Last night I got to stuff my face with the most delightful vegan street food treats at Jackie Kearney’s book launch.
For those who haven’t heard of Jackie, she was one of the Masterchef finalists in 2011 and is a committed vegetarian.
Her latest book is called My Vegan Travels. Jackie has travelled a lot in South East Asia and picked up a ton of great ideas for cooking vegetarian and vegan food. Her previous book Vegan Street Food was along a similar theme, but her new book is focussed on super simple, comfort food recipes.
I got to munch my way through: shitake mushroom croquettes, bombay veg sandwiches, beetroot and watercress samosas and artichoke torta. All rather lovely. But the icing on the cake for me as a greedy sugar fiend, were the chai doughnuts with raspberry jam and soft pecan cookie ice-cream sandwiches (with a vegan malted coconut and blueberry ice-cream). Scrumptious.
The book looks absolutely superb, so if you want to buy an original Christmas gift for a cooking enthusiast, My Vegan Travels is a great shout.
I’ve totally slacked on reporting back on my last environmental challenge, which was doing a weekly shop at the Unicorn Grocery in Chorlton. For those who haven’t been following, in the last couple of months I set myself six enviromental food challenges to do over six weeks (all fun ones I might add!). The Unicorn is a co-operative serving a range of wholesome and organic foods, all sourced as locally as possible. Committing to shopping there felt like a small and enjoyable enviromental gesture.
Although I billed this trip as my ‘weekly shop’, the fact is on the day I was feeling lethargic, disorganised and grumpy. I failed to write a list or think about what we needed for the week, but just decided to tip up and see what I fancied. Despite my mardy mood, I took pleasure in my little jaunt to the Unicorn. I thought stuff it, I’ll just be experimental and buy some weird shit that looks interesting! This translated into vegan chocolate cake from the deli, cherries, peaches, alfafa sprouts, farro, sourdough rye bread, cashews with black pepper and other random bits and bobs.
In terms of conducting a serious experiment I can’t report back and tell you if you can do your weekly shop successfully in the Unicorn, I don’t think I could as it’s a vegan supermarket and there were a few practical basics missing for me. But it’s a great grocery shop – I felt especially heartened and happy to see all the beautifully, largely locally grown veg lovingly piled up at the front of the store. The veg looked more rugged and intriguing than the uniform produce you see in supermarkets. I’m down with that! Knowing that the money I was spending in the Unicorn was going to local farmers who put a lot of love and care into growing these veg was a nice feeling – one I’ve only recently becoming acquainted with.
My trip to the Unicorn piqued my curiousity and made me crave for a more wholesome shopping experience, where I get to be closer to the food chain and have an understanding of where my food has come from. And how lovely that the staff at the Unicorn all genuinely care about the food and know where it’s come from.
And! The peaches and cherries were EXCEPTIONAL – so so juicy and sweet, and the sourdough rye bread was really excellent too. Everything was good but those items stood out.
So what’s next for me and my quest to try a bit harder with the environment? Well I definitely still want to strive to continue my environmental education and see what I can do to improve my contribution to the planet, but as always it’s going to have to be fun! Watch this space – I’ll be telling you all about it soon.
So why vegan? If you’ve been following my blog, you’ll know that I’ve recently become a lot more curious about how I can make my own contribution to helping the environment – and going vegan would definitely be a good step – or eating more vegan food at least.
My other motivation is actually that I think it could be healthier – the more I read about the meat, fish and dairy industry, the more wary I am of what animals and fish are now eating (animals are fed antibiotics amongst other things and it sounds like all fish in the oceans are eating particles of plastic).
And my final reason is I’ve been increasingly inspired by the vegan food I’ve been eating lately. Having previously dismissed vegan food as dull and worthy, I’m enjoying the current explosion of exciting vegan restaurants, cookbooks and general noise around innovative vegan food. So I thought, why not give this cookery course a whirl and see if I can discover some interesting new food.
The gorgeous Vegetarian Society Cookery School building in Altrincham
And as it turns out, my choice of cookery course was EXCELLENT!
Between 9.30am and 3.30pm we cooked 17 dishes. And not 17 versions of tofu and vegetable burger, but properly inspiring stuff: mayonnaise, meringues, meaty (but not meat of course) suet pudding, pizza, chocolate cake, paella, ackee and tofu stir fry, wonton dumpling soup, a vegetable pastry plait and a load of other stuff too.
Suet pudding – very indulgent and definitely my favourite dishVegan pizza
Not only did everything we cooked taste delicious, but Alex, the chef and trainer, was such a font of knowledge and enthusiasm. We bombarded him with questions – about veganism and health (in particular vitamin B12!), about where to get ingredients, about the Vegetarian Society, and he generously shared his knowledge. He was a truly infectious teacher. And not only did we have a lovely snack break at midday (quesadillas, bruscetta, scrambled tofu and a crazy spicy tofu pate called Soloman Gundy), but we also got a second ‘full’ feast to dive into of everything else we cooked at 2.30pm. Eating all this food made me an extremely happy lady.
Whilst I don’t have any plans to go fully vegan, I’m very keen to try more vegan food, and this course has given me a confidence boost. In fact I can feel a new challenge coming on! How about I commit to cooking at least one delicious vegan meal a week? And obviously I’ll blog about my meals. Watch this space and please give me your favourite vegan recipes to try.
Well I’m pretty excited to tell you about what I’ve been eating this week. It’s been adventurous.
Let’s start on Tuesday when I went to the new healthy cafe that opened in Altrincham a few weeks ago. It’s called Common Ground and it’s run by three retired Olympians. That in itself makes it worth a visit. It’s a gorgeous venue – it’s utterly instagrammable with a beautiful minamalist interior and a lovely bright yard with colourful furniture. Oh and it’s got cute real life dogs. They specialise in great coffees and healthy cakes, although apparently they will be serving healthy food and (not so healthy) booze soon. I loved the vibe of the place, it was relaxed, friendly and inspiring. And the sugar free, gluten free pistachio and rose cake I ate was truly excellent.
Rose and pistachio cakeCommon Ground’s utterly Instagrammable yard
And on Tuesday evening I embarked on my own healthy cake project. I’d been browsing through my Love Bake, Nourish cookbook and liked the look of the chesnut and chocolate cake. Instead of flour you use chestnut puree (500g of the stuff) and ground walnuts. I can confirm that it tastes as delicious as it looks. Very moist, sweet and fudgy. I will be baking this again as it’s one of my favourite cakes of 2017 and guilt free too.
Chestnut and chocolate cake
Things got even more experimental on Wedsnesday. I have wanted to try deep fried courgette flowers for a long time as I’d heard they are rather exceptional. So as our abundant courgette plants were flowering this week I pounced on the opportunity. We used a Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall recipe which involved stuffing the flowers with ricotta and fresh herbs, dipping them in a flour and sparkling water batter and deep frying them for a few minutes. We served these crispy delights on a plate of our own home grown nasturium leaves and flowers. We were pretty amazed at a) how good they looked and b) how incredibly tasty the were.
Deep fried courgette flours with ricotta and herb stuffing
On Saturday we ventured into town to test out the newly opened Mayfield. Basically this is a bunch of lovely street food stalls hosted in the old Mayfield Railway Depot by Piccadilly station, featuring different cutting edge street stalls every week. Have a look at the photo of the top of the blog to give you a flavour. It was a fab friendly atmosphere, and whilst there weren’t a lot of stalls (perhaps six or seven in total), the food on offer was top notch. I opted for a healthy and delicious mung dahl with roasted cauliflower, Jamie also went vegan but junk food vegan! He chose a Vietnamese vegan hot dog and fries. I resisted the doughnut stall but when Jamie appeared with a cornflake and custard doughnut, I ended up scoffing an awful lot of Jamie’s!
Mung dahl with roast cauliflower
On our trip home from Mayfield’s because I hadn’t had a ‘full’ pudding having only had bites of Jamie’s doughnut, I felt I deserved a treat, so I nipped into the new Leon at Manchester Piccadilly and grabbed a gluten free brownie made with coffee, dark chocolate and orange zest. It was lovely!
That’s it for this week, if you have any tips on interesting foodie places to go in Manchester do comment below, I’m always looking for ideas.
I will set you straight right now. I failed to complete my week of veganism. I failed within the first half a day. By 12.30pm on Sunday I’d taken a big bite out of a courgette cake (full of butter and eggs). I hadn’t forgotten about my challenge, I just wanted the cake.
I thought because I love A LOT of vegan food (especially curries with coconut milk in) that not eating meat, butter, milk, eggs and fish for a week would be fine. But I was instantly bored and frustrated at the prospect. It felt like I was restricting and punishing myself, and I didn’t like it.
However, on a positive note, I did have a few delicious vegan meals and treats during my week, so I will celebrate those occasions with you:
Homemade vegan millionaire’s shortbread from the Foodie Teen cookbook. The shortbread was made with ground almonds and coconut oil, the ‘caramel’ from dates and peanut butter and the top layer was 85% cocoa chocolate. They were very delicious. And as they were ‘sort of’ healthy I decided they were also an appropriate breakfast item!
Dinner out at the new Cambodian restaurant Angkor Soul in Marple. On Sundays they do a vegan only menu. It’s a modest little venue, but the food is amazing. I ordered a noodle and tofu dish which was tasty, but not as incredible as Jamie’s ‘Cambodian kari’ – a curry made with lemongrass, sweet potatoes, peppers, peanuts, coconut milk, seitan and served with chilli fried rice. I was so envious that Jamie agreed to swap dinners with me. He is the best boyfriend.
Coconut dal with spring greens from my ‘Riverford’ Spring/Summer cookbook. The coconut milk made this dish so creamy and rich. I challenge any carnivore to crave meat after eating this for dinner.
Spicy spinach and chickpeas with rice. Not as more-ish as the coconut dal, but still a really nice dinner.
This time I had billionaire’s shortbread at Leon’s restaurant. They do a range of ‘healthy-ish’ snacks, but this was the only vegan one I could find. The description read a ‘date and polenta shortbread based top with date caramel and dark chocolate’. So pretty similar to my millionaire’s one and extremely melty and chocolately and amazing.
Millionaire’s shortbreadCambodian kari at Angkor Soul in MarpleCoconut dal and spring greensSpicy chickpeas and spinachVegan billionaire’s shortbread
Despite not succeeding this week, I will continue to experiment with vegan recipes as there are some tremendously tasty and creative vegan food ideas out there. And the added bonus of vegan food being healthy and good for the planet gives it an extra feel good factor.
This week’s environmental challenge is to ‘shop locally and ethically’ by going to the Unicorn Grocery in Chorlton. I will also endeavour to chat to staff and find out a bit more about the shop’s values and how they operate. I’ll be back next week to fill you in.
As part my series of food challenges to be kinder to the environment, this week we’ve been playing ‘Ready Steady Cook’ in an attempt to use up the leftovers in our cupboards. Normally I’d choose a recipe, buy a shed load of ingredients and sadly be left with creme fraiche/yoghurt/herbs/celery or something or other that would end up rotting in the fridge. Not this week though, this week we would be food waste heroes.
I grabbed the various packets languishing in our cupboards and plonked them on the kitchen top so I could assess what we needed to get through. Here’s a little sample of what we had: an abundance of lentils, several kilograms of chickpea flour and rye flour, rye grains, black beans, bulgar wheat, pearl barley, various pastas, noodles, spirulina and a load of other weird stuff. Not altogether inspiring really.
The rules of this week were not so strict that I couldn’t buy additional food items, but I wanted to try and choose some recipes that would start using these bits and pieces up.
My proudest meal was definitely the first. We made potato curry and chickpea flatbreads and we only had to buy coriander and tumeric. It was insanely good and it felt exotic and fancy too. I found both recipes by googling around.
Potato curry and chickpea flatbreads
We chipped away at the rye flour reserves by making a delicious rye bread from The Green Kitchen cookbook. We undercooked it slightly, but nothing a bit grilling couldn’t sort out.
Rye bread
Another tasty inspired number was Turkish barley and lentil salad with tahini dressing from Molly Brown’s Grains cookbook – we had to buy tahini and rocket, but we made a signifiant dent in the barley and lentil stocks. I honestly thought this sounded unbelievably boring – lentils and pearl barley and some carrots – how dull can you get? How wrong I was – it was in fact the very best Middle Eastern spice party in your mouth.
On Thursday our Riverford vegetable box arrived – not very Ready Steady Cook, but it’s good for the environment so I decided to incorporate it. We got clever with the butternut squash we received, we baked it and then stuffed it with leftover Turkish barley and lentil salad from the night before – it looked and tasted superb.
Turkish barley and lentil salad with tahini dressing
Butternut squash stuffed with Turkish barley and lentil salad
Finally Friday saw us making a quinoa, chicken and black bean number from the Grain cookbook – I got a bit cocky and decided to use bulgur wheat instead of quinoa and completely demolished our black bean supply. What a victory – bulgur wheat worked, the dinner was ace and our shelves were feeling positively minimalist compared to the beginning of the week.
Pearl barley, chicken and black beans
Ready Steady Cook-ing our recipes has been a revelation to me. It’s made me approach cooking in such an inventive way. I’ve started looking on ingredient packaging for cooking ideas and scouring cookbooks by the pulse, grain or vegetable I have to hand, not just picking the meal I fancy. I would argue that it’s a much more creative process than just deciding on any old recipe and buying the ingredients because you have to be so much more resourceful and imaginative. In fact I’ve enjoyed it so much I’m going to carry on for another week – I’m feeling a bit addicted to concocting amazing dinners with weird looking lentils and flours.
After the success of my reboot, I was hungry for a new challenge. I really enjoyed taking gentle steps to improve my well being.
So, what next?
Something I’ve been discussing with friends recently is how whilst I’m really bothered and worried about the environment, I fail to do anything particularly proactive about it.
Yes I cycle, I recycle, I’m careful about food waste and where I can I will take my unwanted possessions to a charity shop. But beyond that I do little. And if I’m honest I’ve happily turned a bit of a blind eye to the worrying state of the environment, because it’s too frightening to spend too much time thinking about. And it often seems expensive and time consuming to care about the environment.
For example I love shopping with Amazon Prime – I mainline books and it’s the cheapest fastest way for me to get hold of them.
But I’m aware that:
a) I hate the way Amazon pack products excessively
b) I know Amazon have a bad environmental record
c) Personally I don’t really want to be lining the pockets of Amazon billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos
But unfortunately despite my political and environmental vaguely good intentions, I’m lazy, busy and have little cash to work out an alternative.
And apart from my Amazon habit, I, like most people in the UK, consume a lot of stuff. I like nice clothes, meals out, I shop at supermarkets, I go abroad several times a year.
However, I’m not ready to radicalise my life just yet, but just like my 6 week reboot, I think it would be fun and interesting to attempt some baby steps to improve my ‘greeness’. I want to approach it in a creative, realistic way that won’t feel like punishment and will benefit me.
Unsurprisingly as a foodie, I’ve chosen food to be my focus. And in the spirit of the reboot I’m going to give myself 6 weeks to approach this challenge, choosing a different task each week.
This is what I’ve come up with:
Start growing my own veg
Get a veg box – it will contain local produce with no plastics and minimum packaging
Use up as many random abandoned ingredients in my cupboards and freezer as possible
Go foraging and cook with the finds
Go vegan for a week – mass produced dairy and meat is known to leave a massive carbon footprint – going vegan is a good green option
Do my weekly shop from the Unicorn organic produce and wholefoods shop in Chorlton and chat with the employees to find out a bit more about the ethos behind the shop
Watch out for my weekly updates and if you have any tips or thoughts on the subject, please do comment!
What a pro at watering the gardening! Oh man, have I broken this? Yay! Nailing it again!
I wanted to tell you about some of the food I’ve been eating on the hoof in Manchester. And I’ve stumbled upon some rather excellent venues!
Scrancoats at Ancoats General Store
A couple of weeks ago I checked out ‘Scrancoats’ at the Ancoats General Store. These were weekly pop ups that ran from January to March at the very cool Ancoats General Store cafe. Each week there would be a different stall serving food. When I heard the vegan restaurant Allotment would be featuring I knew I had to go to that one.
I rocked up to find cauliflower hot wings and vegan cheeseboards on offer. As I perused my choices Matthew Nutter, the Allotment chef and owner, offered me a lump of vegan cheese to try. Made from coconut oil and macadamia nuts I was amazed to discover it was not only delicious but tasted of cheese.
In the end I opted for the cauliflower hot wings and these crispy treats were much tastier than any Kentucky Fried Chicken I’ve ever had.
Matthew Nutter, head chef at the Allotment with his colleagueCauliflower hot wings
Fusion Lab, Arndale Market
Fusion Lab bao buns are very very popular. We’d heard a lot about them, and last time we attempted to buy some on a saturday they were sold out by 1pm. We made sure to get there early this time. I’d had a tip off that the fish tacos were good too. Everything exceeded expectation and it was a delightfully cheap saturday lunch. Topped off by bumping into our friend Simon on the train into town, and getting him to join us on our bao bun adventure.
Simon’s afternoon was improved immeasurably by us introducing him to bao bunsBao bunsFish tacos
Simone’s Healthy Bakery, Arndale Market
I have been stalking Simone’s Bakery all this year. Their healthy cakes are incredible. They do a mixture of gluten/dairy free and vegan cakes. I was a bit gutted to hear that they are reformatting and will be opening as a healthy lunch venue instead, apparently in the vein of Kettle Bell Kitchen. Whilst disappointed that they won’t have quite the same extensive range of cakes with this new venture, I’m excited to test out their lunch offerings when they re-open.
Simone’s Healthy BakeryVegan vanilla and chocolate swirl cupcakes
Wolfhouse Kitchen and Little Window, Altrincham Market
Recently I’ve been going to Market House at Altrincham Market as often as I can. I love it! It’s a beautiful building, there’s a fantastic buzz and the food is really orignal and of such a high standard. In particular I’ve been enjoying a lot of cakes from Wolfhouse Kitchen Bakery and I had amazing morcilla black pudding, poached eggs, romesco sauce and sourdough from Little Window. Romesco sauce is like a spanish version of pesto made with sherry, tomato and almonds. It’s gorgeous.
Altrincham MarketButterscotch rocky roadMaple sticky bunMorcilla black pudding, poached eggs, romesco sauce and sourdough
Pop ups, street stalls and markets are definitely on my radar at the moment. There are a lot out there producing fantastic, experimental food. And because it’s so affordable I can keep going back and trying more. Please let me know if you have recommendations as I’m keen to get tips. Top of my hit list at the moment is Gud the vegan stall on the outside of Altrincham Market. I’ve heard their bean burgers are epic.
I’m really glad I bought Thug Kitchen because some of the recipes just absolutely blew my mind. However, quite a few didn’t, so it’s a bit of a mixed bag. And the swearing is just plain annoying.
It’s an american vegan cookbook and there is swearing on every page which feels a bit desperate and gimmicky. However some of the food is epic, so I got over my irritation.
The biggest revelations for me were roasted chickpea and broccoli burritos and roasted beer and lime cauliflower tacos with coriander and salsa – these recipes alone were worth the price of the book. A taste sensation.
However I regret attempting any of their healthy cakes – they were really average compared to the other delicious ‘virtuous’ cakes I’ve been making lately in my attempt to give up ice-cream.
So here’s the lowdown on what we cooked.
Favourites
Roasted chickpea and broccoli burritos. I will be cooking these again. It was like having a flavour and texture party in my mouth.
Smoky black-eyed peas with roasted sweet potatoes and collards. I thought this looked like quite a boring recipe. I was very wrong. It packed a punch and tasted fantastic.
Ginger sesame marinaded tofu and creamy peanut slaw. Who needs meat or diary when you have marinaded tofu and peanut coleslaw. Really interesting combo.
Roasted beer and lime cauliflower tacos with coriander and salsa. I felt like I died and gone to heaven. Everyone needs to try this dish.
Roasted chickpea and broccoli burritosSmoky black-eyed peas with roasted sweet potatoes and collardsGinger sesame marinaded tofu and creamy peanut slawRoasted beer and lime cauliflower tacos with coriander and salsa
The More Average
5 spice fried rice with sweet potatoes. Actually this was pretty tasty, it just wasn’t up there with the cauliflower tacos.
Maple oat banana bread. This was quite nice, a little dry, but a bit of peanut butter spread on top perked it up.
Blueberry and walnut scones. Now I’m really into my healthy cakes so I was a bit disappointed that there was white sugar in this recipe. However all the other ingredients were healthy, but unfortunately I was just a bit indifferent to the flavour.
White bean and red lentil burgers and root veggie fries. The burgers were just too dry. The fries were good though.
5 spice fried rice with sweet potatoesMaple oat banana breadBlueberry and walnut sconesWhite bean and red lentil burgers and root veggie fries
I would definitely recommend this book, but don’t cook the cakes and stick to the mexican style dishes as that’s what they seem to be best at. I am definitely keen to return to Thug Kitchen, because there’s clearly some magic going on with many of the recipes – the cauliflower tacos and brocilli burritos are two of the best things I’ve eaten this year.
In my recent blog post Confessions of an Ice-Cream Addict I admitted I have a bit of a problem with this frozen snack. Here’s an update on my attempt to rein my habit in.
First things first. I’m still eating ice-cream, in fact I had a fantastic scoop of the stuff last night at the cinema. However I would argue that I’ve made huge progress in discovering that my problem is not the ice-cream. It’s what’s driving me to eat the ice-cream.
Michelle Pratt a weight loss coach has been rummaging around in my head to try and find out why my daily hit is so important to me and the benefit I’m gaining from it.
We discovered it’s a crutch for me. Whilst I’m thoroughly enjoying setting up my own business as a social media coach, it can be scary, exhausting and lonely. I don’t know how things are going to pan out so I’m consciously and subconsciously dealing with a lot of uncertainty. I also have to be incredibly motivated every day. There’s no one to tell me what to do or tell me off if I don’t do it. And I’m learning all the time. How to take better photos, how to file for my taxes, how to use photoshop, how to load various plug ins onto my blog, how to optimise hashtags on instagram. I love learning but it’s tiring. So ice-cream has become my certainty and my comfort. However much of a rollercoaster of a day I have I know I can count of my bowl of Ben and Jerrys.
This was a revelation to me. Michelle and I are now going to explore exactly which of my needs aren’t being met in my day to day work life. And then if we can figure out a way of meeting those needs, we might be able to curb my sweet tooth.
Michelle busy figuring out why I eat ice-cream
Alongside the sessions with Michelle I’ve also started to look at healthier alternatives for my sweet tooth and I’ve made some enjoyable discoveries. First of all I’ve become a big fan of Simone’s Healthy Bakery at the Arndale Centre in Manchester. They have a variety of options, mainly gluten free, diary free and vegan. And you really wouldn’t know, they all just taste like great cakes. In the photo of me at the top of the blog I’m devouring a vegan and gluten free matcha cupcake. It was incredible.
Simone’s Bakery vegan vanilla and chocolate swirl cupcakes
I’ve also had a dabble at making my own healthy cakes. I tried Hemsley and Hemsley ginger biscuits made with ground almonds and maple syrup and they were pretty good. But the real triumph were the Hemsley and Hemsley brownies made with black beans and raw cacao. They were way too good to be healthy.
My Hemsley and Hemsley ginger biscuitsHemsley and Hemsley black bean brownie
Whilst I haven’t quite nailed this healthy eating/giving up ice-cream lark yet. I’m delighted with the support I’m getting with Michelle and feel that when we truly get to the root of why I’ve become so dependent on ice-cream and how to get those needs met in a more helpful way, I won’t be quite so dependent on my evening fix.
katyascakehole 