I had the absolute pleasure of visiting one of Dublin’s brand new 100% vegan cafés today. To say it was both a wonderful and delightful experience would be an understatement. It was magnificent!

 Located on Mary Street (keep walking down Henry street away from the Spire), the quirky & pretty decor brings home-comfort & cosiness to a magical new level. 
The staff are exceptionally friendly, polite & accommodating. Pretty much everything you could possibly ask for in a group of people running a vegan café! 

This was the menu for this week:

They have a daily special for €10, which included spicy lentil & bean soup, along with a potato and broccoli burger with salad. My mother is not vegan & quite reluctant to try new food but after she tried this, she wouldn’t stop ranting about how delicious it was. That is an Irish Mammy for ya! 

I had the mushroom & coriander burger on a sesame seed bap with couscous & pasta salad. I was too distracted by how amazing everything else was that I didn’t notice which two sauces hugged the burger but whatever they were, they were goooood.

I also got a slice of the mixed berry cake to go, which was so yummy that I forgot to take a picture of it. Trust me though, it was all kinds of happiness in one slice of cake. 
Here’s the carrot cake which had a magical icing-type layer on top. I will probably need this in my life on a daily basis, now. So tasty.

They’re just starting out & need all the help they can get, so I recommend Dubliners & tourists alike to pay this wonderful café a visit. 

The prices aren’t student-friendly, but they use fresh ingredients everyday, so you know it is quality food filled with Lurve! 

It is the loveliest of lovely places to experience in Dublin. All I’m saying is, if they took over the world tomorrow…I’d be okay with that. 

Hey guys!

This is yet another non-food-related post, but I feel it’s important and I welcome all thoughts & opinions on the issue (be nice!).

It has come to my attention that ‘Original Source’ shower gel, although it has the ‘Vegan’ symbol, is part of a larger parent company which test on animals (Pz Cussons). 

Now, I know it’s all down to personal opinion. Some might say it’s hypocritical to use these products and I got some mails since posting about the shower gel stating how utterly wrong it is to use that. Yes, of course I agree. I don’t particularly want to fund these companies. However, as my blog title suggests, I am a student. I try my best to avoid all animal products & by-products to my wallet’s greatest extent. If it was acceptable to wash myself with potatoes, oranges and leaves…..actually, I probably wouldn’t do that, but you catch my drift.

As much as I’d love to buy all of my products from Lush or buy my shoes online from vegetarian-shoes.co.uk, it’s just not feasible for me. Since the day I decided to go vegan and withdraw myself as much as I could from the treacherous animal industry, I was under the impression that it was all about doing one’s utmost best to prevent animal abuse. 

What about the shoes you buy? Do they all state and verify that the glue used to stick the materials together isn’t made from animals? Surely the whole vegan population of the world doesn’t only buy from vegan-certified (pricey!) online stores, right? Unless there is some sort of money-making scheme for vegans that I’m unaware of and have been living off 75c vegetables from the reduced isle in Tesco when I could have been sowing my own seeds in the hundreds of acres of land I could apparently own?

If you’re vegan, you want to make a difference. I don’t slate vegetarians for drinking milk and eating eggs because they’re still helping. They care and they’re still making a difference. There is so much negativity and little tolerance among vegans for anyone and everyone who isn’t vegan. Stop. You’re vegan because you believe in equality & because you believe that you are no better than any other sentient being. 

Being on the defense and ready to attack each other doesn’t help anyone. I have a lot of respect for anyone who cares enough to help animals in any way, whether it’s spending an hour a week volunteering at an animal shelter, being vegetarian/vegan or even feeding pigeons your last bit of bread. Less hate, more love. (Christ, I’m a hippy).

Perspective!

<3

HELLO! Sorry I haven’t been very active as of late, I’m currently in the process of skid-addling away from my parents’ house into my college house so it’s been slightly hectic.

Moving into a new house means becoming an adult, taking on more responsibilities and having to buy things such as…hand soap. Luckily, my vegan friend John informed me about this brand - Original Source. They have lots of vegan products - shower gels, hand-washes, and bath products. They had shampoos and conditioners but unfortunately, they have been discontinued…BUT! DON’T FRET! You should try out ‘Naked’ as they do many vegan shampoos and conditioners, blog post here. Original Source have been approved by The Vegan Society so there is no slipping through the cracks - these are legit!

CAUTION: This smells so good, you may want to eat it. But, don’t. If you happen to get some in your mouth in the shower well hey, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I blogged about Soap&Glory before and their ‘Clean On Me’ body wash - so amazingly yummy, it oozes loveliness. Realistically however, who has €7 to spend on keeping themselves clean? This OS baby is €2.69 in Boots…keep an eye out for special offers though! Vegan John also informed me a while back it was a mere €2(?) in Dunnes (for Irish folk!) so keep one eye open for bargains and BOGOFs!

Just a mini-post to keep my blog alive while I continue to shift my life (slightly but significantly). I’ve discovered some gems in relation to eating-out vegan style in Dublin so after I pay a few more visits, I will share my thoughts!

One question for any Irish reading this - what vegan toothpaste would you all recommend? How much would you spend on toothpaste & where do you buy it? 

My love for London has grown so much ever since I discovered that there are vegan restaurants everywhere.  I didn’t struggle, at all. It was so delightful to not have to live off bread and fruit.

I’m gonna start off by saying I fell in love with Vx, a vegan store on Caledonian Road that sells clothing, footwear, treats (including AMAZING cupcakes!) and savory food. I spent £50 here. I’m not even sorry. I felt like a kid let loose in a sweet shop. Words don’t describe this, so here are some pictures:

And since I am the world’s lamest person, here’s a picture of me clearly delighted with life outside their beautiful shop:

I don’t know how I fit everything into my mini suitcase, but I managed to smuggle coconut marshmallows home and ‘Trios’ (Oreos!). They didn’t last long.

So if you’re ever hanging about London with nothing to do, GO HERE AND PUT YOUR FACE IN EVERYTHING. Okay, cool.

This is completely and totally unrelated to veganism but you have no idea how happy this whole set-up made me. Magical.

My, oh my, it’s been a while! 

So, I’ve been getting up at crazy hours for work so far this summer, so I can afford rent next year, and nobody wants to hear me making a smoothie at 7am with a very noisy blender. However, never fear!! 

Bran flakes are here! 
I never held cereal in very high nutritional regard. Well ladiez&gentz, I was wrong.

In 30g of Bran Flakes (roughly that ^ ), you get 30% of your RDA of each vitamin: B1, B2, B6 & B12. Everyone knows B12 can be a bitch to get a hold of sometimes when you’re vegan, unless you have a constant supply of nutritional yeast!
Not to mention 60% of your RDA of folic acid and lots of other good stuff are in this bowl of loveliness.
Aaaaand Tesco Bran Flakes are less than €2 (I swear, Tesco are not paying me for this).

I add raisins because they’re unreal (obviously), but they’re actually crazy healthy too. 
They’re full of fibre, contain oleanolic acid (prevents cavities!), are a source of calcium and they treat anaemia. GO FORTH AND BUY YOURSELF SOME RAISINS! 

I also sprinkle a mix of different seeds that contain omega-3, for the LOLs - sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, brown linseed, golden linseed & sesame seeds. You can buy the mix ready to eat at Holland & Barrett.

And of course, the magnificent almond milk by Alpro Soya. There aren’t many words for this, but trust me on this one, it’ll be the best €1.99 you’ve spent in a long time.

So there you go - quiet, quick & quite cheap! - Bran flakes, raisins & almond milk ALL for under €5. 

See? You don’t need to spend big dollah to be healthy.

This is on a side-note, but I was curious if it happened to anyone else. I use a hit counter on my blog, and it went from 2,500 hits to over 90,000 hits overnight. Has this happened to anyone else? I guessed there might be something wrong with the counter, it was just a bit craaaaazy, anyone?!

Yesterday, I came back home to Dublin from a university trip to Newcastle, Malta and Bristol. I think it’s safe to say that Newcastle WINS at catering for vegans.

It may not be entirely fair to say that actually, because I didn’t really give Bristol much of a chance, but Malta certainly left a lot to be desired when eating in restaurants.

So! We found a place called ‘Scrumpy Willow and the Singing Kettle’ on Clayton Street in Newcastle first, and I’m pretty sure I would live here if I resided in Newcastle. They catered for meat-eaters, vegetarians and vegans, and they did not produce anything half-heartedly. 
Here are my two friends; Sarah and Niamh, being eager beavers and waiting for the place to open!  

The lady was incredibly nice to us while we were there and the interior was so quirky and unique. Now, to get to the food part - I got a berry milkshake and my vegan friend John got some sort of banana milkshake as far as I can remember. Um, they were sort of amazing.

A few of us ordered the ‘vegan traditional breakfast’ and it was by far, the BEST breakfast I have had since becoming vegan EVER.
There were baked beans, puy lentils, tomatoes, mushrooms, amazing toasted bread with soy butter and a potato bake. Everything was beautiful.

I wanted to try everything, obviously, because I live for food, but I couldn’t afford to try ALL of the food! But I tried this chocolate chilli cake, I didn’t know there was chilli in it (not a huge fan of chilli) but it was still pretty nice.

The lemon cheesecake angels must have made this one though. WOW:

And so that concluded our visit to Newcastle, next up was Malta, which I wasn’t TOTALLY impressed by as far as vegan food was concerned. I asked one waiter if he had anything vegan and he offered me pork, so I kind of gave up on that one. They did have soy ice-cream though, which made me look like a really happy 5-year-old. I bought vegan chocolate drops in a health food store nearby, (there were a lot of those!) and added them in. Here’s the place!

I noticed that a lot of stores in Malta sold soy/rice milk, but I didn’t come across anywhere that offered soy milk with their coffees. Disappointing, considering I got about 8 hours sleep in the 4 days we were away!

In Bristol, we didn’t get much of a chance to explore, but I had previously looked up Arc Cafe which looked promising. Next time!

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. It was the little things like finding soy ice-cream and small health food stores that made the trip that extra bit lovelier. :)

Quinoa

Pronounced ‘keen-wah’, this magical seed tastes a little like rice minus the heaviness and double the nutrients. I use it nearly everyday. They should just pay me to advertise it already. It is literally as easy as throwing a load into a pot of boiling water and cooking it like you would cook pasta. It’s quick, cheap (Tesco brand, obvs) and I like to add Uncle Ben’s curry or szechuan sauce and looooads of veggies and lentils. Yay!

I try to make my food look visually appealing but it just doesn’t want to work out for me, ever. So here is a pile of mush. ^

Quinoa is a good source of protein and fibre. It only takes about 15 minutes to cook & has a slightly crunchy texture.

As I have no sense of portion size, I usually make enough to feed an army. So I used the remainder to fill giant mushrooms. It was weird, but it was good. Let’s not question it.

For the mushrooms - I wrapped them in tinfoil to let them cook in their own juice and put them in the oven for about 45 minutes on gas mark 5. Maaaagic!

Since exams are over and I’m officially finished my first year of college, I now have nearly 4 months to experiment and try out SO MUCH NEW FOOD. Aaaahhhh!

….getting too excited about food since 1992. 

We’re all only human. Sometimes we miss toasted cheese sandwiches…and that’s ok. 

Vegan substitutes aren’t necessarily unhealthy, but there are healthier and more nutritious foods, which is why you should try to eat substitutes as little as possible. 
However!
If you’re feeling a bit badass but not bold enough to fork out €4.55 for ‘dairy free fudge’ in Holland & Barrett, might I suggest an old reliable of mine - toasted cheese with sun dried cherry tomatoes and soy butter. I’ve been a bit nervous about trying vegan cheese since I bought some really random brand and it was disgusting, but I thought I’d give it another chance. I bought this in Nourish:

Toasted it, threw on some sun dried cherry tomatoes, soy butter…and:

It’s my first shot at this, but it tasted pretty good. The texture of the cheese when it’s melted is perfect, the taste is very similar, but slightly masked by the tomatoes. Don’t try it unmelted until you’ve tried it melted though…it’s FAR tastier melted!

I’ve heard of another brand of vegan cheese - ‘Daiya’ - which is supposed to be pretty much the exact same as non-vegan cheese, but they don’t sell it in Dublin. 

As far as price goes, I would call this quite the ‘treat’, purely because for the 8 slices in the pack, you pay €4.30…not lovely, at all. Like I said though, you shouldn’t eat a lot of this. It’s only for naughty days/special occasions/relationship break-up comfort food. 

I’m not ‘encouraging’ this kind of bold food behaviour…I’m just saying it’s ok to live on the wild side of veganism. 

Sometimes.

I’m generally quite prone to throwing on oven chips because they’re quick and non-greasy and generally wonderful with ketchup (what isn’t?). If you’re like me in that respect (an Irish potato-lover), then these will blow your mind. 

Sweet potato fries!

It took me a while to peel and cut these because I’m clearly NOT a tank, as much as I like to think I am, and they’re just generally tough to cut ok?..ok. I reckon after a while you get used to it though. Wash them too, always.
I bought some paprika to sprinkle on them before they were cooked, but I must admit that I couldn’t taste the paprika at all. Maybe buying Tesco branded goods is finally beginning to bite me in the ass. (I’m totally joking, TESCO BRAND FOR LIFE).
They took about half an hour in the oven on gas mark 5, so this is probably something to try when you have no time to waste but hear procrastination station calling your name in Morgan Freeman’s voice.
Also - in one cup of baked sweet potato is 438% of your RDA of vitamin A. And we all know that the earliest signs of vitamin A deficiency is poor night vision…so it’s a good idea to eat them at least once a week or you won’t be able to fight the villains when you’re moonlighting as a superhero.

Add ALL the vegetables too. I buy frozen vegetables because I’m a lazy student, but they have pretty much the same nutritional value as fresh vegetables. 

Bare in mind this was my first attempt at making these, they are also not that illuminous in appearance, I just think I’m a professional photographer because I have Instagram.

Obviously.

Lets-use-up-everything-by-throwing-it-into-a-curry curry.

It was one of those days where I wanted to eat everything…otherwise known as every other day. So I put all of these together and added Uncle Ben’s medium curry sauce. Yum.

• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Green beans
• Cauliflower
• Green lentils
• Red lentils
• Sesame seeds
• Quinoa 

You’ll never have deserved a dinner more in your entire life after that one.