Review: FRANK Snack Bars

FRANK Snack Bars

Chocolate covered cereal/fruit bars in Orange, Blueberry, Oat, and Double Chocolate flavours. Frank Honest Snacking says the strap line. These aren't cereal bars in the traditional sense, but are similar to Nakd bars, made from blended fruit and cereal. They have a lovely thick dairy-free chocolate topping:

New: Bellissimo Vegan Parmesan

Bellissimo Vegan Parmesan

Cherub Dairy Free of New Zealand make a parmesan alternative that's now available in the UK. Last year we reviewed a similar product called Parmazano, by Life Free From, but that has since been discontinued. This new Bellissimo product comes in a similar shaker pack and is designed as a cheesy topping for pasta:

Book Launch: Essential Vegan Cookbook

Essential Vegan Cookbook

Tomorrow sees the launch of Vanessa Almeida's new cookbook. Sharing a title with the name of her blog, the 'Essential Vegan' Cookbook contains over 60 recipes. Originally launched last December in Portuguese this limited edition run was an instant success in the author's home country of Brazil, inspiring Vanessa to produce an English edition:

Exclusive: Review of Re-Lasagna Vegan Lasagne Kit

Exclusive: Review of Re-Lasagna Vegan Lasagne Kit

Genuine italian lasagne, but meat and dairy free, from your own kitchen. There aren't many ready-made vegan lasagnes available in the UK... in fact we don't know of any (maybe you do?). If you want lasagne for dinner therefore, you can eat out, or spend an hour or two in the kitchen. Italian chef Gilberto Argini is about to fill this gap in the market with his new Bio-Vegan Lasagne-in-a-box. We've been given an exclusive preview of the new kit (via UPS from Italy!):

Review: Rakusen's Dairy-Free Chocolate Digestives

Rakusen's Dairy-Free Chocolate Digestives

Kosher/Parev biscuits with dark chocolate coating from Leeds firm Rakusen's. Dark chocolate digestives often have 'milk fat' in the dark chocolate, which is no good for us vegans. These ones, found in Sainsburys, are dairy-free:

Review: Wicken Fen Carrot & Coriander Sausages

Wicken Fen Carrot & Coriander Vegan Sausages

Gluten-Free vegan sausages made with soya...and 11% carrots. The Wicken Fen brand has been around in the UK for over 20 years, but seems to come and go depending on the weather. Currently stocked in Sainsburys as well as health food shops, the range includes falafel and various types of veggie sausage (not all vegan). The carrot and coriander ones are some of the very few vegan and gluten-free sausages you can buy:

Book Review: World Food Café: Quick & Easy

Vegetarian Book Review: World Food Café: Quick & Easy

Recipes by Chris and Carolyn Caldicott.
Guest Review by Erin B from Guilt Free Veggie.

This book is not exclusively vegan, so when we were offered the chance to review it, we asked vegetarian blogger Erin from Guilt Free Veggie to review it on our behalf. The beautiful looking hard backed book was released at the beginning of this month and features over 100 vegetarian and vegan recipes from across the globe, with stunning travel and food photography throughout:

Review: Mamma Cucina Dairy-Free Pizza

Mamma Cucina Dairy-Free Margherita Pizza

Vegan margherita pizza with Tofutti mozzarella cheese. Part of Triano Brands (best known for Tofutti), the Mamma Cucina range in the UK now includes dairy-free ice cream, cheesecakes, quiches and pizzas. Just like the quiche and cheesecake, this pizza is also gluten-free. We've tried Tofutti cheese on pizza before...so does this make a worthwhile frozen pizza?

Review: Booja Booja Dairy-Free Ice Cream

Booja Booja Dairy-Free Vegan Ice Cream

Mini-tubs of premium vegan ice cream that come with spoons, in Vanilla, Coconut and Chocolate flavours. Continuing our 'frozen' theme of late, which we should have done in August rather than as autumn arrives... These mini pots of ice cream have been around for a couple of years, but we're revisiting them to compare them to recent arrivals on the vegan ice cream scene:

Review: Food Heaven Dairy-Free Ice Cream

Review: Food Heaven Dairy-Free Ice Cream

Vegan ice cream from @FoodHeaven in Rich Chocolate, Cool Vanilla and Wild Blueberry flavours. Jodi Anderson and the team at Food Heaven have put together a great range of dairy-free foods, with this dairy-free ice cream now widely available. You may be familiar with Food Heaven's frozen cheesecakes, and they're soon to launch a dairy-free tiramisu too! We checked out the ice cream on a sunny September weekend...

Next Month: VegFest London 2013



It's September 5th already, just one month until the massive vegan extravaganza of VegFest London on October 5th and 6th. The two day event is on at Kensington Olympia and features headline comedy from Dave Spikey and Lucy Porter, music from Macka B, guests like Melissa Morgan and Scott Jurek, plus scores and scores of stalls. There'll be loads of vegan food on offer, live cookery demos, talks, presentations, workshops and entertainment. It's the vegan event of the year, and we'll be there:

[P]review: Buono Ice Cream Mochi



That's right, preview rather than review. We haven't verified that these are even vegetarian yet, but we're pretty sure they are. They're labelled Dairy-Free, but not as vegetarian, and a couple of the ingredients could be from animal fat. Buono make other products with the same ingredients that are labelled as vegetarian, so we're pretty sure this is an oversight. We've reached out to the distributor to establish the facts, and await their reply.

We hope they're kosher, because they're rather good:

UPDATE: These are confirmed as vegetarian, as well as dairy-free (and have no other possible animal ingredients listed) and they therefore meet our review criteria as being vegan.

Review: Granovita Soyesse Desserts

Review: Granovita Soyesse Desserts

Yoghurt-style desserts from @GranoVitaUK which replace their Soyage line. The desserts come in six flavours: Plain, Strawberry, Raspberry, Banana, Black Cherry and Peach & Apricot. GranoVita sent us a couple of pots of the Peach and Apricot flavour for our review: