Black coffee, watermelon and the best seeded bread you ever tasted

The two flight attendants stared at me cluelessly.
"No milk? No sugar?"
"No, just black please."
"Oh, isn't she continental."

I handed over the last of my pound coins in exchange for a simple black coffee and went back to my book while Gatwick receded into the afternoon sky and the white cliffs of somewhere slid into view. I hoped Berlin wouldn't be as bad as this. It couldn't be.

It wasn't- I'm beginning to think it may just be London that is bad.

I was lucky enough to stay with one of my best friends in Kreuzberg. Heather is a dab hand at every bit of cooking. By 11am on our first morning we'd flirted our way to free watermelon slices at the greengrocer (I say flirted, all Heather really had to do was ask some prices in German) and stocked the fridge full of berries, radishes and ripening avocados.

As the resident chickpea obsessive, I was put on hand to make hummus, while Heather concocted salads from beetroot, seeds, rocket and lemon juice. Turkish bread fresh from the market had to be kept folded in half because it took up the whole table otherwise. I think one of us managed to find some olives and Luci, another friend from London, tracked down some balsamic vinegar. Once again, we'd made a feast.

Berlin has its own chain of vegan supermarkets called Veganz (great name guys) which I heard on a Radio 4 programme is reportedly expanding into London soon. As with Barcelona, from the small section of the city I got to see, everything felt pretty geared up for vegans or anyone with a dairy-free diet- most cafes will offer soy milk with coffee or tea, and the restaurants will try their best to accommodate you if you're patient. Not expecting this to be the case, I got to try an amazing vegan burger at White Trash, where instead of just offering one vegan or vegetarian option for a burger, lets you add the vegan burger, which is made of nuts, beans, tofu, vegetables, herbs and spices, to one of the eight burger options. LONDON TAKE NOTE!

My trip happened to coincide with a crazy heatwave in which the numbers 33 and 35 degrees Celsius got flung about way too much and in the end it got too hot in the daytime to do much more than drink iced coffee and eat more slices of melon. But in the early morning and late at night we ate toasted seeded bread just with olive oil, pepper and salt, couscous and rocket salad with yoghurt for Heather and her flatmate Petra, blueberries, raspberries, and fresh mint in hot water.

On the final day, after meandering through a flea market, too hot to speak let alone barter, we ended up in a Turkish cafe, Zimt und Mehl, in Neukllölln for breakfast. I spotted 'vegan special' in German on the menu, and ten minutes later was presented with the sight above. If you go to Berlin any time soon, get to Zimt und Mehl as early as possible to grab a canal-side table, order the vegan special and for 8 euros you'll also get amazing coffee and all the bread you can fit in. You won't need to eat again until you get back on home soil.

Gluten free, vegan shortbread

One thousand and one apologies for going a little quiet on the blogging front for the past few weeks. The irony is I don't know if I've ever been cooking, baking, concocting and sampling more! My laptop's bookmarks are now just full of vegan holiday recipes, while my camera has taken on an extra layer of icing sugar dust that won't budge. However, while the baking subsides a little I will be posting plenty of Christmas and winter solstice recipes here.

First up is this vegan, gluten free shortbread recipe- this would be perfect to make for any gluten free-friends you have as a homemade present, or even to have ready to stack up at your desk to try and speed up those last few days of work (and how they drag!!)

I adapted this recipe from an American one I found by Char's Kitchen. I chose to use Doves Farm Gluten Free bread flour as it comes with Xanthan Gum in the blend, which you need for this recipe. If you have a preferred GF flour then just use that but with 1/2tsp Xanthan Gum to every cup of flour.

NB: The photos here of the finished biscuits are just half the final batch.

Ingredients
340g vegan margarine/butter such as Vitalite
About 2/3 cup of icing sugar
2 cups of Doves Farm Gluten Free White Bread Flour (plus about another cup for rolling and dusting the biscuits)

Instructions
Cream together the margarine and sugar, then sift in the flour and mix until the mixture is fluffy.
Chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. This helps the flour firm up a bit and makes it much easier to cut out shapes like hearts and rabbits, as otherwise the mixture does break easily.

Once the mix has chilled, pre-heat the oven to around 175 degrees Celsius. Tip the dough onto a floured surface and add more flour to knead. It will feel quite soft at first but add a little more flour at a time until it goes a little firmer.

When you're happy with the texture, roll out into around 1cm thickness and cut out with biscuit cutters. Use a spatula to transfer the biscuits to a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.

Bake for around 10 minutes- you want the biscuits to stay pale and not colour. Move to a baking tray and allow to cool for 10 minutes, when they will also harden.

Beach life

A few shots from holiday north and south of the Scottish border. Above: beach bbq with Linda McCartney sausages and sweetcorn for the resident vegetarian and vegan... (i.e. not all for me!)... Seaside chips at Seahouses...When the rain came down, we had an indoor picnic of green beans cooked in olive oil, flour wraps, herb potato salad, tomato salad with basil, hummus, and beluga lentil, chickpea and spinach salad.

800 miles away

I had some time off from London last week. I left behind my Blackberry, laptop, Twitter feed and everything else, only bringing my camera along for the ride.