vegan food – Page 2

Vegan Afternoon Tea Recipe

August 26, 2014Jade Green Vegan6 Comments

For as long as I can remember I have been in love with afternoon tea. I have been having major cravings for it lately, so this bank holiday weekend I decided to make the most of my time off and made my first vegan afternoon tea – it did not disappoint! Aside from looking forward to all of the yummy food, I was also super excited to use the beautiful afternoon tea set that my boyfriend bought me for my 20th Birthday!

How cute is that ?! ▽▼▽▼▽

For me, afternoon tea is all about the sandwiches, which is strange as under other circumstances I’m not usually a sandwich fan. There’s just something about the tiny, bite size, variety of flavours in afternoon tea that makes the sandwiches so much better than usual! …Or maybe I’m just weird. Either way, these sandwiches were amazing so I’m beyond excited to share the recipe with you! The rest of it was pretty awesome too, so here it is…

Sandwiches

I made 3 different types of sandwiches on a mixture of white and whole grain bread and used Pure dairy free spread!

1. Guacamole and pine nut

I love guacamole so I was super excited to make this sandwich. Peel & mash one avocado, then mix in one clove of crushed garlic and squeeze a little lemon in the mix. Stir together and season with sea salt and ground black pepper before serving with a sprinkle of pine nuts.

2. Roasted veg and hummus

For my roasted veg sandwich I used: mushrooms, red onions, garlic & carrot, but what’s great about this is that you can just use whatever spare veg you have lying around in your fridge. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees, then drizzle the veg in garlic oil, season with sea salt and ground black pepper and cook in the oven for 30 minutes. The veg is then ready to be served with hummus. Side note: this was my first attempt at recreating an awesome sandwich that I had on my trip to Amsterdam and it was just as delicious as I remembered.

3. Pepper and sea salt seasoned salad

The final sandwich is super simple but so yummy; even my salad fearing boyfriend loved it! It includes: a slice of cucumber, a slice of tomato, a few pieces of sliced red onion (lots of slicing going on here guys!), a piece of iceberg lettuce and a thin slither of beetroot, all seasoned with sea salt and ground black pepper.

I am feeling majorly hungry after writing that up! On to the sweet bits before I run downstairs and whack out the afternoon tea set!

Scones

In lieu of scones, I made my delicious oatmeal raisin cookies but shaped them into balls before cooking, giving them a softer, more gooey centre – yum! You can check out the recipe for these bad boys here. Alternatively, I’m sure there are some great vegan scone recipes out there, I was just too lazy to look; and plus these cookies are so good, I grab any opportunity to make them!

Cakes

For the cakes, I made the awesome Chocolate Covered Katie’s chocolate brownies. They didn’t turn out quite as I’d hoped… maybe because I cooked them in a yorkshire pudding tray (I’m a goddess in the kitchen, in case you haven’t already picked up on that) but I rolled with it, quite literally… I rolled the gooey brownies into little cake balls! Despite their questionable appearance, they were delicious and the perfect end to my favourite meal!

Tea

Last but not least, for the tea we had hot lemon water. I’ve spoken before in my summer favourites post about how amazing this is for you; it’s also really easy to make! Just put a couple of slices of lemon in the bottom of the tea pot, fill with boiling water, and then squeeze the remainder of the lemon into the tea pot.

hot lemon afternoon tea

I hope you enjoyed reading about my afternoon tea almost as much as I enjoyed eating it, which would be a lot! I would definitely recommend making this whenever you have a spare afternoon as it rocks! Aside from stuffing my face with sandwiches this weekend, I also went on a lovely long walk with my dogs in our local fields. Here they all are soaking up the sun!

I hope everyone else had a beautiful bank holiday weekend ♥♡

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

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!

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.

Vegan at Nandos!!

June 19, 2014Jade Green Vegan4 Comments

For this week’s ‘Being Vegan at’ post, I have chosen my favourite restaurant: Nandos!

Being a long-time vegetarian, and now transitioning vegan, people always find it weird when I say that Nandos is my favourite restaurant, but it is. I really love Nandos. I go there several times a week in hope that they’ll recognise me and finally deem me worthy of a black card. I’m still living in hope. Sidenote… check out Example & Ed Sheeran’s Nandos black card song below, absolute genius.

Anyway, back to the food. Their veggie burger is the best; so I was praying I could still have it when I became vegan. Good news is, on reading their website I found out that I can still have the burger filet, peri peri sauce (thank the lord!), salad garnish, and chips. However, the bad news is that this yummy burger cannot be sandwiched by one of their buns as they contain dairy. I decided to try the burger sans bun and actually really enjoyed it.

Next time, which of course was a few days later, I tried the veggie wrap without the mayonnaise and chilli sauce and this was even better. Another bonus is that when I said I was vegan, the staff were so helpful and accommodating. The manager brought out a huge, and i mean huge allergen menu and went through it with me to see what I could have. This (and the amazing food) is why I love Nandos!

All of their bastes are suitable for vegans; and they also have a great range of vegan friendly sides including corn on the cob and a mixed leaf salad!

You can check out their vegan recommendation on their website here; and it’s definitely worth asking to see the allergen menu in the restaurant if you fancy mixing it up with some other sides as they are always adding new ones.

Vegan at Pret-a-manger

June 10, 2014Jade Green Vegan1 Comment

One of the things that worried me most about becoming vegan is eating out, as I’m not an ‘I’ll just have the side salad’ kinda gal. I initially anticipated that this would now involve me dragging my friends & family around all of the London vegan restaurants; or picking at a plate of leaves in a more ‘mainstream’ restaurant whilst they ate. However over the past couple of weeks, as well as trying out Vegan restaurants such as Mildred’s & Bistro 1847 (yum!), I have become acquainted with a lot of Allergen menus in my favourite chain restaurants. I have been pleasantly surprised by the vegan options available and thought it would be great to share my experiences of eating out as a vegan in mainstream restaurants in a series of ‘Being Vegan at…’ posts.

What better place to start than PRET-A-YUMMY (Pret-a-manger)?!

My job sends me all over London, so I am constantly grabbing breakfast and lunches on the go from coffee shops. Pret is my all time favourite, and turns out when it comes to Vegan options, they don’t disappoint.

Breakfast

For breakfast I have been loving the Super food fruit salad. It’s so refreshing, and with all of its goodness this yummy little pot is the perfect way to kick-start a busy day.

Their smoothies and juices are also amazing; my favourite is the mango smoothie.

Lunch

Last week, I tried Pret’s vegan friendly superfood sandwich for the first time. I’m embarrassed to admit that I have been putting this off for a while now, as I thought it looked ‘too green’ but I am so glad I tried it because now I am addicted!

They also do a great vegan-friendly butternut squash soup.

Snacks

On the snacks front, there’s a great range of vegan options: selected crisps, pretzels, drinks & of course fruity treats like dried mango.

Check out Pret’s allergen menu here for a full list of all of their vegan options. I have this bad boy downloaded on my phone, ready to whack out at any time!

Bistro 1847

June 1, 2014Jade Green Vegan5 Comments

This weekend, my boyfriend Matt and I visited Bistro 1847, a Birmingham vegetarian/ vegan restaurant. It has been voted the best vegetarian restaurant outside London; so needless to say, as a vegetarian and a vegetarian/ wannabe vegan we were very excited to try it out!

The restaurant is small and intimate and is conveniently located in the Great Western arcade near to Snowhill Station. The staff are so friendly and helpful, and the restaurant has a great, chilled-out vibe. Then of course, there’s the amazing food. Everything looked so good, so we decided to go all out and get 3 courses!

For starter, we both ordered the vegetable tempura with sweet chilli sauce and it was delicious! The broccoli was my favourite and it was complimented perfectly by the chilli sauce.

Bistro 1847 - battered vegetables

For main, we both ordered the vegetarian/ vegan ‘fish and chips’… are you noticing a pattern here? We don’t always order the same thing! This is a vegetarian dish as contains halloumi cheese; however, it can be made into a vegan option by trading the halloumi for tofu, so this is what I did. The variety of sauces made for a unique infusion of tastes, and we both absolutely loved this dish!

Bistro 1847 - tofu and chips

Although we were full up after our amazing starters and main courses, we of course managed to make a little room for desert. Once again, we ordered the same thing… the apple crumble, and it was a good choice. The apple was really sweet and was the perfect way to finish the meal.

Bistro 1847 - ice cream

We had such a great evening and can’t wait to go back and try out the rest of the menu; I’m particularly excited about having the afternoon tea, as this is my all time favourite! We are also planning on attending some cooking classes with 1847’s incredible chef so are very excited for this!

As you can see from the pictures, the presentation was impeccable, and the food was equally great. It is clear that everyone who works there is so passionate about what they do and this translates into a great dining experience for everyone who visits Bistro 1847.

My top three vegan summer must-haves (or must-eats!)

May 19, 2014Jade Green Vegan1 Comment

I have been LOVING the heatwave we are having in London at the moment and have been making the most of it by chilling out in the sun (of course with my dogs and torts), and enjoying some vegan summer treats. Here are my favourite 3 that I wanna share with you.

1. Fresh lemon and lime water

I nearly always start my days of with a mug of freshly squeezed hot lemon water, because as my mum has been telling me for years, lemon is a great antioxidant and helps to push our bodies to the required ph alkaline state; which in english means it makes you feel great! In this hot weather, a chilled version of this is perfect. One of my favourite drinks has always been lemon and lime flavoured water, and nothing beats the natural version!

What’s great is that this super healthy drink is so yummy and also really easy to make:

Slice 1 lemon and 1 lime in half
Squeeze half of each into a glass
Pour in water and stir
Decorate glass with 1 slice of lemon and 1 slice of lime (if you’re a little OCD about making your drinks look pretty like me)

2. The summer smoothie

Fresh smoothies are so good for you, and also happen to be incredibly yummy; win, win. This morning, I created my first Jade’s Vegan Diary smoothie recipe: the summer smoothie. One word, yummy!

Ingredients

2 bananas
1 cup raspberries
1 cup blueberries
2 kiwis
1 cup almond milk
1 tablespoon of pomegranate

Instructions

Chop bananas and kiwis into chunks
Put all fruit and almond milk into a blender/ smoothie maker
Blend until smooth
Pour into a glass and sprinkle pomegranate on top (love those bad boys!)

3. Orange sorbet ice cream

Orange sorbet is the perfect desert for a hot summer evening, and I was really surprised when I found out how easy it is to make. I think I will definitely be having a lot of orange sorbet this summer!

Ingredients

2 oranges
1 cup/ carton soya milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Instructions

Chop oranges into chunks
Blend until smooth
Add in soya milk and vanilla essence
Blend until mixed together and smooth
Pour into tub and put into freezer
Stir after one hour (to prevent crystallising)
Leave in the freezer for another hour before serving
Add raspberries and pomegranate (mainly for decoration, but also because they’re yummy )

Mildred’s Veggie/ Vegan Restaurant in London

May 17, 2014Jade Green Vegan2 Comments

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…