Showing posts with label AusNZVeganMoFo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AusNZVeganMoFo. Show all posts

Saturday, 19 September 2015

VeganMoFo 2015 #19: Inside my lunch box.



19. Lunch on the go.

Another post, much like the breakfast post, where everyone will be sharing all their fancy amazing lunch on the go ideas. And I am going to show you inside my boring, every day at work lunch box. Though, to be fair, my lunch box is pretty cool.

Lunch Box


Sadly I have been unable to locate a Gen 1 MLP insulated lunch box that is not a million dollars of the internet from overseas. However this one has served me nicely for several years.

A lot of my work days are 11 hours or so long (start at 8am and finish at 7pm), and there isn't a set time that I get to take as a lunch break. Although the clinic where I work has several places with vegan options not too far away, I always take a full lunch box because I can't guarantee that I can get out for lunch on any given day. Also, eating out gets very expensive, so even on the quiet days I tend to eat my packed lunch anyway.

I have a couple of essentials that are always in my lunch box. Firstly, my super cute kitty water bottle. I bring this in an effort to drink water and stay hydrated, though I am really bad at this and often don't. I also take a small box of fresh vegetables, which is usually cucumber slices and those yummy Perino snacking tomatoes. I always have a banana, which I don't always eat but is very important as my pre-spey or pre-procedure snack, because you don't want to be going into a surgery and find yourself getting the hungers on in the middle of it! I also take some other fruit for the afternoon, over winter it tends to be a mandarin or some strawberries, and in summer often some blueberries and grapes. And some dates as well.

Lunch Box


For my mine lunch, I take leftovers that I reheat in the microwave at work. These can vary a lot, because as you know I almost never make the same recipe twice! Though sometimes if a recipe makes a lot I might have a couple of similar lunches. I always put some baby spinach underneath whatever the leftovers are for an extra greens boost, and will often add some frozen peas as well. I pack my lunch box up every morning.

Lunch Box


That baggie in there that you can see is some jerky that I brought back from the US. I always make sure I have an emergency extra snack, and I also generally have an emergency snack bar in my bag as well. I don't like to take the risk of getting hungry! I also have a stash of handy staples at work. These include peanut butter (excellent to add to the banana for my pre-procedure snack), peppermint tea (work actually provides peppermint tea for me, but I keep an emergency stash in case we are out), 90 second oats, and of course nutritional yeast to sprinkle liberally over my lunches! Work also has gingernuts, and while they aren't at the moment they are generally an accidentally vegan brand. Just in case things get dire!

Lunch Box


I generally eat lunch at the desk in hospital. And I generally give it a good noochy topping. There are no leftovers that don't go well with nooch.

Lunch at work


So that is generally how I pack my lunch to go to work. Sometimes if I have baked I might have a special little goodie in there, but generally speaking I try and keep it pretty high in fruit and vegetables as far as snacks go.

Looking forward to seeing everyone's fancy lunches on the go! But hopefully some will share their every day lunch boxes as well. :)

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post: Month of Gizmo

Gizmo


Poor Gizmo had kidney issues, so that little shaved patch there was because she had a kidney ultrasound. However, even with some squares shaved out of her fur, she wasn't fazed. She was such a sweet and accepting little girl.

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

AusNZVeganMoFo: Momentous Moments

Today is special for a few reasons - it is the last day of AusNZVeganMoFo (which has single-handedly reignited my passion for blogging), it is one year and ten days since I first started this blog (and was convinced that no one ever would read it, so a huge thank you to those that do and who comment as well!) and it is my 100th post!

No amazing new photos or revelations. If you can believe it my flickr pro account has expired today and though I have just renewed it, it takes a while before you can access it - so no new photo uploads for me!

Instead, I show you this - the photo from my first blog post:


Raspberry Blackout Cake with Ganache Frosting from that wonderful book, Vegan With A Vengeance!

And, some photos of the ones that are closest to my heart:




My beautiful girls!

Just a quick post today, as I am on call at the clinic after a long day! Tomorrow is another great day - the start of worldwide VeganMoFo! Tomorrow when I have some time, I am hoping to get a chance to share my story of veganism with you. It is not something I have really spoken about before! So I hope to share with some of you soon!

(P.S. I am way behind on my Google Reader, I shall be reading and commenting on everyone's blogs over the next day or two, promise!)

Sunday, 27 September 2009

AusNZVeganMoFo: Vegan cupcakes take over the baby shower

My cousin had her baby shower today, and by some miracle I was not on call this weekend. Hurrah! I offered to do some vegan baking to bring along. There are few things as handy, cute and impressive to take along to a party than cupcakes. So I opened up my copy of Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World when I got home from work on Saturday afternoon and set to work in the kitchen!



These are Chocolate Orange Cupcakes, a variation on the Basic Chocolate Cupcake. These are so amazingly AWESOME! In the batter I used the option of adding one and a half teaspoons of orange essence and I also substituted 1/8 cup of sugar with Cointreau. The batter is so great you could practically drink it! It is topped with Orange Buttercream and decorated with chopped orange zest and a chocolate chip. I think they looked adorable. They are fantastic, the cupcake itself is so light and moist and the whole ensemble is just delicious.



Chai Latte Cupcakes were the second cupcake on the menu. I had made these once before, but this time I decided to try and stencil a design on it. The topping mixture (icing sugar, cocoa and cinnamon) make far more than you need, so I had some saved from my first time of making it (and some saved for more batches later). First I dusted on a layer or two of plain icing sugar, then the stencil. The heart stencil looks cute, but next time I would make the heart larger andmore defined - some of them look like triangles! Sadly, by the time the cupcakes were transported and hung around waiting for the sweets to be served the the sugar had kind of melted into the cupcakes like a glaze. You could still see the heart, but not as cute as when I first did them. If you can, try and wait until the last minute before serving before putting on the stencil!


Here they are all ready to be served on my cute little tiered server. They were well received, and people could not believe they were made with no animal ingredients! It is always good to show some people exactly what vegan cooking is all about!


For some extra fun, I made Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles from Isa and Terry's upcoming book Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. They are delicious, with a fantastic chilli kick! Very delicious.

Cute Cat Photo of the Post


Meet Nora, also known as 'bug' because of her curious little bug-eyed appearance! You can't see it quite as clearly with the angle she has her face (typical kitty, looked everywhere but the camera!), but it is quite an adorable little appearance. Nora is one of a litter of six kittens we have at the clinic, we shall soon be looking for homes for them!

Thursday, 24 September 2009

AusNZVeganMoFo: If you build it...

Then you too can have pretty looking dinners! I made these two recipes for dinner one night because they seemed both a bit fun and cute. Both recipes come from Vegan Planet.


The first course was Eggplant Salad Towers. A bed of green leaves topped with a giant crouton (read fancy word for a piece of toast, essentially... hee) and then layers of eggplant, tomato and a delicious marinated mixture of roasted red capsicum, peas, red onion, garlic, balsamic vinegar and lemon juice. Nom! It was delicious! I found that the nice bready crouton really anchored the flavour, but you could easily omit this to make it GF.


The second course was Ravioli Without Borders, which is an open ravioli using wonton wrappers. The recipe instructs you to boil the wrappers for three minutes, but when I did this they were way overcooked, stretchy, tearing and unmanageable! Maybe we have different wonton wrappers here? The ones I used were from the fridge section at the supermarket, and I found the best thing to do was grab them in tongs and just very briefly run them through a pot of boiling water. Also, be careful when buying wonton wrappers - most of them have eggs in them! The filling is made from crumbled tofu, shiitake mushrooms, garlic, onion and roasted capsicum and there is also a layer of baby spinach leaves inside. The toppings on them are salsa, tapenade and pesto (all made from recipes from the book). The verdict was delicious! And kind of pretty to boot!

Cute Cat Photo of the Post


I thought I would feature Gizmo today, because she has been keeping me company this morning while her sisters have been enjoying some fresh air. Gizmo loves to sleep. My friend Jessie loves to sleep. Here is Gizmo, sleeping with her arms wrapped around Jessie's arm. Is it love? Or a clever way to not fall off the edge of the sofa? Either way, it is a gorgeous snuggling snorgling snooze! Sleeping (along with eating and getting pats... and shedding fur) is something Gizmo excels at!

I've had the last two days out of the blog world. My holiday is over, my head cold is cleared (though the massive dust storm of yesterday has made me all snuffly again!) and I am back to work. I started work at 7am Tuesday and finished at 7pm on Wednesday, and was just a bit too tired to blog! I shall do me best to keep up with it now that I am back at the clinic. Also, I have signed up for VeganMoFo 2009, so October will bring another month of frequent posting!

Sunday, 20 September 2009

AusNZVeganMoFo: Getting away from it all - the second.

Hello happy shiny vegans! I am currently on call at the clinic, on this fine Sunday evening, and am feeling far to bright and chirpy given that fact! Anyway, if you cast your mind back I was at the Gold Coast with my Jens and we were about to go for dinner. The place was The Pink Poodle. OK, how could I NOT love a place with Pink in the name and some cute pink decor!



I continued my uncharacteristic (but very restrained) drinking with the namesake cocktail - The Pink Poodle. It involves Bacardi, Cointreau, strawberry and lemonade. It is so ridiculously amazing. It tastes like a really awesome creaming soda. If I was so inclined, I could have been drinking these all night! In the middle is Little Jen's Long Island Ice Tea. Meep! A little sip from that and I was reeling! And rounding it out is Big Jen's Pina Colada. I couldn't taste that one because they used cream, ick! Jen said it was good but the dairy cream made it too heavy and a bit much, and we all agreed that coconut cream would have been much better, and vegan friendly too! Hurrah!


We shared an entree of Bruschetta of the menu, which I was assured was vegan. Fresh and tasty! Just the thing to start filling up the belly in the company of an awesome pink cocktail!


They had these very pretty pink glass candle holders on each table. I so want some!


And the tap water came in these bottles with cute Pink Poodle labels on them. Heh! Yes, I am easily amused by things that are pink. Pink = bestest colour ever!


And here it is - the main! OK, it is essentially a vegetable stack, some rice and some tomato coulis. So not exactly high marks for originality. But look how cute it is! I have a SHALLOT FLOWER on my vegetable stack! And the rice is cute and shaped rather than just spooned on. I think it is just adorable! Anyway, as far as vegetable stacks go it was pretty good - actual flavour rather than just soggy vegetables! It had potato, zucchini and capsicum. OK, so ick to the last but I forgot to add the capsicum ban when I was talking to him. Hee! Cute! Sorry it is a bit fuzzy, the lighting was low and my camera is a bit lame.


We got dressed up for the night! I was wearing my impulse buy new dress I got from Target earlier than week. I love Target for a good impulse buy!


Dessert options for vegans at the restaurant were fairly non-existent. Which was fine, because the day before driving down I am made a huge batch of Chocolate Chip Mint Cookies from The Joy Of Vegan Baking. I love these cookies! We munched happily on them all weekend.

The rest of the night was spent at the apartment. It didn't have a DVD player and there were crap movies on Foxtel, so we ended up watching (and MOCKING) some MacGyver and playing Rummy-O. Oh yeah, we are wild and crazy. ;)


Our last morning and first thoughts turn to breakfast! Bagels, spreads, avocado, salads... yum!


My favourite thing to have on a bagel or toast is Vegemite and avocado. An amazing combination!

Then we headed out for a final walk along the beach!



See, some pretty beach photos for you all! Then it was home and into the waiting arms of my beloved kitties, who I missed like crazy! All up it was a great weekend, just what I needed to get away from everything else!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


This is Possum and Sahara, on my bed, at the same time! Possum pretty much never comes on my bed. But my parents had been away for a couple of weeks on a cruise and one morning I woke up and found the kitten my hand was resting on was actually Possum! With Sahara right behind him. Thankfully my camera was miraculously at hand without me getting up and disturbing them. One time, I had all four cats on my bed at once, which made me deliriously happy!

Currently stuck in my head: Currently I cannot get enough of the Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog soundtrack. Joss Whedon is a genius! I am also still loving (Do You Wanna) Date My Avatar by Felicia Day, who is also in Dr. Horrible!

Currently spending all my time watching: I am doing a bit of a Buffy rewatch at the moment - it has been ages since I have done one! I polished off season 2 while I was home sick, and am now doing some season 3. But I also finished of Dexter Season 3 last week and am currently watching Battlestar Galactica (only three episodes left to watch!) and Glee. I watch many things. ;)

Currently improving my mind with: Atonement. I hate bratty stupid kids. Argh! Only half way through, but I already know more or less what happens.

What are you all watching/reading/listening to?

Saturday, 19 September 2009

AusNZVeganMoFo: Getting away from it all.

Last weekend I was whisked away to the magical Gold Coast by two of my BFFs, known to you lot as The Jens, for a girl's weekend. We headed out of Brisbane on Friday afternoon, and the traffic was a bit slow in the peak hour exodus from the city but not too bad. Soon we had checked in to our appartment at Aquarius On The Beach at Surfers Paradise. We are girls who love to eat, so first on the agenda was dinner!


We each made our own pizza. The Jen's are not vegan, so promptly set about cooking chicken and bemoaning the fact that no one had brought any cheese for the pizza. I had made a pizza topping ahead of time, so just heated it up and spread it over my pizza before baking. This is Roasted Eggplant and Sesame Pizza from Vegan Pizza. When I was doing the shopping, they were all out of frozen pizza bases, so this was one from the bread section. It was OK, but not quite as delicious as other bases. A bit biscuity. I totally ate my pizza like a big cookie, just picked it up and munched.

The night progressed with some drinking, dancing and general silliness. I pretty much don't drink, but I did have a bit of Fresita Sparkling Wine, which is delicious because of the added strawberry pulp. So fantastic! Then we headed off for a pre-bed sauna and spa before heading off into the land of sleeping.


Our breakfast spread. I had made a batch of batter the previous day to make Pancakes from Vegan With A Vengeance. The room only had a really crappy electric frying pan, which is why they turned out a bit dark. They kept on sticking! But they were delicious. Here we have our breakfast spread - pancakes, strawberries, blueberries and maple syrup. And a bowl of Clinkers. That belongs to the Jens, not me. They seem to have a slight obession with them!


Here is a pancake, all dressed up and ready to go in my belly! A certain smaller Jennifer actually put a Clinker on her pancakes to see how it would go. These omnis are a crazy bunch, I tell you. ;)

The morning was spent on the beach. I applied many layers of thick sunscreen, layered up with clothes and headed down for a lovely 15 minutes on the sand. I then attempted to lead an inspired charge into the ocean, but the water was so cold that the three of us ran squealing out as soon as we were there! Despite our best attempts to coax ourselves back in, the thought of that cold water hitting our stomachs was just too great. So we settled for a swim in the pool instead. Or some of us did. Little Jen sat on the edge and would not come in, but Big Jen and I had a lovely time doing some synchronised swimming (I'm a flower!) and aqua-aerobics!


Soon our bellies called to us again, so we headed up for lunch. Whenever Big Jen and I are at each other's houses, we love a lunch of fresh rolls with avocado, green leafies, tomatoes and hummus! I had also made a batch of Brooklyn Deli Macaroni Salad from Veganomicon and brought down some left over Red Flannel Cole Slaw from Vegan Planet.


Behold, a delicious lunch plate!


Afterwards we decided we need to do a bit of shopping. This is our list. Unfortunately, we did not come across any houses to buy for ourselves and the convenience store was fresh out of ponies for me! Hee. On the way back we stopped off at a potential place for dinner to see if they could do a vegan dinner for me. I spoke to the chef, who was adorably flummoxed but the idea of vegan and all the things he couldn't use (I did point out that there are far more vegan ingredients in the world). But he said by the time we came back tonight, he would have conjured something up for me!

Which will be in my next post! I have a lot of photos to share, and it seemed all a bit too long to cram into one post. So stay tuned to see the incredibly cute dinner I was given!

Cute Cat Photo of the Post


Dim Sim, looking small and black and just perfect. She really is my little black pixie princess! *snorgle*

Thursday, 17 September 2009

AusNZVeganMoFo: Father's Day dinner

A couple of weeks ago was Father's Day here in Australia. I, of course, was on call and at the clinic for the entire actual day (the first Sunday in September), so we had a celebration a couple of days later when I was able to cook up a storm! As always, my father got to choose the menu. All the recipes he chose came from Vegan Planet - I did put out a few books for him and that was the one he chose all the recipes from!


The starter was a delectable Cuban Black Bean Soup, with a fantastic chilli kick to it. It has an option to use tinned black beans, but I can't get them anyway so I made it from the dried bean method, which is always great. I love cooking up dried beans! It has a little coriander sprinkled on top of it. I had hoped to make some golden salsa to top it with, but it's still a bit too early to get yellow tomatoes. I also added the option rum. The alcohol itself of course cooks off, but it adds a fantastic extra flavour.


This is the main - a crappy photo I know. But even though it might look a bit drab, it was a power house of awesome flavour! Obviously there are some leafy greens on the plate. There is also a Jerk-Spiced Portobello Steak, which is an amazingly flavoured mushroom. They are great on a burger as well! There is also some Mahogany Eggplant, which is a fantastic saute of Japanese eggplant slices with a great tasting sauce (tamari, sake, chilli, ginger, garlic and sweetener). Both of these recipes have a five out of five rating from me! My dad asked just to have it with some rice, so I took a liberty and made some Coconut Rice from Vegan With A Vengeance. Normally this rice would have toasted coconut to garnish, but I only had dessicated coconut which I figured would be like eating slightly coconutty sawdust, so I omitted them. The recipe works perfectly in a rice cooker as well. It was a lovely plate of food!


This was take two on a tart I had made a couple of weeks before, the Asian Pear Tart with Toasted Almond Crust and Orange-Ginger Glaze. The last time I had made with with normal pears, rather than the Asian Pear, known here as Nashi Pears. This time I made it with the Nashi. The texture was great, they were still a little bit crunchy after the baking was done. I made it in my tart pan this time rather than a pie plate so I could push it out and make it looks super pretty. And it did! The top of the crust still got a teeny bit burnt though.


I served it with scoops of vanilla soy ice cream. Delicious!

Tomorrow I will try and post about my Mother's Day feast - which was all the way back in May!

Cute Cat Photo of the Post


Why, it is my beautiful Sahara! She is stopping to smell the roses. The roses she is sniffing are my bridesmaid bouquet from Little Jen's wedding. Sahara does love to sniff flowers and plants, which means definitely no lillies in our house! Even if she didn't, I wouldn't have lillies near cats anyway. For those who don't know, even the smalled ingested part of a lily (any part) is extremely toxic to cats and causes acute kidney failure and often death. So no lillies! Anyway, Sahara is provided with some great non-toxic plants for her to sniff. How cute is she?

Wednesday, 16 September 2009

AusNZVeganMoFo: My first time

Wow... just over the half way mark on AusNZVeganMoFo. Is it just me or is this month going by particularly fast? Today was my first day back at work after my holidays. Though nothing much happened, it was still a long day so I just have a very quick post for tonight. I am planning on heading up to bed as soon as this episode of Battlestar Galactica is finished! Oh yes, did I mention I am a ridiculous BSG geek? I am currently watching the final season on my super sexy complete season limited edition tin set. Tee hee!

Anyway, in this post I thought I would share with you the first bit of food porn I ever took. I was fairly late to the digital camera party, and even then it took me a little bit of time to realise that I could take photos of all my food! So, what was the first thing I photographed?


Why, it is Stars And Stripes Timbale from The New Vegan. The timbale is a filling of small pasta, spinach, oive, garlic and vegan cheesy goodness all in a zucchini case. I was so overjoyed when I tipped over my ramekin and they slid out perfectly that I just had to reach for my new camera and take a photo!


Here's a closer picture. They were served in a pool of tomato sauce. So, how was the taste? Actually really nice! Though not terribly filling. But I still think they are super cute!

Cute Cat Photo of the Post


This little cutie is Blaize. She was a kitten who came to the clinic with a litter to be rehomed. Unfortunately for Blaize, she was diagnosed with a nasty congenital heart defect, which would normally make her not suitable for rehoming except to very special, dedicated and understanding people. Luckily for Blaize, she stole the heart of one of our nurses, Jo, who took this little beauty home. At this point Blaize is still going strong - I saw her just today! She has grown so much and is a frisky and adorable as a young cat should be. We can't know when her heart will get the better of her, but for the moment she's got her heart fully in living the most joyous life she can!

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

AusNZVeganMoFo: Let's take it slow...

... with some delectable slow cooking! Oh yes! A question for you now - what is better than a new slow cooker? How about a FREE new slow cooker? One of my friends who got married earlier this year got given a slow cooker. They have no desire to have a slow cooker, but they knew I had been wanting one fora while. So meet my friend:


This is my Sunbeam 3.5L Slow Cooker. The picture is taken from the Sunbeam website.

To go with my slow cooker, I needed a book of recipes! Actually, I bought the book first on a sale, so it was good timing when my friend gave me the cooker. The book is Fresh From the Vegetarian Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson (of Vegan Planet fame). It is a book full of so many different slow cooker recipes - from appetisers to mains to baked goods and desserts! Robin uses three different types of slow cookers - 1 quart, 4 quart and 6 quart. There are instances where you can use a different size, but recipes make small quantities or require a certain amount of space so it's not all interchangeable.

The slow cooker is great for days where I work a 6 hour shift in the evening. Put it on before I leave for work, then when I get home just a few bits and pieces and then delicious, slow cooked dinner! It freaked me out at first the small amount of liquid you use in the recipes, and the first time I used it I was certain my potatoes would be raw. But I was silly, for I have had a some delicious and perfectly cooked dinners. But enough waffling on, how about some actual food?


Vindaloo Vegetables: This was pretty tasty, though not super filling despite a can of kidney beans for protein. It's not as hot as traditional vindaloos, but you can adjust the spice as much as you like!


Mediterranean Vegetable Stew - the first thing I made, and let me say the potatoes here, despite my initial fears, were tender and perfect. It includes artichokes and fennel as well, so lots of great flavours.


No Hurry Vegetable Curry - This was a bit bland, though I did only have some mild curry powder in the house at the time. But there are lots of great vegetables in it!


Slow and Easy Mushroom and Green Bean Stroganoff - This is great, really tasty. Instead of adding green capsicum at the beginning, I added some thawed frozen peas in the last 20 minutes when you add the mushrooms.

One thing I will say about this book is that the serving sizes seem very small to me. Most of these recipes claim to make 4 - 6 servings, but for my appetite it would be closer to three servings. Maybe I am just a great big guts... hee.

Cute Cat Photo of the Post


This is Possum, the family cat. Possum is turning 15 years old at the end of the month, but her still thinks he is 15 months old! He is the master of rolling around on the grass or the pine bark, looking as cute as anything and obviously having a great time. He is a bit of a show off though - as soon as he sees me outside with the camera he throws himself down in front of my and commences rolling around in a variety of cute poses. Hee.