Some newly discovered thingies :)

Ciao peeps!

Yesterday afternoon, Jacob and I had a fun time going to VX Bristol for the first time, which is a really awesome little cosy diner-style cafe and shop, which is 100% vegan and does a menu of “vegan junk food”! I predict that we will go there many many more times…

I’m hoping that, in the future, it may be able to move closer to central Bristol and drum up even more business, cause it’s quite out-of-the-way at the moment, but very popular nevertheless 🙂 That’s what recently happened with Temple of Hackney; it became so popular that they’ve been able to open a bigger new restaurant in Camden!

We had a quesadilla, burrito, black forest cake and a cookie sandwich!

Later on, before going to karaoke, we went for a coupe of drinks in Wetherspoons, and saw that they have a new vegan dish on their menu: teriyaki noodles! We tried them and they are very tasty but also quite healthy-looking. Always nice to see new plant-based items appearing on chain menus 🙂

P.S. Look at this doughnut. LOOK AT THIS DOUGHNUT

Bath’s two new vegan eateries!!

Within two days, Jacob and I have had the pleasure of trying out Bath’s two newest 100% vegan eateries: Chapel Arts Cafe and Nourish 😀

Chapel Arts used to be a veggie/vegan cafe, but it has recently changed its menu to be totally plant-based, and is also open during some evenings. We went along at lunchtime and were very impressed; we had a flatbread and a cake each. Mine was a garlic mushroom flatbread, and then a brownie, to which they plated up and added chocolate sauce, which was a nice touch:

The next day, we were in town late, before the midnight showing of The Last Jedi (which you must go and see in 3D if you can!), and so we decided to join a group of local vegans for a taster menu at Nourish, which is a vegan pub on London Road (formerly The Beaufort).

The food was lovely, but ended up taking a very long time to arrive (I think probably because the owners had underestimated how long everything would take, and there were a lot of us!), and we actually had to skip dessert because we had a bus to catch to the cinema. Oh well – we’ll just have to go another time 😛 What we did have was very nice: mushroom and chestnut soup, jackfruit taco, falafel, pakoras, nut roast and pie with roasted veg. Thankfully it was reasonably priced, and they kindly took dessert off for us:

P.S. I have finally got around to watching the comedy Red Dwarf, and heard a good quote the other day:

To give a bit of context, the four main characters are stuck without food, and Kryten manages to rustle up some cooked “chicken”. It transpires that it is not, in fact, chicken, but human meat. Obviously the others react with disgust, and Kryten says, “It seemed to me that if humanoids eat chicken, then obviously they’d eat their own species; otherwise they’d just be picking on the chicken.”

Bath wanderings :)

Ciao peeps 🙂

The city of Bath has been very nice to wander around this week; the Christmas market is in full swing and there are a lot of pretty lights up around Southgate…

Aaaaand… Zizzi has finally opened a branch here!!

Jacob and I found out and went for a delicious meal on their opening day. They have a few new additions to their vegan menu, including two pizzas and a pudding, pictured blurrily below:

Yesterday we had a day out in the city, exploring the market and looking out for presents. We went to The Green Rocket for lunch where, again, there were a few new seasonal items on the menu. I had a pie with a side of onion rings, and Jacob had his favourite burger with some sweet potato fries:

I also wanted to mention a simple recipe that Jacob invented and which I think is absolutely delish: fry some Fry’s beef-style strips and then add a jar of Asda freefrom bbq cooking sauce. Let it thoroughly cook and serve with vegetable rice (we use Uncle Ben’s just for ease). Not the healthiest thing we’ve cooked, but lovely for a treat 😀

My 24th Birthday!

Hello everyone! I am now back from my studio work (see my most recent art blog post for what I’m up to now) and so will hopefully post more frequently again.

It was my 24th birthday on the 19th (eek!), and so I have some nice vegan-treat-related things to type about 🙂

Recently, it has been big news that Wagamama has a new vegan menu, and so we went for a late night meal to check it out. It turned out that all the vegan items, except one, had actually been on their old menu all along, but were hidden within everything else. I’m glad they have made a separate vegan menu now, because apparently it has been extremely popular! The food was amazing; it was my first time ever eating at Wagamama and it lived up to the hype: we treated ourselves to some prosecco and three courses (although we shared the dessert cause we were so full!)

Apologies for the horrible-quality photos… We had vegetable dumplings with a delicious dip, and spicy cauliflower florettes for starter, then pad thai and ramen noodles for mains, with passion fruit sorbet afterwards to cleanse our palettes (ooh posh!)

Also, a lovely present I got, which is relevant to this blog, is an absolutely gorgeous bag from Thamon. Now I’m not often fussed about things like handbags, but just look at this one!! Thamon are a small company from Camden who make bags, wallets and notebooks from vegan ‘leather’ made from sustainable leaves. This results in unique items in various colours which have lovely subtle leaf patterns all over:

Here is their website so you too can drool over their stuff: https://www.thamon.co.uk/

Lastly (from my birthday day itself) I want to mention Hotel Chocolat again. The nice thing about having a birthday in October is that you get to benefit from fun spooky Halloween items 😀 In this case, Jacob picked up a ‘Wingston The Bat’ chocolate box… as you do… which is full of vegan dark chocolate shapes:

I was also very amused by this packaging, which reflects my feelings pretty accurately:

The day after, I met up with my dad in Bristol, where we had a mosy around, visited an art exhibition, drank chai lattes and had a lovely curry from a Caribbean food stall in St Nicholas Market, to where I had never been before. There were a lot of vegan options around, and I even saw somewhere with vegan Christmas puds 🙂

Lastly, one honourable mention: Pudology now does millionaires shortbread puddings. Perhaps that should be in capitals… PUDOLOGY NOW DOES MILLIONAIRES SHORTBREAD PUDDINGS!!!

Until next time, peeps 🙂

Frustration, food, and finds!

Lots to write about this time, so brace yourselves 😀

Firstly, a couple of cool things I forgot to mention earlier:

Linda McCartney pulled-pork style burgers are now vegan! This was a big victory, as the only ingredient preventing them from being vegan before was a bit of honey, and lots of people were contacting the company asking for it to be replaced/taken out. Just a few weeks later, it was!

Vegeburgers from Schwarz Bros are vegan too (and very nice), so that’s a useful option to have with chips after a night out 🙂

I’ve had a bit of a tough time this week as, on Sunday night, I happened to tune into a programme called “Oink: Man Loves Pig” which contained a lot of upsetting and frustrating moments, including slaughterhouse footage and people being massive hypocrites… Basically, I had a bit of a vent on facebook, because it was late and I had nobody to talk to in real life, and had immediate backlash from several “friends” who were getting defensive because I had the audacity to remind them that animals are killed. 😦

Anyway, I’m not going to dwell on it here because, as I’ve said in the past, I want to keep this blog a positive place. If you want to see any of my rants, they’re more likely to be on the Thoughts, FAQ & Mythbusting page!

But I saw this meme and it cheered me up immensely:

HAHAHA 😀

Right, on to food.

This was lovely roast my mum made, using Fry’s steak-style pie:

Sainsbury’s has had another addition to its freefrom chilled section – mac and cheese!!!!!! Which is delicious! I was never a huge fan of mac and cheese as I tended to find it a bit samey and heavy, but this was lovely with a bit of salad:

And lastly (notice the improved quality picture, with Jacob’s phone), our favourite roast at The Green Rocket:

One final thing: I don’t write about cosmetics as often as food BUT I have to mention Superdrug as they are fab at labelling all their own-brand products, most of which are vegan. I will also be getting a new supply of make-up when their B. range is back in my nearest store. (Their e.l.f. range is also vegan!)

This salted caramel shower and bath soak smells AMAZING! 10/10 would recommend. Unless you hate sweet things. Or showers. Or baths.

London and other bits

Hellooo people!!

Sorry it’s been a while again, so I have a few weeks to catch up on! Friday was mine and Jacob’s second anniversary, and we went to London for the day to see the final version of Bat out of Hell the musical (which was AWESOME!!). While we were there, we ate at two of our favourite vegan-friendly places in the West End: Tibits and Yorica!

Usual messy plate-full-of-everything-imaginable:

Sadly I forgot to take a pic of my Yorica! frozen yogurt, but it was rainbow candy flavour with several types of sweets and sprinkles 🙂

A few other bits:

We have also been to Las Iguanas a couple of times, as they have several vegan dishes. If I’m honest, the chilli was a bit TOO spicy for me, but their mushroom fajita is yum

Vegan waggon-wheel (the instruction printed on it is unnecessary!):

Salted caramel ice-cream, which was perfect in the heat wave we’ve just had in England:

Lastly, Jacob and I have cooked with each other a few times recently, and here are the treats he’s made: a Fry’s ‘chicken’ pesto pasta, (with vegan sparkling wine from Harvest) and a pizza:

By the way, if it’s of interest, please do keep checking my Thoughts, FAQ & Mythbusting page, as it is constantly updates with ramblings; I find it’s a good way to consolidate my many thoughts and get them out of my head 🙂

Some new things!

I tried some new items from Lidl this week 🙂 I was not expecting any of them to be vegan, but I checked the packets anyway and was pleasantly surprised!

They do vegetable burgers and spicy bean burgers, both of which are very nice (although, like most ready-made items, contain palm oil so avoid if you choose). I was very surprised to discover that their apple strudel is also OK! We had this with Swedish Glace vanilla ice-cream:

Also, we finally got around to trying the Wetherspoons curry! It was tasty and very good value; a decent portion of curry, rice, two poppadoms and a naan bread 🙂

Lastly, there was a one-off vegan cake stall in Bath city centre on Sunday! I was doing my penultimate shift at Lidl that day, so Jacob went along and bought rather a lot of things: sausage rolls, a spiced mince tart, and several cakes, some flavours of which I hadn’t eaten since going vegan e.g. coffee cake and mint-choc! A lovely treat 🙂

Yes, that is edible cat rice-paper…

Some new items!

Hey folks! I have recently been taste-testing a few items which have appeared in my local shops (oh dear, what a tough life…) 😀

Firstly, Follow Your Heart “pepper-Jack” cheese slices, which I found in Harvest!! I used to absolutely love spicy cheese, so this was a dream come true – I made cheese and tomato toasties with sandwich thins from Lidl 🙂

I know it’s a rubbish photo OK?!

I don’t have pictures of the other items, but I would recommend them:

• Vegolino chocolates (just about worth the silly price, I think…!)
• New vegan Cauldron sausages, made with beans and peppers – absolutely delicious
• Linda McCartney pulled “chicken” – great in pasta!

The Vegolino chocs were also from Harvest, and the last two items are from Sainsbury’s.

Jacob and I treated ourselves to a lovely meat at The Green Rocket last week – I had Vietnamese curry and a vegan “Snickers bar”, and he had posh sausages and mash and sticky toffee pudding and ice-cream. We actually ended up swapping desserts, because we each like the other one’s more! 😀

Lastly, I’m just going to casually drop these fajitas here, as I think it might be my best food photograph so far (I know, I know, that’s not saying much, but hey… They were great 🙂 )

Cake and other things

Yo! It’s been a while again; I’ve been very busy with uni recently. I have quite a few exciting things going on at the moment: doing marketing for our summer exhibition in London, having an interview at Bristol Old Vic (fingers crossed!!), and preparing for assessments…

Anyway, it was Jacob’s 25th birthday on Tuesday, and I made him a cake:

I made this using Betty Crocker devil’s food cake mix, icing, and choc chips from Lidl. For the first time, I used chia seeds as an egg replacer (having suddenly realised I’d run out of Orgran). It’s very simple: for every egg, you combine 1tbsp of chia seeds and 3tbsp of water, and leave for a few minutes to form a jelly 🙂 It went down a treat with our omni friends at the birthday gathering!

Here are a couple of other things:

I finally got around to having hash browns again – fun was had! 🙂

I put pesto and “cheese” mushrooms ON TOP of burgers!!!!

I think that, as well as showing some of the yumminess we’ve been having, these photos effectively show my incompetence as a food photographer…

Anyway…

It’s nice to be able to write positive things on here. I’ve actually had a pretty frustrating morning, as last night I commented on an Earth Hour facebook post, basically saying how we should be caring for our planet all the time, not just for an hour, and that switching the lights off it like putting a plaster on a broken arm if you still eat animal products. You can imaging the ignorant backlash I received which I saw first thing this morning…

It was a combination of people saying that eating meat has nothing to do with climate change, and calling me a “Debbie Downer” for pointing out these facts. Generally I am a pretty positive person, but it’s sometimes difficult when you are reminded about how in denial, and how mollycoddled, most of the human race is. The frustrating thing is that most people would probably go vegan if they were to actually bother to find out some info and stop burying their heads in the sand.

But, sadly, most people are deliberately ignorant.

And lazy.

And stupid.

We just have to have hope that veganism will soon be so mainstream that people will have no choice other than to see its positive impact, and how easy it is, and how natural it is for humans! Come on 2017, do us proud!! 🙂

Beyond The Kale supper club & more..

Hey folks!

I’ve just got back from having a late breakfast at The Green Rocket, so I’m happy! 😀

It’s been quite a busy week-or-so with vegan food 🙂 Jacob and I saw an event on facebook at Beyond The Kale in Bath for a vegan supper club with a three-course set menu, which was last Sunday. Apparently this is going to be a regular monthly event 😀 Funnily, enough, despite this being the most vegan eatery in Bath, this was the first time we had been!

This was the menu:

• Creamy Cashew & Sunflower Pate with Seeded Crackers & Smoked Carrot
• Beet Wellington with Herby Roasted Vegetables, Roast Potatoes, Braised Cabbage and Red Wine Gravy
• Sticky Toffee Pudding, Toffee Sauce and Ice Cream

Next, a couple of useful finds:

• Swedish Glace magnums – omigosh!!! So creamy… so chocolatey… ❤
• Cheatin’ bacon rashers – excellent in ‘bacon’ butties with brown sauce or ketchup

And lastly, yesterday at uni, we had a bake sale to raise some money for our Bargehouse exhibition in London next July. I made an Oreo cake using Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix, vanilla buttercream icing and Oreos! It was a hit and sold out quickest! 🙂

P.S. I owned this idiot: