Long Overdue Update!

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry I haven't posted since the New Year, things have been quite hectic here! The reason for this, is I managed to get a new job! I start on Monday and I'm thrilled to bits that I'll actually be working close to home, with some really nice people. So I've been rushing around lately going to interviews and buying new work clothes, and consequently haven't had the time to update the blog at all. I am just happy that I'll now be able to get back into my usual routine and it also means that I'll be able to continue to afford to feed Gerry his vegan food :)

Talking of dog food, I ordered Gerry a new treat today. Now it's not strictly "vegan" and I don't know what other vegans will think about this - it is a dog chew made from Stag Antler. The difference with this animal product is that it is naturally shed and a sustainable resource. No deer were hurt in the process, and the chews last a long time and are good for dogs, providing them with lots of necessary vitamins and minerals. The company also makes sure that all their packaging is environmentally friendly and recyclable. I decided to order one because Gerry loves his chews and the vegetable-based or rice-based chews I've bought him in the past are gone in a matter of seconds, and I need something to keep him occupied when I'm away from home and that will last him a good while. He has a plastic bone with vegetable paste inside which lasts a long time, but sometimes I do worry about him swallowing little bits of plastic. These antler chews are 100% natural, beneficial nutritionally, help to clean the teeth, are ethically produced and are not harmful to any animals in the process.

I'd be interested to hear your opinions on this. I have no idea how these deer are kept. If I found out that they were not roaming free in an estate or parkland, and discovered they were intensely farmed or mistreated in any way, then I would stop buying them immediately. Does anyone have any insight into this?

















Gerry recovered well from his fractured paw. He was actually very well behaved during his 6 weeks house arrest - as if he knew exactly why he wasn't allowed out. He went through a pretty terrible time, poor thing. The bandage on his leg rubbed the skin and he got a few pressure sores and the skin started peeling off, which meant the bandage had to be removed, slowing down the healing time for the fracture. He's still being eased into exercise now (I think he overdid it a little today on a walk with a Sighthound Stroll friend and ended up limping a little) but he's doing well and his sores have nearly completely healed over.

In other news, I got a tattoo on my foot recently. I was planning on getting the other one done, but after the way my foot reacted to it I think I'll be leaving it for quite a while - I could not walk for about a week! It really swelled up and it was so painful. My tattooist Joe didn't do it this time, but my friend Anto, their apprentice, did an amazing job and used the same Eternal vegan ink as Joe uses. Here's the result, neat huh!

I also got my septum pierced. I've missed my nose piercing for the last few years. I only really took it out because of my work, but with a septum piercing you can tuck it up and hide it away inside your nose whenever you want. So that is what I shall do! It's very subtle, as it's only a small horseshoe and not a full ring. You can just about see it in this photograph.

And now for some lovely pictures I've taken recently:

And some yummy vegan food I had over the Christmas / New Year:

Homemade apple cinnamon crumble with nuts on top and vegan custard.

Black Bean, Apple & Soya Mince Chilli, which was really very good.

Christmas Dinner at my dad's with the Mulberry Bush's homemade nut and mushroom roast, with a wonderful sauce made with morello cherries and red wine, accompanied by sprouts and chestnuts, with maple roasted root vegetables. Mmmm!

My second Christmas dinner at home with the boyfriend consisted of orange and cranberry stuffing balls, root vegetable roasts (with yummy peanuts) from Goodlife, maple roasted root veg, sprouts and copious amounts of cranberry sauce and thick, delicious vegan gravy. Well worth waiting for!!

A chickpea tagine made with spicy sundried tomato and cinnamon sauce from Tesco, accompanied by some of Tesco's own Mediterranean Cous Cous. A quick and simple meal which tasted lovely!

So I'll update again soon and let you know how my new job is going. The words "Occasional Friday Pizza" and "Night at the Dogs" have already been thrown at me even at the interview stage, so we'll have to see how I cope with that! There will be no way I'm going to the greyhound stadium, so maybe when people ask why I can use it as an opportunity to educate them on sighthound welfare. As for the pizza, I'm sure I'll be able to order in something without cheese and educate a few more people about veganism when they give me some funny looks!

And So It Begins Again...

Hi Everyone! So good to be back...

I had a wonderful time in Wales, full of gorgeous vegan food as always.

First stop was the Mulberry Bush - the little organic shop and vegetarian/vegan café in Lampeter. I didn't actually manage to take a photo of my food as it totally slipped my mind when we wandered upstairs and bumped into an old friend. I had the vegan dish of the day which was a creamy mushroom pie, accompanied by some very tasty beetroot, carrot and broccoli salads. My father opted for the vegetarian quiche, spicy potato wedges and a salad.

We did a bit of shopping afterwards, as my father hadn't got any supplies in, so I got some gorgeous Sojade blueberry yogurt from the shop downstairs and then went across to Sainsbury's to stock up on tomatoes, cucumber, bread, and some Good Life nut cutlets. These cutlets were extremely good, I'd really like to sample more in their range. I have discovered they are available in the Health Store at the Square in Tallaght so I'll definitely be buying some again in the near future. We cooked the cutlets in dad's halogen oven (the wonder-oven!!) and topped them last minute with some cherry tomatoes and Cheezly vegan cheddar cheese, and ate them with dad's homegrown parsley and vegan butter-covered baby "charlotte" potatoes, baby broad beans and peas. Perfect!

Another meal I ate while at home was a mixed salad with two savoury vegan pastries we picked up at the farmer's market in Aberystwyth. This stall, run by a company called Parsnip Ship, was the only one to label its food as vegan. I think there were about 4 different things I could have chosen from, but I decided to bring home the mini Thai butternut squash pie, and a type of Indian bhaji that contained beans and many different grated vegetables. They were both really good and I shared them with my dad who loved them too. I'd definitely go back and get more on my next visit!

While in Aberystwyth we also popped into Lidl and I found that they now sell bags of vegetable crisps and a lentil soup which is labelled as suitable for vegans. I bought this soup but didn't get around to eating it, so I'm going to purchase a tin in Dublin and will let you know what it's like. Other snacks I picked up were some maple syrup roasted cashews, macadamias and almonds... WOW. These were fabulous! A really good find for vegans as they're quite like honey roast nuts but even nicer, and totally guilt-free! The cracked black pepper and salted cashews and macadamias in the picture were nice as well, but I have a sweet tooth so definitely preferred the maple ones. After shopping we stopped for a well earned drink at a café where they sold Teapigs products where I had one of the nicest chai soya lattes I've ever tasted, so I decided to buy a box to take home. My dad had never tried chai before as he doesn't drink tea, but he says he's going to order one next time he's at the Mecca. I seem to have got several people into chai over the last year or so, but wasn't expecting to convert a seasoned tea-hater into a chai-lover! The café also sold mint and vanilla versions, which I haven't heard of before, although I think it may just be a regular chai with a dash of flavoured extract or syrup added to the mix.

One of the evenings, one of my father's friends invited us over for a meal. I was seriously impressed at the lengths she went to, seeing as I think she finds it difficult to understand what I can/can't eat! We had a large mushroom stuffed with hummus, topped with crispy breadcrumbs, encircled with cherry tomatoes. The main was a version of Glamorgan Sausages, a well-known traditional Welsh dish. These sausages were wrapped in pastry and made with vegan cheese, breadcrumbs, leeks, herbs and spices. I must get the recipe and post it here, as they were delish!! My father loved them too, but the other non-vegans weren't too impressed. Dessert was a sweet gooseberry crumble, made with fruit from the gardens at local National Trust property, Llanerchaeron, where our friend is a volunteer. I never used to be keen on gooseberries from our garden as a child, but then again when I was younger I didn't like cooked fruit very much on the whole... this time though, I could have eaten it until I popped!

After eating such wonderful homecooked meals I was very disappointed with the one restaurant we did go to. I was expecting great things of the Belle Vue, seeing as this pub/restaurant caters for vegans on request. One of my father's colleagues is a vegan and eats there regularly, so imagine my shock when I received the most dry, bland and inedible dish imaginable. This "maize cake", as it was called (although it looked and tasted more like a lump of clay to me), was so dense and stodgy with no flavour to it whatsoever. It came on a bed of buckwheat (which is also quite dry, so you can imagine these two combined was not at all good) accompanied with roasted peppers, garlic, onions, tomatoes and olives. There was no sauce to moisten it at all, and when offered sauce I was only given the choice of mustard, ketchup or brown sauce! I'd have been happy with just a larger portion of the buckwheat and the vegetables, to be honest, and I left pretty much all of the maize cake, so I hope the chef got my point!! I very rarely like to make a fuss and complain about something when someone else is paying, but in hindsight I really should have said something, especially as my father and other people who tried it also thought it was rather disgusting. I was very glad that I managed to eat quite a bit of the starter - shared platters of crusty bread, olives, pickles, hummus and balsamic syrup. This was the meal's only saving grace! I certainly won't be asking to go back to the Belle Vue ever again, not just because of the food, but because service was terribly slow as well. Everyone else ordered meat and seemed to like their dishes, but there seemed to be a bit too much mashed potato heaped onto the plates. Everyone else's food came with some sort of lovely looking sauce, so it was quite annoying that mine came with nothing. Even a plain tomatoey sauce would have been very welcome.

It's a real shame when you go out somewhere and have a disappointing meal which cost quite a bit, then go somewhere else the next day and hardly pay anything for a huge plate of delicious vegan food. We went to the Royal Welsh Show during my visit, and I immediately spotted an Indian Cuisine stall selling lots of vegan/vegetarian options. For £8.50 dad and I shared a huge mixed platter of vegetable curry, lentil curry, onion bhaji, pilau rice, and naan bread (which he ate as I wasn't sure what was in it). We were so stuffed! It was such a good find. I suppose the Royal Welsh isn't a very typical place for a vegan to visit, seeing as it's an agricultural show and you're surrounded by meat and cheese from local farms, farmers showing their livestock in the ring and row upon row of stalls promoting dairy products and cattle feed supplements. I'm not sure why, but this doesn't really bother me at all. I guess it bothers me a bit that the money you spend on the entrance fee goes to the NFU, but then again not all farmers are dairy and animal farmers, so I try to put it to the back of my mind. Going to the Royal Welsh has been a family tradition since I was small and I wanted to go there and experience it again. The main reason also being to take photographs of the event. It was very enjoyable walking around the flower and vegetable tents, watching the Section D stallions in the main ring, talking to the people at the Greyhound Rescue Wales stall, sampling the world's first organic whiskey made by Da Mhile, tasting the Co-op's new Moroccan chickpea hummus, eating some yummy fresh cherries, meeting some cute otters, and wandering around various wildlife conservation and alternative energy tents and stalls. We were lucky with the weather and it didn't rain too badly, although there was still quite a bit of mud!

So I had a very enjoyable time. Gerry was ecstatic to see me when I returned, bounding all over the place. My dad got him a present - a ball that makes about 20 different zoo animal noises - so it was hilarious watching his reactions to it. I was also quite shocked to see that he'd put on a bit of weight, seeing as my boyfriend (who couldn't make it to Wales this time as he couldn't get time off work) is afraid to let him off the lead in case he doesn't come back to him, so he hadn't been burning off much energy. I've had to put him on a little diet, with restricted treats, and am going to take him on extra long walks to places where he can start running with other dogs again! Poor little Gerry!!

Since being back, I've been researching starting my own photography business, which I'm extremely excited about. There will be more news to come on that when I've actually got the ball rolling. On my return I also did a big food shop and have discovered that Tesco are selling Innocent's new Veg Pots half price, at only €1.99 each. I bought five of them and shall review them in my next blog post. All of them are labelled vegan and look like they are going to be really good - a brilliant idea for a healthy, quick, work lunch. I don't think I'd pay full price for them though... well I suppose it depends on how much I like them. Watch this space! :)

I'll leave you with a few random photos from my visit.

Blog Relaunch...

Yes I am still alive! I plan to get this up and running again pretty soon... I suppose lately things have been pretty unmotivational seeing as I lack the money to spend as extravagantly as I used to when I worked full-time, so no restaurants or fancy lunches anywhere, and no travelling for a while either.

I did go to a festival in Dublin last month called Forbidden Fruit. Three bands I love (Battles, Caribou and Tera Melos) were playing, and Aphex Twin was the final act of the night. It was awesome!! My friend and fellow lurcher-lover, Cat (Naturetable), who follows me on here and who I met through writing this blog, was also there but we totally missed each other! There weren't many vegan options at the festival, shockingly, but Kanum Thai whom I absolutely love, had a stall there, so I got a lovely peanutty noodley tofu dish. NYOM! Here's a pic of Caribou I took on my super-old vintage lomo camera from the USSR at the festival - totally didn't know how it would turn out, I double exposed the band with the top of the stage and the sky (they brought the sun out while singing their track "Sun"!) so it worked out really well.

Gerry-pups is ok, he's been through the wars a little with the demodex mites. They were hard to get rid of and he had terrible reactions to the treatments he was given by the vet. His hairloss on his hind legs keeps improving and then getting worse again, so he had a biopsy and now that the mites have gone hopefully all will be well when he gets off the next course of antibiotics and Ivermec. I'm so relieved I got insurance for him, or this would have cost me a complete fortune. If he still doesn't improve later on this summer he'll have to have allergy tests. Paws and fingers crossed that it was just the demodex that triggered it though! Emotionally he's very happy, as lively and mischevious as ever... here he is chasing bunnies. Yup, that's one thing I have to put up with, although he never catches them, he just likes to play. He does enjoy running off with dead things though :-/
























He's still not vegan, but is on high quality organic food with lots of yummy things in between like veggies, rice, soya yoghurts, fruit, vegan-specific chews, etc. I still can't find a vegan kibble in Ireland or the UK that I can afford at the moment, and to be honest I've had enough on my plate to worry about with his condition and having to feed him tablets, syringing medication into his mouth every day, worrying he's going to bite out his stitches and having to cope with the nasty effects of the antibiotics on his poor little stomach!! Hope to God that he's going to improve soon....

As for me, I'm spending most of my time taking photographs. I went to Connemara recently and had a lovely time, but there aren't any vegan shops down there or restaurants, as far as I know, so it was mainly self-catering using ingredients from the supermarkets in Clifden and the lovely "Country Shop" in Letterfrack which stocked a good number of organic and health food products.

I'm off to Wales next week, so....... on the 20th July I plan to relaunch this blog with a mighty-fine post from my favourite vegan eateries in Ceredigion, a ton of lovely pictures, and details of all the meals my wonderful father concocts for me with his home grown veg :)

See you all then!! xxx

I'll leave you with some pics I took in Connemara...

The Boyfriend is Quite a Chef!

My better half has made some lovely meals this week. First is a Ginger and Lemon Chickpea Curry (adapted from a Chicken recipe), and secondly a Vegan Cottage Pie using this recipe from the Quorn website but substituting the Quorn mince with Soya. There are quite a few nice recipes on the website, which I think I may try using other vegan ingredients instead of the Quorn.

My dad also came to visit this week and we got up to loads of interesting things! We went to Airfield Farm and Gardens in Dundrum, and Russborough House in Co. Wicklow. I took a lot of beautiful photographs, my favourites of which you can see below.

We also ate at quite a few vegan places with good options. I got a Veggie Soup and Chips at the IFI Cinema Café, some Crisps and a Vegetable Samosa from M&S, a Vegan Pizza from Hell, lovely Vegetable Fajitas from The Speaker Connolly, and of course we went to Govindas and I had a very tasty Veggie Coconut Curry with mixed Salads (pictured below).

Gerry behaved himself well, it was the first time my father had met him and he's allergic to dogs... but he didn't sneeze at all and he loved him! So in all, it was a lovely week!

Random Shizz

A few random photos of goings on in Velovegan world lately:

1. New haircut
2. Vintage bracelet & cheapo ring I bought
3. The Long Hall - a place I love to drink
4. Meat is Murder
5. Valentine's gifts from The Boy <3
6. Adventures with Lollipops

Yes, things have been quiet. We are planning to have regular music, games (Sega Megadrive, Xbox, arcade emulators projected onto the studio wall from the PC) and movie nights with friends soon to save money and have something to look forward to mid-week. Time to break out the vegan snacks.... popcorn, crisps, raw veggies with salsa and hummus.

It's getting near to the time that Gerry's large bag of Red Mills is going to be replaced with Yarrah Bio-Vegetarian dog food. Updates will follow!

My father is coming to visit at the end of March for a few days. I'm super excited. Lots of nice vegan meals out... and probably many home-cooking disasters, as I always try to re-create my favourite dishes when he's over and somehow end up messing them up completely and scarring him for life.

I am meeting my friends from Kildare on Saturday, one of whom is a vegetarian. We'll be going for a birthday meal with her and checking out a couple of art galleries. Doin all dem kultural fings, loike.

Other than that, life has been peaceful. Well, actually, two very good and spontaneous drunken nights the past 2 weekends, but quieter than usual.

How is everyone?