Happy Vegan Valentine's Day

As usual my best friend Jasmine is being my Valentine, it's become a bit of a tradition now. Tonight we're having a romantic vegan dinner and I've made her a dairy free chocolate cake which tastes rather good. The recipe is from a book my mum wrote about raising children vegan, sly bit of advertisement for my mum there...

You will need for a 7-9" tin or 24 cupcakes:

• 9oz self-raising flour
• 5oz sugar
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• pinch of salt
• 125mls sunflower oil
• 2 tbsp vinegar
• 2 tsps vanilla essence
• 300mls water

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and grease the tin with a little oil or margarine, or line a mufin tin with paper cases.
2. Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa powder and salt in a large bowl.
3. In a jug mix the sunflower oil, vinegar and vanilla essence with a fork.
4. Pour into the bowl and add the water. Mix everything together.
5. Place in the oven for 15-20 minutes, test with a knife to see if it's cooked.
If you want to make the icing, sift 4oz of icing sugar and 2 tbsp of cocoa powder into a bowl and mix with a little water. The chocolate sprinkles were a gift from Germany but you can find something similar from a supermarket.

This is one of the best Valentine's day cards I have ever seen, enjoy. And have a wonderful day.

Love Eve

x

Vegan Spag Bol for Dummies

This recipe for vegan spaghetti bolognese is incredibly easy because I cheat and use a shop bought sauce but it tastes great so I can't complain. Obviously you don't have to use the exact vegetables or type of 'mince' I have used, just whatever is available to you is fine. I used dried soya mince, it's so cheap and can be used in lots of different ways, you can get it at most health food shops. If you want to use frozen veggie mince or real mince then go for it, although I'd prefer it if no animals were harmed! This recipe takes around half an hour to make and serves up to 6 people, or 4 really hungry people.

You will need:

•  500g bag of spaghetti
• jar of pasta/bolognese sauce
• passata (if you don't have enough sauce)
• 50g of dried soya mince
• 1 carrot
• 1 pepper
• 1 celery stick
• 1 courgette
• 3-5 mushrooms
• 1 onion
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• 1 vegetable stock cube

 1. Chop your vegetables to whatever size you like, I do mine quite small.

2. Heat up a table spoon of olive oil on a medium heat.

3. Fry your onion and garlic for 2/3 minutes, until soft.

 4. Add your carrots as they take a longer time to cook.

 5. After 3 minutes add the rest of your veg and pour a tablespoon of water over them to help them soften.

6. It's important to regularly stir the veg as they might burn at the bottom of the pan.

 7. Boil the kettle with enough water to make up a pint of  stock (unless you're not using dried mince) and get your spaghetti started.

 8. Pour the stock onto the veg and add your dried soya mince. If you're using another type of mince then you don't need to add the stock but make sure you season the mince instead.

9. Keep stirring the mince to make sure none gets stuck to the bottom. Do this for about 5 minutes.

At this stage give the mixture a taste, it's really yummy! At this point you could turn the mixture into a vegan meatloaf if you pop it into a loaf tin and put it in the oven for around 20 minutes.

 10. Time to add your sauce. Once the jar is empty, put a little water in it and shake it around to get more out of it.

 11. I noticed that there wasn't enough sauce in the jar whilst I was making this so added half a packet of passata but it's up to you whether you want lots of sauce or not.

 12. Once the sauce has heated through and the spaghetti is cooked, you're done!

Send me your thoughts, could I of done better?