Norwich Eco Awards Best Small Business!

I have just found out that Deerly Beloved Bakery has won the award for Best Eco Small Business from The Norwich Eco Awards! We are so pleased and happy to receive this award!
The awards ceremony took place this afternoon and I couldn't attend because you guessed it, I was making and delivering cakes! So it was a lovely surprise to hear from the awards organiser Claire Tullet that we had won! I apparently have got to pick up a certificate and a trophy, I have never had a trophy in my life but I am so happy to have gotten one for my little business.
Thank you so much to Norfolk County Council for recognising and encouraging green businesses! As my background is in environmental work, a chef promoting green eating and now, trying to make my business as sustainable as possible, from the ingredients I use to the packaging I package my cakes in, this means so much! Right I am off for a well deserved chocolate brownie to celebrate!

Read more here:
Evening News Write Up: http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/green_city_heroes_recognised_in_norwich_eco_awards_1_1961396
Norwich City Council Write Up: http://www.norwich.gov.uk/news/Pages/City'secochampionsareunveiled.aspx

Guest Post: Alex from In Vegetables We Trust's Breakfast Loaf Recipe!

At the last Deerly Beloved Vegan Meet Up I got chatting the the lovely Alex of In Vegetables We Trust and we decided to do a guest post on each others blogs! Alex's blog is amazing, full of inspiring dishes and it's so great to chat to someone who gets so excited about baking ingredients and food as much as me! So here is Alex's yummy Breakfast Loaf which includes my favourite ever fruit Blood Oranges plus yummy cranberries, cinnamon and quinoa flakes for a protein kick! I cannot wait to make this! Thanks Alex! X


A tasty sweet and healthy start to the day. Lovely toasted with vegan margarine or fruit spread. If you cant find quinoa flakes rolled oats will work just as well. as vegans we all know how awesome quinoa is. I buy fair trade quinoa to avoid that awkward "yeah but quinoa is evil for the farmers" speech and also well I buy fairtrade where ever I can afford it anyway, give me warm fuzzy feelings of niceness. This loaf is also makes the most luscious vegan french toast topped with fresh berries and pairs well with marmalade. This recipe makes 2 loaves. 

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups plain strong white organic bread flour, plus extra for dusting surfaces3/4 cup quinoa flakes, pulsed in a food processor1/4 cup quinoa flakes1/2 cup dried cranberries1/2 cup flame raisins1 tbsp ground cinamonthe zest of 3 blood oranges3/4 cup blood orange juice (about 3 oranges)1/2 cup  tepid almond milk, plus extra for glazing loafs1 sachet of fast action dried yeast1 tbsp agave syrup2 tbsp melted vegan margarine

Method:
Whisk the yeast into the tepid almond milk with the agave and set aside for a few minutes. In a mixing bowl stir together the dry ingredients and the orange zest, make a well in the center add all the ingredients to the bowl and stir together well for about 4 minutes, the dough will be quite wet. Turn the dough out onto a generously floured surface and knead in extra flour until you have a manageable dough. Knead for a few minutes more. Drizzle a little canola/rapeseed oil into a bowl a toss the dough gently round the bowl to coat in the oil. Cover with cling film and place somewhere warm for 1 1/2- 2 hours until doubled in size. Once the dough has risen to double the  size, half and gently knead into two loaf shapes and place into two lined loaf pans and allow to rise up for another 30 minutes. bake in a preheated oven at 200c/400f for 30-40 minutes until golden brown on the outside and cooked all the through. You can test the loaves by flipping upside down and tapping the bottoms, they should sound hollow. allow to cool before slicing. Makes lovely toast!

You can find out more about Alex's gorgeous recipes here: 

http://invegetableswetrust.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/InVegetableWeTrust

https://twitter.com/InVegeWeTrust

My Week According To My Camera!

1) Our New Chocolate And Coconut Snowball Cupcakes! Available tomorrow at The Norwich Vintage Fair at St Andrews Hall.
2) Roasted Onion and Tomato Rosemary Crumble Tarts! Available tomorrow at The Norwich Vintage Fair at St Andrews Hall.
3) Hazelnut Chocolate Cake available at Waterstones Cafe W!
4) Chocolate Orange Spice Cake available at Waterstones Cafe W!
5&6) Puppy play date!
7) Cheezy Potato Cakes with Rocket, Homemade Tomato Sauce and Sauteed Black Kale, Mushrooms and Cherry Tomatoes!
8) Making paper pom poms for our wedding! 

Cheezy Potato Cakes With Rocket, Homemade Tomato Sauce and Sauteed Vegetables.

For lunch today I made some Cheezy Potato Cakes with Rocket! Apparently rocket is cooked a lot in the Mediterranean but here we tend to use it mainly as a salad leaf! Anyway it was delicious, you could also use watercress for that same yummy peppery bite. I served it with home made tomato sauce and sauteed black kale, mushrooms and cherry tomatoes. This is a great recipe for using up left over mashed potato that normally gets chucked away! I say 'never chuck it away' as these little patties are probably more delicious than the meal the potato was left over from! 


Ingredients: Serves 2

Cheezy Potato Cakes with Rocket:
3 Medium Potatoes Mashed 
1 Cup of Rocket 
1 Tbsp of Olive Oil
1/4 Cup of Nutritional Yeast Flakes
1 Tbsp of Fresh Chopped Chives
Good Pinch of Black Pepper
Pinch of Salt to taste


Tomato Sauce:

1 1/2 Cups Of Tomato Passata 
1 Clove of Garlic Crushed
1 Tsp of Olive Oil
1/2 Tsp of Agave 
1/2 Tsp of Fresh Thyme
Salt and Pepper to taste

Sauteed Vegetables:

3 Cups of Black Kale washed and chopped into strips
6 Medium Mushrooms cleaned and chopped into thick strips
1/2 Cup Cherry Tomatoes cut in half
1 Tbsp of Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Turn your oven on to 200c and place a good non stick frying pan on the hob. In a bowl add the mashed potatoes, rocket, nutritional yeast, olive oil, chives, salt and pepper and mix. It will seem quite leafy and that it won't come together but keep mashing and mixing with a fork and it will come together. Form into 2 large patties and place into the hot pan with a splash of olive oil. Fry gently on both sides for 3 mins then when browned, place in a oven dish to finish cooking in the oven. Pop then in the oven and they will be beautifully cooked through once your sauce and sauteed vegetables are ready! 
In a sauce pan add the passata, garlic, olive oil, agave, thyme, salt and pepper and gently simmer. In the same frying pan you used to fry the potato cakes, add the tablespoon of olive oil and throw in the veggies. They should take around 8-10 minutes to saute on a medium heat. Add the salt and pepper to taste. Then while they are finishing cooking, plate up your potato cakes from the oven, drizzle over your nicely thickened sauce and then pop the sauteed veg on the side of the plate! Enjoy!
*Remember always to make sure your potato cakes are piping hot in the middle if using left over potato from a cold fridge!* 

Vegan Bake Sale!

Me and a group of awesome people are getting together to host a bake sale as part of the world wide vegan bake sale 2013 for Hillside Animal Sanctuary to raise money to help with the day to-day care of the animals and to go towards their important investigation work, and the lovely people at the Norwich LUSH store have kindly agreed to let us park up outside their shop. It's being arranged by the lovely Alex from InVegetableWeTrust, and Megyn Webb and Deerly Beloved Bakery will be there too! Find out more by clicking on the link below! 
http://invegetableswetrust.wordpress.com/bake-sale/

Stuffed Rice Wrapper Rolls With a Sweet Chilli and Coriander Dipping Sauce

These little Rice Wrapper Rolls are just divine and are a fantastic gluten free option for if you are intolerant to gluten or just trying to cut down of your wheat consumption. I teamed these rolls with a chilli and coriander dipping sauce which gives the dish a great zing and warmth. This is a great starter, light lunch, or with tofu fried rice these little yumsters happily replace a spring roll in a Chinese theme meal.

Ingredients:

Rice Wrapper Rolls:
Packet of Rice Wrappers soaked in cold water to hydrate.
1 Carrot cut into julienne strips
1 Red Pepper cut into julienne strips
1 Courgette cut into julienne strips
1x1inch cube of Fresh Ginger grated
1 clove of Garlic minced
2 Tbsp of Light Tamari
1/2 Tsp of Agave
1 Tbsp of Olive Oil

Sweet Chilli and Coriander Dipping Sauce:
1 Mild Red Chilli
1/2 Clove of Garlic minced
1 Tbsp of Coriander roughly chopped
1/4 Cup of Vegetable Stock
2 Tbsp of Agave
1/2 Tsp of Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Tbsp of Olive Oil
Pinch of Salt to taste

In a pan place the olive oil, garlic, ginger and the vegetables and stir fry for 2-3 minutes. When the vegetables start getting a little colour add the tamari and agave and continue stir frying for a further minute. We don't want to over cook the vegetables!
Take your hydrated rice wrappers and place a tablespoon or so of the vegetable mixture into the middle. Fold the ends in and then roll into a spring roll shape. Place to one side and continue until you use up all the vegetables. You can either eat these straight away cool, or you can pop them in a baking dish and pop them in the oven at 190c for 20-25 mins to crispen them up slightly. Then in the same pan you stir fried the vegetables in, add the chilli, garlic, stock, apple cider vinegar and agave and boil rapidly until a thick syrup forms. Then add the coriander and olive oil. Mix it in well as the olive oil may look like it will split the syrup but it won't, it will form a lovely glossy emulsion that will help keep the syrup thick, but calm down the fiery sweetness. Decant into little ramekins or spoon the flowing mixture onto the plates and stack up with the rice wrapper rolls fresh from the oven. Serve with salad, yum!
 

Lets Support Local, Lets Support Vegan!

I have been wanting to do a little blog series on local businesses that are vegan or run by vegan folk that provide a quality skill, product or service in our local area for a while and so here is the first!

Pete Wright Drum Tuition is run by our lovely friend Pete (his other half is the beautiful Lucy who some of you may have met at our vegan meet ups) who is a professional drummer and tutor based in Norwich. He has been playing since the age of 12 and teaching since 1997 and caters for all ages and abilities. 

Lessons are adapted to the students requirements and focus on, amongst other topics, a range of Techniques, Styles, Improvisation, Time-keeping, Reading Skills and Band Skills.

As well as working through his own syllabus  students have the choice of entering into Rockschool or Guildhall exams. Some of his past students have gone on to study at DrumTech, The Royal College of Music and the BIMM and also take on careers as session players, teachers and full time band members.As well as teaching, Pete plays and tours in a range of established bands and also offers out services such as kit servicing and drum kit hire.
Contact Pete on 07824397851 or email petewrightdrummer@hotmail.co.uk 

For updates check his blog at www.petewrightdrummer.blogspot.com

Lets support Local, Lets Support Vegan! 

The Homies Awards 2013!

We have been kindly nominated again this year for The Homie Awards! This year we are nominated in two categories Best Healthy Cooking Blog and Best Recipe Blog! Voting is a lot simpler this year, just click on the links below and you can sign in with facebook or twitter to vote! Then just scroll down the page and click Vote for Deerly Beloved Bakery! The first round of voting ends on the 8th of Feb so please vote now! And thanks so much in advance!!!!!

Best Healthy Cooking Blog: http://www.thekitchn.com/best-healthy-cooking-blog-the-homies-2013-183568
Best Recipe Blog: http://www.thekitchn.com/best-recipe-blog-the-homies-2013-183570

Birthdays and My Vegan Journey!

Today is my birthday and I also started my vegan journey 10 years ago today! 
Being a 17 year old and becoming a vegetarian seemed so natural to me, and each step after that to becoming the vegan gal I am today!
I got talking online to Jennifer Dunn who runs 'PS It's Vegan' and we got talking about some of our earliest memories of disliking the food that we were given as children, and how looking at the evidence, we were always meant to be vegan! 

Some particular memories I have are:  how I would fill up on massive amounts of mash potato (a favourite of my mums) so that I would be so full that I wouldn't have to eat the meat that had also been put on my plate. I would devour any vegetable put in front of me, even sprouts!

I also survived totally on peanut butter sandwiches or cucumber and salad cream sandwiches, for years. My mum would alternate them week by week as she was so worried about me getting fed up with them, but I never did. I was always a finicky eater and I think my mum was just glad that I was eating something and that the peanut butter had fats and protein in it! I was also a very short and skinny girl (nothing has changed really) and my mum would also sneak flasks of chocolate milkshake into school (we were only allowed water) to help me gain weight!

The year I was born, 1986 the BSE crisis happened  and my dad banned beef from our household. (I think if he was still alive today he would have probably gone vegan or at least veggie, as he wasn't happy with farming practices and worried alot about what him and his family were eating. He would spend ages reading ingredient lists on the back of every tin or packet we bought (which often made my mum grumpy, although now she is a wholefood wonder and has a huge interest in nutrition!) So because of the beef ban I have never tried it. Something I am very thankful for.

One of our Sunday treats were hot-dogs  (I say treats with the lightest of meaning for me as I dreaded hot dogs as I found them vile, but my sister loved them. I am happy to say she is a vegetarian now!) and I would beg not to have them, so after a few tantrums I was given just the fried onions in a roll with yet more salad cream!

I also remember my cousins loving bacon and I hated the stuff. Every time we went to my granddads he would make bacon sandwiches for us all. The smell would hit me and a panicked feeling would rise in me and all I would think about was how I would get out of eating them. It ended up with me picking out the bacon and passing it to my cousin, hoping I could fill up on French Fancie cakes that we would always have for dessert!

Do you have any young memories of not wanting to eat meat or dairy? I would love to hear them! 

I had a great birthday today! Yes I had a very busy baking day, but I also got to be home with Kyle, I got some great pressies (including a new deer for my collection!) and ate chocolate brownies for breakfast! Here are a few pictures from today. I hope you all had a great sunday X