Tag: food

  • 19th March 2020 update #COVID2019

    Schools will be closing on Friday this week for the foreseeable future. It’s unlikely they will open again before the summer holidays which means they’ll be shut until August and potentially longer than that. Much depends on what happens in China when they lift their restrictions. Children of key workers and vulnerable children will still…

  • Eating insects

    Eating insects

    For several years now I have been quite interested in entomophagy which means eating insects. I’ve started buying insect dog food for the dogs we borrow and this week I bought a packet of ground buffalo (buffalo is a type of beetle, also known as mealworm) from a Welsh company called Bug Farm Foods. It…

  • Insect dog food

    Insect dog food

    Sustainability in dog food is becoming a thing. The dogs we look after always come with their own food which their owners provide but I feel a bit depressed giving regular dog food to dogs. We know how unsustainable livestock farming is and we’re already consuming beyond our resources just to satisfy our meat-heavy diet…

  • The 16:8 diet and inhaling marmite

    The 16:8 diet and inhaling marmite

    I have been on the 16/8 diet for a few weeks now. This diet lets you eat whatever you want for 8 hours in the day. For the rest of the 16 hours you can’t eat anything. You can choose when the 8 hours fall and mine are typically from 11am – 7pm. Essentially I’m…

  • Christmas 2019

    Christmas 2019

    I always like to write about what we did for Christmas each year because it creates a record of it for the future. Can you remember where you were for Christmas in 2016? Who were you with? What did you eat? It’s amazing how quickly we forget. For Christmas 2019 we were at our home…

  • Pies from The Vegan Skinhead

    Pies from The Vegan Skinhead

    Someone came to the house this week to ask whether we’re interested in getting milk delivered to our home. “I’m vegan”, I said. He replied, “We also deliver eggs and orange juice. Would you be interested in either of those?” Vegans do not eat eggs and as a family, we don’t buy orange juice because…

  • Trick or high-fructose corn syrup

    Trick or high-fructose corn syrup

    Every year the kids nag to go trick or treating and every year we say no. I just can’t understand how it’s appropriate to encourage children to go to the homes of strangers asking for sweets. Perhaps we’re just boring and unfair parents. To be fair, the kids don’t seem to mind too much and…

  • A nutritious, cheap, and easy vegan meal that kids like and vegan bodybuilders

    A nutritious, cheap, and easy vegan meal that kids like and vegan bodybuilders

    I made a delicious and disgustingly healthy meal tonight which was a hit with everyone, including the kids. It was also very simple, indeed half of it required no cooking at all. The cooked half was a recipe from Rukmini Iyer’s The Green Roasting Tin which involved bunging orzo and tomatoes in the oven for…

  • Fudgy no-bake brownies

    Fudgy no-bake brownies

    Elizabeth made the fudgy no-bake brownies from Dr Gregor’s How Not to Die cookbook yesterday. They’re so easy to make even a kid can do it. I just helped her a bit with the food processor. They’re delicious and healthy. There’s no sugar in the recipe and they’re gluten-free and vegan. Ingredients 1 cup walnuts…

  • Aberdeen’s beach and veganism is mainstream

    Aberdeen’s beach and veganism is mainstream

    Daniel was invited to a birthday party today and much to my disappointment it was at a trampoline place by the beach. I dislike going to the beach in Aberdeen for two reason – 1) It’s a bugger to get to by bike. There’s no good route and I’m always stressed and worried about large…

  • ‘Tis the season to stuff your face with lots of yummy food

    ‘Tis the season to stuff your face with lots of yummy food

    Every Christmas I make lebkuchen which is German for ginger bread except that it doesn’t contain any ginger. I’m a bit slow making it this year because I’ve been making panforte – I’ve made three batches of it so far and probably eaten most of it myself because the kids don’t like it. I had to…

  • Vegan junk food

    Vegan junk food

    It’s easy to be an unhealthy vegan with more and more vegan junk food options to choose from at the supermarket. Recently Sainsbury’s added Goodfella’s vegan pizza and vegan Cornetto. The vegan pizza is so good. Even the very discerning Daniel likes it. It’s probably reasonably healthy for a frozen pizza. The Cornetto was also…

  • Eating stinging nettles

    Eating stinging nettles

    Spring is here and the nettles are growing again so I decided it was time to make a meal out of them. Most people know that stinging nettles are pesky green plants that irritate the skin when you touch them. What you probably don’t know is that they’re a nutritious source of iron, calcium, potassium,…

  • Emotional attachment to a place and good bread

    Emotional attachment to a place and good bread

    Have you ever felt an emotional attachment to a place or even a landscape? A feeling of belonging when you go there even when you’ve never been there before? I feel that way about Scotland and to a lesser extent, England. It puzzles me a bit because the environment I grew up in was so…

  • Growing your own food

    Growing your own food

    Climate Café no.5 was on in Aberdeen last night. If you live in Aberdeen I highly recommend this series. It’s an initiative of Aberdeen Climate Action, a community organisation for which I’m a volunteer, and we are spreading inspirational messages to encourage our communities to tackle the problem of climate change. Inspirational is absolutely the…

  • Nutcrafter Creamery Vegan Cheese

    Nutcrafter Creamery Vegan Cheese

    Today I was feeling particularly decadent and bought myself some vegan cheese from Nutcrafter Creamery. Foodstory sell some of their artisan cheeses and I got the Aged Smoked Chipotle. It’s not cheap at £8.50 for 190g but it was oh so worth it. The main ingredient is cashews. The nutrition information doesn’t make much sense.…

  • VPud – vegan black pudding

    VPud – vegan black pudding

    I tried the world’s first vegan black pudding this week. It’s made by a firm in Lancashire called The Real Lancashire Black Pudding Company. It was delicious! It’s made mostly with oats and pearl barley, two of my favourite foods. They use beetroot to give it a deep red colour. It’s very easy to make:…

  • Don’t eat my muffin!

    Don’t eat my muffin!

    Daniel left this note before going to school this morning: It says: Dear Dad and Mum and Elizabeth, make sure you save a muffin for Daniel. I have not had mine yet. That’s not entirely true. I made a batch of twelve muffins yesterday and he’s already eaten two of them. This will be his…

  • Is healthy food expensive?

    Is healthy food expensive?

    I got a huge bag of fresh fruit and veggies (and a bottle of sweet chilli sauce) from Sainsbury’s today and I was amazed when it only came to £14.39. Here’s what I got: Afterwards I ducked into Holland & Barrett for some vegan junk food and it was surprisingly expensive at £25.93. It’s not…

  • It’s Veganuary!

    I’m a bit late with this post because it’s already the 5th of January and Veganuary is upon us! If you’re looking for a New Year’s resolution then try going vegan for one month. It doesn’t have to start on the 1st of January. You can start at any time. When you sign up on…