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Henderson’s Salad Table, Edinburgh

March 30, 2017 by Tofu Temptress Leave a Comment

Henderson's Deli, on the corner of Hanover Street — Henderson’s Deli, on the corner of Hanover Street

It’s no exaggeration to say that Henderson’s is an Edinburgh institution. The UK’s longest running vegetarian restaurant, it’s been serving customers in Edinburgh since 1962. It has a few restaurants in the city now, but the original salad table, located under their deli shop on the city’s Hanover Street was where I chose to meet a friend the other day.

I have fond memories of this place. As an adolescent vegetarian it was invaluable and I spent many a happy hour in here chatting to my Mum or gossiping with friends. The layout has changed little and it still has a casual, welcoming atmosphere. There’s a section slightly further downstairs that has live music most nights and is available for hire, but we ate in the main part.

Choose from the board... — Choose from the board…

The place has an informal, friendly feel and you simply choose what you’d like from the chalk board, the staff hands it over, then you pop it on a tray and pay – easy.

...and pop it on a tray. — …and pop it on a tray.

The restaurant is fully vegetarian and the vegan options are clearly marked with a ‘V’. They also indicate whether dishes contain nuts or are gluten free, so ‘special’ diets are catered for in abundance.

We both ended up choosing the vegan pizza with salad, which was lovely. The large array of salads is tempting, and the staff more than happy to confirm which ones are vegan friendly.

There's a tempting array of salads. — There’s a tempting array of salads.

I had a gorgeous bean sprout, tofu and ginger salad with mine and polished it all off with ease! To wash it down, I had a Black Isle lager, which I’d checked was vegan friendly.

It’s a great place to hang out as there are lots of tables, so we chatted away for quite a while longer, not feeling rushed or ‘in the way’, as you can in some places. After a while we both decided to indulge in a dessert.

There was a good choice for vegans, so I went for the chocolate cake with coconut cream on the side (soya cream was also available.) It was incredibly rich and very enjoyable. They have a great variety of soft drinks too, so I had an elderflower flavoured one, which was just the thing.

You gotta love the fact they have vegan donuts!

Henderson’s have a totally vegan restaurant as well which is just around the corner and they also have a new restaurant in Holyrood near the Scottish Parliament. I’ll be reviewing these soon I hope!

So, if you’re after a chilled out place to meet with friends or just pop in to take a break from shopping or sightseeing, this is a great bet. Henderson’s also do outside catering too, so if you’re planning a party, give them a call. I hope you find the time to relax at the salad table soon.

Gingerbread

October 20, 2015 by Tofu Temptress Leave a Comment

An autumnal favourite, gingerbread is an easy, comforting treat to bake at this time of year and will make your kitchen smell fantastic. The best bit is that you probably have all the ingredients at home already.

This recipe is enough for TWO standard loaf tins, but you can do it in one 20cmX20cm cake tin if you like. If you’re feeling really indulgent you can cover your gingerbread with icing (when it’s cool!) and add some little bits of caramelised orange and lemon, but for this recipe, I’m just doing it straight up, as it were…

Ingredients

Vitalite is nice and soft and easy to cream

125g vegan marg such as Vitalite

100g caster sugar

350g golden syrup

75g applesauce

330g plain flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

250ml water

Here’s how I do it:

Line your tin (or tins) with greaseproof paper and preset your oven to 180 degrees (slightly lower for a fan assisted oven) or gas mark 4.

Cream the marg and sugar together in a bowl till they’re light and fluffy.

Heat the syrup in a pan gently until it’s runny, then add to the creamed mixture, mixing well.

Adding in the syrup to the creamed mixture

Once that’s incorporated, add your applesauce and mix again.

Sift the dry ingredients into a separate bowl

Sift the flour, salt, bicarb, ginger and cinnamon together into a separate bowl, then add them gradually to the mixture bit by bit alternating with adding the water. The resulting batter will be quite runny, but don’t worry, it’ll firm up nicely while baking.

The mixture is runny, but that's ok! — The mixture is runny, but that’s ok!

Pop the mixture into the tin (or divide it equally between loaf tins) and bake for 50 minutes. (Loafs should be ready 45-50 mins in, depending on your oven, while the cake tin may take up to an hour. Just keep an eye on things.) When you put a skewer in, it should come out dry. If it doesn’t, give it a few more minutes and try again.

When you take your gingerbread out of the oven, give it a good five minutes to reduce slightly before turning it out onto a cooling rack. Remove the paper, let it cool.

Let it cool completely if you're going to ice it — Let it cool completely if you’re going to ice it

(If you fancy doing a bit of decoration, go for it, but I prefer just to tuck straight in as it’s pretty sweet already.)

All that's missing is a cuppa — All that’s missing is a cuppa

Slice and serve!

The Big Vegan Fete

April 15, 2015 by Tofu Temptress Leave a Comment

The Flying Duck is easy to miss. Coming from Edinburgh on Saturday 4th April, I knew that it was close to Buchanan Street Bus Station, but hadn’t appreciated quite how close. It was a sunny day in Glasgow, which made it slightly incongruous to be descending the steps into a nightclub located up an alley off Renfield Street. But descend them I did and was welcomed into the friendly, chaotic world of the Vegan Fete. The darkness, crowds and pulsing music soon made me forget it was daylight outside and I took to perusing the stalls of, let’s face it, mainly cake. Not that I’m complaining! Quite the opposite.

The Hunt Sabs and The Vegan Kind were there amongst other familiar faces (if I haven’t mentioned you it’s because I didn’t see you – it was quite dark and my eyesight isn’t what it was!) but the cakes were the items that seemed to produce the biggest queues.

Smashing Tarts, for it was they, had the biggest one when I was there, and no wonder with that fabulous array of super-indulgent wares. As well as Daiya cheese twists they had Bourbon cake and tiffin, ganache cake and coconut cake and countless other delights. I made a few purchases… I’d been invited on twitter to try out Dairy Free Tablet’s Mint choc offerings and oh goodness, it was good. I may have eaten almost a whole bar on the bus home, but don’t tell anyone.

Considerit chocolate were also exhibiting, they of vegan cream egg fame, and I sampled some of their Amaretto truffle bar, leading me to buy not only that but also the orange flavour and the coffee and muscovado flavour.

I needed a distraction from all this sugar and so wandered over to Kirsten Scott’s table of delightful jewellery and clay crafts. Many of the earrings were animal themed and I fell for a gorgeous fox design. There were food themes too, with bracelets made from tiny slices of Battenberg cake and Swiss rolls amongst others.

All in all it was a lovely fete, and although a bit warm and crowded, I was glad to see such an event have an obviously big following.
This is the first big vegan fair in Scotland this year, with Vegan Festival in Edinburgh in August and then the big one, a two day Vegfest in Glasgow in December. Vegan festival is in Newcastle as well, in July, and having attended last year I can say it was a great place to be.

These events are growing more and more popular and taking place in more places throughout the country, so whether you’re in Liverpool, London, Brighton, Bristol or Birmingham, or indeed anywhere else in the UK, there should hopefully be a vegan festival near you soon. Have fun!

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