Putting Birthday Presents to Good Use

A friend and I have this tradition of getting each other very belated birthday gifts, usually when one or the other of us decides there's something we would really like. I recently cashed mine in; there were a couple of cookbooks I was very excited about owning and I'm on a shopping for myself ban.

I requested Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen and The Homemade Vegan Pantry which is Miyoko Schinner's latest book. They duly arrived and they are gorgeous, they're both stunning books with beautiful pictures and I am so exciting about working through both of them and documenting it here.

I started with Vegan Richa's Indian Kitchen, I'm a touch intimidated by Vegan Pantry and I have been craving a good curry for a while now. It took me three thorough readings of the book to decide what I wanted to make, everything looks so tasty and nothing seemed complicated or time consuming.

The first thing I had to try was the naan bread, it's something I love and my local shop used to do a very nice vegan one but they stopped selling it a few months back and I have been left bereft of the rare and elusive vegan naan bread. I decided on the avocado naan because they're green and I love me some funny coloured food.

They were very simple to make, they took a couple of hours to make but it was almost all down time and making bread makes me feel like a culinary genius. I decided to do them in the frying pan and they got appealingly toasty. 

I needed something to eat my naan with and the cumin scented rice and broccoli kofta with yoghurt gravy sounded like just the thing. I am horrible at cooking rice, it terrifies me but this recipe was so detailed I felt confident and was so pleased with the results, I had fragrant and fluffy rice.

The koftas were simple and although I think I left the yoghurt gravy too thick the resulting dish was flavourful and thoroughly impressed The Boy. I've also never received more compliments or questions about my lunch when I took the leftovers to work.

Disclaimer: The names of recipes might be misremembered or otherwise mangled and there is no natural light in my house so excuse the clumsy photo and naughty tortie in the background of this picture.

I cannot wait to make more from this cook book, I think it's going to become one of my most regularly used books. Just need to brave Vegan Pantry now, does anyone have any recommendations?

A Little Bit of TLC

The Boy has this very expensive hobby that takes him all over the country and occasionally as far as mainland Europe. This weekend it took him to Brighton and I tagged along for the ride. I fully intended to take lots of lovely photographs of the food but I failed miserably and forgot to take any at all.

Suffice to say we had a lovely weekend, I ate a lot of very nice vegan food and we are a little bit worse for wear after a weekend in a tent.

Since we are a bit worn and the weather is cooling down it only seemed right to make a big pan of soup. Which is all well and good but this whole Boy business is still new enough that I'm trying my best to impress in the kitchen and a couple of slices of bread lacked imagination.

So I googled Soda Farls, they always look delish but they're traditionally made with buttermilk. This is an easy sub though, some soy milk and vingear and I had some "buttermilk" and then some soda farls shortly thereafter.

Here they are cooking up in a dry frying pan.

And fancying up my soup, with a little vitalite.

I think I impressed and I don't think I'll be buying bread rolls to eat with soup ever again.

Grown Up Grilled Cheese

I was one of those vegetarians, you know the ones; they could never give up cheese. But then I gave it up and I discovered I didn't miss the stuff in the slightest. Sometimes I want something salty or creamy but I'm pretty happy with what can be done with avocado, cashews and nooch. I don't miss cheese.

I also don't particularly like shop bought vegan cheese, most of it is a bit uninspiring and I'd rather make a sauce or some cashew ricotta. There are a couple of notable exceptions; I used to love Vbites bacon cheddar, that was magical and I would happily eat that stuff uncooked.

Then everyone starts talking about violife, it's great, it melts, you can buy it in Tesco and I'm a sucker for hype so off I toddle and get some. I'm a bit late to the party but I can totally see why it got people so excited; it's bloody good stuff. I've even had positive reviews from the two omnis I've been kind enough to share it with. I've been mostly consuming it in sandwiches; grilled ones.

So, tonight I caramelised some onions.

Then I got my "cheese" ready

And assembled my sandwich with the violife, some of my onions and some black olives and grilled the little beauty until it was toasty and the cheese was all melted. I ate it with some spicy potato salad because carbs. 

The boy was quite impressed overall and I even shared my onions with him.

Muddling through

So what exactly do you write in your first ever blog post?

I think the first thing should be an admission that I pushed myself to start this because I wanted to take part in vegan Mofo this year. I have enjoyed Mofo for a number of years from behind my computer screen and I love the imagination and fabulous creativity that the online vegan community bring every year and I think that I should try jumping in and taking part.

I am so pleased to be a part of this movement, there is such a sense of innovation and fearless experimentation. Although I made the decision to stop eating animal products because the cruelty was something I didn't want to support I never expected to find a passion for cooking and a hobby which brought me so much pleasure.

When I moved out and had my own kitchen and responsibility to feed myself I knew how to make maybe three things, I now have a groaning shelf full of amazing cookbooks, a ridiculous wishlist of more besides and consider myself to be a very good cook and fantastic baketivist. All thanks to my desire to live off of something more than plain pasta.

Vegan food and the people who make it are changing the world and we are changing peoples minds. Not eating animal products has enabled and encouraged me to try things I would never have and I am constantly stunned and excited by the things I see other people creating. And I sleep soundly knowing I live an authentic life and I'm not hurting anything to do it.

That's probably enough of me rambling on, I'll see about getting a post that actually contains some food up in the coming week, til then I'll leave you with a picture of somebunny who appreciates cauliflower leaves and other kitchen cast offs.