Terre a Terre

As I mentioned in my previous post I had a friend come to stay with me this week all the way from New York City. I used her trip as an excuse to do lots of eating out. As she's also a vegan and a PPKer we had a meet up with 4 other internet friends & food blogger The Messy Vegetarian Cook. We decided to splash out and go for lunch at Brighton's fanciest vegetarian restaurant Terre a Terre.

I've been wanting to visit Terre a Terre for ages so I decided to go crazy and have three courses. To start I ordered the Skordalia and Sesame Discos (£10.50). Aubergine rounds coated with sumac and sesame served with a herb salad, radishes, salted grapes and balsamic pomegranate.

Whilst I enjoyed the salted grapes, radishes, aubergine and the sauce the meal was plated upon, I just wasn't so into the herb salad.

For my main I went with the Smoked Sakuri Soba (£10.95). Chilled soba noodles with raw vegetable spaghetti served with smoked tofu, pomegranate beads and wasabi cashews.

I enjoyed this course way more than the starter, I loved the raw spaghetti and the tofu was smoked beautifully. I even liked the wasabi cashews which was a big surprise given that I normally hate wasabi.

I was most excited about the dessert and the main reason I ordered from the expensive a la carte menu rather than the frugal foodie menu was that I had to try the Rain Vodka Cherry Chocolate Churros (£7.70).

These delicious donut straws certainly lived up to expectations. I was amazed the chocolate pot was vegan as it wasn't at all bitter and the rain vodka sozzled cherries, whilst a bit much at lunch time, were pretty awesome especially when covered in the chocolate dipping sauce.

I really enjoyed dining at Terre a Terre and whilst I'd recommend that all vegans, vegetarians and omnivores try their food at least once I think it's a little too classy for me! I'm sure I will head back there one day but I think there's better value for money to be had dining out in Brighton. For dinner that night we went to one of my favorite restaurants Pompoko for huge bowls of delicious Japanese food, at £4.20 a bowl that's my kinda place.

Sweet treats in Brighton

There are loads of cafes in Brighton where you can pick up a slice of vegan cake but recently some new options have been added to the list.

Infinity Foods has started selling cakes made by The Heavenly Cake Company.

I chose the gluten and wheat free Double Chocolate cake, I've been trying to cut down on the amount of wheat in my diet and I was interested in what gluten free cake would be like. All the cakes from The Heavenly Cake Company are vegan and (with the exception of the gluten and wheat free cake) contain spelt flour rather than white refined flour. They even do an agave sweetened sugar free cake for diabetics or those on a low GI diet.

The icing on this cake was awesome, some of the best fudgy icing I've ever tasted. I enjoyed the flavour of the cake but I wasn't so into the dense texture, next time I'm going to try one of their spelt cakes.

I'd heard a rumor a while back that my favorite of the big supermarkets, the Co-op, had started selling vegan donuts. After traipsing around 3 different locations I'd almost given up when I heard they'd been spotted at the Co-op on Lewes Road. Well of course I headed straight there to see if I could find any...

...they even say vegan on the packet! Amazing and totally worth eating some wheat for! Since going vegan I've eaten baked mini donuts and sprinkle covered ring donuts but not proper jam donuts. They were exactly as I remembered and 5 donuts for 69p well that's a bargain I'm going to find hard to resist!

Whilst I was at the Co-op I also stumbled across these, also vegan, apple lattice squares.

I obviously couldn't resist picking up a box. Whilst not as awesome as the donuts they were still an exciting find. I also spotted vegan apple pie but decided that enough was enough for one day.

It's great that such a mainstream supermarket is not only making vegan goodies but actually labeling them as such.

I have a friend coming to stay from New York this week and we have a lot of eating planned, I'm most excited that I'm finally getting to go to Terre a Terre, just look at that menu, yum.

London - Part II

Yesterday was my oldest friends hen day, we picnicked in Hyde Park and went to see a performance of Euripides Helen at Shakespeare's Globe. As a bridesmaid I got to have a hand in planning the day and when she said she wanted to go to a hippyish cafe with cocktails, smoothies & cake I knew of just the place, InSpiral Lounge in Camden.

As soon as we arrived I saw the ice cream and asked if any of it was vegan, the reply... it all is! You have no idea how excited I was when I saw mint chocolate chip...I couldn't wait and before the group decided what to order I'd scarfed down one of these...

...it was seriously delicious, just like the mint choc chip I vaguely remember from before I was vegan. The ice creams at inSpiral are made with a cashew and coconut base and some are raw, similar to the Booja Booja ice cream I love.

Then we ordered even more ice cream...a lot more!

Now we weren't exactly sure what all the flavours were but above I think we had (anti clockwise) mint chocolate chip, mango sorbet, berry sorbet and then a few we were unsure of! Below there was a whole lot of unsure. We knew we had chocolate in the centre and then we believed there was a rum & raisin, a cookies and cream and some nutty flavours alongside a lavender ice cream.

The mint chocolate chip was, in my opinion, the best by far but I also really enjoyed the sorbets, the chocolate and the one we thought was rum & raisin.

After our ice cream feast we ordered some chocolates.

There were a lot of us and I only got to try one but it was pretty darned good. All the chocolates at inSpiral are raw, handmade and delicious.

As if that wasn't enough food I couldn't not have a brownie.

There were loads of desserts to choose from, there were cookies, cake's and cupcakes but as I'd enjoyed the mint ice cream so much I went for a mint chocolate brownie. This was sticky, gooey and on the cakey side of the brownie spectrum. It was delicious and had just the right amount of mintyness.

I hadn't expected this place or the hen day to be quite so vegan friendly and I'm looking forward to going back to Camden to try some of inSpiral's non dessert options.

Camping, Infinity Cafe, Pompoko and a PPK meet up.

My boyfriend and I went camping again we only went for a couple of days this time and we went to a campsite that was only about half an hour away from our house but we just fancied being out in the countryside. Unfortunately it rained almost the whole time we were there so we spent most of the time hanging out in the tent eating.

We took a package of chreesy mash that I'd bought back from my trip to America with us, perfect camping food when served up with hot dogs!

We also made an awesome stir fry with Cauldron marinated tofu pieces, veggies and Sharwoods straight to wok noodles.

This weekend we had an awesome PPK meet up and I got to hang out with awesome bloggers Alien on Toast and The Messy Vegetarian Cook as well as three other lovely PPKers. We had a potluck in the park and there was so much food.

I made the Vegan Brunch quiche again, it's quickly becoming one of my favourites. I also adapted the Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World recipe for mint chocolate cupcakes and turned it into a layer cake filled and topped with mint Newman O's, mint icing, quick melty ganache and some mint chocolate skulls. I also couldn't resist making some Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World peanut butter cupcakes so I could use my super cute cupcake toppers from Bake It Pretty.

Everyone brought amazing food and below are The Messy Vegetarian Cook's Arabic mezze foods, holylopez's tempeh bacon and Alien on Toast's seitan sausages and peanut noodles, she also brought some delicious cookies which I didn't get a picture of.

Below are The Messy Vegetarian Cook's home baked pittas, holylopez's chocolate brownies, my Veganomicon Brooklyn Deli Macaroni Salad, interrobang?!'s quinoa salad and VCTOW jelly donut cupcakes and the_purple_peril's fruit.

It was loads of fun meeting all these awesome veggie ladies, hopefully we can do it again soon. I was lucky enough to have one PPKer Interrobang?! to stay for the whole weekend so there was time for more fun and food.

We went for dinner at The George on Saturday evening but it was too dark to take any pictures, we both had yummy George burgers though which I've blogged about before.

Sunday morning I made some tofu scramble which we had on toasted whole wheat English muffins with sausages on the side.

I used the vegan mom tofu scramble recipe from the Vegan Dad blog, I love this recipe because it's really creamy and I made it even eggyer by adding a 1/4 tsp of black salt.

We went to the Infinity Cafe for cake once we'd walked off the brunch strolling along the pier. I went for the coffee and walnut cake and it was totally delicious, really moist with a great coffee flavour.

Interrobang?! had the chocolate gateaux which also looked pretty yummy.

Then for dinner we met up with Nick and went to Pompoko where we all ordered my favourites from the time I went there with my friend Tabitha. The Yubamaki...

...and the Sesame Tofu Don.

All in all it was a great weekend and it's made me even more excited to meet up with old and new friends when I go on my next adventure to Vienna in October.

Aloka, Pompoko and more Vegan Brunch.

Just a heads up, Aloka is now closed and VBites is open in the same location.

This week started badly as I found out that vegan certified shower gel made by Original Source isn't as cruelty free as one would think. Having been vegan for years I foolishly thought I knew everything about which companies suck and which don't. I know that whilst Tom's of Maine look great they're actually owned by Colgate Palmolive and that although some companies may write 'product not tested on animals' on their toiletries all that really means is that they paid someone else to test the ingredients for them. Unfortunately it hadn't clicked that Original Source are owned by PZ Cussons who test on animals. Well that's the end of my lime shower gel love affair! Once I stopped being annoyed at myself I got down to my local and very cruelty free Lush and bought myself some grapefruit scented Happy Hippy shower gel.

If you're interested in making sure you're buying cruelty free products check out this list here Uncaged.

After our shopping trip to Lush Nick and I decided to try out Brighton's new vegi restaurant Aloka which is conveniently located on the same street as Lush! Aloka is a buffet style restaurant where you pay for the food by weight, most of the food is vegan and a lot of it is also raw. If you go between 3 and 4 and get takeaway then it's half price so of course that's what we did. I decided to try a bit of almost everything...

...and we took it to Pavilion Gardens for a picnic. I think the best bit of this was the Lentil Bake, it was so awesome, I don't think I've ever enjoyed lentils so much. The salted potato wedges were for once not spicy and they went really well with the avocado hummus. There was a roasted tomato pasta salad, quinoa salad, green salad and a tomato, avocado and cucumber salad, these were all delicious.

I'm already looking forward to going back to Aloka to try their raw nut cheese and crackers (£3.50) and some of their raw desserts (priced around £3). The only thing I would say about this place is that if it hadn't been half price this would have been a bit of an expensive lunch and their prices go up at dinner and up more if you eat in so try to get there for 3ish!

Yesterday I met up with my lovely friend Tabitha for lunch at local Japanese restaurant Pompoko. This place is always full of Japanese students which is a great sign that the food's good, it's pretty cheap and they have a few vegan options that came highly recommended by my vegan work mates.

I went for the Sesame Tofu Don, a rice bowl with a sesame infused BBQ sauce.

And Tabitha went for the Tofu Chilli Don a rice bowl with tofu in a spicy tangy sauce. She also ordered a side of Yubamaki to share.

I really enjoyed the sesame BBQ tofu dish and this meal was so filling I almost didn't want to eat any dinner that evening. I tried Tabitha's Chilli tofu dish but it was way too spicy for me, she did tell me that it was pretty mild really but as I'm sure I've mentioned before I'm a huge spice wuss. The Yubamaki was amazing, I'd assumed it was a spring roll style dish with tofu and veggies inside but it was actually a tofu package filled with veggies - delicious. I'll definitely be going back here soon.

I'm still working my way through Vegan Brunch, this week the banana flapjacks.

They were so so good, definitely the best pancakes I've ever made. Unlike some recipes I've tried there's no sugar in them, all the sweetness comes from the bananas and a little bit of maple syrup and I didn't need to buy any speciality ingredients. I'm going to be making these again very soon. If you haven't bought Vegan Brunch yet get it now!

With the very last of my Dandies vegan marshmallows I made some rocky road brownies.

These were gooey and cakey and full of Dandies and walnuts, yum. You could use any chocolate brownie recipe to make these, I used this one that someone once posted on the PPK forums.

VEGAN BROWNIES

Ingredients

1 cup organic sugar

1 cup organic flour

1 Tbs ground flax seed

1/4 cup canola oil

1/3 cup water

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Directions

Mix together all the wet ingredients then dump in all the dry. Mix until ingredients are just combined.

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit or gas mark 4 for 20-25 mins.

Wai Kika Moo Kau & Vegan Brunch

I've been too broke to do much eating out this week but I did manage to meet up with some friends at my new favourite place Wai Kika Moo Kau for a smoothie and a piece of cake.

They had 4 vegan options to choose from and I picked the Lemon Drizzle cake. I mainly choose this because it's something I've had no success in trying to make at home, for some reason I can only make chocolate cakes rise, I have no idea why.

The cake was nice and moist and the icing had a stronger lemon flavour than the actual cake which is exactly how I remember traditional lemon cake being. Overall it was really good cake and at only £2.35 it was pretty cheap compared to most places in Brighton.

I also got the Very Berry smoothie which was good but nowhere near as good as the mango passion fruit smoothie I tried last week.

I recently got a copy of Isa Moskowitz's new cookbook Vegan Brunch. She's the author of Vegan With a Vengeance and co-author of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World and Veganomicon. Her recipes are always interesting, inspiring and reliable. I always pull out one of these books when I'm trying to impress people with my skills.

So far I've made the Broccoli Quiche.

It was amazing and totally like the egg based quiches I remember eating years ago. In fact I fed lots of this to my veggie boyfriend and he thought it was even better than the quiche's he's usually used to eating. That's a win for veganism right there!

I also finally managed to conquer the omelet recipe. I used to be a pretty big omelet fan as a kid and was really excited to try this recipe but my lack of cooking skills caused my first attempt to get *ahem* thrown at the wall. I can be a bit grumpy when cooking doesn't go so well but this time with the right sized pan, a little patience and a well oiled spatula I managed to get one very small (a bit broke off when I tried to flip it too early) but totally delicious omelet.

It doesn't look much like the picture in Vegan Brunch but it sure tasted good. I filled it with Melting Mozzarella Cheezly and it was amazing. I cannot wait to make more omelets and I'm sure they'll soon turn out looking prettier and once I can afford some bigger pans (flipping room is the key to mastering this recipe) I shall have normal sized omelets.

I also had a packet of Dandies vegan marshmallows leftover from my birthday camping trip and I realised that I'd never had a rice krispie treat, something I had to rectify immediately.

They were really really good and so simple to make, it's basically melted margarine and marshmallows mixed with brown rice cereal. Nick said they tasted just like the rice krispie treats he'd had before turning vegetarian. I gave away half of these to my friend Nick (not to be confused with boyfriend Nick) who's just left to go traveling around Europe, I'm really going to miss him & I figured they'd make good travel snacks.