Tea and Sympatico

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 b...

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...

I know I blogged back during Mofo about our first visit to Lotus Vegetarian Kitchen but now that we've been back twice more I can't resist sharing some more pictures and urging you to visit if you're anywhere near Manchester. The restaurant is in Withington which is a bus ride south of the city centre. It's a vegetarian Chinese restaurant where the majority of the dishes on offer are also vegan. Here's just a sample of some of the food we've tried. Steamed veggie dumplings with dipping sauce. Vietnamese spring rolls. Possibly the nicest spring rolls I've ever tasted. Not pictured but I can also recommend the taro rolls. Not the most photogenic of dishes but this tofu and aubergine hotpot is a real star turn. I've seen other people on Facebook rave about the chicken skewers in satay sauce and I have to agree that they are a must try dish. You can also try them as part of a sharing platter combo. This final picture is of the stu...

Anyone who's vegan is likely to be aware of Freedom Mallows, the veggie friendly and affordable marshmallow company. I blogged about them last year  when they'd just launched. At the time they were manufacturing just a vanilla flavour marshmallow but have since gone on to expand the range. The vanilla ones are now available in both white or yellow, there's a strawberry flavour and they've also launched mini marshmallows in both white and a mixed bag of pink and white. The mini marshmallows are perfect for hot chocolate. I would love to see these being offered by cafes. The great thing about this brand is that as well as being veggie friendly they are also halal and kosher and approved by the Coeliac Society. And remember, marshmallows are not just for munching on or for drinks. They make a fantastic baking ingredient. Rocky Road is really easy to make and is always a crowd pleaser, great for parties or pot lucks. You may have noticed the change in packa...

We've recently enjoyed two great value, tasty vegan meals at non-veggie establishments. It's fantastic to see more and more places like these starting to embrace vegan options as part of a mainstream menu. Interesting both companies are run as social enterprises.  The King's Arms pub is in Salford, just on the edge of Manchester city centre. As well a pub it has a theatre/ music venue upstairs and is owned by Paul Heaton . Whilst I'd been there many times I'd never eaten there until recently when two Cake Liberation Front regulars told us about the great Sunday roasts. There's various meat roast options and the veggie option is suitable for vegans. It's a sweet potato nut roast and is great value at £7.50 (£4.50 for children) as it also includes a pudding. The pudding in question on the day we visited was a very tasty fruit sponge with banana custard. The food is provided by a company called Catering With Pride . As you can see I was enjoying it so m...

I was recently contacted by a company called Plain Tasty to see if I'd like to try their new product - The Rysp. I was all too happy to especially as all their range is suitable for vegans and they are a local Manchester based company.  Rysp either come as long crispbread or as small snack sized bites. Essentially it's a really thin crispbread which doesn't sound that exciting in itself but I must say the taste was a revelation! Creators Jonathan and Tom have looked to their Scandinavian roots using rye sourdough and carefully selected flavourings. The long crispbreads have strong aniseed flavours from the caraway seeds and a hot kick from the black pepper and the slightly scooped shape was perfect for hummus. The bite sized Rysps come in two sizes of bag and in flavours of garlic + rosemary, caraway + black pepper and dulse seaweed + sesame. They are low in fat and calories and with only natural ingredients these make a fantastic alternative to crisps. As a ne...

Scarthin books in the Derbyshire town of Cromford is one of my new favourite places. To start with it's one if those lovely old bookshops with mezzanine floors, lots of little rooms and a warren like feel to it. Books are a mixture of new and second hand and I could spend all day in there. To top all that they have a fabulous vegetarian cafe! All of the menu items are vegetarian and on the day we were there all the savoury items could be veganised. For example our Homity pies could be made topped with dairy or non-dairy cheese. I'd never had Homity Pie before but it's gone on my list of comfort food to create at home this winter. I'll be trying out this recipe from Deerly Beloved Bakery . There was a nice selection of beautifully displayed home made cakes with vegan and gluten free options. The picture shows just a few. We went for chocolate cake and it was one of the best chocolate cakes I've had. It had a good crumb without being in the...