Vegan MoFo day day 30 - Fusion challenge

The last day of MoFo! Well, technically that was yesterday but I'm a day late posting as I've been feeling unwell.....hasn't it gone quickly? I've been so busy this year but managed to post every day, albeit a bit half-arsed on some posts (Ok, most posts). The prompts were fun, and it was interesting seeing different bloggers interpretations of the daily challenges.

Today's fusion challenge I'll admit had me a little worried. I know people are going to be posting sophisticated dishes for this but I thought I'd keep it real and make a pasty. Yes, a traditional British pasty. But where's the fusion, you ask? I filled them with Chana masala. British plus Indian equals FUSION, boom! Ok, maybe more confusion than fusion but they tasted amaze balls so I'll be over in the corner stuffing my face with pasties if you need me.

'Til next year. Bye MoFoers x

They look more like turnovers but I hate too much pastry so there you go

Vegan MoFo day 29 - What would you bring on a vegan road trip?

Well, assuming I'd be the one driving (I hate being a passenger in other people's cars) I'd need something I could eat whilst driving.
Something I often buy after a food shop to mom on the way home is Vbites sage and onion slices. Word of advice, if you're driving, make sure you open the packet with your car keys BEFORE you set off, as you just won't get to open them otherwise.

I've also included a pasty (easy to eat one-handed), a bag of seaweed peanuts to snack on and a bottle of water. I'm not sweet-toothed so I think this is ideal road trip munch.....although I'd probably throw in a bag of crisps or pretzels if it was a particularly long trip.

Oh, and on my little trip today I stopped for drive through coffee! Some new fancy pants blend they had made into a soy cappuccino. Coffee is essential for road trips.

Vegan MoFo day 28 - Tacos VS Burritos. Where do you stand on this important issue?

This is indeed an important issue. As far as I'm aware, we don't have any decent Mexican restaurants where I live and as such when I eat Mexican I have to rely on the Santa Maria ready-made corn tortillas etc. They're not bad but I have a feeling those of you in America probably know your shiz way better than me when it comes to Mexican munch.

That said, for today's challenge I decided to make both burritos and tacos, in the name of science! It wouldn't be a fair test if I didn't explore both options thoroughly. And by thoroughly I mean stuffing my face with a couple of each.

I made chilli, spicy Mexican beans, guacamole, limey salsa and buttery spiced corn on the cob, and served with corn tortillas, cos lettuce  and taco shells to stuff. I contemplated making queso and sour cream but I don't really go for sour cream and I think queso would have been too much with the guac (I know, I know, I'm doing it WRONG).

I do love a taco. But these taco shells were shit. Far too small and ever so slightly stale which kind of ruined the taco experience. The corn tortillas were pretty good and held more filling than the tacos.
So I'm going to go with burritos for now, but I may just have to run a few more of these experiments, you know, for science.

Vegan MoFo day 27 - favourite herb or spice.

Tricky. I'm not sure I have one favourite but the fresh herbs I use most are probably chives and basil (dried is mixed Italian herbs). My most used spice is probably turmeric, I get through quite a bit of that stuff. I use loads of chillies and garlic but they don't count as herbs (I think!) so I'm going with turmeric and chives.

For today's challenge I made a breakfast of tofu scramble using mashed tofu, turmeric, paprika, salt & pepper, ginger, garam masala, almond milk, coconut oil and chives. I served this with fried garlicky potatoes with chives and salted grilled tomatoes. Damn I love Sundays. 

Vegan MoFo day 26 - It’s cold and rainy and there’s a snow drift outside your door! What are you going to make using the ingredients you have?

Well funny you should say that as it's the end of the week and I have literally no fresh produce, all cupboard ingredients, so today's challenge is ideal!
What to make with just dried ingredients? Dahl of course! I've been told that dahl is a dish traditionally eaten by poorer folk in India as it's made from cheap ingredients that tend to be bought in bulk and easy to store. It's a Western thing to pimp it up with lots of vegetables etc so I made mine using red lentils, split yellow peas, water, cumin seeds, turmeric, garam masala, coconut oil, sliced garlic and salt. I served it with short grain brown rice and it was pretty filling and very tasty!
Not the prettiest or most interesting plate of food to look at but it does the job.

I'm sorry it's not very exciting. Here's a picture of a cute little peeg instead.

Vegan MoFo Day 25 - Share your favourite cuisine.

Shit, that's hard! How can you choose just one cuisine, that's almost like choosing a favourite child. Maybe. My favourite kind of foods are Indian, Italian, Japanese, Lebanese, Thai, Mexican....I won't bore you with the rest. I decided to make something kinda Italian as that's probably the stuff I make most frequently; I always have fresh basil, oregano, garlic and olive oil in my kitchen so it's easy to knock something up fairly quickly.

For today's prompt I decided to make a raw spinach and basil pesto (spinach, basil, pine nuts, extra virgin olive oil, a clove of garlic and lemon juice mixed in a blender) with high protein pasta and more spinach. It's so simple and quick to make but bursting with flavour and really filling. Pesto rules.

I tried making it look fancy by topping it with more basil and pine nuts....heh.

Vegan MoFo day 24 - What Adore Delano would eat if she were vegan

Ok, I don't know if Adore counts as a well-known celebrity but I don't care. I'm pretty much in love with her and have dreams about her which is weird since I've never met her IRL. Anyway, I basically want millions of her babies.

Oh, what would would Adore eat if she were vegan? Fuckin' pizza cus she's a fuckin' mermaid! Pizza is my favourite food too, so we're essentially a match made in heaven.

Here's a picture of some fuckin' pizza I had last night at Pizza express. Party.

It's their pianta which is spicy sauce on a thin base with mushrooms, artichoke, spinach, rocket, olive oil and pine nuts. Except they left my fuckin' pine nuts off so when I pointed that out I got a whole bowl of fuckin' pine nuts for my fuckin' pizza! Party!

I'm not sure if Adore would want that much rocket on her fuckin' pizza so I'd probably make her one with lots of vegusto and faux peperoni. Party.

Vegan MoFo day 23 - Autumn equinox eats

I love Autumn, because that's when we get Hallowe'en and cold mornings and PUMPKINS!
I was going to make pumpkin pie because I have a tin of American puréed pumpkin that I paid about £4 for but I'm kind of saving that for Hallowe'en so.....here's an Autumn favourite of mine; roasted butternut squash mac and cheeze. Every vegan loves this, right?

I roasted some peeled, chopped butternut squash and whole garlic cloves (with skin on) in the oven in plenty of oil and some salt.....added that to a pan (squeezed the garlic out of the skin) with some almond milk, paprika, mustard, vegan margarine, pepper and butt-loads of nooch, whizzed it all up then added the pasta.
I then put a portion in a bowl once the pasta was almost done and covered with polenta and paprika, and baked in the oven for 10 minutes or so. I like a crispy topping on mac and cheeze.

Excuse the awful photos again! I really need to wear my glasses when I take food photos.

Whoops, technically not mac but fusilli. Still delish.

Vegan MoFo day 22 - Make a dish using all seasonal produce

I was lucky enough to find a British grown aubergine in M&S over the weekend (I've only ever seen imported ones sold here) so I had to save it for today's challenge and make some moussaka! I haven't made it in forever, so this was exciting for me. I don't use bechamel sauce in mine as a friend with a wheat intolerance showed me how to make it, so mine is gluten-free. Still delicious though!

Here's the seasonal produce I used....

I sliced the aubergine into 1cm thick discs then halved them, and fried them in oil and salt on both sides until they were lightly browned.
The cooked aubergine then goes in to a baking dish, and is then topped with a mix of lightly fried onions, chopped fresh tomatoes, a few cloves of sliced garlic, paprika, cinnamon, cooked spinach (about half that bag) plus seasoning.
I then topped this with a layer of chopped fresh parsley and a little more paprika (this rises to the yogurt topping) then topped with soy yogurt with a good squeeze of lemon juice.
Baked in the oven for about 45 minutes then nommed.

I may be a filthy looking casserole dish but I've made many lovely things in my time!

 Sorry again about the awful pictures, it was about 9pm when it was finished. Normally I'd add lentils or something like tvp to the tomato mixture but I ate a lot of bread yesterday so I wanted something a little less carby for dinner.

Vegan MoFo Day 21 - What three endless food supplies would you take if you were going to be stranded on an island? (Imagine your nutritional needs have been met, these are a bonus!)

Damn, that is hard! Does nutritional yeast count as part of the 'nutritional needs being met' bit? I'm going to go with yes, hehe.

So, tahini would definitely be top of the list. It's so versatile and makes everything creamy and delicious. I love how you can use it in a variety of  different cuisines, it's one of my favourite things. Soy sauce/tamari is something I couldn't live without, too. And I can't choose between chillies and garlic.....argh! I definitely have to have garlic in there soooo I'm going to go with these -

Tahini
Garlic
Chilli-infused soy sauce (Boom, I win!)

Or should I have plain soy sauce and a bottle of sriracha for the chilli/garlic combo? Eeeek. 

Here is a not-very-exciting picture of some short-grain brown rice and green beans in a tahini/soy sauce dressing topped with sriracha. Looks boring, tastes amazeballs.

Vegan MoFo day 20 - Veganize an old family recipe

Now then. My Mum never really taught me how to cook, other than helping out with prepping vegetables. I think her Mum was a good cook, but she lived a couple of hundred miles away in North Wales so I couldn't just pop over to visit when I felt like it. My mum was a single mum to four kids and in full-time education for most of my childhood (and working full time after that) so didn't have a lot of time to fanny about in the kitchen. My teen years I lived off microwave meals and frozen pizza.
As a young kid though (before I went vegetarian at 10 or 11), I seem to remember a lot of minced beef stuff like bolognese and cottage pie.
So I decided to make cottage pie like my mum use to make, except with no ground up cow in it.

I first fried some diced onion in a saucepan, added some salt, vegetable stock, 2 cups of soaked green lentils, a diced red pointed pepper, 2 cloves of garlic (minced), some fresh oregano, tomato purée, and the magic ingredient - onion gravy powder.
I find onion gravy powder gives a good meaty quality to the mince, which is kind of what you want. My mum used to put beef oxo cubes in her cottage pie and I think this is a good replacement.
Anyway, the lentil mince mixture simmers away for twenty minutes or so whilst you boil some chopped, peeled potatoes.
When the potatoes are done. Mash them with a generous heap of vegan margarine and a splash of soy milk. Pour the mince mixture in to a dish then top with the mash. Run a fork over it so it goes a bit crispy when you bake it in the oven (about half an hour gas mark 5).
It was bloody lush!

Vegan MoFo day 19 - Lunch on the go

I almost always buy lunch 'on the go' as I rarely have the time or energy to make a packed lunch in the mornings. I know, I'm terrible.
Luckily, the offerings of grab and go lunch options for vegans has improved vastly in recent years in this country. My most often shop-bought lunch is the Tesco meal deal, as it's on the way to work and I feel represents good value for money. As far as I'm aware, only the falafel and houmous wrap is suitable for vegans as the main part of the deal, then you can choose from a mountain of different crisps, fruit pots and nuts (dependent on where you go....there's more choice in the main stores than the express stores, naturally) and a bottled drink.

I tend to get this trio of tastiness at least once a week, usually more, and grab a couple of pieces of fruit for snacks. I wish more places would take the unnecessary mayo/yogurt out of their falafel wraps (Marks and Spencer's I'm looking at you!)

That said about M&S, they do have some pretty good options for vegans. The main on their meal deal suitable for vegans is the large vegetable samosa which is another thing I get fairly often (comes with a drink and a side). I think there's a soup that's vegan and I can't remember if  the Moroccan spiced butternut couscous is vegan or not.....will check next time I am there and update.
They have various 2 for £3 salad pots which are suitable for vegans too, including a slow roasted pepper & orzo pasta, borlotti/flageolet & black bean salad, quinoa/edamame salad with soy & ginger dressing and a super wholefood salad with a mint vinaigrette. Plenty of options!

I haven't bought a Boots meal deal in a while, but I did enjoy their houmous, carrot and coriander sandwich on tomato bread (the Kimchi salad is great but I'm a sandwich kinda gal). They have a fantastic selection of drinks too, including savse cold pressed juices. Their sides range from crisps, nuts etc. to fruit/vegetable snack pots and things like muki beans with houmous.

Of course there are various coffee chains that have some options suitable for vegans (Starbucks, pret a manger) but they're kind of over-priced for what you get plus I don't have time in the mornings to queue to pay for a salad.....self-scan tills all the way!

Vegan MoFo Day 18 - Honour a human or non human animal who inspires your veganism

Oooh, this is tricky. There wasn't one person or anything in particular that inspired me to go vegan in the first place, just various things I had seen on social media that led me to discover that being just vegetarian wasn't enough. I was one of those blissfully unaware vegetarians until I found out that baby chicks were crushed to death in the egg industry and that organic free range didn't mean they were chickens that roamed outside all day. I also had no idea about the cruelty and torture cows suffered in the dairy industry.
When I did find out, I imagined my dog Pedro being separated from me and how awful that would be for him. How terrified he would be when he saw me being slaughtered and how utterly horrified he would be to live his life in a small box, never being allowed to see the light of day until he is murdered to be eaten by greedy humans.

So I guess you could say my dogs inspire my veganism to a certain degree. I believe all animals are capable of emotions, whether it be happiness or pain and suffering. Knowing how my dogs respond to me and the things around them makes me aware that all animals are able to feel vulnerable, scared, lonely, hurt and an array of other emotions. They inspire me to STAY vegan, they inspire me to do pretty much anything I do in my life. They are my family, they love me unconditionally and I love them so much it scares me sometimes.

She destroyed this hat as soon as I took it off her

ANYHOO. This prompt inspired me to make some delicious treats for my little fur babies - baked polenta dog cookies.
Now, these aren't tough like normal dog cookies but they go down a treat with my little ones. Yes I know dogs aren't meant to eat much in the way of grains but as this is a TREAT and not the main part of their diet, it's perfectly fine for them to eat. I would avoid using wheat, however, as many dogs are sensitive to it.

I made them from cornmeal, water, rice bran oil, almond butter, fresh oregano and a little tomato purée to add saltiness without adding salt.
You don't have to use oregano but it makes it more flavoursome and it's high in antioxidants and is apparently good for digestion. You could use a different herb (they all have their own benefits) but make sure you don't use chives as they are part of the onion family which is toxic to dogs.

Pedro and Bebe wish you all a happy MoFo!

Vegan MoFo day 17 - Make (or eat) a local dish

Well, since I did my entire MoFo theme last year on Welsh food, I'm just going to re-create a local dish I made last year with some changes - faggots.

They're in all the bloody markets here and a lot of cafés too. I think it's more of a nostalgic thing for older people so you tend to find it in the places that have been around for years rather than new establishments. I guess I'll include myself in that, as I remember having them frequently as a kid, usually with rice or peas.

Last year I made them with brown lentils and this year, I made them with seitan! I love seitan, I usually make it at least once a fortnight. I love how quick and easy it is to make, how filling it is, but mostly the different flavours you can put in to it!

For my faggots I used vital wheat gluten, corn flour, rice bran oil, maggi liquid vegetable stock, sage, freshly ground black pepper, tomato ketchup and a little dried onion gravy powder.
I formed them in to balls, wrapped them in kitchen foil then baked them in an inch of water in a tray for about 45 minutes on gas mark 5.

I served them with plenty of onion gravy and peas. I was so stuffed after eating them! They were lush.

Vegan MoFo day 16 - What’s your favourite late summer food?

Well, I guess late summer is kind of now although technically isn't it autumn? Anyhow, when the weather cools down I'm usually glad to be getting back in to hearty things like stews, soups, curries etc.
Mostly though, I miss having pasta bakes! I find it too warm in the summer to have too much stodgy food, especially if it's warm food. I know pasta bake isn't very adventurous but I love carby food this time of year, and Italian flavours always delight me.

In my typical pasta bake I mix wholewheat or high protein pasta with olives, passata, garlic, Italian herbs, some kind of vegetable such as courgette and maybe some type of bean if I'm feeling cheeky.
Always topped with vegan cheese (violife or cheezly), and usually extra virgin olive oil and some salted tomatoes too.

I LOVE PASTA BAKE AND I'M NOT ASHAMED TO ADMIT IT!

I skimped a bit on the cheese, whoops.

Vegan MoFo day 15 - OMG Barack Obama is coming over because he knows you make great vegan food. What are you going to make?

Ha, ok. Well I'm guessing he's probably tried almost every type of cuisine going and since he's turned up at my house uninvited, he can have what I'm having - Thai (ish) fish-less cakes with zoodles in a chilli toasted sesame sauce. Yerm. 

Ok so I normally have zoodles raw because I really like raw courgette but I thought the prez might want something warm since he's travelled thousands of miles to visit our cold, rainy country. 

The zoodles were warmed in a chilli sauce with some toasted sesame seeds. The fish cakes were made from chickpeas, panko breadcrumbs, garlic, salt, lemongrass powder, coriander, olive oil and chillies (all blenderised......that's a word, right?) then pan fried. It looked really beige so I added some sriracha because why not? It was lush. 

Vegan MoFo day 14 - Share something vegan (and delicious, duh) with a non-vegan

For today's prompt, I thought it would be a good idea to tell you about Govinda's. It's a cute little restaurant near my place of work that makes amazing vegetarian and vegan food. It's so good that my omni friend Henry and I get food from here at least once a month (it'd be more frequent if we had quieter days in work more often!)

Today we each got a nut and lentil burger with hummus and fresh chillies with a side of fries, tomato sauce and salad. Their tomato sauce is home made (like everything they do, down to the bread rolls.....not something that happens often in Welsh restaurants) and it's so damn good! Their food keeps you full for hours, and every omni I've ever taken there has loved the food (and you know what omni's are like about having to have meat with EVERY flipping meal).

Behold, the beautiful burgers of doom....

So filling we both struggle to finish it, and we can EAT!

Vegan MoFo day 13 - Kitchen tour time

Eeeek, I've been kind of dreading this. I'm one of these people that never has a tidy kitchen, there's always crap lying about that shouldn't be in there. It's a pretty small kitchen and I don't have a dining room so it's a little cluttered. I also hate the cupboards and work surfaces in my kitchen, the previous owner and I have somewhat differing tastes. That said, I'm still taking part....but there is no way I am showing you my ugly oven or hideous 70's feature wall that I've yet to paint over!

In an ideal world, if money were no object, I would have a kitchen like Mary Margaret/Snow White's in once upon a time......

I love things to be mismatched, old and re-purposed. I'm not a fan of sleek, modern interiors, I like things in my home to look lived-in and have character. Most of my furniture is up-cycled but my kitchen isn't finished, and probably won't be for a few years!

On with the 'tour' then....or as much of a tour as you're going to get anyway.

The table all of my dishes have been photographed on this year.....

The table is an old pub table that I found on eBay, the benches are made of vintage scaffolding and the chairs were an upcycled pair I found on Gumtree.

Cute little ornament a friend bought me....

Some mirrors I found at a flea market....

Some cute little tins on a very ugly worktop......

The contents of the mdf faux wood (barf) cupboards.....

Ok, that's my kitchen tour done for this year, you've probably seen enough. Heh.

Vegan MoFo Day 12 - Tell us about your favourite cookbook

Hey guys! Sorry I'm a bit late with this post, yesterday was a bit hectic.

Today's prompt is to share our favourite cookbook with you, but which one to pick? I have quite a few good cookbooks from amazing authors like Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Chloe  Coscarelli and Sarah Kramer to name a few but the book I'm going to choose isn't quite as polished in terms of recipes as the aforementioned authors. I'm talking about vegan stoner! Anyone who has this book will know what I mean; the recipes often call for ready-made ingredients like store bought seitan, instant mash and *gasp* frozen vegetables! Whilst some people would be put off by this, I think it's really fun. Sometimes you want to be able to throw dinner together quickly and with few ingredients and this book certainly encourages that.

I was first drawn to vegan stoner when it was a fairly new blog, I think maybe around 2011 when I first went vegan. As an illustrator myself, the humorous drawings really caught my attention (they're so cute!). It really helped me out as I was a terrible cook and needed all the help I could get; going vegan can be daunting at first, especially if you suck in the kitchen!
Today I made the pizza baguette for breakfast, except I used freshly baked sourdough bread and replaced the margarine with olive oil. It was delicious and perfect Sunday morning food.

Vegan MoFo Day 11 - Focus on a nutrient

Ha, I know next to nothing about nutrition! I do know however, that I love broccoli and that stuff is packed with vitamin c. Because the internet told me so. It was also the only vegetable I had but that's besides the point. Broccoli = good for you.

Today I made a mixture of short grain brown rice and black rice, fried that along with chopped garlic and tender stem broccoli in some toasted sesame oil. I added some kafir lime infused soy sauce and dressed the bowl of goodness with every vegan's favourite hot sauce, sriracha.

Sorry about the blurry pic, it was late and I was hungry!

Vegan MoFo day 10 - Something blue!

Something blue indeed. Frequent posters on the PPK forum might remember the blue monstrosity I posted in the gross food porn thread a while back. It was a risotto I foolishly thought I would throw some leftover red cabbage in to that I was trying to use up. Oh boy. Don't do that. Unless you WANT your food to be blue, like today.
I have no desire to eat a blue savoury meal again so thought I would make 'Frozen' pretzels. Frozen as in the Disney film, not actually frozen. They're essentially salted pretzels in blue icing (that was fun to make, by fun I mean messy) sprinkled with desiccated coconut (snow) and finished with silver edible spray. Because glitter.

Vegan MoFo day 9 - Most retro recipe

When I think of retro food, I think of 70's favourites like prawn cocktails. I've never actually had one but thought it would be easy to veganise using Fry's crispy prawns. In hindsight, I wish I'd have used something like Vbites making waves fishless fingers as they are, in my opinion, pretty fishy! The Fry's ones were hugely disappointing, it just tasted like their chicken nuggets with a minuscule amount of seaweed (really, it's the last thing on their list of ingredients). They weren't bad, just not at all fishy in any way and for £3.99 for a box, they should be better than their cheaper competitors.

That said, with the cocktail sauce I made, it made for a pleasant retro experience. I baked the 'prawns', left to cool then removed the batter. Chopped the fishless strips into smaller pieces and mixed in to a bowl of cocktail sauce (vegan salad cream, ketchup and a dot of tobasco......you can use Mayo instead but will need something like sherry vinegar to give it that tang).
I served it in an avocado and munched my way through my retro treat.

Vegan MoFo day 8 - Make a new vegan friend

Yeah. So I'm a bit of an introvert and painfully lacking in self-confidence so I'm kinda stumped with this challenge. At least I was until the cashier at Lidl's gave me this little guy with my shopping today.......

His name is Horace, and he's definitely a vegan because I saw him nibbling on a giant broccoli floret!

So me and Horace are chilling right now waiting for our dinner to cook (we're making some broccoli pasta because that's his favourite thing and I also forking love broccoli). Peace out.

Vegan MoFo day 7 - make something inspired by a book/film

What's up MoFo'ers. One of my favourite films is Napoleon Dynamite, it cracks me up whenever I see it. There's lots of food in this film, the opening credits are mostly written on dishes of food (all of which are seen at some point in the film)

The main character, Napoleon, loves tots. Now I couldn't just do a plate of tots so I thought of another scene where tots took centre stage (geeks of this film will know about the inconsistency between shots of the number of tots on Pedro's plate).  In this scene, Pedro is picking at his school dinner of corn dogs, tater tots, green beans and ketchup......so this is what I made!

The scene goes something like this....

Napoleon - How long did it take you to grow that moustache?

Pedro - A couple of days. 

Napoleon - I wish I could grow one

Napoleons - Are you gonna eat your tots?

Pedro - No.

Napoleon - Can I have 'em?

My corn dog looks more like the English battered sausage you get from a fish and chip shop.

For the batter I used flour, water, polenta, vwg, paprika, garlic powder and oil, and the sausages were Linda Mac. I deep fat fried those mofos until my clothes, hair and entire kitchen stank of oil......and that is why I never make fried food!
It was worth it for the corn dogs though. Damn, those things are good. 

Vegan MoFo day 6 - Recreate a restaurant meal

I initially thought I should veganise something omni from a restaurant but changed my mind at the last minute. I haven't had sushi in a long time and when I do it's always from a restaurant; I've never made sushi before. I thought today's challenge would be time to give it a go!

Granted, it's not pretty and I don't think I'll make it as a sushi chef any time soon, but at least I gave it a go. And it tasted pretty damn fine.

Vegan MoFo day 5 - Best sandwich ever

This might not be THE best sandwich ever, and technically it's a roll, but I thought this would be fun. I recreated a sandwich we would often make at lunch spreads my Nan would do (we being my Uncle John and us kids - he was the instigator of this sammich). Ladies and gents, I am talking about a Scooby snack. No, not the brownies filled with weed, the ultimate snacky sammich. It's usually in a roll, but between two pieces of bread is fine. It consists mostly of some kind of meat, cheese, pickles, sauce, salad and most importantly crisps. It is imperative that your Scooby snack contains crisps!
I should probably be ashamed of myself for posting a sammich with crisps as I bet everyone will be doing proper sandwiches like croque monsieurs and banh mi's. I have no shame (really, see yesterday's cold baked bean and salad cream post).

 

In my Scooby snack was homemade creamy coleslaw, tomato crisps, violife cheese, vbites Italian deli  -style meat, gherkins, bbq sauce and sriracha. Noms.

Vegan MoFo day 4 - tell us about a weird food combo that you love

I'm not going to mess about, this is pretty grim....... I like cold baked beans with salad cream. I am a monster.

Here's a plate of aforementioned gross food combo. I'm not even attempting to make this look pretty.

Vegan MoFo day 3 - Quick, easy and delicious.

When I get home from work late (which is fairly often) my go-to food is usually something noodle-based that I can whip up in one pan and plonk in a bowl. I'm not a sophisticated cook, I don't make things look pretty, as you can see from my rather beige looking dish today.
I made a creamy chickeny spaghetti bowl, and it was super filling, quick and easy to make and pretty tasty. Again, all cupboard ingredients used in this due to the no fridge sitch.

Creamy chickeny spaghetti bowl 

Ingredients

A couple of handfuls of soy curls or equivalent (I used vantastic foods soja shnetzel as we don't get soy curls over here....sad face)

2 cups of vegetarian chicken broth (I used better than bouillion)

A handful of spaghetti, broken up into thirds

A handful or so of sweetcorn kernels

3 tbsp chives

1 clove of garlic, minced

salt & pepper to taste

3 tbsp of tahini

Basically boil the spaghetti and soy curls/schnetzel in the bouillon, garlic, seasoning and herbs until most of the liquid has been absorbed by the curls/schnetzel. Add the corn and bring to a low boil. Remove from heat and stir in the tahini. Boom. Big phat bowl of chickeny corny creamy spaghetti to eat whilst watching Netflix.

Vegan MoFo day 2 - Recreate a meal from your childhood

We used to have cream of tomato soup a lot when I was a kid, and my mum would make croutons out of toast to sprinkle on top. I wanted to replicate the kind of sweetness and creaminess of cream of tomato soup using cupboard staples, as I'm without a fridge right now (worst time for your fridge to die is vegan MoFo, fact). 
I was really pleased with the results, it's tasty and really filling due to the beans used. Also super creamy and tomato-y!

Kinda cream of tomato soup

Ingredients (makes 4-ish portions)

A generous glug of good quality olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
3 decent sized cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 tin of chopped Italian tomatoes
1 tin of butter beans, drained and rinsed
2 tbsp tomato paste
4 tomatoes, halved
2 cups of vegetarian chicken broth (I used better than bouillon but vegetable stock would be fine)
1 tbsp Italian mixed herbs
Pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper
2-3 tbsp tahini

Halve your tomatoes, place on an oiled baking tray, and bake for 10-15 minutes on gas mark 6. You don't have to bake them but I find it releases their sweetness.
Saute the onions until translucent, add the stock, tin of tomatoes and salt and pepper. Bring to a low boil, add the remaining ingredients except the tahini, stir, simmer for half an hour.
Remove from heat and wait a few minutes to cool a little before stirring in the tahini and blitzing with a hand blender.
Garnish with freshly grated nutmeg or basil. Enjoy!

Vegan MoFo day 1 - Rise and shine, it's MoFo time!

Morning MoFo'ers! Can't believe it's that time of year already. 

Today I woke up late so had to make something filling, quick and tasty for breakfast before heading to work. I present to you, breakfast guac on toast!

(sorry about the dull, out of focus pic, I didn't have my glasses on and it was dark)

Breakfast guac on sourdough toast

Ingredients for 1 portion

1 small avocado

1 small tomato

2 slices fresh sourdough bread

1/2 a small lime to squeeze and garnish

Salt and pepper to garnish (use herbamere salt if you have it)

Simply toast your bread, mash on the avocado with a fork, squeeze lime juice over it, dice the tomato and garnish with this, salt and pepper to taste and a wedge of lime.

Oh, the juice is fresh cawston press sweet greens juice with a wedge of lime. Lush.

Tasty, quick, filling and healthy! Can't wait to see what all you other MoFo'ers are having for breakfast.