vegan.in.brighton

I'm a firm believer that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Without breakfast I'm a grumpy, lightheaded mess and nobody wants to hang out with that version of me!

Before my trip to Manchester I did a little research and scoped out where the best breakfasts were at. I didn't manage to eat them all but I did fit in three proper brekkies.

The first was on Sunday morning when we had a PPK meet up at Bistro 1847 in Chorlton. We all ordered the Full Breakfast and we managed not to start a riot when they told us that they were out of both avocado and soya milk!

This breakfast consists of two homemade sausages, tofu scramble, spinach, mushrooms, homemade spicy beans and toast. It comes with a side of vegan margarine.

This breakfast was mostly good, especially the sausages, which were lovely and crisp on the outside. I also loved the crispy French bread toast. The tofu scramble tasted a whole lot better than it looked, it was the first time I've had a scramble with neither nutritional yeast nor turmeric in the ingredients but it was still very flavourful. The only part I disliked was the beans, I am a firm believer that a breakfast bean should be a proper baked bean and not just any kind of tomato & bean combo - I have friends who think the total opposite of me on this point though and everyone else enjoyed them so it's just a personal preference thing!

My next breakfast adventure was at Odd Bar in the Northern Quarter. They don't start serving breakfast until 11am so as you can imagine I was pretty hungry by the time my meal arrived. Their vegan breakfast includes toast, baked beans, mushroom, tomato, a sausage, a hash brown, a spicy three bean patty and tofu scramble. As you can see there's no tofu scramble in this picture - they were out of tofu but I got an extra sausage and an extra mushroom instead.

I really enjoyed the falafel sausages which make a fun change from the often store-bought sausages I see in breakfasts down south and I was happy to see my favourite Heinz beans making an appearance. I also appreciated the inclusion of the hash brown as there aren't enough UK breakfast places including a potato product in their full English. The herby tomato made a nice change from the usual pepper covered tom' but due to the spice factor I wasn't the biggest fan of the bean patty.

I would definitely re-visit Odd and order this breakfast again but they really need to get some margarine! When I asked the guy working there for it he said "someone asked for it yesterday and I had to disappoint them too", they also disappointed the two people ordering after me who were both vegan too. Given that this place is a stones throw from a health food store I would have thought that the tofu / margarine issues could have been resolved quite easily.

My final stop for breakfast was Oklahoma, again in the Northern Quarter. The vegan breakfast options at Oklahoma are all toast based and you can add beans, jam, PB, marmalade or Marmite. You can also order sandwiches or baked sweet potatoes right from when they open at 10 if you fancy a more out-there breakfast. Unsurprisingly I went for my favourite start to the day - baked beans on toast.

These beans were close enough to Heinz that I loved them but they had a slightly different and more interesting depth of flavour. I should really have asked what brand they were or if they were homemade because they were super delicious. I also loved the granary bread which was toasted until beautifully golden and slathered in margarine. What a perfectly delicious end to my trip.

Two other places rumoured to have good breakfast options in Manchester are Eighth Day who apparently do a sausage sarnie and start serving food much earlier than anywhere else in the city and Mod's Cafe at The Thirsty Scholar which sometimes has a full English which includes veggie bacon. You can rest assured that I'll be checking them both out next time.

Whilst in Manchester I ate out a lot but I also fitted in a few trips to food stores. I love looking around food stores, from supermarkets in new countries to health food stores in every city I pass through, I love them all. I almost always find something new and exciting and the stores on this trip were no exception. The first place on my list was Unicorn Grocery.

Unicorn is a workers co-op and it's entirely vegan, no label reading needed! Rad! As I was travelling on a budget I couldn't buy every new and exciting vegan product I laid my eyes upon but I took pictures.

I love to make my own seitan but it would be super convenient if you could get ready prepared seitan from shops down here. It would certainly up my laziness a little though. The sausages looked great too.

I was very tempted by these little tempeh & tofu salad tubs. They'd be perfect for turning a mini baguette into a meal whilst travelling.

I also spotted the new Melty Sheese! I tried them at a vegan fair about two years ago and I haven't seen them since. I assumed they'd sold the melty formula to Tesco for their free from range (which I was a little angry about!) but it seems that the melty just hasn't made it's way down south yet.

As well as being entirely vegan Unicorn is also refined sugar free. I was super apprehensive about this but as you can see I found some good stuff and the store certainly doesn't shy away from products containing oil, phew!

These Garlic sticks from the savoury snack section were amazing, super crunchy and very heavy on the garlic. I loved that they came in a ziplock baggie so that I could re-seal them to enjoy another day.

Unicorn also have a little deli where you can pick up all sorts of savory pies, pasties and pastries. I wasn't super impressed with this tofu and broccoli parcel, despite containing three of my favourite things it was a little bland.

On the other hand the Ganmodoki Tofu & Veg balls were perfect. These little fried balls are stuffed full of carrot, onion, hijiki seaweed, sesame seeds, garlic and herbs and they only cost 79p!

I really, really wished that I'd bought more than one.

The next store I checked out was Eighth Day, this veggie store is right opposite the university library and the Eighth Day cafe is underneath it. I didn't get a chance to eat there but it looked like they served cheapish canteen style food. I just grabbed a piece of the vegan lemon, almond and poppy cake from the deli counter.

Everything in this section is vegan!

It was the first sunny day of the year so I took my cake across to the lawns in front of the university library.

This piece of cake was the perfect spring day treat, the light and fluffy almond filled and lemon infused sponge was topped with a lemon sugar glaze and decorated with poppyseeds. It was super delicious, I never really make lemon cake but I should because it's pretty much my favourite.

Lastly on my stores-of-Manchester expedition I popped to Wing Fat in Chinatown. I picked up some preserved beans (anyone have any recipe suggestions for these?), noodles for 50p and some Peanut Butter Mochi.

Nick and I have plans to visit Japan in the not too distant future and I am determined to make myself like Mochi (and tea) before we go. This is the closest I've gotten to enjoying mochi! Peanut butter was always going to be the best possible filling for my tastes and I definitely prefer the kind coated in coconut over the cornstarch covered kind. I would say that the mochi love is coming to me faster than a love for tea. I just hate it all. I've never discovered a tea that I can even deal with drinking let alone actually enjoy but I have hope, a few years ago I also hated hot chocolate and coffee so ya never know!

My next blog post is going to be about the wonderful Ms Cupcake's upcoming cookbook, it includes a giveaway so stay tuned...

London based purveyor of sweet treats, Ms. Cupcake, has written a cookbook and I'm super excited about it! For anyone who's tried, or wanted to try, Ms Cupcake's delicious creations it's great news. If you haven't heard of Ms Cupcake yet lemme tell you a little bit about her.

Long time readers of the blog will know that I've always been a huge fan and supporter of Ms. Cupcake. From the days when I'd get a boat along the thames to get to Greenwich Market for her cupcakes...

...to the opening day of the store, to working behind the stall at VegFest, I've been there!

As well as creating wonderful sweet treats Mellissa, the woman beneath the hat, is sweet, funny and inspiring and I'm excited to be able to call her a friend. I'm SO happy for her right now because this book is awesome.

It's beautiful, it's hard-backed, and it's full of artistic colour photographs of gorgeous baked goods and the store's colourful staff. More importantly it's jammed full of recipes for everything sweet, from cupcakes to deep fried cookie balls.

Of course I've taken the cookbook for a little spin around the kitchen!

I started with the Jaffa Cake recipe. I was super excited to see this childhood favourite in the book but if you aren't British you may not have heard of this delicious cross between a biscuit and a cake. The soft cookie comes covered in chocolate and an orange jelly hides inside. This recipe is super simple as it calls for orange marmalade rather than a complicated home-made agar based jelly. I was super sceptical about this idea at first but I have faith in Ms. Cupcake so I picked up a no-peel version from Waitrose and ran with it.

Aside from the marmalade I had everything else I needed to bake these in the house already. Awesome!

They were ridiculously quick and easy to throw together, as I was making them I remember thinking "Even Nick could bake these" and he is definitely not a baker (he does make a mean tofu scramble though)! Due to my baking these at night time I didn't really get a good picture but here they are chilling in the fridge.

The picture really doesn't do these justice, they were AMAZING! Seriously, so good. I planned to just eat one or two and then send the rest to work with Nick but, nuh-uh, that didn't happen. I ate more than my half and I can't wait to make them again. The recipe says that these can make 12 or 15 and I would suggest making 15 (rather than the 12 I made) for a more accurate Jaffa Cake.

Yesterday I made my second recipe from the book, the Chocolate Chip Cookies. I always grab a cookie when I visit Ms Cupcake in her shop or on one of her many stalls and I was super excited about being able to recreate these at home.

These cookies are huge, chewy, bakery-style cookies and they're perfect. They were ready just as Nick got back from work and we both loved them, I ate two as soon as they were cool enough to handle and they were almost exactly the same as the cookies from the bakery itself. I loved finding a new-to-me technique within the recipe which helps to flatten them out and to give them the desired chewy texture and this will definitely become a go-to recipe in our house.

The book actually doesn't come out until May 9th but a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a review copy from publishers Random House. I had already pre-ordered myself a copy of the book so I'll be passing the review copy on to one lucky reader! Don't worry I've been super careful with it so it still looks shiny and new - no chocolate splatters or rouge bits of marmalade!

To enter the competition I need you to find me an adorable picture of a bunny, post it on Facebook, tweet about it with the hashtag #jojoisawesome and....hahaha, no. You just need to leave a comment on this blog post!

The competition is open to anyone, anywhere in the world and I will be announcing the winner on Friday May 3rd. I have to post the book on May 8th before I leave on my epic Seattle / Portland / Vida Vegan Con trip (OMG! So excited!!) so please make sure that there's a way for me to contact you if you win and that you're paying attention to your e-mails so that I can get your address in time.

Good luck!

When I travel I love to eat at food carts, from Clover in Boston to Arlo's in Austin some of my favourite dining experiences have been at these al fresco mobile kitchens. Thanks to the people behind Street Diner this outdoor dining experience has finally made it to my city. I headed there on opening day to check it out.

Street Diner is located in Brighthelm Gardens on what used to be a slightly derelict patch of land, this area has been coming into it's own over the last few years with the introduction of a community garden in 2011 shortly followed by the North Laine composting scheme. I feel like with the beginning of Street Diner this small, accessible, green space has finally made it onto the map.

As soon as I heard about Street diner I was intrigued and excitedly started searching online to see if there would be any vegan options available at the market. Long story short, of course there are! This is Brighton!

The first vegan friendly place I came upon was Crocus Paella who I'd already spoken to via Twitter. Crocus have two paella options at the stall, one veggie, one non. The veggie paella looked amazing but by the time I went back to get some they'd sold out.

I was lucky enough to try some of their bottled gazpacho though and it was delicious. They have four flavours, three of which are vegan - Classico, Almond and Raspberry, and Tomato and Strawberry. The Classico is unsurprisingly made from a mix of tomatoes and red peppers and one sip took me straight back to Barcelona. Next I tried the Tomato and Strawberry which I don't mind admitting I was a little dubious about but the flavour really surprised me. I'd expected the strawberry to take over but it just added a hint of sweetness and I actually enjoyed it even more than the Classico!

Crocus also sell their organic, saffron based, herbal teas at the stall. I'm not a tea fan at all but they sound really interesting.

My next stop was the all-vegetarian Sultans Delight stall. I've seen these guys before at the wednesday market at Churchill Square and at the new Old Steine weekend farmer's market but aside from a sample of babaganoush I've never eaten anything made by them before. The stall was bursting with beautifully presented Turkish & Middle Eastern style pastries and meze. All but one thing on the stall was vegan and the dishes ranged from a crispy sweet potato, spinach, and chilli filled borek to a healthy bulgur, mixed vegetable, and pomegranate salad.

My sweet tooth pushed me in the direction of the Baklava which was perfect.

The little layered pastry was stuffed full of walnuts and pistachios and soaked in a simple syrup with a touch of lemon. It was amazing and I'll definitely be picking up another piece this week.

My final destination was Big Pan Cooking where I was pleased to see another sign advertising meat free meals. Big Pan Cooking make one huge pan of vegan stir fry with either potatoes or a grain as the base and a tonne of fresh veggies. This is piled high and topped with spicy chilli beans, or in my case, no beans. I'v never been able to handle spice and I've recently developed a full on chilli allergy! Fun!

My huge tray of stir fry was beautifully spiced, you could really taste the cumin, caraway, mustard seeds, wild garlic and fenugreek and even without the beans this was a huge and super filling meal.

Street Diner, which is on from 11-3 every Friday during spring and summer, features local traders who'll be cooking up fresh, delicious, food every week as well an ever changing selection of guest caterers to keep things varied. As well as the food I've shown you here I spoke to the people from the cute Creperie Lui food truck who assured me that a vegan and gluten free crepe is in the works for next week which I personally cannot wait to try. See ya there!

After planning on cooking up some tasty food at home this weekend I somehow ended up eating out for every meal! I feel a little ridiculous but it was a great weekend and now I have plenty of food in the fridge to last for the rest of the week.

After a late night dancing like crazy to 90's grrrl rock and pop at Traumfrau Nick and I managed to get up at a fairly decent time on Saturday morning to head up to London for a spontaneous lunch. We met up with one of my favourite cookbook authors and the kick ass vegan behind The PPK, Isa Moskowitz, her boyfriend and travel partner John of Laziest Vegans fame, Quarry Girl and her partner Nick.

We decided on Mildred's and managed to get a table in the middle of the lunch rush despite the queue. The key to getting seated right away seems to be to go with a group, they'll seat you in the light & airy upstairs dining room too which is a real win.

I've been visiting Mildred's for years so I was surprised and excited to see some new dishes on the menu. Almost everyone ordered the brand new Bangers and Mash dish and it was a great choice.

The mash was perfectly creamy, no sign of lumps here, the sweet tofu, apple and bean sausages were substantial without being heavy and even Nick, hater of all greens, loved the kale. The sweet pear jus really tied everything together nicely and I'd definitely order this again.

For me the real highlight of the meal was dessert. It's no secret that two of my favourite flavours are chocolate and peanut butter (I even spread PB onto my chocolate rice cakes!) so this new dessert was a real treat. The Chocolate and Peanut Butter Brownie is served with chocolate sauce AND ice cream, craziness!

Usually the ice cream accompanying this menu item is vanilla but that day they had chocolate on the specials menu and they were happy to switch it for me. I felt like I was living out all of my dessert dreams!! The perfectly crackle topped brownie and the chocolate sauce were both served hot making for a gooey and delicious dessert. I couldn't find fault with it if I tried, honestly, it was perfect.

After lunch I met up with one of my bff's, Sal from Alien On Toast, for a little wander around Chinatown before heading back to my place for an evening of silliness, snacks and chick flicks. It was awesome especially as Nick took charge of the kitchen and fried up batch after batch of delicious dumplings.

The next morning we woke up late and after much discussion about our favourite ways to eat potatoes we took our hungry asses down the road to WaiKikaMooKau for breakfast.

The WaiKika breakfast has always been one of my favourites and for some reason I haven't blogged about it since 2009! That's four years ago! Ridiculous! The breakfast has changed a little since then, the sausages, pesto tomato, mushrooms, toast and beans have stayed the same but now this full English comes with some delicious oven baked marinated tofu and instead of french fries it's accompanied by a much more appropriate hash brown.

This was such a perfect start to the day and it made me think that I need to go out for breakfast way more often! As well as being delicious it was also super filling and kept me going until Nick finished work. As soon as he walked in the door I demanded that he turn around because I had falafel on my mind. Never one to say no to falafel we were on our way in seconds. We've been eagerly awaiting the opening of Brighton's latest falafel joint, Fil Fil, in the old Red Veg location on Gardner Street for months and it finally opened this weekend.

As with any brand new restaurant there were a few teething problems, staff being unsure what vegan means and running out of hummus aren't great but what we did try made our trip worthwhile.

We ordered the 'meal deal' for £4.50 which is a falafel sandwich with hummus, salad, and a drink. Nick also got fries which he got to eat most of! I chose the wholewheat pitta which was served warm and stuffed full of fried falafel balls and a salad of fried onions, red cabbage, tomato & cucumber. Gherkins were also an option that day and by the look of the online menu they also have beetroot, lettuce, sweetcorn and olives to choose from.

I loaded up on tahini sauce both to make up for the lack of hummus and because tahini sauce is delicious. I also threw on a couple of blobs of amazingly strong garlic sauce.

It was a good falafel sandwich, the garlic and tahini sauces were both really flavourful and the falafel balls themselves were perfectly crispy and delicious. This place is definitely promising, I love that it's is a family run place rather than part of a chain but I'd like to see them gain a better understanding of their vegan options.

VBites has moved to central Brighton and today I was their first customer! I've been peering through the windows for weeks and I was excited to finally get to step inside. VBites have fancied up the old Aloka location on East Street and I must say they've done a wonderful job. The whole place is light, bright, airy and stuffed full of vegan goodies.

The shelves are full of staples, from soups, beans and pasta to cereal, peanut butter and tea. They have a small selection of veggies and fresh bread and plenty of exciting treats like Chocoreale, Dame Blanche cookies and even raw chocolate buttons.

The fridge is stuffed full of an unsurprisingly impressive range of Cheezly, mock meats and fish substitutes as well as drinks, margarine, plant milks and creams.

They have an impressive chocolate selection too which includes every kind of Go Max bar and plenty of Moo Free.

The main thing I was excited about though was the menu. I had heard that it would be different from the menu at the Lagoon location and that's definitely correct. This menu has a great balance of mock meat dishes like the Classic VBeefy Burger, VB Fishy & Fries and their No Meat Feast pizza and homemade comfort food classics like the Tuscan Bean & Fusilli Soup, Classic Homemade Beanburger and a Falafel Wrap.

As I was there early (I wasn't kidding about being the first customer - they unlocked the door for me!) they were still serving the breakfast menu which runs from 8:30 - 11 daily. These hours aren't set in stone but I'm really hoping they'll be able to keep the early opening time, it's hard to grab breakfast before work in this city and it's currently impossible to find a vegan breakfast before 10 on a Sunday!

Whilst I was tempted by the Full English I decided to go for the Rasher Roll, their version of a bacon butty, which is not something you can find elsewhere in Brighton. There was a choice of bap, wholewheat or white, and it comes with three rashers, tomato and both mayo and ketchup.

This sarnie would be the perfect start to any day. The rashers were perfectly crisped around the edges, the warm tomatoes added a more gourmet edge to the British classic and the balance of mayo and ketchup was spot on.

VBites are also selling slices of cake, shortbread biscuits and pastries alongside a delicious sounding selection of sandwiches (including classics like Coronation Chicken and Cheese & Pickle) and baked potatoes with a wide range of fillings. There's a breakfast bar in the morning where you can plate up your own granola and at lunchtime it turns into a salad bar.

I loved my first visit and I'm already tempted to go back for more. I'd definitely say that this VBites location is a must visit for any vegan visiting Brighton.

Friday night saw me heading out of Brighton and into Hove for dinner and drinks with my friend Tabitha. We'd only really planned to get drinks but we both arrived starving and decided that cocktails on an empty stomach would be a bad idea - look at me all grown up & sensible now that I'm almost 30!

Kambi's was the nearest vegan friendly eatery and as I hadn't reviewed it before I thought we should give it a try. I hadn't ever eaten Lebanese food in Brighton before and we excitedly ordered the Vegan Meze for two. This comes with Houmos, Moutabal, Tabbouleh, Vine Leaves, Batatah Harra, Fatayer, Falafel & Salad.

I was really happy to get to try so many vegan menu items in one go and I wish more cuisines were presented like this so that you could try loads of different things. Out of the varied selection only the moutabal, fatayer and battah harra were new to me. At least that's what I thought! Upon tasting the moutabal I realised that it wasn't new to me at all but baba ganoush hiding under a different name! This was a-ok with me, I love baba ganoush and this one was truly delicious. The hummus was great too, super creamy, y'know the good restaurant kind that you can tell is made with plenty of oil and tahini, the vine leaves were also perfectly oily and fresh. Both myself and my dining companion enjoyed the new-to-us batatah harra which if, like me, you're in the dark, is a sautéed potato dish with coriander, garlic, sweet peppers & chilli. I'm pretty sure that the only chillies in this dish were the two whole ones balanced on top and I think I enjoyed it all the more for that reason! The falafel balls were crispy on the outside but a little unsubstantial on the inside, there were also only three which for a dish two people are meant to share is just silly! Overall we enjoyed the food itself but we definitely didn't think that it was worth £20! They either need to lower the price or make it a helluva lot bigger! Kambi's is located on Western Road a little way past Waitrose and right next to the (hopefully opening really soon) new Hove Iydea location.

Here's the real reason for our trip into Hove. Cocktails. Not just any cocktails though, oh no, it takes a lot to get me to cross that Brighton / Hove boundary and Boho Gelato teaming up with Slice Sussex for a monthly frozen cocktail night is definitely the kind of thing that'll do it!

It's no secret that I love Boho Gelato, they have at least six vegan flavours in the cabinet every day and as soon as the sun comes out I'm there at least bi-weekly for my gelato fix. Unsurprisingly when I heard about this monthly cocktail night I was super excited and couldn't wait to check it out. Neither of us had been to Slice Sussex before and we were pleased to find a really cosy relaxed cafe-style place with cute angle-poise lamps and comfy armchairs.

The menu had three dairy and three non-dairy cocktails and the lovely people at Slice Sussex happily looked into which boozes were vegan friendly so that we didn't have to do all of the work ourselves.

I started with a Mojito Slush and Tabitha went for the Negroneeevil, a concoction of blood orange and chilli sorbet mixed with gin but minus the vermouth and campari.

The Mojito Slush ended up being my favourite drink of the evening. Consisting of mojito sorbet, white rum and fresh mint this drink is the perfect summer refreshment. I think I'll be buying a tub of the mojito to bring home so that I can make these in my blender come proper summer time.

Next we both tried the Red Lotus, a mix of Lychee & Cranberry sorbet, vodka and cachaca.

This one almost tasted flowery and like a sweet (one that we couldn't put our finger on!), I really liked the light foam on top of the drink and it was Tabitha's favourite cocktail of the evening.

This is going to be my last Brighton based blog post for a little while, I'm heading to Seattle with Nick on Thursday to spend four or five days sightseeing and eating before we drive down the coast towards Portland for, well, even more eating! Then Nick leaves and I stay for Vida Vegan Con! I don't think I've ever been more excited about a trip...well, maybe the time Nick finally got on the plane to NYC!! I have a shiny new suitcase and an as yet untouched notebook to fill up with tips, plans and ideas from the con. I also cannot wait to finally meet up with old and new friends, I'll finally meeting people whose blogs I've been reading since '09! It's gonna be epic! I'll be trying my hardest to blog from the road, something I practiced in Manchester and actually enjoyed doing, so I'll see y'all soon!

I'm not the biggest sports fan but if anything's going to get me into a stadium to watch a game I don't understand it's the promise of food!

Last weekend whilst Nick and I were in Seattle we headed out to watch the Mariners play baseball with PPK buddies Ben and Gus. This stadium has a truly astounding amount of vegan food for a sporting establishment hence the collection of non-sports fans Nick managed to convince to come along!

Our first stop was always going to be the Field Roast stand. Located in a small and über vegan friendly food court between stands 132 and 133 this cart serves up all-vegan chilli cheese dogs, franks and burgers.

I went for this beauty. A frankfurter with onions and cheese sauce. This "monstrosity", as one of my companions referred to it, was crazy delicious and well worth the walk around the stadium from our section for. I topped it with sauerkraut because, well, why wouldn't you? This made it even harder to eat but that's probably why it comes with not one but two boxes and a fork!

If you aren't in the mood for this ball game classic the food court also includes Bao Choi, a steamed bun stand from the people behind Vedge restaurant in Philadelphia, and The Natural, a healthier kinda place that still serves dogs and burgers but also has hummus, soups and smoothies.

The next must-try food at SAFECO field has to be the garlic fries. These are available from most of the regular burger / fry / soft drink stations situated around the concourse and are vegan as is.

These were some of the best fries ever. Perfectly crispy and super garlicky, what more could you want? Well... maybe some Veganaise!!

If you get the chance, sports fan or not, I'd say catching a Mariners game is a must if you're in Seattle. They've certainly hit a home run with their vegan options!

It's almost Vida Vegan Con time and I'm in Portland already. I've been having a rad time so far, here are some of the things I already love about Portland...

Food Carts!

Goats - this was very much a right place right time kinda deal!

This was just about the best thing that's ever happened!

Eating ice cream that one day the sun came out!

Chocolate Soft Serve with Salted Caramel Sauce from Back to Eden.

Bars that serve s'mores and awesome PPKers to share them with!

Obviously I will be blogging about all of this in waaay more detail soon but right now there are more PPKers to meet, fun times to be had and, obviously, I need to eat some more. See ya'll soon!

Hey y'all! I'm back in Brighton! I had an amazing time travelling around the Pacific Northwest, I was away for almost a month and whilst I was there I was lucky enough to attend Vida Vegan Con in Portland! I know! So exciting! I'd been dreaming of going to this vegan bloggers conference since I first heard about it's inception back in 2011 and it was everything I'd imagined and more.

The weekend kicked off with an Unofficial Meet & Greet at local vegan friendly bar White Owl Social Club. It was fun but kinda overwhelming to meet so many bloggers in one go hence the lack of photos, I was far to busy talking to everyone and cramming the mac 'n cheese burger into ma mouth!

Yup, the mac 'n cheese IS the burger. This carb on carb meal with a side of carbs was one of my Portland fave's but I would perhaps suggest that eating it three times in one week like I did could be a bit much. If you can eat it four times in a week I'll hand over my Carb Queen crown!

The next morning everyone was up bright and early to grab their Swag Bags...I was too excited to photograph the whole thing but it was epic, like, almost the same size as my suitcase epic! My first class of the day was Food Styling with Hannah Kaminsky where she showed us amongst other things how to turn this messy looking Whole Foods takeout Pad Thai into a beautifully plated meal. This was amazing to watch and I'll certainly be trying this next time I grab some takeout from Street Diner or Iydea.

Continuing the photography theme one of my favourite classes of the weekend was Isa's iPhone photography class. Isa is totally hilarious and the class was was super practical (we could follow along using the app's on our phones) and helpful, there were tips on everything from taking the photos to styling (swatches!) and editing.

I don't actually own a camera, I take all of my photos with an iPhone so this was the perfect class for me.

Erika from Sews Before Bros wrote some really in depth write ups of the classes she attended so follow the class name links below for the full scoop on some of my favourite classes.

One of the most enjoyable classes I attended was the Vegan MoFo Workshop with Amey, Kittee and Mo, these gals are super funny and it's no secret that MoFo is one of my favourite times of year. There were some great tips for both MoFo veterans and for newbies to the crazy month long blogging event.

I started looking forward to Restaurant Reviews with Authority with Grant Butler as soon as the agenda was announced. Grant writes restaurant reviews for both The Oregonian and MIX magazine and as a blogger who mainly writes restaurant reviews I was excited to learn some new things and to see where I'd been going right or wrong. Thankfully I haven't been making any massive faux pas and his class gave me some great tools to deal with how to write about places I don't love immediately.

The Making of a Zine: From Concept to Distribution with Amey, Joanna and Kittee was one of the most inspiring workshops for me. I love zines and I have a pretty decent collection including zines written by all of the members of the panel. I've wanted to write a zine of my own for ages and this really gave me practical tips about how to get started. Amey even has a great DIY zine making how-to on her blog.

I also really loved listening to Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan from Our Hen House discussing how to expand your message to include animal rights and the Body Image Acceptance and Veganism panel actually made me cry. I loved everyones honesty and bravery in the face of such a tough topic.

The Portland Breakfast Showcase had to be the foodie highlight of the weekend for me. There were so many amazing options and I did my best to try them all! It was served on a first come first served basis so I made sure I was first in line for Sizzle Pie's brunch pizza. I went for the Drugs Benedict which is topped with a white bean & shallot spread, cheesy tofu scramble, bacon bits, hashbrowns & green onions.

I definitely made the right choice here and I even got a bonus slice for being first in line! I fully believe that pizza is the breakfast of champions (I even have a badge to prove it!) and this one even had ranch for dipping.

Obviously I couldn't only try one option at a breakfast showcase, I also tried all of these. Clockwise from the top left, the Meatloaf Benedict from A.N.D Cafe, Tempeh Bacon Quiche from Back to Eden (I have more to write about Back to Eden - it might be one of my favourite places ever), Chocolate and Lemon Doughnut halves from Cinnamon PDX, and Summer Vegetable Panissa from Portobello.

Alongside the meet & greet, the classes, and the breakfast showcase the Galarama was one of my favourite parts of the weekend. I put on a dress and make up and made a beeline for the food!

The first thing I headed towards was the So Delicious ice cream bar. I'm pretty into ice cream, especially if it's chocolate, but my main reason was that I'd heard there were brownies from Capital City Bakery in Austin - these are my favourite brownies in the whole wide world and this little sundae was perfect.

There were also two food trucks at the galarama, Tandem Treats and Taco Pedaler as well as trays of cheese made by Miyoko Schinner from Artisan Vegan Life. It was a tough decision but I couldn't resist a Tandem Treats dawg topped with sauerkraut, onions and a classic mustard / ketchup combo.

I did actually manage to take some pictures of people at this event, not many but I tried.

L-R Mandee AKA Cupcake Kitteh, Randi, Me.

L-R Paul, A Chimp, Lisa AKA PandaWithCookie.

L-R Stephanie AKA Lazy Smurf, Me.

Sunday's non-class highlight had to be the Vegan Battle Royale and Ice Cream Social. I kept score for one of the teams in the Battle Royale and I certainly made the most of the ice cream social! These almond milk based Mocha Almond Fudge mini bars from So Delicious were the best ice cream bars I've ever eaten. I really, really wish we could get them in the UK. Sort it out So Delicious!

As you can probably tell I really, really loved Vida Vegan Con. I learnt so much and I met and hung out with so many positive, inspiring and all-round awesome people, there are far too many of you to name - you know who you are! Thank you for making VVC so rad!

Whilst I was having all of the fun at Vida Vegan Con I was also thinking about my blog readers who couldn't attend. I really, really wish that everyone from the vegan blogging community could have been there! In an attempt to spread the VVC love I started collecting things for a giveaway because, let's be honest, the pictures of the Swag Bags all over Instagram and Twitter were probably making you pretty jealous! It's also my birthday really soon (less than a week, so excited!) so I bought you some presents and threw them in there too!

All you need to do to win this Peanut Butter & Co tote stuffed full of all of the goodies pictured below is to leave me a comment telling me which class on the VVC agenda you'd have been most excited to attend.

This goodie bag contains a jar of Booda Butter Organic Moisturiser, a Booda Butter lip balm, a Hurraw almond lip balm, Amey's Unofficial VVC Cookbooklet, a Vegan Dish keychain, a Field Roast t-shirt, stickers, a bag the new of Earth Balance Pops, two Peanut Butter Cookie Luna bars, a Go Max Go Thumbs Up bar, an Eli's Earth Dream Big Bar, a Chocolove Almonds & Sea Salt bar, Tofurky jerky, sample size packs of Nacheez, Dandies, Simply Hemp Milk, Surf Sweets and a whole lotta PB sachets from PB & Co, Artisana and Earth Balance.

The competition is open to anyone living in Europe who didn't attend Vida Vegan Con. The competition closes on Monday June 17th. Don't forget to leave me some kind of contact details and good luck!

I also wanted to mention that I'm currently up for the Best Blogger award in the UK's Veg Fest Awards! If you haven't voted yet I'd love it if you'd consider voting for me, here's a link so that you can check it out if you want to.

If you live in Brighton I hope that you've already been frequenting our new friday afternoon street food market, Street Diner. I previously blogged about the tasty treats you can pick up from Sultans Delight, Big Pan Cooking & Crocus Paella right here but now I'm back to tell you that there's another amazing vegan option at the market. Crepes!

I spoke with the people from The French Revolution at the first ever street diner and this 100% gluten free company let me know that they had a vegan crepe in the works. OMG! I popped along to Street Diner as soon as I got back from my travels and was excited to see that yes, indeed there was a vegan crepe on offer. They aren't on the actual menu yet so just ask!

I went for the Berry Jam, Coconut & Roast Nut crepe and boy was it delicious.

Since going vegan I have had all manner of pancakes but never a crepe and to have one cooked for me was fantastic.

From looking at the menu I would say that these are the vegan options:

Freshly Squeezed Lemon & Sugar
Berry Jam, Coconut & Roast Nuts
Amaretto, Roast Nuts, Coconut & Vanilla Sugar
Amaretto, Organic Maple Syrup & Banana (minus the whipped cream)

Whilst I was waiting for my crepe I chatted to the proprietor about vegan options and he's looking into a vegan Belgian chocolate option which would be AMAZING! I didn't get a chance to ask any questions about the morello cherries on the menu but if you visit this friday and get the chance to ask about food colourings etc let me know & I'll update my blog post. If they get the chocolate and the morello cherries are vegan I am having one of their cherry chocolate crepes as soon as I get back from Zagreb! I don't care if it's a Friday I will find The French Revolution and eat the shit out of all the vegan crepe mix!

Hopefully enough vegans will visit this delicious pop-up creperie that it'll be worth their while veganising the Vegetarian Galette section of their menu with some Vegusto vegan cheese. That would just about make my year!

The French Revolution will be at Street Diner this Friday June 28th but not Friday July 5th. Street Diner change up the stalls weekly so follow them on Twitter to keep up to date with which vegan options are there each week.

I got back from Zagreb on Sunday and whilst I have a shit tonne of travel posts up my sleeve I had to share this bit of Brighton news with you ASAP!

Are you ready?

Wait for it...

Iydea opened their new Western Road location yesterday and they don't close at 5:30pm! Yep, that's right, Brighton FINALLY has a cafe-style establishment where you can eat a great vegan meal, chat over coffee and cake or relax with a glass of vegan friendly wine after you finish work. Crazy right?! We've been waiting for this for a long time!

The new location is light, bright & airy with seating on both the ground and first floors. I have to admit that one of my reasons for visiting Iydea less than I'd like to is that it's always SO rammed. I love that it's busy, it should be, the food's delicious, but now I feel like I could rock up there on a Saturday lunchtime with a small group of friends and have some hope of finding seats together.

The format is very similar to the one at the Kensington Gardens branch except the menu is on the wall behind the counter which I love. It's great because you can see what there is and start deciding what to have before you reach the counter, if you're indecisive like me this is especially great as I'm sure I've held up the queue at their first location on more than one occasion um-ing, ah-ing and always choosing the lasagne!

If you haven't eaten at Iydea before you choose a main, two sides and one topping. The main courses are warm, hearty, healthy veggie fare and they always have at least four vegan options. Sides range from roasted potatoes to steamed greens and the selection of salads is varied and very vegan leaning. Toppings include my favourite, beetroot chutney, as well as hummus, salsas and seeds.

Their menu of juices, hot drinks and alcohol is varied and incredibly vegan friendly. Every wine and beer is listed as vegan and there are VO's for every hot drink. I would love to see a green juice on here one day but that's just because my friend Randi got me hooked on them in Seattle and now I'm craving them which is weird because I totally didn't think I was a green juice kinda grrrl, anyway, I digress! This menu also got me excited for winter, that raspberry hot chocolate is calling my name. It's actually cold enough here right now that I could go for a hot chocolate but I refuse to because IT'S SUMMER DAMNIT!

Predictably I went for my favourite, the Roast Veg Lasagne, I loooove this lasagne and I think it's rad that a restaurant that does serve cheese has thought outside the box enough to make their lasagne vegan. Other vegan options on offer yesterday were Sausages & Basil Gravy, Nutty Vegetable Crumble, Gumbo Roti and Thai Green Curry.

I picked some steamed greens and carrot salad for my sides and topped it all off with their delicious beetroot chutney. It was a delicious meal, I sometimes worry that I'm picking wrong when it comes to picking sides that actually go with the main I chose but this time I definitely got it right.

This plate of food cost £7.15 which is at the higher end of their price scale which ranges from £5.85 to £7.20. If this doesn't look like enough food you can pay an extra £1.50 to "go large" as I often do and have four sides and two toppings.

If this wasn't already an awesome enough experience I was given a 25% off voucher if I come back and eat there again before July 10th. I will definitely be making use of this and I think I'll try that delicious vegetable crumble for a change.

Iydea Western Road is open from 9:30 - 5:30 Sunday & Monday, 9:30 - 9 Tuesday to Thursday and 9:30 - 10 Friday and Saturday. Last orders for food are an hour before closing.

I can't wait to go back to this new veg dining spot and I even have high hopes that when other veg places in the city see how successful their opening hours are they might considering opening a little later too. We shall see!

I recently turned thirty and what better way to celebrate than to travel somewhere mellow and relaxing with your besties. Nick, Sal, Tabitha and I headed for Southern Spain where we rented a villa up in the mountains near El Gastor. It even had a view of this beautiful lake.

As soon as we arrived we went food shopping crazy at the huge Carrefour store near Malaga airport. I always like to head to Carrefour at the beginning of a self catering holiday because they have all of the essentials as well as a good natural / eco section full of tofu, seitan and soy yoghurts.

We cooked an awesome first night meal of seitan steaks and paprika and garlic chips accompanied by a simple green salad.

The next morning Nick whipped up one of his epic tofu scrambles and Sal and I re-purposed the leftover chips into home fries and fried some mushrooms whilst Tabitha made toast - by far the hardest job because there was no toaster and the grill was super erratic!

Later that day we went on a trip to Seville where we made a beeline for Veganitessen. I'd read about them online and I am always excited to try a new vegan bakery. I'm in awe of their boxes, I wish I could afford boxes this pretty for Operation Icing!

We bought almost everything. My favourite thing was the Chocolate Coconut cake you can see peeking out at the front underneath the vanilla glazed palmerita.

There are also chocolate covered croissants in there somewhere but more about that after lunch!

After a little more shopping at the Centro Ecológico Gaia health food store we went for lunch at their restaurant, Restaurante Ecológico Gaia, which is just a few doors down. We started the meal with some of the tastiest beer I've ever had. I'm not a huge beer person but it's certainly growing on me!

Before our meal they brought us delicious bread and a plate of some of the most amazing oily potatoes and tomatoes I've ever eaten. I took the worst picture of these so you'll have to pop over to Sal's blog, Alien on Toast, to see her pictures.

Not realising how huge it was going to be I ordered the gazpacho...

...and the hummus plate.

I did a frankly terrible job at finishing both of these perfectly simple and delicious plates of food because that soup was really huge and I'm the slooowest soup eater in the whole world! I don't know what my soup issue is, I can take down a burger in a matter of minutes but soup defeats me. What the hell stomach?! Thankfully my fellow diners helped me scoff the leftovers. My favourites were the regular and beetroot hummuses (hummai?!) and Tabitha was a bit in love with the moroccan dip.

After lunch we walked around the city.

And stopped off by the river to eat some dessert. I decided to go for something small and this chocolate covered croissant was perfect. We wished we'd bought more of these but we were buying a lot of stuff and it would have been rude to the people behind us in line to clear them out entirely!

My actual birthday couldn't have been more perfect. I woke up to everything the five year old living inside me dreams of, there were banners, balloons, and a whole lot of pink and Hello Kitty! What's even funnier about this is that my friends didn't decide on a theme, they all just brought a few things each and this happened. They know me so well!

After a present opening frenzy Sal and Tabitha made Oreo Pancakes with Cherry Syrup for breakfast. There were no recipes they were just winging it because they're awesome like that and obviously they were delicious.

We spent most of the morning and afternoon lounging by the pool, listening to music, and swimming. It was the best day. After lunch Nick surprised me with this cake he'd baked the night before. Okay, so it wasn't really a surprise. It was a small villa and he kept calling people into the kitchen to help him with his "special project", so, not subtle, but still awesome! Nick's never baked before so to whip up a cake this delicious in a kitchen with no measuring equipment and only one glass oven dish is crazy impressive.

The cake was lemon and it had an apricot glaze on top. Perfect. I love lemon cakes and I hardly ever make them myself.

We ate the cake poolside with some pink champagne sipped out of paper Hello Kitty cups. Classy!

Spain has a whole lot of vegan friendly snacks, my friend Carmen introduced me to these Tortas de Aceite in Barcelona last spring and I saw them all over Andalucia. I didn't see a single non-vegan packaged version of these sweet, flaky, anaise flavoured treats but obviously check the labels.

Palmeritas are another delicious sugary sweet Spanish pastry, I saw vegan versions in every supermarket I went to.

I was also pretty excited when we spotted these ice creams in Spanish supermarket chain SuperSol. They were just like a miniature vegan Magnum.

We hadn't planned on eating out much on this trip but we'd heard that there was a restaurant with a beautiful view in nearby village Zahara de la Sierra that apparently had some vegetarian dishes hidden away in their meat heavy menu. We figured we could just drink the cocktails and look at the the view if there was nothing we could eat so we decided to check it out.

The chef at Al Lago turned out to be from the US and both him and his wife know their stuff when it came to veganism. It's always reassuring when someone hears vegan and says "so vegetarian but no eggs or dairy?" Yes, pretty much! That's a way better jumping off point than the blank stare you're sometime met with as a travelling vegan.

We ordered the Paella which you can see was full of plenty of veggies and topped with delicious sweet roasted peppers. I normally hate peppers but these were super delicious and we polished off the paella in no time.

Tabitha ordered some grilled asparagus which looked perfect. Their was also a vegan gazpacho on the menu and I'm pretty sure there was one more veganisable thing but I can't remember what it was.

We were also excited to find that there were vegan sorbets on offer. There were four fruity flavours but the lemon contained egg so we picked between the mango, green apple and berry. I went for green apple because it's not a flavour you see often and OMG it was delicious, I wished I'd gone for the triple scoop.

After dinner we took a walk through Zahara de la Sierra's winding streets, it's a really beautiful place with it's whitewashed homes and wonderful views.

On our final day we had to check out of the villa early and our flight wasn't until the evening so we had the whole afternoon to explore Malaga. Obviously we headed straight for the first entirely vegan restaurant of the trip, El Piano. There's an El Piano location in York and I hadn't realised that they're actually a small family run chain with two Spanish locations as well.

This cute little take out spot has a few tables outside and there was so much delicious vegan food to choose from that we all had a tough time making a decicion.

You get to pick four items to pop into your large food boat and in the end I chose the mushroom and spinach stuffed crepe, a fruity cous cous salad, falafel and potatoes with oregano. I topped it off with a super garlicky sauce. Other options included chilli, dhal, paella, hummus, salads and mini shish kebabs.

My favourite part of the boat was the stuffed crepe, the mushrooms and spinach were cooked in a beautifully creamy sauce. I'm thinking that I need to re-create them at home soon.

Obviously we had desserts, Nick and Tabitha chose chocolate brownies...

...and Sal and I went for chocolate raspberry and chocolate orange tarts.

I enjoyed the chocolate raspberry, the raspberry topping was a little like jelly which I thought was a good thing but Sal disagreed! She much preferred the orange custard tart with the chocolatey base which I would have also happily eaten more of. The less said about the brownies the better, I think Nick put it best when he said "you can tell this place is sin gluten"! Now this isn't entirely fair as I've had some great gluten free brownies but these were a bit of a miss.

Overall El Piano was a definite hit, it's in a great part of the city, the people working there were downright lovely and aside from the dry brownies the food was delicious.

We had the best trip, I love Spain and I feel super lucky to have been able to spend my birthday with such rad people. So far being thirty is awesome!

Nick and I with Zahara de la Sierra in the background.

It only seems sensible to start off my Seattle / PDX / Vancouver posts in the place the trip started and with a few of my very favourite Seattle places: Wayward Cafe, Mighty O and Georgetown Liquor Company.

Nick and I started our first day in the city with breakfast at Wayward Vegan Cafe, this all vegan diner style place has one of the most ridiculous menus I've ever seen. There are pages and pages of all day breakfast and lunch options as well as dinner and gluten free pages. I thought that choosing what to order would be difficult but The Lumberjack really jumped out at me.

Not only do you get this epic plate of perfectly seasoned tofu scramble, hash browns, sweet and salty tempeh bacon, a sausage patty and a piece of Wayward's homemade vegan (s)ham for your 10 bucks but you also get this side plate of silver-dollar pancakes which, upon comparison, were nowhere near the size of a real silver dollar!

This is genuinely the best American breakfast I've ever eaten, ever, in my entire life. And I've eaten a lot of breakfasts! This next offering was a close second though, on our second visit I picked The Griddle Combo which comes with tofu scram, a sausage patty, tempeh bacon and your choice of a pancake, slice of french toast or a waffle. I went with french toast and it was deeeelicious. I haven't eaten much french toast in my life but this was awesome, up there with the best I've ever had for sure.

I squeezed a third visit to Wayward into my trip when Randi and I were back there just before we flew home. This time I went for a non-breakfasty option and picked the Tempeh Reuben from their lunch menu.

This reuben comes with fries and a delicious crunchy pickle. Yum! Honestly I've eaten better reuben's, the one from Chicago Diner regularly pops into my thoughts, but this was still a solid choice. I was also lucky enough to get to try some of Randi's biscuits and gravy and they were wonderful. I would certainly order them again, perhaps alongside The Lumberjack!

One of my other Seattle favourites was Mighty-O Donuts. This all vegan donut co' is based in North Seattle and they specialise in cake donuts, my very favourite kinda donut. Over the three visits I made to Mighty O I managed to sample quite a decent selection.

I think I managed to eat around 17 donuts in about a week and my three favourites were the Chocolate Raspberry, Sprinkles and Coco Loco. I could (and did!) eat these every day and I would certainly keep on doing that if I lived in Seattle. As well as being able to pick these up at the Mighty O store on North 55th you can find a smaller selection at the Whole Foods locations dotted all over the city.

Last but by no means least I loved my visit to Georgetown Liquor Co, everything from the dive bar atmosphere and fantastic company to the friendly staff and delicious food was perfect.

I was lucky enough to meet Anika from Seattle Vegan Score at Vida Vegan Con and she got a group of friends (including Dawn from Vegan Moxie) together for brunch and gave us a ride down south to Georgetown so that Randi and I could try the much talked about Picard sandwich.

Obviously it was brunch so there had to be booze. I actually don't drink that often (compared to most Brit's!) but I find it hard to resist a good cocktail and this Cranberry Crush really jumped out at me. A mix of vodka, cranberry and orange with a splash of gingerale this drink reminded me of a classier more delicious version of the Sex On the Beach cocktails I used to drink as a teenager, what a perfect start to a weekend morning.

The brunch menu looked so amazing that Randi & I decided to share two things, the famous Picard Sandwich...

...and Hogthrob's Breakfast Sandwich.

Both plates were delicious but I can tell why so many people (okay, mainly Stephanie!) rave about The Picard. This sandwich is made up of a toasted ciabatta bun stuffed full of lentil sage Field Roast slices, roasted red onions and creamy roasted garlic spread and it comes with an au jus dipping sauce that really elevates this sandwich to the next level.

The breakfast sandwich whilst overshadowed by the ridiculously epic Picard was also excellent and it would be a stand out dish at any dining establishment. This sandwich is veganised with a tofu egg and vegan mozzarella alongside the 'ham' or 'sausage', we went with ham. It was served on a perfectly toasted English muffin and we loved the roasted potato and fruit sides.

Next time I'm in Seattle I'll be heading straight from the airport to Georgetown so that I can eat The Picard again. I really enjoyed spending time in Seattle and I managed to eat my way around a fair few of their vegan-friendly dining establishments, look out for posts about Plum Bistro, Razzi's, Pizza Pi, Bamboo Garden, The Highline and Sidecar Grocery coming soon.

If you know me at all you'll know that I loooove to get post, everything that comes through my letterbox from birthday cards to the free local paper puts a smile on my face. You can only imagine the levels of excitement when I get a package! Honestly sometimes I order stuff online just so that I can get fun post. I was over the moon when the people from Nutribox got in touch with me to see if I'd like to review their Vegan Nutribox Mini and I said a very enthusiastic hell yeah! Because I was travelling when they sent out June's boxes they actually had to make me up my own special box but it's very similar product wise to the box the To Happy Vegans bloggers received and reviewed.

The Nutribox Mini fitted perfectly through my smaller than average letterbox and I got home to find it waiting on my doormat.

I opened it up as soon as I got in the door and I was excited to see a great mix of products I already knew I loved and some that I'd never seen before.

This selection of bars was excellent, I'd only tried the Nakd bar before. The Trek flapjack, Braw Apple & Pear bar and Rude Health Beetroot bar were new to me and I enjoyed them all.

The Braw bar was my favourite and I hope that they become available outside of Scotland soon. You can currently buy them online but only in boxes of 30 which is a little much for me but I am pretty tempted.

I wasn't as excited about these next two snacks, I don't dislike nuts and seeds but I can buy them anywhere and I'd prefer the entire box to be full of new and exciting products. The tropical mix was actually not vegan, a mistake that Nutribox tell me has never happened before and was due to me having a strange mid-month mix of products.

It was nice to see a savoury option in the box, these spicy seeds weren't for me though - too spicy - so I popped them into my UK Vegan Swap package as an extra treat for my swap partner.

I was excited by both of these products, I'd actually never tried a Bounce energy ball despite seeing them every time I pop into Infinity Foods but now I'd definitely grab another. I already knew that I liked these raw chocolate mulberries, they're super dark so I can only ever eat a few at a time meaning that this little bag will last a while.

I would definitely recommend the Nutribox Mini, especially to someone who doesn't live within close proximity to a health food store stuffed full of new and exciting products.

This is a fun, healthy, vegan (and gluten free) snack box and if you'd like to sign up for a Nutribox you can use the code VEGAN35 to get 35% of of your first box meaning that you can try it out for just £8.41.

Another great way for UK dwellers to get a package in the post every month is to sign up to the UK Vegan Food Swap. I opted out for the last few months because I knew that I'd never be able to pull together a great parcel of goodies and send it out to my partner in the midst of all of the travelling I've been doing. I'm back with a vengeance this month though and I put together a fun package of goodies from my travels for the lovely Ms Cupcake herself. I was even able to hand deliver it because I spent the day in London on Tuesday!

I was lucky enough to be the recipient of a box sent by Lucy from the blog Lucy the Vegan.

Alongside a lovely note I was excited to find a great mix of sweet and savoury snacks and most of the contents were totally new to me. I'd never noticed the Salt & Vinegar Chiplets in M&S before, they were super yummy and I'll be keeping an eye out for them in future. I'd also never tried Jelly Tots despite knowing that they were vegan and I munched on them last night whilst catching up on Neighbours! The M&S After Dinner Mints are one of Nick's favourite snacks so I'll be sharing those which means that I wont feel too guilty about keeping one of my favourite treats, the adorably named Moo Free Bunnycomb Bar, all to myself.

I love the UK vegan food swap, it's such a fun thing to take part in and I get excited about every part of the process; from exchanging emails with my partner and shopping for treats to opening up the box itself. If you'd like to get in on the monthly vegan swap action you just need to click here and sign up, perhaps we'll be swap buddies in August!

Oh Veggie Grill, how I miss you, I wish you were somewhere, anywhere, in England. Nick and I first visited Veggie Grill in Seattle and I ended up visiting four times over my month long US trip.

On our first night we headed there because it was just around the corner from our hotel and it was a perfect first meal, we ordered a few things to share. The Steamin' Kale with ginger miso dressing and toasted sesame seeds, the Mac-n-Cheese...

...and the Chill Out Wings

We really, really loved the wings, the cool ranch dressing was the perfect accompaniment to the crispy mock chicken fingers which I believe are made by Gardein - something else I wish we had in the UK. The kale was some of the nicest I've ever had, the dressing paired with it perfectly to make a simple healthy bowl of veg. We enjoyed the mac-n-cheese, the gluten free pasta made it perfectly al dente but we were surprised that it had quite a lot of chilli in it given that it wasn't mentioned in the description on the menu.

The Crispy Chickin' Plate has to be my absolute favourite out of all of the things I tried at Veggie Grill.

This homestyle comfort foodie plate was perfect; beautifully creamy mashed potatoes, crispy fried chickin' and that delicious kale with rosemary infused porcini mushroom gravy to tie it all together. I wish I was eating this right now!

I really hope that Veggie Grill expand across the pond one day because the UK could use an awesome vegan chain, I'm pretty sure I said the exact same thing about Native Foods after eating there last year too - I'm not fussy, I'll take either, I just want there to be readily available, reliably delicious, healthy vegan food everywhere!

One place we were super excited about trying in Seattle was Pizza Pi, an all vegan pizzeria located in the U District. This place is run by some awesome punks and we were super excited to be able to order anything from the huge and varied menu.

For some strange reason Nick isn't a believer in the stuffed crust (I know!!) so we had to make an unusual request for a half stuffed crust pizza. They told us that they'd never tried it before but that they were willing to give it a go and it came out super well. I loooooved my stuffed crust half! Pizza Pi use Teese on their pizzas and we also threw on a huge selection of the mock meats. Whilst it wasn't the best pizza I've ever eaten it was pretty damned delicious and the novelty factor of the vegan stuffed crust makes it a definite winner in my book.

Pizza Pi are somewhat famous for there dessert calzones, or baked pie pockets, and because we couldn't agree on a filling we had to order two. Now for some reason I had expected these to be cupcake sized but nuh-uh they were massive! Like, bigger than a Cornish pasty massive!

I went for the Cherry flavour...

...and Nick chose the Chocolate Peanut Butter.

These were a ridiculously epic thing to eat after a huge pizza and they were awesome! I didn't try Nick's but mine was delicious, piping hot and stuffed full of cherry pie filling. Yum!

Seattle has a plethora of vegan pizza options which you can read about on this helpful page at Seattle Vegan Score, as well as Pizza Pi I managed to try Razzi's a traditional Italian restaurant with an amazing vegan menu which includes veganised options of almost everything on their regular menu.

I started with the garlic breadsticks which came with an amazingly delicious marinara sauce for dipping. I had intended to share these with Kirsten and Randi my lovely dining companions but erm, I'm a terrible person and I just ate them all myself. Sorry, not sorry!

Despite a slight pineapple allergy (don't worry it can't kill me!) I couldn't help but order the Stay-cay, Razzi's Canadian Bacon & Pineapple Pizza. Canadian bacon is actually ham to us non-Americans and that's always been my favourite pizza combo.

This was a truly excellent pizza, it was different to the floppy über thin crust Italian pizza's I'm used to eating, the crust was slightly denser I guess but in a really good way. It's one of the meals that I'm still thinking about on an almost daily basis and I will definitely be going back next time I'm in Seattle.

As well as a vegan menu Razzi's has a gluten free menu and a gluten free vegan menu so this really is a place you and anyone you're travelling with can enjoy.

At the other end of the scale from Pizza Pi and Razzi's is the mouthwatering menu at Chaco Canyon Organic Cafe. This vegetarian cafe hadn't popped up in my Seattle research but Randi discovered it and I'm so glad she did. We went there for our last meal of the trip and I ordered the vegan quiche with a strawberry spinach salad.

This was a perfectly light, tasty and filling pre-flight meal. I wanted to eat something light so that I wouldn't feel icky on the plane, my last meal in Chicago was a hot dog and fries and in Austin it was a pizza with an apple fritter on the side, at any other time I loooove these meals but before a long haul flight? Nuh Uh, they make me feel crappy and I've vowed to stop doing it to myself! I felt the best I've ever felt getting off of the flight home from Seattle but it was a bit of an unfair test due to my cheeky points-based upgrade to Club World for the first time ever... we'll have to re-test the light meal theory next time!

The Zen Calm juice I ordered alongside my meal was the best juice I've ever had, the combination of apple, orange, spinach and mint was super fresh and delicious.

I've genuinely been considering buying a juicer just so that I can make this but I think I'm going to try making a smoothie with the same flavours first!

You guys! Pizza Face got even more awesome! It's no secret that I loooove Pizza Face, they were the first company in town to offer vegan pizza that not only included vegan cheese but also delivered that shiz right to your front door. This is the stuff that dreams are made of people!

Pizza Face still deliver right to your door but now the vegan cheese is even better! The pizzas were great with Cheezly but with this new cheese (which I believe is this kind) they are next level amazing.

Monday and Tuesday are vegan days at Pizza Face meaning that they have six entirely vegan pizzas on the menu and there are plenty of mock meats available to make your pizza extra epic. On any other day you can still veganise six of the vegetarian pizza on the menu. We ordered last night, Nick had The Ozzy...

...and I chose The Pammy

The Ozzy has chorizo, bacon, pepperoni, smoked sausage, red onions and mushrooms. As you can see Nick removed all of the veggies to make it more like a classic meat feast. The Pammy comes topped with bacon, pineapple and sour cream and it's my absolute favourite. At first I thought sour cream on pizza sounded weird but really it just compliments the bacon & pineapple dream team perfectly.

Not content with a pizza each we always, always, always order garlic bread. Even when we decide not to as soon as we're talking to them on the phone onto the order it goes, it's just too good to miss.

We decided to go for the cheesy garlic bread this time to make sure we were giving the new cheese we'd heard about every chance to shine, and boy did it shine. I was freaking out about how damned delicious it was the whole time I was eating it which was probably kinda annoying as we were watching 30 Rock but, whatever, no regrets!

If you're in Brighton today I strongly suggest that you order Pizza Face for dinner, if you aren't I suggest that you come here asap and order Pizza Face for dinner. I've heard rumours that they even deliver to the beach!

This is the last in my three part series of Seattle posts, read parts one and two here and here!

We decided to eat at Bamboo Garden because I got crazy-person hungry whilst exploring the EMP Museum and it was the nearest restaurant. We hadn't planned on spending a tonne of time there but we got really into the Nirvana exhibit and stuck around for hours.

My favourite parts of the exhibition were the interactive listening posts dotted around showcasing bands that were also around the Seattle scene at the time. I mean how could anyone dislike a museum where you can just sit on the floor and listen to Fugazi and The Gits?! It was rad. It was also cool to see kids engaging with museum exhibits, I often see school groups going around museums and they just look bored, bored, bored. I remember those days and I know that I would have loved to visit somewhere like this.

Anyway, the food! I am not a fun person to hang out with when I'm hungry, I get a liiiiitle grumpy and it's best to feed me asap! Due to the mega hunger and forgetting how big American portions can be we totally over-ordered.

We got the Crispy Fried Spring Rolls...

...and the Fried Taro Cake Patties to start. We both enjoyed the spring rolls but were underwhelmed by the taro cakes. I thought they'd be like the the pan fried ones I'd tried previously in NYC but these were deep fried and I didn't enjoy them anywhere near as much. Next time I see taro cakes on the menu I'll ask because I love the pan fried kind.

I chose much better when it came to the main course and I picked the Sautéed Almond and Cashew Nut Chicken which came with a side of steamed rice and loads of delicious crisp veggies

Nick went for the Chicken and Mixed Vegetables which comes on a sizzling plate atop a bed of Japanese noodles.

This sizzling plate was super hot and almost as delicious as my plate of nutty chicken veggies. I love the mock meat heavy menus at Chinese and Vietnamese places and we were also lucky enough to check out Moonlight Cafe on our trip. I'd say that Moonlight was probably our favourite of the two places but we forgot to take any pictures because we went with a group and were too busy talking!

The next day we visited Twice Sold Tales in Capitol Hill, I love to browse in bookstores whilst travelling and this was the best one ever, okay, second best, Powell's is the best. Anyway this one's second best because it's full of kitties! Look!

It was brilliant!!

Before our trip I was super excited about checking out The Highline, I love vegan bars and we'd heard great things about the place. Sadly neither the food nor the service were great. Our food was left on the bar for 20 minutes before it was brought around to us, it was then popped down on the table with a sort-of apology and we were told we could exchange it if it was cold. Obviously it was stone cold and after I spent literally 10 whole minutes trying to find a member of staff to tell that we wanted a new order they seemed super shocked by our request.

Unfortunately the new piping hot versions of our orders weren't much better, soggy fries are never a-ok in my book and sadly we didn't get the chance to re-visit The Highline to give them a second chance. We did enjoy the punk rock atmosphere of this all vegan bar though and our choice of seats on the balcony area overlooking the street was a good 'un. I also spoke to some Seattleites and got the lowdown on what to order for you, apparently the sandwiches are where it's at especially the vegan tuna melt and when I'm next in Seattle I'll be trying it for sure.

Later on in my trip Randi and I together with our lovely hostess Kirsten and Helen from Vegtastic scored a weekend night table at Plum Bistro.

My love of carbs drew me straight towards the Oyster Mushroom Fettuccini with kale, seitan, parsley & garlic. This was a truly delightful plate of food and you can just imagine how happy I was when it arrived with a chunk of bread on the side! I've since re-created this simple dish at home and whilst it wasn't quite as good I think I made a pretty decent go of it.

Next to carbs my other favourite food group is probably chocolate so when I spotted the warm brownie with ice cream and chocolate sauce on the dessert menu I couldn't resist.

The version on the menu actually comes with vanilla ice cream but I'm an all or nothin' kinda girl and they were happy to switch it for chocolate for me. This was a lovely little sweet treat to end the meal and I would certainly visit Plum Bistro again as there are at least five other things on the menu I'd like to try.

In the next west coast travel instalment I'll be posting about Olympia and our all too brief stay at the beach so stay tuned!

When we were looking into places to stop on our way from Seattle to Portland Olympia was top of my list. So much of the music I love came out of Olympia in the 90's and visiting the place that Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney hailed from was something I wasn't gonna miss.

Our first stop was obviously Sleater-Kinney Road!

We checked out the Happy Cow app as soon as we got hungry and we decided on Saigon Rendezvous, partly because Olympia's one veg place is closed Mon - Thurs and partly because it had a couple of good reviews and we do love a good plate of mock meat!

To start with we ordered the Vegetarian Teriyaki Beef on a Stick. We were slightly underwhelmed by the presentation of this dish as we'd imagined the skewers to be on a plate drenched in sauce but they were tasty nonetheless and the strange fire gel thing the skewers surrounded was quite fun!

I opted for the Vegetarian Almond Chicken main course because two of the reviewers on Happy Cow said that it was awesome. I love it when reviewers mention specific dishes, it really helps reduce my ordering anxiety and I hate getting it wrong when I'm only going to be visiting a place once.

The reviews steered me right and this dish was fantastic. It came with a side of steamed white rice and the deep fried mock chicken was covered with loads of perfectly thick flavourful sauce. Nick ordered a cashew tofu and vegetable dish which wasn't bad, if you aren't into deep fried food I would say that it's a good bet but Nick is and he spent the majority of the meal swapping bits of his broccoli for my chicken. At least it wasn't bell pepper, that is not a swap I'd have been down with!

After lunch we swung by Oly Vegan, Olympia's very own all vegan store. Unfortunately even though we wanted to love this place we were unimpressed by their product range and later on a little annoyed by their prices.

We really wanted to support this indie vegan store so despite the sparse selection of products we grabbed a copy of Veg News and some Dandies and went on our way. As our trip went on we realised that $8 is not even remotely close to the $4-something Dandies seem to sell for everywhere else (including the Oly Food Co-op) and it left us feeling a little ripped off.

I was much happier with our post lakeside stroll and our visit to the zine section of Olympia's library!

We sat there reading zine's and using the wifi for ages and nobody hassled us, it was lovely. I love libraries!

On the way out of Oly we hit the Olympia Food Co-op and Trader Joe's to stock up on fun treats for out little beach cottage. At the co-op we grabbed some baked goods, I chose a Poppyseed and Blueberry Muffin and Nick picked up a Cinnamon Roll.

We also got some of these cookies.

I'd seen these around before but neither of us had ever tried them. The verdict? Yum! Surprisingly the Oatmeal Raisin Walnut was both of our favourites.

We also bought some Dave's Killer Bread, Gardein tenders, Tofurky tempeh, Veganaise, Amy's mac 'n Cheese, Earth Balance and some delicious breakfast treats.

From Trader Joe's we picked up this delicious selection to keep us going. The TJ's Maple Leaf Cookies are a definite favourite of ours and the Dark Chocolate Covered Mini Pretzels have become my absolute favourite way to get chocolate into my system. Nick prefers the Dark Chocolate Truffle chocolate and we both looooooved the Cinnamon Rolls.

Of course we stopped off a few more times on our way to Cannon Beach to check out a national park and a couple of look out points.

We also stopped at the Astoria Food Co-op, we'd already stocked up on food because we weren't sure how big or vegan friendly this place would be but it was stuffed full of vegan goodies & if you're heading to Cannon Beach this would be a great place to buy supplies to see you through the weekend.

Once we arrived at the little beachside cottage we'd rented we made a pretty epic lazy person dinner of Daiya mac 'n cheese and Gardein Crispy Tenders with Veganaise and root beer on the side. It wouldn't be a trip to America if I didn't have root beer with almost every meal!

The next morning I went for a run on the beach. Now if you know me at all you know that I hate to run, I'm much happier working out indoors, but I couldn't pass up the chance to run somewhere this beautiful and unsurprisingly the cottage didn't have a gym. My main beef with running is that it's too hard on my hips and knees but running on the wet sand was actually pleasant, if only Brighton beach had sand. There were also SO MANY dogs at the beach which was pretty rad!

Anyway whilst I was out Nick cooked breakfast with some of the goodies we gathered from TJ's and the Olympia Food Co-op.

This was such a good breakfast. Seriously I find it crazy awesome that there are waffles and cinnamon rolls that you can just buy and mould / heat / serve in America. It really is a vegan wonderland!

Over the next day or two there were multiple TLT's on Dave's Killer Bread with Tofurky Sesame Garlic Tempeh (love!), avocado, tomato and Veganaise.

I could really do with one of these right now actually!

We also explored the town (and giggled about the separate Republican / Democrat benches outside of the store...we never saw anyone on the Republican bench!), hung out together and read books at the cottage, went for long walks on the beach, and watched the sun set every evening.

It was super lovely to spend some time together outside of the big cities we'd planned our trip around. Even when you're taking deliberate cafe breaks and time out to chill in parks big cities can be so frantic - especially when you're trying to cram all of the things into a short space of time! I'm glad that we always plan these more mellow sections into our travels and for two people with serious smart phone issues it's always nice to be somewhere with no internet connection at all!

The weekend before last my ongoing quest to find Brighton's best Sunday roast continued. I've previously visited The George, The Cowley Club, The West Hill and The Royal Sovereign which, on my visit, was so bad I couldn't even really write about it. I know that for some people in Brighton it's their favourite roast but based on my last experience I doubt I'll be going back.

This time around I invited my blogger buddy Sal to come & help me taste test the roast and we hit up the Earth & Stars as soon as they started serving. We went early because I'd heard that this popular, eco friendly, North Laine pub can be a challenging place to snag a table at and we were glad we did, despite the reserved signs sat upon almost every table we were able to grab one that wasn't going to be used until 3pm.

We quickly put in our vegan roast orders and we were delighted with the plate of food that appeared from the kitchen mere minutes later. I am a firm believer that a roast dinner should be enormous and hard to finish and this one defeated us both.

The butternut squash puff pastry parcel came atop a pile of classic roast dinner veggies including cabbage, leek, beetroot, sweet potato, butternut squash, greens, and, of course, roast potatoes. This was all rounded off with a white gravy and a generous topping of parsnip chips.

The potatoes were my favourite part of the meal, the roast potatoes are usually the biggest let down for me when it comes to pub roasts but these were nice and crisp - in fact all of the veg were cooked perfectly, again, something that a lot of pubs don't manage. Although the gravy was unusual it was also delicious, well seasoned and complimented both the pie and the veg well.

This pub lunch wins points for being served in the nicest pub visited so far on the quest. Not only is this pub powered by a solar panel on the roof but the bar staff were both friendly and amusing and the pub itself is cosy with a mellow chilled out vibe that's perfect for a lazy Sunday. Bonus points for having a vegan labelled beer / cider menu too, I think we may be onto a winner!

The only reason I'm still searching for the perfect roast is because ideally I would like a nut roast to be the central feature of the meal. I love nut roast and Nick will under no circumstances venture out to eat anything where the main consists of squash or mushrooms and I'd like to find a place we can go to together.

Today I'm meeting up with Sal again and we're going to try the roast at The Sussex Yeoman. It comes highly recommended by Liz and I imagine that the pub itself will bring back fond memories as my friends and I used to drink Sex on the Beach cocktails in there by the jug when we were 16!

Manchester: Breakfasts

Manchester: Shopping

Ms. Cupcake Cookbook Review (and Giveaway!)

Street Diner!

Weekend Eats.

VBites East Street.

Kambi's and Cocktails.

Take me to the ball game.

Portlanding.

Vida Vegan Con 2013

Street Diner: Now with vegan crepes!

Iydea Western Road

Celebrating Thirty.

Seattle: Wayward Cafe, Mighty O, Georgetown Liquor Co.

Check out my package(s)!

Seattle: Native Foods, Pizza Pi, Razzi's, Chaco Canyon.

Pizza in Yo Face!

Seattle: Bamboo Garden, The Highline, Plum Bistro.

Olympia and Cannon Beach

Earth & Stars.