New Vegan Range At Tesco

So, who here has heard the good news? Tesco have launched a new range of chilled Free From products, all of which are vegan friendly. Excited? You should be. The range consists of:

• Sweetened soya milk
• Unsweetened soya milk
• Almond milk
• Hazelnut milk
• Rice milk
• Coconut milk
• Chocolate coconut milk

• Raspberry jelly
• Pineapple and passionfruit jelly

• Vanilla soya dessert
• Chocolate soya dessert
• Creme caramel
• Chocolate dessert shakes
• Vanilla dessert shakes

• Large pots of plain soy yogurt
• Large pots of mixed berry soy yogurt
• 4 x cherry soy yogurts
• 4 x mango soy yogurts
• 4 x raspberry and passionfruit soy yogurts
• 4 x peach soy yogurts

• Mild cheddar style hard cheese
• Red cheddar style hard cheese
• Creamy garlic and herb spread
• Creamy sweet chilli spread
• Creamy original style spread
• Creamy cheddar style spread

• Soya margarine
• Sunflower margarine

I genuinely could not believe my eyes when I walked into the Thornton Heath Tesco Superstore and found this. An entire section of foods that were all mine...MINE:

There are a few things that make this so exciting for me. It looks like these aren't manufactured by Tesco but Tesco are repackaging vegan products into this new brand. The cheeses are definitely made by Bute Island Foods, the lovely people who bring us Sheese. I'm taking a guess that the yogurts are Provamel, though I can't say for certain. This is a great opportunity for vegan friendly companies, to be picked up by such a huge supermarket chain. The products are also guaranteed to be edible if you like these brands which means no disgusting fake cheeses bringing down the vegan team!

Also, what a huge step forward to have an entirely vegan section like this in the chilled aisles! I still can't quite believe that all of these products are vegan. I'm constantly disappointed by the Free From aisles in supermarkets catering towards gluten free only, putting eggs or dairy into products that don't even need them. Hopefully this new range will be successful and we'll start seeing more dairy, egg and gluten free cakes/biscuits/puddings in the supermarkets. It's also good that they seem to be keeping all of these products in one section, it really did stand out when I found it. The only annoying thing was that the bottom shelf of the chiller was full of nasty lacto free cheeses and creams. Ugh! Hopefully customers will choose to buy the delicious, healthier and more ethical products over that crap.

Unfortunately this range hasn't been launched in every store. Animal Aid were good enough to post a link to the stores currently stocking the range here. Otherwise give your local branch a call to find out if they stock it or let them know that the demand is there for it. I'm not Tesco's biggest fan but it is great to see such a large variety of vegan products in a mainstream shop. Hopefully the range will be successful and other supermarkets will pick up on this soon.

So far I've tried the sweet chilli spread and the vanilla dessert shake, both were delicious. I'm looking forward to having a creme caramel tonight. Here's a photo of the stash I bought today to tempt you:

Green Pancakes

As all pancake fans know, yesterday was Pancake Day (I refuse to call it Shrove Tuesday, it's all about the batter for me).

I usually go a bit mental over pancakes on this special day because for the rest of the year I forget how much I freaking love them. I really do like to base my whole day around pancakes. Unfortunately I'm not a student or unemployed so I no longer have this luxury. Work destroyed one of my favourite days of the year and because of this, I only had a measly three pancakes...THREE.

So, I decided to make at least one of them count and went a bit experimental. I give you:

Spinach Pancakes filled with Creamy Mushrooms & Chickpeas

For the batter:

• 100g plain white flour
• 2 tbsp soy flour or more plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• a dash of salt
• 100ml water
• 125ml soya milk
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2-3 handfuls of spinach leaves, washed

1. Put the flour/s into a large bowl along with the salt and baking powder
2. Add the water, milk and oil and whisk with a fork until combined and there are no lumps.
3. Set the batter aside for about 45 minutes - 1 hour. While you're waiting, finely chop or puree the spinach. I add this in just before frying.
4. Once the batter is ready to fry, make sure you've added the spinach. Drizzle a little oil into a non stick frying pan and heat it up.
5. When the pan is ready add the batter, hold the pan up and gently turn so that all of the mixture moves to the sides of the pan. You get a nice round pancake that way and not some vomit-like splodge to work with.
6. Cook for a few minutes on each side.
7. Serve with creamy mushrooms or another savoury filling of your choice.

Makes 2 large pancakes

For the creamy mushrooms:

• 1 tbsp soya butter
• 8 mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced/finely chopped
• 1/2 tin of chickpeas, drained
• splash of soy sauce
• 1 tbsp of cornflour mixed with 2 tbsp water
• a generous splash of soya milk
• Parsley, chopped - optional

1. Melt the butter in a small pan and add the mushrooms. Fry until soft.
2. Add the garlic and soy sauce and cook for a further few minutes.
3. Add the cornflour mix and as much milk as you need. Then add the chickpeas.
4. Keep on a medium heat and stir until the cornflour thickens.
5. Simmer for 5-10 minutes. Stir in parsley before serving.

Fills 2 large pancakes with a bit leftover. I had the leftovers stirred into some pasta for lunch today. It was ace.

These pancakes were great and they went green, which amused me greatly. You can minus the spinach and use the same batter for other savoury or sweet pancakes. I did another batch after this one and had lemon and sugar for my last 2, a classic and definitely my favourite way of having them. The spinach is a pretty good runner up though.

Turd in the Hole

I apologise for the crudeness but the name Toad in the Hole sounds very unvegan to me, I'm feeling very unimaginative and the sausages do kind of look like turds, so I think Turd in the Hole is a winner.

I always avoided this dish both before and after going vegan because batter and sausage sounds so bland and unhealthy to me, I like to have at least some kind of vegetable with my meal. Why I only recently discovered I could add veggies to this, I don't know. It tastes so much nicer this way and instead of being bland and unhealthy, it's just delicious and unhealthy. Win!

This recipe makes a huge tray of the stuff so cut it down if you don't want enough to feed about 6 people. I like to make twice as much as I need so I can clog my arteries for longer.

Turd in the Hole

For the batter:

• 150g soya marg
• 400ml soya milk
• 300ml water
• 450g plain flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tsp baking powder
• Vegetable oil

For the filling:

• 1 small tin of sweetcorn/1 cup frozen sweetcorn
• 1 handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 red pepper, cut into chunks
• 1 onion, roughly chopped
• 1/2 broccoli, cut into florets
• 1 handful or so of mushrooms sliced
• 6 sausages (I make mine from suma sausage mix, but ready made ones would work just fine)

You can use different veggies, this is just my usual combination and it works really well.

1. Put the flour, soy milk, salt and baking powder into a large bowl. Melt the marg in a small pan and ad to the mix. Give it a good stir until there are no lumps.
2. Set aside for half an hour.
3. Preheat the oven to 200C
4. Pour a good few tbsp worth of oil into a large roasting tin. I like to make sure I coat the whole of the tin and heat in the oven for 10 minutes.
5. Get it out and immediately pour the batter into the hot oil so that it starts to cook straight away. Scatter the veggies over the mix and place the sausages on top as well.
6. Put back in the oven for 30-40 minutes, until crisp.

I can't explain to you how awesome this recipe is, it's a great comfort meal after a really bad day at work. I've already been plotting with my housemate to create a sweet, chocolatey version of this, will report back if it goes well.

Citrus Grape Cake

Every Christmas I choose to forget that I hate mince pies and I hate Christmas pudding in the hope that one day, I'll like them. But the fact is they're nasty, fruity and frankly, just a little bit shit. Last Christmas I managed to stop myself going out and wasting my money on things that I don't like, and I made this instead. It was a much tastier option for pudding, even though I was a bit wary of putting grape in a cake.

Excuse the mixed up measurements. I got the idea from a magazine, veganized it and made a few changes so there's cups and grams all over the place.

Citrus Grape Cake

• 200ml sherry
• 200g brown sugar
• 100g soya margarine
• 1/4 cup blended silken tofu
• 1 cup of soy milk with 1 tbsp cider vinegar added and left to curdle
• zest of 1 orange
• zest of 1 lemon
• 175ml olive oil
• 225g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 175g grapes, halved
• 4-5 tbsp brown sugar

1. Pour the sherry into a small saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Leave to cool.
2. Heat the oven to 180C and grease a 23cm springform cake tin with oil/soy butter
3. Beat the sugar and butter until creamy, add the soy milk and tofu and then stir in the zests.
4. Add the olive oil to the sherry and then add to the cake mix.
5. Fold in the flour and baking powder a little at a time until it is well mixed and the batter is smooth.
6. Pour the mix into the tin and smooth over the top. Scatter the grapes on top of the mixture and then sprinkle on the last of the brown sugar.
7. Bake for 40-60 mins until you can put a knife into the middle of the cake and it comes out clean.
8. Serve with soya cream, soya custard or vegan ice cream

Well, hello there...

Well, I should probably explain my absence. And what better way to explain than through a lengthy blog post?

So here's the thing, I have this really useless and annoying skill. I'm incredibly good at avoiding things that need doing. I'll avoid doing simple, easy things even if it makes my life harder to avoid doing them. I'll often hide from things for so long that all of a sudden they'll become a bit of an issue. And the more of an issue they become the more I'll avoid doing them. It's a horrible and pointless cycle, but like I say, I'm great at doing it.

One of my best examples of this was back when I was at college. We had to do IT at college, it was compulsory, no exceptions. I hated my first IT lesson, it was tedious. I knew it all already and didn't want to spend an hour a week doing some stupid project. So I skipped a class, it was just the one, no big deal. A drama trip and illness meant that I missed another 2 classes. When I returned to college I knew that it was very important to get back to IT, I'd not been there for 3 weeks and I was pretty far behind.

Throughout the day the pressure became unbearable for me. I started thinking about how behind I would be, I spoke to a few people who had almost finished all their coursework. I started to worry. I worried so much that when I got to the classroom door I couldn't go in. I turned around and went home. I went through this process every week for the next 5 months. Yes, that's right...5 months. Why my college didn't do anything about this, I don't know. If I'd been given a boot up the arse it would have been easier to go back. I didn't want to be the one to go into that room and explain to the teacher that I'd only been to the first lesson and hadn't even touched the coursework.

This is pretty much what I imagined would happen if I went back to IT:

Now I don't particularly like my face, but I didn't want children running away from it, crying. Also, my arms are quite useful, as are my fingers and hands. Who wants to end up with T-Rex-like stumps? Not me. So now maybe you can kind of understand why I avoided it for so long.

The whole situation ended horribly. I became a nervous wreck and had a bit of a breakdown that resulted in a meeting with three members of staff and my mother who decided that I was completely ridiculous for avoiding the situation for so long, that it was pointless to even be meeting over this and that it would no longer be compulsory for me to do IT if it was causing me that much grief. It wasn't that big a deal apparently. Yet somehow I'd managed to turn it into some huge issue, so huge that I confronted it only after I'd gone a bit mental.

Needless to say, it isn't one of my proudest moments. It's something I look back on and wonder how it happened and why I even gave a shit. I can laugh about it now but this is the kind of pointless and stupid situation I'll often find myself in. This is kind of what happened with me and this blog. The one positive is that this time I didn't go mental over it, I just got the guilts every time I saw the words Hasta La Vegan...which is quite a lot considering that it's my username on Twitter.

My original reason for avoiding this blog is that honestly, I was having a crappy time. I was really sick, which I've already blogged about but recovery has been (and still is) ongoing. I lost a lot of things that meant a lot to me - Tantor, (the grumpiest and one of the best guinea pigs that has ever lived), Terk (who I had to make the difficult decision of rehoming and who is also the other best guinea pig to ever live), a dream job that I loved, which took a fair chunk of my confidence away, and finally a relationship with someone I considered a best friend that took the remainder of my confidence along with it. In fact, the only thing I didn't lose at that point was some freakin' weight!

R.I.P Tantor - The only photo I managed to get of him looking totally innocent <3

Food and eating wasn't a priority at the time, so I didn't have much to blog about and I was on a total downer anyway so didn't feel like talking to anyone. Things have improved since then. I lodge with some awesome vegans and 2 adorable cats. One of which is my new room mate and has a love of all boxes, big or small:

The smaller the box, the better

I also have a job. Not the dream job I wanted, but it's a job. I've been thinking about blogging again for the last 4 months, but it's not my style to get off my arse and just do it, I decided to feel bad about it and avoid the situation instead.

But here I am. I'm back and I'm determined to keep my blog going. I'm not going to promise regularity because I'm always busy, I work shifts and my life is all over the place these days. But, when I cook something great and have the time to spare, I'll put it up on here.

So, I'm sorry I've been away. I realise one of my last posts was about how ill I was and I promised an update which I never gave, so I apologise if anyone worried over that. I have an amazing recipe for a Citrus Grape Cake that I'm going to post in the next few hours if that makes up for my months of abandonment.

Hopefully it does, keep your eyes peeled. If not, here's a video that might just make up for it instead: