Wonders of Wheat

Here's how much of a vegan geek I am. I brought this back from our honeymoon in Hawaii.


It's vital wheat gluten. It's listed in quite a few recipes in my favourite vegan cookbook back home, yet I've never seen it for sale in the UK. In retrospect, deciding to carry a package of unidentifiable white powder through American customs in my hand luggage might not have been the best decision but happily I got it back home in one piece & last weekend, finally got around to cooking with it.


It may not sound like the most exciting of ingredients to non-vegans but really, it's great stuff for making burgers & sausages as it binds like only egg can do. Consequently, I made two recipes with it. The first was vegan chorizo. You mix the gluten, pinto beans & a host of other lovely things including smoked paprika & cayenne pepper together in a food processor till you get a spongy mass like this.


The gluten does it's magic making the dough easy to roll into four sausage shapes which you then wrap in foil, tightly twisting the ends, and pop into a steamer.


40 minutes later the sauages turn out like this. Firm and tender, just like meat sausages. They're ready eat straight away or you can slice them up to top pizza, put in sandwiches, add to pasta sauces etc.


The second recipe was for black bean burgers & again the gluten worked a treat, making the burgers really easy to shape & helping to make them firm when cooked. Just need to find out where to buy this stuff in the UK now.

Two Very Strange Looking Catepillars

Aren't they odd! Maybe they look this way so the otters won't eat them.

More Snaps From Skye

Paul in the otter hide.


Violets were everywhere.




Nothing makes Paul smile like marmalade pudding. Mmm.

On the Trail of the Elusive Otter

Part of our reason for wanting to visit Skye was to do some otter watching. We spent a whole day with Grace & Paul from the International Otter Survival Fund & they showed us how to look out for signs of otter activity.

1. Frog Skins


Frogs are apparently a favourite snack for otters but they don't like the skins so discard them instead.

2. Footprints


We spotted these track marks near to what was probably an otter holt.

3. Spraint Mounts


Or, to you & me, otter poo. Otters use their droppings to mark their territories & they can recognise other individual otters in the area just by the smell of their spraint. You can spot a spraint mound by the patch of unusually vivid green grass around it (natural fertilizer, you see). Paul & I drew the line at sniffing the stuff but Grace got right down there amongst it & was able to tell how recently the otter had been there & what it had been eating.


Despite all these signs there wasn't even a sniff of an otter sighting that day. All was not lost though. We were able to spend the day listening to Paul & Grace's fascinating stories about otters while we looked at this amazing view. We were also able to use their tips to help us locate an otter later in the trip.

Skye

Some snaps from our recent trip to the Isle of Skye

The Barton Boys

It was my father-in-law's birthday at the weekend so we had a family day out at the canal boat festival in Little Venice followed by a pub lunch. It was fun being able to nosy into people's homes & we even came across a boat owned by some Bartons. Naturally a photo was required.

One a Penny, Two a Penny

On Thursday before this horrible cough descended I popped to the shops to get ingredients for making hot cross buns.


I spotted these lovely lamb-shaped cakes in the window of the Polish bakery.


My hot cross bun recipe has been adapted (& veganised) from one by Silvana Franco. The best thing about it is that it uses dried blueberries instead of currants.


The next best thing is it uses white marzipan for the crosses.


I guess being stuck indoors with this horrible lurgy has its compensations. I get to eat most of these myself!

Back to Yorkshire

Spring was really peeking through when we visited Nunnington Hall in North Yorkshire a few weeks back.

Lovely Friends, Lovely Gifts

It's Easter & I'm stuck at home with a horrible, horrible cold so thought I'd catch up on some long overdue blogging.


Recently we had some friends over for a board games/cocktails evening (as you do) & they brought us the gift of this beautiful pineapple. When we'd finished turning some of it into garnishes for our pina coladas there was still about half of it left. What do you do with half a pineapple?...


Turn it into cake, of course!


The pineapple came with its own specially made label. Despite its tropical appearance, its maker told me the image is actually from Butlins. God, I love Butlins! When I holidayed there with my family in the 80s I have very special memories of this restaurant.

Muffin Madness

I enjoyed the sunrise muffins so much that I've decided to make vegan muffin-baking a regular weekend activity. They're so quick to make & I don't know why but I find baking really therapeutic. It always cheers me up.


Last week I made these blueberry & walnut muffins. I used this recipe & added a few walnuts just because I like them.


Today I made coconut muffins. I was looking for a way to use up half a tin of coconut milk I had left over & this did the trick. Here's the recipe I used. It intrigued me a bit because there's no egg substitute, only vinegar (?). Worked a treat though! I didn't ice the muffins as a slight concession to health. Also, Paul had already eaten two from the cooling rack before I had the chance. Guess that's a good sign : )

Sunrise Muffins

Did a spot of baking yesterday. Thanks to Benhasten who sent me the recipe. We've snaffled down a couple for breakfast this morning & have frozen the rest to take into work as afternoon treats. They turned out pretty well & are packed with good things like apple, carrots, walnuts and apricots. They also contain a few slightly unusual ingredients like a combination of tofu & ground flax seeds which acts as a binding agent instead of egg. Worked a treat! Also, agave syrup instead of sugar. Never used this before but apparently it has a much lower GI than usual sugar so sounds good to me & tastes great too. You can find the recipe here.

Rules rules.

I’ve wanted to go to Rules ever since reading Graham Greene’s ‘End of the Affair’. It’s London’s oldest restaurant & has always seemed very glamorous and romantic to me.


Sadly, as a vegan, I don’t think I’ve got much chance of eating there. Their menu favors nursery food like steak & kidney pudding with not a vegetarian, never mind a vegan dish in sight.


I’d pretty much given up on the idea of going there until I heard that they have a little known cocktail bar upstairs.


P & I decided to check it out & found that on a cold & rainy January night it was a little haven of warmth, peace and quiet. As the prices are pretty steep, we managed to nurse a single cocktail each for an hour & a half.


I had a Rules Royale which involved champagne, vodka, violet liqueur & crystallized violet petals.


Paul had something with champagne, gin & Poire William which was very tasty too. The bill came to just under £30 (ouch). It’s pricey but a really lovely place for a special treat!

Foraged Mushroom Soup

After spending Christmas in Chorleywood, Georgie sent us back to London with this jar of hand-foraged & dried wild mushrooms. She had collected them from the wood behind their house, thinly sliced them and dried them out on trays in the airing cupboard. We've been thinking of ways to use them ever since.


Rather than add them to a risotto we thought we'd try making a soup. This was super quick & easy to make but tasted delicious. The wild Chorleywood mushrooms gave it real intensity of flavour. Here's the recipe:

3 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
500g portabella mushrooms
handful of dried mushroom (like porcini or if you're very lucky, Chorleywood variety)
1.5 litres of stock (we used the mushroom soaking liquid plus some extra veg stock)
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
fresh parsley
half a carton of soya cream
salt & pepper

First, soak the mushrooms in hot water for 20 mins. Drain, reserving the soaking liquid for stock. Fry the shallots & parsley for 5 mins. Add the fresh & dried mushrooms & fry for another 5 mins. Add the garlic & stir for a minute before adding the stock. Simmer for 15 mins then add the mustard, soy sauce, soya cream & seasoning. You can puree it if you like a smoother soup but I like it just like this.

Sledging in Chorleywood

Although most of the country seems to have been skiving off work due to the snow recently, us poor lambs who work in London & travel on the uber efficient Piccadilly line have had no such luck. All the more reason to make the most of the snow on the weekend. Sunday brought a trip to Chorleywood where we dragged Paul & Natalie's ancient sledges (unearthed from the garage) up to the common.


The sledges were pretty tiny but we weren't going to let that stop us.


Weeeeee!


Georgie joined in too. What a lovely, lovely day!

Reflections & Resolutions

So another year ends already and a new one begins. Thinking back, 2009 has been a pretty eventful and happy year for me. My decision to leave my job and go travelling in 2007 ended a long & dreary period of procrastination and has been a great catalyst for change. This last year has brought lots of new things too. I've got a new job, got married, started learning to Lindy Hop & jive, made some new friends and got to know some old friends better. All these things have brought me happiness. Here's to more of this in 2010. And now for some resolutions:

1. Learn to be a better Lindy Hopper
I really want to get over my nerves and get really good at this. Must be brave & not get scared of falling over.

2. Be a more adventurous knitter
I do tend to stick to patterns that I already know I can do. Must try to learn some new skills.

3. Stay Positive
The world is a mad, mad place & it's important not to let the proverbials grind you down.

4. Go easy on myself others and
No-one's perfect & it'd be pretty awful if we were anyway.

I reckon this should be enough to be getting on with. A very happy new year to anyone who reads this. Wishing you all good things for the coming year!

A New Year Walk on the Heath

We had a lovely walk on Hampstead Heath today after a very quite New Year's Eve involving scrabble & lots of yawning.


It was a beautiful afternoon for a walk. Sunny, cold & crisp.


The ponds were all frozen over.


It all looked very pretty.


Kenwood House looked very inviting in the sunshine but we managed to resist stopping for a cake & walked off some of those extra Christmas pounds instead.