Lime, Avocado & Grape Vegan Quinoa Salad

Do you have those meals you always make when you don’t know what to eat? My mum’s is egg and chips; it’s sort of become a running joke. When I don’t know what to eat and I feel like I should be eating something healthy my go to salad is my Vegan Quinoa Salad with Apple, Sultanas and Sunflower Seeds, it’s probably one of my favourite salads and is ridiculously easy to whip up, although now this blog post sounds a little bit like an advert for that salad (p.s. You should check out that salad if you like quinoa salads; it’s delicious).
I’ve been eating a lot less meat recently, not as a rule just more of a ‘it happened and now I’m slightly avoiding it where I can’ because I sometimes find that meat free life agrees with me more so I figured another “go to” vegan quinoa salad under my belt would be useful so I’m not absentmindedly eating the same thing all the time.

I’m definitely torn between which salad is better which surprised me because avocados aren’t my favourite; I usually need to eat them with something to cut the creaminess because I’m not much of a fan of creamy foods. I always think it’s good to try things you’re not too sure about again or with other foods to find a way to make them enjoyable and even though I wanted a salad to go along side the other one as a regular I wasn’t expecting to love it this much. Grapes and avocados together? I’m sold! This is probably the most I’ve enjoyed an avocado and I think I might be putting them in the shopping basket from now on.

Spiced Chocolate Chip Welsh Cakes

I got a cough, I know what you’re thinking, is that special news? Maybe not special but it’s definitely news. I never get coughs, and when I say never I mean never, blocked sinuses yes coughs not so much. I say cough, I’m pretty sure it was a chest infection because there was dizziness, a fever, everything ached and all kinds of funky coloured stuff being coughed up, there was also a little bit of throwing up but we won’t get into that. I spent the majority of my week moving from my room to the living room in a constant state of napping with random TV shows in the background I didn’t care to pay attention to, which if you know me is also really rare because I really despise naps. I also spent two days only whispering and another sounding like I’d been strangled so all around it wasn’t a pleasant time!

One of the other problems I had was I completely lost my appetite, I always find it takes a while to go back to eating normally after that but the first thing that made me want to eat more than a bowl of rice or soup was some Welsh cakes my mum bought, so after that I just had to make some.
It’s probably been about 4 years since I’ve made Welsh cakes, aside from the 3 batches I’ve cooked up in the past week but the day I made these just coincidentally happened to be St. David’s day. I did test out another flavour which is all of the yummy and will be posted at some point in the future but I couldn’t resist adding chocolate to a batch (well I had to make up for all the chocolate I missed out on while I was ill), I’m surprised it’s never crossed my mind before and I also couldn’t resist adding all of the spices.

Something that Welsh cakes are ideal for is snacks on the go, they travel extremely well and don’t take up a lot of room, not that we had any time to take them out for a snack as they didn’t last long enough but if you can resist them till the next day they keep well and you can’t really squish them as easy as a muffin.

Quick & Easy Hot Chocolate Fudge Cakes

It’s valentine’s day on Sunday; cue eye rolling! Can you hear them from wherever you are in the world? Because I certainly can. I’m all up for celebrating holidays and going over the top, because why not? It’s just one more thing to get excited about, but valentine’s day? Never understood it!

I’m more excited about the fact that DEADPOOL IS OUT! You have no idea how many times I have watched that trailer, I mean I’m the type of person that could watch trailers for an hour and a half instead of watching a film but I think watching it about 13 times in two days is kind of a record for me, and I definitely watched it 4 times in a row the first time I saw it, yes I know, I’m like a toddler when it comes to trailers (AGAIN AGAIN!) and I’m not even the slightest bit ashamed.

The reason we are all here is because my mum insisted I make something chocolaty for valentine’s day, I honestly tend to ignore things like this and get on with my life and part of me is a little “let’s make something anti-valentines” because she’s mentioned it so many times but chocolate is chocolate and I’m not gonna say no to chocolate.

I’ve been making these for years, it’s my go to “I want hot chocolate cake” and trust me I crave hot chocolate cake a worrying amount but it means you don’t have to make a whole chocolate cake and still get to enjoy the ooey gooey chocolate goodness. It pretty much tastes the same, involves slightly less effort and means there’s not a chocolate cake left sitting on the side in the kitchen screaming your name while you’re trying to eat your salad and be a good girl.

Perfect for the single pringle, simple enough for the boyfriend who has the valentine obsessed girlfriend that needs some form of romantic gesture (or you know, if you’re the boyfriend and are actually into romantic gestures) and just as suitable for anyone who’s into the whole anti-valentine’s day party, which I’ll mention is maybe as ridiculous as celebrating valentine’s day but I guess I can go along with ridiculous; each to their own. I personally think the ideal situation for consumption is an action movie marathon with your best friend but you get the idea and I think I’m ticking all the February 14th boxes.
So let’s get to the chocolate!

Coffee Pancakes/Crêpes with Vanilla Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce

Last week sort of ran away from me but even though Pancake Day is over I still wanted to share this recipe, and who in their right mind would turn down pancakes?

I made your morning quicker by putting your coffee in your breakfast; you can thank me when the caffeine kicks in. So maybe this is more of a dessert than a breakfast because I probably wouldn’t suggest you have ice cream for breakfast on the daily but I wouldn’t write it out completely. This is kind of the perfect dessert, with pancakes, coffee, chocolate sauce and ice cream you can’t really go wrong, I even went as far to make homemade ice cream and even though I couldn’t eat a whole scoop I did try it and it was definitely the most delicious vanilla ice cream I’ve ever had, I guess I have a lot to live up to when I start experimenting with dairy free ice cream.

Beetroot, Goats Cheese & Spinach Pancakes/Crêpes with Chutney

I think this might be one of my favourite things I’ve made for this blog so far, even though this revelation will probably cause my chutney supplies to deplete drastically faster than I’d anticipated and in a few months probably leave me wishing I’d made at least double the amount I did, I guess the four jars I have left after giving away two to my sister and brother in law and two to my granddad and his wife for Christmas will have to suffice.
It’s actually quite shocking that up until now I’d only entertained the idea of sweet pancakes, sadly that’s a lot of wasted time I’ve accumulated without savoury pancakes in my life but I’m sure I’ll have made up for that soon.

One of the best things about this is how simple this is, if you know how to make pancakes the rest is a doddle and as I sat down to dinner after the string of “damn this is good” comments I felt like I was trying something new in a nice little restaurant. So simple but so delicious; it's definitely worth more than the little effort it takes to make.