Recipe Round-Up: Chloe's Vegan Kitchen

More things I made from Chloe's Kitchen by Chloe Coscarelli. See previous posts about this cookbook here.

Tofu Scallopini with Mashed 'Potatoes': I took a few liberties here, the biggest being that the scallopini recipe was meant to be made with seitan, but I used tofu. I always have tofu on hand, and I prefer it. I made a half recipe with six thin slices of tofu. The slices are battered before being fried, and I did find my batter turned out very gluggy. But I enjoyed them once the lovely herby mushroom white wine sauce was added. The mashed potatoes are a mix of potato, parsnip and cauliflower. The recipe calls it 'Guilt Free', but I don't believe in attaching guilt to food, and especially not potatoes. This mash was lovely for what it was, but you could definitely tell it was not all potatoes. But it had a nice sweet earthy flavour.
Rating: Scallopini :), Mash :)



Maple-Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Hazelnuts: I turned this side into a meal by serving it over a rice and quinoa mix alongside some sliced Field Roast Apple Sage sausage. This is very simple to make, and I love anything with roasted Brussels sprouts. I could do with less hazelnuts in the end, I think just a few chopped to sprinkle on top. I made a half recipe of this, which was enough for two side serves.
Rating: :)



Sea Salt and Vinegar French Fries: A ridiculously tiny pile of fries, because I had a little potato I felt like using up alongside a burger. The fries are baked, which I like because I am too scared to deep fry. The fries themselves were good, they actually went nice and crunchy! But as soon as you sprinkle them with the malt vinegar, they went soggy. Alas. But they still tasted good, I love vinegar. I think a bigger pile of fries would hold up better.
Rating: :)



Chloe's Award-Winning Mango Masala Panini: This requires a few components, including a tamarind-mango chutney, a spiced chickpea masala, and a serve of the roasted cauliflower curry I mentioned in my last round-up from here. It also has some spinach added. It is a lovely combination of flavours! I initially made it as a curry to serve over rice, and used the left overs to make the sandwich.
Rating: :)





Moo Shu Vegetables with Homemade Chinese Pancakes: Making pancakes seemed tiring for a weeknight, so I initially served this as a stir-fry over rice! It is a lovely mix of tofu. mushrooms, cabbage and carrot with a lovely housin sauce. Heaven! For the leftovers, I scaled down the pancake recipe and just made two pancakes when I had a bit more time and energy. The dough was a bit hard to work with, and they ended up a bit thick and tough (I do not have the right skills yet), but they were nice.
Rating: :)





Best-Ever Baked Macaroni and Cheese: This is a big claim, when I have had a lot of mac and cheeses over the years. It uses a roux-based sauce with a lot of nutritional yeast, also some tomato paste which made it look so orange! I half the amount of pasta but all of the sauce and cooked it in a 20 x 20 cm baking dish (that is 8 x 8 inches for my non-metric friends). And the result?? It was a perfectly fine mac and cheese. Not the best, but not bad, but I have other recipes I prefer. Be careful about making big claims!
Rating: :)



Pasta Italiano: This pasta is coated ina white bean sauce, made by blending cannellini beans with some non-dairy milk, oil (though I used less oil and made up the quantitiy with more oat milk), lemon, and herbs. The pasta is mixed with the sauce, asparagus, and cherry tomatoes. Rather than boil the asparagus with the pasta at the end of cooking time, I roasted it for maximum flavour. I also used half the amount of pasta, extra cherry tomatoes, added some more whole white beans, and some spinach for fun.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Finishing off my trio of Cloris Create's portraits with Sahara.

Midweek Munchies

Some random things.

I got this teriyaki sauce on clearance sale and it is pretty good as far as bottled teriyaki sauces go. A lot of them are way too salty, but this has a nice blend of savoury and sweet. I served it with some charcoal noodles (and also some beet noodles I had to use up), some tofu, and some frozen green vegetables for a super pantry/freezer friendly use stuff up meal.





These chickpea chips were kind of meh. They had a weird flavour, just a hint of vinegar, and the rosemary was like an aftertaste rather than an actual flavour. Would not try again.



It's been a while since I've shared any silly drinks, so here is a silly juice that I bought. While it has many ingredients, it sadly mostly tasted like apple juice. They need to make the greens more prominent!



A random lunch of salad topped with a burger patty and melted cheese, plus some tomato relish and caramelised onions.



Another silly juice. This juice had a beautiful colour! Again, it mostly tasted of pear but definitely had the earthiness of beetroot coming through. Not sure I could really taste the strawberry. It was nice for what it was.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Gizmo's cute portrait by Cloris Creates.

Art and Stuff

We are still in uncertain times right now, so here is a post of some pretty art and other pretty things that I have bought lately. I love surrounding myself with pretty and adorable things, and also love supporting some of my favourite small artists.

Some cute mini-prints I got off Society 6. The 'cat landscapes' are by Lim Heng Swee and the two lovely ladies are by Ariel Sinha.



Also off Society 6 I bought these by Vashti Harison, two mini prints of magical princesses and a larger print of a black cat.





Some patreon rewards and some ordered stuff from Heidiroo, who happens to be an awesome vegan person and cat advocate. She also recently released her first book, Working From Home With Your Cat, that I am excited to get.





Some gorgeous prints from Stine Greve. I have some more stuff on order from her at the moment as well.



I'm awaiting some breathtaking artwork from Fatties and Feelings in the post, but here is a colouring in page that I printed off their patreon and coloured.



I have posted about art from Bunny Dee many times, and here are a couple of new additions. Unfortunately my most recent prints arrived with water damage from their journey, but they will be resent with some other fun stuff in my next order. Most excitingly here is that the Luna Moth Cat print is an ORIGINAL! I won it in a raffle she did on Instagram, and it is SO GORGEOUS.





I signed up to Sugar & Sloth's Tiny Party Club, a monthly subscription box of cuteness. The postage from the UK is actually pretty reasonable, so why not have something fun. Plus all the shipping materials are plastic free! Below are my first three boxes: Glitter Dinosaur Space Explorers, Chonky Tea Party, and Spoopy Bees. My November box, Rainy Day Penguins, is on the way. I also bought some awesome cat-related badges.









Finally, some pre-ordered t-shirts. Sugar & Sloth has a monthly tee that you can pre-order, it is only available for the month, and every shirt purchased means a tree planted! How cool! I had to get this month's gay dino t-shirt. Kiss who you want! In my case I don't want to kiss anyone, which is totally valid. Vegan clothing company Compassion Co has also been doing a lot of awesome pre-order, limited run designs to help keep afloat during COVID. This gorgeous Liberation is Love design really spoke to me.



As I mentioned above, I have more art on the way! Inlcuding a new commissioned family portrait. I hope you don't mind these non-food posts, I just think they are a nice break at the moment. I hope you have enjoyed seeing some plants and some art over the last two days.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Not To Be Dramatic But I Would Die For My Cat.

Art Post!

Hello friends, and welcome to the 1000th post on my blog! It started in 2008, so that is 12 years of posting to get to 1000. There have been long periods of absence in there. But I am glad I always have my blog and my lovely blogging community to return to.

Perhaps weirdly, this milestone post is not going to be about food! I shared a post about art previously, as one of the things that is making me happy these days is buying lots of lovely art and supporting independent artists. Deliveries of delightful art have been one of the things keeping my spirits up during this weird time. So here are some of the things! As well as prints, I am including things like patches, pins, stickers, and doodles.

From my favourite artist, BunnyDee , two fabulous packages! One is a bunch of prints I bought, including a beautiful The Last Unicorn inspired print and a print of the Rosy Maple Moth as a cat, my favourite moth! I also got another amazing package from backing her Kickstarter for the Luna Moth Cat Enamel Pin. As well as the pin, it came with bonuses and stretch goals including prints, another pin, patches, and stickers. I have some more prints from her on the way, so look for them in a future post!





These are some BunnyDee luna moth cat prints that I have framed. It is taking me some time to actually get the frames at the moment, but when things go up on the wall at last it makes me so happy!



I got a beautiful letter from my friend Sarra who lives in Seattle, and it included some wonderful stickers and a beautiful photo of daffodils she had taken on one of her walks.



My friend Elyce Phillips, amazing artist and also commedian, was raising funds by offering to draw a witch for any donation to a group supporting trans rights after a certain author made some horrible TERF statements. For my donation, I got this graphic sent of a delightful purple haired witch with a kitty. Of course, always cats.



Heidiroo is another artist I found on Instagram who I love. As well as doing awesome art, with a lot of cats, she also is a vegan and has a delightful kitty called Peanut who I am low-key obsessed with. I made my first order from here earlier this year, and was thrilled when it arrived.



Another project I backed was the Pridosaur Pins on Indiegogo, but now available here. The premise was dinosaurs to represent different identities in the LGBTQIA+ community, with the dino names turned into cute puns. I got the Arosaurus (aromantic) and Archaeopterace (asexual) pins. Also some cute stickers I will have to take a photo of some time. As both ace and aro, I love being included in queer indentity collections! Ace has been getting prominence for a couple of years, but I feel like aro is only just starting to show up. It is nice to see.



I also love the art of Stasia Burrington, who I found on Instagram. My first order from her just came a few days ago! Including this rainbow cat print that I just am besotted with, a few stickers, and a bunch of lovely 5 x 7 inch prints.



Also recently arrived is this selection from Candy Doll Club. I bought the MLP pin and sticker, and the What Would Buffy Do pencil (that is art so I will never use), and the other stickers were bonuses included.



Speaking of stickers, I finally stuck some of my awesome sticker collection on my laptop! Kind of. I actually used BlueTac so I can remove them as desired. I suffer from sticker commitment phobia. I really don't want to lose stickers when I eventually have to get a new laptop. So this was my midway solution.



Finally, some doodle art. I sporadically feel like I want to do some doodling. Danielle (of BunnyDee), gave me some advice to just start by drawing things I can see around me. As I have mostly been in my house, here are a few not very good doodles plus the item that inspired them.





Thanks for looking at some art, I hope it made you smile a bit! I will be back tomorrow with post 1001, and back to regular food scheduling.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post





These are all commissioned artworks I have shown before of my girls, but I thought for this art post I'd share how they are now framed! These are pink A4 frames from Ikea, that have tragically now been replaced by a salmon colour rather than the pale pink of my dreams. I am glad I have a bunch of them still! The top one I am particularly proud of, as it was an 8 x 10 inch print. I used some pink cardboard to put behind it, and a cute sticker I had to embellish it. So even though the print doesn't fit the frame, I love how it looks. The bottom photo is the framed and hung individual portraits of my girls. They are up on the wall opposite my bed, and I love looking at them!

Some Art

Hello! A food free post. Over the last year, I have really gotten in to art. Not doing it, as you will see my skills are limited. But there are so many wonderful artists out there, and I love supporting them by buying beautiful prints for my walls. Well, my one day walls. I still have to get some frames. And also get those frames on the walls. And also I have limited wall space. But, you know.

So here is some art that I have recently bought. There is more that I will share in future posts - right now I am waiting on deliveries from three different artists! But please enjoy these.

BunnyDee: My favourite artist is BunnyDee. I have a whole lot of her art, and I have shared some here before. Here I am sharing her beautiful Tarot Cats, which is a gorgeous tarot deck, with a cute little Cat Love Pin. Also one of her beautiful Luna Cat prints and her Koala print that was fundraising for the Australian bushfires earlier this year. The beautiful tortie girl cart was a gift from Danielle for supporting her - so sweet!





Kat Goodies: Kat is an wonderful artist who you can follow on Instagram. Her shop doesn't sell prints, however I was lucky enough to win an Instagram contest where I got to choose two prints, plus some stickers and pins, and she sent me a couple of extra prints as well. All prints were Buffy related. Here are three of them, which I have framed, and I just need to get up on the wall.



Jen Bartel: Jen Bartel is amazing. I have a few of her pieces, but the one I will share right now is my Captain Marvel Don't Tell Me To Smile print. This is one I have framed and have up, because it didn't involve hanging on the wall. I love her!



Karen Hallion: I have been obsessed with Karen Hallion's Buffy Slay print ever since I saw it a couple of years ago. I ended up getting it as a small print for postage reasons, and now I can finally get it on my wall! She has an amazing series of women characters and inspiring characterists. Does anyone else here watch the new Shera? It is amazing, and the final series is about to come out on Netflix this month. Anyway, I also got a Shera Power print. And a Dr Ellie Sattler print because I love Jurassic Park and Ellie Sattler and Laura Dern.



Kerin Cunningham: Kerin does such beautiful and ethereal work. I was stoked to be able to get my hands on some of her prints, and her pins.



Here is a bonus close up of that Kerin Cunningham pin, alongside a Jen Bartel pin.



Me: Please behold this doodle I did of a cat with my eyes closed for some reason.



I hope you enjoyed this post, I know it is different from the usual food related stuff, but sometimes a little change is nice. Plus... pretty art!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



If you were wondering where Dim Sim's Papadore Art portrait is, it is here. I have already shared this about six months ago, as this was one of my birthday presents. But it is so gorgeous, worth another share.