Mr Blobby...

Is who I'll look like if I eat too much of this:
Ever have one of those days where you feel like you need to eat something with an ungodly amount of fat in it? For me, yesterday was one of those days. New Farm Mac and Cheese to the rescue! Well kinda. This is without a shadow of a doubt the best vegan mac and cheese recipe out there (and it was published in 1988!), but sweet jeebus there is so much fat in it!

I used whole spelt penne (that makes it healthy, right?) instead of mac, and served it with wholemeal garlic bread (I think I ate one bit).

Gary went back for seconds whilst I rolled onto the couch wimpering and having cold sweats.

Penne Arrabiata

I've blogged this meal before, so sue me! I'm allowed to cook the same meal twice you know! Anyhoo, this is whole spelt penne with arrabiata sauce and meatballs (recipe from New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook), served with wholemeal garlic bread. We couldn't eat it all, but it was yummy.
In slightly unrelated news, I'm totally loving being unemployed! I get to cook good food every day, bake stuff, craft stuff whenever I want, and the flat has never been so consistently tidy! It won't last long though, I'm back at uni soon, and I've spent most of the morning today sending my CV off to anyone who'll take it. Anybody in the Tayside area looking for an amateur vegan cook/baker? Part time? No? Didn't think so.

Barbecue Ribs

This is that baked seitan recipe from Fat Free Vegan that's been doing the rounds in blog land. It is absolutely amazing. Gary demanded I make another batch right there and then, to which I said "shut up, you fat pie", but you know, I probably could've eaten another batch too.

Living in a tiny flat I don't have a barbecue, so I cooked them on my cast iron griddle pan and it worked out just fine. If you haven't tried this recipe yet, you have to try it!
Oh, it's served with the leftover vegetables from the other night.

Tofu and Veggies

Sounds dull, doesn't it? It really wasn't. The tofu is marinated and baked, in a random assortment of things I had at hand. Let's see, there was soy sauce, basil, oregano, thyme, lemon, lime, agave, mustard. It was yummy. The potatoes were tossed in a similar sort of mixture before being roasted. The brussel sprouts were roasted with some garlic and sea salt, as was the purple sprouting broccoli. Yum.

Some cakes I didn't eat.

I've noticed a strange phenomenon every time I bake cakes. I rarely eat any. I don't know why, I just like baking them to give away. Plus I usually eat some of the batter, which makes me feel sick.

I baked these to take in on my last day of work. First up are cinnamon buns. This is a recipe that was posted on the Vegan Freak Forums. One girl at work said that these were the best thing she'd ever put in her mouth. Praise indeed.
Next up are Orange Pudding Cupcakes which I made on the request of one of my colleagues who'd absolutely loved them the last time I brought cakes in. They're based on the VCTOW recipe, but I've been tweaking it a little, coz I'm like that.

Dinner O' Citrus!

Lemon-Herb Tofu and Lemon-Rosemary Potatoes. Both from Vive le Vegan. Both unbelievably delicious.

Tomorrow I'm going to be baking lots of cakes etc to take into work on Friday. Why? Because Friday is my last day at work and I thought I'd be nice. Oh yeah! Last day of work and back to studentdom soon. Bring on the daytime telly and afternoon drinking... Umm, I mean long nights in the library, and stuff...

Ubiquitous

Stuffed peppers - A (very) short story:

Whenever me and Gary go out to eat at somewhere not very vegan friendly and ask them to make us something 'off menu' (or phone ahead and arrange it), we always have a bet on that we'll end up with stuffed peppers. We always win. So when I suggested stuffed peppers for tea tonight Gary was sceptical. There is one fundamental difference between the fancy pants restaurant stuffed peppers and mine though - mine taste good.

So here they are, first rubbed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil and roasted and then stuffed with rice, tomatoes, basil, sliced sausages (vegi deli), red onion, and topped off with some cheezly (the non melting kind, which is why it's not... melty) and baked.


Teh yum.

I also made orange scones a few days ago, but I eated them.

Long Time No Blog!

It's been nearly a month since I posted anything!! That's terrible! I'm bad, I apologise.

Okay, so I've got some food and some product reviews (well really me going "mmm... these are good..."), so lets get on with it.

We had some leftover Venn Pongal (from Dino Sarma's Alternative Vegan), so I decided the best way to go was to take this lovely, healthy, wholesome meal, and make it unhealthy! Yeah! I added some gram flour to it and made venn pongal cakes. Topped off with some mango chutney. Delicious.

Here's a picture I found on my camera of something I made for lunch ages ago. It's tofu (marinated in teriyaki sauce), tomatoes, spinach, and mayo, all in a wholemeal bun. It was so very good.
You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning and feel like being a 1950s housewife? Just me? Meh. A few weekends ago, I woke up at 7 (I know, I'm insane) and made a pie. I don't know why I did it. It just sorta happened. So I made a pie with a layer of chocolate mousse and a layer of peanut butter mousse. I didn't use a recipe, I just kinda flung stuff in a blender, still half asleep. I ate one slice, Gary ate the rest, for he is a huge fatty.

Sorry about the rubbish photo, I must have been itching to eat it.
Okay, now we have some product reviews (kinda) and the best damn salad the world has ever seen. The product review pictures were taken by Gary whilst I was making the salad, which is why they're rubbish.

First up is Redwoods new(ish) feta cheese. Me and Gary both loved this stuff. It is so creamy. I don't quite understand why it's in the crazy oil, but I tried to drain as much off as possible before eating it. After we had it in the salad, we had some on pizza, and it was great. It didn't quite melt, but it went gooey (like, you know... feta). Uh, devine!
Next up is Redwoods new Chorizo. Also delicious (and I swear I'm not being paid by redwoods, although all bribes are graciously received). I've never tasted deathy chorizo, so I can't make a comparison, but this was lovely, and smoky, and spicy, oh my! It comes in little cubes, which is... handy? We also had this on pizza after the salad (not the same night obviously), and Gary said it was 'the best pizza he'd ever had' but he says that every time we have pizza.
On now to the salad. besides the feta and chorizo, there was spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, avocado, onion. I think that was all. As previously mentioned this was the best salad in the world, eva! The picture totally doesn't do it justice. Behind the salad is lovely crusty bread with this really good spread we got at our health store. I think its tomato, basil and olive. It's something like that, and it was perfect for mopping up 'bottom of the bowl salad juices'

Lelly is a crafty vegan!

Well kinda. I also speak in the third person apparently. Meh.

Anyhoo, I've got loads of t shirts that don't fit me or are just meh, and I've always fancied adapting them so I'll actually wear them, so I did. I took my old pink herbivore t shirt (the one less meat eater one) and, well, cut it up and put it back together with bits on.I made it into a halter top and added buttons. The buttons are partly for decorative purposes and partly to (kind of) cover the stitching where I sewed the straps on. It's all fairly shoddily made, but it was stitched by hand, cos I'm a poor student and we don't have the moneez for sewing machines, so considering that it's not too bad. It's also squinty in parts, but I'm going to blame that on my atrocious eye sight (uh huh). Just so you know quite how anal I am, the buttons were white, but I hand painted them pink. Indeed.

Here's another shot of it (I am aware that at this point, this mainly becomes me posting close ups of my boobs, but shh)

Necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

So, a few weeks ago our oven exploded in quite a spectacular fashion. So it's broken and we're not getting a new one fitted until the 31st. This has made me actually have to think whilst cooking, and making sure everything can be done on the hob. *sigh*

So I totally had a craving for lasagne the other day, but, duh, you need an oven to make lasagne. So instead, I very craftily made lasagne rolls.

While the pasta cooked a took a block of tofu, drained and mashed it, and seasoned it. I chucked in some nutritional yeast, garlic, sea salt, oregano, basil, spinach, etc and cooked it on the hob for a little while. I then rolled all this up in the pasta, put them on plates and (gasp) microwaved them to make sure it was all hot. Whilst they were in the microwave, I made some sundried tomato sauce on the hob and chucked it on top.

The results were truly yum.
Very much indeed so.

Oh, I got tagged by Drasch to do a meme thingamibob, but my brain is not currently functioning, so I'll have a think and do it later.

Post O' Randomness...

Yup, random indeed. Why? Meh, who knows. Maybe I like to keep you on your toes, or maybe I'm clearing out my camera. You'll never know.

Okay, so like, here's my kitchen..

I mainly took this picture because it was cleaner than usual because Gary's family was visiting, but also because I'm a nosy mare and I like to see peoples houses, and especially their kitchens, so I figure someone else must be nosy...

Okay, so now for some midweek dinners. Mainly of the 'thrown together at the last minute' variety.

Here's some linguine alfreda. The recipe is mainly from Vegan with a Vengeance, but as always, I never actually follow recipes. It was deliciously spicy and creamy, which are two of my favourite food adjectives.
Next up is a pasta bake, and I know what you're thinking - "oh my god, someone vomited on your pasta", but it was lovely! Honest! It has tomatoes, and herbs, and vegideli sausages, and cheezly. It was quite heavy though, so not something for all the time.
This is what we just had for dinner. Tacos. Not much you can really say about tacos. Lets see, there was spinach, refried beans, jalapenos... I think that was all. Yup. Oh, and salsa on the side. Luurvley.
Let's top off the randomness with some more randomness. Yes, I think so. Here's a picture of a fighter jet (? I dunno, I'm a girl) that appeared in town one day. The jolly man in front of the jet is just a bonus.

Beware! Huge post ahead!

Yup, to make up for my lack of frequent posts, I thought I better make this post big. I have been cooking and taking pictures of everything, I just haven't gotten around to blogging.

Anyway, this is another one from Alternative Vegan. It's banana bread, and it was delicious.
Have I mentioned how much I love living next to a huge oriental supermarket? If not, I do. It's even open on a Sunday, so I popped in there and got some abura age (tofu pouches) and stuffed them with some sushi rice. It was loosely based on the recipe from Japanese Cooking. They were really delicious and the rice stayed inside the pouches really well. The dipping sauce is Teriyaki.
The next night we had something else from Japanese Cooking, the Crispy Fried Tempeh. It's basically tempeh marinated in soy sauce, mirin etc and then dredged in some flour and fried. I served it with wholegrain rice and topped it off with a little teriyaki sauce. I'm totally digging the teriyaki sauce these days. To be honest, I found this meal a little bit on the salty side, but Gary loved it so, meh.
Next up we have the Hungarian Potato Paprikash from Please Don't Feed The Bears. It's basically a whole load of vegetables chucked in a pot. I baked it in the oven for a while too, to let the potatoes crisp up a bit. Its was really tasty and comforting.
The next night we stuck with Please Don't Feed The Bears and made the Taco Thrasherole. It was kinda like a chilli casserole. There are more tortilla chips on the bottom. I thought it was great, but Gary thought it was too spicy, but he is a spice wimp.
This is something we had for lunch during the week. It's a soba noodle salad from Japanese Cooking. It was good, but we both found it far too oily.
Finally, we have a bit of a product review. I'd seen this tofu ravioli before, but it was really expensive and I couldn't bring myself to buy it in case we didn't like it. So when I saw it 20% Gratuit, I snapped it up!
Here it is cooked. We really enjoyed it! The tofu filling could have been a little more flavoursome, but it's fine for a cupboard standby when you can't be bothered cooking.
That's all! I've started planning my meals on a Sunday. As sad as it sounds, it saves us money if we buy all the food at once, instead of nipping to the shops for this or that. It also saves a lot of hassle, and if I have something written down I will actually make it, instead of eating rubbish!

Alternative Vegam Yummyness!

I've had Dino Sarma's cookbook Alternative Vegan on preorder for quite some time now, so it was a nice surprise to come home from work last week and have a lovely present waiting for me!
If you haven't heard of Dino Sarma, where have you been? He does regular cooking segments on Vegan Freak Radio, and is a prolific member of the forums. Enough of the adoration, and onto the food!

This is the Venn Pongal. It's a delicious mix of rice, moong daal, cashews, spices, and I can't remember what else. It was really nice, comforting food. Unfortunately I couldn't find curry leaves anywhere, which was an ingredient, so I just went without. I'll have to have a good look around the shops next time I get a chance.
It's been weirdly hot here the past few days, but that's Scotland for you, we get all the seasons, all the time, mainly cold, but meh. Anyhoo, yes it was hot, so I decided the next thing I was going to make would be his Pomegranate Wine Slushies.
These were also delicious. So refreshing! As well as the obvious pomegranate juice, wine, and ice, there's also strawberries and some lovely seasonings. Sounds delicious, doesn't it? It was.

Lelly is a bad blogger!

It's true. The only excuse I have is that I don't get home from work till late so Gary has been cooking quite a lot and we've been forgetting to take pictures. I truly am rubbish.

Anyway, I promise I'm trying to get back into the habit! Now onto the food...

You know sometimes you just want to eat some comforting stodge even though it's June? Today was one of those days. To be fair though, it's not like it's warm in Scotland, it's been bloody freezing the past few days.

Anyhoo, here is said comforting stodge.

It's vegetable pie and potatoes. Can you really get a stodgier meal? No, didn't think so.

Okay now, remember the giant monkey balloon in my last post? Well it had been gone for a while, and then we went out on Saturday and it was back! Even more surreal was the fact that a huge climbing wall had been erected at practically the end of our street (if I haven't mentioned it before, we live right in the centre of town, near all the craziness). Again, I decided that photographic evidence was required to stop us thinking we were going mad.

Weird.

Tandoori Burgers and a Giant Monkey Balloon!

We saw these burgers today at the health store and thought we'd give them a whirl. I'm such a sucker for having to try something if I've never seen it before. The packaging is a bit retro, isn't it?
Here it is cooked. As you can see it looks absolutely nothing like the picture on the package. It just looks like a regular veggie burger. That's pretty much how it tasted too, I didn't get a strong tandoori taste at all, which was disappointing. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't anything special. I give it a 'meh'.

So, onto the giant monkey balloon... We were walking through town yesterday and saw this:
This is right in the middle of Dundee city centre. It's City Square, where all of our 'important' people (council and such like) buildings are. We were very confused. That's Gary in the picture there to give a little bit of perspective. Gary's over six feet tall, so as you can see, this thing is huge! We were also confused by the sign, 'Everybody' what? And why was it all cordoned off? We want answers, people!

Strangely enough, I was walking by City Square today and it was gone. If we didn't have these pictures as proof, I may well have thought I was going insane. I wasn't though... Not this time...

Banana Omelettes O' Wrongness!

I thought I would be nice this morning and cook Gary (and me) a nice breakfast. How wrong could I be picking this recipe! It's the Banana Omelette recipe from the Vegan World Fusion Cookbook. When I first saw it I thought "hmm, that'd be nice with some peanut butter and maple syrup", but then I looked at the recipe and it had a savoury filling in it. I was highly sceptical but I thought I'd give it a go.

This started out completely horrible, and ended up pretty much the same way. You have to boil the bananas with their skins on for 20 minutes to soften them up. Boiling banana skins is one of the most foil smells I've ever been unfortunate enough to smell in my entire life. For some reason I persevered with the rest of the recipe. It started out okay, but the more you ate, the more the weirdness of the banana/savoury mixture got too unbearable. The last bite I took made me gag, and I had to go spit it out.

It was an altogether unpleasant experience and I wish I'd just stayed in bed for an extra hour.

Has anybody else made this recipe? Did I somehow mess it up completely?

Tofu Tacos and Grilled Cheez Sammiches

These are from another new addition to my cookbook collection, The Everyday Vegan. I swear at this rate there will be no room in the flat for me and Gary with all the cookbooks! These were really tasty. Gry thought they were a little too spicy, but he's a bit of a spicy food wimp, so let's not listen to him. Its basically mashed tofu with lots of chopped veg and spices all chucked in a pan and cooked. It makes loads, which is a huge bonus for me just now as I am insanely busy with work and studying, but one more week and it'll all be over!

In the background is something we drink far too much of - Curiosity Cola. Our friend Alice turned us on to the stuff and it's been a downward spiral since then. Alice will of course be receiving our dentist's bills.

Today for lunch we had something that is really not very healthy but we don't eat lunch together a whole lot, and rarely ever eat crap like this (well I don't, Gary is another story...), so it was a treat.

Behold... The grilled cheez sandwich o' clogged artery goodness!

Besides the insanely unhealthy tofutti slices there is sundried tomatoes, onions, sea salt and red pepper flakes.

Don't judge me!

Pasta With Loads of Veggies

Not the most imaginative post title, but what can I say? That's what it is, so... yeah. It's lumache pasta with spinach, sundried tomatoes, asparagus, corn, onion, oregano, and red pepper flakes, and it was delicious.

I made some garlic bread to go with it. Isn't home made garlic bread just like so much better than any rubbish you buy in shops? I think so.

In unrelated news I ordered a really cool lunch thermos thingy. It looks like a regular thermos flask, but it has three compartments in it for storing different foods, so I'll be able to take dinner leftovers to work. No more sandwiches! Man, I am so sick of sandwiches. I have to get up ridiculously early for work every day, and then study in the evenings and weekends so I've not had time to make lunch other than sandwiches. My exams are finished soon though so th nightmare will end soon!

Life gets in the way of blogging, and our internet provider sucks.

*peeks head in*

I have been uber busy recently which is why I completely disappeared. Sorry! I started a new job which I need to get up at stupid O'clock in the morning for and then when I'm not working I have to study! The studying part is only for a few more weeks though, and then I can finally relax after work, and eat real food again.

I may have been able to pop in sooner if our internet provider hadn't decided to crap out on us for two weeks! It turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise as I wasn't able to fart about on the interwebs, so I got a lot of studying done. I am glad it's sorted now though, it really did suck.

In unrelated news, my new job has enabled me to upgrade my camera. This doesn't guarantee my pictures will get any better as I'm fairly sure it's me who is rubbish, but it gives me a new toy to play with!

I promise to be back soon with some (fairly) interesting food.

Don't give up on me!

Seitan O' Greatness Pizza

This is the first time I've had any proper junk food in a long time. It was a treat for Gary to celebrate him finishing off his dissertation. This is a before pic, as I wasn't sure if I'd remember to take a picture when it came out of the oven, because , you know, pizza! We kept it simple with the toppings and just went for some of the seitan (as thinly sliced as I could manage) and some onions.Here's the after pic, which I'm aware doesn't look a whole lot different to the before pic, but I took it so I'm going to show you it.
The seitan crisped up nicely which was great. For some reason it looks as if there's hardly any sauce on the pizza, but I can assure you there's plenty!

I'm starting a new (temp) job tomorrow, so wish me luck! I'm oddly nervous. Hopefully Gary will help me out by making some dinner some nights (hint hint). I'm hoping to get a cool lunch box as well, which for me, is very exciting (I know how much much of a geek I am and I feel no shame). This also means I might be able to upgrade my camera soon, which would make me so happy!