Skint Vegan

Puregate. And the great Pure Giveaway!

2009-12-05T21:37:00.008Z

So many of you were interested in my little kerfuffle with Pure that I thought I'd better let you know what happened.

After my initial email, I got a really polite email back asking me for the dates on my tub of Pure spread and my contact details. A week later, I received a really polite letter back from Pure's customer services manager telling me that my feedback was appreciated and had been passed on to the quality manager at the Pure factory, and as they were so dismayed I had disliked their cream cheese-style spread, please find enclosed a voucher... for one purchase of cream cheese-style spread or cheese-style slices.
As I live in bfn it goes without saying trying to find these mythical cheeze slices has been fruitless. And as the entire reason for my complaint was the fact I didn't like the cheese-style spread... well, ha-ha, Pure, very good!
So, being the altruistic sort I am, and as we're nearing the season of goodwill I've decided the only thing I can do is Pay-it-forward. Young Treehugger mentioned after my last post that she'd also tried the execrable Pure spread and only managed to make it palatable by combining it with a wad-load of pesto. She questioned whether she should complain also. I say - hell, yeah! Complain! We Brits are the slackest of the bunch when it comes to complaining about poor products or service and as the Sosmix and Swedish Glace debacles proved, when the vegans unite, we really can make a difference. So, I'm going to take my generously proffered voucher and buy a carton of Pure Creamy spread that one of you lucky readers is going to win! My only proviso? You must review it here at Skint Vegan Towers. If you like it, let us all know. If you think it's as shiteous as I've been maintaining for a good few posts now, let us all know. And while you're at it, let Pure know, so if you get an equally useless voucher as compensation you can Pay-it-Forward as well... and so on and so forth. And maybe, if enough of us complain, they may change their spread recipe to make it a palatable alternative to tofutti. And the beauty of it is, you won't even have to part with your money for it.
Are we liking this idea? I think so! Obviously, this is only open to readers in the UK and Ireland as Pure is an Irish-based company and I don't believe they've crossed the water just yet. So, c'mon guys, I don't care if you blog, lurk or have just accidentally stumbled across my blog, if you want a chance to become the next maligned Pure creamy-style spread reviewer, leave me a comment to let me know you're up for the challenge and, darling, I'll sort you out! *wink-wink*
NB: lest we forget, I am not hating on Pure as a company, as I still believe their dairyfree margarines are the best in the UK market.

Got a Pure Big Mouth, man!

2009-11-10T20:21:00.004Z

Drunk texting - is there anything worse you can do? Any worse combination of alcohol and communication to make you feel regret the following morning?
Well actually, yes.
You can find yourself halfway down a bottle of white wine and decide this is the perfect time to fire-off an email to Pure's marketing department detailing the ways in which you think their new foray into Dairyfree - their vegan cream cheese-style spread - tastes like ass. Including textural ones. There may have even been a diagram - I'm hazy on the exact details.
Yep. That's an action that will make you sit straight-up in your bed the following morning with the cold hand of dread clutched around your heart. Not as dreadful as seeing a reply in your inbox over your coffee the following morning, though...

C is for Cookie...

2009-11-03T20:47:00.005Z

My kids love that song. In their honour, I made some coconut chocolate chip cookies from 'La Dolce Vegan!'. My husband is a cookie man too, due to their resemblance to his favourite Great British classic - the biscuit. Anything that can be dunked in tea will pass muster with him, whereas muffins and cakes - well, there's just too much faff involved isn't there? Too much faff and sugar for a simple man with an essentially savoury palate. But these little mouthfuls of coconut-flecked chocolate chip goodness were perfect as an after-dinner treat.

Moist, melt-in-the-mouth with an irresistible crunchy crust I'm going to have to struggle to keep enough over for lunchtime tomorrow.

Oh well, at least I haven't got this fella to contend with.

For other variations on chocolate chip goodness, have a look at Katie's irresistible version of chocolate chip cookie dough oatmeal - a perfect marriage of breakfast and badness! Don't forget, every click on her site this month benefits an extremely worthy cause so don't hesitate and snag yourself some delicious recipe ideas too!

Dill Pickles...

2009-11-02T22:04:00.006Z

Are not the pickles we use for this delicious soup. This is going to sound like frugality gone mad, but believe you me, in our house when we have 3 medium Polish gherkins (the brine-pickled ones, Mrs Elmswood's Hamisha gherkins come a close second) and half a jar of gherkin brine left we celebrate because we know it means gherkin soup is on the cards.
Bazu recently posted about the importance of sour in Iranian cooking from ingredients such as sour grapes, pomegranate extracts and lemons and limes . Sourness is an equally important component in Polish cookery but it comes from the lactic acid produced during fermentation. Sauerkraut is the best known example, but brine pickles are also popular and the base of a popular Polish soup - bialy or white barsch - resembles nought so much as sourdough starter with it's twin ingredients of rye flour and water left to - you've guessed it - ferment.
Skint Vegan Dad may share the sauerkraut love but the rest of this appetite for the tangy has passed him by, so what better time to whip up a quick pan of pickle soup that when he's stuck on a train between Leeds and Edinburgh, returning from his brother's stag night?

Gherkin Soup (Zupa ogórkowa) (serves 8)

Ingredients
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tbsp margarine
1 yellow onion, finely diced
3 spring onions, finely sliced
2 medium potatoes, diced
3 medium brine pickles, grated
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
water to cover vegetables
1 heaped tsp boullion powder

For the zasmaska (roux)
1 tbsp vegan margarine
1 heaped tsp chickpea flour

Melt the oil and margarine together in a medium heavy-based pan. Add the chopped onion and sliced spring onion and fry for five minutes, until translucent. Add the diced potato and grated gherkin and fry for a further 2 minutes. Add celery salt, pepper, boullion powder and enough water to cover the vegetables and bring to the boil. Once bubbling turn down heat and simmer until potatoes are tender.
Once tender, take a seperate pan and melt 1 tbsp marg before adding 1 heaped tsp chickpea flour and stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Once the flour mix is pale golden, start adding gherkin soup, ladle by ladle, stirring constantly between additions. This process will thicken the soup without diluting the flavour. Once all the soup is combined, make sure it's heated through and serve. Delicious - and tangy. (n_n)

Lunchmonkeys

2009-10-31T14:12:00.005Z

I'm here to say I've had two of the best lunches of my life for the past two consecutive days. On Friday, I served the kids leftover pumpkin and lentil soup with animal shapes pasta, but unfortunately there wasn't enough left for me. So I decided to make myself a sandwich with the pumpkin and caramelised red onion foccacia that I'd baked the previous day. I don't generally eat a lot of sandwiches - I'm a bit sniffy about whether they constitute a proper meal or not, and I'd never eat anything so heavy for a snack, and generally I prefer hot food over cold. So even though I probably enjoy eating sandwiches more than soup, my overall preference for hot food would lead me to choose soup instead. Perfectly illogical, I know!

What to fill it with? No hummus, no roast veggies, no tapenade, no (edible) vegan cheese in the fridge. But there was tofu. So I quickly whipped together a tofu eggless salad - 1 cup chopped tofu, 2 finely sliced spring onions, 2 diced Polish pickles, 1/2 tsp sweet paprika, freshly ground mixed pepper, salt and plaimil mayo - and spooned it up between two slices of foccacia.
The result was an immense, delicious sandwich. My seasoning for the salad was perfect, bland-textured yet salty and creamy, very authentic! The foccacia was better the day after too. It was soft and yielded complicitly to the bite, the onions adding some chewy, roasted contrast. I could have eaten another of these straight away, but I didn't as I'm trying to be a little more sensible in my eating decisions at the moment!

Today - Saturday - my kids have ballet and tap classes in the morning. So we're kind of up and at 'em first thing and they usually have a bowl of cold cereal and some juice to eat before we go rather than the leisurely breakfast I would prefer them to enjoy. So, I had a brainwave as I got them ready this morning. Breakfast-for-Lunch! Tasha at the Voracious Vegan posted tantalising pictures of her pumpkin pancakes yesterday, and as I still had about 2 cups of pumpkin puree leftover, I decided to make pumpkin-choc chip pancakes with Linda Mac sausages and baked beans. I used the recipe for Daniyell's banana pancakes from 'La Dolce Vegan!' but substituted 1/2 cup pumpkin for the banana, used hemp seed oil for added nutrients, upped the sweetener to 1/4 cup and stirred about 1/2 cup dark chocolate chunks and 1 tsp cinnamon (we ♥ cinnamon!) through the flour mix before adding the wet ingredients. I'd gone and bought a new non-stick frying pan from Tesco this morning while McGonnagle was at her dance class simply because my last really good one - that I'd had for about six years - finally died on me and two crap pans later, I couldn't stomach the thought of no pancakes in my future. Especially considering they are the birthday breakfast of choice for my little ones. This pan can stay because I think it just helped me make the best pancakes I've ever eaten.

Soft, fluffy and delicious with that spicy warmness of cinnamon and warm melty blobs of dark chocolate, these babies rocked!
I still have a little pumpkin left so I think I'm going to make some more foccacia. There's also the small matter of tidying the garden up for winter. Hope you all have a great weekend!
P.S. I'm just about to take the kids to Mill Farm for some spooky-dooky goings on, so I thought I'd dress in appropriate colours.

Yes, that's right - I really am a black-hearted old trout!

Over and Out....

They Eat Pumpkins, Don't They?

2009-10-27T21:48:00.016Z

Well we do around here, that's for sure!
Bathgate has gone Halloween-mad, and with the inevitable outfits, candy and monkey nuts come pumpkins. They're selling 'carving' pumpkins at Tesco - real whoppers - for £1.50 each.
You know what we do with Carving pumpkins round here?

We Curry them.

And we roast them with just a spritz of olive oil to stop them from burning.

We really do! Don't bother peeling them, you can just scoop them out of their rinds once they're lovely and soft. And if there's room in the roasting tray, we may even put some chunks of swede in there too - it's all going to go in the same delicious soup. No salt or pepper, because while some of it's for soup, the rest goes into lovely soft spicy pumpkin muffins.

Pumpkin chocolate chunk muffins that we might eat naked with some Earl Grey tea before Judo, or we might leave them till they've been suitably attired for Halloween with some green cream cheeze frosting and happy little pumpkin heads.

And we might really push the boat out, and as we're having pumpkin muffins and pumkin and lentil soup, we might make some pumpkin and caramelised red onion foccacia bread to go with it.

Yeah! You know, I think we might just do that... (-_o)

Gratuitous 'Ho-Tep as burglar for Halloween Party' shot.

Queso Crazy!

2009-10-27T14:36:00.007Z

No time to post, my ironing pile is almost sky high, the dishes need doing, I'm in the middle of clearing out the kids' bedroom and those little savages are shouting for popcorn as they watch 'Muppets From Space' but I just thought I'd show you guys what I knocked-up for lunch today.

I was reading a thread on the MSE forums about cheap and lazy dinners and came across a recipe for easy cheesy quesadillas. Now, I've never made these before but it sounded a piece of cake and I had a packet of 6 spinach tortillas in my bread bin so, as I 'm out of soup, why not? What to fill them with, though! Well, I had a can of red kidney beans leftover from our holiday so I combined that with 1/2 cup vegetable stock, cumin, garlic powder, cayenne and a couple tbsp passata to make refried beans. I stirred through some chopped spring onions at the last moment before smearing over a tortilla, drizzling with some leftover salad dressing from last night and sprinkling generously with nooch. On the other tortilla I spread some quick almond sour cream I'd just knocked-up. Just ground almonds, 2 tsp lemon juice, 1/4 tsp salt and enough cold water to form a thick paste.
Five minutes in an oil-misted frying pan, turning halfway through, and we had some seriously good, seriously hot eating. But what, no queso? I hear you ask. Well, that's the funny thing, you see - I didn't have the time or the inclination to knock any up so no, we went cheezeless for this one. Us Crazy Kids!

Limey Oh Riley!

2009-10-26T00:33:00.007Z

Pearsauce muffins with lime drizzle icing

So, I was really surprised to find I enjoyed being back in my kitchen carrying out all the day-to-day chores that had been kicking my ass before our Autumn break last week.

I started my day with a tall, creamy and refreshing glass of purple hemp milk.

Half a lime gave this a sweet and tangy kick that lifted it from the ordinary to the stellar. But then, as McGonnagle always says to me with a classic pre-teen eye-roll - 'You love hemp milk so much you want to marry it!' so I may be a little biased (-_o)!
I set about making a pan of smoky chipotle-spiced split pea soup for lunch. It was good upon first tasting but just needed a little something... I turned to the little green guys again, squeezing half a lime into the soup before tasting again. Perfect! I made 'Kissing Cousins' oat bread from 'La Dolce Vegan!' to go alongside and it was great - warm and slightly crumbly straight out of the oven with vegan margarine slathered on it.

And I even had time to whip-up a quick sweet for the kids after swimming. Applesauce muffins from 'How It All Vegan' microwaving a few squishy pears to make them pearsauce muffins instead. I ran out of agave as I was making these so they were a touch less sweet than I wanted them to be. Solution? Lime drizzle icing of course! Crunchy, tangy and adding that much-needed sweet boost to these lovely light muffins. My daughter tried these and said straight away they reminded her of Christmas. And with the raisins, sultanas, cinnamon and citrus flavours I kinda understand why.
This blogpost is courtesy of Lidl's current 5-for-50p offer on limes -I just can't stop buying them!
Over and out...

Back from Holidays!

2009-10-25T00:38:00.007+01:00

Me and the Clan have been conspicuous by our absence for the last week and there's a good reason for this - we've been on Holiday! Yes, in Scotland we have our October break the week before Halloween so me and the kids have been enjoying the sights, sounds and smells of Dumfries and Galloway on a weeks caravan holiday.
I've dragged them down to Southerness beach...

On a 4.5 mile hike through Mabie Forest...

Dressed them up like Victorian kiddies at the Museum of Costume...

Took them across farm tracks and uphill to the Waterloo Monument in New Abbey...

And they even got a chance to fly their kites when their Daddy joined us for the last couple of days of our week away!

Alongside the daily swims at the pool on site and the late nights partying -

I ended up with two pooped-out pups at the end of each day! I loved D&G - the landscape was wet and wild and there was tons to do! We did an activity every single day - mostly for free or a nominal fee - and there was still tons we left unexplored as we returned home. One of our favourite places - so good we went twice - was the Dumfries museum and Camera Obscura. Free to enter - although their is a nominal fee for seeing the Camera in action - the museum provides a fascinating insight into the local history and culture of Dumfries along with a look at the wildlife of the area. Natural history and social history? tick! Camera Obscura to bring out your inner child? Tick!
There was a casualty to all this seaside fun - the food. We mostly ate thrown-together food like veggie ramen noodles and Linda Mac snags, mediocre spag bol , sausages with potatoes, carrots and cabbage and greasy chips from the out-of-season chippy. There was some biscuit-eating, some monkey nut eating and a lot of crisp-eating with a bit of fresh and dried fruit thrown in for good measure. We drank rice milk and soya milk and cordial and lots of tea and coffee for the adults. But this was never going to be a holiday about the food - the food was there to fuel the activities. And boy, did we have a lot of fun doing the activities!
Normal MoFo service will resume tomorrow.

Allo, Allo, Allo..

2009-10-14T20:42:00.006+01:00

What's this?

Well, on first glance it may well look like some savoury mince topped with a cheezy sauce, but upon closer insection we can see it's actually last night's Pelau! I combined it with onion gravy, poured it into an oven dish, covered with FFV cheeze sauce and baked in an oven at GM 7 for 40 minutes. We had it with steamed broccoli and garlic bread that I'd thrown together from some French bread which had proved a bit doughy in the middle.

Waste not, want not. I don't even think the kids knew they were eating the same thing, but I couldn't slip my pigeon peas past SVD!
Over and out...

Rice and Peas

2009-10-13T21:08:00.009+01:00

Pelau, callaloo and fried green banana

When I was a young flibbertigibbet living in London I was kindly adopted by a lovely, funny, straightalking lady called Lorraine. She was Jamaican via Islington and had a teenage daughter already who was far too sensible for her own good so she decided - God knows why - to take me under her wing. And a big part of that - as anyone who's ever visited a Jamaican household knows - was feeding me. And boy did she feed me! In the short time I knew her, she converted me to curries spiced with scotch bonnet peppers and lime juice, sweetened curried buns, allspice (which I'd previously always confused with the bakers favourite mixed spice) and rice and peas - the classic Jamaican accompaniment to curry and stew. I had been soaking some pigeon peas overnight and wondering what to do with them. Rice and peas seemed the obvious choice - all you need is rice, coconut milk, thyme and beans -but a quick look through my Vegan Caribbean cookery book (more a pamphlet really!) revealed a recipe for Pelau.
This Trinidadian version of pilau rice is usually served at Christmas time and consists of onions, brown pigeon peas, red and green peppers and carrots fried in oil and caramelised sugar with the addition of rice, tinned tomatoes, tomato sauce, coconut milk and salt and pepper.

Peppers and carrots ready for frying

As I read the recipe directions I remembered the jar of coconut palm sugar I had bought from the Chinese supermarket last time I visited.

What it says on the tin.

It would be perfect for this dish - a few tablespoons added to the oil and fried until dark brown before the other ingredients are quickly added. It tastes like fudge straight out of the jar and melts down deliciously quickly when added to the oil. The rice is them simmered until the grains and vegetables are tender and served up either on its own or with an appropriate accompaniement. So I made fried green banana and callaloo.
Fried green banana is the poor man's equivalent of fried plantain. You want bananas that are Grinch-green, that would be so bitter if eaten raw there'd be a distinct possibility of your tongue withering. You peel them with a knife - the peel is too thick to get off by hand - and then slice into thick diagonal slices. Fry them in a hot vegan margarine and oil mix until bright yellow and - if you like - crispy round the edges.
Callaloo uses dasheen leaves to make a classic side dish when combined with okra, onion, creamed coconut and simmered briefly with a whole chili. As my dasheen leaf availability is severely limited by living in Scotland I used spinach instead. I fried diced onion until brown and caramelised before adding a bag of washed spinach, some chili flakes and coconut milk and letting it cook for a few minutes until the spinach is wilted. Inauthentic, but tasty!
Both these dishes needed a lot of seasoning to bring them to their best but once there were really quite tasty. To be honest I'm doubting the veracity of my cooking pamphlet - it seems a bit, erm, bland? - but I've got the basics so a bit of googling should give me a more authentic flavour of the Caribbean.
In other News, McGonnagle has been chosen from her class to represent the school in an Cross-Schools sports day tomorrow. How frickin' cool is that?!! So proud of my girl!

You Want Some Chocolate Malt?

2009-10-12T20:49:00.008+01:00

I ♥ Hemp Milk!

Well you're out of luck, 'cos all we're serving here at Skint Vegan Towers is hemp milk with a scoop of Raw Power chocolate protein powder and 2 tbsp lime juice - just to confuse the hell out of your tastebuds!

Today's eating was fairly standard. Cereal for breakfast, soup for lunch and mac n' cheeze for dinner and Lord knows, I'm not going to post yet another pic of mac n' cheeze!
Instead, we'll turn to some weekend baking.

I made blackberry muffins from a recipe for blueberry muffins in 'La Dolce Vegan!' that were really yummy - perfect for tucking into McGonnagle's packed lunches for this week!

Check out my nail varnish - I'm such a skank!

They contained rolled oats too which I love as it provides my gorgeous girl with plenty of slow-release energy for the afternoon ahead.
One of my friend's mums was meant to come down to give me a quick tute on the sewing machine I own but am constantly frustrated by, so I baked a tasty citrus bundt cake with an orange water icing to offer my guest.

Snow-capped slice of lemon and orange bundt cake.

The lady in question wasn't able to come through, unfortunately, but on the bright side it meant there was more delicious tangy sponge to enjoy with a cuppa tea and 'Calamity Jane' yesterday afternoon. (I'm gay for Doris Day. There, I said it! There's no bad situation in my life that can't be resolved after a period of solitude drinking a lot of tea and watching Doris Day movies.) I used the recipe for Lemon Cake from 'How It All Vegan' with ground flaxseed as an egg replacer in place of the pureed fruit/applesauce I would usually use. It came out considerably drier than normal. In future I think I'll stick to applesauce as it yields a much lighter, moister texture. Not to say we couldn't eat it! ('_^)
Tomorrow: Rice and pea. The Jamaican post.

Friday Roundup

2009-10-10T05:42:00.011+01:00

Yesterday began uneventfully enough. I started the day with 1 litre of purple hemp milk as usual - the lovely purple colour comes from 1/4 tsp purple corn extract and it has an amazing creamy flavour thanks to a tsp of soya leicithin, both available here. Other than that, I use 2 tbsp unhulled hemp seeds, 1 tbsp flaxseed and 1 tbsp cashew nuts soaked in cold water for an hour or so. I combine it with a litre of water, 2tbsps lemon juice and the aforementioned additions and whizz through a blender before straining through a fine mesh sieve and drinking. I change up the nuts and seeds depending on my mood - sesame and pumpkin seeds are good, as are walnuts, almonds and - tastiest of all - brazil nuts!

For lunch, I made wraps as they were a nice easy option quick to throw together after school. Spinach wraps filled with pinto and chickpea hummus, sauerkraut salad, cucumber wedges and green olives. So simple yet so satisfying!
We had a playdate with one of McGonnagle's more 'difficult' friends this afternoon. Her mother always looks wrung-out like a dishcloth, this morning more so than usual, so I decided a bit of tea and cake might help.

Chocolate-blackberry torte with non-vegan chocolate balls.

I had a couple of chocolate sponge rounds and some leftover buttercream and homemade blackberry spread in the fridge - yeah, I know, I usually keep a few gateaux-making ingredients in the fridge, just in case! - so I threw together a quick black-forest style torte and took some round for her with a taster set of pukka teas for the perfect mid-afternoon pick-me-up.

Unfortunately, that gave said 'difficult' child the perfect opportunity to take one look at the cake and proclaim it 'revolting' in her usual, attention-seeking, only-child kinda way, but I did manage to restrain myself from giving her a long overdue slap around the chops and simply smiled grimly and allowed her mother to make her usual ineffectual, apologetic noises for her daughter's (normal) bad behaviour. How my friends bring up their kids isn't my concern, just an occasional irritant!
So tonight, we had the traditional indulgent Friday night dessert. During the week if my kids want something sweet after tea, they can help themselves to fruit but on Friday, to mark the end of the week, I like to make something a bit more elaborate so tonight it was blackberry ice-cream. Can you tell we have a big bag of blackberries in the freezer yet?!

I adapted the recipe for black raspberry ice cream from 'The Vegan Scoop' and the result was a delicious, creamy-sweet yet tangy pudding. We all LOVED this, and even better, I prepped and chilled the blackberry custard before we went out so it was just a case of pouring it into the ice-cream maker and sitting down to our dinner of watercress pesto pasta with broccoli and olives while it worked! Plus there's enough leftover for tomorrow!
Hope you all have a good weekend, I'm off to check-up on my google reader for the latest MoFo action - Over and out...

Carbacoma...

2009-10-08T22:27:00.007+01:00

Potato aroma...

This morning I was thinking about what to make for tea when my eyes fell on my brand new sack of purple potatoes from my little organic friend near Perth. And when I say purple, I mean purple!

What to make from these delicious little nuggets of purple-skinned creaminess? How about some kartoflane kluski - potato dumplings - with a hearty lentil and mushroom gravy and surowka - sauerkraut salad.

So I did, and boy, was it good! The potato dumplings are plain-speaking cousins to the more elegant gnocchi, the gravy was a twist on Isa's chickpea gravy but made with red lentils and leftover mushrooms with lots of Hungarian seasoning mix thrown in for good measure, and the salad was a cinch. I drained a large jar of sauerkraut and squeezed out the excess brine. I then chopped it, added 3 grated carrots, 1/2 red onion, 1 grated apple, lots of freshly ground black pepper, dill, sugar, a pinch of salt and 1/4 cup rice bran oil. Like a tangy, pickly version of coleslaw. This is a salad I have memories of eating throughout my childhood and is partly responsible - along with bigos - for my enduring love affair with sauerkraut. Don't laugh - I had to stop myself from eating half the jar before I'd made the salad!
This was a cockle-warming meal and no-mistake and partly-helped console a sad little girl over the fact that she hadn't won the trophy in Judo class yet again.
Tommorow - ice-cream!

Souper Trooper

2009-10-07T09:50:00.006+01:00

'Frog' soup with marmite-glazed baking powder biscuits. Oh yes!

Lights are gonna find me... well, the kids certainly will if I'm making one of their favourite dishes - soup! I have to set my stall out here, I am not a soup lover. Maybe it's the fact that when my family hit hard times financially back in the 80s it felt like all we ate was soup, pork ribs we got free from my grandfather - a Danish bacon employee - and thrifty mince dishes. God bless my mum, she tried her best to vary things and to ensure we got a healthy balanced diet. But being a typical child, I didn't understand that she was cooking out of necessity, so I just got on with the business of practising my best eye-rolling, face-pulling expressions ready for when she produced yet another bowl of soup. Not so bad if it was tomato and rice, but ye gads, she tried to feed us vegetable soups too, imagine! ('_^)
Well now, as a penny-pinching mum myself, I get it. From a frugal and health standpoint, you don't get much better than soup. Here's why:

1) You can use as many or as few ingredients as you like. This was a dish that originated as a way of stretching dear ingredients such as meat, or using-up ingredients that would've gone to waste, such as worm-eaten turnip. One of my all-time favourite cookbooks is a little A5-sized paperback called 'The Cost-Concious Cook' by Maggie Brogan. I bought it about twelve years ago for a pound in one of those miscellaneous shops that sell everything from shoelaces to lava lamps, alongside a Mafia revenge novel set in the porn industry. No prizes for guessing which was the better book. One of the soup recipes in this book calls for only three ingredients - red lentils, potatoes and stock. That's it. But boy oh boy, what a soup! On the flipside, I love making minestrone soup, because it's a great fridge-clearer for any veg that's looking a little tired, and the proliferation of pasta, beans and vegetables it features guarantees you a hearty, main-meal soup. Especially if you pair it with...

2) Bread. There are few couplings in the food world as perfect as a bowl of hot soup with a hunk of warm crusty bread. And homemade bread beats shop-bought hands down in this category, making for an even cheaper meal! You can make sandwiches if you want to be fancy and ensure everyones stuffed when they get up from the table, or you can slice it and grate a little cheeze on top before grilling for a few minutes to melt it down. But really, it doesn't matter cos basically, it's all about having something chewy, fragrant and carby to dunk into something hot, wet and delicious. Did you know that the word 'soup' is derived from the word 'sop' which means to soak-up?

3) It makes a GREAT packed lunch. My seven-year old is adorably petite, but with that lean limber frame and pointy pixie face comes a bird-like appetite. A sandwich is too much, especially if I've inadvertently produced a denser loaf than usual. Much as I would love to pack her a daily bento with a tantalising array of vegan treats formed into an adorable scene from a 'Hello Kitty' story, I HAVE TO SLEEP AT SOME POINT. So soup fits the bill perfectly. Much lighter than a sarnie, I can send her to school with a thermos containing a couple of ladles of soup with pasta or rice or her current favourite grain, barley, in it, slap a wafer-thin slice of marmite bread on the side and top up with fruit, dried fruit and a sweet baked treat and I know she'll at least eat all the soup and cake! She spent all of her first year fighting other kids off with her spoon, as the aroma of her homemade soup invariably drew her classmates over Bisto-kids style. Better than a flaccid cheese or ham sandwich on sweaty white bread, kids? You betcha! Plus SVD loves soup too, and is happy to take it to work as long as he had some couscous or bread or veggies and hummus to go on-side, so it takes the time out of preparing lunches for my brood in the mornings.

4) You can make lots of it in one go. And if you don't need to make packed lunches, you can be ultra-organised and freeze the leftovers because...

5) Soup freezes beautifully. If it contains soya milk, it may curdle upon defrosting, but as long as you're not bothered, neither am I. Just remember to leave a couple of inches free at the top of the container to allow for expansion as your soup freezes.

6) You can make it out of leftovers and disasters. Burnt the tarka dhal cos you were on the phone not paying attention? Got a few cups of creamy mashed potatoes leftover from your evening meal? I can sense a soup coming on, just blend the two together (excluding any black shards of dhal, obviously!) with a can of chopped tomatoes, a carton of passata, a cup of soya milk, a few tablespoons of boullion powder and a couple drops liquid smoke and you have a smoky, tangy delicious tomato soup perfect for adding rice or vermicelli too. Just like that. Soup in seconds and no food waste - that's gotta be good!

7) Did I mention it's healthy? Primarily water and tons of vegetables, this is just brilliant, warming, energy-giving, nutritious food. You can add hemp seed oil, toasted hemp or pumpkin seeds or nooch before serving to boost nutritional uptake, you can add a grain or some pasta to fill it out and provide energy-giving carbs and if you cook it in a pressure cooker, you're subjecting the veggies to heat for a much shorter time, so you're retaining more nutrients than if you used the traditional hob-top method. Get a pressure cooker. As a vegan, it's your right!
So this sounds like I've compiled a soup manifesto, right? Well no. I'm just setting out why I cook such a helluva lotta soup myself, despite not being so keen on it personally.
Our current soup is what the kids like to call 'Frog Soup' due to its luminous green colour. As soups go, this one is pretty good. You can try it for yourselves and see what you think. And as with most soups, the possible variations are infinite!
Over and out...

Frog Soup, Makes 12 generous portions

1 celeriac, peeled and roughly chopped
1/2 bag spinach, rinsed
2 medium onions - any kind
3 medium potatoes, roughly chopped
1/2 cup yellow split peas, rinsed and picked over
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp garam masala - homemade is best for extra pungency
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp turmeric
3 tbsp veg boullion powder or 3 veg stock cubes
Water - I do this by eye but I reckon anywhere between 1200-1500ml should be enough
1 cup soya milk

Method: This is the hard bit - throw all your ingredients in a large heavy based saucepan or your pressure cooker (that you will have bought by now because of all my banging on about it!), bring to the boil over a high heat before turning down to a simmer, covering and leaving to cook until all your vegetables are tender and your split peas are soft - I'm guessing 40-50 mins? Or - for us pressure cooker owners -bring to full pressure before turning heat down, cooking for ten minutes and releasing the pressure slowly. Then blitz through a blender till perfectly smooth - remember to cover the jug spout and any other open bits with a teatowel if you're doing this with hot liquids or I guarantee you're going to be washing your ceiling tonight! - and serve. Yummy, peppery, spicy and favoured by all. That's frog soup.

Weather sez it's time for Stovies

2009-10-06T19:58:00.003+01:00

Stovies with pickled vegetable salad, sweet red cabbage and crusty bread. Yummers!

This morning, as I dropped my son off at his nursery, I noticed - or rather, my nose noticed - that they were cooking stovies for the mid-morning snack. Stovies is a traditional Scottish dish that originated as a way of using up leftover meat and fat. Basically, you would use anything from roast meat to mince to sausage and you'd boil it down until tender with potatoes and onions, turnip, swede or any other root veggies you have knocking round. You use stock or gravy for liquid, and serve it with the ubiquitous vinegary brown sauce that is so adored round these parts.
Now, if you're a vegan, you don't want to make it that way. But you can make it just as easily using one of my favourite pulses - split red lentils. And if you have a pressure cooker, it takes even less time to get to the point where the potatoes and swedes break down to make a delicious, soupy, casserole-y mess.

Red Lentil Stovies - Makes 8 servings

2 tbsp vegan butter
1/8 cup rapeseed oil
2 leeks, cleaned and sliced
1 white onion, diced
5 medium potatoes, cleaned and roughly chopped
2 large carrots, sliced
1 cup diced swede
1/2 cup red lentils, rinsed and picked over
1 tsp beef and steak seasoning (or fake beef boullion powder, or marmite)
2 maggi savoury stock cubes, crumbled
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 tsp thyme
Enough water to just cover the veggies and lentils.

Method: Melt the vegan butter and oil together in a large, heavy based pan over a medium heat before adding in sliced leeks and onions. Cook for five-ten minutes until onions are translucent before adding the red lentils. Stir them to ensure thoroughly covered in the oil-butter mix. Then add potatoes, carrots, swede, seasonings and enough water to just cover the veggies and lentils. You want the veggies to cook down and combine with the water to make a thick, delicious gravy. Too much water and you'll have soup rather than stovies!
Bring the mix to the boil then turn down to a simmer, cover the pan and cook until the vegetables are falling apart and the lentils are soft and silky, stirring every now and then to ensure it's not sticking to the bottom. Break the veggies down a little with a potato masher and you're ready to go!
This dish is traditionally served with brown sauce - I ♥ brown sauce! - but is just as good with a tart side dish such as sauerkraut, pickled red cabbage, dill pickles or even kimchi.
Easy, comforting, savoury and delicious. I suggest you all go and try it when bad weather is getting you down, your 7-year old is testing your patience with her deliberate obtuseness and your 3-year old is having so many hissy fits you've lost track. Just shut the kitchen door on them, put on some soothing zero 7 or telepopmusik to remind you that a few weeks ago, it was still summer, and cook away...

Today I am Rotten but Last Night I was Glorious.

2009-10-03T20:34:00.007+01:00

So Glorious, in fact, that when I went to my friend's 40th birthday cocktail party last night, I took a pan of mucho margarita cupcakes from VCTOW.

I tweaked the recipe a little to excuse me from the hassle of spending £12 on a bottle of tequila that I only need 2 tablespoons from and will then never drink cos, y'know, it tastes like ass. After much standing in the liquor aisle staring at the alcopops thoughtfully I bought a bottle of pre-mixed Jose Cuervo margarita for about £4. This also eliminated the need for fresh lime juice in the recipe and I was never going to put lime peel in anyway because, much like my future sister-in-law, I don't really like peel in things. I worked out that with the percentage of tequila in the drink being 21% I was good for the quantities specified in the book so I got on with sloshing just over 1/4 cup of the citrussy drink straight in the bowl. I know, I know, I'm a complete philistine but you know what? It worked out beautifully! The cupcakes were delicious, light, tangy and moist and garnered me plenty of compliments. The icing was salty and sweet and green and delicious.

And you know what else? I didn't take a picture because being a typical multi-tasking mum, while icing said cuppies I was applying lipstick, writing out the birthday card for my friend and barking instructions to Skint Vegan Dad on how not to burn himself and the kids to the ground while I was out living la vida loca and limbo dancing my blue lagoon-drinking self around someones kitchen.
So, to add insult to injury I'm going to CSI reconstruct my cupcake with an un-iced cupcake, some vegan buttercream I had knocking about in the fridge and rainbow sugar crystals. That's right, heres a photo of a cupcake that looks like the cupcakes I took to a friend's party last night that weren't the mucho margarita cupcakes from VCTOW.
This is almost what it looked like. Almost.

Over and out...

Here We Go Again...

2009-10-01T20:44:00.007+01:00

Yes, that's right, Vegan MOFO is here and for the second year running I've decided to participate. For the next month, I'll be regaling you with the Skint Vegan version of Economy Gastronomy, veganizing some of my absolute favourite Polish home-cooking, asking you to help me decide what the Ice-cream flavour of the week should be and generally just being my usual charming, chatty, shit-talking self.

A quick post to start with, just another excuse to post pix of my gorgeous girl celebrating her 7th birthday with the now-traditional birthday tea. We let her choose and she picked pierogies. I've blogged about these before, and will blog again this month no doubt, but I made two kinds - 'cheeze' and sauerkraut. ZOMG, these were so so good, I forgot to take any pix in the frenzy of eating that ensued. My parents were up visiting too, so despite doubling my usual recipe for the dough, there was nothing left for lunch the following day - a point I had to sadly break to my friend as I arrived at her house empty-handed!

But I did manage to bring a piece of the ice-cream cake I'd made for McGonnagle - butterscotch and chocolate ice-cream courtesy of 'The Vegan Scoop' and my £10 ice-cream maker, on a bourbon biscuit base. Delicious and even better when blitzed in the microwave slice by slice for 30 secs.

Can I just say too, as an ice-cream lover before and after turning vegan, the chocolate ice-cream recipe in 'The Vegan Scoop' produces the best chocolate ice cream I have ever eaten anywhere. Period. So go buy the book if only for that recipe!

These are some random cookies that my daughter decorated in a very Boosh-like manner at the weekend. I just thought I'd throw them in for good measure!
That's my kick-off, see you tomorrow with some pre-weekend economy gastronomy baking and yummy treats for a cocktail party!
Over and out...

Sweets for my Sweet...

2009-09-26T18:37:00.006+01:00

So, today I hosted McGonnagle's 7th birthday party after swearing last year never again. Rather than the elaborate Witches Ball we laid on then, we opted for allowing her to invite a few friends over to make a load of yummy treats to eat and take home with them - a make-your-own-party-bag kind of affair.

We made candy apples, chocolate-dipped apples with sprinkles, rice krispie cakes and decorated a load of the chocolate cutout cookies from Papa Tofu. I think I spent the same amount on sprinkles, edible glitter and jelly diamonds this month as I would have on a pair of shoes!
The girls had great fun nibbling at the toppings as they worked and, as the weather held out beautifully for us, they took regular play-breaks in the garden, running round, riding their bikes and scooters and playing football. I'd bought one of those execrable Pop Party CDs second-hand off Amazon, so there was an age-appropriate soundtrack rather than the all the reggae, electro and vaj-folk that gets played round here normally.
For food I set out a simple buffet that me and Skint Vegan Dad saw most of the benefit from - sosmix rolls, veggie ham and vegan cheese-spread wraps, a wide variety of vegetable crudites with hummus, olives, strawberries and black grapes with some sweets, biscuits and tortilla chips for good measure. But the girls weren't that fussed - the girls were here for sprinkles!
It was a busy but fun afternoon finished by the Birthday Girl getting her cake -

- a fake Polly Pocket cake as per special request. And being a sucker for a challenge, how could I say no?

I baked two layers of chocolate sponge cake from 'Easy Vegan Cooking' and two layers of vanilla cake (one baked in a bundt form) from 'How It All Vegan!' with pink food colouring added - a bit too much as you can see! I sandwiched it with the vegan fluffy buttercream from VCTOW and a homemade blackberry and apple sauce. I covered the whole thing with chocolate ganache, again from VCTOW - which I also used for the chocolate apples and krispie cakes, btw! - before draping over a fine sheet of bubblegum-pink rolled fondant and going to town with the buttercream and adornments to ensure Polly has the most vulgar, overdone princess dress of them all! This cake tasted really great - once I'd picked all the jelly tots off it, bleugh!!! - as I think I've finally learnt my lesson of ensuring you pair sweet buttercream with a slightly tarter fruit filling. The sponge was delicious!
So now I only have to knock up a second birthday cake for McGonnagle for her actual birthday on Tuesday - I'm thinking lazy-ass ice-cream cake?!
I'm off to retrieve my three year old from under the buffet table where he's currently sat with a selection of appetisers and hummus - the way he eats hummus, you'd think it was all he'd been weaned on!
Over and out...

Spread the Love!

2009-09-18T16:17:00.012+01:00

I think I maybe need to clean my mirror...

We've been busy-busy-busy the last few weeks - the kids have started tap and ballet classes so I've used my favourite second-hand friend, ebay, to kit them out with the appropriate uniform as specified by the everso strict dance-school regulations.

I've been cultivating mung bean shoots in my propagator after a handul of sprouts I'd had on the windowsill took a turn for the funky... and look at them now!

My brain keeps saying 'Mung Beans? In Scotland? Really? You really think that's going to work?' in that smiling yet essentially negative tone that Jason Bateman employed in almost every episode of Arrested Development when talking to his deranged family, but my foolish, idiot-child heart keeps saying 'Sod the seasons and climates, Daria, if anyone can make it work it's you and your coldframe!'. Keeps me out of trouble anyway!
It was my mother-in-law's birthday the other week and my husband went down to see her on a flying visit to drop off her reconditioned mountain bike and help her polish off a few glasses of wine. So I sent down a little cake.

Two of my M-I-L's favourite things to consume are chocolate and alcohol so I combined the two and made a chocolate sponge torte with Baileys buttercream and tart cherry filling, smothered in a bitter chocolate ganache and piped with a big ole' buttercream loveheart. She loved it, and I really enjoyed making it for her, so everyone was happy! Obviously, the Bailey's wasn't vegan but the cake wasn't for me so no probs. Everything else was suitably vegan - the sponge a recipe from Leah Leneman's Easy Vegan Cooking, the buttercream and ganache both recipes from VCTOW. As for the cherry filling, a long long time ago my mum advised me that the only way to go for this was Hartley's black cherry pie filling - tart yet fruity - and as I'm not the kind of cook that has the time or inclination to spend hours in the kitchen making my own bitter cherry reduction it has served me admirably ever since in many a torte - Poles love a good torte, the more ingredients and flaked almonds the better!
I also scored an unbelievably sweet necklace from Becky over at Lovely Little Deer. I follow her blog because she's another adorable northerner (n_n) and the things she makes are fabulous - cute, humorous and good enough to eat in some cases!

Criminally, she doesn't have an etsy or ebay shop just yet, so I had to be kind of fly and email her looking to buy one of these fab Giant Sprinkles necklaces. Not only did she agree she also packaged it absolutely beautifully for me. Thanks again, Becky, I'm stoked and my kids have been all-over my new adornment like a rash, desperate to get at the sprinkles!
So, love is all around it seems, and I'm just about to feel the warm glow of it yet again as I tuck into a big slice of chocolate-cherry torte (Yay, leftovers!!) with alcohol-free buttercream icing and rainbow glitter on top, perfect partner to a cup of Earl Grey (finally got rid of that bloody box of Tetleys) and the return of 'Strictly Come Dancing' on BBC1 tonight.
Over and out...

Flowers for my Anniversary!

2009-09-01T02:19:00.011+01:00

Last Saturday, Skint Vegan Dad and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. We've been together ten years in total, but being the boring traditionalists we are we only mark the official anniversaries. We spent a lovely day out by the sea in Earlsferry and Elie, off the East coast of Fife. SVD acquired (i.e. pinched) a 20 year old AA guide to Country Walks from his folks, so we did a bracing four mile trek with the kids around the beach, up the cliffs and over the hills till we were back in the grassy spot where twenty years ago, there had been a car park. This is usually the point at which I bore you to death with some scenic pix, but as someone forgot the camera there's nothing to see here! Our day out ended with hot chips and curry sauce sat in Jessica on the seafront at Kirkaldy. Not the most picturesque of locations, but we were all touristed-out by then on the quaint old-fashioned beauty of Earlsferry and it was on the way home so we were happy to just sit and eat mostly.
When researching anniversary gifts, I was struck by how random some of the traditional options for the years between paper and ruby seem to be. We kind of agreed to stop doing the theme thing from now on. Which is good as it provided me with the perfect opportunity to get SVD The Stone Roses 20th Anniversary Legacy Edition of their seminal first album - the one that was the soundtrack to his university days at Manchester.
So knowing my sweet tooth and my current predilection for everything nutty and seedy, he bought me some yummy dark-chocolate covered seeds and soya beans. The tiny amount of honey used in the glaze for these meant they weren't vegan, but, Dear Reader, I ate them anyway. I don't eat honey normally because I've never eaten honey in a day-to-day way and I don't particularly like the taste. But it's not one of those things I get into a flap about and I was happy to accept the gift with good grace.
But the best present I could have got was him paying for me to have my new tattoo done. I'd saved-up my money, paid my deposit and got my design planned when he surprised me with the announcement that he would be footing the bill! This is an even sweeter gesture when you understand that my husband doesn't like tattoos period. He finds tattoos on girls completely off-putting. Despite his love for rockabilly, hot rods and Bettie Page, he draws the line at sailor tats. I think sometimes when people look at us together they see an over-enthusiastic science teacher (all woolly jumpers and facial hair) with a stroppy overgrown teenager (complete with a bad home-dye job and obnoxious clothes) and wonder how the hell we ever got together! Admittedly, I sometimes wonder it myself. But at the end of the day, underneath all the bad clothes and righteous clashes of opinion, we share a lot of the same values. We have similar goals for our lives - security, sustainability, living a good and honest life which impacts others in a positive rather than negative way. We're both old-school strict parents, but we put our money where our mouth is and 'fess up to our kids when we've messed up with them. Respect should be earned, not demanded. Plus we share a healthily irreverent sense of humour which has saved us amidst more than one blazing argument over... well, nothing that important, obviously!
Ten years down the line - nine years as homeowners, seven years as parents, six years as spouses - and I know that tinkering in the garage, doting on the bairns, and playing 'Four Go Camping' is what keeps him sane and lets him unwind from his job, while he knows you can take the girl out of the tattoo parlour, but...
And I'm happy with that. I don't think either of us ever expected to find that kind of unconditional acceptance by accident. Happy Anniversary, SVD!

The Spuds that keep on giving...

2009-08-23T12:05:00.008+01:00

Remember this sack of potatoes that I was so excited about? Organic Rooster potatoes for a complete steal of a price? Well, despite our potato-loving ways we at Skint Vegan Towers didn't manage to get through them all before the inevitable happened and they sprouted and started looking a little green around the gills. Too many other grains and pasta to choose from to accompany our evening meals you see! I left them in the sack in the kitchen, ignored and unloved while I wondered what to do with them. The next time I ventured in, the contents of the sack looked like an explosion in a string factory - roots begetting roots, organic matter everywhere. I happened to look at Melanie's blog and spotted a post about growing spuds in a compost sack. So I figured why not put my over-excited, self-chitted potatoes out into the garden, snip a few holes in the base of the paper sack with a pair of scissors and throw some compost over them. If the worst came to the worst, I'd have wasted my time on half a dozen potatoes I'd have composted anyway. If they did what they were supposed to - Wahey! Sure enough, within a couple of weeks I had shoots poking through the compost. So, I kept throwing more compost on top of them, watering them intermittently - very-lazy-gardener style. Before I knew it, the base of my sack had exploded and I had lush green foilage everywhere. A few weeks later, my sack was full - I couldn't have added anymore compost to it if I tried. Then yesterday, while cleaning out the garden sheds - I locate my potato bag between both sheds, next to the incredibly heavy block of standard compost we have in our garden for ease of upkeep - Skint Vegan Dad manouvered an awkward item out backwards and promptly walked into Spud Central, tipping it over completely. I was waiting for my gorgeous green leaves to flower and die down before I picked my potatoes but my initial annoyance turned to amazement when, enlisting Ho-Tep's help, I realised there were loads and loads of potatoes. I mean, loads. I weighed my haul on the bathroom scales when I brought them back into the house - 3 kg.

Not bad at all. And they're all nice - no blight, no worm or snail holes, despite the vast eco-system that their growing environment had apparently been supporting. 'Imagine how many we could have ended up with had this unfortunate accident not led us to harvest them early?' I thought to myself. This experiment in lazy gardening has renewed my interest in growing more food in our garden. Some of the potatoes we picked are far too small to eat, so I think I'm going to try and chit these again and start the whole process over, maybe using a rubblesack this time. It may work, it may not, I don't know if it's possible to grow potatoes so late on in the year (In time for Christmas? No?) so I'd appreciate any advice from you keen green gardeners out there!

In the meantime - I'm off to mash some floury red spuds with lots of margarine, soya milk, cornish sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Back to School!

2009-08-21T18:41:00.009+01:00

Well, that's the summer holidays over for another year for me and the kids. I can't believe how quickly the weeks have passed till we're back to 7am wake-ups, grey tights and gingham dresses and - *weary sigh* - packed lunches!

Macaroni salad with cherry plum toms, cukes, red pepper spears, slices of Vegan Dad's homemade sausages made with brown lentils and a tublet of egg-free salad cream.

On her first day back McGonnagle tripped-over during an exuberant game in the playground and broke her fall with her face.

I consoled her with the knowledge that active people get hurt more often - like athletes, runners, judo blackbelts, mountain climbers... she brightened up considerably at this information.

Meanwhile, Ho-Tep and I are on a countdown.

Stinker

Next Thursday he starts nursery for two and a half hours a day, five days a week. My mornings will be free again - Yay! Our Harold and Maude moments will become fewer - Boo. On the bright side, I haven't been swimming in three years - well I have, but only 'with-kids' swimming, not proper adult solo lane swimming - so this is my chance to return to the pool in earnest. My old swimming bag is already packed in anticipation. I used to be a very keen swimmer, I swam most lunchtimes at work and when pregnant with Ho-Tep I was swimming up to and over my due date as I had a sneaking suspicion my window of opportunity would disappear in a puff of smoke once he was born! I found it very calming and relaxing, not to mention a neat way of re-energising myself for the afternoon ahead. I can't wait till I can make it a regular part of my routine again. In the meantime I'm enjoying my time alone with him. The other day we spotted a red admiral which had alighted on his life-jacket.

It was as big as Ho-Tep's hand and very taken with the blue fabric of his swimming aid. We had to go and photograph it. So bright and beautiful.

We've also been amassing a fierce collections of twigs, leaves and dandelions stems on our walks to and from McGonnagle's school. I feel a nature table coming on... (^_^)
My baking life has been basic and founded on necessity. I stewed some home-grown rhubarb in brown sugar the other weekend and once we'd eaten its tart goodness all up with creamy sweet custard, I was left with about three to four tablespoons of rhubarb syrup at the bottom of the pan. As it was Sunday night and I had a lunch to pack for the following morning, I quickly put together some rhubarb buns. I adapted a recipe in 'Eating For Victory' for raspberry buns and replaced the tot of raspberry jam rolled into the bun with rhubarb syrup. These were really nice and made a great lunchtime treat alongside some chopped fruit for McGonnagle.

I also had a couple of funky lemons and a funky orange at the bottom of my fruitbowl that I decided to use-up before they ran off and started up a Funkadelic tribute band. Someone out there in the vegan blogosphere recently made lemon bars - I'm sorry, it escapes my fuzzy memory who - and I couldn't get the idea out of my head. I've never had lemon bars before but the idea just sounded so right to me. So I made lemon-orange variation on the lemon bars from 'The Joy of Vegan Baking'.

Phwoarrr!

I think I slightly overcooked them - as I say I've never eaten these before - but I don't care as the chewy caramel glaze that developed as a result was AMAZING.
I didn't dredge the bars with icing sugar as the recipe suggested as these babies are a fingerlick away from diabetes-inducing anyway, so I figured they were sweet enough. McGonnagle wasn't keen but Ho-Tep and I enjoyed these immensely. So good. So so good.
Well, I hope you all have a good weekend - I'm off to make some roasted summer veg risotto for our tea.

Quarantine Food

2009-08-18T14:48:00.000+01:00

Mmm - nummy rice noodles in hot and sour soup with surprise guest savoy cabbage in place of chinese greens.

I meant to make this post back when we were all in the midst of our little swine flu drama, but then Belladrum came along and bally well distracted me! *rolls eyes at own hopelessness*:

At the same time we were all coming down with the flu, our fridge-freezer broke down. Imagine the sitaution - you can't go out to replenish supplies because you feel like kaka and are contagious and all the food you have in the fridge is about to go off at any second. It's like a stationary version of 'Speed' set in Bathgate, sans Keanu, and slightly less thrilling for the participants thanks to the lurking menace of a can of pease pudding in the back of the cupboard that could any minute become our last best hope for dinner.
To top it all, when the fridge repair man arrived, he quickly diagnosed that he couldn't fix the problem as it wasn't his speciality so we had to wait another week before the guy with the gas cannister and the laptop arrived to re-gas and hopefully fix our fridge.
So I had two objectives: feed us all for a week on what we had in the house and use-up everything in the fridge freezer as soon as possible. Struggle, right? Well, not quite. At some point during the week my concern went from 'How am I going to manage with what we have?' to 'Boy oh boy, how much food am I over-buying every week that we have more than enough to feed us for the rest of the week without leaving the house?'
We ate tangy jerk tempeh with stir-fried spinach, savoy cabbage and chickpeas served over noodles.
I used some leftover buttercream from Ho-Tep's birthday cake as a filling for chocolate sandwich biscuits.

I added some peppermint flavouring and a tiny drop of green food colouring to the icing and smeared it between chocolate shortcake rounds to make yummy and moreish little bites - just the right size to pop into your mouth in one go. I entertained a vague notion of dipping them in melted chocolate - viscount style - but predictably we ate them before I got the chance. The second cake of seaweed tempeh I had in my warm freezer I marinated in hoisin sauce before chopping-up, mixing with grated carrot and shredded iceberg lettuce to make spring rolls. With the pack of 40 wrappers I also had languishing in the heat of the icebox.

Served with veggie chow mein this absolutely rocked - far better than the dreadful chinese takeaway we'd had a few weeks before.
Limitations feed creativity - just look at Melody's blog or any of the other frugal living blogs for ongoing proof of that. It's made me realise that I have a bad habit of stockpiling food without really thinking it through. My 'store cupboard staples' are taking over the house! I falsely economise by buying big packs of things I might only use once or twice before they expire. And I have a terrible habit of buying exotic ingredients that I fantasise I will incorporate into fancy dishes, when the plain truth is, my family would rather eat FFV mac n' cheeze, tvp and lentil bolognese, pasta with homemade pesto and chickpeas and 5-bean chili over everything else. Seriously, as long as I threw the odd lentil roast or jacket potato in for a bit of variety, my weekly menu could remain the same for infinity and there wouldn't be a single complaint. And I know I manage better when my choices are limited because when faced with an enormous range of options, my creativity completely deserts me. It's the same in every area of my life - that's the real reason I like shopping in the clearance or sale section of clothing stores. Sure, it's also cheaper but primarily it means that I usually only have a handful of things to choose from. And I like it like that.
For me, menu-planning is the key, and certainly I've seen a drop in my weekly budget already - not to mention the amount of food-derived recycling generated -by shopping to an eating plan rather than picking up random stuff to work into recipes later. I'm also making sure to clear out my store cupboards by using what I have - substituting if necessary - rather than buying even more 'essentials' to fill the house with.