free from food

The Hip Hop Chip Shop at The Carlton Club, Manchester

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The Hip-Hop Chip Shop has gone mobile! They are parked throughout February at The Carlton Club in Whalley Range, Manchester.

We decided to book on their pop-up website (which I now think is mostly booked up) to make it easier ordering food from their pop-up van. You can visit the van but you might have a bit of wait so (as they advise) wrap up warm!

This is the Vegangstarr Sausage Meal

Skin-on chips; Mushy Peas; Battered Sausage and Tartare Sauce; with a side of Battered pickled gherkins and a Chocolate Brownie by Lush Brownies (Chortlon) for desert.

They also have a battered halloumi meal if that’s more your deal.

The fact that people peel potatoes when making chips now amazes me. Battered gherkins have some real bite to them in texture and flavour. The inside of the sausage has a soft consistency like sweet potato pakora but it tastes exactly like a chippy sausage – whaat?! The choccy brownie is perfection.

FYI This is enough food to last me for my tea tonight and breakfast and dinner tomorrow.

✨✨🖤Chrissie🖤✨✨

Really Easy Way to Make: Dairy-free, Gluten-free Mac n’ Cheese

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Hi lovely people!

I was having a very Dyspraxic day (knocking everything over/dropping everything/getting stuff tangled up/bumping into stuff/tripping up/behaving more drunk than when I’m actually drunk!) so upon arrival to his flat, my Bloke surprised me with (gluten free, dairy free) Mac n’ Cheese to cheer me up.

Ingredients:

Any own brand Free-From (gf) Pasta

@freeandeasyfoods (df) Cheese Flavour Sauce

Rice or Oat Milk

1 heaped tbl spn Nutritional Yeast

A pinch of Garlic salt and Pepper

Nommm 😋

✨✨🖤Chrissie🖤✨✨

Bol Plant Based Dinner Boxes

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 2 Comments

Whilst shopping online at Tesco I stumbled across the Bol range of dinner boxes, which are plant based ready-meals in a cardboard tray (thankfully not plastic, which is a bit of a deal-breaker for me).

Fire Roasted Cauliflower-Tikka Masala

The Tika Masala wasn’t quite sweet enough and I had no idea where the ‘sweet pickled onions’ were!? I did really like the combination of ingredients though.

Caribbean Jerk, Rice and Peas

This tasted like it was homemade comfort food at its best.

Thai Panang Coconut Curry

I thought this contained too much lemongrass and citrus flavour and not enough coconut so I added two pinches of sugar. The butternut squash was cooked perfectly.

South Indian Spiced Chickpea Curry

Again, the flavour of citrus overwhelmed the other flavours, which I balanced by adding some sugar.

Overall

I noticed that every meal had a lot of ‘leafy greens’ in them, which I didn’t mind but it was rather repetitive.

I loved all of the chutneys and used them on the rice and greens. I don’t usually like quinoa but mixed with rice it tasted lovely.

I’d buy these again because they are a quick and simple way of getting vegetarian and dairy free, balanced meals for one, which I’d never be able to cook for my self.

Rating 4/5

✨🖤✨Chrissie✨🖤✨

Delicious Gluten-free Plant-based Mezze

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Toofoo (smokey version) coated in sesame oil and chilli oil and grilled so it tastes like roast chicken, which I’m dipping into Helmans vegan mayo.

PICKLES!

Batata Harra (lightly fried potatoes with red peppers, coriander, chili, and garlic).

Falafel (from a shop bought dry mix, then shallow fried) which I’m having hot with caramelised onion humus.

The falafel and tofu are easy to prepare and store in the fridge until you want to cook some. The potatoes are a simple and quick dish to cook fresh.

🖤✨Chrissie✨🖤

The Best of Vamp It Up 2020 – Style, Plant-based Food and Lockdown Lifestyle

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Even though this has been one of the weirdest years I’ve had, being in ‘lockdown’ isn’t that different from having chronic fatigue anyway really. Lots of telly watching, reading, putting outfits together for no particular reason, eating copious amounts of takeaway and going out to have a quick drink, when I’m able.

Leave your questions or comments below and I will consult my foggy (but sometimes, strangely encyclopaedic) brain to reply to them lol

🖤✨Chrissie✨🖤

Gluten and Dairy Free Savoury Snack Haul

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It wasn’t until I went gluten and dairy-free that I realised most crisps have lactose or wheat gluten in their flavouring. I’ve often walked down a whole crisp (and flavoured nut) isle, reading all of the ingredients on everything, only to end up buying salt and vinegar or Thai sweet chilli flavour yet again.

So I thought this might be handy for anyone with the same intolerances/allergies.

L-R

Top: Cofresh Corn nuts (also have lemon and chilli one’s), The Foodie Market Bites, Specially Selected (Aldi) Sririacha Nachos, Specially Selected Root Veg Crisps.

Middle: Oh So Delish (Aldi) Wasabi peas, Ten Acre When the Cheese Met the Onion, Bombay Mix, Salted roasted Peanuts.

Bottom: Oh So Delish (Aldi) Thai Spicy Bites, Manomasa Chipotle and Line nachos, Salted Roasted Cashews, Manomasa Green Lemon and Pink Peppercorn Nachos.

These have been gathered from Tesco, Ocado, Aldi and my local corner shop.

🖤✨Chrissie✨🖤

December in Photo’s

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Christmas fleece – Cotton Traders

Joggers – Hunkermoller

Ugg/Emu style boots – Dorothy Perkins

Making the most of the dark afternoons by making the living room feel all cozy.

Lots of natural skincare and lifestyle goodies in this Freedm Street advent calendar (items available to buy individually from heir online shop).

Making ‘special coffees’ by adding Baileys or Sailor Jerries Spiced Rum and throwing in pieces of salted caramel or hazelnut caramel choccy.

Jumper – Shein

Joggers – Cotton Traders

Bizarrely, for someone who has disabling arachnophobia when I see one, this was one of my favourite books as a child. It’s magical and a little creepy!

Little reindeer I found at the back of a cupboard!

Sparkly chocolate vegan brownie from Zad’s takeaway.

Dad decorated the whole downstairs in under 15 minutes. Secret festive ninja!

I’ve been watching His Dark Materials on BBC iPlayer and I am so impressed with this adaptation. Especially my favourite bad-ass actress, Ruth Wilson as Mrs Coulter.

I’ve developed quite a obsession with cute cartoon penguins so I was really happy to get this card from my Dad ^_^

Tee – Next

Christmas fleece – Cotton Traders

Joggers – Cotton Traders

At the Blokes flat we have our 22inch Christmas tree. I swear, after Christmas this is being packed away exactly as it is now – it was so fiddly to decorate!

Like most people in he UK we don’t have candy canes but we do have gelatine-free sweets!

This wonderful wreath gives me serious Narnia vibes. Unfortunately where we live, neither of us can put wreathes on our front door as they would get nicked and given to someone’s Mam or Missus.

MOOEY CHRISTMAS YOU LOVELY LOT

🎄✨Chrissie✨🎄

My Fave Dairy – free Chocolate & Gelatine – free Sweets!

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 2 Comments

Biona Fruit Bears – Full of natural fruit flavour, these are even liked by my friends and family who don’t usually like sweets. Organic. Gluten free.

Tribe Nature Bombs Chocolate, Caramel and Almond Butter – Caramel and Almond Butter mixed together and covered in chocolate. These are so more-ish, the two pack isn’t enough so treat yourself and get a bag.

Love Raw Peanut Butter Cups – These lasted all of two minutes nom! Vegan.

Candy Kittens Eton Mess – These creamy, chewy sweets taste exactly like the dessert. Quick, take them away from me, before I go through the whole bag. Palm oil free.

Bouja-Bouja Truffle Selection No1 – I actually prefer the purple selection as these chocolates were almost too rich in flavour for me, especially the champagne and espresso but I loved the rum and cherry cognac flavours. Best to keep these cool or they become sickly, quickly. Organic. Vegan.

Rhythm 108 Hazelnut and Praline – This small Swedish brand makes bars that are the most like traditional chocolate bars – delicious. Gluten free. Organic. Vegan.

Pulsing High Fibre Brownie – Although it’s called a brownie, it isn’t squishy in the middle. It does have nice big chunks of choccy and it is very substantial. It did give me a good start to the day, energy-wise.

So lovely people, do you want me to review more choccy, sweets or both?

🎄✨Chrissie✨🎄

Visit to Bundobust – Indian Vegetarian Street Food and Bar – Manchester

/ Vamp It Up Mcr (Chrissie) / 4 Comments

Spot my bloke on the right

I’ve always loved that Bundobust is a no frills, eco friendly canteen and bar (even the cutlery is biodegradable), serving Indian street food.

It’s really spacious but still manages to be cozy and friendly. We reserved a booth because I’m not able to climb into and sit on the bench seating, plus we wanted to be isolated because of Covid.

They have gluten free beer, mango lassi, cocktails, chai tea, the most delicious peshwari paratha (sweet bread) and kulfi (pistachio ice cream).

Saag Aloo (spinach and potato); Paneer, mushroom and pepper kebabs; Peshwari Paratha (sweet bread); Sev Puri (Dry noodle, layers of samosa, yoghurt and tamarind sauce); Okra fries.

🖤✨Chrissie✨🖤