Tuesday 24 November 2020

Recipe Round-Up: 1000 Vegan Recipes

I had planned on making this book my VeganMoFo theme for this year, so I could spend some time doing some short posts of the billionty photos I still have to share for this book. But in this year of years, VeganMoFo didn't happen. So since I don't have any new eating out food to share for a bit, I thought I would fill in the gaps by just doing some mini round-ups from here! Only a few recipes at time, so as not to get too overwhelming for me or for you, as recipe round-up posts are by far the most intesive to write and to read. You can see my previous posts from this book here. Warning, there are a lot!

Dijon Vinaigrette: This has a few ingredients, but is quick and easy to make. I used garlic and onion powder rather than raw shallot and garlic, which meant I didn't need to blend it I could just add everything into a bottle and give it a good shake. Sure, the herbs were still a bit chunky, but whatever. The recipe calls for a lot of oil, which I subbed with some water blended a touch of guar gum and a smidge of oil. Again, nothing against oil, just a personal inability to process things that are super oily.
Rating: :)

Dijon Vinaigrette


Broccoli Noodle Soup: I am still under the weather with this cold, so a bowl of this sounds great right about now. This soup gave me two big servings, though you could go smaller and get the four the recipe says it makes. It has angel hair, broccoli, carrot, and onion in it, and comes togehter so quickly. The recipe says to simmer for about 30 minutes for the carrots to get tender, but mine were good to go after ten minutes. You could easily throw in some beans, chickpeas, or seitan to make this a little more substantial if you wanted.
Rating: :)

Broccoli Noodle Soup


Laksa Come Home: This recipe has a lot of ingredients, but is worth it. You make your own laksa paste for this, which does involve some fresh chilies. I left these out, and added just a touch of some chile paste. As well as noodles, the soup has tofu and is toppe with bean sprouts, coriander, and cucumber. It has the option of also adding some pineapple as a topping, which I didn't have but sounds great. I would also suggest adding some greens into the soup when you add the tofu.
Rating: :)

Laksa Come Home


Parmasio: There are so many vegan parmesan recipes out there! This is a simple recipe that gets its name from being a blend of gomasio with nutritional yeast. So sesame seeds, salt, nooch. It is pretty good!
Rating: :)

Parmasio


(% 1000 Vegan Recipes blogged: 29.8%)

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Dim Sim


The sweetest softest snoozer.

Sunday 22 November 2020

Recipe Round-Up: Bowls of Goodness

I first became away of Bowls of Goodness by Nina Olsson after seeing someone posting about it on Instagram, and the food looked really good. I can't resist a bowl! This book is not all vegan, it is vegetarian, but anything that is not vegan has a vegan sub suggested. I don't normally buy vegetarian cookbooks because they are very heavy on dairy and eggs, but this one is an exception. Plus I found it on sale at a bookstore, so it was fate! And I am glad I did, because the recipes are amazing. This is my first Recipe Round-Up post for this book, but I have posted about one recipe I made from it before, which you can see here.

Blueberry Acai Bowl: I have had some frozen acai packets in my freezer for so long, so this was a good change to use them up! This bowl uses acai, blueberries, banana, and avocado. I reduced the avocado because I am not a huge fan of it in smoothies, so I used 1/4 of a large avocado instead of a whole one. Even so, I would leave it out next time. It has almond butter in it as well, so you have something nice a fatty and thickening added regardless. I used frozen acai and blueberries, but my banana was just cold. I would use a frozen banana next time because I like my smoothie bowls THICK. It has a range of options for topping, but use whatever you want. I used coconut flakes, pepitas, and fresh blueberries.
Rating: :)

Blueberry Acai Bowl


Overnight Oats: Always a classic! This recipe uses a blend of apple juice, oat milk, and yoghurt to soak. I didn't have plain apple juice, but instead used some Impressed Juice Co Jack Rose juice, which is apple, strawberry, and mint - so yum. The oats have chia in them, which I like to bulk it out a bit. The recipe here is fairly basic, with the option to stir-in or top with anything you like really. I mixed in some cinnamon, and topped mine with peanut butter and berries.
Rating: :)

Overnight Oats


Miso Happy: Described as miso woup with ginger, tofu, soba noodles, and shiitake mushrooms. It is also meant to have broccolini in it, but my broccolini was going bad so instead I just added some baby spinach. You make your own dashi, simply by soaking some water and kombu together and then simmering. I topped mine with fresh coriander and sesame seeds. You can't really go wrong with a good miso soup.
Rating: :)

Miso Happy


Dhal Tadhka: A bit beyond your standard dhal, this one uses a homemade tadka spice mix to bring the flavour, which also includes lime, shallots, and almonds in it as well. I left out the chili, which is why I think I ultimately found it the be a bit bland. The flavour entirely relies on the spice mix, so if you are leaving out the chili I would double the spice mix next time. Topped with some natural yoghurt, a small reserved amount of the tadhka (as advised), and coriander, and served with some toasted naan.
Rating: :|

Dhal Tadka


Smoked Tofu and Green Pea Salad: What a magnificent and giant salad! Described as 'faux fish', it isn't really fishy at all. More the smoked tofu is standing in for smoked fish, and it is also sauteed with some nori shreds. I left out the raw cabbage and rocket in the greens, using a higher mix of spinach and cos instead. I also roasted the zucchini rather than spiralising it raw because I don't like raw zucchini much. This also had avocado, apple, and pumpkin seeds and is topped with a horseradish cream. The cream calls for creme fraiche, and the book has a recipe for a cashew-based vegan version to use. This was a wonderful and refreshing salad.
Rating: :)

Smoked Tofu and Green Pea Salad


Beetroot Falafel, Dukkah, and Mint Salad: This is a wonderful falafel recipe, it is a bit sweet and earthy from the beetroot, and is fairy easy to make. It also has carrot in it! It said it makes 15 small falafels, I got 14 small ones and then I had enough left over to make a burger-patty sized one that I used to make a sandwich for work another day. The salad has a lot of fresh mint and parsley in it, as well as the greens. I halved the dukka, which was right for us for two serves. It too is very easy to make, and is based on whatever nut you have to hand. I left out the chili flakes in it, of course. I also left out the raw red onion from the salad. I served it with some toasted pita.
Rating: :)

Beetroot Falafel, Dukkah and Mint Salad


Buddha Bowl: The subtitle for this recipe is spicy chickpeas, tofu, quinoa and sprouts with turmeric dressing, though it is a lot more than that! This bowl is a wonderful mix of flavour and texture. It also has melon, radishes, and spiralised carrots in it for a wonderful raw freshness, as well as sweet potato. I roasted the sweet potato rather than sauteed it. The chickpeas are sauteed with spices, though I left out the chili, and the tofu is sauteed and glazed with a soy, ginger, and maple mix that is just lovely. It is meant to have fresh sprouts, but I didn't have any so I used coriander instead. The dressing is quite thick, so I added some extra water to help mix it through everything. Lovely.
Rating: :)

Buddha Bowl


Donburi: This is a Japanese-style rice bowl, which has a wonderful mix of sauteed eggplants and shiitake as the main event. It also has a lovely quick-pickled cabbage that marinates and pickles while you are cooking everything else. I only got three serves out of this, rather than four, and I served it with some sauteed spinach underneath the brown rice.
Rating: :)

Donburi


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Dim Sim


Dim Sim had her recheck appointment on Thursday, and it went as well as we could expect. The tumour hasn't gotten bigger on ultrasound, and her blood work seems OK after starting the chemo. We carry on until her next appointment, week after next.

Thursday 19 November 2020

Midweek Munchies

Some random snick snacks that I have purchased and tried.

I got a lasagne on 50% off sale from the ready meals section of The Green Edge, as it was expiring that day. Popped it in the freezer, and it defrosted and reheated a treat for when I was ready to enjoy it.

Lasagne from The Green Edge


These are a from a new range of soups that Continental has brought out. Not all of them a vegan, so you need to check. But these four are vegan and have no chili in them. As you can see, they are full of very silly ingredients, so right up my alley. Stay tuned for updated on what I thought about them, as I am still working my way through them.

Continental Packet Soups


This cheezy sauce is pretty handy, you can just whisk it up with cold water to add to bakes, or you can heat it gently on the stove for a hot cheesy sauce. It also has a bunch of suggested additions to make all sorts of themed sauces.

Plantasy Foods Cheesy Sauce Mix


I tried one of these Chris's Plant Based spreads before, the spring onion one, and I hated it. But I am happy to report that this one is delicious! Definitely recommend on crackers, veggies sticks, sandwiches, salads, whatever.

Chris's Plant Based Sweet Potato and Cashew Dip


I got these two fun seasoning salts at The Green Edge one day. They turmeric one is tasty, but my favourite is the dill and garlic ranch blend.

Fun seasoning salts


This dairy-free tomato pesto is nice, but so oily (as store-bought pestos tend to be). I used it to make a pasta bake, that will appear in a future recipe round-up. I don't think I would buy it again, simply because of the oiliness. But that is my personal preference. No shade on oil in general, it just makes me feel a bit sick if I eat things that are too oily.

Scala Free From Pesto


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Dim Sim


Today marks one week since starting oral chemo for her bladder tumour, and we are heading in to the oncologist this afternoon for our first recheck. Wish her luck please!

Tuesday 17 November 2020

Eating In: Brown and Bowls

Hello friends! Good news, my COVID test came back negative. It is just your run of the mill garden variety head cold. Which is nice to know, though I still feel awful. But the good kind of awful, I guess. At least I am starting to feel a bit better now, hurrah! I have realised that this post will bring me to the end of all my current photos to share for eating in! Wow! Don't worry, I will still be getting stuff delivered. In the interim, I have some other ideas of things to share on my Tuesday posting. Today's food post still has a lot of brown food in it, as well as a couple of things in bowls.

Like this Vegan Burrito Bowl from local Mexican-inspired chain Zambreros. It has black rice, beans, and a lovely tangy but chili-free sauce. The cool thing about them is that they include guac for free if you are getting a vegetarian or vegan bowl.

Vegan Burrito Bowl from Zambrero's


This looks very brown, but is actually very colourful underneath. I got the Satay Tofu Salad from The Green Edge to take away. I love their satay sauce! In future though this salad is not good for takeaway, because the battered tofu really needs to be eaten very fresh or the coating goes gluggy. Too bad they don't just have sauteed tofu instead!

Satay Tofu Salad from The Green Edge


While we are talking about The Green Edge, here are two sweet treats I got recently - a PBJ Brownie and an Oreo Cheesecake Cookie. The brownie I got during Halloween, as it was the only thing that didn't have some sort of gross edible body part decoration on it. It was so rich! I shared it with my nurse at work and I was glad to split it. The cookie was fun, it had chunks of oreos all through it, though I didn't get much cheesecake flavour.

PB&J Brownie from The Green Edge


Oreo Cheesecake Cookie from The Green Edge


Speaking of brown, this is a brown bowl of disappointment. I don't eat Indian a lot, unless I make it at home, because I can't control the spice level. But someone wanted Indian, so I hoped that Miss India's daal, labelled mild, would be OK. It was not, it was so spicy, I couldn't eat it. The samosa was good! The bhaji was just sogggy. And the pea and potato fritter again was just insanely spicy. I ended up giving most of the daal to my dad, throwing most of the rest of it away, and had some ice cream and PB on toast for dinner to try and soothe my poor tummy. Never again.

Way too spicy stuff from Miss India


Finally, this delicious bowl of pho from Bun. I ate this on Saturday night when my cold was at its worst. You've seen this before. In fact, I tend not to take photos of stuff I get delivered that I have posted about before, which is why I have run out now! But this bowl deserves a special mention for being there for me when I really needed a big hot bowl of pho.

Pho from Bun


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Dim Sim sleeping


Yeah, kittens are cute. But do you know what is better? My kitten. Sure, she is 20 years old, but she is tiny and always my baby girl. Here she is tucked under the covers sleeping while I am reading, waiting for me to be ready to turn out the lights so we can do our under the covers snuggle times.

Sunday 15 November 2020

Recipe Round-Up: Bold Flavored Vegan Cooking

It's been a while, but time to get back to rounding up recipes, and finishing off Bold Flavored Vegan Cooking. You can see my other posts about this book here. As I write this I have an awful head cold, and am home awaiting results of a COVID test. It won't be COVID, we haven't had community transmission here for almost two months, but it still is yucky. Blerh. But now, food.

Hash and Spice: This is a mix of wonderfully seasoned roast potatoes topped with sauteed vegetables (I used a mix of celery, carrot, and zucchini instead of capsicum and peppers, as well as the called for onion and mushrooms) and beans, I left the chili powder out of the vegetables as well. I topped it off with some avocado as well. This is delicious! I got three serves out of it, rather than four. Definitely no not skip the Hash Spice for serving. It is a blend of almonds and spices, leave out the chili powder to make it mild.
Rating: :D

Hash and Spice


Harissa Sprouts and Chickpeas: I scaled down the heat on this big time by leaving out the Harissa Paste all together and just using the teeniest sprinkle of Harissa spice mix (store bought, though there is a recipe for making your own in the book). This is done entirely on the stove-top, sauteed in the Brussels sprouts and chickpeas in a lovely sauce thatis both a little bit sweet and a little bit tangy.
Rating: :)

Harissa Sprouts and 'Peas


Red Curry Scramble with Lime-y Broccoli: I think this was the first thing I made during testing for this book. There is a recipe for Red Curry Paste in the book, or you can use a store-bought one like I did. Of course I decreased the amount of curry paste I used as well. The scramble also has nutritional yeast in it, and that gives a really good flavour with the red curry. The lime broccoli makes a nice side to go with it. Lots of flavours.
Rating: :)

Red Curry Scramble with Limey-Broccoli


Harissa Citrus Veggies: I halved the amount of Harissa spice mix in this, but still found it a touch spicy, so I would suggest just a sprinkle if I was making it again. The Harissa is also in both the roasted potatoes and the sauteed vegie mix, so I'd probably skip it on the potatoes as well. The sauteed veggies are a mix of zucchini, onion, and I used carrot and celery instead of capiscum and jalapenos. They also have black eyed peas in the saute, and use the citrus sauce recipe from the book to give a citrus kick
Rating: :)

Harissa Citrus Veggies and Potatoes


Mango Papaya Smoothie Bowl: Moving into the sweet section of the cookbook now, and boy does my sore throat crave this sweet and ice smoothie bowl right now. I used frozen mango and frozen banana to make sure it was nice and thick, and just cold papaya that had been in the fridge. I used a mix of light coconut milk and plain soy Greek yoghurt instead of 1/2 cup of coconut cream. The bowl is topped with a lovely lemon, ginger, and turmeric syrup that is not too sweet, just nice and tangy. The fun part about smoothie bowls is you can put whatever you want on them to make them pretty, so for this one I used cocoa nibs, slivered almonds, and some fancy Maple Rose Cinnamon coconut flakes that I had bought on super sale. This said it was two serves, but I ate it all as one.
Rating: :)

Mango Papaya Smoothie Bowl


Miso Sweet Cookies: These cookies are SO GOOD! The use white miso and orange juice/zest for a really unique flavour. I found that the orange flavour was stronger on the first day, but on the second the miso really shines through. They are an oat-based cookie, with rolled oats, nuts, and shredded coconut in them. Definitely something to make immediately.
Rating: :D

Miso Sweet Cookies


Pomegranate Sumac Berries: This is another great dessert. Strawberries are roasted with pomegranate molasses and sumac, and then served over ice cream with fresh berries and pomegranate arils. The recipe called for fresh raspberries, but at the time they were super expensive so I used fresh blueberries instead.
Rating: :D

Pomegranate Sumac Berries


Pomegranate Strawberry Granita: This gives an intense flavour! All the recipes in the book that call for pomegranate molasses have the option to make some from another recipe in the book, which I highly recommend as it blows the store bought ones out of the water. This refreshing granita doesn't need any sort of fancy ice cream maker, but does require some time as you need to stir it every hour for four hours once it is in the freezer. But while it takes time, it is not labour intesive.
Rating: :)

Pomegranate Strawberry Granita


Marmite Peanut Butter Halva: Of course the only mite I will use is Vegemite, so that is what I used here. This is SO GOOD! The bonus of the Vegemite is that it is not too sweet, and the flavour gets stronger over time. The recipe calls for a candy thermometer, but mine didn't really seem to work so I just had to eyeball it to guess when it was done. The recipe calls for coconut cream, but I used light coconut milk and it was fine. I spread it a bit thin by accident, but a little goes a long way so that is fine.
Rating: :D

Marmite Peanut Halva


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Kittens


What's that you say? You want more kitten content? Happy to oblige. Amazingly, in the space of three days we rehomed six kittens!! So now we just have... seven to go. Hah. Though five of those are too small to be ready yet, but hopefully we will have all of them rehomed as soon as they are able to.

Thursday 12 November 2020

Midweek Munchies (Granola addition)

I have shared a number of granola recipe-round-ups on the blog, as I am big into making granola this year. But sometimes you don't have time or energy to make granola. Sometimes you just want to get something out of a box, ready to go. Please enjoy this tour of some granolas I ate recently,that you can find in Coles or Woolworths.

I love a good sale item! This granola is fine, it is a bit dry, but nice and crunchy.

Dorset Simply Nut Granola


I didn't like these 'clusters' as much as I did regular granola. I think they are like mushed up oats that are then dried into clusters, at least that is what it seemed like. I did enjoy that it was strawberry, though.

Jordan's Strawberry Clusters


I had so much hope for this. Technically a toasted muesli, not a granola, but it counts here. While the maple was strong, alas the salt was not there. I love maple, so at least that was good. Plus it has probiotics added, because why not.

Farmer Jo's Salted Maple Baked Muesli


I have nothing against sugar per se, but I just don't like things that are super sweet. But I also loathe stevia, so I checked to make sure that it didn't have any, which it did not. I liked this!

Jordan's Low Sugar Cherry and Almond Granola


This one was nicely spiced, though I got a bit more of a bana flavour rather than the pear, and it was just a touch to sweet.

Heritage Mill Spiced Pear and Walnut Clusters


I think this one was my favourite, because it seemed to have lots of whole freeze-dried blueberries in it, which gave it a lovely berry crunch. I definitely love the berry ones the most I think.

Dorset's Berry Granola


I have had this one before, and it is pretty nice, though a smidge on the sweet side.

Carmen's Granola


This is my least favourite. It is OK, but just a bit dusty and it has sultanas in it that are a bit dry. Needs more berries.

Sam's Granola


I was in Coles yesterday and noticed they have some new fun looking granolas, so no doubt my supermarket granola adventures will continue.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Pile o' Kittens


We have so many kittens at work at the moment! So please enjoy this cute little kitten pile.

Tuesday 10 November 2020

Eating In: Brown

I continue to order things for delivery, or occasionally things for takeaway. This post is dedicated to all things brown.

This Vegan Burger from The Burger Bois was an epic disappointment. Not only did they forget to add the vegan cheese, but the patty itself was dry, hard, and crumbly. Would not recommend anyone bother with them for the vegan burger. Thankfully the curly fries were good. But of note, they have these vegan apple pie bites and they were DELICIOUS! Would order them again in a heart beat.

Vegan Burger and Curly Fries from The Burger Bois


Vegan Apple Pie Bites from The Burger Bois


Another burger, this time the Vegan Cheeseburger from Bernard's StakD Burgers. You can get this as a double or even as a triple cheeseburger! I just went with the regular one, and I added some vegan bacon and pineapple. This was a much better burger, but they added the smalled amount of vegan bacon possible. Not even a whole strip, they had sliced the strips into smalled strips and put on about two of them. It was funny. I also ordered some fries, and turns out their fries come in a humongous box. So full.

Vegan Cheeseburger with Bacon and Pineapple from Bernard's StakD Burgers


I was checking out Door Dash and was excited to see they had a place called Parmi House that would deliver to my place and had vegan parmis! I had to get the Hawaiian, which was a vegan schnitzel with napoli sauce, bacon, pineapple, and cheese, served over a pile of chips. Again, they were extremely stingy on the vegan bacon! This was extremely filling!

Vegan Hawiian Parmi from Parmi House


Finally, some sweet brown stuff from Farine, the vegan-friendly bakery that is near my workplace. Custard and Blueberry Jam doughnuts, Chocolate Hazelnut Raspberry Tart, and an Almond Pistachio Croissant.

Blueberry Jam and Custard Doughnuts from Farine


Chocolate Hazelnut Raspberry Tart from Farine


Pistachio Almond Croissant from Farine


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post

Kittens - Spring and Pippa


Here are Spring and Pippa, two cute adoption kittens at work.