Wrap It Wednesday

This week’s wrap was based on this lentil and black bean tacos recipe, however instead of black beans I used kidney beans and instead of tacos we had tortilla wraps, served with salsa and guacamole.

I wasn't too keen on this recipe, the lentils didn't ‘mush’ together as I had liked, so it was just flavoured lentils and kidney beans. Perhaps it would have worked better in a slow cooker, cooked for a longer time with a little more liquid so that the lentils start to break up and take on more of a mushy texture.

I went to a Cake Liberation Front meet up, hosted by Caroline of Tea and Sympatico straight after work so I took my wraps with me to eat as lunch and a light tea.  A write up of meet up will follow tomorrow as part of Apple Thursday.

What I Ate Tuesday

This morning started off with a cup of coffee as usual.

My milk of choice is normally almond milk, having tried several soy milks and not liking any of them. However, I’m trying to cut costs so gave Sainsbury’s own brand unsweetened soy milk a go.

I was pleasantly surprised, it didn't curdle in the coffee and wasn't as creamy as other soy milks I've tried- something that put me off other brands in the past.

I took my breakfast to eat at work- porridge with linseeds and smidge of ASDA’s Free From chocolate hazelnut spread made up with the soy milk. It dawned on me on the way to work that I’d ran out of raisins and therefore my porridge was missing a vital element.  If you put raisins into porridge before warming up in the microwave (instead of after) they plump up and go nice and juicy.

For snacks I had another Nakd bar, which have now been reduced to 25p in ASDA on certain flavours.  I don't know why this picture keeps coming out the wrong way round!

Lunch was the ‘corned beef’ seitan with Heinz fruity sauce on Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference granary bread.   I use Heinz fruity sauce in place of regular boring brown sauce- try it, you’ll never look back! And I love the bread that they serve with the vegan breakfast at Kitchen on Great Moor Street and for ages I assumed it was homemade, one day I asked where they got it and was surprised when they said it was Sainsbury’s Taste the Different bread!

I had a driving lesson after work, so I bought a snack and a drink (because driving makes me thirsty!).  Some of the SPARs in Manchester City Centre sell a range of Forest Foods product, which are a vegetarian food company based in Chorlton. They sell a range of vegan products and I usually go for the mushroom and sage roll, but they had sold out so I got a vegan chimichanga instead. 

I thought the chimichanga was quite bland and not something I'd get again. My driving drink of choice was my usual Levi Roots Caribbean Crush.

Tea was a surprise tea- I went through a period of cooking in bulk and freezing portions.  However, unlike many who suggest labelling stuff up when you freeze them I thought I would just be able to remember what is what. Turns out I can’t, so now I have a freezer full of what I like to call mystery meals and now and again I’ll defrost one when I'm feeling lazy.  I'm always slightly terrified that I’ve frozen a portion of the Isa’s meaty beany chilli that I accidentally added to much chilli powder too.  

I think this week's meal was my first attempt at making the slow cooker rice and bean burritos mentioned in this post, which I made too watery.  I'd made some rice to go with it, before realising it already had rice in it! We had it with a baguette.

Strawberry Ripple Cupcakes

I never use to be so into cooking, in fact when I first left home I bought a student cookbook (I had already graduated by then), taught myself to make a chilli con carne and a chicken risotto and just ate those two, every week.

Then I met Jo, who is a keen baker and got me into baking.  I bought my first ever cupcake cookbook and that was it, I baked cupcakes for a while, then I became interested in cooking more savoury dishes. When I became vegetarian, and then vegan, that's when my love of cooking really started to take off.

One of the first cupcakes I ever made out of the above cupcake book was a raspberry ripple cupcake- which was a plain vanilla cupcake with raspberry jam swirled through the sponge.

For today's Monday Bake I decided to create a vegan version, however I decided to substitute strawberry jam, because it's what I had in.

For the sponge I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from the Ms Cupcake book, however any regular vegan vanilla cupcake recipe would work.

Spoon the cake batter in the cupcake cases and put about 1/4 teaspoon of strawberry jam on the top of each cupcake. Then using a skewer/spoon/whatever, mix the jam into the cake mix, trying to mix it in a spiral motion.

Bake as instructed.  The picture below is mine after baking, you can see the jam dotted about on the surface of some of the cakes. I always end up with some of the batter missing the cases!

Once cooled, then it's time to decorate. I decided to go for a simple glaze- I mixed 60g of icing sugar with a 'dash' (I used the cap of the top of vanilla extract to measure) of vanilla extract and gradually poured in almond milk (or whatever you have in) I used the cap off the milk to gradually add it bit by bit. Between adding each bit of milk, give it a good stir- it's easy to add too much and end up with runny icing. Add enough milk so that the icing sugar dissolves in, but it isn't too runny- if you add too much milk, add a little more icing sugar so that you get the right consistency.

When happy, spoon the glaze onto the cakes.  I decorated mine with some strawberry heart sweets I got from Home Bargains.

Seitan Sunday: Corned Beef Seitan

Growing up, my cousin Gemma was the closest thing I had to a sister and we used to spend most weekends at each others houses.

When we were at her house, the evenings always used to consisted of a tea of baked beans on toast (I was a fussy eater and that was one of the few things I'd eat) and watching Noel's House Party before heading over to her Grandparent's house, which involved watching Gladiators and Challenge Anneka.

Sometimes as a snack her Grandma used to give us a slice of corned beef (just corned beef, never on a sandwich), and corned beef always reminded me of happy childhood memories.

For my first Seitan Sunday, I decided to make corned beef using this recipe.

I couldn't find any ready ground mustard or cloves, so I ground mustard seeds and whole cloves in a pestle and mortar which took a while. Apart from that, once I'd gathered together all the ingredients it didn't take too long. I did nearly forget to add in the oil, but remembered just as I was shaping it to go in the oven, so I put it back into the mixing bowl, added in the oil, mixed, gave it another quick knead and re-shaped it.  Then it was just a matter of cooking it.

After it was cooked, I took it out of the foil to cool down on the side before popping into the fridge for an hour. Then, once cooled I sliced some up to make a sandwich.

The inside kind of looks like a darker version of the corned beef of my childhood.

I was planning on having a reuben sandwich like the recipe suggests, but I could find any sauerkraut in my local Lidl so I just had it with some vegan mayonnaise.

I don't know if it's because I've only had cheap corned beef, or American corned beef is different to English corned beef, but this didn't taste anything like corned beef. It tasted better- I could really taste the various spices, I was a bit worried as I managed to add double the amount of cloves and red pepper by mistake but it was just the right level of spice for me.

There is still loads left, I'm planning to visit our new Polish supermarket tomorrow and pick me up some sauerkraut for reubens throughout the week.

Northern Vegan Festival

Today was the second Northern Vegan Festival.

Last year, I think the organisers seriously underestimated how much interest there would be- the place was packed out, and if you didn't go early (like us) there wasn't much left.

This year they had learnt from their mistakes and had hired out the Empress Ballroom in Winter Gardens, Blackpool.

I'd arranged to meet with a friend, and fellow vegan blogger, Flash Gordonette and a couple of others and after wandering around a craft market that was being held in the same building we queued up and headed in.

On entry, as some of the first people in we picked up a few freebies- LABL magazines issues 1-4 and a choice of Love Beets juices- Super Tasty Beetroot and Beetroot and Cherry. No one was fond of the beetroot juice, however Flash, who hates wasting food downed three of them in one go, which she regretted afterwards! As for the magazines, they're not my kind of thing, they only have two pages of recipes and only one of the magazines actually has any that I would consider making.

After walking around the entrance area, scoffing any free samples we could get our hands on, we moved into the main ballroom, which was rather impressive and a lot more roomy compared to last year:

First stop was a stall selling vegan cookbooks, I have tons of cook books but not too many vegan ones, so when I spotted Vegan Eats World at a discounted price I grabbed it, however I regretted it later after realising just how heavy it is.  I'm looking forward to having a proper look through and giving some of the recipes a go.

After sussing out the main section, we headed for some lunch in the separate dining area.  I'd heard on the grapevine that The Vegan Grindhouse would be there, so I made a beeline for their stall.

I went for the bacon cheeseburger, with added vegan mayo and BBQ sauce. I'm pretty sure the cheese is Violife, which is one of the few vegan cheeses I actually like. The burger itself had a lovely smokey flavour.

After food, we headed back to the main area to make our final purchases. Lakeside Ethical Treats were there selling Go Max Go bars, I went for their Jokerz bar.

These are suppose to be a vegan version of snickers, and as someone who was a big snickers fan before going vegan I would say that they come pretty close. However at £2 a bar (and it's not like they are anywhere near the size of a Vego bar) it's definitely a one off treat.

Apart from the small pack of Goody Good Sweets I won on a tombola, I didn't actually buy any more food items. However I still came away penniless because I spotted these cute cat earrings at Bough To Beauty, and despite knowing I have a slight reaction to non-sterling silver earrings if I wear them too long I just couldn't resist.

I also won a Vegusto hamper from one of the stalls but they rang me when I was on the train on the way home and I had to collect if from the festival itself and they refused to post it out. That was a bit of a bummer, even if I was only after the No Moo Melty and mushroom burger.

The festival was a lot better this year, however now that they have a bigger venue it would benefit from a couple of more stalls, here's to hoping it continues to grow.

Barcelona Friday- Day 1

I got back from Barcelona on Tuesday after visiting for a long weekend.  I've decided to break down my review into each day. So, here is day one!

We arrived in Barcelona around 11am, and as we only had hand luggage it meant we didn't have to wait around (I love passport control in Spain- so much quicker than the UK!), so we headed straight for the train station at the airport to catch a train to Sants Estacio- which is the main train station in Barcelona and connects to the Metro,  They also have luggage storage (Left Luggage) at the station, which allows you to store your luggage in a secure locker whilst you explore the city.  As we couldn't check into our apartment until 3pm, this was really handy.

After dropping off our luggage, we got on the Metro to take us to the heart of the city, as The Boy had been to Barcelona before I let him act as the guide, and we headed to Catalunya Metro stop.  I had one thing on my mind- and that was ice cream from Gelaati Di Marco.

This ice cream place does various flavours of vegan ice cream as well as fruit sorbets. The lady at the counter pointed all the fruit sorbets and the various flavours of vegan ice cream, which were either soya or rice based. When I visited, they had rice, coconut, licorice, and cinnamon flavours.

 As both a chocolate and cinnamon nut, I obviously went for a scoop of each of those two.

The chocolate ice cream was probably the best chocolate ice cream I have ever tasted, it was so rich and dark. And in my opinion, (vegan) cinnamon ice cream should be more widely available!

After wondering round the city, we headed back to Sants to pick up our stuff and head over to our apartment at Hesperia Fira Suites which was located near the Hospital de Bellvitge metro stop at the end of the red line.  We chose this hotel purely as it was a five star and pretty cheap. Looking back on it, if  when we go back to Barcelona, we would probably go with something more central and pay more attention to good reviews on sites like Trip Advisor etc rather than the star rating. However, the apartment was perfectly OK. 

After checking in, dropping off our stuff and recovering a bit from the heat (it was very melty).  We headed out for tea, which again I had all mapped out!

We headed over to Jaumes I (apparently pronounced James the First) metro stop and after going the wrong way for a bit, we found out destination for tea- CAT BAR!

I'd heard so much about this place and it awesome burgers, and I was really excited about finally getting the chance to go. We walked in and was given a 'menu' and was asked to take a seat.  When I say menu, we got given a piece of paper with the options printed on it and you mark off which burger you want, along with sides etc. and take it to the bar to order. We both went for the black bean burger, with a side of fries/patatas bravas.

The burgers were extremely yummy, and we both agreed the patatas bravas were the best we'd every tasted. They came with a pot of garlic veganaise- I'd forgotten how much I love garlic mayonnaise and I was totally smitten.

Not pictured are our drinks- The Boy went for a lager and I ended up with a white wine. I was disappointed that they didn't sell cider as that is what I would have prefered with a burger- wine and burger don't really go and I hate lager/beer unless it's fruit beer.

After the meal, we went for another wander around the city and picked up some cakes for breakfast before heading back to the apartment.  

C-A-L-F Cafe, Scarborough

I totally didn't have time yesterday to do my Apple Thursday blog post, this is because we were in Scarborough visiting The Boy's twin brother.

I had been aware of C-A-L-F Cafe for quite a while now, when I first heard that we might be visiting at some point I started looking up places on Happy Cow (as you do) and C-A-L-F is the only place listed on Happy Cow in Scarborough.  The 100% vegan cafe helps to fund the C-A-L-F sanctuary, which rescues ex farm animals.

We arrived in Scarborough around lunch time, after over a three hour drive (Scarborough is further away than we thought!) and headed straight to the cafe which is on a fairly central road in Scarborough quite near the sea front.

Whilst researching this place, I found out that the outside of the cafe had been painted to look like a cow, which makes it super easy to spot!

From my experience of other vegan/vegetarian cafes, I was expecting the inside to be a lot plainer, with the school canteen style that seems to be adopted by most places. However, I was totally wrong, and the inside is just as impressive as the outside.  C-A-L-F also has a craft shop and an online stop and all their goodies are displayed around the cafe.

We took a table, which are all labelled up as all the different animals they have rescued, so instead of having to remember a table number when you go up to order, you remember the animal- we went and sat at the cow table.

After browsing their impressive regular menu and weekly specials, we both settled on burgers, I went for the mock chicken burger and fries, whereas The Boy opted for the mexican burger with homemade chips.

My mock chicken burger was super tasty, chicken burgers use to be a favorite when I was an omni and the texture was spot on. The Boy really enjoyed his  burger as well, and for once ate it all at once, like a normal person instead of eating each component separately which is what he usually does. The salad on the burgers included a few red and green grapes, which was novel, but it totally worked.

For some reason I only took a picture of the fries, but we ended up splitting the two types of potato between us, and we both agreed that the homemade fries were the best.

I was planning on having a dessert, and I had my eye on the gingerbread ice cream sundae on the specials menu, but I was far too stuffed after finishing the burger and chips. Instead I decided to get a cake to take away and had my eye on something that looked chocolately on the counter. 

However, when I got there I noticed they were selling handmade rum truffles. something I've loved from being a kid (I remember scoffing a box full of them sat in front of tv!) so I settled on a pack of them instead. I would take a picture, but in my excitement over rum truffles, I forgot that we were planning on walking around scarborough on a warm sunny day, and as a result they all melted! I've shoved them in the fridge to solidify again, but if you want a photo, check out their online shop.

Both myself and The Boy were super impressed by this cafe, however due to lack of business the cafe is only open Thursday-Sunday 12-4, which is such a shame as it funds such a good cause and the food is amazing. If you're ever in Scarborough I highly recommend C-A-L-F cafe. 

Before you go, I want to leave you with a few picture of Peasholm park.  Apart from yesterday I only remember going to Scarborough once on a camping holiday. I was very young and don't remember much, other than it was cold, wet and windy (I have a picture of my Dad in a dashing 80's patterned jumper near the seafront in the middle of summer). Therefore before this trip it wasn't a place I had any desire to visit. However, I have been won over- and my obsession with all things Yorkshire continues!