Tea and Sympatico

I've eaten out a bit more than I usually do recently so here's a little round up. My friend Susan and I had a day trip over to Liverpool for her birthday the other weekend. We took in the Art of Pop Video exhibition at Fact and had a mooch around the Bold Street / Ropewalks area taking our lunch at MelloMello. I had a breaded mushroom burger with fresh pesto and the most amazing rosemary fries. Susan chose a Thai curry with rice and nan bread. I think Mello has become my favourite place to eat in Liverpool. I was actually too full to have one of their vegan cakes after eating this! Back on home turf Matt and I had a bit of a Japanese feast one evening at Samsi . This was the fab sushi course. The restaurant has a shop in the basement selling Japanese food so I picked up some sushi rice as it's ages since I've made any. I met up with my friend Siobhan for tea at Tampopo . Like Samsi, Tampopo is a mini, independent chain of restaurants with pretty good ve...

Blimey where has March gone! Half way through already and I've not blogged yet. The month started with Matt's birthday which meant me cooking a tea of pies. The main course pie was the fabulous Mushroom and Ale Pie from Vegan Village. I used Black Sheep for the stout. I've made this pie loads of times, it's pure comfort food. For dessert I made these Chocolate Kahlua Pies from an old favourite recipe. These are really easy and are one of those desserts that people can't believe is vegan when they taste it. I made half the filling recipe which was just the right amount to fit in the six ready prepared Graham Cracker pie cases that came with my January UK Vegan Food Swap box from Rachel . If I recall correctly Rachel said they came form the magical sounding Kosher Kingdom in Golders Green. Perhaps it wasn't the most healthy of teas but it was a treat and I've been really making an effort with my meals during the rest of the month cutting back on ...

I had heard the news that Waitrose had started selling Speculoos spread. Sadly we do not have a Waitrose in Manchester. Well, we do but it is Little Waitrose and therefore never has any of the elusive accidentally vegan things that I want to get such as Dorset Cereals gingerbread porridge ! However, we do have plenty of the fantastic chain of discount stores known as B and M Bargains . B and M's regularly come up with the vegan goods and along with my other favourite Quality Save/ Home Bargains they are great for picking up goodies for the UK Vegan Food Swap . Well, it looks like B and M's get Waitrose's overstocks as the gingerbread porridge turned up a few months ago and this weekend in the Ashton Store I spotted the Speculoos spread in both the sweet and crunchy versions. Result!

My UK Vegan Food Swap parcel arrived last Friday just in time for the weekend. As is customary, I will do a full post about it at the end of the month but here's a taster. This month I was sent goodies by Mitsu, who is one of the organisers from To Happy Vegans. It was the first time I received a parcel where I had not tried a single product in it before! I've not been to Ikea for years so I had no idea that you could buy vegan caviar . Amazing, it's acutally made from seaweed! We had it on oatcakes with a fake sour cream topping then the caviar on top of that. I used this recipe and fully intended to make the blinis too but the shop had run out of buckwheat flour! There must have been a rush on with pancake day. For mains I tried recipes I'd not cooked before from Appetite For Reduction . This is the Broiled, Blackened Tofu which you actually grill to cook, a new tofu technique to me. It was quick to do and tasted great. Served alongside it is steamed kale...

It's 3 years today that I started writing this blog! I'd just had a particularly miserable Valentine's Day, a long term relationship had just broken up and I wanted to do something for a distraction. Wow, such a lot has happened since then. I've changed jobs, gained a beautiful nephew and niece and am a year into a new relationship with someone who makes me wonderfully happy. There have been some low times too but the good outweighs the bad and makes me reflect on the importance of keeping positive and keeping going during the tough times and also being kind to yourself.  So, be kind to yourself this Valentines Day whether you are single or with someone. In the many years that I've spent it single I always treated myself to something nice. Cake of course is always good. Pictured above is my veganised version of Nigella's Marzipan Fruit Cake with whisky subbed for rum. Mmmm, so good.

So, I've not blogged in a while. There's been a lot going on and it's not been a top priority, though I have been keeping up with reading other people's blogs during my lunch hours. January has not been the best of months. My mum had a stroke and has been in hospital, we didn't get our vegan foodie trip to London and our heating systems at work have failed miserably and I've been working in scarf, coat and fingerless gloves most days! The good news is that my mum is out of hospital and doing well so let's hope the rest of the year is on an up. I've not always been eating the greatest or most exciting of foods but there have been some highlights. Matt honoured my Scottish heritage by cooking us a Burn's Night supper. It consisted of vegan haggis , steamed kale + cabbage and tatties and neeps. The later were from a BBC website recipe and consisted of roasting the veg rather than the usual mashing and whilst it's not traditional I think I...

Released today as a single from Matt's new album. Get it here as a free download. Billy Bragg says 'Here's a powerful rallying cry from Quiet Loner'. Check out the video.