A delightful vegan picnic.

We have had a lovely sunny Sunday. Early afternoon we took the dogs for a nice long walk, through woods, by the lake and parkland. A fabulous sunny day. We all appreciated getting out in the sun at last. so many people were out having their picnics, I thought it would be nice to have a picnic when we got home. of course we had to go shopping for the food, on the way home. luckily one of us had their purse on them (not me). It didn't take too long to prepare the picnic. many hands make light work, as the saying goes, or in this case - you stay over there and so your bit, and leave me to do the rest (I usually work better when I'm on my own in the kitchen.).
The result was a scrumptious, yummy vegan feast of a picnic, and there's lots left over for later, so we are certainly well fed today!!!!!!
Look at the fabulous, tasty food, and try not to let your mouth water! This is the picnic laid out, before we devoured it !

A close up of our delicious food, and now for some detailed close ups of some of the dishes:

This is a tofu dish, which tasted a bit like an egg mayo mix, it was made of Tofu, Gherkins, Paprika, and Vegan Mayo. I think that was all, but since I didn't make it there may be other ingredients added, hmmmm, I'll have to find out.
This is the beetroot salad I made from raw beet
root and red onion, chopped very small, with a little Good Oil and balsamic vinegar added.

This is a bowl of sauteed mushrooms, with a little salt and pepper added, and Grassington's chicken style nuggets
I also made this healthy basic salad - lettuce, tomato, celery, cucumber and spring onions, with a light dressing of Good Oil and balsamic vinegar.

This is a close up of the hummus dip (bought),

and the salts I used - Herbemare and Jamie Olivers Pink Himalayan Salt, which I've wanted to try for a long time, I've only ever seen Himalayan salt in a big lump before, so it is handy to find these smaller granules in a grinder. I very rarely use Table salt, I prefer these kind of salts, they contain less sodium, and are much healthier.
After we let this yummy food go down for a while, I decided to make my version of a Strawberry Shakeaway. Even though i don't know exactly how they make theirs, they truly are delicious , and they do a good vegan variety. I used fresh strawberries, soya milk and vegan ice-cream by Swedish Glace. Blended them together, and 'voila' a scrumptious, Vegan Strawberry Shake. It was beyond delicious.
We also had some boiled potatoes, some bread, and some water. I think that is everything.
It stayed sunny, the food was all delicious, and nutritious, and it was a verrrry nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Vegan Ready Made Meals - no problem at the Co-Operative stores

Today I'm talking about convenience food, not always so convenient if you're vegan. Luckily the Co-op are good at labelling foods as suitable for Vegans, they're also good at labelling other products 'no animal ingredients', so it's fab and easy to shop there.

Today I tried the ready made Orzo Salad. i didn't know what orzo salad was, but it looked nice, and it's not often i find convenience foods that are vegan suitable. a little on the pricey side for my budget (it was £2+), but maybe not everyone would think so? it was colourful, and had small pasta bits that looked like large rice. It contained sundried tomatoes, onions, chives, tomatoes and pepper, and it said spinach, although there was really not much evidence of that. I liked the taste and texture, it was slightly on the vinegar side in places, but i made the mistake of adding a pinch of salt, when all it really needed was to be mix up a bit. an excellent light lunch, and very convenient.

General website and store locator:

http://www.co-operative.coop/ check out if there's one near you!

Orzo salad packed.

Beautiful array of colours.