planet vegan scotland

11:22

“ "Nothing is sexier than a man who savours & devours" Read this & thought @veganbear may like it too http://t.co/kQMbDmAK via @katy_red ”

— applewriter

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10:16

“ Latest: Homemade Pumpkin Seed Snack http://t.co/grvREThZ ”

— lgelly

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18:41

“ Gay is ok...that's a little unenthusiastic, isn't it? Gay is FABULOUS! I love being a homo. ”

— AGayToRemember

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18:16

“ So rare, yet so good to see POC with tattoos. http://t.co/wbtdIqfR Used to think tatoos were for whites only. Glad I'm wrong about that! ”

— applewriter

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19:09

“ Just tried the recipe from @veganbear looking forward to tasting the final results - http://t.co/aDnDcDsK - http://t.co/UaCCgo02 ”

— lgelly

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10:39

Breakfast of Champions

Did you get home from work at 10.45pm, wired to the moon?

Did you wind down by catching-up on all your crap-telly viewing with a glass of wine, then falling asleep on the sofa and waking up at 3.30am, broken, like a little rag doll?

Are your kids off school today due to a staff inset day? Meaning that the morning rush is for the toilet and the kettle, rather than to get you all out of the house by 8.35am?

And did you read that wonderful post over at Lustrous Musings - one of your favourite foodie blogs EVER - about a fried breakfast? With proper fried bread? Which made you feel hungry back then, but now is like an insistent drum-call to the frying pan? Like when The Master in 'Doctor Who' was tormented by the sound of drums?

I think we all know where this is headed....

Voila! Perfect fry-up:

Linda McCartney veggie sausages - the sausage of choice in our household.

Home fries - made from a couple of baked potatoes left over from Sunday tea and with added cherry tomatoes, NOM!

Fried mushrooms with garlic powder, black pepper and chilli salt.

Heinz baked beans.

And of course - the perfect fried bread.

All washed-down with mugs of piping hot tea.

Perfect.

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08:45

three vegan childhoods

The latest show from The Vegan Option – Born Vegan: from1976 UK TV to the Hebrew Israelites, three very different vegan childhoods. Am listening as I blog, is fascinating

Choose you own adventure…not really.

Okay, okay i realise it’s been a couple of months since I last posted here and the main reason for this is not that fact that I’ve been mega busy with uni, which is true of course i have been, but I haven’t really been able to pin down what i wanted to blog about. What I find interesting may not be interesting to you lot but then again it’s my blog so if want to write yet another post of just how gorgeous Allison Janney is then I jolly well should….have i done a post on that? So I’ve decide to leave my next blog post up to you. what do you want to read me talking about? When I say talking I mean writing in a haphazard punctuation, lack of proper grammar type of way.

Take Our Poll

Tags: Uncategorized

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13:13

“ So #mlm (#ff) @Harkaway and @psychodarwinist for the reasons previously mentioned. @veganbear for his Scottish version of the good life... ”

— GloomBaby

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01:34

Vegan Healthy Quinoa Bowl

'Vegan Healthy Quinoa Bowl' -- 2 Large Servings

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup water
Vegetable stock powder or konbu dashi pawder to taste

1 red pepper
2 stalks celery
1 medium tomato
Half cucumber

- Dressing
3 Tbls red wine vinegar (or rice vinegar)
2 Tbls olive oil
1/2 Tbls soya sauce
1 Tsp mustard
1 Tsp crushed chili
Salt & pepper to taste

Coriander to garnish

Directions:
1. Wash the quinoa and place the quinoa, water and vegetable stock powder in a pan. Bring to boil, turn the heat down to low, cover the pan and simmer for 13min. Turn the heat off, wait for 5min without opening the pan.
(If your quinoa came with its own cooking directions, you can do it that way.)
2. Cut all the vegetables into small cubes (smaller than 1cm cubes).
3. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing.
4. Mix the cooked quinoa, chopped vegetables and dressing and refrigerate.
5. EAT!

This is the one of my favourite salads. I call it salad, but this recipe can be the main in your dinner I think. This fresh and spicy taste will make you feel satisfied.
Quinoa started to be popular in a healthy cooking. If you don't know how healthy it is, you should search it on the internet. Basically quinoa is perfect for our staple diet.

Vegan Memo:
- After you cut the vegetables, put all vegetables into cold water. Cold water make the vegetables crunchier!

Nutrition Facts1 Large ServingCalories - 389.1
Total Fat - 17.0 g
  Saturated Fat - 2.1 g
  Polyunsaturated Fat - 2.0 g
  Monounsaturated Fat - 10.1 g
Cholesterol - 0.0 mgSodium - 503.4 mg
  Potassium - 292.2 mg
Total Carbohydrate - 50.8 g
  Dietary Fiber - 5.8 g
  Sugars - 15.5 g
Protein - 8.3 g

Powered By Spark Recipes

Tags: Vegan Recipe

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14:21

Complete listings for May in Mono. Dinnae miss the Aggi Doom Single Launch with North American War and Palms, the... http://t.co/SWYruB1R

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20:33

“ Went to Crosby beach today to look at Antony Gormley's Another Place; just beautiful art and scenery http://t.co/IQwzG8gd ”

— stelfad

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13:54

flowers, water, books and sunshine

bluebells by the pond

Good reads:

I’ve Got Your Number - Sophie Kinsella - laugh out loud funny, poignant and wise.

The Bride Stripped Bare - Nikki Gemmell – well written and bold, not for the prudish

sunny cherry blossom

Look at my Magic Potato! Also known as: My Pierogi Masterclass

Yes, just like Pepe, I too have magic potatoes.

What can you make with two of the most economical of the staples we keep in our kitchens - a bag of flour and a sack of potatoes?

You can make one of my absolute favourite dishes from my childhood - pierogi.

These are little semi-circular dumplings which can be filled with an infinite variety of delicious edibles. We ate them both sweet - with fruit from the hedgerow that had been stewed into compote or plums from my Babcia Lila's plum tree - or savoury. My favourite filling has always been sauerkraut, but then, it's a well-known fact that I would eat cabbage in some form or other every single day if it was down to me. BIG love - ♥!

But you can also make a cheap, delicious and filling dinner using just potato. Think of it as pasta filled with really, really good mash. And the potential for add-ins is great - pesto for some zing, vegan sour cream, cheese, leftover beans or chilli, stewed curried pumpkin - you can really use just about whatever you have knocking around the fridge to stuff these.

My lovely friend, Krys, over at Two Vegan Boys, has asked for my pierogi recipe loads of times and being the slack puppy that I am, I never got round to emailing it to her. So, upon her request this morning I decided - spur of the moment - to devise a pierogi masterclass and put it up here as a point of reference for Krys and anyone else who might be interested.

You're going to get all my hints, tips and advice here.

And, as a bonus, I'm giving you a video of - whisper it! - The Pinch.

This is the trademark finger manouvre that creates a really good seal on your dumplings and stops them from coming unstuck in the boiling water while you're cooking them!

Normally, I would use 100% plain flour for the pasta, but as I discovered I only had 3/4 cup plain flour I subbed the rest with wholemeal plain flour. Actually, the slightly coarser, chewier texture that this high-wholemeal mix provided was kind of nice, and it was pleasantly filling - I would maybe go for 50-50 plain and wholemeal next time for a slightly lighter texture.

Potato Pierogi

(makes 53 using a 4-inch cookie cutter)

Pierogi Dough

4 cups plain flour
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp potato flour/instant potato flakes/1 small cooked potato, grated
4 tbsp vegetable oil
11/2-2 cups cold water

Filling

8-10 medium potatoes, boiled until soft.
1 cup vegan cream cheese/dairyfree yogurt/or 1/2 cup soya cream
4 spring onions, finely sliced then chopped again
2 heaped tbsp vegan margarineCoarsely ground black pepper, 1/2 tsp
Salt to taste

To Make The Dough:

Put the plain flour in a large bowl. Add the salt and potato flour or grated cooked potato and stir together. Add the oil and gradually add the water while mixing the ingredients together until you have achieved a dough which has cleaned the sides of the bowl and is pliable and well combined without being wet.

Now - cover the bowl and set aside for at least 30 minutes to make the dough softer and easier to handle.

In the meantime you can make your filling.

To Make the Filling:

Cook your potatoes until soft and then strain, return to the pan and steam over the hob to drive off as much water as possible. You want your filling to be dry as when you boil the pierogi later, it will heat-up and become more liquid anyway.

Then mash. Mash until it's as smooth as possible.

Sautee the chopped spring onions in the two tablespoons of marg over a gentle heat for about five minutes until soft but not too coloured. Add into the potato mix, along with the pepper, salt and your 'liquid' - cream cheeze, yogurt or cream - and mix well. Season with salt to taste and remember, it's better to go everso slightly over with the salt than to underseason with pierogi as once the filling is in the pasta it's saltiness isn't so potent.

At this point you can also add grated cheeze if you like - I did this today because there was a nubbin of cheeze winking at me from the back of the fridge, about 1/2 cups worth. This is where you can really improvise with your add-ins!

Before you start making the dumplings, get two baking trays ready for putting your finished pierogi on - flour them lightly and get a couple of clean teatowels to cover the dumplings with so they don't dry out.

Then lightly flour your worksurface and your rolling pin.

Divide your dough into two to four sections - this really depends on the size of your workspace, mine is TINY! - and roll it out as thinly as you can.

4" pierogi cutouts

Use your 4" inch cookie cutter to cut out as many circles of dough as you can. Remove the excess dough, then place a heaped teaspoon of filling into the centre of each circle.

Now, The Pinch!

You take your pasta circle and fold the two sides over to meet. You then go round your little semi-circle with your thumb and forefinger - I don't pinch between fingertips, I use my thumb tip and press the dough against the knuckle-area of my forefinger to get a good seal. The best way to get a good seal? Use 'The Pinch' and don't get any filling between the two bits of dough you are pressing together. In the video you can see I press the filling back into the dumpling as I go round to make sure of this, otherwise, when cooking, you will end-up with a soggy, floppy semi-circle of pasta and a scum of filling in the cooking water! (u_u)

Put your assembled dumplings on the prepared baking trays making sure they don't touch each other and stick. When you fill the tray, cover over with a folded tea towel and stack your next bunch of dumplings on top. You can then use the other half of the towel to cover your second layer of pierogi. So on and so forth. Once you've made them all up, you can set your pierogi to one side as forget about them until it's time to cook them.

This is your cooking equipment:

l-r: covered pierogi, colander in serving dish, cooking pan filled with salted water, slotted spoon and wooden spoon. Bring your pan of salted water to a rolling boil, then add your dumplings one by one. I normally cook about 12-15 at a time in this size cooking pan.

Plop! Once you've dropped-in your pierogi, use the bottom of your wooden spoon to gently stir sround the base of the pan to loosen any dumplings that might have stuck.

Bring the water back-up to a rolling boil, then give the dumplings another 3-5 minutes to cook through. The best way to check for doneness - is to try one! (n_n)

Pull out the dumplings one-by-one with your slotted spoon and place into the colander in your waiting serving dish.

Pour over the melted margarine, shake to coat the dumplings and then tip out of the colander into the serving dish.

All ready to be scoffed! Then, enjoy!

Om-nom-nom
So there you have it! Easy-peasy! But time-consuming. The results are well-worth it, though.
If you're like me, you'll have a bit of the filling leftover. The temptation might be to stick it in the bin *internal screaming!!!!* but luckily for you I have:

The Skint Vegan Top Tip of the Day:

Any leftover mash makes absolutely fantastic and incredibly quick soup. This is usually a Sunday-night trick for me after our big Sunday dinner, but it came in unexpectedly handy tonight. The 1/2 cup of potato filling I had left was combined with 250ml vegetable stock, 1/2 cup frozen chopped leeks and a good squeeze of soya cream. Heat till piping hot - about four minutes - out comes the stick blender and before you know it, I have hot, delicious soup for 3 people for lunch tomorrow. Now that's a result! (-_o)

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21:39

Earth Cafe, Morocco

Heading off to Morocco for a week, I was well aware that the vegetarian couscous was more than likely going to be seasoned not only with butter but possibly a pinch or two of cow. I told myself that although I live a happy little vegan lifestyle at home and can try my best, we all know that it's not always possible.
Unfortunately I've never been one of those people who is very good at asking questions and investigating every ingredient in a meal; especially when in the company of omnivores in a non-English speaking country. I tend to just sort of quietly mutter something along the lines of "ah, sorry to bother you, but ah, sorry, is ah this ah.. vegan" and accept their half convinced answer of yes and just hope it is.
Bad vegan.
So for the four days I spent hiking in the Atlas mountains I ate the fried egg I was given, the couscous lying underneath the chicken carcass, and so much laughing cow cheese that I actually had a stomach ache for the week following.
But.. (Yes, this is going somewhere optimistic) whilst in Marrakech I made it my mission to seek out the one and only vegan restaurant in Morocco, Earth Cafe, which I had heard many wonderful things about. It was a tad pricer than the average restaurant in Marrakech, but since the average was coming in at around £2.50 a plate, I decided to 'splurge'.

Now about the dish. I really enjoy typos in foreign countries so I'm going to leave the spelling the same. I had the 'Fillo pastry filled with zuccini, prune, raisin, date, fresh herbs in tomato concasse sauce'.

Delish.

I haven't seen a dish this well presented since, well, the last dish I served up. (Gosh modesty.. it's so overrated.) But really it's so great to find a vegan restaurant serving up original dishes that inspire and intrigue the taste buds.

Well done Earth cafe. Well done.

Tags: Morocco Marrakech Earth Cafe vegan restaurant

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10:43

Righto folks, we're sweeping up glass as fast as we can! Hope to be open by one o'clock or so.

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planet vegan scotland

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May 11 2012

May 10 2012

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May 08 2012

Breakfast of Champions

three vegan childhoods

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May 07 2012