I'm feeling all Christmassy!

I'm getting pretty excited about Christmas you guys. Only four more days to go. Christmas is one of my favourite times of year although I'm not even the slightest bit religious... I just love tinsel and twinkly lights and presents and food! This year Nick & I are spending Christmas in Brighton which makes it extra awesome, not having to lug everything we're going to eat for three days to someone else's house is definitely a win! This is the first time since we've been together (over 9 years) that we both have Christmas Eve off too, in the past either I've been working or he's been working but not this year. I was thinking about Christmas traditions and whilst I don't really have any with my family I have plenty with Nick and with our friends so I thought I'd share them with you.

The Animal Aid Christmas Without Cruelty Fayre is in early December and it's one of my favourite Christmas traditions. We get up early, get the train to London, meet up with friends and make a beeline for Ms Cupcake to get ourselves nicely sugared up before doing a little Christmas shopping.

Plenty of animal charities have stalls at the fayre so it's a great place to pick up Christmas cards, this year I picked up these, erm, beauties? I wonder if the cat is meant to be the face of the lord Jesus Christ?! Or the ghost of Christmas past perhaps? Whatever's going on I love it!

The Vegusto stall is always one of our first stops, and not just for the free samples! They have great deals on their meats and cheeses and Nick & I stocked up on a whole lot of cheese for us to munch on over the festive period. This year I was super lucky and also won a whole hamper of Vegusto goodies. How rad is that?!

There were two sample size packs of hard cheese, a melty cheese, mushroom burgers, a farmhouse sausage and some dark chocolate in the basket and I can attest to almost all of it's deliciousness - I say almost because Nick scoffed the chocolate before I got a look in! Vegusto are one of my favourite vegan companies and I have a review of their roasts coming up on the blog soon.

Another must at the fayre is a slice of pizza from the Shambhu's catering stand, this year they had vegan coleslaw too and it turns out that pizza and coleslaw are pretty awesome together!

I was super excited by the Ananda Foods marshmallow stall this year, I haven't been the hugest fan of their marshmallows in the past but this year I tried their vegan version of a Wagon Wheel and a chocolate covered, sprinkle dipped 'mallow on a stick and they were both SO DAMN GOOD!

Nick and I shared the Round Up because at almost £4 it was quite expensive, it differed slightly to a traditional Wagon Wheel in that it wasn't completely covered in chocolate but it was the perfect biscuit, marshmallow and jam sandwich and I can't wait to get my hands on another one. The marshmallow on a stick was much cheaper, a little over £1 from what I remember, and equally delicious - I totally kicked myself when I realised far too late that I'd forgotten to get another one to take home.

The day after the fayre we put up our Christmas tree. I love putting the tree up, it's so fun to get out all of the decorations we've been collecting over the years and we always listen to Christmas music which I love, yes, even the cheesy stuff. My Christmas playlist has a pretty great mix of the classics, cheesy 80's & 90's pop, and punk. I'm listening to Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight) by The Ramones right now. 

This is our first ever Christmas with a kitty so I skipped putting up some of my favourite glass baubles just in case he got a little over excited and knocked the tree over. He's showing no signs of Christmassy destructiveness so far though, he just sits underneath it and tries to eat the gift tags on the presents.

We even got a little kitty ornament of him made by my friend Lisa, who you might know as Panda with Cookie.

Super cute right? We also got a Teal Cat ornament and a penguin to top the tree with.

As well as sitting under the tree being adorable Rorschach's been great at helping wrap presents, he gets right on the paper and everything!

I wish we could keep him forever!

Christmas is also time for some of my favourite foods, I love a good roast dinner as much as the next Brit' but I'll happily eat that in any month that feels even vaguely wintery and as I live in England that means a July roast dinner is perfectly feasible. VBites, the company that used to be called Redwood Foods, come out with a festive range every year which includes one of my favourite mock meaty things, Smoked Salmon Style Slices. 

I love them on brown bread with lots of lemon juice and black pepper which reminds both Nick and I of Christmases growing up. This year VBites have also come up with a Festive Pasty - they don't photograph well but they're freaking delicious. Puff pastry stuffed with turkey style pieces, pork sausages, veggies and a lovely rich gravy. If you get the chance to try these, do it!

Sainsbury's have a chocolate santa this year, I love this kind of cheap milk-like chocolate but I only really eat it around Christmas and Easter time, apparently I like my cheap chocolate in festive shapes only!

I make mince pies every year, I cheat and use store-bought pastry and mincemeat which makes them super fast and easy to throw together.

I love the smell of them baking, they make the whole house smell Christmassy!

Do you have any fun festive traditions? or favourite festive foods? Leave me a link in the comments if you've blogged about it, I love reading about everyones Christmases!

Exploring Leeds.

After arriving home from my US travels in the second week of October (more on that trip soon!) I turned around in a day and a half and hopped on a train followed by a Megabus up north to Leeds. The mission, to get tattooed. This isn't something I'd necessarily recommend as I was still feeling a little jet lagged and fragile by the morning of my appointment! I popped to the shop for my consultation as soon as I arrived in Leeds and then went to warm up with some hot chocolate and crumpets at veggie spot Roots & Fruits.

Roots & Fruits is a super cute cafe run by a lovely couple, these crumpets were the perfect comfort food and aren't something you often see in vegan friendly places. None of their main meals really jumped out at me so I didn't end up going back for one but I'd definitely say that this place is worth a visit.

The next day I grabbed a super hearty and filling breakfast of Baked Beans and Cheese on Toast at Global Tribe Cafe. This is another cute little place, located above a crystal shop, and run by super friendly people. As you can see the cheese on toast was suuuuper huge and filling. I loved that it was essentially a cheese on toast covered in beans, brilliant. I could hardly wait to go back!

This breakfast kept me going for a good few hours but after my appointment I was in need of sustenance asap and decided to check out Little Tokyo because of it's close proximity to Out Of This World, the health food store where I planned to stock up on awesome stuff for a hotel room dinner picnic. Unfortunately I don't think I can really review Little Tokyo fairly right now, it came recommended to me by two vegans who I assume enjoyed the food there and it has good reviews on Happy Cow but everything I tried was worse than mediocre and Japanese food is my favourite so I know what a decent dumpling's like. I only ordered dim sum though so maybe the full meals are better? If you've been let me know what you like there and maybe I'll give it another try.

The good news is that after my disappointing lunch I went dessert crazy at Out Of This World and got myself four desserts and a sandwich ready for bed picnic time! I was really excited to see the pistachio cardamon cake made by local company That Old Chestnut who I stumbled upon at the Northern Vegan Festival in Manchester earlier this year. I loved that cake then and I still love it now, it's delicately flavoured and not too sweet. Perfect as part of a dessert medley! I also grabbed a slice of Peanut Butter Chocolate tiffin which may have also been made by That Old Chestnut. It was exceptional, I've eaten a lot of tiffin in my time and this is up there with the best.

Next I was drawn to the piece of Bakewell Tart, I will never turn down a piece of Bakewell and this was the most authentic vegan version I've ever tried. It had the thin bottom layer, moist sponge and almond / cherry ratio spot on. It was delicious. Lastly I grabbed a Pudology chocolate pudding which I remembered enjoying at the Northern Vegan Festival but I was a little disappointed at how much more coconutty it seemed this time around, it really overwhelmed the chocolate flavour and I'm unsure if I'd buy it again.

I also enjoyed a couple of sandwiches from Out Of This World whilst in Leeds, the fillings change regularly and they come in either a large bap or on gluten free bread. My only complaint was that the chopped salad inside both sandwiches contained red pepper which I dislike and it was a challenge to pick out the pieces (especially on the bus!) because they looked so similar to the delicious chunks of tomato - hardly the worst thing ever though and I'll definitely be revisiting Out Of This World on my next Leeds adventure, they're only little but they have all of your vegan needs covered.

For my last meal, a brunch of sorts, I finally got to go back to Global Tribe Cafe to try their pie special. The day I visited it was Creamy Chicken & Mushroom, my favourite. It came with roasted root veggies, salad and a decent sized jug of gravy - there's nothing worse than somewhere that gives you a thimble of gravy ...or maple syrup, ugh! Moving on from my dining out pet peeves this meal was delicious and filling and I love the homely vibe here.

I really enjoyed my little weekend break in Leeds and I'll certainly be recreating the epic beans on toast soon. Since I got back from Leeds I've been in Berlin and now I'm getting reaquainted with Brighton and spending far too long lying around snuggling with Rorschach, our foster kitty, how could you resist this floofy belly?!