Happy Easter Everyone

Belated Happy Easter!

Easter is getting more and more exciting for Vegans! Sugar high!

This year I got:

Choices White Chocolate Egg and Choices Caramel Egg from Sainsbury's.

The white chocolate egg came with white chocolate buttons. You can see the caramels that came with the other egg. I got a hit of caramel smell when I cracked the Caramel Egg but I found the flavour to not be as strong as the smell. Still tasty.

After Eight bunny from the 99p shop.

After Eights have been vegan in the past but then they added buttermilk. The bunny is vegan though and my mum decided it was better than the creamy After Eights. Lovely mint chocolate.

I'm also tempted to go and try and find this Hotel Chocolat egg today in the sales but it is still expensive!

Yesterday evening the boyfriend's and my uni friends came round to make a vegan roast dinner. :) I had a great time and would happily cook for them all again.

We had:
Roast potatoes (roasted with garlic and rosemary)
Sweet potato and thyme mash
Yorkshire puddings
Roasted onion and parsnips
Broccoli
and Tofu roast with stuffing and gravy but we used shop bought stuffing and gravy

Tofu roast after being taken out of the colander. Ready to coat with Soy sauce and oil.

Tofu roast after cooking.

The tofu roast was a bit too salty for my taste but I don't often add salt to my food. I want to try and think of some new flavours for it. I am really looking forward to my tofu and stuffing sandwiches for lunch :)

Marmite pasta

Marmite pasta made famous by Nigella. I basically followed Nigella's recipe but with the vegan substitute. I ignored the cheese as I had no vegan cheese. I tried it and enjoyed it as a fairly plain meal. Just pasta, vegan margarine, marmite and peas. I thought it was almost as easy as my love of Sainsbury's Vegetable noodles but plainer. 

Sometimes I feel like really plain (but salty) food but I might add ketchup next time, as this recipe on the Guardian website suggests.

Back of a tin chilli kidney bean soup recipe

I followed the simple suggested recipe on the back of a tin of Sainsbury's Red Kidney Beans in Chilli sauce and was surprised about how easy and tasty it was. I added carrots and possibly another vegetable but it has been a while since I made this and took the photo.

Treats for Children

Putting the clocks forward has messed up my daily routine a bit (well as much of a routine as a student can have when they have absolutely no lectures). I was waking up, without an alarm, quite early in the morning and getting things done but not anymore. I had run out of soya milk as well so after some snacks I took myself off to Sainsburys.

I always get distracted by all the food. I try to stick to a list but something new always slips in. Luckily I only really spend money on rent and food at the moment as I have lots of studying to do and less time for partying. It also helps that the boyfriend has no money at the moment so no little trips off to the pub.

So I found these in the free from section and got excited! Small packets of chocolate cookies. Similar to non vegan brands. I don't know if they taste at all similar though. I thought these tasted a little bit like chocolate cereal.

They would be great to give a gluten free, nut free, soy free, wheat free, egg free, yeast free or vegan child a treat at school. As a life long vegan I know what it was like to miss out on treats when it was someone's birthday or a member of staff was leaving. It is not the end of the world not to have something but it is nice to be included. They are not an every day treat though because of the price £2.99.

Sugar high leads to advent calendars

Advent Calendars!! A bit early I know but as someone who has little experience of chocolate advent calendars I get very excited when I see a vegan one. Last month my mum kindly bought me and my sister dairy free advent calendars off of the veganstore website. They had a deal where it was cheaper to buy them early. So it has been sat on my desk for a while now.

Today, to escape the boyfriends loud music and game playing (well that's the excuse I am using) I went to Starbucks to do some reading for uni. For some reason I do concentrate very well when I am in Starbucks on my own despite how busy it is. I've had a Starbucks card for a while now since I found any extras you choose to have are free, when you pay with it. Which means free soya milk which saves you about 35p. I think thats how much it saves but I haven't paid for the soya milk for a while obviously. I thought I would be adventurous and try a syrup. I had a peppermint mocha that was advertised on the menu as one of the suggested christmas drinks. More Christmas!


I thought the peppermint was a little excessive. I could really taste the peppermint and barely taste the coffee and choc. It was enjoyable but I think if I had it again I would ask for just a little bit of peppermint as I saw them put in a few big squirts of the syrup. The syrup is basically sugar and I'm not great with caffeine so I was definitely on a high after that drink.

The Starbucks I went to is part of a Sainsbury's. I read on the UK part of the PPK forum about Sainsbury's doing a vegan advent calendar by choices dairy free chocolate. I'd had the choices caramel chocolates before and they are yum! After Starbucks I couldn't help going on a wander round the shop and came across the advent calendars that have just been put on the shelves in the free-from section of the shop.

So now I have two advent calendars. Is that overdoing it? Well after years of not having chocolate calendars I feel I need to catch up. Well that's my excuse anyway.

Convenience food

Being vegan does not necessarily mean living off home made salad, soaked chickpeas and rice, although I do like those things. Sometimes I just need some food fast. Sainsbury's have had a 2 for 1 deal on innocent veg pots. Most also had 50p off vouchers on the packaging for next time. Many of these pots are labelled as suitable for vegetarians and vegans. They are a filling and as far as i'm aware healthy meal. I had one today because I needed something quick and filling to help me write up an observation. The only problem I have with them is the packaging. If only they could make them recyclable! They have quirky suggestions on the packaging for ways to reuse the pots but in reality they often smell too much like curry even after a good scrub to be used for many suggestions. So far I have used a pot for our communal money collecting (for loo rolls and cleaning products). I've considered using them for food storage but I don't want everything to taste like curry even if I do love curry. I could maybe use them as flower pots like this glass jar here with my £1.50 flowers.