The Ordinary Vegan - Marmite

I get it! You either love it or you hate it, but Marmite as well as being vegan is full of great B vitamins and is a versatile ingredient. It's not just for spreading on toast. It tastes great in paninis, vegan cheese toasties, wrapped up in a pastry parcel, stirred into baked beans, add a teaspoon into soups, stews and casseroles too. You can add boiling water and make a yeasty drink and can spread it on crackers or dip breadsticks into it. Marmite is sold at all supermarkets, convenience stores, some newsagents and petrol stations.

Click here for one of my Marmite recipes.

How do you eat your Marmite?

Come back tomorrow for another Vegan Recipe of the Week.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

The Ordinary Vegan - Jus-Rol Pastry

This week on TOV, I am sharing one of my fridge staples. Jus-Rol pastry comes in blocks of puff pastry, shortcrust pastry and filo pastry. It also comes in ready rolled sheets, both of which can be kept in the fridge for around a week. You can also buy the pastry from the freezer cabinets in the supermarkets or freeze the chilled pastry yourself. The pastry is labelled suitable for vegans and is Vegetarian Society approved also. 

I find this pastry so versatile and it is great for baking tarts or making a quick pie for dinner. You can use it for sweet and savoury dishes. Jus-Rol is sold in all major supermarkets and many smaller grocery stores. It sells for around £1.50 per packet but is often on offer for £1 or 2 for £2.

Here are some of the dishes I have created using the pastry:

Puff Pastry Pizza

Puff Pastry Parcels

Vegetable Pot Pie

Mince Pies

Mince Pies

Mince Pies

Vegetable Pie

Lattice Mince Tarts

Jam Tarts

Come back tomorrow for a recipe using the Jus Rol puff pastry.

Let me know what you use your ready-made pastry for in the comments below.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

The Ordinary Vegan - Innocent Veg Pots

This week on TOV, I'm looking at convenience food. I have hardly been at home over the last few weeks as I am caring for a terminally ill family member, and it is at times like this when we may not have the time or inclination to cook that we turn to convenience food. Whilst we know convenience food is usually not very good for us and full of processed rubbish, I have found Innocent Veg Pots to be a vegan friendly convenience food without the rubbish. They contain no artificial colourings or flavourings. They are low in fat and high in fibre and taste lovely.

These pots are healthy, full of fresh ingredients, they can be microwaved, warmed in a pan over the hob or even over a fire or BBQ. They contain 3 of your 5-a-day and 80-90% of your fibre GDA. All of the ingredients are vegetables, grains and spices.They come in 8 different varieties and are Vegetarian Society approved. They are labelled as suitable for vegans and are available at all major supermarkets. They retail for around £3.90 each but can be found on offer at the moment for £2.00 each at Tesco and 2 for £6.00 at Sainsbury's. So, they are not cheap but they are healthy and convenient and are a better option than going to a takeaway.

I have tried the Mexican Chilli and Indian Daal in the last week and they were both delicious! If home cooked vegan food is more your thing, come back tomorrow for another Vegan Recipe of the Week.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

The Ordinary Vegan - Henderson's Relish

This week on TOV I am talking sauce! My favourite cooking sauce that is!

Henderson's Relish is a spicy sauce made in Sheffield and is similar in taste to Worcestershire Sauce but without the anchovies. It has been made in Sheffield for over 100 years and is Vegetarian Society Approved and listed in the Animal Free Shopper Guide produced by The Vegan Society. I use this sauce in most of my savoury dishes - soups, Shepherd's Pie, chillis, lasagne filling, vegan cheese on toast etc. It is a versatile sauce and can be used for flavouring many recipes. It is also gluten-free.

As far as I know it is mainly sold in Yorkshire, The Peak District and the surrounding areas in food shops, farm shops, supermarkets, markets and even gift shops. However, it doesn't seem to be widely available outside of that area. They do offer online ordering on their website and some other online retailers also deliver across the UK. There is a list of stockists here. It retails for around £1.85 a bottle and has a shelf life of around three years - but I promise you it won't stay around that long in your cupboard once you try it!

Let me know if you have tried Henderson's Relish, what dishes are your favourites to add it to? Leave a comment below. If you love cooking new vegan dishes, come back tomorrow for the Vegan Recipe of the Week.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

The Ordinary Vegan - Sweets/Candy

This week I treated myself to a gorgeous Jamie Oliver storage jar, which I found in a sale at Home Sense at the Trafford Centre in Manchester. 

I have been discovering vegan sweets and buying them, putting them in a cupboard and forgetting about them. So, I thought, buy a pretty jar, put the sweets on display in my kitchen, and then I can nibble on one when I fancy (bad for my waistline!) and offer them out to friends and family when they visit (better for my waistline!), and show them just how yummy vegan sweets can be! In addition, all of the sweets I buy are from regular sweets shops, newsagents, grocery stores and supermarkets. Ordinary sweets which happen to be vegan, that's what TOV is all about!

The first two layers of sweets in my jar are Starburst (or as anyone over 25 will call them - Opal Fruits!) - I have a ordinary yellow tube packet, with the 'Original Flavours' and a share bag of 'Flavour Morphs'. I should point out that the US version of Starburst are made with a different recipe containing gelatine and therefore they are not vegan, but the UK site states that all of the UK flavours are vegan. Strange! Anyway, these are sold in pretty much every sweet-selling shop in the UK.

The third layer of sweets in my jar are made by Goody Good Stuff and are their 'Sour Fruit Salad' bag, which are jelly-like sweets, coated in sour sugar and are yummy. Goody Good Stuff sell eight varieties of sweets, all are vegetarian, using all natural colours and flavours. In addition, all are fat free, meat free, dairy free, alcohol free, gluten free, egg free, nut free, soy free, wheat free and gelatine free. So, they are great for people with allergies and food intolerances. However four of the eight varieties do contain beeswax and therefore are not suitable for vegans. The vegan varieties are: 'Cola Breeze', 'Summer Peaches', 'Sour Mix and Match' and 'Sour Fruit Salad'. These are sold in all of the major supermarkets and in some health food stores too.

The top layer of my jar is the 'Super Sour Chery Sweets' I found in the sweet shop in Manchester's Arndale Centre called 'A Quarter of Sweets' - read my review here. 

I also eat Jelly Tots, Dib Dabs, Cherry Drops, Love Hearts, Palma Violets, Trebor Softmints, Rainbow Drops, Pear Drops and TicTacs. All of these are found in most UK sweet shops and supermarkets.

If you have trouble getting hold of any of these in your local shops, you can order them online from Sweet Expectations, which are a Vegetarian Society approved online sweet shop, who only sell vegetarian sweets and  have checked every item they sell with the Vegetarian Society to make sure they are fully vegetarian and they have a useful 'Vegan Sweets Tab' on the side and top of their website which filters the sweets down further into vegan only brands and varieties. They also have a physical store in Kent, which I have never visited but if you are local to that area it may be worth going in for a browse.

So that's my guide to ordinary vegan sweets, if your favourite isn't on the list, leave me a comment below and share your favourite vegan sweets.

If you fancy something homemade and healthy instead of vegan junk food, come back tomorrow for my Vegan Recipe of the Week!

Big Vegan Love,

VVx