Eating Out: Izakaya Midori and Nonna's Nightmare (Birthday edition)

It was my birthday in November! And I had the day off work, so I spent it eating food. What else does one do on their birthday?

My friend and I headed down for an early lunch at perpetual favourite, Izakaya Midori (see previous posts here). We started with old favourites, the Agadashi Tofu and Smoked Edamame.





As well as trying some new things, most importantly the okonomiyaki, which was lovely! And I love that it comes as an entree (that's starter, for my US friends) rather than a main so you can enjoy it along with many other things! We also had the Katsu handroll, which has wasabi inside as well. I love wasabi! Also, just look at the okonomiyaki, almost too pretty to eat!





For my main I had the Teriyaki Tofu Don, which was a lovely bowl of rice, salad with dressing, tempura silken tofu, teriyaki sauce, and mayo. I realised I didn't take a photo of my friend's main, but it was the terichiki don, which you can see in previous posts.



And we finished off by sharing their wonderful Hojicha and Black Sesame Affogato with Red Beans and Crystal Mochi. So good!



Come dinner time and I was planning on ordering delivery from a vegan pizza place, but they were closed! But never fear, instead we ordered in from vegan Italian restaurant Nonna's Nightmare (previous posts here, which also has pizzas! We ordered the Amatrice (Tomato, mozzarella, red wine braised onions, vBacon, pecorino, black pepper, basil) and the Potato (Mozzarella, ‘pork & fennel’ sausage, roasted potato and capsicum, rosemary oil). Unfortunately on the ordering site, you couldn't modify anything, which meant I couldn't get the capsicum taken off, so I had to pick it off when it came. Still, worth it for potato and sausage pizza! There were both lovely pizzas. I gave them a brief reheat in the oven once they arrived.





I also ordered a serve of their Cannelloni (Cannelloni pasta filled with ricotta and spinach, cooked in a rich tomato sugo sauce and mozzarella), which was INCREDIBLE! Star of the show.





I didn't have a cake, instead we ate tarts that I had picked up from Flour of Life vegan bakery on the way home from Izakaya Midori.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Show



Speaking of birthdays, yesterday (30th of January), should have been Abby's 7th birthday. This photo is from her 6th birthday, and I will never recover from the fact we only got to celebrate one of her birthdays together. I miss her so much.

Other assorted Christmas Eats and the New Year

Yesterday I shared the main event, but there were lots of other assorted Christmas eats as well to show you.

Pfeffernusse were always one of my favourite things about Christmas, but the ones available here aren't even vegetarian (they have gelatine), let alone vegan. One of my friends who lives in Germany sent me some vegan ones when he was back home last year! They are so good, I just love them so much.



I had actually bought this during Christmas 2021, but never used it. It languished in my freezer until I finally made if for a cleaning out the freezer lunch in December. It was even still in date! I didn't see this in Coles this year, so I guess it was a one and done. It is a vegan selection including sweet and sour candy canes (which are kind of like very thing spring rolls, and had a lot of capsicum in them), jackfruit star toasts, and cauliflower and pumpkin balls. The 'candy canes' were not good, even without the capsicum issue they just were not very crispy or tasty. The balls were quite sweet, but not bad, and the jackfruit toasts were adequate. I wouldn't buy these again, even if they did put them back next Christmas.



For Christmas Eve I returned to my semi tradition of making nachos!

Vegan Nachos from Happy Vegan by Fearne Cotton: The star of the show here is a vegan cheesy chip recipe you also need to make first (though it says you can sub shot bought vegan cheese). This is a lovely cashew based dip. I made this the day before, as I was working on Christmas Eve morning and I wanted to be able to just throw everything together. The nachos also have refried beans, avocado, tomatoes, and salsa, plus coriander. I left out the fresh spring onions and pickled chillies. Rather than making these as a double layer nachos, I used a larger container for a single layer. I also double the amount of refried beans so I could use up the entire can (I used Old Elpaso brand). The recipe calls for plain soy yoghurt, which I could use, but instead I used some of the Made With Plants Sour Cream, which is my favourite sour cream. The tortilla chips, refried beans, and cheesy sauce are baked to get all warm and gooey, and then it is topped with all the fresh ingredient.
Rating: Nachos :), Cheesy Dip :)





I also made us a lovely platter for Christmas Eve dessert.





Boxing Day (the day after Christmas) calls for lots of snacks! I was excited to try these Turkey and Stuffing chips, but the flavour was just a bit flat. I find that chip flavours rarely live up to the promise.



And some lovely dips! I've had both of these before, and I really enjoy them. Especially the sweet potato one.



Stollen and Rum Balls are also an important part of festive snacking.



As are festive toasted sandwiches. This has some of the leftover cranbery sauce with some Leftfields Brie and Made With Plants smoked ham in it.



I always make a salad for dinner on Boxing Day, because I am generally craving some vegetables after a day of snacking.

White Bean Nicoise Salad from Cook The Pantry by Robin Robertson: I love nicoise salad. For this one I used the option of roasting the potatoes (because why wouldn't I?), and I used some frozen green beans to make it pantry friendly because I used all my fresh ones on Christmas Day. This also has cherry tomatoes, olives, and cannelini beans in a wonderful tangy dressing.
Rating: :)



And a little sneaky post of New Year's Day food. I worked on New Year's Eve, and even though I finished at 1pm I was wrecked. Plus I had to briefly wake up at 4.30am on New Year's Day to give Boo a specifically timed medication. So I did not feel like making pizzas or platters. I could have ordered in some vegan pizzas, but I didn't feel like it so we ordered in Japanese food and I was snug in bed nice and early. I also did not make pancakes for breakfast on New Year's Day. See above feeling wrecked. But I still did make an easy dinner. I used to make all the black-eyed peas and greens recipes fod dinner on New Year's Day, but I have expanded that now to any sort of beans and greens.

Pan-Fried Butter Beans & Greens from Sweet Potato Soul by Jenne Claiborne: This is so simple! I love butter beans, and these are pan-fried until crispy. Then you sautee some greens. As we can't get collard greens here, I used kale. The flavours are very simple, so jazz up with salt, soy sauce, or hot sauce (if that floats your boat) at will. I served it over some brown rice and topped it with some avocado.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



You definitely deserve a kitty photo after making it through that giant post (it's cool if you just skimmed the pictures to get down to this part). Eloise's turn with the Santa hat! OK, I probably could have gotten it on her head, but putting it above her head on the floor like this was just too cute and funny. She is also modelling her Meowwww catnip sun, which was one of her Christmas presents.

Christmas Day eats

Hello hello! Wow, I have not been keeping up with my blogging lately. I was feeling overwhelmed like I was falling way behind when I remembered that actually I do not have to meet any targets with blogging, it is something I do for fun and to share with my beloved little blogging community, and I can do it whenever and however I want. Which may sound obvious, but when you have a brain like mine sometimes you get fixated on imagined goals. Anyway, I have been working a lot and constantly tired and sore, but I have also been having some nice times playing some fun computer games and seeing Six the musical twice (with a third time already booked!). How have you all been?

Today I am going to share the food I ate on Christmas day. There will be another post when I feel so moved about other Christmas type foods I ate around Christmas, but this is for the day itself. I got some lovely presents, mostly a lot of books! Hurrah!

For breakfast I wanted something festive and satisfying enough to last me until it was late Christmas lunch time, without being too much. I settled on these lovely Gingerbread Overnight Oats from Life Made Sweeter. I downsized to one third of the recipe. This was incredible, it hit the exact flavour notes of gingerbread. So good! I used So Good Vanilla Soy Yoghurt instead of natural yoghurt, so I didn't add the vanilla extract. And I served it with pepitas, more yoghurt, St Dalfour's Black Cherry Jam, and fresh blueberries.
Rating: :D



Onto lunch proper, and I had planned for a very simple menu. For the centerpiece, I tried the new Coles Ham-Style Roast. It comes with a maple glaze for basting during baking. I was very suspicious when I took it out of the packet, it was so oily and seemed almost gelatinous in places? You need to score it in a diamond patter before basting and baking, and it just had a very strange texture.



Once it was baked, I was still suspicious of it. It seemed soft and far too shiny.



It was hard to cut into nice, neat slices, so I ended up just lopping off big thick ones. It had a pinkish centre, I guess because of being a ham-style roast. The flavour I can say was good, but I just didn't enjoy cooking it from a tactile standpoint, so next year I will stick the their traditional roast.



You can also see on the platter some potatoes, which are our traditional Potato Squashers from Eat, Drink, Be Vegan by Dreena Burton. Which brings me to a few other recipes I had made in the past (and already blogged about) and decided to add in here.

Frozen cranberries are almost never available here, so when they are I stock up and then carefully ration them out. So with my dwindling supply from a couple of years ago I made Cinnamon Citrus Cranberry Sauce from Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin. This is my absolute favourite cranberry sauce recipe. You need to make it a couple of days ahead so the flavours can mingle and mellow, but that means it is ready to hit the table when it comes to the actual day.



Last minute I decided I wanted more green, and thankfully had all the things to quickly put together Cucumber Salad with Wa-Fu Dressing from Japanese Cooking by Miyoko Schinner. This is a very simple dish of tangy and sweet cucumber slices, which was a nice addition.



Of course I had to make a couple of new to me recipes!

Sweet Potato and Almond Couscous Salad from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli: This salad has pearl couscous (which I just love), roasted sweet potatoes, cranberries, and almonds, which sounded like a perfect Christmas kind of salad. I halved the recipe, and I added the almonds just before serving to keep the crunch.
Rating: :)



Green Beans with Yuzu Vinaigrette from Just One Cookbook: This was super easy to make, crispy just cooked green beans with a lovely tangy dressing of yuzu and mustard. I was using bottled yuzu juice, so I just skipped adding the zest.
Rating: :)



All laid out for serving.



And plated up.



To drink with lunch I tried this new to me Ginger Beer kefir, which was lovely.



Dessert was a little mini Coles Matured Pudding (they happen to be vegan) and some Alpro custard. Served with some grapes and cherries. I like a very high custard to pudding ratio.



So that was Christmas day! But I know what you are really here for...

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Mirabelle is very headshy, so putting a santa hat on her was never going to be an option. Posing it with her was the best we were going to get!

Midweek Munchies

Hi friends! I had a little blogging break, which I needed. And I have a bunch of stuff for christmas to post, but for now I only have the energy for a little midweek munchies post. So that is what I am doing.

I love salt and vinegar chips, so I got this new to me brand in an Australian Vegan Grocery Store order. Alas, like so many chips, they fail in not having enough flavour on them.



A pie I found languishing in my freezer, which I ate back when it was still cool enough to eat pies during the day. It was pretty good, with a creamy bechamel topping some spaghetti bolognese, a fun pie to eat.



After my brother went back to Spain, he left some of this gf muesli behind that happened to be vegan, so I used it up. I really enjoyed it! It was nice and crunchy, almost like granola, and had a good flavour. (Spy my multivitamin and my anti-inflammatory meds in the top corner of the second photo).





Also back in the cooler months, I had this soup. I don't remember it being particularly amazing or particularly awful, so I assume it was perfectly fine. I ate it with a salad sandwich for lunch.





I bought these strawberry cashew ice blocks, because strawberry flavour is the best flavour. They do have some coconut oil in the chocolate covering, but it wasn't too strong. These are also very cute and petite in size, which I liked. I would definitely buy these again, I wish they would just make them as a tub of strawberry ice cream as well.



Finally these crunchy oat clusters... which were not very crunchy or clustery. The flavour was fine, but the gluten free muesli from the same brand that I posted about above had a much better texture.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I can start sharing some of the kitty christmas photos! Like what Boo thought about wearing the santa hat this year. She was not impressed!