Food – Page 5

Earlier this week, I dragged my three most veggie friends (2 vegetarians and 1 wannabe vegetarian) to Mildred’s a London vegetarian/ vegan restaurant with me!

The restaurant was packed and had a great atmosphere; so whilst we waited for a table, we started the night off with cocktails at the bar. I ordered the Porn Star, mainly for the fun of ordering it (it never gets old ordering a cocktail with a naughty name, right?! …Maybe that’s just me). Despite my immature ordering tactic, it turned out to be amazing… until I spilt it all over Maria and myself when we sat down at our table. This happens at some point on most nights out with us. I really need to work on getting my clumsiness under control.

After wiping up the spilt cocktail (and of course ordering another!) we checked out the menu which is entirely vegetarian and almost entirely vegan or can be turned into a vegan option. As two of us have been life-long vegetarians, we’re used to choosing from the small vegetarian section of menus where there is rarely more than 2 choices; so it was strange, if not a little overwhelming to be so spoilt for choice. Everything looked amazing and it definitely tasted just as good!

To start, I had the gyoza dumplings with mirin and soy dipping sauce. They were DELICIOUS!

Then for main, I had smoked tofu and white bean sausages, with carrot parsnip and potato mash, wilted kale and pear cider gravy. So. Yummy.

We all had a great night, with amazing food and maybe a few too many cocktails! Mildred’s is definitely worth checking out, I think we’ve found our new hang out spot…

Last night, something very strange went on in our house… my mum and I baked cookies for the first time EVER!! My dog Poppy barked at me as I was stirring the ingredients in the mixing bowl as if to say, ‘you don’t belong here?!’ and she’s probably right. As far as domestic goddess-ness goes, I’m less Martha Stewart, more Miranda! This was definitely highlighted when I was reading measurements from my iPhone and asked my mum how to tell the difference between tablespoon and teaspoon (tsp – it could be either, right?!) and she replied with, “Well, teaspoon is the one you use to stir tea”, assuming that instead of not knowing the abbreviations, I didn’t know a tablespoon from a teaspoon. Oh dear.

Since becoming vegan, I have realised that there are lots of yummy treats I won’t be able to buy in shops anymore, so I have decided to step up my game and take this opportunity to make my own healthier AND dare I say yummier versions! I decided to start with mine and my mum’s favourite cookie: oatmeal and raisin with a dash of lemon and apple. Bakery abbreviation blunders aside, our first baking session went really well and the cookies turned out to be DELICIOUS.

So, enough of my rambling, and here is the recipe to make these bad boys (and I’m going to spell out tablespoon or teaspoon for y’all just in case anyone finds these abbreviations as confusing as I do)!

Ingredients

1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup margarine
1/2 cup almond milk
1 cup flour
1/2 tea spoon baking soda
1 tea spoon cinnamon
1 tea spoon nutmeg
3 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup sultanas
1 apple
1 lemon

Cooking instructions

Preheat the oven to 250°c
Mix together the sugar and margarine until smooth
Add in the almond milk and stir until the milk has combined with the mixture
Add in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg and stir until well mixed
Add in the oatmeal, raisins, sultanas, and apple (peeled and chopped into small chunks and soaked in lemon juice) and stir
Squeeze 1 whole lemon’s juice into the mixture and stir so that it is even throughout

Spoon small balls of the mixture onto a baking tray covered in baking paper and flatten

Bake in the oven for around 15 minutes or until done (note: staring at them the entire time like Poppy did is optional)

Finally, leave them to cool for 10 minutes, then enjoy your yummy cookies!