Food Swap & Gallery Cafe.

I took part in the UK Vegan Food Swap again in August and again I was super happy with the package I received. Last month Mitsu from To Happy Vegans sent me my package & this month it was Sasha! How random!

I was super excited to see the new Barrow Boys Cheese & Onion crisps in there. Vegan cheese & onion crisps! How exciting! I'd been wanting to try these for a while, cheese & onion crisps are something I have very occasional cravings for so I'm saving these for the next time I really really want them.

The first thing I tried was the Delinut Dip, a vegan choc dip. I'd tried a vegan choc dip from Holland & Barrett before but this one was way better, the pot of chocolate was huge and the biscuit sticks were perfectly crispy. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for these. 

My very favourite thing from the package was the bag of Lucy's gluten free chocolate chip cookies. I'll be honest & say that I didn't really have high hopes for these. My experiences with packaged gluten free cookies hasn't been great but these were fantastic. I like that they come in these little serving sized packages and they reminded me of the chocolate chip cookies I used to eat before becoming vegan. I'm looking forward to trying Lucy's Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Cookies & Maple Bliss Cookies.

I also really liked the Topastofu mushroom spread, the dark chocolate has been stashed away in my baking cupboard, the Texas BBQ Primal Strip will make an excellent plane snack on our way to Austin in a couple of weeks & Nick scoffed all of the Pink Panther biscuits before I could get my hands on them!

If you live in the UK & you're not already taking part in the swap then head over to the To Happy Vegans site to sign up. It's so fun shopping for the package every month and if, like me, you love getting post, it's a fun mid month treat. If you want to take part in the September swap then sign up fast, thanks to my tardiness you have just under 24 hours!

Last weekend Nick & I went up to London. We saw Green Day on Thursday night at Shepherd's Bush Empire and Me First & The Gimmie Gimmies on Saturday night at the Islington Academy. Both shows were great for different reasons & I'm still covered in bruises!

The best way to recover from some fun circle pit action is to find a massive breakfast so we headed somewhere I've been meaning to go to for about two years, the Gallery Cafe in Bethnal Green.

We knew this had been an excellent idea as soon as we saw all of these vegan treats lined up by the till.

We took one Pear & Raspberry Jam Galette and one Double Chocolate Muffin to go. We ended up eating these on the train home & they were both great. The chocolate chip muffin was quite dense with a light crumb & an intense chocolatey flavour. It was a really great muffin & I wish I could get a muffin this good in Brighton. The Pear & Jam Galette was ridiculously good, I wasn't sure about raspberry jam on a galette but I can't say no to this kind of pastry & decided to give it a try anyway. I'm really glad I did because it was perfect, it reminds me that I need to try the Heart Shaped Apple Galette recipe from Veganomicon.

The whole menu looked great but for me it was a no brainer because I like to judge a new place on its full English Breakfast. It's a great choice because you get to try so many different things on one plate! The Gallery Cafe's Full English Breakfast consists of tofu scramble, garlicky mushrooms, cooked tomato, two sausages, two hash browns, baked beans and sourdough toast.

I loved that this breakfast came with hash browns, I love hash browns and these were excellent. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Perfect. The baked beans were your classic Heinz style beans which I love, I'm never amused when a cafe messes with the classic baked bean! The standout here was the pile of garlicky mushrooms, these were delicious, perfectly seasoned, really garlicky and there were loads of them. I also loved the sourdough toast, sourdough's my favourite and it was a big chunky slice. The sausages were Linda McCartney which is a great choice and the only bad bit of the breakfast was the tofu scramble. I was excited about it because there aren't many places in England that include a scramble in their breakfast but sadly it was really bland, it could have really done with some more seasoning - go crazy with the nutritional yeast people!     

Next time I visit I think I'll be ordering the Garlicky Mushrooms on toast with a side of hash browns and hopefully I'll have space to grab one of these delicious looking sandwiches to go.

The road trip comes to an end: Chicago.

Our road trip sadly had to come to an end but what better place to end it than Chicago? It's a city that neither of us had ever visited before but we'd both wanted to go there for ages. Unsurprisingly after our long drive we were starving so as soon as we'd checked into our hotel we headed out to find food. We accidentally stumbled across Cloud Gate, more commonly known as The Bean!

We took a lot of pictures! It's a really cool sculpture and we loved watching everyone interact with it.

We were heading for Native Foods Cafe because it was the closest place to eat to the hotel we were staying in. I ordered the Chicken Run Ranch Burger.

Can you spot yet another root beer in the back of this picture?!

The burger came on a wholewheat bun and I ordered a side of Crispy Sweet Potato Fries to go with it. The burger was great, I loved the crispy battered burger and the ranch sauce. I wish we'd had time to go back here but I'm sure we'll be back in either Chicago or one of the many other places Native Foods Cafe has locations one day.

After dinner we went up to the top of the Willis Tower to check out the Skydeck and their super fun glass balconies.

 We went up just before sunset so that we could look at the city in daylight, at sunset and in the dark!

Afterwards we went to check out the Buckingham fountain. We managed to time it just right and arrived just as the multicoloured light and music show started. It was pretty cheesy but in a good way!

The next morning after I managed to fall over a speed bump in a pretty epic way we made it to Karen's Cooked for brunch. We both ordered the Homestyle Breakfast...

...which came with scrambled tofu, veggie sausage, crispy potatoes & a side of toast. This was an excellent start to the day, we loved the thick sliced toast and the crispy potatoes were great.

After spending the day at The Art Institute of Chicago we had a very late lunch at somewhere I've wanted to go since I first heard about it, The Chicago Diner. I ordered one of their classic dishes with a twist, the Reuben with Coleslaw and Cheese.

There seems to be a Root Beer in the back of this picture too!

This Reuben came with a side of truly excellent Mac 'n' Cheese and the sandwich itself was one of the best I've ever eaten. I'd never tried a reuben before and whilst this Sauerkraut-less reuben isn't a classic it did come on marbled rye bread with beef style seitan and cheese so it was kinda similar!

We liked The Chicago Diner and the area it's in so much that we headed back there for brunch the next day. I started my day with a mimosa which was perfect because it was already far too hot that day.

We both decided to go for the French Toast Combo Plate which comes with 2 wedges of French Toast, Scrambled Tofu, Seitan Sausage & a Fruit Garnish.

This was one of my favourite ever brunches. The french toast was perfect and I've really grown to love the combination of sweet and savoury on one plate which is something a lot of us Brits aren't down with yet!

On our last night we decided that we couldn't leave America without having one last pizza. We'd heard of Ian's Pizza and so we planned to head there, then we heard that it had closed, then we picked somewhere else, and then we heard that Ian's Pizza had actually turned into Dimo's Pizza and that Dimo's Pizza has impressive vegan pizza too. Bloody hell. It was a bit of a roller coaster of pizza emotions but eventually we were in Wrigleyville gazing at a list of vegan pizza options.

We eventually decided to get a whole Teese covered pie to share and we split it half and half with vegan sausage on Nick's side and vegan sausage and mushroom on mine.

Yet again we forgot that sausage can mean something different in the US! This was a great pizza though, plenty of melty Teese and toppings and just look at those crust bubbles! 

Unsurprisingly I also ordered one last root beer. 

I kinda wish that we could get root beer here but on the other hand it's probably a good idea for me to save it as a fun holiday treat!

Sadly the next morning was our last and we started it off with a leisurely breakfast in bed...

...followed by a trip to the huge Lincoln Park Whole Foods store to stock up on all of the stuff we wish we could get at home. We bought loads of Tofurky Slices, Yves Bologna, Go Max bars, Clif bars, Field Roast Sausages and Veganaise. Towards the end of our shopping trip we realised we were pretty hungry so we stopped at the stall cooking up vegan hot dogs!

We definitely couldn't pass up the chance to eat lunch in the middle of a supermarket and I ordered the Irving Park dog.

As the menu said the Irving Park dog comes with cheese & onion but I wasn't expecting anything this spectacular. The onions were beautifully caramelised and the cheese was meted on top of the dog right on the grill giving it awesomely crispy edges.

This was a ridiculously perfect end to an amazing trip. I can't wait to get back to the US which is good because we just booked a trip to Austin! We'll be there for 10 days at the end of September, so, see ya soon America!

The one with five different places!

We hadn't really planned on heading North after our visit to Northampton but we were super glad we did. We ended up driving along beautiful tree lined roads...

                     

...and we ended up in this tiny town. 

I couldn't tell you exactly where in Vermont this town is or what it's called (If you reeeally want to know I could probably find out!) but they had a cute tourist information office and the lovely lady inside gave us a map that directed us towards a beautiful picnic spot by a lake.

We spent most the day here eating, reading, and dipping our toes in the water. It was perfect.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to drive to Syracuse where we'd arranged to meet my buddy Bazu for lunch at Strong Hearts Cafe. Bazu and I "internet met" on the Post Punk Kitchen and we first met in real life in Brighton back in '08.

When I visited NYC in May 2009 I got the Megabus upstate to stay with Bazu, her husband, and their kitties. Before this mini meet up we had last seen each other when we travelled together in Vienna, Bratislava & Budapest in late 2009. Wow, that seems like a crazy long time ago! I love hanging out with Bazu & I was super excited to get to see her again.

I loved the Egg Trick Muffin and the Home Fries at Strong Hearts last time I was there but I decided to branch out this time & I ordered the pancakes. With a root beer of course!

These were ridiculously huge pancakes and for once I was actually into the accompanying banana! Weird! It was far too short a meet up but Bazu gave us the gift that just keeps on giving, Stretch Bread and Tomato Garlic dipping oil.

Stretch bread is a local speciality, it's kinda like ciabatta but the dough is more elastic, hence the name! The tomato garlic dipping oil was bloody brilliant, I loved the pourable packaging and how intensely garlicky it was. Bazu said that this combo would make the perfect road tripping dinner & she wasn't wrong. Nick is actually still totally obsessed with stretch bread & Tomato Garlic Dipping Oil, I'll ask what we should get for dinner and he'll sigh dramatically and say "Stretch bread & oil", he's ridiculous!

The next day started with another morning of waking up bright and early to head to Niagara Falls. We weren't sure whether to include the falls in our road trip, we'd heard that the American side wasn't as good as the Canadian side and that it'd be horribly touristy but as with the Top of The Rock in NYC we were totally glad we went.

None of my pictures do it justice but we thought it was super cool! We loved that you could go & stand near the bottom to really get an idea of how massive it is and we were pretty into the tacky souvenir shop - I love tack! One day we'd definitely like to go & check out the Canadian side, we contemplated doing that this time before we realised that our car hire agreement said a big old N-O to that idea!

We spent that night in Erie, Pennsylvania...

...eating these delicious Divvies cookies & watching movies. Divvies cookies are without a shadow of a doubt the best store bought cookies I've ever eaten, I think they cost something a little silly like $5.99 but they were definitely worth it.

The sugar cookies were better than any I've ever made and the Choco-Lot Brownie Cookies had a really deep chocolatey flavour without verging on bitter.

Using the wonderful Happy Cow app again we found that we were near The Whole Foods Co-op and their in-store Co-op Cafe. We headed there for breakfast and whilst we waited for my Tempeh Bacon and Cheese sandwich to be ready we browsed for snacks for the road. We ended up picking up a delicious Eggless Salad...

...and a Whoopie Pie to share.

My sandwich was SO awesome, it was certainly challenging to eat in a moving car & I hadn't expected the Daiya to be unmelted but wow, it was brilliant. I loved how much salad there was and the tempeh was perfectly smoked & fried.

It was around a 2 hour drive to that days destination and appropriately we spotted this truck ahead of us. Can you guess where we were headed?

That's right! The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame! It was Epic!

They had Joe Strummer's Fender Telecaster!! SO COOL!

After spending hours wandering around this surprisingly huge museum we headed into Cleveland to find the slightly oddly named Flaming Icecube cafe. There were so many great reviews of this place on Happy Cow that we just had to go there and as soon as I tasted this Raspberry Lemonade I knew we'd made the right decision. I never thought a lemonade could be so amazing but it was perfectly tart and incredibly refreshing.

I even insisted that Nick had to try my lemonade even though he pretty much only drinks water and after one sip he ordered one of his own! I wasn't feeling particularly hungry, either because of the heat or the whoopie pie, so I ordered half a chicken salad wrap which came with a side of macaroni salad.

The wrap was great, I love vegan chicken, tuna or egg salad on any kind of bread product so this was always going to be a winner and I don't think that you can go wrong with macaroni salad either. My appetite miraculously came back after I spotted one of my favourite flavour combo's, chocolate mint, in the cupcake case.

These were great cupcakes, I loved that they made a fancy chocolate swirl on the plate and that the icing was really green.

We hadn't really planned on spending long enough in Cleveland to go out to eat but we were really glad we did, Flaming Icecube is a great chilled out lunch spot. The food was good, the staff were lovely and it made me realise that I really need to learn how to make my own raspberry lemonade.

UK Vegan Food Swap

Earlier this month I took part in the first UK Vegan Food Swap organised by the lovely ladies over at vegan lifestyle blog To Happy Vegans. I've taken part in swaps on the Post Punk Kitchen before but I've never swapped with someone in the UK.

I was lucky enough to get paired up with swap organiser Mitsu from To Happy Vegans after my first assigned partner never contacted me. Mitsu had just come back from America so my package was stuffed full of exciting goodies.

I was super excited to see these Luna bars as soon as I opened the box, I'm a big fan of Clif bars but for some reason I'd never tried a Luna Bar.

My favourite was the Caramel Nut Brownie closely followed by the Chocolate Peppermint Stick. Strangely as much as I love the Peanut Butter Crunch Clif bar the Peanut Butter Cookie Luna bar was my least favourite of the three, not bad but no Caramel Nut Brownie!

This jar of Speculoos Cookie Butter was an incredibly exciting thing to pull out of the package. I've been a fan of Speculoos for a while, although not as big a fan as Nick! The huge jar we have in our cupboard is just running out so nice mind reading Mitsu!

As well as visiting America recently Mitsu had also been on a shopping spree at Kosher Kingdom in North London. Kosher Kingdom, as you can probably tell by the name, is a kosher supermarket and it's full of many exciting vegan goodies including Tofurky slices & sausages, Almond Dream ice cream and many other exciting treats like these Nutty Chews. These are like a Peanut Chew which is like a mini snickers bar. Yum!

This bittersweet chocolate reminded me of my very favourite Moo Free easter egg...

...and last but by no means least this huge bag of Sour Cream and Onion mini snack crackers came outa the box.

These are insane! I can hardly believe they're vegan, they taste just like I remember Sour Cream and Chive Pringles tasting. I'm glad the bag's so huge because it means I've been able to share them with some of my local vegan friends.

My other swap partner, the person I sent a box of goodies to, was Jenny from Spice Box of Earth. Head over to her blog to check out what I sent.

If you live in the UK and would like to take part in this swap then just click here to read all about it. Sign up and maybe we'll get to swap soon!

Salem to Northampton - The road trip continues.

I don't know when or why my obsession with Salem started, maybe it had something to do with watching The Craft too often as a teenager, but as soon as I knew we were going to be near Salam I insisted that we went!

We visited all of the main witchy tourist attractions including the incredibly kitsch Salem Witch Museum which included a puppet show of sorts which explained the history of the Salem witch trials.

It was a cute town and I even found another new type of root beer!

After this brief trip north of Boston I was still dreaming about that Lemon Meringue Pie so we turned back south and headed for Veggie Galaxy again!

Nick ordered the "Eggs", Toast & Home Fries...

...and I went for the Baked Mac & Cheese.

I hate to say that the Mac & Cheese was bad but it really wasn't what I consider a classic diner style Mac & Cheese. I'm just as big a fan of nooch sauce as the next vegan but this was a little watery and there was so much pepper in there that I could hardly eat it. The vegan eggs Nick ordered were great though, like a couple of mini tofu omelettes, and unsurprisingly the home fries were delicious.

I stopped caring about this sub par mac & cheese pretty fast though because this was what we were really there for, more lemon meringue pie!

This is still the best dessert I've ever eaten, this photo doesn't do it justice AT ALL so check out my last post if you haven't already!

That night we ended up in Northampton. We heard that it's a really awesome, liberal, artistic town full of women's colleges which sounded pretty rad to us. When we arrived we noticed that women seemed to outnumber men at a ratio of around 4:1! Kinda cool! It turned out that loads of Smith College alumnae were back in town for reunions that weekend and there were loads of fun things going on like choirs singing and orchestras playing in the street!

We chatted to a couple we bumped into in the street who stopped us because their young daughter wanted to ask me some questions about my piercings. I really loved that they were teaching their child to be respectful when people look different. It's awesome to be asked questions about why I choose to look the way I do rather than just having people pointing at me & making comments which they think I can't hear!

When we told them we were vegan they pointed us in the direction of Green Bean, a veg friendly lunch spot, where we had an excellent slice of raspberry vanilla cake.

Green Bean is located on Main Street which is also where we found an adorable sweet shop called Sweeties.

I loved that they had a great vegan beacon right there in the window, we probably wouldn't have bothered going in to investigate if I hadn't spotted that sign.

Inside the store the vegan options were clearly marked & I took home a bag of chocolates which included some of these Hazelnut Crisps...

...a few of these Hazelnut Cream Cats, yes, cats...

...and some heart shaped strawberry creams. Sweeties also has a vegan list on the wall telling you which sweets and chocolates are vegan.

I love it when businesses go above & beyond like this so I bought a cute Hello Kitty Lunchbox from them too, well, I needed somewhere to put my chocolates!

We also managed to squeeze in a visit to Herrell's Ice Cream parlour. We'd heard about Herrell's on Happy Cow and we were excited to try their legendary ice cream!

We both got cones with chocolate ice cream and chocolate sprinkles.

These were the perfect treat on a hot summer day. Before leaving this part of the North East we swung by the all vegan Cafe Evolution for sandwiches and yep, more root beer!

I didn't get a picture of my sandwich but it was an awesome grilled Tofurky and vegan cheddar affair on seeded bread with an good amount of salad, sprouts & Veganaise. I loved Cafe Evolution, everyone working there was super lovely and it was just a really nice chilled out space.

I really liked Northampton, it reminded me a little of Brighton with its chilled out vibe, high concentration of feminists, and fun vegan options on every corner. I'd definitely love to go back one day.

Next time we go driving around Vermont and meet up with my friend, and ex-blogger from Where's the Revolution, Bazu!