Mmm stir fry- with soya mince

When I went food shopping I was delighted to find that my favourite soya mince was on offer. I stocked up and now my freezer has 2 big bags of the stuff! I decided that for dinner tonight I had better use up some of it but fancied making something other than spaghetti bolognaise.

So I decided to make a stir fry! I used some different veggies that I had in, some soya mince (obviously) and loads of soy sauce and served it over some yummy udon noodles. It was nice as the mince which added a very different texture to the tofu I usually use for stir fries. The only negative was that the mince absorbed a lot of the soy sauce, which made it very flavourful but a little dry. I think next time I would use something like a black bean sauce, which I find is easily absorbed by the ingredients but also coats them nicely, making the dish more moist.

Some meals I have been enjoying this week

I have been so busy with uni work this week that I haven't been updating very regularly, so this is a bumper post! First up is spaghetti bolognaise- with soya mince of course! I really enjoy hearty meals like this when it is cold so I think I will be having this a few times again next week! I served it in this dish as I often find on a plate that spaghetti gets cold quickly and I was eating it on my bed in front of the TV so wanted it to stay hot awhile!

Next up is a lentil curry which I really enjoyed. I didn't have much in the cupboard except some green lentils and a jar of curry sauce (Madras- very spicy : ) ) so thought I would combine the two and serve it over wholewheat cous cous (something I didn't know I had at the back of my cupboard!)

I think that this was probably my fave meal of the week! I made a tomato sauce and then added some Cheddareese to it to make it nice and creamy. I served it with wholewheat pasta shells (which I will not be buying again as I found when cooking the pasta that it all stuck together!) The picture does not make it look tasty at all but it was really yummy!

A delicious meal out with friends

It was one on my omni friend's birthday today so we went out for dinner at Pizza Express to celebrate. I had already checked in advance that the pizza bases were vegan so knew that I could request a pizza without cheese for my meal.

I decided to opt for the garlic mushroom pizza and was asked whether I would like another topping as I did not want cheese. I immediately thought of spinach, which I think goes really nicely with mushrooms and the waiter informed me that this would be no problem. I was very pleased with my choice when the pizza arrived as it looked really tasty and certainly did not disappoint! I would definitely order this again!

Exams are over- back to regular blogging!

Although I haven't been very inventive with my meals of late I have been enjoying them! I have mainly been making things that are very quick to prepare and the curry above is one of those meals.

The sauce was shop-bought and was a Rogan Josh curry sauce so was a nice tomato based one that is medium in terms of spicyness. Unfortunately I didn't have any fresh chillies in otherwise I would certainly have added them to give it an extra chilli kick but I still enjoyed the meal nonethless. I used a can of beans (unfortunately I now cannot remember what type they were!. I served the curry over bulgar wheat as usual (cooks in only 10 minutes!) and added carrots, green beans and cauliflower to the curry. I always add vegetables very near the end because I really like them pretty crunchy!

Last night I was really worried about my exam today (which actually wasn't too bad luckily : ) ) so was craving comfort food for dinner!

I knew I wanted to have something involving my favourite 'cheese' but wanted to make something other than macaroni and cheese for a change. So I decided to make a tomato and cheese sauce with a tin of chopped tomatoes and the cheese. I decided to serve it with ready cooked noodles for quickness. The noodles were udon noodles so were lovely and soft and went well with the consistency of the sauce. Overall I was pleased with how it turned out- it certainly hit the spot for me and was very speedy to make!

Long time no post

So I haven't posted about any of my meals I have been eating recently (well only like a week but that is a long time for me since I started this blog! My lack of posting is for 2 reasons:

1. My camera has run out of batteries and I keep forgetting to buy some new ones.

2. I am currently revising for exams at the moment and am generally eating pretty boring meals that are quick and easy to make but not very exciting to blog about.

Anyway I hope to be posting about a meal in the near future with some pictures!

Yet another post today- my lunch and dinner!

I usually only post what I eat for dinner so thought for a change I would show what I tend to eat for lunch. This was what I ate today. It was a tomato and bean soup with kale and was really tasty. I can't remember what beans I used (I was especially hungry when making it so just grabbed the nearest tin to me in my cupboard!). They provided a nice contrast in texture to the kale, which was slightly crunchy. I am not always a big fan of kale as I find the taste can be a little bitter but in the soup it was not bitter at all and worked well.

For a treat this evening my family and I decided to order in an Indian takeaway. I chose to eat a 'Balti vegetable dhansak', which was a mixed vegetable curry made with lentils. The picture is not very good I'm afraid (I couldn't wait to tuck in!)

I also ordered an Indian bread called chapatti, which is a flat bread that is not fried and it mopped up the sauce in the curry very nicely! I would love to try and recreate a similar curry myself but fear the result would not be half as tasty!

Pasta with 'cheese' and mushroom sauce

I really enjoyed my vegan version of 'macaroni cheese' that I recently made so decided to make a similar dish with a few alterations. I opted for spahetti (wholewheat) rather than pasta twists and decided to add mushrooms, which I think are especially nice in a creamy sauce. I made the cheese sauce the same as before and added the mushrooms nearer the end as I tend to find they don't need much cooking. I think I preferred the dish with the alterations and would definitely make it this way again, although I might try adding spinach, which I also really enjoy in creamy sauces.

Tasty fajita dinner

I really enjoyed this dinner! I made a spicy tomato sauce with some fresh chillies and chopped up some (vegan of course) sausages and put them in the sauce. The result was a very spicy (I used lots of chillies!) filling for fajitas (wheat based flat breads). I have made a similar filling before with beans but really enjoyed the sausages instead as they have such a nice texture and are very yummy! This was so easy to make so I will definitely be enjoying it in the not too distant future!

A tasty breakfast of pancakes with banana

I usually have either porridge or weetabix with soya milk for breakfast but I decided to break with tradition the other day and make myself some pancakes. I made up the recipe myself- it involved white plain flour, a powdered egg substitute, soya milk and I decided to top them with a chopped banana. As bananas are very sweet I decided not to use sugar in the pancake mixture. I attempted to make a smily face with the banana with one of the pancakes but it came out a little scary-looking. I thought I would post the picture anyway! The most important thing though is that they were very tasty and I would definitely make them again!

Baking disaster!

As I am not very confident at baking I decided to pick up a cake mix at the supermarket the other day. The mix was for 'fairy cakes' which I thought would be difficult to mess up. The box stated that you just had to add egg and water. Obviously as I don't eat eggs I needed to use a substitute. I have some powdered egg replacer that I have used before when making pancakes so thought that it would be appropriate for using for my fairy cakes.

As you can see from the picture my cakes did not turn out well at all! They didn't rise so I ended up with some very dense cakes that did not look appealing to eat at all! As they didn't rise properly they weren't flat on the top so icing them was really difficult. However, my frustration at how badly the cakes came out meant that I did rather take out my anger when icing the cakes and just threw icing in the general direction of the cakes! Anyway lesson learned- don't buy cake mixes and don't assume that egg replacer will always work in recipes.

Despite my disappointment, my family finished the cakes over the course of 24 hours so they can't have tasted all that bad.