Vegan Vox Reviews...Lush

I was lucky enough to receive this gorgeous Lush gift set for my birthday from a family member. I see Lush as a real treat, lovely fresh products, the majority of which are vegan and they label all of their vegan products in store and on the packaging, so it is easy when shopping. The products smell great and leave my skin feeling fab. The sugar scrub is a great exfoliator, the lemon soap bar is so refreshing, the olive shower gel is super moisturising and the smiley face massage bar is lovely at the end of a tiring day.

I like buying gifts for people from Lush, as it is a nice way to introduce non-vegans to cruelty-free beauty and bath products. I always end up with a little treat for myself at the same time :-). There are Lush stores all over the UK, click here to find your nearest shop. They also offer online ordering and gift wrapped boxes. They have great ethics and values and you can read about those here.

Where do you like to buy your vegan friendly bath and beauty products? Share in the comments below.

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 Recipe of the Week - Raw Almond Cookie Bites and Pt.2 UK Vegan Food Swap

This week's Vegan Recipe of the Week is not one of mine. This recipe was sent to me in my August UK Vegan Food Swap parcel by the lovely Chrissie, who is a raw wholefood vegan. She sent me all of the ingredients and a hand written recipe along with a raw snack bar, vanilla chai tea, some gorgeous vegan soaps and a tea towel. This was all packaged up in a nice glittery box chosen by her daughter, and a lovely note card. I felt very spoiled. I was looking forward to making the cookie bites as I have never made a raw dessert recipe before.

So here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of unsoaked almonds

1/4 cup of unsoaked walnuts

pinch of salt

1/3 cup unsoaked pitted dates

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/4 cup dried cherries

1/4 almond ground almonds or almond flour

     

Method:

Put the almonds, walnuts and salt into a food processor with the s-blade and process until coarsely chopped. 

Add the dates and almond extract and continue to pulse until the mixture begins to stick together. Don't over-process.

Add the cherries and pulse again briefly then transfer to a bowl.

Roll 1 tbsp of the mixture in your hands to form a ball and roll in the ground almonds before placing on a plate. Repeat until you have used all of the mixture.

Put the plate in the fridge for at least an hour until chilled and set.

Eat and enjoy!

These Raw Almond Cookie Bites keep well in the fridge for up to a week and are delicious. So thanks to Chrissie for the recipe. I can't wait until next month's food swap! You can read about the box I sent out in Pt.1 of this blog post here.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx