What I ate Tuesday

The idea behind this theme is simple, I will just photograph what I eat on Tuesdays!

OK, so I get up at 6am and set off for work at 6:30, so I tend to just grab a coffee and take something to work to eat later.

Oops, the picture is a little blurry- well it was 6:15 in the morning.

I found replacing cow's milk in my coffee the hardest part of my transition towards being vegan.  So despite being a bit pricey, I use almond milk- it doesn't curdle and I find the taste more neutral than other types. I like Blue Diamond unsweetened almond milk the best, but if I find Alpro's on offer I can be swayed.

Breakfast was Alpro plain yogurt, with nutty muesli, milled linseeds, raisins and dried cranberries with a drizzle of maple syrup.

The muesli and linseeds were both from Lidl. Both are marked vegan and there are quite a few different flavours of the linseeds.

Lunch was leftovers from yesterday's tea- roasted vegetable thai curry (I added both red and green food paste) with a pot of micro rice and some leftover chilli naan bread- yes I know naan bread doesn't really go with thai curries!

Curry includes roast cauliflower, carrots broccoli and brussel sprouts. I've put it in a larger container so that I can pour the cooked rice in and cut down on the dishes!

We like our curry sauces quite thick, and usually indulge with thai curries by using coconut cream. However this time I used coconut milk and thickened it up with a bit of cornflour.

ASDA do these great individual pots of micro rice in packs of two for £1. They're great for taking to work.

The naans I get are made by a company called The Clay Oven Bakery and are marked as vegan.  I get them from a stall on Bolton market- £1.69 for pack of three HUGE naan breads- and when I say huge, one will serve 2 people so a pack is the equivalent of six servings. They come in plain, garlic and coriander and chilli flavour. the picture below is a torn off section of one.

ASDA are selling Nakd bars at 60p at the moment, so I bought a load for work snacks, I really love them- I get my chocolate fix along with a bit of fruit! Today was chocolate orange.

For tea we had mushroom risotto, I just roughly followed the instructions on the back of the risotto rice from ASDA. I added red onions from our garden and your average button mushrooms. Instead of vegetable stock, I mixed in a bit of Hendersons Relish into water.

I also added roasted pine nuts, nooch and some mushroom bruschetta spread from Francas in Bolton, which I mentioned in this post.

For dessert, I had some of the wine that I used for making the risotto and a few blocks of the dark belgian chocolate, hazelnut and orange bar from Chocolate Magic.

Cheers x

Monday Bakes: Accidentally Low Fat Red Velvet Cupcakes

For my first Monday Bakes for MoFo, I decided to keep it simple by making Red Velvet Cupcakes from the Ms Cupcake book, The Naughtiest Vegan Cakes in Town. It's basically a chocolate cake with red food colouring but there has always been something I like about red velvet cakes and I've been wanting to try this recipe for a while.

I was trying my best to be organised by gathering and measuring the ingredients before making it, however I soon discovered that I'd wrongly assumed I had two ingredients- bicarbonate of soda and vanilla extract. Both are common ingredients I usually have in, but I'd forgot to replace them when they had run out. It wasn't a big issue, as I was using self raising flour and just doubled the amount of baking powder the recipe asks for.  As for the vanilla I just skipped it.

So, I made the cakes, popped them in the oven and was washing up when I thought:

"Did I add the oil??"

And the answer to that question, was no. I'd measured it out but had accidentally hidden it behind my cook book stand.

Normally in this situation I would have either cried or threw a wobbler. When I watched last week's bake off when Iain throws his baked alaska in the bin and storms out, I totally understood.  That is what I would have done. But something amazing happened, I felt a sense of inner calm wash over me and I decided to see how they turned out.

They weren't a complete disaster, a little dry but they held together. They did sink in the middle, but that's a problem I have with all chocolate cakes except this chocolate orange cupcake recipe.

In the Ms Cupcake book it suggests topping them with a cream cheese butter cream, however I didn't want to waste money on a tub of cream cheese for one recipe.  The original plan was to make a basic vanilla butter cream but obviously, without vanilla extract that was out of the question so I made a chocolate fudge icing using this recipe.

I added quite a bit of the icing to hide the fact they had sunk in the middle!

I actually made these on Sunday night and The Boy is working nights so I let him take them to work to share with his colleagues.  When I came this afternoon, he told me they had gone down well and that two of his colleagues had said how lovely and moist they were- so much for me thinking they were dry!

I'll be in Barcelona for next Monday, so I now have plenty of time to make sure I have ALL the ingredients for the next bake. And I'll remember to add the oil too!

Vegan MoFo 2014!

I'm very excited to announce that this year I will be taking part in Vegan MoFo for the first time ever!!

For those of you who have never heard of it, the MoFo stands for Month Of Food (so therefore Vegan Month of Food) and encourages bloggers from around the world to blog on a regular basis about vegan food. I first discovered this last year whilst I was still a vegetarian, and spent hours trawling through various bloggers posts and as a new vegan, I'm excited to be taking part this year.

Vegan MOFO 2014 runs for the whole month of September and I will attempt to blog on a daily basis. Those of you who are familiar with my blog will understand that sometimes I struggle to blog on a monthly basis so I'm setting myself quite a challenge. Especially since I'm off to Barcelona for four days in early September.

Although themes are optional, I've decided to do a theme for each day, hopefully to help me keep on track:

Monday Bakes: It's depressing going back to work, so why not soften the blow with baked goods?!

What I Ate Tuesday: Simple.  Take pictures of my food and post it. What I Ate Wednesday does sound better but I've already got a theme for Wednesday...

Wrap-It Wednesday: Wednesday in our house equals wrap night, a chance to blog about my favorite recipes and to discover new ones.

Apple Thursday: Our apple tree is overflowing with apples again.  This is a chance to discover new ways to use them up.

Barcelona Friday: I'm hoping to write a few different posts on my upcoming trip to Barcelona

Pizza Saturday: We have Wrap Wednesday, and I'm currently trying to make Pizza Saturday a thing in our house to discourage us eating out so much. However sometimes it's unavoidable so if it's not pizza, I'll write about whatever we eat.

Seitan Sunday: I have wheat gluten, but tend to use it to make chickpea cutlets. However I think it's time have a go at making my own seitan and try a few different recipes.

I'll try to stick to the theme, but I'll try and prepare some off-topic posts for whilst I'm in Barcelona, and on Saturday 13 September I'm off to Blackpool Vegan Festival so I'll be doing a blog about that instead.

I hope you enjoy it, and wish me luck!

Bolton Food and Drink Festival

Bolton town centre, like many town centres has suffered the effects of recession and as a result, mostly consists of pound shops, charity shops and an awesome market. Although I love a good hunt round the charity shops and pound shops on occasions and I love the market, for most of the year there isn't much there to attract the crowds.

That all changes on August Bank Holiday, which is when Bolton holds its annual Food and Drink Festival.

I can hear all you critics, Bolton is hardly the most happening of towns but take it from someone who has been to quite a few Food and Drink festivals, Bolton's is definitely worth a visit.

This is my third year of visiting the festival and every year without fail its grown and taken over more of the town.  I could go on about it, but I think I'll just take you through some of the goodies I bought and hopefully persuade you to pay a visit next year...

We actually ended up going twice this year, and on my first visit I had only one place in mind for my lunch- The Hungry Gecko. The Hungry Gecko is run by Master Chef contestant and fellow Mancunian Jackie Kearney. As a vegetarian, Jackie always ensures that there are veggie and vegan options available so I knew I wouldn't starve! I did have a bit of a panic when Barbarella (the name of Jackie's food trailer!) wasn't in her usual spot, however this was short lived when I realised she had been moved to a prime spot in front of Bolton town hall. And I was even happier to see that as usual, Jackie had come up with some exciting vegan and veggie options.

My mind was instantly made up as soon as I saw the words 'veggie duck' and I opted for the baked spring roll with plum sauce. Which was delicious, however as a result I would have liked to have a bigger portion.

Next stop was The Kitchen on Great Moor Street's stall for dessert, the choice this time was a bit more difficult, it was a toss up between the walnut and date brownie or a chocolate tiffin. As usual, most of the food available on the stall was vegan and in the end I went for the walnut and date brownie, because I can never pass on a brownie.  This didn't taste like your ordinary brownie and it didn't have the chocolate hit I was expecting, however it was lovely and moist and there is nothing worse than a dry brownie!

On the second day I headed straight to The Hungry Gecko again, because on the first day I spotted the Bombay Frankie, which was described as 'Mumbai's burrito', and I'm a fan of anything that comes in a wrap. I went for the vegan version (obviously!) which was aubergine and potato masala, which again was yum!

For dessert, I had noticed one of the churro stalls (there was two this year) advertising vegan churros, so I grabbed a portion with sugar and cinnamon. Unfortunately the chocolate sauce was not vegan, which was a shame but I adore cinnamon so I wasn't too distraught.

So that was the food I ate there, but I can never go to these markets without picking up other things!

The first stop on the first day, right after going to The Hungry Gecko was Franca's stall which was next door. Franca's is a pizza takeaway in Bolton town centre run by actual Italians, as well as the takeaway, they also tour the local Food and Drink and Christmas markets selling their other produce. A few years ago I spotted them at an event in Manchester and tried their garlic mushroom bruschetta topping and was instantly hooked. Now every time I see their stall, I make sure I grab a jar of it.  It's great in a mushroom risotto and even on toast, perhaps with a bit of No Moo Melty.  Whilst finding the link for this blog post, I discovered that you can buy all their stuff now online- woo hoo!

Now I'm a cider gal, so when I spotted two stalls selling locally brewed cider I was very excited.  The first one, Lancashire Brewery is registered with the Vegan Society, so I knew I was in safe hands and picked a bottle of their two ciders- Copper and Blush. So far I've only drank the Copper which had a lovely crisp smooth taste.

The other cider stall was Red Bank Cider, which is brewed in Bolton. Unlike Lancashire Brewery it isn't registered with the Vegan Society, but the great thing about visiting small businesses at these events is that you get to talk directly to the owner who assured me that they were vegan friendly.  They do flavoured ciders as well as more traditional ciders, I picked up a box of their three flavoured ciders to- blueberry, strawberry and rum to take along to a birthday BBQ. Out of all the flavours, I would say the strawberry was my favorite.

As a chocoholic, I'm always keeping an eye out for interesting vegan chocolate. There were two stalls at the market selling vegan chocolate- The Chocolate Cafe, which is a business in nearby Bury, who are very good at labelling their vegan chocolates, their dark chocolate and ginger bar is divine. The other stall was one I hadn't seen before was called Chocolate Magic, and on closer inspection also had chocolates that were suitable for vegans, although not labelled as such.  I went for the dark Belgian Chocolate, hazelnut and oranges (I love hazelnuts) and the dark Belgian chocolate and sea salt, because I kept seeing so many milk chocolate and salted caramel bars around and this was the closest thing to it that was vegan!

So far I've only had the sea salt one, and I'm not too sure what I think- whilst eating it you get a mix of the salt and chocolate but then there is a weird bitter aftertaste which I'm not too sure about.

Oh and I nearly forgot my other purchase! There was also a stall called Real Thai Pies, which was advertising a 100% vegan vegetable green thai curry pie, which you could buy baked to eat then or frozen to take away.  I went for the frozen version which we had for tea with lattice fries and roasted cauliflower and broccoli- yum!

I hope I've persuaded you to pencil in Bolton Food Festival in your diaries for August Bank holiday 2015. Hopefully it will continue with tradition and grow more and have more vegan options next year!

Wigan- The Coven and Nooch

The Boy is working lot of evenings and weekends for the next three months, which means that I will be having a lot of Boy free weekends coming up.

I've always been fond of Wigan, it's a place I visited regularly when I was little, I used to love going to Wigan Pier and the experience and exhibition centre which has unfortunately closed, I have a fondness for Wigan Athletic (I'm not a football fan, but I love seeing small local teams doing well) and it's home to Uncle Joe's Mint Balls (hehe balls!) which are vegan friendly.

I'd heard about Wigan's vegetarian bistro/restaurant, The Coven and had learnt of the new gluten free and vegan shop, Nooch on facebook. So given that I have a free afternoon I decided to check them out.

First stop was The Coven on Hallgate, because I was thirsty. I'd heard rumours that it was quite a small place, but I wasn't expecting what I saw when I walked in- the place is tiny! And at first I was very confused because there isn't actually a counter and I thought I might have come in the wrong entrance, however the friendly waitress talked me through the drinks they sold, which included Fentimans so I didn't have to listen to the full list and went with my usual dandelion and burdock.  I  also ordered a slice of chocolate goo cake with vegan ice cream and went to sit in their garden- you have to go out the main door, turn right at the corner and through the back door.  You pay at the end of the meal, so in order to do so, I had to leave the garden and walk back to the main entrance- they must have a lot of trust in their customers!

The cake was extremely dense and chocolatey, just as you would expect a something that is described as a chocolate goo cake to be.  This is the kind of cake you would order after a two course meal and then instantly regret it because it was so rich and your already stuffed but you try your best to eat it because it's delicious.  The vanilla ice cream was Swedish Glace which I love as it has such a strong vanilla flavour, unlike a lot of other dairy ice creams. I'd love to try Booja Booja, but it's so pricey!

The Coven do proper food too and also runs workshops.

Next stop was Nooch, which is a couple of doors down from The Coven on Hallgate.  Me and The Boy tried to find this place previously when we were going through Wigan and for some reason I was convinced the shop front was green and that it was on the ground floor. We couldn't find it, mainly because the shop front is red and the shop is actually on the first floor!

The shop itself is very bright and spacious, working near Manchester University I have easy access to Eighth Day, however Nooch has different stock to Eighth Day and in addition they sell clothes, jewellery and various other craft items along with a dedicated area for workshops etc. They have a good relationship with The Coven and I spotted that you could buy The Coven's lasagna in the frozen section along with some of their cakes at the counter.

As well as picking up some Violife cheese slices and  Tofutti sour cream, I also picked up a Round Up, which is a vegan version of a wagon wheel.

I was never a fan of wagon wheels, I always thought the chocolate tasted cheap and the marshmallow was disappointing.  However this gourmet version was really tasty, the chocolate and biscuit was thick and high quality and it was generous with the marshmallow (I think vegan marshmallows taste a lot nicer than gelatin filled counterparts!), however at £2.50 it's definitely a treat item.

The lovely owner of Nooch seems to have grown quite fond of these, and warned me that they can be quite addictive and is constantly posting pictures on the Facebook page of half eaten Round Ups and Vego bars, which they also sell (I resisted them on this trip!).  Maybe I should quit the day job and open my own vegan market stall at Bolton Market, however I would have to show some restraint and not eat all the stock!

El-Piano, York

So we went to visit my Dad in Tockwith, near York and decided to go out for tea on the way back.

"You want to go to go to Monk's Cross, it's great, they have a Giraffe!" Said Dad, Giraffe seems to be his new favorite place to eat.

Now, if you've read my previous blog post about the Trafford Centre, you will know my dismay that the Giraffe there do not sell their only vegan option.  So out of interest, we took my Dad's advice and went to visit the wonder that is Monk's Cross.

When we got there, we were a little disappointed.  Bolton Middlebrook beats this place hands down. The Giraffe didn't even sell the vegan option, and the only other viable option was Nandos, and if I wanted to go there, well I could just go to Middlebrook and then drag The Boy round the new Lifestyle section of the huge TESCO and then the awesome health food shop inside the Tesco that sells tons of vegan goodies too.

So after a bit of a tantrum from me (I don't cope well with hunger) we decided to head to York and visit El Piano,  a vegan and gluten free restaurant in York centre which also has two other branches in Malaga and Granada in Spain.

We got there, got seated and then came the hard part of figuring out the menu- the starters are pretty straight forward, however it was the main that confused us but basically you order a hot dish, some fritters and then a salad.

For starters we both ordered tempura vegetables in a ginger beer batter which came with a teriyaki sauce. For drinks, The Boy ordered a Fentimans Victorian lemonade and I ordered a toffee shake with coconut milk (you could also choose to have it with rice or soya milk).

We both enjoyed our starters, but then tempura vegetables will always get a thumbs up from us. The only criticism I had was the carrots could have been cooked a bit longer.  As for my shake, it tasted quite strongly of banana and at first I thought that maybe they had got my order wrong as there was a banana shake on the menu, however the waiter confirmed that it was suppose to have banana in and kindly added more toffee for me.  I'm not the greatest fan of raw banana, and even after the extra toffee it tasted quite strongly of banana. I may have misread the menu wrong, but this isn't something I would order again.

Unfortunately, my phone doesn't seem to have saved the pictures I took of the rest of the meal, so you'll just have to use your imagination!

For mains I went with sweet and sour tofu, croquetas (which also had banana in, but I think the flavour mellows on cooking) and hummus, The Boy had moussaka, falafels and hummus.  I was a little disappointed with the tofu, there was a distinct lack of tofu and mostly consisted of onions, however the croquetas and hummus were super tasty (especially the hummus), The Boy really enjoyed his meal, and after reassuring me that the moussaka wasn't that creamy I think I might try it if we visit again. Whilst waiting for the main, The Boy spotted that the table behind us had ordered a jug of sangria and despite driving and therefore only being allowed a glass and a half, insisted that we ordered one.  Him being limited to a glass and a half meant that I got to drink the rest of it!

Now I don't often get the option of dessert when we eat out, so despite being full to bursting (not helped by my new skirt I bought off ebay that is a little on the tight side!) I insisted on ordering cake. The Boy ordered the carrot cake, whereas my trained eye instantly spotted the chocolate mousse pie.  Both desserts were lovely, the mousse pie was stodgy just as a chocolate dessert should be, and the carrot cake was light with a little spice.

I would definitely go here again, I usually go to omni restaurants, so to going to a place where I could have everything off the menu was amazing, and not having to worry about whether the wine was vegan was great too. However, the biggest bonus was that The Boy loved it!

Vegan Survival Guide: Costa Blanca (Spain)- Part 1- The airport and eating in.

This was my first time abroad as a fully fledged vegan staying in a private villa nearby a town called Moraira in the Costa Blanca region of Spain. I'm not going to lie- it didn't all go to plan.

But being vegan is a learning curve, and here are some of the things that did go to plan.

Airport

A revelation for me was that you can actually take food in your hand luggage and unless you take anything liquid (e.g. hummus, peanut butter etc) there are no limits. I managed to find some 'lunchbox' packs of oreos and lotus biscuits and took one of each type on the plane and the rest in my checked in baggage for holiday snacking. For a bit of savoury, I bought a pack of New York bagels (marked vegan) and wrapped one in clingfilm to take in my hold luggage and a mini tub of Tofutti cream cheese that went in as part of my liquid allowance in my hold baggage.  

My attempt at a in-flight meal are bit amateur, for more ideas, see Vegan in Brighton's post on packing and preparing.  

Getting up at 2am meant that by the time we got to departures I was in need of some serious caffeine, however I was also thirsty and hot drinks don't quench my thirst.  So I was very happy when I discovered this coconut drink in the W H Smith at Terminal 2, from reading the ingredients it looked vegan. 

It was very nice, you could really taste the espresso.  They also do a chocolate one that I want to try.

Supermarkets
Once we got off the plane, the first stop was the huge Carrefour supermarket near Alicante airport to stock up on supplies.

I was surprised at the amount of choice there was, I picked up some seitan steak type things (that I forgot to take a picture of), some yogurts and Vive Soy almond milk, a few people have been raving about Vive Soy on Facebook, but you can only get them in Waitrose and Tesco so I was excited to give it a try.

They had quite a few choices of yogurt, but I decided to go with one breakfast one and a dessert one.  I have to say, the yogurts and the almond milk tasted very different to the UK and the yogurts tasted quite strongly of soya- but ya work with what your given! The blueberry ones formed part of my everyday breakfast along with the chocolate mini weetabix I picked up. We ate breakfast by the pool each morning.

At home, I'm fascinated by Chinese and Asian supermarkets and will ages browsing the shelves. Over in Spain, I was fascinated by Spanish supermarkets and found a few gems in the supermarkets by the villa.

After walking around towns and not being able to indulge in ice cream (sorbets are not the same!) I was super excited when I spotted these in Mercadona. They also sold tubs of dairy free vanilla ice cream.

When walking around our nearest town, Moraira we went in a Pepe La Sal supermarket and I spotted these burgers, which were actually marked 'Vegano'.

Later on in the week, we popped down to our local Carrefour Market (which was the size of a regular supermarket), I bought a vegetable noodle ready meal, some vegan burgers for our BBQ on the last night (our villa came with a BBQ- we were uber excited!).  And I treated myself to some chocolate soya milk, with which I created my own 'unique' cocktail of Malibu and chocolate soy milk- Yum!

All in all, eating in was the easy part, it was the eating out which was tricky, however I did manage to have some good meals, which I'll write about in my next blog post.