Join Made In Hackney on Sunday November 29, 2020 from 11:30am until 1:30pm for a lesson in cooking that is arriving just in the nick of time.
The two-hour online class will showcase a parsnip and cranberry nut roast (plus all the trimmings) with a flavoursome miso gravy.
That’s Christmas dinner sorted!
The cost of joining the class is £20 (£10 concession). All funds raised go towards supporting the Made In Hackney community meal service providing free nutritious, tasty meals to households who need them during these challenging times.
The class will take place via Zoom with a link being sent prior to the class (recommended to check your junk folder).
Want a little more information about the event?
Join chef Steve Wilson to learn the skills to make a stunning vegan roast dinner with all the trimmings!
The class will include:
How to make a next-level Parsnip and Cranberry Nut-Free Nut Roast using roasted seeds and meaty puy lentils, bursting with umami flavours
Learn how to make fluffy and crispy yet healthier roast potatoes, using just the right amount of oil
Make delicious trimmings including roasted carrots, garlic & mustard sprouted broccoli, and flavoursome miso gravy
Opportunity to ask Steve questions
Recipe handout
For ingredients and equipment needed see below
About Steve
Chef Steve Wilson is an extremely popular Made In Hackney cookery teacher (he was also a hit with Jamie Oliver when he visited Made In Hackney!). Steve is the former Head Chef at The Russet, founder of People’s Kitchen community feasts and founder of The Dalston Cola Company.
Refunds: Made In Hackney require a minimum of 24 hours notice for any cancellations or transfers once you have booked onto a class.
80g Sunflower seeds 20g Sage and onion stuffing mix 60g Puy lentils (dried) 1 Onion 2 cloves Garlic 20g Miso paste 1 tsp Yeast extract (try to use a low salt version, e.g. Natex or Meridian) or otherwise Marmite ½ teaspoon veg stock powder 1 tablespoon Potato flour (or other thickener like cornflour or tapioca) pinch Maldon salt (or any sea salt) Topping (Bottom)
50g Cranberry sauce (try to get a low sugar version if possible e.g. Meridian which uses apple juice to sweeten) 1 Parsnips Crispy Fluffy Roast Potatoes (serves 2)
500g Potatoes (use a fluffy rather than a waxy variety, like Maris piper) 50ml Cooking oil Sea salt and pepper Roast Carrots (serves 2)
8 pieces Sprouting broccoli (or you can use regular broccoli) 1 clove Garlic 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard 1 teaspoon Apple cider vinegar 1 teaspoon Extra virgin olive oil Miso Gravy (serves 2)
300ml Vegetable stock 20g Miso paste 10g Dijon mustard 25g Cranberry sauce (try to get a low sugar version if possible e.g. Meridian which uses apple juice to sweeten). You can also use a heathlier raspberry jam (e.g. St Dalphour uses apple juice intsead of sugar) 5g Balsamic vinegar (or other vinegar) ½ Onion 1 clove Garlic 1 tablespoon Olive oil EQUIPMENT LIST
● 1 baking tray ● 1 small Loaf tin (to use for nut roast) – note if you would like to make for more than 2 people you will need to scale the recipe, and the size of your loaf tin appropriately ● 2 frying pans (preferably non-stick) ● 2 mixing bowls ● 2 saucepans with lids (you can wash between uses) ● 1 colander ● 2 wooden spoons ● 1 blender ● 1 chopping board ● 1 knife ● 1 gravy jug
For a merry meat-free Christmas opt for a cruelty-free festive spread thanks to Rudy’s. The vegan hotspot behind the cult Camden diner and the UK’s first Vegan Butcher is spreading Christmas cheer across the UK with deliciously different Christmas Vegan Feast Boxes.
Paving the way for plant-based innovation, Chef Matthew Foster has done all the hard work for you as each box is packed with all the classic Christmas dishes and a few extras thrown in because, well, it’s Rudy’s!
Customers are spoilt for choice with Rudy’s famous pastrami, seasonally spiced Christmas ham, marvellous meat-free meatballs, and not forgetting their American roots, the festive meatloaf en croute. This meatloaf, wrapped in crisp, flaky pastry, is a special nod to the USA with a virtuous vegan twist.
A spectacular plant-based centrepiece for festive tables across the UK, dine on the Christmas Turk’y roll with cranberries and hazelnuts – an impossibly succulent seitan Turk’y packed with soysage stuffing accompanied by a generous serving of Turk’y gravy with fresh rosemary, thyme and garlic. And of course, each feast comes with all the traditional trimmings for the ultimate Christmas dinner including King Edward potatoes, parsnips, carrots, Brussel sprouts with baycon bits, all perfectly seasoned and ready to roast.
Not forgetting seasonal snacking, each box is also packed with popped water lily seeds in three delicious flavours; dark chocolate and raspberry, paprika and Provençal herbs, or the Cheezy vegan – nutritional yeast and black pepper.
For £55, the festive feast will feed four people (or two hungry vegans). Limited stock available for delivery Wednesday – Friday across the UK, so catch ‘em while you can! Order yours online now.
I love getting free gifts and I love it even more when those gifts are in the form of boxes filled with vegan treats!
Vegan Junk Box is a new monthly subscription box out of the UK focussed on plant-based sweets and treats that are sometimes difficult to locate in stores.
The company gifted me with a box in the hope that I would like it enough to share the news with you all… and guess what?
I’m sharing the news with you!
And you can even get a discount on your first box as an FGV reader.
The monthly box costs £13.99 but you can get £5 off your first box by using code ‘FATGAYVEGAN’ at checkout.
Visit the Vegan Junk Box website now to investigate now and decide if this monthly box is for you.
I think you would be hard-pressed to find an industry struggling as much as independent brewing right now.
What an absolute sack of shit year it has been.
The bars and pubs that breweries rely on for moving most of their stock have been closed or are themselves on the verge of closing forever. Taprooms at breweries, normally a direct line of selling, have been closed on and off all year.
I decided to treat myself to a delivery from my favourite vegan beer producer as an act of solidarity during this unprecedented time… and I’d like to think of few people reading this will do the same thing!
Brass Castle is an independent brewery in Yorkshire.
If you ever attended any of my Vegan Beer Fest events around the UK, you’ll remember Brass Castle as a regular trader. They even ran the jumbo bar at the London outing of the event a few years running.
Every single beer produced and sold by Brass Castle is vegan, including all the gorgeous cans in their 12 Days of Christmas beer advent calendar!
This box is a 12-can selection pack of various Brass Castle faves, hidden behind advent calendar-style doors. All the beers are vegan-friendly and certified gluten-free.
The pack comprises:
Pilsen Thrills 3.9% Pilsner (440ml can)
Hoptical Illusion 4.3% Citra/Comet Pale Ale (330ml can)
Well Wisher 4.5% Citra/Columbus Golden Ale (440ml can)
Dune Bug 4.7% Lemon & Samphire Gose (440ml can)
Fruit Lupe 4.8% Mosaic/Blueberry Pale Ale (440ml can)
I have extremely fond memories of running Hackney Downs Vegan Market, especially when I think of all the wonderful independent traders we helped nurture and grow.
The market was a real hotbed of innovation and vegan advancement.
One brand that I particularly recall as both original and stunningly popular is Kinda Co.
Kinda Co took vegan cheese to another level and it has been exciting to watch their growth ever since. The company combines the familiarity of your favourite cheeses with plant-based innovation/vegan trickery to make products that are simply exceptional.
Think I’m overselling Kinda Co? Then find out for yourself by ordering one of their exclusive cheeseboards for Christmas.
The cheeseboards from Kinda Co are available in three sizes. Choose from The Mini, The Middle, and The Magnificent. Prices range from £27.50 to £68.50.
I was really taken by the look of The Magnificent (pictured above).
The Magnificent includes:
Farmhouse 120g
Cranberry 120g
Summer Truffle 120g
Garlic + Herb 120g
Smoked Farmhouse 120g
Paprika Chilli 120g
Red + Black Pepper 100g
Sour Creme + Chive Spread 130g
Nacho Dip 240g
Faux Lox + Dill Creamy Spread 130g
Rosebud Preserves Spiced Plum Chutney 198g
The Fine Cheese Co. Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Sea Salt Crackers 125g
It’s a vegan cheese dream come to life!
All Christmas cheeseboards from Kinda Co will be delivered on December 22 and 23, 2020. Someone will have to be at the delivery address to take the parcel. They ship UK wide.
All Christmas cheeseboards are also available to collect in person from the Kinda Co kitchen in Hackney Wick between December 17 and 22 if you are in the area.
Extra note: all block cheeses can be frozen and all cheeses should be kept in the fridge until served.
Click here to order now. They will sell out quickly so don’t think about it for to long!
Wanna put your money where your plant-eating mouth is and support independent business before this disastrous year comes to a close?
Mooshies London has launched a hamper filled with gorgeous vegan items and you can buy it for yourself, a friend, or an enemy. Hey, I don’t know how you get your kicks!
Each company involved in building the hamper is paid retail price for their item, so your money is directly helping these independent companies after what can be best described as an extremely tough year.
Launched from the Mooshies shop on Brick Lane, the hamper can be delivered nationwide. The hamper can currently be ordered via the Mooshies website with delivery scheduled for December 16 and 17, 2020.
Each company is a small independent business and local to Mooshies.
Instead of buying the products at cost price, Mooshies is purchasing them at retail to give each company a sale via their hamper. Mooshies takes no profit and does all the labor and dispatching themselves. It’s a way to keep all the small businesses in people’s mind while supporting each of these amazing companies.
Super fancy London restaurant Pied a Terre sent me their vegan feast for two box. It wasn’t exactly the five star experience I was expecting but it was tasty, especially the French onion soup.
HappyCow is thrilled to announce that Toyota and Lexus are making vegan-options easier to find.
Huh? Big name car manufacturers and plant-based eating don’t go together, do they?
Toyota Connected North America has integrated HappyCow’s guide to vegan and vegan-friendly eating into the Destination Assist feature on select 2020 and newer Toyota and Lexus models.
USA-based Toyota and Lexus Destination Assist subscribers will now benefit from HappyCow’s dining guide by pressing the ‘Destination Button’ from the navigation menu.
When speaking with an agent, they simply mention that they’re looking for a vegan or vegetarian restaurant and HappyCow will be used to direct them to nearby vegan and vegan-friendly options.
If you are drawing a blank when reading the name HappyCow, let me fill you in.
HappyCow is the leading vegan guide on the planet. The user-driven platform helps vegan and vegan-curious people location cafes, restaurants, grocery stores, stores, salons, bakeries, markets, and bars that offer vegan and vegetarian goods and services.
I’d love to hear from any Destination Assist users who have used the feature successfully. The rest of the world will need to wait patiently for it to be rolled out globally.
If you had told me at the beginning of the year the world would still be struggling through the COVID disaster in November, I would have had a difficult time imaging that as reality.
I would have even been even more surprised had you told me I would no longer be living in Mexico City, but rather in Sheffield!
Life is full of surprises. Due to global circumstances, I’m living in Sheffield and working alongside a vegan food business. I feel extremely fortunate to have steady employment and a place to live, it’s just that it has come out of the blue.
We do what we must at times like this (has there ever been a time like this?) and I’m doing my best in Sheffield, a city I have loved for a long time and with which I have nurtured a special relationship ever since I hosted my Vegan Beer Festival events here.
Of course many food businesses are closed or sometimes closed in Sheffield, but I am still managing to eat and consume. You can’t hold a good FGV down!
Check out some of my foodie adventures since I’ve been in Sheffield this year.
The photo above shows my first meal on my first night back in Sheffield in July. I ordered a big comfort food bundle from Sunshine Deli to be delivered to my hotel room.
This vegan eatery has a lot of fans and delivers not only hot food, but heat and cook at home packs for people living longer distances from Sheffield.
One of my favourite vegan businesses in the UK is Truffle Pig, Sheffield’s very own artisan truffle and chocolate expert.
I first experienced the wonders of Truffle Pig a few years back when they traded at my Vegan Beer Festival in Sheffield. When they sold out almost as soon the doors opened, I knew they were something special.
Friday restocks on their website sell out just as quickly and Truffle Pig now has fans all over the UK.
There is nothing I love more than an independent vegan grocery store and in Sheffield, we have the best!
The Incredible Nutshell is home to a dazzling range of vegan products including meats, cheeses, ice cream, chocolates, sweets, personal care items, household cleaners, pantry items, tinned food, and even alcohol.
Visit The Incredible Nutshell online and follow on Instagram.
In the intro of this blog entry I mentioned I am in Sheffield working with a vegan food company.
My mates at Make No Bones asked me to come onboard and help with a few things, including promoting their new project called Saucy. Saucy is a vegan takeaway joint selling wings, burgers, fries, desserts, and drinks.
Check out the vegan chicken burger in the shot above.
I currently live near a part of Sheffield called Kelham Island and just around the corner from me is a gorgeous pub called The Fat Cat.
This pub always has a few vegan options on the menu and it is all old-school pub fare. See my meal above consisting of mushroom pie, wedges, peas, and gravy.
This next one is a bit of a cheat as it isn’t actually in Sheffield. The Globe is in a town called Glossop but I have included it as I visited from Sheffield during one of the brief time periods when short journeys were deemed OK and safe.
It is close enough to drive to if you are in Sheffield and well worth the trip, but is actually much closer to Manchester.
The Globe has a 100% vegan food menu and is one of my favourite pubs on the planet. The prices are ridiculously low and, as you can tell by my photo, you will be more than satisfied if you love comfort food.
I dropped in to see Icarus & Apollo a few weeks ago in the outdoor food and bar complex known as SteelYard Kelham. The site is one of those shipping container constructions that are all the rage and even has a bar on the roof!
Icarus & Apollo serve fusion food (with a bit of Mexican and African influence) that looks great in photos. I’m always seeing happy customers sharing photos on socials.
Pom Kitchen is a vegetarian cafe in a cute and trendy part of town known as Sharrow Vale. The collection of shops on Sharrow Vale Road is a mix of foodie hot spots, bakeries, fresh food mongers, and antique traders.
It is here where Pom Kitchen has built a loyal customer base with their mix of vegetarian and vegan offerings.
A much-loved local coffee shop that isn’t vegan might just be selling one of the tastiest vegan sandwiches in the UK.
Create Coffee is a few doors along from the aforementioned The Incredible Nutshell on Chesterfield Road. They of course specialise in caffeine but just happen to do an incredibly tasty vegan Reuben using seitan supplied by Make No Bones.
The Beer Engine is one of Sheffield’s favourite drinking spots but unfortunately they have been more closed than open during my time here due to the pandemic.
When they do re-open for service, I really must insist you try the food of Dumpling City. This is the in-house kitchen of the pub and the flavours of the vegan offerings will knock your socks off. They are also branching into delivery, so stay alert.
Finally, I’m delighted to share these two photos from Make No Bones. They are the reason I’m currently in Sheffield and even though I work alongside them I don’t think it is unfair to say it is the best vegan food in the city.
Their food is currently reaching people only via delivery and takeaway due to the lockdown but that is not dampening the city’s love of the menu. The Sunday roast dinners fly out each week, while the newly-added Big Make burger is winning hearts all over South Yorkshire.
