Wednesday 28 September 2011

Mallorca.

Nick & I recently went to Mallorca for a week with his family. We stayed in a villa near Port de Pollenca & it was one of the most relaxing weeks I've ever had. Normally I plan my travels around delicious vegan food meaning that I spend a lot of time in cities, which I love, but it was great to spend a week lazing by the pool & going to the beach.


The first thing Nick & I did after picking up our hire car was to head to the large Carrefour supermarket right by the airport to stock up on food for the week. We knew that there was a small supermarket nearer to where we were staying but we suspected that it was unlikely to have some of the things we wanted.

Caffefour had loads of fantastic seitan & tofu products. Nick loved both of these seitans & spent the week frying them up to eat on baguettes.


These Filetes de Tofu came in their own sauce & took minutes to cook. We had them for dinner one night with the Savoury Orange Rice from Viva Vegan.


I was incredibly excited when we spotted these Seitan Albóndigas. Albóndigas are a Spanish meatball that I remembered enjoying back in my pre-vegan days.

We snapped up two packets & one night we used them in a simple tomato pasta dish which we served with a side of homemade garlic bread.

Before we left I looked online to see what brand of dairy free margarine I should be looking out for at the supermarket. I saw Artura Corn margarine on a few vegan blogs & we were happy to find it in Carrefour. I ate it at breakfast time almost every day with jam, fruit & freshly baked baguettes that were delivered to the villa every morning.

The best surprise on this trip was the avocado tree that we discovered in the garden of the villa. I used the fruit from the tree to make some delicious salads like this one with salad leaves, tomato, cucumber, apple & avocado with a side of roasted aubergine.

After a couple of days we realised that we'd forgotten to pick up any chocolate on our Carrefour trip so we headed to the local Eroski supermarket where we picked up this great selection.

My favourite chocolate was definitely the Eroski brand almond chocolate whereas Nick much preferred the plain Lindt 52% chocolate. Neither of us really enjoyed the Eroski basic plain chocolate & a scary warning on the back of the Valor almond chocolate put me off eating it. The Valor chocolate was actually a sugar free diabetic chocolate that warned you not to eat too much of it in one go because it would cause diarrhoea! I am not a person who can only eat one or two squares on chocolate at a time so whilst this tasted nice I decided to pass on finishing the whole bar!

We also grabbed a couple of bags of peanut crisps at the store. You can find these kinds of crisps made by different companies all over Europe & I've never seen a non-vegan version. Be warned though that you will probably polish off the whole bag in one go.

We also stocked up on Corona because I'd managed to drink all of the beers we'd bought on the first shopping trip! If you are planning to visit Mallorca I'd recommend a trip to Carrefour to stock up on essentials, whilst the Eroski supermarket (apparently the second largest shop on the island) had great snacks there was no dairy free margarine, tofu or seitan.

On our last night I decided to make Nick & I some tapas, I'd have made it for everyone but nobody seemed to want to try the "scary vegan food"!

I made Garlic Mushrooms, Albondigas in tomato sauce...


...Mojo Oven Roasted Seitan from Viva Vegan & a tomato tofu salad.

We ate all of this with copious amounts of bread which was especially great to soak up all of the garlic oil from the mushrooms.


We also went to a couple of restaurants whilst we were in Mallorca and I'll be back with those reviews very soon!

13 comments:

  1. holy crap, those peanut curlies! I used to eat similar ones (probably not vegan) when I wasn't vegan and you're not kidding when you say it's far too easy to eat the whole thing in five seconds flat. want.

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  2. Your posts always make me so hungry Jojo :-)

    That beach looks amazing!

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  3. I miss a good variety of fruits and vegs! My dad used to have an avocado tree in our house and I miss eating avocados a lot (it's hard to find them here in Dublin and they're so small)!

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  4. all of it looks amazing - I wish I had an avocado tree!!

    I love all the pre-packed seitan goodies! awesome finds.

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  5. looks wonderful!! I am amazed at the vegan choices they have over there. Really good to know. The pic of the pool, is that your villa pool? looks great!xx

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  6. Looks like you had a super fun trip! And what great vegan food finds! Sometimes I get the "don't want to try the scary vegan food" too, but that just means more for me. Yum, yum, yum! :-)

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  7. I don't know where I'd be without Carrefour, my local branch also does vegan ice-cream and vegan yoghurts and vegan cheese.
    I'm definitely keeping my eyes peeled for those peanut crisps!!
    Glad you had a lovely time, that photo of the beach is so purty.
    xx

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  8. It all looks really lurvely, I hope the rest of your visit is fantastic

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  9. PixieRoseDresses, yep that's the vila pool. I really want to be back there again!

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  10. Could that first picture be any more gorgeous? It sounds like you and Nick had a blast!

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  11. I am moving to Europe soon so I will keep a lookout for those peanut crisps- they look divine.

    And what luck with the avocado tree! I have always wanted to have one.

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  12. I love the Carrefour! Glad to hear that you were able to get good vegan stuff in Mallorca. :D
    I can't believe I lived in Spain for 9 months and didn't know that Atua maiz margarine was vegan, it's in every supermarket!

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  13. Oh my, I want peanut curlies so very much. Thanks for reminding me how much I love them and how impossible they are to find here. Sigh, I guess I'll just have to go back to France.

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