Nelson Street Restaurant, Buckingham

Have I ever mentioned that I have 2 brothers? Well I do, an older one and a younger one, if you don't already feel sorry for me then you should. I went through years of double brother bullying, but we're all grown up now and are pretty much the Brady bunch (probably a lie). Weirdly we all like to cook, my little brothers (lets call him bearded Hef) specialties are very non vegetarian pulled pork and mega sandwiches (think man vs food) and my older brother (lets call him moustached Hef) has worked in restaurants since he was about 16. This year he started working in Nelson Street restaurant and I've had the privilege of eating there twice. I'm not going to do a proper review because it may be slightly biased, but the food really is spectacular as is the decor, the service and the atmosphere of the restaurant. So I'll leave you with some pictures of what I've eaten there, which I'm sure will be enough to make you want to go!

Blue cheese, walnut and poached pear salad

Glamorgan sausages, creamed spinach and beetroot.

Nut roast with dauphinoise potatoes and red cabbage.  

Salt and caramel chocolate tart.

White chocolate fudge, salted caramels and chocolate truffles. 

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Rick's Thai Butternut Squash Soup

It seems a whole season has passed since I last blogged. I wish I could give you an excuse other than that I'm lazy, but I am just lazy. To add to my laziness this isn't even my recipe, but it was too good not to share. I work with some awesome people and one is those awesome people is called Rick. As if he wasn't already awesome enough, he has started making us all soup! I missed the first batch of soup due to that bastard tonsillitis (I was devastated, as you can imagine), luckily he made it again the week after and I'm not joking when I say that it was the best soup I have ever had. It's spicy and warming and it just tastes bloody delicious. 

Serves 4 (in Hef/large portions)

For the red Thai curry paste:

2 red chillis
2 cloves of garlic
2 shallots roughly chopped
2 long red chilies
A thumb of ginger, peeled and chopped
The juice of 1/2 a lime
3 tsp light soy sauce
A handful of fresh coriander
1/2 tsp ground black pepper

For the soup:

1 large butternut squash
A glug of olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tbsp grated ginger
1 stick of lemongrass halved and bashed
400ml vegetable stock
1 400ml can of coconut milk

1. Start by peeling, deseeding and chopping your squash (worst job ever!) then pop it in to a baking tray, cover with a bit of olive oil, season and pop in to a preheated oven at 200 degrees for around 40 minutes. 
2. While it's roasting away, chuck all of the ingredients for the curry paste in to a food processor, blitz until smooth then put to one side. 
3. Half way through cooking the squash, soften the onion in a large saucepan with a little olive oil along with the ginger and lemongrass for around 5-8 minutes. 
4. Then chuck in 3-4 tbsp your home made curry paste and cook for around 3 minutes to release the flavour. 
5. Then pour in your vegetable stock and coconut milk and bring it to a light simmer, add the roasted squash and leave to simmer for 20 minutes. 
6. Finally fish out the lemongrass pieces, blend and enjoy!

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Saf, Kensington

It was vegan Emma's Birthday a few weeks ago, which is always great because it means I get to go and play with Vegan Emma for a while and it almost always involves good vegan food (like most of our play dates). This year we met up after my training day in London, then went to Saf in Kensington. Emma had a voucher so we could only choose a few things on the menu, but I found it hard to chose out of 3 items, so would have definitely struggled with the full menu. The restaurant is based in Kensington above a Wholefoods (I could spend days in this shop), we rushed there after both being stuck on the same train in different carriages! 

I chose the starter before I went otherwise we would have been there all day! Emma already knew which one I was going to go for, but really, how could I resist raw vegan cheese. The dish sounded amazing, Pesto au Poivre: basil pesto between layers of cashew cheese with a pink peppercorn crust, served with rocket salad, dehydrated raw flax seed crackers and drizzled with a balsamic glaze. It was one of those dishes that tasted as good as it sounded, lovely crunchy flax crackers, with salty cheese and a thick layer of pesto. This was definitely the best cheese substitute I've ever tried and to be honest I would rather eat it over dairy. 

Emma had Dolmades: vine leaves filled with cauliflower rice, pine nuts, cumin, lemon juice and dill served with a vegan yoghurt and cucumber dip. I'm a bit afraid of vine leaves, but tried one anyway for the sake of my blog (and because I couldn't resist). I can confirm that they were also delicious. 

For the main I went for the Asparagus Farinata: slow-roasted asparagus tips in a chickpea farinata crêpe served with lemon- tarragon aioli and house salad. I feel a bit sad with myself for choosing this one because although it was really yummy, Emma and I made something similar not too long ago and I feel like I should have ventured out and had the raw pad thai. This can only be a good thing though, as it means that I will have to go back to try it :)

I loved trying the raw dish at Saf and I'd definitely recommend it for a filling, nutritious meal, you can check out the website here. I had a lovely vegan Emma's birthday (I hope she did too) and we finished the evening off by visiting the roof top film club in Hoxton and watching the Big Lebowski :) 

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Pulled 'Pork' Flatbread

I don't quite know where September went this year, but it seems to be over and that means that Vegan Mofo has started! I not only wanted to blog about vegan food, but also wanted to try to be vegan for the month. I'm sad to tell you that I have already failed. There's a lady (we call her biscuit lady) who always leaves us a packet of biscuits after she shops in Lush. Well, today she came in and left us chocolate biscuits and without even thinking I ate two. I am rubbish. So I decided I should make up for it by making an awesome vegan meal. 

I'd seen vegan pulled pork online and was intrigued by how realistic it looked and how good it sounded. So I popped to my local asian supermarket and brought some jackfruit, it then sat in my cupboard for well over a month until I decided to finally use it. It looks a bit weird, but after you've chopped the solid insidey bit off, it leaves you with a non flavoured stringy 'meat' which you can turn in to pulled pork! I chose the lazy mans route and used ready made BBQ marinade and seasoning, because I feel like being lazy today. It still turned out great, full of flavour and melt in the mouth. Both of my brothers even wanted to eat it which is saying something because they are both massive meat eaters.

Serves 2:

A glug of olive oil
1 small red onion chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1 tsp BBQ seasoning
Around 500g canned jackfruit in water
250g vegan BBQ marinade
150ml water
2 flatbreads

1. Start by preparing the jackfruit, remove from the can and cut the hard bits off from the inside of the chunks and discard. Then rinse the jackfruit in a sieve under some water and pull the chunks apart with your hands, drain well and leave to one side. 
2. Heat the oil in a sauce pan, then add the onion and fry for around 10 minutes.
3. Add the garlic and fry for a further minute, then tip in the jackfruit and the BBQ seasoning in and fry for another 5 minutes. 
4. Add the BBQ marinade and water and simmer for around 30 minutes stirring occasionally until the jackfruit is lovely and soft. 
5. When it's done, transfer the 'pork' on to your flatbread and fold up, serve it with wedges and vegan slaw (I wanted to make some but Morrisons had run out of carrots!) and enjoy!! 

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