MoFo '14 Day 30 - S'mores Cookies

I got tattooed earlier (check my Instagram for a pic) and I know that what I need during a tattoo appointment is sugar so I made cookies to share! I heard about this recipe for S'mores Cookies on Lindsay's blog Vegan Chai but it originally came from Amanda at Will Draw for Cookies. You should definitely check it out because it's an illustrated recipe and it's super adorable. 

Now when both of these ladies made them they turned out super well, they were all perfect and round, y'know just how you'd expect a cookie to look. Here are mine pre-oven...

...and here they are post oven. 

I think that Freedom Mallows maybe melt less well than Dandies and by that I mean they melt like craaaaazy, everywhere. Either it was the fault of the mallows (which I totally did cut in half to make mini mallows) or I'm a terrible baker...I'm going to keep blaming the mallows. I subbed rich tea biscuits for the Graham crackers because we don't have those here, I was planning to use digestive biscuits but every single kind at the supermarket I went to had milk.

I realised after taking the first two off of the tray that I was going to need to let them cool completely before popping them on the cooling rack, ten minutes wasn't quite enough. Ooops!

A good 75% were attractive enough for sharing which actually worked out wonderfully because it meant that the other half needed eating stat. That was really tough for Nick and I because we totally hate cookies*! *we do not totally hate cookies. Despite not being the most beautiful these were super delicious. I'd definitely make them again.

I'll leave you with two pic's of what these cookies are meant to look like!

Photo Credit Amanda

 Photo credit Lindsay

It's been a super fun VeganMoFo y'all. I can't believe it's over. I'm feeling a little emotional about writing the very last round up on the official VeganMoFo blog later! If you've enjoyed my MoFoing rest assured that I still have plenty of posts in the works for after MoFo and I'll be posting regularly for the rest of the year and beyond!

MoFo '14 Day 29 - Cheezish

It's my favourite day of the week, Mac & Cheese Monday! Yay! I wasn't quite sure what to make today and then I remembered Cheezish! If you read my pal Lindsay aka Vegan Chai's blog then you must have heard of Cheezish. It's her favourite! I knew I had to try it and what better day than today. The recipe comes from the Glad Cow cookbook and it's also here on the cookbook author's Facebook page. It was so easy to make, you just whiz the ingredients together in a blender and then stir in some margarine at the end. As well as being ridiculously easy it was also totally delicious. 

This stovetop mac is tangy, creamy and cheesy and the recipe makes a tonne of sauce which is the best. It has both roasted red peppers (pimentos if you can get 'em, I couldn't) and a tonne of nooch which are two of my fave' mac & cheese ingredients. I left out the hot sauce. I wanted to get cavatappi (or spirali as they seem to call it over here) because it's Lindsay's favourite but the supermarket I went to didn't have it so I got Pipe Rigate instead which is still an excellent vessel for cheesy sauce.

I will definitely be making this again soon. Probably tomorrow.

MoFo '14 Day 28 - VegFest London

VegFest London was yesterday and I had a super fun day. I was speaking about vegan travel on behalf of The Vegan Society and I blogged a little about that yesterday so today's all about the food. I've been having some stomach issues recently (to go along with my joint pain issues - don't worry I'm seeing some good doctors!) and yesterday I was having a mega flare up of all of the issues all at once. Ugh. Good timing body! I started the day with a fresh juice because the idea of eating was making me feel icky. These guys were lovely and their juices were great. I think I had carrot and orange but it could have been carrot and apple. Either way it was delish.

I knew I'd be feeling better soon enough so next we swung by the Ms Cupcake stall to pick up one of my favourite treats, the Peanut Butter Snap, because Ms C always sells out early. 

Nick got a Peanut Butter Snap too and an Oreo Brownie which he ate for breakfast because he's a winner. I ate my PB Snap today for breakfast which was a most excellent decision. I also got to watch the lovely Ms C herself win a Veg Fest Award later in the day in the Cakes, Sweets & Desserts category which was well deserved and I'm super happy for her. 

Right opposite Ms Cupcake was Ananda Foods who make the Round Up which is a vegan Wagon Wheel. They're so great! I was always a big Wagon Wheel fan and these fill that spot perfectly. I picked up a couple for later and entered to win this giant wagon wheel! Epic! (I did not win!)

Next we spotted the Wood Green charity who, among other things, rescue animals and find them forever homes. They were great and they had this excellent pop up thing (what are these called? Do they even have a name?) where you could be a dog or a cat. Look how cat-like Sal looks!

I eventually decided that eating something solid was a must and I headed straight for the Vegusto stall. I love their mock meats and cheeses and I wanted to feed my poor sad stomach something familiar and easy.

They were making the hot dogs with both their Farmhouse Sausages and their Frankfurters. I am super in love with Vegusto's Farmhouse Sausages so of course I went with one of them.

It was so good, this is totally my kinda food! I skipped the onions but went to town with the ketchup and mustard.

I wish I could have tried some of the other fun new (to me) options too. I thought Happy Maki's menu sounded great. I would love to try their hoisin duck maki one day.

Rupert's Street had a great looking menu too, I bet the Fresh Corn Tomales would have been amazing.

Everything from Paradise Unbakery looked beautiful especially the Almond & Cranberry Cheese and the Cashew Cheese & Tomato Tarts. Another time fo' sure.

We wandered around the stalls and Sal and Nick took advantage of the Nakd bar samples and deals. 18 for £8 or 2 for £1 are good show deals if you're either super into Nakd bars or want to give a couple of flavours a whirl.

I was excited to see that Moo Free had some new flavours and Christmas products. Fun! Nick was all over it!

Considerit are more my kinda thing when it comes to chocolate though, I like it fancy! They do fancy truffles as well as filled bars and of course I picked up a few treats including a caramel filled bar that I'm excited to try and review soon.

There were a couple of other amazing looking chocolate stalls but I couldn't afford to try it all! Cocoa Feliz's stand looked seriously amazing though. Maybe I'll order some for Christmas!

Goody Good Stuff were next on the agenda, I love this brand especially now that they're entirely vegan. I still see some of the beeswax containing flavours in stores but once they're sold they're sold and they'll be 100% vegan from now on.

They had some fun Christmas products on sale too, these were super tasty and I can see myself munching on this tub on Christmas morning.

My talk was at 4pm and I think I rocked it once I relaxed a little. Public speaking's not something that's ever come easy to me, at school I was that dyslexic kid turning beetroot red and stumbling over the words when we had to read aloud in class but I'm so passionate about vegan travel that I wanted to get over that, step out from behind the computer, and put myself out there. It was great and I'm super glad that I'm doing this now, I can't wait to speak at Vida Vegan Con next year. I love talking about travel and public speaking's really no different than talking with a group of friends...it's just a slightly bigger group than usual!

After the talk my stomach was feeling a little better so after chatting to new and old friends and answering some travel related questions I was ready to get eating! I had a second hot dog from Vegusto - with the Farmhouse Sausage again and it was so great. I also picked up some of their Piquant cheese to take home because it was only £4 a block, bargain!

Sheese was next and I was happy to taste test a few flavours of the hard and spreadable cheeses before deciding which ones to purchase. They were doing a 3 for £6 deal which Nick and I took advantage of. We got the Medium Cheddar and Smoked Cheddar hard cheeses and the Cheddar Cheese Spread. Apparently we like cheddar!

Lastly I remembered that I hadn't really eaten any sweet treats all day, not cool! I spotted this beautiful chocolate ganache covered cake topped with blueberries on the Essential Vegan stall and I knew I had to have it.

It was every bit as delicious as it looked, the cake was so light and it was exactly the right level of sweet for me. I'll definitely be trying to find more of their cakes in the future, apparently they usually sell their wares at Boiler House on Brick Lane or at their pop-up cafe on Portobello Road at weekends.

I'm still feeling shattered after the weekend and I can't believe there are only two more days of MoFo left - I've totally been off of my commenting game but I'll be back on it tomorrow!

MoFo '14 Day 27 - A Vegan Abroad Workshop

Today was London VegFest and in a total break from any theme I'm just going to write about people, lovely vegan people. Today I spoke about vegan travel on behalf of The Vegan Society who are the people who invented the word vegan, cool right? I was pretty nervous and every single person in that audience made my first ever public speaking appearance a pleasure. Looking out and seeing encouraging smiling faces was the best! Seriously I had so much fun and people clapped and came and chatted to me and asked questions at the end and nobody crumpled up their handout and left it on the floor so I'm calling that a win. I'll blog more about the talk, with links to some of the things in the handout, and about Veg Fest (tomorrow!) when I'm less tired but today was a total blast! All of these rad people came to my talk AND they're all taking part in VeganMoFo! How cool! 

From left to right we have Randi from Laughfrodisiac who I hung out with in London the other day. Her MoFo theme Planes, Trains and Veganmobiles is most excellent and I love that she's managing to blog despite moving halfway around the world during MoFo. Then there's me, you know me! Hasta La Vegan's in the middle, they're doing the most ridic MoFo theme EVER and veganising recipes from old and outdated cookbooks. Hilarity ensues every day and I can't believe I was so stunned from public speaking and new people and chatting that I forgot to do any "you're killing it" high fiveing! Caroline from Tea and Sympatico's next to her and it was so good to see her again. I haven't seen her since I was in Manchester almost 18 months ago. Her MoFo has been tea themed and despite not being a tea drinker myself I've spotted plenty of delicious and tempting things on her blog this month including these white chocolate and matcha green tea truffles. One of my BFF's Sal from Alien on Toast is on the right and if you've never checked out her blog you should, for MoFo she's veganising Jamie Oliver recipes, making dirty sandwiches (like this tuna mayo and sweetcorn one with peanut butter!!) and more. Charis from Floral Frosting wasn't around by the time we took this but it was awesome to meet her - one day I need to make her mint choc chip ice cream, it looks Uh-Mazing! I also got to meet The Food Duo who are MoFoing too as well as loads of other great non-mofo peep's!

Right now I'm ready to crash but I'll post about the food tomorrow fo' sure and don't worry cheese and chocolate do feature!

MoFo '14 Day 26 - London Calling

Yesterday was so much fun! I met up with my friend (and fellow blogger and MoFoer) Randi who just moved here from Philly and we spent the day eating our way around London. Our first stop was Shoryu Ramen in Soho because I've been missing great ramen since my trip to Japan earlier this year. Shoryu only has one vegan option on the menu because ramen is traditionally made with pork or fish broth but I appreciate the nod towards accommodating veggies especially as it's vegan as it is, no sub's needed. Here's the Natural Ramen.

There was so much deliciousness in this bowl! Tofu! Sweetcorn! Spring onions! Nori! Bamboo! Spinach! Sesame! Kikurage mushrooms! Pickled ginger! All in a wheat noodle filled shiitake and konbu soy broth. If you're gluten free you can replace the wheat noodles with rice noodles. It brought memories of Japan flooding back as soon as I tasted the first spoonful. The ramen at T's Tan Tan in Tokyo was more peppery than this version but I thought both were equally delicious.

Dessert was next on the agenda and we only had to walk around the corner to get to Gelupo Gelato.

I was a little disappointed that Gelupo's coffee sorbetto contained egg but the rest of the sorbetto menu, including the chocolate, was vegan and any disappointment quickly faded away as soon as we tasted it. OMG! It was so rich and creamy and delicious.

The cones contain dairy (or was it egg? I forget!) but I'm remembering now that they also have wafter things that we forgot to ask about but that I've seen on other vegans Instagram pic's so next time I'll be getting a wafer if they're definitely a-ok!

After the eating we did some walking and went to cheek out a couple of galleries. I'd heard about the Miniature Ink exhibit by tattoo magazine Things and Ink at Atomica Gallery on Twitter and I was super excited that it coincided with a day I was already heading up to London.

Over 100 tattoo artists from all over the world contributed small original artworks which were all on sale for £60 to raise money for charity. Unfortunately the charity they chose funds animal testing so I was never going to buy anything but I was of course tempted as there were pieces by Jody Dawber, Tracy D & Shell Valentine among others but hopefully I can get tattooed by these awesome ladies sometime instead! I hope that next time a fundraising exhibit like this happens it's for a charity like Macmillan Cancer Support, I swear I'll buy something! If you want to check this exhibition out it's running until October 15th. Afterwards we headed across to Somerset House for the second tattoo related art exhibition of the day. I feel like I must have been to Somerset House before but it must have been a long time ago because I didn't remember what an awesome looking building it is. The architecture reminded me of Vienna.

The Time Tattoo Art Today exhibit contains original artworks from 70 of the world's most influential tattoo artists.

There were watercolours, oil paintings, sculpture and even a Japanese silk painting. It was cool to see work by the artists that's outside of their usual medium. It's running until the 5th of October so you should check it out if you'll be in London before then.

Mine and Randi's fifth stop of the day was Cookies & Scream one of my fave' bakeries ever and somewhere Randi had never checked out before. She went for a salt caramel milkshake and I got a Chico, their peanut butter choc chip cookie, heated up. I also took a PB & J cookie to go which I gave Nick to take to work today.

This is such a ridiculously good cookie. I actually ate at C&S two or three times before I realised that they're entirely gluten free as well as 100% vegan and it kinda blew my mind a little. Both this place and Back to Eden in Portland make me wanna step up my xgfx baking game.

After our cookies we were craving savoury and I needed something to munch on on the train journey home (it takes over 2 hours rather than the usual 50 minutes to get home from London after 11pm, England is stupid) so we went to Whole Foods and picked up a giant £3 pretzel each which was such a great idea!

After Randi and I parted ways I headed over to Shoreditch to The Old Blue Last to meet Nick and see Masked Intruder, one of my favourite pop punk bands who I'd never gotten to see live before. They were super fun and even the annoying drunken antics of some bellend in braces didn't ruin it for me! They even perform in their masks and I find their whole pretend criminal schtick hilarious.

Halfway through the show the "cop" decided to become a fellow criminal punk and danced his ass off in the audience. So silly! Check out their song 25 to Life on bandcamp if you're at all pop punk inclined or just want an insight into what I did last night.

Yesterday was pretty much the perfect day! Friends, check! Food, check! Tattoo / Art stuff, check! Hanging out with Nick, check! Punk show, check! Most excellent! I'm heading up to London again tomorrow for London Veg Fest where I'll be doing much more hanging out with both Nick and a whole host of my vegan buddies, eating everything in sight and even talking about vegan travel at 4pm in the Workshops room. Come and see me speak if you're into that kinda thing or just pop up and say hi to me if you see me!

MoFo '14 Day 25 - Vegan Parmesan

Yesterday afternoon I was nearing the end of my to-do list when I felt a familiar rumble that signalled dinner time was fast approaching. For the last few nights Nick and I have eaten cereal, microwaved some Amy's mac & cheese and yesterday I even made Nick grab us take out on his way home from work. Whilst these were all fine and filling dinners I felt like I should probably cook something proper today. I was racking my brain for something easy and decided to head over to my cheese board on Pinterest to see if anything simple but theme worthy jumped out at me. Right there at the bottom was this pin, 5 Quick and Easy Vegan Parmesan Pasta Recipes from Maple Spice, one of my favourite blogs.

Now I was super tempted to go for the really, really easy option of the Buttery Parmesan Pasta but I had a courgette calling my name so I decided to go for the Vegan Lemon Parmesan Spaghetti becuase Debbie suggests mixing in courgette to add some veg, good call Debbie!

The parmesan recipe itself is SO easy to throw together, easier than any other parmesan recipe I've tried and that's saying something. I think it's because it calls for ground almonds which I always have on hand anyway. You don't even need to get the blender out.

I whipped up a quick single serving batch in my pestle and mortar.

As soon as the pasta was ready I mixed in the margarine, parmesan, garlic powder, pepper and a little pasta water and added the courgettes to my portion - no way was Nick going to eat courgettes!

This was such a great easy meal, it literally came together in ten minutes. I'll definitely be trying the other four quick and easy pasta recipes from Debbie's post, the spring vegetable pasta sounds particularly delicious and even Nick will eat asparagus, peas and green beans these days!