New recipe! Boiled fruit cake

It's been a very long time since I last posted in here. I'm still vegan and still going strong. I made a mistake in getting lazy and losing my initial enthusiasm in cooking all of my food from scratch. Lots of pre-packaged pies, sausages, burgers, etc. Not much imagination in the kitchen. But I'm hoping to change all of that.

One of the things that my housemate and I were always trying to do was to get back onto our much ignored diet. We've been doing The Cambridge plan for about 6 weeks now, with included cheating. I made a cake for my grandmothers birthday today, and I made it vegan, so I just couldn't resist trying a piece.
Boiled fruit cake was a much loved recipe of mine - I'd never eaten such a moist fruit cake before discovering this recipe and it's been a firm favourite of mine for over half of my life. I finally plucked up the nerve to make it today, veganised, and it turned out beautifully!


Boiled Fruit Cake
150g margarine (I used Vitalite)
300g Sultanas
300g Currents
180g Soft Brown Sugar (I used 90g of a stevia and brown sugar mix)
1tsp Mixed Spice
1tsp Cinnamon
1tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1tsp Baking Powder
250 ml Water
6 TBSP Applesauce
150g Plain Flour
150g Self Raising Flour

Combine Butter, sultanas, currents, sugar, mixed spice, cinnamon, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder and water in a saucepan. Bring to boil, stirring, then set aside to cool for one hour.
Heat the oven to 180c/Gas 4. Add the applesauce, mixing well with a wooden spoon. Sift the two flours into the mixture and beat well. Pour into a lightly oiled cake tin.
Bake for an hour, or until a thin skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
Remove from the oven, allow to cool slightly before removing from tin.
VOILA! Perfect, moist boiled fruit cake!

A Handful Of The Best Vegan Websites

I love looking through websites. I’ve become a bit of a junkie at collecting new veggie websites and my vegan bookmarks folder easily holds as many as every other folder put together.
I decided to post links to the ones that are interesting me right now. I apologise if I have linked to some before, but the ones that I’ve posted about previously (Earthlings, The Kind Life ...etc) have struck a chord and I couldn’t leave them off of the list.
If you know of any links that I have neglected to mention (some, like PETA were done on purpose), please feel free to link me to them, and I hope you appreciate the links.


Making the decision to go veggie

Do you feel as though you haven't heard the other side of the argument properly? Why shouldn’t you choose a vegan lifestyle? This web page is for you:
10 arguments against adopting a vegan lifestyle

A journalist took the plunge and went meat free (although not fish-free) for a year. She discovered the difficulty she faced in socialising with friends, finding something to eat in a restaurant that wasn't mushroom risotto and the ongoing question: was she doing enough?:
An Independent journalist learns to eat ethically

Not sure if you want to make the transition to fully vegan/vegetarian? Try making Monday a meat free day:
Meatless Monday

The Veggie Lifestyle

Some myths about dairy need to be eradicated:
Milk Myths

Ready to give up meat? The vegetarian Society will give you all of the information and support you need to ensure your transition is a trouble-free one:
Vegetarian Society

You've given up meat but you want to do more. The vegan society offers hundreds of animal-free recipes, advice and information:
Vegan Society

The VVF is a charity that was created to monitor the scientific information linking diet to health. An invaluable source of information:
The Vegetarian & Vegan Foundation

Vegan TV Shows

Isa Chandra Moskowitz is undoubtedly the Queen of Vegan cooking with 5 vegan cookbooks in her repertoire. She became famous for her series, Post Punk Kitchen:
Post Punk Kitchen episodes - Google video

Animal Rights

The Meatrix is of course a parody of the matrix. Instead of the matrix world, it shows that the happy farm with the content and cared for animals is in fact the illusion. It's a fantastic and informative cartoon for both adults and children alike:
The Meatrix

The most powerful film that anybody can watch, it covers everything from puppy mills to the fur and entertainment industry:
Earthlings

A one stop shop for information about the veggie lifestyle and animal compassion. It also has a shop:
Viva!

Compassion in world farming tries to ensure that animals reared for food are treated compassionately:
Compassion in World Farming

Animal Testing

Do you know if your cleaning products have been tested on animals? Check out the best way to go cruelty free:
Go Cruelty Free

The BUAV is leading the way to stop testing on animals:
The BUAV

Want to know which companies don't test on animals? While this site won't tell you if the company is vegan, it will tell you which are BUAV approved:
BUAV approved little book of cruelty free

Love the planet; it’s the only one we have!

Rightly or wrongly blasted as overzealous, these people truly care about the state of the planet, and they offer insights into the things our governments would rather we remain ignorant about:
Greenpeace

Vegan Food/Cosmetics/Clothing

Where to buy vegan food/cosmetics/clothing if you don't live near a whole foods market? The vegan store has a small variety of everything:
Vegan Store

Moo Free Chocolate :)
Moo Free Chocolates

While not completely vegan, they are cruelty free and they do have the vegan logo on most of their products. Plus, they are completely natural :)
Lush Cosmetics

Beautiful looking animal free handbags.
Feel Good Handbags

Animal free shoes
Alternative Stores

Social Networking

Alicia Silverstone’s community of kind lifers, based around her book, The Kind Diet
The Kind Life

Social networking for people wishing to connect with like-minded veggies
Volentia

Still looking for the right person who shares your values? Try this site:
Veggie Romance

Sausage Casserole Recipe

My housemate said something surprising to me last night. She's ready to lay off the meat substitutes :)

In slightly older news (a few days at least), I tossed the pumpkin flesh in olive oil, placed it in a large baking tray (I had loads of pumpkin), added a cup of water and baked it until the flesh was soft. As I did that, I pan cooked the seeds until they were beautifully golden. My housemate came downstairs (she'd been working nights) and said that the house smelled very 'eggy'. I didn't get that until I got home from work that night and walked in to 'burnt egg'. I have no idea if it's supposed to smell like that. It might have been because I prepared the pumpkin in stages. We'd brought the pumpkins about a week before Halloween but I'd left them sitting in a bag until Halloween night when I decided that I really must start them. And then once they were all cut up, I was so sick of the sight of pumpkin that I put the chopped flesh into a bowl, covered it in clingfilm and put it in the fridge. Then didn't deal with it until 2 days later.
Or maybe pumpkin seeds/flesh just smell like egg when they're cooking? Who knows? Google offers 'smelly feet' so maybe I should have cooked them immediately?

And I've spent the last week off the diet. I've gained about 4lbs, but then eating anything after being on a VLCD is bound to make you gain a little something. And those 4lbs will be off as soon as I've disciplined myself to get back on the diet.

I cooked another casserole last night. I decided that I was going to make a 'sausage’ casserole by adapting this Quorn sausage casserole recipe.
I didn’t use sweetcorn because my housemate hates it, and I didn’t bother with smoked paprika, mild chilli powder, sherry or tinned broad beans/cannellini beans either.

‘Sausage’ Casserole
6 quorn sausages, pan cooked, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 pack chestnut mushrooms, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed with Basil
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin lentils, drained
1 litre vegetable stock

Nothing complicated. Just add all ingredients to a large casserole dish.

Herby dumplings
Vegetable suet
Basil, chopped
Self raising flour
1tsp Baking powder
Warm water

Combine ingredients until you have an elastic dough. Split into 6, roll into balls and add to the casserole.
I discovered that the basil leaves a slightly menthol aftertaste to the dumplings. The recipe I borrowed suggested I use parsley but, me being me, I ignored it because I love basil. I think I’ll trust the recipe suggestion next time, and it’s not as though it suggested thyme (which I loathe)

Cook on 200 until the housemate gets home from work and everything is slightly burned on top and the dumplings are mostly uneatable (unless you’re me and you love burnt and mostly uneatable food – years spent overcooking food has resulted in a love of charcoal).
There were just a few too many ingredients for the dish and it spilt over, so left a roasting dish underneath to catch the over flow. Maybe in the future I shouldn’t attempt to stuff everything into the dish.

Anyway, the liquid was soaked up so it wasn’t really a casserole (again), but it wasn’t a ratatouille either. And our taste buds have really opened up – it tasted beautifully subtle and you could taste everything.
Maybe next time I do this, it’ll be a fully vegan meal, with no meaty substitutes.

I'll try to remember to take a photograph next time. It wasn't really pretty enough for a picture anyway - the layer of charcoal kinda messed with it a little.

Pumpkins, shopping and working in an anti-vegan environment

It's been a few weeks since I last posted here - naughty Lexa!

I don't really have very much to say. I haven't been cooking glorious vegan foods and I haven't done anything exciting to really warrent an update, but who cares?


Here's where I show that I'm a pumpkin virgin (despite my soup a short while ago).
I brought two small pumpkins to freeze so I could use it over the winter for soups and things. I didnt read instructions and I just did what felt right. So I cut the pumpkins into small pieces and cut away the outer bit. Then googled to find out how to prepare the pumpkin to freeze it. And discover that everyone tells me to cut the pumpkin in half, deseed, rub canola oil into the flesh and then bake for 90 mins. I don't have canola oil and the outside bit is in the rubbish. My pumpkin flesh is chopped into chunks in a bowl in the fridge. My seeds are waiting for some action too. I think I might toss the flesh in normal oil and bake until it softens, then freeze it once it's cool. I'm gonna toss the seeds in a frying pan shortly.
I can only mess up, right?
Besides, what do people do when they want to carve pumkinds and use the flesh? they can't bake the whole thing, surely?

In other news, I have visited the Whole Foods Market in Kensington, which was like walking into the Harrods of vegan cuisine. Ok, they sold everything, including masses of non vegan foods, but despite this, it was vegan mecca! (The one in Camden was like a tiny corner shop compared to this one).
I had already fallen off of the Cambridge weight plan wagon at the weekend and so went a little crazy. I wanted vegan marshmallows (which, incidentally, do not melt in hot chocolate and they float in the loo if you eat too much sugar and are sick later. Oops).
Vegan turkish delight was also purchased, along with diary free chocolate, sesame sticks (I know I'm not alone in considering these the best part of a decent bombay mix) and a vegan pasty (which, I hate to say, was much nicer than the one we brought from VX. A small-ish vegan chocolate cake may also have been purchased, on the basis that for something with eight slices, it was going to cost us £7.99, or we could have brought a solitary vegan cupcake each for £2.99. I live in the world of getting more for your buck, so I persuaded Helen (and it didn't take much persuasion, let me tell you) to say yes to us buying the cake. Cue an incredibly rich mass of cakey goodness that re-inforced the fact that as a vegan, I can still have my cake and chow down with the best of them. And then suffer the mother of all headaches later. My body has adapted to a fat free/bland diet (thanks to Cambridge) incredibly quickly. I'd been hoping that I could go wild with my cooking once I start eating after Cambridge again, but I may have to do the slowly slowly introductions. Or suffer. Oh well, it's hardly the end of the world.

Buying lunch in a non vegan world isn't so easy. Camden food co, Boots et al are all incredibly unhelpful. I didn't have time to go to Tesco (thanks to work cutting our meal breaks down to half hour) so I brought a non vegan sandwich. Lesson for the future: always prepare my own lunches for work - NEVER allow myself to get caught out. If I weren't still eating quorn or using Cambridge products, I'd have walked away with just a packet of crisps or something instead of a sandwich. I still felt like the biggest hypocrite on the planet as I scuttled back to my staff room and threw my (not very nice) sandwich down my throat before my colleagues entered the room. I'm not fully vegan but I've adopted the mindset (see, HUGE hypocrite) and I don't think I could have felt any worse about doing it had I taken a bite out of some meat. I know it's only a matter of time, but I can't wait for the cambridge products and quorn to be gone.

I'm going to be restarting my diet today - I really want to be fully vegan by my birthday, which means quitting using these cambridge products within 4 months. It doesn't give me a lot of time to drop 50lbs so it's time I quit messing about and focussed.

Celebrities: John Schneider

I just decided, quite randomly, to make a post linking to the Earthlings site and hadn't noticed the blog link before. I like blogs. I've been collecting links to blogs.

I'm unmoved by celebrities and their 'voice of reason' for animals. We've all seen the actors and models that advertise for PETA in one breath and then wear a fur coat in the next (Naomi isn't the first and she sure won't be the last). They received their substantial paycheck, right? Which, let's face it, is what your donations to PETA pay for - it most certainly isn't to ensure the welfare of the animals.

Anyway, I digress.
I can't seem to help myself when I see people crying. If an actor is good enough to convince me that they're crying for real in a movie, I'm in floods. As for watching a from the heart, genuine appeal, with crying, much clearing of the throat and a visible show of that person trying to pull themself together, it is even worse.

The last entry in Earthlings blog was from November 15th. I can't see a year so I'll assume it was from last year, although it could be older. It's an imbedded video of actor John Schneiders reaction to watching Earthlings and opening his eyes to the cruelty and horror of the world around us. I would expect to see a woman cry at the video, but the fact that a man recorded his reaction in his own hotel room, alone and then uploaded it makes it much more powerful. In a world where a man is thought of as a 'pussy' if he shows emotion in public, John Schneider has just become a personal hero of mine.

Hoping it works - the video:


Please check out Earthlings. Allow yourself to see the world as it really is beneath the shiny supermarket packaging so that you can make an informed choice.

The Vegan Pantry

There are many things that I've realised I'll require as I make the transition to vegan. An entirely new pantry is one of them. Actually, it'll just be 3 cupboards and a combo fridge freezer filled to bursting, but you get the idea.


Chez Bettay has an incredible list that they say is their ultimate vegan pantry, which looks like it's filled with more food than an extremely large family could eat in a week, let alone my housemate and me. However, one of the things I immediately noticed about the list was that a few items that are used in many of the vegan recipes I've scoured are not present.


For simple scrambled tofu 'egg' I know that while I can add loads of vegetables to the dish, the simplest thing I can do is simply add a little Kala Namak (black salt) to broken down tofu and enjoy thoroughly 'eggy' scramble.

As a meat eater, I'd add Worcester sauce to Bolognese mince and I really don't see why I shouldn't continue to do so if I am using vegan mince, except that Vegan Worcestershire Sauce is also not mentioned.

While I am content to just use Cheezley to recreate my need for cheese, not all of the recipes I've been collecting endorse such trust in deliciously recreated solid fat and instead call for nutritional yeast, which, as you've probably already guessed, is also absent.

And lastly, while they’ve added Seitan and multiple forms of tofu, they’ve forgotten to add my new acquaintances Polenta and Tempeh to the list.


It seems that every single person seems to have their own ideas of what their kitchen should consist of. I personally fantasise about seeing a brand spanking new recipe in one of the many sites I stalk, which urges me to recreate it immediately. Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to go to the cupboards and pull down every single necessary item? I imagine myself recreating vegan versions of Nigella Lawson-esque food porn in my house, which I admit would be completely wasted on my cats, ferrets and housemate, but in my fantasy, my kitchen faces the main road instead of the garden, and a cute, vegan, pagan, 30-something, single, non-smoking, sober, cute guy with his own place, a well paid job and all of his own hair just happens to be walking past the open window and stops to request a taste, followed by a date. *sighs* A girl can dream, can’t she?



Anyway, am I using this post as just an excuse to write down a few of the more common vegan items that I constantly forget? Absolutely. Will it help me to remember? Absolutely not :)




EDIT: I think that rather than creating blog post after blog post with other ingredients that I remember/come across, I shall simply make a list of them in this post and link to them in Amazon (although if I could, I'd link to the UK Amazon instead! Our Amazon doesn't seem to have half of this stuff, sadly.)


Currently:

*Kala Namak

*Vegan Worcestershire Sauce

*Nutritional Yeast

*Tempeh

*Polenta

*Soy protein

*Xanthan gum

Recipe: Cream of roasted tomato and red pepper soup

Cream of roasted tomato and red pepper soup

Time I updated this blog with more than just posts about my poor memory.
My very first soup was beautiful, if only because it was my own, very simple creation. I'm usually a follow the recipe kinda gal, but I had a basic concept of what a tomato soup should consist of, so just followed my instincts and added other things for flavour.

Serves 2

Ingredients
1 red pepper, deseeded
10-12 various fresh tomatoes (I used 8 plum and 3 salad)
1 small red onion, peeled but whole
3 cloves garlic, peeled but whole
2 Portobello mushrooms
Soya cream
Basil

Instructions
Place the deseeded pepper, tomato, peeled onion, garlic and mushrooms into a roasting tray,drizzle a little olive oil over and roast on 200c until soft (usually around 15-20 mins. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Peel the peppers and tomatoes before blending all vegetables until smooth. Sieve the liquid from the mixture into a saucepan and add soya cream (I used Alpro although use whatever type suits you). stir and reheat gently.
Serve immediately and enjoy x

Note
If you wish for a little heat, add half a teaspoon of vegan red chilli paste to the soup after it has been sieved.
The mass of vegetables that won't go through the sieve are delicious warmed slightly or left cold, spread on toast, crackers, dipped with breadsticks or just inside pita pockets.

This post is brought to you out of strange obsessions

I went to buy a paper from WhSmith yesterday after work. It's actually the job that I did for 4 years before joining the Underground. The aim as a till monkey (as I liked to call us - strangely, none of my former colleagues appreciated the term) is to persuade the customer to take an 'extra' with their desired shop. I always managed to sell the most chocolate, sweets, Harry Potter pre-orders, etc, than anybody else in my store. Not that I'm bragging, but if the person that sold the most got a voucher, free bar of chocolate or a free book out of it, I was going to be that person. I'm not overly competitive, but I will not be beaten.

The woman that served me asked in a nonchalant voice if I'd have liked any of the selection of sweets that she had on display (if I'd worked there, I'd have trounced her) and, joking because I'm still on my Cambridge diet, I said 'Not unless any of them are vegan', which, consisting of lots of Haribo jellies and Galaxy milk chocolate, I knew they weren't - I wouldn't touch any of it, even if she took the time to check all of them.
One of the things I'm beginning to find irritating about telling somebody else that I'm vegan (well, apart from the stupid diet, I almost am), is having to listen to people listing foods that they think are vegan. Apparently fish is vegan (who knew?) and you're a vegetarian if you don't eat any meat or dairy, so is a vegan somebody that only eats fruit? Grrr. This woman, thankfully, knew what a vegan is. She asked very simply, 'So how do you get all of your nutrients? Do you eat tofu and fruit?'
Now, yesterday I was running on about 45 minutes sleep from the night before thanks to being unable to sleep after shift changes, and I looked like death on a stick - I looked awful! I also couldn't list all of the vegan 'meats'. I managed to croak out that I ate tofu, and although I haven't tried it yet, the name amuses me so much that I also said 'Seitan', more for the look on her face. And then I was stuck. I knew there were a couple more but I just couldn't remember them, so I stuck 'nuts, seeds and vegetables' on the end. She just said that I looked very healthy so I aimed an ‘ok, I’m done and am outta here now’ look in her direction and scuttled out of the shop clutching my goods.

It's been bugging me all day: Tofu and Seitan. Great. And then I forgot about it until I got home and spotted 'Tempeh' in a vegan blog. Yay! 3 down, 1 to go. Obsession reignited.

I know the fourth began with 'P' but I was stuck on the word Paneer, which I know is an Indian cheese!
Google is very unhelpful. Nobody uses it in any of the recipes I've browsed. I've searched and came up empty. So I got bored and switched off.
Two minutes later, the correct word occurred to me: Polenta. Thank Goddess for that!

My vegan 'meats':
Tofu
Seitan
Tempeh
Polenta

I’ve seen loads of recipes that use Tofu and Seitan, but none that incorporate Tempeh or Polenta. Half of me is curious to know why that is? (are they both basically a one trick ingredient?) but the other half really wants to try them (when the diet is over, of course).

Now, excuse me, but it’s time to hunt down more recipes!

Planning ahead for Christmas recipes

I've made a decision about what I will be cooking for Christmas. Actually, I've made a decision about which recipes I will be using for Christmas. I will be making finger foods for the 21st, that I am planning on taking around to my sick grandmother.

Something to make now:
Christmas pudding
Mincemeat

Leading up to Christmas week that I'll be sharing w/neighbours:
Pumpkin spiced bread
Banana bread
Pumpkin Pie
Banana-maple oatmeal Cookies

Foods I am planning for the 21st are:
Individual Vegan toads in the hole
Vegan sausage rolls
Home made hummus with cheezley bread sticks
Individual pizzas
Roasted tomato and pepper soup w/flatbreads (no links, sorry, this is my own recipe)
Stuffed peppers w/cous cous
Baked paprika sweet potato crisps

Individual apple pies
Chocolate and coconut truffles
Vegan Milanos

Christmas eve:
Christmas cake
Chocolate tiffin
Gingerbread cookies
Mince pies
Chocolate cake

Christmas Day:
Quorn family roast (which will be the only non vegan item on the menu - I'll have a whole year to convince my housemate to allow me to try cooking a nut roast)
Swede and carrots
Vegan Cauliflower cheese
meat free bacon wrapped sausages


This Christmas, dinner will be brought to the Herbivore household courtesy of the following sites:
Fat Free Vegan Kitchen
Vegan Village
Parsley Soup
My Vegan Planet
Vegan Cupcakes
Razzle Dazzle Recipes
Cook Dannemann

My neighbours are going to love me this year! I hope some of this stuff will freeze ;)

Vegan Sites

I've been trawling the net looking for vegan suitable recipes for Christmas, and stumbled upon a spakly treasure trove of recipes to suit all occasions. I'll be honest, I walked into this diet thinking that it'll be 101 ways to cook chickpeas and lentils, and to be honest, there are a thousand ways to incorporate these into the foodie lifestyle, but there's so much more! You truly believe that you'll never eat another cheese scone or tiramisu dessert again, and I'm overjoyed to be shown how wrong I am!



Some of the sites thrilling me right now:

Veggie Love Planet

The Vegan Society

Vegan Village

BBC food

Veganfamily

Vegetarian Society

Parsley Soup

Veg family

Whole Foods Market

You may have noticed that a lot of the links are to the Yule section of the recipes. Enjoy and please feel free to suggest more :)

On the books front, my housemate ordered Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, which is just brilliant! I also received my copy the The Quorn Kitchen, which would have been perfect for when I turned Veggie back in June. I can still use it though - I just need to substitute lol.

I've also ordered my copy of Alicia Silverstones The Good Diet and Skinny Bitchin', which I'm anticipating imminently :)