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!

It was Inevitable Really...

Yep, I got sucked into the Seitan O' Greatness malarkey just like everyone else in vegan blog land. I can tell you that all the hype hasn't been for nothing, this stuff is good. I don't usually like seitan, there's something about the texture that freaks me out, but this baked kind has a completely different texture than the usual boiled kind. Gary really likes it and he was an absolute pepperoni fiend in his omni days. We had a few slices on their own, and then had some more in sammiches for dinner. In the sammiches with the seitan is tomatoes, spinach, sprouts, and some vegan mayo.

*drools*

They were sooooooo good. Yum.

Mattar Tofu

I wasn't entirely sure what this dish was supposed to be like when I saw it in 20 Minutes To Dinner, but it looked nice so I thought I'd give it a shot.

It turned out like a very mild curry. It's very healthy, everything in it is either dry fried, or steam fried. It was tasty enough, and easy, but I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to make it again. It was good, not great.

Served with the obligatory brown rice, blah blah blah.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 3/5

Caldo Verde

This is apparently a traditional Portugese soup, although I have no idea how authentic this particular recipe is. This recipe is another one from Bryanna Clark Grogan's book, 20 Minutes To Dinner. It's a flovourful, nutrient dense, potato and kale soup.

I think I got some weird pleasure out of tipping an entire bag of kale into my soup pot, but then, I am very odd.

Bryanna Clark Grogan is obsessed with her blender! Once again she called for the onions and garlic to be blended. I didn't see the point, so I minced my garlic and diced my onions. Who minds a little bit of chunk in their soup? I'm not one for dirtying up my blender if I can get away with it, it's so awkward to clean! Anyhoo, it's a really hearty, filling soup, and it makes loads, so there are plenty of leftovers, and leftover soup is one of my favourite lunches.

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 1/5

Pasta Arrabiata with 'Meat'balls

I love arrabiata sauce, nut for some reason I rarely ever eat it, weird. The 'meat'balls are from The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook. I was really sceptical of them, but Gary wanted to try them and they were actually really good. They were really moist and tender, but held their shape well. In the recipe they're actually fried, but I just took an ice cream scoop, and scooped blobs into a muffin pan and baked them. I put them in the muffin pan to stop them sticking together, it was quite ingenious I thought, but I am easily amused. The pasta is whole wheat. We never eat white pasta nowadays, and I've never really noticed a difference in taste.

The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook is so retro! I particularly love the story about Uncle Bill, it made me chuckle, who knew old people were 'groovy'?

Chimichangas, Sour Cream, and Salsa

These were really good! So good in fact that I just had some leftovers for breakfast - Shh... Don't tell anyone...


The chimichangas are filled with a low fat refried bean recipe from Bryanna Clark Grogan's book, 20 Minutes To Dinner. Her recipe says to blend all the ingredients together, but I prefer my beans with a little bit of bite to them, so I mashed my beans and then just added the remaining ingredients. I think it was much better that way. The recipe makes loads, so I'm going to freeze some of the leftovers for quick dinners when I need them.

Chimichangas are fun to make, they're almost like Mexican spring rolls. You put a little line of filling into your corn tortilla, fold in the sides, and then roll it up. Traditionally they are deep fried, but I sprayed a teeny bit of oil on them and baked them, which worked just fine.

The sour cream is also from a recipe in 20 Minutes To Dinner. I was glad to find a recipe for sour cream as the Tofutti stuff seems to have disappeared from all the Health Stores here. It wasn't as good as Tofutti, but it was a helluva lot better for you, so it's a trade off. The salsa is boring old shop bought stuff, so nothing to write home about there.

I'm currently waiting on a few cookbooks that I ordered recently. It's a very exciting time for a cookbook junkie like me! I'm waiting on The New Farm Vegetarian Cookbook, The Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen, and Please Don't Feed The Bears. Anybody who has these books should leave me a comment with what to make first. I'm so excited! I love getting new cookbooks!

Gary's Dish Washing Rating - 4/5
The high rating is mainly because of the homemade sour cream, and our blender being a royal pain in the butt to clean. If you already had that made, or bought some, it would only be a 2.

Catching Up!

Sorry I haven't been blogging recently! I can't even use uni as an excuse because I'm on holiday just now. I'm just a bad, bad blogger! Anyhoo, I have been taking pictures so here's a few recent ones.

Oh. My. Gods. Where has sushi been all my life? I think I love it more than life itself! This was my first attempt at making sushi, and I think I did rather well, even if I do say so myself! I filled two rolls with the spicy tempeh filling from the PPK, and one with cucumber and avocado. Both fillings were absolutely delicious, but me and Gary both preferred the spicy tempeh filling. So, so good. If you haven't tried your hand at making sushi yet you should. It's easier than you would think. Oh! The dip we had with it was teriyaki, and it was delicious!

Next up are some cupcakes, unsurprisingly from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. As I've explained before I'm not a huge cupcake fan but my mum is coming up to visit tomorrow and she really loves carrot cake, so I thought I'd try the carrot cake ones. They're really good. Gary likes them even though he claims to hate carrot cake, but I have to agree they're not over carrot cakey. The cream cheese frosting is delicious. I was a little bit sceptical about putting the chopped walnuts around the edge because I'm not a huge fan of nuts on cakes, but they really added something to it.
Don't you just love my trolley? Over the years it's had many uses, from fruit bowl to lollipop holder, but today it will be a cake stand.