Thursday 13 September 2012

Graduation, relocation and food creation.

It's now been two weeks since I moved to Brighton (with 5 smelly days at Bestival squeezed in somehow) and I feel I haven't even scratched the surface of this cosmopolitan metropolis. There's a wholefood store about the same distance from my new house as the village shop used to be in my childhood home so I really don't have any excuse for boring easy food (overlooking my inherent laziness of course). After much hunting I've managed to wrangle myself a job and so I can now finally become more devoted to this embarrassingly neglected blog.

Firstly, check out these burgers (or sliders as the 'mericans call 'em). I've only recently discovered Chef Chloe and there's a whole host of dishes on my to do list but this was the one that caught my eye first and I am soooo glad it did! It's not a cheap or quick dish to make (if you use dried black beans they need to soak overnight) but it will keep for a day or so in the fridge and makes about 8-9 pattys.



Wonderful gloopy goodness.

The mac 'n' cheese is next on my to-do list - watch this space.

Friday 3 February 2012

Winter Treats

I had a request for a cookie recipe (thankLisa flower1!) and this week I've made two batches of yummy cookies so I'm happy to oblige.

Firstly I made some chocolate cookies using a recipe from Veganomicon:
This recipe made about 12 this size but I usually make more, smaller cookies.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup raspberry Preserve
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup canola oil - I had to buy this specially but it has lots of other uses, vegetable oil can be substituted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup cocoa powder + 2 extra tablespoons (Use less for less rich cookies)
1&1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
  1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Mix together sugar, oil, preserve and vanilla extract.
  2. Mix all the other ingredients in a separate bowl and gradually stir this into the wet mixture
  3. Make golf balls from the mixture, flatten to required shape (the cookies will keep the same shape in the oven) and place on a baking tray.
  4. Put in the oven for 10 mins and you're done!
A lovely easy recipe - great with a cuppa on a freezing morning/afternoon/evening ;)

On Wednesday I made peanut butter cookies, something I've been meaning to get around to ever since I moved in in October!
Despite being super yummy, a surprising proportion of the people I know don't like peanuts :O so I ended eating a few too many myself...I adapted this recipe as I didn't have any brown sugar and produced about 14 cookies.

No fancy ingredients in this recipe:

75g marg
50g peanut butter
100g caster sugar
100g plain flour
pinch of salt
  1. Preheat oven to 200C
  2. Mix together marg and peanut butter thoroughly.
  3. Mix in sugar.
  4. Mix in flour (mine were still quite sticky at this point so I added extra flour).
  5. Make ping pong sized balls and place on a baking tray with a good 5cm between each. Flatter slightly with a fork in different directions to create a pattern. These cookies will spread out in the oven but if they touch they should be quite easy to break apart.
  6. Leave in the oven for 15 mins and check progress. Leave in the oven for up to 5 mins longer until they are a lovely golden brown.
Sorry for the rubbish photography!

Apologies for the lack of my usual wit and excitement, the cold weather has frozen my creative juices!






Monday 2 January 2012

SUPER-drug

I don't know how I've managed to avoid posting about Superdrug over the last 4 months because I buy pretty much all my toiletries there!
Reasons I love Superdrug

  1. They label their products vegan
  2. They are BUAV approved. i.e. NO ANIMAL TESTING!
  3. I can buy their toothpaste in the happy knowledge that it contains no animal bits
  4. They have a massive range of own brand lovely cheap bubbly things!
LUSH, Sainsbury's, and the CO-OP don't test on animals either and so make a good alternative if you don't have a Superdrug nearby.

It's very easy to plead innocence about animal testing. Unless it says on the bottle 'we tested this on a little bunny rabbit' then how can you know?! From the research I've done, almost all companies that don't say 'Not tested on animals' have tested on animals. If you had a great ethical company you'd boast about it!
the Little book of cruelty free gives a list of lots of companies that have been checked out and properly approved though I haven't heard of most...

Also worth checking out are Eyes, Lips, Face as their make up is good quality and surprisingly cheap - look out for the occasional 40% off voucher codes!

Dawwwwww