Chocolate and Beyond

Chocolate and Beyond - Make Me Best Vegan Blogger 2014, Please!

Well folks - if you have been enjoying Chocolate and Beyond and my recipes, it's time to show me the love. How? By casting your vote in this year's VegFest Awards 2014, where my little ol' blog has been, wait for it, NOMINATED! Yes. For the Best Vegan Blogger award.

Voting opened on the 1st July, and closes on September 15th, giving you all plenty of time to start voting  and, if you didn't mind, sharing my post to try and tally up a few more votes.

Come on people - you know me and my recipes deserve it :-) Vote for me here, please: http://www.vegfest.co.uk/vote

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Vegan Manchester - Vegan-Friendly Social Group Launching 20th November @ Soup Kitchen

Phew, it's been a busy couple of weeks! And next week on 20th November, it will be the launch night of Vegan Manchester, a new social group for vegans, their friends, and the vegan curious, to be held at Soup Kitchen in the city's Northern Quarter, with drinks and food from 6.30pm onwards. Our group on Facebook is growing rapidly, and the numbers on our events page for the night itself seem to be fast increasing, too!

Vegan Manchester is a group that I set up together with my friend, Sophia Fox, after we decided there needed to be a social group in the region that was a little more dynamic (as opposed to more of a fixed location support group) - moving around the North West to embrace everything on offer for vegans here, as well as engage local businesses to offer more to vegans - as we are definitely a growing movement!

Review: Vegan Beer & Food Tasting at BrewDog Manchester!

Although it's been open for more than a year, it was just a few weeks ago that I visited BrewDog Manchester for the first time. I have been to a London Camden branch before, swayed by the prospect of vegan bottled beer and a cool atmosphere, but I actually didn't even realise Manchester had become home to a BrewDog until I was invited to a beer and food pairing there.

So yes. The first thing to know about BrewDog is that all their bottled beers are vegan. And some of them are pretty damn good. Cask ales not so - I remember being told this by the bar staff in Camden, and also the Barnivore site lists them too.

FREE Rebecca Kane Raw Food Recipes & 'Shine Inside and Out' Book Giveaway!

Does the idea of 'raw food' conjure images of cows chewing the cud, or rabbits nibbling on lettuce? I have to admit, I too was guilty of harbouring misconceptions about raw food until a couple of years ago. I thought it meant just smoothies (which I do love, but not all the time) and boring salads. I didn't realise the world of raw food could be so creative and flavourful until I experienced raw tacos at a restaurant in Portland, Oregon, a couple of years ago.

Now, I'm certainly no raw foodie (as you can tell from the recipes on my blog, I LOVE cooking), but whenever I give a raw recipe a try these days, I am always pleasantly surprised. And even more so when it is very simple to create. I don't have equipment like a dehydrator (so anything involving one puts me off), not even a spiralizer, which is exactly why Rebecca Kane's Shine Inside and Out book is brilliant. There's nothing complicated in it at all, so how fab Rebecca has offered to give a copy away to one of my readers?!

Living Vegan: Vegan Vibes & Madchester at Bristol VegFest

There's nothing quite like the feeling of being around several thousand vegans and vegan-curious people when you generally live in a non-vegan world. Throw in some fabulous music, a few comedy acts, cookery workshops, talks and a banquet of free vegan food in the form of samples (believe me, you can stuff your face on these!), and being vegan has never felt so normal. Which is how it should be. And there you have Bristol VegFest.

Even better, aside from Friday evening when poor old Caravan Palace, who were playing at the opening event, almost got blown and rained off stage, the weather was perfect heat and sunshine. Which is rare in Britain these days. So the festival atmosphere really got going from Saturday morning onwards. And it has been my most-loved weekend of the year so far.

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In its essence, for this plan, you basically finish eating by 7pm at night, or whatever time suits your lifestyle, and then you don't have your breakfast until 11am the next morning, or whichever time leaves 16 hours between when you last ate.

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Since discovering this 100% vegan brand and woman-owned company sometime last year, virtutally every single make-up product I have ever bought since has come from JPM. Yes, I love the stuff that much!

And whenever I make a new order, I camp by my letter-box waiting for my delivery. I don't know - from the process of choosing and ordering (the site just seems so personal to use, and the actual service even more so), through to the excitement of receiving and wearing the products - as well as the great value prices - I adore everything about Just Pure Minerals.

Vegan Living: The World in VeggieVision Technicolour at Brighton VegFest!

I have just got back from an absolutely incredible weekend at Brighton VegFest. From a vegan doner kebab stand to wonderful vegan performance artists to vegan bodybuilding competitions to a talk about foraging, it was all there. I ate my own weight in free food samples (honestly, you can really fill up on these things!) and got squiffy while drinking vegan prossecco and networking. And among all that, I managed to lurk around on the VeggieVisionTV stall, pretending to be of some use.

It all happened rather quickly, as I had not been intending on making the substantial journey down from Manchester - although I had been sorely tempted. But fate intervened and the next thing, I was all-of-a-sudden and very-last-minute making plans to head down there, having been invited by the beautiful Karin Ridgers, who is the founder of VeggieVision.TV.

Vegan Living: Getting in a Lather - My Adventures with Making Olive Oil Soap

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I had seen various 'recipes' on the internet for soap, and after discovering that a lot of vegan soaps actually contain palm oil, I wanted to have a supply that didn't, without thinning down my meagre bank balance too much. So why not try it out myself, I thought, then I know my soap does not contain anything I don't want it to contain. Plus I quite fancied the idea of making Lush-style soap without having to shop at Lush.

Win A Copy of 'Vegan Food Gifts' by Joni Marie Newman!

This Christmas just gone, I had been in receipt of the wonderful new book 'Vegan Food Gifts' by the even more wonderful Joni Marie Newman, who is author of the famous veggie burger bible, The Best Veggie Burgers on the Planet. This meant that many of my loved ones got given hand-made jars of all things nice and vegan from me this year, thanks to some of the ideas in the book.

I was very excited about the arrival of Vegan Food Gifts. It was full of intriguing and creative ways to make unique gifts that are so much better than anything you can buy in the shops. I was most interested in making up jars from the 'Just Add Water' section - I did the Fudgy Brownie Mix, the Spicy Taco Mix, and a couple of others. My recipients seemed to be very pleased with their gifts!