7am start so nothing but a quick peanut butter sandwich as I sleepwalked out the door. ( no pic as could barely see )
I have the luxury of working reasonably close to home so popped back for one of my favourites, Linda McCartney sausage bagel. Just as fantastic as my first taste.

Left work at 19:00, tweeted a picture of a secret silver packet and then went straight back out for a dinner meeting. Absolutely nothing suitable for me to eat, thankfully, as the chap I was meeting ordered liver and it arrived within minutes. Even he was a little dubious. So a quick pasta and that lovely chilli and tomato pasta sauce for dinner ( picture is of last weeks as tonight's was eaten within seconds, sorry )

Today was never going to be great simply because yesterday was. The food at the Hilton left me wanting to order it again. Courgette cannelloni leaving the bestest of vegan food memories on my pallet.

So basically, no breakfast as had a lazy morning.
Lunch was late but what's beckoning my quick and easy favourite of Bulgar wheat, falafel and on this occasion added pickled Beetroot for a little zing.
Dinner time came along and I still wasn't overly hungry so unsettled for a lovely veg soup made by suma and bought from 8th day.

Breakfast - A lazy morning which resulted in a simple peanut butter on toast breakfast.

Lunch - As my family had gone out, i was asked to meat them at a nearby pub/hotel restaurant for lunch. Unfortunately there were no #vegan options available to me, but as my breakfast had lazily drifted into near lunch time i wasn't overly concerned. Humous and crackers when i got home a little later. 

   Trumpets

Dinner - Now as some of you may realise, its not dinner time yet, but i've been waiting for this meal all week since my vegan challenge began. Tonight i have been invited to the Hilton hotel in Manchester city centre to put the chefs skills to the sword. They got in touch with me on almost the first day of my challenge (01/09/2012) and were confident their Executive chef ( David Gale ) and his team could pull off a 5 star vegan meal for me. I've been excited about this all week, in fact we have friends joining us this evening who had the choice of a standard omnivore menu but were that intrigued that they chose to join me on my vegan menu for the evening. 

Entree Soup


Sweetcorn Soup with a Spicy Tomato Salsa


Starter


Beetroot Salad with Grilled Spiced Tofu


Mains 


Sauteed Wild Mushrooms on Toast with Paprika Cream Sauce

Courgette Cannelloni with Spiced Lentils and Vegetable Crisps

(And yes I'm lucky enough to be having both!)


Pre Dessert


Raspberry and Rosewater Granita with Pistachio Wafer

Dessert


Warm Pineapple Sponge with Mango and Chilli Salad, Pineapple Jelly and a Mint and Lime Sorbet.

Hats off to the guys running that Hilton kitchen, I've eaten various meals and a worldly variety of restaurants by I've never had a meal so tasty before ( my omnivore friends who chose the vegan menu too thoroughly enjoyed it too ) AMAZING dining experience.
Thank you Hilton Manchester Deansgate
Thank you David Gale and your fabulous team

Apologies for the late start today, caught a sickness bug ( not diet related) which has been keeping people off work for 2 days. Hit me this morning but I feel ok now (possibly diet related). So the blog begins with a late lunch/early dinner. After taking the advice of a friend of mine i decided to try the Linda McCartney vegan friendly sausages along with the New York Deli bagels which I was pleased to see are vegan friendly too. I've been a carnivore for over 30 years, but these sausages, well they're the best sausages I ever tasted. Wow I just keep being surprised very single day on this diet.

No toast today, instead finally got around to trying the Vanilla porridge i bought from Unicorn at the weekend. Very nice indeed. I feel like a cosmopolitan supergran.....

A standard buy more than adequate breakfast of Toast and Tomorrow Margerine and a nice orange and mango juice from Co op. Slightly more exciting lunch I hope but still very nice.

So far I've found my diet enjoyable and not overly difficult until now.
Toast and Tomor spread for my breakfast, very nice. Now bare in mind I enjoyed my dinner last night so much I ate the extra I'd made for today's lunch. So come lunch time I was a little stuck for a moment until I realised I work near a very large Tesco and I've heard a lot of good things about their "free from" aisles. I went straight over and to my surprise found that the only thing "free from" on the aisle was the aisle itself. Instead there were 4 shelves mostly holding bread, Gluten free, dairy free and wheat free, but certainly not egg free. Anyhow, Tesco is not the solution for me so I had to think harder.
Did I mention my place of work deals with large numbers of potato? Specialises in vegan friendly flavourings?
I made CHIPS, but not just any chips, I made Cheese & Onion flavoured chips, and they're amazing.

My working week will see me having less snack time and more working time. After a quick Marmite on toast breakfast,again but my favourite since childhood anyway. I find myself at work safely away from tempting vegan snacks, or am I?

My favourite breakfast anyway so no hardships here, and paired up with the Vegan friendly Orange juice by The Cooperative. As I educate myself more I see a lot of people highlighting the importance of B12 in a Vegan diet. Marmite comes with B12 inclusive so that's a bonus.
(Breakfast post was late today, probably because at 1am I was snacking on some great Vegan Dolmades I bought from Unicorn, sorry but Vegan eating so far is just too good )

Woke up to find my vegan pancakes were only vegan until you got to the stage of whisking eggs into the mixture. I stopped well before that and went hungry. Late morning and as i live in Manchester, I decided Unicorn was my next port of call. "No egg" came to the rescue and put my pancakes back on the breakfast menu. Spent another hour wandering around and filling my trolley quite easily. I'm also very fortunate ( although I didn't realise just how until today ) that my local shop is in fact a Co operative food store, and as I'm walking through to the juice aisle I notice some great deals on their pastas and pasta sauces. Obviously I went straight home and tried them, then immediately went straight back out and cleared their shelves. In all honesty, I haven't actually stopped eating since lunchtime and have never enjoyed a day of sampling new foods as much as today. Two packets of crisps ( Barrow Boys of course ), a large bar of moo free chocolate, Co op budget Ginger Nut biscuits, a chorizo space bar and I'm still planning my evening meal.

Certainly no struggles with my "restricted" diet today, that's for sure. In fact I'm already thinking of tomorrow mornings pancakes before tonight's Bombay Spiced Tofu salad.

See you all tomorrow