Ginger Winter Vegetables

Pictured here - ginger roasted winter vegetables, sugar snap peas, hummus, and home made pickle. This was delicious, and easy to make. My pickle came out a strange purple colour, because I used red onions instead of normal ones.

Crispy Peanut Butter Cookies

This photo turned out really 'food-photo'. This must be the most robust recipe in the world - I didn't do ANY of it right. I used crunchy peanut butter rather than smooth, margarine instead of oil, I cooked it for too long, I think I put lemon juice in it. I just turned the dough into balls and squashed them to make the cookie shapes. And I put in loads of soy milk by mistake. They still turned out ace, I was impressed and surprised! I'll definitely make them again.

Fancy-Pants Pickle

Today I made a meal of Kidney Bean Burgers (from 'Easy Vegan Cooking' by Leah Leneman), with french fries from VwaV - these were so good, and too easy to be true. And to go with this I made pickle, because we have run out of ketchup and I wanted something fancy. I served it up all nouveau cuisine, which impressed my housemates very much.

Pickle
1 large onion, finely chopped
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp salt
3/4 cup sugar

- boil the vinegar and completely dissolve the sugar and salt. this won't take long
- add the onions and tomatoes
- boil for about an hour, stirring frequently. be careful not to spill any, as this mixture is extremely hot
- let it cool for a while before eating

I also made lemon gem cupcakes from vwav, in petits-fours cases. They were extremely cute, but I forgot to take photos. Derr...

New Books and Trips Out

I had some very thoughtful christmas presents this year. Both my mother and flatmate bought me Vegan With a Vengeance, which I already had but lost, which was great. Like most of you I'm sure, I love love love Vwav, and I love love love http://theppk.com/, whch I'm sure you're familiar with (but if not, familiarise yourself now! You won't regret it!)

Also from my mother I got a copy of 'Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World', which is amazing in every way, and cute to the extreme. Also, she gave me lots of exciting baking things. So far I've made carrot cake cupcakes, peanut butter cupcakes, and basic golden cupcakes (I have photos, and will update when I upload them.) Seriously good.

My brother and I went out for high tea at the Pogo Cafe in Hackney http://www.pogocafe.co.uk I had cheesecake, which is something I've missed, and I was very impressed. If you're in London, definitely check it out.