On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at

 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 triple chocolate cake.


Both were excellent and the cafe has a great range of teas to accompany them. We will definitely be back for another visit.


Finally here's my birthday cake that I made for my family visiting. It was a simple chocolate cake livened up with chocolate black forest buttercream made with flavoured icing sugar from Sugar and Crumbs and topped with dark chocolate stars which are part of the Divine Christmas range.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cola de Mono

Image
Colo de Mono (Tail of the Monkey) is a Chilean concoction traditionally drunk ice cold at Christmastime. Obviously their winters are a lot warmer than ours so in the UK it's more suited to this time of year. The Chileans use aguadiente an overproof cane spirit. I use Cachaca 51 which I have in for Mojitos and Caipirinhas. Traditionally made with cows milk, here is my vegan version. Colo De Mono Makes 1 pint Serves 4 2 cups of vanilla soy milk 1/3 cup of caster sugar 1/3 teaspoon of cinammon 3 teaspoons of instant coffee 1/2 cup of spirit* Bring the milk, sugar and cinnamon to a low boil in a pan stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Turn off the heat and stir in the coffee. Leave to cool. Once cool add the spirit and chill in the fridge. It will keep for 2 weeks. Serve over ice or straight up but make it cold. * Spirit - I use Cachaca but have heard that people use tequila too.
Read more

Interview With Lisa Goddard of Lily and Dilly

Image
If you've eaten vegan cake in Manchester City Centre in the last few years then chances are you'll have eaten cake baked by Lisa Goddard of bakery Lily and Dilly . We caught up with Lisa to find out what set her on the vegan baking path! So, Lily and Dilly? What made you set up as an independent bakery and where does the name come from? Having worked as a stop frame animator for 12 years, I was getting rather fed up with short term contracts, so the last time I was made redundant, I decided not to chase work round the country, and if that meant a career change, then so be it. A friend of mine had just set up The Cocoa Emporium as an independent Chocolatier, so I gave her a hand whilst navigating through the benefits system, mostly to get me out of bed on a morning! Doing baking for her farmers market was fun, as it was one of my main hobbies, so when she asked if I fancied getting a little shop  with her, it seemed a nice chance to start something new. We got the shop
Read more

Growing your own, bargains and a breakfast recipe

Image
I've started sprouting again! In my old flat I used to do sprouting all the time. The flat was in an old 1930's building and had radiators run from a central boiler room and it was always nice and warm. The constant warm temp made sprouting pretty fail safe. Now I'm in a Derbyshire stone house where it's not as warm the results haven't been as great and I gave up trying  but with this very hot summer we are having I thought I would give it another go and I'm glad I have done. As I already have the seeds it kind of feels like free food too! I'm using these sprouts  from A Vogel. This week I've grown alfalfa but pictured is my first attempt from the week before which was a mix of radish, lentil and rocket which grew into lovely peppery tasting sprouts that we used to garnish our bowl meals for the week. These took 4 days to grow and I nearly gave up on day 2 because I could see mold. Luckily I googled and found out that it wasn't mold at all but r
Read more