Tuesday 30 January 2007

Last chance to enter our competition

There is only 2 days left for you to enter the competition on Recipes for Vegans for the best vegan recipe. There is still a chance that you could be the lucky winner of some plamil bars of chocolate. Take a look at the site for more details.


We launched our new valentine recipe section yesterday and already have a small selection of recipes ready for you to look at and will be printed one a day until February the 14th to give you plenty of ideas of ways to tempt you partner especially if they aren't vegan and you want something extra special. Today's recipe is chocolate dipped strawberries, delicious and simple to make.

Sorry I can't seem to upload the photos today, you will just have to click through to the site tosee how delicious the strawberries look.

Sunday 28 January 2007

Lovely Wedding Food

I was at a wedding over the weekend and they catered really well for me and my children. It makes me wonder why conventional restaurants struggle so badly, when simple dishes can easily be made suitable for vegans. It does seem that a lot of the cheaper restaurants can't produce vegetarian options without covering them with cheese. I would love to hear from anyone who has had good experiences at well know restaurants. I have been considering adding a section onto recipes for vegans about eating out and listing vegan options in big chain restaurants (trying to keep them updated when the menus change). Would anyone find this useful or perhaps this information already exists on the net and I have missed it.

Valentines day is in a couple of weeks and the recipes for vegans website will be concentrating on recipes for this occasion until the day. Some photos below show what sort of things are in store so keep coming back for lots of tempting foods. The new valentines menu page will be going up this evening.




Wednesday 24 January 2007

Valentines Ideas

I have been busy cooking up valentines dishes to feature on the Recipes for Vegans website at the start of February. I am also going to think of some pancake ideas too, as pancake day is soon after. It is keeping me busy anyway, but not doing much for my waistline as, of course, I have to eat each recipe to make sure it is nice!




Today's new recipe is a lovely warming lunch, Fried Peanut Butter Sandwiches. I love them although they are really high in calories. I usually serve them on a bed of lettuce and cucumber to make them more refreshing (and also to convince myself I'm eating something healthy). You can also have them with jam as the photo below shows.





Must get back to thinking about valentines (although right now my mind is being distracted by the thought of possible snow). If anyone has any valentines recipes they would like to share they could enter then into the competition on the website.
http://www.recipesforvegans.co.uk/competition.html

Monday 22 January 2007

Food labelling

I was having a pot noodle last night claiming to be chicken but was labelled as suitable for vegans so obviously didn't contain any. I was wondering how they were able to claim it was chicken when it contained none, when soya milks are no longer allowed to label as being milk because it doesn't come from an animal?

Does anyone have any views on eating products such as that one, which is making the manufacturers think you like the chicken taste, when really I just bought it because it was convient and it was suitable for vegans? My view is that buying vegan foods is encouraging them to make them even if they are really intended for an animal eating consumer.

Its pretty cold today. If you fancy something warming when you get in from work, on Recipes for Vegans there are some nice warming soups such as Carrot and Corriander Soup, Cauliflower 'cheese' Soup, Chinese Style Soup, Leek and Potato Soup, Miso Noodle Soup, Pumpkin Soup, Spicy Parsnip Soup, Tasty Vegetable Soup or for something more filling try our warming winter stew (pictured below) or a courgette and tomato jacket potato.


Saturday 20 January 2007

Thanks to the people who have entered the competition on the Recipes for Vegans site. Keep the entries coming, you never know you might be the lucky winner.

Todays recipe on the site has kindly been donated by Vegetarians in Paradise and is a lovely looking Brassica Slaw:




If you have a recipe site and would like to donate a recipe in return for a link to your site you can contact me on recipesforvegans@yahoo.co.uk.

It was great to recieve a comment saying someone had tried out the gingerbread men and liked them. It is really nice to know that people are appreciating the efforts of putting up new recipes.

Thursday 18 January 2007

Don't forget to Enter

Don't forget that we are running a competition of Recipes for Vegans at the moment for the best vegan recipe. You can win some lovely chocolate, so get thinking. It doesn't matter how simple the recipe is, you could still win, so it is worth a try.

Enter here
http://www.recipesforvegans.co.uk/competition.html

Wednesday 17 January 2007

can you ever be 100% vegan?

As a result of the comment yesterday about cut of dates for animal testing, I was wondering whether it was ever possible to be 100% vegan. I know I try very hard, but there are certainly circumstances when I have made exceptions, and I am still learning that some everyday things I use aren't vegan as even after 10 years of being a vegan I still don't know everything about it.

It would be interesting to know if there is anyone out there that can say for sure that they always use vegan products in everything they do, as I think it would be very difficult. I'm not saying we should ever give up though, even just having a vegan diet makes a big difference.

Todays new recipe on Recipes for Vegans is going to be vanilla biscuits.



These look lovely and light and if anyone bakes them they must let me know how they come out as I can't eat sugar so can't try them. My sister baked them and sent me the recipe and said they were delicious.
If you have any comments on any other recipes from the site that you have tried out it would be great to hear them.

Monday 15 January 2007

My eldest daugher had two parties over the weekend. I was thrilled with how accomodating both the mums were with giving her special food. One mum bought vegan cheese and special jelly and biscuits for her and the other got special food for her party bag. It is great that she is being treated so well, especially as the vegan foods are often so expensive. Luckily they were foods that Abbie liked, she is usually really fussy. Today I took the easy option for their dinner and made their current favourite - noodles with stir fry veggies.


I am shopping on a budget at the moment and was wondering if anyone knew whether any of the very cheap washing powders and fabric softeners from the supermarkets were suitable for vegans.

Thursday 11 January 2007

Thanks for the Feedback

Thanks for your feedback on this blog. The pages on Recipes for Vegans now all have printable versions which should make it much easier for people. I hadn't really thought about people wanting to print them out before (maybe because I haven't currently got a printer myself) so it was great that through this I found out how the site could be more useful to people.
If you have any other feedback I would really like to hear it.

On a totally different subject I am currently searching for a new ballet leotard and shoes for my daughter. It is a huge dilema that I have to get her leather shoes. Currently I just buy 2nd hand shoes which I feel aren't as bad. I know there is one vegan alternative but it is so expensive I can't afford to do it for her. I was going to send her with no shoes but I don't want her to feel different to everyone else. Has anyone else had this problem and how did they get around it?

Tuesday 9 January 2007

Printable Recipes

Thanks for the feedback on the Recipes for Vegans site.

I am currently in the process of uploading new versions of each recipe that will be easier to print. If you click at the bottom of each recipe you will click into a printable page. I hope this will help with the problems people have been having. I would appreciate any feedback on this.


Today's new recipe is something I could do with eating now after working flat out on the site for nearly 4 hours its a sausage sandwich.
In fact thinking about it I do have all the ingredients....so I'm off to have a lovely supper.

Monday 8 January 2007

Competition Time

Today I have launched a competition of the Recipes for Vegans website. The person who comes up with the best vegan recipe this month can win some chocolate kindly supplied by Plamil. All recipes entered have a chance of being featured on the website. Take a look at the competition page for all the details.




I am currently thinking about the design of the site as a result of the comment yesterday that the recipes were difficult to print out. I was wondering if anyone else had this problem and whether you had any ideas of a better way of displaying the pages.

Sunday 7 January 2007

Wild Weekend

I thought weekends were supposed to be relaxing but after going to a kids play place yesterday, a noisy museum today and having the kids disturb my sleep in between I'm feeling quite tired.

I made an easy dinner tonight with veggies and dip with some nice couscous as it was easy to prepare but would give me some energy.


My eldest daughter loved our picnic style dinner but the youngest was so tired she didn't seem to have the energy to eat it. I think running round the museum like a mad thing wore her out.

Tonights recipe on the recipes for vegans is spicy satay vegetables. I thought of the idea when the girls said they wanted peanuts for dinner but I wanted them to eat some vegetables. It is a bit of an unusual combination, but it got my girls eating their veggies so it was worth it.





It would be great to hear from any of you that have tried any of the reicpes from the site and see if you liked them and found them easy to prepare.

Friday 5 January 2007

School Meals

I have a bit of a dilemma regarding school meals. My daughter qualifies for free school meals but because she is vegan they can't cater for her so she takes in a packed lunch. The school have now asked me to fill out the form to claim for her meals as it is more money for them. I was wondering if anyone knew whether this money would be used to supplement the meals and therefore be indirectly given back to the meat and diary industry or whether the school just spends the money on whatever it wants.

I am trying to lose the few pounds I put on at Christmas. The recipe on the vegan site today (until this evening anyway) is pine nut salad. I found the pine nuts make me feel more full than just having a salad on its own so it is more satisying, but a healthier option than a sandwich for my lunch.



Tonights new recipe is going to be pepper pizzas. The kids love these as they are great colours and they can easily pick them up. You can hide all kinds of healthy veggies in the sauce under the peppers and they won't notice them. If they don't like peppers you can always top them with mushrooms and sweetcorn instead.


Hope you enjoy trying the recipes. If you have any of your own, especially ones that my fussy kids will enjoy let me know.

Tuesday 2 January 2007

Spicy Noodles

The girls asked for their normal boring dinner tonight - noodles, so I decided to spice them up a bit, and amazingly they both loved them.





I added some ginger, chilli and soy sauce to the vegetables and mixed it all together. If you want the whole recipe you can find it here http://www.recipesforvegans.co.uk/chinesenoodlestirfry.html

Tomorrow my eldest returns to school. I am desperately trying to think of some interesting things to put in her lunchbox. I don't find the sandwich fillings too difficult, as she tends to be happy with the same things all week. However she soon gets bored of her little snacks. I usually vary between fruit bars, chopped up tinned peaches, a handful of cashews, or a few seeds. I wonder if anyone has any other ideas at all.

Monday 1 January 2007

Happy New Year

I hope you all had a great new year. I had a friend over and he taught me a lovely new recipe for vegetable gumbo. I've never tried it before but I will certainly make it again.

The recipe is at http://www.recipesforvegans.co.uk/vegetablegumbo.html



We also had some lovely chocolates from Hotel Chocolate that I had as a present. The box was totally vegan and is really delicious. Unfortunately you can only get it from their shops and not their website but they do some nice chocolate on there in their vegan section
Hotel Chocolate Vegan Page
Enjoy your new year, and if you have any recipes you would like to share that I can put on my vegan recipe site I would be happy to hear from you recipesforvegans@yahoo.co.uk.