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.

PPK package swap!

It's the most wonderful time of the year ... that's right - PPK package swap time!  The swap always seems to happen around November/December, which is both good (treats are always good) and bad (let's just say I'm glad I already bought a party dress that's a bit too big).

The pic at the top is a bit small, so I'll just say what I got.  From left to right - soy curls, candy cane Joe-Joe's, TJ's maple cream cookies, dark chocolate bar, sea salt chocolate bar, Taza drinking chocolate, Clif spiced pumpkin pie and peppermint stick bars, two each of Go Max Twilight and Buccaneer bars, Sugar Plum Spice tea, agave sticks, and honey-flavoured agave nectar.  And everything is sitting atop an adorable Oregon tea towel!  We've already eaten a few Joe-Joe's and maple cookies, Mike had the peppermint stick Clif bar, and I made hot chocolate with the Taza chocolate.

It's such an amazing package, and I'm once again overwhelmed by the awesomeness and generosity of PPKers.  I also kinda feel like a dick because the package I sent was nowhere near as awesome.  I left out some stuff because postage was starting to cost more than the items themselves.  But then I got this, and she clearly spent more on shipping than on the stuff inside.  So I think Imma buy some more stuff and send her a second package (though maybe after Xmas so it doesn't get stuck in a warehouse for 2 weeks).

Oh, and bonus picture of the Taza drinking chocolate in action:

Lookit the foam on that bastard!  This was the first time I'd done proper Mexican hot chocolate (with the foaming, though I used my electric mixer with a whisk attachment instead of a molinillo).  It was pretty good, though it was kinda bitty.  Oh well.  The point to make here is that is a giant-ass mug, and it's half full of foam.  Mmm...foam.

I can't wait to see everyone else's swap packages!

Vegan MoFo - Copycats and crap shops

One of the things I wanted to do was a whole week of copycats - recipes that other MoFo'ers posted this month.  I didn't get around to that, but since I'd bought all the ingredients to make The I-40 Kitchen's Sausage Balls, I decided that those, at the very least, I had to have.

I only made a half batch because I didn't want to use up the entire box of Bisquick on one recipe.  I used Cheezly mature red cheddar for the cheese and Fry's sliceable sausage log thing for the sausage.  I tried one almost right out of the oven, and they were amazing, but they were also kinda crying out for gravy, so I whipped some up.  This was probably the trashiest and most delicious meal I've ever eaten!  I kinda wish I'd made a whole batch because we ate them all, but at the same time, I would probably already have eaten the rest if I had done.

After breakfast, we had to go get Mike's passport photos done, and then I headed up to Cameron Toll shopping centre.  They have a new American store called Amerikandy (I guess using a k when neither America or candy is spelled with a k gives it that added whimsy so crucial to a store that sells nothing but junk food).  When I walked by the other day and saw a tower of root beer, I promised myself I'd go back and check it out.

I had a comprehensive look around, and this is the impression I came away with - the person running the shop has probably never been to the US and possibly was accidentally sent a bunch of crap that s/he then marked up ridiculously to try to offload it to dupes.  They have boxes of Cocoa Pebbles for £8, and cans of soda (Mug and A&W root beers, Wild Cherry Pepsi, vanilla Coke, grape Fanta, and a few flavours of Mountain Dew) for £1.50 each or £16.50 for a 12-pack.  They also have Pop Tarts.  The rest of the shop, which, as you may recall, is called Amerikandy, is full of candy and junk food from the UK, some of it even made in Edinburgh.  I promise you that no child in the US will have ever consumed an Iron Brew (their spelling) lollipop.

Growing up only buying brand-name sodas when they were on sale for 2/$5 (because the generics were half as much and tasted the same), I'm reluctant to part with what amounts to about $25 for a box of soda.  When you then consider that Lupe Pinto's has most of the same sodas for £1.10 each, and also has other products I'd actually want to buy, I'm unlikely to shop here again.  However, I did grab a few things out of a combination of desperation (for root beer) and curiosity/shock value.

Mountain Dew, Wild Cherry Pepsi (which I've loved since my childhood taking the Greyhound from TX to NY, stopping at Withville, VA, for driver changes on almost every trip), A&W root beer, and Mug root beer.  Let's get a closer look at that Mountain Dew, shall we?

What the honest fork, Mountain Dew?!  Yes, that is a mountain man (called Hillbilly Willy) with a moonshine bottle cork blasting a hole through his hat, and it's called "throwback".  Well, at least he doesn't have a wild look in his eyes and isn't brandishing a shotgun.  The gimmick with this is that it's made with sugar (like the original Mountain Dew) instead of HFCS (like current Mtn Dew).  Soda companies' attempts to be down with the kids by doing some stupid promotion or changing their products to be more "xtreme" are annoying but usually not offensive, so could we please not use stereotypes in our marketing campaigns?

I'm hoping to get some more tester recipes done tonight and tomorrow, so I'll blog about those then.

Vegan MoFo - Simple things are often best

I was initially gonna review the Linda McCartney mini sausages that I bought last weekend.  But then I ate them and realised that they really are just smaller versions of the regular-size LM sausages, so I figured there was no point.  But I didn't just eat the mini sausages.

The side here is microwave-steamed rice mixed with microwave-steamed veg (cooked separately - they're two different products).  After I served Mike's rice, I threw my veg into the rice, then shook some liquid aminos and nooch over them and gave them a stir.  It's amazingly delicious, and actually kinda reminds me of fried rice!

It specifically reminds me of my pregan days when I hardly ate any veg and would only ever get chicken fried rice when we got Chinese take-out.  Of all the things on the menu, it had the least veg in it, so I figured it was safe.  I'm glad I've expanded my palate since then.  I can't wait to get back to Dallas and go to Veggie Garden for some awesome vegan Chinese food.

In other news, the soy milk powder available in the UK is so far inferior to that in the US that I could almost cry.  I don't know why this is, but the proof is in the fact that my instant hot chocolate mix is now nearly undrinkable.  I'm most displeased and will definitely be buying some US soy milk powder for my Xmas present from my sister (my present is that she pays to ship stuff I buy from the US).  So if anyone has a coupon code for Pangea or Cosmo's or any other US online vegan shop, it would be awesome if you shared.

A note about links

I realised the other day that my linking may be confusing to some. Here's the thing - yes, I live in Scotland, but I assume that most people who might read my blog are in the US. So when I link to a book, whenever possible, I'll give the link to Herbivore Clothing Co. Herbivore is, as you might guess, a vegan-owned company based in Portland, OR. They sell their own awesome clothing, stickers, and buttons, as well as accessories and books. They might cost a bit more, but buying from them puts more money directly back into the vegan community rather than some nasty corporation.

If you live outside the US, I would recommend checking out The Book Depository to satisfy your cookbook habit (or any reading habit, really). Not only are they less sketchy than Amazon, but they ship free anywhere in the world (even if you only spend £1), and they tend to be cheaper than Amazon (usually only by 1p, but still).

As far as UK foods go, I'll obviously try my best to link to reputable UK suppliers. Real Foods, which I linked in my last post, ships for free to the UK mainland. They're based in Edinburgh (with two actual stores), and the shops seem to have more than the website. You can also get a lot of vegan junk food, cruelty free shoes and accessories, and vegan household products and cosmetics from Vegan Store.

I'll try to mix up the links as much as possible, but I like linking to the companies that directly benefit other vegans. If you know of any, pop 'em in the comments.