What I've been eating at home

Oh Dear.

I've not been very good at keeping to my New Year's Resolution of blogging more often.

However, I gone further than just 'Being more vegan' and have actually gone vegan.  I was going to write a blog about why I've made this decision, but developed writer's block and didn't attempt to blog again for over a month. Therefore I'm just going to abandon that idea, it's not like there anything that's not been said before.

Being vegan hasn't meant eating dull food, otherwise I would have cracked by now. I thought I would use this post to update you on what I've been making at home.

I've been making a fair few noodle dishes, the first one below is some microwave noodles I picked up at Home & Bargains that were marked vegan along with some coleslaw mix I marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic and ginger and then wrapped in rice paper and some stir fried mushrooms.

The DVD box set in the top left hand corner is Father Ted.

This noodle dish is peanutty noodles made using this recipe, again with stir fried mushrooms and some crispy kale 'seaweed' made using this recipe.

An all time favorite, pasta with broccoli, pesto and pine nuts served with garlic bread.  The pesto I use is Zest's vegan pesto however, I've heard that technically this is not a pesto (however, I don't care, it's yum!). The garlic bread is ASDA smart price from the frozen food aisle (the smart price unfrozen garlic bread is not vegan).

This next picture is really something I eat at work, and is more of an idea than an actual recipe. As I get up at 6am for work, and have to be out the house by 6.30 I eat breakfast at work. At the start of the week I fill little containers with porridge oats, ground flax seed, almond butter, raisins and some healthy chocolate fudge sauce made using this recipe, pour over some milk alternative (I like oat and almond milk), pop on the lid and put it in the fridge. Then each morning, take a pot to work and warm it up in the microwave for a minute.

Next time I'm getting Hazelnut butter- mmm vegan nutella!

Buffalo cauliflower (missed out the sauce and put some Nando's Mild Peri Peri sauce on instead), bbq beans (just squeeze in some bbq sauce into regular beans) and some roasted parsnips.  Cauliflower is not my favorite veg, but it's flavour improves when roasted and it retains more of it's vitamins compared to boiling.

Not the best picture, but carrot cake pancakes for pancake day.

A recent discovery, is this vegan mozzarella recipe. I'm not a big cheese fan, but I do miss it's ability to hold toppings on a pizza.

I usually go a bit crazy with pizza toppings, this is quite reserved for me!

I also made a vegan moxy, avocado and red onion toastie, The Boy had to take the toastie maker apart to clean it afterwards as I got a bit carried away with the moxy and it went EVERYWHERE!

Whenever I'm eating alone, this is my go to dish as The Boy refuses to touch nutritional yeast.  Before my vegan days, I would have snubbed mac and cheese, but it's kind of like Pop Tarts- before going vegetarian, I hated pop tarts (I hate sugary breakfast items- my Mum very rarely let me have things like coco pops so now anything like that for breakfast just seems strange) but when I because veggie and found out that the frosted pop tarts had gelatine in the icing and therefore were unsuitable for vegetarians I became obsessed with finding the unfrosted versions.  Now I'm vegan, I developed a similar obsession with vegan mac and cheese.  This version is vegan mac and trees (name from the addition of broccoli) and is from Isa's Chandra's Appetite for Reduction, sometimes I'll add peas instead/as well.  I don't think the sauce tastes of cheese (as it isn't cheese- duh!) but it's very tasty and as I was never a big cheese fan it isn't a big deal.  I added some Zest pesto to the sauce in the picture below.

I have a bit of a cheat's way of cooking pasta- bring the water to the boil, then add your pasta.  When it comes back to the boil, pop a lid on and turn off the hob completely. The pasta will cook in the same amount of time as on the packet, but without using as much energy. I always have some frozen broccoli in the freezer and I usually chuck it in with the pasta just before I turn the gas off, this will also works with fresh broccoli too.

I think that's enough for now!  Just shows you that vegans don't just live on lentils!