Sophie "Facon"

I love a curry. Thai, Indian, sweet, sour, tomato, coconut, spicy or mild. The aromas filling the house, making it feel like a home. Normally I chuck whatever vegetables we have got to use up with some chickpeas and red lentils in the slow cooker topped with some coconut milk and tomato passatta and see what happens but, sometimes I take my time over a dish. I adore cooking, as you've probably realised and nothing beats a huge pot of something spicy bubbling away on the stove. My last throw together dish has got to be the best curry I've ever made! So this recipe post is mostly for me to remember how I did it, but hopefully some of you will enjoy making it too... Ingredients: 1 Red Onion sliced thinly 1 tsp turmeric 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp garlic granules 1/2 tsp chilli or more if you prefer it hotter! 1 tsp tikka masala powder 1 tsp paprika 1/2 tsp ginger 1 tsp oregano 1 tbsp tomato puree 1 sweet potato cut into 2cm cubes 1 green pepper cut into 2cm cu...

For 10 years most people didn't know I was vegetarian; it only became apparent when I went to eat out with anyone. When I ate at school I'd often get "enjoying your rabbit food?" thrown at me and my default response became agreeing and some kind of imitation of a rabbit. I never stood up for myself and made people realise it was upsetting, but mostly annoying. When people say things now, such as "don't you miss meat?" "we are made to eat animals" "and the classic "but, Bacon?!" I don't shy away. Learning how to voice your beliefs, educate people and be proud of you lining your morals up with your actions feels great. When you begin to become confident with showing your pride it is difficult to not get angry at times. When people can't see that their lives clearly don't line with what they believe to be right and wrong it's infuriating to try and reason with people. You can talk to people and fin...

Confrontation is something we all have to deal with. Some cope better than others. It's all about keeping calm and collected and getting your side across in a convincing, compassionate way. I've never been very good at that. There's an important person in my life that I've always clashed with. We are polar opposite. Doesn't mean I don't care about them still though. Over the years we've found ourselves in many heated discussions and we both always have to be right. Recently though they found themselves in a room with 3 vegans, including myself, and they are far from even considering veganism (no matter how how I've tried). They bought up the topic of veganism.  In the room was my mum (for the animals), my other half (for his health) and myself (for the environment) so there was a wide array of opinions that even clashed within the 3 of us. The non-V (we'll call them) knows what happens to the animals, we've made them watch enough foot...

Everyone has a tipping point; that one moment where everything syncs in your mind and you realise your morals and compassion have to align with your daily lifestyle. Some come later than others and that’s okay, as long as we all get there in the end for humanities sake. My realisation didn’t come until Christmas 2015, I was 20. Some may say this is early in life to realise but I’m still astonished it didn’t come sooner. After being vegetarian for 8 years, purely because I thought it was weird to eat a living being and didn’t feel comfortable doing so, I watched Cowspiracy whilst eating a cheese pizza. That was the last dairy I knowingly ate (apart from the occasional curry shop mint sauce that I will come back to later). School was constantly feeling left out, being called “rabbit” and people finding my ironic surname “Bacon” hilarious on a daily basis (people still mention it when they find out and I just let them have a little giggle and get over ...