Courgette and pepper soup

I know the weather is dropping in temperature when i start making soup. I had a lot of courgettes and peppers needing using and found this recipe on the internet. Usually i just whizz up soup when it's cooked but with this one i liquidised just the onion, garlic and celery halfway, keeping the pepper smally diced and the courgette grated. This made it a bit different to soups i've made previously and i enjoyed the warming tastiness.

Gluten free squash bread

It's been some time since i've tried making gluten free bread...previous attempts have not encouraged me to repeat my efforts! Though with the painful memories fading (!!), i felt it was time to give it another go. So i made g/f squash bread from Gillian McKeith's You Are What You Eat cookbook. I'd not yet been impressed with any of the recipes i've made from this book and with very few ingredients (butternut squash, g/f flour, baking powder & olive oil), my expectations weren't high. Yet it turned out surprisingly well! I tried the bread still warm from the oven, just adding a little marg and happily munched through quite a large amount of it! It has a lovely colour which only really shows up in the photo i took of it upside down. I had a chunk the next day with some re-heated tomatoey tofu stir fry leftovers and really enjoyed the combination. Definitely one to make again i reckon.

Eating for World Vegan Day!

As it was World Vegan Day yesterday, the vegan meal group i sometimes eat out with (they meet once a month in the Brighton area) had decided to have a meal at VBites, the vegan cafe at Hove lagoon. Any excuse to eat celebratory vegan food sounds a mighty fine idea to me so i was more than happy to go along! I'd actually e-mailed them before going about gluten free options and they very helpfully sent me a list of options, such as many of the salads, the bean tacos, etc... I decided to go for the sweet potato green Thai curry with crunchy oriental vegetables and basmati rice. I took the photo of my meal after i'd already started eating as i got so excited tucking into the food i almost forgot about taking a photo altogether! I very much enjoyed the curry, i liked the chunkiness of the vegetables and the way they still had some crunch to them. The flavour was nice and it went very well with the rice. There was a large group of us at the cafe (possibly about 25?) , we took over half of the place! A few people managed cakes (there was a g/f option but i was full from my main course) and they looked very good indeed, plus the feedback from the cake eaters matched this. It's so great to be able to eat at VBites knowing that everything on the menu is vegan. I had a lovely evening there with a great group of people.

Lush support Hunt Sabs

Lush are currently selling this Fabulous Mrs Fox Bubble Bar to raise money for the Hunt Saboteurs Association...go treat yourself or a friend whilst helping them! (would make a great xmas pressie i reckon!)

The hunting act in 2004 outlawed the chasing and killing of foxes with packs of dogs. Unfortunately there has been widespread breaking of the law by foxhunts and the law is not enforced by courts. The hunt sabs are volunteers who take non-violent direct action to save animals in danger.

Fantastic vegan spread

Here's a selection of some of the food that was at the most recent Vegan Cake & Chocolate Appreciation Society meeting i went to. We meet once a month in the Brighton area, anyone is welcome, they just have to bring vegan food. This time we met in Shoreham by Sea with around 15 people, a really friendly mix of people with a fantastic variety of food! There was coffee & walnut cake, chocolate muffins, shortbread, g/f nuts about chocolate cake, chocolate dipped strawberries, pumpkin seed bread, sweet rice salad, pies, anti pasta kebabs, curry, g/f lentil roast, soup, welsh rarebit, crisps, salads and more. The nuts about chocolate cake was AMAZING! It made me think of chocolate gateaux and like a gateaux it was incredibly moist which i've found can be missing in many gluten free cakes. Rachel the cake maker informed me that one of the ingredients was courgette which really surprised me! Another great cake meeting with a great group of people and wonderful food.

No effort food!

Lazy food was the aim of the day! Both Jon and i were feeling run down and just couldn't be arsed to do any cooking! So we decided to treat ourselves to some microwave curries from Infinity Foods in Brighton. We had Great Nineveh Malaysian split pea curry with roasted beetroot, along with Chaula's aloo mutter potato peas in a mildly spiced sauce plus a bag of Co-op's microwave basmati rice.

I'm uncertain if i've ever eaten Malaysian food before. I have to confess that i generally only eat beetroot when it's pickled out of a jar! Initially i found the roasted beetroot in the curry a little odd but i think this was just because it was a new flavour to me. The more i ate, the more i enjoyed it, the curry was very tasty and was easily the best of the two curries. The aloo mutter curry was nice but nothing special, it wasn't helped by sharing a plate with the Malaysian curry which was especially good for a ready meal.

Chunky oven baked ratatouille and pasta

Roast vegetable & tofu ratatouille with gluten free pasta. Unfortunately this meal was a bit of a disappointment. The roast vegetables really needed more flavour added (i'd used lemon juice, dried basil, black pepper and olive oil) and i think if i was to use tofu for this meal again i'd probably use one that was flavoured or marinate it before adding it to the roast. I used two types of pasta (vegetable rice spirals and corn & vegetable shells), they were the same make (Orgran) and the same length of time to cook, so i cooked them in the same saucepan. Mistake! The spirals softened far quicker than the shells and so by the time the shells were cooked, the spirals were soggy! Definitely room for improvement if i cook this meal again!