Swap!

Earlier this month, a vegan goodies swap was proposed on the PPK. This was the first time I had participated, since you have to have been registered and active for over a year (or have over 1000 posts). Anyway, I got my swap package from Mary (aka mittenmachen) today!


Clockwise from the top left - mint Newman-O's, seasoned popcorn, Chocolate Raspberry, Chai Tea, S'mores, Cookies & Cream, and Lemon Zest Luna bars, coffee extract, maple cream, and chocolate extract. I've already eaten the popcorn (which was yummy but is probably why I feel like my stomach is about to burst - popcorn doesn't like me as much as I like it) and the maple cream (delicious on crumpets, but not with Marmite - what was I thinking?!). Oh, and I've obviously had mint Newman-O's before, and they are wonderful. I might make mint cookies & cream cupcakes, or we might just eat them on their own.

I also tried to make hummus today. Well, it was supposed to be an approximation of the limited edition sun-dried tomato and basil stuff Tesco sold for a while. The problem came when I got out my basil, and it was a bit funky. So while my hummus is good, it's not as good as that stuff. I might give it another go some other time.

I made you a muffin, but I eated it.

I mentioned yesterday that I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip muffins (I only used 3/4 c of sugar, left out the soy yogurt (which isn't an ingredient in VwaV) and bunged in a 100g bag of Dairy Free chocolate chips), and that we ate the entire batch in less than 24 hours. I decided to make another batch, since we ate the last one so quickly that I didn't get to take a picture.


They're just that good. Unfortunately, I couldn't do a low-fat version because I hadn't made any more applesauce yet. It turns out that you really can tell the difference between low-fat and full-fat versions of this one. The full-fat muffins are more crumbly and slightly less moist, somehow even more delicious, and - bonus - the paper comes away from the muffin much more easily. But since I'm trying to at least keep off the weight I've already lost, this will have to be a one-off, unless I make them for the ceilidh or something.

Dinner was a cookbook challenge recipe - Red Lentil Pasta from La Dolce Vegan

(Sorry for the rubbish picture - it wouldn't have looked that great even if I hadn't already eaten some and taken the picture under bad lighting.)

I was not a fan of this. First of all, it gives the impression of coming together in about 15 minutes. Well, not if you want your onions translucent and your lentils cooked. I used some chopped tomatoes in their juices and (at least) an extra 1/4 c of water and cooked the lentils about twice as long as the recipe called for, and they still felt underdone. Even after I blended everything, I could still feel individual lentils. And they're red lentils - the kind that cook down into a paste! I don't know how that's even possible. Apart from that, the flavour was nothing special. I prefer the Punkin Pasta over this one.

I think most of the rest of the recipes I'm making from this book are desserts (because lord knows I need more desserts), so we'll see how those go.

I'm cheating.

I totally forgot to do a blog post, so I'm changing the date and time in post options to make it look like I posted last night. Heh. This'll be a short one, and I'll do a decent post later. I'll also upload pictures to this one, since I don't feel like loading the one picture I took last night and then loading pics I might take tonight.

I made the mocha oatmeal yesterday. It was just alright. I don't really know what I would change about it - maybe I just don't like mocha oatmeal. I think I'll stick with other flavours. I still need to branch out a bit. I was gonna try pumpkin pie, but now that I've opened the pumpkin, I don't know if I want to make anything other than muffins. I made a batch last night, and they're already all gone. And there are just two of us to eat them! I'll be honest, I ate the vast majority. Mike had some last night and took a couple for his lunch today, but I ate the rest. That's how good they are!

Dinner was some delicious Potato and Asparagus Soup from VwaV.


I love this soup. In fact, I love almost every soup in that book (I say 'almost' because I've not tried all of them, but I love the ones I've tried).

About a month ago, we were in Aberdeen, and we got the most delicious hummus from Tesco (of all places) - sun-dried tomato and basil. It was a limited edition, and they're no longer offering it. So, I currently have chickpeas cooking and will try to make my own wonderful, slightly cheesy-tasting hummus later.

Also, all the stores are stocked with pumpkin, so I might buy one and see if it's cheaper to make my own pumpkin puree than buy the stuff in the jar. I could trek out to Lupe Pinto's in Tollcross to see if they have any of the imported Libby stuff, which will be a lot cheaper than the organic stuff in the jar. But if this year is anything like last year, they'll probably already be out.

Cookbook challenge, week 9, day 2 - La Dolce Vegan

I had oatmeal twice today. Breakfast was a quick and simple golden syrup oatmeal since I had to be at the Scottish Studies library at 11, and lunch was savoury oatmeal, similar to last night but with the addition of a few drops of liquid smoke. Since I don't have anywhere in particular to be tomorrow (just grocery shopping), I think I'm gonna try mocha.

Today was supposed to be Movie Monday, but only one of my friends could make it, so we ended up playing Settlers of Catan. We still had breakfast, which was two recipes for this week's cookbook challenge. The original challenge was for How It All Vegan by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard. But we realised that not everyone had HIAV, but almost every challenge participant had at least one Sarah Kramer book, so we've decided that this week's challenge is just Sarah Kramer recipes (any recipe from HIAV, Garden of Vegan, or La Dolce Vegan). I have LDV, so that's what I'm using.

I feel like I'm now compelled to try every variety of tofu scramble I find, just to see if I like anything other than the spice combo in VwaV. So tonight's dinner was Sleepy Sunday Morning Scramble with Vegan "Sausage" Hash

(Sorry, it's not a very appealing picture. We were in the sitting room (bad lighting) and had already started eating when I remembered to take it.)

I used VB Italian feast sausages for the hash, and I only had a red onion, so that went into both recipes. Everyone liked the food. I still prefer Isa's scramble seasonings, but I liked the addition of Dijon mustard in this one. If I'd been at all prepared, the whole meal could've been ready in about 15 minutes, I imagine. My only complaint is that the hash recipe was very non-specific. It just says 'cook until done', without any real indication of what 'done' looks like. This doesn't seem to be the norm, though.

We've tentatively rescheduled movie night for Sunday. Mike won't be home, so we're gonna watch a movie he wouldn't want to see - Gigi! It's one of the classic MGM musicals from the 50s. So, we're gonna have French food and watch a musical about a French courtesan (essentially)! I'm not sure what to make, apart from Pain au Chocolat from VB, so if anyone has any suggestions, let me know!

Bonsai!

Mike and I went to Bonsai for lunch today. It's probably our favourite Edinburgh restaurant, so we go there as often as we can afford. They have a large enough selection of vegan items that we can get a few different things every time we go in, but since I'm the type of person who finds a favourite and sticks with it, I tend to always get the same thing.

Today I had the yakisoba, agedashi tofu, and inari nigiri sushi. I'm starting to really like getting the yakisoba, especially since they stopped doing the lunch specials and no longer serve the miso ramen bowl. The agedashi tofu is really tasty - fried tofu in a ginger and soy sauce - but I rarely get it because it's a pain to eat with chopsticks (the sauce makes the coating on the tofu mushy, and the tofu isn't really firm enough to hold up on its own). And I always, always, always get inari. I kinda treat it like dessert, not just because it's a little sweet, but also because I know I'm gonna love it, so I like to end my meal on a high note. Mike got the miso soup (as he does almost every time), teriyaki tofu, rice, and wasabi peas. I'm pretty sure he liked everything because he finished all of it (then ate the rest of my yakisoba), which is unusual. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures because I forgot my camera.

Mike had Gamers tonight, so I had savoury oatmeal for dinner. It was actually really good. I added 1/2 of a chopped up Vegan Brunch Italian feast sausage, about a tablespoon of nooch, about 1/8 tsp each garlic powder, onion powder, and salt, and a few grinds of the pepper mill. I only did half a bowl because I wasn't really sure how it would turn out, but I really liked it. But since I'd only done 1/2, I decided to make some chai latte oatmeal for dessert - cooked the oatmeal in about a cup of brewed rooibos chai and maybe 1/4-1/2 c soymilk, then added cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and clove. It's quite nice.

My movie for Movie Monday is gonna be the John Hughes classic, The Breakfast Club, with which I will be serving brunch (and possibly sushi, since Claire has sushi for lunch). We'll see. I have a really busy day tomorrow, so I might only be able to do the breakfasty things. I still haven't even decided on what to make. I should get crackalackin' on that.

Farmers' Market haul and new chocolate

Today's oatmeal was wonderfully simple - golden syrup and a dash of cinnamon. I usually like my oatmeal quite sweet and dessert-like, but I've been thinking about branching out. Interestingly enough, today I saw this thread on the PPK. I might try some savoury oatmeal for lunch sometime next week.

I finally managed to make it to the Farmers' Market with more than 20 minutes to spare before they packed up. Unfortunately, I didn't really get much - spinach, potatoes, carrots, and mushrooms. I normally wouldn't buy mushrooms, since Mike won't eat them, but I'm thinking about cooking a couple to throw in my calzone tomorrow.

Yesterday, I went to Real Foods and found this -

an Organica Swiss Chocolate Couverture bar - in the discount bin, at what I thought was half price, because it was broken. Mike really liked it, so he asked me to get another bar. Unfortunately, it turned out to have been much less than half price, because an undamaged bar was £2.39. That, to me, is a lot to pay for chocolate. Regardless, I bought that and a new (to me) flavour of Divine Chocolate -


Oh yes, chocolate makers are finally jumping on the chocolate and raspberry train. I saw a chocolate raspberry bar in Tesco a few months ago, but it wasn't vegan. But this is! The raspberry lends a slight tartness to a lovely, smooth dark chocolate, with a little bit of crunch due to the raspberry being freeze-dried. It's quite nice - something you eat one wee square at a time, very slowly, rather than scoffing it.

Next week's cookbook challenge is How It All Vegan, which I don't have. I went to look at a copy at Waterstone's today. I flipped through the whole thing, and there were a few recipes I would like to try, but I didn't buy it because it's in UK measures. I just can't get my head around weighing my ingredients. I might have to see if I can find a copy with US measures. I actually borrowed this book from a friend many years ago, but this was pregan and when I still didn't eat many vegetables, so I didn't get out of it what I could have. Now, though, it's a very basic book, very much meant for newbies, so I'm torn on whether or not I should buy it. I'll see what everyone else says about the recipes, and maybe try to get someone to send me a recipe in US measures to try out something new.

On a non-food related note, Mike was looking for things to watch on BBC.co.uk, and they had a show called 'Synth Britannia', looking at the history of synth-pop and early industrial music. It was as if someone at the BBC had said, 'What can we do to get Rachel to watch?' So we're trying to watch that now. It's making me happy.

Cookbook challenge, week 8, day 6 - Vegan Vittles

I'm just doing a short post today. Mike's watching a movie (on my computer), and I promised I'd be quick.

Today I made the Muffins That Taste Like Donuts


I have to say, these just don't taste like donuts. At all. They're good (and Mike said they look nice), but not 'taste like donuts' good. Even if I filled them with jam or cream, they still wouldn't even vaguely resemble donuts. Mike and I both liked them enough, though he thinks they're too cinnamon-y, and I don't think they have enough cinnamon. Next time, if I want donut-y flavour in a non-donut, I'll make the Jelly Donut Cupcakes in V'con. And if I want cinnamon muffins, I'll make my own recipe, which I actually prefer.

To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed with this book. The best recipe so far was a soup, and an easy one at that, something I probably could've come up with myself. I'm gonna try out the calzone dough tomorrow (I don't like the look of the filling in the book, so I'm gonna do VB Italian Feast sausages and spinach), and maybe I'll have another look through to see if there's anything else I might want to make, but I don't really see myself going back to this one all that often. I hate saying that about a vegan cookbook, especially one by a respected member of the community (she's been vegan a hell of a lot longer than I have), but I have so many cookbooks that have so many more excellent recipes (like one of her other ones, The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook).

Mike's sighing audibly and head-butting me (like Stampy from that one episode of the Simpsons), so I'll leave it at that for now, but I might come back and revise my thoughts on this.