My adventures for vegans, vegetarians & plant-based eating

I baked a vegan chocolate birthday cake for my daughter recently, and it turned out surprisingly well. I learned a few handy things along the way too.

Pepita butter, where have you been my entire life? Also known as pumpkin seed butter, this spread tastes a lot like peanut butter, is incredibly nutritious, wonderfully delicious and really, really green.

I’ve finally discovered the perfect use for overgrown zucchinis – make them into a raw zucchini sandwich. Just chop them into slices of “bread” and add your favourite fillings. Too easy.

I’ve wanted to try making my own homemade raw vegan chocolate for ages, and on the weekend I finally took the plunge. So far, so good. Sooooo good. This stuff is incredibly edible, totally addictive and wildly dangerous.

I’ve gone a bit mad recently for coconut water kefir. It tastes awesome and is great for you, so I’ve been attempting to make my own, using fresh coconuts. I’m going to keep opening coconuts and fermenting stuff until I figure this one out!

I LOOOOOVE sweet chili sauce. So I decided to have a go at making my own raw sweet chili sauce. It was really great for a first attempt, but I’m sure I can do better, so it’s back into the kitchen for me!

Yesterday for lunch, I made a quick fruit salad, with one sliced banana and two sliced strawberries, added a few generous spoonfuls of my tasty coconut yoghurt, and topped it off with a drizzle of raw orange marmalade. Yum.

When I was making raw hot cross buns at Easter, they seriously reminded me of mum’s date scones. So I’m currently adapting a them into a recipe for raw date scones, and the experiment is definitely headed in the right direction.

Here’s another awesome way to eat raw flax crackers: top them with generous helpings of raw walnut cheese and raw pear and muscat jam, and finish it off with creamy chunks of fresh avocado.

I realised that I could take any salad I make, and wrap it in rice paper for a perfectly portable, self-contained lunch. These ones were filled with chili chickpea spread and topped with rocket (arugula), avocado, cherry tomatoes and marinated mushrooms.

As a kid I LOVED colouring food green, much to the dismay of my family. So I took a tiny amount of spirulina and added it to a scoop of my vegan coconut vanilla ice cream, and this was the result – natural green ice cream.

A super simple, super delicious persimmon fruit salad for breakfast. I had some VERY over-ripe persimmons that needed using, so I made a quick fruit salad with bananas, kiwifruit and grapes.