My birthday... with all the food and veggie and cooking thinggie plus @ Alley Cafe

I haven't written on this blog for a while... Cooking and tasting food run as usual; however, getting a bit lazy to write.

My friends surprised me a lot during my birth week! All the presents are about food and cooking! I received a cupcake salt and pepper set, a vegan bibibam, a vegan apple cinnamon cake, a maple candy, a 100 vegetarian recipe book and... a pasta machine!! Love them all so much!

There was a little celebration in Alley Cafe. It's a vegetarian cafe and I've been there a few times before. The food taste so homemade~ The full English breakfast, sandwiches, and CHOCOLATE BISCUIT CAKE are my favourites! The large full English breakfast can really makes you full. There's also a half one if the stomach is not that empty. The vegan version would give us a scramble tofu instead of scramble eggs. The scramble tofu on the toast is the highlight of this breakfast.

There are so many different combination of sandwich bread and fillings and sauce, suitable for people with different dietary needs like gluten free/ vegan, etc. Just create our own sandwich! I tried the sesame bagel with cream cheese and spinach. It came with side salad with sesame sauce, my favourite as well!

This time I tried the daily special - Chilli on a baked sweet potato^^ How can I not love sweet potato? Such a nice seasonal ingredient to enjoy.

I ordered the CHOCOLATE BISCUIT CAKE everytime if I'm having dessert. It's digestive biscuits wrapped with chocolate and served with a scope of vanilla ice-cream and chocolate sauce. And it's all VEGAN!

When we almost finished the meal, I introducing this cake to my friends excitingly. Then a waiter brought out a CHOCOLATE BISCUIT CAKE from the bar, and I was so excited and shouted "Look! Look! Look!" Strange thing was, the waiter use a plane to cover half of the cake...!? It was my birthday cake! There's a candle on it!

That's the most surprise birthday for the last few years, thank you all my dear =]

Vegetarian Cookery School - Vegan pudding and desserts

終於上了期待已久的純素甜品課程，同類課程即使在本地亦很少見，聖誕大餐特別班早已爆滿，大蕃薯想報名都沒機會了><"


課堂上共製作了五款甜品和一款主菜，即場吃了兩款甜品：pancake和rice pudding，其餘三款（toffee pudding, dark coca muffin, cinnamon roll）就帶回家慢慢品嚐～最最最驚喜的是肉桂卷（cinnamon roll），味道根本是港式麵包呀！！師傅教我們用大豆乳酪和豆奶等做出鬆軟的質感，還有用糖加豆奶掃面，做出反光的靚靚包面。











另外pancake亦很不錯，只不過我組煎pancake時火候沒調校好，沒能做出像師傅的pancake鬆軟。原來除了楓糖漿外，現在市面上有好幾款糖漿供我們選擇，有海棗、龍舌蘭等，我喜歡黑龍舌蘭糖漿，就買了一支放在家裡。

Rice Pudding是很適合初學者的甜品，以椰漿和豆奶代替牛奶就可以了。這亦是大蕃薯第一次接觸Saffron這種香料，有種水果的淸甜，一小撮就能為整鍋布甸畫龍點睛！跟雲尼拿、橙香、提子乾等配合來煮飯亦很不錯。

師傅替我們弄了肉桂香橙布霖做Rice pudding的佐料，因為這步驟稍為麻煩，大蕃薯在家都懶很預備了......留待特別節日才加這佐料吧。



主菜是蔬菜批和兩款沙律，沙律的水準極高。要做出美味的生菜很有難度，將什麼生菜配在一起亦甚有學問。主角是甜品，蔬菜批和兩款沙律表過不詳。

這次大蕃薯學了好多純素甜品的基本功，以後焗糕點會很有用喔。

Gentle Gourmet Cafe (and more...) @ Paris

How can we miss croissant in France? I found the BEST vegan croissant! A MUST-try in Paris!!

Gentle Gourmet Cafe is a fine dining vegan restaurant in the 12th district of Paris. I went there for a French breakfast. It's better to make a reservation a day before even for breakfast. The cafe opens at 8am. I was there at 8.15am, but it wasn't ready. Luckily, they let me in and waited.

I was very hungry and the kitchen was still warming up. I decided to order something quick: croissant and a cup of coffee with heavy cream =]

The croissant really surprised me. A vegan croissant is difficult to make well, as it requires a lot of butter to give the layering and fluffiness and the pleasant smell. Usually vegetable margarine can't replace it well, but this one has almost the same taste as a normal croissant!!

Plus it had a blink blink surface, which is usually a brush of egg. I guess it was a brush of soya milk and sugar mixture (learned in the vegan dessert class, write about that later).

A chocolate dip came separate. It tasted so much like nutexxx!! That's a bonus to me.

The coffee is good as well, and I was very satisfied with the heavy cream on it. It was smooth and light sweet.

The cafe was serving a late summer menu. Half an hour later my full breakfast came to the table. I ordered a creamy scramble tofu with baguette.

The ingredients in the scramble tofu was a perfect match: smoked vegan ham, mushrooms, shallots and asparagus. Especially the asparagus made a well balance with the  sauce. One fresh and light, one creamy and heavy. The smoked vegan ham was firm tofu strips actually. If you expected something resembles ham, that might be a bit disappointing. I'm a big fan of tofu products, so again that was a bonus for me! The baguette was herbed rather that just plain.



The meal was quite cosy, but imagine how many times you can try a vegan croissant! At least chill for an hour or two with a coffee and the vegan croissant there!!

I had a nice Italian pizza and ice-cream... Check the ice-cream store and you may be surprised how many vegan flavour they had... the one I went had 6~7! The pizza was a take-away near the Sacre Coeur. Simply order a vegetarian pizza without cheese, then it turns into a vegan pizza =] The ingredients were abundant: aubergine, olives, tomato, mushrooms, pepper, etc. The pizza was baked fresh after the order. The base was a medium.