nestled in it's box

Open the box and it hits you: that exciting, sugary Easter Egg scent from childhood. I don’t know why chocolate should smell different when formed into an egg shape, but it does.  Dark chocolate eggs are of course gorgeous, but altogether more grown up. This is the one for children and those who don’t like high cocoa content chocolate. The moo free egg is sweet and mild and could easily be mistaken for a milk chocolate product.

in the frost and sunshine

It’s a good 100g size and the bunny, butterfly and flower packaging is a nice change from dark eggs which are usually aimed at very mature people…

of course, once opened, it didn't last long in this house

Available from Goodness Direct and larger Waitrose stores. Moo Free Chocolates have full details of all stockists on their website

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brownies all in a row

But first to the crisps: completely guilt free, dried raw squares of tastiness. The three flavours are Beetroot, Spicy Thai and Red Pepper and they’re all very good…

beetroot crisps nestled in their bag

…but the absolute winner for us was the red pepper. Reminiscent of pizza, these would be very nice little crackers too. Topped with a small slice of tomato, a basil leaf and maybe half an olive… but before these musings could be made real and captured on camera they were all scoffed by other people.

red pepper crisps

The brownies are satisfyingly sticky, soft and rich, remarkably like a cooked cake but you still feel great after eating them. No sugar rush/up/down thing going on at all.

that's my favourite, the cacao cocobanana one

It’s deliciously coconutty and sweet. And just look at this cacao mint brownie coming towards you:

you want it don't you? well you should, it's good!

Excuse the food porn Other varieties are cacoa cashew which is pleasantly cinnamony, carob hazelnut and carob orange. The carob ones are nice, they got gobbled down fast, but chocolate is always preferred here.

All these delicious, healthy products are raw, organic, vegan and free from wheat and gluten You can read more about them and purchase on  Gourmet Raw’s website Use code GR003 for a 10% discount.

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fresh out of oven

This is a dish we’ve had a lot over the years but never written up. Original credit goes to Sarah Brown’s Vegetarian Kitchen (BBC cookery series). It’s a wonderfully filling and wholesome meal. Topped with mashed potatoes, the base is made of aduki beans (goodness direct link there, which links back to our aduki bean cottage pie recipe!), brown rice and vegetables in a gravy. The name comes from the beans which are referred to as ‘red dragons’ in the East; their nutrient content is said to give you the strength of the dragon

Here’s how we do it:

Soak beans overnight if using dried ones. For the mammoth pie above which did dinner and lunch next day for four, we used 250g of dried beans. Place in a  large pan, cover well with water, bring to the boil and let simmer for a long time… (should be instructions on the bag). Throw in the rice (200g) about half way through cooking. Add more water if needed. Once it’s all nearly cooked add the vegetables. In this pie there were four carrots and one head of celery, all chopped. Onion is good too.

As that cooks up a bit, add a teaspoon of mixed herbs, a good  squidge of tomato puree and a teaspoon of yeast extract. Taste and add salt if needed. Stir well. Top with mashed potatoes – especially easy if using cookware that does hob and oven like our favourite Le Creuset Cast Iron Round Casserole – and bake in a hot oven until nicely browned.

dished up

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vanilla cake with cream and buttons

creamovita and chocolate buttons - recipe for sponge on this page 

colours from the garden – a smoothie to be (added avo, banana, and OJ)

moth

check out VegaNation, a new vegan online shop! 

boy by sea

Pennan

girlish toes in the sea

salad

cauldron

sequins

Books of the moment:

Ecstatic Beings - Shazzie and Kate Magic

The Brightest Star in the Sky - Marian Keyes

Balletboyz - Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt

Waldon and Other Writings - Henry David Thoreau

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details here, most varieties are vegan. 50 people that take part in this survey will win one

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little egg box - mint, orange, dark and intensely dark

Beautiful raw chocolate vegan Easter box from RAWR – delicious, gorgeous packaging, we highly recommend

solid chocolate eggs

intensely dark

and because we haven’t had one for a long time, a photo of a sunsetty loch

evening walks are back - it's Spring!

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one of my favourite books ever

An older book, now out of print, but I don’t think anything has come along to best it as a veggie festive title (do comment if you know otherwise!). I got the hardback out of the library something like 18/19 years ago and it impacted me. The gorgeousness of Christmas food, the hints on preparing and freezing taking the hard work away from the day itself, the photos all through it. In fact looking through the pristine copy I now own (thank you Amazon marketplace, used condition, 1 pence!) I see obvious influences there for some of the recipes on our Yule page

a puff pastry mushroom Christmas tree!

I waited for frost and sunshine to write this post, dismal downpours were not hitting the right mark for the photos.

that's the chestnut and red wine pate en croute that we all love

There are five complete Christmas dinner menus, sections on preparation, party food, puddings and cakes, lighter festive lunches and so many cute sides. There’s also a craft bit about making your own gifts.

little Santa pizzas, easily veganisable

As with all Rose Elliot books there are vegan adjustments added in where appropriate.

parsley potato stars

As mentioned both paperback and hardcover are out of print but it is available secondhand from both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com though I think the 1 pence ones have all gone…

a search for Vegetarian Christmas on AbeBooks.co.uk turns up quite a few editions, very well priced, but remember the paperback does not have the photos!

As I was out there in the frost our daily visiting whooper swans flew over. I stared up at them as usual, the cogs of my brains slowly grasping the knowledge that I had a camera in my hand. They were almost out of sight by this point but a quick aim in the direction of the sky caught a glimpse of their wings through the trees.

most indistinct picture of swans ever

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Little bits that weve been watching/seeing/thinking about/liking. First a 9 second clip of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s 11 turn pirouette from White Nights:

Ellen Degeneres on being vegan:

Then this clip from the Magic Sword reminds me of walking in our woods here, all wild and magical. It was the first film we took the children to see at the cinema too…

and a trailer for The Social Network, definitely one of better films weve seen of late:

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our first graze box

The postman just bought our first graze box, which we got free, and it’s gorgeous. Very high quality snacks in there, loads to choose from on their site. There’s even a non-vegan food list so you can bin all those items if you are vegan, though I would say the majority of it is fine.  My only slight concern would be the level of packaging for such a small amount of food, but the cardboard is the type you can tear into the compost so there won’t be too much waste. The little plastic pots could also be reused – cat food? paints?

You can get a free box too by going to graze.com and using the code NCJ7BJL – it should be prefilled for you on those links. You can cancel at any time so need never have any more than your free box, should you so wish :)

seeds and napkin

was all demolished within minutes in this house...

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beautiful chocolate

Moo Free Chocolates sent us some goodies to try. A sweet, mild chocolate very reminiscent of milk chocolate, went down well with our teens, I think younger children would love it too. I do like the sparkly blue foil It’s vegan (well, duh), organic and uses fairtrade cocoa. There is also going to be an Easter Egg and Advent Calendar

cute packaging

Now the chocolate is very nice but the pralines… wow… posh chocolates, absolutely gorgeous, hazelnutty, smooth… mmm…

chocolate box

here from Ethical Superstore

so wonderfully photogenic too

Advent calendar now available here and don’t miss the chocolate Santa’s!

moo free organic advent calendar

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