A chain restaurant that got it right....

Into my 6th vegan month and no regrets.  20lb down (although this week I've piled a few more pounds on - I'm allowed ok?), still loving finding new recipes and cooking lots of fresh things rather than nipping to Iceland for party food when I wasn't even having a party!!!!!

I'm still loving my salads.  Facebook friends may be very bored of my "salad photos" by now but it helps when I can see how colourful they are.  Salads used to be boring - not any more!  Butternut squash, avocado, cashew nuts, chilli nuts (Superdrug nuts are my go to salad addition!).  What's not to like?

Thanks to our brilliant local Facebook group, I got a food processor this week for £10.  I've realised by looking at vegan recipes over the past few weeks/ months that I really needed one - nothing to do with the fact I want to make cakes & biscuits of course!  My first recipe tomorrow will be a vegan banoffee pie with a base of dates & nuts.  Expect photos if i don't inhale it in 5 mins or it looks rubbish!

So yesterday we ate out at Ask Italian in Newbury.  I'd checked out the menu online weeks ago and was hoping it was as good as it sounds - it was!  To celebrate my beautiful 94 year old Gran who passed away on Monday, I started off with a Tropical Mojito.  Starters included a tuscan bean soup and dough balls which I will try next time....I went for a vegan pizza main (£9.95).  You can choose three toppings for the tomato & cheese base - I went for olives, mushrooms and artichokes.  It was seriously the best pizza I've ever had - during vegan AND non-vegan times.  I'm not sure what cheese they used but it was delicious.  My friend who isn't vegan also had it and agreed.  I'm a dessert fan so was happy to see I had a choice on the menu.  I had blood orange & chocolate tart with raspberry sorbet.  Once again, YUM!  So impressed with Ask....well done chain restaurant - you did good.  Here are some rubbish photos of the food!

Ask vegan menu

And speaking of yummy, my lovely friend arrived with happy Rocky Road Bites from Sainsburys for me yesterday. Here's a link.  You need them, just saying!

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/lazy-day-foods-rocky-road-bites-180g

These are a few of my favourite things....

Mid-February and all is well with the world.

Since I've moved back to Wiltshire, I'm enjoying my little trips out to random places on a Saturday, finding places I've never been, finding new places to eat etc.  This weekend for instance, we stopped by the The Ramsbury Brewery where we sampled some damson and elderflower liqueur...very nice it was too.  Not the easiest place to find, especially if you can't drive...I know it's near Nigel Havers' house though!

Onwards to Newbury where we stopped off in Bills Restaurant in Newbury, a place I used to eat before I was vegan.  Not a huge choice of meals but enough to keep me from starving!  I went for the avocado on toast with mushrooms instead of poached egg - £7.95.  Avocado on toast is actually one of my favourite things so this fits in nicely with the title of today's ramblings.

After seeing a photo of some ridiculous dessert my Auntie had inhaled in Newbury last week, I've discovered a new cafe' that definitely needs visiting at a later date - Top Treats.  I wasn't really expecting any vegan options at all but they do MILKSHAKES WITH VEGAN ICE-CREAM AND MELTED CHOCOLATE OR OREOS...so exciting that I had to write in capitals.  Thank you Top Treats, that'll do nicely!  Expect photographic evidence at a later date.

I've been trying to find new things to eat in Waitrose, just to keep things exciting you understand.  So in the past week, I've bought Violife cream cheese (delicious), Vivera pumpkin sweet potato burgers (not quite so delicious), pea & broccoli pasta (yet to try) and vegetable gyoza (also yet to try).  Different things keep appearing every week - the world is changing - and I'm happy about this.

Do I have an allergy?

A lady actually asked me that when I wanted to know what vegan options they had.  They had none by the way.  The lack of knowledge is quite frightening!

Twice I've been asked if I'm a "real vegan" or do I eat eggs?  Today in "Eat" (in Central London I might add), the staff had no idea if they had anything for me to eat and "Is it just meat & fish you don't eat?".

And the things I see on Facebook - the most ridiculous being that "most vegans have eating disorders".  On dearie dearie me.

Let's get this straight - I do not have an eating disorder, I don't miss out on any protein, I'm not sick - infact I'm more healthy in body & mind than I've been in ages, and I don't miss out on eating scrummy sweet things.  Rant over.

My Facebook and Instagram friends will know that I make salads and take photos of them!!!  Salads are one of my favourite things to make/eat as they're so quick and you can throw everything bar the kitchen sink in.  I'm not just talking hairy lettuce here kids - I'm talking cashew nuts, butternut squash with chilli, beetroot & pomegranate seeds.  A trillion options, quick, cheap & healthy.  Here's another salad anyway:

A friend came to visit this weekend and we went to one of my most favourite new places to eat - Eliane in Hungerford.
The cafe'/restaurant is full of amazing food options - not all just veggie/vegan but focusing a lot on them.  As we were so desperate for lunch but arrived early, we had cake first like kids do - lots of vegan options - mine was a biscuit base with coconut, fruit filling & chocolate topping - and was delicious!  When the kitchen properly opened, we had our main meal - a large plate of gorgeous salads, washed down with a chai latte made with coconut milk.  It's a great place to go for a snack or a larger meal - I've done both and will be back again very soon.  It's calm, spacious with a lot of choice.

Finally, and totally relevant to the title of this blog, today I won two tickets to the Vegan Live weekend at Alexandra Palace in February.  Here's a link:

http://www.alexandrapalace.com/whats-on/vegan-life-live-2/

Eating out in a small market town....

In preparation for relatives visiting today, I was up at the crack of dawn making wonky vegan cookies.  I have not yet found a way to prevent them from becoming wonky in the oven so from now on, wonky they will remain.  My wonky cookies are basically a one bowl mix of porridge oats, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, mashed banana, maple syrup, peanut butter, raisins, dates or whatever else you fancy putting in them.  Delicious, filling and very more-ish, especially if you eat them straight from the oven like I do.

Today basically consisted of eating....I'll use the excuse that it's my visiting Auntie's birthday and you have to eat lots on birthdays don't you?  Said Auntie had been googling and decided she couldn't visit Marlborough without having a "Proper English breakfast".  She chose St Peter's Church Cafe' which I'd always presumed was a bit basic and cold...it was neither and the Tripadvisor reviews were spot on.  A really great menu which should suit everyone.  Just one vegan choice but that's fine for a church cafe'.  I had vegan lasagne with salad & chips and could have had vegan brownie for dessert if I'd have wanted. 

A few doors away and a couple of minutes later, we went for part 2 of birthday lunch...which was really an excuse for me to have cake and Mum & Auntie to have coffee.  Bow Belles is one of my favourite places to eat in town - especially on a Sunday morning when it's peaceful and you can read the paper and have a coffee to jazz playing in the background.  Although not a huge vegan choice, I have requested avocado on toast before which was delicious and they always have a cake or two. Today's was an amazing rich chocolate cake which I inhaled in a couple of minutes because it was so good. 

I can just about force chilli crackers & hummus down for tea tonight.  I'm stuffed!  Happily stuffed.

In other news, I won my first prize of the year this week.  I'm an avid comper and enter dozens everyday, mainly via The Prizefinder website, Facebook, Instagram & Twitter.  I've won some fantastic prizes in the past - the best being a £1,000 Westfield voucher.  I generally win a couple of things a month and even if they're small, they're still wins.  The great thing is that you never know what your next email or notification is going to say, or whether that knock at the door is going to be a prize.  Anyway, my first prize of January is a pampering set from Palmers and it's great!  I've gifted some of the things but am keeping the majority of it.  The fact that it's Coconut based is even better. 

So that's it for today, stuffed but happy.  I'm not eating for the rest of the week as I need to fit into a vintage dress on Saturday so dust it is.  Ta rah!

Shopping...and the things I'm still learning!

I live in a pretty middle-class town where my nearest middle-class supermarket is middle-class Waitrose.  I buy little and often as I hate wastage and when you live on your own, you can't avoid that totally. 

I've learnt a lot from my shopping trips and from other vegan friends who probably made the same mistakes as me once upon a time.  I'm also getting pretty obsessed with Facebook groups that keep you updated with things that the supermarkets are selling.  Things are changing, even here - I can tell from the lack of my favourite "milk" and things I'd hoped to buy.

So, what have I learnt along the way when shopping?

1.  ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS read the label - do not presume you can eat ANYTHING!!!

2.  Just because something is dairy-free does not make it egg-free.  I've messed up a few times because of this.

3.  Lots of vegan cheese in the supermarkets is vile and smells like vomit.  Violife cheese slices have saved the day for me thankfully.  Remember that I live in a small country town and only have the choice of Waitrose or Tesco (if kindly friends will drive me there) so there aren't a million cheese choices.

4.  Soya milk is a bit hard to get used to initially I think so I started off with Barista Oatly which is creamy and lush, and tastes like milk.  It also doesn't curdle in your coffee - one of my hates with soya milk.

5.  Quorn has egg in it.  Who'd have thought that?  Another big learning curve.

Things I like particularly are the Cauldron vegan items, Linda McCartney shredded hoisin duck, Free From Tiffin (for those "I need something sweet" moments) and a million and one other things that I can't be bothered to list.

I've been cooking from scratch a LOT - it's really important for me.  I like to post up photos of my meals even though they're not very aesthetically pleasing sometimes!!!  This is not to make myself superior to the non-vegans out there - it's purely a record for myself and motivation to keep eating healthy.

Here is a photo of some of the items I brought home today from Waitrose and my favourite items from Superdrug at the moment - Cashew nuts  and Chilli seed mix.

Everyone loves a farm shop....

Happy Saturday!

Once upon a time I couldn't be bothered to eat breakfast.  I'm sure this contributes to feeling tired early on in the day.  I force myself to have something these days, even if it's the crack of dawn and I'd rather not have anything.  I found a porridge in Waitrose that I've never tried - Moma Coconut & Chia.  Porridge is quick and filling isn't it?  Chia is one of those things you either like or hate - probably due to the fact is a bit like frog spawn!  I was a bit disappointed if I'm honest - although you can taste coconut, it's a bit bland and I won't be having it too often.  I livened it up with a bit of maple syrup and some raisins, and it was much more edible.  In future, I think I'll stick to my own porridge with fruit and save some pennies.

No time to cook anything too much today - there was cake and coffee to be consumed elsewhere and I had some work to do.  Had one of my favourite lunches - Avocado on toast, with garlic salt and chilli seed mix.  Top tip kids - go to Superdrug for your nuts & seeds - they're cheaper than some supermarkets - fancy that eh?  I'm all for saving money so I always grab some when I'm in there buying "God I look old today" face masks.  I've been adding nuts & seeds to a lot of meals lately - they're so good.  I think avocado on toast is possibly a bit "hipster" but I never tire of it.

I'm lucky enough to have an amazing friend who likes to take little trips out on Saturday - where it be to a charity shop in a tiny town, a random cafe' in the middle of nowhere or, today, to a farm shop & cafe' near Hungerford - Cobbs Farm Shop.
What a fantastic place - florist, really well stocked farm shop and a lovely little cafe'.  There is also a butcher & a fishmonger for those inclined but I'm obviously not!  The shop was pretty amazing - so much to look at and if, like me, you're a sucker for packaging, you'll love it.  I'll be back to make some purchases.  There's a good selection of things in the cafe' - all pretty healthy as you can imagine.  Not many vegan cakes but I spotted a flapjack so all was well with the world!  Next time I'm going to go for the vegan brunch with avocado - yes, I do love an avocado!

I was on a mercy mission with a client this evening so had a late dinner.  Sadly it doesn't look as appetising in my photo as it was - sundried tomato rice with tofu and good old mixed chilli seeds.  Pretty it may not be but filling it was.

That'll do for today.  I've got a cup of tea on the go and The Voice about to start.  I'll be back soon with more photos of food you're not interested in.

How I got here...

Over the past few years, my body has gone to pot!  By that I mean I've got lethargic, overweight and have been suffering with alsorts of ailments from suspected fibromyalgia to sciatica to lower back pain to gallstone pain.  Big yawn.  My friends and I always laugh that we used to be fun, we used to stay out all night and now all we talk about is how generally crap we feel and if we're still up at midnight, it's a good night!

Last Summer, I moved back to Wiltshire where I lived until I was in my 20s, where my family are nearer and where I can live in a 2 bed house with a garden for the same price as a basement flat in Hove.  As I unpacked my things, I put 2 big bags of vintage clothes in the cupboard - vintage clothes that I can no longer fit into.  What a depressing sight.

The gallstone pain got more frequent and severe.  If you've experienced it, you'll know it's the worst pain ever and you wonder if you're going to die.  I realised that I probably brought this on myself...by eating rubbish for years....literally.  My kitchen was tiny so I had no inclination to cook (and I really enjoy cooking), I was on a budget and it seemed so much easier to buy a bag of cookies from the Co-op than make a healthy meal.  Boy in a Suit would come round for dinner and we feasted on takeaways, tubs of ice-cream and all that (not so) good stuff. So that's how it happened and then I realised I needed to get better. Friends were sharing vegan recipes on Facebook, and my love of animals and their welfare kicked in even more - when you're in the country and see them in the fields with their offspring, it really does make you think - and here we are.

Since October, I've been vegan and it's changed me and my body.  I've lost 16lb, I sleep better, I've had less gallstone attacks than before (although I do still occasionally get them) and feel more me again.  I've started cooking again and am loving it.  My new big kitchen means I can make things again and long may it continue.

Apologies for the opening ramble.  I'll be posting up photos of things I've made, things I've discovered and all that jazz.  You'll either love it or you'll hate it - I know how some of you don't or can't understand the vegan thing.  Someone inspired me - maybe I'll inspire the odd person in return.

Oh, and I enter competitions - lots of competitions - every day.  I'll be posting up photos of anything I might be lucky enough to win - just to keep me motivated.

Thanks for reading....