In my kitchen - June 2017

I am linking this in to the monthly In My Kitchen round-up, now hosted by Sherry of Sherry's Pickings.

June. The mid-point of the year, with long days and the commencement of summer. The weather is warming up and it won't be long before smoothies and frozen banana soft serve are present in my kitchen. They aren't here yet - but here are some things that are featuring this month.

In my kitchen, there have been two varieties of legume-based pasta. The red lentil pasta, above, is made by Waitrose and has a gorgeous colour (it fades on cooking but does still come out red). I liked it a lot. The Evexia chickpea fusilli, below, came from my local Sainsbury's but I found it a little dry. 

Whilst the chickpea pasta wasn't a hit, I am delighted to have another bag of chickpea (besan) flour in my kitchen. I was without some for a few weeks but love having it to hand for savoury pikelets / fritters and for scrambles. The pikelets below were a simple mix made with chickpea flour, grated carrot, and some of my new bag of hemp seeds.

In my kitchen is a pack of the new Dee's vegan sausages with dulse seaweed. Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen reviewed them in her IMK post in February. 

Like Shaheen, I was impressed by the crispy exterior of these sausages. I initiallly disliked the seaweed flavour, but it grew on me with repeated bites and in the end I concluded the ingredients worked.

Dee's sausages at the back; roasted peppers and potato wedges at the front

In my kitchen are some new vegan desserts. Tesco have really gone all out with their vegan range - it seems to expand by the month, as my IMK posts show! - and have recently added several vegan desserts to their selection. I tried the caramel panna cotta and the millionaire's dessert.

Sadly, the caramel panna cotta was too creamy and too sweet for my tastes and will not be a repeat purchase (I ate the second of the two tubs semi-frozen, which improved it, but not enough to justify a repeat buy). The millionaire's pudding featured a chocolate mousse layer on top of a biscuit layer and then a salted caramel layer. The top two layers were incredible; the salted caramel was, to me, too salty.

Also captured above was a cashew-based mango cheesecake by Freaks of Nature. This was nice, although felt like something I could make at home.

Most UK vegans will know the Lazy Days range of vegan slices, most notably their millionaire's shortbread and their chocolate tiffins. I love both. I am fairly sure that until recently their rocky road was not vegan, due to gelatin in the marshmallows, but either I have that wrong or the ingredients have recently changed. Whatever it is - the Lazy Days rocky road is now vegan, and so of course I had to try it.

I liked the rocky road, but was surprised to find the marshmallow pieces on top of a chocolate slice rather than mixed through as I expected. I think the regular chocolate tiffin remains my favourite.

Our fruit bowl, plus the ever present pile of newspapers we are Yet to Read

Last but not least, in my kitchen are the first of the (imported) summer apricots - not quite at their best yet but I couldn't resist a punnet. I am also enjoying gorgeously sweet mandarins, as well as maintaining my love affair with British strawberries.

What is happening in your kitchen this month?

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