Calling All Not Dogs Fans! We’ve Launched Our First Crowdfunding Campaign!

Today marks the launch of our first crowdfunding campaign to help us secure a location for the very first Not Dogs restaurant!

After spending 18 months on the road serving up the Not Dogs menu, meeting lots of new fans, gathering feedback and taking lots of #sausageselfie pictures, we are on a mission to take Not Dogs from one little travelling food truck to restaurants all over the UK – and hopefully beyond!

We are determined to open up our first restaurant in 2016, and we need your help to make it happen next year!

For those of you not familiar with Crowdfunder, it’s a popular portal for young businesses to harness the power of their community to help them bring valuable projects to life. In return we reward your investment (no matter how little) with unique and once-in-a lifetime rewards!

To view our Crowdfunder page head to this link to find out more about the campaign and to help us on our mission: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/notdogs

Funds raised on Crowdfunder will go towards our plans in 2016 to launch the first Not Dogs restaurant and will directly be put towards helping us to secure that must-have location for our first permanent home.

Our target is £10,000 and we have six weeks to hit it. If we don’t reach our target we won’t receive any funds (and you will receive your money back from Crowdfunder), however if we do hit the magic £10,000, ‘Stretch Funding’ will open which allows us to accept further funds for the remaining six weeks.

Anything from £10 to £1000 is accepted by Crowdfunder and to thank you for your support we have a number of exclusive rewards for your generosity including…

• Your name forever imprinted on the 'Sausage Selfie Wall' in the first restaurant
• 20% discount every time you visit Not Dogs
• Exclusive branded merchandise
• An Invitation to our first ambassador party
• A behind-the-scenes tour and exclusive menu-tasting session with Katie & Jane
• An invitation to the exclusive Not Dogs launch party!
• The ultimate reward is the 'Not Dogs for Life' membership card! Your exclusive card will allow you to enjoy Not Dogs for life, on us!
• A very exclusive reward is the naming of your very own Not Dog menu item so you can eat your namesake time and time again!

To find out how to unlock these rewards head to our Crowdfunder page here: www.crowdfunder.co.uk/notdogs 

As it’s that wonderful time of the year, each of these rewards would be a thoughtful Christmas present for a Not Dog fan!

Our mission is to have a Not Dogs restaurant in every major city which we hope passionately will grow to become the fast-food fix of choice among not just vegetarians, but meat-eaters too, with the added benefit of being much kinder to the environment, animals, and you!

We would love for you to show your support and help us kick-start our mission so that one day you’ll have a Not Dogs fix near you. Even just sharing our Crowdfunding page with your friends and family will be so valuable to us.

Thank you for reading, and if you are already a Not Dog fan – we can’t thank you enough for all the support you have all shown us since we began.

See you for a #SausageSelfie soon :)

Katie & Jane

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Not Dogs Are Coming to (Oxford) Town - Win Not Dogs for Life!

Not Dogs are back for a second year at the Oxford Christmas Market from Thursday 10th to Sunday 20th December and to celebrate we're launching a new competition!

To enter, once you've got your Not Dogs fix from us at the market, simply take a selfie with your Not Dog and share it across Twitter and/or Instagram using the hashtag #SausageSelfie and tag us in @notdogsUK and you'll be automatically entered to win Not Dogs for Life!

You can take as many #SausageSelfie pictures as you like to increase your chances of winning this exclusive prize! After the market has ended we'll go through everyone's entries and pick our favourite and that prize is yours!

You'll receive an exclusive Not Dogs for Life membership card which means you can enjoy Not Dogs every day for the rest of your life*!

Last year we had such a fantastic time, we met so many friendly Not Dogs fans, lots of amazing traders and got loads of fun #SausageSelfie pictures - we can't wait for the 10th!

Good luck and see you on Broad Street!

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*Terms & Conditions Apply:

Oxford 2015 Not Dogs For Life Competition Terms & Conditions

The Not Dogs For Life Competition is open to all UK and Ireland residents. To apply you must be aged 16 and over.

No purchase necessary. Simply enter the competition in accordance with instructions on the Not Dogs Twitter & Instagram accounts:

https://twitter.com/notdogsUK

http://instagram.com/notdogsuk

The Oxford Christmas Market competition will run from Thursday 10th December 2015 to Sunday 20th December 2015.

Only correct entries completed on Twitter and Instagram will be valid. Any application containing incorrect or incomplete information will be invalid and will not be considered.

1 x winner from Instagram and/or Twitter will be selected by the Not Dogs team based on the most fun, festive #SausageSelfie from all valid entries and will be announced after the closing date.

The decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. Winners will be required to collect their Not Dogs for Life card from the Not Dogs food truck at the Oxford Christmas Market. If this isn't possible, the cards will be sent out in the post (provided the winners have given correct postal addresses) in January 2016.

Voucher

Voucher must be used in conjunction with valid form of ID to claim a free Not Dog. The voucher will not be accepted if used by anyone other than the winner. The winner may claim one free Not Dog per day from Sunday 20th December 2015 and for the rest of his/her life when claimed with a valid form of ID and approved by Not Dogs.

Free Not Dogs must be claimed by the winner in person at an event attended by Not Dogs, and cannot be used online or by phone order.

1 x Free Not Dogs for Life voucher will be sent by 31 January 2016 to each winner providing winners have sent their postal addresses to the team by 20 January 2016.

By entering the competition you grant permission for Not Dogs to use any photographs and/or videos submitted of you in print and/or online, this includes for any marketing activities after the competition has ended and in future activity.

Not Dogs reserves the right to publicise the name for each of the winners.

In the event of any prize not being available for whatever reason, Not Dogs may offer an alternative prize of equal or greater value and quality.

Any prizes unclaimed after reasonable efforts from Not Dogs to contact the winner will be distributed at the company’s discretion. Not Dogs does not accept any responsibility for late or lost entries due to online issues and Not Dogs is not liable for lost prizes.

Not Dogs reserves the right to cancel the promotion at any stage, if deemed necessary in their opinion, and if circumstances arise outside of their control.

Not Dogs reserves the right to withdraw any winner through a fraudulent claim. Upon there being no entries, there will be no winner.

Your personal data will be treated in confidence and will not be disclosed to any third party for marketing purpose unless agreed.

30.11.15

Spotlight On… The Oxford Christmas Market

This year we will return to the Oxford Christmas Market to take up residency in our little festive wooden chalet from 10 to 20 December.

We love Oxford as a city and the Christmas Market is our favourite for a few reasons which we thought we’d share with you all...

• The market is small but perfectly formed with so many gorgeous and unique local offerings from Demijohn and Exotic Coffee Roasters to Churros Garcia and us of course! You can make your way around the stalls without it being too busy leaving you enough time to browse everything we all have to offer
• The tasty tipples! From Bailey’s Hot Chocolate at Winter Warmers to the best coffee Katie & Jane have ever had from the baristas at Exotic Coffee Roasters, you will find the perfect way to warm up on a chilly Winter’s day

• The Oxford Christmas Market is the only Christmas market where you can get devour your way through the UK’s only Quorn Bratwurst – courtesy of Not Dogs of course! This year we’ll be offering a tasty side of our new and very popular 'Crispy Waffle Fries' seasoned with Christmas spices and a sparkly seasonal tipple too!
•  Every stall is hand-selected by the organisers of the market, so you’ll find everything you’d hoped to find from award-winning and some of the most sought after exhibitors in the UK

We hope you’ll come & visit us this year, you can find all the information you need, including a full list of exhibitors and location details at www.oxfordchristmasmarket.co.uk

Eat. Sleep. Not Dogs

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Not Dogs Sausage Showcase on Winter Favourite: Santa's Stilton Surprise

Quorn Bratwurst topped with crumbled Christmas-spiced caramelised red onions with a sprinkling of crumbled stilton cheese

Why 'surprise' you may ask? Well we were surprised how well tangy stilton cheese went with a Not Dog when coming up with ideas for our Winter menu. We'd tried numerous different recipes but we knew this one would get full approval from the big man himself!

A hint of nutmeg comes with the crispy, caramelised red onions bringing even more of the festive season into our most Christmassy of Not Dogs.

Find us at the beautiful Oxford Christmas Market 10th-20th December and get yourself a Santa's Stilton Surprise!

See you there!

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Vegetarian Chilli-Con-Carne or Cha-Cha Chilli!

Get cosy whether you're staying in or heading to your nearest bonfire with our vegetarian chilli-con-carne recipe which deliciously tops our Cha-Cha Chilli Dog but goes equally well with rice, spooned onto a jacket potato or simply topped with crushed nachos and chilli flakes...

Cha-Cha Chilli-Con-Carne (serves four hungry people!)

Ingredients

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp cumin

2 tsp hot chilli powder

2 tsp chilli flakes

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 tbsp chopped red chillies

2 peppers, diced

Pinch of salt and pepper

300g Quorn mince

800g chopped tomatoes

1 tbsp tomato puree

400g kidney beans

250-500ml vegetable stock

Method

• Heat the oil in a large saucepan
• Fry all the spices and chilli flakes, garlic and chopped chillies until fragrant, constantly stirring
• Add the peppers and a pinch of salt and pepper
• Saute for around five minutes until the peppers are starting to brown
• Add the Quorn mince, stir well
• Add chopped tomatoes, tomato puree and kidney beans, stir well
• Simmer for ten minutes over a low heat, stirring occasionally
• Add 250ml of the vegetable stock, stir and simmer for ten minutes
• Check back regularly to see if more vegetable stock is required

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Summer Sausage Selfies!

Summer is well and truly over (boo!) but we're enjoying colder days where we get stuck into preparing exciting Not Dogs recipes in the kitchen so the lack of sun and festival-fever isn't all bad!

To bring a little summer to the blog in Autumn we thought we'd look back at some of the best
#SausageSelfie pictures taken on our festival tour 2015... there's still many more we haven't published yet so keep checking across social media to see when your #SausageSelfie makes an appearance!

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Not Dogs in the Kitchen!

There's nothing more we love than spending a day developing new menu items and trying out Quorn's new offerings and last week we did just that!

We're looking to expand our Not Dogs range in the near future and we have our second stint at the Oxford Christmas Market coming up soon so we wanted to try out some new ideas... some worked, some did not! It's all a bit 'hush-hush' but we wanted to share some photos with you...

It all begins with a planning session followed by one big shop, scooting around looking for interesting ingredients to buy along with a few old favourites

Then it's into the kitchen with a lot of chopping, dicing, frying, mixing and baking!

Often there are times when we imagine a recipe is going to be simply amazing but in reality we don't love it as much as some other ideas. A rule of thumb is if we can't stop thinking about something once we've cooked it, it's one for the menu like our Not Dog recipes that are currently on our menu

One thing we have to remind ourselves is to eat small portions but once we've created something that tastes so good we don't want to stop!

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Not Dogs Sausage Showcase: The Cha-Cha Chilli Dog!

We were inspired to create our ‘meatiest’ dog yet for a series of Freshers' Weeks at universities last year. We wanted to offer students something warming and satisfying as the Autumn months got colder - all using Quorn of course!

Quorn Bratwurst topped with Vegetarian Chilli-Con-Carne, Crushed Nachos and Chilli Flakes

The Cha Chilli Dog is made up of our famous Not Dog, topped with home-made chilli con-carne (made from Quorn mince) crispy nachos and finished off with a sprinkle of chilli flakes, perfect for this time of the year!

With this menu favourite, we double our use of Quorn which actually make it a very meaty Not Dog, popular with our meat-eating fans, but still completely 100% vegetarian too!

Why ‘Cha-Cha Chilli’ you may ask? Well that’s because it’s so tasty it dances all over your mouth!

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Not Dogs Second Summer Tour Round-Up!

Our second summer tour in our little purple truck has come to an end! It involved lots of hard work, tonnes of fun and laughs with lots of new Not Dogs fans! Here's a little round-up for the blog...

We kicked off with BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend in May - we'd never travelled to Norwich before but by the end of the event we simply loved the place! Not only is it a beautiful town to visit, the people there are so friendly and love Not Dogs which is always a good thing! Despite being very busy, we managed to get some #SausageSelfie photos with lots of fans and also a few of the artists performing there which was great - although a shoutout on the radio from Greg James on the way home topped it off for us!

Up next was our second appearance at Godiva Festival in Katie's hometown of Coventry - last year's event was so good we knew we didn't want to miss it this year! Although it may not be as well known as some of the summer's events, Godiva is a fantastic free festival for all ages with some great performers. We had a surprise visit after closing one evening from punk band Slaves who were two of the nicest people we met all summer and they loved their Not Dogs!

In July it was off to London we went for one of our favourite festivals - Lovebox in Victoria Park. We traded at Lovebox in 2014 and 2015 exceeded all expectations! It's an amazing festival with the best atmosphere so it's really fun to be there and get lots of #SausageSelfie pictures! We actually sold out of Not Dogs on both days! This really is a festival not to miss.

Staying in London the Not Dogs truck attended a new one-day festival for 2015; Citadel, again located in Victoria Park. We have to say that Citadel is now our new favourite festival! The event organisers put on such an amazing event there's something for everyone - we do hope it returns next year!

V Festival was a festival we had a goal of getting to when we started Not Dogs so were happy to rock up to our pitch near the main stage for some close-to-home fun in Weston Park, Staffordshire. Here we witnessed mud wrestling, massive acts and our new potato waffle fries sold like hot cakes/fries!

In 2014 we travelled up and down the country from London to Wales and back again but this year we found ourselves staying closer to home in the Midlands. Our last-but-one festival was Fusion Festival in Cofton Park, Birmingham. Fans were greatly disappointed that the main attraction Justin Bieber pulled out at the last minute but, much to our pleasure... Ed Sheeran came to the rescue! Ed pulled in a massive crowd on the first day of the three day festival where he did a 90 minute set - we had a great view of the stage too which was a bonus! Brummies loved our Not Dogs and it was great to get so many #SausageSelfies with people! Fusion was one of our highlights of the summer.

Lastly we returned to where we started - Norwich for Sundown Festival. Here, we met some great people, saw some fantastic acts and loved hearing how tasty everyone said their Not Dogs were! It was good to round-up the summer season where it had all kicked off!

Now we're looking forward to returning to Oxford, without our little purple truck (into a chalet we go!) for the Oxford Christmas Market 2015. We had the best time last year so are very excited to be setting-up there again with our winter menu. And, our plans for 2016 couldn't get any bigger and although we hope to be doing a third summer tour, we hope to be sticking around in a location for a little longer! Stay tuned!

Eat. Sleep. Not Dogs

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