In my kitchen - November 2016

I am linking this in to the monthly In My Kitchen event, hosted by Lizzy of Bizzy Lizzy's Good Things.

Another month and another peek into my kitchen. November brings cold weather, dark evenings (daylight savings has ended) and Christmas items in shops (but not yet in my kitchen). It also brings lots of autumn colours and there are some gorgeous scenes around us.

To balance out the dark and cold days, November sees even more new vegan products in my kitchen. It is a good time to be vegan in the UK! The Linda McCartney range has several new vegan additions, including the pulled 'chicken' pictured below.

If I'm honest, I wasn't entirely sure about this, perhaps because I've never had traditional pulled chicken and wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. It also reminded me a bit of tuna due to the flaky texture. However, Mr Bite was very pleased with the stir fry I made with it (served with noodles) and it provides a change from other veggie protein options.

Pulled 'chicken' stir fry

Other new vegan items include Morrisons meat free burgers. We don't have a Morrisons close to us so I rarely get to sample their products, but I recently made an effort to visit a store for variety. In addition to the burgers below, which are authentically meat-like, I bought vegetable quarter pounders and some dairy free chocolate-vanilla ice cream cones. The cones were delicious; the quarter pounders were a little bland for my tastes.

To complement their new dairy free ice creams (featured in my October IMK post), Alpro have released some new dairy free puddings. I was very excited to try these as I thought they would be mousse-like. In fact, they are very similar to the Alpro puddings that have been around for a while. The new flavours are nice but not as exciting as mousses would have been to me.

Whilst difficult to justify buying (from a cost perspective), the new Tilda pulses and rice packets are very handy if I need to make lunch in a rush. I bought a variety of flavours when they were on special and liked them all, although the edamame variety was probably my least favourite. 

My kitchen has also featured some dishes made from cookbook recipes. This isn't as common as you would think as despite having some great cookbooks, I often make recipes up, completely overhaul cookbook ideas, or am inspired by things online. However, cooking with Mini Bite attached to me is aided by recipes and we recently enjoyed several dishes from Angela's first Oh She Glows cook book. The Soul-Soothing African peanut stew, pictured below, was one delicious example and even allowed me to sneak sweet potato, peanut butter and chickpeas past Mr Bite. If he's reading this, it's the first time he'll discover just what was in the 'satay stew' I served him! We also enjoyed Angela's creamy vegetable curry.

Oh She Glows African peanut stew

In addition to cookbook meals, my kitchen has featured the tried and true staples I make regularly. Tofu stir fried with Asian vegetables, ginger and soy sauce is one...

...and more porridge bowls are another. The bowl below is a carrot cake mix I loved so much I posted it to Facebook. It's definitely my favourite carrot cake porridge ever! (The mix included 1/3 cup of oats with 1/3 cup unsweetened almond milk, 1/3 cup pineapple juice, 1/4 cup pineapple pieces, 1 small banana chopped, 1 small carrot grated, 1 tbsp sultanas, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp cinnamon.)

My kitchen has also featured my brother, visiting from Australia, which has been exciting. It's his first time meeting Mini Bite and the first time we've seen him since we moved to the UK over 2 years ago. He flies home again tomorrow but it's been lovely having him around whilst here. We've managed to take in lots of autumn scenes, on mostly fine days.

Not in my kitchen but November-esque.

What is happening in your kitchen this month?

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