Vegan Vox Reviews...Wheaty Spacebar Chorizo

I first tried one of these Wheaty Spacebar Chorizos when I saw them for sale at Unicorn Grocery in Manchester. I was dubious, mainly because I have never eat chorizo before, not even a meat one, as I became vegetarian at a very young age. So, I wasn't sure what to expect. However, once I opened it and tried it, I loved it! These chorizos are spicy and moist and so full of flavour. They are spiced with paprika and air-cured for an authentic Spanish taste. I'm officially a fan! 

I chopped up this first one and put it onto my Vegan Vox Pizza, it was delicious. I have also used it chopped into my Patatas Bravas recipe and in simple tomato and basil pasta sauce.

As well as being a really versatile ingredient, these Spacebars are great just as they are - straight from the packet, as a tasty snack on the go. They are perfect for lunch boxes, travelling or to keep in the car for long journeys. They retail at around £1.10 each and can be purchased from most online vegan retailers, independent health food stores and vegan grocery stores. I wish they sold them in a shop near me, but each time I'm in Manchester for a visit or an event, I pop in to Unicorn and stockpile them! They have a long shelf life.

So if you have never tried vegan chorizo before, I would grab a couple of Spacebars with your next vegan shopping trip or online order and add some Spanish flavour into your vegan cooking! 5/5

These are the ingredients:

• Ingredients: water, wheat protein* (26%), red bell pepper*, coconut fat*, yeast extract, onion*, spices*, rock salt, thickening agent locust bean gum*, smoke. * = certified organic.

I'll be at London VegFest on Saturday this week - 5th October, 2013 - so I hope to see some of you there! If you are not going, I'll be reviewing my day at the event next week here on Vegan Vox Reviews. If you have missed any of my previous reviews, there is now a handy Reviews tab at the top of the blog so you can easily access them all from one place.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

Vegan Vox Reviews...Unicorn Grocery, Manchester.

Unicorn Grocery Workers' Co-operative, Manchester.

Hello vegan friends. Over the last two weeks on 'Vegan Vox Reviews', I have reviewed places which I visited on my day trip to Manchester including my review of V Revolution. Last week, I briefly mentioned Unicorn Grocery, but I wanted to save the photos and main details for this post.

Unicorn Grocery (what a fab name BTW!) was the last place we visited on our trip to Manchester as it is a few miles out of the city centre in Chorlton. It deserves a post of its own as it was so amazing.

Seriously, this shop alone could make me consider moving to Manchetser, along with all of their other wonderful vegan friendly places, of course!

The shop is huge for a health food/whole food store, it is the size of a small supermarket. They have rows and rows of fresh organic fruit and veg as you walk in, but the best thing about this shop is everything is vegan! That's right, no label checking for me, it was like being able to walk around a supermarket and put anything I like in the trolley! This is a novelty indeed for a vegan but when the shop is full of such an amazing array of produce, it actually makes it even better.

There was a porch entrance area with plants and garden items and then as you enter the store, you are overwhelmed by lots of fresh fruit and veg, all organic, all colourful and smelling delicious and at reasonable prices too. Once you are past the fruit and veg section there are fridges full of tahini, hummus, salsas, sauces, dips, cheeses, and a whole host of other refrigerated goodies, followed by freezers with pies, vegan ice creams, cheesecakes, meat substitutes and ready meals. There is an organic bakery in store too with an array of fresh bread and cakes.

There are shelves full of canned goods, jars of preserves, oils, vinegars, wines and beers, pastas, rices, pulses, nuts, beans, savoury and sweet snack foods, toiletries and skin care products, a deli counter with olives, salads, pies, pasties, sandwiches and rolls, vitamins, cleaning products, companion animal foods and even a free apple cart for children to take a free apple whilst shopping! 

There are recycling points, compost bins, reusable bags for sale and so much more. There is a recipe stand with take-away leaflets of recipes for you to make at home after buying the ingredients you need in the shop. 

There were lots of friendly staff on hand to help with any queries and to fill the stock up on the shelves. You literally could do your entire weekly shop in here without needing to visit one of the big supermarkets! Please open one near me!!

Anyway, we had a good hour-long browse around the store and these were my purchases, although I would have liked to have bought much more!

Unicorn grocery can be found at: 

Unicorn Grocery

89 Albany Road
Chorlton
Manchester 
M21 0BN

Their opening hours are:

Monday	Closed all Day
Tuesday	9:30 - 7:00
Wednesday	9:30 - 7:00
Thursday	9:30 - 7:00
Friday	9:30 - 7:00
Saturday	9:00 - 6:00
Sunday	11:00 - 5:00

You can find them online at: http://www.unicorn-grocery.co.uk/index.php

If you are ever in the North West of England, please pop in to Unicorn and show them some vegan love. The world would be a better place if we had one of these shops in every town.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

Vegan Vox Travels..to Manchester, UK.

Last week I reviewed the fabulous V Revolution in Manchester and promised to highlight some of the other vegan friendly places I visited whilst in the city. So this week 'Vegan Vox Reviews...' becomes 'Vegan Vox Travels...' as I will give you a guide to vegan goodies I purchased and where I purchased them from in Manchester.

We started off our day in Manchester in and around the Arndale Centre. Whilst a very typical large city centre shopping mall, there was a couple of places which piqued my interest. The first was an old fashioned sweet shop called A Quarter of Sweets selling jars of sweets, retro sweets and international sweet brands. Now, sweets are something that can be difficult for us vegans as there are lots of animal by-products used in sweets for colouring and gelling. This sweet shop has catered for us though by sticking V stickers on all jars which are vegetarian and having ingredient list labels on all jars too. This made it really easy to check which sweets were suitable and not have to walk away because I can't be sure which sweets are vegan. Success! I bought some super sour cherry sweets and super sour apple sweets.

Next, me and Mr Vox walked along the main high street and into a newly refurbished branch of Holland and Barrett. This was a super-sized branch with its own pick and mix seeds and nuts, a jelly bean bar full of vegan friendly varieties - no gelatine in sight - and an oil and vinegar counter where you can decant your own. There were lots of fridges and freezers stocking the usual vegan 'meats' and 'cheeses' and ready meals too. I bought some Vegideli Mince from here for my Vegan Vox Lasagne recipe.

Our next port of call was the Northern Quarter - full of quirky stores selling fashion, music, art, accessories and a host of coffee shops and cafes. We stopped off for a quick drink at Home Sweet Home, a cool retro coffee shop which sells veggie full English breakfasts, and browsed around all of the lovely independent stores including the wonderful Afflecks. The cafe on the top floor of Afflecks also has a veggie breakfast option.

After stopping for our lunch at V Revolution, which I reviewed last week (click here) we wandered down towards the Metropolitan University Campus and to Eighth Day Co-Op, which is an all-vegetarian health food store, cafe and take away.

There were lots of gorgeous treats in here for me to purchase and eat. Unfortunately, as we had not long had lunch, we didn't try the cafe but me and Mr Vox went on a snack mission and bought some yummy treats instead which we could take back with us.

As you can see from these photos, we had a huge choice and they stocked a wide range of whole foods, canned goods, fresh food, pastries, dairy replacements, ready meals and snacks. This is what I ended up purchasing.

We sat on the grass in the park opposite the shop and shared the Booja-Booja Chocolate Vegan Ice-Cream which was so good, I wish I could have took some home with me. I also took home some Cofresh lentil chips, Mini-Moos rice milk mint chocolate bar, a Nakd Ginger Bread raw bar and some Whole Earth organic lemonade. A good shopping experience but as the store was vegetarian and not vegan, I still had to check labels and make sure what I was buying was suitable.

This led us onto our final stop for the day which was a few miles out of the city centre into Chorlton and to the wonderfully named Unicorn Grocery - an all vegan wholefood co-op! I loved Unicorn so much  am going to dedicate an entire post to it next week, but here are a sample of the treats which I purchased there:

Overall, I had a great day out in Manchester visiting some of the vegan shops and restaurants. I wish I could have stayed longer as there were many more places I wanted to try out. I guess I'll have to save those until next time. I love you Manchester!

Big Vegan Love,

VVx