Author: Clare

Cruelty free cook, crafty lady, obsessive reader, animal babysitter, and mistress of lego

Reveiw: Leon Fast Vegan

On By ClareIn books3 Comments

When Leon brought out a vegan cookbook I ordered it straight away. I’ve been living with it for the past few months and it’s been in rotation ever since. The title implies that it’s all fast food but really it has a recipe for just about anything you could ask for. There are breakfast, desserts, 15-minute meals and ones that take hours. It’s an encyclopaedia of vegan food. And it’s pretty cool.

We’ll start with one of the quicker recipes. This Artichoke, Basil and Spinach Pasta. It’s a quick pesto recipe that has all the umami you could ever need coming from that artichoke. The recipes are more than just a token vegan option, they’re well-thought-out to give a full range of flavours.

Jackfruit Tikka Masala is one of the the recipes that puts the name fast vegan to shame, clocking in at just under 2 hours. However you will not regret a second of those two hours. This is the best vegan tikka masala you’ll ever have. And it’s a genuine tikka masala, you marinate and cook your jackfruit before tossing it in the curry sauce which just makes everything perfect.

One of the few misses we’ve had is this Spiced Moroccan Tofu. Overall it was just a little dry and the Moroccan flavours didn’t really work with tofu.

But let’s end on a happy, positive, chocolate-filled note. These chocolate brownie cakes are amazing! Really dense and they have chocolate and rich and they have chocolate.

There are some amazing recipes in this huge tome. And although I’ve become adept at translating recipes from American English into UK English it’s always great to have recipes written in my own culinary language. I would suggest you go out and buy this straight away and make the tikka masala because it’s amazing.

Recipe: Wild Garlic Bread

On By ClareIn Foraging, recipeLeave a comment

Wild garlic, allium ursinum, is currently in season here in sunny south Devon. The beautiful garlic-scented plant is everywhere right now and it’s delicious.

The leaves are my favourite part. I pick two or three from each plant so it can keep on growing. Patches here can get pretty large so you can get a decent harvest that way. This garlic bread ‘recipe’ is nice and easy. Great for after a hard day’s forage.

Wild Garlic Bread

 

1 demi baguette

About 6 leaves of wild garlic

About 4 tablespoons of vegan butter

Pre heat the oven to 200°c

Make cuts in the baguette. You want about nine cuts, on the diagonal, about three quarters of the way through.

Make the garlic butter: finely chop the garlic leaves and beat into the butter.

Spoon the garlic into the cuts, about a teaspoon in each one.

Wrap the baguette in foil and bake in the oven for twenty minutes.

Review: Wagamama

On By ClareIn Chain Eating, london3 Comments

We’ve talked before about how we never get to try exciting new offerings from chains, so when we needed somewhere to eat on our last night in London I demanded we go get the vegatsu from Wagamama.

I’m going to say this up front: the atmosphere was awful. It was Friday night in a busy location and the music was loud and the wall to wall people were louder. But it’s pretty much what you expect in a busy location at a busy time.

The food was amazing though. The vegatsu is a vegan take on katsu curry. There is a large slab of katsu seitan served with white rice and coated in a delicious curry sauce. It’s so, so good. The seitan is crazy good! It’s meaty, genuinely meaty, with a great taste and texture. And then they put breadcrumbs on it. Then curry. It’s delicious.

I really want to get another one, but I might not go on a Friday night. That many people in one place scare me.

Review: HealthyWealthy (London)

On By ClareIn londonLeave a comment

The story of how we decided to go to HealthyWealthy is… not interesting. We were shopping across the road (at the fabulous Third Estate) and saw the word vegan on the window so we went in.

The food options are great. You pick your size of thali and then the friendly staff walk you through the choices. I went medium and Kate opted for a small. We loved everything! The chickpea curry I had was great, the french bean curry was a highlight. Kate found the soy chunk curry a little hot but the dhal was perfect.

As well at the thalis they also have a selection of fried foods, Indian sweets and vegan ice cream. We had a couple of scoops to go. A rosewater and a pistachio. These should come with a health warning because they are massively overwhelmingly sweet. If you’re used to the sweetness of traditional Indian sweets that’s what we’re talking about. The flavours are great though. Small portions is the key.

We recommend HealthyWealthy for a low cost, high quality meal. My advice would be to go all out on the curries and have small portions of the sweets.