Tea and Sympatico

I've you've ever looked at the Cake Liberation Front recipe blog you'll see that it's no secret that I love a tea loaf. There's recipes on there for gluten free rum and raisin Pirate Bread, Orange and Pecan Rooibos Tea Bread and Chocolate, Stout and Cranberry Tea Bread amongst others. After a mince pie fail (I left my filo pastry out of the fridge too long and it totally dried out) I had a jar of mincemeat that needed using up so I came up with this on Christmas Eve.


Vegan Mincemeat Tea Loaf

Ingredients

2 cups of plain flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of cinammon
1/2 cup of caster sugar
1/4 cup of sunflower oil
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 cup of mincemeat (I used Meridian Organic)
1 egg replacer egg (I used Orgran)
1/4 cup of flaked almonds
2 tablespoons of brandy
1 cup of soyamilk (I used blue Alpro)

Pre-heat the oven to 350F/ 180C/ Gas 4

Method

Grease and flour a loaf tin
Sieve the ingredients…

I've been lucky to have not one but three amazing Christmas dinners this year. The first one was the week before Christmas at Topaz Cafe in Ashton. I've blogged about Topaz before as it's a favourite lunch spot of mine and Matt's but they don't usually open in the evenings so this was a special festive one off. To start with Matt went for a lovely velvety smooth leek, chestnut and sage soup whereas I opted for Asian Tofu. I have to say that this was some of the most amazing tofu I've ever tasted. The texture was perfectly crispy on the outside yet soft on the inside. It was really infused with flavour and there was a very tasty coleslaw on the side.

Our main was a cranberry and cashew nut filo with all the trimmings and a fantastic gravy.


Dessert was a sticky toffee pudding with icecream and the meal was rounded off with coffee and truffles.


Christmas dinner number two was organised by Manchester Vegan Society and was hosted by Martin the Mod at the Thirsty Sc…

I thought I'd post an old recipe of mine as it's got some nice seasonal flavours going on and is just perfect for this time of year. I can remember exactly when I devised this recipe. It was a few years back when I was struck down with flu on Boxing Day. This really was flu not just a cold and I wasn't able to get out of bed until New Years Day sadly missing out on a New Years Trip to London. I had finally started feeling better and wanted a treat to nibble on whilst lying on the sofa watching films. So here is my incredibly easy recipe for Chocolate, Stout and Cranberry Tea Bread. Make sure you look for a suitable for vegans stout. Barnivore can be a great help with this and I think the last time I looked that Sainsburys do an own label one.


Chocolate Stout and Cranberry Tea Loaf

Ingredients
2 cups of plain flour
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
3/4 cup of caster sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
12 fluid oz of vegan friendly stout
1/2…

In no particular order of preference here are five of my favourite seasonal vegan products that I thought I'd share. I did a review of the Divine vegan festive range for Can I Eat It? and they were all great products. There's chocolate coins, after dinner mints, after dinner ginger thins, a pear and ginger bar and my favourite which is these dark chocolate stars that make fab cake decorations as well as for munching on.


I'm a longtime fan of Elizabeth Shaw mint and orange crisps which are vegan friendly and can often be picked up in discount stores. If you see any of these seasonal edition gingerbread crisps grab them! They are amazing and highly addictive.


I must we haven't tried these yet as we've only just picked them up from Morrisons. I also have to admit that bacon frazzle type crisps always give me heartburn but I'm prepared to risk it as these sound ace even if I do ending up devouring them with a gaviscon chaser!


I have tried these though and they are…

I was recently contacted by two companies offering me some free samples of their products which fitted really well with the pre-Christmas detox I've undertaken for the last 5 years. My birthday is mid November and once that's out of the way I always try and eat really well for the next four weeks. This means lots of fruit and veg, more raw meals and limiting the amount of sugary treats. It's not about weight gain/loss but more about keeping my energy levels up and fighting off colds. First off was Amazing Grass who sent me some sachets of their Green Superfood blend. 


I'm quite a fan of these type of blends and have used Prime Directive on and off for years. I can be prone to acid reflux attacks even from healthy foods, for example my body cannot tolerate cucumber or iceberg lettuce at all! When I have flare ups I do find these type of probiotic powders help calm things down.

You can mix the powder with water and drink as a shot or add it to juice or a smoothie. Here&…

I got sent a couple of blocks of Oat Milk Ecuardorian chocolate by new vegan producer Ethico recently. The block is part of a range of four flavours. They also do a block which is oat milk with raisins and two Peruvian dark chocolate blocks one of which also contains cranberries. The blocks range from £2.99-£3.99 and there's free postage on orders over £20. 

Picture the scene. It's a Friday night and Matt and I have finally sat down on the sofa at the end of a long, busy week. We were watching 'Have I Got News For You' when we both popped a piece of the chocolate into our mouths. Seconds later we turned to each other and exclained 'WOW'! With this chocolate Ethico have brought a great new addition to the vegan chocolate range. It's serious melt in the mouth stuff. Matt uttered the words 'dairy milk' but for me it surpasses dairy milk and reminds me more of what I remember a good quality Belgium milk choc with a fairly high cocoa content tasting lik…

Do you love vegan baked goods? Are you looking for something a bit different for a Christmas present? Our Cake Liberation Front t-shirts are still available via the Philosophy Football website. You'll find them in the Dissenters section of the site and there are 4 different designs to choose from. They are great quality t-shirts that wash well and as an extra bonus our proceeds from each shirt go to Dr Hadwen Trust.

There are also some wonderful limited edition really cute t-shirts for sale over at our friends Deerly Beloved Bakery.


This highly successful vegan bakery is run by Kayleigh Baddeley-Read and was started in Norwich in 2011. The bakery has gone from strength to strength winning business awards and supplying lots of local businesses including Norwich University and Waterstones with vegan baked goods. You can even order some of their fab Christmas range by mail order. Check it out here.

If you're puzzled by the blog title it's the name of a traditional Yorkshire folk song and Ilkley was the destination for a surprise birthday day out the other week. We had a great day mooching round the charity shops and stocking up on Christmas treats from the Booths supermarket there.


One of the reasons that Matt had picked Ilkley was Veggie Cafe. The food was wonderful. Fresh and flavourful, well presented and had some nice little touches. I loved the little dishes of dips that came with both our choices containing mango chutney, homemade hummus and tapenade and almond and pea puree.


The first plate is a portabello burger in a tasty grilled bun and the bottom dish is a meze plate that as well as the aforementioned dips also included falafel wontons and cauliflower fritters.


Although they were labelled as dairy free rather than vegan we were delighted to find out that all the cakes on offer were SFV. After some deliberation we went for a cardomon and pistachio cake and a …

If you saw this recent blog post you'll know that we are big fans of Topaz Cafe in Ashton. This veggie cafe is part of the Mind Centre in Ashton Under Lyne and serves up beautiful fresh, veggie food with lots of the ingredients grown on their own allotment or sourced locally.

On a recent visit Matt went for this colourful meze whilst I had stuffed pepper. One of the things I love about this place is that they will cook to order veganising vegetarian dishes and in this case omitting the chilli for me. It was still full of flavour though and my pepper was stuffed with tofu in a homemade pesto sauce.

We noticed that Topaz had started advertising their Christmas offer. They are doing Christmas lunches through December and also this one off special evening event on Thursday 18 December. We've booked our tickets and are looking forward to sampling three courses of delicious vegan Christmas food.

We spent week two of our recent holiday in the seaside town of Aldeburgh. We were delighted to discover on the main street the little gem that is Delphines Diner. Small but perfectly formed would be the phrase to describe this place. It also has no web presence so it's a bit of a well kept secret!

There wasn't a lot for vegans on the menu BUT they did offer a vegan hotdog. This was our last lunch of the holiday and we really enjoyed it.


I'd been to VegFest just before the holiday and attended Jojo's talk on vegan travelling. I'd taken Jojo's advice to ask for recommendations on Twitter and was so glad I did when I got a tweet mention the Dolphin Inn at neighbouring Thorpeness.


The Dolphin Inn is a gastro pub that offers a vegan option for each course on their regularly changing menu. We had a shared starter of grilled vegetables and olives and a main of risotto. Risotto is a staple veggie option when eating out and sometimes I find it a bit bland as if leaving …

Back in October we had two weeks holiday in Suffolk. We thought that the weather might be pretty grim but as it happened other than a couple of days, we had two weeks of glorious sunshine and lots of lovely beach walks as well as days out. We spent the first week in a converted boathouse next to a Martello tower just by the beach at Shingle Street. Here's the view from our front door!

Apart from a few fishermen we had the beach to ourselves.


Other great places for walking in the area are Rendlesham Forest the home of famous UFO sightings and the extremely atmospheric Orford Ness an ex-military testing site. It's on a shingle spit that you have to take a boat to reach. You're allowed to walk round but have to stick to designated paths as there is environmentally rare vegetation and also the possibility of unexploded things!

There were no shops or pubs where we were staying so we did a lot of self catering. We even took the Vitamix and pizza stone with us. The nearest town …