Vegan Recipe of the Week - Apple and Peach Cinnamon Crumble

                                  

There is nothing like a warm fruity crumble with custard or ice cream to make everything seem better. This one combines the tartness of apples with the sweetness of peaches for the perfect combo!

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

Topping:
225g Plain Flour
90g Caster Sugar
Pinch of Salt
1 tsp Cinnamon
115g Vegan Butter (I use hard Stork)
2 Tbsp Demerara Sugar

Filling:
3 Red Apples
2 Peaches or Nectarines
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Vanilla Paste
100g Soft Brown Sugar
100ml Water
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice

To Serve:

Vegan custard or ice-cream

Method:

Peel, core and chop the red apples into small chunks.

Peel the peaches and cut off the flesh into small pieces.

Put the rest of the filling ingredients without the fruit into a saucepan on a medium heat and stir until combined and the sugar has dissolved. Then add the fruit and very gently simmer for around 5 minutes until the apples are soft.

Put a lid on the saucepan and remove from the heat. Preheat the oven to 200C/180C Fan. Meanwhile make the topping.

Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, then add the caster sugar, salt and cinnamon. Stir to combine.

Cut the cold vegan butter into chunks and rub them into the dry mixture until you have a breadcrumb consistency.

Spoon your fruit filling into an oven dish and then sprinkle liberally with the crumble topping. Sprinkle the demerara sugar over the top on and bake in the centre of the oven for 25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and serve hot with vegan custard or ice cream.

Eat and Enjoy!

What are your favourite pie and crumble fillings? Let me know in the comments below.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx

Vegan Vox Reviews...October's UK Vegan Food Swap

This month is my third month taking part in the UK Vegan Food Swap. As usual the lovely ladies at tohappyvegans.com paired us up with our partners. This month I sent my parcel to Ben and he said that he loved to cook, so I sent him the ingredients and a recipe for Roasted Pumpkin Seed Pesto - the recipe will be available on my blog next week if you fancy trying it out for yourself.

As well as the ingredients for the pesto, I sent Ben some Frank Bars, Liquorice, Vegusto Cheese and Cofresh Lentil Chips.

My sending partner this month was a lovely lady called Jade. Jade sent me some fab goodies, some which I love and some which I have never tried before, which is exciting. We have also decided to remain pen pals which is great - vegan food and vegan friends - my two favourite things! :-)

Here's what I received in my package from Jade:

First I got a lovely card with a detailed letter introducing Jade and the choices that she sent me. It was very thoughtful and kind.

Next I got some sachets of miso soup - perfect for a quick lunch on the run.

The next item was a lovely choc orange bar from Morrisons, this tasted just like Terry's Chocolate Oranges from my non vegan days - lovely!

The next items I opened were some snack bars and hummus chips - great snacks for nights in by the fire or to keep in my bag when out and about.

My next treats were fruit based - healthy and tasty. Orange flavour raisins and some Bukhara raisins. Yum!

I had a selection of fruit and herbal teas:

Next I had some chocolate treats - handmade vegan chocolates and some chocolate strands for baking and on vegan ice cream.

I got some satay cooking mix which I can't wait to try with some tofu and rice.

And my final treats were these animal biscuits and wasabi chips:

I haven't tried all of my treats yet but the ones I have tried were lovely - so another successful swap this month, I'm already looking forward to the next one. Thanks to Ben and Jade and to tohappyvegans for organising it.

If you haven't signed up to the swap yet and would like to do so, please click here to sign up.

I hope to see some of you at the West Midlands Vegan Festival this weekend in Wolverhampton and it's not too late to email me for the meet up. If you fancy joining us for a drink please email veganvoxblog@gmail.com. I will be sending out details of the meet up tomorrow by email.

Have a great weekend.

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