I’m addicted to hot chocolate. Utterly, totally, have-to-get-my-fix-of-it-at-least-twice-a-day addicted. At home, I make vegan hot chocolate using a dairy-free drinking chocolate powder such as Cadbury’s or whatever’s cheapest in the supermarket (most non-instant hot chocolate is vegan, unlike the instant hot chocolate such as Options, which contains milk), and plant milk such as almond, soya or coconut. When I’m out, if they have non-dairy milk – yay! If not, I must confess I do drink hot chocolate with moo juice if that’s all they have (I know, I should be stronger, or go somewhere else – especially as there are plenty of places near me that do vegan hot chocolate, and even a place that serves raw cacao hot chocolate).
I went to buy almond milk in the little Tesco the other day hoping it was on offer for £1 like it is sometimes, as I’m too tight to pay the full £1.80. While, yes, it wasn’t on sale for £1.80, instead of going down to a budget-friendly £1 as I’d hoped, it had gone up to £1.99. Yeah, one pound flipping ninety flopping nine! Well, fuck that, I thought, and went home and made myself some cashew milk instead.
I took part in a big cycling event over the weekend (although I should probably confess the lure of the train station just half a mile away was too strong and I wimped out of the second day) and, as I was away from home, my diet consisted of carbs, carbs and more carbs in the form of pizza, pasta and flapjacks. I have absolutely no problem with any of these essential food items but after three days of it, man, was I craving some good old fruit and veg.
Since switching from non-vegan instant hot chocolate to vegan not-instant-but-worth-the-tiny-extra-bit-of-time-it-takes-to-make-it (not its official slogan) Cadbury Hot Chocolate, I’ve been through a lot of soya milk. While I don’t believe the scare stories about soya being bad for you and if you eat or drink it you’ll grow an extra head or whatever the latest rumour is, I still like to make my own versions of shop-bought products when I can because a) they’re purer; b) I get to use my kitchen gadgets; and c) it gives me something to write about on this here blog.
Going back to ‘b’ for a moment, when I received my Optimum G2.1 high powered blender, one of the first things that came into my head to use it for was nut milk, especially as it came with a nut milk bag and the blender itself has a pre-programmed setting for nut milk.
I had a nose around the internet for an almond milk recipe and a lot of them involved dates and vanilla and stuff, so I decided to make my pure almond milk purely out of almonds and water – nut milk doesn’t get any simpler than this. As you’ll know, almonds aren’t cheap, so this almond milk isn’t as cheap as a carton of almond milk you can buy in the shops but you can keep the almond pulp to use in other ways, so there’s no wastage. And in case you’re thinking, ‘I bet the nut milk bag is a pain to clean’ – it’s not. I thought it would be but it’s not like muslin/cheesecloth and it rinsed clean in a bowl of soapy water in a few seconds and if you haven’t got a nut milk bag, you can get one on Amazon for a few quid.
Put the almonds and water in a high speed blender and process on high for 2 minutes (or if you have an Optimum G2.1, choose the 'nut milk' option in the menu.
Strain through a nut milk bag, keeping the pulp for another use and store the milk in the fridge
Notes
If the almond milk is too bitter for you on its own, you can sweeten it with a couple of dates and/or a tsp of vanilla extract. Also, you can soak the almonds in hot water for an hour or two instead of overnight if you're in a hurry.
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This almond milk is lovely in hot chocolate – just be prepared to be asked ‘how do you milk an almond?’ if you tell your friends you made it.
Disclaimer: I am an Ambassador for Froothie and any links to their products in this post are affiliate links which, if purchased through, won’t cost you any more but will earn me a small commission. I only endorse products I am happy with and I have not been paid for this post. For more information about the Optimum G2.1 blender mentioned in this post, you can read my review here.
There’s a local cafe/bistro I go to regularly and although I always order the same meal (portobello mushroom in a bun with blue cheese, wedges and salad), my drink order is always different. Sometimes I fancy a hot chocolate, sometimes I’ll have a glass of wine or a bottle of Peroni and sometimes I have their homemade lemonade. Their homemade lemonade is lovely but because it’s so lovely, it doesn’t last long as you can’t help but drink it quickly. As I was drinking some the other day, I pondered how much it cost them to make (they sell it for £1.95 a glass) and decided it probably didn’t cost much and I’d make some myself. Now, before you get all narky and but-you’re-not-just-paying-for-the-ingredients-you’re-paying-for-someone-to-make-it-and-someone-to- bring-it-to-you-and-then-there’s-rent-and-rates-and-wages-and-stuff-to-pay-for; yes, I agree with you and I don’t begrudge them their £1.95; I just wanted to make some for myself. Which is what I did, and very nice it was too.
And in case you are wondering how much it cost to make over a litre of homemade lemonade – a pack of four unwaxed lemons in Tesco is £1.50 (I used 3 so that’s £1.12 [I think]) and a 500g bag of caster sugar is 99p and the water came out of the tap. I tried to work out how much the sugar cost per gram but my maths is so shit, I couldn’t even work it out on a calculator – so, if you can work out how much 140g cost if 500g is 99p, please let me know.
Although my blender (the Froothie G2.1 Optimum) did its thing and whizzed up the lemons, sugar and water beautifully, there was a bit of pulp leftover, which I threw away, despite a voice in the back of my head telling me I could probably use it in a cake or something. You could also, I suppose, leave it in, if you like your lemonade with ‘bits’ in.
Honestly, this lemonade is so simple – you really should give it a go.
Add the lemons, sugar and half of the water into a blender and process thoroughly
Strain the mixture into a bowl and top up with the rest of the water
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*Disclaimer: I am an Ambassador for Froothie and any links to their products in this post are affiliate links which, if you purchase through, won’t cost you any more but will earn me a small commission. I only endorse products I am happy with and I have not been paid for this post.
I thought I was making a citrus smoothie. But then I found out that a kiwi fruit isn’t a citrus fruit, but a berry, and then I found out a pineapple isn’t a citrus fruit either because citrus fruit belong to the Rutaceae family and a pineapple belongs to the Bromeliarceae family. So there you go. And no, I hadn’t heard of the Rutaceae or Bromeliaceae family either. The only family name I usually hear about is ‘Mitchell’, and I now I’m imagining Phil sitting at the kitchen table at breakfast time, picking up an orange and telling Ben how citrus fruit are from the ‘rutter-see-er faaaaaaaaaaaaaamily, innit’.
Still, despite the clementine being the only citrus in this citrus smoothie (which isn’t even a smoothie, as it’s more like a juice). it only took a few seconds in my Nutribullet to blend it all together with some Buko organic coconut water.
A few years ago, I made chilli vodka with the chillies harvested in the summer. It was as simple as simply bunging some chillies into a bottle of vodka, then waiting six weeks for it to do its chilli-infusing thing.
Had I’d known about 31dover.com back then, I could have saved myself the six week wait, put the chillies on a pizza instead and ordered a bottle of 31Dover’s Naga Chilli Vodka, which would have arrived with me the next day.
However, I didn’t know about 31Dover back then and, after reading the blurb about their Naga Chilli Vodka (‘… a ridiculously hot vodka straight from the bowels of hell’), I’m not sure I’d have been brave enough to try it anyway.
What I did fancy trying though was their Two Birds Christmas Spiced Vodka, which is what I chose after 31Dover got in touch to ask me if I’d like to review something from their website. Well, I wasn’t going to say no to free alcohol, was I?
A matte-black gift box turned up the next day, where nestled inside lay a beautiful bottle. I’ve never seen such a pretty bottle of vodka.
Apparently, Two Birds Christmas Spiced Vodka is like a ‘mince pie in a glass’. I say ‘apparently’ because, unfortunately, I’ve had the lurgy since receiving it and haven’t tried any yet. Part of me did think ‘alcohol kills germs, get it down ya’, but the sensible part of me thought ‘you have no stop button and you will drink the whole bottle in one go and die’ and I don’t fancy dying, even for the good of this blog. Not before my birthday, anyway (which is on Tuesday 22 December, by the way).
So, although I can’t tell you if the Two Birds Christmas Spiced Vodka really is like a mince pie in a glass, I can tell you a bit more about 31Dover.
The business was created by the founders of Vanquish Wine – central London’s leading drinks distributor to the trade, who supply London’s top restaurants, bars, hotels and nightclubs with Champagne, wine and spirits. In 2010, Vanquish won the Drinks Business of the Year Award, which set them apart from their competition, enabling 31Dover.com to offer next-day delivery and online pricing backed by a price match guarantee.
You won’t find thousands of wines, beers and spirits on their website, as each bottle is personally recommended by their wine experts and personally tested by everyone on the 31Dover.com team (yes, I want a job there too).
However, you’re sure to find something you want – whether that’s chilli vodka or a case of craft beer – and you can order as little as one bottle or enough for a whole party. Next day delivery is standard and free for orders over £100.
Discount code for Planet Veggie readers
If you’d like to avoid the alcohol aisle in your local supermarket this Christmas and have your drinks delivered to your door instead (yes, I know supermarkets deliver alcohol but do they sell such things as vodka that tastes like mince pies, huh?), you can use the code 31DCATHY (this is not my bra size by the way)at the checkout until 20 December to get 10% off your order.
I bought The Meat Eater a copy of Booze for Free a few years ago. Not because he’s a big drinker but because I thought he’d like to make wine and stuff from things in the garden, and then I’d have a load of booze for free. So far he’s made elderberry wine (disgusting and got poured down the sink). cider (a disaster and got thrown away before it had finished fermenting or whatever it is it does), plum wine (lovely) and blackberry wine (even lovelier).
Although I’ve drunk everything he’s made (and I mean everything – he doesn’t like wine), I haven’t made anything myself because it involves buckets and demijohns and funnels and tablets and a whole bunch of other things that look complicated. So, when Emily Han’s publishers asked me if I’d like a copy of Emily’s book – Wild Drinks and Cocktails – my first thought was, ‘god no, I can’t be doing with all that faff’.
However, the drinks and cocktails in this book are faff-free and use only a few ingredients which you’ll either find in your garden, on a foraging expedition, local market or supermarket. For example, the only ingredients you need for the Rosemary Wine recipe are rosemary and wine and you can’t get much more simple than that.
The book isn’t just about alcohol though – there are plenty of syrups and cordials too. I had planned to make Cranberry Mors (cranberries, water, honey, lemon juice) but I don’t have a cranberry bush in the garden, and then I found out Tesco don’t sell fresh cranberries, so I scrapped that idea and made Strawberry Squash instead.
Rather inconveniently, strawberries don’t generally grow in UK gardens in November, so I bought some from Tesco (and although I said strawberries don’t generally grow in UK gardens in November, they grow somewhere in the UK in November as the strawberries I bought were British).
Strawberry Squash recipe (makes about 470ml)
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 cup (235ml) water
1 cup (200g) sugar
3/4 pound (340g) strawberries, hulled and quartered
Combine the lemon juice, water, and sugar in a saucepan. Bring to the boil over a medium heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Stir in the strawberries. Reduce the heat and simmer gently, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool. Strain through a fine-mesh strainer, gently pressing on the strawberries to extract the liquid without forcing the pulp through the strainer. Discard the solids. Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
The squash was delicious and, with it being Saturday evening, I made a Cava cocktail with it.
Strawberry and Cava Cocktail
The next day, I diluted the squash with water, which made a light, refreshing drink. I imagine it would be great with lemonade, too.
I love this book. There are so many drinks I want to try, such as Dandelion and Chicory Chai (water, ginger, dandelion root, chicory root, black peppercorns, cardamom pods, clove, cinnamon, milk and honey), Apple and Mint syrup (mint, apples, sugar, water), Figs and Vanilla Rum (figs, vanilla bean, rum) and Apple and Sage Wine (apple, sage, honey, vodka, wine).
As you can see, there’s a wide variety of drinks here and Wild Drinks and Cocktails will definitely appeal to foragers, but if foraging’s not your thing, you should be able to find the ingredients easily enough in the shops.
Giveaway: Win a copy of Wild Drinks and Cocktails by Emily Han
If you’d like a copy of Emily’s book, just enter below via Rafflecopter. Good luck!
I generally don’t plan what goes into my smoothies – as I mentioned in my Nutribullet review the other day, it doesn’t seem to matter what combination of fruit you add, it always turns out delicious.
These two smoothies were no exception – I randomly chucked in whatever fruit I could find in the fridge and freezer and out of the Nutribullet came fresh, creamy smoothies. You can see what they were made with in the captions.
Spinach, clementine, raspberry, blueberry, chia seeds and Alpro coconut drink
I’d had rather an unhealthy lunch of a toasted tofu, Violife cheese, onion, sundried tomato, cucumber, srirarcha and salad cream sandwich which, thinking about it, probably isn’t that unhealthy but it was so gooey and delicious, at the time it seemed like the junkiest junk food ever. So junky I put a photo of it on the What Fat Vegans Eat Facebook page.
So, because of my unhealthy lunch and because my energy levels over the last few days have been zero, I thought I’d give my body a boost and put something healthy into it and that something healthy was this banana, blueberry, cacao, cashew and coconut smoothie.
Although I use cacao quite often, such as in these recipes you can find elsewhere on my blog:
I’ve never used it in a smoothie before. I reckon this is because, subconsciously, I equate chocolate to sweets and therefore to junk and, as far as I’m concerned, although junk has its place, its place is not in a smoothie. But, as we’re always being told, cacao (or raw chocolate) is healthy and, not only is it healthy, it’s frequently given the status of being a superfood.
This smoothie was not only delicious but I could feel the goodness streaming through my bloodstream as I was drinking it, I kid you not. I used Alpro Coconut Drink (which I found in the Free From section in Tesco) but it would work just as well with any other soya/rice/almond/oat milk of your choice.
Put the banana, blueberries, cashews and cacao in a blending jug (or Nutribullet or whatever you use to blend things) and top up with the Alpro Coconut Drink.
