Jade Green Vegan

Vegan at Prezzo

August 19, 2014Jade Green VeganLeave a comment

When I was a vegetarian Prezzo was one of my all time favourite restaurants and until last week, I hadn’t been back since going vegan. When I saw that the allergen menu on Prezzo’s website said that the Bruschetta was suitable for vegans, I thought it was too good to be true… aaaand after a little chat with our waitress, turns out it was too good to be true – the pesto contains parmeasan. Our lovely waitress was so helpful and explained to me all of the things which were suitable for vegans (including the pizza dough). So I decided to get creative and combine two of my previous favourite starters to make the ultimate vegan starter: Bruschetta with garlic oil in lieu of pesto, with a salad garnish and pomodoro sauce (usually served with the Mozzarella in Carrozza). Combining my two favourite starters was a great shout because it was yummy!

For my main course, I went a bit more mainstream and ordered ‘The Vegetarian’ pizza without cheese but with extra mushrooms and red onions (my two favourite pizza toppings). Although I enjoyed it, the pizza was nowhere near as good as my starter so I think next time I visit Prezzo I will be ordering two vegan Bruschettas!

Despite Prezzo’s website blunder, it turns out they have some great vegan options so it’s definitely worth asking in the restaurant what they can whip up for you! If it’s anywhere near as good as my Bruschetta, I’m sure you’ll be a happy bunny!

Amsterdam Vegan Guide

August 14, 2014October 16, 2019Jade Green Vegan8 Comments

Wandering around the streets of Amsterdam city centre on a hot Saturday afternoon, my Pret fruit salad and Hotel Chocolat airplane snacks seemed like a distant memory and the hanger was starting to set in. This is why I was so excited when we stumbled across Maoz Vegetarian, an international food chain serving falafel and other freshly made veggie food – yum yum yum! I ordered the whole wheat falafel pita topped with lots of yummy salad from the self-service salad bar and a shared a side of chips with my mum. It looked and smelt so good that I couldn’t resist taking a quick bite before snapping a picture – sorry guys! With numerous locations across Europe and the USA, this is the perfect on-the-go lunch for a travelling vegan; I know I will definitely be hitting up Maoz when I visit NYC later this summer.

Maoz vegetarian Amsterdam

After seeing the 2 hour queue outside Anne Frank’s house on Sunday afternoon, we decided to have a wander along the canal and find somewhere to eat lunch. We stumbled across a little pub overlooking the water and I ordered this delicious humus and roasted veggie sandwich. It was one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever had and I will definitely be trying to recreate this sandwich in the near future. Side note: Anne Frank’s house is such a moving experience and well worth a visit; we went back at 7 in the evening and the queue was much shorter so avoiding peak times seems to be the way to go!

humus and roasted veg sandwich

Last but not least of my vegan Amsterdam eats was my Sunday night dinner. The Tempura of vegetable spaghetti from the Skyy Bar at the top of our hotel was my favourite meal of the trip. Just looking at this picture is making my mouth water! The dish was crispy on the outside but soft on the inside and perfectly complemented by the bed of seaweed on which is was served, just yum.

vegan tempura vegetable spaghetti

Not only was the food amazing but like the rest of our hotel, the bar atmosphere and decor were uber cool too. If you’re planning a trip to Amsterdam, I would definitely recommend staying in our hotel, or at the very least a visit to the Skyy Bar! How freaking cool is that ceiling?!

Skyy bar amsterdam

On top of lots of yummy food, we also had an awesome time exploring Amsterdam. We were really lucky as we visited on gay pride weekend which meant that there was even more atmosphere and activity than usual! Here are a few of my favourite pics from our trip…

Lemon water in Amsterdam

THE AWESOME MARKET STOOLS

Lunch by the river

Gay pride

Inside my vegan hand luggage

August 5, 2014Jade Green Vegan9 Comments

Yesterday morning my mum and I got back from our awesome weekend trip to Amsterdam. Our flight was at 7am, so we had to get up at half 4 and now I am feeling majorly jet-lagged (can you even get jet lag from a one hour time-difference? I thinks so!)

This was my first trip abroad as a vegan so I was a little unsure how the food situation would be. However, I decided that if worst came to worst, I’d have lots of fresh fruit and veggies – YUM!

As we only went away for the weekend, we didn’t check in any bags and packed everything in our hand luggage, *gulp*! I used to find this such a struggle but since I’ve been travelling more for work, I’ve got pretty good at cramming a few day’s worth of stuff into a small bag!

I thought it’d be fun to give you a peek inside my bag to see my travel essentials for a weekend away and check out the cute tiny toiletries I took with me (I love tiny toiletries) – everything is cruelty free of course.

Bag: Cath Kidston

Shampoo & conditioner: Tara Smith at M&S

Make up wipes: Formula at M&S

Tooth paste: Dr Organic at Holland and Barrett

Snacks: Evian (which I had to throw away at the airport -oops!)

+ Gianduja chocolate bombs from Hotel Chocolat (YUM!)

Book for the flight: I can do it by Louise Hay

Lightweight PJs: Forever 21

♥

P.s. My vegan eats in Amsterdam post will be up soon, stay tuned because there were some yummies!

Vegan at Pizza Express

July 21, 2014Jade Green Vegan5 Comments

When I first became vegan, before I had even started the blog, I had my first (awesome) vegan pizza experience. I read on the PETA blog that Pizza Express had introduced a vegan pizza: the Pianta, so I immediately dragged my best friend Alfia to Pizza Express to try it out. After initial issues with the Pizza arriving with parmesan cheese sprinkled on top (naughty Pizza Express), they sent me out a new one and it was DELICIOUS. Hands down, the best pizza I’ve ever had. It is served on their classic base smothered in spicy sauce, topped with artichoke, chestnut mushrooms, pine kernels, spinach and I added some red onions.

I went back to Pizza Express this week with the same friend, and had the same pizza. I’m a creature of habit, okay?! Buuuut this time I added mushrooms and garlic oil – yummy! Who says I don’t like to try new things ;).

vegan pizza

What’s even better is that all of their pizza bases are vegan, so you can make any pizza vegan friendly by just asking for it without cheese. Ideal! Although I really enjoyed my pizza without cheese, it’s also good to know that they offer the option of bringing in your own vegan cheese, providing it meets a couple of requirements.

There are a couple of starters that are vegan too, including olives and dough balls (substitute the garlic butter for garlic oil). With such a range of vegan options available, Pizza express is definitely a great place to hang out with your non-vegan friends as there is something for everybody!

Check out this statement on the Pizza Express website for a full list of vegan friendly dishes.

Vegan at Wahaca

July 19, 2014Jade Green Vegan7 Comments

After one too many trips to Nandos where I always have my favourite veggie wrap, my boyfriend and I decided to mix it up a bit and visit Wahaca. I was a little worried about finding vegan options as I couldn’t find anything on their website about this. However, our waitress was extremely helpful and pointed out all of the vegetarian dishes they could make vegan by excluding cheese or sour cream – ideal!

To start we had tortilla chips with guacamole whilst we pondered over the menu, and they were good!

I love the style of the Wahaca menu as it offers a selection of smaller, street style dishes as an alternative to ordering just one, bigger dish. As there were so many amazing looking veggie options that could be made vegan, we decided to order lots of little dishes.

For the very childish reason of wanting to know whether or not it would be spiky, we ordered the cactus tacos without cheese. I am happy to report that they were in fact not spiky but were very yummy!

We also had the plantain taco without feta cheese and crema which was nice but very spicy!

The black bean tostadas (without cheese and crema) were awesome! I love black beans, red onions and lettuce so this dish was perfect for me.

Finally, saving the best to last we had broccoli drizzled in garlic chilli oil. DE-LIC-IOUS!

Not only was the food amazing but the staff were so friendly and helpful so we will definitely be heading back to Wahaca soon.

You can check out their menu here. Veggie options are marked with a v and most of them can be made vegan, so be sure to ask in the restaurant, and if our experience was anything to go by, the staff will be more than happy to help.

My first vegan dinner party!

July 16, 2014Jade Green Vegan6 Comments

Last weekend, we hosted our first dinner party since I became vegan and it was a-maz-ing!

Our friends that we invited have recently decided to go vegetarian, so it was cool to be able to share all of the vegan dishes with them.

I got waaaay too excited about making the table look pretty and may have gone a little overboard with decorating name cards!

Now, onto the delicious food…

In some families you have to say grace before everyone can eat; in my house, it’s becoming pretty standard that everyone has to wait until I’ve taken pictures of the food before we can start eating , ah the life of a food blogger!!

Now really, onto the food! My mum is an amazing cook and has been adapting her previously meat dishes into vegetarian dishes for me for years. Now she has the even bigger challenge of adapting them into vegan-friendly meals, and she is doing a great job!

Her veggie Lasagne is one of my all time favourites, and she made it vegan by substituting the white sauce with an almond milk and corn flour mixture, and to add crunchiness – a bread crumb and vegan butter topping. YUM. Everyone LOVED this dish; and even my cheese loving, vegetarian boyfriend said this was the best lasagne yet – go mama!

We also had a fresh vegetable paella which was scrummy, and also really good for left-overs the next day too.

vegan lasagna and vegan paella

My mum’s vegetarian chilli is THE BOMB. Like seriously, party in your mouth. It’s my all time favourite dinner, as you can do so much with it: eat it with home-made garlic batons, in a jacket potato, with rice, with nachos, with salad, with home-made coleslaw – the possibilities are endless! So as always, this was a big hit!

We also had a mixed leaf salad with cherry tomatoes which is such a simple, healthy side and goes well with most things – a dinner party must.

For desert, we had some awesome home-made melted vegan chocolate…

vegan chocolate

…And to dip in the chocolate we had delicious strawberries and banana slices. Heaven.

It was such a lovely evening, and the food went down amazingly! I’ll be sharing some of the recipes on the blog soon, so watch this space!

Confessions of a vegan chocoholic

July 9, 2014Jade Green Vegan1 Comment

Since deciding to eat a vegan diet, I have had lots of people ask me the same question (usually with a horrified look on their face), ‘so wait, you can’t eat chocolate anymore?!’ In response to this, I thought I’d write a post about the wide range of vegan chocolate available, to quash the myth that vegans can’t eat chocolate.

Confession: this has been by far my favourite post on the blog to research so far!

In case you hadn’t guessed already, I’m a bit of a chocoholic; so I will admit, missing chocolate was one of the things that I was a little worried about when I decided to become vegan. The first vegan chocolate I ate was Asda own brand. As a plain chocolate bar it’s not the best chocolate I’ve ever eaten; but when melted to make chocolate covered strawberries, it is absolutely awesome! This is the desert I had on my first fully vegan day, and it was an absolute blessing!

After eating an almost entirely vegan diet for around 1 month, I was sitting in work one day when I was hit with a major chocolate craving! Just when I was about to give in to guiltily considering getting a boost bar from the vending machine, I googled vegan chocolate on whim to see if anywhere nearby could satisfy my craving. The first thing that came up was… HOTEL CHOCOLAT! Excited does not even begin to describe how this made me feel, as not only do they make incredible chocolate, but there is also an outlet less 5 minutes from my office. I practically ran downstairs and bought an unhealthy amount of vegan chocolate. I may have also sent a slightly embarrassing tweet to Hotel Chocolat about how they had ‘Made. My. Day’ whilst I scoffed down my chocolate on the way back to work! Totally worth the embarrassment to express my gratitude for this amazing afternoon snack.

I didn’t realise how hooked I’d become until one Friday on my way to work, the girl working in Hotel Chocolat recognised me as ‘the girl who comes in to buy a Hazlenut Buche every morning’. Oh dear. When she asked if the 4 bars I had picked up this morning were all for me, instead of admitting that I was stocking up on chocolate for the weekend like a squirrel does for winter, I of course lied to save the last shred of my dignity and said they were for presents. It’s kinda true, they were presents, from me… to me. I’m sure I should feel more embarrassed to go back there but I don’t. The chocolate is just too good! Check out the Hotel Chocolat website here to see their award winning vegan chocolate selection.

Holland & Barrett also have lots of yummy vegan chocolate snacks that are well worth checking out; these dairy-free chocolate coated raisins are my personal fave!

holland and barret vegan chocolate covered raisins

If you’re a bit more creative in the kitchen and would like some more vegan chocolate inspiration, check out the awesome Chocolate Covered Katie’s blog which has tons of amazing and quirky recipes!

Vegan Eats at Glastonbury

July 2, 2014Jade Green Vegan4 Comments

After getting home from Glastonbury in the early hours of Monday morning and sleeping until 2 in the afternoon (that must be some kinda laziness record!) I am slowly returning to reality; so thought it was about time I wrote a post on my vegan eats and how I found my first ever festival!!

I shared my apprehension in relation to the shower/ toilet situation in my: How to do Glastonbury… Vegan style post; and unfortunately, my fears were validated within hours of arriving at the site when I became acquainted with the ‘toilets’. I’ll spare you the details but let’s just say I have a new found appreciation for modern plumbing. As expected, 2/6 of my Festival Shopping List went completely unused, I bet you can guess which items they were! The lack of showering wasn’t too bad, as I had daily wet-wipe ‘showers’ and the super drug dry shampoo was awesome! Although I must say, my Monday morning 2.30am shower was probably the best shower I’ve had in my entire life. Despite the toilet trauma and my poor personal hygiene; the weekend was filled with amazing music, great company, and of course lots of incredible vegan food.

So let’s get down to my Glastonbury vegan eats…

1. Fresh Organic

The Fresh Organic Veggie Burger stall quickly became my favourite spot. I’m not sure if ‘Fresh Organic’ was its name but that’s what I’m guessing based on their sign, so let’s go with that!

I went there at least once a day to get my lemon juice fix.

And their chocolate banana bread was the perfect breakfast/ midday/ late night, okay all times of day, snack!

They also had a great range of veggie burgers with a huge selection of vegan friendly sauces, including my personal favourite: garlic mayonnaise!

vegan sauces glastonbury

On Sunday, we packed our tent up in the morning and carried it back to the car so that we could avoid the queues when leaving later that night. We got so wrapped up in packing up our messy and very muddy tent that we forgot to have breakfast… big mistake! After a 2 hour walk which comprised carrying extremely heavy bags in the sweltering heat, trekking across the wrong field for a good 20 mins, and a tent strap breaking (along with my spirit) midway through, I was feeling majorly hangry! I discovered recently that not everyone knows what hangry means, so in case you’ve never heard this before, it’s when you get so hungry that the lack of food starts to make you feel angry. I suffer from major hanger issues, kinda like this!

jennifer lawrence where's the pizza meme

So anyway, I’m not sure if this is the hanger speaking, but when I had my first meal of the day at 2pm: this veggie burger and chips with garlic mayonnaise, it tasted like the best thing I’ve ever eaten!

2. No Bones Jones

I found this stall at lunch time on my third day, and dragged my boyfriend back there for dinner later that night because it was just that good!

Their veggie fritter bowl topped with salad, spinach and chickpea curry, and red bean stew was delicious; and just the kind of healthiness I needed after stuffing my face with veggie burgers for 2 days!

3. Pizza Tabun

We went to see Newton Faulkner near the Green Fields on Friday night (he was freaking awesome by the way), and had dinner in the Pizza Tabun on the way back. The tent had a great, chilled out vibe, and it was so nice to actually sit down for a meal!

Two of our friends, who aren’t vegans or veggies, went to Pizza Tabun on the first night and said that the vegan tahini pizza was amazing. From the moment I heard that, I was on the hunt for vegan pizza, and when we finally found it I was so excited to get stuck in that I didn’t manage to take a very good picture. Despite the blurry picture, the pizza definitely lived up to my expectations, and if we had camped nearer I’m sure I would have been back there every day!

4. Paellaria

My last Glastonbury 2014 meal was at Paellaria, and it was delicious! When we visited Barcelona last year, my boyfriend and I became huge Paella fans; however, it is not something we get to have very often.

We were therefore extremely excited to find somewhere that served a vegetarian/ vegan Paella at Glastonbury!

The Paella de Veduras (vegan + gluten free) was the perfect way to end a festival full of amazingly varied vegan food.

I’ve never had such an amazing array of vegan options available to me; and this, along with the awesome people and music, made this weekend an incredibly special experience for me. Glastonbury, you were awesome. Same time next year?

Vegan at YO! Sushi

June 26, 2014Jade Green VeganLeave a comment

Last night, after a bit of Glastonbury shopping with my mum (I just can’t help myself!) we went to Yo! Sushi for dinner. Now that I’m transitioning from vegetarian to vegan, there are obviously quite a few dishes in my favourite restaurants that I no longer eat; so I was beyond excited to discover that as a vegan I can still enjoy all of the same dishes I had as a vegetarian in Yo! Sushi. For this week’s ‘Being Vegan at’ post I thought it would be great to share last night’s eats with y’all.

Vegetable Gyoza – this is my all time favourite dish; they’re like little parcels of heaven!

Yo! Sushi Vegetable Gyoza

Pumpkin Karoke – these strips of pumpkin covered in breadcrumbs are awesome, and the ‘fruity’ sauce is just too good!

Yo! Sushi Pumpkin Karoke

Aubergine Salad – last night was the first time I’d tried this salad and it has become a new favourite; the harusame sauce is delicious and I can’t wait to try to recreate this healthy snack at home!

I was definitely full up after these 3 dishes but I’m also a big fan of the Kaiso Salad and Vegetable Yakisoba.

For a full list of vegan options currently available at Yo! Sushi, check out the Allergen section of their website here.

How to do Glastonbury… Vegan style

June 24, 2014May 12, 2019Jade Green Vegan8 Comments

At the end of this week, I will be heading to Glastonbury Festival for the first time ever! Excited does not even begin to describe how my boyfriend feels about this; we’ve spoken about nothing but tents, line ups, and portable chairs for the past few months. I, on the other hand have been feeling a little, okay a lot, apprehensive mainly due to the showering/ toilets/ general personal hygiene issues a festival presents, but also about how I will find food that fits in with my veggie/ vegan lifestyle.

Recently I was trawling through online vegan forums where I stumbled upon a plethora of comments saying that Glastonbury is THE best place for veggies/ vegans. Some people were even saying that Glastonbury was the one time of the year that they ate veggie, simply because the food is so good. After finding this out, I’m definitely giving my boyfriend a run for his money in the too excited to function department, and can’t wait to head to The Green Fields (where all the veggie/ vegan action happens). I’m so excited to share all of my Glasto-food instagram pics with you all and will be writing a full blog post about all my vegan eats when I’m back. For those mornings where we don’t have the energy to roll out of our tent for breakfast, I have packed some Fruitina snack bars; they’re the perfect festival snack: light-weight, healthy and filling!

To mitigate my no-shower panic, I decided to go on a mini-toiletry shopping spree. I am passionate about using cruelty free beauty products, so shopping for tiny toiletries is as exciting to me, as shopping for collapsable chairs that fold into the size of a shoe (yes, we have those!) is to my boyfriend! So for all you compassionate festival go-ers, here is my:

Festival Shopping List

1. Moisturising Hand Sanitiser (Festival must have!)

Crabtree and Evelyn at Marks and Spencer