Vegan Challenge

Going Vegan is something I've talked about on this blog before and something I really would like to do. I have stupid excuses not to do it but really I'm just a foodaholic at the end of the day and giving up certain things would be so hard. Not to forget my Mum when she cooks dinner. She allready finds it pretty hard whenever she makes dinner with me and my sister being vegetarian. So I would be doing a lot more cooking! Which isn't bad.

So, I watched Gary yourofsky's lecture on veganism ( http://www.adaptt.org/ ). He made me think and really pushed me to try veganism. I have a big conscience being a vegetarian and I feel guilty. I know about the dairy industry and the egg industry and how cruel it is. So I feel pretty bad a lot of the time about it as I know what goes on but I'm to selfish to do anything about it.

So for the past couple days, I've been adopting a vegan diet. It also happens to be World Vegan Week (http://www.worldgoveganweek.org/). I started properly yesterday on Monday. I made changes like having no milk in my coffee( college doesn't have soy milk), I ate a chick pea, potato and caulliflour curry, had a bagel with no cheese, snacked on fruit and opted for a fry's vegan bar for my chocolate fix. However, I slipped up when I got home. My chocolate cravings were high and there was a bag of twirls. I need to get vegan chocolate for the house!

Today for breakfast, I ate bakes beans on toast with no butter, a Blacfairs Flapjack (only vegan thing from the SU shop, as far as I'm aware), a soya coffee and a chickpea casserole thing from a cornucopia recipe. I've been pretty hungry all day and now I feel so sick. I don't know what to blame.

I've just made Cornucopia's oat bars, using a recipe from the book. I used Biona Sunflower Vegetable margarine. They turned out lovely but I was short 50g of margarine so they are falling apart just a little bit. There's one of fruits( raspberries, blackberries) between 2 layers of oats, coconut, flour, brown sugar and margarine.

Any recommendations for butter/margarine to bake with?

And soya milk is gross, is rice or oat any nicer?

Butternut squash falafel.

I just made these to bring into college. It’s been a while since I’ve cooked due to lack of time. They are so yum and easy to make so here is how.

Half a medium sizes Butter nut squash- peeled and cut into small chunks

Sweet chilli sauce and Honey

400g can chick peas

3 spring onions chopped up

100g bread crumbs

25g plain flour

1 egg yolk

4 cloves of garlic diced

2 teaspoons of cumin/chilli powder/ground corriander

salt and pepper

juice of 1 lemon

handfull of cashews (Optional though)

1. Cut the Butternut squash into chunks and cover with olive oil, a small bit of honey and sweet chilli sauce and salt and pepper and bake under soft.

2. When finished put the butter nut squash into a food processor and blitz and then transfer into a big bowl.

3. Put the drained chick peas, spring onion,Lemon juice, cashews, garlic and spices into the food processor and blitz until it’s a paste. Then transfer to the bowl.

4. Add the flour, breadcrumbs and egg to the bowl and mix together until a wet paste has formed.

5. Get a baking dish and put a little bit of oil on the base. Shape the mixture into little balls and place on the dish.

5. Bake for around 30 mins on a high heat. I turned them around half way through so they were crispy on both sides!

Berlin

I visited Berlin last month. I went with my mum. I was pretty excited to visit all the vegetarian places but I ended up staying in a completely different area to where they predominately are. I didn't want to drag my mum across the city! We did venture out to Kruzberg ( I think) one night to Cafe V. Getting there was a nightmare, I kept messing up the trains. It was dark when we got there and there was a load of sketchy characters. We got to Cafe V anyhow and was greeted by very friendly English speaking staff.

Personnly I didn't find the food great or the menu. Lot's of tofu, which I'm not really into. I meant to take down what we ordered but forgot. I got a canneloni type thing and my mum, I don't remember, ha. Terrible review, sorry!

Bagel idea

I made this a few weeks ago and got hooked. I ate it too many times that I kind of got sick of it!

So it contains:

- Roasted or grilled sweet potato strips (thin)

- Sweet chilli sauce

- Hummous

- Feta

- & Salad.

Trust me, it's delisssh.

Sugar cinnamon pull apart bread.

While flicking through stumbleupon, I came across This recipe (http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/03/cinnamon-sugar-pull-apart-bread/) for Cinnamon sugar pull apart bread. It looked unreal and I kept saying I had to make it. Only problem was that it was all in cups. I find some website conversions to grams differ from others so I don't know if I had the correct measurements.

It was pretty easy to make but I don't have to much experience making dough but it turned out all right! Mine wasn't as skillfully put together and I cooked it for a bit longer than needed.

Extremely chunky vegan apple and berry crumble

Crumble with a hint of coconut.

I got a great recipe of a friend for a apple and berry crumble pie. She brought me a slice of it and it was great.

You need a shortcrust pastry base for the pie.

For the apple and berry filling: 350g cooking apple (shreded)

150g raspberries

125g blueberries

100g sugar

I stewed all this together with a drop of water until it reduced.

For the crumble:  
       100g (vegan) butter

100g caster sugar

25g desecated coconut

250g plain flour

This crumble is nice and chunk so make little molds with the crumble and place it on top of the berry mix. The coconut really adds to it to, I highly recommend it!

Summer smoothie ice pops

I came home one night to find ice pop molds that my Mum got in tesco! I had been looking ages for cheap and suitable ones.

So I blended up some fruit to make ice pops with. There is gala melon and banana, Strawberry and orange and strawberry. They were so tasty!

Another summer cake and macaroons

I made another tall, sweet cream filled and summer berry cake for a little cat party! I made one chocolate sponge and one vanilla and cut them both in half, resulting in 4 halfs!

Chocolate Macaroons.

I have always wanted to try make these but thought they looked really complicated. After my friend made them and said they were easy, I gave it a shot.

I used this recipe- http://www.followmefoodie.com/2010/12/parisian-macaroon-macaron-recipe-from-stuart%E2%80%99s-bakery/

They were pretty simple to make and taste so yummy!

Dogs in Distress-Rescue, Foster, Adopt

Dogs in Distress is a great Irish animal organisation who work independently to help get dogs out of the pound and into foster homes until they get adopted.

The woman who run this are great so I just thought I'd throw a link up here. My family and are dog fosterers for dogs in distress and are currently with our 2nd foster dog, Jessie.

If you are thinking about getting a dog, please rescue a dog rather than b

uying one. There are so many rescue dogs who apreciate loving homes. Dogs in Distress always have pure breeds too.

So check the site and dogs out and pass on the good word!

http://dogsindistress.org/index.php

to view current foster dogs looking for homes-http://dogsindistress.org/blog/index.php

Sweet potato/normal potato rosti.

Please excuse the terrible phone pictures. Sometimes going upstairs to get my camera is to much of a trek.

So this evening I had an itch to try a rosti. I have never had one before and made one before. I keep seeing them in places so it inspired to give it a go. I didn't look at a recipe but my mum told me to squeeze all the juice out.

1-I grated one sweet potato and one normal baking potato and then squeezed all the juice out by my hands.

2- I fried the grated potatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper and some rosemary and cumin.

3. Fried for about 5 mins. I tasted it to see if it was hard.

4. Put the grated potatoes in a bowl along with a couple teaspoons of cumin, honey, an egg and chunks of feta.

5. I tried to fry them but that failed so I baked them and they turned out so yummy.

If this is even how you make a rosti, I have no idea. Will be making them again for sure anyway!