Planet Veggie

Tideford Organics aren’t a wholly vegetarian company, but out of their six varieties of soups, five are vegetarian and four are vegan. They also produce a range of vegetarian sauces, puddings and jellies.

I tried five of their soups and they were all fresh and delicious (even the carrot and coriander one, which isn’t a combination I usually like) and heated up in their pots after just a few minutes in the microwave. The soups are designed to be drunk on the go and have a cardboard sleeve that keeps your hands from burning. The cardboard sleeve is removable, so you could use the pot for something else, after you’ve drunk the soup (might be best to wash the pot first).

Tideford Organics’ products are mostly sold to independent retailers but some of their range can be found in Sainsburys, Tesco or Waitrose.

Two weeks ago, I ran the Folkestone Half Marathon (I might will blog about it later). Afterwards, seven of us went for lunch at Googies Art Café, a fantastic café bar in Folkestone’s Creative Quarter.

Most of our group opted for burgers (which Googies do in a wrap, rather than a bun) but as I’d had one of their burgers (halloumi and mushroom, served with spicy potatoes) a few weeks previously, I decided to try one of their weird-sounding pizzas. They sound weird because the base isn’t made of regular pizza dough, but two tortilla wraps, with cream cheese spread in between them.

I chose the Florentina pizza which is topped with spinach, red onion, olives, pine nuts, mozzarella and a free range egg.

Yes, it was as good as it looks.

I decided I would try and recreate it for myself and so last night, that’s what I did (although with different toppings).

Rich (Cassie’s lovely ginger husband (Cassie says everyone should have a ginger husband)) asked for step-by-step photos, so here they are.

A recreation of a Googies pizza (makes 2 pizzas)

1. Get four tortilla wraps

2. Get your toppings (in this case: tomato sauce, mushrooms, olives (for me), fresh tomatoes (for The Meat Eater), jalapenos, red chillis, onion, spinach, cheese

3. Spread cream cheese on two of the wraps (yes, I have pig-shaped chopping boards)

4. Cover with the other two wraps

5. Spread tomato sauce on the wraps and add your toppings

6. Bake in the oven at 200C for about 10 minutes

7. Enjoy!

My pizza (with olives)

The Meat Eater’s pizza (with fresh tomato)

Googies Art Café is at 15 Rendezvous Street, Folkestone  CT20 1EY. Be sure to eat there if you’re in the area, then pop across the road to Johnny Cotter’s gallery and check out his amazing artwork.

Over the next four weeks, innocent will be giving away veg pot offers and discounts a-plenty. What the discount actually is will be completely in your hands: the more people that tweet, the cheaper you eat.

As the number of people who tweet #tweetandeat increases, the discounts will too – whether its veg pots for a pound, half price, or even completely free, there will be all sorts of offers available to download.

Collective buying power is where it’s at. So get your friends, workmates, that bloke sat next to you on the bus tweeting now to push up the Tweet-O-Meter and get more discounts.

I thought this was a bit bland, didn’t really taste of much and could be improved by adding cheese (then again, I think everything can be improved by adding cheese). The Meat Eater thought it was really nice and subtle and didn’t need anything else. Then again, he has tastebuds and can taste everything, whereas I can’t taste anything unless I pour chilli flakes all over whatever I’m eating.

I’m not going to post the recipe this time, as I’ll probably get into trouble if I keep posting all the recipes from the book, but you can find it in The Quorn Kitchen cookbook.

The original recipe calls for making your own pastry (not sure what type, just your average pie-pastry, I suppose) but I used ready-made filo.

I held a competition a couple of weeks ago, giving a reader the chance to win a copy of Vegan Cookbook: The Essential Guide .

The winner – picked by an online random number generator – is Emzy Lemezma.

Well done Emzy!

The man who sent me the ‘beyond minging’ artichoke tea (I’m not entirely sure that phrase will be going out in their future marketing materials but it certainly should be their slogan), also sent me a box of Natur Boutique Lotus Green Tea, which is said to aid relaxation. After almost gagging on trying the artichoke tea, I was a tad nervous about trying the green tea. Searching the box for any sign of strange ingredients, e.g. turtle’s anus (which probably tastes like artichoke tea), all appeared to be ok, and on the assumption that they can’t f**k up green tea, gave it a go. And no, they haven’t f***ed it up. It’s a perfectly pleasant green tea. In fact, I’ll even go as far as saying it’s really rather nice.

On the packet they suggest that you drink a cup of it 2-3 times a day 15-20 minutes before eating for 20 days. I’m assuming they don’t mean eat non-stop for 20 days. They also say this on the box of Natur Boutique Diet Green Tea Blend they also sent [review to come soon]. If drinking a cup of tea means you can eat non-stop for 20 days, then I would suggest Natur Boutique only impart this information to a select few, otherwise there’ll be a stampede of chubsters breaking into their head office to loot their entire stock on their way back from Greggs.

And they wouldn’t want that to happen now, would they?

I got sent some Natur Boutique Artichoke Tea to try.

It was beyond minging.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting a mouth full of artichoke flavoured hot water. I poured it down the sink and made myself a nice mug of hot chocolate instead.

If anyone ever offers you a cup of artichoke tea, just say no.

A while back, I was sent The Newlywed’s Vegetarian Cookbook. Thinking I was hinting at something, The Meat Eater got a bit nervous when he saw it on the dining table. When he saw a copy of Vegetarian Food for Kids his face turned the colour of a turnip (I should probably point out that that’s where the similarity to any kind of root vegetable ends).

I wondered what I’d do with a vegetarian cookbook for kids. I thought it would be all beans on toast and other unsophisticated meals like that (don’t get me wrong, I love beans on toast, but I don’t need a recipe for it). But then I saw under the ‘Lunchboxes and snacks’ chapter a recipe for an avocado and chickpea wrap. Wow, that’s a bit posher than the Kraft Dairylea on white sliced my mum used to pack me off to school with (although I actually hate avocado and would rather have a Kraft Dairylea Triangle any day, to be honest).

The other chapters in the book are:

Breakfasts
Soups and fast food
Kid’s favourites
Family feasts

Originally – before going through the book – I had planned to give it away on my blog. But after seeing recipes such as:

Pizza soup (yes, really!)
Bean, cheese and tomato quiche with a buckwheat crust
Creamy orzo pasta bake
Breakfast bread and butter pudding with dried apricots and cranberries
Multi-grain granola bars
Veggie chilli with roast pumpkin wedges
Butternut squash and chestnut crumble

I decided to keep it for myself, sorry.

With over 60 recipes for all the family and crammed full of gorgeous colour photos, this is definitely not a cookbook just for kids.

Quorn have a new fish range out.

In the past, I’ve eaten Redwood’s Fish Style Fingers quite a few times. The first time I tried them, I was immediately transported back to being 14 years old and getting home from school; they were – as far as I could remember – just like the real thing (although that was only the first time. On subsequent times I’ve had them, they haven’t seemed that authentic [which will be a good thing for many people]. I’ve also tried Redwood’s Thai Fish Style Cakes but they weren’t for me and after eating two of them, the rest of the packet went into the bin.

We gave Quorn Fish Fingers a go and they were ok, but a bit dry and bland and nowhere near the texture of fish (although, I don’t want them too ‘fishy’, just like I don’t want meatfree products too ‘meaty’. I like meatfree products like Quorn and supermarkets’ own range meatfree stuff for what they are, not because they’re ‘fake’ meat [but that's not something I'm going to go into on this blog]).

The new Quorn fishcake range that I’d seen in the supermarket had made me a bit squeamish. Quite a few times, I’d lingered over them but moved on without buying them. That’s probably because while us veggies have been used to burgers and sausages being around for ever, veggie (or vegan; all Redwood’s products are vegan [unlike Quorn that contains milk and egg]) fish products are relatively new. Still, I was brave and put some Quorn Salmon and Dill Fishcakes in the trolley and served them up for dinner.

Unlike a lot of breaded products that are oven baked, these came out nice and crispy. Perfectly crispy, in fact. They’re very thick and substantial – a lot thicker than I expected and that was a bit off-putting. Also a bit off-putting was the colour; a pale greyish pinkish colour. A faint taste of fish came through but not overpowering. On the whole, they seemed a bit weird at first, but perfectly pleasant, although not something I’d have on a regular basis.

Now then, when will I be brave enough to try the Quorn Tuna Style Melts that are currently in the freezer?

Veatable Savoury Snack Bars are a new chewy, savoury snack from Crendon Foods that you keep in the fridge, unlike most crunchy, sweet snack bars that you keep in the cupboard. They’re one of your 5-a-day, only 99 calories per bar, high in fibre, suitable for vegetarians (obviously, otherwise they wouldn’t be on this blog), gluten and wheat free, and free from artificial flavourings, colourings and preservatives.

That’s where the good bit ends.

I got sent all three flavours to try: Tomato Pizza, Thai Sweetcorn, and Sweet Roast Vegetable. Being a complete pizza lover, I eagerly ripped off the wrapper from the Tomato Pizza variety and thought, ugh.

Not very appetising is it? Still, who cares what it looks like, it’s going to taste of pizza, yay.

Did it heck. It tasted like, oh, I don’t know what. It was flipping horrible though. So horrible I couldn’t get further than one bite. One bite that was full of grit. The rest went immediately into the bin.

I was too scared to try the other ones for a few weeks, but then I decided to be brave (OK, I admit it, I was out of crisps). Not being a huge fan of sweetcorn in stuff, I gave the Sweet Roast Vegetable flavour a try. This time I didn’t even get as far as one bite. Well, I did, but it didn’t get swallowed as I spat it out into the bin.

Inedible.

If this hasn’t put you off, I’ve still got the Thai Sweetcorn one left, if anyone’s brave enough to try it. If so, just leave me a comment and I’ll post it off to you.