Cupcakes & Brunch.

I don't often blog about food I've made but I had a bit of a baking frenzy last weekend for my ''hen'' night & made 3 types of cupcakes!

Instead of the traditional girls night out which as far as I can tell is meant to involve L Plates & cock balloons I had a girls night in instead. It was super fun & I don't think any of us had been to a sleepover in about 10 years!

I've been practicing my frosting skills recently and with the addition of the best ever cupcake icing kit from Bake it Pretty I think I'm getting a lot better, even if I do say so myself! The chocolate ones were the last to get decorated and I think I'd kinda gotten the hang of it by then!

I made chocolate with thick chocolate buttercream frosting, mint choc chip & lemon blueberry. Everyone should buy Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, the recipes are super easy to follow and they always turn out beautifully. Not everyone at my girlie night was vegan or even vegetarian and every single person said they were the best cupcakes they'd ever eaten! Awesome!

The next morning after a very late night staying up watching Clueless & stuffing our faces with pizzas, popcorn & Dandies marshmallows some of us managed to drag ourselves out of our sleeping bags to hunt down some brunch.

We'd planned to head to Iydea but once we arrived at around 11.30 it didn't look like there was enough food left for us so instead we headed across the street to another all vegetarian business, WaiKikiMooKau. Happy Cow seems to have this place down as not very vegan friendly but it's changed a lot in the last few years, the prices have dropped and their vegan options have increased, yay!

We all ordered the Full English Breakfast, priced at £5.95 this is a real bargain!

I've had this breakfast before but then it was at dinner time so I went with the chips as my potato option, this time around I choose the hash browns which are homemade and delicious. This breakfast still comes with my favourite Realeat sausages, yummy baked beans and their signature pesto tomatoes...oh and that basket of bread was for the 4 of us, no cafe is that generous!

I'll definitely be back at WaiKikiMooKau again soon, it's one of mine & Nicks favourite places to eat especially as it's stumbling distance from our front door. Next time I'm up at a reasonable hour and not rushing to work I'm going to keep Iydea's breakfast menu in mind. Their lunch food's always good and from what I could see from the few things left there were a fair few yummy looking vegan options.

After our weekend apart Nick & I reconvened for an evening of hanging out being silly and eating ice cream!

My work friend J gave me this hat as a gift, I love it! I think Nick loves it too!

I knocked up these chocolate ice cream cupcake sundaes.

These had chocolate cupcake at the bottom and were topped with chocolate Booja-Booja ice cream, chocolate sprinkles and Oreo Straws which were a gift from Kristy & Toby. These could've been made more awesome with the addition of some marshmallows and chocolate syrup but I didn't think of that...next time my friends, next time!

I'm going to continue trying to keep up with blogging in the midst of the last few of weeks of wedding planning, we've found awesome caterers for our all vegan wedding and I'll definitely be posting food pics from the big day!

Beatroot.

*Sadly Beatroot is now closed*

Last Wednesday my friend Tabitha & I headed up to London to buy the fabric to make my wedding dress. I was super excited to find out that vegetarian cafe Beatroot is on the exact same street as all the fabric shops we were visiting.

Situated about halfway down Berwick Street, which is just off Oxford Street, Beatroot is a cafeteria style cafe with a menu that changes day to day & always has loads of vegan option.

As always I went for a little bit of everything.

The staff at Beatroot are super generous with their portions, this is a large container but they just kept piling on the food, as you can see I doubt I could've got that lid shut! The large box was about £5 and there are also small and medium boxes to choose from.

Hidden right down at the bottom was a really delicious Shepherds Pie, full of veggies. Also hidden was an amazing brown rice dish that I really picked so I could justify an extra sausage roll but it turned out to be one of my favourite bits of the meal! It was crunchy and full of barley and seeds, yum! I also picked the Quinoa Taboullah which was full of chickpeas and sunflower seeds and was seasoned with parsley and a yummy lemony olive oil dressing. There's a kidney bean, beansprout and peanut salad hidden right at the back, it was a little too spicy for me but I can't handle pepper so I think most people would have loved it!

The roasted veggies were perfect, the sausage rolls were seriously good and the broccoli was really well done too, and I'm pretty fussy about my broccoli!

It's a bit of a shame we managed to get the dress fabric sorted or we'd have a reason to head back up there soon, I'm looking forward to ending up in this part of London again because Beatroot was awesome and I forgot to order one of their freshly squeezed juices!

Vegan Cheese & Wine Party

Myself and a few friends from The PPK, including The Messy Vegetarian Cook and Off to Guildford! decided in October that we wanted to try loads of different vegan cheese so we came up with the idea of a cheese & wine night. We had our gathering last night and everyone brought different bought or homemade cheeses, crackers, dips, spreads, wine and juice.

The Messy Vegetarian Cook really outdid herself by bringing not 1 but 2 cheese balls, hopefully she'll post some details of how to make these delicious balls of joy on her blog! Above there are also Ryvita pumpkin crackers, water biscuits, vegideli sausages and one of my contributions Sheese and pineapple on sticks made with Medium Cheddar Sheese.

In the background you can see more crackers, cream crackers and homemade crackers in the huge pot, wine, juice, vegan Haribo and pure cheese slices (a great gift from one of my guests).

Right there on the front plate are mature cheddar Cheezly and cranberry Cheezly. On the green plate there's bacon Cheezly and medium cheddar Sheese. In this picture there's also original creamy spreadable Sheese, spicy pinto bean dip, sunflower Pure, blue Sheese dip made by The Messy Vegetarian Cook and (something I made) the Crock Cheez from The Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook.

I really loved the blue Sheese dip, yet another thing I hope the Messy Vegetarian Cook can give me the recipe for as I'd like to serve it at my wedding in 6 weeks time! I've had the book for over a year but the Crock Cheez is the first thing I've made from The Uncheese Cookbook, it's inspired me to make many more of the recipes from this awesome book. It was really great, as well as being made with healthy ingredients it was super easy to throw together.

I think I might be developing some love for bacon Cheezly, I don't know why I've never tried it before, especially as I've ferried many packets across the ocean to my American vegan friends, so if you haven't tried it yet please do. I've raved about the Medium Cheddar Sheese many times and it's still the most realistic fake cheese product I've ever eaten in the UK, it's no good for melting but perfect on crackers or with pineapple on a stick!

Of course we didn't just have a cheese party without dessert, alongside the Haribo was the Messy Vegetarian Cook 's Tiramisu.

Now, as a person who dislikes both coffee and cream, tiramisu was never going to be my favourite dessert but I couldn't not try a slice of a cake this beautifully made! It was really moist and creamy which is what I gather it's meant to be like, everyone loved it and we managed to get thought a whole lot of this cake!

I had a great night with awesome food, delicious wine and lovely company, I can't wait to do this again some time soon.

Terre a Terre - Part II

I'm so excited to be getting back into blogging again that I'm going to hop out of chronological order here to blog about the amazing meal Nick and I had at Terre a Terre recently. The photo's aren't the best as it's pretty dimly lit in there but you'll get the picture!

My amazing work colleagues got me £60 of Terre a Terre vouchers as an engagement gift (I know, awesome right?...and who knew you even got engagement gifts?!) and life had been hectic enough to prevent us from going until last week.

Nick's vegetarian but can be a bit of a fussy eater so we were a bit worried about what he'd enjoy from their fancy menu but there were no worries to start with as he happily ordered the Fabulous Garlic Focaccia (£4.60), and he made it vegan so I could try it.

The bread at Terre a Terre is seriously awesome and this garlic bread was great. So many places use far too much garlic but this was just right.

I ordered the exact same starter as I'd had as a main last time I visited, the Smoked Sakuri Soba (£8.65) Chilled soba noodles and raw vegetable spaghetti served with smoked tofu, wasabi cashews and pomegranate beads.

This was just as delicious as last time. I think I'm developing a serious obsession with their smoked tofu and I've been attempting to recreate this dish at home, minus some of the fancier touches! I think I'll probably order this every time I visit as it really is just that good.

For our main we both picked the Revisited Rosti (£13.95) a huge crispy fried potato rosti topped with creamed spinach and finished with a cream, parsley and nutmeg sauce. For the veggies this comes topped with melted cheese and a fried egg (Nick's choice) and for the vegans it's topped with marinated tofu (my choice).

We both really enjoyed this course and agreed that mine was the better option (that's a win for veganism right there!). Whilst the tofu isn't even listed on the menu as the vegan option it was, in both our opinions, the best bit about the meal. I'd urge every non-vegan I know to give this option a try at least once. The tofu was amazingly soft, perfectly marinated and totally delicious. If it told you how to make this in their new cookbook we'd have bought it right there and then! The flavours in this dish went perfectly together and it was great to have such a hearty filling meal at such a fancy restaurant.

Even though we were stuffed there was no way I was leaving without dessert even if it did mean sharing. I'd been eyeing up the Perky Pear and Choccy Tart (£7.85) on the website for a while and couldn't resist ordering it.

This is described as a chocolate tart with chocolate sorbet, Poire William pickled coriander seed pears, star anise sugar snappy pears, served with lush custard.

I was a little worried about the custard as I'm a hater of all things yellow and gloopy but I was assured by our lovely waitress that it was nothing like that kind of custard. I'm glad I trusted in the magic of the wonderful Terre a Terre chefs as this custard was delicious and went perfectly with the deliciously spiced pears, sorbet and the gorgeous tart. I've never had a chocolate tart this delicious, it was beautifully light and perfectly chocolaty.

I really cannot wait to be able to go back to Terre a Terre again, hopefully there's a PPK meet up headed there this summer as it is hard to justify spending more than our weekly shopping budget on one meal, although it is definitely worth the cost.

Bratislava & Budapest

I feel the need to preface this post with an apology, I've been a terrible blogger, real life has gotten in the way of writing and it's been almost 3 months! Ridiculous! I've got loads of stuff I want to blog about and as promised here's my long overdue Bratislava & Budapest post.

I couldn't be in Vienna and not make a couple of trips to the neighbouring countries, there are a lot to choose from but we decided on Slovakia and Hungary.

Bratislava's only an hour away by train from Vienna, as you can tell I was quite excited by the trip!

Once we arrived at the station and stored our bags there we headed into the city to eat at City Restaurant. I'm not sure exactly what we ended up eating as none of us could read the menu but thanks to the English speaking lady in front of us is the queue and my trusty vegan passport we managed to find something to eat!

This bean, pea and seitan stew with rice was pretty good and it was great to have a healthy side salad as I'd been eating loads of fake meats and junk food.

We also got the fruit salad for dessert, it was nothing to write home about as most of the fruit was from a can but again it was good to be eating something remotely healthy.

After a day of sightseeing we stopped off at this health food store to load up on goodies for the train journey to Budapest. L-R Melanie, Luciana, Bazu, Rachel & Carmen

Unfortunately Melanie and Rachel had to head back to Vienna but the rest of us bought A LOT of food for our awesome train picnic...

...there were fake meat spreads, pate's, crackers, bread, fruit, flapjacks, chocolate covered rice cakes and the tasteless but incredibly moreish wheat crisps. It was a 4 hour journey to Budapest and I think we ate pretty much the whole way there!

On our first day in Budapest we headed out to explore the city on foot, we saw Parliament and walked around the old town. We had to climb a lot of steps to get to the top of buda castle but the view was totally worth it.

We were starving after all that and went all the way back down the hill to Eden Vegetarianus, a buffet style cafe with an all vegan menu.

I filled my plate up with a bit of everything...that's everything that had carbs in it apparently!

As always what with us not being able to translate the menu I'm not exactly sure what I was eating, there was a nutty pasta dish, roasted potatoes and a creamy potato casserole. It was all delicious and I especially enjoyed the nutty pasta.

That night we went for dinner at Napfenyes Etterem, quite a fancy restaurant specialising in traditional Hungarian foods, seitan dishes and amazing regional desserts. With menus both in Hungarian and English we were able to know what we were ordering for the first time on the trip!

Obviously this is not traditionally Hungarian but you can't get vegan cheese pizza in the UK so I went for the 3 cheese pizza with seitan and olives...

...this was not only as huge as it looks but even more delicious. The seitan was amazing and the combination of that with the 3 cheeses & olives couldn't have worked better.

The desserts certainly lived up to expectations too...

...not only were they beautiful to look at but they were delicious! The cake in the foreground with the pink icing was a chocolate and black cherry gateaux, it had a strong cherry flavour and a beautiful gooey texture, behind that was a piece of chocolate cake, also lightly flavoured with cherry which is a Hungarian speciality. There was a chestnut cake too which was rich and moist but I unfortunately didn't get a decent photo of it.

On our last day we visited some Hungarian baths, there are no pictures of this a somewhere wet and steamy isn't the best place for a camera but given that this was October we were amazed to find ourselves swimming in a gorgeous outdoor pool.

After a long morning of sun and feeling faint due to the heat I was starving and borderline grumpy so I was very happy to end up at Le-Bar a tiny vegan & organic juice bar in the centre of the city with very few seats but pretty decent and filling food, as always I went for a big plate of everything...

The falafel wasn't great and the potatoes were a little on the spicy side for me but I really enjoyed the Israeli couscous salad.

Right next to Le-Bar is a great little health food store called Bio ABC where we got some truly awesome ice creams that were a lot like a Magnum and a little like the Swedish Glace ice creams you can get in the UK.

For the 3 1/2 hour train journey back to Vienna we picked up yet more snacks, awesome cracker style crisps, yummy juice and a not so awesome fruit salad.

On our arrival back in Vienna Carmen's awesome husband had cooked us dinner and they'd both stocked up the freezer with some of Vienna's best vegan Ice Cream because they knew the store would be closed for winter by the time we arrived.

This was my absolute favourite, I used to love pistachio ice cream as a child and hadn't ever found a vegan version but this was exactly as I remembered. It came paired with an almond ice cream which was equally delicious. There were also little pots of chocolate / hazelnut and raspberry and something that I cannot remember but that I'm sure was also awesome! What a great end to our trip.

I had an awesome time in both these cities and I can't wait to go back to Bratislava to eat some more of the amazing cherry cakes and to do some more exploring.

Vienna

I haven't blogged for a while, mainly because I've been saving my money to go to Vienna! I've wanted to visit for a while, it always looked like a beautiful city and as I've been an avid reader of the Vienna based oh, glorious food blog for a while now I knew there'd be loads of great vegan options in the city.

When a chance came up to hang out with old friend and blogger bazu from Where's the Revolution? (remember my Syracuse trip?), meet the awesome Melanie from oh, glorious food and hang out with some rad old and new PPK friends including Ditte from Veganism Rocks, Luciana from Luciana's Vegan Kitchen and Celine from Have Cake Will Travel there was no way I could resist!

We stayed with Carmen & Joshua, old friends of bazu & Luciana, and new friends of mine and I just wanted to mention what awesome hosts they were - you guys rock!

Now onto the food! The night I arrived we went for dinner at Landia where thankfully someone translated the menu for me as I speak no German. I chose the Schnitzel, a breaded and fried seitan cutlet stuffed with vegan cheese & ham which came with roasted potatoes & a side salad.

The schnitzel was amazing but I think the stars of this meal were the roasted potatoes. They were seriously awesome, perfectly cooked so they kinda melted in your mouth. I know they're 'just potatoes', how can they be so different to any other potato? I don't know exactly what the chef did to them but seriously they were amazing!

The next day we left Vienna for a few days and headed to Bratislava & Budapest but that's a whole other blog post so do excuse the chronologically confused nature of my blogging!

I was really excited to try a croissant at Backerei Waldherr and they certainly didn't disappoint.

This wholewheat croissant is not only dipped in chocolate but also filled with raspberry jam - my absolute favourite sweet combination!

We spent the day sightseeing and I got to visit one of Europe's oldest Ferris Wheels at the Prater.

I love a ferris wheel! see how happy I am...

...anyway enough of this, let's get back to the foodie bit!

We visited Formosa for lunch, I was super excited by their menu especially when I realised they had a vegan version of Calamari.

I was never that into meat but I did used to enjoy fish many years ago before I was vegetarian. This was (from what I can recall) a pretty good replica of this squid based meal. I think the actual fishy bit was made with a very firm tofu and it was really good.

I was pretty hungry so I also ordered the fish & chips.

This wasn't the most well rounded meal of the trip but all this fried goodness was awesome! Formosa not only has a very decently sized menu written in both German and English but they also have a vegi store attached selling all sorts of delicious vegan cheeses, biscuits, gummy sweets, fake meats and Vital Wheat Gluten, which is really hard to find in Europe.

That night we hit up vegetarian bar Rupps. Not only is this place super cool, covered in rad posters and they play decent-ish music but the food's awesome, the service is amazing and, if you're into this kind of thing, they serve over 400 types of whiskey and a good selection of vegan beers and ciders!

I chowed down on the Haustoast a grilled cheese sandwich, I'd say this was the best grilled cheese sandwich I've ever eaten.

Just look at that melty, cheesy goodness! I also tried the garlic soup with croutons...

This was SO damn garlicky, it was perfect! I cannot wait to visit Vienna and Rupps again, there were so many other things on the menu I'd like to try and I can't stress enough just how great the staff were, especially as there were over 20 of us!

The next day after some time at the MAK we took a walk through the Naschmarkt, Vienna's huge open market, to hunt down the other vegan croissant location. Once we arrived they'd sold out but they did have these wholewheat jam-filled cookies which kept the hunger pains at bay for a few hours.

After the market we couldn't resist heading back to Formosa to try the fried shrimp and pommes frites and they certainly didn't disappoint.

We also headed back to Landia late Saturday afternoon for a PPK meet up. There were about 25 of us from all over Europe and we had a damn good time, ate loads of delicious food and some of us partook in some vodka & mango juices!

I couldn't resist more of the best potatoes ever so ordered another schnitzel based meal.

This time there were two breaded seitan steaks with the potatoes and it was again delicious.

Last but not least on my way to the airport we managed to fit in lunch at one location of the city-wide chain of vegetarian Taiwanese restaurants, Vegetasia. They have an a la carte menu but we all went for the buffet as it was pretty cheap at about €9.

Here we have a bowl of miso soup next to a plate full of mini meaty vegetable skewers, gyoza dumplings, noodles with stir fried vegetables & tofu, spring rolls and sushi - both vegetable and ''fish''. We all agreed the smoked salmon sushi was creepily realistic but aside from that everything was delicious, I went back for way too many dumplings and if I hadn't had to leave I could have stayed for hours stuffing my face with their fried awesomeness!

I cannot wait to get back to Vienna as there are a few vegan places I didn't get to and I need to revisit all of the awesome places from this trip. I'm actually planning on learning German as I think Vienna and Berlin are my two favourite European cities and I'd love to be able to translate the menus and labels all by myself next time.

Next time Bratislava & Budapest!