Vegan chocolate ganache truffles {London marathon fundraising}

I think I need to start this post with a disclaimer: these are not my usual wholefood truffles. These are the real thing. Rich, creamy, sweet, and incredibly decadent. They give Lindt lindor balls some competition.

The key ingredient for the decadence is soy cream. My purchase of said cream is an example of foolish impulse buying (as my regular readers will know, I don't like cream or creamy products!). I saw the soy cream, thought "wow, vegan cream", threw it in the shopping trolley, and then left it in the cupboard for months without a clue what to do with it.

Truffles provided an excellent solution.

 

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Out and about in London #4: Raw food at Vantra Vitao and more Wholefoods eating

Continuing my recent food-focused 'out and about' posts, I was pleased to finally make it to Vantra Vitao last week. Located on Oxford Street near Tottenham Court Road, Vantra Vitao specialises in raw food as well as a selection of carefully cooked hot dishes. Everything is vegan, most things are organic, and they have a lunchtime buffet using the pay-by-weight approach.

Vantra Vitao buffet selection

I follow Vantra Vitao on Facebook and had been admiring their dessert photos for months. They are also quite well reviewed, and so I entered with high expectations. The restaurant has minimal street space but is long and narrow, with 10 or so 2-seater tables and perhaps half a dozen larger ones. The interior is quite dark, and I apologise for my poor phone photos, but is attractively set up. I liked the wooden tables and the bathrooms at the back were clean and well maintained.

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Orange and date drop scones (or pikelets. or mini pancakes)

These drop scones were made during my orange phase of early January. I figured a month between orange-themed recipes was sufficient, and so I'm pleased to share them with you now!

For those of you not familiar with my past drop scone posts, drop scones are also called Scotch pancakes and roughly equivalent to Australian pikelets. For Americans, think mini fluffy pancakes. I like mine with fruit in them and they are well suited to breakfast, afternoon tea, or snacking at pretty much any time of day.

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Paprika-spiced sweet potato, bean and tahini patties {London marathon fundraising}

At first glance, these sweet potato patties may not look very exciting. I am sure we've all come across sweet potato veggie burgers before, and nice as they may be, they're not exactly novel. However, I can say with all honesty that these are the best veggie patties, of any type, that I have ever had! The texture is almost cake like, and the flavours are sweet and smoky and full-bodied and altogether delightful.

I am particularly taken with these because I made the recipe up as I went along. It could have turned out terribly. Instead, it seems I was channeling some hitherto unseen kitchen intuition. I wouldn't change a thing next time around. I think the magic ingredient was besan (chickpea) flour, which I suspect lends these patties their cake-like texture. Savoury cakes probably don't sound very nice, but I promise these work!

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Cranberry, chia seed and carob porridge (oatmeal)

I know I did a giant porridge post not that long ago, but it has snowed twice here this week. Snow in London isn't all that common and so it very much feels like porridge weather. This cranberry, chia seed and carob porridge is a perfect breakfast for cold mornings. 

Our first snowfall was on Saturday, when I was graced with falling snow for miles 4 to 10 of my long run. It didn't really settle, but we had another light scattering yesterday and there were a few snow topped houses and white parks. It's a beautiful aspect of winter. 

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In my kitchen - February 2015 (+ give away winner)

I am linking this in to Celia's monthly In My Kitchen event at Fig Jam and Lime Cordial.

February 2015. It sounds both normal and a little science fiction-y. I'm starting to understand how people get to age 60 / 70/ 80/ 90 and still feel just as they did at age 20.

This month, my kitchen has love heart crumpets from Tesco. Oh, I know they are a marketing ploy and of course they cost more than the standard variety. But, Tesco also had Christmas tree crumpets in the lead up to Christmas and I exercised great restraint in not buying them until Christmas week. Sadly, come Christmas week, they were sold out. Sometimes restraint backfires, and so I didn't exercise any when I spotted these. They were into our trolley within seconds and I'm having great fun eating them.

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