Vegan MoFo Day 13- Kitchen Tour

Yay! Another MoFo post I can actually take part in :-)

Last year during MoFo I went to Barcelona for a few days, and so I didn't miss out on posting for MoFo I did a very detailed tour of my kitchen, so I'm going to be really lazy and just link to last year's posts:

Kitchen Tour Part 1

Kitchen Tour Part 2

Kitchen Tour Part 3

So as not to appear proper lazy, here is a new picture of our fridge, we've probably acquired more fridge magnets than last time as people have started to get them us a presents when they go away. We now have a cow one that has a clip on it that's useful for keeping notices on. I also got a new postcard yesterday off my friend India (see her blog here) that says "No. I don't miss cheese". As someone who was never a big cheese fan anyway, I really identify with it.

Looking forward to seeing everyone else's kitchen, cos I'm nosey like that!

MoFo Day 12: Favourite Cookbook

I may not be officially taking part in MoFo this year, but I've been religiously reading everyone else's MoFo posts, so when I say today's theme of 'Favourite Cookbook' I knew I need to do an impromptu MoFo post.

As a self confessed cookbook hoarder, I LOVE cookbooks! It's a trait I get from my Dad, who is also a cookbook hoarder, and a new cookbook is always a safe Birthday/Christmas or Fathers Day present. My Dad and his fiancee (also a fellow cookbook hoarder) have an entire cabinet dedicated to housing their cookbook collection.

Unfortunately, I rarely get cookbooks as presents my collection limited to those I buy myself, but is still rather impressive.  As you can see in the picture below, I also have a lot of vegetarian magazines, and hidden between it all are little booklets like The Return of the Cake Scoffer (which I constantly think I've lost!).

I have to admit though, I tend to buy cookbooks and then rarely use a lot of them, some I've never used at all and I need to have a serious clear out at some point.

I do, however have some favorites, first up is my first ever vegan cookbook- Isa's Appetite for Reduction.

Firstly, as a Guns 'n' Roses fan, I love the name of this book, but not only that, it has some of my favourite recipes, as you can tell by how well worn this book is.  My favourite recipes include Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Apples served with Hottie Black-Eyed Peas & Greens, Veggie Pot Pie Stew with Sweet Potato Drop Biscuits, Mac & Trees (still the only mac and cheese I've made), Thai Roasted Root Vegetable Curry, Chickpea Piccata and a recent favourite Mushroom Tibs. I love how Isa suggests how to combine different dishes, the section on bowl and sandwich ideas, and as someone who has difficulty picturing a salad as something more than just lettuce, cucumber and a few tomatoes the section on salads is inspiring- I love the Sushi Roll Salad.

The downsides of this book are the lack of pictures for each recipe, however there is a section of a select few and this has been greatly been improved in Isa Does It, which is another firm favourite.  The other downsides are just generic problems of living in the UK and dealing with American cookbooks. I'm pretty use to using conversions and the different names for ingredients but it's the use of ingredients that are more common in America than here in the UK, for example the use of blue potatoes and chipotles in adobo sauce. However, these can easily be replaced with substitutes with a bit of research.

As Appetite for Reduction is Isa's take on a diet book, it doesn't have a dessert section, therefore for my second favourite cookbook choice, I've gone for Ms Cupcake- The Naughtiest Vegan Cakes in Town! To be fair, although there are a few good recipes I use in this book (Snap Bars and Snickerdoodles to name two), my go to cake recipes are usually online recipes. The reason I chose this book is because it's such a good introduction to vegan baking- Melissa lists all the vegan brands of baking ingredients, both in the UK and for the USA and Canada, plus all measurements are given in cups, metric and imperial.  It also has a super useful section on vegan baking tips- for example working fast once the liquid ingredients are mixed with raising agents (they react faster than with egg) and the importance of tapping the mixture before putting it in the oven to remove air bubbles.  In addition, not only does this book have pictures of each recipe, but it has additional arty pictures that make it a perfect coffee table book (although not my copy as I've manage to spill red food paste all over the edges of the pages!).

The only downside with this book is the amount of icing sugar they use in their buttercreams- you'll get one lot of buttercream out of a 1kg box of icing sugar! However Melissa does point out that they do like things sweet and suggests you may need to tone it down to your own tastes.

The last book, I don't use that often, but it will always take pride of place on my shelf as it's the only signed book I have, and that is Rose Elliot's New Complete Vegetarian.  I met Rose when I volunteered in the demonstration tent at the Vegetarian Society's Meat Free in Manchester Event and Rose was holding a cookery demonstration and signing copies of the book.  Rose is lovely and I felt a bit star struck meeting her.

Although this book is vegetarian, most of the recipes are vegan or can be veganised.  I have cooked some of the recipes in the book (love the carrot and ginger soup) but the section I have permanently bookmarked is the guidance on cooking dried beans and pulses which is super useful and even includes guidance on using slow cookers and pressure cookers.

I hope that you find this blog post useful and I'm looking forward to reading about everyone else's favorite cookbooks, and hopefully finding new ones to add to my collection

A belated MoFo Day 8 Post: Make a new vegan friend

I wasn't going to do a post for yesterday's MoFo theme, but then I saw Caroline's post on Tea and Sympatico and it made me realise how becoming vegan has totally transformed my social life.

Before going vegan, I had a small circle of friends, not because I'm a difficult person to get along with (or at least I hope not!), but I'm quite shy and quiet as well as being an introvert. And like many of my friends I had just moved from living in Manchester City Centre to Bolton, whilst others had decided to also up sticks and move to Chester, Wilmslow, Lancaster, Cambridge and Warrington and even friends still living closer by have busy lives.

But then I became vegan, and despite never being one for joining groups, I went along to my first vegan meet up, The Cake Liberation Front, where I met Caroline of Tea and Sympatico (I'd been devouring her blog posts for a while- I remember feeling like I'd met a celebrity!), her lovely partner Matt and Anna who was also new to veganism. After stuffing myself with cake (really, my tea that evening was just cake!), Anna suggested I might want to come along to another meet up that weekend at a place called Pie and Ale.

The meet up at Pie and Ale turned out to be for another group called Vegan Manchester, where I met Andrea, of Chocolate and Beyond, Sophia and Gareth. I found out that Gareth was from the Bolton area, and there was going to be a meet up for the Bolton Vegetarian, Vegan and Animal Rights (BVVAR) group at The Kitchen on Great Moor Street the following weekend.

So, then I attended my first BVVAR meeting, where I met Rachel who ran the group with Gareth. And at some point I also went to my first Manchester Vegan Society meeting, where I met my friend Pamela.

Since my first few vegan meet ups, I've been to plenty more, and the groups have just grown and grown, and at every new meet up I've met someone new.  There are groups popping up all over the place, and I've been to meet ups arranged by Glossop's vegan and veggie group as well as the newly founded Warrington, Widnes, Runcorn, St Helens and Wigan Group.

It's not just at specific vegan groups I've made vegan friends- I met my friend Debbie at a job search workshop, she saw my Unicorn Grocery tote and immediately recognised me as a fellow vegan!  We got chatting and discovered that not only did we have mutual friends in common, but we had been to the same events and just not met- including the time Vegan Manchester completely took over Jaipur Palace Restaurant in Manchester.

I also have vegan friends I have never met face to face, but we've become friends through Facebook, Instagram or each other's blogs. And of course, you always end up bumping into the same people at the various vegan fairs, or in a pub in Sheffield- like when I met someone I knew from the Cake Liberation Front and proceeded to show her pictures of the cake I'd just had from Steel City Cakes!

The great thing about vegan friends, is that they TOTALLY understand your need to take a picture of your food before you eat it, usually because they're doing exactly the same thing. Also, you won't be the only one trying to take the leftovers away in a Tupperware box, thanks for introducing us to that idea Anna!

I would definitely say that the social aspect is the best part of being vegan, I've gone from spending weekends doing bugger all to having to actually use a diary to keep on top of things, and even then I've managed to accidentally double book myself. On various occasions, I've been faced with the dilemma of having to choose between two different vegan events that have been taking place at the same time.  Sometimes, it's hard to believe how far I've come from that first Cake Liberation meet up January 2014 to where I am now with a great bunch of crazy new friends, and still meeting more!

So in conclusion, this post is not about the one new vegan friend I've met, but dedicated to all my awesome vegan buddies and all the ones I'm to meet in the future.

The Healthy Indulgence Cafe

A couple of month's ago, a sign appeared on a vacant window in Bolton advertising a new cafe selling vegan and vegetarian food, which created quite a lot of interest in the Bolton Vegan and Vegetarian group (BVVAR). I watched whilst waiting for my bus home after work as the sign turned into The Healthy Indulgence Cafe.

The Healthy Indulgence Cafe opened in late June, and although it serves meat, they do cater for vegan and vegetarian diets and have received positive reviews from day one.

Apart from The Kitchen on Great Moor Street, and the Pizza Express that is hidden away down a back street, there isn't that many vegan friendly places in Bolton, so when a new place opens offering us somewhere else to eat, we all get very excited.  So we were all very happy when BVVAR arranged an afternoon tea in their relaxation room.

On arriving, I wasn't too sure what to expect, I was a bit wary of the word 'relaxation' room, I had awful visions of tie-dye and sitting crossed legged on a carpet trying to see through a fog of incense sticks. NOT that there is anything wrong with that, it just isn't me. But I was happy to find that the room was modern and we had chairs and bean bags to sit on and instead of incense there were candles and stylish statues of Buddhas.  In fact, it was more like a tranquil sitting room, and I immediately felt at home and relaxed.

After everyone arrived and was settled with their drinks, we headed over to the food table to fill our plates with various wraps, salad, cous cous and cakes (of course).

I don't know what all the flavours of wraps were, because as far as I'm concerned, as long as it's in a wrap, it's all good so I wasn't really paying attention to any signs.  However, there were a few with hummus and various types of filling, one with vegan cream cheese and one with vegan sausage. This is where the tie in to today's Vegan MoFo theme is- best sandwich ever.  My theory is, if it's in a wrap it's a million times better!

There were four different flavours of cupcakes (carrot, blueberry and two more that I forgot what they were) and two other desserts, which I think were flapjacks- one with chocolate and one without (note to self: need to remember to write down what things are instead of just diving in!) along with cous cous and impressive looking salad.

I ended up with a selection of wraps, a carrot cupcake, cous cous and one of the other desserts. Out of all the wraps, my favourite one was the sausage and I really enjoyed the cupcake, which turned out to be carrot and walnut rather than just a carrot cake.  I ended up having a blueberry cupcake as well that was left over, which was also really nice.

I really enjoyed the food at The Healthy Indulgence, and the staff were all very welcoming and friendly.  I will definitely be going there again to try their day menu, especially as I spotted that they were able to offer vegan milkshakes, and it's great to have a second option in Bolton town centre. Especially if you're out with omnis who are not too keen on going to a completely vegetarian venue like The Kitchen.

I also spotted that they are looking to open the cafe on Friday and Saturday evenings as a vegetarian restaurant, which is super cool :-)

Thank You to Rachel West and Chloe Woods for agreeing to let me use their photos.