Vegan Chocolate "Cup" Cake

There are probably many shop-bought chocolate cupcake mixes out there, where you can put a small amount of the mix into a coffee cup (rather than one of those big mugs), add a liquid to it, and microwave it for a minute or two to get a cupcake.  One of these mixes that I've had was from Foodness, where you spoon a couple of spoons full of the cupcake mix into a cup, add a bit of milk, cook it in the microwave, and then eat it.  Sure, you could use a plant-based milk such as almond, hazelnut, oat or soy milk as an alternative to dairy for making this, but this unfortunately still won't make the cupcake vegan as there is actually egg in the dry cake mix itself.

While I was trawling through the World of Wanderlust website (a travel website founded by Brooke Saward), I came across the recipes section of the site, which included recipes inspired by her travels.  The recipe that the one I'm going to share with you was inspired by was under the title of "A Single Girl's cake for Valentine's Day" because the recipe yielded enough to make just one cupcake (plus a very small amount left over).  While this recipe didn't need milk to be added to it for cooking, it still contained one egg yolk.  Back in October, I made some Oreo cupcakes for a film-watching afternoon with my friends (featuring Rent and playing a Hobbit card game), which used mashed up banana as an alternative to eggs.  Surprisingly, my family still thought it tasted nice even though it contained no eggs and was completely vegan, so I knew that a banana could be used again in this recipe.  I've also skipped the espresso that was in the original recipe on the World of Wanderlust website!

Ingredients

3 tablespoons plain flour
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
dash of vanilla essence
1 tablespoon oil (I used olive oil)
half a large banana, mashed

Instructions

1. Mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder and sugar in a mixing bowl until well-combined.
2. Add the mashed banana, oil and vanilla essence, and continue to stir until all the ingredients are combined.
3. Pour the mix into a well-greased coffee cup.
4. Cook in a microwave on medium high for 90 seconds, until the cake has risen and cooked through, but avoid overcooking.
5. If you wish, serve with vanilla ice cream, strawberries, caramel or a dusting of icing sugar!

Pistachio Ice Cream

Earlier this week, Ben & Jerry's announced and released their brand new and much-anticipated almond milk-based, dairy-free, vegan range of 4 ice creams, which include vegan-friendly versions of Chunky Monkey, Chocolate Fudge Brownie, Coffee Caramel Fudge, and P.B. & Cookies.  As far as I can tell, they're not available in the UK yet, but it's nice to know that if/when the day comes that I "go vegan", I'll still be able to have Ben & Jerry's ice cream!

I know there are other less well-known vegan-friendly ice cream ranges, but I don't know where I can find them here so my easiest option is to make my own banana-based "nice cream".  I found this recipe for pistachio ice cream in the Make More Of It section on inventive ways to use leftover ingredients (in this case, avocado) in the January 2016 edition of the Tesco Food Family Living magazine.

Ingredients

4 bananas, cut into slices
2 avocadoes, chopped
50-75g pistachio nuts, chopped

Instructions

1. Place the banana slices into a Ziplock bag and freeze for a few hours or overnight.
2. Once frozen, process the frozen banana slices and chunks of avocado in a blender or food processor until thick and smooth.
3. Fold the chopped pistachio nuts through the ice cream mixture, and then scoop into bowls to serve!

Adventures in the USA part 3 - Animal Kingdom, Disney World Florida

Day 2 of exploring in Florida, and we're at Disney's Animal Kingdom.  Unfortunately, we went there on a day with shorter hours (closing at 5pm), so there are things I would have liked to have seen but I missed (things that I've seen in the past though).  I think that this time though, I had a larger appreciation for the wildlife aspect of this theme park, especially with the recent killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, the conservation and protection of such majestic and special creatures is even more important.  You may question if you should support Disney's Animal Kingdom or not out of concerns about animal welfare, but from what I can currently tell, the organisation takes good care of the animals, allowing animals to not be on display to the public if they seem distressed, keeping them at a safe distance from the public, and keeping the park's closing hours early to give the animals some peace and quiet.  If anyone reads this and disagrees about Disney's treatment of animals, please send me links to educate me in the comments.  Now, onwards to my top 5 of things to see and do at Disney's Animal Kingdom theme park:

• Festival of the Lion King – This indoor attraction has been a family favourite for many years now. It’s a sing-along, acrobatic celebration of The Lion King.  In preparation for the show, audience members are invited to learn the sounds made by lions, giraffes and warthogs, and learn the Swahili names of the main performers.  As puppeteer-controlled moving platforms carrying Simba, Pumbaa, Timon and a giraffe move into the arena, the festival begins with the use of the previously-learned sounds to greet the animals.  With favourites such as The Circle of Life, Can You Feel The Love Tonight (with a dancer flying in the air as Nala) and Hakuna Matata (complete with a hand-jive from the acrobats), you'll be singing like one of Simba's pride in no time! 

• Kilimanjaro Safaris – It probably hasn't been my favourite part of the Animal Kingdom park before, but it certainly seems like it this time.  On this tour that takes about half an hour, you are driven with other visitors in a safari bus into the depths of the park, where you can see a wealth of animals from a safe but relatively close distance.  During our mini-safari, we saw elephants, giraffes, a hippo (completely out of the water, which is unusual for an animal that spends most of its time below the water's surface in order to stay cool), zebras, flamingos and lions, and although I am currently non-vegan (but still trying to cut back on my animal product intake), I did find myself looking at and taking photographs of these beautiful creatures and wondering why anyone would want to harm them and other animals. 

• Flights of Wonder

• Kali River Rapids – Kali River Rapids is a water ride where you sit in a circular raft complete with safety belts and a central compartment for the storage of bags and valuables during the ride. This was the first ride we had a Fast-Pass for, which made waiting time MUCH shorter. Fast-Passes can be organised through the My Disney Experience app available in the iTunes and Google Play stores. I’d suggest to ride on Kali River Rapids quite late in the day, as you WILL get wet!
• Maharajah Jungle Trek

If you've not already noticed, I find taking the time to eat breakfast every day very important - especially if you're going to school or university or work - to keep your mind and body nourished and energised for the day ahead, and a day at a theme park should be no different.  After all, you'll be running around to go on as many rides as possible and see the animals.  This recipe for a "banana breakfast dog" is one I found on disneymickeycheck.com, which identifies it as a nutritious option for kids.

Ingredients

whole grain hot dog bun
peanut butter (may use sunflower butter as nut alternative)
sunflower seeds (shelled)
banana
low-sugar jam

Instructions

1. Open the whole grain hot dog bun and spread peanut/sunflower butter on the bottom half.
2. Sprinkle sunflower seeds onto the spread half.
3. Peel a whole banana and place on the bun.
4. Add a small amount of low-sugar jam on top of the banana, add the top half of the bun, and enjoy!

Look back next week for part 4 of my Adventures in the USA series, in which I share my favourites from the Universal theme parks in Orlando!

A Couple of Minutes With Kara

Just over a year ago, while I was looking through the Instagram of Ariel Kaplan (Imogen Willis from Neighbours, or going a bit further back, Lisa from The Saddle Club), I found a comment from an account called "greengirlsgang".  They were a group of gorgeous young women from Melbourne and Brisbane who joined up over a mutual love of health, happiness and good food.  For a few weeks, they introduced themselves and shared a few plant-based recipes (such as Ally's banana and blueberry ice cream, which is very yummy) and met up to discuss their plans for the group.  Unfortunately, they are now on hiatus for health reasons.  One of the introductions described one of the group as "a self proclaimed 'human encyclopaedia of Lizzie McGuire episodes'" (one great show - I rewatched all the episodes in the summer holidays last year, I have a pin of the cartoon Lizzie that I got at Disney World when I was 11, and I realised in November that Lizzie McGuire is probably my fictional soul-twin).  This girl is Kara Ready.  I've only spoken to her a couple of times, but we brought down a Twitter troll who was denying gender inequality together, we're both feminists and LGBT rights supporters (and Lizzie McGuire lovers), and she gave me some great advice when I was struggling a few months ago with tiredness and not eating enough.  I'll let her introduce herself in this little interview.

Name:

Kara :)

Age:

22.

Where in the world are you from?

I live just outside Melbourne, Australia in boring ol’ suburbia.

Tell us a little bit about yourself:

2015 marks the year that I graduated from my journalism degree and entered the big, bad world. I’m very passionate about media and the journalism industry so at the moment I’m spending a lot of time working on my community radio show, writing for magazines on a volunteer basis and just generally figuring out the type of journalist I want to be. I’ve discovered that not knowing where I’m headed- although very daunting at times- is half the fun of getting there.

What is your food philosophy and lifestyle?

I follow a vegan lifestyle and it’s something that I’m very passionate about on an environmental and ethical level. I guess you could say that at its core, my philosophy is to do as much as I can to avoid hurting others in every aspect of life. I’ve always felt that way but it wasn’t until late last year that I realised my eating habits didn’t align with those beliefs- so I changed to a cruelty free diet and lifestyle and haven’t looked back!

This wonderful vegan Chinese restaurant in Melbourne basically outlines my reasons for being vegan. We don't need to harm other for our food :)

How long have you been following this lifestyle and why?

I have been vegan for just over 6 months now and was vegetarian for 6 months before that.

What is your favourite fruit [or vegetable]?

My absolute favourite vegetable without a doubt is potato, preferably sweet potato but regular ol’ white potato is a winner too. Sometimes I genuinely think I could eat nothing but potato for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy.

Food wise, what country have you enjoyed visiting the most?

I absolutely adored my trip to India for a million different reasons and the food probably contributed to about half of them. The flavours, the variety, the fact that whole foods make up a very large part of their diet. It was just heaven and every Indian meal I’ve had since back in Australia has failed to match up.

Helping to make roti bread in a Sikh temple in India. I love the community and culture behind their food!

What are your views and tips for health and happiness?

This is such a huge question and one that I receive quite often on Tumblr because so many people struggle with it. I think my first tip, and perhaps the most cliché one, is to listen to yourself- your body, your mind, your thoughts and try and teach yourself to respond to them with kindness and compassion. When you can be open, honest and supportive towards yourself and how you’re feeling, your perspective starts to change because you allow yourself the room to make mistakes and learn from them without beating yourself up and dwelling on it. Health and happiness go hand in hand- I really think that when you master one, you master the other and that’s a beautiful thing.

Plans for the rest of 2015?

2015 has been a bit of an adjustment year for me so far as I’ve just graduated from university and entered the ‘real world’. This year has predominately been focused on writing as much as possible and searching for a job that will make me happy to go to work each day. Overall though, I’m just taking everything as it comes at the moment and trying not to put unnecessary pressure on myself by pretending that I ‘should’ or ‘need’ to be doing more than I already am.

My go to recipe is-

Easy vegan strawberries and cream smoothie!

The best thing about smoothies for me is that you don't need to do much weighing or measuring and can instead just chuck everything into the blender as you go! Perfect for lazy meals or snacks when you can't be bothered preparing something.

This recipe is for a yummy strawberries and cream smoothie using only 3 ingredients. Don't be afraid to add in more than what I've written- I've made versions of this with almond milk instead of water, cherries as well as strawberries and I frequently double the ingredients if I'm feeling really hungry or halve them if I just want a snack.

Things you'll need-
- 2 frozen bananas
- 2-4 fresh bananas [or more depending on your hunger!]
- A couple handfuls of frozen strawberries
- .5-1 litre of water
- A blender!

Blend all the ingredients together until you get the consistency you like. I like mine to be thick and creamy but if you want yours a little bit thinner just add more water! I told you it was super easy!

This recipe is also great because it can be made into a delicious summer nice cream for those warmer days! If you want more of a thick, ice cream consistency, just swap out the fresh bananas for frozen ones and take out the water and you're good to go! For now though, in this awful Australian winter, I think I'm just going to stick to my smoothie...

Social media:

Tumblr: eveningdreams.tumblr.com
Instagram: @kara.ready
Twitter: @kararready

Rainbow Salad with Chocolate Dip

Last Friday (26th June 2015), shortly after I published my post for last week, it was announced that same-sex marriage has now been legalised in all 50 states of the USA.  Although I'm UK-based, where legislation to allow same-sex marriage was passed in July 2013 and came into force in March 2014, I think that it's a great step for Americans to be granted this right as well.  So many couples have been negatively affected by their relationships not being acknowledged by the American government and in some cases, the medical system.  One example of this that I have been reading about is Shane Bitney Crone, who was prevented from seeing his partner, Tom Bridegroom, who had accidentally fallen from a friend's roof.  Crone and Bridegroom's 6 year relationship was not acknowledged by the hospital or the government, thus Crone was not considered as "family" when it came to knowing about Bridegroom's condition.  Unfortunately, Crone was also banned from attending his partner's funeral by Bridegroom's parents, who threatened Crone with violence should he attend the funeral.  I hope that this step forward will prevent things like this from happening to anyone else in the future, but with so many countries still to legalise same-sex marriage and some to even decriminalise homosexuality, there is still a long way to go.

However, to celebrate this (and a late Pride weekend), it could be fun for a Pride party to prepare a rainbow assortment of fruits on a plate for guests to dip in chocolate.

Ingredients

A handful or two of strawberries
1 orange
1 banana
1 green apple
A handful or two of blueberries
A handful or two of purple grapes
Approximately 50-75g good quality dark, dairy-free chocolate

Instructions

1. Wash and prepare all fruits – a sieve may be useful here. Remove skin from orange and banana, and cut both these and the apple into slices.
2. Place all fruit into a large bowl or plate.
3. To make fondue, break chocolate into pieces, place into a bowl and heat, either in a microwave or in a saucepan filled with water over low heat for a few minutes.
4. Dip fruit pieces in melted chocolate to serve.

Choc-Caramel-Vanilla Ice Cream Cake

Guess whose favourite food blogger/musical theatre person/student radio presenter/web design student is turning 20 this Sunday???  That's right, it's ME!  And to celebrate, I'm planning to spend tomorrow making the following ice cream cake that I found at The Peachy Pear.  This cake is vegan, gluten-free and low-fat, making it the perfect cake to share with two of my best friends from secondary school (one of them has recently gone vegan and the other is vegetarian with intolerances to both lactose and gluten), but wouldn't be an ideal cake to share with my uni friends because it contains a total of SEVEN bananas (one of my friends is allergic to bananas).  In any case, I can share this cake with my family, so I suppose we're onto a winner!  Plans for my birthday itself may include archery :D

Ingredients

Base

• 10 medjool dates
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 tablespoon desiccated coconut

1st layer

• 3 frozen bananas
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon desiccated coconut

2nd layer

• 3 frozen bananas
• 1 tablespoon cacao powder
• 2 medjool dates
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Icing

• 1 frozen banana
• 2 tablespoons cacao powder
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup (optional)

Instructions

1. Cut the bananas into slices and freeze for a few hours or overnight.
2. Use a food processor or blender to combine the ingredients that make the base of the cake.  When well-combined or a ball forms, spread at the bottom of an approx. 15cm round cake dish.
3. Repeat process for the next 2 layers of the cake, then place in freezer until hard.
4. Combine ingredients for the icing of the cake, then spread on top of the cake.  Top with any desired toppings, such as dark chocolate squares, strawberries or blueberries.
5. Store in freezer until serving.

Healthy Green Smoothie

Today marks the official end of my 2nd year at uni with Party on the Amp, at which I'm helping with the media coverage as a runner.  That means that I'll be liaising with the technical crew about musical acts, posting on the university student union's social media accounts about what's going on, and hopefully interviewing a few bands.  With a little luck, the weather will be nice (I didn't go last year due to work, but it apparently rained a lot) and there'll be ice cream, candyfloss, popcorn, BBQ stuff, and smoothies.  Speaking of smoothies, today's healthy green treat was inspired by this smoothie from the wonderful agirlnamedally (a.k.a. Tie-Dye Girl or My Aussie Soul-Sister).  Imagine if I was sipping that at Party on the Amp - mmmmmmmm.

Ingredients (to fill a pint glass of smoothie)

3 bananas
3 dessert spoons spinach
a handful of cucumber sticks
a dash or two of cold water

Instructions

1. Cut bananas into slices.
2. Blend banana slices a bit at a time, and add cucumber sticks, spinach and water gradually (i.e. add a bit of bananas, cucumber, spinach and water each time and blend).
3. Pour into a pint glass/mug and enjoy!

Apple, Orange and Grape Smoothie

Carrying on from the theme of the Food Festival last week (and while it is still Fairtrade Fortnight), I'm going to take the time to share another recipe found at the Food Festival.  This time, it came from my visit to the Sustrans smoothie bike.  The last two times I attended events that had the smoothie bike around (a stall where you could have a smoothie and a massage as a break from exam revision on 8th January, and at the Sustain Health and Wellbeing Fayre on 29th January), the smoothie you could pedal on the smoothie bike to make was a mixed berry smoothie, but last week's smoothie at the Food Festival consisted of green grapes and orange segments as an alternative to the mixed berries.  This now sounds an awful lot like how to make a smoothie containing the fruits I normally have in containers to eat for lunch and as snacks at uni (apple, oranges and grapes) ... Here's the recipe to make at home!

Ingredients

1/2 a banana
3/4 cup apple juice
handful of green grapes
handful of orange segments

Instructions

1. Peel banana and cut into two halves.  You can eat one half.  Peel an orange and cut into segments.  Rinse a handful of grapes.
2. Cut remaining half of banana into slices and begin to pulse in blender.
3. Gradually add orange segments, grapes and apple juice to the blender.
4. Pulse mixture until it reaches a smooth consistency.
5. Pour into glass and enjoy!

Raw Granola with Raw Banana and Cashew Yoghurt

Last Thursday was the Health and Wellbeing fayre at uni, marking the launch of a new initiative to promote and sustain health and wellbeing amongst students and staff at the university through food, exercise, relaxation, and services such as the university's counselling service, the mental health charity Mind and NHS services.  There were various stalls with leaflets or, in the case of the Sustrans stall, a bicycle fitted with a blender which you could ride and make your own berry smoothie (which will next be available at uni on Wednesday 25th February for the Food Festival), as well as a quiz which you could complete with the chance of winning various prizes including month-long gym memberships.  At the stall at which you could register your attendance and maybe also receive a goodie bag (which contained a stress ball in the shape of a lemon, lip balm, hand sanitiser, a pedometer, a hand warmer and a few leaflets), you were encouraged to write on a post-it what you would like to see this initiative do for the university.  Being an advocate of food and looking after yourself, I took three post-its and wrote:

1. Introduce compulsory timetabled sessions on yoga/relaxation for all students.
2. Encourage students to eat breakfast everyday.
3. Encourage students to get enough sleep each night.

That second option is what I have a post on for this week.  Breakfast.  The most important meal of the day, or so they say.  The meal that should not be skipped in favour of sneaking a bit more sleep in before a lecture.  One of my friends was talking about wanting some granola a few days ago, so I felt inspired to look up a recipe for granola.  I found one in the January 2015 of the Asda magazine, but I've adapted it a lot by making it into a raw version by not cooking the granola mix and topping it with raw banana and cashew yoghurt, in accordance with this recipe for raw banana and cashew yoghurt from Choosing Raw.

Ingredients (to make 4 small servings)

1 cup cashews, soaked for 2 hours or more, then drained

2 large bananas

1 1/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

2/3 cup tap water or coconut water

1 pinch sea salt

200g rolled oats

raisins, to serve

blueberries, to serve

 

Instructions

1. For the yoghurt, blend all the ingredients together until the mixture reaches a smooth consistency.
2. Mix together the rolled oats and raisins.
3. Scoop some of the yoghurt into the bottom of each glass.  On top of this, add a layer of the oat and raisin mixture.  Add another layer of the yoghurt to the glass.  At the very top, add another layer of the granola mix.
4. Add some blueberries to serve.

Gingerbread Ice Cream

Well, it's only another three sleeps until Christmas Day, and following a busy week of a concert rehearsal, a concert itself, a meeting and a Christmas meal/theatre trip, then a week of not really doing much other than watching Christmas DVDs and continuing to make a scrapbook, the Christmas week, although less busy than two weeks ago, is starting to fill up with things to do.  Yesterday was the church Nativity production, I'm going out carol-singing on Christmas Eve, and then there's the church service on Christmas Day.  The recipe for today is a vegan-friendly Christmassy gingerbread ice cream, inspired by this vanilla ice cream recipe from The Rawtarian and Ally Sheehan's banana and blueberry ice cream recipe.  It only needs three ingredients (plus toppings) and a blender, and is rather easy to make, so even if you can't really cook, this is one dessert you can make this Christmas.  And on that note, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Ingredients

4 bananas
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
2 teaspoons ground ginger
Toppings

Instructions

1. Cut bananas into slices and freeze in a Ziploc or freezer bag for a few hours or overnight.
2. Put the bananas into a high-speed blender and pulse until it reaches a smooth, ice-creamy texture.
3. Before you finish blending, add 2 teaspoons of vanilla essence and 2 teaspoons of ground ginger.  Blend the mixture for a bit longer.
4. Serve into bowls, top with sultanas and candied peel (if you have any) and enjoy!

Banana and Date Smoothie

Similarly to a few of the recipes that I’ve included, this banana and date smoothie recipe has come from agirlnamedally.  Although I won’t eat as many bananas in a day as Ally does, my love of dates could possibly almost match hers, and a mixture of the two is fantastic.

Ingredients

3-7 bananas
7 dates

Instructions

1. Cut bananas into slices and remove seeds from dates.
2. Adding slices of banana and dates to blender gradually, pulse until mixture reaches a smooth liquid consistency.

Breakfast Salad

It's always fun to try out new things, so instead of having my usual bowl of cereal for breakfast this morning, I chose to make myself a slight variation of this breakfast salad that I found at Natural Delights.  Although this salad is very simple, preparing it took much longer than preparing my typical bowl of cereal, but it's the summer holidays for me and I'm glad that I used that bit more time to make an enjoyable breakfast.

Ingredients
2 oranges
1 banana
6 dates

Instructions

1. Peel both oranges and separate into segments.  Places orange segments into bowl.
2. Remove the seeds from the dates and chop the dates into pieces.  Add to bowl.
3. Top with slices of banana and enjoy! 

 

 

Vegan-Friendly Banana and Blueberry Ice Cream

So this is my first proper post, and I haven't even said hello yet, but I couldn't think of much to say about myself other than hey, I'm Katie and I'm going to try to regularly post recipes here. 

I'm going to start with a recipe that I tried today after looking through the Instagram of the Melbourne-based Green Girls Gang (although I don't even have an Instagram).  What I made was a vegan-friendly banana and blueberry ice cream, and even though I'm not a vegan or even a vegetarian, I have a rather "yayyy, fruit" attitude, and I already had the necessary ingredients in my kitchen to make this tasty ice cream.

Ingredients
4-8 bananas
1/2 cup frozen blueberries

Method
1. Chop the bananas into halves (or slices, as I found halves quite difficult for the blender) and freeze in a ziplock bag overnight.
2. Put the bananas into a high-speed blender, add 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries and pulse until reaching a smooth, ice-creamy texture.
3. Sprinkle with optional toppings and enjoy!