LIVE LIKE YOU GIVE A SHIT

Greenbots Kicks Ass

In my final year of university (last year), I  had a module called Music and Media Business Enterprise. In this module we were encouraged to think like entrepreneurs, strive for the best, and adapt your ideals of creating a business that was truly original. Why? Because, according to my lecturer, there were very few completely original business ideas left out there, and you shouldn’t be put off by the idea that someone else is already doing it. The important question you have to ask yourself is, what are they NOT doing? Do it better!

I struggled to put a business idea together in a coherent manner that would both get my ass an A grade, and reveal itself as a viable unique business plan, despite my belief that I was sitting on gold. One and a half of these things happened… the A, and the unique business plan minus the viability. What has followed since that module is a shitstorm of ideas based on my original business plan that continues to evolve bit by bit. If I’m honest, at times it feels like I’m watching fucking paint dry, but for the most part, I’m one step closer to building a future business that I’ll be proud of.

Where am I going with this you ask? This blog over the years, and all it’s deleted, hidden and rewritten content has provided a space for my rants to flow while I traveled, rants to follow my return back to a gloomy recession, digital walls to hang my amateur food snaps, and a space to rewire my business plan while I complete my masters. It’s haphazard at times, all over the place in others, without little rhyme, reason or finesse, but it’s fun, it’s a project, a haven of food and secret research, and the design alters as I go. It’s not exactly firing ahead of the web filled wasteland of zero attention blogs, but soon my pretties, it will inspire you to say “balls to the wind”!

All you have is NOW, so ‘for now’, all I leave you with is a tag line that is closer to my own heart… Live like you give a shit! 

Happy Monday!!!!

 

BACK SOON!!!!

I CAN’T BELIEVE IT’S NOT MAYO…

Welcome to the latest (and late) instalment of VEGAN SURPRISE! Does anyone remember when Utterly Butterly came on the market? Or, maybe you would best remember the leggy girls in tight lycra flying the Utterly Butterly plane? What do planes and substitute products have in common? Who doesn’t fly a plane while eating butter and wearing lycra?

Anyway, I remember… the theme tune, TV advert, that odd couple at the gates of the factory saying “I can’t believe it’s not butter”. If memory serves, I also remember a character called Gary, and his sidekick woman who was hilarious in that kind of mental 90′s teenager way… Hit me with a comment if you remember the entire story behind those crazy Butterly Cats! OK, I digress… Rapidly into embarrassment.

Since I boldly moved to vegetarianism back in 2009, substitute products have two choices with me… Either you WOW me, or you BLOW! Because, either way I can get along just fine without them. There really is nowhere in-between. So it is with great pleasure, mighty awe and lots of OOOoooo’s and aahhhhh’s, that I give you… *DRUM ROLL PLEASE*

This is the little beauty that blew my mouth socks off… yeah, mouth socks are real!!! Humanna humanna!!!

Chipotle Mayo

This stuff is the SHIZ! It’s got a kick you’d be proud of if you like something a little spicy, and it really hits that craving for creamy mayo badness laced on bread or crackers. I won’t waffle on about it. Suffice to say, that this bad boy is truly a flavoursome vegan surprise find of the highest order!

BUY: If you live in London, you can probably buy it from a lot of other places, but this was found at the vegan shop ‘Vx’ on Caledonian Road near King’s Cross, or you can buy online from Vegan Store.

The nuts & bolts:

An egg, celery, gluten & soya free product, made with rapeseed oil, rice drink and chipotle pepper.

Aside from the sharpness of vinegar, which most dairy free versions tend to have, there is a nice little ‘kick’ of spice in the mouth.

Nutritional Values per 100g: 497kcal

Probably tastes mind blowing on a BBQ’d Linda McCartney quarter pounder burger!!! Now, if only we could move past this Winter in May business and go head long into Summer to crack out that BBQ…

VERDICT: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Tasty Chipotle Treats… Down the hatch!

DO YOU KNOW OF ANY AMAZING VEGAN PRODUCTS YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE?

LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW AND I’LL DO MY BEST SPEED RACER IMPRESSION TO THE NEAREST STOCKIST!

NATIONAL VEGETARIAN WEEK: 20th – 26th May 2013

What’s in a month ay? Who’s counting since the last post anyway? Not I!!! Spiralling upwards and onwards with the next post, I give you my little nugget of recipe gold to kick off National Vegetarian Week 2013 that will have you foaming at the mouth. This recipe is sure to have even the most fiddly and hardened meat eater mmming and ahhing at your culinary prowess.

I give you the ‘Wiggle Kicking Salad’*…

* Renamed from the original recipe (see below) due to it’s alteration and the taste bud explosion that happened when I ate it

Wiggle Kicking Salad

In my search for vegan concoctions that don’t have me showing off a face like a wet week (old Irish saying that probably makes no sense seeing as London has been nothing but a wet year so far), I have recently been indulging in recipes from Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen’s cookbook ‘It’s All Good’, and let me tell you right now… HELL YES… It lives up to it’s name!! I’ll be writing a review of the book soon when I’ve tried more recipes, but so far so good! The reason I’m sharing this one in particular, is because it’s sure to have meat eaters asking for more (probably after they’ve asked where the meat is).

The original recipe is called ‘Roasted Cauliflower + Chickpeas with Mustard + Parsley’ (p. 173), and while I’m more than sure that it tastes spectacular just as the recipe suggests, I did my usual ‘I never follow a recipe’ dance in the kitchen and it turned out pretty damn amazing. So, I urge you to make this salad with a pinch of whatever you fancy, because the flavours work for themselves, and with pretty much anything you can add to it. Here’s my whatever was in the fridge and cupboard version:

INGREDIENTS

1 tin of chickpeas

1/4 head of cauliflower (do add more… This is all I had in my fridge)

10 heads of baby corn

1 medium sized onion

4 baby potatoes

Lots of baby spinach to bed my salad on

2 tablespoons of wholegrain mustard

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar

50/60 mls of olive oil

coarse ground black pepper

rock salt

 

WHAT TO DO:

Wash your chickpeas and haphazardly chop your veg (or not)…

Par-boil your potatoes for about 5 minutes before roasting to make them extra crispy and all the more edible.

Put all your veg into a roasting tin, and glug some olive oil over them for roasting. Add a pinch of salt and put into a preheated oven at 200C for approximately 25/30 minutes.

While your veg is roasting, whisk your mustard, red wine vinegar, olive oil, generous sprinkling of black pepper and a pinch of salt together.

Mustard Dressing Goodness

Do the taste test on your mustard dressing… By this I mean, go by your own taste buds and not by mine. Where I’d happily eat black pepper for breakfast, you might prefer to gag! So, add your ingredients sparingly and build up towards what you can handle or prefer.

Put your wet ingredients into a large bowl, and when your veg is ready and nicely toasted and roasted, add them immediately to the dressing bowl, coating the veg entirely with mustardy goodness!

Serve on a bed of spinach, serve warm, and enjoy!

x

Let National Vegetarian Week commence!!!