Vegan Sweet & Sour

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A quick recipe for sweet & sour stir fry with shitake mushrooms on top! 🙂  Delicious!

Ingredients

1 onion

1 red pepper

1 pack of beansprouts

1 can of bamboo shoots

1 bunch of chinese greens of choice

1 packet of marinated tofu pieces

1 packet of shitake mushrooms cooked with ginger and garlic (optional)

1 jar of sweet & sour sauce

1 packet of buckwheat noodles

Ok so you want to chop everything up first to get it all ready to go, get the frying pan or wok up to heat and pop in a tablespoon of coconut oil.  Heat the onions and peppers for 5 mins, add in the rest of the vegetables and continue to cook breifly but don’t overcook the vegetables or they will go soggy!

Add the sauce and season with a little soy sauce.  Serve with the cooked buckwheat noodles or rice, what ever you prefer.

If you want to see the recipe in video format check out my youtube recipe below!

Enjoy 🙂 x

Quick Indian Curry

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Ok so here goes my super quick Indian curry recipe, this recipe was the result of me forgetting my Indian jar of sauce at the supermarket but I’m sure it was ten times tastier anyway than the jar I was supposed to pick up.  So here goes…

Ingredients

4 garlic cloves chopped or grated

1 knob of ginger chopped finely

2 green chilies, sliced, seeds included for extra heat (optional but don’t be a wimp!)

Cinnamon stick whole

4 cardamon pods

1 thickly sliced courgettes

1 thickly sliced red pepper

hot curry powder 3-4tbsp

Soy Cream

1 handful of cashew nuts

1 carton/tin of chopped tomatoes

4 cubes of frozen spinach

parsley (optional)

lime pickle and mango chutney or any other condiments

rice of choice

So chop and prepare everything and put a small amount of oil in the pan, stir in the garlic, ginger and green chilies, cook for 5 mins, stir in the cinnamon and cardamon pods and cook for a further 5 mins.

Add the chopped vegetables and cook for 10-15mins, add the chopped tomatoes, curry powder, frozen spinach, a dash of water , cook until the vegetables are tender.

Add a dash of soy cream, the cashew nuts and cook a further 5 mins, season and serve with the rice and condiments and parsely on top if you wish.

Thats it enjoy! 🙂

Beetroot Smoothie

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Beetroot Smoothie

A quick beetroot smoothie with oranges and honey, delicious before a run or other form of exercise. 🙂

Ingredients

1 whole fresh uncooked beetroot washed and peeled

2 large oranges

1 tsp of Nomi friut powder or other superfood of choice

1 tbsp of Hemp Seeds

1 Tbsp of raw honey

Pop all of the ingredients into the blender, top up with water and blend until smooth.  Share amongst two or three glasses and serve.  I like to have beetroot before working out as there are benefits for our bodies.  Check out some benefits listed in the link below.

http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/exercise/beetroot-improves-exercise-endurance.htm

 

Duff House Vegetarian Review

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We ended up at Duff House play park today, the kids were super hungry after their play in the lovely park and it was really cold, it was -2 when we left the house so we headed into the tea room for some tea and lunch.  I thought I would check out the vegetarian/vegan options as usual and I was pretty impressed.

I had a lovely cup of tea with a mozzarella stromboli sandwich filled with olives and tomatoes, it was very similar to a large panini, very filling and so delicious.

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We will definitely be going back with the family, they have little kid boxes too for the kids and we also have a historic Scotland pass so I look forward to taking a trip around the house next time.

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The restaurant has plenty of information on the history of the house and it’s a pretty interesting read as you await your lunch.

Check it out at the website below.

https://www.historicenvironment.scot/visit-a-place/places/duff-house/

Aldi’s Vegetarian Soup Review

A quick look at two soups I purchased from Aldi’s the other day whilst looking for vegetarian foods, I would really recommend giving them a try they taste delicious and were really cheap to buy! 🙂

Love Angie x

Salad Crispbreads

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Salad Crispbreads

So for a quick dinner I mixed up some chopped tomatoes, chopped red onion, dried mint (use fresh if you have), some olive oil and seasonings for a tomato salad and served it along with some plain and simple sliced avocado and cucumber with a squeeze of lime on top and some chopped coriander.  I finished this off with some sliced oranges and a couple squares of chocolate.

Ingredients

Sliced Tomatoes

Red Onion

Dried Mint (fresh if you have)

Olive oil

Sliced Cucumber

Sliced Avocado

4 pieces of artichokes (jar in olive oil)

Chopped coriander

Lime

Crispbreads of choice (I used aldi’s organic multiseed)

Blood oranges (although my oranges were not very red in the picture!)

Simple chop the tomatoes and add to the sliced onion with the mint and a drizzle of olive oil. Season!  Slice up the avocados and cucumber and drizzle with a sliced lime.  Serve on top of the crispbreads in the order you wish.  Enjoy!

 

 

Winter Days

winterscenes.jpgCheck those eye bags!!!

I was so tired today doing all the pet chores outside as I was woken up every hour last night with the howling wind and snow storms.  The weather was also freezing cold but I made a really quick video in the garden today and had another peek at all the rescue hens who are still on lock down due to the bird flue risk.  This means they are not allowed out of their enclosure or outside until the end of February.  It makes things very difficult but its not long and I look forward to seeing them free ranging at the start of spring…what a delight that will be!  🙂

Remember those times when you would come back in the house crying because your hands were so numb with cold, well that was me today, I was almost greeting my hands were so sore! 🙂

I hope to post it onto my youtube page late next week.

Fresh Indoor Air

fresh_airMany houseplants are amazing at purifying our indoor air and can help to create a natural environment in the home.  According to NASA’s study on houseplants they have the capability to filter out harmful toxins and common pollutants.  They also create a calm and peaceful environment in the home.

I only own about 4 house plants and must admit I’m not the best at looking after them but I am looking to increase my houseplants after reading some interesting information on their ability to filter out harmful toxins and pollutants in the home.  I hope to put more effort into the watering of them lol! 🙂

There are so many different types of house plants and many ways to display them, you can display beautiful little plants inside glass bowls, have tiny clippings of plants in small pots or even create little dessert worlds.  My personal favorite is the bonsai tree, is there anything more magical than owning a tiny tree which needs such patience and creative input to grow, it definitely is worth the wait.

I plan to purchase 3 organic Aloe Vera plants so I can have them rotating in my kitchen and so I can use them medicinally.  I also like the thought of a banana palm in the living room and perhaps a Boston fern in the bathroom.

I plan to do a quick video with the plants Ive purchased and the best (in my opinion) places to purchase them from.  The best place to start of course is your friends living room, take cuttings and grow them from teeny tiny size.  If you want some larger ones to start though you will have to purchase them from the garden center.

There are other ways to reduce toxic build up in your home environment, here’s a very short list of some of the things you can do but lets face it we can’t do everything and some things are just too expensive to do if you have a large family.  I’ll cover these in a bit more detail in my next video.

  • Choose healthier flooring options
  •  Toxic free sofas and beds
  • Choose healthier cleaning products to reduce toxic build up on home surfaces
  • Reduce your use of synthetic air freshners
  • Reduce the use of plastic food containers
  • Use paints made of natural raw materials
  • Avoid common chemicals in everyday bodycare products (don’t get me started on this one the list is huge)

Like I said it’s impossible to avoid all the indoor pollutants but if you want to try a bit of natural living we can start by making small changes.  Each tiny step is a step in the right direction of creating a natural and clean indoor environment.

More on this subject and my progress of this soon.

Thanks for reading!

 

Greek Falafel & Salad Wraps

greek_wrapsThese are so super easy to make and I can’t personally take credit for them as my husband made them for us all.  All you need to do is chop your vegetables of choice, you can see what I used from the picture but Ive also listed the ingredients below.

Black Olive

Tomatoes

Hummus (lots of)

Cous cous (I used a premade one)

Cucumber

Red Pepper

Lettuce

Falafel

Tofu pieces (optional)

Tortilla Wraps

Avocado

Red Onion

So you quite simply chop everything up and serve into little dishes and everyone gets to make their own.  My kids love their vegetables raw and would rather eat them this way, its the cooked veg I have to bribe down them, they would eat plates and plates of raw veggies.  My youngest son is actually a cucumber addict lol!  He would eat cucumber for breakfast, lunch and dinner if he could. 🙂

So anyway, once you have all your veggies chopped and into dishes, put your wraps in some tinfoil and stick them in the oven for a few minutes to warm up.  Once warmed spread with hummus and top with the vegetables of your choice.  Wrap up and serve with the cous cous on the side.  I also added in a little spicy sauce.

Enjoy! x

Boogie Woogie Cafe Review Scotland

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So this is what I get up to when its snowing outside, my house is freezing and I can’t feel the ends of my fingertips anymore, I go to one of my fave Scottish cafe/gift shops in Keith, Morayshire, Scotland – Boogie Woogie!  They are well known for home cooked delicious comforting food.  So what did I have?  Well to defrost my hands I had a naughty hot chocolate, which was a delicious sweet treat!

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I followed that with a huge bowl of tomato pasta and roasted vegetables topped with feta cheese and a basil garnish.  There was a good selection of vegetables on the top and it tasted freshly made, I found the dish very inspiring and might make a version myself for the family at home!

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It took my husband ages to persuade me to have some delicious cake afterwards lol! 😉  So I choose a piece of lemon and raspberry cake which was really moist and very yummy!  Everything tasted homemade as usual and the service was super fast and I better add I had a teeny tiny supper after that treat!

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They also have an awesome gift shop upstairs and some really interesting and quirky things located around the cafe.  I love the clothing range they have where I noticed some things were very well made and I hope to purchase a thing or too in the future.

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I also bought a lovely book which I can’t wait to read in front of the fire tonight “The Art of Hygge” its very beautiful and Hygge pronounced ‘hue ga’ is a Danish word that describes the feeling of being cosy, comfortable and at peace with the world.  its almost impossible to translate into English but the whole book is so inspiring! 🙂

So if you want to check out one of my favourite local cafes click on the website below.

http://www.boogiewoogieshop.com/