What I ate recently - the readymade and the homemade

Every so often when I was studying, I'd stop and snap a picture of my dinner, and think about posting it. Then I'd go back to looking at livers or immunology or whatever it was, and forget the picture.

So now, here I am, free of exams and ready to share the inner workings of my little kitchen with you.

Here's the most studenty thing I could think of: packet noodles with veggies. Those noodles? 35p from a supermarket near you. Back when I was doing my first degree, those noodles would have been a complete meal - no fear of a carb only diet there. Now I'm a great deal older and a committed veghead, I had to chuck in some veggies to make it a bit healthier. So, that's 35p crappy noodles and organic, box-scheme veggies. It's a bit of a food culture high-low clash, but it worked!

Here's something kind of fun I discovered in a grocery shop in Brighton: organic vegan taramasalata. I love that someone out there decided that what the world needed was a vegan version of a fish-egg dip!

Despite having all sorts of ingredients that I like - sunflower seeds, lemon juice, seaweed - I wasn't a huge fan. There was a faintly acrid tang to it I didn't like, but Mr Flicking the Vs had no such qualms and gleefully shovelled the lot down his neck. Mr FtVs was an avowed fish dodger even in his pregan days, so I'm pretty sure this wasn't much in the way of a faithful recreation of tarama. Still, as I say, I'm glad that there are people out in the world making interesting vegan food.

It wasn't all readymade goodies over the last couple of weeks though - I did venture into the kitchen occasionally. One of things I managed to rustle up was big batch of split pea soup, using a vintage bag of split peas from my cupboard. I say vintage, I mean old enough to be drawing its pension.

What I liked most about making split pea soup was that it's a one pot meal (yay to minimal washing up!). And if you're a lazy sod, or you had three weeks to memorise everything you could about the human body (yep, that's me), you can just chuck everything into one pot, leave to simmer for half an hour or so, and forget about for the duration. 

I didn't bother sweating the onions or garlic, like I normally would: I just cut up onions, garlic, celery, and carrots, hauled it all into a pan of bubbling stock, and let the magic happen. Minimal effort, maximum soup reward.

And what do you need to go with your soup? Bread of course!

What sort of bread do you need when you can't spend too much time baking? Soda bread. It's quick, it's tasty, and it looks like an alien's poop. You can't ask for more from a loaf. I use this recipe from The Telegraph, with butter for vegan spread and dairy free milk. It hasn't failed me yet.

The thing that people always tell you about soda bread is that it doesn't last that long, and it goes a bit wonky after a day or so. I want to know how these people have a loaf of soda bread hanging around that amount of time. These are not long-term fixtures in my house. One of these, a knife, some vegan butter and I'm a happy bunny.

Here's another little snackette I discovered in Planet Organic not so long. It's a vegan sausage roll by Clive's Pies, who make a lot of vegan and gluten free stuff. For some reason, I'd not given them a try before, but decided to pick up a sausage roll, because who doesn't love sausage in pastry.

I don't think is was one of my favourite sausage rolls, alas (I think I'd give that award to Holland and Barrett's, though Linda McCartney's aren't a pretty solid job too). The packet listed the ingredients as containing 'spices', but I think that should say 'a metric truckload of cumin'. And the pastry was a bit wonky. I'm loathe to do down a sausage roll entirely, so it's not bad in a pinch, but there are better out there.

Something I've been loving a lot more: Sojade yoghurt.

I'm not a huge fan of yoghurt, but Sojade has totally won me over. It's a French company I think, and all it's soya is grown in the country, so next time some omni starts banging on about how soya is killing the rainforest or some such, slap some Sojade in their hands and remind them that the vast majority of rainforest-grown soya ends up going to feed cattle for the meat trade. If your powerful arguments don't get them to ditch dairy, then a pot of Sojade should help change their minds.

There's a good variety of yoghurt flavours in Sojade's range, but I have a strong crush on the banana flavour and have been eating it like a woman whose gullet is due to close with the next full moon. Sojade, I salute your work.