Diary of a bad vegan

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To be honest this blog could also be called - let's get all these random food photos off my phone!

I'm not actually a vegan (or even fully vegetarian) but a lot of these recipes were inspired by the '15 minute vegan on a budget' recipe book.  If these recipes called for the vegan version of a dairy product (butter, yoghurt etc) I tend to just use what I have to hand which often isn't vegan.

Exhibit 1 Kedegree. Start with onion and garlic and then add spices (curry powder, turmeric, and cumin). If I was making it again I'd probably adjust the spices slightly, My curry powder is quite old and didn't seem to add much so I'd probably leave it out and increase the amount of cumin and turmeric. Add rice and hot water. After 5 minutes add broccoli and green beans and more water. After 4 minutes stir through frozen peas. Add lemon and dill (except I hadn't been able to source dill) and serve. Up until this point it was vegan as billed. The diversion came with the standard yoghurt dolloped on top and sprinkled with paprika.
A blue plate with golden rice, broccoli, green beans, and peas on it. The rice is topped with yoghurt and paprika. There is a silver spoon on the left of the plate.

Exhibit 2 Spanish Chickpea stew. Start with onion and carrot, once softening add garlic, pepper, paprika, chilli, cumin and thyme. After a couple of minutes add chickpeas, chopped tomatoes and a pinch of sugar and simmer. Finally add olives and spinach and serve. Again the main dish remained vegan but I served it with bread and non vegan butter on the side.
A blue bowl with a mixture of chickpeas, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes in it. The bowl is on a blue plate, and there are two buttered slices of bread on the plate.

Exhibit 3 Linguine with broad beans and lemon. This was probably the biggest deviation from the recipe and the only justification for it is that I had an open pot of single cream in the fridge which needed using. Super simple recipe - boil linguine in one pan and fry frozen broad beans in another until crisp. Once the linguine is done stir through lemon juice and oil. Top with the broad beans and chives. This is how the recipe suggests serving this dish, but it was at the point that I thought it would be improved with a little cream stirred through.

A blue plate with linguine mixed with broad beans and chives and covered in a creamy sauce. There is a silver spoon on the left of the plate.

Exhibit 4 Cinnamon sugar tortillas. This was an unplanned diversion cooking this afternoon after my evening plans (and potentially my plans for the next few days) changed. I have tortillas which need using up and the recipe book suggested cutting them into triangles, brushing with butter and sprinkling with sugar before baking for 10 minutes. Once out the oven sprinkle with more sugar and cinnamon. These are tasty of their own but could also be served with (vegan) yoghurt or similar.
Two silver baking trays covered with golden triangles of tortillas sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

It seems the point of this post is actually a) I need to get better at syncing up my photography and blog writing, and b) cooking and blog writing are both useful displacement activities on angsty days.

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