Coronation (Jubilee) Chiken

I figured a good place to start with this blog is simply writing about Vegan food (pretty straight forward, huh?)

DISCLAIMER: I have no major monarchist agenda, except that there are worse people out there that could be wielding genuine power as head of state.

Idea:
So, it being the Jubillee weekend. (do you capitalise jubilee?) and being minor fans of food history we figured we'd take a stab at coronation chicken. A couple of options sprung to mind.

• Corontation Tofu
• Coronation Rice and peas
• Coronation pasta.

In the end, we opted for the last one simply because we'd not had pasta in a while. After browsing for coronation chicken recipes we figured they're all pretty alike.

Recipe:
Several heaped tablespoons of Egg Free Mayo (Also shout out to Natural Grocery Store!)
150g of whole wheat organic pasta (in this case bought from Lidl, win)
2-3 Curry Powder
Moroccan spices (As we ran out of curry powder)
25g of Currants
1 pack of Redwood chicken style pieces (availiable in Holland and Barret, at least)

Note on Redwood Foods: I'm pretty sure they're trolling the vegan world and flat out serving meat but not telling us.

Cooking:
Boil pasta as per instructions on pack. Mix egg free mayo with curry powder, starting with small quantities and adding to taste. Once pasta is cooked, drain and add sauce, stirring on a low heat. Add curry powder to taste and add currants until our bag ran out because we ate some while cooking (whoops), I mean, add currants to personal preference

Leave to cool or place in fridge overnight. We served it with a mini-salad. It was amazing. So amazing in fact I didnt take a photo before eating it.

Conclusion 
OVERALL: 8/10
I could've added more currants to sweeten it up. The BBC Good Food site suggests adding mango chutney.

IMPROV: 3/10
A lot of purpose purchased goods. Only improvisation was

HEALTHINESS: 4/10
Nothing actually bad. Main thing is the oil in the mayo, but how often does the Queen celebrate a jubillee? Will she reach 70? Is that in bad taste? Would Charles appreciate the organic pasta?

ECONOMY: 6/10
Rising to more if you made your own mayo. That was quite expensive for what it was, as was the chicken. It was a little bit of a luxury but I was happy to splash out.

Vegan Clothing: Hell for Leather

I've been eating a vegan diet for about three months now and I've started encountering another issue. Buying clothing. Taking the vegan concept as total you're not "allowed" to buy or wear fur, wool or leather. For the most part I'd agree with this. Definitely for fur and leather (I'll get into wool in another post). I didn't wear fur before I went vegan so its mostly impacted on wearing and buying leather.

I own several items of leather clothing and to be honest I'm not going to replace them while they're perfectly serviceable and wearable. This could easily come across as hypocritical. I'm pretty sure when it comes to buying new clothing I will buy non-leather alternatives. The main reason for keeping my clothing is that for want of a better way of putting it "the damage is done," and I'm not causing further harm by keeping this clothing.

On top of this making new clothing just uses up more resources when I could continue using existing clothing not to mention the cost of replacing perfectly usable clothing.

However, does this also apply to leather goods bought second hand after one's become a vegan? Some arguments still apply. The clothing already exists and to put it one way (and perhaps a bit glibly) the damage is done. On top of this, honestly, it can be attractive and comfortable. Its also probably cheaper than veggie leather clothing, particularly if second hand. On top of this if you are buying it from a charity shop you are giving to charity, often ones which deal with animal welfare and care.

There is a counter to this. Some could say that it is still creating demand in the wider market for leather goods and charity shops, Ebay sellers and so on are more likely to hold onto leather goods if you add to demand to it. I'm not convinced how much this would change their actions or impact on the initial purchase of the leather good in the first hand. It is altogether possible someone would buy it in the knowledge they could give it to a charity shop or sell it on in the future and I'm simply adding to their potential market.

There is also the argument of principle. As fellow vegan and twitter-lady Cat Turner put it "all leather is second-hand skin" and " but whether its first, second, third-hand its still leather," and she's spot on. I guess its whether you see yourself as tacit in the killing of animals or clothing or whether you're taking advantage of a kind of by-product of modern society.

Because in my personal opinion, some leather clothing is really nice, comfy and stylish! I just don't know whether I can use that reason to justify how it got into my wardrobe.

So hypotherical reader, what do you think?

Meal of the Week 1: Carrot, Hummus and Mango Chutney Toastie

Wow, I really dropped the ball with this blog.

To try and get going again I'll try and blog at least one meal a week that turned out pretty well as well as hopefully other posts.

Anyway. We went to the fair trade cafe on Cheltenham high street hoping to get a carrot, hummus and mango chutney toastie, which we'd seen on the menu the week before. Unfortunately it turns out they rotate their menus weekly so we had other food instead but were still Jonesing for a toastie. So I purchased the ingredients from the nearby tesco metro and made one each for Lyd and I (at 10 past 6 in the morning, on a Sunday before Lyd went to work. I must really love that girl)

Anyway.

2 slices of Tesco finest multigrain bread (soft sliced bread but chunky and tasty, not too pricey if bought occaisionally)
1 carrot (first grated then strips peeled off and placed on the bread)
approx 1-2 teaspoons of plain hummus and (in this case Sharwood's) mango chutney. Each one spready on a different bit of bread.

Place first piece of bread in toastie maker, then strips of carrot, then grated carrot to fill in the gaps, then other bit of bread.

Result: Big, filling chunkie thats both different and yet breakfast-y. Not too bad for you either compared to say, cheese and onion.

Coming soon: more posts! hopefully

Find: Todd's Porkless Pie

I love my girlfriend.

Lyd got back from work yesterday with this



Did I mention I love her? Its soya based vegan pork pie and is delicious in the same way pork pies are. Not the healthiest thing in the world but I didn't expect (or really want!) it to be (and its still healthier than actual pork pie. The soya does a good impression of pork filling and the pastry is...well, pastry! What's more, no foul jelly around it! Which is, in my opinion, a very good thing!


Its about £3 in Holland and Barret and Lyd found it a bit reduced. I'd still recommend it as a treat :). Especially for a picnic. Does contain gluten but personally that isn't a problem.

NOTE: Lyd made a good point! "Todds Porkless pies" Isn't necessarily a good thing. It puts us in the mind of Sweeny Todd and Mrs Lovett's pie shop.

"Porkless" doesn't necessarily mean "Meatless"

We made pizza!!

We made vegan pizza! this is a HUGE thing for me! I haven’t had pizza in over a year and it brings with it memories of eating my housemate’s leftover out to the bin and horrid purging experiences… So being happy to make and eat pizza was a big step! It was really nice :) We used pre-made bases, tomato puree, peppers, mushrooms, tomato and courgette :D 

For the love of food! My introduction

The previous post have been by my boyfriend but as we are making this blog together i wanted to introduce myself as well and how i came to the point of deciding to be vegan. 


I've always loved food, it has always been hugely important to me, even as a child. I have to say i have always been one of those people who look to food for comfort and pleasure too. As a child food was something to be seen as a reward, a highlight to the day and i looked forward to my mum's shepherd’s pie or roast dinner. But there where a number of meals though-out my childhood that were less appealing - boil-in-a-bag square of fish in a source with mash and peas or the dreaded, disgusting corned-beef with baked beans and mash... but i had little control over the dinners i ate as a child but found some in hiding biscuits under my mattress. 


I was a fat child, and a podgy teenager too. I was often reminded of this, rather meanly by my mother. As a teenager i was not oblivious to how food was made and like to point out the rather gruesome facts of slaughtering, etc around the dinner table but i lacked the drive and confedeince to become a vegetarian as i had only ever known one way of eating. Then my sister went ff to uni and would come back talking of foods that i had never heard of - fancy stir-frys, funny vegetables, sushi, etc. I hoped one day i would go to uni and learn how to cook healthy foods. 


Then my mum decided to go on a low carb diet (i now no these to be stupid) which confused me greatly! Where once there had been shepherd’s pie made with mince and mash there was now an alien version with celery and cauliflower-cheese! There was mum and my sister with there 'special' food and my and dad with our regular, 'full-fat' version. How come i wasn't including in this diet? I was fat and greatly saddened by my body and the way i looked (even then i would cry while going underwear shopping). So i did my own thing - cut chocolate then all sweet things and did 80sit-ups a day. It only lasted a couple of months and i was soon back to being the school vacuum and finishing my mate's lunches (not helped my the fact my 6th form was right by 2 take-aways!)  


Then i went to uni. Freedom!!! For the first few months it was great! I loved looking up recipes and trying new things. I was way the best cook in my flat. Then came placement of 37.5hour a week of long day shift and night shifts. Good food went to the window and i'm ashamed to say i remember sainsbury's basic sausage rolls playing a large part at the time! My eating became eractic and unhealthy. To cut a long story short, i ended up with an eating disorder, bulimia. 


People often think people with ED's hate food, but in actual fact, we love food. I loved researching food, exploring every aspect of it. This opened my eyes to the realities of how food is produced, how it effects the world and what we really should be putting into our bodies. I would look up every sort of diet and lifestyle to find the healthiest, what would treat my body the best? Yes, i wanted to look after my body, i wanted to eat well. I just couldn't. This was not about deprivation - i think too many people ED as one and the same whereas i would say bulimia and anorexia are polar opposites. 


Becoming vegan seemed the way forward, and still does. It involves eating in a way that makes so much sense - for me and for the world! I am glad to say i am now recovering from my ED and that the decision to go vegan was not driven by it. I had 18 years of eating for my own self-enjoyment and 3 years of eating for my own self-destruction. I now what to eat for myself, for my environment and for my world. 


Thank you 
Lydia      

Lunches

I didn't know you had to be so good at logistics to be vegan.

I've been trying to be "mostly vegan" for a while and a commonly repeating problem is finding lunches that are vegan. If I find myself in town or anywhere away from home without some kind of packed lunch its damned near impossible to find lunch from a shop that is vegan.

In most cases its because most shops seem to think Vegetarian equals cheese. Which really doesn't help. You occasionally find things that are cheese-free but there seem to be a few solutions.

1) Always bring a packed lunch. This takes a lot of planning and you sometimes don't expect to be out. Plus it means you usually have to eat outside rather than buying food from a cafe.

2) Snack. Vegan snacks are usually easier to find than full meals.

3) Holland and Barret. The almighty temple of health-foodiness. Their "Veg Out" range of Soya based pastries are almost always vegan. (Except the Scotch Egg, go figure). They've got quite a decent range (in the Cheltenham branch anyway).

4) Investigate vegan lunches available. The best way I've discovered for this is the "Suitable for Vegans, UK" group on facebook. Its a group for sharing information on veganism and where people in the UK can share finds from UK retail outlets (supermarkets, health foods and so on). If you're in the UK and even just interested in vegan food I strongly recommend it. Creator Sue and the rest of the mods are very friendly and extremely helpful.

Anyway. How do you deal when you find yourself away from home without food. Do you have a vegan-friendly bolt hole? (like us and Holland and Barrett) or do you strictly and valiantly go without?