Rediscovering a vegan-friendly lifestyle store: Jan de Vries blogger event

Sometimes it seems as if some stores are new to the scene, when in fact they have been around for a long time. My bus route takes me past the big Holland and Barrett store on the East End of Princes Street and I pass by their smaller store on Shandwick Place all the time, but little did I know that Jan de Vries was just around the corner on Queensferry Street.

Switching to a vegan lifestyle: a year after Veganuary 2017

Hello and Happy New Year everyone! Time really flew by quickly, whether you were having fun or not (between Christmas and Hogmanay, I was bedridden with a bad case of the flu and I’m still recovering), but I know this is set to be an exciting year and I can’t wait to see what vegan offerings will be on the table!

So a year on after Veganuary 2017, what does this mean for me?

The Tartan Carrot fundraiser event for Lotus Animal Sanctuary

Hope everyone had a great weekend! I’ve had a pretty busy week eating lots and exploring new (and visiting old) vegan eateries and enjoying every morsel, so expect lots more restaurant reviews appearing on here soon! In the meantime, you may remember I wrote about the intentions to build an animal sanctuary for all animals, including those who are rescued from slaughter (see my previous post here). It seems like so long ago the amazing people at The Tartan Carrot set this date for the big fundraiser to build Lotus Animal sanctuary in central Scotland – and here it is just over 2 weeks away!

Pulsin’ and Beond! My review of their Veganuary protein and Beond bar box

I don’t usually eat too many protein products even though I should be diligently consuming protein before and after a workout. Since starting BodyCombat almost 5 years ago (see my previous post about it here), I’ve since also been doing BodyPump (here) and BodyBalance as well as kickboxing classes racking it up to 5-hours of classes a week. I had been making up protein shakes using sachets from my Purition vegan trial box (see my review for it here), but I find sometimes it’s a snack right after class that I need to curb those cravings.

When I realised the whey protein shake powder contained milk, I realised I needed to find another alternative which I did in Purition, but what about snack bars? I now couldn’t just stop in the local shops on my way home to snack on a chocolate bar. Luckily during my Veganuary month (see here), one of their proud sponsors Pulsin’ put together an exclusive Veganuary snack box for participants.

My favourite vegan surprise: review of TheVeganKind subscription box

I had been given a themed subscription box before as a birthday present and also subscribed for a short time to a beauty subscription box, but never ended up keeping them for long. I can be quite pernickety and trying to use all the products in the box was something I found difficult. At the time I subscribed to the beauty box, I was looking to be introduced to more products and brands I might not have been aware of, but I don’t use too much makeup and a lot of the products in the box ended up not being something I really was looking for.

When I became vegan, I was tempted by the thought of getting monthly vegan boxes in the post. TheVeganKind offers two different kind of boxes: the monthly Lifestyle Box where you receive between 5 to 8 food and lifestyle cruelty free, vegan products (worldwide delivery available); or the Beauty Box which offers a mix of skin care, cosmetics and beauty products delivered every 3 months (UK delivery only).

Given my past experience with another beauty box, I didn’t want to take the chance that I would be struggling to use all the beauty and skin care products, I decided to go with the Lifestyle Box.

A nostalgic vegan recipe: the BEST chocolate chip cookies I call Rebecca

If I sound a bit too excited about these cookies, I’m sorry but I can’t help myself! I do have reason to be though, because

1) I’ve been looking for a chocolate chip cookie recipe even before I became vegan that gave me thick cookies that were crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside, and

2) I got my order from The Doughnut Family this morning and as I’m writing this, I’m indulging in a vegan chocolate glazed doughnut. Sooo good!

I’ve got a really sweet tooth and finding the treats I liked to eat before I became vegan has been something I’ve been determined to find, whether it’s bought or homemade by my own two hands. Luckily for me, my Aussie vegan friends have been at it for longer than I have and made the perfect chocolate chip cookies that are out of this world.

Have You Met….Life of a DIY Shopaholic?

Have you seen my recent interview with Talor Gilchrist for her Have You Met… series? Talor has been talking to various bloggers to get to know them better and today, it’s about my blog.

Blogs are great because they are the complete personality of the people behind them, I will guarantee that you will not find a blog that is identical to another. (Maybe the theme but not the content).

One thing I have enjoyed learning from my blogger interviews is why people started their blog, it is something that I’ve never actually thought about before but is actually really interesting.

Source: Have You Met….Life of a DIY Shopaholic?

Vegan sushi dinner! Make your own nak’d sushi bowl for dinner

The fun of cooking your own meals at home is experimenting with recipes. I’ve been searching for vegan recipes to cook meals for the OH and I since I feel a bit out of my depth with cooking vegan meals. Just to clarify, I’ve signed up to Veganuary to eat vegan for a month (I’m now on my 16th day!), but the OH is still an omnivore (he unfortunately doesn’t believe in supporting veganism). He is however being the ever supportive husband in that he’ll eat vegan when we’re cooking together at home, but I don’t have a problem with him eating meat and animal products (like cheese and dairy) when we’re eating out or when he’s cooking/eating himself.

One of the recipes I found was on the Veganuary website here for a nak’d sushi bowl. I’ve always had sashimi (raw fish) with my sushi, so I was excited to be able to prepare a sushi type dish for a vegan meal at home!

A list of my favourite vegan recipes

Sometimes trying to cook a tasty meal can be quite a task, even more so when you feel out of your depth with vegan meals (you can read more about my start of my journey to veganism here)! My instinct is to just boil the vegetable (like lettuce or broccoli), fry it up with some garlic and add soy sauce which is what you sometimes do with Chinese cooking, but every now and then you want to switch it up…but don’t know how. This is where I’m starting to feel a bit stuck.

Veganuary has a bank of recipes (here) that you can try, but there are so many to sort through that I sifted through a few and felt a bit overwhelmed when I came to the British Recipes section. I didn’t have any particular food in mind that I really wanted, but I think having an idea would help you navigate the recipes section.

Instead, I decided to venture off on my own and found some yummy looking vegan recipes that I’ll be attempting over the next few weeks.

Purition: vegan wholefood protein shake review

Everything we choose to do in life is a choice: the food we put in our bodies, the exercise routine we follow, the path we choose to walk. I’ve realised that choosing a fitness lifestyle also means paying attention to what I’m also putting into it. I made it a New Year’s resolution to eat better and healthier, but the protein shakes I make after each class was not something I had given much thought to.