Redwood Christmas: Vegan Duck & Orange Pate

A special pate for a special occasion. We've no idea what duck tastes like, and there isn't anyone to hand that does, so we won't be reviewing this pate for authenticity! We know oranges though, so expect some reference to that. Vegan Pates are usually based on yeast...like Tartex and those others in tubes and tubs. This one is based on wheat gluten and has a far better texture and flavour for that:

Redwood Christmas: Vegan Stuffing Bites

Party Bites - nibbles for Christmas parties. Warm stuffing bites are perfect with a cold glass of wine. Redwood are doing their best to make Christmas easy for vegans who want it that way. Just 8 minutes in the oven is all you need for to create an appetiser, if dinner is a while away. These stuffing bites could form part of a wider spread - a hot or cold vegan buffet:

Redwood Christmas: Vegan Cheese Selection

Your dairy-free Christmas cheese board is sorted thanks to Redwood. If you're looking to offer a selection of vegan cheeses but don't want to buy whole blocks, then this pack of three cuts is ideal. The pack offers red cheddar, cranberry and blue cheese styles in a handy size for your cheeseboard. We grabbed a selection of biscuits and crackers and put the cheeses to the test:

Redwood Christmas: Roasts, Bacon Wrapped Sausages

Cheatin' Christmas is here early thanks to vegan favourite Redwood. We're reviewing their festive range of vegan meats, cheeses and pates, starting with their Gammon Style Roast and Sausage and Bacon Style Wraps. The gammon roast is a Christmas special that isn't available for the rest of the year, and the same goes for the wrapped sausages. We put the two together for a Sunday Roast to see if they're a contender for Christmas.

Liveblog: Leicester Vegan Fair (Autumn 2012)

We're here in Leicester on a mild Autumn morning for the second vegan fair of the year in the city. Read on for our liveblog of the day's events.

This Weekend: Leicester Vegan Fair, Sat 17th

#LVF #leicesterveganfair

This Saturday in the East Midlands it's the return of the Leicester Vegan Fair. Consider this one an Autumn Fair, or an early Christmas Fair. After the success of the summer event this year, the team are holding an even bigger and better fair. The event takes place this Saturday, November 17th, at Avenue Primary School, just behind the University, running from 10:30am until 3:30pm.

Taste Test: Best Vegan Advent Calendar

Moo Free, Plamil or Celtic? Dairy-free faux-milk chocolate advent calendars from the leading vegan chocolate makers. You've got just two more weekends to buy your calendars before the start of advent. The choice this year is better than ever and you can pick your favourite brand of milky chocolate to enjoy over the advent period. We do like to pick a winner though, so on with the Advent Calendar Taste Test!

Vegan Christmas: Divine Fairtrade Chocolate Coins

Kids love chocolate coins. There's something about the double joy of something you can play with... and then eat. If you're looking for an ethical stocking filler for children, these Divine fair-trade coins are ideal. Although they're 70% dark chocolate they're not too bitter. These dairy-free treats are sure to please as a Christmas gift:

Vegan Christmas: Kingsway Chocolate Liqueurs

Dark chocolate brand-name liqueurs bought from... Wilkinsons. Yes, following our recent trip to Poundland we extended our budget browsing to include Wilkos. To be fair to Wilkinsons they've gone upmarket recently, but this is no good thing for their vegan selection, which is now limited to one or two items like these chocolate liqueurs filled with Cointreau, St Remy and Teachers:

Vegan Christmas: Celtic Chocolates

Free-From specialist Celtic's christmas chocolates are now on sale at Holland & Barrett. Celtic have a great range of faux-milk chocolates but this is strictly a dark chocolate selection. Mint crisps for the after-dinner table and a box of mixed dark chocolates that would make a nice gift:

Vegan Christmas: Divine Fairtrade Chocolate

More vegan chocolate from Oxfam. Divine's Christmas range includes a few vegan options although they do decline to label them as such. Mint Thins and Ginger Thins are joined by Chocolate Christmas Trees as the dairy-free options. The mint and ginger thins clearly have an after-dinner role but we couldn't quite figure out where the chocolate trees fit in:

Vegan Christmas: Speculoos Cookies from Lidl

Dutch Windmill Cookies as they're sometimes called, or Speculoos as we prefer. Lidl have avoided the German name Spekulatius and gone straight for the rather dull Spiced Biscuits. These are traditional caramelised cinammon biscuits enjoyed at Christmas in the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany. Lidl have plain and almond ones on offer and both are vegan this year (not every year). We picked up the almond speculoos:

Vegan Christmas: Fairtrade Pralines at Oxfam

Organic, Vegan, Fairtrade and Handmade - pralines from the Christmas range at Oxfam. These could hardly be more removed from the Poundland confectionery we covered yesterday, but then the price is a little different too. Six quid for six. That's the same cost as our entire haul from Poundland. The vegan market is polarised like that...really cheap stuff (with no butter or other 'luxuries'), or really expensive stuff aimed at the discerning shopper. Are they worth the outlay?

Budget Vegan: Christmas at Poundland

Chocolates, Jellies and Wafers, all vegan, all one pound. Welcome to Christmas at the nation's favourite pound shop. Poundland isn't the first place you'd think to look for vegan confectionery at Christmas, but there are bargains to be had there. Our haul comprises three types of jellies, two sorts of choccies and a huge bag of wafers:

Dream Team: Almond / Oat / Rice Dream milks

Rice Dream has been produced since 1971 and is still unbeaten as the best rice milk available. It now has some younger siblings in the form of Oat Dream and Almond Dream. The Dream brand (Hain Celestial) doesn't have quite the same penetration in the UK as Alpro does, and we had to order these milks online. Tesco list Oat Dream on their website, but it isn't available at the moment. Having got our hands on them, are the oat and almond milks just as good as the rice milk?

Review: Alpro Almond and Hazelnut Milks

Nut milks from dairy-free market leader Alpro. Plant-milks made from nuts have been around for years, but only recently has the market for them taken off. Alpro arrived late to the party, but with their huge brand name and supermarket presence they are sure to make an impact. Their almond and hazelnut milks even launched with a major poster campaign.

Roving Review: Razzle Dazzle Ice Cream

The last of our WMVF reviews is South-West independent vegan ice cream makers Razzle Dazzle. Their vegan ice cream is not available in our part of the country so we took the opportunity to sample three flavours at their stall in Wolverhampton last week. The flavours we sampled were Coconilla, Cookie Dough and Hintamint:

Profile: Hannah Banana Bakery

Award-winning one-woman vegan bakery. When Hannah Banana Bakery was announced as the winner of Best Vegan Cakes at this year's UK Vegan Awards last Saturday, there was a huge cheer. This wasn't just because host presenter Dominic Berry was whipping up the crowd, but was a genuine celebration of the achievements of a single-handed champion vegan baker:

Congratulations: Winners of the UK Vegan Awards

Dominic Berry announces the results of the Vegan Awards at WMVF

The results are finally out. Winners of this year's UK Vegan Awards were announced at the West Midlands Vegan Festival last Saturday and published in full today.

The UK Vegan Awards are an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the products, places, companies, organisations and campaign groups that make a real difference to veganism, animals and the planet.

 WINNERS OF THE UK VEGAN AWARDS 2012 

Best vegan chocolate

Booja Booja - www.boojabooja.com

Best vegan footwear

Vegetarian Shoes - www.vegetarian-shoes.co.uk

Best vegan catering service

Fairfoods - www.fairfoods.org.uk

Best online vegan recipe guide

Mouthwatering Vegan Recipes - www.mouthwateringvegan.com

Best vegan cheese

Vegusto - www.vegusto.co.uk

Best animal rights campaign group

Animal Equality - www.animalequality.net

Best supermarket for vegan products

Sainsbury's - www.sainsburys.co.uk

Best vegan cakes

Hannah Banana Bakery - www.hannahbananabakery.co.uk
SEE OUR PROFILE OF HANNAH BANANA BAKERY

Best vegan meat

Fry's - www.frysvegetarian.co.uk

Most animal/vegan friendly environmental organisation

Greenpeace - www.greenpeace.org.uk

Best vegan bodycare products

Lush - www.lush.co.uk

Best vegan cafe/restaurant

inSpiral, Camden - www.inspiralled.net

Best national vegan awareness raising organisation

The Vegan Society - www.vegansociety.com

Best vegan milk

Alpro - www.alpro.com

Best vegan product/company/service not nominated elsewhere

Sweet Vegan - www.sweetvegan.co.uk

Review: Barrow Boys Potato Crisps

Vegan Cheese & Onion and 5 other flavours. We finally got our hands on Barrow Boys vegan crisps at WMVF after having chased them since August. Barrow Boys promised to ship us some for review but they never arrived (never mind guys, we forgive easily with a pack of vegan cheese and onion in hand). Ethical Treats were able to supply us with all the flavours except Bombay Spice...that's Simply Salted, Salt & Vinegar, Sweet & Sour, Hickory BBQ and of course...Cheese & Onion:

Review: Shambhu's Cheesecakes

Another one from our #WMVF haul...vegan cheesecake from Shambhu's. We've been waiting a while to get our hands on these so we were glad to see them on the One Earth Shop's stall. There are three flavours available - mixed berry, choc orange and mint-choc chip. We picked up the mixed berry initially...intending to go back for the others:

Review: Daisys Marshmallows (coconut malibu)

Part of our WMVF hoard was a tub of Daisys vegan marshmallows in Coconut & Malibu flavour. That flavour description was all we needed to hand over our cash and squirrel these away for review. Daisys is an artisan producer of gelatine-free marshmallows run by Lynda Marshall who sells the marshmallows to raise funds for animal rescue:

Liveblog: West Midlands Vegan Festival

The sun always shines on vegan festivals this year and #WMVF is no exception. The atmosphere here in Wolverhampton is great, and that's just the queue to get in! We're outside the beautiful Wolves Civic building which is glistening in the autumn sunshine.

New Vegan Biscuits: Maryland Snapjacks Review

Vegans can't eat Maryland Cookies, but we can indulge in their new stablemates... Maryland Snapjacks. It's a sad fact that the choc chips in Burton's Maryland Cookies are actually dairy-free, but the biscuits themselves contain whey powder. Not so with these new Snapjacks, which are crunchy dunking style biscuits, perfect to accompany a lovely brew (that's a cup of tea...for US readers...):

Vegan Version: Yuba Mayo (Tuna Mayo)

The Veganizer in action: fish-free but flaky, oily, meaty and delicious. If you've ever bought one of those cans of tinned yuba (soybean skins) and looked at the recipe on the back, you might have tried this before. If not, you'll also need some nori (seaweed), some lemon juice, sea salt and some egg-free mayo:

After Party: West Midlands Vegan Festival

This Saturday: #WMVF and After Party

Not content with running one of the biggest vegan festivals in the UK this year, the WMVF organisers are holding a 7 hour, 10 live band after-party that kicks off the minute the festival closes. The party will offer a vegan food menu for those who haven't completely stuffed their faces throughout the rest of the day:

Review: Lazy Day Vegan Tray-Bakes

Gluten-free, dairy-free tray-bake cakes from Scottish producer Lazy Days. We only recently discovered the chocolate ginger version of these tray-bakes and thought it was a good opportunity to review the range together. The headline grabber has to be the caramel shortbread a.k.a millionaire's shortbread with that still rare sight...vegan caramel. 

Budget Vegan: Aldi Soya Milk Review

Can 59p Soya Milk be any good? Times are hard, money's tight, but you may have been put off cheap soya milk from a bad experience. There was a time when budget soya milk was a definite mistake - gritty, beany, watery concoctions. These days the 'value range' soya milks taste pretty good, and we were surprised how good "Soya Delight" was from Aldi:

Review: Aldi Choceur Mint Chocolate Thins

Vegan after-dinner mint chocolate thins. Alternatives to Nestlé's After Eights are plentiful and many are dairy-free too, but few are actually thin. We were surprised to find these budget mint thins from Aldi are one of the best options around....being both thin, and great tasting too:

5 products that give vegan food a bad name

The worst vegan food product EVER was Plamil Veeze - a late 1980s vegan cheese spread that came in a glass jar and consisted of margarine, soya flour and vinegar...or something like that. It was revolting in a way that's hard to describe, with the taste of smelly feet and the texture of wood filler. The worst thing about it was that it gave vegan food a bad name. We were reminded of Veeze when we bought another Plamil product this week: