Today was the best day! Seriously. Like, ever. There were a few factors that helped today earn this prestigious title, and those reasons follow now, in no particular order.

A) Rod Stewart’s new album, Time, was released today. Rod Stewart is my sun and my moon and my stars and I love him and he never lets me down. He makes me very happy, so I’m sure you’ll all understand that something like this would be a huge mood-booster.

B) The sun was shining big & bright in the Nova Scotian sky and the temperature rose above 20°C for the first time this year. And I actually got to get outside and enjoy it!

C) My colleagues & I ventured forth into the beautiful day and went out for lunch. Halifax has a new vegan-friendly restaurant in town, and it’s a good’un! The first Atlantic Canadian location of the popular Ontario-based restaurant chain The Works Gourmet Burger Bistro is open for business on Doyle Street in downtown Halifornia and, with a completely vegan veggie burger patty on the menu, I could not be happier! Both their white and whole wheat buns are vegan as well, and with endless combinations of toppings, you could eat there every day for the entire summer and not have the same veggie burger twice. These guys are a game changer, y’all!

The super friendly and helpful staff gave me all the information I needed to assure me I was going to receive a vegan meal that was delicious and safe for me to eat. Within seconds of “I’m vegan…” coming out of my mouth, their allergen and ingredient listing was on the table in front of me and the kitchen’s cooking methods were explained in detail. Class act, they are.

And they’re a tonne of fun! They are Canadian to the core and it shines through brightly by the humour on the menu. Read through the 70-odd unique burgers listed and get a good chuckle from the names of ‘em. Great Canadian references abound!

And they have style! All their beverages are served in measuring cups. LOVE IT!

The decor is industrial-themed, with a heartwarming and endearing Haligonian twist.

The food was served quickly and was absolutely massive. And it was facking delicious! I had the Sgt. Peppers (jalapeño & banana peppers and their hotter than hell sauce, with sour cream nixed and avocado & pickle added, because YUM). It was HAHT and spicy and just like I like it.

The Works is extremely friendly to gluten-free omnivores, but gluten-free vegans are out of luck: their veggie patty contains vital wheat gluten. While they do offer a portobello cap as a patty alternate, their gluten-free bun contains egg whites, so you’d have no bun option to eat it on, GF vegans. I am not gluten-free and am therefore very satisfied with what’s on offer, but I just wanted to give any GF vegans reading a heads up. Sorry, guys.

BUT SERIOUSLY! Get on down and give ‘em a go. I can’t imagine you regretting it, unless you hate fun and detest great food.

D) Lunch was followed by a sunshiny stroll through the heart & parks of downtown and we stopped off for vegan gelato at the newest location of Humani-T Café on South Park Street. The staff member that helped us choose (one whole end of the freezer was vegan options, so it was no easy task!) was lovely. They had soy-based Oreo ice cream and it was everything I could have dreamed of and more on this first truly hot day of the year. SO HAPPY!

Get down and give them a visit.

Seriously, today couldn’t've been better if it tried. I could have tripped on the walk back to work, smashed my teeth on the pavement and needed emergency dental surgery and it still would have been the greatest day ever.

This is gonna be a great summer, Halifax! I can feel it.

It’s Hallowe’en, I have just carved my pumpkin, and my original, childhood VHS copy of “Hocus Pocus” is playing in the VCR. What could possibly make this day more wonderful? If you’re thinking “baking with squash from the fall harvest”, you and I would be on the same page.

Zucchini is my second favourite type of squash to bake with (after pumpkin, of course) and, luckily for me, a neighbour keeps dropping off mammoth super-zucchinis from her squash patch. We have shredded and frozen multiple already, but the freezer is getting mighty full and I had one left to deal with. Just to give you an idea of the size of this sucker, from this one zucchini I made a huge pot of Ratatouille Soup (with double the zucc), four zucchini loaves, and still froze three cups. SERIOUSLY. Massive.

Do any of you have the same problem? Here’s a delicious way to deal with it.

Chocolate Chip Banana Zucchini Loaf

• 2 large or 3 medium bananas, mashed
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups cane sugar
• 2 cups raw zucchini, grated
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups flour
• 3 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup nuts
• ½ cup chocolate chips
• ¼ cup water

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease two 9″ x 5″ loaf pans and set aside.

Shred your zucchini. Here was mine, with a huge chunk of it already bubbling away in a pot of soup.

Pack the shredded zucchini into a measuring cup and squeeze out some of the liquid. You don’t want it bone dry, just not positively swimming in zucc juice.

Mash your bananas into submission. We had Behemoth bananas on steroids from our store, so two were plenty for my purposes. If you have regular, non-Hulk bananas use three.

Mix bananas, sugar, zucchini, oil, and vanilla together in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate mixing bowl sift together flour, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice (mmmmmmm!), baking soda & powder, and salt.

Add dry ingredients to wet in batches and mix to combine until smooth. Add nuts (chopped walnuts were what I used, but use what you’ve got/like), chocolate chips, and water. You can adjust the amount of water if your batter doesn’t look quite the right consistency. Use your judgement.

Pour batter evenly into two loaf pans and bake for approximately 1 hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean. I rotated my pans after 30 minutes.

Cool on a rack in pans for 10 minutes, remove from pans and continue to cool on rack until completely cooled.

Slice & serve! The sheer amount of fruits and veggies crammed into this dessert meant it was moist and the spices gave it a delightful, autumn flavour.

This was a big hit on the ol’ homestead, but then again I’ve never known a banana or a zucchini loaf to fail in this crowd. We’ll definitely be making this again with some of the 4,396 cups of frozen zucc down in the deep freeze.

Happy Hallowe’en and Happy Harvest Baking! Remember: If at this time of year it ain’t packed with fresh squash and pumpkin pie spice, it ain’t right.

There is an inexhaustible list of reasons why autumn in Nova Scotia kicks ass, but one of the tastiest is also one nearest to the top: It’s apple pickin’ time! Our big apple growing region is the Annapolis Valley (or just “the Valley”, if you’re from ’round these parts), and we enjoy the fruits of the Valley’s farmers’ labours each and every fall with great vigour. And one of our favourite ways to do so? Apple crisp, bitches.

Apple crisp is super easy and pretty near vegan to begin with. This is a recipe everyone and their great-grandmother loves. Individual family recipes may vary, but they are all delicious and taste like home. Here is mine.

Apple Crisp

Bowl One

• 4-5 medium-sized apples, peeled, cored & cut into chunks
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/3 to ½ cup brown sugar

Bowl Two

• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup quick oats
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ½ cup softened vegan margarine

Please note, N.B., Very Important Information et al. and so on and such forth: When my friend and I made & photographed this, we doubled the recipe. The general rule about apple crisp is that there’s never, ever enough, so we find it’s usually best to double or triple the batch.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Grease an 8″ x 8″ square baking dish and set aside.

Core, peel, and cut up your apples and put them in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Bowl One, if you will. Sprinkle dat lemon juice all up on doz naked apples to keep them from going a deathly shade of brown.

Add the first listed amount of brown sugar to your prepared apples in Bowl One. The tarter your apples, the more you will need.

In your second bowl mix all other ingredients together (except for the margarine). Please take time to build sand castles out of your packed brown sugar–I won’t judge you. Actually, I’ll probably judge you if you don’t.

Mix mix mix mix all dry ingredients together, then cut in your softened vegan margarine. A pastry cutter does the trick, but if you don’t have one of those on hand just use two butter knives to cut it in. That’s my great-grandmother’s trick and I’m sticking to it.

Spread the apple mixture evenly into your greased pan. Remember how I said I doubled this recipe? I also used a 9″ x 13″ pan. It’s all the same, just bigger.

Spread the delicious mushy oat contents of Bowl Two evenly on top of the apples. Make it even and make it count.

Slam that bad boy into your preheated oven for about 30 minutes or until browned and crisped. Don’t forget to set a timer! Do you need some baking music to help pass the time? This song is by an old Canadian country singer and it’s about apple blossom time in the Valley. (Far from harvest time but there’s yodelling in it, so who are we to say it’s wrong for this post?)

Keep an eye on your crisp near the end of the half hour to bring it to just the colour and crispness that you desire (the same goes for your tan in the summer–use sunscreen). Watch it and don’t let it burn, OOOOR you could throw the broiler on and walk away like I did. Idiot. I just wanted it crispier, aight? Instead I got lovely caramelised brown sugar all up in this piece. It only made it taste even more divine.

Ladle a hearty scoop of the hot stuff into a bowl and serve it up the favourite way of all Cape Breton children, ever: with vanilla ice cream! Vegan, of course.

Hot and cold, spicy and sweet. PERFECTION!

Nothing brings me back to crisp autumn days in my Cape Breton country home quite like apple crisp. I hope it brings you as much warmth as it has always brought me.

Helllllloooooooooo Readers! My hectically busy year in London has drawn to a close and I’m back in glorious Nova Scotia again, just in time for endless delightful North American autumnal baked goods and comfort foods. First up to/on the plate: Vegan Chicken à la King and Pot Pies!

This is the recipe I grew up with, veganised. It’s super easy, down-home comfort food. It’s nothin’ fancy, but it’s home. Mess around with it if you like, add more vegetables, try some different seasonings, whatever you like. Make it yours and enjoy it.

Chicken à la King (Serves 4)

• ¼ cup vegan margarine
• ¼ shredded carrot
• ¼ cup finely chopped celery
• ¼ cup chopped green onion, greens & whites
• 8 medium brown mushrooms, sliced
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon celery salt
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1 cup soy creamer
• 2 cups cubed faux chicken
• ¼ cup chopped pimiento or roasted red peppers
• ½ – 1 teaspoon salt

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, melt margarine. Add carrot, celery, and green onion, stirring occasionally, cooking for 5 minutes. Add mushrooms and cook for an additional 3-4 minutes, until veggies and mushrooms are tender.

Stir in the flour and celery salt until absorbed and smooth, about one minute.

Whisk in the veggie broth and creamer. I used a vegan chicken-flavoured vegetable broth, but straight-up veg broth would work just as well.

If you don’t have soy creamer on hand you can use soy milk, but the extra fat in the creamer comforts up this bitch, if you know what I’m sayin’. I used Belsoy’s cooking creamer. It conveniently comes in a one cup container.

Cook for 9-11 minutes, whisking constantly. This is when you can play with the flavour by adding salt. I ended up adding ½ teaspoon in the end, but you may need to adjust based on how salty your broth is.

Now, for the chicken! You can use whatever vegan chicken substitute you like, whether you take the time to make your own perfected seitan chicken recipe or you hop down to the store and pick up a commercially-made chicken substitute like I did, it’s all good in THIS hood, yo! This was a quick and lazy comfort food evening in my kitchen, so I couldn’t be arsed to make my own and bought a Gardein grain-based faux poulet. Do what suits you, just make sure you have 2 cups of the cubed stuff ready to roll.

Add your faux chicken and pimientos to the pot now and stir to incorporate.

Reduce heat to low and let the flavours meld. The more time you give it, the better it gets, I say about half an hour.

This is traditionally what my family will serve over toast as Chicken à la King. I would never advocate eating white bread (except when it comes to French toast. You ALWAYS need white bread for French toast), but what works perfectly for à la King is a thick-sliced bread that will absorb some of that gorgeous gravy. I went for a whole wheat Texas toast. Guuuuurl!

Split à la King into four even portions and serve hot over toast.

Now, whilst looking at that picture y’all might be thinking, “WHAT?!?! YOU DIDN’T TELL ME TO ADD PEAS!” Calm the heck down, champ. That’s in the next step, for Chicken Pot Pies. You’ll see. We’ll get there. Now hold my hand and let’s go forth together.

Vegan Chicken Pot Pies (Serves 4)

Pot Pie Filling

• One batch of Chicken à la King (recipe above)
• 1 cup cooked & drained mixed vegetables
• ½ teaspoon dried marjoram
• ½ teaspoon dried sage

Cook your Chicken à la King as directed above. When you add your faux chicken near the end, add the ingredients listed above and continue to allow your flavours to meld as instructed. Badda bing!

I chose peas & carrots because a) I effing love peas & carrots and to me they scream “CHICKEN POT PIE VEGGIES!” and b) I didn’t like the other mixed bag available at the store with peas, carrots, corn and lima beans because I facking hate corn and I don’t trust lima beans. So there’s that. But add whatever mixed veggies you like, as long as they’re small and pre-cooked before you add them to the mix.

As your flavours are melding over low heat for about half an hour, get started on that pie crust!

Wicked Easy Vegan Pot Pie Crust

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (plus extra for rolling)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup vegetable shortening
• 6-8 tablespoons ice water

Preheat oven to 425°F.

In a mixing bowl, mix together flour and salt. Add shortening and cut into flour mixture with a pastry cutter. Mix in ice water until mixture forms a slightly tacky ball. You don’t want it to be too sticky, so adjust your water level accordingly.

Split dough into four even balls and roll first ball out on floured surface to about 1/8 inch thickness.

Divide chicken mixture evenly into four heat-proof bowls. Oh yes, my dears, we’re making individual pot pies! Because everything tastes better when you don’t have to share.

Place your rolled dough over top of your bowl. You can either make it sit flat on top of the mixture and cut it to fit inside of the bowl, or bring it up to crimp around the top edges. The crust is more likely to burn if you do it as I have in the following pictures, so you will need to keep an eye on your oven and cover your pies with tinfoil if they start to get too brown.

Trim off excess dough.

Cut vents in your dough and, if you’re so inclined, add a decorative dough shape on top. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness and use a knife or cookie cutter to express yo’self via pastry shapes! You wild child, you! I used the lamest maple leaf cookie cutter ever to show I’M BACK IN CANADA! I also rubbed some shortening on my dough maple leaf to make it brown nicely in the oven.

Repeat with other pot pie bowls. Bake for 30-35 minutes. If crust is getting too dark, cover with tinfoil.

YES! Hot pot pies, straight from the oven! Let some of the steam out and let them cool a bit before you dig in, lest you want to be shouting, “HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION!” like I did when I tried to eat it immediately because I have no patience. This is Butcher-style comfort food, straight from the ’90s to you. It’s sure to warm you from the inside out on a chilly autumn evening.

Oh, and why “The Captain’s” favourite pot pies? Because I am a 6-year-old at heart and love playing dress-up and was wearing a Captain’s hat the entire time I was in the kitchen that evening. Captain Butcher, Master & Commander of the Kitchen! TROUBLE OFF THE PORT BOW! All hands on deck! Heave ho! Haul together, lads!

Until next time, my crew…stay warm and stay awesome.

It has been raining in London for a month and a half straight. I’m not even kidding. They claim to be building the Olympic Stadium just over from my house in East London, but I’m convinced it’s actually an ark and I plan to be first in line when the truth comes out that this whole city is going down by the head and that we’re all going to die.

In the meantime, though, we all need something good and hearty to warm us from the inside out in this chilly, miserable weather. Enter my Mushroom & Tri-Onion Soup!

This soup is thick, flavourful, and filled with thyme, which is my current culinary obsession. Thyme is fragrant and delicious and reminds me of cooking in the French countryside. I WANT IT IN EVERYTHING.

This is a fairly forgiving recipe and you can play with measurements to get a consistency and flavour you like. The first time I made this I was deathly ill and the second time I was uproariously drunk, so forgive me if it doesn’t work out for you. It should though.

Mushroom & Tri-Onion Soup

• 1/2 cup vegan margarine
• 6 gloves of garlic, minced
• 1 yellow onion
• 1 bunch green onions (or spring onions, to you Brits)
• 1 shallot
• 640g or about 25 medium-sized brown mushrooms (chestnuts or creminis)
• Any other mushrooms you have kicking around (handful of shiitakes? A portobello? Use ‘em!)
• 2 tbsp dried thyme
• 3 cups vegetable broth

Prep your veggies! This is a puréed soup, so nothing needs to be chopped too finely. That said, you also don’t want to attack a quarter of an onion with your immersion blender, so use your head here.

MUSHROOMS! These are what give your soup’s flavour its depth, so use brown mushrooms. Add whatever kind you like. I found some dodgy shiitakes at the back of my fridge that I decided to throw into the mix and had fully expected for them to kill me. I’m sitting here typing this, so I obviously came through it okay.

Use stems and all.

I used to hate onions so much. I hated chopping them. I hated the smell of them on my hands and coming out of my pores after I ate them. I would allow them to be hidden in my food but didn’t like putting them there myself. Since becoming vegan I am so obsessed with the layered little bastards that the International Onion Council has issued me three written warnings and are in the process of having a restraining order put in place against me.

Shallots are my new focus. I put them in and on everything. Cooked? Raw? LIKE AN APPLE?! I just want them all the time.

Use the whites of your green onions, primarily. If the greens are nice and not as withered as Dumbledore’s dead hand in Book 6, then chop them up and use them too. More flavour for the…pushin’!

If you prefer other onions, you can use them instead. Whatever it takes to punch up the flavour.

In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, melt the margarine.

Add the garlic and onions and cook for 4-5 minutes or until softened. Add the mushrooms.

And add 2 tbsp of dried thyme. If you’re fancy and have access to fresh thyme, use that instead! Just use the proper equivalent. For this poor girl it’s Tesco dried thyme all the way.

Cook for 2-3 minutes over high heat.

Add your vegetable broth and cook on high heat for 5 minutes. I used chicken-flavoured vegan veggie broth. Regular veg broth tastes fine too.

Now for the fun part! Time to purée your soup into submission. You can either take the safe route and pour the whole kit and caboodle into a food processor to purée it smooth…OR you can attack it with an immersion blender!

I used an immersion blender whilst positively hammered. We’ll just say that my sweater and the kitchen walls enjoyed about as much soup as my belly did that night.

Purée until smooth. If you would like a thinner consistency feel free to add some more broth or water…or go crazy and splash in some soy or almond milk! Totally up to you. Soup freedom!

Serve hot…and perhaps with a crusty French bread? Delicious!

Stay warm and dry out there, y’all. If we’re lucky we may see the sun once or twice more before this British summer is gone.

Since I moved to London in October I have lived in the predominately Pakistani East End neighbourhood of Upton Park, or, as my friends and I lovingly refer to it, Upton Parkistan. I live in a house share with Indian and Pakistani housemates and have learned a lot of new things since being here. I’m going to share one of those things with you now.

This is the rough recipe for Pakistani Cauliflower Curry, as taught to me by my lovely former housemate, Hana.

Cauliflower Curry

• 1 large head of cauliflower, cut into florets with stems sliced thinly
• 1 onion, sliced into long, thin pieces
• 1-2 tomatoes, diced
• 1-3 potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 heaping tbsp tumeric
• 1 heaping tbsp chili flakes
• 1 heaping tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp garam masala, heaping
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 jalapeño or large green chili
• Water, as needed

Use a massive head of cauliflower or two smaller heads. Remove all leaves from your cauliflower and cut it into florets, tossing them into a large, empty pot as you go. Cut off any manky bits that you don’t like the look of. Use the stems, just slice them thinly.

When all your cauliflower is prepped and in the pot cover it with water, give it a good swirl to rinse it, and drain completely.

Slice your onion into long, thin pieces. Add it to the pot.

Dice up your tomato(es). You want to use one large tomato or a couple of smaller ones. Add them to the pot.

Stir to mix the contents of your pot altogether.

Cover your pot and set it over low heat. I can’t stress enough how low it should be. Medium-low is the highest it should go during this whole process. We want the vegetables to release their moisture into the pot and for them to cook in their own liquids.

As the first round of veggies cooks on the stove, round two of prep begins! (HORRAY!) Peel and dice one large or two to three small potatoes into small pieces.

Check on and stir the veggies on the stove periodically. They should be releasing moisture, and therefore reducing in size. The moisture should be gathering at the bottom of the pot and your vegetables should not be sticking. If they are, the heat is a bit too high/there is not enough liquid because the heat’s too high and it’s burning off. If this is happening, turn the heat down a touch and add a splash of water to the pot.

You want them to cook and slowly reduce. Re-cover your pot after each stir. This part takes time. You may want to have something around to occupy your time because after all your veggie prep is done there’s not much to do except pick your nose. I usually watch the Justin Bieber documentary at this point, but that’s just me.

Once they’ve cooked down, add your potatoes and the tumeric, chili flakes, and salt. You can use more or less of the spices, depending on the size of your cauliflower and your sensitivity to spicy foods. Eyeball it and use your own good judgement.

Use heaping spoons of everything.

Stir your seasoning in. If your veggies ever seem to be getting too dry, add splashes of water to the pot to keep things moist and moving.

Put the cover back on and leave over low heat until the potatoes cook, stirring periodically.

Once your potatoes are cooked, add the olive oil to grease things up and a sprinkle of garam masala, about 1/4 tsp or so. This is when the magic happens.

Cut open a jalapeño (or large green chili) lengthwise, but don’t cut all the way through. This will allow it to flavour the curry subtly. Add it to the pot and stir altogether.

A prize goes to whomever gets the pepper in their bowl. (The prize is the pepper.)

Place the lid back on and give the curry a bit more time on the stove to let the new flavours blend. And that’s it! You’ve been curried.

This is very much something you make by feel. The more you make it, the more your instincts take over and guide your hand with the amount of spices you add. I make it so often now that I don’t measure anymore, I just eyeball it like Hana did when she taught me. If you try it and it doesn’t have enough kick for you, add more chili flakes or some chili powder. If it has too much kick, you’ll know for next time.

Serve with chapatti or pita bread.

This has quickly become one of my favourite things to eat. Before moving to London I had never tried curry of any sort, and now there is always, always, a container of cauliflower curry in my fridge, ready whenever I need an easy and ridiculously delicious meal.

My time in Upton Park has been…interesting…thus far, but had I never come here I would not have learned to make genuine Pakistani curry from a wonderful Pakistani girl. And that’s made everything else totally worth it.

Hello and happy new year! I know I’ve been horrendously slack as of late. I neither apologise nor ask for forgiveness. We shall accept the fact that I’ve been galavanting around London with reckless abandon and move on.

Here’s a post that you were supposed to get at the beginning of the holiday season. You didn’t, so I’ll give it to you now. I found this recipe in a Vegan Society leaflet and did my own thing with it. This is the easiest little hors d’oeurve to make, like, ever. But only if you’ve got pre-made vegan puff pastry at your disposal.

I didn’t work with puff pastry before moving to the UK, so I don’t know what’s available to vegans in North America, but let me tell you that it’s all over the place here. Supermarkets are lousy with vegan puff pastry on this side of the Atlantic. Here’s the kind I use.

No, there’s no salmon in it. (And, no I didn’t think there was salmon in it the first time I saw the package! SHUT UP!) You unwrap it and roll it out; easy peasy!

Whenever I see, work with, or think about puff pastry there’s only one man on my mind: Puff Daddy. Yes, Puff Daddy–not P.Diddy. The real, old school badass that I grew up with. It’s all about the Benjamins.

Anyway, crank the jams and slice up your rolled puff into approximately 3″ x 3″ squares and place them on a tinfoiled baking sheet.

Chip chop up some vegetables of your choice. I went with festive red and green bell peppers and mushrooms.

I spiced up some store-bought tomato sauce (it was a very lazy holiday season, my friends).

What Daiya vegan cheese is to North America, Vegusto vegan cheese is to Europe. It pretty much owns the market and people are wild about it. I used their No-Moo Melty cheese for this culinary romp.

Slice it on up.

And now, soldiers, it’s time to assemble. Start with sauce on your pastry.

Followed by cheese and your veggies!

Bake according to package directions, which are long since out of my mind because I made this a month ago. I remember it was about 20 minutes per tray and I made dozens and dozens and dozens of these for a potluck and then again for a party, so I was in the kitchen forever. Place some tinfoil loosely over the tray partway through baking to avoid too much browning of the sauce and pastry.

Pull them on out after baking and let them cool.

And BADDA BING! So little effort and SO MUCH FLAVOUR! Seriously, they’re delicious. And the people you serve them to think you put in a lot of work when you really, really didn’t. Just don’t tell them that. Let them believe you put in boatloads of effort and maybe they’ll give you free drinks.

I hope y’all had a great holiday season and that your new year is going swimmingly. I will hopefully start to blog more again, but who knows? London is always calling.

A couple of weeks ago my friend and I went to Vantra Organic in Soho and we were not very impressed by our experience. This post is not to tell you not to go there, but to tell you why we won’t ever again.

I have avoided writing this post for so long because negativity is not really my bag, but here we are. Let’s do this.

Don’t believe the prices on the sandwich board. They are for, like, a tiny take-away portion at lunchtime.

My friend Sara had just arrived into London from Canada. I am vegan and she is quite a local/organic eater. What restaurant would cater to both of us? We searched around and decided that Vantra fit the bill.

Upon entering the restaurant I gave them a courtesy heads up that I would be taking pictures for my blog and they starting giving all these conditions. Not taking pictures of staff is cool, I try to avoid that anyway. But no, that wasn’t one of their rules. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of their menu board. What? Seriously? Whatever. I left the flash off to be as unobtrusive as possible, so get ready for some low-lighting pictures, folks.

They explained how their system works. You can do an all-you-can-eat buffet for an overpriced sum of money, or a one-plate buffet run for a slightly lower overpriced sum of money. We decided to go for the one-shot deal. We also ordered drinks. I had a vegan milkshake and Sara had…something. I don’t have any effing pictures of the menu to refer back to, please forgive me.

We grabbed our plates and hit the buffet. Half of the items didn’t have ID cards on them, letting us know what dish was in the pan. The other half didn’t have spoons for scooping.

WHAT ARE YOU?!

Since we only had one shot at the buffet, I loaded my plate up with mysterious, unlabelled dishes and hoped for the best.

I’m going to try my best to be fair here. We went for this meal on my Friday, at the end of my week and after a full day of work. It may have just been that I was tired and therefore went in with an exhausted, negative mindset. Maybe.

I believe I’ve given my stance on raw food before. I get the concept of raw food diets. I support their reasoning and agree with all of it. However, I like a hot meal. Especially when I am paying someone else to cook it for me. The majority of food on this buffet was facking raw. Spare me.

Or if I’m going to eat raw it had better be delicious and flavourful. Most of this food was neither.

A lesson I think all chefs need to learn is that cilantro (or as they call it here, “coriander”) is a very polarising ingredient to work with. People either love it or they hate it. And when they hate it? They facking HATE IT. Just because you, as the chef, loooOOooOooOooove coriander doesn’t mean that the customers eating your food will. So don’t put it in ALL OF YOUR DISHES.

Breeeeathe. Breathe. What I will give them is that the banana-cinnamon (I think? Again, no menu to refer back to) soy milk shake that I had was flipping amazing. Great consistency and the flavour was beautiful.

I think I would have been okay with disappointing food if I hadn’t paid so much for it. You can get some pretty average food in London for a low price, and when you do the fact that it wasn’t expensive makes it taste better. I think the reverse happened here.

Go there, don’t go there. I don’t care. I just won’t be joining you. What’s making me most angry about this whole fandango is what a negative space I’m in whilst thinking about it. Bastards. The next post I do is going to be happy and upbeat and positive and I will be smiling while I write it. And it won’t be about this restaurant.

Vantra Organic

www.vantra.co.uk

As I announced on Twitter and Facebook a couple of weeks ago, I now work at the only fully vegan bakery in all of big, bad London, Ms Cupcake! About once a week I’ll get sent to deliver a special order of cakes and treats to Vx, the fully vegan shop near King’s Cross.

“What?!” you’re probably thinking. “Getting paid to visit a vegan shop?!?” Trust me, it’s nothing but trouble. Every time I go there I find something new to buy and I’m spending far too much money. Though, I’m sure the owner is not complaining.

The last time I went I found paprika tofu slices and vegan garlic mayo. This could only mean one thing, friends: SANDWICH TIME!

I stopped by the local Tesco on Caledonia Rd and picked up some fresh veggies. Nothing too exciting, just tomatoes and (erlack, the only type available) iceberg lettuce. I got it all home and started building.

I heated my tofu slices. There were far too many but I didn’t have any form of storage. What can you do? Eat them all, of course. They were actually quite good.

Who’s up for some garlic mayo?

Let’s make sandwiches.

Cross-section!

While it is a bummer that all of my tried and tested North American brands of vegan convenience foods are not available in the UK, there are also tonnes of new ones available to me now that aren’t carried on my home continent. New discoveries to make!

If you haven’t taken a little vissy to Vx yet in your life I suggest you do it at the next possible opportunity.

I covered this month’s London Vegan Potluck 7 in a guest post for Fat Gay Vegan’s blog. Here is that post, but with more on the fandango that was cooking a facking casserole in East London and transporting it on the Tube to Central London during rush hour. Oy vey.

At my last potluck in Halifax, my friends Chantal and Jeff brought the most amazing mac and cheese, like, ever. I hassled Chantal until she gave up the recipe and it was delightfully easy to make. I whipped up a casserole dish full of it for this potluck.

I left the cooking a bit late, though, and had to try to cool it a bit next to an open door before transporting it.

The M&C by the door that leads to my house’s back garden. If Britain had an annual “Most Disgusting Back Garden in the UK” contest, mine would take the cake, hands down.

Here’s my post for FGV. And…GO.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Last night was London Vegan Potluck 7 and if you missed it I feel very sad for you. It was a hell of a night, with tonnes of food from our event sponsor (Beanie’s Health Foods), lots of amazing vegan creations from the attendees, and an alarming amount of vegan booze (a trend I hope continues). Let’s recap, shall we?

I rode the slow train from East London with a piping hot casserole dish of Daiya-filled vegan mac & cheese in tow. I like to think that all of the stares were ones of jealousy.

I arrived early at our generously donated venue (a basement auditorium in Faraday House at Syracuse University London Program) and started bustling around with set-up.

Beanie’s Health Foods donated box upon box of Fry’s Vegetarian sausages and sausage rolls. I frolicked into the kitchen to help Josh cook them all.

The sausage rolls were easy enough—just throw them in the oven for a bake.

But what to do with the sausages? Batter them and deep-fry them, of course!

We gave the frozen wieners a quick boil to thaw them out. Josh invented an on-the-spot beer batter and was frying in no time! I danced around, wiping counters and what not, pretending to be helpful.

By that time vegans from far and wide had converged on Faraday House and a couple tables groaned under the weight of their vegan offerings.  Things were shaping up!

After a speech from our fearless leader (FGV), we all dug in. Not to boast (fack it, I’m boasting) but a queue formed at my casserole dish and my mac & cheese was gone within two minutes of being set out.  I elbowed a couple people out of the way to ensure I had a scoop on the plates I was preparing to take back to the kitchen for Josh and me. Daiya vegan cheese is not available in the UK and I used some that I flew in from Canada in this dish. Mmmm!

Seriously though, Daiya is amazing and people can’t get enough of it. My friend Kip even licked the dish clean. I’m not kidding. Here’s photo evidence. I think when I start campaigning to bring Daiya to the European market Kip will be at my right hand.

But enough about me, let’s see what other people brought! Kip invented an aaaaamazing Thai Seitan Salad for this event. I wanted to climb inside this salad and live there. It was so good. Her bowl was scraped clean too and it didn’t take long.

A darling girl from inSpiral Lounge in Camden brought along raw coleslaw that was to die for.

We had countless salads, pasta dishes, desserts, and other scrumptious dishes. The creativity levels were pretty high yesterday. Well done, London vegans!

A latecomer (who I was too busy to catch the name of, sorry) showed up with homemade salami-style seitan and crackers. Delicious!

Josh and I were in the kitchen, cranking out batches of sausage rolls and battered sausages like it was going out of style.  Fat Gay Vegan played the role of waiter and kept running out trays of reinforcements to the hungry vegans in the auditorium.

This potluck was hopping, with just under 50 people in attendance.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Josh and I were eating like friendless outcasts in the kitchen. At least we had each other.

I don’t know who was responsible for all of the wine and beer, but I enjoyed it very much. If you can’t cook before the potluck, I wholeheartedly suggest that you bring booze. At the end of the night I kicked back with a glass of Marks & Spencer Kool-Aid wine.

The 8pm end-time came far too soon for most potluckers. After we cleaned up (the space and ourselves) we headed down the road to the Princess Louise bar (so very British). We kicked back with some organic cherry beer and talked about how we can’t wait until the next vegan drinks. You are coming, right?! Get your details from Fat Gay Vegan. We’ll see you there!