Veganuary Eats

As I'm sure you know from previous posts I do like a competition and I entered several Veganuary ones. It was Matt who was the winner this time though. He won these ace cookbooks - Defensive Eating With Morrissey and Comfort Eating With Nick Cave in a twitter punning competition where you had to combine food with lyrics from their songs. I thought my Barbecueim Begins At Home entry was pretty good but he pipped me with Girlfriend in a Korma. They've only just arrived so we haven't made anything form them yet but I shall have to report back.

I've blogged before about Glossop business The Pie Parlour. It goes from strength to strength and Diane who owns and runs it did herself proud with her Veganuary offerings. We managed to sample quite a range this month! As well as being vegan the following were all gluten free too.

First up is a raw cheesecake. This had delightful fresh strawberry flavours and was nice and rich in that way that raw cheesecakes are.

One of my favourite cake flavours is coffee and walnut and this did not disappoint. Sticking with the coffee theme we also sampled this stunning looking tiramisu gateaux.

Diane is a very innovative cook and is constantly trying out new things. I was over the moon to try this month two things I've never had as a vegan. It's over 10 years since I've had lemon meringue pie and these were tarts we were of my favourite things to date from the Pie Parlour.

I was also delighted to have a vanilla slice. When I was a kid and we were allowed to choose a cream cake from the cake shop I always bypassed anything with cream and went for a custard tart or vanilla slice. Thanks to the wonder of the new Jus Roll vegan and gluten free puff pastry Diane was able to make these and they were soooo good.

I was even inspired to do a bit of baking myself. Cheltenham Drippers came up in conversation at work and I had to google them to see what they were made from. 

They are a yeasted bread bun filled with raisins that are also known as Lardy Cakes. I used this recipe and veganised it by using melted coconut oil instead of beef dripping.

There was lots of rolling the dough and folding and brushing oil into the different layers. It was a fun lazy Sunday afternoon project and they were pretty tasty.

We also spent January using up stuff we'd got in for the festive season. We'd managed to visit one of the Sainsbury's back in December that stocked 'Gary' and we'd bought a few different ones to try. I think my favourite has to be the caramelised onion cheddar which melts really well as does the feta which Matt used as a filling in these arancini balls made from leftover risotto.

A big change for me in January has been going back to full time hours. It's just for a few months and it's going ok. I'd be lying if I said it was a breeze as fatigue is an issue with being on morphine but I'm doing all the right kind of self care things and it is definitely helping. That means practicing my cold prevention tips I blogged about here and getting early nights. I'm also trying to do some yoga most days too. An important part of self care is food and in line with that I have declared Fridays, my last working day of the week to be Pieday. This involves Matt who works form home popping down to the Pie Parlour in the day to pick up a couple of pies which we warm up in the oven in the evening whilst he nips round to the chippy for a large bag of chips to share, a pot of mushy peas for him and a large gravy for me.

And finally from pie and chips to super posh food. We had vegan friendly champagne and caviar with Matt's sister and brother in law to celebrate us getting engaged. I'd forgotten I had a jar of caviart lurking in the pantry waiting for an occasion and I'd also forgotten how nice it is. I'm also pleased to see that Holland and Barrett now stock it.

So that's it for January. I'm usually ok with winter but it has felt really cold and wet the last few weeks and I will be glad to see Spring this year. We have some fun things planned for February though and are going to Nottingham this weekend and are planning to visit Sneinton Vegan market so I'll be reporting back!