Vegan Christmas: Reutter Chocolate Creams

It's mid November folks... the Christmas reviews begin. Dark Chocolate Coffee Creams, Orange Creams, Strawberry Creams and Mint Creams from the Pound shop, made by German firm Reutter. These are a pound a box for 150g (18 chocolates)... at that price, they can't be any good..?

Review: Viana Real Jumbos

Vegan hot dog sausages. Mild smoked wiener/frankfurter style sausages from German firm Viana. We're making sure we've covered all of the vegan hot dog options out there (see below). After reviewing the Irish Plantbasedfoods hot dogs last week we're reviewing these Viana ones which have been on the market for a couple of years. 

Review: Vego Chocolate Bar

Hazelnut gianduja chocolate with whole hazelnuts too! Our Vegan Tuck Box contained this huge (150g) bar of chocolate. We love the German website that promotes this bar:

"Probably the biggest and tastiest chocolate bar in the world"

They do have a point you know:

Review: Plantbasedfoods 'Salami' Soya Slices

More from the new Irish brand in the fridge of your local wholefood shop. These products appear to be trickling onto shelves and maybe they'll find themselves a niche. The soya slices range includes mock chicken, ham and these salami style cuts. Could they make a worthy continental breakfast?

Feature: Vegan Tuck Box

New and exciting vegan treats delivered to your door each month. If you're always on the lookout for new vegan products (like we are, of course), then you might be interested in The Vegan Tuckbox. This is a monthly delivery service of 10 new or hard to find vegan treats. The lovely vegan gals at Vegan Tuck Box sent us a free sample box (life's hard for vegan bloggers ain't it...). Read on to see what we made of it:

Review: Oloves snack olives

50 Calorie snack packs of marinated olives. Flavours include Basil & Garlic, Lemon & Rosemary, Chilli & garlic and Chilli and Oregano. The packs we were sent are in flavours that have just been tweaked however, along with the packaging (see below):

Review: Plantbasedfoods Soya Frankfurters

More sausages, this time soya hot dog sausages, from Ireland based Plantbasedfoods. After reviewing their Veggie Sausages we found these hot dog franks and thought we'd give them a try too. Traditional Frankfurters and Wieners are pretty much the same thing (they may differ in proportions of which dead flesh they use, depending where you are in the world). For vegans, if they're intended for hot dogs, they're the same thing:

Review: Wowbutter 'peanut' butter

Peanut-free spread that tastes just like peanut butter. Soya beans are the legume that replaces the peanuts in this alternative to peanut butter. If you're allergic to peanuts this could be a useful replacement. This stuff comes in creamy (smooth) as well as crunchy. We picked up the creamy option and it looks really convincing within the jar:

Review: Riverbank Bakery Fruit Cake

Norfolk Mixed Fruit Cake from the egg-free selection of Riverbank Bakery in Kings Lynn. There are a growing number of vegan bakeries online, but it's still rare to see vegan cakes stocked in shops. We were surprised to learn that the entire cake range of Riverbank Bakery is egg-free (we're checking to see if the whole range is vegan). This one is reassuringly labelled vegan on the pack:

Review: Kernow Chocolate

Cornish dark chocolate in Chilli & Lime, Coffee, and Raspberry flavours amongst others. The range is handmade in Cornwall and available at National Trust gift shops and other tourist destinations. We picked up three of the more exciting sounding bars for our review:

Review: Plantbasedfoods Sausages

More Irish sausages, this time soya based. The company name is a mouthful before you get to the sausages though. We like the sentiment, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. After reviewing Dee's vegan sausages recently, we spotted these very different Irish sausages in a health food store in the UK and thought we'd give the curry flavour ones a try:

Review: De Rit Syrup Waffles

Filled dutch waffles with malt syrup or hazelnut syrup centres. The vegan ones of these are made by De Rit or Molenaartje, but be careful to avoid the similar looking ones by Biona which have eggs in. De Rit also make a honey filled version which you'll naturally avoid too. There is clearly no need for eggs or honey as these De Rit waffles are really rather good:

Review: Welbourne's Special Plum Bread

Award-Winning Lincolnshire Plum Loaf from Welbourne's Bakery. Apparently this has been made to the same recipe since 1896... except for changing the lard to vegetable fat for vegans and vegetarians. In honour of the recipe change we thought we'd review the plum bread to see what makes it so special:

Guest Review: Erin B does PERK!ER Porridge

Gingerbread & Raisin porridge. 'Gloriously Gluten Free' is the promise that Perk!er make on their packs of muesli and porridge. We asked guest reviewer Erin B of Guilt Free Veggie to give us her thoughts on the porridge:

Review: Mediterranea Ragu di Soia - bolognese sauce

Meat-free ragu sauce with soya mince for lasagne and bolognese. Another sample sent to us by MozzaRisella partner Mediterranea. This is the second Italian faux-meat ragu we've tried recently, with the first being the wonderful one that came with the Relasagna lasagne-in-a-box kit. This one is sold separately, on the MozzaRisella online store. We made a lasagne with it, topped with what else, but MozzaRisella vegan mozzarella:

Review: Jeezo Bianco - Vegan Mozzarella

Vegourmet's rebranded and repackaged block cheese is now called Jeezo, while their cheese slices are called Jeezini. We've took this opportunity to revisit Jeezo, because we've reviewed it previously as part of our Meltdown and Cheeseboard taste tests and we were pretty harsh on it. Read on for why we might have softened our view:

Review: Mediterranea range of mock meats

Italian Sausages, Burgers and Seitan Slices from MozzaRisella partner Mediterranea. To promote the launch of the MozzaRisella online shop, the company sent us a range of their deli mock meats. Alongside their fantastic vegan mozzarella, and excellent ravioli, you can also now buy these italian tofu and seitan specialities:

Review: Dee's Vegan Sausages

Serendipity + Vegfest = Opportunity to try sausages not widely available in the UK. We happened to be in the right place at the right time to be one of the lucky few to get a Vegfest handout of Dee's vegan sausages. Dee's is an Irish wholefood company run by Dee Collins, specialising in healthy burgers, sausages and meal pots. We've been wanting to try these sausages for ages... and fate intervened last Sunday. Are they worth the wait?

Launch: Wills Vegan Shoes

We caught Will off guard at Vegfest... he doesn't always look this grumpy!

Looking for fashionable vegan shoes without spending a fortune? You want them made by people working under fair conditions too? That's a tough call, but Will Green might be the man you're looking for. Wills Vegan Shoes is a UK first: ethical footwear with high street styles and high street prices.

Vegfest Highlight: Vegan Cream Cakes

Amazing vegan cream buns from @JPTurnerFoods were the star of #VegfestLondon

We spoke to them about their cream and whether they would make an appearance at future vegan events. The cream is apparently soya based and they spent some time developing it to stay whipped at room temperature. The cream is piped from one of those catering cream dispensers (the ones charged with nitrous oxide cartridges). JPT were certainly very generous with the whipped cream too:

Vegfest Videos

All of our #vegfestlondon videos on one page so you can re-live some of the best moments!

VegFest London: Day Two

Yep #vegfestlondon day 2 begins by beating the queue at The Mighty Fork hot dog stall. If yesterday is anything to go by, they'll sell out by early afternoon. The queue at their stall is already snaking, 5 minutes after the doors opened..

We went for the massive Big Chili hot dog in which the wiener is topped with veggie chilli (with soy mince), chillies and mustard. Mmm.  

Congratulations: Winners of the VegfestUK Awards 2013

Comedian Dave Spikey today announced the winners of this year's VegfestUK Awards here at Vegfest London. Categories included everything from best vegan meat product to best vegan celebrity. Some of the higher profile winners like Russell Brand and Paul McCartney weren't there in person, although Russell Brand was apparently scheduled to attend before he was arrested in Russia... 

All of the winners were selected by public vote. Read on for the full list of awards:

THE AWARDS VIDEO IS NOW LIVE, BELOW THE BREAK:

VegFest London: Day One

We're at Olympia London for VegFest. We're on the lookout for anything new and exciting on the vegan food front. The two day event this weekend has 100s of stalls, talks, shows and 10,000 visitors are expected. We can't promise a liveblog but we'll do our best to tempt you down here - tickets on the door are still available...

New: Violife Cheese ...in a block

Your favourite vegan cheese in a 200g block. Violife has only previously been available as slices. This block doesn't even appear on their website as yet, but it's making its way to your local stockist. The block means grated violife is now possible, as well chunky slices and little cubes...whatever takes your fancy.

New: Freedom Mallows Strawberry Marshmallows

New vegan marshmallows with a strawberry flavour. Freedom Mallows are the machine-made light and fluffy vegetarian marshmallows from Manchester producers Freedom Confectionery. Previously only available in vanilla, the Strawberry flavour is arriving in UK shops round about now. We grabbed a bag to see if they're as good as the vanilla flavour.

Review: Ravioriselli Ravioli with MozzaRisella

Egg-free fresh pasta with dairy-free cheese filling. Vegan ravioli made with the best vegan cheese is like a dream come true. When we heard that MozzaRisella were expanding their product line, we couldn't wait to test some of it. The company sent us some review samples of the spinach ravioli and courgette (zucchini) ravioli, both of which have CreamyRisella within:

Review: 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

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

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: