If I’ve gotta slave over the oven and an actual meal to prove to you fuckers that this roast is the god damn best thing to grace the Christmas vegan scene THEN I FUCKING WILL.
I know that Ryan and I are absolute Linda McCartney sluts, but hear me out: Fry’s Family Food are knocking it out of the park AND they are completely vegan so there’s no risk of picking up one of their products, shovelling it into your mouth, and then later finding out it contains milk/cheese/honey/general non-vegan sadness.
I even made roast potatoes to prove my fucking point. This. Shit. Is. DELICIOUS.
It’s not supposed to be a mock meat, but the closest thing you can liken it to would be meatloaf. OKAY, OKAY, I KNOW, BUT BEAR WITH ME HERE.
It is super moist and doesn’t have any weird chewiness or questionable texture, and is very flavoursome on its own which is impressive for what is essentially a brick-sized slab of soy.
It is meaty enough to throw back to the omni days of roast dinners (if you had them) but not too meaty as to be so questionable that it’s off putting. It also goes super fucking well with cranberry sauce and gravy, and rest assured I smothered that shit all over my meal because there is no dignity in how to properly consume a roast dinner. Pile it high, gravy it the fuck up, and eat like it’s your last meal. It is the only way.
The roast costs about £5 and serves three normal humans or two greedy bastards (a.k.a 2 of me) which is pretty fuckin ace considering other vegan roasts such as Tofurky are way more pricey, and the quality alone is a massive payoff.
Would I feed it to my omni pals? I mean, I could. It quite clearly is not meat but it’s nowhere near the realm of being branded as “weird vegan shit”. It’s the kinda thing you could serve them if you’ve gone to effort of cooking them an entire meal and they literally have zero right to be an obnoxious pain in the ass. Eat the roast and shut up, Alan, you fucking prick. (I don’t know an Alan, but I feel like if I did he’d be one of those “where-do-vegans-get-their-protein” assholes)
Do you want to try a cheese that will punch you square in the fucking face? No? Me either. But I did. Because SCIENCE. And also because it is the latest addition to the free-from coconut alternative cheese range at Tesco, so how could I refuse?
This is a different cheese than the ones we have come to know and love (or hate… the jury seems to be hung on Tesco cheese). It is much softer, creamier, and a little bit wetter than the cheddar or blue block cheeses that Tesco has to offer. It reminds me a hell of a lot of goats cheese, but without the offensive sour tang that I used to fucking despise.
The cheese itself has a nice peppery undertone but HOLY MOTHER OF GOD the peppercorn crust will kick you in the teeth and spit in your bleeding mouth. It is so ridiculously intensely peppery I can only imagine that the food techs of Tesco sat in a room and said “let’s fuck em up”. The worst part is the crust is at the BOTTOM of the packet… hidden… waiting… ready to strike.
I won’t lie to ya, I manhandled my cheese. I grabbed that fucker and scraped off as much of the godforsaken crust as I could. Only then did I actually get to enjoy it without fear of my tongue being turned to ash.
This is one of those things you would buy if you were putting together some fancy-ass cheeseboard at a dinner party you’re hosting to fool yourself and your friends into thinking you’re some sort of upper-class twat.
“Oh Deborah darling do try the peppercorn cheese… it’ll blow your fuckin tits off.”
I think the fuck not. There are peppercorns in my teeth that will be there til I die.
However, I will say that despite the satanic crust the cheese itself is top notch. It would be awesome if Tesco released a range of new cheeses based on this style to add a bit more variety to their already kick-ass free from aisle. It’s one of the few cheeses on their shelves that I would confidently say you could feed an omni with next to no complaints or comments about “real cheese” (seriously, fucking spare me).
So, it’s a bit of a tough one to score this week, so I’m gonna go on the average of how impressive the cheese is and how much peppercorn related regret I have.
It’s been YEARS since I’ve had any “cold cuts” and they’re rare to see on supermarket shelves but trust in Fry’s family to be the saving grace. Their thick and meaty slicing sausage is an a-fucking grade meat replacement. It’s also pretty expensive for £3.99 but it’s also probably not a good idea to be eating this on the regs. (Note: I got too excited and sliced through half of it before I took a photo, it does come as a full sausage)
This is not quite the bologna you knew before. It comes in the same BDSM-inspired plastic packaging with the clamps at each end and has the same weight and feel as your everyday slicing sausage but underneath the texture is a little bit off. It’s definitely not bad and it’s the same “compacted meat” feel of meat but it’s a little spongier? Cakier? Not the kind of words I’d want associated with my meat. That said, it’s still pretty close to the real thing and being able to eat cold cuts again means I’m not all that fussed about a little stodginess. There’s the chunky bite to it, the way it feels in your mouth – all baloney.
Fry’s have nailed the taste on this. Crucified it. It’s pretty much what I remember bologna tasting like, though a little dry it’s still rich. It’s real salty (what sausage isn’t) but real peppery at the same time and it’s also got that weird salami-like after taste to it as well. I would honestly put this at a solid 8/10 for closeness the real deal.
Using this as a replacement? Yes. All sorts of yes. The texture is a little weird but if you were to use it for just about anything other than those fancy bourgeoisie charcuterie boards, you could slip this in unnoticed. The other slight thing that makes it slightly more distinguishable is, as I said, it’s real salty. For essentially £4, I would say it’s a good one-off buy but the fact it IS hard to find but is still the best cold cut alternative I’ve come across yet.
My Rating: 4/5
Omnivore Score: 4/5
Overall: 4/5
Find this product at: Holland and Barrett and Ocado.
I found Raw Food Rosie’s stall at VegFest London 2017 and it was hands down the best find of the whole festival.
I tried EVERY. SINGLE. CHEESE. (because I am a shameless and broke student) and not a single one disappointed. Seriously, the Vampire Slayer spreadable cheese blew my fucking brains out it packed such a punch.
I bought the original cashew brie because I’m a sucker for the good ol’ classics and it is one of my favourite vegan cheeses ever (if not one of my favourite cheeses ever in general).
JUST LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE. THIS SHIT IS FANTASTIC.
It’s solid, but creamy. Apply a little pressure or let it sit at room temperature and it will spread like butter. It’s thick and rich and filling and literally everything you could want in a cheese. It makes it so diverse – you could eat this on crackers, in sandwiches, in a pasta dish… or you could sink to my level and just hack at it like a mad woman and eat it straight from the wrapping.
Price-wise it’s one of the more reasonably priced ‘artisanal’ vegan cheese at £5.50 a wheel, and it can be frozen which means you have no excuse to not dedicate an entire freezer drawer to fulfilling your cheese needs (just me? alrighty then…).
If you wanna crack this out for your omni friends and family (if you have the willpower to part with it) then it would go down pretty well compared with supermarket takes on vegan cheese. It’s much more flavoursome but in the right way, and the texture is fucking perfect.
My only issue is that I wouldn’t necessarily call this a “brie” because that makes me think of a thick white rind and soft gooey centre, which this cheese definitely does not have. As a generic mild, semi-creamy cheese though you will struggle to find anything better than this and definitely not at a better price.
Overall, it’s fucking ace.
My Rating – 5/5
Omnivore Score – 4/5
Overall – 4.5/5
Find this product at: http://www.rawfoodrosies.com/shop/
Now THAT title is a mouthful. With Halloween just gone, it’s that Christmas time of year (and I’ll join our fellow punks, Marxists, socialists and anti-capitalists in groaning in distaste) which means one thing: roast dinner. No matter if you celebrate it or not, winter is a perfect time to be sat inside for a cosy roast, with maple roasted parsnips, garlic butter brussel sprouts and cranberry jelly but it’s always a cause for stress. For £3.50, Linda’s got you covered.
I won’t lie, I didn’t expect my roast to come in a foil pastry tray. It’s not a problem (hell, there’s very few things that would get in the way of my food, foil is not one of them) but it was surely unexpected. It doesn’t really look appealing either, just a flat “meatloafy” log that someone’s slapped into a dish, hardly the rustic and mouth-watering meal you’re going for but don’t let that put you off. All in all, not off to a good start. Then I stopped all my moaning and shut up. Straight out of the oven it smells like glazed shallots and looks much much richer than the frozen TV dinner I was first greeted with. I figured I’d try some of it dry and some with gravy but you know what? I didn’t even need any. Its bottom is soaked in a hot, sticky, smoky red wine glaze and it retains so much moisture it’s like digging in to a drowned pigeon. The meat itself has the same crumbly texture of stuffing but it’s not as dry and isn’t going to suck all the water out of you. Instead it sits perfectly well in your belly with mouthfuls of syrupy sauce and hunks of “meat”.
Taste? Well, it doesn’t taste of meat or roast dinner and I’d be pretty damn horrified if it did. No, this is beyond that. It’s pretty non-offensive and doesn’t opt for strong flavours in itself but definitely bulks out your lonely collection of brussel sprouts, peas and carrots. It’s not there to add crazy flavour to your dish, just to soak up the gravy and add a little juice of its own (everyone loves a little of their own juice, right?)
I wouldn’t recommend trying this out for everyone at the dinner table. It’s no pork belly or turkey, but it’s damn good all the same. It doesn’t try to be identical to your meat and doesn’t go the other extreme of tasting like your uncle’s “famous nutroast”. All in all, Linda never disappoints and I’m shocked you even read this far before figuring it out Hail Linda, hail.
My Rating: 4/5
Omnivore Score: 3/5
Overall: 3.5/5
Find this product at: Tesco’s, Ocado, Saisnbury’s and Iceland.
Contains: a shitload of free samples and a fuckload of people
Free From: You’d think it’d be free from meat eaters but some dude selling soup chatted to me about how he went back to being omni so there’s that
VegFest London 2017 had the biggest turnout to date, and it was fucking awesome.
There were international vendors set up throughout the exhibition centre, selling everything from pizza slices to lamps made from Himalayan salt.
Being a poor student I obviously went with the intention of scoring as many free samples as I could, and good GOD I was not disappointed. I managed to eat so much free shit I didn’t need to buy food to eat while I wandered around – which I was actually disappointed about because the food hall was INCREDIBLE … though this did save me from the ridiculous waiting times that hit around midday (the queue for Jake’s Vegan Steaks was easily half an hour long the whole time I was there).
Fortunately there was also booze. Booze with no queues. A no-queues booze cruise. (Don’t be deceived, there was no cruising. I only had half a mango-flavoured cider because someone – cough, RYAN, cough – passed his plague on to me.)
So here’s a little roundup of the vendors that stood out based on the free samples I snagged and those that coerced me into buying their wares. Fair warning, there may have been a bias towards cheese-related goods…
Alternative Stores
A fucking incredible online store (with an actual shop based in Newcastle) that sells damn near anything and everything you could dream of. Whipped cream to tofu presses, Quinoa Puffs to shoes – you name it they’ve got it (and the people that run it are the SWEETEST HUMAN BEINGS ALIVE).
Marshmallows and biscuits and everything smothered in chocolate… holy fucking shit I swear to god this stall was heaven. I picked up four of their Round Up biscuits and I wish I’d bought the whole damn table because they are fucking ace.
Yas (my long-time friend, fellow vegan, and the person who stopped me spending my entire life savings at VegFest) and I tried some of Conscious Chocolate’s free samples and they were hands down the most flavour-intense, gorgeously rich chocolates we had ever tasted. You’d be a fucking fool to not try these (and an even bigger fool to not remember to go back to their stall and buy an actual bar GOD DAMMIT).
I fucking love how their tagline is “probably the best seitan in the world”. It’s like, “we don’t wanna brag, also there’s a fuckload of seitan out there so I mean statistically maybe not but like we’re pretty damn good so at least top ten. Definitely top ten. Stretching for top five.” Taglines aside, their seitan is pretty fucking awesome, especially the chilli and italian flavours. If, like me, you’re a lazy motherfucker and every time you get off your ass and attempt to make seitan it turns out like a chewy leathery catastrophe then you should definitely check these guys out.
Anyone who knows vegan sweet treats knows Ms Cupcake. They are some of the damn finest cakes, cookies, and bakes the vegan world has to offer. I picked up one of their red velvet cookie sandwiches (on the right in the photo) for my omni sister and holy shit it was good. You could feel the cavities forming, it was that full of sugary goodness.
New Roots is a Swiss company that do bloody INCREDIBLE cashew cheeses. They’ve got a camembert, cream cheese, and a ricotta as well as loads of other flavours of classic cashew cheese to choose from. I tried their brand new Free the Goat Cheeze which is their take on ricotta and holy shit they are killing it. Definitely a company to keep an eye out for.
I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I think I’ve found my favourite vegan cheese. Raw Food Rosie’s cheeses are jam-packed full of flavour that kicks you in the teeth, punches you in the throat, and keeps you coming back for more. Their Vampire Slayer cream cheese? Holy fuck. I went away with one of their original classic bries which I will definitely be reviewing soon. For an artisanal cheese their prices are RIDICULOUSLY GOOD and if Yas wasn’t with me to drag me away I would have gladly spent all my money on every flavour of cheese they had to offer.
Now I think I only ever tried real caviar once in my life and knowing what it was made the whole experience pretty fucking unpleasant. But THIS I can get on board with. It’s made with sea weed and looks like the real deal. I tried the “salmon” and Yas tried the “wasabi” and both of us were pleasantly surprised by this stuff. When I get good enough at making sushi that it doesn’t end up looking like a bastardisation of those ridiculous instagram “buddha bowls” splayed across my kitchen counter then I will definitely grab a jar of veggie caviar to finesse my sushi rolls.
Yas had the joy of going to university t’up North so she had already tried Tyne Chease before VegFest and told me about how bloody good it is. She was not wrong. I basically stood at their stall for a good 10 minutes tasting EVERY. SINGLE. SAMPLE. Tyne Chease has literally mastered integrating flavours into their cheeses. They are iconic. My only qualm was that a wheel of their cheese was almost £3 more expensive than some of the other cheeses around (eg. Raw Food Rosie) and as a student that pinches just a little too much to justify it…. especially as someone who could easily eat one whole wheel in one sitting. Would it be weird to put cheese on my Christmas list?
Last but DEFINITELY not least is Verys. Those charismatic Italians drew us in and left us with the some mozarella cheese and the goddamn best ravioli I have had in years. I could have cried (granted I was very hungover when I ate mine, but the sentiment still stands). The only problem is I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE WHERE TO BUY THEM. Their leaflet says they are available on The Vegan Kind Supermarket website but I have scoured and found absolutely fuck all. My heart is broken. Send help. I need this pasta in my life. If you ever come across Verys products BUY THEM. BUY THEM NOW. And send me some while you’re at it…
Quick preface – I’ve been ill with some super rare strain of what I can only assume is Typhoid or Zika. No one wants to make a proper meal when they’re ill and what better to get those nutrients in than a falafel wrap? (don’t question my methods, they’re effective). Tired of the typical Cauldron stuff and seeing Goodlife on the shelves, why the fuck not. I’m already drop-dead infected, the worst this could do is put me out of my damn misery. At £1.80 for 14 (that’s what, 12 pennies per falaf?) it’s pretty well priced, but are they even worth that?
Not necessarily the worst but I did question each and every 12p I spent on each falafel. Warm, a little crusty but not sandy. Mouth puckeringly dry, trying them plain left me with that Donald Trump butthole shaped mouth (as is expected with falafel) so I had to pop them in a wrap with a little (a lot) hummus and veg. That said I did have one plain to really gauge its texture and flavour. It definitely had a good crumble to it that you want with a falafel, those good cakey bits of it that break apart in your mouth without it disintegrating in your hands leaving you with some sad, brown talcum powder. Goodlife have definitely managed to bring a strong product. It holds together well up until the last minute and adding a little sauce (or in my case just slapping an extra helping of hummus on it) doesn’t cause it to collapse in on itself. The crust on the outside? Nice. Crisp and not so thick that you’re biting down into what could either be a meteor or a charcoal.
Goodlife came weak with their flavour game though. Even through my constantly running nose and broken spirit all I could taste was cumin. Not small amounts that give it a little kick, I mean all I could taste was cumin. It tasted earthy and just a little bit offensive. It wasn’t exactly terrible, to be perfectly fair, but I feel the same outcome could’ve been reached by licking the underside of a half-used poppadum.
It’s hard to go wrong with falafel. It’s omni-friendly by nature and the fact that this is palm and gluten free doesn’t really change that (though it is a nice touch). I’d buy them again for sure, partly for their pricing and also because they weren’t the worst but they’re far from the best. Very far. If we’re talking geographical analogies, the best is Mongolia and Goodlife is Peckham. That’s how far.
My Rating: 2/5
Omnivore Score: 4/5
Overall: 3/5
Find this product at: Ocado, Saisnbury’s and Iceland. Your mileage may vary.
I bloody love rocky road. I don’t give a fuck about you sultana-hating purists, rocky road is the shit and I will fight you. The worst part about most free-from rocky road bites is that they are sneakily non-vegan. Seriously, why the fuck would you go to all that effort to make something gluten free, egg free, AND dairy free to then be like “LOL they still got gelatin in ’em tho”. It’s a sick and cruel joke.
FORTUNATELY the ever-reliable Tesco decided to not be sick and cruel bastards and bestowed upon us a tiny tub of terrible tarmac goodness (get it? Terrible tarmac… Rocky road… Is this thing on…?).
The downside: it costs £3 for about 12 mini bites. That is like 6 normal human bites and 4 “G is menstruating and determined” bites. Not exactly value for money…
The upside: RICH AND GOOEY CHOCOLATEY GOODNESS INTERSPERSED WITH CRUNCHY BISCUIT, SULTANAS, AND SQUIDGY MARSHMALLOW.
That’s a pretty big upside if you ask me. So if you have £3 to burn or are in a desperate pit of chocolate-deprived despair, these bite-sized bastards are the tub to tuck into.
Importantly, the chocolate is an easy pass for any omni, so if you feel like 12 tiny bites are just too much for your (weak ass) self to handle you can rest assured that you can share a tub with all your pals.
Or alternatively, get them to try one and realise how fucking good they are… then proceed to eat the rest of the tub in front of them like the rocky road gremlin you are.
IT’S HERE. After millennia, it’s crash landed in the UK and the name alone could give you enough diabetes to require amputation. Ben & Jerry’s (my favourite BJ) finally deliver good on their promise to bring everyone’s favourite post break-up shitfest to the vegan world. It’s also still one of the most expensive ice creams out there at £5.50 per tub.
Peanut butter? In ice cream? Yea. It’s that good. It’s got perfect mouthfeel (none of that sticky cloying shit that hides behind your gums) and it’s the creamiest damn vegan treat I’ve had since birth. There’s the smoothness of the PB, the thickness of the ice cream, and the crunch of actual cookie chunks all in a spoonful. It’s better than good. I take back anything and everything I’ve said about Alpro or Booja-Booja being good or acceptable, if it’s not this golden creamy stuff, it’s just. not. worth it. Some dairy-less ice creams have this strange “icy” texture to them that Ben & Jerry’s just doesn’t even acknowledge. This is some God tier dessert.
To speak openly, I ate the entire pot in two sittings. It would’ve been one, but I’d need an insulin shot to continue. It’s just so super sweet but also refreshingly cool. It’s not overly rich like Booja-Booja or stodgy. There’s little pockets of saltiness with the peanut butter, but it’s also toffee like and is the perfect match for the Oreo-ish cookies crumbles in there. Even the vanilla in there does its job well and bring it all together. It’s not even a bland vanilla, it’s that black specked shit (that’s how you know it’s good).
Ice cream is pretty hard to fuck up. All dairy-free versions I’ve tried have been practically identical to the dairy ones (with some exceptions here or there) but Ben & Jerry’s is better.
I fucking LOVE mac and cheese. Do you know how long I waited for this shit to hit the shelves?! I grew up on Kraft mac, that real fine shit from a cardboard box, so to be able to have nutritionally lacking quick-cook cheesy goodness back in my life got me all kinds of excited.
As with any ready meal, you feel like a goddamn failure at life with every stab of the plastic film before you pop your culinary delight in the microwave. But it’s okay, because Tesco has gotten real fuckin fancy and thrown some parsley on that shit. So, clearly, not everything in your life has gone to crap because your dinner has some foliage tossed upon it.
My first question is: what the FUCK? Why is it so watery?!
Kraft mac and cheese was so thick and gooey it was basically a heart attack in a bowl. THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE COULDN’T EVEN BRING ON A BIT OF LIGHT CHEST PAIN.
If I’m gonna spend £3 on a mac and cheese ready meal I at least want it to be so cheesy I regret it.
Once I stopped being dramatic, I gave it a good stir and a long, hard stare and then tucked in (the stare was necessary, I didn’t know if I could trust this weak-ass attempt at comfort food).
It’s fine.
Like, that’s it.
It’s fine.
It’s definitely not thick or cheesy enough, the pasta is noticeably gluten free (sorry celiacs, that’s not a good thing), and it’s weirdly peppery. It’s totally edible, but one of those ready meals that makes your soul a little sad.
It was like going on a date with someone who is really attractive on paper, but then when you meet them they’re the kind of person to argue that – while they totally wouldn’t vote for him themselves – there are some merits of wotsit Hitler being President of the United States.
The JunkFood Punks 