pig-out-vegan-blog

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So we bought our first proper blender the other week and took it for a test drive by making our own milk! Our minds are blown. 3 cups of water + 1 cup of cashews (- any soaking) = 2 people dancing round the kitchen 😍

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Some days call for a hearty minestrone and today is one of those days. After feeling pretty rotten for the past two days, I’ve been trying to stock up on all the goodness. We like to bulk our soup up with loads of kale to make it extra healthy. We got this one from the Thug Kitchen cookbook. It's easy as pie. Mmmm pie. 

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Sushi boxes for the win. A few weeks ago, we found out that you can buy inari beancurd wraps so we had a little sushi party and created these cute-as bento boxes for lunch. We had 2 soy mushroom and 2 avocado sweet potato maki rolls, 2 inari wraps and a fresh roll with smokey maple tofu, noodles, pepper, carrot, cucumber and peanuts... and it was awesome.

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Sheffield has the best graffiti. We love our city and all the wonderful people who live here.🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳 #vegan #vegansofig #certifiedvegan #graffiti #vegangraffiti #ukvegan #ukvegans #sheffieldvegan

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In defence of the Brussel sprout

There are many reasons to dislike winter – it’s all dark evenings, constant rain and cold everything.

For most of my life, winter also signalled the arrival of the dreaded Brussel sprout. I saw the cloying dark as a foreboding sign that the vegetable was soon going to be lurking on supermarket shelves and that my Dad would try to get me to eat the benevolent little balls of wet bitterness.

Nearly everyone has a Christmas horror story, and a lot of them involve sprouts. It’s become customary for those who dislike the sprout to ‘try one’ with their Christmas dinner. It’s balanced precarious on the edge of the plate, like a naughty child, far enough from stuffing or roast potatoes to avoid potential contamination. Most people manage one before deciding, ‘Nope, not for me. I’ll have some more stuffing, please.”

The turning point in my Brussel sprout story was an Ottolenghi recipe for Brussel sprout risotto. I was in a deep (and tasty) risotto phase and enamoured with Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Plenty More.

That night, for the first time in my life, I not only enjoyed sprouts but wanted more. My mind, and stomach, were opened.

I realised the problem is not the sprout itself, but the way we insist on cooking (or ruining) them. Put simply, a Brussel sprout should never see water, let alone be boiled in it.

We’re a nation who love to boil food, and as a result we’ve turned the population against what should be a seasonal pleasure.

Rather than dunking sprouts in a vat of water and leaving them to boil until they’re little more than tasteless sog, we need to embrace the art of roasting. Granted, a few tv chefs have turned the nation onto the idea of fancying up sprouts by pan-frying them with walnuts but no one seems to champion the oven.

We eat roast parsnips, roast potatoes, roast carrots – so why not roast sprouts?

In our house, the arrival of sprouts is a bigger celebration than Christmas itself. While that may sound so some like hyperbole, it isn’t – when Laura came home with a bag of sprouts last week they found their way into three consecutive meals. Our newfound diet faltered on the fourth night because we’d eaten our supply dry.

The next time you need some veg for a meal, take a chance on the sprout. It’s easy – remove the ends from the sprouts, cut them in half and roast them with garlic in olive oil until the outer leaves crisp up.

I think you’ll be surprised.

And if you’re still not a fan, give me a shout, we’ll come and take those little orbs of glory off your hands.

- See more at: http://samgrantbriggs.com/in-defence-of-the-brussel-sprout/#sthash.NVWndX4y.dpuf

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There are so many alternatives to dairy milk. 

We don’t need to drink cow’s milk. Calves on the other hand do. It’s THEIR milk, not ours.

My favorite is almond-oat milk ♥

Inktober Day 7

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In our last post, we told you about our Instagram account. In this post, we’re going to tell you about it again, and give you the link. 

We’re nice like that. 

L & S

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Hey there, Tumblr. 

We’re Pig Out, or, more specifically, Laura and Sam. 

We’re two goofballs who found each other in the cosmos, and developed an insatiable appetite for scrummy vegan food along the way. 

Pig Out is here to give everyone, not just vegans, a space to talk about healthy, honest food. 

Conversation is food for the brain, remember. 

Anyway, we’ve got an Instagram going - @pigoutzine - we’d love to see you over there. We’ve got the same Twitter handle, but we’re a little way off using that just yet. 

The grand plan is to blog, make zines, get people talking and fill stomachs. 

Come get involved, friends. 

L & S 

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