Fifty Shades of Vegan

I love shopping! But shoes and purses can wait. Buying fresh vegetables at my local market is my new favourite Saturday ritual 🙂 the guys are so used to seeing me I’m even getting little discounts now. I just love laying it all out on the side counter and looking at the rainbow of healthy food I’m putting into my body, it makes me feel so good!

This weeks menu is a fresh homemade nut roast for dinner, lunches will be spinach and chickpea burgers with homemade chips and of course my smoothies for breakfast 🙂 So I’ll be keeping you al updated in how they go and how they taste. I haven’t had any disasters yet so maybe I’m due.
Knock on wood.
The Foodie
Xxx

It’s Fun to Say Goulash!

I had grand plans this week of a decedent Indian curry with lashings of Tarragon and saffron and fresh chicken and then I realised that I’m a student and don’t crap money so settled on a Goulash. It’s cheap and flavour full but mostly because it’s fun to say Goulash.

I took a recipe buuuut I pretty much ignored most of it so it would be pointless to share it. I took a pork loin and trimmed the fat off and cut into cubes which was quite time consuming but it saved so much money on the meat to do it myself rather than buy pork loin steaks to do the exact same thing. I used a shit load of paprika, some cinnamon, chilli powder, mixed herbs and parsley and marinated the pork for about half an hour. Fry it with an onion, until it’s browned, chuck in a tin and a half of chopped tomatoes let it reduce down a bit then add a couple of tins of new potatoes (or fresh if you have that thing I hear about called money). Then just leave to simmer until it tastes right and the porks cooked 🙂 really simple.
I wouldn’t add any salt until the end as the pork really is quite salty so there is a danger of over salting it which I nearly did.

But yeah it tasted great really rich and exciting considering how simple and cheap it was to make. I serve it with rice and natural yoghurt just to make it more substantial as there really isn’t that many calories in it upon my, probably vastly inaccurate calculations. I call it optimism.
GOOOOOUUUUUULLLLLASH! It really is fun.
The Foodie
Xxx

Great Geordie Sausage Casserole

Great sausage casserole, not just sausage casserole, GREAT sausage casserole, a la hairy bikers. If your from across the pond and don’t know what The Hairy Bikers are then the name says it all. They’re hairy bikers that cook, they’re also Geordie which means they hale from the tropical paradise of Newcastle, which is about twenty minutes away from my hometown.
It’s not going to win any beauty contests but by god it’s bloody good!
The best thing about sausage casseroles is that you can use cheap sausages and just about get away with it, though of course it’s always better to use the hearty farty posh ones that students like me can only dream of.
This casserole was amazing! Such a massive punch of saltiness from the bacon with the sourness of the tomatoes and the richness of the butter beans just creates an amazing flavour!
It says to serve it with rice but I ate it with Cous Cous as the butter beans and rice would have been too heavy on my palate and the Cous Cous takes on the delicious flavour in the sauce.
So yes buy the cook book if you haven’t already the hairy bikers certainly know a good casserole. It’s tasty, easy to make and gloriously British 🙂
The Foodie
Xxx