Back in June me and Emily decided to do a little city trip and thought that Leeds would be a good choice as neither of us had visited before. It just so happened that a Vegan Fest was on in Leeds that weekend - how's that for timing!



The first place we stopped (even before the hotel) was for breakfast at Roots and Fruits. A cute little veggie cafe located in the Grand Arcade. I had a vegan breakfast with scrambled tofu, veggie sausages, chipotle beans, grilled tomato, spinach and nutmeg. Yum!



The Great Yorkshire Vegan Festival was held in the beautiful Leeds Town Hall and had a great selection of stalls selling and sampling all kinds of vegan products as well as food.













We went for an explore in the city centre and in The Corn Exchange which was full of independent stores and vintage shops :) 

Okay so this blog post is slightly belated - about 3 months actually! I have had a lot going on in these last few months. I finished my degree (I actually had confirmation a few days ago that I passed - hooray!), I moved back home to Wales, I worked at the museum for a few weeks, then I moved to Berlin! So it has been pretty chaotic as you can imagine!



Before I left my final year placement in Leicester I wanted to make some little treats for my lovely co-workers and decided on this vegan chocolate cherry fudge recipe I found from Madeleine Shaw. I couldn't find any dried cherries so I went for dried strawberries instead (I think it was a pretty good choice!). I also bought the cute little gift boxes from Paperchase (find them here!)


You will need:

A simple summer berry smoothie to quench your thirst and satisfy your sweet tooth!

Inspired by the Nakd bars these choco-orange energy balls have only 4 ingredients, are so easy to make and taste delish! They're so handy if you just need a quick energy boost I've been carrying some in my bag for emergencies :) Also total goodness, which is handy for a tasty easily grab-able snack.


Ingredients:

(makes 8-10)

• 1 cup cashew
• 1 cup dates
• 1 tbs coco powder
• zest of 1 small orange
• 2 tbs water

Recipe number 3 from the Deliciously Ella cookbook and it really is a delicious one! It is getting to Summer time but it's always curry season to me :) The coconut made it really creamy and the chili gave it a great kick. All around tasty and enjoyable, it's definitely one for my recipe keeper! And it was actually pretty simple to prepare.

Last weekend I was in Bristol for Dot 2 Dot Festival. The Bristol Vegfest also happened to be on so it was pretty good timing :)

Sweet potato brownies were my next adventure from the Deliciously Ella cookbook. Considering they're mostly made up of sweet potato it's hard to believe how they're so, well, brownie-esque! And what's great is that every single ingredient has great health benefits - it's basically a well rounded meal in itself!

• 2 large sweet potatoes (around 600g)
• 80g ground almonds
• 100g buckwheat or brown rice flour
• 14 medjool dates
• 4 tbs raw cocao (I used regular coco powder and doubled the amount)
• 3 tbs pure maple syrup
• pinch of salt

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C
2. Peel and chop the sweet potato into chunks. Steam it until it's nice and soft (10-20 mins depending on how small you chop the chunks)
3. Once that's done add to a food processor with the dates and blend until smooth and creamy.
4. Add the mixture to a large mixing bowl along with the rest of the ingredients. Mix well.
5. Add the mixture to a baking tray and bake for 20-30 mins. 
6. Leave to cool down fully before digging in!

This is one of the vintage finds I nabbed from Freshman's Boutique in Sheffield (£10!). Needed a quick altering job