Sydney part 4 - Sunday.

So I totally fell at the final hurdle for VeganMoFo, coming in at 18 posts... so close, so far! But I have a really good excuse, I promise! The last couple of days of October for me were a mad rush of baking, socialising and eating! So no time for blogging. I have really enjoyed participating in AusNZVeganMoFo and VeganMoFo this year, and it really has got me back into the blogging mood! I hope to continue blogging at least two or three times a week from now on.

I had one more Sydney tale left to tell. Sunday morning came along and Di and I were up early (the others were sleeping off the afterness of a bad night of badness... e.g alcohol and a late night) to head back to Naked Espresso for more brunch - hurrah! We had already decided that Sunday would be PANCAKE DAY!


I started my brunch with some hot chocolate. I don't drink coffee, it's gross and makes me feel sick. Hot chocolate at Naked Espresso is an experience! When the barista came over, he had a glass filled with some brown sludge on the bottom. WTF? Melted chocolate, my friends! He then proceeds to half fill the glass with hot soy milk, pausing for you to stir it up, and then fills the glass all the way and tops it off with some freshly shaved chocolate sprinkles... AWESOME! And delicious. :)


Now for the pancakes, how gorgeous are they? A delicious stack of buckwheat pancakes with fruit layered between them and maple syrup drizzled all over. Nom, nom, nom. But I knew early on this wouldn't be enough to sate my hungry vegan appetite! So, what is better than a stack of pancakes?


A stack of pancakes with Redwood bacon, extra maple syrup and hashbrowns on the side! Oh yeah. This sounded so good that Di ordered it as well. The result? Absolutely delicious!


And here is our experiment: Pancake, hashbrown and bacon in a stack covered in maple syrup. Pretty darn good! We suggested they could serve a pancake, hashbrown and bacon stack with fruit on the side for future brunches. ;)

After this we caught a bus down to Circular Quay for the Sydney Opera House Open Day. At about this time it started absolutely bucketing down rain! Even with my umbrella my shoes were soaked through and the bottom of my pants were wet! Thankfully the waiting area to get in was undercover. We did the behind the scenes tour, which was pretty nifty though kind of claustrophobic - it is a rabbit warren in there. Were the people who designed it on some sort of crazy drugs? There were also a lot performers roving around... musicians in the stairwells and goblins and gargoyles traipsing the halls. Pretty fun!

When we got out it was still raining... only HARDER! More soggy feet and pants followed, though it was worse for the others that didn't have an umbrella at all!


The Sydney Harbour Bridge on a grey and drizzling day. Still pretty!

After this we hustled on down to City Extra, a cafe at Circular Quay. Not really vegan, but when the lovely waitress asked what I would like I ordered a strawberry milkshake with soy milk and no ice cream, no dairy of any kind. She was very good and clarified exactly what I wanted in it - strawberry and soy milk only! My drink came and I took a great big sip... only to regret it as soon as I had swallowed. I checked and my drink was suspiciously thick and when I stirred it a bit glob of white floated to the top. I asked the waitress who went and asked the kitchen and she was mortified to tell me they had put CREAM IN IT! Blergh. After about 5 minutes my stomach decided I needed to take an impromptu trip to the bathroom. As a result, the restaurant comped the bill for the whole table. Which was a bonus for the others but didn't really help me. The poor waitress seemed to be copping the blame for it, but she took such meticulous instructions I can't see how it was - it wasn't her fault the moron in the kitchen can't read.

So home we went, and I reclined on the sofa feeling all rather ill and disgusting. To take my mind off the misfortunes of self-induced lactose intolerance (hello nine years no dairy) and that crazy irrational guilt I feel after accidental consumption of animal products I introduced myself finally to 30 Rock. Hilarious!

But my salvation was at hand. Normally when I go to Sydney we all get together for a massive yum cha at Green Gourmet. But recently information has come to light indicating that Green Gourmet has been LYING about the animal content in some of their mock meats. In fact if you go and buy them in the store next door, they have simply blacked out the egg and dairy ingredients. *sigh* So to make up for it the wonderous Leigh was going to make one of her famous Mexican feasts for me!


From left to right - multicoloured corn chips (yellow corn, blue corn, spinach and I can't remember what the red ones were), refried beans, guacamole, jalapenos and queso (made with the famous casheeze). Also pictured my peppermint tea for tummy soothing properties.


And from left to right again - Mexican not-pork, stir-fried cactus, salsa and olive salsa.

It was a fantastic and delicious feast! And totally revived me and made me feel human again. Apparently she didn't have enough time to make as much as she wanted to - how big could such a feast possibly be?? Nom, nom, nom!

That was my last night in Sydney. The next morning I was up and off to Newtown to stock up on Larabars, then to the airport and home. It was a wonderful weekend, I love my Sydcoats and cannot wait to do it again!

On another note, for about three days after my dairy experience I was mildly nauseous and felt extremely sluggish and often lightheaded. I wondered if this was how I felt before I went vegan, but I was just used to it and didn't realise? Anyway, I am happy to report that I am all back to my happy happy self now.

Cute Kitten Photo of the Post


All the boys - Fray, Wesley and Caleb. I had this bay window in my room, which the cats loved to sit on and watch the world go by!

VeganMoFo #18: Sydney - Saturday shindigs

Argh! Somehow yesterday totally slipped my mind for my blogging... I don't know how or why, I wasn't actually doing anything else really! And then I almost ran out of time today, so now I am posting late at night and tomorrow I shall have to post twice to make my 20 post quota!

Anyway, back to the happier times of Sydney. Saturday morning dawned and I was SO happy because I was finally going to have brunch at Naked Espresso! Then I was going to go to the Sydney Vegan Bakesale and meet Mandee and buy lots of food... or so I THOUGHT! Until I found out that some climate change protest had taken the spot and turned our bakesalers out... so they could make an ice sculpture and sell sausages!! *sigh* But, all was not lost! Read on...

We trundled on down to Naked Espresso to watch the lovely Leigh in action and order some fuds. Here is the list of breakfasts:


Brendan ordered the Builder's Breakfast, which is a joke Leigh suggested one fateful day that has since become a wildly popular brunch item. It is a pie (plain, mushroom or pepper) with a vanilla slice. Brendan had the pepper pie and I tried a wedge - delicious! Not sure how I feel about this first thing in the morning! (OK, I admit that my brunch wasn't actually first thing in the morning, I had had a pre-brunch breakfast before I left... I get really hungry you know... hee).


Diana ordered the Bacon, Lettuce, Avocacado and Tomato sandwich (BLAT), which is her favourite. Doesn't it look just great? The bacon is Redwoods.


I ordered the Aussie Feast, which was three slices of smoked tofu (I love smoked tofu), baked beans (not out of a can either - hurrah), has browns (mmm.... potato goodness), mushrooms (delicious), two slices of sourdough toast with Nuttelex and also some spinach, tomato and pumpkin. Hey, where are those last three?


Oh, there they are - they were under my bread! It is a great breakfast, everything is so tasty - nothing oily or bland here! But I was having one of my super hungry days because about 30 minutes later I was starting to feel peckish again!


Leish ordered The Morning After, which is the same as the Aussie Feast except that it has two Redwood sausages instead of the smoked tofu.

Now I mentioned that I was sad the bake sale was canceled as I was looking forward to meeting Mandee. However, Mandee wisely also had decided that brunch was an excellent plan!


A CupcakeKitteh and a dimsimkitty together at last! It is always great to meet people in the non-cyber world. :)


Mandee also very thoughtfully brought me some goodies from the bake sale! Gingerbread, Banana Split and Chocolate PB cupcakes! There was also a gingerbread horse, but his head fell off so I didn't photograph him in case it disturbed young children. All were DELICIOUS! Plus Mandee also got me onto some vegan 100s and 1000s, so now I've been eating fairy bread like it's going out of fashion!

After brunch we took a stroll around Newtown and then headed back to Di and Brendan's to get ready for their housewarming/Sydcoat shindig that night. The shindig was great, and I was able to catch up with even more Sydcoats and also a friend from work who moved to Sydney a while ago! Awesome.


The theme was BBQ, so us vegans had some Sanitarium sausages, marinated mushrooms and an awesome retro rice salad provided by the lovely Mim!


Leigh also brought some spare pies from work, and I had a mushroom one. Delicious! Alex, one of the omnis, liked them so much he took one home! And so the day ended on a glorious note of friends and food... bliss!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


The third cat of the Brendan/Di household is Wesley. He is younger than the others and is a real little scamp. His nickname is Kitten.

VeganMoFo #17: Sydney part two - Friday's mains

When I left you yesterday, we had just finished our large order of delicious friend entrees and salads and waiting for the main courses...


Mock Chicken with Curry Sauce - This was great. A sweet and slightly spicy curry sauce, so yummy. You can also get the Fried Tofu and the Mock Beef with this sauce.


Mock Chicken with Sweet and Sour Sauce - I am normally not a huge fan of sweet and sour, but this was quite good. Sour with just a hint of sweet, not that horrific sweet and sticky stuff that normally comes with sweet and sour. The sauce also comes with Fried Tofu.


Mock Squid with Lemon Grass and Vegetables - Hmmm... Ummm... OK. So, probably best to skip the mock squid. It is kind of rubbery and gross. Di ordered this in a fit of exceptional braveness. Unfortunately, the lemon grass sauce is ridiculously hot and she doesn't handle chili well. Be warned! You can also get the sauce with Fried Tofu, Mock Chicken and Mock Beef.


Mock Meat with Combination Vegetables on a Hot Plate - Nice and simple, with a great tasty sauce. But be warned - may contain some freaky mock prawns. Sorry, I am just not into mock prawns! You can also get this with tofu and mushrooms instead of the mock meat.


Fried Tofu with Mushroom Sauce - This was my pick and was announced the WINNER of the table! The sauce is crazy good - salty, mushroomy goodness. Drink it up goodness! Mushroom sauce also comes with Mock Chicken, but I think the tofu is the winner.

And then there was NOM! What a great dinner it was, I highly suggest you go and check it out if you are in the area. The only downside, and rather annoying thing, is that while the main part of the menu is vegan the desserts are not. This sort of thing does make me annoyed - how hard is it to buy some soy ice cream instead of dairy and some agave instead of honey? They say they can make some of them vegan, but what they mean is they will leave out the ice cream and will give you just a banana fritter on its own.

Not fancying deep fried fruit we decided to take a stroll up King Street. Some of the kids went for gelato, but Di and I went up to Naked Espresso with Leigh (who is now a part owner - hell yeah) and bought some of Leigh's Vanilla Slice to take away!


And it was delicious! The funny thing is that Leigh doesn't like vanilla slice and has never actually tasted her masterful creation, which is SO scrumptious! And was excellent enjoyed on the sofa with a gaggle of Sydcoats passing the laptop around and generally geeking out!

Then there came the sleeping, to prepare for another day of nomming the next day!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

This is the adorable Fray, the second of Brendan and Di's kitties. Fray is a fraidy cat, and his main activities include hiding out in the wardrobe. He does come out and give some snuggles with time though!

Vegan MoFo #16: Sydney part one - Friday's starter

On Friday I went to Sydney for the weekend to have a fabulous time hanging out with my Sydcoats. What is a Sydcoat you ask? Who here has watched Joss Whedon's Firefly and Serenity? If not, for shame and go and do so at once! If so then you may know that the independents during the war were also called the Browncoats. Super awesome fans of the show/movie have adopted the name to refer to themselves. Hence, Browncoats. Browncoats in Sydney = Sydcoats! Even though I am back in Brisbane now, I am still a Sydcoat!

My trip started with a slight delay - upon boarding the plane we were told a window was jammed (???) so we promptly unboarded the plane and t=got on another one - thankfully they had a spare just lying around! But soon I was in Sydney, which was my home for six years and so is a super special place for me.

The first event of the weekend was Friday night dinner at Vina's - a vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant in Newtown. I had never been here before, but was with an experienced patron who made many suggestions. And hence, the eating began!


Crispy Xui Chao - Delicious, delicious fried. Dumplings with some sort of filling (I'm not sure exactly what it was) and a nomtastic sauce - I think sweet and sour maybe?


Steamed Mock BBQ Bun - A steamed BBQ bun is always a winner! Be careful biting into these - they are steaming hot.


Crispy Mock Fish Nuggets - These were great! A very mild fishy flavour, but they were essentially tasty little nuggets of tasty goodness.


Lightly Fried Crispy Tofu - Fried silken tofu with fried onions on top and a lovely soy sauce.


Fried Spring Rolls - Always a classic. I didn't actually try these because one couple were having some extra sides and just one main to share.


Crispy Curry Samosa - See above!


Green Salad - It is meant to be tomato, capsicum, cucumber, corn and avocado with a sesame oil dressing, though ours somehow got ordered without the avocado because a certain very off person (he knows who he is!) doesn't like it. Unfortunately most of the rest of the salad was capsicum - gag! I had a bit of the lettuce, cucumber and tomato though and it was quite nice with the dressing.


Vina Coleslaw - This is AWESOME! It is a salad of shredded pickled carrot, white radish, bean sprouts and cucumber topped with cashews and 'chicken'. It is totally amazing and something you could just eat all day everyday!

Now, it may seem like a whole lot of food but the above were just our starters! Tomorrow I shall continue on to the mains, a delicious journey!

Cute Kitty Post of the Day


During my time in Sydney I was staying with the lovely Brendan and Diana and their three kitties. This is Caleb, one of the three. He is the sookiest great big boy, and he is so lovable. I blew raspberries on his belly a number of times, something only the most relaxed and patient of cats will allow. He is a big handsome man!

VeganMoFo #15: Things to come...

So, I was going to post a quick post about waffles today. However Flickr and Blogger have conspired against me and now I cannot post ANY PICTURES! I am quite traumatised by this, as I have never before posted without a picture. I almost cannot cope!

But I wanted to post today because tomorrow I am going to Sydney! I may get a chance to post something quickly in the morning if the interwebs are behaving again, otherwise I'll be MIA until Monday evening. I am going to Sydney to hang out with my very bestest Browncoat friends. If you don't know what a Browncoat is, then I say shame on you and go and watch Firefle and Serenity immediately!

Weekend plans will include a lot of eating, so here is what you can expect to see photos of...

- Dinner tomorrow night at Vina's Vegetarian Vietnamese restaurant!
- Brunch tomorrow morning at Naked Espresso
- Vegan bake sale
- Vegans attending a housewarming party in vegan style
- A massive vegan mexican feast

So I am sorry for this most pathetic of posts! Can you believe we are on the MoFo home straight now? Only 9 days to go!

VeganMoFo #14: Recipe Round-Up - Vegan Planet

Back to the round up of Vegan Planet recipes... I still have so many more photos to post as well! Let's see what I have been cooking up...


Layered Polenta-Chili Casserole is a delicious way to use up some leftover chili. I had leftovers from one of the VP chili recipes - but I don't remember which one! The recipe called for a 9x13 inch baking dish but I found that this was too big for the ingredients called for so I used a smaller pan. It is delicious layer of polenta with a layer of chili and topped off with melted Cheezly - yummy!


Tempeh adds delicious protein to this Pappardelle Cacciatore - nom nom nom! I couldn't find any pappardelle pasta that didn't contain eggs, so I used my favourite spinach fettuccine.


This is ridiculously good! It is Grilled Portobellos with Rosemary-Roasted Vegetables. A simple combination of red onion, zucchini and tomato (I left out the capsicum) roasted and piled on top of a grilled portobello (which I grilled in our George Foreman grill). I served it with Wild Rice Pilaf from The Complete Vegan Cookbook and a green salad. VP suggests a variation where you add a grilled veggie burger on top of the mushrooms and under the vegetables for a more substantial entree. To be honest, I think this would really take away from the glorious fresh flavours, and I love it just as it is!


Red Bean Cakes with Creamy Coconut Sauce are a pretty dinner. The red bean cakes are so amazingly tasty and would be great as burgers made in their own right! The coconut sauce is nice but a bit bland. I served it with some brown rice and some sauteed broccolini - I think a nice salty vegetable side definitely picks up the whole experience.


Tempeh Goulash is full of fermented goodness - tempeh and sauerkraut... delicious! It has a very interesting flavour, but it is damn tasty!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Blog

Sahara loves a really intense head rub, here she is with my mother's hands encircled around her face giving her a nice scratch/rub/pat. Her little face is all squinched up in happiness. She was purring super loudly with her rattle purr!

VeganMoFo #13: Short and sweet.

A really short post tonight. I am exhausted, but if I don't make a post tonight I won't make my 20 MoFo post goal! So even though I technically have time for a longer post, a super short post is all I have time for. Sometimes it is like that with cooking. You want something delicious, you have the time to make something, but you just don't have the energy.


This is a recipe for one of those days! It takes about an hour and a half to cook, but there is actually pretty much no effort involved. Your oven does all the work for you. It is Wendy's Lentil and Brown Rice Casserole from La Dolce Vegan. Just mix together lentils, rice, onion, stock, tinned tomatoes and herbs in your casserole dish and pop in the oven. Towards the end you sprinkle on the cheeze until it gets melty, and that is about the extent of your involvement. Anyone can handle that much effort, and it is made from things that most of us have on hand all the time (well, maybe not the cheeze, but you could omit or make some cheezy sauce if you get a little energy burst). And the result is delicious! Here it is served with some salty sauteed broccolini - one of my favourite sides!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

It is my lovely Gizmo, snorgling up to her cat nip heart. I bought her this for her birthday last year and she loves it! It is premium super strength cat nip and she goes crazy for it. She spends a lot of time just lying with it as a pillow, rubbing her head over it, sniffing it and licking it. It says 'Lick Me,Kick Me, Bunnykick Me' on it. It was so popular with all the cats that I bought another one that says 'Can't Break This Heart'.

And now... slumber. Off to work a 24 hour shift tomorrow.