The Worlds Biggest Salad

Okay,so that's a completely unsubstantiated claim and I offer you no proof, but it was a pretty damn big salad. Let's see, what was in there? Rocket, tomatoes, onion, baked tofu, balsamic dressing... Ack, there was most likely more but I forget. On the side is a little roast potato salad, so I suppose I had salad with a side of salad, what fun! Btw, this meal was pretty tough on my jaw (tmj arthritis issues), I don't know why I think it's helpful to tell you all that. Maybe I should start a tmj friendliness rating... Or not, because that would be highly dull. Anyhoo, in other news, I bought a bike recently. I love it. Like seriously. Today I got to cycle all along the river, and fields, and saw wild bunnies and heelan coos. It was delightful. Anyhoo, in case anyone vaguely cares, here's a picture of my bike:
Due to the shape of the outside of my flat, it was impossible to get a complete side view, you're all gonna have to just like with it, k?

Quiche!

In the quiche is sundried tomatoes, red onions, and spinach. Served with a quick side salad and some mayo. Tasted like summer. The leftovers are calling to me...

Korean Vegetable Pancakes... Kind of.

As you can see they kinda fell apart, but who cares? They still tasted good. The recipe is from Asian Vegan, which I'm currently loving and plan to make a lot more from. Inside the pancake is onion, carrot, garlic, beansprouts, and chives. Served with chilli dipping sauce.

So, I Squashed Me Some Taters...

Look at them... Sitting there looking delicious, waiting to be devoured. Mwah ha ha.I'm fairly convinced that Dreena Burton invented this recipe specifically for students at exam time, who haven't had time to go proper food shopping in a while, and don't have much time to cook. Well either that or she invented it specifically for five year olds. Is there really much of a difference? This time I put a little fresh basil (yes, yes, I do put it on everything), and dried oregano on them, and to compensate for eating a meal entirely composed of potato, I used spray oil. Doesn't taste any different with spray oil, in fact I think I might prefer it. Anyhoo, in conclusion, exam time sucks and potato squashers rock.

Pizza of Win!

Yes, I declare this to be the official pizza of win. Why? Well it's full of all the win foods. Spelt base, garlic sauce, caramelised red onions, pine nuts, and fresh basil. Win. Just for extra win, here's a slice shot:
Now, what did i have with this classy beast of a pizza? Ketchup. Oh yes. I make classy things trashy.

If anybody's wondering why my pictures have gone a bit downhill recently, I've decided to blame it on the fact that I've turned the Aerogrow off, and so don't have the fake almost natural light anymore. Don't worry, she'll be back! I'm just deciding what to grow in her next.

Post O' Orange

Yes, for some reason everything I've eaten over the past few days have been various shades of orange, how bizarre. Everything is also from Eat, Drink and Be Vegan which I just got recently.
Sorry for the blurry shot, I think it was still steamy when I took the picture. Anyhoo, this is the cashew ginger tofu and tamari roasted chickpeas.
This is the blackened tofu and potato squashers. I absolutely loved both. I'm currently eyeing up the tofu leftovers, I doubt they'll make it to lunchtime tomorrow.

Huzzah!

Food o plenty in this post. First up is the food of sick people all over the world, mac and cheese. I was in hospital last week because apparently blood clots aren't supposed to be in your lung, who knew? Well I did, but I am very clever. Anyhoo, when I got out I wanted to make a batch of something hearty that I could work my way through for a few days, so as always I went for the new farm mac and cheese. I reduced the oil quite a lot though, because it really is quite ridiculous. Here it is with roasted brussel sprouts, which are the rockingest cruciferous vegetable around:

I had an influx of vegans this weekend for much drunken and non drunken fun. Some out of towners came up on the Friday night which to me seemed like a perfect excuse to have a pizza party.
This first pizza has basil tofu ricotta and pesto, it was the yum.
This one has mozzarella cheezly and home made pepperoni. Also the yum. There was a third pizza that was essentially a combination of both of the above, but at that point my stomach had given up on letting me eat pizza and I was far too bloated to get up and take a picture.

No food! I've been tagged!

Not in the criminal way, obviously. DJ over at the skint vegan tagged me to do one of these meme thingimijigs. I have to tell you five things about myself and then tag five other bloggers. I'm not really one for drive by tagging, so if you read this, and you're a vegan blogger, consider yourself tagged. Okay, so onto the most likely dull lelly facts.

1. I'm currently radioactive due to a scan I had at hospital yesterday. I feel like I should be fighting crime. My weapon shall be battered pizza, and I'll get rid of the criminals with atherosclerosis. (too geeky? me? never).
2. Continuing along the geek theme - years ago I read an article in a newspaper about bumble bee behaviour and physiology. I enjoyed it so much that I cut it out and if I need cheered up, I re-read it. Bumble bees ftw!
3. Tofu is my absolute favourite food because it's just so versatile. One of my pet peeves is when people (who usually have never actually eaten it) say they don't like it, at which point I big-headedly exclaim "aha! this is because you've never had me cook it for you!".
4. I am ever so slightly besotted with Ron Weasley. NOT, Rupert Grint, only Ron Weasley.
5. I love the way Jenna from Vegan Freak Radio says my name. She just says it so much cuter than anybody else.

I now feel oddly exposed...

Tofu and Potatoes

It's very odd really that some form of tofu, tempeh, or seitan and potatoes is my stand by comfort food, because as an omni I was never much of a meat and potatoes kind of girl. In fact, the thought makes me sick. Ugh. Anyway, the tofu wasn't even marinated, i just kinda poured some balsamic vinegar and worcester sauce onto it when it was cooking. The potatoes were just boiled and then I tossed in some fresh basil, and I made a balsamic onion gravy type thing. Excellent.

Leftovers ftw.

(that's 'for the win' for any old folks)

I sauteed up some onion and kale and strips of seitan cutlets and added it to pasta and then added some leftover spicy tomato pasta sauce. Topped with parmezano, as always. Delicious, as always.

Oh, yes. I've gone through an entire bag of kale in a day and a half. Just felt the need to share. It has been pointed out to me that this is clearly too healthy, and I should batter it. Battering is always the answer.

You know you're vegan when...

...this is your idea of lunchtime comfort food:
A big bowl of sauteed kale with balsamic baked tofu slathered with more balsamic vinegar.

Bryanna is a Goddess.

Yes. Seriously, if you haven't subscribed to her newsletter yet, do it now. I'd do it just for the soy and seitan cutlet recipe alone.

I have a massive batch waiting for me to put them in the freezer. I plan to make many gluten based foodstuff this week, oh yes i do. This time i breaded them, but who knows what wonderful things I shall do to them soon, who knows?

Served with garlic kale and baby potatoes with fresh basil and garlic.

Oh, in other news, did I mention I was single now? No? Well I am. I still haven't quite gotten the portion sizes down yet, so if you're not a crazy serial killer and you're in the area, come over for the inevitable leftovers.

And one more for good measure...

I'm going to be away at the weekend so I thought I'd just post this now. The afrorementioned beanball subs:
Aren't they cute? I used petit pains, so there's only 2 weeny beanballs in each one. The beanballs were baked with (very garlicky - my breath still stinks) marinara and mozzarella cheezly. Delightful.

Penne and Beanballs

The title pretty much sums it up. The beanballs are from Vcon, and I have absolutely loads left. I'll probably be having beanball subs for about a week (not that I'm complaining). I'll actually probably freeze some for later. I just got a load of gluten delivered so next week I plan on making loads of Bryannas seitan cutlets and loads of chickpea cutlets and freezing them, my exams are coming up soon and it'll be handy. Anyhoo, the sauce is cherry tomato and chilli, and it's got a little sprinkling of parmezano on top. Yum.

Linguine Alfreda

Based on the vegan with a vengeance recipe, but as usual I got distracted and started doing my own thing. I also at one point decided that some Fry's Vegetarian Strips would be good in it, so I chucked some of them in. I also put some chopped fresh basil in, because I always have some and I love it.

Nothin' Fancy!

Spicy tomato pasta with fresh basil, grilled asparagus, and sautedd kale. I <3 kale these days.

I'm Back!

Yup, I promised I would be, and so I am. Todays food isn't particularly exciting, I'm easing myself back into this whole eating meals malarkey by eating familiar things. I promise to start cooking exciting things soon.

Anyhoo, here's some scrambled tofu that I served on a wholewheat seeded wrap with some spinach.
This is what I had last night. Yet again I made hasselback potatoes, but this time I used sweet potato, and only used spray oil to cook everything, so it's a lot healthier than usual. There are also tofu steaks served on a bed of garlic and sea salt sauteed kale. It was delicious.
The marinade I used for the tofu, is the same marinade I use all the time (balsamic vinegar, vegan worcester sauce, and soy sauce). It really sinks into the tofu. Because I use it so much I did something sensible last night and made a lot of it and put it in a potion bottle. I'm just clever like that.

Sorry...

Yes, another apology for being a rubbish blogger. I've had a lot of things going on, and I'm still having appetite issues, but I promise I'll be back soon. Probably with healthier food than my last post, but that really wouldn't be hard now would it?

Anyway, yes, I'm sorry, I suck and fail, please don't hate me!

I've only gone and done it...

Yep, I've only gone and made the unhealthiest vegan blog post in the history of vegan blogs.
Okay, so as you know, I'm Scottish, and everybody knows Scotland is the land of deep fried battered foods. Back in my school days there used to be a chip van (like a mobile chip shop if you're unfamiliar with the concept) that parked right outside our school gates at lunch time. Thinking back on it now I'm outraged that my school let this happen, but back then I thought it was great. Back in the day you could get two 'pizza crunch' and a can of Irn Bru for a quid. A quid! It was marvelous. A pizza crunch was essentially a quarter of a cheese pizza, fried in batter. Possibly the most unhealthy thing on the planet, but anyhoo. It's something which I've always missed, and ever since I discovered that I can make kick ass batter, I've wanted to try it.

Oh lordy it was good. I cut my pizza into eighths (mainly for pan space issues), and used cheezly mozzarella. I'd wanted to go all out trashy (what's the point in half measures?) and get a cheap white base, just like the chip van used, but there weren't any and we had to use a spelt base. I strangely found a weird sense of smugness in frying spelt, the poster child for health. Anyhoo, yes I used my previously posted batter recipe, and shallow fried. It actually probably would have been a helluva lot easier if I'd deep fried it, but I had a traumatic deep fryer incident in my childhood which will probably never allow me to use one.

In conclusion. Pizza good. Batter good. I could only eat a few bits because I'm still having appetite issues, but I just had a need to do it, and now it's out of my system, for a while anyway.

Oh, if any government bodies are looking to bump off some of those pesky animal rights "terrorists", the way to go is clearly to fund me to open up a vegan chip shop. Do it.

Excuses...

Yes, so I haven't blogged in a while. For many reasons I've not been eating grown up food and nobody wants to read the blog o' toast. Here are my excuses for unblogworthy food:

• Gary went away for a few days to visit his family, and I can never be bothered cooking proper food for just me, it's sad, I know.
• When Gary got back he started chucking up everywhere as he had contracted the dreaded norovirus. He wasn't eating properly for quite a while, which means I wasn't eating properly.
• I'm on new medication for my jaw pain (I'm sure I've mentioned it at some point) which has made me lose my appetite quite a lot.

Because of the loss of appetite, I've mainly been eating lightish foods. I remembered to take pictures of the last few meals, so hopefully I'll be back in the swing of things now!

This is a pretty basic meal of stir fried veg, baked tofu, and quinoa.

And this is... ummm... well, it's clearly a salad. It had lettuce spinach, basil, tomatoes, red onions, some sliced up vegi deli sausages, redwoods feta, parmezano... Probably more, but meh. I also made a dressing and bottled it. We have quite a few of these bottles and Gary likes to pretend they're potion bottles like in an RPG. Indeed. Anyhoo, the dressing has a little bit of extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil and dill, nutritional yeast, and balsamic and red wine vinegar.