More Isa Chandra Creations

This is just a quick post to share two more Isa Chandra recipes I've been enjoying:

The first is her Everyday Chickpea-Quinoa Salad with a balsamic vinaigrette, both from Appetite for Reduction. I'm not a salad person, however the salad section of this book shows just how diverse salads can be and I'm really looking forward to trying some more, especially her Strawberry-Spinach Salad once it's strawberry season again.

The recipe calls for romaine lettuce, however I subbed baby leaf spinach, as well as adding sweetcorn and some capers.  It was delicious! One batch make three to four portions, depending on how greedy/restrained you are.  This was the first time I have tried quinoa, and I gotta say I'm impressed. Quinoa is quite pricey compared to other grains but you only have to do a quick Google search to realise just how diverse it is and in addition it is also a complete protein. However, Isa does suggest that you can use other grains if quinoa is out of your price range.  Perhaps couscous? Or giant couscous? I'm just saying that because it looks similar to quinoa!

The second recipe, is Chickpea Cutlets- OMG these are divine! I've made them twice now, both times as part of Sunday lunch.  Both times I've had to improvise as I was missing one ingredient.  The first time I was missing the soy sauce, so used a little extra veg stock and a bit of extra salt.  The second time I had the soy sauce, but was missing Olive oil, so I used regular sunflower oil.  The second batch tasted better, so I've come to the conclusion that the soy sauce is quite important, however it's still nice without.

I'm really a bit obsessed with Isa's recipes at the moment. What are your favourites?

Amazing Vegan Carrot Cake

I have to admit, I've always avoided carrot cake, I don't know why, maybe something to do with being suspicious of vegetable based cakes.

However, when my friend over at Flash-Gordonette (visit the blog, it's awesome!) posted this recipe for carrot cake with whiskey 'buttercream' I thought I would face my demons.

I replaced the whiskey in the buttercream with brandy, as I had some in from making mincemeat (yes it's took me a while to blog about this, the poorly taken picture below was from November) and I put the oven up to 180 instead of 170 (which is the temperature for a fan oven). But apart from that I kept to the original recipe, I was a bit puzzled by the instructions to weight the oil, however I'm informed this is because you need half the amount of oil that you would margarine- after that was made clear it made more sense!

Wow! I'm a carrot cake convert, and this cake is now in high demand by The Boy and his family.  So far I've made this cake 5 times!

The only thing to watch out for is that I've found the cooking time to vary quite a bit, I think it's something to do with the carrots or maybe it's just my crappy oven. So before you take it out after the allotted time, give it a gentle shake to see if it's set, if not put it back in, I had one that took an hour to cook, however maybe I did something wrong there.  Another tip is to make it the night before you're planning to eat it (if you have the will power), it's fine to eat the same day but we've found the flavours develop overnight and the ginger really comes out if you wait a day.

So what you waiting for? Go and get the carrots and make this baby!

Chickpea Picatta

It's after Christmas, everyone is a little skint and trying to lose that extra few pounds they gained over the festive period.

So last weekend when I arranged to meet up with a friend, instead of spending money on a meal out I decided to cook. This happily gave me the opportunity to try my new cook book-  Isa Chandra Mosowitz's Appetite for Reduction and having seen positive reviews, I decided to have a go at her Chickpea Picatta.

The recipe itself is pretty easy to follow, takes 30 minutes and is only 190 calories per serving.  In case your wondering arugula is 'salad rocket' according to wiki, however as I would have no other use for rocket, apart from this recipe, I subbed in baby leaf spinach and as I had no dried thyme I used some mixed dry herbs  (which gets used in any occasion that I find myself without any type of dried herb!). Isa also suggests serving with caulipots, which are mashed cauliflower and potato.  I decided this was too much effort and opted to serve mine with penne pasta.

The picture below is actually of the leftovers I had for lunch the next day, as I was too busy nattering to take a photo the first time! The only difference was that the first time I remembered to follow Isa's suggestion and put the spinach at the bottom of the bowl, then layer with the cooked pasta and chickpea picatta which wilts the spinach without having to cook it (clever!) however I reckon this looks more artistic :-)

The overall dish was lovely, the sauce was thick and almost creamy, but the addition of the lemon made it a refreshing dish. The only change I would make is to serve it with conchiglie pasta, so that you could easily get a mouthful of pasta, sauce and chickpeas, which was quite difficult with the penne! I could see why Isa recommends serving this with caulipots or mashed potato, as the potatoes would soak up some of the delicious sauce whilst allowing a good forkful of chickpeas and spinach.

I will be submitting this post to Book Marked Recipes on Tinned Tomatoes.

New Year

Happy belated New Year everyone.

It's always the case when looking back at this time of year to only see the negatives and 2013 is no exception.  HOWEVER a lot of positive things did occur - one of my friends got married, I met lots of new people, The Boy graduated and started in the world of work and we went to New York!

2014 will not be without it's challenges, the education reforms will mean further redundancies at work and with David Cameron still PM this year will not be plain sailing.  However, unless the revolution starts this year, there's not a lot I can do about that so I'm concentrating on the small things:

1. Be More Vegan: This is something I started last year, and aim to continue this year.  I'm not going to go into details on why I've decided to cut down on dairy and egg products, there's enough information out there for you to figure that one. However, I'm not too sure if  ready to go fully vegan yet.
2. Get up everyday at 6am, even at weekend: Probably the most controversial of all my resolutions, however I'm sick of sleeping my weekend away and feeling stressed that I don't have time to do all the things I want to do.  Then of course there is the situation you find yourself in on a Sunday night, trying to go to sleep early for work the next day but not being able to because you slept in until 11am and then spend all of Monday feeling knackered.  I've kind of softened the blow a bit by allowing myself one lie in a month!
3. Blog more: Will hopefully be helped by point 2!
4. Stop being my worse critic:  I often find myself comparing myself in a negative light to other people.  It's not helpful, I'm not that person and never will be.  Instead I will try and concentrate on the things I do achieve.

I think the second resolution may be the hardest, but I'll give it my best shot.  What are your resolutions? Have you managed to keep them all so far?

Out and About

I'm often one of those strange people you see taking photos of their food in restaurants/cafes. Although it's less strange now, because I've got a smart phone and I'm no longer pulling out a massive camera.  Plus if you taking a picture on a smart phone, people assume that you're just uploading a picture of your food to Facebook or Twitter. Which is quite normal.

So anyway, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures of things I've been eating whilst out and about.

Budda Lounge - Ramsbottom
It was my birthday in November and I went for meal at Budda Lounge in Ramsbottom with The Boy and his family.  I've got no pictures of the main, but I took a rather crappy picture of the starter which was vegetarian crispy duck, which I assume is Seitan. They also do vegetarian rack of ribs!

I should have took a picture of the assembled wrap!

The food here is amazing, but on the pricey side so it's only for special occasions.

V Revolution- Manchester (Northern Quarter)
The Boy was unable to take my birthday off, therefore we took a few days off together the week afterwards and visited Manchester City Centre and for lunch we headed to V Revolution, which is a vegan cafe/shop. Pretty much everything they sell involves some kind of meat and cheese substitute which meant The Boy, who avoids fake meat and cheese had to bite the bullet and face his fears.  We both went for the nacho hotdog, which came with nachos, salsa and the best UK vegan cheese I have ever tasted (I think it was one of the Veganic cheeses which the sold in the shop).

Even The Boy loved this, and pronounced the whole thing as 'pretty convincing' which is the biggest complement he's ever given any kind of meat/cheese alternative!

Nandos
People who know I'm a veggie are always surprised when I say I love Nandos.  In fact Nandos sell three types of veggie burger which is pretty impressive considering that many other places only have one.  Even as an Omni, I always went for a burger, as I have always been pretty grossed out by stuff of the bone.

The only vegan option is their veggie burger  which is a soya and tomato burger (the others are a beanie burger and a portabella mushroom and halluomi burger, both of which contain cheese).  However you need to ask them to skip on the mayo to make it vegan.  I often go for the pitta, along with corn on the cob (to make it healthy) and peri peri chips (which I then cover in ketchup).

I think the grated carrot in the salad is a new addition, of which I very much approve of!

According to their FAQs, all vegetarian food is cooked separate grill, using separate utensils and marinades.

Christmas Markets
Around this time of year, we like to visits various Christmas markets at the weekends.  This usually consists of a few staples (Manchester, Birmingham and Lincoln) and a few wild cards.  This year's wild cards were Ulverston and Bakewell.

Out of the two, Ulverston was our favourite, and may get added to the list of staples.  It's a Dickensian market, like Lincoln but what made it unusual is that quite a few of the residents and stall holders dressed in traditional Dickensian dress.  Trying to keep to a vegan diet at these types of events is always a challenge (even vegetarian can be hard, and mostly involving cheese) however, there was an Indian stall that was run by what I assume to be a Ulverston curry restaurant that advertised itself as being vegan friendly which I bought a samosa from (sorry no pictures).  However for our main meal, we went to Gillams, which is a vegetarian tea room and shop. It was extremely busy, however after a bit of a wait, filled with a browse around the shop attached to the cafe, we managed to get a table.  I went for one of the day's specials which was a sausage sandwich with a red wine gravy.  And for drink, I went for the Christmas market classic of mulled wine.

I also bought a vegan mince pie and a vegan scone from the shop.  The pastry on the mince pie was a bit too thick for me but the scone was nice.

Unfortunately, despite the loving Bakewell itself we weren't too keen on the Christmas Market.  There weren't many vegan options, and the only vegetarian option was a crepe stall.  Therefore, I ending up popping into their Holland and Barrett and getting a 'porkless pie' from their Veg.Out range.  As someone who previously loved pork pie, I thought it was pretty convincing, and came without the disgusting jelly I always despised.  It could be improved by increasing the amount of 'meat' inside it, but I'll be definitely getting one or two of the larger pies for the traditional Christmas Eve buffet.

This weekend we went to Lincoln, which is our favourite of the markets and is the oldest Dickensian Markets.  it's always pretty packed, so I didn't manage to take photos but I had a falafel wrap, some toasted cashews coated in cinnamon and sugar (yum!) and the traditional veggie burger from Lincoln's veggie shop, Yellow Bellies of Bailgate which is right at the end of the market.

David Bann Edinburgh

Last Christmas, The Boy got a Gift Experience voucher for unusual places to stay.  Most turned out to be just your average B&B, but when we spotted the New Lanark Mill Hotel our minds were made up and we booked a room for our anniversary in September. The hotel was in a amazing setting, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there (I definitely recommend checking it out if you fancy a short break).  Whilst we were there, we decided to explore Edinburgh.

Whilst we were in Edinburgh, we visited David Bann, which is a entirely vegetarian restaurant.  I can't recall what starters we had, however I know mine contained smoked tofu- which lead to the discovery that I do not like smoked tofu- it tastes too much like fish!

For mains, I had the chilli pancake with chocolate sauce and griddled courgette and butternut squash (now served with sweet potato instead), I skipped on the crème fraiche to make it vegan and The Boy had a sort of mushroom Wellington which is no longer on the menu.

I now understand why they recommend putting dark chocolate with chilli, the sauce worked really well and the hint of the chocolate with the bean chilli was lovely. Unfortunately The Boy had mixed thoughts on his main, he found the Wellington a bit on the stodgy side.

For dessert, keeping on the vegan side, I opted for a chocolate sorbet, whereas The Boy went for ginger and lime ice cream and orange cake.  This was probably the best presented dishes I have ever seen (I don't do posh restaurants) and it went down better than the Wellington.

This is definitely one of the pricier places we have visited, as we usually stick to the cheaper food chains that you can find in shopping centres (I'm talking more Tampopo than Maccy Ds!) however this was definitely a great experience on a special occasion and I would definitely recommend it if you're in Edinburgh and want something on the fancy side :-)

Products

I thought I would start doing a couple of blog posts on the products I use on a regular basis, and new products I discover.  In recent months I've been making an effort to cut down on the amount of dairy and eggs I eat.  Although I'm definitely not fully vegan, I would say that I manage to follow a vegan diet around 95% of the time.  Therefore a lot of products (if not all) will be vegan friendly.  I haven't been paid by any of the companies below to write any reviews, and have bought all products myself.

Jus-Rol
Apart from their all butter pastry and sweet shortcrust products, all Jus-Rol products are vegan, me and The Boy are big fans of their Pain Au Chocolate from the Bake-it fresh range and often have them as a Sunday morning breakfast treat instead of a fry up.

Usually, we have to go to the Sainburys  in Bolton town centre to get these, but now our local ASDA has cottoned on and started to stock them as well, they also stock one of the new products in this range- cinnamon swirls.  Being a big fan of anything cinnamon, we decided to give them a whirl and they didn't disappoint!

The range also includes croissants, apple Danish (which is new and I really want to try) and more savoury items such as garlic bread and focaccia.  The list of ingredients is enough to give you a headache, so they're more of an occasional treat than an everyday item, however they are so easy to make as well as making the kitchen smell heavenly!

Naan bread- surprise find
Usually, naan bread isn't vegans as they often use ghee in the production.  Therefore in my quest to follow a more vegan diet, I've been eating rotis, which are fine but not the same and not being able to have naan bread has been the hardest thing of the diet change.  So when I was shopping at the Asian stall at Bolton Market I was excited when I spotted these- HUGE naan breads by The Clay Oven Bakery that were marked as vegan friendly.  No only were they vegan friendly, the ingredients list was a LOT shorter than a lot of the other commercial naan breads. They come in a pack of three and cost £1.69 which is a bargain considering the size of em- one naan is big enough for two people so there are six servings here.  I got the plain ones but they also do chilli naans as well as garlic and coriander naans, however these were not in stock or else those would have been my first choice (garlic is awesome!).

Cider
Cider is one of favourite tipples, unfortunately, like a lot of alcoholic drinks it suffers from the problem of companies using isinglass in the production.  However, I'm lucky that a lot of my favourite ciders are free of animal products.

One of my favourite brands is Weston's ciders, with their Vintage being my preferred choice.  However, when we saw this bottle in our local ASDA, after weeks of looking at it longingly, we knew we had to have it, if not just for the bottle.

Given my love of Westons, I was very happy to discover that Wetherspoons are currently selling Weston's Mulled Cider.  I can confirm that is scrummy.

Unfortunately, Kopparburg is not vegetarian or vegan friendly, however Rekorderlig is and that will do for me.  I usually drink the Strawberry and Lime one however The Boy picked up their new orange and ginger flavour at our local Lidl.  As I was going teetotal at the time for Sober October I was unable to have any, however I'm desperate to try it.

And finally, although this isn't cider, it is still made of apples so I'm putting it in this category anyway, Costa are doing a new hot spiced apple drink that I tried for the first time this week. It's very Christmassy and more importantly- scrummy!