The Taco Cleanse Review and Giveaway

I'm hungry! I'm often hungry, at least three or four times a day, and when I'm not hungry I could always eat. I'm munching on onigiri as I write this. When everyone's rolling around clutching their bellies after a big lunch and talking about how there's no way they'll have room for dinner I know that an afternoon snack is probably in my future. In our fucked up society this is something that, as a woman, I'm meant to feel ashamed of and it's bullshit. Diets, cleanses, detoxing and clean eating are shoved in our faces at every turn especially at this time of year and more and more of my peers seem to be jumping on the bandwagon. It makes me sad. Why are we made to feel guilty for needing, no, wanting, to eat? Why are we made to feel like we need to "cleanse" ourselves after a food based celebration? Why is eating associated with guilt and "being naughty"? I'll tell you why, it's because as women we're meant to make ourselves as small as possible, to take up the least space and to conform to societal beauty ideals so that we don't offend anyone with our fat or body hair or perceived ugliness. I don't want to see food as "a treat", as something to reward myself for "being good all week" or because it's my god damned birthday and I don't want to try to diet & exercise my body down to a certain size or weight because that's what society deems acceptable. I've been there and done that and I don't want to do it again. Food is a necessity damnit! We need to eat at least three times a day if not more and I want that food to be filled with nourishing and tasty carbs, proteins, fats and sugars and I want it to be delicious. I'm not suggesting that health is unimportant, I try to get my 10,000 steps in most days whilst I'm exploring the world and I actually enjoy going to the gym but that's because these things are good for my mental health as well as my physical health. The way most people seem to be approaching cleanses, detoxing and "new year new you" diets seem far from okay from a mental health perspective.

That's why I decided to embark upon a New Year Taco Cleanse! I think that regular me is pretty rad, belly fat and all, but life can always be improved by more tacos. I want to show people that cleansing can be about fun rather than about restricting fun.

Vegan Finger Foods Review & Giveaway

Vegan Finger Foods by Celine Steen and Tamasin Noyes is the third book by this experienced cookbook writing duo, their other co-writes include Vegan Sandwiches Save the Day which I adore, my buddy Sal made the chicken seitan last time I went to her house and I'd go as far as to say that it's a game changer, and Whole Grain Vegan Baking which I don't have yet.

Vegan Finger Foods is full of recipes that are perfect for entertaining, snacking on, sharing with friends or scaling up to make a full meal.

The first recipe that caught my eye was the Corn Fritters with Tomato-Thyme Gravy. Whilst the gravy sounded great I preferred the sound of their other serving suggestion, spiked vegan mayo.

I didn't have straight up hot sauce so I used a mild chilli and garlic sauce which was perfect. These really lived up to the Quick and Easy logo at the top of the page, I was amazed at how swiftly they came together and they were super flavourful thanks to the combo of chives, cumin, thyme and paprika. Nick and I polished off the whole lot for lunch one day, we love corn and we love frying things so this was the perfect recipe to start off with. We'll be making these again.

Next up, the Green Snackers. This recipe wasn't quite as easy as the previous one but aside from some fresh spinach it uses pantry staples so I couldn't resist. Here they are pre and post oven.

I served them alongside one of my favourite dips, the Crock Cheez from The Uncheese Cookbook.

I may have rolled the crackers a little thin and therefor overcooked them a touch but they were nicley crispy and I enjoyed the flavour the wholewheat flour imparted. I would make them again but I did have to add a little under a 1/4 cup of extra flour to form a dough that would roll out so keep that in mind if it's getting a little sticky!

Lastly I made the Spinach Swirls, these are like little savoury cinnamon rolls and they were super good. I made the Marinara Sauce from Appetite for Reduction to accompany them which was a good call.

I've actually never worked with a rolled and sliced dough before but the instructions were easy to follow. I did wonder if UK wholewheat flour is a little different from the kind found in the US as these turned out looking a lot more wholewheaty than those in the picture in the book but that didn't affect my enjoyment of them. These were wonderful dipped in the marinara and if I was holding a fancy party with finger foods these would definitely be on the to-make list.

There are plenty of other eye catching recipes in this fun new cookbook and the Fig and Nut Canapes, Pad Thai Summer Rolls and Chocolate Stout Truffles are all on my to-make list.

Would you like to win a copy of Vegan Finger Foods? Well it's your lucky day! I'm giving away two copies and all you need to do to enter is leave a comment below telling me what your favourite finger food is. Make sure you leave me some way to contact you if you win, e-mail, Twitter or your blog works, and the competition closes at midnight on Sunday 27th July. This giveaway is UK only, sorry far away friends.

Ms. Cupcake Cookbook Review (and Giveaway!)

London based purveyor of sweet treats, Ms. Cupcake, has written a cookbook and I'm super excited about it! For anyone who's tried, or wanted to try, Ms Cupcake's delicious creations it's great news. If you haven't heard of Ms Cupcake yet lemme tell you a little bit about her.

Long time readers of the blog will know that I've always been a huge fan and supporter of Ms. Cupcake. From the days when I'd get a boat along the thames to get to Greenwich Market for her cupcakes...

...to the opening day of the store, to working behind the stall at VegFest, I've been there!

As well as creating wonderful sweet treats Mellissa, the woman beneath the hat, is sweet, funny and inspiring and I'm excited to be able to call her a friend. I'm SO happy for her right now because this book is awesome.

It's beautiful, it's hard-backed, and it's full of artistic colour photographs of gorgeous baked goods and the store's colourful staff. More importantly it's jammed full of recipes for everything sweet, from cupcakes to deep fried cookie balls.

Of course I've taken the cookbook for a little spin around the kitchen! 

I started with the Jaffa Cake recipe. I was super excited to see this childhood favourite in the book but if you aren't British you may not have heard of this delicious cross between a biscuit and a cake. The soft cookie comes covered in chocolate and an orange jelly hides inside. This recipe is super simple as it calls for orange marmalade rather than a complicated home-made agar based jelly. I was super sceptical about this idea at first but I have faith in Ms. Cupcake so I picked up a no-peel version from Waitrose and ran with it.

Aside from the marmalade I had everything else I needed to bake these in the house already. Awesome!

They were ridiculously quick and easy to throw together, as I was making them I remember thinking "Even Nick could bake these" and he is definitely not a baker (he does make a mean tofu scramble though)! Due to my baking these at night time I didn't really get a good picture but here they are chilling in the fridge.

The picture really doesn't do these justice, they were AMAZING! Seriously, so good. I planned to just eat one or two and then send the rest to work with Nick but, nuh-uh, that didn't happen. I ate more than my half and I can't wait to make them again. The recipe says that these can make 12 or 15 and I would suggest making 15 (rather than the 12 I made) for a more accurate Jaffa Cake.

Yesterday I made my second recipe from the book, the Chocolate Chip Cookies. I always grab a cookie when I visit Ms Cupcake in her shop or on one of her many stalls and I was super excited about being able to recreate these at home.

These cookies are huge, chewy, bakery-style cookies and they're perfect. They were ready just as Nick got back from work and we both loved them, I ate two as soon as they were cool enough to handle and they were almost exactly the same as the cookies from the bakery itself. I loved finding a new-to-me technique within the recipe which helps to flatten them out and to give them the desired chewy texture and this will definitely become a go-to recipe in our house.

The book actually doesn't come out until May 9th but a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from publishers Random House. I had already pre-ordered myself a copy of the book so I'll be passing the review copy on to one lucky reader! Don't worry I've been super careful with it so it still looks shiny and new - no chocolate splatters or rouge bits of marmalade!

To enter the competition I need you to find me an adorable picture of a bunny, post it on Facebook, tweet about it with the hashtag #jojoisawesome and....hahaha, no. You just need to leave a comment on this blog post!

The competition is open to anyone, anywhere in the world and I will be announcing the winner on Friday May 3rd 2013. I have to post the book on May 8th before I leave on my epic Seattle / Portland / Vida Vegan Con trip (OMG! So excited!!) so please make sure that there's a way for me to contact you if you win and that you're paying attention to your e-mails so that I can get your address in time. 

Good luck!

We have a winner! The random number generator has picked Mihl from Seitan Is My Motor! Congratulations Mihl, Jaffa Cakes will soon be yours!

The competition is now closed!

Vegan Eats World

I have a new love in my life and it's hard backed! Terry Hope Romero's latest cookbook Vegan Eats World is pretty much the only thing I've been cooking from recently and every single thing I've made has been an unmitigated success. In case you haven't laid eyes on this cookbook yet let me tell you a little about it. Firstly, it's beautiful, I love both the layout and the style of this cookbook. Secondly, it's stuffed full of exciting recipes from all around the globe. I've found the Kitchen Cartography section immensely useful, a lot of the cuisines in the book are not ones I've tackled before meaning that I needed to restock my pantry and learn some new techniques. 

The first recipes I tried were the Barbecued Seitan Strips (Char Siu Seitan) and the Sesame Wow Greens which I served alongside lightly sautéed broccoli (using the method from the Udon Noodle recipe in Appetite For Reduction) and white rice. 

I started prepping this a day in advance by making the 5-Spice Seitan which, like the seitan recipes in Terry's Viva Vegan, was incredibly easy to make. I'd go as far as to call Terry's seitan recipes no fail, I've honestly never had an issue with them and I find that some seitan recipes can be a little hit or miss. This whole meal was incredibly good, the seitan was deliciously sticky and infused with great flavours like hoisin and 5 spice powder. Whilst the Japanese flavours of the Sesame Wow Greens wouldn't traditionally be served with a Chinese-style seitan I thought that they worked really well together.

The second recipe I was drawn to was the Garlic Chive Seitan Potstickers. I had some 5-Spice Seitan leftover from the day I made the Char Siu Seitan and I'd picked up a package of vegan dumpling wrappers last time I was in Chinatown. For some reason the only ones I can find in Brighton contain egg so I always grab a package or two to stash in the freezer whenever I'm in London.

These were surprisingly easy to put together, we set up two workstations to make the prep go faster, and even easier to cook. The sesame soy dipping sauce was definitely worth making as it complimented the meaty dumplings perfectly.

We had some cabbage leftover from making the dumplings so the next day we made a version of the Takeout Stir-fry Noodles with Mushrooms & Greens. We threw some carrots and edamame in there and totally left out the mushrooms and lemme tell you somethin', this was still amazing! I think it's a great sign of a solid recipe when you can totally mess with it & it still turns out amazing.

I've made this next recipe three times already, in fact I have some in the oven right now! The Savory Baked Tofu was a recipe I knew I'd be trying as soon as I saw it. I love tofu and I love trying new baked tofu recipes, if a cookbook has one you'd better bet I've tried it!

This is probably the easiest baked tofu recipe I've ever tried due to the use of garlic powder rather than fresh minced garlic - lazy person win - and I love the sweet and salty flavours from the mixture of soy and agave. I've eaten this tofu in a bowl with rice, sautéed broccoli & sauce, out of a tuperware box from the fridge, and on a plate of random leftovers...

...tonight I'm going to be attempting to make the Pad See Ew from VEW using this tofu.

This next dish was massively out of season but yet perfect for winter and I couldn't resist a vegan version of a pre-vegan favourite, French Farmhouse Asparagus Bisque.

This was a beautiful soup, seriously fantastic. Creamy, earthy and delicately flavoured with chives and sea salt. I think that this soup would be delicious at any time of year.

We've also made the Sensei Tofu Hijiki Burgers which took a little longer than the book suggested and because we had to rush out we didn't get a chance to take a picture! They were super delicious although it was tough to get them to hold together in the oven. Next time I think I'd blend the tofu as I don't think my fork smooshing skills were up to the job!

We served these Japanese flavoured burgers with brown rice, salad, and both suggested sauces, the Ninja Carrot Ginger Dressing and the Tonkatsu Sauce. I was a little suspicious of the carrot and ginger dressing as I'm not the hugest ginger fan but it was delicious and really lifted the flavours of the simple salad I'd thrown together. The Tonkatsu Sauce was the real hit from this meal though, it went perfectly with the burgers and Nick's been smearing the leftovers all over everything!

The Seitan Gyro recipe was the first one that Nick honed in on as soon as he glanced at the book. We trekked across Berlin for Gyros on our honeymoon and every time we go to Veg Fest in Brighton the Wheaty stand is always the first place we head to get our gyro on. This recipe was absolutely perfect! We made the Seitan Coriander Cutlets the day before so that they'd have time to firm up properly and in the morning we popped to Taj to buy the flatbreads, veggies, yoghurt & dill.

The super garlicky yoghurt sauce blended up in minutes and roasting the seitan in the oven was totally hassle free. We can't wait to make these again, such a perfect Sunday lunch!

Unsurprisingly it's taken me so long to write this post that I already made and ate the Pad See Ew!

Of course it was delicious. Seriously, so damn good! I made a half recipe, subbing Pak Choy for the impossible-to-find-in-Brighton Chinese broccoli, it was a huge plate of food and I scoffed the lot! Pad See Ew is one of my favourite ever meals, I've ordered it every time I've been to Pukk in NYC and it's become the first place I'm dying to hit up as soon as I get off the plane just because of this dish. This wasn't exactly the same as Pukk's, perhaps less sweet, but I think that might've been due to me not being able to find one of the many soy sauces Terry calls for in the recipe! I can't wait to make this again and I'll be searching out the elusive Chinese broccoli so that I can give it a whirl as written.

If you haven't yet bought Vegan Eats World, buy it now & get cooking. If you have it already what's your favourite recipe so far? What should I make next?