bitch

FIVE... what you waitin FOUR....

2013-04-11T03:41:00.002-07:00

.. if ya wanna three three two two one, LET'S DO IT!

I miss the 90s.

HELLOOOOOOOO!

So this blog turned 5 years old in March (dodgy 90s song reference duly explained?); I can't believe it. If it were my baby s/he'd be in school by now - and sorely neglected, but that's a whole nother matter and this just started to get weird.

So yeah food. I haven't posted in so long that it is feckin April already and I haven't even shown you my christmas dinner. By this point I know you're thinking 'no one gives a shit Sal'. And I could probably keep the pic and post it this year if my christmas dinner turns out shit. But I won't. Here it is! I used Julie Hasson's awesome recipe from Vegan Diner for the chicken style roast. I've made this 3 or 4 times now, it is so easy and tasty!

Merry Christmas! :o)

I made a Christmas cake too but I forgot to take a pic. So here are the gingerbread cupcakes with lemon icing that I made instead of my usual chocolate log (recipe from vegan cupcakes take over the world).

A few weeks ago I went down to Brighton for VegFest where my awesome friend Jojo had a stall for her not-for-profit bakery. Look at all those cakes! They were amazing and she was sold out about half way through the day. There were a lot of disappointed faces on those that didn't have the sense to get there early I can tell you. This doesn't even show them all but as you are all well aware, I fail at photography.

Afterwards, I went over to my Brother and his Fiancee's place to spend the night and so I decided the night before to make them some cookies. I wanted to make chocolate cookies with mint extract and chunks of minty chocolate in, because my bro is a fan of mint chocolate. But I couldn't find ANY minty chocolate! So I bought these things....

Genius right? No. They are basically just sugar so they turned into a caramelly hard sugar mess instead of cookies.

FAIL

COOKIE FAIL SAD FACE

Speaking of fails - PASTY FAIL!

By the way my pasty fail face is similar to aforementioned cookie fail face. Only less bovvered. Cuz I still gonna eat it.

And just so this isn't a post full of fail - JAZZY UNFAIL. Cuz who doesn't like a cat in a box with laser eyes? Weirdos, that's who!

What else can I show you.... oh yes. Pie! This is the wonderfully fabulous Mixed Mushroom, Porcini & Ale pie from Mildred's in Soho, that I had on a day in London with my BFFs. It comes with chips and my favourite vegetable: mushy peas.

I had dessert too: it was some sort of chocolate truffle cake but looking on their menu now I don't see it, so I dunno the right name for it. GAH.

This next pic was a jolly nice pasta dish that I knocked up when I was trying to think of something to do with the half a leftover vegusto sausage!

So I fried it in a wee bit of oil then added a chopped tomato, some chopped (jarred) roasted red pepper, garlic, a shallot and a good squeeze of tomato puree. I added a bit of pasta water to make a sauce, some light soya cream and a crap tonne of nooch. Oh and lots of red chili flakes. Then some fresh basil on top to make it seem fancy. It was GOOD.

And lastly but not leastly I made a massive shepherds pie, because my friend was coming over and I figured I would eat leftovers for a day or so. But she didn't end up eating at mine so I had to finish it off myself. After 6 days I was kind of glad to see the end of it, even though it was super delish.

I used lentils as the base and the topping was half regular and half sweet potato, which is a magical combo!

I'm outta here.

Laterz
xXx

What will your daddy do when he sees your mama kissing Santa Claus?

2012-12-19T06:25:00.000-08:00

"Ah haaaaah! Are you hanging up your stocking on the wall....."

Oh I love christmas! There's less than a week to go and I'm still not bored of christmas music yet!

I figured I'd try and get in a post before chrimbo so that I can clear my camera out before the xmas foodz. So here goes...

Last week was my work xmas do. We went for an Italian meal and I gotta say, the menu was pretty lacking in veggie options, let alone veggie options easy to veganise. So I went safe and got bruschetta without the cheese/pesto that normally comes with ....

please excuse my even worse than usual food photography, the light was terrible in there!

Main was more bread and tomato in the form of cheeseless pizza. Better than a pizza of sadness but not as good as homemade.

The day after the party, I headed down to Brighton to hang out with my friend Jojo. We had an awesome day hanging out in Brighton. We went to the new Duke of York cinema at Komedia and got hot dogs. Now I was sure I took a photo but I can't find it! Damn. But luckily Jojo has posted a review on her blog and has a photo of the hot dog we both had that day. Lucky!

Later on that day, before we went to a late night viewing of Gremlins at the aforementioned cinema, we* made a roast dinner, it was pretty epic. It was the seitan en-croute from 500 Vegan Recipes and it was good!

Here's the top of it - FANCY!

And the plate shot! (Before being covered in gravy)

*Jojo made it really, I just peeled some potatoes!

Speaking of roasts, I made one other week. I used Julie Hasson's recipe from Vegan Diner for chicken style roast seitan and I REALLY liked it. In fact I liked it so much that I am making it for christmas day. I will cook it a bit longer though as it was a little undercooked in the middle. This also got Daddy Alien's seal of approval ("It's better than those slimy ones you made last week! Nicer texture") So there you go! I had it with sage & onion stuffing balls (hehe balls), broccoli, mash, bisto gray and sprouts - which may look burnt but they're not. Honest.

Earlier than day I made myself a fry up for breakfast (I love Sundays). Scramble, sausage patties, bagel, mini potato waffles and hoops! YEAH.

Speaking of brunch foods... I bought some of the Redwoods smoked salmon style slices at the Veg Fayre the other week.

I had them on a bagel with some tofutti cream cheese....

I thought they were GROSS! SO GROSS! But, a lot of PPKers seem to be diggin them. For me it's the texture, they are very similar to what I remember smoked salmon to be like and it grossed me out. I binned the rest of the packet.

Lastly, just because it was on my camera, last night's dinner. Scramble with roasted potatoes, asparagus and green beans with some reggae reggae ketchup to make it extra classy!

That's all for now, I'll be back after chrimbo with holiday foodz!

To all those that celebrate it, have a wonderful Christmas!

Laterz

xXx

Wee chooky birdie so lo lo...

2012-12-06T05:30:00.000-08:00

....laid an egg on the windy-so, the windy-so, began to crack, wee chooky birdy quack quack quack!

That silly song is in my head today, because I was trying to come up with chicken puns and all that came to mind is a song my Nan used to sing to us. She is in my thoughts today because it is 6 years today since she passed away. I keep remembering all the silly (and quite often rude) Scottish songs she used to sing to us as kids.

But yeah anyway, chicken! Last week I decided to make the No Cluck Cutlets from Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day, because I had a day off and had a bit of extra time to cook on a Monday for once.

I am a pretty lazy creature and I was kicking myself a bit for picking a recipe that required more effort than my normal lazy attempts at seitan, (rolling out cutlets - SO tedius) but in the end I was really glad that I was 'patient' because these cutlets are AWESOME!! I basically ate one every day for a week, luckily I froze half of them or I'd still be eating them and probably be bored by now.

The first one I had literally out of the cooking pot with some smash (yes I'm shameful, I know) and peas and sweetcorn.

I know it looks a bit pale and dry in this pic, but that's because it was before I COVERED that shit in Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from VWaV. That stuff is the shiznit, is it not?? (My dad tasted some and his verdict was "that goop in the pot tasted good!" haha). So yeah, as you can see below, it needed a before pic to be taken too!

Another meal I had was a cutlet that I dipped in seasoned (just salt & pepper) flour and pan fried. This was SO GOOD. I roasted up some potatoes, BNsquash and sprouts and steamed some broccoli to go with. The sauce is leftover Punk Rock Gravy.

Another meal I used them for was this accompaniment to fried rice. The rice was awesome, I made a plain tofu scramble first to approximate the egg pieces then added cooked rice, peas and grated carrot and fried it up. Then a bit of soy sauce to season. The sauce for the seitan I just mixed together some peanut butter, coconut yoghurt*, Chinese 5 spice powder and bit of water to thin it. Honestly it didn't blow me away but it was ok. I added some sriracha on top to de-bland it a bit. The rice was superrad though. (*that coconut yoghurt? yeah, he'll be back!)

Saturday night, my mum was out so my dad suggested getting a pizza. Honestly the thought of another pizza of sadness was too much for me so I bought the stuff and made my own. I used the VWaV recipe for crust but instead of making 2 thin ones, made one HUGE fat beast of a crust. It was filthy good. The toppings were mushrooms, sweetcorn, fresh tomatoes, jarred artichokes, jarred jalapenos, a chopped up hemp spacebar and a crap tonne of Tesco's medium vegan cheddar, which melts SO well. This pizza was humungous, we actually had loads of leftovers, which never happens with pizza in our house.

On Sunday, it was Animal Aid's annual Vegan Christmas Fayre in Kensington. I have been the last few years and although there's not much new there anymore, it's fun way to waste a couple of hours and gain a few pounds. I was going to take photos of everything I ate that day but obviously forgot (blaming the jaeger bombs for that!). Although I did get a photo of the awesome cheesy potato pie that Jojo and I both got about 2 minutes after we walked through the door. Hopefully she will remember the name of the stall, cuz I'm fucked if I can!

OK so that yoghurt I' mentioned before... I'm pretty sure I've blogged about it before, but I love this stuff. It's quite sweet but not so sweet that it can't be used in savoury dishes.

It's really thick, it's like coconut cream!

I use it quite a bit because putting in a couple of spoonfuls of this plus some water or veggie stocks is so many less calories than a tin of coconut milk! My favourite way to use it is a noodle / soup type bowl. I just chuck a bunch of veggies into boiling veg stock and some thair red curry paste, add a portion of dried noodles and cook it about 5 minutes then stir in the yoghurt. It's really good, this one had some cut up leftover baked tofu in too.

And this was tempeh that I fried in hot jerk paste with steamed broccoli then I just stirred some of the coconut yoghurt into cooked plain rice. Really good.

Last night I also made a veg curry with the last of the pot, but I forgot to take a pic! Doh.

Anyways, hope you all have a fab weekend whatever you end up doing and that you don't get squished in the shops if you go christmas shopping! Cross your fingers for me!

Laterz

xXx

Opa!

2012-11-27T05:21:00.002-08:00

AKA, my Dad's Big Fat Greek Birthday Feast!

My shiney new copy of Vegan Eats World arrived this month and I've been excited to receive it for ages. So this month was Daddy Alien's birthday and we celebrated by me cooking us a fancy meal and because I love Greece and Greek food, I picked the Pastichio, Greek Salad with Cashew Feta and the Walnut Spice Sticky Cake to finish.

I started with a bit of a cheat, some shop-bought greek mezze type items. I bought mini pittas, dolmades (stuffed vine leaves), chargrilled veggies and hummus. Also, those olives were stuffed with a big wodge of garlic and a jalapeno - they were AWESOME! I made the tzatziki, because a vegan shop bought version is not an option. It was easy, just grated cucumber, garlic, soya yoghurt, chopped mint, pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon juice.

Here's the pastichio just out of the oven. Pastichio is a Greek pasta dish that is kind of like a lasagne only you use tube pasta instead of sheets and it has some greek spices in there.

There's 2 options for this dish, without or without aubergine/eggplant. I chose to include it and I'm glad I did, although I think it could have done with being roasted a bit earlier than called for so it could be cooked some more in the tomato sauce. But it was still great. If you've read the recipe, you might notice I forgot to sprinkle nutmeg on top! Eek. Next time I'll remember!

Inside shot, with the cashew feta salad. I wasn't sure my mum & dad would like this but they liked it all.

And for dessert, the Walnut Spice Sticky Cake. This cake is SO GOOD. You must make it, now. Do it now. Seriously, go now!

It was great leftovers for breakfast as well as being an excellent end to this meal, with a glass of wine and some X-Factor! I should say though that it took way longer to bake than the book said, but I know that all ovens are not equal. It was still liquid so I ended up turning it down and cooking it longer, because I didn't want to burn the top.

This pic is right after I took it out the oven and poured the syrup over

And after cutting

The following day, my brother and his fiance were round, so we all went for a lovely Thai meal in one of my dad's favourite restaurants. As puddings are not normally something I can eat in a regular restaurant, I made my dad some birthday cupcakes for us all to enjoy when we got back. They are the basic chocolate cupcakes from VCTOtW, I just upped the almond extract to a full teaspoon. Then the buttercream I flavoured with Monin Cherry Syrup and stuck a glace cherry on top.

I'll leave you with a pic of the birthday boy enjoying his cupcake!

Laterz

xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 31: What I ate yesterday

2012-10-31T05:26:00.004-07:00

It's the last day of MoFo and Halloween but I don't have anything spooky for you I'm afraid.

Instead I have a 'here's what I ate yesterday' post for you. My friend Jojo has been doing these this MoFo and I love reading them. So here's mine.

Breakfast was a new cereal (new to me anyway) that I found in Sainsburys. They have a couple like these are labelled vegan. I also got the maple & pecan crisp but I haven't opened that yet.

Unfortunately cereals like this are quite caloriffic and heavy, so you don't get much for your 50g! It was tasty though.

I had a bottle of OJ when I got to work

Lunch was a wholemeal roll with chickpeas salad in (chickpeas, mayo, sweetcorn, salt & nori flakes). The roll was still warm when I bought it on the way to work and it smelt sooo good. I love fresh bread.

I also had a packet of snack a jacks, which I'm a bit addicted to.

Mid-afternoon snack - some fruit!

And dinner, a marinated grilled portobello mushroom, steamed green veg, corn on the cob and some pasta with a quick noochy sauce.

And so endeth MoFo. It's been great blogging frequently again and I don't even feel that burnt out, maybe because I was too lazy to think of a theme! hehe.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 30: Saucy Chickpeas

2012-10-30T03:01:00.002-07:00

I can't believe it's almost the end of MoFo already! I don't think any of my posts were especially inspiring this year, haha, but it has been great reading everyone else's blogs. I totally forgot how much inspiration blogs can provide for meals.

Case in point, yesterday's dinner. Coronation chicken used to be a big favourite of mine in my pregan days and since going vegan I've made it with tofu and seitan, but never did I think of using chickpeas, like I saw over on the veghotpot blog yesterday.

I thought this idea was genius so I decided to make my own version. I didn't add any dried fruit, mine was just about 1/4 cup of soya yoghurt, 1 tsp of korma paste and 1 tbsp of mango chutney, plus a bit of salt. I added half a tin of chickpeas and served it over a baked potato. It was awesome!

See ya tomorrow for the last MoFo post.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 29: Pizzaaaahh

2012-10-29T03:12:00.001-07:00

Friday night I decided to make pizza for dinner. I bought yeast and everything! The dough was really simple, just a cup of flour, a sachet of instant yeast and a bit of olive oil and warm water. Unfortunately the toppings I had in the cupboard/fridge were a little thin on the ground so I had to improvise.

I had no pizza sauce, so I whizzed up some sun dried tomatoes, tomato puree and a bit of water to get the right consistency and used that as my sauce. I had no facon or chicken pieces etc or even any smoked tofu so I cut up what was left of my Fry's chicken nuggets and put them on along with some peppers and sweetcorn and fresh tomato. Usually I put the cheese on last but this time I put it on under the toppings and I'm glad I did this, because the cheese stayed super gooey and melty, instead of going a bit hard and crispy like it does if you put it on last. (I used the cheezly soy free cheddar that I bought by mistake, but it was actually really good!)

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 28 - Jalapeno Cornbread

2012-10-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

I had a few days off from posting because there's nothing more boring that a sick person babbling on about eating soup. So yesterday I made some jalapeno & cheeze cornbread, it was pretty good warm out of the oven....

Even better when I made it into french toast and served with a scramble. The scramble was really basic, all I put it in was a bit of turmeric for colour and then nooch and a bit of black salt, regular salt and some soya cream. Yum.

Here's the recipe in case you fancy having a go too:

Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread
Ingredients:
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup of plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sweetcorn kernels
1 loose cup vegan cheese of your choice (I used Cheezly soy free cheddar)
1 cup almond milk
1 tsp vinegar
1/4 cup rapeseed (canola) oil
Chopped Jalapenos from a jar (I used 5 or 6 rings finely chopped, but adjust it to your taste)

Method:
Preheat Oven to 180C/350F.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix wet ingredients together, pour into dry and mix until just combined. Pour into a loaf tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack until cool enough to slice.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 24 - Llamas!

2012-10-24T01:51:00.000-07:00

The worst thing about being off my food during MoFo is that I have nothing to show you really as all I've managed to eat lately is soup and smash.

But at the weekend I found these in my local Tesco. Llamas!!

Look how cute they are!!

I mainly bought them cuz I liked the little message on the side "Llamas don't go 'Bah, they hum'. BAHAHAHAHA. As my mum would say, little things please little minds!

Anyway, they seem vegan from the ingredients and they're not the greatest thing I've ever eaten but they're not too bad! I reckon they'd be good dipped in hummus or something.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 23: Sick Foodz

2012-10-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

So I have caught a lovely strain of lurgy that is going around and because of this, I am totally off my food. This makes me super sad. Basically dinner the last couple of days has consisted of a tin of soup I've heated up and then eaten 2 bites of.

Lamey Lame-O or what!

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel like eating actual foodz.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 22: Chilli & Cheesecake

2012-10-22T01:06:00.001-07:00

Morning all, it's foggy and grey and crap out there today and I could just do with another bowl of this chilli that my aunty made me for Saturday night.

It was really good and I had it over a baked potato.

I didn't take any pictures of last night's tea, my mum made her awesome roasties and made me some veggie mince to go with it, why does mum's mince always taste better than mine??

Anyway, I did get a photo of dessert. I found this lemon cheesecake in the freezer sectin in Tesco. (I will have to look up the brand when I get home). I didn't have high hopes for it, because generally bought vegan cheesecake is mingin. But it wasn't that bad. The base was a bit rubbish, it was a bit too cakey and as you can see, all kind of fell apart which is why it's in a heap next to the slice. We had some strawberries with it to make it less boring.

Sorry for the crappy pictures, it was really dark when I took these so the lighting was terrible.

Have a good day all.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 20: Birthday Cupcakes

2012-10-20T04:40:00.001-07:00

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 19: Lamey McLame Pants

2012-10-19T03:05:00.000-07:00

Last night, I literally had about 30 minutes to get dinner cooked and in ma belleh. So I lamed out and cooked a frys chicken burger and some smash.

It was good because I love dirty food like that but it was so amazingly lame that I didn't bother taking a pic.

So salvation lies in an old photo of dinner from about a month ago. I made the Portobello Feijoada from Viva Vegan. I LOVE this book but I really haven't tried enough of the recipes yet. I made this recipe a while ago when I had friends over for dinner and it went down really well. So I'd been dreaming of it for a while. I bought the dried beans, got the TVP chunks and even remembered to soak the beans overnight so I could crack on the next day. It takes a while to make this dish but it is so worth it.

I served it over brown rice, with some diced avocado on top. I was gonna make guac but I literally had none of the ingredients to go in it, except the avo! Rubbish. It didn't matter, it was still great.

This recipe makes LOADS and I didn't bother halving it this time, I just ate the leftovers for lunch for a few days. So. Good.

Tonight I am cupcake making for a party, so hopefully I'll have pics of them for you tomorrow.

Happy Friday all!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 18: Eggplant Parm

2012-10-18T03:58:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was one of those days when I had already decided what I was going to cook for dinner before 3pm, so I spent the last couple of hours at work dreaming of it!

I had an aubergine in my fridge that I bought a week ago, so it was starting to look a little sad. I turned it into Aubergine/Eggplant Parm. I'm sure I've made/blogged about this before, but anyway. I looked up a couple of recipes to get the general gist of how it's done and then went my own way, like I normally do.

I didn't have any dried breadcrumbs and I was too lazy to make any (and to clean the food processor) so I used cornmeal instead. I dipped the slices of aubergine in flour, shook it off then dipped in almond milk then seasoned cornmeal. Then they are fried til they get a little brown and crispy.

To assemble you just lay them on top of a bit of tomato (marianara if you're in the US) sauce; I used a jar of Dolmio, as I didn't fancy spending ages making my own.

Then it gets more sauce and a crap tonne of cheese. I used tesco cheddar style and some cheezly parmesan.

Then it got baked at 180C/350F until this gooey saucy little minx came out the oven!

I was googling things to serve with it and some people were saying pasta, which I thought would be way too much. Others said green salad, which I'm not a massive fan of. So I made a bean salad with blanched green beans, black eyed beans, tomatoes, red peppers, cucumber, sweetcorn and sun-dried tomatoes. The dressing was easy, just some of the oil from the sun dried tomatoes, cider vinegar and salt & pepper. Simple and tasty.

I also made some cheater garlic bread (a ciabatta roll, split down the middle and spread thickly with vitalite, then sprinkled with nooch and garlic powder and wrapped in foil, then baked along with the aubergine for the last 10 minutes).

This meal was great, I really enjoyed it and I'll be making it again soon! But I couldn't eat it all, it was super filling!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 17: Dude, you're fugly

2012-10-17T04:45:00.001-07:00

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

Vegan MoFo Day 16: Pizza of Sadness

2012-10-16T04:45:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in my previous posts that when I'm onsite for work, I have to take provisions. But there's only so many pot noodles a girl can take before she needs actual food. So on Sunday night we decided to book a table in the hotel restaurant. Premier Inn is really not that veggie friendly, although they do have soy milk in the mornings if you ask for it!

There are 2 things on the menu (main dishes) that are veggie; a pie that has cheese baked into and a pasta dish that has pesto and parmesan shavings. So I asked what could be made vegan and the waitress looked terrified, like I'd just threatened to batter her puppy. I suggested maybe they could do the pasta with a different sauce instead of pesto and off she went to ask. They can't do this, it's cooked in it (ie, it's frozen and they microwave it!) The following conversation was one of the most painful ordering experiences of my life which consisted of her asking me what I want(!!) and me trying to explain that I'm not sure because I have no idea what they have in the kitchen as everything seems to be pre-made! After no suggestions were forthcoming, I asked if the pizzas were fresh and could they be made without cheese, they could so I went with that. I looked on the list of toppings and the only veggie thing on there was mushrooms. So yeah I wasn't that hopeful. I told her just put whatever veggies they had on there.

This is what I got, tomato sauce, onions, mushrooms and ... tomatoes. I can't lie, it wasn't that bad and it filled me up, but it was pretty sad. Tonight I am looking forward to making actual food!

Here it is in all it's ~~glory?~~ sadness

And in case you ever find yourself stuck at the NEC in Birmingham and need some food; look in one of the restaurants inside the hall! There is subway (if you want veggies and nothing else), there's a couple of Wetherspoons pubs if they're open and there's starbucks if you want a latte. But as Starbucks don't do their vegan sandwich anymore you need to go inside the halls for a vegan sarnie. The NEC caterers do a hummus and veggie sandwich that's vegan. I know, not that exciting but it's actually not bad for NEC food. After 3 days though I gave up and had chips! haha

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 15: Conveyor Belt of Win

2012-10-15T03:12:00.000-07:00

So carrying on from my post yesterday about surviving onsite, we have discovered another way to help the days go quicker when we're bored. And that is, what my workmate and I affectionately refer to as the Crap Bag.

Usually it consists of stuff along the lines of dirty instant noodles, loads of crisps, snack a jacks, 2 or 3 varieties of biscuits and a crap tonne of sweets.

Here is a pic that I took earlier this year when we were onsite. I posted it on facebook with the caption 'Conveyor Belt of Win' and my brother for some reason found this hilarious. Sometimes when he is eating crisps he'll just say to me "conveyor belt of win?".

How I got this through expenses I still don't know!

This time, I think we surpassed this!!

Going home tonight so hopefully I'll have actual food to post tomorrow! :o)

(I named it the Crap Bag because it still makes me chuckle thinking of one of my favourite Friends scenes!)

Laterz

xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 14: The last known survivor stalks his prey in the night...

2012-10-14T02:06:00.001-07:00

And he's watching us all with the EEEYYYYYYYE, of the tiger.

Ahem, sorry. Was trying to think of songs with Survivor in the title. Sorry Destiny's Child - Eye of the Tiger out-awesomed you!

So, survival. I'm talking surviving being onsite in a crap hotel for work. Generally I struggle onsite and end up eating cereal in my room in the morning and living on hummus sandwiches or PB&J. Sometimes, I'm not even that lucky so I bring some provisions with me.

My provisions include: some longlife soymilk, some cereal packets, snack a jacks, some cup a soups*, peanut butter, some vitalite, cookies that I made (see yesterday's post), some earl grey tea bags and of course - NOOCH. I couldn't go the weekend without this. After 2 nights of gross pot noodles and crisps for dinner I am wishing I bought some Smash with me!!

*The soups - I found these at Morrisons. They have a new range out called NuMe or some crap, which seems to be lower fat stuff. They have about 5 flavours of cup a soup and at least 3 of them look to be vegan. This is unusual as most cup a soups, even own brands, I've found have milk in them. Bad news is, I tried the pea & mint ones last night and they were vile.

Just in case you didn't already think eye of the tiger was awesome, you will now... best outtake EVER!

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 13: You got cookie, so share it maybe?

2012-10-13T01:30:00.000-07:00

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

Vegan MoFo Day 12: I'm Souper, thanks for asking

2012-10-12T02:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Friday peeps. I can't believe we're almost half way through MoFo - it's bananas!

Yes yes, I'm aware that I'm HILarious! But enough of my razor sharp wit, onto the food. I spent AGES yesterday looking through cook books and trying to work out something rad for dinner and in the end I decided just to wing something quick out of the contents of my fridge. I had less than half a tin of chickpeas left that I opened to make the chickpea cutlets, so I smushed 'em up with some vegan mayo, some nori flakes and some sweetcorn to make a faux tuna salad. I stuffed it into a roll and put a tonne of vegan cheese on top for a riff of a tuna melt.

Cheesy goodness before being blasted under a hot grill. I used Tesco's red cheddar, which I surprisingly like. I say surprisingly cuz I always thought Sheese, which this basically is, tasted like butt.

Melty Goodness!

There was so much filling it was bustin out!

To go with it I made a really easy soup by just sauteeing a clove of garlic and a shallot in a teeny bit of oil, then chucking in a tin of chopped tomatoes, half a cup of basmati rice, some dried thyme and some veggie stock. I cooked it for 15 minutes and added some sriracha so it was good and spicy, et voila! Easy as pants and plenty of leftovers for lunch today.

I'm leaving to go onsite for work today, so I'm not sure how good internet access will be, but so far I'm still planning to blog every day. Food onsite is SUPER exciting*, so I bet you guys can't wait for that!

(* = shite!)

Have a good weekend all and think of me walking round yawning and pretending caravans are really interesting, while you're enjoying yourselves! ;o)

Laterz

xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 11: chickpea cutlets of radness

2012-10-11T04:52:00.000-07:00

I decided not to go to the gym last night, as I'm going to be away with work from tomorrow night over the weekend, so won't really have a night to myself for a bit. And because of this I decided to spend a bit longer making dinner. Also I thought my attack class was tonight and it was actually last night! haha oops, that's a fine I'll have to pay next time I book! :(

Anyways.... I went with the chickpea cutlets from Veganomicon. I don't make these that often because I always think they take ages to make, but actually if you have all the ingredients, they really don't take that long at all. I always bake them, I've tried frying like it says in the book but there is ALWAYS gluten strings inside when I've fried. And uncooked stringy seitan makes me wanna barf. So oven it is. But that's good because it gave me time to prepare and cook some mushroom gravy, broccoli, mashed potatoes and green beans.

The gravy was suuuuper easy. Just sauteed up about half a cup of mushrooms with a shallot and a clove of garlic. Then added about half a cup of veggie stock and some thyme. To thicken I mixed about a tablespoon of flour with a couple of tablespoons of soymilk, I added this in then stirred till it thickened. I also (of course) added some nooch! A couple of tablespoons. Quick, easy and yummy.

Leftovers make a great sarnie for lunch the next day by the way!

I also had a bit of an experiment fail, but I'm trying it again, so that is a blog post for the future!

Making cookies tonight - YAY.

Laterz
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 10: Taco Tuesday

2012-10-10T01:47:00.000-07:00

Yes I know that it's Wednesday but this was last night's dinner and apparently I already used the post title I was gonna use, like 4 years ago! Dammit.

So this is what I came up with, with some of that lovely veg I bought yesterday. I decided to keep it really simple, just mushrooms, green pepper, pinto beans, sweetcorn and onions. All sauteed up with a little bit of cumin, paprika, oregano and some jalapenos out of a jar. Oh and some tomato puree.

The tomatoes I bought were far too red and lovely to be cooked so I just chopped them up and put them on top with some lettuce. I served it with plain old brown rice.

I took a pic of the bowl of fixings, as it's really not easy to get photos of filled tacos:

Close up of the filling

See!

Shove in face, YEAH!

See ya tomorrow!
xXx

Vegan MoFo Day 9: Risotto

2012-10-09T05:00:00.001-07:00

I generally start dreaming up what I'm gonna have for dinner around 10 minutes after I've eaten lunch (I get bored!) and I must admit lately, the word uninspired is what springs to mind. I am often in a rush to get dinner eaten and get ready to go to the gym or dance class after work and so I don't take the time to make something awesome that often anymore. So today I have been to the supermarket and bought loads of lovely fresh veg in the hope inspiration will strike tonight!

But as for yesterday I was working out in my head what I could do the half of a butternut squash that was in our fridge and came up with a risotto.

So I got home and was rooting around trying to find an onion but no, nothing. All that I could find was this pathetic specimen, lurking at the back of our pantry! So anyway in it went, along with some yellow pepper.

Whilst rooting around for risotto rice, I found bulgar wheat and decided to use that instead.

I roasted the squash separately and then added it at the end. I kep the flavours pretty simple, just added a bit of thyme, veggie stock and some turmeric for that lovely yellow colour.

I also added just a heaped tsp of this coconut yoghurt that I found in the health food store. It's quite sweet so you don't need much, but I've find this pretty good for replacing coconut milk in stuff when you don't want to add quite that much fat and calories. It went really well with the squash.

I also added some cubed up taifun basil tofu, as I had a pack open and some peas - more than I meant to because my hand slipped! And of course, tonnes of nooch. I thoroughly enjoyed this dinner, even if it wasn't all that exciting!

Laterz
xXx