New (to me) vegan lunches and snacks

It's been an exciting week in the Bite-Sized household. My sister is visiting from Australia and it is the first time I've seen her in over 3 years. It's also her first time meeting Mini Bite, and the visit spans Mini Bite's first birthday next week. I'm still at work this week but have next week off for birthday and visiting celebrations. So, with all this happening, I hope you'll understand if this post is short and sweet!

I did want to share some recent phone-snapped photos (please forgive quality) of new-to-me vegan products. One of the benefits of being back at work is having access to a new range of vegan lunch options in London, and the excuse to buy lunch and snacks on the go again. There are a surprising number of new options given my absence of only a year. M&S and Pret a Manger have branches near where I live or visit regularly, so today's post covers some of the less widespread options, albeit not necessarily London specific.

First, and starting away from lunch, did you know that Leon restaurants now stock vegan baked goods from Ruby's of London? I raved about Ruby's products in 2014 when I encountered them at the Greenwich food market. Sadly I don't make it to Greenwich these days, so having access to the items in central London is fantastic. I stopped at the London Bridge Leon restaurant and they had an assortment of vegan iced baked donuts and cupcakes.

Iced rose and pistachio donut by Ruby's of London, courtesy of Leon Restaurants

I picked up an iced rose and pistachio donut, which offered a nice balance of sweet icing, vanilla cake/donut, and subtle rose and pistachio flavours.

I have found Boots to vary in their vegan offerings. Periodically they have new vegan sandwiches and I used to love a hummus, carrot and coriander option on tomato bread. Sadly that disappeared some time ago, but they are apparently going to keep a new 'Louisiana style cajun fritter' sandwich. I didn't like it as much as the hummus one of old, but it is nice for a change and well packed with salad alongside the slightly spicy fritter.

I bought the sandwich as part of a meal deal and chose Hippeas chickpea puffs as the accompanying snack, in 'far out fajita' flavour. I have seen these in a few places around London but wasn't overly enamored with the texture of the puffs. They were quite crunchy, and quite loud to eat on a train!

Whilst not at all London specific, an alternative snack comes from Tesco with their crunchy beetroot slices. These are just dried beetroot with lemon juice and so do taste rather beetrooty, but I liked the earthiness. They were, predictably, crunchy as well but somehow less noisy to eat!

There is a Coop supermarket near my workplace, which is a novelty as there are none near where I live. They also offer a fritter-based vegan sandwich (are fritter sandwiches a new thing?), in their case, a sweetcorn fritter with pineapple salsa. Like the Boots equivalent, I liked it but didn't love it. I did like their dairy free coconut yoghurt and was pleased to see it as an option in the meal deal. They also had a dairy free chocolate pudding as an alternative meal deal snack.

To show it isn't all purchased convenience items, I have been taking meals and snacks myself as well. The image below shows a poorly captured morning train set up - coffee, a portable breakfast (in this case, flapjacks made with oats, banana and chopped dates) and a book on my iPad.

When I pack lunch, which is most days, it may look like the below - lots of fruit, dairy free yoghurt and, on this day, spinach plus a container of leftover vegetable curry plus borlotti beans plus some random chopped vegetables.

So there we have it - recent workday eats, with novelty new purchases to round out my homemade fare!

What new products have you enjoyed discovering lately?

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