A cake revelation, the end of wild garlic affair, and the sarnie of my dreams

More from wild garlic world this week, when I used up the last bits of what remained from my stash last week.

To finish off the wild garlic I had left, I decided to use the leaves and stems chopped up along with parsley and other veggies in a bowl of gnocchi.

Like last week, I found it difficult to get the right of amount of wild garlic - enough to give a taste but without it overwhelming the entire dish with its flavour. On this occasion, there wasn't even the merest whisper of a wild garlic, so back to the drawing board for me! More wild garlic practice need!

Still, it wasn't a bad bowl of food.

Much as it pains me, the frequency of posting on this blog has decreased a fair bit in recent months, due to that nasty habit of life getting in the way of fun stuff like blogging. The main reason for that is between studying and working and all the related fun and games, I have so much less free time then I used to. I'm not complaining - I really hope something good will come of it in the end! - but it does mean I spend a lot less time in the kitchen then I once did.

Previously, cooking used to be a bit of a hobby, nowadays, food is more fuel. It's about making things quickly that are still tasty and nutritious and can be warmed up without too much fuss.

This may not be the prettiest tub of soup you've ever seen, but it was a beautiful colour and absolutely delicious. It was also (hoorah!) no fuss - sweat an onion, then add garlic, garam masala, butternut squash, stock and red lentils, and leave to do its thing for a while. At the end, a load of coconut milk gets involved for extra creaminess. Yum.

The other thing I've been loving of late is the nada egg sandwich filling from Crazy Sexy Kitchen. I really can't get enough of it right now. Check it out, in open sandwich format:

I promise there is some bread in there somewhere - more homemade sourdough. It's getting better, but it's not quite there yet!

Also, asparagus is still in season, so I'm gorging on all the good looking spears I can find right now. Cherry tomatoes are also coming in, and they're sweet and delicious - tomato season really is worth waiting for. There's also some shiitake chopped up in there, mainly because I found it looking lonely in the fridge and decided it needed some company.

Luckily enough, while I've been sweating over studying and exams, my other half has been amazingly supportive. When I needed a quiet day to work, he took himself out for an epic walk across London, and returned with two vegan cakes from a company I'd not heard of before, Essential Vegan.

Here's what he brought back:

When he told me he'd brought a chocolate brownie and a honey cake, I jumped a bit. "You know honey's not vegan, right?" I asked. He looked at me like I was daft. "Of course I know that. I checked with them and they said it was a vegan alternative." Excellent work from Mr Flicking the Vs!

The brownie was a little on the dense side for me, but I bet it would have come to life wonderfully with a short spell in the oven and some vegan vanilla ice cream of your choice on the side. The honey cake (honee cake?) was a complete revelation though - full of spice and ginger sweetness. It was amazing, and I hope to be eating loads more of it soon.

If you want to get yours hand on some (and you really should!), you can find out where to get your hands on these beauties on the Essential Vegan Twitter feed.