The Coconut Collab - Plant-based Double Cre&m [@NLi10]

 All hail the vegans - for they have made it effortless to reduce the amount of dairy in my diet and still have a great time.  Take this for example - we want summer puddings - I want to not have too much dairy.  Here is a double cream (spelt cre&m) but it's all plants. I can enjoy my Wimbledon strawberries and no cream.

This means that a left over banana fritter from the takeaway can happily bathe in thick coconut goo, and become a proper pudding

Happy as can be.

If anything it's a bit too white and photogenic.  It looks great with red fruit and especially goes well with pineapple as it's like eating a Pina colada.

The coconut isn't strong, but it's present enough to enjoy.  I can see why this won taste awards, it's much more interesting than some of the other brands and begs to be tried with everything - only we finished it so now I need some more.

Magnum Collection - Vegan Almond Amande [@Nli10]

While at RSPB Bempton - looking at the puffins we spotted one of the recently released Vegan Magnums.  These appear to be an updated range on the previous ones. 

Lots of lovely nuts, no irritating dairy, and dark chocolate

Tada! Looks good.

Looks good inside too - creamy without cream and stayed frozen enough to eat on a very hot day.

Well recommended - even for non vegans.

Gnaw - Sea-salt & Caramel Hot Chocolate on a stick [@Nli10]

 Even though it's been a little warmer this week its still firmly hot chocolate weather, and a good excuse to use the ones we've accumulated up.

This one was a little more interesting with layers and ingredients inside - and it's another vegan one so perfect for my oat milk.

Sea-salt & caramel are not really my ideal choices, but in a drink it sounds nice

Cosy evening please!

Stick & blob

Melted easy enough

Decent colours & aromas!

Makes a nice chocolate - maybe for a bigger mug, and maybe hotter than I'd have it in my lovely stone mug.

Not too salty and not too sweet from the caramel either - a nice surprise and great to sit and watch the curling with.

Vemondo Plant! Schnitzel - vegan cutlets from Lidl [@NLi10]

 I was in Lidl, feeling under-the-weather and needed some effortless meals for the week.  I spotted these in the veggie section and decided they'd be worth a try.

Very simple Euro-style vegan cutlets - water, breadcrumbs and soy - yum

They look decent quality though, and fried up quite well.  Decent aromas and it didn't fall apart too much until the end.

It lost a bit of the coating, but I recovered it. I added spätzle and pasta and rocked and home-made pickled red cabbage.

And my goodness was it good.  The flavours were deep, the coatings crispy and the textures welcoming (even to my veggie partner). There are a lot of carniverous meals that are a pain to make at home as the Quorn cutlets and meat imitating cutlets just don't work.

Here though I've just unlocked so many lemon chicken style Chinese meals to veggify at home.  I can't wait to go back and get more - I hope it's not one of those temporary products for a theme week.

Alpro Chocolate flavour Dessert - Dairy Free [@NLi10]

 Alpro are my go -to brand for almond based dairy replacements.  I use the normal milk daily, and the barista for coffee for special occasions. 

So I get tempted to try their desserts...

Looks great - no dairy, veggie friendly and lovely chocolate too

And oddly they seem to think you wouldn't want it chilled - I say the colder the better.

And the date on these is insane - save them for Christmas if you like!

But in the end - it's just brown goo.  It's not chocolaty enough, its not sweet enough, it's not thick enough and it just doesn't spark joy.  Maybe I'll donate the remaining two to my parents and see what they think.

Cauldron Veggie Bakes - Pumpkin & Onion [@NLi10]

 We love vegan food, although my partner loves to add cheese.  As part of the meals we share the core is usually pre-made things like these - so new options are fantastic.  They tend to only say veggie on some boxes so they don't scare people off.

This is 4 lovely little bakes - not quite burger sized, but a lot denser than I'd expected

And they are mostly the real deal - veggies first on the ingredients - feel the nutrients course into your veins

With some tricolour pasta, spinach pile and a little sun-dried tomatoes it's a decent meal.  I mean I could have eaten 3, but with 4 in a pack that's a bit mean.  I also livened this up with garlic & chilli mix on the pasta which was great.

The bakes are really nice, and it's good to have something a little fresher than the frozen bags I gravitate towards.  They crisped up nicely too so I reckon you could get kids to eat a few more unusual veggies with these too.

Dinky Dim Sum Veggie Selection [@NLi10]

 Happy left overs day! Before we got to the Christmas stuff we had a mini Christmas with my parents and had these cool snacks from Sainsbury’s

They look like vegetables

Yummy!

Pop them in a steaming pot and heat away!

Oh dear - too long - they stuck together!

2nd batch done for 30msec less and much better - and we still have a 2nd box to crack. But look at these lovely veggies.

I’m tempted to shallow fry the next lot as these were still a little squidgy but the flavours and textures inside were great and they added a bit of pizazz to the buffet. 

Planted - not chicken - Lemon & Herb vegan fry-up [@NLi10]

 I like having a back-up veggie protein option to chuck into meals when they look a little sparse.  I added these to the basket and kept them for a rainy day.

The Planted range appears to have a few options, but Lemon & Herb felt the most versatile

Decently nutritious, and seems to have all the eco credentials you'd expect

Comes all sealed up

And it looked far too realistic for my partner to want to eat so I get the whole tasty box!

Essentially its got a lovely light smell and taste which is perfect for Italian food so I mixed it up with some pasta and sun-dried tomatoes from the Lidl Spanish range and it was great.

No one is going to confuse this with cooked chicken - but it crisped up really well when lightly fried and still kept the texture and taste.  I think that it'd work really well in a sauce too so I'll be trying that another time too.

Great to have more quality options!

Proper Chips - Katsu Curry Chickpea Chips [@NLi10]

Proper chips isn't as classy a name as Proper Corn (best variety here) and the branding change confused me at first and I thought these were linked to Pop Chips - but once I'd figured it all out I had to try these.

The ideas here are twofold - the original plant bit is high quality, and the flavours are adult and interesting.

97 kCal per serve is a bit mean here as the bag supposedly contains 5 20g servings - which means most people will eat 2.5 servings and not really notice.

Approx. 4 servings is also funny as 20g gives the 97 Kcal on the front - no wonder we are all failing our maths GCSEs!

Good ingredients and positive mission though.

And they look the part, smell the part & taste great.

And while they aren't that filling so I easily had half the bag as an afternoon snack, they are really nice and a great alternative to potato crisps or pop-corn.

Bonus points too for a) deciding to do a Katsu Curry (or chip shop curry) version - and b) getting it to taste like it's supposed to.  

I'd happily take a bag of these to the cinema to share and be nicely set up for a meal afterwards to discuss the film.

Alpro - Vegan yogurt style snacks - Blueberry & Cherry [@NLi10]

 I've been cutting back on the old dairy recently, but I'm yet to find a truly satisfying yogurt - but as Alpro make decent breakfast milks (but not for tea) so lets see what's up here.

This vegan version has plant based blueberry and cherry versions - both of the flavours are plants so shouldn't be an issue

They look like classic childhood cheap yogurts

Turns out it's essentially soy and sugar - which is fine, but surely Alpro are the almond experts - why aren't they in here.

And why such low fruit percentages?!

And what's a vegetal anyway

Looks Ok though - the lovely clear plastic is a great touch - but the label makes these a pain to recycle so I bet most just get chucked.

The consistency is a little too smooth - but would be perfect in a blended drink.  The flavour just isn't strong enough - why isn't there lovely little specks of the fruit to explode throughout?  Maybe it makes the soya go weird, who knows.

Overall though a nice, small desert.  Surely designed for the diet conscious and not me who wants to gorge on fruity goodness.  I've got loads of fresh fruit to add to the remaining ones though so a good time will be had.

Fry's Katsu (Vegan) Chicken Fillets [@NLi10]

 We've been a big fan of Fry's Vegan stuff for a very long time here, so it's lovely when I spot a new kind like these in Iceland.  Yeah - it's essentially a flatter version of the chicken fillet, but the sauce immediately gives you recipe ideas and gets the taste-buds tingling.

And they seem like a nice bunch too!

And as ever - it's decent quality ingredients

Air Fryer instructions are now on everything!  But - in the normal oven it goes.

Not the sauce - that gets defrosted and pinged in the Microwave.

Cat plus katsu! Definitely vegan as she's not trying to hit it.

The sauce is good - just enough spice to elevate it from Chip-shop-curry to Katsu, and the not-chicken slices as easily as you'd expect.

This isn't going to fool anyone, but your average person isn't going to care past the first bite.  They might be upset I ran out of frozen Udon noodles and had to settle for waffles instead.  As I had it all to myself I didn't add leafy greens, but I did have a pudding too.

A hit with me and one I'll add to the usual order.

Zesty Bean Quinoa from Iceland - vitamins in 2 mins [@NL10]

 I'm home alone this week - and it's nice to add a few vitamins along the way.  And it's even nicer to just take 2 mins to make them. Iceland sell stiff to hide in the freezer and then just add to a meal.

Easy!

And unusually it's got interesting things in there -not just peas and sweetcorn (although they do feature).

They don't look like much going in.

And then they look suspiciously like the things you get served in chain pubs!

And if you add a few vegan peperami, sub blessed tomatoes then it makes a decent meal...

Especially if you have a decent pudding lined up too!