Simple Italian sausages from the PPK with roasted carrots and salad with balsamic dressing.

A particularly good brown loaf from Dave!

An array of delicious veg ready to get roasted in the oven!

Sunflower mac and cheese from the PPK.

Homemade pizza with pesto sauce, caramelised onions and sun-dried tomatoes. Half covered with Vegusto melty cheese, to test it out.

This pizza was delicious!

As far as the cheese goes, it doesn’t exactly melt, rather it puffs up and expands a bit, but the flavour is wonderful and it’s got a rich, quite creamy texture.

Garlicky chips with rosemary, cooked in olive oil. Nom!

What an inspiration. Best bit: ‘When people ask me why I’m vegan I say “Why aren’t you?” After all I just beat you…’ Legend.

Vegan earl grey cakes with earl grey icing. NOM.

Moroccan tagine from V with a V and couscous. Delicious!

On the menu for today!

Sweet potato risotto for lunch, then garden burgers with sautéed green beans and mushrooms for dinner.

Expect (crap quality) photos later! We’ve also got some (equally crap) photos of a gorgeous vegan tagine we made for dinner last night to put up. 

Tonight’s bedtime hot drink! Jess likes to experiment every time she makes one. This time it’s cinnamon amaretti cocoa. She used soya milk, cinnamon, a bit of almond extract, cocoa, unrefined sugar and a drop of vanilla extract.

Comforting!

Strawberries with a sprinkle of unrefined sugar for pudding… Heaven.

Once again, forgive the terrible photo quality! This may not look like the most appetising thing in the world, but it’s delicious. Mashed garlicky potatoes with spinach (we used an ice-cream scoop to achieve the little domes of mash) with ‘punk rock chickpea gravy’ from V with a V. It’s the first time we’ve tried this recipe and it’s delicious: comfort food that’s healthy! 

Essential Vegan Ingredients #2

Engevita is a wonderful brand of a product called nutritional yeast, often called ‘nooch.’ Nooch isn’t for everyone — it’s very strong-flavoured, cheesey and smokey and nutty — but it is amazingly versatile. It can be melted on top of bread for a vegan alternative to cheese-on-toast, sprinkled into soups, used to make cheesey sauces and is a crucial ingredient in scrambled tofu. Even those who dislike nooch on its own would struggle to find anything to hate about the AMAZING classic pesto recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance (yes, we go on a lot about this book, and for a reason!), which uses nooch as a replacement for cheese and adds a creamy texture. All in all a very useful ingredient!

Scrambled tofu (Jess’ favourite brunch dish!) from Vegan with a Vengeance and salad.