One Kind: Giving Animals a Voice

    Salt and Chilli Tofu A delicious, vegan take on the classic Chinese salt and chilli dish. Works perfectly with rice, noodles or on its own. Use firm tofu for the best results. Ingredients: 300g firm tofu 1 onion   1/2 pepper 1 red chilli 2 cloves of garlic 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional) 1 cup cornflour  (122g) Seasoning: 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 veggie stock cube 1/2 tsp Chinese five-spice Method: 1. Add salt, Chinese five spices powder and 1/2 stock cube in a small mixing bowl. Mix it well and set it aside.     2. Prepare all the vegetables - cut the onions, peppers, spring onion and chilli into thin slices. Finely chop the garlic and set it aside.     3. Drain the water out from the tofu packet, press  between  paper towels if needed.     4. Cut the tofu into half-inch cubes. Dredge and coat the tofu cubes in the corn starch and toss the excess flour out before frying.     5. To deep fry the tofu cubes, fill the f...

  'Bacon', Leek and Potato Soup The perfect winter warmer using vegan bacon gives this soup a delicious, salty-savoury flavour. Vegan bacon is optional. This recipe would work fantastically without it! Ingredients: 4 garlic cloves 3-4 medium potatoes   1 brown onion   400g leeks   1.4L vegetable stock (~3 veg stock cubes)   3 rashers of vegan ‘bacon’   Lemon juice   Veg oil   Vegan butter (optional)   Pepper   Salt   Method: 1.  Dice ‘bacon’ and onion then sauté in oil and vegan butter.  2. Add minced garlic and continue to  sauté  until fragrant.   3. Add peeled, diced potato and chopped leek. Cover and cook for ~5 minutes. Stir often.   4.Add vegetable stock and season well with pepper.    5. Simmer for ~20 minutes.   6. Blend the soup. Season to taste with salt, pepper and lemon juice if desired.  

[Sunday Rain]: Cruelty-free Bubbles Self-care has never been quite so important. The constant stress of Zoom calls, working from home and the worry surrounding your own and loved one’s health has made taking time to look after ourselves essential to surviving this COVID-19 world. What better way to disconnect from the chaos than with a bubble bath – cruelty-free of course. I recently purchased [Sunday Rain] Açai Berry bubble bath for cleansing and brightening. I’ll insert a link to the website with a list of places you can purchase this product. For £4 you get 450ml of vegan, cruelty-free bubble bath. First impressions, the product looked absolutely stunning in the bottle, a light shimmering lilac. It took approximately 2-3 full caps to achieve a good level of bubbles. The bubble bath is very thick so getting it out the bottle can be a little challenging. However, the smell was incredible! I highly recommend this bubble bath just for the scent alone. It made the entire bathroom s...

 A ‘Smol’ Eco-friendly Alternative I am constantly looking for ways to reduce plastic waste in everyday items as well as to shop as ethically as I can. I recently came across this fantastic little start-up company ‘Smol’ who have formulated concentrated, plastic-free, harmful chemical-free and cruelty-free household products. Smol operate on a subscription basis, delivering products often as you need them. I opted to test both the dishwasher tablets and the non-biological laundry capsules. Thankfully, Smol offer a free trial (£1 delivery fee for each product) containing 9 tablets or capsules to be tested out. The frequency of delivery is based on how often you use those products. The cost of subsequent packs of laundry capsules (24 per pack) and dishwasher tablets (30 per pack) is £4.50 and £4.60 respectively. It didn’t take long for these products to arrive despite the COVID-19 postal issues which was impressive. Their packaging is completely plastic-free and comes with a uniq...

Faith in Nature: Handmade Soap This weeks post is Shannara's review of cruelty free soap from Faith in Nature: These beautiful soaps were a gift from my boyfriend’s mum and are completely vegan, cruelty free and hand made in the UK. One of my favourite things about these soaps is their eco-friendly, recyclable packaging, which is bright and attractive, giving the soap a lovely handmade aesthetic. These soaps were bought from Tesco so should be relatively easy to find. Faith in Nature also have a website where they sell numerous other hand made products. Each bar is around £1.83 on the website which is fantastic value for money. The soap bars I tested were dragon fruit and orange scented. Both were subtle but beautifully scented, however did not leave much scent when used. This could be both a positive and negative. The bars themselves were quite oily in texture which made lathering them easy, however be careful as this can leave residue on material. They were easy to lather and lef...

Eco-living  toothpaste tablets This weeks post is Emily's review of Eco-living toothpaste tablets: So I have been wanting to try out these toothpaste tablets for a while now and a brand new zero waste shop has just opened up beside my flat in Glasgow, giving me the perfect opportunity to try all things zero waste. The shop is called Society Zero and is located on Queen Margaret Drive (check them out).   The brand of the tablets is E co-living . They are made from completely natural ingredients ( 100% vegan) and are not tested on animals, unlike many normal toothpaste brands! They were fairly priced for a package of 62 tablet which will last you a whole month. They contain fluoride which is a plus.  All you have to do is chew one of them until it starts turning creamy and then start brushing as normal. I've been using them with an electric toothbrush and I found that wetting   my toothbrush before brushing made the paste a bit too watery. I'm not sure if you will...