How to make vegan potato cakes with leftover mashed potatoes.

What kind of person has left over mashed potatoes I hear you ask!  Not me usually, but if I know I want to make potato cakes I deliberately make double the amount of mash then try not to eat it all so there are actually leftovers. 

Potato cakes are my favourite thing to make and eat at the moment, and they're really easy and cheap to do!

You'll need, 

leftover mashed potatoes 

flour (any kind will do!)

oil

seasoning

anything else you want to add in - I like chives or spring onions in mine.

1.  Add a spoonful or two of flour at a time to your mash, and mix until it forms a stiff dough.

2. Add any seasoning (how much depends on if your mash was seasoned already) or herbs if you want to use them.

3. With floured hands take a golf-ball-ish sized amount of mixture, roll it then flatten it between your hands, then put into a medium hot pan with a little oil in in.   TOP TIP - cold mash, that's been in the fridge before you use it, is a lot easier to handle!

4. I carry on making potato cakes and putting them in the pan as I go.

5. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes per side, until they're golden brown, then serve hot, or keep in the fridge or freezer.

See, easy peasy!  I like them for breakfast or lunch with lots of vegan margarine spread on and sprinkling of sea salt.  If you make a big batch they store well in the fridge or freezer too.

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Vegan review - Doisy & Dam chocolate drops and crunchy balls.

Allll over Instagram I keep seeing these Doisy and Dam vegan dark chocolate drops (aka vegan smarties!!!! vegan m&ms!!!!!) and crunchy dark chocolate balls (aka vegan maltesers) so I had to give them a try! 

I found these in Holland and Barretts, for 99p for a little bag.  Doisy and Dam seems to be a nice, vegan company with good ethics, is corp B certified and is palm oil free.  The only thing I don't like is the plastic packaging, that has no recycling info on it, it's no different to many other brands packaging, but I wish it was better.

I love the D&Ds, dark chocolate drops.  They're are soooo good!  The chocolate is dark and rich and the coating is crunchy and sweet.  They're a dark chocolate, vegan version of m&ms or smarties.  The drops in my packet were all chipped, which wasn't very aesthetically pleasing, but didn't make much of a difference otherwise.  I want to get more of these and decorate some cakes with them, when I was a kid cakes were always deocrated with simple white icing and smarties and I miss that! 

Unfortuately the Ballers weren't to my taste.  Both myself, and non-vegan-husband put these in our mouths and said 'no!', which is never a good sign.  The chocolate is really bitter and the middle is  very hard and crunchy and tastes weird, not malty and melty like a malteaser, which is what I was expecting.  Ack.  Plus you only get 10 in a packet, which would be quite disappointing, if you actually liked them. 

Have you tried these?  What did you think?

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Review, Greggs vegan sausage roll.

Ahh the famous Greggs vegan sausage roll, much rumoured and anticipated, much discussed on social media, but what's it like?

The pastry is really light and flaky, the sausage inside is a good, moist texture and is made of Quorn.  It tastes, well, sausage roll-like.  It's nice.  I've eaten more than one since they launched last week. My mum says they're too salty, my colleague says they're a bit greasy, my meat-eating husband says they taste pretty much like the original Greggs sausage roll.  

My most favourite vegan sausage roll are the Linda McCartney ones.  Comparing the two, the Greggs vegan sausage roll has lighter, crispier pastry, the Linda has thicker pastry, the Greggs has a more succulent filling and it's more salty and umami, the Linda vegan sausage roll is more herby and a bit more stodgy.   

When I went to buy mine the store had sold out, but if you ask the staff they'll pop some more in the oven for you and they'll be ready in about 10 minutes.  

Have you tried one yet?

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Review - Slab vegan artisan fudge.

Friends, I feel it's my duty to bring to your attention this amazing vegan fudge. 

This is Proper Fudge.  I've been disappointed many times by vegan fudge, it's always soft and fondant-y and a bit kind of doughy, nice enough but I can make that kind of fudge myself.  This Slab artisan fudge is still soft, but it has that crunchy, crispy, almost crystal (but not gritty), melt in the mouth texture of the dairy fudge I loved in my pre-vegan days.  Does that make sense?  I'm not sure I have the right words to describe how good Slab fudge is, suffice it to say it's satisfied my fudge-y needs in a way no other vegan fudge ever has. 

I ordered 4 flavours, classic (it's sweet and slightly vanilla-y), death by chocolate (it tastes like the chocolate fudge icing my mum used to make for my birthday cakes), maple and walnut (this is for Joe, but I've taste tested it for him and it's super sweet and maple-y with nutty bits in) and choc toffee (this is my favourite, the toffee flavour is ah-maz-ing and it's swirled with chocolate fudge).  It's all coconut based, and you can taste that slightly in all the flavours, moreso in the classic and chocolate flavours.  

I asked for my fudge to be packed with as little plastic as possible (because I'd seen this post on Instagram!).  This is how my Slab fudge order arrived.

One piece of fudge had a bit of a whoopsie and was broken, but it's going to get broken when I eat and chew it anyway, so that's not an issue for me. I've kept it wrapped in it's greaseproof paper and popped it into a Pyrex box.  Yey for plastic free fudge!  (although the box did have plastic tape and bits on it, it's so hard to do anything completely plastic free and I really appreciate the effort Slab made to reduce the plastic)

Slab vegan fudge costs £3.50 per 150g piece, and you get free shipping on orders over £10.  They also sell dairy fudge, so make sure you order from the right section!  Fudge is made to order and mine came within 6 days of ordering.  I had cause to contact their customer services with a question, and they got back to me within a couple of hours and were super friendly and knowledgeable.  

This isn't a sponsored post.  I just like fudge.  And I'm going to eat some now! 

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Review - Morrisons wonky veg box.

I've tried a few organic veggie boxes in my time, but when I spotted this Wonky Veg box from Morrisons for only £3.50 I couldn't resist and added it to my online shopping order.  

Inside the box were 10 medium size potatoes, 4 small onions, 2 small leeks, 3 parsnips, 1 cauliflower, 1 swede, 1 cabbage and 6 carrots.  As with lots of 'wonky' fruit and veg, I can see nothing wrong with any of it!  If I was being extra picky I'd say the potatoes have imperfect skin, but that's easy enough to deal with.

All the wonky veg from the box has been delicious and some of it's still in the fridge 2 weeks after we bought it, and it's lasting well.  The cauliflower was really nice and fresh, and the potatoes were really yummy.  

I do prefer an organic veg box, but this Morrisons Wonky Veg box actually has nicer veg in than the Morrisons organic veg box.  I regularly get an Able and Cole organic fruit and veg box, it has the nicest produce in it, but costs £14.50 plus delivery each week, whereas this Wonky box is a bit of a bargain for £3.50.  

In terms of packaging, the veg came in a carboard box, covered with a single sheet of plastic.  I'd have preferred no plastic, but 1 sheet is still less than if you were to buy all these veg wrapped singly. 

Have you tried a Wonky Veg box?  What do you think?

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Tips and resources for new vegans.

Are you taking part in Veganuary this year?

(Can you manage to say Veganuary without it sounding like vagina-ry?  Because I certainly can't!)

Veganary is here, 100,000 people have signed up to try veganism for a month, my 11 year veganiversary is almost here, and there's never a better time than the present to explore the concept of eating a little less meat and dairy to help your health, the environment and our animal friends.

Here are some nice resources I actually use and find really handy,  

Websites for vegan support and info.

The official Veganuary website has so much information, you can even click for a free online vegan starter kit. 

I love The Vegan Womble's website, for really, really extensive lists of vegan products available in supermarkets and highstreet stores.  Check out their vegan product lists to see all the yummy things you can still eat. 

The Vegan Society have loads of online resources, and a 30 day vegan pledge you can sign up to, anytime, for support and information while trying out veganism.  

Shopping.

My food shopping pretty much all comes from supermarkets and my organic veg box, there's no need to visit health food or specialist shops for vegan food anymore!  If you shop online you can type 'vegan' into the search box on the website of your supermarket of choice (eg. Morrisons) and all sorts of things will pop up.  If you're shopping in store you'll need to get real good at reading labels.  Either way check out this accidentally vegan account on Instagram for lots of inspiration.  

My staple vegan shopping items include Pure dairy free olive spread, Violife vegan cheese, Linda McCartney sausages, sausage rolls, vegan scampi and vegetarian burgers, Fry's chicken nuggets, Quorn vegan hot and spicy burgers, and for ice cream Ben and Jerry's vegan chocolate fudge brownie or Booja Booja hunky punky chocolate.  My favourite chocolate is Moo Free, Lindt 70% dark chocolate and Cadbury's Bournville, Tesco's own brand vegan white chocolate is really nice too.  

If you do want to find something special I like Ethical Superstore, The Vegan Kind and Vegan Store. 

Books and magazines. 

Vegan Life Magazine brings you monthly articles and recipes, and even a vegan agony uncle page - you can subscribe here.  

My favourite vegan cook books are Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Peace and Parsnips by Lee Watson and River Cottage Veg Every Day by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.  To be honest though I usually just find recipes online, my favourite is Jamie Oliver's vegan chocolate brownie recipe, it's to die for and super easy to make.  

And if you want a fiction book that'll make you never want to eat eggs again then read The Hen Who Dreamed she could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwang.  

Eating out.

Trip Advisor (just make sure you tick 'vegan options' under dietary restrictions) or Happy Cow are pretty good shouts for checking out vegan restaurants and cafes.

So many chain restaurants are really vegan friendly now, I like eating at Wetherspoons (onion bhajis and chips!), Las Iguanas (mushroom fajitas and chips!), Loungers (vegan all day breakfast!), Zizzi (pizza!), Pizza Express (pizza!) and Handmade Burger Company (falafel burger!) but there's a full list of vegan friendly chain restaurants provided by Peta.    

If you're trying out a vegan diet or lifestyle during January (or anytime!) good luck, enjoy it and check out my vegan posts for lots of recipes and ideas.  

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Disclosure - I receive a free digital subscription to Vegan Life Magazine, in return for giving them a shout out.  I only work with brands I like and all opinions are my own.  

Review - Abel and Cole organic veg boxes.

We've been looking for an organic veg option for a while, I don't get many crops from my garden during the winter, and the organic stall has disappeared from my local market.   We've tried the Morrisons organic veg box, but I think we've settled on Abel and Cole's weekly organic veg boxes for now. 

This is what we got in our first few boxes,

Week 1.

We went for a medium mixed box to start with, this costs £19.95 but we had a super special offer for 50% off our 1st and 4th boxes, so we actually paid £9.98 plus the £1.25 for postage.  This is a bigger box than we would go for usually, but we were cheekily making the most of the 50% off!

The box contains 3 fruits and 6 veggies, our box had,

5 big bananas, 6 apples and a box of red grapes.  A paper bag with 9 potatoes of various shapes and sizes, a bag of 9 carrots, 4 white onions, 3 big vine tomatoes, 3 huge portobello mushrooms, a cauliflower.

Opening the box was like Christmas and all the produce was beautiful and fresh and exciting!  Only two little niggles with the produce, one of the bananas was split and one of the potatoes had a green bit, but nothing that we were particularly bothered about.  I don't like the plastic boxes the grapes, mushrooms and tomatoes came in either - surely they could use cardboard ones instead!

We got a free cookbook too. 

Week 2.

We went for the small mixed box this time, which costs £14.25 gives you 3 fruits and 5 veggies, it contained,

4 big bananas, 5 apples, 6 clementines, 2 corn on the cobs, a red pepper, a punnet of mushrooms, a punnet of cherry tomatoes, a bunch of kale.

Although it wasn't as exciting to open the smaller box, I do think this amount of fruit and veg is more manageable for my two person household to eat in a week.  Usually the box comes with potatoes, but I swapped them out for a pepper because we still had loads of potatoes left over from the Morrisons organic veg box.  Again the produce was lovely and fresh and we were excited to eat it!

Week 3.

We had the small mixed box again, this time it contained,

4 bananas, 9 apples (a double portion of apples), a bag of 7 potatoes, a red pepper, 3 big leeks, 5 medium size chestnut mushrooms, a bag of corn salad.

Again, everything was nice and fresh, although I could have done with a few more potatoes in my bag!

Week 4.

Ok, I'll admit that we went too far with this one!  To make the most of the 50% off the 4th box offer I bought the large mixed box, which is usually £27.50, but we only paid £13.75 plus postage.

Inside the (huge) box was,

6 bananas,7 apples, 7 mandarins, 4 baking potatoes, a bag of 10 potatoes of various sizes, 2 broccolis, a cauliflower, 5 tomatoes, 12 mushrooms, 4 corn on the cob and a bag of salad.

I guess the portion sizes are bigger in the bigger boxes as well as you getting a larger selection of items. Luckily, Abel and Cole boxes are really flexible, so I skipped the next week's box to give us enough time to eat all this veg.

I made a couple of extra purchases from the Abel and Cole shop too, some organic pumpkin seeds and garlic.

Overall, I've been super happy with the quality of the fruit and veg in the boxes, everything is fresh and it feels like a real treat to eat.  I love the convenience of having it delivered too, I don't have to go to the market, or try to find organic in the supermarket.  It's nice that the boxes are flexible too, you can skip weeks, and check the website to see what's in your box in advance -and swap out anything icky like parsnips or butternut squash!  I wish there was less plastic packaging on some of the things, but I suppose there's less plastic than if I'd bought my veg pre-packaged from the supermarket.

If you fancy trying Abel and Cole for yourself feel free to use the code below to get £20 off your first order (and I'll get £20 credit too!).

Can you recommend any other organic veg boxes for us to try?

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Review - Morrisons organic veg box.

Now that the growing season is nearly over I've been looking into organic veg boxes to keep us in fresh and ethically grown fruit and veg during the winter. 

I ordered the new Morrisons organic veg box so I could compare it to the Abel and Cole organic veg boxes I've also signed up to. 

The Morrisons veg box costs £8 and is available in store or for home delivery.  They also do a non-organic box for £5. 

The organic box I received was quite big and it contained the following,

17 potatoes of various sizes

11 carrots

4 leeks

4 golden beetroot

5 small red onions

1 bulb of garlic

1 fennel

The veg is nice enough, but not as nice as the posh veg that comes in the Abel and Cole box.  It's a good budget organic option - and it's going to take us ages to get through all those potatoes and carrots - but I'm going to stick with the Abel and Cole box as long as we can afford it.  

Having said that there's nothing actually wrong with the Morrisons veg box, other than the veg is not quite as fresh as I would like.  It's nice to get a bulb of garlic, the leeks, fennel and onions are fine, the beetroot and potatoes are all perfectly usable but they're a bit knobbly bobbly and blemished. 

As you can see, my fridge will be full for quite some time! 

Can you recommend any other organic veg boxes for us to try?

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What I ate in a day, a day of yummy vegan food.

This is what I ate in a day, it was my day off work, with just a few errands to run and a bit of gardening to do, but mostly just chilling out at home.

Breakfast was a yummy mix of potatoes, chickpeas and onion, fried til crispy with some paprika and garlic and a splodge of ketchup.

My breakfast was super filling, so for lunch I had some home-grown salad leaves, with a few crackers, a stick of vegan cheese and a BBQ Graze box.

Followed by an apple and home grown raspberries - they're so sweet this year!

Joe made this tea.  Home-made tomato sauce, wholemeal spaghetti and sausages-pretending-to-be-meatballs.  If you cut up Linda McCartney sausages and fry them in a little paprika they make excellent quick pretend-meatballs for pasta dishes.

This vegan ice cream is supposed to be in the shape of a lion, but I think it's more like a cute little sheep!  It's not quite chocolatey enough so I like to dip it into dark chocolate chips too!

Don't forget to check out my other vegan blog posts for more vegan meal inspiration! 

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What I ate in a day, a day of yummy vegan meals.

This is what I ate on a lazy day at home,

Breakfast was a toasted sesame seed bagel, filled with a Linda McCartney sausage and ketchup - and it was really yummy!  Orange juice and strawberries on the side for fruity healthiness too.

For lunch I had a Brazilian inspired meal.  Herby kidney beans with left over brown rice and a little salad.  I dry fried some sesame seeds to sprinkle over the rice and added a few crisps to my plate.   My friend is married to a Brazilian guy and they lived in Rio for years.  When I visited them I learned that Brazilians sprinkle special little crisps over their rice and beans (and pretty much everything else!).

Tea was Thai noodle stir fry with loads of veg - including a home grown courgette!

I love a crispy snack when I'm watching TV in the evening, so I made my own vegan cheese and onion crisps with a packet of Pom Bears, some nooch and onion powder.

Don't forget to check out my other vegan blog posts for more vegan meal inspiration! 

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Four variations on Jamie Oliver's vegan brownie recipe.

Jamie Oliver's vegan chocolate brownie recipe is my new favourite, favourite vegan brownie recipe!  It's soo good.  And simple to make.  And has no faffy ingredients. 

You can find Jamie Oliver's vegan brownie recipe here.  

Recently we threw a big party and I made loads of brownies to feed our guests.  Here are the different variations I came up with,

Vegan chocolate brownies with chocolate chips and sugar stars.

I found myself looking at my brownies and wondering how to make them less, well, brown.  So I sprinkled some colourful sugar stars on top before baking, as well as missing out the nuts from the original recipe and adding a metric-arseload of vegan chocolate chips.

Vegan chocolate brownies with Oreos.

For this batch I broke up half a packet of Oreo's and mixed it into the batter.  I added bigger chunks on the top before baking.  And lots of chocolate chips, because chocolate chips. 

Vegan chocolate brownies with macadamia nuts. 

This was an easy variation, I just swapped the pecan nuts recommended in the recipe for macadamias - yum.

Vegan chocolate brownies with vegan fudge.

I made this variation of Jamie's chocolate brownies with vegan fudge instead of nuts.  I use Fabulous Freefrom Factory's Dairy Free Fudge, cut up into smallish cubes, mixed into the brownie batter and scattered on the top before baking.  I also added chocolate chips.  Because I'm a fan of chocolate chips.

This has quickly become my go to recipe, and I see many many more Jamie Oliver vegan brownies in my future! 

(Although I still have love for my old fave vegan chocolate brownie recipe too!)

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