Vegan food is not just for January, it’s for life

It was both extremely satisfying and hugely depressing to me that January ended on a Sunday this year. It looks lovely in the calendar but meant a long stretch till I could eat some cheese. I think it was actually really motivating to have something to focus on and pour my energy into considering the current lockdown, and I would actually recommend setting yourself a goal like this for the weeks moving forward.

I think this is the first year of doing Veganuary that I have actually considering sticking with it. I really got into it this year and I am enjoying the variety of new foods that I am trying. I think moving forward I am going to try to be at least 80% vegan, and then hopefully phase most things out completely as I keep discovering better alternatives!

Monday 25 January

For breakfast, I was really in the mood for toast but wanted to make it somewhat more interesting and so I added some baked beans – woah, far out man. I really do love beans on toast, but I hate actually having the beans on the toast for any length of time as soggy bread is not a texture that appeals to me, so really, I just had toast with beans on the side.

Image: Potatoes and vegetable mix with chickpeas

Luckily, I had some falafel and salad leftover from Sunday night’s dinner so that was my lunch sorted. I toasted a wholemeal wrap in a frying pan (just dry, no oil), spread the hummus on, smashed three falafels in and dumped the remaining salad on top. I also had a pack of salt and vinegar crisps and a can of Sprite. A bit later in the afternoon I was a bit peckish, so I decided to make a smoothie. I shoved the following in a blender: frozen banana, frozen mixed berries, kiwi, spirulina, a splash of oat milk and some water.

 I finally made it back to Aldi after all of my complaining about Tesco last week. I was in the mood for a fairly healthy, green-looking meal tonight but didn’t really know what to make so it was a bit random but turned out delightfully. I started off with peeling a mix of sweet potatoes and normal potatoes, I chopped them into little cubes and tipped them into a tray that I had kept in the oven with garlic infused olive oil whilst the oven preheated (to 180 degrees, in a fan oven). I think pre-heating the oil is one of my top tips for potatoes. I sprinkled them with paprika, mixed herbs, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper and shoved them in the oven for a good 40 – 50 minutes.

Next I chopped courgette, red and green pepper, red onion, tomatoes and mixed them in another baking dish with olive oil and the same spices which then also went in the oven. After about 20 minutes I added a can of drained chickpeas into the vegetable mix and added some more spices. I made a big salad consisting of lettuce, grated carrot, red onion, tomatoes, avocado, cucumber and puy lentils. Then I made a fancy tahini dressing for the roasted veggies, which was really easy but so delicious. I just mixed a tablespoon of tahini and the juice of half a lemon in a bowl and then salt and ground cumin to taste. I had added two whole cloves of garlic to the veggie mix in the oven so took those out and squeezed the garlic out which I smashed up some more and added to the tahini along with water to make it runny. 

Image: Toasted bagel with smashed avocado and I also had some fried cherry tomatoes.

Tuesday 26 January

I am afraid to say my trip to Aldi last night meant that porridge was back on the menu for breakfast. When I actually have some yummy fruit to add I love porridge.

For lunch I ended up having a toasted bagel with smashed avocado (which I mixed with salt, pepper, garlic powder and loads of chilli flakes). I also had some fried cherry tomatoes which I added the same spices to whilst in the pan with olive oil. I also had some of the leftover sweet potato, potato and roasted vegetables from last night’s dinner.

Last week (I can’t remember what day; they are all the same) I had a vegan bolognese which for tonight’s dinner I added chillies and mixed beans to turn into a vegan chilli. I just had it with some basmati rice.

Wednesday 27 January

I started off the day with a bowl of porridge. Today I added some vegan yogurt to the top and it was actually really good and added a bit of creaminess to the mix. For lunch I just had another ‘bacon’ sandwich in a bagel.

Dinner was a real comfort meal of chips, beans, and those Aldi vegan chicken nuggets – really impressed with these. Loads of mayo and peri peri salt was also added. I always feel approximately seven years old when I eat a meal like this, but I don’t think I will ever stop.

Image: Stir fry veg

Thursday 28 January

Breakfast was another delightful bowl of porridge. For lunch, I had half a pot of an M&S lentil soup. It’s my favourite soup, but I’m not really a soup person so apologies if that’s a bad soup to love. They’ve definitely changed the recipe recently which has annoyed me but it’s still good, and of course, vegan.

After work but before dinner I popped to Waitrose because I fancied a bit of elitism to round off my week. I got a load of fun stuff including a new frying pan and a huge new candle. They had the This Isn’t Chicken on reduced and so I finally decided to try some. When I got home, I fried these pieces up with some rice noodles, soy sauce, fresh lime juice and some peanut butter. I cooked up a huge wok full of stir fry veg to which I added some pak choi and loads of soy sauce and siracha. I found these Bang Bang Cauliflower things in Waitrose too down to 70p on reduced so shoved those in the oven. The versatility of cauliflower will never cease to amaze me, they were really tasty. And finally, I also found some of itsu’s Vegetable Gyoza in my freezer, so I fried some of these up and steamed them (fry in oil so they have a crispy bottom, then pour in some water to the pan and cover with a lid to steam).

Friday 29 January

I started off the day with another sexy little ‘bacon’ sandwich in a red onion and chive bagel. Delightful. For lunch I crammed down some of the leftovers of my dinner last night whilst I waited for the rest of my soup to heat up!

For dinner, I decided to go all out and made a three course Italian extravaganza. I, like many people, am hammering the online shopping hard and this week I decided it was high time that I bought a pasta machine. I will talk you through the “menu” and provide links that I used for recipes.

Image: Bruschetta

To start I made some bruschetta using a lovely sourdough ciabatta, topped with chopped basil, garlic, tomatoes, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Bruschetta is one of the simplest dishes to make, but in my opinion, it’s one of the best and it’s usually vegan.

Image: Pasta

For the main course I made two different types of pasta. I used this recipe loosely – basically just in terms of quantities as it’s literally just flour and water – but instead I did a mix of 00 flour and semolina. I don’t know why I did that I just thought it would be nice, and it was. I think next time I will experiment with adding different things into the dough to change the colour!

 First up for fillings was a chilli and asparagus ravioli type pasta. For this I just chopped up the asparagus really finely with some fresh chilli, a sprinkle of dried chilli flakes and a tiny bit of garlic. I fried this all off with olive oil and two tablespoons of vegan cream cheese to add some more texture to it. The second filling was a take on spinach and ricotta, but instead of ricotta I again just used vegan cream cheese (just the Violife one, which I have heard tastes just like Philadelphia, but I can confirm it definitely does not). I added lots of salt and pepper to this one as well as a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.

I made a vodka tomato sauce again to go with the spinach tortellini, recipe was on this previous post. Then for the asparagus ravioli I just made a really simple sage butter sauce with Flora – this definitely wasn’t as good as actual sage butter sauce, but I couldn’t find any other vegan butters in Waitrose unfortunately.

Image: Chocolate cake

For dessert, I made another vegan chocolate cake but tried out a new recipe. It was supposed to be an extremely moist cake, but it really ended up tasting more like a giant brownie, which I was not mad about. The amount of sugar that went into this did almost give me a heart attack when baking, and it could still give me a heart attack at some point next week. Diabetics be warned.

Image: Pancakes

Saturday 30 January

I started off with a hearty fake meat bonanza for breakfast. Two Richmond sausages, a piece of Quorn ham, a toasted bagel and lots of beans. Yum.

I didn’t have any lunch, but after a lovely long walk, whilst battling the elements, I had yet another Indian takeaway. I can’t get enough. I had vegetable biryani again, a chana masala and a tarka dhal and a roti. Oh, and some onion bhajis to start.

Sunday 31 January

At 2pm (don’t judge) I decided to make some more pancakes using the same recipe as last week. But this time as I had some in the fridge, I decided to add some blueberries into the mix. Incredible. I don’t know why I’ve never done that before.

Dinner was leftover Indian takeaway, followed by a slice of cake!

And that’s it folks. Veganuary over for another year. Did you join in the fun too? Let us know how you got on via Instagram (@flolondon_), we’d love to hear!

Words and Photography by Mollie Cohen