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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Garden visit, the allotments and polytunnels at CAT.

Garden visits is a (new) blog series where I visit gardens, then blog about them!

On our holidays we visited the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Machynlleth Wales.  

There are several allotments and polytunnels at CAT, and they gave me serious garden envy.  

Before you enter the Big Polytunnel there are some experimental raised beds to check out.  The round bed demonstrates different mulches and ground covers, from slate and plastic sheeting to oregano, wild strawberries and periwinkle. I love the cute little pond in the middle!

The Big Polytunnel is amazing, I really want a polytunnel but I don't have a big enough garden.  I would totally put one in the front garden, but sadly Joe isn't down with that.  The polytunnel at CAT has beautiful flowers, grapes, figs lots of crops and a pond.  It's lovely to hang out for a while and poke about, it's so big there's lots of room to wander round and it has natural ventilation from the slate beds below, so it's not too sticky and hot.

There are two allotments on site, the smaller of the two being the Whole Home Garden (part of an example of an eco friendly home).

The allotment is surrounded by these espaliered fruit trees and currant bushes. 

There are lots of raised beds, as well as some areas with herbs and trees and flowers.  I think I could fit a little hoop tunnel like the one in this photo, over my front garden raised bed - it's not a polytunnel but it'll do a similar kind of job.

I really love these cobweb plant supports.

The conservatory of the Whole Home really inspired me to make the most of our conservatory.  I won't be growing a grape vine in there (not this year at least!) but I can definitely make room to grow more peppers and to try growing tomatoes in there this year.  I'd like some kind of citrus tree too.

The second allotment is a huge showcase of lots of organic growing methods.  Can I please draw your attention to the size of those leeks! 

The allotment is fenced off by a living willow archway, fence and tunnel!

There are little details everywhere at CAT that show love and care for wildlife.  Piles of sticks are left all over the place for critters to live in, but this is a pretty impressive bug house with a herb planter on top.

Even the walls have insect habitat built in.

If you have a spare bath hanging around you could always turn it into a raised bed!  See the planting in the back bed, it's all good for pollinators and I was excited to see crimson clover because that's something I'm growing this year.

The nice man in the Small Polytunnel (so called by the CAT staff, but it seemed a very large polytunnel to me!)  let me have a wander through as well, although it was roasting hot in there so I didn't linger for much of a chat.  Look at all those little plants waiting to go out, there were so many courgettes and squashes and peppers, and so many tomatoes all the way down the middle.  I told you, serious polytunnel envy.   

I went away from my visit to CAT totally inspired and empowered (and dreaming of winning the lottery and being able to have a much bigger garden!).  There's also a forest garden at CAT, but I'll show you that another time.

For more info on CAT check out their website.

Have you been to CAT?  What did you think?

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Photo an hour, May 2017.

Saturday the 20th was photo an hour day, I missed it because I was in an internet black hole in Wales, but I took a photo an hour on Sunday 21st instead!  Here are my photos.

Photo an hour in organised by Jane and Louisa, anyone can join in and post their hourly photos on social media throughout the day tagging them #photoanhour.  Why don't you join in next time?

 

10am - Not a bad view to have my breakfast in front of.

11am - Doing last day of holiday things, like packing and stripping the bed.

12pm - We've been staying in the pink apartment above the sweet shop, of course!

1pm - Beach feet, one last walk along the beach before home time.

2pm - Goodbye harbour.

3pm - Beach chips.

4pm - The train journey home is so beautiful, it goes along the coast, I took this photo from the train window.

5pm - Still on the train.

6pm - I know these aren't very exciting photos, but I'm still on the train.  Here's another train window photo.

7pm - Home!  I spent an hour running round in the garden.  I missed my garden so much.  I swear the peas have grown a foot in the last week! 

8pm - I had vegan chicken nuggets and potato waffles for tea, and caught up with my current binge watch, Awkward.

9pm - lovely Lush bath.

10pm - Unpacking.  I pretty much bought this because it's called Mermaid Confetti (it's sea salt with toasted seaweed).

11pm - Reading this weird book on the sofa before bed.  I prefer to read in bed but when Joe is working an early shift the next day I do my reading downstairs so he can go to bed super early, he'll be up at 5am-ish poor thing.

Did you take part this time?  How was your Sunday?

 

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Easy eco friendly actions and articles.

Here are a few easy online actions and interesting articles to make the world a better place,  

Sign Friends of the Earth's petition asking fracking company Caudrilla to stop breaking the law.

photo via Story of Stuff

Ask clothing companies to take responsibility for microfibre pollution. 

This guy got his community together to make the first carbon neutral village.

Sign this petition for a EU-wide ban on glyphosate.  38 Degrees have a petition going to keep the ban on bee killing pesticides too.

photo via Friends of the Earth

This article suggests that shop bought bee friendly plants are poisoning bees (if they're grown using pesticides).  I'm now growing from seed, saving seed, taking cuttings, and generally scrounging plants instead of buying as far as I can.

I like the idea of a walking city.

Peat is in so many gardening products, and it's super bad for the environment.  Sign Friends of the Earth's petition to protect British peatlands.  I buy my organic, peat free compost from Wilkos by the way. 

photo via Upworthy

Lego is looking into ways to make eco friendly lego!  We love lego in this household so this is very exciting! 

I post these kinds of things on twitter all month, so find me there if this is your kind of thing too!

 

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