vegan.in.brighton

As a huge chocolate fan I was pleased to hear about a new company that launched in the UK recently called Vegan Town. Vegan Town are an online market place for all things vegan chocolate related and I was overjoyed when they agreed to send me some chocolate to review. I let them pick and they sent me two bars made by luxury Swiss brand Torino.

The first bar I tried was the Torino Truffle bar which lived up to it's name.

The bar is filled with a solid but creamy almond and hazelnut truffle surrounded by rich dark chocolate that sits at the milkier end of the spectrum. Delicious, this is one of my favourite kinds of chocolate. Secondly I tore into the Torino Mousse bar which was honestly the one I was most excited about.

As illustrated on the front of the pack each individual dome of 60% dark chocolate is filled with a light, fluffy chocolate mousse. I was amazed at how airy it was.

It's up there with the best chocolate I've ever eaten. I used to be a big fan of an Aero bar in my pre-vegan days and this is almost like a lighter fluffier fancier version. I ate three quarters of the bar in one go and only stopped because I felt guilty for not sharing any with Nick, something I soon changed my mind on and, because I'm the worst wife ever, I finished off the whole bar. No regrets!

I've spotted the Torino bars in Infinity Foods and Veganz Berlin and, of course, online at Vegan Town who also sell the new range of Vivani bars, Ananda's vegan Wagon Wheels and most of the Moo Free range. They also stock biscuits, fudge and spreads and run a Treat Box scheme for £20, £25 or £30 per month. Vegan Town ship within the UK for a flat rate of £3 and the box my two bars came in fitted easily through my letterbox. They also offer worldwide shipping.

If you'd like to order some chocolate from Vegan Town simply enter the code VIB22 at checkout to get 10% off of your order.

Well it's day three of Vegan MoFo and I'm breaking with my theme already - usually I make it at least 10 days before falling apart but this time it's for a good reason. I'm rabidly pro-choice and I love tacos so when my pal Stephanie, aka the Vegan Lazy Smurf, nominated me for the Taco or Beer Challenge it was a no brainier. Of course I'll do it! And what better place to do it than Austin, Tx the home of the best vegan breakfast tacos I've ever eaten. Honestly beer never even came into the equation - screw beer, tacos will always win in a fight over my heart.

If you haven't heard of the Taco or Beer Challenge I'll let Stephanie fill you in because whilst she is lazy in name I'm lazy in nature and I'm also on vacation (as they call it over here). She says...

"I think the whole idea might have started as a satire of the ice bucket challenge, you do something, tell everyone that you did it, and then donate to a cause. Why waste a bunch of water and pour ice on your head when you could instead eat a delicious taco or drink a refreshing beer (or both!) and then donate to fund abortion? It makes a lot more sense to me!"

It makes a lot more sense to me too Stephanie. Throwing around buckets of ice during a drought and donating to a charity that animal tests was never going to be a winning plan in my eyes but this? This I'm into! Cherrywood Coffeehouse is today's taco destination of choice.

At Cherrywood your taco comes with three fillings as standard (you can add more for $.50 or $1) and I went with the greatest combo, in my opinion anyway, of potatoes (yup, those are shoestring potatoes which are essentially breakfast chips - fuck yeah!), tofu (deep fried!! OMG!!) and avocado (because, fat and yum).

This was so ridic' delish' that I went back for a second immediately! As I ate two taco's I'm going to be donating to two abortion charities, first, as I'm in Austin I've donated to Whole Woman's Texas Action Fund because it sucks that awesome feminist abortion providers are having to shut down because of Republican political shit. Charity two is a little closer to home. The Abortion Support Network provide financial assistance and accommodation to people (regardless of gender identity) travelling from Ireland and Northern Ireland to England for a safe and legal abortion.

Honestly it blows my mind that people think it's acceptable to tell people what to do with their own bodies and it both angers and saddens me that people are having to go through all of this to have an abortion in 20-fucking-14. I'm tagging my bff and fellow MoFo blogger Sal from Alien on Toast because I know she'll be up for the challenge! You don't need to be tagged to take the challenge on though, oh no, you can just go for it by eating a taco or drinking a beer, making a donation and tagging someone to start the chain off anew.

Here's a bonus Cherrywood Coffeehouse patio dog. To channel Doge, so cute, very tail, much wow.

Happy MoFoing!

Violife slices are definitely my favourite UK available cheese for sandwiches. They come in pre-sliced packs, 10 slices per pack, and they make 12 different varieties including Pizza, Olive, Cheddar, Tomato & Basil and their two newest flavours Mozzarella and Smoked. The Cheddar is my favourite and I often use it to make a delicious sandwich at lunchtime.

This one's made with local organic lettuce, dairy free margarine and an Infinity Foods bakery seeded white bun.

It's a perfect sandwich and one I make over and over. I vary the type of lettuce and bun depending on my mood!

I'm not usually the biggest fan of straight up dark chocolate, before I was vegan it was my favourite (that and twix bars!) but somehow after going vegan all I wanted was Go Max Jokerz or rice milk coverture bars. I've come back around to the wonders of dark chocolate recently and this is one of my favourites. This 70% cocoa bar is from the Co-operative supermarket and it's totally fair-trade and shiz.

It's pretty simple, just straight up dark choc but I like the size of the squares as well as the creamy texture of the chocolate. It also only costs around £1.60 which is at the cheaper end of the vegan chocolate spectrum.

Yum!

I collect Pez dispensers!

As I mentioned yesterday I was in the Bay Area a little under a year ago but I still have stuff to blog about so here goes. This blog post could also be re-titled "some dishes that were too spicy for me but that I feel compelled to write about anyway because anyone with a normal tolerance to spice would love them". Shall we start at Source? Lets! This bright and airy spot in SoMa claims to be a multi-dimentional dining experience, I have no idea what that means but I know I liked it there. On our first visit I ordered the Mac & Cheese vegan style and Nick ordered the vegan Da Bronx Pizza.

The mac had the most spot-on perfect texture of any mac I've ever eaten in a restaurant. It was thick and creamy and bubbly and had the right sized macaroni noodles and everything. If it wasn't for the fire raging in my mouth I'd have adored it. As it stood Nick got to eat most of it whilst I chugged water and nibbled on his delicious pizza. The mozzarella style cheese on his pizza was perfect and I loved the richness of the marinara base and the fresh basil scattered on top. This was an excellent choice and something I ordered again after discovering that they definitely couldn't make me a mac with just the mozzarella cheese.

We also tried a delicious chocolate dessert that I think was a variation on a twinkie. I dunno, I've never eaten a twinkie, whatever it was I liked it!

We also went just before closing after a gig one night for hot dogs and fries.

This was a pretty decent dog but I probably wouldn't consider it to be a must order at Source. Get the mac and cheese, or maybe a dosa, I saw them being delivered to other tables a couple of times and they looked amazing.

Another must eat spot when visiting San Francisco is Gracias Madre, I fell in love with the place as soon as I set eyes upon it from across the street. There's a gorgeous mural and they have some wonderful outdoor space. We started with homemade lemonade and agua fresca which were both wonderful.

I'd actually never tried agua fresca before this trip but now I know I'll be ordering it whenever I see it. We obviously wanted to order everything having left it way too late in our trip for a return visit to be possible so we settled in for a feast and ordered four things to share, the potatoes with nacho cheese, the Gorditas, one Tamal and the Taco plate.

Everything was amazing but the two plates that had the right level of spice for me were the Tamal which was steamed and filled with zucchini, onions and garlic and the triple taco plate. The taco's were my favourite, I loved the cooling cashew cheese, the perfectly cooked and spiced beans and the fillings we had chosen were spot on. The plantain filled taco was both of our favourite, we'd thankfully pre-empted that and ordered two, and I really enjoyed the seasonal greens too.

Obviously we couldn't skip dessert and we went with one chocolate cake that was lightly flavoured with cinnamon and came paired with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce and one Flan.

Flan is not something I ever thought I'd enjoy, the idea of it brought back flashbacks of the horrible cream caramels my brother loved when we were kids but I'd heard so much about how amazing this dessert was that I insisted that we order it. Every beautiful mouthful was a revelation and I will happily eat good flan like this as often as people want to make it for me. The chocolate cake was amazing too and neither of us could pick a favourite, sharing spoonfuls back and forth until the desserts disappeared.

It was such an amazing meal and one that I still think of regularly. I would encourage everyone to visit, just don't order the Gorditas if you're sensitive to chilli!

Late last month I was wandering around Infinity Foods picking up essentials, tofu, broccoli, Amy's mac & cheese, etc when I spotted a new brand of vegan cheese out of the corner of my eye. Obviously I had to grab some!

This new cheese is made by Amisa Organic and it's coconut based and palm oil free. I picked the slices because they were slightly cheaper and I had sandwiches in mind.

Somewhere between Infinity Foods and my kitchen sandwiches morphed into cheese on toast and as I wanted to see how the cheese would melt it seemed like the perfect plan. It turns out that this is an excellent meltable cheese, look...

It got really gooey and bubbly, not stretchy though but I'm fine with that. Taste wise it was mild and it was definitely more flavourful melted. I couldn't tell you how it compares to gouda, it's been too long. The only issue I had was that the slices crumbled as soon as you touched them, there is no way the serving suggesting pictured on the front of the pack would work. Not at all! When I was making this cheese on toast I had to transfer the crumbled pieces from the pack to the bread with a fork and then squish it so that it didn't all fall off. I definitely wouldn't buy the slices again, Violife is still my go to there, but I will be buying the bag of grated gouda style cheese. I have a sneaking suspicion that with this level of meltability it'll be an excellent pizza cheese.

I can't quite pinpoint why I had such a hard time blogging about my trip to California this time last year, maybe it was because I got back just after VeganMoFo '13 had ended and I'd exhausted my blogging mojo or maybe it was because going straight from California sunshine into a rainy dreary British autumn didn't do great things for my mental health. Seriously, that's enough to make anyone feel depressed. Either way I have all of these photos of amazing food that I still need to share with you and as it's Mac & Cheese Monday it seems like the perfect time.

Hella Vegan Eats was somewhere I was super exceed about trying, I'd been following them on social media for a while and their outrageously awesome food looked too good to miss.

We found them at Eat Real Fest in Oakland which was a buzzy outdoor event crammed full of traders and people wanting to get a Sunday afternoon food fix.

First I tried the Lusty Lovers Taco because how could you resist mac & cheese in a taco?! It was hella hot thanks to the spicy cornflake crumble and the BBQ chicken so I'm glad it was tiny, I shared it with Nick so as not to have an epic allergic reaction to the chilli that was clearly lurking within!

Obviously I knew I'd be heading straight back over for order two because doesn't a Mini Doughnut Burger Supreme just sound supremely amazing?! It was utterly ridiculous and awesome and if I believed in that stuff I'd go as far as to call it heavenly.

The beet patty was sandwiched between two sugary doughnuts and topped with pickled red onions (my first ever time enjoying them!), kale (for health!) and a scrummy secret sauce that brought the whole thing together. Uuuuugh, just looking at this now is making me wonder if I can fly from Austin to the Bay Area to eat this again. I suspect I can't but one day... one day this will be mine again.

Our next stop was Fat Face Popsicles which I know doesn't fit into the cheese or chocolate theme at all but whatevs', they were freaking yummy and just what we needed on a day that was heating up fast. I grabbed a Lime & Avocado one just before they sold out and Nick went for Strawberry Lemonade.

These were super refreshing and delicious. Avocado lime has been a favourite combo of mine ever since Nick and I were testing wedding desserts and picked that as our mousse flavour. So yummy. After that we swung by the Barlovento Chocolates stand to see if they had any vegan options and I was excited to find not one but four different types of dark chocolate with sea salt.

I happily sampled them all and took advantage of a deal on three bars taking home red, grey and black sea salted bars that were all delicious in their own way. Sea salt chocolate is probably my favourite chocolate ever and I'll have to review my favourite UK brand later this month.

Eat Real Fest is a free event and it takes place again in two weeks time so if you're in the area be sure to swing by and check it out.

As I'm always on the lookout for mac & cheese I knew I had to swing by Homeroom, a mac & cheese spot with a vegan option on the menu.

We both went for the nutritional yeast based vegan option with broccoli and peas mixed in and breadcrumbs on top. I see that the breadcrumbs are listed as buttery on the menu now so if you visit do be sure to double check they're still vegan. Whilst we loved the atmosphere and cute design of the restaurant we weren't huge fans of the mac, it was okay but a little too salty for our tastes. I also wished that there was more than one vegan option to go alongside the ten or so non-vegan options, how cool would it be if vegans could pick between nooch based, cashew based or faux cheddar based and mix in some hot dogs and veggie bacon too?!

This next spot was somewhere I was drawn towards because of the desserts but after seeing them posting a mac & cheese lunch special on Instagram I couldn't resist heading to all vegan hotspot Timeless Coffee for lunch immediately. The whole country was gearing up for Halloween when we visited hence the Vampire Proof Mac!

This was a small but totally delicious bowl of mac and cheese. The creamy garlic sauce was a wonderful additions and this is, in my mind anyway, the perfect lunch special.

Timeless have you sorted on the chocolate front too with brownies, Twinkies and homemade salt caramel chocolates.

Every single one of these chocolatey desserts hit the spot and I bought more of the little sea salt caramel chocolates to take on the road with me. Not a chocolate person? Never fear, Timeless Coffee have you sorted there too. Nick tried the Strawberry Shortcake one day whilst I enjoyed a slice of the Pumpkin Swiss Roll.

These were as delicious as the chocolatey treats we'd enjoyed the day before and I was left wishing we lived way, way nearer to this awesome spot.

One of the new cheesy products I was most excited about trying on this trip to the US of A were these new Earth Balance Cheddar Flavor Squares. I'd heard so much about them on blogs, social media and, of course, the PPK forums.

I have always been a cheese fiend and I used to order boxes of Eco Planet Cheddar Crackers from iHerb pretty regularly before they got discontinued and disappeared from markets everywhere. No amount of searching was bringing them back into my life and I was pretty sad about it - I loved those things, so as you can imagine my excitement levels (and expectations) were high as I went to grab a box of these new cheese squares from Wheatsville on our first day in Austin.

These little crunchy crackers are salty, cheesy and super moorish. They would need a touch less onion powder to be truly like my old favourite Eco Planet crackers (they were in fun shapes too!) but they're super good in their own right. I ate a whole box in one afternoon, bought another the next day and then ordered three more from Rabbit Food Grocery (who btw are planning to open a storefront before VVC happens next May, you can check out their Kickstarter here) to take back home with me so I'm calling them a mega win! Good job Earth Balance!

Hey MoFo's! I'm home! I've been in Austin for the last 12 days hanging with vegans, eating tacos, catching some sun and, of course, picking up some exciting cheese based products. Oh and I threw some chocolate in there for variety too. I'm really excited about everything I have planned for the blog this month, and not just because I get to eat my way through my stash of American vegan products! There'll be a competition for my pals based in the UK & ROI and some fun cheese based hang outs with friends. I'll also have loads more time to read and comment on blogs. Yay! Today I have another Earth Balance product review for ya...

For some reason I was far less excited about Earth Balance's new Cheddar Flavor Kettle Chips than I was about their Cheddar Flavor Crackers (reviewed here yesterday). Maybe that's because I've never eaten cheesy crisps before so I haven't felt like something was missing or maybe it's because I just straight up love ready salted, or even better lightly salted, crisps. Perhaps I'm just a boring crisp person? Whatev's. I'm totally okay with that! I'm also going to keep calling them crisps despite both Earth Balance and some of you knowing this product as chips - leaving the u out of flavour is kinda breaking me so you'll just have to deal.

Anyway despite my lack of excitement about these crisps it is MoFo and it is International Cheese and Chocolate Month so I felt compelled to try them, because, cheese. Besides it's always good to have some snacks around whilst you're travelling. They have the added bonus of not melting in a hot car which is necessary in Austin. My usual Caramel Nut Brownie Luna bars did not fare so well in the car in case you were wondering.

Anyway I bought them, Nick and I ate some and then we popped a food clip on them and didn't go back until we were starving on our flight home thanks to BA's epic VGML fuck up. (Cheese! Butter! No dessert! A teeny tiny fruit plate for breakfast. Not cool BA.) Anyway, I think this says a lot about how much we really liked these. Usually we'll devour a whole bag of crisps this size in one sitting easily. It's definitely not that they're bad but I think I just want my crisps to taste at least a little like potato and not just like cheese. Which is kinda weird and to be honest a little unexpected, I usually want everything to taste of cheese. What is it they say? You learn so much about yourself when you travel! Haha!

I got back from Austin yesterday morning and after an hour long power nap yesterday afternoon and then 12 hours sleep last night I'm beginning to feel human again. Today I went shopping for a tonne of fruit and veg to go with all of the mock meat I smuggled home with me and then I sat down to catch up on all of the blogs I've been missing whilst I've been gone. I'm nowhere near done but I'm heading out to a cheese and wine party (vegan of course) in under an hour so I thought I should probably write my own blog post before it gets too late and I miss my self imposed midnight deadline.

Last time Nick and I were in Austin was 2012 and we got obsessed with ordering pizza from Hoboken Pie and taking it back to our hotel room. This time we got obsessed with visiting the Via 313 food truck. They're an omni spot with veganisable vegetarian options and one of the best thing about them is that they use Follow Your Heart cheese rather than Daiya. Now I like Daiya (despite having had the Daiya stomach thing that almost every vegan I know has experienced) but Nick hates it and it makes me sad when he has to go cheeseless.

Via 313 make Detroit style pizzas and serve them from their trucks which are located outside two popular bars, Violet Crown Social Club and Craft Pride. We only checked out the VCSC spot as we really liked that you could sit on their patio to eat your pizza. This may be the case at Craft Pride too, it's Austin so I would bet money on outdoor seating but we're creatures of habit and we liked our original spot.

On our first visit Nick ordered The Classic Cheese and I went for The Herbivore minus the green peppers. You just need to ask to switch the dairy cheese to vegan cheese.

Now I don't know about you but I had never even heard of Detroit Style pizza until I read about this spot on Lazy Smurf's blog, maybe that's because I'm all British and stuff? Anyway Detroit style pizza has a deep dish style crust and it's baked in a well oiled square pan which means there's a crisp almost fried thing going on with the crust which is Uh-Mazing. Seriously, how had I never heard of this?

It was ridiculously good. I enjoyed my Herbivore, the olives and sweet onions were tasty and the mushrooms had a little peppery thing going on. The marinara sauce was straight up perfect though and on our second visit I ordered The Classic Cheese so that nothing would distract me from it. Via 313 definitely have the perfect pizza trifecta going on. Crust, perfect. Sauce, perfect. Cheese, perfect. So I'd say the classic is definitely the way to go here, no distractions needed because the three basics are so freaking spot on. I can't wait to go back to Austin and eat this baby all over again!

Before this year's MoFo began I was thinking on my theme and making lists of the things I wanted to blog about. One of the first things that sprang to mind was a cheese and wine party, it was something my local vegan group (we're on meet up, come join us!) had been talking about doing for a while and whilst I was in Austin I got an e-mail from my pal Melinda who's part of the group inviting me to a cheese and wine party at her house literally the day after I got home. Perfect, all of the party with none of the effort! It was last night and it turns out that Melinda is the hostess with the mostest! This party was ridiculous, there was even a playlist of cheesy music.

Despite being among the first to arrive the wine had already started to pile up.

It was all vegan, of course, and I'm sure it was great. People seemed to be enjoying it anyway!

I didn't want to rock up empty handed despite Melinda assuring us she had the food taken care of so I brought some of my favourite cheese from Treeline which I picked up in Austin as soon as I heard about the party.

I have a whole post about this stuff coming up tomorrow but, spoiler alert, everyone loved it!

Jodie also couldn't help but bring along something to share and she hooked us up with some Baked Almond Feta which she used in her Beetroot & Feta Salad too. Apologies for the terrible photo! The cheese was ridiculously delicious and I can't wait to get the recipe and give it a go myself.

Melinda had our snacks sorted too, there were water biscuits (my cheese vessel of choice) alongside the quinoa and lentil chips and fancy crackers but they didn't manage to make it into the shot.

First to the table were these very fancy cheese sticks as well as rainbow carrots with two kinds of dip, one dill and one onion which were both tasty and I enjoyed the nod towards veg!

When I do cheese sticks I usually go for the far less classy cheese and pineapple combo but these had gherkins, pickled onions and more than one kind of olive alongside both Cheddar and Mozzarella Violfe cheese. Wowza!

The next thing to fly out of the kitchen was this platter of delightful cheesy garlic toasts. Cheesey garlic bread is one of my favourite things ever so I ate quite a few pieces of this upscale, fancified version.

The cheese plate was next and it featured Smokey Mozzarisella, Pepperjack Cheezly and Vegusto's No-Moo Aromatic. Check the gorgeous presentation!

I loved the Vegusto and enjoyed a little Mozzarisella but personally I prefer that one melted. I skipped the Cheezly because, Pepperjack, but you can bet I gorged myself silly on the beautiful organic grapes.

I feel super lucky to live somewhere with such a wide range of vegan cheeses. Sure it would be nice to have Follow Your Heart, Teese, Daiya, Punk Rawk Labs or Treeline too but I don't think we're doing too badly over here on our little island.

The last two dishes made to compliment each other were the Rocket, Cherry Tomato and Tofu Haloumi Salad and the Mac & Cheese. Yeah, that's right, mac & cheese. Only one of my favourite foods ever!

I served myself a sensible portion of the mac to start with as well as a little nod to the salad (which was actually totally delicious too!) to start with but thankfully there were two casserole dishes full of mac so I got myself three helpings in the end without even needing to feel like I was stealing all the food! Phew!

The mac was cashew and nooch based which meant it was creamy and delicious, just how I like it. I loved that it was baked with a breadcrumb topping because this is something I often can't be bothered to do at home.

There was even a cheesy dessert which I skipped because I'm no fan of cheesecake. I don't know why, I realise that it's super weird, but I took a picture of my friend Rachel's slice for y'all anyway.

If the rest of Melinda's food is anything to go by I'd bet money that this was some damn fine cheesecake. I'm so glad I was in town for this party and if the food here looks as good to you as it did to me Melinda has a blog so you can check out more of her tasty eats if you're into that kinda thing.

I first tried Treeline cheese in San Francisco almost exactly a year ago, I even blogged about it during Vegan MoFo 2013 here. Their creamy soft French style cheese wasn't my favourite of the three cheeses we ate that day in Golden Gate Park but I remembered it fondly enough to buy it again on this trip.

I picked the Herb & Garlic Flavor over the Scallion again and whilst the soft spreadable cheese hit the spot it's not my favourite ever.

It was enjoyable for sure but it was a wee but too tangy for me, it would be pretty perfect if it had a little less lemon. I did discover I prefered it slathered onto a cracker that was already covered in Earth Balance rather than straight up so perhaps it just needed a little more salt. I would definitely buy it again but probably not if I had a knife & it was next to the Classic Hard Cheese on the shelf. The Classic Hard Cheese is freaking perfection.

It's subtly smokey, sliceable and creamy and I ate that whole block in a day. No, an evening. No shame. If I'm honest it's exactly what my fancy-cheese loving self has been searching for since going vegan.

I love the cheeses I have available to me for many different reasons but this is the perfect cheeseboard cheese, the one to wow your friends with. I took it to an amazing cheese and wine party last night and every single one of the guests enjoyed it. We couldn't say that about any of the other cheeses because vegan cheese totally divides opinion everywhere you go. At $9 (about £5.75) this is a special occasion cheese for sure but I pay around that for Vegusto and I think when companies are using expensive ingredients like nuts or culturing things (which I for one cannot be bothered to do) then I think that's a totally fair price.

I have a block of the hard cheese in my fridge and I'll be waiting for the perfect special occasion / cheese craving / celebration before I crack it open. I suspect I'll find a suitable cheese worthy event in the not too distant future!

One of the many things I love about Sal is that she's always up for doing stupid things like hanging out all day making and eating as many cheese sandwiches as possible. This was a particularly awesome plan as it not only fitted in with my International Cheese and Chocolate Month theme but also with her dirty sandwiches theme. Brilliant!

We started by popping to M&S and Infinity Foods to grab the ingredients we needed to go with the ones I'd brought back from the US.

We bought two kinds of bread, VBites ham, a tomato and some Violife original slices that I forgot to photograph. I had the soya milk and the Vitalite already and the Earth Balance Mac & Cheese and Daiya Provolone Slices came from Austin.

We decided to make the sandwiches in order of perceived awesomeness in case we got full and didn't enjoy the final sandwiches so much. Smart logic! Obviously that meant that the mac & cheese toastie was up first. I love my toastie maker and I don't use it anywhere near enough. Cheapo white bread is the only sensible toastie bread, that's what this machine's built for people. Don't fight it!

If you aren't familiar with the humble toastie (or jaffle as they call it down under) it's a staple of students and lovers of hot filthy sandwiches everywhere and you butter the outside of the bread just like when you're making a sandwich in a cast iron pan. The toastie maker seals up the sides and makes pockets of cheesy melty deliciousness that are usually hotter than the sun. Classic toastie fillings across the UK include cheese, cheese and ham, cheese and pickle and cheese and baked beans. Basically cheese is important so why not give mac & cheese a whirl?

Unsurprisingly this was freaking awesome, just look at it. And it's my favourite combo - carbs on carbs! Or really, in this case, carbs in carbs.

I'll tell y'all more about the mac tomorrow when I do a full review (and giveaway!) of both kinds of Earth Balance boxed mac & cheese but so far so good, we'll just say it lived up to my expectations! You could totally use any mac and cheese here, I think two big dessert spoonfuls would be the right amount, any more and you'd end up in a serious overflow situation.

Grilled Cheese number two involved another of my ridiculous kitchen gadgets, the panini press. This sandwich was a little fancier so we whipped out the multi seeded bread. This had the Daiya provolone slices, VBites ham and sliced tomato inside. Here's Sal capturing the bubbly meltiness of the cheese.

Unfortunately looking at the bubbly melty cheese was the high point of this sandwich experience. Daiya provolone is, um, gross. Seriously. Why is is so sweet? Blurgh. Even the meltiness couldn't win us round here!

Posh sandwich, thumbs down. Neither of us will be eating the rest of the cheese and that says a lot. We decided to gift it to Sal's dad who will literally eat anything including dried hunks of TVP. Don't ask.

Next up was Sal's recreation of a pre-gan sandwich she used to make whilst drunk many years ago. It's a cheese and ham sandwich and she used Violife cheese slices and VBites ham and to say that I was dubious about it would be a massive understatement. Why? You ask, cheese and ham seems pretty normal right? Well alarm bells started ringing when she said she was planning to use my microwave to make it. Yup. I was highly suspicious. Bread...in the microwave? I think I may have accused her of being a disgusting dirty savage. I totally ate my words in the end though because this was a DELICIOUS dirty sandwich. It's not gourmet, it's not fancy and sure, the bread was a touch soggy but look at the hot melty deliciousness.

As you can tell the melting potential of the cheese is very important here and Violife was a clear success. This also only takes one minute in the microwave and, a definite bonus for a sandwich that is apparently best enjoyed drunk, you don't need to turn on the grill or the oven or even mess with anything remotely likely to burn down the house. All you need is to be able to exercise patience and not burn your tongue on the cheese! This is a definite win my friends so don't knock it 'til you've tried it! Disclaimer: We are both kinda gross. Your milage with the soggy bread may vary. You cannot hold us accountable if you try this and aren't a fan. Good melty cheese is totes essential.

Hey hey hey! It's my favourite day of the week again, Mac & Cheese Monday!

I pretty much bought every new Earth Balance product I could find when I was in Austin. I already reviewed the Cheddar Squares and the Cheddar Kettle Chips. I mentioned the Mac and Cheese yesterday in my ridiculous sandwich post and today I have a proper review.

I was pretty excited about this product, mac and cheese is one of my favourite foods and anything that's this easy to throw together will always appeal to me. Not because of my super busy life, nope! Because I'm a- pretty lazy and b- because I don't always remember to make food until I'm really, really hungry...or should I say hangry? I'm not sure there's a difference for me!

I read every review I could find online before my trip to Austin and people seemed to be enjoying the Cheddar, aka the orange box, better. All you need to do is boil the pasta, drain and then add the cheese sachet and 2TBS of both buttery spread and soya milk.

Sal and I were mainly making this to put in a mac & cheese toastie (yes, they were amazing!) but we managed to taste test a few spoonfuls of it first and surprise surprise it was delicious. This is no gourmet mac and cheese but it's super saucy and cheesy and just touch on the sweet side.

We made it with Vitalite spread as you can't get Earth Balance spread here. Vitalite isn't anywhere near as salty as EB, I thought this had the right level of salt but I have quite a low salt tolerance and don't put a tonne of it on my food. The other thing to note is that the two TBS's of soya milk you use need, like, really need to be unsweetened. As I said this is a little sweet already and it'd be a total disaster with sweetened soya milk. Apparently it's similar to Kraft mac and cheese but that's not something we have here so I've never tried it and I can't tell you how closely it compares. John from Laziest Vegans can though so check out his review for an American opinion!

Last night Nick and I whipped up a box of the White Cheddar, aka the blue box. We decided to add some Smart Dogs, another thing we brought back from the US, because honestly I don't think this box makes enough mac for two hungry people despite EB's claim that it's 2.5 portions.

The blue box mac is definitely a touch saltier and a little less sweet than the orange box which I think makes it my favourite. Only just though! I really wish I'd brought back even more boxes of this stuff, I think it'll become a lazy day staple in our house fo' sure!

Now for the fun part, the giveaway!

I have one orange box and one blue box to give away to a lucky UK based winner. To enter you need to leave a comment below telling me when you'd eat them. Would you share them with your vegan bff? Would you huff the whole box in one sitting alone whilst watching your favourite show? Would it be the perfect emergency food after a busy day running around after your kiddo's? Whatever, lemme know! There are no wrong answers. Don't forget to leave me your contact details (e-mail address, Twitter handle or your blog) so that I can get in touch if you win. The competition closes at 9pm on Friday 19th. No extra entries for sharing on social media but feel free to anyway if you wanna spread the vegan love!

Whilst I was in Austin I was trying to do my best at keeping up with reading, as well as writing, VeganMoFo blog posts and I was extra glad I did when I spotted these Dark Chocolate Pretzel Bark Thins on MissMuffcake's blog. I'd have been kicking myself if I hadn't read about them until I was already home and it was too late. The sea salt pretzel / chocolate combo is possibly my favourite ever so I had to go looking for them!

MissMuffcake featured them on her blog on Vegan Target day but alas they were nowhere to be seen in the Target I visited. I did find them somewhere else though, maybe HEB, I honestly can't remember. They were also in Whole Foods but they were super pricy there.

I didn't actually break into the bag until I got home, Austin had plenty of amazing dessert options to keep me occupied, and OMG they're ridiculous.

It's thick dark chocolate that I would guess hovers around the 70% mark and it's chock full of salted pretzel pieces. I'm actually savouring every last piece of this and I've eyeballed the bag into four portions rather than eating it all at once because I'm going to be super sad when it's all gone. This has to be up there with my favourite chocolate ever and next time I'm in the US you can bet I'll be stocking up!

Can you believe we're halfway through VeganMoFo already? What are your favourite blogs, posts etc so far? I'm a little bit in love with Hasta La Vegan's Cooking From Old and Outdated Cookbooks theme. She's eating some truly ridiculous dishes and I can't help laughing every time I see a new post. As a massive Parks & Recreation fan I'm loving Easy Vegan's Carb's and Rec theme, this post really stood out to me and not just because I heart Ben Wyatt! I cannot wait to make the S'mores Cookies I spotted on Vegan Chai's blog yesterday, I was going to make them last night for the tattoo appointment I should have been at right now but the artist's sick so cookies have been put on hold. The (gorgeous illustrated) recipe for the cookies originally came from Amandabear from Will Draw For Cookies who actually designs the Vegan MoFo graphics! I always feel a little guilty when I write about my favourites or do round up posts for the official site because I often want to include everything! Especially from people who've been blogging every day or almost every day, I get what a huge commitment that is and I think you're all awesome.

How do you read and comment on VeganMoFo blogs? That's half of the fun for me and I like to click through the countries list on the Where in the World? page on the official site as well as browsing randomofo and keeping an eye on the #veganmofo and #veganmofo2014 hashtags on Twitter and Instagram. We're definitely having Feedly bundle issues this year just like last year, it just won't import all of the blogs correctly and it's missing quite a few, including mine! We'll be working on fixing that for next year though! I've also been trying to challenge myself to comment on at least 5 blogs a day especially those that don't have a tonne of comments yet, it can be disheartening as a new blogger if it seems like nobodies reading!

Both Nick and I had the day off on Monday, we slept in, we made awesome tacos for lunch, we caught up on Neighbours (tell me we're not the only people still watching that?!) but by dinner time we were feeling pretty lazy. A sensible dinner was never going to happen. Given that we were cozied up under a blanket already even going out for dinner seemed like more effort than we were willing to put in and when you're feeling like that there's only one thing to do and that's order pizza! So order pizza we did. It even fitted with my MoFo theme, how could we not?

Usually we order from Pizza Face but this time we decided to branch out. Our options were either La Cucina who do vegan cheese but no mock meats (and there's a £1.50 or £3 up charge for vegan cheese depending on the size of your pizza) or Pizza Me who do both mock meats and vegan cheese and who I've been hearing good things about. When Nick saw that they did an 18" pizza he was sold and I figured what the hell, get the ridiculous pizza your dreams are made of dude!

I even let him remove all of the veg and add extra sausage! This is the No Meat Me Vegan and it's meant to have bacon, ham, onion and rocket. Nick shuns veg on pizza unless we're at Pizza Express and there's no other option and the lovely people at Pizza Me kindly let him do a straight switch for sausages. I was pretty excited by our pizza's largesse!

The arrangement of the mock meats was a little odd, usually the bacon and ham would be cut up and more evenly sprinkled over the pizza but it that didn't really hinder my enjoyment of it. Maybe this is how people like their meat these days?

The base and crust were solid. Thin with a crispy crust, just how I like it, and in my opinion this is the area where they take the lead over Pizza Face. The cheese to tomato ratio was off though, I think pizza should be super saucy and this was not. There was also a mouthfeel issue with the cheese and I fear that they may be using the Violife slices rather than the shreds which are specifically designed for pizza. The slices are awesome on a burger or in a grilled cheese but they're all wrong here. This was much better cold with a lot of mayo than it was warm, and I say warm not hot because that's how it arrived, warm bordering on cool, bordering on cold by the time I'd finished my first slice. And yes, I'd kept the box shut.

Despite the friendliness of both the staff on the phone and the nice delivery dude I think Pizza Me have a little bit of work to do before I'd considering ordering from them again. For now I'll be sticking with Pizza Face (mainly because I'm in love with their cheesy garlic bread, I wish they'd bring back The Pammy) or giving La Cucina a try.

A few years ago I heard about a chocolate bar filled with Dandies marshmallows and I just knew I had to try it. I love marshmallows!

It's made by Chip'n Dipped Cookie Company who I'd never heard of before and unfortunately after searching high and low in New York, Portland, Seattle and San Francisco this highly elusive Marshmallow Sundae bar was nowhere to be found... that was until I hit the jackpot at Rabbit Food Grocery in Austin! I was browsing the online store and making up an order for collection at one of their pop ups when I saw it, I threw two into my basket without a second thought.

I didn't peel open the wrapper until a couple of days ago when a chocolate craving hit and I was surprised by what lay inside. For some reason I was expecting squares you'd break off, no biggie though, instead I snapped off two thirds and Nick and I went to town!

Whilst I was indeed overjoyed every time I bit into delicious squishy marshmallow I was definitely a little disappointed in the quality of the chocolate, it was a little on the crumbly side. Taste wise we weren't unhappy though and we finished off the bar in no time. I will totally eat my way through the next one but it's not making my top 10 favourite ever chocolate bars list!

One thing that I love about Austin is how hot is is, I'm sure I might feel differently if I lived there but when you come from a place where 90% of your beach picnics will get cancelled because of the weather and outdoor socialising from September to June is confined to the patios of pubs that have space heaters (and even then take a hoodie and a scarf!) the heat is much appreciated. I love being able to lie outside (in the shade, I'm not trying to get sunstroke!) on the grass at Barton Springs knowing I can hop in the water to cool off at any moment. And the water is cold so cool off you will!

I love being somewhere where events like a vegan party on a barge on a river can exist. I love the feeling of the sun on my skin when I'm walking outside. These are things you don't often get to enjoy in England sadly. I also love the abundance of frozen treats which are much needed in the heat! Sweet Ritual has to be one of my favourite places ever. I like Brighton's Boho Gelato with it's 5 or 6 rotating vegan options but this is whole vegan ice cream shop! With sundaes and sprinkles and marshmallows and all of that exciting stuff. On our first visit of the trip I got a scoop of Rocky Road in a cake cone and Nick & I shared the infamous Taco Helado, Sweet Ritual's contribution to Austin's totally rocking vegan taco scene.

Nick also had a scoop of cookies and cream in a cake cone which he declared to be delicious but that he'd licked before I even found my phone to take pictures. The taco is indeed as ridiculous as it looks and inside the waffle taco shell lies vanilla ice cream, a chocolate drizzle and toasted coconut. It was exactly as brilliant as it sounds. I preferred my scoop of Rocky Road because I didn't have to share it, haha, not really, because of the marshmallows of course. I haven't had rocky road ice cream for about 15 years!

On our second visit Nick got the Red Hot Vegans Sundae and I went for the Sweet Ritual / Capital City Bakery Mint Choc Chip Ice Cream Sandwich collaboration.

Nick's sundae had vanilla ice cream, chocolate sauce, graham cracker crumbs, toasted marshmallows, chocolate chips and chocolate sauce. He was super into it! I was super into my cookie sandwich too. Mint choc chip has always been one of my favourite flavours and this was spot on.

Sweet Ritual is a must visit spot in Austin, they have shakes and a list of toppings and sauces that you'd be hard pressed to get through on a long visit let alone a short one. My only regret is forgetting to buy their sea salt caramel sauce filled bear (yup, a bear!) to bring home but I'm going back in May for Vida Vegan Con so I guess I'll start my ice cream countdown now!

This isn't your only frozen treat option in Austin though, there's also vegan friendly food cart Bananarchy.

Now I might have mentioned before that I am no banana lover, it's only in the last 5 or 6 months that I've been able to eat them at all regularly and I'm still pretty fussy, they can't be too green or too brown. That stupid banana diet would break me within an hour. Anyway because I love you guys I decided to take one for the team and buy one, I also thought that maybe, just maybe if you covered a banana in vegan chocolate and rolled it in Oreo's it might be good, great even. It looks great right?

Right! But underneath all of that delicious chocolate it's still a banana! Here I am, ever the optimist on the left, pre banana. And on the right, yup, still don't love bananas! I just look confused, like, why am I doing this to myself again?!

I am pleased to say that as per our travel rule Nick ate the banana! Our rule is a little silly but it was born from a place of not wanting to waste food or offend people by not clearing our plates. If one of us really can't deal with eating something the other will take one for the team and at least try to eat it. I have eaten many side salads and drunk many glasses of OJ with bits in and Nick has eaten more than his fare share of overly spicy dishes and things that make me want to barf like this banana and the weird vomit textured omelette I ordered at a restaurant in Japan. Whilst I would not recommend ordering the omelette under any circumstances I would suggest checking out Bananarchy if you're in Austin. Nick totally enjoyed the banana (he only didn't order one himself because he knew I'd hate it!) and I love that they've thought about vegans and added a fun option to their menu rather than sprinkling a banana with coconut or worse, just giving you the banana on a stick!

Your other ice cream option is to pick up one of the many, many commercially available vegan ice creams from Wheatsville or Whole Foods or even Texas grocery chain HEB or Target or somewhere. America's ice cream game is on point. Way, way ahead of us in the UK that's for sure. They have so many brands and fun flavours, I'm totally jealous!

This is probably a less exciting option if you already live in the US but sitting outside sharing this box of So Delicious Almond Milk Minis in Mocha Almond Fudge flavour was one of our favourite silly travel experiences.

One place I couldn't wait to re-visit on my trip to Austin earlier this month was Arlo's. This fast food truck is located on vegan friendly bar Cheer Up Charlie's parking lot and it is the stuff my take out dreams are made of. We hit it up three times on our trip, we love the fast service, late hours and, of course, the food. If you're into drinking or just sitting outside shooting the shit over a soda water and some tasty food then you can hang out at Cheer Up Charlie's to enjoy your meal, they have a tonne of outdoor seating as is the way in Austin.

Arlo's menu is pretty decently sized for a truck but I have never deviated from the Bac'n Cheeseburger. Last time we visited in 2012 they didn't do sides, now they do and you can pick from fries, sweet potato fries or tots. We chose tots every time, there are no tots in England so I like to make the most of them when I travel!

The cheeseburger itself is delicious, messy, fast food perfection and I love it. I can't wait to order you again next May my friend. I may even branch out and try the BBQ Burger, Tomato Basil Dog or Chick'n Tacos. Maybe.

I first visited Austin's Capital City Bakery in 2012 when they were still a food cart (a food cart owner and chief baker Kristin let me get in!) and now look, they're a super adorable shop! I love the colour so much!

It's equally cute on the inside.

I loved that there's both indoor and outdoor seating, Texas is hot so air con is necessary and oddly whilst we were there there was a huge rainstorm and hiding somewhere this cute and watching the rain bouncing of the pavement outside was totally fun!

I swear bakery cases are the hardest thing to photograph, they never come out right for me anyway but I think this should give you an idea of the range of gorgeous cupcakes, bakes and cookies.

I picked a strawberry blonde cupcake which was totally delicious. The cake itself was so light and fluffy and there was just the right amount of buttercream. I'd go as far as to call it perfect.

On mine and Nick's other visit I went with a Cherry Bomb cupcake and Nick got Funfetti. There was no rain this time so we grabbed a table outside.

I love how funfetti looks, it's so cute but I just don't love vanilla frosting so I never get it. Nick thought it was totally delicious though. I adored my cherry bomb cupcake, it had the perfect amount of creamy fluffy frosting and the chocolate cake was spot on - I think the depth of flavour in Capital City Bakery's chocolate cakes comes from black cocoa powder which is something I can't get in the UK. Either that or Kristen's just a magician which is totally possible.

Capital City Bakery recently started doing some savoury food to compliment their range of cakes and soon they'll be launching a lunch menu. We tried a couple of ham and cheese kolaces which were ridiculously good.

I'd actually never even heard of a kolach or kolace but I knew dough filled with ham and cheese was something I needed to eat! Wikipedia is telling me many conflicting things about what should and should not be in a kolace and now I'm more confused than ever! Whatever it is or isn't meant to be this was freaking delicious and we went back and grabbed a couple more on our last day because I didn't want to go eight months without another one.

The other thing Capital City Bakery is famous for, aside from epic cakes, are their brownies. They are seriously the best brownies I've ever eaten because the crackle top is totally spot on and they have the exact right amount of fudginess. These brownies even made their way to Portland for Vida Vegan Con last May which was exciting for everyone involved - they made an appearance on the ice cream bar which was totally awesome! This is a pretty awful picture but when there's a brownie to eat I'm not going to be hanging around waiting for some natural light!

Basically if you're in Austin you need to visit Capital City Bakery, what's not to love?

Talking of love today is mine and Nick's ten year anniversary, or loveaversary as we are enjoying calling it. We'll be spending the day eating lunch at Terre a Terre our every-fancy-occasion-ever spot, building a fort to snuggle and watch movies in and koalaing each other...y'know, like this! I feel super lucky to have such a rad life partner, he's constantly supportive of everything I do, he's compassionate and caring and kind to everyone and just an all round good dude. He's also ridiculously adorable. And hot! I guess I feel lucky not only because I found him (whilst working an incredibly shitty job!) but because we're totally growing and changing and moving in the same directions together and it's so fun and just writing this is making me do a little heartsplode! It always surprises me when I think back to when we met and remember that neither of us were vegan then, I almost was but he wasn't and I love that we're like a little vegan team now! Anyway, enough of the sappy love stuff, back to Austin...

Austin doesn't only have one vegan bakery, nope, there's also Red Rabbit who specialise in doughnuts. Honestly I'm not the hugest doughnut fan, well I am but I like the baked ones! The kind from Mighty O in Seattle are my favourite ever but I'm also partial to the ones from Babycakes in NYC and the ones I can throw together in my kitchen! This being said we still went to check out their pop up outside Monkey Wrench books because Nick loved doughnuts and we both like supporting vegan bake sales and on the day we went they were doing a fundraiser.

I picked a chocolate doughnut and Nick got to eat half of it, I can handle a little fried doughnut but I'm not in love with them. Not even the ones from Ronald's in Las Vegas!

What I do love though is an apple fritter and you can buy these alongside a huge selection of Red Rabbit doughnuts at both Wheatsville co-op locations. This is hands down my favourite Red Rabbit treat.

Heads up, that Evolution juice in the background is awful, I thought the apple in there would sweeten it up and I was trying to eat a balanced breakfast but good lord, it was terrible! I should have got a second fritter! Whether you're a doughnut lover or not you're going to want to seek out some Red Rabbit treats whilst you're in Austin. Wheatsville is also the home of some amazing sandwiches, mac and cheese and more but there'll be more about that tomorrow!

MoFo '14 Day 2 - Torino Chocolate

MoFo '14 Day 3 - Taco or Beer Challenge

MoFo '14 Day 4 - Classic Cheese Sandwich.

MoFo '14 Day 5 - Co-operative Truly Irresistible

MoFo '14 Day 6 - Cheesin' it up in San Francisco, CA

MoFo '14 Day 7 - Amisa Organic Cheese Review

MoFo '14 Day 8 - Mac and Cheesin' in Oakland, CA

MoFo '14 Day 9 - Earth Balance Cheddar Flavor Squares

MoFo '14 Day 10 - Earth Balance Cheddar Flavor Kettle Chips

MoFo '14 Day 11 - Via 313, Austin

MoFo '14 Day 12 - Cheese and Wine Party

MoFo '14 Day 13 - Treeline Cheese

MoFo '14 Day 14 - International Cheese Sandwich Party

MoFo '14 Day 15 - Earth Balance Mac & Cheese Review and Giveaway

MoFo '14 Day 16 - Dark Chocolate Pretzel Bark Thins

MoFo '14 Day 17 - Pizza Me

MoFo '14 Day 18 - Chip'n Dipped Marshmallow Sundae Bar

MoFo '14 Day 19 - Cooling off in Austin featuring Sweet Ritual

MoFo '14 Day 20 - Arlo's, Austin

MoFo '14 Day 21 - More Austin Love featuring Capital City Bakery & Red Rabbit