#Veganuary - Day 1

Today is the 1st of January and also the first day of veganuary.

Luckily I slept late this morning - so late in fact that I didn't get up until the afternoon which meant I missed breakfast which is good because I forgot to buy the dream oat milk to use with my porridge!

So I had  a late lunch around 2pmish instead  of some of the vegan sausage casserole I made. It was actually pretty good.

I got a super craving for chocolate biscuits but  none of the sweet items I have at home are vegan sadly! So for snacks I have had some grapes and a tangerine, some cashew and peanuts and some root vegetable crisps and tortilla crisps (not whole bags like a small bowl of them all mixed up - although I could have eaten them all but then I'd not have any for tomorrow haha)

I made a simple potato and leek soup today - again in the slow cooker.

Ingredients:
1 leek washed, sliced and diced and lightly fried in rapeseed oil
about 10 salad potatoes  sliced and boiled
900 ml of vegetable stock (made with 2 x stock cubes)
1 tsp of lazy garlic

Everything chucked into the slow cooker on high for 2 hours, then I took my hand chopper/mixer thingy to it to make it less lumpy and more smooth - then the whole thing went back into the slowcooker to finish off on high for 4 hours.

Let it cool and then portioned it out ready to freeze - it made 4 portions plus enough left  over for tea whoop! 3 portions into the freezer and one out ready for lunch tomorrow

I also made some garlic croutons to go with it:

- 3 slices of white bread (I used the crusts as they make chunkier ones) chopped into approx 1-2cm squares

- I then poured around 50ml of rapeseed oil into a bowl and added in a tsp of lazy garlic plus some of the white vinegar juice it sits in and mixed the two together

- Then added in the bread pieces and mixed with a spoon so that every bit had a good covering of garlic and oil

- bread was then put on a baking tray in a single layer, a little bit of salt sprinkled on top and tray bunged in the oven on gas mark 4 for around 30 mins until crispy

- took them out and let them cool before putting them into a sealed tupperware container to keep ready to go in with the soup.

These should keep in the tub for about a week and are perfect to go on top of my soups and casseroles :)

I'm going to hit the shops tomorrow to buy some vegan spread as I want to make myself some banana and nut bread which will be perfect for snacks and for breakfast.

I also want to go to home bargains as I know they do vegan jelly beans there which I can use for any sugar cravings I get.

Day 1 has gone pretty well - hopefully tomorrow will be as easy