Vegan MoFo VI, Day 26 - British Food Friday - Sausage and Mash

I'll be honest - I'm a little burned out, but I've also been really tired this week, hence a lack of posts for the past couple of days.  And today's post is a bit of a cop-out (again) because I only came up with it around 5pm today.  Also, I'm having another allergy attack, so I'm doubly tired and can't stop sneezing.

That said, at least I can talk about something new.  As I said, it occurred to me that I didn't plan anything for BFF (I kept thinking I'd do a roast in the slow cooker, but I never remembered in the morning and was always too tired to prep in the evening) when I was standing around the office trying to decide what to do about the fact that it suddenly started hailing out of nowhere (the forecast for the entire day was sunny).*  I decided to go to Tesco to figure out what to buy for dinner while I waited for the bus, and I suddenly had a brainwave that I could do sausage and mash.

It just so happened that Tesco had a new variety of Linda McCartney sausage (red onion and rosemary) on offer for £1 for a packet of 6.  Combined with the fact that the regular LM sausages were both more calorific and more expensive, I decided that it might be good if I talked about a product I've never actually talked about before.

I wasn't really sure about them, but they turned out to be really good.  They had a nice flavour and texture that were completely different from the regular LM sausages.  And they were really tasty even though I burned them!  I could see myself buying these again.  I served them with some noochy Smash and microwave-steamed veg.  It was quick, easy, delicious, and filling, which is exactly what I needed.

I might try to get some extra entries in over the weekend if I can get over this allergy attack and find the energy to do anything.  And I'll definitely post next week, since it's nearly the end of MoFo (*single tear*).  I'm hoping to at least be able to do Sunday baking (especially since one of my co-workers asked me why the baking had stopped) and some more cookbook challenge stuff.  And there might be another restaurant review since Mike totally owes me dinner.  We'll see how it goes.

*That was some crappy sentence structure, but I can't be bothered fixing it.

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 19 - British Food Friday - Treacle Tart

Lemme 'splain something - UK sweeteners are kinda confusing.  When I was younger, listening to loads of British music, I would hear the word "treacle" and assume it was something super sweet and sticky.  Well, it turns out that what the Brits call treacle is what Americans call molasses - so at least the sticky part was accurate.  What I thought was treacle is actually golden syrup (or just syrup - not to be confused with the syrup Americans put on pancakes, which they don't really have here).

So, treacle tart - technically, it doesn't actually have treacle in it.  It's made with golden syrup.  Also, breadcrumbs!  So you're basically eating a crust full of syrup and bread.  There's almost nothing else in it.  I always found treacle tart to be the kind of thing that sounded both horrific and delicious, and this was before I even knew what was in it.

I can't even remember the first time I had treacle tart, but it was well after I'd moved to Scotland.  It was pretty much exactly what I expected - a little bit dirty, but addictively delicious.  I struggled to not eat the whole package.

I knew I had to make treacle tart at some point - it was one of the recipes that made me decide on this theme.  So I looked up recipes and landed on this one from a few MoFos ago.  I had all the ingredients on hand, and it looked pretty easy, so I went for it.

Well, it wasn't quite so straightforward.  Part of this is to do with my hateful kitchen - I don't have the best surface for making pastry, so the rolling out of the pastry was a bit of a project.  Then it turned out that the filling didn't actually fill the crust!  So I ended up having to nearly triple the filling.  I also ran out of syrup, but luckily I had a bottle of the maple-flavoured syrup, so I used a bit of that.  I'm so glad I made my own breadcrumbs because I used nearly all of them, and it was more than would've been in a box.

In the end, it all worked out.  Everyone loved it.  It had just a hint of maple flavour, which made it a little different than the usual treacle tart.  I might try to recreate this on purpose some day, but it might not happen until after I get a new kitchen (or maybe use someone else's).

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 12 - British Food Friday - Fish and Chips

It's British Food Friday!

I really struggled with what to make tonight.  I didn't want to make another sweet thing because we've had sweets in the office every day this week and it's reaching the point of overkill.  I was waffling between pot roast and fish and chips because that's all I could think to make.  I dug out a couple of pot roast recipes and realised that most of them were for crock pot roasts, which would take 4+ hours to cook.  I'm not spending 4+ hours on dinner on Friday night.

I finally decided to make the Fish and Chips (kinda) from Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations by Alicia Simpson.  As you might recall, I tested for this book a couple of years ago.  Well, this recipe wasn't on the tester list, and for some reason I kept passing it over when I flipped through the book.  I honestly don't know why because fried fish is one of the few pregan things I still miss.

Of course, when I finally went to start cooking, I realised that the light above the cooker is now out - the day after we got the other light fixture replaced.  I very nearly decided to just say "fork it" and make some Fry's chicken nuggets for dinner.  But I powered through the annoyance of my hateful kitchen and made the seitan.

I was really unsure about this - you cook it in a smaller-than-usual pan in not very much broth.  But it actually turned out really well.  Unfortunately, it wasn't particularly fishy, but it was still really, really tasty.  Also, I have to say, the coating was more Southern than British (even though this is a St Patrick's Day recipe).  Again, super tasty, but not quite what I was expecting.

I couldn't be bothered making chips from scratch, so I bought the non-coated chips at the store.  Yes, most of the bags of chips I looked at were battered or otherwise coated in some way.  I just wanted straight-up chips, so I went with the bag which had an ingredients list so small (potatoes, sunflower oil) that it took me about a minute to find it.

I made a quick and dirty tartar sauce from some smoked garlic mayo, lemon juice and minced capers (I don't do vinegar on my fish).  It all worked really well together, and I'd definitely recommend it!

I will eventually do that pot roast, but maybe at a weekend.

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 5 - British Food Friday

Yay, I stuck to my theme today!

For the first British Food Friday, I made the classic Bakewell tart.  According to Professor Wikipedia, the Bakewell tart hails from Derbyshire and consists of a shortcrust pastry, jam filling, and almond sponge layer.

I've only ever eaten Bakewell tart once - I think it was during the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale this year.  I actually got the train to Glasgow and built a day out around going to a bake sale.  That's what not having a working oven does to a person.  I really, really liked it, but it wasn't quite jammy enough for me.  I swore I would make one myself one day when I had a working oven, but I'd have a massive jam layer.  So, naturally, this was the first thing I thought of for this theme (in fact, I think I decided I wanted to make this and treacle tart and built the theme around that).

Last night, before I met Mike for dinner, I bought a block of frozen Jus Rol shortcrust pastry.  I figured it would be thawed by the time we got home.  Not so much, but I just defrosted it in the microwave.  But because I'm a genius, I decided that it would be awesome if I made 2 tarts after 10pm and take them in to work when only 13 people were in the office that day.  I mostly made this decision based on the fact that you're meant to use the crusts within 24 hours of defrosting and can't refreeze them.

I decided to make what I always thought was the standard - cherry Bakewell.  I thought cherry Bakewell meant that the jam layer was cherry, but apparently it's just cherry because it has almond icing and a glace cherry on top (what?).  But, whatever, whatever, I still used cherry jam.  That was my first one.  I decided to get a little experimental with my second one, so I made a PBJ Bakewell - raspberry/cherry jam layer (because I had extra cherry jam but not quite enough raspberry) with a Freenut butter cake topping.

For the sponge on the classic, I made a half recipe of the almond cake in Have Your Cake and Vegan Too (which I think I talked about in my first post).  For the jam layer, I used some reduced sugar cherry jam from Sainsbury's that, because it had whole cherries, I blended until smooth (I don't like bits).  I topped it with a simple water glaze (icing sugar mixed with water - I didn't even measure it).  For the PBJ, I made the PB cupcakes in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and I used the last of my seedless raspberry jam mixed with a bit of leftover cherry jam.  I melted some chocolate chips in the microwave with a couple of splashes of soymilk to drizzle over the top of this one.

These weren't quite the hit that the almond mocha cake was, but I think that's partially down to the office being half empty (there were 3 people working away from the office, 5 PT people who don't work Fridays, and 4 who were on holiday).  The people who ate them loved them, though the classic was the clear favourite.  I think people here really just don't do PBJ.  I ended up coming home with a full pan (half of each).  But I think it was a success for the first attempt!

I think I'm gonna try to make something savoury for the next BFF because I think my co-workers are gonna be a bit caked out after too long (especially since I'm taking something in on Monday and another person said he'd bring something on Tuesday).  Also, I think I'm PMSing, because even though these weren't as good as the almond mocha cake, I wanted to cram both of them in my face all day, so I need to personally lay off the cakes too.

So, any ideas for what I can make next week?