Lovely vegan Christmas dinner recipe :)

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas yesterday, whatever you got up to or whether you go in for it! 🙂

For the second time ever, I was completely in charge of food, which I actually really enjoy. I had heard many good things about Tufurky roasts over the last year, and so I was very happy to find one a couple of weeks ago in Harvest (I think I grabbed the very last one!) and make it the main for our dinner yesterday.

I like to be very organised to avoid any last-minute worrying, and so I amalgamated the cooking instructions on the Tofurky roast, a very simple online Jamie Oliver recipe for roasted veggies, and general kitchen timings into one method, which I will write out here for you, should anyone want to do the same next year, or for a random roast day. NB: there are several different Tofurky roasts, and they may have slightly different cooking instructions, so please check yours!

Ingredients:

• Potatoes
• Parnips
• Carrots
• Vegetable oil
• Soy sauce
• Dried sage
• 1 garlic bulb
• Fresh rosemary
• Salt & pepper
• Tofurky roast & gravy sachet (included)
• Additional veg you want to steam e.g. sprouts

Method part 1 (can be done on Xmas Eve if you prefer to divide it and make things easier):

1. Peel and chop enough potatoes, parsnips and carrots for however many people there are
2. Boil potatoes for 5 mins. Add parsnips and carrots and boil for another 5 mins
3. Drain and allow to dry. Fluff up the potatoes a bit by shaking them; this helps make them crispy when you roast them.
4. Make a baste for the Tofurky by whisking together 3tbsp oil, 1tbsp soy sauce and 1tsp sage

Method part 2 (Xmas day!):

1. Heat oven to 175C
2. Remove the plastic and clips from the Tofurky roast. Put in tin foil in the middle of a roasting tray and pour half the baste over it. Wrap tightly.
3. Spread the pre-boiled potatoes, parsnips and carrots evenly on the tray around it. (Use an additional tray if necessary.) Drizzle a light layer of oil over them and add sprigs of rosemary, salt and pepper and unpeeled garlic cloves, which you should squash slightly with your hand or the edge of a knife first.
4. Roast everything for 1hr 15 mins
5. Uncover the Tofurky and pour the rest of the baste over it. Cook uncovered for another 10 mins.
6. In these final 10 mins, make the gravy and steam any other veggies you want in the microwave. I did sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower.
7. To make the gravy, put the contents of the sachet and 240ml water into a saucepan and bring to the boil whilst stirring constantly. Simmer for a minute until it thickens.
8. CONGRATULATIONS YOU ARE DONE! Slice up the Tofurky and serve everything with some sauces, such as cranberry or mint 😉

The Tofurky is under there somewhere!

Two new eateries and a milkshake recipe!

Hello everyone, I’m back after a bit of a break! I’ve been busy job-hunting and doing various creative projects in the meantime, and I didn’t want to write lots of empty blog posts just for the sake of it; I’d rather wait until now, now that I have some new eateries and a recipe for you 🙂

First, the two new 100% vegan eateries I went to this week: Vegan Oowee in Bristol is so new that they still had wet paint on the walls! It is in a prime location, amongst ‘takeaway street’. This photo does not do it justice, but we had two delicious chicken-style burgers and shared some garlicky dirty fries. The original Oowee diners in Bristol also have some delicious vegan options, but it’s so great to have a 100% plant-based branch!

Secondly, last night I popped into Roots and Shoots, which is another brand new vegan cafe right next to the bus station in Bath. They were actually just about to close, but still gave me a lovely portion of mac n cheese with ‘facon’ bits on top and some salad and humous 🙂 Oh and a piece of carrot cake. Oh carrot cake, I love you ❤

A fun thing Alex and I the other day was make milkshakes using a very simple but yummy recipe:

(Makes two large glasses, but amounts are approximate. Add extra milk depending how thin you want it. My blender has a crisis if it has to blend anything bigger or more solid than a strawberry, so I have to make it quite thin and do quite a lot of hand-mixing to help it along…)

• 200g frozen fruit (buy one of those bag of frozen berries from the supermarket, or similar)
• 300ml plant-based milk of choice (add more at the end if desired)
• two large scoops of Swedish Glace vanilla ice-cream

Lastly, look at this brunch I made myself the other morning: It was yummy and filled me up for about five hours! Linda McCartney sausages, hash browns, fried tomatoes and onions, avocado, and ketchup and brown sauces 🙂

Veganism: certainly not boring!

Lastly, I wanted to mention that I went to my first Greenpeace meeting last night in Bath. There were definitely more than a few vegans there (judging from a few points they made) and it was really inspiring to chat with fellow people who care about the environment and animals, and want to make a difference any way they can. I will definitely pursue this…

Speak soon 😀