Thai Yellow Curry

I just made a lovely Thai yellow curry, using curry paste from Tesco and some coconut milk, mixed stir fry vegetables (baby carrots, baby corn, beansprouts, bamboo shoots, broccoli & onions), the green chillies my friend gave me from her garden, and some fresh coriander... it was delicious and SO quick to make, served with tasty, soft & fluffy wholegrain rice. It was so good I want to make it again tomorrow - I love spicy, fragrant Thai food. Tesco's yellow, green and red Thai curry pastes are all vegan. I think I've come across a Massaman curry paste there before as well which I discovered was not vegan. I used to love Massaman and was quite surprised to find that their paste contained anchovies - I'm not sure if this is the norm??

It's been raining like crazy these past few days, the Autumn has really kicked in over in Ireland - torrential rain, interrupted with brief, warm, sunny spells (actually that pretty much sounds like Ireland all year round!) with the leaves falling from all the trees. I'm sad that the summer is finally over, but also looking forward to darker days, wrapping up warm in my cosy Winter clothes, and cycling my bike down cold, deserted streets...

I bought this cute fake fur hat today, ready for the cold weather. I look like a little lepoardy-bear in it :)

Monday Meal from Marks

I love Marks & Spencers food! I went there this morning to pick up a few bits, and I thought I'd show you what I got. Tonight's dinner was a Large Vegetable Samosa (filled with onion, chunky potato, cauliflower, carrots, green beans, spinach and peas), with their Giant Cous Cous, Wheatberry and Butternut Squash Salad.

These are two of my favourite things to eat from M&S. The samosa is probably the tastiest I've ever had, I prefer it even to any authentic Indian samosa I've had out at restaurants. It's got a great mix of veg and isn't too heavy on the potato as most samosas tend to be. I love the combination of the cauliflower and spinach filling, which is seasoned with cumin, coriander, garam masala, chilli powder, cardamom and bay leaves. The overall taste isn't too spicy however, and is even quite sweet to an extent - and the garam masala has some of my favourite spices in: ginger, cinnamon, cloves, fennel and nutmeg. The pastry is flaky and light and there are no artifical colours, flavourings or preservatives in the product. It's pretty much a perfect snack!

The giant cous cous salad is divine, in my eyes, because of the roasted butternut squash. I also adore balsamic vinegar and lemon juice, and this salad uses these two ingredients as a dressing. It's fun to eat because I love the texture of the giant cous cous - it's so much more satisfying than the smaller grains of cous cous too.

While I was in Marks I also picked up a couple of cans of cupboard-fillers: their new Chunky Vegetable & Bean Chilli Soup and a Fragrant & Spicy Vegetable Curry. I'm not really holding high hopes for these two, I've tried M&S canned soups and curries before and haven't been overly impressed. I'll just have to wait and see!

Other finds for the day were in Tescos. Here are a few pictures of their own brand Guacamole, Olive & Sundried Tomato Houmous and a bag of their lovely Dried Soya Bean Snacks. I've had to edit this post as I just this very moment discovered that the guacamole contains milk, so I will have to give the tub to my boyfriend (which I'm sure he'll be happy about). I am slightly annoyed by the fact that Tesco have thought it necessary to put dairy products into their guacamole - avocados are so creamy that dairy shouldn't really be needed.

The boyfriend also came home from Tescos today, clutching this lovely little find (bless him, he was so excited to have found something I can eat!!): Moroccan Chickpea Tagine Sauce. We're just about to go for a cycle together now, the weather is gorgeous...

Latest Treat Finds

Just a quick update about a few vegan treats I've found recently.

- Spar's own Hazelnut Chocolate Spread
This stuff is gorgeous and only costs €1.99! Thank you very much Blueberries for drawing my attention to this lovely spread. I've been missing Nutella and Forrero Rocher since going vegan, but now I can just have a spoonful of this amazing stuff to ease my cravings. I have been thinking about putting it on bagels with mashed banana, spreading it on crustless slices of brown bread and rolling it up to make little "swiss roll" snacks, as well as using it in baking or to sandwich two HobNobs together.... mmmmm.


- Tesco Light Choice Cereal Bars 
They are €1.99 and there are about 5 or 6 bars in a box. The chocolate & orange one is vegan, as is the blueberry & cranberry. I think the maple & pecan may also be vegan, I'll have to check again when I go to the shop next. I've tried searching on the Tesco website but I think these are relatively new bars with an improved recipe and I keep finding older products online which are similar but not quite the same. They are very low in calories (around 75-90cals depending on the bar) and make a nice little nibble in between meals.


- Flahavan's Oaty Flapjacks
These come in Original, Chocolate Chip and Cranberry and are Irish Only products as far as I'm aware. There are 6 bars in a box and they are only €2.00 in Supervalu at the moment - can't go wrong with that! Each of the varieties are vegan, but I'm currently having trouble getting hold of the Cranberry and Original flavours again. Cranberry (pictured below) is my favourite, but lately I've only been able to find the Chocolate Chip flapjacks. The chocolate ones are lovely and quite coconutty, they also have more of a crunchy rather than chewy consistency. Definitely one of my favourite shop-bought snacks at the moment.

Indian Snacks

I'm so glad that Onion Bhajis, Samosas and Pakoras are vegan. I have always loved Indian food and in particular Channa Massala (chickpeas!). Tesco do a lovely little pack of 12 mini Indian snacks and I shared a pack with my boy for dinner tonight with a side salad. It really helps when your other half works in Tesco and can keep an eye on the reduced section!  ;)

My favourite shop-bought Samosa has to be from Marks & Spencers. I always end up getting one for lunch when I'm out and about in town and too busy to sit down. Their large Samosa (usually located in the fridges next to the Salads and Sandwiches) is only €1.70 and is probably one of the nicest tasting Samosas I've ever had! I could eat them until they come out of my ears!!

Easter Bunnies!

Oh my gosh, I have totally seen what I want for Easter... if anybody would buy me one?! I think the boy will buy one for me, as I've been hinting. Like, big fat whopping great big hints that I think he may actually get!! They're dark chocolate bunnies in Aldi. I can't remember the make or the price, but all I know is that they were damn cheap, totally vegan, and very VERY cute! There was a reindeer amongst them... hehe. I think he's a bit late/early arriving in the shops ;)



Aren't they adorable? I'll have three please!!

If you are considerably richer than I am at the moment then Tesco have three vegan Easter eggs on offer, as far as I can make out. "Celtic" have a dark chocolate egg with accompanying smaller dairy free chocolates. The Kinnerton egg is pretty much free from anything anyone could possibly be allergic to and looks gorgeous and comes with a large bar of dark chocolate. Tesco also stock Elizabeth Shaw's dark mint chocolate egg, which should be lovely because their individual little mint chocolates are divine - but it's pretty expensive at around €11.99! The Kinnerton egg is around €6.99 and the Celtic is approximately €8.99 if I remember correctly. I'd be happy with a bunny though :)

Quick Warm Lunch Food

If I don't have time to make my lunch before I go to work, it's really convenient to be able to grab a can of something out of the cupboard before I leave the house, so I can just heat it up in work and have some bread to go with it. I'd normally take a nice salad or some leftovers from the previous evening's meal, but when it's cold outside and I've not planned ahead I'll go with one of these lovely soups from Aldi (the tomato and pepper one is totally gorgeous!) or a can of vegetable ravioli from Branston (no egg in the pasta and no cheese in the filling!) which I recently discovered in Tesco. It makes me happy to see that a lot of supermarkets nowadays (especially Aldi) have separate sections on their labels to list ingredients which consumers may be allergic to or be avoiding in their diets (i.e. "Contains: wheat, gluten, egg, dairy, soya"). It does make shopping a little easier if you can see immediately that an item contains something obviously non-vegan instead of having to trawl through the whole list of ingredients.



The Ravioli is ok, nothing brilliant, but when you've been a vegan for a while sometimes you do crave stodgy, hot, instant food from a can and wish you could have it... well, now you can (no pun intended!):



... and you have NO IDEA how long and hard I searched to find a vegan cuppa soup. Lidl have these babies with croutons in, they are only 37 calories a packet as well! I was very glad of these throughout the winter if I was feeling a little peckish and cold at work:



You would be surprised at how many things nowadays contain milk proteins, it really doesn't make any sense and even the boyfriend (who never really paid much attention to ingredients before he met me) is often in shock at some of the unnecessary things that go into certain foods. It makes me chuckle now when he goes off into little rants such as "I can't believe it said 'Chicken from EU and Brazil' on it!!!" and "Why the hell does it have milk powder in it when you have to use milk to make it anyway??!", hehe. Just goes to show how you should always cook from scratch and use organic foods wherever possible. I'm impressed by Aldi in Ireland to be honest, sourcing all its foods for its "Specially Selected" range from within Ireland. I think we are lucky to be living in this country in that respect, as farming here seems to be a lot more ethical than the rest of Europe, even the U.K. We are growing our own vegetables this year. Our garden is only small - the same size as any other Dublin suburbian estate garden - but we figured it would be a lot nicer (and cheaper) to grow our own basic fruit and veg than try and make it look pretty with a lot of useless flowers.

I know that this is a vegan blog, but whenever I can, I will promote compassionate farming. I think that instead of trying to encourage people to stop eating meat and dairy altogether, people could make more of a difference to the world by campaigning for the ethical treatment of animals and to veer more in the direction of organic farming. My boyfriend is an omnivore so I've also been encouraging him to buy all his meat products and eggs from the local butchers. He gets an amazing (and varied) deal for €20, all the meat is fully traceable and organic, and it's much better quality and value than getting it at any supermarket. People tend to think that local butchers are more expensive than a supermarket, but that is actually not the case. If only more people thought about where their meat and dairy products came from!

Crumpets!

How come I thought ALL crumpets were non-vegan for so long?! I remember looking at a few different sorts and seeing "butter" listed as an ingredient, possibly in the raising agent... and today I discovered that Tesco's own crumpets are dairy-free! HALLELUJAH! How I have missed crumpets. I bought a pack of 12 and plan to have 2 for breakfast tomorrow with a little bit of peanut butter. Oh my sweet Lord I have missed crumpets...