Green Rocket

'Green Rocket' is the newest vegetarian restaurant to make its way to Bath situated right in the centre, described by the owners as being a vegan restaurant with vegetarian options. I've been fortunate to go there a few times since its opening a year or so ago and wanted to share some pictures I've taken on my various trips. The food there is simply sublime and I know if I lived in Bath I'd find myself in there every other day, so if you happen to be passing near be sure to pop in. I feel in this instance a picture definitely speaks a thousand words so with that said... enjoy!

''The Ambience''

''Brunch/Lunch''

''Sweet Treats''

''Dinner''

much love, bean xx

Homemade Vegan Pesto Recipe

Today I want to talk about a delicious and quick homemade vegan pesto that I made yesterday for my lunchbox. The recipe that I based it on was from a cookery book called 'let them eat vegan' written by a lady called Dreena Burton, it's clearly laid out and all the recipes are well explained meaning that even atrocious cooks such as myself can use it. I like my pesto to be relatively strong which is why I didn't use any of the water that it recommended but instead I used black olives, pine-nuts and nutritional yeast (which contained B12) to bulk it out and produce lots of mouth watering flavours. 

The ingredients are in the picture above (excluding the nutritional yeast and pine-nuts) and it was literally a case of putting them all together and wizzing them in a food processor until I was pleased with the consistency, as I said it's literally a fool proof recipe. I added the olives and pine-nuts into the food processor after everything else so that they didn't lose all of their texture. Then I just stirred in a bit of nutritional yeast and boom, finito!

The pasta I used took about 12 minutes to cook and once I drained that I stirred the amount of pesto I wanted and then cling-filmed the rest for the next day as it easily makes a couple of decent sized portions. It's a perfect and simple recipe for when you are in a rush and the great thing is that you can easily experiment and add different elements to the dish to make it your own. I hope you found this useful and be sure to let me know if you give it a try!


love, bean xx

‘Do you want some dahl, darl?’

I’m aware that I can be relatively enthusiastic about some of the products and topics I talk about on here… and this post shall be no different! Dahl and rice is a perfect protein, so all those people with the mis-conception that being a vegan or vegetarian means that you suddenly become protein deficient can be rest assured that this is a prime example of how that’s a myth! I digress, besides its copious health benefits this dish is also wonderfully delicious; a highly requested dinner by me to my Mum. Now, just when you think a meal couldn’t possibly get any better, it’s also incredibly easy and quick to make, something I realised when I thought I’d thrown myself into the deep end when I asked my Mum to teach me how to make it!

Every dahl you make, because trust me once you start you’ll get hooked, will be slightly or dramatically different from your last. For me, this makes it interesting and also offers the room for those who want to experiment a bit more too. Although there are many different recipes out there I personally think my Mums is pretty sublime (not to be bias or anything…) so I shall hopefully get her to write it on here for you all to have (although it changes constantly).

It’s really perfect especially as we are making that transition into autumn (or for some of you ‘fall’) and it really is a meal that does tend to fill a hole as the nights get longer and you generally begin to crave bigger meals (well I do..). The little extra bits and pieces on the side are from ‘Unicorn Grocery’ in Manchester, although you can get these types of extras from anywhere. Let me know if you give this easy dish a go!

Love, bean xx

Ultimate favourite of the month; Booja-Booja

I think out of the few videos that I've put onto my YouTube channel so far I have mentioned in pretty much all of them a heavenly brand which is a slight obsession of mine; ''Booja-Booja''. There we go, blogpost done; enough said.

Well, I may say slightly more. It's a brand which I came across a few months back when my Mum & sister got given a box which was an assortment of various booja-booja chocolates. Of course, due to my nosey disposition I had to try them too. I can think of few pleasures in life which I deem equivalent to those feelings that I had tasting those chocolates for the first time. 

I found that my favourite of all the chocolates were probably the champagne truffles, made with french champagne. Each time I eat one of those little wonders it reminds me of the fact that some of the best things in life really do come in small packages. However I do generally care very little for small things, especially when it comes to chocolate, but the compact chocolate sized treat that Mr Booja created is suffice. Well, this is dependant on the type of day you've had, some days call for a slightly higher dosage of chocolate.

Of course, the next best thing to Booja chocolate is Booja ice-cream. Now this stuff really is dangerous, my self-control tends to be fairly in tact when it comes to the truffles but for the ice-cream? Forget it. I can easily guzzle my way through a freezers worth. The simplistic recipe leaves me dazzled every-time, if something so simple with barely a handful of ingredients is so scrumptious then why are all our supermarkets filled with chemically, poisonous shit? Excuse my french.

Writing this post I realise I'm also giving away the secrets to winning my heart. It's a simple formula really: Bean + Booja product = Happy Bean. I feel I have done my good deed for the day, sharing the meaning of life for all people to freely read as they please. Happy eating!

love, bean xx

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Chloe's Mac & Cheese

So, on my latest YouTube video for 'Skills Saturday' (link below) I made the all time classic 'Mac & Cheese'. Due to the fact that I am a pretty awful cook it had many inevitable ups and downs. The recipe was taken from the amazing cookbook by one of my favourite vegan's Chloe Coscarelli, whose website is http://chefchloe.com/. I met her earlier this year and she is such a bubbly and smiley person, her smile was pretty contagious! 

During the video I found myself slightly overwhelmed when there were so many things going on (memory cards running out, pasta nearly done, etc) and in the end I wasn't able to film the entire process of making the sauce. Now, the video was also more than anything to show that if I can cook vegan food then you can too therefore it wasn't specifically about the dish. However, if you are interested in recreating the dish, which I hope that you are because it turned out so good, then you can get the recipe (and 124 more!) in Chloe's book which really is worth getting. However, the ingredients for this specific recipe are as follows:

• 1 pound macaroni
• 1/4 cup vegan margarine
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour (I used gluten-free)
• 3 cups soy, almond, or rice milk (I used almond)
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons sea salt (I used pink Himalayan)
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder (I used a bit of fresh garlic instead - worked a treat!)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (I just randomly squeezed 1/2 a fresh lemon in)
• 1 tablespoon agave
• 2 tablespoons seasoned bread crumbs (I used 2 small slices of a leftover wholemeal hovis loaf!)

Don't forget, like I did, that the conversions are different in American books including the temperature that the oven needs to be set at. I also halved the recipe as it normally serves 6. I hope you enjoy the video and that you have as much fun as I did at trying to recreate this wonderful feel good dish. 

Love, bean xx

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYBOlJLJpPs&feature=youtu.be