Vegan delivery

I recently ordered some things from veganstore.co.uk which arrived yesterday. The aim was to get junior some more of her vegan ‘honey’ but also to buy some small chocolate easter eggs. I don’t know why, but I always seem to have some sort of problem with the order. This time it was the chocolate eggs which were out of stock by the time they’d come to despatch the parcel, and as they weren’t getting any more in I told them just to send the other things, even though the vegan mayo I ordered was temporarily out of stock. So, no chocolate and no mayo then but at least junior would get her vegan honey. Two parcels turned up, one with the honey, parmazano, breakfast bars and other assorted sundries, whilst in the other one was………….yes you guessed it…………vegan mayo. Which, as I was no longer expecting it, was quite a nice surprise. Junior was suitably impressed by her vegan honey and insisted on opening one of them so she could stick her finger in – charming!

They should keep her going for a while as she only uses it to put on her weekend pancakes.
The soya desserts Sean gets for junior from Volos have recently been coming with a free carton of cream attached. I’ve used a couple in pasta dishes although it tasted rather sweet, but from the picture on the front of the box it would appear that it’s to be used in savoury dishes as I think that’s tortellini on the fork.

As we’ve now got about 8 cartons of it in the fridge, I decided to make something I haven’t made for a long time. A flan, quiche, whatever you want to call it, using the cream instead of the silken tofu I would normally use (and which I can’t get anyway!). The flan base wasn’t great but as I was going to cover it up it didn’t really have to be a work of art. It’s a long time since I’ve made pastry but I always remember what my mum used to say ‘half fat to flour’ then a bit of water and hey presto, basic pastry. So once the base was cooked I filled it with the cream, mushrooms and onions, all the while concealing the fact of what I was doing from junior so that she couldn’t register any objections before the dish was presented as a fait accompli. The cream baked really well and held together so it did actually resemble a quiche – not attractive enough for a photo though. Junior surprised me by not turning her nose up at it and actually eating most of it without complaint – this could have been due to the fact that I told her she could only have a freshly baked carrot muffin if she ate most of her tea but, hey ho, needs must! I wasn’t so successful in trying to foist it on her the next day as part of her lunch. She didn’t believe it would taste good cold although I assured her it would be fine and would, in fact, probably taste even better. She informed me she had prodded a mushroom and then decided it was definitely inedible.
Junior now appears to be on a mini roll and I even managed to slip some mushrooms in to her beloved pasta last night which she ate, again without complaint. I know it’s obvious, but the less fuss I make, the less attention I give her at mealtimes, the more likely she is to eat. It’s just so difficult though not to lose patience with her when she starts to turn her nose up at what’s in front of her. Patience….patience………