Mozzarella with Grilled Fennel Salad

I was given a couple of bulbs of fennel this week by my colleague. I gratefully accepted them and then proceeded to search for recipes. My recipe books didn't come up with very much. I wanted something simple so I went for this simple mozzarella with grilled fennel salad recipe by Nigel Slater. 

I didn't have much luck with the fennel grilling but it was OK. I got some great olives, green not black though as the recipe suggested and they kind of stole the show.

I served the salad with potato salad, fresh home made bread and cheese and then we had some houmous afterwards as it wasn't quite ready.

Cheese, Crackers and Pickled things

The bread that I was baking yesterday was supposed to form part of our supper but it took longer than expected so we had a cheese, crackers and stuff from the fridge supper instead, followed by a bread dessert. Mr VST has a thing about pickled vegetables as you can see!

Herbies Vegetarian Restaurant

The story about how I became vegetarian is on here in the 'about me' section. My little sister is also vegetarian and her story was quite similar although it involved Pingu rather than any 'real' animals. She watched Pingu and his friends eat and catch a fish and thought that there was something wrong about that. When she was offered tuna for lunch she refused to eat it. She was only about three years old and has pretty much been vegetarian since. My Mum and her partner also eat vegetarian meals fairly often and were looking forward to a meal at a veggie restaurant.

We shared some mixed olives and granary garlic bread with cheese to start. All was tasty. I don't think there was quite as much garlic on the garlic bread this time though, I would have preferred some more.

All mains are served with either the salads of the day comprising of three salads or potato wedges. The salads were green, red cabbage coleslaw with celery and apple and a rice salad with peas. My Mum, her partner and I all had the salads with our and Mr VST went for the potato wedges.

It is a novelty as a vegetarian to be able to choose from anything from the menu. We all found it hard to choose what we were going to have. Mr Mum went for the Greek filo pie, her partner for the satay, Mr VST chose the spinach and mushroom lasagne and I had the sweet potato and cashew nut loaf. It was really moist and delicious. It came with a little jug of rich tomato sauce which complemented it well. I couldn't eat all of the loaf or the salad and they gladly gave us doggy bags for this and the left over satay and salad my Mum and her partner left too. The dessert menu looked amazing but none of us could face and more food! My vegetarian little sister enjoyed some olives and garlic bread but was pretty tired by the time her jacket with cheese and beans came. She is also a little sweet tooth but was too tired to ask for pudding.

Doggy bag leftovers for lunch on Wednesday

Another enjoyable experience at Herbies. I think we're going to have to keep going back and eat our way through the menu.

Brick Lane Weekend - Part 2

We wandered around picking up our treats and ended up in the food market at Spitalfields. There were so many delicious smells. We did two laps of the food stalls before deciding what to have. Mr VST went for some noodles with tofu and vegetables. It was really tasty. I tend to avoid tofu because it seems to only taste nice once it has been deep fried! I think the tofu in this meal had been fried and it was really good.

The one at the front, left hand side

I went for a Thai pumpkin curry. It was pretty hot but really tasty. I can't get enough pumpkin, butternut squash etc. The curry also had cauliflower in it and some other veg. There were some stalls selling vegan cup cakes, waffles and crepes which I was really tempted by but I was so full up I couldn't manage anything else. After lunch we decided to head home.  

We had already picked up a spinach and feta flatbread, some olives and a slice of banana cake for a picnic on the way home. The flatbread was really tasty, like a cross between bread and a thick pancake with a slight bit of spice and packed with spinach and feta. Lovely. We also had some very moreish feta stuffed, herby olives.

Feta and Spinach Flatbread

Feta stuffed olives

We also had a thick slice of banana cake but unfortunately we ate it before I could take a photograph. It was thick and sweet and packed full of bananas. 

What a lovely way to spend the weekend.