Miscellaneous

HAPPY 23 days until Christmas everyone! I absolutely love this time of year and as Christmas is right around the corner, I thought it would be a fun idea to share some of the items at the top of my Christmas list with you all in case you’re in need of some inspiration.

Before we get into presents, I have 2 awesome advent calendars to share with you, because of course 1 is never enough! The first is a luxury dark chocolate calendar from Hotel Chocolat and is my all time favourite; you can buy that here. The second calendar by moo free is a more affordable option but is still super yummy and you can order that from Vegusto here.

My Christmas list is filled with some of my favourite vegan products by some awesomely compassionate companies. If you like the look of any of them, you can click on the names of the gifts below to check out the websites where you can purchase them.

The Tree Kisser clothing – beautiful slogan jumpers and tees promoting animal compassion

Tara Smith hair care products – vegan haircare tested on film stars, not animals (love it!)

Pana chocolate – delicious raw organic chocolate

Vego chocolate – my current obsession and one of the best chocolate bars I’ve eaten

A subscription to The Vegan Kind – a monthly lifestyle box filled with a variety of vegan treats

♥

This year will be my first vegan Christmas and I am so excited to create a vegan christmas menu with my mum and share it with you all on the blog.

What are you all asking santa for this Christmas? Do you have any plant-based Christmas dinner ideas?

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!