Recipe Round-Up: Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen

Today I am finishing up my current round-up of Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen, by Chloe Coscarelli. You can see previous round-ups and posts about this book here.

Tuscan Tofu Scramble: I love a tofu scramble! This one has mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, and basil in it, as well as a bunch of seasonings. I also added some baby spinach, because I am a spinach monster. I also increased the nutritional yeast in it, because I am also a nutritional yeast monster. Served with some roasted potatoes and avocado.
Rating: :)



Tempeh with 40 Cloves of Garlic: As regular readers will know, I have a low tolerance to garlic these days. I made a half recipe of this, which gave one serve (it says the whole recipe serves four, that would be small serves), and I decreased to garlic to six cloves. To be honest, I was still a bit worried, but the way the garlic was cooked made it extremely mellow, and the lemony sauce was lovely.
Rating: :)



Rosemary Lentils with Roasted Tomatoes and Garlicky Broccolini: This is incredible! It has such lovely flavours. A thick lentil stew, beautifully sweet roasted tomatoes, and then the green punch of the broccolini (yes, I did reduce the garlic). It does have a few steps to this recipe, but it is incredibly worth it.
Rating: :D



Orange-Zested Chocolate Chip Scones: I made these for an afternoon snack. I used a food processor to make the dough, which was quite sticky, but they baked up great. The flavour combination of orange and chocolate is a favourite of mine.
Rating: :)



Lemon Thyme Italian Soda: I don't drink fizzy drinks (except kombucha), so whenever I am making a recipe like this I make it flat by using coconut water in place of the seltzer. It works and makes things even more refreshing! This has a very subtle thyme flavour, which was nice with the lemon. I did find it a bit sweet making it as written, so I did dilute it out with a bit more coconut water.
Rating: :)



Pomegranate Mint Italian Soda: As above, I used coconut water instead of seltzer. This was super easy to make, there was no syrup to cook down like with the drink above, just mix a few simple ingredients together and chill.
Rating: :)



Strawberry Basil Milkshake: Strawberry is the best flavour of milkshake, that is just a fact. This is easy to make, using ice cream, frozen strawberries, and fresh basil with a few other things. The basil taste was very subtle though, so I would definitely add more next time to really be able to appreciate it in the drink.
Rating: :)



Polenta Berry Cobbler: I love the texture that polenta gives the topping on this cobbler. You can you any sort of frozen berries, I used a mix of Dark Berry from Woolworths, which had cherries, black currants, and blackberries (I've included a photo of the bag below for those of you in Australia), which was a perfect mix for a winter dessert. I did not serve this with the Vanilla Gelato recipe from this book, but instead another homemade vanilla ice cream I had in the freezer.
Rating: :)







Basic Bechamel: I made the bechamel recipe in the book to use for some random casserole thing I put together one day. This is a cashew based bechamel, and even though it has cooked onion and garlic blended in to it, it is still just bland overall. Needs more seasoning!
Rating: :|



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Eloise, just stretching out. She loves to lie with one or both of her legs stretched out behind her. Such a little doofy sploot. I love her.

Midweek Munchies

MONCH.

I have literally shared almost this exact same dish in a previous post, the only difference here is that the roast pork is the Get Plant'd roast pork, not the PlantAsia brand. But... they are the exact same product, just packaged under different brands for different supermarkets. Psych! Anyway, I unintentionally made it with the exact same ready made sauce as the last one as well.





In love with this delicious Apple Kombucha from The Fermentier. I have only been able to find this brand at The Green Edge, and it is not cheap, but I love it. Also their grape one, which I have posted about before. The apple one is like sparkling apple cider! Also, they don't use stevia.



I have been really in to trying out new to me vegan friendly potato chip flavours. This one was OK, but needed more flavours on it. I always find the biggest problem with chips is not enough flavour.



I was super excited to try this limited edition chocolate from Treat Dreams (RIP). Strawberry, rose, and lychee? Sign me up! Unfortunately the chocolate also has hazelnuts and almonds in it, and the hazelnut flavour pretty much took over everything else. I'd love to try this without the nuts, but as they no longer exist they are obviously not got to make that.



I got these Deliciou seasonings from Coles. I haven't tried the ranch yet, but the cheesy one is good and the Fries seasoning reminds me of the seasoning on Grill'd chips!



This new brand of vegan and gluten free ham came out a while ago, it is available in Woolworths. Taste wise it is good, though there is something about it that does slightly niggle at my tummy sometimes. Also, I have it on good authority that if you heat it up if melts? Weird.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



A sleppy little bean of a Mirabelle, or a Mirabean, if you will.

Eating In: An Assortment

An extremely random assortment of takeaway and deliveries from a while ago!

Is there anything more annoying than a salad place that doesn't have some decent vegan options? Soul Origin used to be one of those places, but thankfully now they offer a few vegan salads that are clearly labeled as vegan. Here I tried the Pumpkin Cous Cous, Falafel, and Vegan Katsu Slaw salads, topped with their vegan aioli.



Baker's Delight is a bakery chain that has long had vegan options. Though I don't tend to be near one very often. But I was this one day, and was moved to buy some treats. This is the Apple Scroll (a long time favourite of mine) and the Finger Bun. The Finger Bun looks like a lot of fun, and it was, but that icing was also very sweet. Still, it reminded me of tuck shop days at school, though those didn't have the hundreds and thousands!



Another poke bowl from Cheeki Poke Bowl. I tend to make my own these days, and often can't remember what I put in them! But this had black rice, greens (that don't fit in the bowl so they send them on the side), pumpkin, corn, sweet potato, spinach, tofu and beetroot hummus. I think I was going for an autumn type vibe with this one.



A vegan Garden Goodness Burger with Chips from Grill'd.



I have posted ramen and gyoza from Ramen Danbo on here a few times, but one day I got some of the onigiri. Because who doesn't love warm rice pressed into a triangle and wrapped with seaweed? They sent the seaweed in a seperate bag, so I didn't get super soggy during transit, which was considerate.



Finally, a fun drink! I love that Cha Time has soy milk options now. This is the Strawberry Soy Milk Tea with Lychee Jelly. Sadly they have stopped having the red beans as an add in, because they are my favourite to have with strawberry.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



More sniffing. Mirabelle sniffing Eloise's toes. They actually sniff each other's faces all the time. But this was very cute as well.

Recipe Round-Up: Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen

Another round-up from this lovely cookbook, Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli. See previous posts from this book here.

Red Wine Seitan on Cibatta: This is absolutely wonderful! Caramelised onions, seitan simmered in a red wine BBQ sauce, tomato, spinach, and fresh crusty bread. I couldn't get cibatta so I used pane di casa rolls, and I used baby spinach instead of rocket. The BBQ sauce was lovely, and did not have a strong wine flavour, it just added to it. This is a must make recipe.
Rating: :D



Kate Middleton's Pasta Alfredo: Apparently Chloe would like to cook this for Kate for lunch? Or something. Regardless, this is a lovely cauliflower based alfredo sauce. Cauliflower, garlic, and onion is roasted before being turned into the sauce, and it is a really nice flavour. I added some baby peas to mine, and served over spinach.
Rating: :)



Pasta with Broccoli: I used spiral pasta for this rather than cavatelli because I had them in my cupboard. This is pretty simple, with broccoli cooked with the pasta, then tossed with some garlic sauteed in olive oil. I added some baby spinach to mine as well because half my broccoli was off when I went to use it so I didn't have quite enough green without adding something extra. I also added some nutritional yeast.
Rating: :)



Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce: Again, I used a different type of pasta. Use what you have, in this case it was macaroni curls. This is a roux-based sauced that has sun-dried tomatoes added to it, before being blended. I added some peas and baby spinach to mine.
Rating: :)



Pasta Alla Norma with Ricotta: I made a half recipe for this, but make all the sauce, it was a bit dry. I still used all the eggplant though, because I had only been able to get a huge one from the store. I did use the correct rigatoni pasta for this, I love these giant tubes. It is a very easy sauce to make. On serving, you drizzle with some balsamic, which is lovely. It also has some tofu ricotta to serve, which was a nice addition.
Rating: :)



White Lasagna with Roasted Butternut Squash and Spinach: I made a half recipe of this, in a 20 x 20 cm (8 x 8 in) casserole dish. I would recommend doubling the amount of the pumpkin, even if you are making the whole thing, because it got a bit lost between the spinach, the tofu ricotta, and the sauce. The alfredo sauce is cashew based, though was quite thin. Nice flavours overall, I just would have liked it to be a bit more robust in construction.
Rating: :)



Avocado Basil Quinoa Bowl: I love a bowl! The basis of this one is quinoa, cherry tomatoes, and scallions. I left out the scallions, but for the option extras I added corn, roasted zucchini, kalamata olives, and slivered almonds. I served it over baby spinach, and left off the basil chili oil. Instead I used some Tuscan Salad Topper. But the real star here is the amazing sauce! It is based on basil, avocado, and nuts. I used water rather than olive oil. It was outstanding!
Rating: :D



Baked Tempeh in Mushroom Cream Sauce: I made a half recipe of this using 150g of tempeh, and got about one and a half serves. This is a very rich dish, with a lovely cashew cream sauce and mushrooms. It is a fancy little casserole. I used dried thyme, not fresh, as I didn't have any.
Rating: :)



Creamy Polenta with Roasted Vegetable Ragu: I love polenta dishes! It is such a wonderful creamy base for sauces. For the sauce, I used a mix of broccoli, zucchini, carrot, and asparagus. For the jarred marinara, I used a jar of Dolmio. The recipe calls for some sugar to be added, which made it too sweet as the Dolmio is already sweeter than normal, so just skip this is you are using a sweeter sauce. I made a half serve of the polenta, but all of the ragu. Served over spinach I got two serves.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



What do you think Eloise is looking at?

Ostara 2022

In Australia, Spring officially starts on the 1st of September, even though the equinox takes place later in the month. Ostara is the sabbat that celebrates this equinox, and the return of Spring. Easter has folded in a lot of traditions from the original pagan celebrations. Of course, here in Australia Easter happens in March or April, and has nothing to do with the seasons. Eggs are a common food theme, given the celebration of new life. Seems wrong to be celebrating new life by using a product created by the horrific destruction of chicken lives. Thankfully there are many wonderful ways to celebrate with food that don't hurt animals. Hurrah!

Ostara aka Spring Equinox (23rd September, 2021)

I kept up an eggy theme, and also went with another classic spring food - carrots!

Eggless Tofu-Olive Salad from Cookin' Crunk by Bianca Phillips: Tofu makes the best egg salad! Bianca's version includes chopped green olives, which I really enoyed. I had plain green olives, the pimento stuffed ones (as suggested) would have been even better. I think if using plain green olives, increase the amount so you get lots of those great briny punches throughout. I left out the raw onion, and I used some white pepper instead of black pepper. This was great on a sandwich, but also scooped onto crackers. Or off a spoon.
Rating: :)



Carrot Cake Ice Cream from Vegan Desserts by Hannah Kaminsky: Instead of coconut milk, I used my good friend Flora Professional Plant Cream as the base of this ice cream. I also couldn't get 100% carrot juice, so I used some Ginger Ninja juice, which is mostly carrot but also has some apple and ginger in it. As well as the carrot cake ice cream, it has a cream cheese ripple through it. Though mine didn't really ripple. I need to work on my stirring technique! This makes a HEAP of ice cream. It says it makes one generous quart, heavy on the generous. I have a 1L ice cream tub for homemade ice cream, and there was still quite a bit of extra I had to put in another container.
Rating: :)



Tomato Macaroni Soup and Scrambled Egg from To Asia, With Love by Hetty McKinnon: I was under the weather, so this soup sounded like a perfect way to honor the sabbat and also give myself some comfort. I made a half recipe of this and got two serves. For the scrambled Egg I used some Orgran Vegg, though it had a bit of a funky bitter after taste, I need to work on my seasonings for this particular brand of Vegg. It is a powder that you mix up, like the old FYH Veggs. My soup was quite thick, and very hearty. I did find it a little bland, but a splash of soy sauce to serve took care of that.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I like to post this for my Ostara posts. It is my sweet little carrot Sahara, hugging her sweet little carrot toy! They are both pirates.

Midweek Munchies

Here we go again.

A few months before Treat Dreams closed forever (RIP), they released a bunch of limited edition flavours. We didn't realise quite how limited edition! Anyway, I ordered a ton of new flavours, plus some old favourites. You'll be seeing them pop up in here, but this was my glorious haul.



Fry's came out with some new Steak Style Pies. They were pretty good! Excellent pastry and the filling was satisfying.



These Cheesy Nooch Buckweaves suffered from what so many chips do, they didn't quite have enough flavour. Until you got down to the bottom of the bag, where all the flavour had settled. Then it was lick your fingers good! So shake the bag first.



We've been getting Sheese slices for ages in the supermarkets, and now they have also been selling this block cheese. It is pretty nice, and good to eat straight from the packet. Even though Sheese does have coconut oil in it, it isn't overpowering and gross like biocheese, so I would need to eat a lot before I felt sick. Thank goodness, because cheese options for me are few and far between these days.



So many new burgers these days. Enough with the burgers already. Give us something new please! I got these Future Burgers on sale, and I am glad I didn't pay full price because they were completely forgettable. I sure hope this isn't the future of vegan burgers. I made BBQ pineapple bacon cheeseburgers with them.





Eggplant Hommus is like a perfect baby between hommus and baba ganoush. I really liked this, though it is not something I see around. I need to go back to the shop I bought it.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Eloise loves showing off how long her legs are. I just realised that her face is a bit blurry in this. She also loves to move her head as soon as the camera comes out.

Eating Out: Grown

A few days after Abby passed away, my lovely friend Alana motivated me to get up out of bed and meet her for brunch. Getting out of bed and eating were two things that were not high on my agenda, but she gave me the push I needed. I met Alana through Abby, she is involved with the rescue Abby was adopted from, and we had become friends on Instagram. We met at Grown, where I have been several times before. When I made the booking, I asked for an outside table that was well undercover, and they provided with a lovely table for two, tucked under cover and completely separate from other people.

Grown makes the best hot chocolate, and we both got one. Even if you aren't in shock and grief, I recommend getting a big mug to soothe your soul.



I got the Congee, which came with slow roasted tomatoes, asian greens, woodland mushrooms, ginger, soy and mustard. This was just a perfect savoury bowl of comfort food.



I also got a side of one of their amazing Hash Browns, and also some of their fabulous smoked sesame cheese.



My friend got their avocado toast on gluten free bread. It came with housemade vegemite, sesame cheese, chickpea crumb, and pickled onion. She also got a hashbrown on the side.



On my way back to my car, I had to walk down by the river for a little bit. Which was beautiful. Even though the Brisbane river is brown, it is still nice to be near trees and water.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I still cannot believe that my beautiful girl is gone. Sometimes it seems like she was a dream. How could that have happened? I love you so much Abby.