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

Vegan Recipe of the Week - Banana Nut Muffins with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Last week I had a few bananas over ripe in my fruit bowl and wondered what to do with them, I decided to try my hand at vegan muffins. As the bananas act as a binding agent in this recipe, there is no need for eggs (yay!) as in traditional muffin recipes and you only need a little fat, so these are low fat healthy muffins, you can reduce the sugar if you like but I like sweetness, and the frosting is optional but super tasty :-) 

Here is the recipe:

For the Muffins you will need:

3 over ripe bananas, mashed

55g vegan butter

200g brown sugar

250g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

100g walnuts or almonds

For the frosting you will need:

115g vegan butter

170g icing sugar

60g cocoa powder

1tsp vanilla extract

Dried banana pieces, walnuts or almonds for decoration

14 muffin cases

Makes 14 muffins

Method:

Pre heat the oven to 180C (160C Fan Oven)

In a mixing bowl cream together the mashed bananas, vegan butter and sugar with an electric whisk or mixer.

In a separate bowl, sieve the flour and bicarb together and add the salt. Put the nuts into a food processor until finely chopped and add to the flour mixture. Stir together.

Next, add the dry ingredients mixture slowly to the banana mixture and continue to mix or blend until combined.

Place your muffin cases into a deep muffin tray and fill each case 3/4 full of the batter.

Bake on the middle shelf for 25 minutes.

Once baked, take out of the oven and leave for 5 minutes in the muffin trays. Then transfer the muffins in their cases to a cooling rack until completely cool.

Once cool, it's time to prepare the frosting.

In a mixing bowl sieve together the icing sugar and cocoa powder. Add the vegan butter and vanilla extract. Place a clean tea towel over the mixing bowl and then mix together with an electric hand whisk or mixer. This will stop the fine powder coating everything in your kitchen! Once the frosting is combined to a nice consistency spoon it into a piping bag with a star nozzle. 

Pipe the buttercream onto the muffins as a small star in the centre (heathier) or a large swirl all over the muffin (yummier) and top with a dried banana piece or nut for decoration.

Eat and enjoy! The muffins will keep for 3 or 4 days in a tin or air-tight container. The muffins can be frozen without the frosting. 

VVx

The Ordinary Vegan - Fruit Sorbet - Last Days of Summer!

Every Monday on TOV I look at everyday items from main supermarkets that happen to be vegan friendly. This week it is the turn of sorbet. Yes, I am trying to cling onto the last of these summer days as the schools go back and the leaves start falling, our minds and stomachs will start thinking about hot filling desserts, so before that happens, I'm going to talk about sorbet.

Many sorbets are made from fruit, juice and water only, which makes them low fat, vegan and refreshing. Sorbets come in many fruit flavours such as raspberry, mango and lemon. They are icy cold, thirst-quenching and delicious. A word of warning though, some sorbets do contain milk so please check and they can give you brain freeze!!

Please don't leave us summer - we miss you already!

These sorbets are from Tesco and cost £2.50 but it is easy to make sorbets at home too. If you like home cooked vegan food please visit the blog every Tuesday for the Vegan Recipe of the Week. Also every Thursday on Vegan Vox Blog is Vegan Vox Reviews...reviewing vegan shops, restaurants, products and more.

Big Vegan Love,

VVx