Tea and Sympatico

I was surprised the other day when I realised that this was actually my tenth Christmas dinner as a vegan! We started the day with a brunch around 10.30am opting to eat our main meal mid afternoon after a quick trip to our local pub for a drink. I helped with the planning but can take no credit for any of the cooking. The food you see is all Matt's work. For brunch we had these bagels . I recently discovered thin bagels which are the same width a normal bagel just half as thin and they are great for a breakfast sandwich. There was a layer of V Bites ham topped with chive studded scrambled tofu from The Starch Solution which was then drizzled with some Vegg . It was great and a good start to the day. There was much debate about what to have as the main in our Christmas dinner. In past years I've enjoyed things this Mushroom and Chestnut Wellington , Forest Foods Nut Roasts and V Bites Turkey . I've tried Tofurky before too but not at Christmas, it was when I was in...

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 ...