Author: Clare

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

Recipe: Vegan Chicken Taco with Linda McCartney Pulled Chicken

On By ClareIn products, recipe2 Comments

I set myself a challenge. I wanted to make tacos but I wanted to make some that Kate would eat. The problem is that Kate hates chilies and I view them as a whole food group. Or two. So I needed to go no chililes. And also no lettuce. Kate doesn’t like lettuce.

The light bulb moment came when we decided to try some of the Linda McCartney Pulled Chicken last week. Kate cooked some into a curry and it wasn’t a great success but I thought it would be fabulous cooked with some dry spices and stuffed into some taco shells. Add a little spinach – not lettuce – and it might just be a Kate-friendly taco.

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Tacos, not too much chili

 

Ingredients

Half of an onion, sliced
1 1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon  cumin
pinch of salt
Half a bag of pulled chicken
A nice big handful of baby spinach
Four taco shells

  1. Fry the onions in a teaspoon of oil until they are translucent, about four to five minutes.
  2. Add all of the seasoning into the pan and cook for thirty seconds or so before adding in the chicken.
  3. Cook the chicken for four minutes before adding three or four tablespoons of water. This will plump out the chicken and make it lovely and tender. Cook for a further three minutes. Stir every so often to make sure the chicken doesn’t stick.
  4. Assemble the tacos. Nothing too hard. Taco shell, layer of spinach, layer of chicken.

 

If you aren’t Kate you could also add some avocado, splash on a little hot sauce, switch out the greens for something with more crunch but if you are Kate this plain version is perfect.

 

 

 

 

The Kind Grind – Torquay’s Vegan Friendly Coffee Shop

On By ClareIn closed down1 Comment

Edit 7/2/2020: The Kind Grind is now closed for good.

The Kind Grind had its opening yesterday and I allowed Kate to shake me awake early on a Saturday to check it out first thing. Our expectations were high. Our mood was giddy. Our stomachs demanded cake!

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The Kind Grind on Lucius Street, Torquay

Decorated with wood, chalkboard and succulents but in a way that makes it seem more homey than hipster, the Kind Grind is a welcoming space. Cute toys line the wall for your small children, there are plenty of places to sit, and if you are in need they are part of the suspended coffee movement.

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Cakes!

The Kind Grind wears its politics on its sleeves. They source locally, buy fair trade products and — of course — almost everything is vegan. The only non vegan thing on offer is milk for coffees. The dairy free among us can choose from almond, soy, and oat. Cakes are prepared by two local vegan ‘cake faeries’ and there is a selection of packaged foods, including Ten Acre Crisps.

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I managed to fit this one in my mouth whole. I’m proud of that.

So what did we get on our very first visit? Well we ordered two hot chocolates, with almond for me and with oat for Kate, and two cupcakes. Mine had a delicious shard of chocolate. I adored the cakes. They taste better than they look and they look amazing. We where drawn in by the homey atmosphere and ended up staying longer than we intended. To keep our stamina up we also had a packet of When the Cheese Met The Onion and a packet of How Chicken Soup Saved The Day. We swapped halfway through to get a taste of each.

We’ll be back in The Kind Grind often. They have both sweet and savoury snacks covered and when the weather gets cooler again I expect I’ll be in for a lot of hot chocolates. I’m also intrigued by the quiche, which we didn’t get to sample this time. I’m sure I’ll be able to report back soon on that one though.

V is for Vegan

On By ClareIn books, productsLeave a comment

It was the Ramen Hacks that convinced me that I had to have this book. Or, rather, it was the introduction to the Ramen Hacks. I was crouched in the vegan cookbook section killing time when I read the sentence ‘Sometimes when I can’t be bothered to cook I buy Pot Noodles.’

This resonated with me. As much as I like to go on complicated shopping trips to find unusual ingredients and as much as I like to cook everything from scratch I also don’t sometimes. Oh yeah. I know that McDonald’s Sweet Curry Dip is vegan and that Morrisons make the best packaged onion bajhis and six of them totally count as breakfast.

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The Full Kit. Book, salad seaweed, nori, liquid smoke, Achiote, Coconut Butter, Chipotle in Adobo, Nutritional Yeast and a Sous Chef Sack.

Three days later I was still mulling over the cookbook that tells you how to crack open a coconut and contains pot noodle confessions. I was also out of Nutritional Yeast so instead of buying it on Amazon Kate went all out and bought me The V is For Vegan Kit from Sous Chef. She’s a good un.

So here is a quick rundown of why you need this book. There is the usual section of what is vegan anyway and then we get to one of the best vegan ingredient primers ever. Interspersed between the paragraphs on why umami is all important and all the types of seaweed you can eat you’ll find recipes for homemade tofu, watermelon rind pickle, nut cheese and so much more. You could flip through it everyday for a week and still find new stuff to try. Ask me how I know.

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Mexican Chocolate Shake

Then we get to snacks like 13 things on toast, Dried Pineapple Flowers and Roasted Chickpeas. Into the breakfast section and The Mexican Chocolate Shake with optional chipotle paste has become my new favorite light breakfast. Light on chewing that is.

The Lunch Section has the Ramen Hacks. My fist experiment involved a packet of the cheapest noodles in the supermarket, some miso, all of the flavorings, spring onions, the last of our home grown spinach and slabs of smoked tofu. So satisfying to slurp. Since then I’ve bought even more cheap noodles.

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My First Ramen Hack

Dinner and Desert I’ve yet to cook from. I know, I’m a disappointment. They’re a bit too fancy, dinner partyish for the last couple of weeks in our life. It’s been kind of a ‘lets just have pasta’ couple of weeks. The dishes sound fab though and I have high hopes for the Carrot , Pepper and Lentil Tagine and Three Topping Polenta Party appearing on my table soon.

And that’s why I recommend you buy V is for Vegan. There is food for when you are feeling lazy, food for when you are feeling fancy and a wealth of information to turn you into an empowered vegan cook. Any one of those things would earn a book two thumbs up from me but V is for Vegan has all three. So go buy it.

And Now For Bacon

On By ClareIn products1 Comment

We took a trip up to Exeter this weekend for Compassion in the Castle, a fun vegan fair in Exeter Castle (Where are the pictures? There are none. My phone died. Sorry.) We ate a lot, we stopped to chat with a lot of cool people and we bought a lot.

smokeybakon

We couldn’t resist… well anything. But we especially couldn’t resist samples of new foods. Lettices had the most intriguing selection and I think I tried one of everything except the mayonnaise (I was blocked by other samplers) and although the Popperoni was fab, and the Better Fetter was uncanny I had had to bring home some of the Smokey Bakon. I mean a smokey bacon flavored vegan cheese? Yeah. I’ll take it.

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It’s somewhere between a cream cheese and hard cheese. You can just about spread it on your bread and when heat is applied it gets beautifully melted. It’s perfect on a toastie or for cheese on toast. It’s also delicious just spread thickly onto crispbreads or biscuits. As for the taste? Reminiscent of a cheddar spread but with that perfect salt, sweet, smokey of bakon. It’s a big hit here.