It's all in the preparation

Today's lunch was a colourful Kilner jar salad that I prepped last night. There's been a bit of a craze with Kilner/Mason/shaker salads in the last couple of years. The contents can be prepared the night before and safely sealed/transported and eaten from the jar. The dressing can either be kept separately until the time of serving or put in the bottom of the jar before the veggies. My salad consisted of: 1/2 red bell pepper, 1 carrot, 2 inch cucumber, 5 radishes, 5 small lettuce leaves, a large handful of spinach M&S topped with a tablespoon of sunflower seeds. The veggies (except spinach) were chopped/sliced into bite sized pieces. The dressing was a mix of balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard and tamari which I kept in a mini jam jar til lunch. Shake it up baby! Yum!!!!! 5 a day? Done! Dinner was a bowl of g-free penne mixed with a pesto I made on Sunday night while my bread was baking. 3 sundried tomatoes in olive oil, 8 walnut halves, a fat clove of garlic, a bunch of parsley, 2 tsp capers, some oil from the tomato jar. This was all whizzed up in a blender until the contents were suitably small and combined. This is a combo I'd like to try again, I'm not 100% sure what the capers brought to the party so I'll calm down the tomato next time and big up the capers.

Easy does it on a Monday!

Well today was low on effort and cooking as I'd already done some preparation. Yesterday I made a g-free loaf, the first time I'd done so without using a shop bought flour mix. It wasn't perfect (slightly undercooked in the middle) but pretty good all the same. When I'm better at it I'll share the recipe. In the meantime, some things I've learnt! Potato flour and potato starch are not the same thing. They cannot be interchanged so no swapsies! But... tapioca flour and tapioca starch are the same thing and can be interchanged. Plus, to confuse it all, arrowroot is also tapioca! The recipe I was following used potato starch, tapioca starch and arrowroot starch. I didn't have any potato starch so I just used tapioca flour instead of the starches (although I did swap out 1/2 cup for post flour as the mix was looking too white!!!) So the bread made a really nice sandwich for lunch (I rarely have sandwiches). For dinner I fetched some lentil joe mix (from the book Happy Herbivore Light and Lean) from the freezer and served it over potato waffles. I'd just got back from a Pilates class so this was quick and easy, with just a little nutritional yeast on top for added B vitamins.

WVE revisited

It's been quite a while since I last posted on this blog. I've missed blogging and have been busy experimenting in the kitchen. Over the last couple of years I've been cutting out gluten and doing more vegan cooking. Being gluten free is challenging. Being vegan is challenging. Being a gluten free vegan is incredibly challenging! You soon discover that wheat and milk powder sneak their way in anywhere. Vegan sausages tend to have wheat in. Crisps have wheat and milk powder (except your standard ready salted). Egg also sneaks into places where you don't expect eggs are required. Gluten free bread in supermarkets being a case in point - they may be labelled as gluten and dairy free but there'll be egg in there somewhere!! So now as well as giving some examples of what vegetarians eat I'll be including what vegans and gluten free people eat too. There'll be recipes. There'll doubtless be trials and tribulations. I will include some hints and tips. I'll probably be taking a foray into the daunting world of YouTube videos as well! It's time, it's 2015 and meat-free living is going mainstream. Let's show the world What Vegetarians Eat!!!!

I heart NY

I have been back from NYC for a few days now and have only just been able to get my head together enough to write about it.

I had written myself a list of places to eat when we got to the Big Apple but, with much sadness, I can report that neither of us had much of an appetite. I can say that I did some stand out meals:

First night - spinach and goats cheese salad at Ellen's Stardust Diner on Broadway. One of the most simple meals ever: a bowl of spinach leaves tossed in olive oil, a small amount of creamy goats cheese, a sprinkling of caramelised walnut halves and 4 thin slices of pear. Fantastic flavours, wonderfully light and nutritious. All served with entertainment too, this diner is staffed by Broadway wannabe's who sing throughout the evening as though it's an ongoing audition (well you never know who's in the audience!)

The one thing that I love about America is that you can get pizza by the slice. Being pretty much restricted to margheritas at least I am not spoilt for choice! The thinnest of thin slices are to be had in NYC, no wonder their pizza parlours are so popular.

Rogue Bar and Restaurant deserves a special mention. They are very veggie friendly and provide great service. The food was absolutely delicious (I had nachos for starter followed by their veggie burger) and their menu is sure to have something for the majority of people. Despite being a sports bar this is no dive, it's clean and airy and a delightful space to eat - but men are likely to get distracted by the many TVs showing a wide variety of sports!

Da Nico in the heart of Little Italy provides a fairly limited menu for vegetarians but I had the most delicious grilled vegetable panini ever. They have a delightful outdoor patio area which is so airy you'd hardly imagine you're in the middle of a bustling metropolis. Each meal is followed by lumps of fried doughnut dough which is sprinkled with icing sugar - very moreish!

We had to leave NYC in a bit of a rush as our flight was cancelled, such a disappointment! I'd been hoping to try out a couple more hotspots on our last day but this wasn't an option. Our final meal was a bit of a rush-and-go affair, we went to the first place we saw and were thankful that there was a vegetarian option! It was an absolute pleasure however to have our final meal at Rickshaw Dumpling Bar on Lexington Avenue. I had the vegetarian bento box - 4 edamame dumplings with white rice and a tub of Asian greens. Everything was delicious, the food was incredibly reasonably priced and the staff were friendly. I hated having to decline a loyalty card! Thank you Rickshaw!

And that's pretty much it for my NYC food adventure. Not as adventurous as I may have liked but with all of the sightseeing it was always going to be difficult to fit all of the food in (you don't know where you're going to see until you get there!) I heart you New York - I'll be back!

Communication

Hi everyone

Just wanted to say hello after a bit of an absence. To be honest I wanted to write a post a couple of weeks ago but it was going to be terribly whiny and I couldn't bring myself to send it. Unfortunately we'd had a bit of a disastrous meal when I took my mum out for Mothers Day and, seriously, all I've wanted to do ever since is complain! I really must write to that pub and tell them (life's even got in the way of a good moan!)

On the brighter side I was lucky enough to go to the Vegetarian Cookery School a couple of weeks ago and spent a day making Italian food. I love Italian food and the delicious but simple nature of the techniques and ingredients were genius. Janifer and Helen were brilliant and it was great to spend the day with them. When I got home I got straight on to eBay and managed to get an Imperia pasta maker for a great price, last weekend I made roasted butternut squash tortellini. I ended up with so much extra pasta dough that I made some tagliatelle and I had that tonight with some pesto. Fabulous!

For a simple Sunday dinner this weekend I cut an acorn squash in half, hollowed it out and filled the cavity with a vegetarian sausage mix (something I rarely use). I then roasted the squash for an hour or so until it was nice and soft.

More foodie writing soon...

Busy bees

Well there hasn't been much time to cook this week as I've been working extra hours in preparation for going on holiday. I haven't been abroad in 5 years and I am extremely excited to finally be going to New York City, something I've been dreaming of for as long as I can remember. Having done some reading it looks as though my week there should be amazing. I've been busy swotting up on the galleries, museums, architecture and, of course, the food! I can't wait to report back when I return but the next few weeks while I'm preparing and making sure everything is done so that my day job doesn't suffer will keep me fully occupied.

The last couple of days I've relied on food from the freezer and my parents. Mum made some cauliflower cheese and gifted me a portion for today's dinner (she reassures me that the cauliflower was big enough for several meals!) Yesterday I had one of the flans that she made for me at the weekend (a mixture of Stilton, veg and seeds contained in a spelt pastry base). Tomorrow however the boyfriend is coming round and my options are to do something really lazy like cheese on toast or something more adventurous. I have a few hours at work and some appointments to organise before I make that decision!

Eating out in London

I absolutely love trying new places to eat when I'm visiting London for a day but sometimes I find it's better for planning purposes to think ahead. For this reason I have some 'go to' places across central London where I know that I, and anyone travelling with me, will be happy to eat. This weekend my 'go to' was Tibits on Heddon Street. Heddon Street is a small pedestrian area full of eateries just off of Regents Street. What makes Tibits so different is that it's an exclusively vegetarian buffet where you help yourself to anything from the giant "food boat" and pay by the weight of your plate (plus a bread roll which comes with every plate). This may sound weird but if you apply logic when loading up your plate it's pretty easy to see if your plate will be a cheaper meal or more expensive one. As for the food itself: celery salad sits alongside beluga lentil salad, onion rings alongside Asian glass noodle salad, potato wedges alongside Moroccan spiced carrots. Such is the variety of things they offer you may not get the same thing every day and the menu changes with the seasons. The staff are friendly, even on manically busy days like yesterday, and the restaurant is clean and stylish.

In the name of research I even tried out the sticky toffee pudding and traditional cheesecake - both absolutely scrummy!

Tibits also operate a loyalty card scheme by which you get a free glass of fresh juice when you buy your 6th meal. I got my free glass yesterday!

I also took the opportunity to visit the Real Food Festival. This festival takes place on weekends behind the Royal Festival Hall on London's South Bank. I wasn't sure what to expect but what I found was a diverse range of stalls offering hot food to enjoy there and cakes, breads, cheeses and meats to take home. Riverford Organic was there selling fresh veg and promoting their veg box scheme and John Quilter the food busker was doing his thing in front of a tv camera (hopefully I'll find out when that's being broadcast). I got some baklava from an Lebanese stall as well as some gorgeous spring greens and sanguinello oranges from Riverford. I look forward to my next London trip where I hope to find some new recommendations!