Review: Fabulous FreeFrom Factory Choc Raisins

Raisins shouldn't need a review, but these do. 'Chocovered' raisins from the Fabulous FreeFrom Factory are raisins covered in faux milk chocolate...and there aren't many of those on the market. You can find carob coated and dark chocolate raisins in most wholefood shops, but strangely they are hardly ever vegan. These are, and they're great too.

Vegan Cafe in rural Norfolk: Hillside Sanctuary

There are lots of animal sanctuaries around the UK but how many have a vegan cafe? Hillside Sanctuary just outside the seaside town of Sheringham is home to hundreds of rescued animals...and to the best scones in Norfolk! The cafe is completely vegan and they don't hide this from visitors, with 'animal friendly' proudly displayed on the menu. 

With a visitor base that for the most part aren't vegan, this may be one of the biggest exercises in feeding vegan food to non-vegans we know of...

Review: Sainsbury's 'Rice Milk' Choc Bar

Sainsbury's Free From range may not yet be on a par with Tesco's range, but they have one or two things of note. This faux milk chocolate bar is one of those offerings. We're pretty sure this is made by Celtic who produce a wide range of dairy-free chocolates under their own name, including those fab caramels...the distinctive ribbed chunks are the same as those of Celtic's own bars...

Review: Mr Stanley's Fondant Creams

There was a time when pretty much the only vegan chocs you could buy were dark chocolate fondant creams. Mercifully those days are behind us, but it may be time to re-appraise the humble fondant cream, especially in light of these great tasting offerings from The Gourmet Candy Company. The creams are available in Rose and Violet, but avoid the non-vegetarian Lime flavour.

Review: Dame Blanche Chocolate Cream Biscuits

We had high hopes for these cookies we spotted on Veganstore. They are large chocolate sandwich biscuits in the style of German doppelkeks, but they also look a bit like Wagon Wheels (Moon Pies for US readers). They aren't at all like Wagon Wheels in reality as they have a chocolate fondant rather than a marshmallow centre. Are these sandwich biscuits worth adding to your next Veganstore order though?

Review: Happy Kitchen Chocolate Brownies

Gluten Free, Egg Free, Dairy Free and Sugar Free is always going to be a tough call for a brownie recipe, but the folks at Happy Kitchen in London Fields have risen to the challenge. The resulting vegan brownies are available in 4 flavours - original chocolate, raspberry, pecan and chocolate orange. We opted for the original chocolate brownie to see if this 'decadent wholefood' was more decadent or just more wholefood...

Review: 'Free From' Chocolate Desserts from Tesco

Another great new vegan product in Tesco's expanded Free From range is their four pack of chocolate desserts. The dairy-free and gluten-free desserts come in yoghurt-sized pots and can be found in the chiller cabinet. We're pretty sure these desserts are identical to those from a well known brand...

Review: Manner Viennese Wafers

Vegan wafer biscuits are still few and far between so it's handy to know a secret source... Manner is an Austrian brand of wafers that's popular on the continent and can be found in the UK...if you know where to look. They can often be found in continental-style shops such as italian, greek or turkish supermarkets. Be careful to avoid the chocolate ones which contain milk, but you're safe with the lemon or the original hazelnut 'Neapolitaner' wafers.

Profile: ShakeAway Milkshake Bars

Billed as the 'World's Largest Milkshake Bar Company', ShakeAway has branches across the UK and a handful in Australia and other countries. What makes this milkshake chain different though, is not their size but their extensive vegan menu.

Plantfoods. How to make quinoa qurd

A vegan soft cheese made from cultured quinoa milk. The step-by-step guide to making quinoa qurd is now available at our sister site plantfoods.org

Shower Gel for Vegan Blokes

Superdrug have vegan-certified shower gel on offer for 99p at the moment. Original Source for Men is the masculine version of the popular vegan shower gel line. We picked up three varieties of the gel at half the normal price. The men's version is pitched as a hair-and-body wash too.

Great Balls of Soya. Redwood Meatballs review

If you're looking for a hearty meal there's nothing more filling than meatballs. Redwood's meat free meatballs come in a king size pack too and don't have a serving size indicated...but there's enough for 3 or 4 servings in the pack. The meatballs are based on soya rather than gluten as we had anticipated. We cooked them up with spaghetti and tomato sauce to see how they tasted.

Quinoa Qurd: vegan soft cheese from quinoa

You can culture quinoa milk just like soya milk (and dairy milk) to make quinoa yoghurt. If you strain and press that yoghurt, you get quinoa qurd - a vegan soft cheese made of nothing but quinoa. Full article coming shortly over at our sister site plantfoods.org

Review: Marks & Spencer Dairy Free Sunflower Spread

Supermarket margarines are a minefield of whey powder, milk fat and other dairy ingredients...often in trace amounts and usually unnecessary. In Germany you can pick up 'Rein Pflanzlich' (pure plant) margarine in any small supermarket, but not so here in the UK. Brands like Pure and Vitalite are usually only found in the bigger branches. It's great to have another vegan option and Marks and Spencer's Simply M&S range includes a dairy-free sunflower spread. We picked up a tub for review.....but can it replace our old favourite Vitalite in our hearts (and fridges)?

Shoparound: M&S Bakery Iced Buns, Fruit Loaf and more

Marks and Spencer have an official vegan list but we like to shop off-piste. If you've any doubt about our review policy read the how vegan is vegan post. Armed with a smartphone to check additives we took a visit to M&S's in-store bakery on a rumour that there were vegan iced buns to be had. Sure enough the buns were animal-free and we picked up a basket full of similar goodies too.

Baked Frittata made with The Vegg

We're still busy reviewing The Vegg vegan egg yolk....but had to wait for our second pack to arrive after using up the first in our experiments. We've now made baked potato frittata four times and we've given up trying to get it to set!

We used 6 tablespoons of arrowroot in the latest attempt...and we're now arrowroot converts...it sets really smooth and is not at all floury like cornflour (cornstarch). We're actually happy with the way this has turned out, with a soft-set creamy texture so we'll post the recipe with our review.

UPDATE: Our review of The Vegg is now live...with the recipe for this frittata.

Taste Test: Best Vegan Parmesan

Now that Redwood have launched a vegan parmesan cheese we can run a taste test...against the only other vegan parmesan available in the UK...Parmazano from Life Free From. They're very different interpretations of parmesan...one a carton of cheese sprinkles, the other a block of faux vegan cheese. We took them both to the kitchen to see if either of them were worthy parmesan substitutes.

Review: Taiko Vegan Sushi at Waitrose

Many vegetarian sushi sets have egg in so it's great to see a vegan option at Waitrose. The small vegetarian sushi set from Taiko Sushi (exclusive to Waitrose) is currently egg free...but check before you buy as these things change all the time. Waitrose are even selling pots of salted edamame with their sushi range now....if you fancy a salty lunchtime hit. Is their vegan sushi good enough for your midday sushi fix though?

Popcorn Lickin'. Review: Frys Vegan Pops

There's a place in every diet for a little junk food. We mean junk in the affectionate sense of fast and tasty...and not quite as healthy a quinoa salad. Fry's have a great range of vegan convenience foods but the one which will catch your eye in the freezer section is their vegan version of popcorn chicken....Fry's Pops. The cute and colourful little box holds 200g (8oz) of frozen breaded mini-nuggets. They even come with fruit chutney sprinkles. If you haven't already tried them...should you give them a go?

Vegan Pizza Day. Review: Redwood Vegan Pizzas

What better review for #VeganPizzaDay than Redwood's meat and dairy free frozen pizzas? The pizzas which launched earlier this year come in three varieties, Cheezly & Tomato, Meatless Feast and Ham Style & Pineapple. We first sampled them at VegFest Bristol and today we're reviewing the Meatless Feast and Ham & Pineapple pizzas. Are they worthy of a place at the dinner table on Vegan Pizza Day?

Salad Days. Review: Granovita Salad Cream

Salad Cream...the salad dressing of 1970s Britain....and now vegans can reminisce too. Salad cream is different to mayo...thinner, sweeter and more tangy. Granovita produce both a vegan mayo and a vegan salad cream for the UK market. We grabbed a squeezy bottle of the Salad Cream for our review....but will it take you back to your salad days?

Delamere Delicious. Review: Delamere Dairy Soya Milk

Dairy companies can sometimes make the best non-dairy alternatives too. Vitalite made by Dairycrest is about the best tasting vegan margarine for example. We reviewed Delamere Dairy's soya shakes earlier this week and thought they were pretty good, so we sought out their soya milk too. We've never quite understood the attraction of 'fresh' soya milk and most of them taste worse than their UHT versions...so how does Delamere's version fare?

Review: 'Wholesome Pots' from The Food Doctor

We were going to start this review with a gag about vegans and 'wholesome pot' but it sort of writes itself...

New on the market from The Food Doctor "The UK's leading nutrition consultancy"(what a mouthful) are Pot Noodle style vegan snack pots. The instant hot lunch pots come in three varieties, one based on couscous and two on a mix of bulgar and quinoa. We took the couscous and lentil pot for a lunchtime spin.

Review: New Alpro Yoghurts Blackberry Raspberry

Alpro have added a new flavour to their range of fruity soya yoghurts with a new Blackberry flavour joining Raspberry in a four pack. You get two raspberry and two blackberry yoghurts in each pack. Alpro's yoghurts are usually great, so how does the new Blackberry flavour compare?

Review: Choc/Vanilla Soya Shakes from Delamere Dairy

The soya shake market gets bigger by the day. Delamere Dairy have secured a place in the Free From aisle at Tesco with their new drinkable chocolate and vanilla shakes. We haven't come across Delamere before but they appear to produce soya milk and soya desserts too. We grabbed one each of their soya shakes to see how they taste.

Review: Redwood Gourmet Vegan Gravy Powder

Redwood have launched an instant gravy powder in what could be their quest to fill every untapped niche in the vegan foods market. This isn't the first instant vegan gravy as many of the vegetarian gravy granules available in supermarkets are suitable for vegans. Perhaps that's why Redwood added 'Gourmet' to the label as a selling point....although we suspect vegan gourmets are capable of making their own gravy... So what are Redwood bringing to the table with their new gravy?

Review: Provamel Orange & Rooibos Yoghurt

Provamel's latest fruity yoghurt is Orange & Rooibos. The organic soya yoghurt is available in large 500g pots from wholefood shops. Rooibos or redbush is a type of herbal tea originally from South Africa which has been growing in popularity in the UK over the last ten years...but isn't to everyone's taste. So if you're not a Rooibos lover...should you give this yoghurt a miss?

Diary Date: Aug 11th - Leicester Vegan Fair

Returning for the sixth year with a brand new venue for 2012 is Leicester Vegan Fair. The event takes place on Saturday August 11th at Avenue Primary School, just behind the University. Stalls confirmed so far are Currant Affairs catering, All About Daisy, Animal Aid, Animal Equality, Athene Skincare, Bo's Kitchen, Bohemian Chic Minerals, Chocs That Rock, Create a Goodlife, Green and Pleasant, Leicester Vegetarian and Vegan Group and the Ethics and Health Foundation. The event runs from 10:30am until 3:30pm. Full flyer after the break...

Weird Science: The Apricots and Soya Milk Trick

Dried Apricots + Soya Milk + 8 Hours = Creamy Dessert. 

This is weird and we don't know how it works, but it does. It tastes great too. Here's how to do it:

Review: Moo Free Faux Milk Choc Pralines

Dairy-free pralines are not uncommon, but are usually based on dark chocolate. Moo Free have taken a different route with their caramelised hazelnut pralines which are covered instead in their popular faux-milk chocolate. The pralines are sold in an attractive gift box, but are they worthy of being gifted to that special vegan friend?