Vegetarian & Vegan cook book giveaway!

Hello!

So I went to the Animal Aid Christmas fayre a wee while ago and I bought a little something with the intention of hosting a give-away on this-here blog in time for Christmas. Well, Christmas has been and gone and it’s now mid-January but here it is, finally!

I’m offering you lovely lot the chance to win The Vervet Monkey Foundation‘s Vegan & Vegetarian Recipe Book. VMF is a South African charity that provides sanctuary and rehabilitation for these misunderstood cutie pies and have saved hundreds of Vervet Monkeys since they started up in 1993.

The recipe book is comprised of veggie and vegan recipes that the volunteers out in South Africa cook for each other and was created to raise funds. Honestly, I’ve not cooked anything from it- not because they recipes don’t sound delicious, but because I’m a lazy cook- but there are sections for main meals, sides & salads and desserts as well as some recipes for making your own eco-friendly cleaning products. What’s more is that there are lots of photos and illustrations of cheeky-looking Vervet monkeys throughout.

All you have to do to enter is follow this blog and leave a comment with your blog link (if you have one) and some kind of way for me to contact you…  (email or twitter username). For extra entries, tweet me @nickohlaa to let me know that you’ve entered my giveaway.

I’m happy to post it internationally and the closing date is midnight GMT on the 15th February.

Good luck and if I make any of the recipes in the meantime, I’ll let you know!  xxx

I heart Superdrug

Last time I was vegan- 9 years ago- I LOVED the UK supermarket, Sainsbury’s, for clearly labelling whether their own-brand products were vegan or not. In fact, Sainsbury’s is solely responsible for igniting my penchant for Spicy Mexican Bean Burgers!

Anywho, since dying my hair turquoise I’ve been experimenting with slightly different hair styles to my usual basic up or down-do, mainly because I’m trying to wash my hair a bit less to keep the colour as vibrant as possible. As a result, I’ve found I need more and more hair products- mainly dry shampoo and hairspray. Being conscious that not all beauty products were created vegan, I thought I’d have a quick search online before buying. I came across a number of articles saying that Superdrug is the best bet, so I thought I’d see for myself whether it was still the case as some of the articles were a few years old.

The interwebz spoke the truth and was so pleased to see for myself that Superdrug is the beauty equivalent of Sainsbury’s and that they clearly label their products if they’re suitable for veggies. I had a field-day on my lunch break doing some spot-checking and I didn’t actually come across anything that didn’t have the ‘Suitable for vegetarians and vegans. Superdrug is against animal testing’ labelling on the back. Woohoo!

Superdrug’s 49p vegan toothpaste, as well as all of their other toothpaste, is veganSo is all of their mouthwash.

…and their dry shampoo

 

…handwashes

…and all of this too.

Happy days! I pretty much never want to shop anywhere else for my beauty products, despite their loyalty card not looking quite as good as Boots’.

Does anyone have any other UK vegan highstreet tips for me? If so, please tell! x

Lazy-Bake-Chocolate-Cake

Not the most visually appealing, but it’s quick, vegan and the perfect amount for one person.

Thank you to Gemma for introducing me to this mug of genius! x

Birthday and Christmas Presents!

I was born 5 days before Christmas… Logistical nightmare in many ways, but on the plus-side I tend to get a whole bunch of lovely presents almost all at once… Here are just some of the gifts I received that were suitable for vegetarians whilst also being aesthetically pleasing.

Mmm… Vegan, organic and pretty.

must. cook. more.

These boots are called ‘Synthetic Sue’ by Sole Sister

I got the satchel from Vegetarian Shoes that I wanted… I am a very lucky girl.

I love tote bags. These two are from Lush and Vegetarian Shoes.

Lush is so lush.

My nails are gross; I needed this.

I put all my goodies in a basket. Super lux. (Yep, those are Liz Earle bits in there!)

Life is better with Booja-Booja truffles in them.

What’s not to love?

I was very lucky this year!

Did you get any veg gifts this Christmas? x

P.S. My mum gave Ruari & I a blender… I’ve made three smoothies so far, all of which weren’t smooth enough!

Made with soya milk; took me about 3 hours to drink!

Happy New Year

Long time, no blog… I feel really bad for not writing- I often want to but it takes me ages to write even the simplest of posts  and I start feeling guilty for spending too long on my computer and neglecting real life.

I wanted to just quickly say that I hope you all had a great Christmas and I wish y’all the best for 2013; I hope it’s a veg one!  One of my biggest resolutions is to be as vegan as I can be without putting anyone (mainly my mum) too far out of their (her) way… Saying that, she’s already started buying soya milk for when I come over, bless her. I know that sounds like a bit of a cop out, but I have my reasons and I don’t care if people want to judge me for that. I’m always vegetarian, just not always vegan.

mum and I on new years eve… me with freshly dyed blue hair.

Another of my resolutions is to be a better blogger, here and on my other blog; Ramble, ramble, ramble. Others include ‘read more’ ‘take more photos’ ‘be less stressy’ and ‘have more fun’.

Does anyone else have any veg resolutions? I know that rapper Ne-Yo does… Did you hear that he’s trying to be vegan in 2013? It’s been all over my Twitter feed for the last few days- I wonder how he’s getting on?!

x

P.S. Bloggers, do you have any tips on how to blog faster/ more efficiently? It seems that other bloggers put a lot of effort into planning posts- brainstorms n’ that- which is probably where I’m going wrong. I’m a bit too ‘in the moment’ or if I’m not, then I’m a bit too ‘I’ll get round to it’ but then I don’t. Gahh.

Vegan Cupcake Fail

So, the other day, I made my first attempt at baking something other than chocolate cornflake cakes since I was a wee nipper. Rather than just making your average cupcake, I decided to try my hand at making vegan white chocolate and raspberry cupcakes- a modification of my friend’s vegan white chocolate and blueberry cupcakes that I’d eaten a few days earlier (and loved!).

Recipe:

1 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/4 melted dairy-free butter
3/4 cup soya milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar
100g vegan white chocolate
3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberrys (or raspberries in my case)

Method:

Mix the sugar and flour
Add the wet ingredients and mix until smooth
Stir in the chocolate and fruit
Bake for 20-25 mins at 180 degrees

The result:

I followed the recipe and method to the dot using some cup measures I got one Christmas and bunged them in the oven for about 30 minutes. They looked brown when I took them out, but a little bit sunken in the middle. When I pulled the casing away, they were still very gooey inside. To try and salvage them, I scraped them all out of the cases and turned them upside down and re-baked for a further 30 minutes. By the end of it all they looked absolutely awful but they were actually sort of edible. My mum enjoyed hers, at least, but I didn’t take them to work the next day for my colleagues to try!

When I went to the Animal Aid Christmas Fayre a couple of weeks ago (which I still haven’t written about, sorry!) I listened to a 45 minute talk from Ms Cupcake founder, Mellisaa Morgan. It was by chance that my friend and I went along to her presentation about vegan baking but I knew almost immediately that I should’ve taken notes. Alas, I didn’t have a note pad or pen. She talked about vegan substitutes and measurements…. Then I remembered that she said that because most vegan cook-books are American, they use cup measures which can be tricky to work out and get right. I then also remembered that she recommended that you measure your ingredients by weight…. This, I did not do but I will do next time! Must get me a cook book… Maybe I’ll get Ms Cupcake’s, in fact!

Have you had any vegan cupcake fails?! x

Cutting out dairy

So, I’m giving veganism a damn good shot again but, first things first, I’m just cutting out dairy to begin with. It’s day two today and it’s going well… I’ve not had a single mocha, cup of tea or cheese mix sandwich (my staples whilst at work). Instead I’ve downed a load of green tea with either pomegranate or apple & pear (I don’t like plain green tea) and a ton of houmous. I really need to expand my repertoire of vegan eats, but I’m getting by with surprising ease thus far.

Carla and I now have matching dinners.

I’m not labelling myself yet as I want to make sure I’m doing it the best I possibly can, plus I kinda feel like I should work through the remainder of vegetarian food  I have in my house, namely Quorn, but a couple of things have triggered the decision to ‘turn’.

1. The Animal Aid Christmas Fayre; I was insanely excited about going to it and I wasn’t disappointed. I had an awesome day and came back with sooo much (vegan) food for thought. I had an overwhelming sense of guilt for being a mere vegetarian though. I will write about the day very soon and I even bought something for a blog giveaway on here.

and

2. The ridiculous amount of mucus that builds up in the back of my throat. I know that’s disgusting and way TMI, but when I started retching from my stomach whilst brushing my teeth the other day, I decided something needed to change. I heard that chilling out on dairy can help this. I hope it works because it’s gross.

So, yeah, we’ll see how it goes. By the way, I have a dear veg friend that will be writing on this here blog in the near future about her vegetarian wedding plans, so watch this space.

Must dash, but I promise I’ll update soon….

x

P.S. I bleached my hair at the weekend. The bleach probably wasn’t vegan though…