Morphy Richards Soup Maker

I've got four days off to use up before I leave work at the end of this month and I created a list of jobs to do, but as usual I'm procrastinating.  This morning I spent a good two or so hours watching the Vegan Black Metal Chef on YouTube.  You should watch it, it's hilarious even if he is obsessed with sugar (he put it in baked beans!), Earth Balance, salt and his deep fat fryer!

So, after watching every single episode, I thought I would put off cleaning the bathroom a little longer by writing a blog post. To be fair 'blog' is an item on my to do list so I'm not totally cheating.

For Christmas, my Dad got me a Morphy Richards Soup Maker, which was met with both delight (a new kitchen gadget) and concern over where the hell to put it as I'm running out of space on the worktops and in the cupboards.

Storage issues put aside, it's such a great bit of kit and really cuts down on the mess and washing up usually encountered with making soups.  It has a saute function, so you can fry your onions or leeks and garlic if you choose and then you just throw everything else in along with stock, pop the lid of on and choose either the smooth or chunky mode.  The smooth mode takes 21 minutes and blends the soup as well as cooking it, which removes the need to clean a blender or immersion blender (plus immersion blenders make a hell of a mess!), whereas the chunky mode takes 25 minutes and doesn't blend.  It also had a separate blend function if you decide your smooth soup isn't smooth enough or you would like your chunky soup a little smoother. The soup maker also has a juice function, which I haven't used yet.

The first soup I made was leek and potato, using the recipe in Isa Does It. This is the only smooth soup that I needed to use the blend mode on afterwards but I think this is due to not being able to use the full amount of stock in the recipe because it would have gone above the maximum fill line on the soup maker. Next time I make it I'll probably reduce the ingredients and add more water.

Lots of soup!

The second soup I made, was a spicy butternut squash and apple soup.  I vaguely followed the recipe in Appetite for Reduction, as I hadn't got any cider or the exact amount of ingredients. I kept the skin and seed from the butternut squash and roasted them in a little thyme flavoured olive oil I also got for Christmas and used them to top the soup.  This soup was a little spicy which I liked, but a little on the thin side and a bit bland.  Next time I've try adding the cider and a little less stock.

Today I winged it with my soup creation. I fried onion and garlic in the thyme olive oil, added sweet potato, parsnips, carrots, dried thyme and rosemary along with enough stock to cover the vegetables. It was perfection.

Ignore the mess. I haven't tidied the coffee table!

I would have never have bought this item for myself, but it's something that if I saw it in a shop I would have though was very nifty. It's very easy to clean and the power cord can be detached and stored inside the soup make when not in use which makes a little easier to store.  I'm not really an enthusiastic soup maker, mainly because I like smooth soups and I find it a faff having to blend them, but this gadget makes it souper easy (sorry, I couldn't resist) and I could see myself becoming a little obsessed!

You may notice that some of these photos look a little prettier than normal, that's because I've finally got down with the kids and set up an Instagram account. You can follow me at @boltonianvegan.

Lotus Vegetarian Kitchen

As I said in my previous post, I've been taking plenty of pictures of delicious food, but I've not got round to writing anything up.

Back in November, we visited Lotus Vegetarian Kitchen in Withington, South Manchester for my birthday meal, along with The Boy's parents and twin brother.  

We started off with some vegan prawn crackers. I was so excited, VEGAN PRAWN CRACKERS!!! 

For starters, we went for the Crispy combination to share, which came with spring rolls, chicken skewers in a peanut sauce, samosa, prawn toast, BBQ ribs and seaweed.  Excuse the blurry picture (and also the fact that obviously someone could wait until I'd took the photo to dig in!).

Everyone loved the skewered chicken, which they also do as a main which I would definitely consider getting when we go again. I was excited to try the BBQ ribs too as it's something I never had as meat on the bone use to freak me out (and was part of my decision to go veggie).

The great thing about this meal was that apart from the egg fried rice, I was able to have a taste of everything!

For main, I went for the BBQ roasted veggie duck, with ginger fried rice.

The duck wasn't what I was expecting and came with sauce on the side rather than being cooked in a sauce and although I enjoyed it, I don't think I would choose it again. For some reason I didn't take a picture of the rice but it was absolutely delicious, in fact I was very reluctant to share it with everyone else, but I at the same time I wanted everyone to taste how amazing it was!

Other dishes were veggie beef in satay sauce, some kind of noodle dish (sorry I can't remember which one!), beef in black pepper sauce and chicken in Kung Po sauce.

I was surprise to find that may favorite was the beef in black pepper sauce as beef was something I never use to be that keen on. I wasn't too fond of the chicken in Kung Po sauce as the texture of the chicken was a bit too chewy for my liking and actually tasted more like pork than chicken however it was everyone else's favourite.

In total, there was a vegan, vegetarian and four meat eaters and I think it says a lot about a vegetarian restaurant when even the meat eaters were raving about the food! 

Reviewing 2014 and looking forward to 2015

Last year had some great moments, I went vegan and although I did have a few slip ups along the way, I didn't let them deter me. I got to eat some great vegan food, both out and about and also at home:

Vegan pizza and doughballs at Maguire's in Liverpool.

This year's Christmas dinner- H&B Porkless pie, VBites 'turkey roast', pigs in blankets with maple syrup roasted parsnips and carrots followed by homemade sticky toffee pudding drowned in Alpro Custard:

Other food related highlights include taking part in my first vegan food swap:

What I sent to my swap partner

What I received from my German swap partner (you can check out Anke's blog here):

In September, I took part in my first ever Vegan MoFo and I managed to blog every day, even during a short break to the amazing city of Barcelona. Also in September, I also managed to get engaged...

After September, blogging slowed down, I have been taking plenty of photos of amazing places but I haven't had the motivation to turn these pictures into posts. This is due to undergoing a restructure at work, which has resulted in redundancy.

However, rather than see this in a negative light, I've been fortunate enough to receive a decent payout as well as payment in lieu of notice and for the first time since leaving school I feel that I can take a bit of a break from work to pursue some non-work related goals.

I will be finishing work in January (however due to having to take all my leave before finishing, I will be practically part time!) and after this, I plan to spend the next few months doing charity work, working on our veg patch (currently maintained by my future Mother-in-Law), trying out some business ideas, starting new projects and of course spending more time on this blog!

My 30th year is going to be uncertain (and if I think about it too much, I get a bit panicky!) but also full of opportunities and adventure, which I will do my best to share on this blog.