Friday 29 December 2006

Chinese Meal Photo

I was using up the black bean sauce tonight and though that I would take a photo so anyone looking at the site can see how delicious it looked.




The sauce was a Sainsburys one. I don't shop there a lot as they are pretty expensive and my local store is quite small, but I do like the fact that it labels well for vegans. I just wish my nearest Co-op was nearer too as I always have to travel a fair way to go there but always stock up on washing powder, dishwasher tablets etc while I'm there as at least I know that they are vegan and they often have bogof offers on them.

I have taken the Christmas theme off the recipes for vegans website today. I'm not sure if it is too early really, but I do feel like Christmas is over and can't wait to take my decorations down. In fact I have even started taking the paper off my hallway. It will be a huge job to redecorate it so I'm not really sure what I was thinking. Does anyone know about whether paint, wallpaper etc are vegan? I am sure I will end up getting the cheapest paint I can as I'm on a budget. The trouble with having a limited income is that being vegan in every aspect of your lift can be expensive. Perhaps some of you have ways of helping with this.

Thursday 28 December 2006

Vegan Success

The chinese meal went down really well last night. I did sweet and sour vegetables, mushrooms with cashews and spring onions in black bean sauce with noodles and rice. Everyone had seconds and enjoyed it a lot. Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos.

I do have a photo of the kids dessert though, which is also todays recipe on the recipes for vegans site http://www.recipesforvegans.co.uk.



They are delicious chocolate crispy cakes. They are very easy for the kids to help you make, and never last very long!

I was looking through a vegan hamper I had for Christmas today. One of the items are a packet of biscuits which on the front say they are vegan, but on the back by the ingredients say they may contain traces of egg. How can this possibly be vegan, and how can they get away with calling them vegan? Does anyone have any idea how the labelling of products work, and whether it means that other items that may not necessarily be vegan could be labelled as such?

Wednesday 27 December 2006

Post Christmas Cheer

I had a really good Christmas with the children getting many more presents than they needed as usual.


On Boxing Day I did a completely vegan Christmas meal, with sprouts and shallots, carrots, peas, roast potatoes, parsnips, nut roast, stuffing, bread sauce and onion gravy followed by Christmas pudding and custard. It all went well apart from the parsnips that needed to cook for longer.


I didn't take a photo of the whole meal, but here are a few selected shots.




The kids especially liked the food and tucked in to double helpings of roast potatoes (that I cooked with garlic and rosemary) and gravy. For a large selection of my Christmas recipes go to http://www.recipesforvegans.co.uk/christmas.html.


We were all extremely full afterwards so today we have had a lovely long walk and a light salad for lunch. I will be cooking a vegan chinese meal tonight so will take photos later and let you know how it went with my meat eating relatives.

Thursday 21 December 2006

First Entry

I have only ever read 2 blogs before, so am a complete novice at this, so please forgive me as I will have to learn as I go along.

My reasons for starting this blog are to share my experiences of bringing up vegan children, and to let people know about my vegan recipe site (http://www.recipesforvegans.co.uk) where you can find a new vegan recipe every day.

I have 2 daughters age 5 and 2 who are both vegans. We have no real problems with being vegan, most people are very helpful and try to give us vegan food when they can. However problems arise and it would be helpful if other vegans might be able to help with solutions when things come up, and this is part of the reason for the blog.

Todays new recipe on my vegan site is mince pie cakes, which was made up by my sister, who is a vegetarian and a keen cook. Here is a photo of them.



She makes up most of the recipes for the site. We have lots of Christmas recipes on the site now some of which I am going to use for my own Christmas meal.