This Month: West Midlands Vegan Festival

#WMVF

It's October already and that means it's only a few short weeks until this year's bigger and better West Midlands Vegan Festival takes place in Wolverhampton. The festival has expanded again and will now take place in two large halls, with 6 smaller rooms for talks and demos. Upwards of 2000 people are expected to attend and we'll be there to bring you news and photos from the event.

Four things you can do with nufu (peanut tofu)

We've finally got through those four blocks of nufu and here's what we made. Just like tofu, nufu is pretty versatile, but here's what you should know, if you're going to make it. Firstly, it tastes of peanuts.. this sounds obvious but it's a contrast with tofu which is pretty bland. It's also quite crumbly and delicate, a little like lopino (lupin tofu) if you've ever tried that. Lastly, it's also quite astringent and a little bitter, which probably comes from the double coagulators we used (nigari and gypsum). The bitterness can be offset with a touch of sugar and a pinch of salt.

Plantfoods: 'Nufu'... make tofu from peanuts

UPDATE: The step-by-step guide to making nufu is now live at plantfoods.org 

Our sister site plantfoods.org will shortly have a write-up on our experiment to make nufu... tofu made from peanuts. Peanuts are a protein-rich legume, a lot like soybeans, and the results are very similar to tofu. The yield is excellent...you get a kilogram of peanut curd... four of those blocks above, from just 500g of peanuts. The curd still tastes peanutty too, so makes a tasty alternative to tofu:

Recipe: Smashing Tarts' Vegan Whoopie Pies

The folks at vegan bakery Smashing Tarts in Glasgow have given us the recipe for their rock star approved vegan whoopie pies. Smashing Tarts is a family run business supplying local cafes and they also bake to order for special occasions. Originally from Canada, Lisa and Navarro moved to Glasgow in 2007. They believe that everyone needs yummy cake, regardless of dietary requirements... and we couldn't agree more:

Quick Plug: The Vegan Cakery

Leicester's answer to Ms Cupcake? Makers of vegan cupcakes, wedding cakes, birthday cakes and more, the Vegan Cakery is a vegan cake making business started earlier this year by Michelle Orme. Their fabulous range of cakes is currently sold online and at vegan events across the midlands. They don't have a retail presence of their own, but that hasn't stopped Michelle from making her cakes available on the high street, as they're also stocked at a couple of venues in the Leicester area:

Review: VEGANDELI Mortadella and Morcilla sausage

More vegan slicing sausage from Deli-Frys...or should we say VEGANDELI as they will now be known. We recently reviewed their mock ham and mock smoked chorizo sausage and now it's the turn of two other types of slicing sausage...Italian Mortadella and Spanish Morcilla. These types of sausage might be familiar to you if you frequent New York delis, but are less well known in the UK than the ubiquitous Chorizo. Mortadella is a garlicky sausage, while Morcilla is...well, more of a bloody concoction in the manner of black pudding.

Rebrand: Deli-Frys becomes....VEGANDELI

The new VEGANDELI range on Bute Island's Website

Bute Island are rebranding their Deli-Frys range of vegan meats and sausages. The range only recently launched in the UK, and products with the Deli-Frys name have only just started appearing in shops. We speculate that the Deli-Frys name was confusing for consumers, and maybe FRYS were more than a little unhappy about the similarity with their own brand name.

Siri: I'm Vegan

Apple's iOS 6 has finally made Siri useful in the UK...but not for UK vegans... The biggest problem for UK vegans is that Siri can't understand the word vegan unless you say VAYgan in some mid-atlantic twang. If you say VEEgan like we do here in England (and where the word 'vegan' was coined, let's not forget..) it thinks you're saying 'Feagan' which is a surname. Even if you put that in context and say 'Show me local vegan restaurants', it hears 'Show me local leading restaurants'. It's like it's wilfully trying to mishear you.

Don't Panic: Sheese lives on

The website for Bute Island Foods is gone, along with the website for Deli-Frys as we mentioned in our recent review. Fear not, Sheese lovers, we spoke to them today and they're alive and well and are now aware of the problems. We're planning to review some more Deli Frys mock meats in the coming days.

UPDATE: Deli-Frys has been rebranded as VEGANDELI

Question: Is Bournville vegan?

Unrelated to today's other post...

The ingredients list on the back of Cadbury's Bournville chocolate has changed back and forth over the years to include or exclude dairy products...usually milk fat. The current ingredients list is animal free, but includes one of those annoying disclaimers:

When is vegan-certified chocolate not vegan?

When it comes with live maggots...  We're not going to name the brand as they're a small company, but this probably wouldn't have scored highly in our review...

Review: Lima Seitan Pieces...Bottled Seitan

What have the Belgians ever done for us? Well they've certainly made seitan much more accessible...by putting it in a jar. You can make your own seitan...in a couple of hours, or you can buy chilled seitan...but what if you want it in the store cupboard, ready to go? Lima has the long life solution you're looking for. These large jars are sold across Europe for seitan worshippers everywhere:

Gluten-Free Vegan: Mamma Cucina Quiches Review

Delicious dairy-free quiches....at least that's what it says on the pack. You may have seen these gluten, egg and dairy free quiches in the freezer at Holland & Barrett. The Mamma Cucina brand from Triano (the Tofutti makers) also appears on cheesecakes and pizzas. We popped a couple of these mini quiches in the oven to see if they're any good.

Review: Allsep's Party Mix Jelly Sweets

Australian confectionery brand Allsep's products are not widely available in the UK, but their vegan Party Mix jellies are. These are firm jellies, but not quite hard gums...think somewhere between jelly babies and wine gums. The sweets in each bag are in a whole range of shapes, colours and flavours...hence the 'party' moniker:

Review: Deli Fry's Mock Meats

If you've been to a recent VegFest you might have sampled Bute Island's range of mock meats, sold under the Deli-Fry's label. That's not to be confused with Frys...our favourite frozen mock meat producer. Deli-Fry's stuff is all ambient packaged in vac pacs and ready to eat. We put the mock ham and mock chorizo to the test:

UPDATE: Deli-Frys has been rebranded as VEGANDELI

Bon-Bons, Jellies, Chocolate and Liquorice...from the National Trust

Probably not the first place to look for vegan confectionary, but the National Trust has a pretty good selection at some of their locations. Vegan toffee bon-bons are still as rare as hen's teeth so to find them sitting there in an NT gift shop is quite a surprise. Even vegetarian jellies are still unusual, and what about hard liquorice without gelatin or beeswax:

Review: Smart Fries..air popped potato sticks

For UK readers these are crisps rather than chips...and for US readers these are chips rather than fries. Now that's out of the way, on with the review. With "80% less fat than regular potato chips" according to the pack, these potato sticks claim to be healthier than your usual potato-based snack. They're air-popped, which we guess means they're not deep fried...

Review: Pudology Puds....sshh...they're vegan

We've got our hands on the three new vegan desserts produced by gluten, egg and dairy free producer Pudology. The espresso and mango flavours don't seem to have made it to market just yet, but we've got the chocolate, banoffee and strawberry puds to keep us happy. The desserts are sold singly or in twin packs and are beautiful to look at...with colourful designs and clear pots so you can see what you're getting:

Review: Askeys Brandy Snap Baskets

A vegan version of that splendid but peculiar affair...the brandy snap basket. We say peculiar because they never contain brandy, and are never flat like a 'snap' biscuit. They probably used to be made with brandy, and are still usually made with butter...which thankfully these aren't. These ginger flavoured baskets are designed to be filled with ice cream, so we added a scoop of the dairy-free stuff and gave them a try.

Review: Dorset Cereals Breakfast Pot

We recently reviewed Dorset Cereals vegan chocolate macadamia bar and now it's the turn of their breakfast cereal...a 'breakfast pot' in fact. This is a single serving of muesli in an oversized plastic pot...you supply your own milk. It isn't the cheapest way to get your breakfast, but if you're away from home it's about the healthiest option available. We filled ours with Rice Dream and gave it a try.

Review: Hipo Hyfryd Pistachio and Rose Delight

Welsh handmade vegan chocolate from Cardiff. The range of chocolates available from producer Hipo Hyfryd is not your run of the mill stuff, but rather the unusual and unique. Rose and pistachio are normally found together in turkish delight, but here they're paired as a sort of praline filling.

Chifu: 'tofu' made from Chia Seeds

Along with our sister site plantfoods.org we're reviewing chia seeds...Chia Bia seeds even. We've so far made chia gel, chia milk and chia tofu, but chia yoghurt was a no go...it just wouldn't culture.

The 'chifu' we made is very unusual...more gluten-like than tofu-like...but if anything we thought it was most like silly putty. We can't think of what to do with it as yet, but we suspect it might be useful in gluten-free baking as it's very elastic.

If you want to make it yourself, the instructions will soon be up on plantfoods.org, but in short you do this:

Review: Dorset Cereals Choc Macadamia Bars

Vegan chocolate cereal bars from the people at Dorset Cereals, the premium breakfast muesli makers. These cereal bars are billed as 'decadently chocolatey' and are just under 10% chocolate. Rather than being a chocolate-coated cereal bar, these have the chocolate mixed with the cereals throughout the bar. The presentation of Dorset Cereals products is great...lots of shelf appeal...but do these bars justify their premium billing?

Review: Taifun Tofritto tofu steaks

Our favourite tofu producer Taifun also makes sausages, cutlets, filets and steaks, all from the finest German tofu (made from German-grown organic soya beans). The latest line to hit chiller shelves in the UK is their Tofritto brand of tofu steaks. The product comes in two flavours, Cashew & Olives and Capers & Peppers. The steaks can be eaten cold but are best pan-fried until crispy. We fried up the Cashew & Olive steak for our review:

Review: Choceur Mint Chocolate Waves

Vegan chocolate 'pringles' anyone? Aldi's Choceur brand of chocolate occasionally turns up some unexpected vegan treats. These minty chocolate waves take the form of Pringles, in a stack tube to match. They are simply very thin dark chocolate, flavoured with mint and peppered with crispy rice.