Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #29: Hallow-vegan Cake

Totally inspired by River's awesome little cakes was I. There are two layers of the Fauxstess Cupcake recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, layered between that is vegan buttercream. The same buttercream is spread round 3 sides of the cake and then I dragged a fork around the three sides to make the pages. The top and spine of the book is made using Ginger's Chocolate Ganache recipe. I had a little buttercream left over so I chucked this in too. This should keep the ghouls happy this Halloween!! GO VEGAN! GO MoFo!!

Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #27: Do you ever get that sinking feeling? (or not as the case might be)

These are not the Jelly Donut Cakes from Veganomicon that went wrong because my jam didn't sink. Nope. These are "A zombie sucked out my eyeball" cakes. (incidentally - if anyone can shed any light on the reason why my jam didn't sink I would appreciate it. I followed the ingredients EXACTLY except I used sunflower oil instead of canola because I can't buy canola or rapeseed oil anywhere). Anyhoo - they taste AMAZING! I've had four already. BURP!

GO VEGAN!

GO MoFo!

Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #26: Lost in translation

Bought in my local Todo Todo which is the equivalent of a pound shop/dollar store. Makes me laugh every time I read it.

Not really a MoFo entry and I think to pose as one would be lamest of the lame. But I am making a roast dinner tonight and you've all seen me do that before! Lots and lots and lots and lots of times. And you all know what we'll be having for dinner tomorrow too. But never-the-less - I know how you all like pornz, so here ya go.

GO VEGAN!

GO MoFo!!

Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #25: Market goodies

It's not often this lazy MoFo'er can drag herself out of bed on a Sunday morning, but the clocks going back an hour meant that time really was on my side today and I took full advantage of it.

This bounty came to 11 euros!!

That's 10 quid or 16 us dollars or 17 Australian dollars. Pretty cool huh. I'm going to make a real effort to go every Sunday from now on. I also bought my favourite olives ever. That's an olive stuffed with a whole clove of garlic. Just so as you can appreciate the size of these here's another photo.

No, I don't have small hands they are BIG olives man

I made the most simple and delicious salad for my lunch

see

It was just lettuce, olives, chickpeas and tomatoes with a mahoosive dollop of Plamils Mayo. It was so so yuumy.

GO VEGAN!

GO MoFo!!

Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #24: Bread take two

TADAA! I've done it - I have made good tasty bread in my new bread machine. WooHooo! The recipe is from Allinson Bread booklet and is as thus: White Bread 1 1/8 cups of water 2 1/4 Tablespoons Sugar 1 1/4 teaspoons Salt 2 1/2 Tablespoons Sunflower Oil 3 cups strong white bread flour 1 1/4 teaspoons Allinson Easybake Yeast Put everything in the bread machine in the order given and set on "Basic". How easy peasy is that. I had some for my lunch spread with Tartex - it is super delicious. This has given my confidence a real boost and I can't wait to go to the supermarket and get some special ingredients and start making some fancy bread.

GO VEGAN!

GO MoFo!!

Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #23: CATS!

This isn't a quick MoFo entry because a certain treehugger is off to the pub with her mates. No siree. What this is is restoring the equilibrium in the universe. I gave you my mums dogs a few days ago 'tis only right and proper I now introduce my cats to you.

This is Fizzgig - the fluffiest cat in the world

This is Boo Radley

She was left on a doorstep when she was about 4 weeks old. She was like a sock filled with pebbles when my friend found her and bought her round to me.

This is Doctor Blowfin. He's one of Boo boo's babies This is Flip Flop no tail

She's naughty

Her owner didn't want her so they shut her out the house. Lucky us she found me.

This is Salem

He died last Christmas but I was blessed with him for four precious years. Everybody loved him

Especially Flip Flop

This is Chomsky when he was a baby. He's the other baby of Boo, Dr Blowfin's brother

He was hit by a car July 4th 2008. He loved Salem too.

GO VEGAN!

GO MoFo!!

Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #22: Soup

Didn't MoFo yesterday guys cos I flew back to Spain. HURRAH! I am home. There's no place like home. And what could be more welcoming than a bowl of freshly made Tomato Soup and home made Garlic Bread? Not a lot really. Feast your eyes GO VEGAN! GO MoFo!!

Vegan MoFo Day#20:Pasta Alfrenara

I was never a fan of creamy pasta sauces in my pregan days and the thought of veganising one just never occurred to me until I started seeing them pop up all over the MoFo. Practising what I preach I was totally inspired to concoct a Carbonara/Alfredo sauce and I'm so glad I did.

Now I'm not too sure what the difference between a carbonara and an alfredo is. I'm presuming a carbonara has bacon in and an alfredo does not. Would I be right?

Anyhoo - this recipe doesn't have bacon in (DOH!) so I shall call it a alfrenara or carbonedo. Alfrenara sounds better I think.

This was so super scrummy and I can't wait to get back home and wow Mr treehugger with it.

In true heathen style I didn't write down what I did but it's SO easy you can't go wrong.

Ingredients

serves 3

2 cloves of garlic

1 cup raw cashews

1 Tablespoon light tahini

1 Tablespoon pesto or 6 Basil leaves

4 Tablespoons olive oil

1-2 Tablespoons lemon juice

300 ml of vegetable stock

salt to taste

1 onion sliced thinly

load of mushrooms sliced thickly

half cup of white wine

freshly ground black pepper

corriander/cilantro leaves

Method

In a blender whizz up the garlic, cashews, pesto, tahini, 2 Tablespoons of the olive oil and lemon juice in that order. Add 200ml of the stock. Taste and if it needs salt add a little bit to your liking.

In a pan add the remaing 2 Tablespoons olive oil and fry the onion for 5 mins. When it starts to get a small bit of brown colouring, add the mushrooms and cook for a further 5 mins. You will need to stir this regularly. Add the white wine and cook for a further 5 mins, again stirring regularly.

Add the cashew mix from the blender and stir well. If you like a runnier sauce (I do) then add the remaining stock.

Add black pepper to taste and the chopped up corriander/cilantro.

Serve over your favourite pasta.

YUMMERS!

Sorry totally crappy photo. It was night, I was hungry.

Go VEGAN!

GO MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#19: Crumpets not trumpets

Although trumpets are vegan you wouldn't want to eat one. Unlike Crumpets which you most definitely would! Lots of store bought Crumpets are vegan. I got mine from Morrisons.

Morrisons are getting a snotty email from me because when I went to the bakery department and asked if their soft white burger buns contained milk or dairy, the bloke behind the counter didn't have a clue!

Useless.

Anyway - here's a picture of my Crumpets toasted to perfection and smothered with PURE vegan spread and Marmite.

YUM!

How do you like your Crumpets?

GO VEGAN!

GO MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#18: Cute doggy photos

Here's some photos of my mums four dogs in a lame attempt to catch up and get my MoFo back up to date.

This is Scamp, he's the boss

This is Sprocket the puppy. He's not vegan. You can talk to him about it but he'll just lick your face

This is Merlin. He's special

This is Cassie, she's the boss really

GO VEGAN!

GO MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#17: BREAD!!!!!

Made by my wonderful mum. Doesn't it look fab. And it tastes fab too. I cut off big chunks and dunked in my Stew.

Perfect for a chilly October in deepest darkest Yorkshire.

This Stew had dumplings in. I believe Americans call dumplings biscuits (am I right?). This makes me laugh because biscuits are what you have with a cuppa tea (cookies)

I love the little differences in the languages. What do Ozzies and Canadians call these - biscuits or dumplings?

GO VEGAN! Go MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#16: I've lost a day somewhere

Don't know how that's happened - I can't even blame it on jet lag!! Can we all pretend that this was posted yesterday?

Thanks for your co-operation.

Before my mum and I went to York I did a search on Happy Cow to see what vegan delights were on offer in this fab city.

I found this little health food shop called Kyi-po

I was disapointed that there were no vegan cheeses but their frozen goodies more than compensated. I have never seen so many flavours of vegan ice-cream before!

I didn't get any because the bus ride took 2 hours and well I just didn't fancy a tub of melted ice-cream, vegan or not.

But here's what I did limit myself to:

This was scarfed down in seconds and was super yummy. Like a vegan Bounty (are the plain chocolate Bounty's vegan? I've never pondered that thought before)

This was eaten straight out of the tin - what can I say, I'm a heathen and this is soooooo damn good

And this bad boy is coming all the way back to Spain with me

GO VEGAN!

GO MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#15 Blog Action Day

Today, the 15th October, is Blog Action Day (which has the nifty acronym of B.A.D. LOVE IT!) Blog Action Day is a day set aside by bloggers around the world to discuss something that effects all of us - this year the subject is climate change. I actually find it quite ironic that this years topic will generate millions of people to power on their computers and laptops and consume energy for a topic they are trying to promote using less energy on!

I think it would have been more appropriate to ask bloggers NOT to blog on this day! But who am I? Bearing this in my mind I thought it would be a good idea to share a few tips on how to use less energy with our computers

Top 10 ways to reduce computing energy use

1.Use computer and monitor power management. Doing so can save nearly half a ton of CO2 and more than $60 a year in energy costs.

2.Don’t use a screen saver. Screen savers are not necessary on modern monitors and studies show they actually consume more energy than allowing the monitor to dim when it’s not in use.

3.Turn down the brightness setting on your monitor. The brightest setting on a monitor consumes twice the power compared to the dimmest setting.

4.Turn off peripherals such as printers, scanners and speakers when not in use.

5.Fight phantom power; plug all your electronics into one extension lead and turn the whole thing off when you are finished using your computer. If posible, unplug the extension lead from the wall to avoid high voltage surges which may occur during an electrical storm.

6.Use a laptop instead of a desktop if this is feasible. Laptops typically consume less power than desktops.

7.Close unused applications and turn off your monitor when you’re not using it.

Of course vegans are already making a HUGE positive impact on climate change by choosing a vegan diet and this is why I wanted to participate in this years B.A.D.

A lot of people overlook what to me is the most obvious way to help preserve our planet.

So if you're reading this and you've never considered your diet contributing to the devastating effect on climate change then I hope this has given you some food for thought (do you like what I did there!)

GO VEGAN!

Vegan MoFo Day#14: One potato, two potato, three potato, four...

....Five potato, six potato, seven potato MORE! Todays MoFo shall be dedicated to the king of the spuds. I'm not talking about King Edwards either, oh no. There is one potato that surpasses King Edwards.

In fact all other potatoes in the existence of potatoes just fade into insignificance compared to this one. This is the don, the head honcho, heck - this is THE DADDY. What am I talking about? People - I give you The Jersey Royal New Potato.

See - even the name kicks butt. There is one thing that epitomises an English summer for me and that is this regal potato. Only in the shops from April until June they are gorged on by UK'ers, who receive 90% of Jerseys crop, year after year.

The remaining 10% of the crops are enjoyed by Jersey islanders themselves (it's a small island and nothing to do with mainlanders being greedy. Honest).

Oh how I weep for the rest of the world. And I know what you're all thinking. This MoFo'er has gawn mad.

What's she doing talking about a summer potato crop when it's blinking Autumn!? Right? I'm right aren't I! Well - ha ha. Feast your eyes on my score today.

seriously - name another vegetable that has a Limited Edition!

Oh and they're packed full of fibre and vitamin C too.

All hail the mighty potato We are not worthy

Seriously, vegans of the world; pair yourself up for a package swap with a UK'er around May/June next year and hint massively, heck - cut out the hinting - DEMAND your swap buddy sends you some of these bad boys.

GO VEGAN! GO MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#13: Bubble and Squeak how to

Back by popular demand - lol.

Bubble and Squeak is such an easy peasy recipe I bet you'll all be doing it more often.

You take all your leftover cooked veggies smash 'em up (a blender is great for this) then add the smashed up veggies to a load of cooked potatoes and mash 'em all together. Add some diced onion, salt and pepper and shape into patties. You will need more potato than veggies as it's the potatoes that hold everything together. You can add spices - a little of what you fancy never hurt. Try some smoked paprika or Old Bay seasoning.

Me?

I prefer my bubbles with just good old salt and pepper.

Add about a Tablespoon of olive oil into a non stick frying pan, heat up and add the patties. Fry on each side for 10-15 mins. You want them to go quite black.

You will probably need to use a spatula to keep the patties nice and round. Just gently pat them round the edges.

smash 'em up

shape them

Serve and enjoy!

GO VEGAN! GO MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#12 More leftover high jinxery

Is high jinxery even a word? Well it should be because it describes tonights dinner perfectly. For many many many years, the best part of a roast dinner for me has always been the meal that you make the next day with all the leftover veggies - namely Bubble and Squeak.

Now I know I've blogged about this before so it's nothing new but the best thing about this dish is that not only is it packed with lots of awesome veggies but it is quick and simple too.

HURRAH!

I served this with a Garden Salad, steamed Corn on the Cob and a simple Bean Salad.

The Bean Salad was a mix of Flageolet, Cannelini and Kidney Beans with olive oil, salt and pepper, fresh parsley and mint and sliced olives. It was a satisfying and delicious meal.

GO VEGAN!

GO MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#11: Weekend eats

Quickie post today (I know - all my posts have been quick lately).

Saturday's dinner was jacket potato with garlic mushrooms and salad.

And what's a Sunday without a Sunday roast?

Carrots, broad beans,runner beans, potatoes, peas, stuffing and onion gravy.Deeeee-liscious.

GO VEGAN! Go MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#10: Have your cake and eat it

My mum and I went to York for the day and whilst there we stopped off at Goji Vegetarian Cafe.

I was so so happy when I asked the girl behind the counter if there was any vegan cake and she replied "Yes we have two, Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and chocolate cake."

Get in there!

I almost pee'd my pants.

Before you think I've taken complete leave of my senses let me explain that this is my very first time I have bought vegan cake because it is the very first opportunity I've had to buy vegan cake. Sad huh!

But happy too because look what I got.

The chocolate cake could have done with a shed load more chocolate - it just tasted of banana really, but the carrot cake was freaking AMAZING!

And my awesome mum even ordered vegan food for her too. She had vegetable samosas and spicey potato cakes which were both super delicious and scarfed down before the camera was thought of. I've got my priorities right at least.

York Cathedral

My mum

GO VEGAN!

Go MoFo!

Vegan MoFo Day#9: Easy curry

I will be cooking for the whole 2 weeks of my stay with my mum.

My mum will be vegan for two weeks and her response to this, in her own words "I don't mind, it'll be fun to see what you make."

YAY! Open minded people RULE especially when they're your mum.

Now my mums spice cupboard isn't the best stocked spice cupboard in the world (OK I am spoilt I know) and rather than go out and buy individual packets of herbs and spices to make tonights dinner I thought I would just get an all in one curry powder.

This is the one I went for.

These are excellent if you're new to cooking curries and you're not too too sure on what spices to use and, more importantly, how much of them to use. These all in one powders will give your confidence a boost until you're ready to go it alone.

This one contains:

corriander seed, cumin, fenugreek, mustard seed, ginger, garlic powder, salt, bay leaves, turmeric, cayenne pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, black pepper.

It couldnt be easier.

And 'cos I know the blogosphere, and the universe in general, is not lacking in vegan curry recipes - I shall just get straight to the finished product.

Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #8: Leftovers are GOOOOD!

I nuked the noodles and the tofu stir fry from the night before and sauteed a bag of spinach in some chili oil for a few minutes. Introduced the one to the other and......

TA DA!!!

GO VEGAN! GO MoFo!!

Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #7: We interupt this broadcast...

I have to fly to the UK. In fact by the time this is scheduled to post I shall be 30,000 feet in the air. HURRAH for scheduled blogging! I will still be MoFo'ing and still reading all your blogs but if I miss a day or two then you'll know it's not because I've been abducted by aliens. I'm hoping I can find my camera software so as I can upload photos on my mums computer...fingers crossed. The good side of this is that my mum is a pro bread machine bread maker so I will most definitely be getting her to show me how it's done. GO VEGAN! GO MoFo!!

Vegan MoFo 2009 Day #6: Noodle doodle dandy

This morning I marinated some sliced up tofu in soy sauce, garlic, ginger and fresh lime juice and left it in the fridge for the whole day while I went about my business.

Then tonight I drained the tofu and fried it in peanut oil. Added mushrooms, red pepper, green beans and scallions.

The rice noodles were placed in boiling water for 4 minutes then drained. Then I mixed some soy sauce, lime juice, green chili, sugar and peanut butter all together. I totally eyeball this, just check and adjust to your preference.

Heat your wok up nice and hot, add sliced scallion, 2 crushed garlic cloves, teaspoon fresh ginger and a julienne carrot. Cook for 3 mins then add the drained noodles and the sauce.

And store bought spring rolls which took 12 mins in the oven served with some chilli oil and hoisin. Altogether a perfectly scrummy healthy meal ready and on the table in 20 mins! YUMMY! GO VEGAN! GO MoFo!!