Tea and Sympatico

There's been lots of baking going on in my house this week! After making 100 cakes for the LRM launch last Saturday I did a lot more baking for work. My lovely work colleagues donated money for baked goods and raised another $95 towards Hillary's Go Fund Me to get her rehoused and her cats back. If you've not donated yet and can spare a few quid to help a vegan blogger friend then please, please pop on over to the site and also please share it. She could do with one last boost to get to the target and the money will greatly help with getting her and the animals resettled. The Golden Vanilla Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World are always a winner and are a recipe that works really well to double up on to make a big batch. The Chocolate, Orange, Walnut brownies are the same ones that I made when I won the Bake-Off competition at work last year. They are the vegan brownie recipe I've found that tastes most like a non-vegan brownie with a perfectly...

These choccies were actually from a few weeks ago but somehow got missed off a post and I've just noticed the picture on my phone. For those not from Manchester, Bonbon Chocolate Boutique is a fabulous little chocolate shop in the Northern Quarter. I've blogged about it here before. They sell lots of artisan and handmade chocolate including some made on the premises and also the best hot chocolate ever in several different flavours most of which are vegan friendly! Matt visited with a friend a few weeks ago and brought these home. They were salted caramel truffles which they had just started selling and are made by the staff at Bonbon. They were seriously stunning and I am still thinking about them now weeks later! I have been all about the chocolate in the last week. I went out and bought a bar of Seed and Bean Cornish Sea Salt after seeing this review by new blogger Hayley Loves which reminded me how much I love this bar. We also ordered a bar of this amazing soun...

If you're a regular reader of the blog you may remember that we had a really lovely break in Harlech in Wales last October. We stayed in a wonderful apartment right next to Harlech Castle and we had such a fantastic time we took to selling our worldly goods on eBay in November and December to raise the funds to go back for New Year. Sadly when we got there at New Year there was water damage to the apartment and we were unable to stay. We were given some alternative accommodation and also 4 free nights at the Castle apartments to take this year. We used these two weeks ago. We stopped at the Rhug Estate Farm shop and cafe on the way for a comfort break and had a look round the shop. There's not usually much for vegans so we were delighted when we spotted these indvidual nut roasts baked like muffins on the deli counter. With some mash, roasted sprouts, carrots, parsnips and gravy that was our first evening meal sorted and very good it was too. When I go on holiday as ...

A picture heavy post of a recent Sunday morning - World Vegan Day in Fact. Two sets of filter coffee - decaf for Matt and full caf for me! Having fun with Jus-Rol croissants in a tin trying out some different filling ideas. These tofutti slices worked really well but the bacon crumbles kind of dissolved and got lost. Next time I would try the same cheese slices with a smear of tomato puree and some mixed herbs to go for a pizza style croissant. I had a tube of Creme de Marrons which is a French sweet chestnut puree. This was amazingly good as a croissant filling. I broke up one of these small almond and orange dark chocolate bars from Aldi and this worked really well too. Croissants about to go in.... Croissants coming out of the oven. The finished breakfast. I've another tube of these in the fridge. Have you any ideas for fillings?

Jennifer at My Blissful Journey blog has set up an off season Vegan Mofo bloggers community and one of the regular blogging challenges is called Mid Week Munchies. We did our weekly shop at the weekend and it didn't really contain anything out of the ordinary but yesterday I popped into Heron Foods which is a local discount store. They mainly sell frozen and tinned stuff. It's really cheap and occasionally some interesting vegan friendly items pop up! I made a couple of purchases that I reckon are suitable for a mid-week munchies post. I picked up some of these Lemon, Lime and Ginger Firefly drinks which were 3 bottles for £1. They are usually around £1.55 each! I have a sinus condition and had been reading the other day about how citrus fruits could help so I thought I'd give these a try. There's no added sugar and they also contain ginger, nettle, dandelion and rosemary. They have a nice refreshing taste, are not overly sweet and you do feel as though you are...