Granola Round-Up

Hello friends, this is a recipe round-up with a difference. Instead of rounding-up recipes from a single book, I am instead rounding-up a type of food from several books. In this case, granola. I have really been on a granola kick of late. I just love me some oats! I started off buying this apple crumble ganola that I loved, I would eat it so often with yoghurt. It was really really good. And then one day, I just didn't enjoy it anymore. *shrug* So I started making my own granola from my recipe books, which is really super easy! I generally halve, third, or even quarter the recipe (some of them make huge amounts) because I have been wanting to try lots of different onces. Granola making and eating has become something I have really been enjoying since I've been isolating. I normally will eat it with yoghurt, fruit, and sometimes a big blob of peanut butter. Also, sorry in advance, I am not very inventive when taking photos of granola.

Macadamia Yoghurt Granola from 500 Vegan Recipes by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman: This is a very subtly flavoured granola, oaty and nutty with a slight sweetness. It is good for using on stronger flavoured yoghurts. I halved the recipe, which made three serves (a serve for me is normally a heaped half cup measure), and I replaced the coconut oil with canola oil.
Rating: :)



Maple Cinnamon Granola from Power Plates by Gena Hamshaw: This is a delicious granola, it is buttery and maply and salty and sweet crunchy and all things good. I made a half recipe, which fit perfectly onto a single baking tray. There are a few options for ingredients, I used wheatgerm (but raw, not toasted), a mix of pumpkin and sunflower seeds, sliced almonds, and dried cranberries.
Rating: :D



Fruit-Sweetened Chai-Spiced Granola from Big Vegan by Robin Asbell: This is sweetened using apple juice concentrate, though I only had apple juice, but there is the option to add brown sugar (which I did). I quartered this recipe, for three serves. It has a lovely blend of spices, including black pepper for some warmth, and also has pecans.
Rating: :)



Easy Homemade Granola from 350 Best Vegan Recipes by Deb Roussou: Alas, a disappointing granola. The problem may have been that it had no sweetener, other than orange juice, and it seemed to have far too much liquid when I mixed it all together and then it stayed soggy and pale in the oven for too long. It had a 90 minute baking time, I ended up increasing the heat for the final 30 minutes to get it to brown and crisp up. Also, because it was just orange juice and no sweetener, it didn't get that nice sticky coating. Thankfully I had only made a half recipe of this, because it was underwhelming. It had the usual suspects of almonds, sunflower seeds, and pepitas in it. The spice was cardamom, which was nice, and it had dried blueberries as well.
Rating: :|



DIY Granola from Veganize It by Robin Robertson: This is a nice mix of almonds, coconut, pecans, dried cranberries and blueberries, and spice. It was meant to be cinnamon, but I unexpectedly ran out so I used a mixed spice that was mostly cinnamon with a bit of nutmeg and allspice in it. I made a half recipe of this (which was still 4 cups worth of granola!), and it was done a bit sooner than the baking time if you were making the whole recipe. I think the key to granola is always just to regularly check it in the oven so it doesn't burn.
Rating: :)



Peanut Ginger Berry Golden Oats from The Complete Guide to Vegan Food Substitutions by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman: This was a lovely warming recipe, thanks to a hefty dose of ground ginger! It is sweetened with brown rice syrup, though I used rice malt syrup, and I also used crushed peanuts as that was what I had on hand (also it is nicer eating smaller bits of crunch I think). You can add any dried berry to it, so I added cranberries. Quite a festive granola with ginger and cranberry. I made the whole recipe of this, as it only made two and a half cups, and I am glad that I did. I did have to bake it for a bit longer in the oven to get it to go nice and brown.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Yes Dim Sim, this looks like a very comfortable way to sleep. But she's got the crocheted blanket, so she is very happy.

Recipe Round-Up: 350 Best Vegan Recipes

Why not do a second post this week about this book, 350 Best Vegan Recipes, to share the rest of the recipes I have currently made with you. As I mentioned, this book is kind of meh. But I made some stuff! See other stuff I have made from this book here.

Pantry Muesli: This is a nice, simple muesli that you can use in a number of ways and could really customise anyway you want. It has oats, oat bran, rye flakes, nuts, dried fruit (apples, apricots, cranberries), coconut (I used dessicated rather than shredded) and pepitas. I ate this three ways - like cereal, as overnight oats, and as oatmeal. And it was good each way.
Rating: :)







Korean BBQ: Thsi recipe is for seitan, but I had some vegan duck (from the fridge section of the supermarket, I will share more about that in an upcoming midweek munchies post) so I used that. As the duck had quite a bit of flavour already, I diluted out the soy sauce and oil with some water in the marinade so it wouldn't be too much. I leftout the hot sauce. This was very nice, though also helped by the fact that the duck had good flavour on its own, but the leftover marinade used as a sauce was tasty. Served with some Korean recipes from another book.
Rating: :)



Rice Noodle Bowl with Lime-Spinach Pesto: This was meant to be made with rocket, but I used baby spinach instead. As you can see, it is beautifully green. I added some tofu and peas as well, and got three serves out of this over some more baby spinach. I left out the zest in the pesto, and just used lime juice, as I often find zest a bit over powering, and I also used a mix of water and oil as the liquid in the pesto rather than all oil, as I often find oily pestos make me feel a bit icky.
Rating: :)



Daikon Dipping Sauce: I ahd some daikon to use up, so thought I'd try this. The recipe says to allow at least two hours for the flavours to meld, and you definitely cannot miss this step. I tried a bit right after making and it was not good. But after sitting for some time (the next day is even better), the flavours meld really nicely. It's a refreshing mix of grated daikon, soy sauce, citrus, and vinegar. I used it here as a dipping sauce for some gyoza and broccoli, and then used the rest (it made quite a bit, closer to two cups rather than the recipes suggested 1 1/2 cups) the next day over some stir-fried greens.
Rating: :)



George of the Jungle: This is meant to be an alcoholic drink, but I don't drink. I enjoy converting things to tasty mocktails when I can though. The alcohol in this is rum, it also has coconut milk (which I can use a little bit in cooking, but don't want to drink). Instead I used oat milk and added some coconut and rum extracts. The fruit is pineapple, mango, and banana. It calls for crushed ice as well, but I left that out and used frozen fruit instead. It was like a thick, icy, tropical slushy.
Rating: :)



Sweet Tart Smoothie: Frozen cherries and bananas, with the tartness coming from lime juice. This also calls for quite a bit of vanilla soy yoghurt, though I used a natural one, and I cut down on the agave as well. It was very thick, so I did add a smidge of oat milk to really get it blended and drinkable, otherwise I'd suggest this as a smoothie bowl.
Rating: :)



Vermont Maple Morning Smoothie: This is a really yummy smoothie. It uses yoghurt, milk, apple, maple syrup and granola. It calls for a maple almond granola, and there isn't actually a recipe for this in the book. But I had just happened to make a maple almond granola from another book that week, so I used some of that. The yoghurt and milk were meant to be vanilla, but I didn't have that and just added a smidge more vanilla extract.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



The final chapter of our visitor story. Dim Sim saw them off, out of the pool area. Can you see where they settled just outside the pool fence? Lots of greenery between them! But Dim Sim was still on alert, behold her puffy tail.

Recipe Round-Up: 350 Best Vegan Recipes

Hello and welcome to THE START OF THE ALPHABET AGAIN! You might not notice, but I generally do my recipe round-ups by working through my books in alphabetical order, based on how their folders are saved on my computer. So here we are, a fresh go around! Do you know that I have almost 150 damn cookbooks? So working at once post a week, it would take almost three years to get through it, and that is not even sharing all the photos I have taken for some of them. So I am good for blog material forever, basically.

Anyway, 350 Best Vegan Recipes by Deb Roussou. This is a misnomer, as they are definitely not the best recipes. I don't remember when I bought this book, but it took me a while to be inspired to make anything from it. But I have been trying to make stuff from it, and some of it has been good. Some of it has been meh. Honestly, this isn't a book I'd recommend. But as I have it, I am making the best use of it. I have only posted about a couple of recipes from it before, which you can see here, but this is the first round-up from it.

Light Savoury Baked Tofu with Parsley, Lemon, and Potato Risotto: I love a baked tofu, but this one needed more salt. The tofu is marinated in a mix of water, white wine, stock powder, and a home-made sage seasoning blend. The blend is a nice little mix, but has no salt in it, so didn't add much more than a hint to the marinade. I also had to bake the tofu for higher and longer to get it nice and firm. I served it with a Parsley, Lemon, and Potato Risotto, which also was a fairly bland flavour. This risotto is not really a risotto, made with jasmine rice, and ended up being very soupy, I had to simmer it for a bit uncovered at the end of thicken it up a bit. So both were fine, but just a bit bland.
Rating: Tofu :|, Risotto :|



Moroccan-Spiced Oatmeal: This had some good flavours, thanks to a mix of different spices and dried fruit. I made a half recipe, which made a decent breakfast, and I used a small drizzle of dark agave in place of a larger amount of brown rice syrup. This made it just sweet enough for me.
Rating: :)



New Mexican Home-Fried Potatoes: Sadly, I don't have a cast-iron skillet, but I can still make a decent hash in my non-stick. No doubt it doesn't get quite as brown, but it is still tasty. This is a mix of potatoes (that have been pre-steamed and chopped), onions, some gross capsicum and chilles, and some seasoning. I left out the capsicum and chiles and added some peas instead. I chopped and then steamed my potatoes, which I think was a mistake as it was quite soft and smooshy, I think steaming and then chopping as said in the recipe would have firmer texture. I also didn't peel my potatoes, because who has time for that.
Rating: :)



Chestnut and Cranberry Holiday Non-Stuffed Stuffing: I made a half batch of this to use up some chestnuts I had picked up from Daiso, and it also used some more of that Sage Seasoning Blend. This has a nice blend of onion, mushrooms, celery (it calls for stalks and root, I only had stalks so I added more of those), and cranberries. I didn't have quite enough bread, so it ended up a bit soggy. But it was still a fun mean, served with some sausages and gravy.
Rating: :)



Baked Ginger-Lime Tofu with Caramelised Onions: I am sad to say that this was not good. The marinade itself was OK on the tofu, but as it reduces down to a sauce it became far to salty, sour, and just unpleasant. Also the ginger didn't really come through. The onions are caramelised in the oven, which was nice at least!
Rating: :( (behold, a rare sad face rating)



Tofu Tikka Masala: I made a half recipe of this, which gave me a dinner and a lunch serving. It had a nice flavour, but is a recipe that takes a bit of time as tofu needs to be marinated. I left out the chile powder and thinned out the coconut milk with water, and had a very nice sauce, and I also added some peas. Served over a mix of brown basmati and quinoa.
Rating: :)



Roasted Potatoes and Tofu: This is a simple meal, but very tasty. Tofu and potatoes are literally roasted, I roasted a bit longer to get things really nice and toasty. But the magic comes from mixing them up with Caper and Pine Nut Vinaigrette. I only made a third of the recipe of the vinaigrette for the amount of potatoes and tofu, but it is wonderfully nice and tangy and went perfectly. I served it all over some baby spinach.
Rating: Potatoes and Tofu :), Vinaigrette :)



Pad Thai with Crispy Tofu: This recipe calls for tamarind pulp to be soaked and strained, but I just used tamarind paste mixed with water for ease. It is blended up with cooked and cooled shallots, sugar, and lime into a paste (though it was more a sauce). This mix also called for soaked chiles, but obviously I left them out. Tofu is pressed and then fried until crispy, and then added into the noodles and sauce at the end. This had a nice flavour, but was a bit oily. I also used coriander instead of green onions for the garnish.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I went to take a photo of Dim Sim sleeping, but caught her mid sleepy stretch instead. Biiiiiiiiig streeeeeeeech.

Bake Sales (and a Bonus Burger)

Hello friends! What is this? It is a blog post! Yay! I am hoping that blogging more regularly is going to give me some nice structure and a way to pass the time, which seems pretty endless at the moment.

Cast your mind back to a time but a few months ago, when we could do things like bake for and attend bake sales. Seems like a distant memory, but I assure you it was true. At least, I think it was. Otherwise how would I have these photos? Earlier this year, I baked for two bake sales (one for Farm Animal Rescue at Grassfed, and one for Cranky's Farm at The Green Edge). Here are the things I made!

Cashew Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies from The Vegan Cookie Connoisseur: These lovely cookies use cashew butter (though I didn't have quite enough, so I topped it up with a bit of almond butter), oats, chocolate chips, and chopped roasted cashews. As I was making these for a bake sale, I used an ice cream scoop to get 14 cookies, and I baked them for about 15 minutes (rather than 6 monites for 20 smaller cookies).
Rating: :)



Chocolate Cherry Brownies from 350 Best Vegan Recipes: These use a mix of melted chocolate chips and vegan butter for a fudgy brownie. I found that they were quite greasy on the base and sides after baking, so perhaps it needed a little less butter and a little more chocolate. It uses dried cherries soaked in brandy, but I just soaked in warm water as I don't have brandy. I needed to bake this for about 35 minutes to get it cooked, rather than the 20-25 the recipe stated. I cut it into 8 satisfying bake sale brownie slices. The recipe says it makes 25 small brownies, which in an 8 x 8 inch pan means some very teeny brownies! Oh, these also have walnuts in them.
Rating: :)



Orange Ginger Cookies from 500 Vegan Recipes: These were meant to be Orange Cappuccino Cookies, but I hate coffee (even the smell), so I changed it up bu adding 1 1/2 tsp of ground ginger instead of espresso powder. The orange and ginger flavours ended up being pretty suble in this, so they were more like regular chocolate chip cookies with a hint of something else.
Rating: :)



Cherry Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies from 500 Vegan Recipes: These cookies are a delight, and used up some of the coconut flour stash I had randomly accumulated. They are a mix of coconut flour, plain flour, and oats, also filled with dried cherries, chocolate chips, and coconut (it said to use sweetened coconut flakes, I only had unsweetened shreds, but it was sweet enough already). These make for some delicious, sweet, soft, cookies.
Rating: :D



Butterscotch Chocolate Fudge Brownies: I also have a random stash of butterscotch chips, which this recipe helped me work through. It's a mix of melted regular chocolate chips and butterscotch chips, plus more mixed through the batter, plus I added some extra butterscotch chips on top so you could see them. These are very dense and fudgy, and use sweet potato puree as part of the wet ingredients!
Rating: :)



And please enjoy this bonus photo of a delicious breakfast burger that I got when I was dropping stuff off for the FAR bake sale at Grassfed.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



What would I do without this beloved black baby by my side?

Other Christmas Eats

Last post I shared our Christmas lunch, but there were several other festive Christmas foods over the last few days.

A few days before Christmas, I made some Christmas pudding overnight oats using this recipe. I made 2/3 of the recipe (based on measurements for one cup of oats with everything scaled accordingly). As well as the oats and cinnamon, it has dried mixed fruit, dried cranberries, and sliced almonds in it. I topped mine with some pepitas, blueberries, and coconut flakes. I know a red berry would have been more festive, but blueberries were what I had.



Aldi always comes through with some vegan friendly Christmas goodies. I love their stollen, and I also picked up a dark chocolate covered marzipan bar for my dad and some festive coloured strawberry and apple flavoured liquorice.



Super Nachos from Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson: I have a semi-regular tradition of making nachos for Christmas Eve dinner. As I was working most of the day on Christmas Eve, I needed something that would come together fast, and Robin Robertson's quick-fix series always comes through. This has a layer of pinto beans and salsa mashed together on the bottom of a ceramic dish (I used a 9 x 13 inch one, rather than a 9 x 9 inch one, to better fit all the chips). These are topped with chips (I used a bag of Mission tortilla strips), then with a very quick and easy cheese sauce and baked for five minutes. This it is topped with sour cream (except I used some natural almond yoghurt as easy to get and pretty much fills the same purpose), more salsa (I was just using a bottled one), black olives, and minced scallions. I left out the pickled jalapenos, and also the chili powder from the cheese sauce and the beans. I served it with diced avocado on the side for me and my dad, as my mum has an avocado intolerance. These were tasty, scooped up into a bowl to get the chips covered with everything, and very quick to make. We ate these while watching the first three-quarters of Love Actually. Then there was a huge storm and we lost power! But it came back on in time to go to bed.
Rating: :)



Pomegranate Ice Smoothie from 350 Best Vegan Recipes by Deb Roussou: I mentioned in my last post that I do a bikram yoga class on Christmas morning every year, and when I get home I normally make some sort of vaguely festive smoothie to help with rehydrating me. This year I had some pomegranate juice in the freezer that needed using, so this seemed like a good option. Pomegranate and orange juices, mixed with berries (I used all frozen - strawberries, blueberries, raspberries) and ice. I made some ice cubes out of coconut water, and then also some coconut water liquid as to make up for using all frozen berries instead of some fresh. This was very tangy, strongly citrus, and very icy. It was OK, but probably not something I'd make again. Or if I did I would replace the OJ with more coconut water.
Rating: :|



Presents! My big present for the year is that I am getting a new mattress for my bed, which I desperately need because my current mattress seems to actively hurt me. But I still need to go looking for one. But I also got a few books and some chips, pictured here, as well as another 6 month subscription for The Cruelty Free Shop mystery box. I'll give the December box it's own post soon.



After a big Christmas lunch, dinner on Christmas day is just fend for yourselves leftovers and snacks. I used the leftover pea and tarragon side, mixed with the leftover field roast, some diced cherry tomatoes, and some Green Goddess dressing I had leftover from a recipe I made a few days before to make a nice, light, salad for dinner.



The day after Christmas in Australia is Boxing Day, another public holiday. No yoga on that morning, Dim Sim and I had a nice little snooze in. For breakfast, I made a ham and cheese croissant. The croissant is from Flour of Life, the ham is Tofurky, the cheese was Nutty Bay Garlic Cashew cheese, and also I added the leftover cranberry sauce from the day before. I had this with some fresh cherries.



I spent the day dawdling around the internet and watching some movies, a very relaxing day. For lunch, I tried out some new to me dips. The Yumi's White Bean and Lemon with Oregano was lovely and refreshing, though a bit sweet. I was very excited to try the Chris' Plant Based Spring Onion Dip, they recently came out with a range of creamy vegan dips. While the taste was good, unfortunately the texture was not. It is kind of oily and greasy in your mouth. It is based on vegetable oil, but unlike Vegenaise which is so delicious I could eat it by the spoonful, they haven't really mastered the technique.



Dinner was simple and light, a bowl of steamed vegetable gyoza with plum sauce and black vinegar.



And finished off with some stollen and some fresh grapes and cherries.



The clinic only closes for the public holidays, so I was back to work on Friday morning.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



We haven't had a Christmas tree for a few years now, but back when we did, and when I had my sweetest Gizmo, she used to love sitting underneath it. She didn't try to climb it or play with any of the ornaments, she just liked to sit and purr and contemplate.