UK Vegan's quest for ingredients

2011-09-27T18:03:00.000-07:00

I thought I should probably update this thing just to show I'm not dead or whatever...
I've been eating Ribz a LOT and sharing them evangelically. I think Pat from Veggies wants to add them to the menu for the catering trailer, so that's cool!
Anyway, I made this Vegan Mac and Cheese today and it tastes pretty damn good. I would agree with the commenters who say the soy sauce is too much, maybe drop it down to a Tbsp rather than 1/3 cup! Also, I'll add some finely diced onion to it next time.
The main mistake with the directions as they stand on vegweb is this line:
"If you are cooking for yourself, it will last about 5 days if you eat it for all three meals of the day."
Seriously?? It didn't even last 12 hours before I scoffed it all :D

Vegan Boneless Chickenless Hot Wings

2011-04-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

I got a tip to check out the Blog of VeganDad the other day and wow! That was a great tip!
There are a bunch of recipes I want to try from his blog.
I started with this Vegan Hot Wingz
But I did the sweet and sticky version because I had no breadcrumbs to hand.

I think I may have made a mistake by making the sauce while the wingz were in the oven, on my second attempt I put the sauce on before they went in and it was much better!

The chicken broth powder is this little mixture, which I recommend you make a huge batch of and store it in an empty nutritional yeast tub.

Bryanna Grogan posted this on her message board

BRYANNA'S HOMEMADE VEGAN CHICKEN-STYLE BROTH POWDER
makes about 1 and 1/2 C.
Blend in a dry blender:
1 and 1/3 c. good-tasting nutritional yeast flakes
3 T. onion powder
2 and 1/2 T. sea salt
2 and 1/2 tsp. garlic granules or powder
1 T. soymilk powder
1 T. white beet sugar
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. finely crumbled dried sage (NOT powdered)
1 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. tumeric
Store in an airtight container and use 1 level tablespoon per cup of water.

So nothing difficult to find that I haven't already got on the list, but definitely a good one to add to your "what do I do with all this wheat gluten" recipe list :)

Just a quick update...

2011-02-06T09:55:00.000-08:00

I'm not dead...
I finally got around to trying a second attempt at the marshmallow recipe but I failed once again :(

This time I managed to make goop. It is delicious goop, but goop is not Marshmallow. I don't know why it failed this time, I think the only change was the gelling agent, which I thought would be a closer match to the one in the original recipe.. I will have to experiment with the quantities etc.

In other news I found a new food obsession from Susan at Fat Free Vegan. Using most of the same ingredients as the Ribz but this time rolled into a sausage shape and baked in foil.
Go enjoy some Seitan Pepperoni I made this for the first time a week or so ago and I've already found myself making 3 more of them. As they can last a few days, this is quite obsessive!

If anyone has any Vegan recipes they've had trouble finding ingredients for, please comment and let me know so I can include them here...

Quick edit: a piece of info that is quite useful that I just found out. Recipes that ask for baking soda are reffering to bicarbonate of soda, not baking powder. I'm not sure if anyone else has ever been confused and had cake failures because of that, but I have so I thought I'd share :)

Vegan Marshmallow project

2010-11-21T16:58:00.000-08:00

After I came home from the West Midlands Vegan Festival with a few bags of Vegan Marshmallow and ate them all within a few days I decided I needed to be able to make these delicious things myself.
I found This blog for Vegan Marshmallows (as it happens, this is the recipe which gave me the idea for my blog)
I am currently working on getting all the items on the ingredients list and this is where I've found to get them:

Soy Protein Isolate 90%: Holland and Barrett sell this, I ordered online and got a strawberry flavoured one too

guar gum: I haven't found this in quantities less than 1Kg, 1Kg bag of Guar gum but apparently Xanthan gum is a good enough substitute, available at flourbin.com and probably on the high st.

light corn syrup: The stateside candy company sell this, but there is also a "No corn syrup" version of the recipe

Genutine Vegetarian Gelatin: I can't find Genutine brand but apparently Dr. Oetkers Vege-gel is very similar and available at sainsburys amongst others. (not all branches of Sainsbury's stock it, I had to email their customer services to find out if any of my local stores did.)

Update: I made the first attempt last night. I hadn't got any Dr. Oetker's Vege-gel so I used Vege-set which is carrageenan gum based but doesn't have the locust bean...

It seemed to go pretty well, I didn't take any photos during the process as I had my hands full most of the time :) The end result looked like this though:

I had a small issue with the marshmallow being excessively moist and absorbing a lot of the powdered sugar, I've asked Dave for his advice and we'll see how the second attempt goes. I'll get a helper to photograph the process too...

The List

2010-11-21T16:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, so this is "The List"
I'll put all the hard to find ingredients here with the places we've found to get them from.
please feel free to comment with any other places you find these things, especially if you find them cheaper or with less restrictive shipping etc.
1) Vital Wheat Gluten: lowcarbmegastore.com, flourbin.com
2) Smoked Spanish Paprika: flourbin.com
3) Liquid Smoke: Scorchio.co.uk
4) Soy Protein Isolate 90%: Holland and Barrett

5) guar gum: 1Kg bag of Guar gum or use Xanthan gum from flourbin.com

6) light corn syrup: The stateside candy company

7) Genutine Vegetarian Gelatin: Dr. Oetkers Vege-gel from sainsburys

Where does he get those wonderful... umm ingredients?

2010-11-21T14:54:00.000-08:00

So this is the daunting first post of my new blog.
I am a Vegan in the UK, that might have been obvious from the blog title but I thought I'd re-iterate it here. My intention is to chronicle some of the recipes I've tried and maybe succeeded in cooking. A lot of the recipes I find are written by people on the other side of the Atlantic where they have ingredients that are hard to find here in the UK. My primary focus for the blog is going to be those recipes where I've had to do a bit of searching to find what I need and then list where I found them. Hopefully if anyone ever reads this they might be able to help find other sources for the ingredients and I will compile a reference list.

I'll start with this one for Vegan Ribz
These things are delicious, and I've fed them to meat eaters who agree!
The ingredients are:
1) 1 cup vital wheat gluten
2) 2 teaspoons smoked Spanish paprika
3) 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
4) 2 teaspoons onion powder
5) 1 teaspoon garlic powder
6) 3/4 cup water
7) 2 tablespoons peanut butter, tahini or other nut butter
8) 1 teaspoon Liquid Smoke

1) I found wheat gluten at flourbin.com they have a minimum order value of £10 but they sell a lot of useful stuff there so it's easy to make a £10 order.
2) Is also conveniently available at flourbin.com :)
3) This is pretty easy to find in Holland and Barrett and other similar shops
4) I get this at a stall in the market of the Victoria Centre in Nottingham, flourbin also sell this. The stuff I get is not so much powder as dried onion flakes which give the ribz a nice texture.
5) Again, the market stall or flourbin
6) the tap in my kitchen :D
7) I think I'm going to skip the obvious ones in future posts :)
8) This was the last tricky thing to find, there are a number of different brands and places that sell them online but my favourite is hot headz hickory liquid smoke

So now you have a recipe and the information on how to get the ingredients in the UK so go make it!