Pic form my new phone/experiment

Well i have a new phone which lets me upload pics to this blog so i thought i'd give it a go. Woooo! This is a picture i took of a random figure thing in my living room.......Exciting, isn't it.

Tikka Masala-ish recipe if anyone wants a try?!

As promised I said I would post the recipe for anyone who wanted to try it out.
Here it is..
Everything used is available from Tesco (Extra) apart from the 'chicken', although they sell their own 'Chicken Style' fillets which are made with Gardein and are REALLY good.

1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
4-5 teaspoons of Tikka Masla powder
2 teaspoons of regular curry power
2 teaspoons of cumin
2 teaspoons of garam masala
Half 400g tin of Chickpeas
Handful of Spinach
Tablespoon or so of Sunflower spread or Olive oil
2x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
Small bunch of spring (salad) onions.
3 teaspoons of Mayola
1/4 cup of Coconut milk
4 teaspoons chili power
4 tablespoons of Tomato Puree
1- 2 handfuls of Realeat 'Chicken' style pieces.

1. Chop onions, garlic, sping onions and fry them in the sunflower spread/oil for a few minutes. Add the Tika Masla curry power and the regular curry power and fry for another couple of minutes. (If it sticks and starts to burn (like it did with me!) add a bit more sunflower spread)
2. Pour the coconut milk over and stir in, fry for a while and then add the chopped tomatoes.
3. Add the rest of the spices, simmer for a few minutes, stir in about half a mug of water.
4. Add the 'chicken' style pieces.
5. Simmer for about 20-25 minutes.
6. Add Chick Peas Spinach and Tomato Puree, simmer for another 10 minutes.
7. Stir in Mayola and serve.

Give it a go.. and if you do, let me know how it comes out!
All the amounts are guesstimates because I just litereally go from what I think, so try and do the same... but it'll do as a guide!
Also, if you like Garlic, as I do you can add a good squeeze of garlic puree. YUM. =]

Best vegan curry ever!

Woop! I made a tikka masala type curry today and it was REALLY nice, I used Realeat 'chicken' and put in some chick peas too... and Spinach... and spring onions... that was just because they were reduced in Tesco, 3p for a bunch! BARGAIN!
I'll post the recipe tomorrow if anyone wants to try it for themselves, served it with the only naan breads I could find it Tesco which were actually vegan; which turned out to be the heatlhy low fat things and Hoummus, I just did the Hummus thing because I bought it and I'm not really sure what to 'do' with it......
BUT it was nice, dip naan into that and then in to curry and t'was really yummy! =]]

For dessert, I had Tofutti Mango and Passion Fruit ice cream topped with dried Cranberries and 'breakfast topping'... which is basically nuts and berries and shit. Again. Nice.

Wooop.... considering I just made it up and threw it together from random things I bought it went amazingly well. Haha.... and I have loads left over, so woot.

Jade Goody has died! =(

Well it's just been confirmed by Max Clifford that Jade has now died, I don't know when but I assume it would have been some time during the night, pretty odd that I randomly woke up at 4am this morning!

What a bad day to go aswell, on mother's day. =( Always a reminder to her mum and her sons.

But anyway, RIP Jade!

6 look-a-likes for everyone on the planet????

After finding this Facebook group it got me wondering, are there really 6 look-a-likes for every person on earth?

According to the 'experts' human beings can have around 1 billion phsyical variations and as we know, there's around 6 billion people on earth, so technically that would mean that there should be 6 people who look exactly or pretty closely alike? Do you think it works out?

It's a possibility. I've never seen anyone who looks like me, although it would be pretty fun to do so, but people have told me several times that they 'saw me' in a place where... I wasn't.
I've seen 2 people that are pretty identical to one of my friends (at least from certain angels, and if they lost/gained weight etc) and that's just in the city we live in alone, and one even in the same village (no, they're not brothers! ;-)).

Thinking along those lines, it could actually work out, but then what about celebs? Surely we'd have people popping up all over the place that look ALOT like celebs, not like these crappy look-a-likes that you can buy to come to your parties and all that shiz. I mean, the most famous one is probably David Beckham's look-a-like, and he's not really that similer?

Something else to consider is cosmetic sugery? What happens then? Can they only change it within the 'billion' variations, or are we able to 'create' our own new variations? The only person I've seen with a similar nose to Michael Jackson's nose is Jodie Marsh and I don't think either of those were quite how 'god' intended.

I'd like to think it's true, can you imagine how funny it would be sitting in a room with another 5 of you?

So if you look like this:

Let me know! We have some serious fun to be getting on with!

Cats are the best!

I think that this is THE single best AND funniest thing I've ever seen, I want to buy this cat..... and that printer. I'd actually swap for every form of telecommunication I own!

A change or two...

Okay well I thought it was time that we had a bit of a spring clean, since it nearly 'is' spring after-all and I've now been vegan for a goood few months, it's getting pretty dull being limited to only writing about 'becoming vegan', clearly didn't think that through when I started the blog! ha.

So I guess i'm going to use it as a general personal blog as well as vegan things, well, to be frank it's probably going to consist of mostly vegan things anyway, but it just gives the extra room to talk about crap and no one care, which is all good! Well, it is for me anyway!

I've charged the design a little bit, I will, in time design one of my own that fits 'me', but I'm currently stuck with a Windows laptop, and Windows being Windows it's unable to run photoshop, so I'll have to wait until I get a few hours with a mac! YaY!

Gardein!

Gardein. This stuff is AMAZING. It's like Quorn but vegan, and about 400x more tastey!
I found it a couple of weeks ago, well, I tried the Chicken 'style' things in tomato and herb sauce, and they were 'okay' the sauce wasn't exactly delicious as it tastes on the box but meh, I found some of Tesco's own 'Chicken Style Fillets' and it said 'made using Gardein so I got very excited and got some, and it's really, really good - it's tastey and kind of looks like chicken, and the texture is pretty close.... actually, no it's nicer than chicken, not only because it's cruetly free but it doesn't have that fatty slime stuff all over it.

They also do a beef apparently which I'll have to try some time, although I don't recall seing it anywhere.

Tweet Tweet Tweet!

So, Twitter. I must admit that I'm pretty addicted, I couldn't honestly tell you why, I guess it's just good to see what's going on with people/companies/groups.

I have several other vegans which I'm following and it's quite interesting to what some of their updates, although it also makes me jelous that I don't live in the US and don't have HBO over here.

Luckily the american friends are always hot on the case to post links and such like.

Along side keeping up with vegan stuff, however, it's also a good way to keep in touch with, well, anything - there's so many different people on there, with so many different interests who post about technology, current affairs, the mindless world of celebrity, oh, and speaking of celebs, there's a good few of them on their themselves!

If you're on there - Twitter me up.

Can we blame America for the nations obesity crisis?

Ok, this isn't strickly Vegan related, but it was something I was thinking about and thought I'd share. Not the most well written post, but yeah..

Can we blame America for the nations obesity crisis?
Have we been influenced by America so much that they're to blame? With the introduction of KFC, McDonalds, Burger King etc. Everything that we see on TV, where people are binging on fast food and pizza. Doesn't it all just make eating crap food seem 'the norm'?

I know we've always had Chip Shops in Britain, with Fish and Chips being our most popular national dish - if you can call it a dish - but in all fairness, it's really not that unhealthy when compared to the likes of a Big Mac or Whopper Meal.

What happened to the days when you woke up, had breakfast at home, did whatever you do in the day, lunch during that and then sit down for a family meal in the evening? I'm not dening that alot of the time the home-made pies and cakes weren't full of saturated fat and sugar, but a pie would generally be served along side a load of veg and cakes and other treats were classed and used as TREATS... not a daily 'cravings' buster.

How often do you hear 'oh I'd kill for a Maccy D's now!!!' or 'Oooh, I could murder a KFC!'? Well if they'd never have been introduced then people wouldn't be killing or murdering for them in the UK (in both senses, ironically) instead sitting down and eating set meals, people are just nipping for a take-away and binging on saturated fat.

Or if America isn't making us all fat, it's causing malnutrition from their glossy magazines pointing out Britney Spears' slight little tiny bump of fat on her stomach a week after having 14 thousand kids, or that is so wonderfully beautiful with her size minus 12 dress size and cheekbones that stick out further than her breasts....... it's just causing girls (and lads!) to skip breakfast, lunch..dinner and then they'll be starving, lacking sugar, and probably cave and have a Maccy D's anyway.

I know the likes of Closer, Heat and all the other trashy UK mags do the same thing, but again it's all influenced from America, what we 'want' or 'like' is infulenced by America.

Why can't we go back to what we were - when you can enjoy food that's heatlhy and when sexy is when you're looking healthy, not when you're bones are sticking out all over the place.

Okay, maybe it's not just America, but I think it's a large hand. We've got to be willing to acccept the change, and we have, but I think we'd be better off without their companies, ethics, trends and morals.


N.B This isn't American people, it's American corporations and their need to take over the world.

I GOT MY TATTOO!

Okay, I know I said I was waiting a year before having it done - but erm, I couldn't wait. haha.
Well my friend went for a tattoo, so I said I'd go with him to see what it's like etc.... anyway, one the way it really started me thinking, and I decided that if he asked me to get mine too I would... and he did, so I'm now formally branded Vegan!


My wrist looks really thin/my hand looks massive.. but yeah, that's my tat. WOOO! Still a little tender ha, I'll upload another one in a couple of days when it's fixed. =)

I think it's the only thing that I feel strongly enough about to actually have tattooed on me, I never intend on being un-vegan, and the tattoo generally 'means' something to me, rather than just walking into the tattoo place and picking something you think looks cool and then 'making up' a reason why it means something to you, like other people I know.

I've actually had really mixed reactions, my mum really likes it, my cousin hates it and doesn't understand why I've had that (although she has Sister in Chinese on her lower back, classy!) a mate found it 'comical', another one said it was AWESOME, another said it looked hot. haha.

But I'm really pleased with it, so that's all the counts really - never thought I'd get a tat, but I have and I like it, so woohoo!