Bean failure

My intention for today was to make a bean-based quiche-type thing.  I threw some beans in the slow cooker and left them while I was at work (so, about 8 1/2 hours).  When I got home, I tested a bean, and it was still kinda hard.  Dammit.  So, no bean-based quiche-type thing tonight.

I was already suuuuper hungry when I got home.  I was gonna just have some toast, but then I realised that I didn't have anywhere to put the toaster because the slow cooker was in the way.  Then it hit me - grilled cheese.  Even better - grilled cheese with V Bites (formerly Redwood Foods) garlic sausage slices.  Holy crap, I love these things.

Here's a not-very-attractive phone pic of my delicious sammich:

I used Allinson's high fiber white bread, Tesco smoked-style cheese (or whatever the hell it's called), and the aforementioned V Bites garlic sausage slices.  It was one of the best sammiches I've ever eaten.  In fact, I'm really tempted to eat another.

Mike will be eating a Tesco value pot noodle for dinner because we're classy like that.


I'm ... gonna go make another sammich.

Omelets and Injuries

Day 2 and I already have a cooking-related injury!  More on that later.

Keeping with my budget theme, today's dinner used several pantry/freezer items - chickpea flour, frozen spinach, jarred roasted red peppers, and frozen chopped shallots and garlic.  I'm actually gonna have a post about some of my favourite convenience foods, so I won't go into how much I love those things.  Anyway, I also finally used a bookmarked recipe that I'd been thinking about making for ages - Chickpea Flour Omelets from Vegan Richa.

The recipe calls for fresh veg, but I'm lazy and used the aforementioned frozen/jarred veg.  I defrosted the spinach in the microwave, then threw the shallots and garlic in with it to heat up a bit before dumping everything into the batter as directed.  I also threw on some Tesco smoked cheese near the end of cooking.

The directions on the recipe aren't very clear, but once I figured out what to do, it came together pretty quickly.  I served with buttered toast because I was in the middle of another project while I made dinner.  I really liked these, but Mike ... well, he said I didn't have to make them again, which is his way of saying never ever make this again.  So I guess I'll save it for a day that he's not here, because I thought they were delicious.  Luckily, I made a double batch, which made 3 decent-sized omelets, so I'mma make a sammich out of the leftovers for my lunch tomorrow.  Woo!

On to the other project and my injury!  In line with my Sunday theme, I decided that, rather than make straight-up coffee ice cream, I'd make hazelnut latte ice cream.  So I decided to make my own hazelnut syrup.  Everything went fine - I toasted and skinned the hazelnuts and cooked the mixture down with no mishaps.  Well, there was a slight mishap in that I accidentally overcooked it and ended up with candied hazelnuts and a chunk of hazelnut-flavoured sugar or something - I'm not even sure what it is.

You know when you make something, and you want to taste it - it was hot, but you think it's cooled off enough.  It hasn't cooled off enough.  I stuck my finger in molten sugar (essentially).  It burned like hell, and despite running my finger (my little finger!) under cold water for ages, I still have a wee blister right on the pad.  So I'm kinda typing with my fingernail to avoid touching the blister.  It could be worse, but I still feel pretty stupid for doing that.  And that's why I don't have pictures - I was trying to minimise my injury (also it was already pretty dark when I finished cooking).

Vegan MoFo VII - Overview and Sundae Sunday

I'm having a pretty bad allergy attack for probably the 3rd/4th weekend in a row, but I wrote most of this early.  Suck on that, allergies!

I can't believe it's MoFo time already!  Well, mostly because it's in September this year rather than October/November.  But it's for good reason - different food availability, better lighting, and less chance of a month of pumpkin recipes (though I have no problem with pumpkin recipes).

I'm not gonna go crazy with themes this year.  I only have three - budget meals, Southern Saturdays, and Sundae Sunday.  I'll also have some lazy days where I talk about products/restaurants, as per usual, and I'll be baking at least once because Mike's birthday is on the 20th.

The budget meals theme is pretty much gonna be an ongoing thing in my life for the foreseeable future.  The cost of living keeps rising a lot faster than my salary (we only get c-o-l increases, which don't even keep up with inflation, instead of merit increases, so in real terms, I make less now than when I started), and I'm now paying nearly half of my salary into my student loans.  I also put a lot into savings - I suppose I could save less, and tbh I end up spending half of my savings anyway, but it's important to me, as a person who is terrible with money, to have something (anything) going into savings.

But this won't be a month of beans and rice!  I'm totally gonna post a beans and rice recipe, but it's killer, and I promise it'll just be the one.

My plan is to live off of my online shop of non-perishables that I did at the end of August and what I have in the cupboards and only buy perishables (bread, fresh fruit/veg) for the rest of the month.  I'll be buying as few convenience foods as I can (I still have to buy lunch meat for Mike's lunches because I can't seem to force myself to make seitan often enough, though Mike has volunteered to make seitan) and making as much as possible from scratch (I'm gonna make my own baked beans!).  Hopefully this'll force me to get through all the stuff I've been buying over the years and never getting around to using (I'm looking at you, sticky rice and multiple bags of cornmeal).  My goal is to spend less than £125 on food for the month (including the rare convenience food) - so that averages to about £25 per week from payday to payday.

I'll talk more about my Southern theme on Saturday.  Needless to say, I'm super excited about that.  I might (might) buy in extra stuff for these recipes, but I'm hoping I can stick to my budget plan for this part as well.  I'm gonna try to pick recipes for which I already have most/all of the ingredients.

And since it's Sunday, it's Sundae Sunday!  This one is pretty straightforward - I'll make ice cream, and I might make some toppings (if I don't already have them), and then I'll make a sundae.

For my first Sundae Sunday, I started pretty easy.  I made one of my favourite ice creams - PB Speculoos, which is based on the PB variation of the Veganomicon recipe.

PB Speculoos Ice Cream

Ingredients:
6 oz silken tofu (about 1/2 pack)
1c soy cream*
1/2 c soy milk
3/4 c sugar
1/4 c peanut butter (or PB substitute like Freenut Butter)
1/4 c Speculoos**
1 tbsp vanilla extract

Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth.  Pour the mixture into a lidded bowl and chill for at least an hour or overnight if you have time/patience.  Churn in your ice cream maker as per the machine instructions.  You can either eat it as is (I like it melty right out of the ice cream maker) or freeze until hard.

*I use a full container of Alpro soy cream, which is actually 250ml, but those extra 10ml don't really make much difference.
**I use crunchy Speculoos because I always seem to have a jar even though I don't really like it as much as smooth.

I made Cinnamon Pancakes from Cookin' Crunk for brunch, and we had 2 left over, so I used those for the sundae base.  I topped the pancake with the ice cream and, because of the allergies, I just topped everything with Hershey's syrup and soya whip (from a can).

I wasn't sure if the pancake would work out, but it was really good!  The cinnamony Speculoos flavour from the ice cream complimented the pancake well, and the chocolate tied everything together.  The only thing that I thought was not quite right was the spray cream - it was maybe just a bit too beany.  Overall, this was a winner.

I know there are lots of other people who are doing some amazing themes (such as Lazy Smurf's taco cleanse and the Seinfeld theme at Naked Vegan Lunch, to name just a few), so I'm really excited to see what other people come up with.  Happy MoFoing!

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 31 - This is Hallowe'en!

And this is why I'll never be a professional baker.

I didn't post yesterday because I was working on my stuff for today.  And frankly, this is so epic, it should count as 2 posts.

You know how, when Facebook first started up, you filled out all your info about what stuff you like - favourite bands, movies, books, etc. - but they changed at some point and sorta automatically subscribed you to the pages for the things you like?  So I get posts from movies that I like, usually stills from the film.  But every once in a while, they post other stuff - related but not exactly stuff from the film.

A few months ago, The Nightmare Before Christmas posted some Oogie Boogie cupcakes.  They looked pretty awesome.  Well, about a week ago, they posted Jack Skellington cupcakes.  How I didn't have this idea on my own I'll never fully understand, but I saw them and immediately thought, I am going to make those.

Well, their idea was to use chocolate cupcakes and vanilla buttercream.  But he's the Pumpkin King, so of course pumpkin cupcakes would be more appropriate.  But since vanilla buttercream would be a bit much for pumpkin cupcakes, I made cream cheese frosting.

I used the recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World but left out the chocolate chips, used pumpkin pie spice instead of just cinnamon, and made them gluten free.  For the frosting, I used the cream cheese frosting recipe from the same book.

That's right - I am the Pumpkin King!

Back to those Oogie Boogie cupcakes.  One batch of pumpkin cupcakes wasn't enough to take to the office, but I didn't have enough pumpkin to make a double batch (why did I only buy one can?!).  So I decided to make chocolate cupcakes.  Once I'd frosted the pumpkin cupcakes, I thought, what the hell, and threw some green food colouring into the rest of the frosting.

Looks like it's Oogie's turn to boogie!

Both varieties of cupcake tasted great.  The only problems I had were that doing small decorations like that is kinda a pain in the ass, and cream cheese frosting doesn't really take to being built up.  I probably should've made two separate batches (a cream cheese and a buttercream).  That's what laziness gets you, children - melty looking Oogie Boogies.  Also, a number of cupcakes didn't make the journey to my office, so there was a bit of carnage.  But I've only been at work for 20 minutes and I think about half of them are already gone, so meh.

I can't believe MoFo is over already!  I've really enjoyed it, even though I did reach a burnout stage.  I'm already looking forward to next year!

HAPPY HALLOWE'EN!!

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 29 - Sunday Baking (on Monday)

Obviously today is Monday, but Mike hurt his hand and didn't feel like cooking tonight, so we just had leftover tofu scramble for dinner.  And I did bake yesterday, but I didn't write about it.  So I'll do that now!

Last night I made the Snickerdoodle cake from Have Your Cake and Vegan Too!  It was pretty easy to make and put together.  The only not-easy (but still not particularly difficult) part was putting the topping on.  My frosting had already set a bit and wasn't as sticky as it maybe should've been, so the sugar crystals kept bouncing off (all over the worktop and floor that I'd just cleaned).

We didn't have any last night, but I took it into work.  One person said it was lush; another said she was glad she didn't live with me because she'd be really fat.  And I believe 2 people had cake for lunch.  So, I'd say it was pretty successful.  I did get a piece in the end, and it was pretty good, though (I can't believe I'm saying this) it maybe had a bit too much cinnamon.  But it really did taste like a snickerdoodle, which is one of my favourite cookies, so overall I'm happy with the outcome.

The whole point of my Sunday baking theme was to make a few different cakes from Have Your Cake and Vegan Too! to determine if I want to buy the book.  Of the things I've made, I'd say the majority have been good to outstanding.  I could definitely see myself baking my way through the rest of this book (or at least the rest of the recipes that I liked the look of).  So, if anyone in my family is reading this - I want this book for Xmas!

Vegan MoFo VI, Day 28 - My Hateful Kitchen

I've just spent the better part of 4 hours cleaning my kitchen in order to do a kitchen tour.  It's the cleanest it's been since we moved in.  That said, you'll soon understand how I feel about it because, as you'll see from the photos, it still looks dirty.  This is one of the many things I hate about my kitchen.

Anyway, this is a shot of the right corner of the kitchen from the doorway (attached to the sitting room).

You gotta play it safe around electricity.

You can see the kettle, toaster, microwave, and washer are all sharing one pair of sockets.  This is because there are exactly 4 outlets in the kitchen - that pair is one, one is behind the fridge, and the other is by the cooker (and the cooker is plugged in for the digital clock).

A closer view of the area - the microwave is sitting on top of the box that houses the gas meter.

You can see here that this is kinda the hot beverage and miscellany centre - we have a few varieties of tea,  and the coffee is behind the chocolate spread.  There's also a container of sugar and a container of a sugar/stevia blend.  And, of course, my vitamins, because this is a sensible place to keep them (in fairness, I keep them there because I have a glass of oj every morning and take my pills with it).

Above that is one of the cupboards.  I keep all my non-flour baking stuff on the top shelf (including apple cider vinegar, because it's a vegan kitchen), and the bottom shelf has sauces, vinegars, bouillon, condiments, a few spices and herbs, liquid sweeteners, and a couple of Japanese cooking ingredients.

Beside that is the cupboard with all the flours (top - the one groaning under the weight of all the flours), with pasta/noodles, beans, seeds/nuts (that I can eat), and grains on the bottom shelf.  Did you notice the ceiling?  Yeah, that's pink.  Even better, it's pink-painted wallpaper.  I don't know why they didn't just paint the ceiling pink, other than because they knew how much of a hassle it would be for the next owners to deal with it.  Also, the walls are covered with some kind of lino-like substance that was apparently all the rage in the 60s, supposedly because it was easy to clean.  That is a lie.  Or, at least, what's on the stuff in my kitchen isn't coming off.

The fridge came with the flat.  It looks alright, but it makes a lot of weird noises, so I suspect it's not long for this world.  I use the top for storing cereal and breadstuffs (and my electric kitchen scale, which is under the bread).  Also, notice the light switch - by its position, you'd think the lights were off, but no, they're on.  The genius that put in the light switches put them all in upside down.  All of them.

This is the full view of the main work areas of the kitchen from the fridge.  I did 2 or 3 loads of dishes today, and I couldn't be bothered drying all those.  The drawer beneath the dish dryer is where I keep my cutlery.  Notice how the cooker sticks out by about a foot?  That's because I measured it at the front and it was 60cm, but I didn't measure it at the back, which is not 60cm.  It makes perfect sense.  Also sensible - curtains in the kitchen.  We're gonna remove those and put in a blind soon.

This is the view of the left side of the kitchen, also from the fridge.  That unit there was in the sitting room when we moved in.  As a set, I didn't much appreciate them because they took up so much space.  But this one by itself actually proved to be great for the kitchen:

I keep my cookbooks on the top shelf, wine glasses, wide tumblers, large mugs and random storage things on the middle shelf, and most of my crockery on the shelves with the pull-down door.

Beneath that, I keep some pans and the bottom of my blender/food processor on the bottom shelf.  I keep my extra bagged spices and herbs in the top drawer and baking utensils in the middle drawer (the 3rd drawer is the junk drawer).

The bit with the sliding door is our drinks cabinet.  I keep the many bottles of wine that friends bring over for dinner parties and don't drink in here.

Front view of the cooker - it's all gas.  We wanted a dual fuel, but there's no ground in the electrical wiring, so they legally couldn't install it because it was an electrocution risk.  Fun!  To the right are my cast iron pans that need re-seasoning and a few bottles for recycling, and to the left are my slow cooker and a few bottles of oil.

Moving to the left, we see the spice corner.  Most of my bottled herbs and spices are here (apart from the ones in the cupboard), mostly because I couldn't think of anywhere else to put them.  There are also a few large jars of things - plain flour, nooch, and sugar.  That hanging utensil thing was here when we moved in, and I'm actually glad it was left (but probably only because they couldn't be arsed to unscrew it from the wall).  Speaking of the wall, why WHY is the socket so far up the wall?  Why?

And finally, the worktop (with breadmaker and other random stuff to the left).  I didn't get a close-up of why I hate that too.  The person who lived here before us obviously put a hot pan on it, because there's a raised ring on one bit.  It also stains really easily, so I can never tell if I've spilled something or if it's a 20-year-old stain (which is maybe why I hadn't deep cleaned in so long).

I forgot to take a photo of the cupboards beneath, but they're basically all my other stuff (pots, baking sheets and pans, colander, storage stuff) that I just threw in there when we moved in.  The other thing about hating my kitchen is that I don't even want to spend the time making it more user friendly, so it's not particularly well organised.

So now you know why I hate my kitchen, or can at least sympathise to a degree.  I can't wait until we either save enough to get the kitchen redone or I get a new job and can afford to make payments for a new kitchen.  Having a crappy, uninviting kitchen really sucks the joy out of cooking.

And now that my kitchen is finally clean, I'm gonna go make a mess!

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.