(Knitted by my friend Lizzie.) |
A vi-curious (omnivore who digs eating vegan) friend of mine was saying she has a lot of trouble finding some vegan ingredients. Girl, so do I! It's not easy being vegan the Scottish countryside. If it weren't for the large Indian population in the UK, I would be totally screwed.
Black beans, wheat berries, nutritional yeast, vital wheat gluten and such all have to be ordered from specialty places on-line, although I can make a special day-trip to the big city and hit the See Woo in Glasgow for black beans and wheat berries (and dried fungus and miso paste and seaweed and spices). And don't even get me talkin' about Latin American ingredients like tomatillos or mole. Tofu and tahini can, thankfully, be found in some stores, although tofu is getting more expensive and harder to find. I even went to a heath food store in Glasgow once and they were OUT OF TOFU!! They were, like, "we run out of tofu all the time." So why don't you stock more? They shrugged.
So, I'm wondering what ingredients are hard for you guys to find? I'm going to try to come up with some recipes with simpler ingredients.
Slow-cooked cassoulet. Such tender carrots! |
I have an update for you on my slow cooker -- I LOVE it! It's probably the one of the most well-spent £7.99 ever. :D I've gotten lots of recipes and inspiration from this book and this blog and I use it all the time. I made a cassoulet from the aforementioned book and the carrots were sooo tender! I'm usually pretty neutral when it comes to cooked carrots, but these were lovely.
I also got a waffle maker. 1c flour, 1c soy milk, 1 tbsp baking powder, and 1 tbsp oil and you are good to go (that makes about 6 waffles, so I usually triple it -- I've found you don't really need to triple the amount of baking powder -- you know in case you are always running low, like me). My husband had 12 waffles the first time I made them. 12!! I usually make 40 or 50 in one go (seriously!) and freeze a bunch for later (they fit in the toaster perfectly). I also made falafel and hash browns in my waffle maker. It is so much fun.
And on a totally different non-food, non-crafter note, MINIMALISM. I've decided to get rid of some of my non-essentials & other things I don't use as often as I used to and have been looking at minimalist blogs for inspiration. I'm not a total hoarder, but I do struggle with getting rid of sentimental things. If you guys have any tips, philosophies, or interesting links and such, please share!
Much love from your favourite Crabby Crafter! :D