Tea and Sympatico

At the weekend it was time for me to take vegan food over to friends again. It's autumn and we needed wine and comfort food. I decided a one pot curry was the way to go and picked the 2nd Avenue Vegetable Korma from Appetite For Reduction . Blimey, when I'd finished I actually said out loud 'Is that it?'. I couldn't get over how incredibly quickly this comes together. You've got curry on your plate faster than it takes to pick up the phone and get a takeaway delivered. Thank you Isa, this is a recipe that's going to be made again and again in my house! It also made the cranberry and cashew biranyni which is more like a pilau rice to go with it. This does take a bit longer but once you've bunged it all in the pan you just set the timer and go away and do something else, so another winner! And, not forgetting dessert, here in all it's glory before it goes in the oven is something that I've been making for the last 5 years at this time of the year s...

I was cooking earlier with coconut milk and the recipe only used 3/4 of the can. I was about to do my usual trick of sticking the leftovers in the fridge only to forget about them to end up throwing them away in a week's time when I remembered that this week's Iron Chef Challenge was for coconut. So, here we have Cheatin' Bailey's - a vegan version of the Irish Whiskey cream liqueur. There's no faffing around making syrups to flavour it with, it comes together in mere minutes. Ingredients Serves 1 Ice 2 x double shot of coconut milk Few drops of vanilla extract 1 teaspoon of instant coffee 1 teaspoon of powdered drinking chocolate 1 tablespoon of boiling water 1 shot of Irish whiskey 1 teaspoon of agave syrup Put the coffee and chocolate in a cup. Add the boiling water and stir until dissolved. Add all of the ingredients including ice to a cocktail shaker. Shake well until chilled. Serve in a glass tumbler over ice. PS - the round thing drawn on the glass isn't...

This title doesn't sound very MoFo related but last night I went to the launch of the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair . It was only after I'd treated myself to a few purchases that I realised that with the exception of a ring that they all had a food and drink theme, lol! It's on all weekend and is well worth a mooch around. There's lots of wonderful things and its really interesting to meet the makers. First up was a card from Leila Arzaghi . My camera couldn't get a decent close up but it's got a round teabag printed with a vintage style floral design. She also makes jewellery and the picture below gives more of an idea of her stuff. I've been admiring Rachel Eardley's work for a while and have been looking for a horseshoe ring for about 3 years with no luck. I fell in love with the horseshoe and horse ring below and just had to buy it as an early birthday present for myself. I've had a bit of a crappy year so I'm hoping the horses...

A friend at work brought me a bag of apples and pears from her parents garden the other day. The pears were just getting ripe and you know what pears are like, you have to use them just at the right moment or they're quickly over ripe. So as soon as I spotted these looking ready to eat, I whipped these up. I'm really into snacking on almonds at the moment and these smelled soooo good when they were cooking. I think the apples are going to be made into chutney, I'm just searching around for the right recipe. I love a bit of chutney on a veggie sausage butty. Pear and Almond Muffins Makes 12 Ingredients 1 cup of soya milk 1 teaspoon of cider vinegar 1 ¾ cups of plain flour 2 ½ teaspoons of baking powder ½ teaspoon of salt ¾ cup of caster sugar ½ cup of sunflower oil 2 teaspoons of almond extract 1 cup of pear diced into little cubes (about 2-3 pears) 1 cup of flaked almonds Pre-heat the oven to 200C / 400 F / Gas 6 Add the vinegar to the milk in a bowl. Whisk and s...

I'm more usually found with a smoothie at breakfast time but sometimes I like to change it up a bit. The temperatures have really dropped in the last few days and I've had more of an appetite than normal - I blame that on MoFo and all the amazing food I've been drooling over! So, this morning I decided a big, warming bowl of porridge was in order. Stirred in is apple sauce and golden syrup with a sprinkling of cinnamon on the top. I always wait until I get to work to start on the coffee. Recently I've been starting the day with this Beautiful Skin Tea by Neal's Yard. After never suffering from spots as a teenager I went and developed acne when I hit my 40's and have tried lots of things in the last 2 years to clear it with no luck. About a month ago I started drinking this every morning and I also changed my foundation to mineral makeup from ELF which I read about on Vanilla Sugar blog and also started using this . I don't know if it's one of them or ...

I'm lucky to have stayed friends with my 2 best mates from Uni who I met over 20 years ago! Sarah lives in West Yorkshire and Helen lives in London and we make sure we meet up several times a year. On Saturday I took the 30 minute train ride to Todmorden to spend a lovely afternoon with Sarah. Todmorden is a little market town which has a great health food shop with a veggie cafe upstairs called the Bear. I forgot to take any pictures of our food we were gabbing so much but my garlic mushrooms on toast was yum and they make the best lattes. Here's some pics from last time . This wonderful collection of foodstuffs is a small fraction of the wares from the Mediterrean food stall that is on the market and also in the food stall. It is run by a lovely man called Alex who makes his own chocolate and sources the most wonderful foodstuffs. I could have easily spent a £100 there was so much great stuff! I restrained myself and came away with a handmade bar of dark chocolate with rose, ...

I had a sleepover at my sister's house on Saturday. Both herself, her partner Nick and their one year old twins James and Robyn had all had a horrible tummy bug in the week. I said I'd cook whilst they were getting the twins to bed whatever they were craving after being so poorly. Yum, yum, they chose the Brooklyn Pad Thai from Vegan With A Vengeance . They got all the ingredients in and I just had to turn up and cook it. This is lovely comfort food and I highly recommend it if you've got the book but have never made it. I also brought Nick's favourite dessert of carrot cake. I used this excellent recipe from the Alien's Day Out blog that I found through MoFo adding in some chopped pecans and covering with a simple fondant icing.