Vegan MoFo 2014 - New (to me) foods from Tesco

I spent most of today running around.  This included a pointless trip to Real Foods - pointless because I forgot they closed at 6.30pm on Saturdays, and I got there at 6.45pm.  Derp.  So today I'm just gonna talk about some new things that have popped up at Tesco, and one new-to-me thing that I got today.

First up, Tesco's new dairy-free ice cream.  It's £2 for 500ml of coconut-based vanilla ice cream.  It tastes alright, but it falls on texture, which I felt was a bit grainy.  It's a great option for a soy-free vegan considering how much other coconut-based vegan ice creams cost (I saw one at Real Foods a few weeks ago that was around £7 for the same size).  But compare that to £2.20 for 700ml of soy-based Swedish Glace.  I loves me some soy, so I'll stick to deliciously creamery Swedish Glace.

A new-to-me thing I got is their garlic sauce.  It's in that wee section of house-brand specialty spices and sauces, which actually seems to have quite a few vegan items.  Garlic is one of my favourite things, so obviously I had to get this.  I'd been eyeing it for a while, but yesterday's weird dinner, and the leftovers produced, pushed me to buy it.  I tried it on my casserole, and it was alright.  By itself, it's a little sweet, but it works on things.

Next up - Amy's breakfast sandwich!  I searched what felt like every health food shop in NYC looking for these things, but couldn't find them, so I was pretty excited when someone else posted they'd found them.  I had to go out to the big Tesco to find it (as well as the next thing), but as soon as I got home, I popped it right in the microwave.  Well, I hate to say it, but it wasn't great.  The microwaving made the bread really weird and tough in parts.  For £2.49 and having to spend an hour on the bus, I wouldn't make the trip just for these.

Finally - A few years ago, I went to Brighton VegFest and met up with some European PPKers, one of whom brought me some Speculoos pudding made by Alpro in ... Belgium, I think.  Earlier this year, during Tesco's Healthy Living Fair (or whatever it was called), they sold some gingerbread man-flavoured Alpro desserts.  They're hard to find, but they're still around.  If you look at the package, it actually lists Speculoos biscuits as an ingredient, so these are pretty much the same thing.  The TL;DR of this is - Speculoos pudding at Tesco.  Do I even need to tell you that these are good?  These are good.  If you like any of the other Alpro puddings (well, I think they're just called desserts), and you like Speculoos, then you'll like these.

Despite the pretty crap free from stuff (most of it has milk or eggs in it) and the fact that they label next to nothing, I'm pretty impressed by the expanding selection of vegan items.  I hope they keep going this way (and maybe improve their own-brand stuff by taking out the milk and eggs).

Vegan MoFo 2014 - Bourbon biscuit spread

Another lazy post today - I'm super tired (again) and couldn't be bothered making the thing I'd intended to make.

Remember Speculoos spread? Of course you do because you never stopped eating it. But in case you aren't familiar, it's a peanut butter-like spread made from caramelised cinnamon biscuits. It's made out of cookies (probably NSFW).

Not to be outdone, Tesco decided to make a series of cookie-based spreads. And the Bourbon biscuit spread is vegan! Obviously I bought some. You may or may not be surprised to learn that it tastes pretty much just like Bourbon biscuits. In fact, I would say it's better than Bourbon biscuits. Yeah, it's really good. I've been eating it on bread because carbs (and fat) on carbs.

I think at the moment you can only get it at Tesco Extra. But if you live near one and want a chocolate version of Speculoos, you should look for it. I think I found it in the aisle with the PBs and jams and such.

Vegan MoFo 2014 - Natural Selection Foods

Sorry about the photo-less post - I can't be arsed turning on my laptop, so I'm doing this from my iPad. I'm being lazy in another way in that I'm just gonna talk about a shop because I just made standard tofu scramble for dinner, which is nothing new.

Yesterday we went to lunch with Mike's mum at the city centre-ish location of Bonsai. When we left, I noticed a new shop around the corner, so we checked it out. It's called Natural Selection Foods, which frankly makes me a little uncomfortable. They mostly have stuff like packaged nuts and dried fruits, teas, flours, and snack bars, which I guess is where the natural part comes in. I think it's the muscle gain products that put that bit of discomfort in.

They had some high-protein cookies that happened to be vegan, so we got some of those. The brand is Lenny and Larry's, which I would've linked to but I keep getting an error on their site. They also did a lot of the other body builder-type snacks (like Fit brownies or something like that). Anyway, we got a chocolate chip, a double chocolate chip, and a pumpkin spice cookie, and we ate the first two when we got hot chocolate at Starbucks (ha!). I thought they were good for GF cookies, and then I realised that they weren't GF. Oops. They weren't bad, but they were a little dry. I think that's because they're kinda fitness snacks, so instead of fat they have a protein flour blend. They were £2.50 each, but I'm not sure if that was reasonable or a rip off. They were pretty big, but still.

We worried going in that this shop would give Real Foods a run for their money, but I think RF is safe. Like I said, they mostly just have snacks, whereas RF has pretty vastly different stuff. NSF doesn't have chocolate, toiletries, fresh fruit and veg, frozen or fridge foods, etc. I think the two shops would compliment each other, but I don't think one will drive the other out of business.

Vegan MoFo 2014 - Bagels I've known

First things first - I am so annoyed with myself that I didn't call my coffee post Coffee Talk.  Seriously, what is wrong with me?

Moving on and speaking of cop-out posts, today is another because I don't really have anything to talk about.  I thought I might review a cafe I went to this afternoon, but I ended up only getting cake because none of the savoury food appealed (and they had surprisingly few vegan options knowing that a large group of vegans was visiting).  And this place is known to be shutting in the next 6 months, so really there's no point.

So I'm gonna talk about bagels.

I eat a bagel for breakfast almost every day.  But I don't think I can call myself a bagel purist.  I mean, I'm Southern, and we don't really do bagels the way the North (specifically NY) does bagels.  I grew up on frozen Lender's Bagels and never knew a fresh bagel until adulthood.  I had one bagel when I visited NYC and, sadly, wasn't that impressed.  I think that's mostly because I like my bagels toasted, and this bagel was cold (baked that day, but not fresh from the oven).  It was alright because garlic bagel, but it wasn't the life-altering experience I expected a NY bagel to be.  And of course, living in the UK, I only have access to store-bought bagels.

That said, I do have preferences.  I used to favour plain bagels, but then I discovered sesame.  I can't remember why I picked up the sesame bagels - either I was curious or that was the only variety available other than the dreaded cinnamon raisin (cinnamon yes, raisin no*).  But now sesame is my go-to bagel.

I've made my own bagels before (the ones in Vegan Brunch, I think), and they were great.  But I sucked at shaping them, and even though it was pretty easy as far as bread-making goes, it was still far more complicated and difficult than buying them.  I convinced myself it was so easy to make them that I shouldn't ever have to buy them again, so I went without for months.  Those were dark times.

As far as brand - Sainsbury's bakery only.  I've tried every other store and shelf brand (New York Bagel Company, you're fooling no one), and the Sainsbury's bakery bagels are the only ones that are even tolerable.  I think the most disappointing bagels I've ever eaten were the Asda sesame bagels - they looked and felt exactly the same as Sainsbury's, but once cut and toasted, you realise that they're horribly dry in the middle.  They were so bad, worse even than Tesco because at least you knew going in that those were inferior.

I always eat them toasted.  I just can't handle cold bagels.  I've eaten my bagels the same way forever - toasted, layer of margarine, then a layer of cream cheese (Tofutti - other brands here have a wang).  If I'm honest, they're mostly a conveyance for cream cheese.  I think I've tried other things - I'm pretty sure I've had a plain bagel with either chocolate hazelnut spread or Speculoos because sometimes I run out of cream cheese.

Like I've said before, I'm a creature of habit.

I'm sure my bagel-eating ways will be blasphemous to some, but I like what I like. So what are your feelings about bagels?  Favourite flavour?  Toppings?  Toasted vs untoasted?

*OK, so I think I've mentioned my thing about dried fruit but never explained.  I have issues with the texture and appearance of dried fruit in things.  Frankly, it creeps me out.  And when I bite into dried fruit, especially when I'm not expecting it, honestly, my eyes water and I gag a little bit, and I sometimes think I might cry.  So, not that this is likely, but if you ever want to make me something, don't put dried fruit in it unless you want me to cry.

Vegan MoFo 2014 - Chili Cheese Dogs

When Mike and I went to Mono last week, we were there on a Thursday.  They do daily specials, and the one for Thursdays is £5 for a chili dog and a beer.  I fully anticipated getting that, but it turned out that the only beer option was Heineken*.  I don't actually like beer so was hoping we could substitute for, say, one of their microbrewed drinks.  But even if we could have, the only one available was ginger beer, and I wasn't in a ginger beer mood.  And since they wanted £4 for the dogs, I just said, I can make that at home.

And so I did.

I made chili cheese dogs with fried onions (which you can't see because they're under the chili and cheese).  And in case you were wondering, yes, I did cover my broccoli with cheese sauce after I took the picture.

I used Fry's hot dogs, Asda meat-free chili (I can't remember the exact name), to which I added some of the leftover weird non-Latin passatta, and leftover Basic Cheese Sauce from Cookin' Crunk.  Served with Tesco beer-battered onion rings and steamed broccoli.  They were pretty damn good.  Though the onion rings were surprisingly bland - most things have too much salt, but these had too little.

*So, that's another complaint I have about Mono, though not referring specifically to Heineken.  They have a lot of alcoholic beverages that are known to be non-vegan, e.g. Guinness and Strongbow (and I think they stock Rekorderlig or Bulmers).  Yeah, they say all their food is vegan, so they can get away with saying they never said they were a vegan establishment, but they're listed in Happy Cow as vegan.  I wonder if, when a customer orders a non-vegan booze option, they tell them that it isn't vegan or just assume the person knows what they're ordering.  I dunno, it just feels sketchy to me.

Vegan MoFo 2014 - PSA: coffee and milk

I was thinking about not posting tonight because I'm super tired and just made Linda McCartney sausages and hash browns for dinner. But then Mike asked me to make coffee, and I thought of something to blog about - how to make coffee without curdling the milk.

It's pretty easy with regular coffee. If you're brewing coffee, you just put the milk in the mug first. And you pretty much do the same with instant, but you put the coffee in the milk and give it a good stir before pouring the (not boiling) hot water over it.

It gets a bit trickier with decaf, which is a recent problem. Mike and I both discovered that regular coffee upsets our stomachs, so we've had to switch. The first couple of times I made decaf, I did my normal method and the milk kept curdling. After some trial and error, I realised that the milk mostly doesn't curdle if it's heated before adding the water. It's slightly annoying because the point of instant is to eliminate all those steps and the time it takes to do things, but at least I can just pop it in the microwave while the kettle boils.

Oh yeah, I should mention that I use soy milk exclusively. I've tried a lot of different types of non-dairy milk, and I keep coming back to soy. As long as it's cold, it has the best mouth feel and flavour, and it has the best consistency for things like tea/coffee and cereal. I'll use other stuff in baking/cooking (unless it needs to curdle - I've found nothing else really curdles like soy) if I've decided to experiment and need to use it up. Obviously any recipe I post can use any non-dairy milk (apart from the hot chocolate, which requires soy for idealogical reasons, though someone kicked up a fuss about almond milk so you could use that too). I guess I just am who I am, which means I find what I like and stick with it. And it doesn't hurt that soy is about 70p cheaper (usually) than the next cheapest non-dairy milk, so I'm saving £7+ per month.

Do you have any tricks for making coffee? Seriously, I need to figure out this curdling biz.

Newsday Tuesday – Waitrose soffritto passata

It’s Newsday Tuesday, where I make/have food that’s new to me!  For a minute I thought I’d failed at it – I forgot that I actually have made the recipe I was gonna talk about.  But then I realised that one of the components is new to me, so it worked out!

I was at Waitrose the other day stocking up on frozen stuff (I got garlic and ice cream, but they didn’t have shallots) and happened upon a new item – jarred soffritto.  I quickly scanned the ingredients for anything non-vegan, not bothering to note the bizarre stuff some British person decided was supposed to go into sofrito, and, seeing that it was safe, bought a jar.

It wasn’t until I got home and had a good look at it in comparison to a recipe in Viva Vegan! that I realised that this is some kind of Euro-sofrito.  Sorry, soffritto.  It contains carrots and celery instead of peppers*.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  Regardless, I used it in a couple of recipes, and it was actually pretty good.

I made the Viva Vegan! Latin Baked Tofu with it, but due to the lack of Latinness, I added a bit of cumin to it before I poured it over the tofu.  I also made the Cuban black bean soup, which saved me a ton of time standing at the stove (but not much in the actual cooking process, which took FOREVAH).

Mike and I really liked it over the tofu, and we really liked the soup, so I can’t really say it’s a terrible product.  It just wasn’t what I expected.  But I guess I should’ve known, since I got it at Waitrose and not Lupe Pinto’s.  Still, I would give it the seal of approval – even though it was different, it was still tasty!

And since I don't have a picture of any food, here's a kitty tongue:

*A quick search tells me that this is Tuscan-style soffritto.  So I guess my Latin baked tofu was actually Italian baked tofu.

Review - Considerit Chocolates

Apparently there's a Saturday market on Grassmarket!  I had no idea.  On one hand, I love that there are so many markets springing up all over Edinburgh - there also seems to be one just off Princes Street nearly every Saturday (I can't remember the name of the street, but it's next to the HSBC branch), and every once in a while one pops up at New Kirk Gate Centre (down at the bottom of Leith Walk).  On the other hand, they almost never have anything vegan, apart from things like marinated olives.

I'm in a local vegan Facebook group, and, Claire, the proprietor of Considerit Chocolates, posted that she'd be selling there this weekend, so I went along after buying nearly all of the tofu from The Engine Shed at the farmers market.  Pro tip - If you go right to the back of the farmers market, there's a stair that leads onto the bottom of the Grassmarket.

Claire had two tables loaded with a huge variety of truffles, truffle bars, and Halloween chocolates, all of which was vegan and gluten free.  I went with the deal she was doing for 5 truffles and a truffle bar for £7 - quite a bargain as it would cost about £8.50 for a similar purchase from The Chocolate Tree, and they don't have nearly the same selection of vegan options.

The truffles, from left to right, are salted caramel (x2), amaretto, cinnamon, and vanilla.  The skull is a plain chocolate truffle, and the bar is a mint truffle bar.  Plus bonus Zebby nose - he was more curious about what I had on that plate than when I brought out my lunch of VBites fish-style steaks.

The truffles were amazing - I really wish I'd bought more, because I ate them all (except the skull) in about 5 minutes.  The salted caramel was a liquid centre, but the rest were ganache.  The flavours worked really well and weren't too subtle as to be overwhelmed by the bitterness of the chocolate.  Claire does a great job of balancing the flavours (they're obvious without being a punch in the face or feeling like the flavour comes just from extracts), and she clearly knows from chocolate.  I honestly couldn't even tell you which was my favourite as they were all delicious in their own way.

I think I'm gonna have to make at least a monthly if not bi-weekly trip to the Grassmarket to get a box of truffles.  If you can't make it to the Grassmarket, or want truffles sooner than next Saturday, you can order from the website (linked above).  I'm so pleased that this wee business exists and wish Claire all the best of luck so that she keeps making these delicious chocolates.

Review - Zen Zen vanilla ice cream

Image from the Zen Zen website

I'm always willing to try new ice creams (as long as they aren't made from ingredients that will hospitalise me), so when I saw that Real Foods had Zen Zen ice cream, I grabbed a wee 125ml container of vanilla.  I never get to buy the wee containers because the only ones they usually sell are dairy ice creams or Booja Booja (made with cashews = hospitalisation).  They're so cute, with their little flat spoon/scraper things right in the lid.  Fun times.

Anyway, I love the concept of a non-dairy but also non-nut based ice cream that was slightly healthier than my beloved Swedish Glace.  I'm hard to please with vanilla because I almost never eat it straight up (without any toppings), and the only one I've ever been happy to do that with was Swedish Glace.

The Zen Zen ice cream just isn't the one for me.  The coconut flavour was really pronounced and overwhelmed the vanilla.  I think a coconut milk base is just too much for a vanilla dessert.  I'd love to try the chocolate (the only other flavour Real Foods had was the nut one) because I think chocolate is a strong enough flavour to power through the coconut.  But vanilla is just too subtle for it.  And considering that the 125ml tub was the same price as a 700ml tub of Swedish Glace - still undefeated as my favourite vanilla ice cream - I think I'll stick with the stuff I like, even if it is full of chemicals and gums and precious sugar.

New stuff from Sainsbury's and another Cookin' Crunk recipe down

I found a new thing at Sainsbury's today!  They have their range of meatless alternative frozen foods, and they've recently come out with an Indian Lentil and Spinach quarter pound "burger" (along with a bunch of other stuff that wasn't vegan).  I pretty much couldn't resist, so I bought a pack and had some for dinner.

I served them with some spinach (cooked from frozen with lemon juice, salt, and garlic granules), boiled new potatoes, and Creamy Tahini Sauce from Cookin' Crunk.

The burgers were pretty tasty, and I could see myself buying them again.  I might try to make my sides with more Indian-style spices the next time I make these.  I loved the tahini sauce - it's slightly similar to Isa's Classic Vegan Caesar dressing - but I had to add a lot of water to get it to sauce consistency.  Regardless, I would absolutely make this again.  It went really well with the potatoes and spinach, and I imagine it would work in loads of other applications.

Oh, before I forget, in their wee Jewish section, Sainsbury's sell these chocolate wafer things (like the inside of a Kit Kat but twice as wide) that are vegan!  They're super delicious.  Now they just need to bring back the mini-latkes.

Granny's Corn Casserole

I went to my local hfs, Real Foods, and spent ages trying to decide if I wanted to buy any delicious, delicious processed convenience foods because I could not figure out what to make for dinner.  I had already decided to buy some cream cheese (Sheese brand, fwiw), nooch (finally replenishing my stock), and marshmallows (more on those at a later date), but that obviously didn't help with dinner.  Then Mike called to ask me something, and while we talked we figured it out.

We decided on chickpeas and broccoli - I already had frozen chickpeas, and he bought broccoli.  When I got home and started cooking, I decided to use the cream cheese I'd just bought to make Granny's Corn Casserole from Cookin' Crunk.  It turned out super quick and easy - apart from chopping the roasted red pepper that stood in for the pimento, there was almost no work required.  It took about 5 minutes to throw together, which is always a bonus.

It tasted alright, but I think that was down to using a lesser cream cheese.  I bet it would've been great if I'd bought Tofutti, but the only one they had was the herby one (which probably would've been fine).  I liked it, but I think I would've preferred the version she mentions in the intro.  I might see if I can recreate that one myself!

Taco Tuesday - lentil tacos

It's Taco Tuesday!  I had some lentils left over from a few days ago that I wanted to use up, so I decided to make lentil tacos.  But the recipe I have calls for chili powder, which I didn't have, so I first had to make chili powder.  I used this recipe but doubled the quantities, used chipotle powder instead of cayenne pepper, and added a bit of allspice and coriander because the old bottle had those in the ingredients.

These are topped with Tesco smoky cheese, Uncle Ben's Mexican rice, Joya plain soy yogurt, Tesco mild salsa, and iceberg lettuce (in no particular order).  They were super delicious.

Taco Tuesday!

I know I'm late to the game, but I'm ready to get on board the Taco Cleanse, y'all.

I love tacos.  When my best good friend Eva and I get together for more than a day, we always have taco night.  There isn't even a question of whether it'll happen, just when.  I haven't had a lot of tacos lately because there was a recall of all the vegan mince a while back, and it still isn't back in stores.  But I went minimally fancy (nowhere near schmancy) tonight by making some stuff from scratch!

Tonight's dinner was homemade corn tortillas from Viva Vegan!, tofu chicharrones (also from VV!), and tinned refried beans (I forgot to soak beans and also I'm having an allergy attack).  I'd never made either of the VV recipes, but luckily I chose what turned out to be two really easy ones.

When Terry says if you can lift a bag of masa, you can make tortillas, she's not kidding.  These were so easy.  I was thinking about pancakes while making these, and I realised I could probably make 2-3 dozen tortillas in the time it would take me to make a single batch of pancakes.  It doesn't hurt that I have a tortilla press - it makes wee baby tortillas (well, smaller than I'm used to)! - but I bet rolling them out wouldn't take all that long either.

The chicharrones took a long time but weren't a lot of effort.  Most of the time is waiting - freezing then thawing the tofu, then pressing and marinating.  But it's about 30 minutes of actual work, which was great tonight when I was sneezing so much I thought my whole face might come off.  You can make the marinade and throw the tofu in it, then make the tortillas, then fry the chicharrones in the pan you used for the tortillas and have dinner ready in half an hour.

I'm so excited to eat leftovers tomorrow and make my co-workers jealous that my lunch is so much more awesome than theirs.

I have to say, I'm not even at the mild level of the cleanse and my mood has improved.  Now I just need to decide what to make for next Taco Tuesday!

Oh yeah, Mike insisted I post this educational video for those who might not know the difference between tacos and burritos (NB - not vegan!):

Southern Saturday on Sunday - Grits, Hush Puppies, and ... Hummus?

I have a totally legit excuse for missing out yesterday's entry.  We were at our friends' place playing a game called Civilisation, which seems to never end.  I mean, there is an end point, but after about 12 hours worth of play (with a break for dinner), we still weren't anywhere near the end when we decided to give up because everyone was exhausted.  By the time we got back, all I could do was make a cup of tea and go to bed.

I made the Garlicky Black-Eyed Pea Hummus to take to the game.  It took about 10 minutes to make, and it was delicious.  It obviously looked a bit different from regular hummus, but it didn't taste very different.  I think that was because the only difference was the type of bean used.  I would highly recommend this, and I definitely see myself making this again.  No pic because grey hummus.

I did two recipes today.  The first was the Cheesy Tempeh Bacon Grits.  I didn't have any tempeh to make bacon, so I used store-bought bacon bits.  This recipe was also fairly quick and easy.  I've only had proper grits once, and these were a bit different, probably because I don't have access to grits grits, just coarse ground cornmeal (for polenta).  I ended up having to add a lot more liquid to the recipe to keep them from sticking before they were done.  Regardless, they were awesome - creamy, cheesy (without adding the optional shredded cheese), salty, and wonderful.  I would totally make these again.  In fact, I might make them again next weekend.

I also made the Hush Puppy Corn Muffins.  For some reason, I thought I was gonna have a hard time finding creamed corn here, and if I did find it, it would be in the American section.  But not only did I find it easily, I got it in the regular tinned veg section.  These would've come together really quickly if I hadn't cut my onion wrong.  But I did, so they took a while (because of the mincing).  But they were worth the effort.  I thought they would be good, but I never expected they would actually taste like hush puppies.  They're so close to one of those deep-fried balls of goodness, and probably contain a lot less fat.  Yet again, I would absolutely make these again.  They're amazing.

So, that's three wins in two days with this cookbook.  Next weekend we're having friends over for dinner on Saturday, so I'll make quite a bit (I hope) from Cookin' Crunk.  I bought some stuff to make at the weekend and didn't get a chance, so I might have a Southern Monday (and/or Tuesday) post this week as well.  I hope y'all don't mind, because I freaking love this book and want to try everything.

Lazy day post - cheap but delicious eats from Lidl

A couple of weeks ago, Mike and I were trying to buy ramen at Tesco, and we couldn't find any flavours that were vegan.  I learned shortly after this trip that Lidl has these tarts that are vegan, so I decided to divert to Lidl on my next shopping trip (since we have a Lidl on our way home from the Tesco we usually shop at).

So, this is what the tarts look like:

These consist of a shortcrust pastry, seedless raspberry jam, some type of cream filling, and a raspberry fondant.  They're so freaking good!  They also have pineapple, which aren't as good but would do in a pinch.  A pack of four small tarts is 99p (or if you're lucky, they'll be a little smashed and only run you 69p).

Lidl also have packets of ramen for 18p each, and the ones I looked at were vegan.  Now, I can't vouch with certainty for every flavour, but the ones that are vegan are labeled as such.  Score!  The chicken and barbecue beef flavours are definitely vegan, and they really hit the spot.

My dinner tonight was the chicken flavour with an extra bit of miso and some frozen peas.  It was great.  One of these days I'll use the noodles to make some decent ramen a la Mo.

Lidl has a few other bargains.  I found organic carrots for £1, and they have a big jar of red peppers for £1.79.  I mean, all of their stuff is cheap, but some of it might be worth making the trip for (especially since the trip for me is a couple of steps out of the way).

Baked beans from scratch!

I love beans on toast.  Well, I usually don't put the beans on toast, more next to toast.  I'd never even heard of this delicious concept before my first trip to the UK.  It makes sense in a way because UK and US baked beans are so different - I can't really imagine eating US baked beans with toast.  If you're in the US and have never had UK baked beans, hit a Kroger (or whatever other store has a British section) and buy a can of Heinz Beanz.  They're far less sweet and more tomato-y than your Bush's baked beans or what have you.  I was about to suggest eating them with sausage (as well as toast, of course), but I don't think you can get a British-style veggie sausage in the US.*  But along with the toast, you can eat them with some tofu scramble, fake bacon and sauteed mushrooms for a (nearly) full English!**

So, with the slow cooker beans I cooked the other day, I made some baked beans.  I used this recipe, except that I obviously didn't cook the beans the same night.  I just threw 3 cups of cooked beans into the sauce at the stage that tells you to combine the beans and sauce.  I used sriracha for the hot sauce because it's the only hot sauce I trust.

I was looking for a recipe that emulated Heinz Beanz, but these tasted like reduced sugar Heinz Beanz with hot sauce.  Honestly, I questioned the hot sauce, but I thought this was supposed to be an authentic recipe, so I went with it.  That said, I'd definitely make these again, just with a few changes.

*This is actually kinda funny because I was just saying in a PPK thread about ex-pats that I didn't find the transition from US to UK that difficult because there are so many similarities.

**My understanding is that a full Scottish (breakfast) differs from a full English in that it contains tattie scones and haggis and/or black pudding.  I could be wrong, and I'm too lazy to GTS***, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

***OK, so I did a bit of Googling and learned something pretty interesting.  Baked beans are native to North America, so they were originally sold in the UK at Fortnum & Mason as a high-end, exotic import for crazy money.  And now they're cheap as chips and are a staple in the diet of nearly every person in the UK.

Vegan MoFo VII - Cheater ingredients

I used to cook from scratch a lot more than I do now.  It's a combination of laziness, lack of time, and lack of will that keeps me from doing it more often.  Most of the time, I'll buy something fresh and it ends up going off before I can summon the will to cook it.

I've found a few items that are sort of transitional between prepackaged and from-scratch.  These are the things I fall back on to keep my food a little bit fresher without wasting money on ingredients that go off and saving time on cooking:

Sainsbury's frozen chopped spinach:

I love this stuff.  I use it almost exclusively for tofu scrambles, though I've used it for other things as well.  It lets me get some green in my food without spending stupid amounts of money on things that go wilted and slimy in a couple of days.

Karyatis roasted red peppers:

 

Do you know how much red peppers cost?  Those fools are expensive - about 80p each for fresh, conventionally grown red peppers.  I rarely use fresh red peppers anyway, and this jar is £2.39 for 4-5 roasted peppers.  And they last a lot longer.  So really, that's just good sense.  I use these peppers in my Almost Zatarain's Red Beans and Rice.

Frozen chopped onions and minced garlic:

You'd think most people would be able to use onions before they go off because they last so long.  Not me.  I don't even know how many rotten onions I've thrown out because I just couldn't bother using them when I actually remembered I had them.  And I've had some bad luck with garlic sprouting before I get a chance to use it (I mean, within a week - I need to remember to stop buying garlic from Tesco).  I usually get frozen onions and garlic (and occasionally shallots) from Waitrose because they often have them on special.  It seems like such a lazy thing to use until you realise that I just wouldn't use them at all if I had to chop them myself (well, and remember to have them on hand).

Sainsbury's ready-rolled light puff pastry:

Every once in a while, I want a savoury (or sweet) pie, but I don't want to faff with making crust.  Enter the pre-made, pre-rolled crust.  Yes sir.  I've used this to make porkless pie and chocolate parcels and probably some other stuff that I can't remember.  This will feature at some point this month - I think I might make another bean-based pie or a tofu-based savoury pie.

What are your favourite convenience ingredients?

You'll need a tray

I just started a new medication which, apparently, makes me really sleepy.  I came home exhausted, and I need to finish this post before I fall asleep.

I decided to make Penne Arrabiata because I'd promised Mike I'd make it at some point.  We were at the store buying food, and he decided we should buy the 39p Tesco Value penne, but I refused to buy the value sauce (it was mostly tomato paste).  So I told him I'd make arrabiata if we could buy the non-shitty sauce.  Also, pasta is so quick (especially compared to the other stuff I was thinking of making).  Just to make it a bit healthier, I threw in some chickpeas and frozen spinach.

Here's a shot of my pasta:

 

In case it isn't obvious, 39p penne isn't great.  It wasn't terrible, but I wouldn't buy it again.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to do a decent post, but I'm so sleepy I can barely keep my eyes open.

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 27 - Still sneezing

I've been sneezing since about 3pm yesterday, and I slept really badly.  I kept waking up with my tongue feeling like sandpaper because I couldn't breathe through my nose.  At least Zebby let me sleep in a bit.  Anyway, all this is to say that today I'm just gonna review some products that I've had recently.

First up are Redwood's beef-style and turkey-style roasts, which I really like, but they're usually a bit more costly than I like to spend on what is essentially a big seitan sausage that I could make myself.  But when they're on sale (like during one of Holland & Barrett's sales or marked down at Real Foods), I kinda can't help myself.  They're not meant to be cooked in anything other than an oven, so I bought some months before I could actually cook them because they were on sale.

It turns out you can cook these in a slow cooker (there are ways of doing so that I found at the time, but I'm too lazy to google them now), which is what I did with these when I didn't have an oven.  In the oven or the slow cooker, they come out moist and tender and taste remarkably similar to what they're mocking (though the texture isn't the same, but that's probably a good thing, especially for the beef).  The only issue I have is that the turkey-style roast really stinks when it's cooking.  I made one a couple nights ago and I thought I was smelling the cat's room (which is at the other end of the flat).

Both varieties work well as an actual roast, i.e. with potatoes, carrots and onions, or with mash and veg on the side, or with vegetable rice (which is how I ate the turkey-style the other night).  However, my favourite way to eat either of them is to slice into strips and put in a wrap with boiled potatoes and carrots and a bit of gravy.  So good!

Next up is Prewett's chocolate creams - gluten free chocolate biscuits with a chocolate cream filling.

From Amazon - which doesn't actually sell them.

I bought these at Real Foods today when shopping for nice things to take to people in the States who are letting me stay with them (and trying to figure out what happened to my tea, which they seem to have discontinued).  The photo is a little misleading (they don't have nearly that much cream filling), but they were really good - a bit crumbly, but good flavour and nicely crisp without being hard.  I also like that they don't have a gluten-free feel to them - they just have a regular old biscuit texture (and taste).

Finally, Tesco has a range of juices called Juice Bar.  They look to be mostly vegan - they're juices, but I've found fish oil in juice before, so I'm not gonna issue a blanket all-clear on them.  Mike used to get them often from the Tesco near his office, but he thinks they may have stopped carrying them (or that they moved to another part of the store and he can't be bothered looking for them).  I had my first try of them tonight with the Virgin Sangria - grape, apple, and orange juices.  I really liked it - it obviously didn't taste like real sangria, but the flavours worked surprisingly well together (I was wary of the combo initially).  Mike had the Rootin' Fruitin', which was a combo of pineapple, mango and carrot.  I wasn't impressed with this one, and he didn't love it either.

They usually have them on offer - 3 for £3 or 5 for £4 (I think) for 250ml bottles.  They're not massively great value for drinking from home (I usually have oj and get it on offer for 2/£3 for 750ml of Copella, the best oj I've ever had), but they'd do in a pinch if you didn't want to buy an entire 750ml bottle of juice for drinking on the go.

Here's a bonus picture of my cat being super adorable:

FYI - That is not an invitation.  He will cut you.

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.