Weekends

A couple of weekend's ago Matt's nephew Jono came over to visit. Jono has a vintage clothing business and if you're into that sort of thing I suggest checking out the Captains Locker. He gets some great stuff and 50% of the profits go to charity. Whilst he was visiting we put together a little vegan buffet. The orange stuff is a new sweet potato dip that the Co-Op have just started selling.

On the Sunday night we attempted a barbeque. The Vegusto mushroom and cheese burgers were wonderful and barbecued really well. Sadly the corn on the cob which you can see still on the grill was a big fail and managed to be both over and undercooked at the same time!

Last weekend we went on a little trip and travelled from Glossop in Derbyshire to Ripponden in West Yorkshire by using two local buses. We travelled over hills and saw some stunning scenery and the second bus stopped literally on my friend Sarah's doorstep! The first bus took us to Huddersfield. We had about an hour and a half there and had a look around. I'd not had much luck searching online before we left for somewhere with vegan food. We saw one place but it was a bit of a walk from the centre and we didn't have much time. Coffeevolution came up with the goods though. I ordered the bagel with vegan pate and olives. I was expecting it to be the Granovita stuff from a tin but it turned out to be amazing homemade pate served in a toasted seeded bagel. One word, gorgeous and my soya latte was great too.

Matt ordered the hummus salad platter and they veganised it by leaving the butter of the toast and subbing it for an olive oil and balsamic mix.  The humus had nice flavour and texture and the olives were good quality too. We really liked this place. There was a good buzz to it and it was great to find somewhere independent to support.

Huddersfield continued to come up with the goods when we discoved Half Moon Healthfoods next to the bus station. This was a great little shop and we got some wine and treats to take to Sarah's and some of these non dairy icecreams by Jollyum to eat on the bus. It's made in Yorkshire and is just available there at the moment. Hopefully it will make it's way to Manchester soon as it was great. Matt had the Maple and Pecan flavour and I went for the Passion Fruit and Chocolate which I'm still thinking about now and I wish we'd been able to try the other flavours.

The great food continued when Sarah made us a tea of beautiful salads. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture but we did get one of the dessert. This was an amazing chocolate pudding served with homemade almond biscuits, strawberries and raspberries. The pudding recipe was from The New Enchanted Broccoli Forest which is a book I'd not come across before and is made with melted chocolate and almond milk and is thickened with cornflour. It was really delicious.

So it's been a couple of relaxing weekends before a very busy couple of months. There's trips to London and a wedding and I'm going along to some of the festivals that Matt will be playing at. He's on a the Green Gathering and The Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival but first of all he is playing Glastonbury! Billy Bragg has asked him to be part of the Radical Roundup Singer Songwriters event on the Saturday afternoon. Read more about it here. I've never been to a festival where I've camped before so it's all very exciting.