Day 19: Lasagne (dairy free)

Todays dish was kindly cooked by my better half, I am a fan of lasagne and was really excited to see what it tastes like without dairy. Here’s how she made it

Firstly she chopped up aubergine and garlic

Day 17: Bangers & Mash (Vegan Style)

Tonight I wanted to make a dish that is normally made with meat. I thought I would make one of my all time faves, bangers and mash (or sausage and mashed potatoes if you want it to sound less like pub food). Many people shrug off bangers and mash but it is a great and wholesome meal that should be held up next to the greats.

On my way home from work I did a spot of shopping and got some vegan sausages, egg mayo, smoked tofu, veggie stock and some nakd bars.

I also ventured down to the market to have nosey at the vegetables, I didn’t end up buying much but it’s great to see all those fresh vegetables out on display for really good prices, we should all try and buy our veg and fruit from farmers markets

I came also bought some flowers for jess as she has been really supportive during this month and I wanted thank her for being awesome and helping me out and trying all my food (and for cooking me mushroom pie).

I don’t like to brag about cooking (mainly because I don’t have much to brag about) but my mash potato is a creamy wonder. I was hoping that it would work just as well without all the dairy I use.

I started the cooking by chopping some 6 small potatoes into quarter size chunks then pop them in a large pan with water covering them and leave to boil.

In the meantime I chopped up half an onion, it is of paramount importance that you dice up the onion as fine as possible, I’m not joking when I say chop, chop, chop until it’s in teeny pieces. No one likes lumpy mash

Next step is to get mashing. Take the potatoes off the hob, check they are soft. Then add two tablespoons of vegan butter and two glugs of soya milk. Mash the the potatoes until most of the lumps are gone and it is a thick creamy consistency. Finally add the onions. I then quickly fried the vegan sausages and made some instant onion gravy.

This was the outcome.

It was so tasty and filling, the vegan sausages totally rocked!
I spent the rest of my night drinking dark hot chocolate and watching Gilmore Girls with Jess.

Day 16: Fried Flat Mushroom

I’ll start this post with a confession, today I accidentally broke the vegan code, I accidentally bought potatoes that were not vegan (they had butter on them). Before I get into that I’ll start at lunch.

For lunch I did my normal trip across from my work to Marks and Spencers, headed to salad isle and started to look for something to eat, it was today I discovered that M&S have no vegan salads, I read the ingredients to the hummus and falafel salad and it had butter in it, I couldn’t figure out where or why you need dairy for a salad? I asked the guy working on the salad isle and he said he gets asked if they have any vegan salads frequently and unfortunately they don’t, he also said to be careful with the wraps and sandwiches as he is pretty sure not one of them is vegan. He did recommend the carrot sticks and hummus and a vegetable samosa.

Day 15: Gourmet Jacket Potatoes

Firstly I may of used the word gourmet with some poetic licence but still I make some killer jackets none the less.
Prior to this blog jacket potatoes were my sort of comfort meal. It was basically a dairy factory inside a potato skin, mountains of cheese, loads of butter etc, tonight I tried to see if I could make something equally as tasty minus the dairy.

The key to a good jacket (in my humble opinion) is firstly stab your jackets thoroughly and pop them on high in a microwave for about 10 to 15 minutes until they soften. Whilst they’re cooking prep your veg, olives, onions red and yellow pepper all work well (I only had onions in tonight)