One Year of Veganism

Today it is World Vegan Day and I have been vegan for one year.
Going vegan was the best decision I ever made. I’m often asked if I find veganism difficult and at first, it was a little tricky. I couldn’t even peel a potato when I first went vegan and I had no idea how to cook.
But since going vegan, I’ve discovered new flavours, textures – I’ve eaten vegan prawns, tried avocado for the first time in my life, made a cheesecake out of cashews, tuna sweetcorn out of chickpeas and made the most delicious burger just by grilling a mushroom. I have a whole new appreciation and love for food that I didn’t have before.
Emotionally, going vegan has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I will never understand why “because animals are dying” is not a good enough reason to convince more of the people in my life to vegan. I will never understand why cheese or bacon is worth more to some people than an entire life.
In life, we don’t often get the chance to make a difference. But by going vegan, you can save roughly 33 animals a year. While I might miss mars bars every now and then, I’m sure cows miss their children a whole lot more.
Please consider taking part in Animal Aid’s Great Vegan Challenge by going vegan for November – you won’t regret it.

Today is treated myself to some tasty desserts to celebrate my first year as a vegan! First, I went to Mono for some lovely oreo brownie and got a cookie peanut sandwich from Stereo to take home to share with my family. Delicious!

Hello Kitty Cake Pops!

Best present ever award goes to my wonderful friend Shan, who got me this Hello Kitty cake pop maker!

I have a confession to make; I’ve never actually had a cake pop. Until now, that is. This cake pop machine is so cool and the little cakes are shaped like Hello Kitty and that makes it even better! I followed the recipe that was in the booklet for this, but veganized it. I split this up so that I could try out two different egg replacers – banana and diet coke. Place your bets now on what one you think turned out better!
This recipe would work if you had cake pop moulds, I think, but obviously I used a machine. I havent tried it though since I dont have any moulds, so if you do, let me know how it goes! Even if you dont have a specific Hello Kitty machine, it should work in a regular cake pop machine and to be honest – the shape gets a bit ruined once you add the melted chocolate anyway. I actually think regular shaped ones would be just as cute.

Recipe:
125g caster sugar
125g dairy free butter (I used vitalite)
2 tbsp dairy free milk (I used Aldi’s own brand of unsweetened soy milk)
100g self raising flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder (I only used 2 because I’m not big on chocolate to be honest)
Egg replacer for two eggs (so if you want to stick with what I did, use either two mashed bananas, or almost one can of diet coke.)

1. Cream together the butter and sugar
2. Add your egg replacer and mix. If you’re using banana, it’s best if you can puree it but if not it’s fine.  If you’re using diet coke, add a little bit at a time and mix through. You don’t want your batter to be too runny – but if, like I did, you accidentally add a bit too much, just throw in some more flour and you should be fine.
3. Sift in the flour + cocoa powder and mix
4. I put a heaped teaspoon of the mixture at a time in the mould, and I found it worked better if they were highly filled. Use whatever directions apply for your machine.
5. When they come out, let them cool (or eat half of them…oops) for a bit before you start decorating!

On the left we have the banana ones, which didnt rise very well at all ( but tasted fab) and wern’t suitable for decorating, and on the right we have the diet coke ones which definitely won this competition!

Decorating (I dont know the exact amount because I just sorta guessed. But I used the dairy free buttons found in the free from section of Asda). Decorating these will take a long time and it will have to be done in a couple of stages.
Vegan white chocolate
Vegan milk chocolate
Pink food colouring

1.  Melt some white chocolate, dip the sticks in them and then insert them into each cake. Be careful you dont break them!
2. Wait for a good ten minutes or so before you continue decorating – you need these to stick on. I put mine in the freezer for a bit to help them set quicker.
3. Dip the cake into the melted white chocolate, use a spoon if you need to help get it all covered or spread it out. Sit them in a glass or something or ideally a cake pop stand if you have one. Try not to let the back touch the glass or itll get stuck (I found out the hard way..). Leave them to set.
4. Once the chocolate has set, you can double dip them in the white chocolate coating and repeat the previous step if you like (I did) or you can continue onward – it depends on how your cake pops are looking at this point, really.
5. Once set, mix up some white chocolate with a dab of pink food colouring (or any other colour of your choice, really) and using a small wooden skewer or pick, dab it into the chocolate and carefully draw on a little bow shape. Mine ended up a bit of a mess because I was too impatient to wait until the chocolate had set properly and leave to set (you dont have to let them sit, because next you’ll be drawing on the face, but if, like me, you are very clumsy, I recommend leaving the chocolate to harden or you’ll end up smudging it. If you have yellow food colouring available, you might want to colour some of the chocolate yellow for Hello Kittys nose, since her nose is actually yellow)
6. Next, melt your vegan milk chocolate and use another skewer/pick to draw on Hello Kitty’s faced! I recommend having a picture in front of you if you want it to actually look like Hello Kitty instead of a generic cat.
7. Place back into the fridge to set for a bit and defend them from your family until you can get a food picture of them to show off on facebook – and then dig in! 🙂

These are delicious and freaking adorable; I’m already thinking of ways I can make these Halloween themed in order to justify making more this month. And Christmas themed and Valentine themed….

Vegan Caramel Shortbread

So this is the recipe that I made for the Glasgow Uni Society Pot Luck (shhh, don’t tell them but I don’t actually go there :D) and it seemed to be a hit, so I thought I’d share my recipe!

For the base:
6oz Plain Flour
4oz Non Dairy Butter/Margarine (I used vitalite)
2oz Sugar
Pinch of salt

Cream the butter and sugar, then sift in the flour. Mix it all together with your hands but don’t handle it too much. The size of tray/tin that you use depends on how thick you like your base, really. All you have to do is use your hands to spread the mix out so that it fills the tin and then use a fork to poke a bunch of holes in it. Bake at Gas Mark 4 and if you have a decent oven, it’ll probably be about 20-30 minutes. If your oven is rubbish like mine, it’ll take 40 minutes and you’ll probably end up putting it up a bit. Don’t make the caramel until the base is cooled and ready to go.

For the caramel:
1 cup of Non dairy cream (I used Alpro)
1 cup of Sugar
1 cup of Golden Syrup
2 Tablespoons of non dairy butter (I used vitalite)

*I don’t have any american cups to measure this properly, but basically as long as it’s equal to each other it’s cool. I used a full carton of Alpro single cream which was 250ml

Heat everything up in a big pot on a medium heat apart from the butter. Keep stirring. Don’t add the butter until the sugar melts. Then chuck that in too. Keep stirring and stirring until the mixture starts to boil – then stop stirring and stick in a candy thermometer. Keep it boiling until it reaches 240 degrees and don’t stir. You can dip a teaspoon in and do that weird check thing with the cold glass of water (google it) and once your happy that it’ll form properly, take it off the heat and pour onto your shortbread base. Make sure the shortbread is cool though, obviously. And let the caramel set before you put the chocolate on.

For the topping:
2 cups of chocolate (I used moo-free)

Melt your chocolate however you prefer – in the microwave or over a pot of hot water in a glass bowl (that’s what I did), and then pour on top of the caramel layer and use a spoon to spread it out. Put it into the fridge or even the freezer to set – don’t let it get too hard though because you want to cut it as soon as the chocolate is firm otherwise it’ll be too hard.

This is the only picture I managed to get of my caramel shortbread – it got gobbled up pretty fast. It might not look amazing but believe me, it’s incredible. I’ll probably be making this again in no time so I’ll update with nicer pictures once I do!

Vegan On A Budget – 7 Tips

Veganism can be as expensive or inexpensive as you want it to be. It’s surprisingly easy to create a variety of delicious meals by basing your meals around a few basic staples. I plan on setting myself a challenge where I keep track of everything that I spend in attempt to keep it under a set weekly budget (of which I’m undecided on the exact terms yet) but in the mean time I have some quick tips for you that I’ve learned since being vegan.

The Staples
So these are the basics that will go a long way – you don’t need fancy ingredients that you can’t pronounce to make a variety of vegan food. The following is basically what makes up my diet.
Tinned or dried beans/legumes
Seasonal Fruit and Vegetables (if you’re on a really tight budget, tinned and frozen are good in that they won’t go off for a long time)
Basic herbs and spices (if you can, get a plant and grow it on your windowsill)
TVP or soy mince (cheap, easy protein. A little goes a long way with this stuff)
Miso Stock (never buy this from anywhere that is not an asian supermarket or it’ll be well overpriced. Miso doesn’t really go off and it can be used for soups, dressings and marinades)
Pasta and noodles
Rice
Bread
Oats

Healthier + Cheaper substitutions
Wherever you can – substitute white bread or pasta for wholemeal. These are a lot healthier for you and will also help to keep you full a lot longer. Also, rather than buying brand names, always check out supermarkets own brands. If you’re buying a milk alternative, I recommend buying it from the long life section rather than the fresh section – unless you go through a lot of milk. I finish a carton a week no problem now but in the beginning, I always ended up wasting cartons because I didn’t finish it in time.

Hold the Vegusto!
‘Speciality’ vegan items, such as mock meats and vegan cheeses, are generally a lot more expensive. Personally, I only buy these things when they’re either reduced, or on offer. A lot of these foods are processed and health wise should not make up the majority of your diet. You can make things like veggie burgers, ‘meat’ balls and sausages very easily and cheaply on your own – plus they’ll definitely be healthier for you too since you know exactly what’s going into them! Meat substitutes are great for people who are transitioning and still craving meats – but I have maybe one serving of mock meat once a week, and that’s usually only because I can’t be bothered cooking. But I do think it’s a great idea to make a batch of your own veggie burgers or meatballs and freeze them in handy portion sizes.

Leftovers for Lunch and Freezing Food
This will save you from spending all of your time in the kitchen – I purposely make double portions to have for lunch the next day, especially if I know I have a busy day ahead. You can also freeze things like batches of soup, chilli, and curry so that you don’t need to eat the same meal all of the time – and this means you can come home after work to a tasty home made meal that just takes minutes in the microwave – or a few more on the stove. Some people will spend one day solid in the kitchen cooking all of their meals for that week so that they don’t have to cook all week – but I’m not one of them since I enjoy cooking anyway.

Spicing Up Your Meals (Literally)
Herbs and spices can be expensive – it’s generally cheaper to buy in bulk if you can. But they can drastically alter your meals. You can also get some cheap chilli sauce or BBQ sauce to easily bring in some flavour. My favourite marinade for tofu actually is just to water down some BBQ ketchup. Stock cubes are also a good base for rice dishes or soup. Spices can be expensive but sometimes if you go to your local asian market, you’ll get giant bags far cheaper.

Plan your meals
One way to stop yourself from buying way too many things is to plan out your meals in advance. Write down everything you need – and stick to that list. Planning my meals always sounded boring to me until I got into cooking – now I always plan ahead because cooking is a big achievement/reward for me. And whenever my non-vegan family tell me ‘Hey, this isn’t terrible!’ and eat whatever it is that I’ve made, it always makes me feel really good.

Know when and where to shop
As a vegetarian since I was a child, I relied on my mum to buy things, so I never really knew how to shop for bargians. However, I quickly learned that Holland and Barretts would reguarly have penny sales so I now only shop there while it’s on, and that if I went to my local H&B store on a certain day of the week and at a certain time, old stock would be reduced and I’d pick up some bargains. If you’re only shopping for yourself, you can go into supermarkets on the day, grab whatever veg is reduced and improvise your meals based on that, or you can grab what’s reduced and freeze it yourself so you never pay full price for things (this is especially good for fruit). Also, simple things like not picking up that handy prepackaged pack of bananas for £1 but buying them loose and weighing them yourself can get you the same amount for half the price. I once got a whole brocolli from Tesco for 5p doing this!
I’ll leave you with some great budget finds that I’ve found this month:
Tesco Everyday Value Rice Snaps £0.75
Lidl noodles 18p (chuck away the sachet if you want to be healthy, if not these say vegan on them on the back)
Asda Meat Free Savory Mince/Bolognese £0.75 (in my opinion these definite need a little bit of spicing up, but for the price you can’t really go wrong. The burger mix is the best though its £1.50, it makes a lot!)
Asda Smartprice Chopped Tomatoes £0.31 (these are the ones I’ve always used and honestly they taste the same as more expensive brands)
Granovita Shittake Pate £0.99 (Aldi) (various flavours, but this one is my favourite. I make a carbonara sauce out of this with a little bit of soy cream, some onions, mushrooms and pakrika. I make this a good few times a month as I just love it. A tin can easily do enough for 4/5 servings depending on how greedy you are. You can also find these in H&B but they’re usually £1.50 each in there)
H&B Soya Protein Mince (375g) £1.49
Dried chickpeas, chana dal and red split lentils (2kg, found in Tesco World Foods section) £2.99 each or two for £4

If you have any tips and tricks, share them in the comments! I’ve probably missed out a fair few things 🙂