Christmas Day Feastings.

I woke up on Christmas Day at the clinic, after spending the night on call with the company of the lovely kitty Daphne. She indeed is a sweet little girl, and spent the night all snuggled up sleeping soundly.

I was ravenous by the time I got home for our family Christmas Day breakfast!



Here is my breakfast. Pancakes with fresh strawberries and blueberries, vanilla soy yoghurt, maple syrup and fresh orange juice. It was so yummy! My omni parents and veggie brother had eggs, croissants, haloumi and ham... so I had my pancakes all to myself and didn't I just eat them all... tee hee!

Breakfast was followed by present opening, which was fun. I got some books and DVDs, some pretty stuff and the black and pink cat mugs that I have been coveting ever since I saw them on Mandee's Cupcake Kitteh blog. They are so CUTE! The kitties also got a stocking full of toys and Greenies.

After presents came time to start the preparations for the late lunch! Last year I had made the pot roast from Vegan Vittles, and in previous years I had just munched on lots and lots of vegetables. This year I decided to try my hand at a stuffed seitan roast. I chose Roast Seitan With Ginger Peach Stuffing And Glaze from Vegan Dad. It was a bit of an exciting time, as I hadn't had any time for a test run before the big day! I chose it because peaches are a summer fruit, so it was kind of seasonal... even though it was still a honking big roast in the middle of summer. Hee.



And here it is! It doesn't look as pretty as the one on the page. I found that the stuffing recipe made way too much to actually stuff the roast with. Maybe I wasn't rolling it out enough, but any more rolled out and it would have been too thin and started tearing. It was a bit fragile, so care was needed to roll it and move it to the alfoil. Then I steamed it in yet another makeshift steamer. Once steamed and safely transfered into the baking dish, it was basted with the glaze and then baked according to directions. I found I also had loads of glaze left over as well. I think I have enough stuffing and glaze in the freezer to make another one. It fell apart a bit in the cutting and moving, but it was well received. I found the glaze incredibly sweet thought, I might add some soy sauce next time to up the salt a little bit. Also, I would have liked it to be a bit firmer and chewier in texture. It's a shame it is too fragile to crisp up quickly in frying pan before putting in the oven, but I might try baking first without the glaze to see if I can get a bit of a crust going. But all up, it was pretty tasty and the entire family enjoyed it. And it made for tasty leftovers too!



And here is the Christmas lunch plate! What is on it? Well, clockwise from the top there is slices of the stuffed seitan, sauteed mushrooms and peas (which were covered liberally in nooch after this photo), Christmas Day salad (baby spinach, asparagus, green beans, olives and cherry tomato) and roast vegetables (potato, parsnip, pumpkin and lots of garlic cloves). It was delicious! An exciting milestone is that this is the first Christmas lunch ever in my life that there has been no turkey or duck or similar. I was stoked! Not even a plate of ham made it to the table! Though my parents did have a prawn and mango salad, but I think that this is a great trend for years to come. See... our plans for vegan world domination are slowly but surely working! Let us all laugh our evil laughs! Mwahahaha!

After lunch was our Christmas Day Trivial Pursuit match... parents vs. kids. Alas, parents won. Evil. And it was one of those matches where Greg or I often had the right answer first, then talked ourselves out of it. Which is way more sad then just no knowing the answer at all. But still, it was a lot of fun and it was very close at the end. Next year we shall crush them like bugs, I am sure. You know, with Christmas Spirit and all!



Snacks during the game were a very pretty plate of the Santa Hats I made earlier in the week. And then there was fullness. And peppermint tea. And a fridge full of left overs. We didn't even manage to touch the Christmas Cake or the non-vegan Christmas Pudding until days later! Normally I make a vegan Christmas Pudding, but this year I just ran out of time with work... Next year I shall be back!

So I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas Day with lots of food and presents but most of all, with the people and critters that they love.

The fabulous foodie holiday

Warning to all - many, many words and photos ahead! So settle in!

I got back yesterday from a brief holiday down at Broadbeach, on the Gold Coast. It was basically an eating extravaganza of fabulous proportions! And thank goodness for the food, as I ended up witha ground floor unit and a fabulous view of the building's pool, and could listen to the soothing sounds of other people in said pool and the traffic outside. Mmm.... restful! Moral of story - don't internet book. Always book over the phone so you know what you are getting!

I got down on Monday afternoon, and immediatey went out for stocking up at The Oasis Shopping Centre. I haven't been down for a couple of years, and I was thrilled to find out that opposite Woolworths there was now a Wray Organic shop had opened up! So I happily went in and impulsed bought up a storm! Below is my booty.



Clockwise from left: Redwood Vegan Thai Style Fish Cakes, Pure Harvest Oat Milk, Spoil Me Raw Vegan Chocolate Chip Ice Cream, organic Swiss Brown mushrooms, Cheddar Style Cheezly and Absolute Organic Beetroot Chips.

That night I headed out to Tian Ran, a fabulous vegan asian restaurant in Mermaid Beach, about 5 minutes drive from my unit. YUM! I had the mixed deep fried entree (curry puff, wonton, dim sim and spring roll), the hot and sour soup (excellent!), chicken in satay sauce on brown rice and, for dessert, lychees in vegan ice cream. The hot and sour soup was one of the best I've had, which is important for me because this is my favourite soup!The chicken is made out of soy protein, and was very nice. And a good peanutty satay sauce as well! But my favourite part was the vegan ice cream with lychees - something I haven't had for ages, but which I truly love! It was all beautifully presented. I wish I had some photos, but I still feel a bit funny taking photos in restaurants.

Tuesday morning dawned, and with it - awesome breakfast number one! I had come prepared for awesome breakfasts, with pancake batter pre-prepared and tempeh bacon marinating. So here it is:



It is Blueberry Cornmeal Pancakes from Veganomicon and Tempeh Bacon from Vegan Vittles, with fresh berries and smothered in maple syrup - YUM! One of the fun things about staying in these units is going from a fully stocked kitchen to a marginally stocked one. So all my frying was done in the one electric frying pan (ick). I enjoyed my first ever glass of icy cold oat milk with this - and I love it! I rapidly consumed most of the pack, I confess.

I spent the entire day reading with my non-view. Very nice to spend all day reading. Come lunch time, and the pancakes had finally worn off. So I made myself a TBLAT:



Tempeh Bacon, Leaves (in this case baby spinach and fresh basil), Avocado and Tomato (in this case a Cherokee Purple variety from my market frolic) with some soy mayo for extra fun all sandwiched between two slices of Sol Bread's Pumpkin And Pepita loaf. YUM!

For dinner I headed down to Threeworlds Organic Pizza Cafe, a vegan pizza shop down in Mermaid Beach. Fabulous atmosphere! And it is a pay what you feel concept. I got takeaway, so I do have photos.



Here's my pizza! I got the large zised half and half. Half was the Margarita and the other half was Potato And Herb. It smelled amazing and tasted great! The cheese is the yellow spiral stuff. It seems to be a liquid cheese that is then baked. Tasty! It also had rocked leaves and sprouts sprinkled all over the top. Scrummy!

I enjoyed some more Heirloom Tomatoes - here is Green Zebra, Yellow Peach and an unknown red variety. Let me just say, the flavour in these tomatoes in mind blowing! Especially compared to the watery red things pretending to be tomatoes in most supermarkets and green grocers.



Threeworlds also has raw vegan desserts! They had two while I was there, so I just had to get a piece of both!



Raw Chocolate Avocado Tart. With my raw vegan ice cream and fresh strawberries. OMG - NOOOOMMMMMMMM! It was so rich, chocolate and decadent!



The other one was a raw coconut, banana and lemon tart. I was not such a fan of this one. It definitely tasted like it wanted to be baked!

Wednesday morning dawned, and it was cold and raining! I prepared another awesome breakfast:



Here we have scrambled tofu (firm tofu, baby roma tomatoes, baby spinach leaves, basil leaves, parsley leaves, mushrooms, kipfler potatoes, nooch and apple cider vinegar), more tempeh bacon, fried mushrooms and a slice of pumpkin bread with avocado. All washed down with some take away fresh juice - apple, carrot and ginger (the best combination ever!).

Eventually I decided to leave the dry hotel room and venture out for some lunch at Magic Apple Wholefoods down in Burleigh Heads. Yummy! This is a vegetarian place with a lot of vegan options. Because of the cold and rainy day, I opted for a lentil and mushroom pie, which came with a homemade tomato sauce. They have a great selection there - pies, pasties, a selection of yummy hot meals (thai curry, morrocan bean stew and dhal were all on offer) and some of the largest and yummiest wraps ever seen! They also have sweet stuff!



This is my piece of Orange Almond Cake. It had a kind of cream cheese icing. I took this down to Point Danger, on the QLD/NSW border. It is one of my favourite and prettiest places ever. Don't believe me?

Here is the point itself from up above on the lookout.



And here is the beach next to it, also from the lookout.



The weather abated to allow me to walk down to the actual point itself.




Then I headed back up, just in time as it started raining again, and spent a couple of hours reading in the car, listening to Hamish and Andy on the radio and watching the beautiful view. I stopped off form some more Tian Ran take away on the way home. Tonight I had some lovely Shanghai Pan Fried dumplings, which were truly tasty. For the soup I had the Sweetcorn and Vegetarian Chicken Soup, which was a bit lacking in sweetcorny taste to be honest. The star was the main - beef in black bean. They make their beef using soy protein and mushrooms, and it is delicious, melt in your melt stuff! For dessert I enjoyed some of their sago with coconut milk and palm sugar with soy ice cream. Even though I had this at the unit, I forgot to take photos - doh!

My final morning. Before check out, I had a quick breakfast snack of vanilla soy yoghurt, berries and maple syrup. YUM! This was just to boost my energy, before packing up, checking out and heading off to One World Love Cafe for the breakfast proper. I had the sausages (really nice, I think some sort of nutmeat), tomatoes and toast with a banana smoothie. I also had a lovely chat with Margaret, one of the ladies working there. This is a great, zen little place and I think my favourite of the trip! They also do group meditations there. It is abeautiful place too, with a lovely courtyard and some of the nicest bathrooms you ever shall see. Did I mention the food was great?



Then home and back to the real world. For dinner last night, I had some vegan fish and chips. Well, to be precise Redwood Vegan Thai Style Fish Cakes, chips and more yummy tomatoes.

If you are still with me, congratulations and thanks! It was a great holiday of eating, and I would be happy to drive back down just to eat at any of these places. Check them out if you are in the area, or if not, drive up or down and check them out anyway!

So, today is my birthday, so more food will be forthcoming soon!