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!

Christmas Day

Hello! Today is New Year's Day here in Australia, but I still have Christmas stuff to share.

Behold our little Christmas tree! A few years ago we swapped out our huge one for a cute little table top one. I love it. I also have several ornaments from some of my favourite artists to hang on the tree as well. And out Angel still gets to go on top. I can't remember a Christmas without her.



This year I also ordered some special memorial ornaments for my girls and also for Possum. Just from one of those personalised ornament kiosks you see in shopping centres. This was pre-COVID is everywhere in Brisbane. Because our tree is very small, there isn't really space to hang them on it, so I got some ornament hangers so we could have them up on our bookshelves.





Now for some food. I took a low key approach to my Christmas breakfast. A vegan croissant I had bought a few days before filled with some mango peach jam, a bowl of Alpro vanilla yoghurt with mango and blueberry, and one of the cranberry muffins I had made a few days before for Litha. We normally have some orange juice as well on Christmas morning, but I tend to find straight up OJ a bit acidic for my tummy. So I mixed mine with some Mojo Ginger Kombucha and it was lovely!



Then it was time for presents! We are pretty low key as far as presents go at Christmas. I got some books, which I think is always a good Christmas present. And my mum also surprised me with a vegan chocolate hamper! It was from a place called Only Mine, which I had never heard of before. I haven't tried any yet because we are still working our way through some other snacks, but I will definitely report when I do!





But what you really care about is what was in those stockings for the cats! Well, there was a whole array of toys and treats. Behold!





After presents, we watching The Muppet's Christmas Carol before starting on getting ready for our late lunch. I had bought a whole bunch of roasts this year, and we decided on the Field Roast Pastry Wrapped Hazelnut and Cranberry roast this time. We'd had it before, so we knew it would be good.



Watermelon, Spinach, & Cucumber Salad from Cook, Share, Eat Vegan by Aine Carlin: Because Christmas is in summer here, we always make a salad to include on our Christmas lunch table. This year I chose this lovely fresh offering. The recipe actually calls for watercress, not spinach, but I couldn't find any and I had a bunch of baby spinach to use up. It was such a great salad, topped off with some delicious tahini sauce.
Rating: :)



Orange Roasted Carrots from Happy Vegan by Fearne Cotton: This was the other new recipe I tried this year, some lovely orange and maple glazed carrots. I was able to find smaller carrots so I could halve them and they looked cute.
Rating: :)



This platter features the sliced Field Roast, the last of my precious Tofurkey ham slices, and Citrus Cinnamon Cranberry-Sauce from Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin, which I have made several times before and is my favourite cranberry sauce recipe.



Then we had the roasted carrots, steamed green beans, and Potato Squashers from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton, which have been a staple on a Christmas lunch table for several years.



Cranberry Ginger Cider from The Cafe Flora Cookbook: I also made this refreshing festive beverage! It is made by simmering fresh grated ginger in water, cooling, straining, then adding the ginger tea to some cranberry juice. My ginger tea simmered down a bit too much I think, so even though it was a concetrated flavour on its own it got a little bit lost with the juice. Though it still have a slight ginger punch. Or maybe it is just because I like my ginger to be super strong. But it was still lovely.
Rating: :)



Obligatory photos of the table and my plate!







Quite a bit afterwards, it was dessert time. This year I wasn't able to find a vegan Christmas pudding I wanted to buy. I didn't really feel like spending $50 on a huge vegan gluten free one from The Green Edge, and the vegan and vegan-friendly puddings in the supermarkets seemed to sell out weeks beforehand. So I dug into the freezer and found this little Sticky Date Pudding I still had hiding in there, heated it up, and served it with custard, cherries, and grapes.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I continued the tradition of tormenting cats with hats, but this year I bought an all new one that has lights in it! As you can see, Boo was monumentally unimpressed with this development. Sorry Boo, this is what Christmas is like in your new home!

Isolation Brunches

Going back in time to those two months I spent on leave from work, isolating away in our house. One of the things I did to try and bring some struction and fun into our lives was a weekly brunch. This also meant, as you will see, that I dug out my waffle maker and had a mighty fine time! I keep forgetting that waffles are so easy to make with this waffle maker. It was also a nice time to get to make some of these sweeter brunch-type recipes that I hardly ever have a good time to make. Since heading back to work, I haven't made brunch once! I need to try and at least find a fun time to do it occasionally.

Old-Fashioned Chelsea Waffles and Brown Sugar Peach Coulis from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: These was so easy to make, and they make a lot. I used half the recipe and got 6 nice fat waffles and one mini one. They are not overly sweet, but I really enjoyed that. I served them with some Brown Sugar Peach Coulis, which allowed me to use up some frozen peaches in my freezer because it certainly was not peach season. I also drizzled it with a bit of sweetened rice cream.
Rating: Waffles :), Coulis :)



Peanut Butter Waffles and Blueberry Ginger Whole Berry Sauce from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: Peanut butter everything! These waffles are filling, and also a bit crunchy because you use crunchy peanut butter. Again, I made a half recipe for 6 waffles. These had a nice peanut buttery flavour, and were not too sweet (again, hurrah!). Served with the Blueberry Ginger variation of the Whole Berry Sauce recipe, which used frozen blueberries and fresh ginger. The fresh ginger gave such a lovely sparkle to the sauce.
Rating: Waffles :), Sauce :)



Raised Waffles with Baked Cinnamon Apples from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: I thought I'd try my hand at these yeasted waffles. You have the option of making them in the morning and letting them rise, or making them the night before and doing a longer rise in the frige overnight. I took the first option. Again, I halved the recipe and got 6 waffles. Mine got very dark on the outside with this recipe, which is different from how they look in the book. It didn't do anything bad to the flavour though. When I pulled these out of the waffle iron, they still seemed a bit soft compared to the others. But once out the crisped up on the outside and have a lovely fluffy inside. I served these with some nice and easy Baked Cinnamon Apples, also from the book.
Rating: Waffles :), Apples :)



Tempeh Bacon from Baconish by Leinana Two Moons: Pancakes, bacon, and fruit, which a combination. The tempeh bacon from Baconish is easy to make and delicious to eat. I had a packed of Melinda's gluten-free pancake mix from an Vegan Mystery Box that I needed to use up, and I am sorry to say that it was not a good time. They tasted funny, the batter was so thick but also so fragile to flip. Thankfully the bacon, some apple slices, and maple syrup saved the day!
Rating for Tempeh Bacon :D



Raspberry Cornmeal Pancakes from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton: These pancakes were a bit of a miss, they were quite crumbly and hard to flip. I wonder if my cornmeal was not fine enough? The recipe itself I noted had no sweetener in it, however it did call for vanilla soy milk which is normally sweetened. I didn't have any of that, so I used a blend of plain oat milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract to make my own. I used a 1/3 cup measure as a scoop, and got 6 pancakes. I served this with some Maple Cream, another recipe from the blog that I have made a few times before, and some fresh strawberries.
Rating: :|



Hearty Pancakes with Buckwheat and Blueberries from Power Plates by Gena Hamshaw: These also gave me a bit of trouble with the batter, as it was very thin and if you made the pancakes too big then it would tear when you flipped it. But I found using a 1/4 cup measure as the scoop just perfect. These had a really nice flavour and texture, thanks to the mix of spelt and buckwheat flour. I served these with some runny peanut butter, maple syrup, and sliced strawberries.
Rating: :)



This final brunch, which was actually the first brunch we had chronologically, did not involve any recipes. On my last day of work before I went into isolation, I stopped by Naim to pick up some vegan raspberry croissants. When I got home they went into the freezer and there they stayed until we decided to get brunching! These were lovely. Dusted with a raspberry poweder and filled with raspberry jam, they were a big hit. We happened to have quite a few types of fruit in the house that day, so I mixed up a quick fruit salad with banana, apple, raspberries, grapes, and pawpaw to have with it.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



As well as sleeping with my bamboo contour pillow for bad necks, I have to sleep with a little cushion tucked next to the right side of my head to stop my head from flopping to the side too much while I sleep, thus ruining my neck more. Chronic pain, it's so unfun. But one morning Dim Sim decided that sitting on a little cushion on top of the pillow was the ultimate in comfort. She stayed there for quite a while! Thankfully she doesn't try and take it from me when we are sleeping, because you know I would let her have it no matter the consequences for my neck.

Christmas Lunch 2019

Hello friends, and merry holidays or happy hopefully day off or whatever this time of year means to you. Yesterday was Christmas here, and I managed to actually muster up some festive feelings, which was nice. The day started with my traditional Christmas morning bikram yoga class, then home to presents, and making Christmas lunch. It actually rained quite a bit, which was delightful! I'll have several festive posts to share, but today I am focusing on our Christmas lunch for this year.

We decided to keep things pretty simple this year. So instead of making a centrepiece or even buying some big fancy roast, we went with the easiest options of some Tofurky smoked ham slices and a Field Roast Wild Mushroom Quarter Loaf that I had lurking in the freezer. It was my first time trying the loaf, and it had such a wonderful mushroom flavour. We sliced the loaf and gave it a quick pop in the microwave as recommended on the packaging as the simplest way to heat up, and the ham was from the fridge.





Tarragon Pea and Spinach Side from Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin: The first of two new recipes I tried for our meal. This is very easy to make, using frozen peas and a bag of baby spinach. The recipe says to cover the peas with water to simmer, and once the liquid has reduced add the spinach to wilt. This would have resulted in a super soupy dish, so I ended up draining off most of the liquid before adding the spinach. I realised that I forgot to add grated nutmeg (doofus), and I also decided not to add the optional soy cream. It was a really nice, savoury, green side dish. Perhaps next year I will try it with the cream, and also remember the nutmeg!
Rating: :)



Miso-Glazed Roasted Carrots from I Can Cook Vegan from Isa Chandra Moskowitz: The second new recipe I tried, from my newest cookbook. This recipe is super simple, and super tasty. I made a half recipe, for three side serves. I had five skinny carrots, that I cut in half crosswise before cutting in half lengthwise, just because otherwise they would have been too long to fit easily on our lunch plates with everything else. The glaze is easy to make. It says to toss the carrots in it and then put them on the tray. This left most of the glaze in the bowl, so I scooped out the glaze and rubbed it on the carrots. I left out the red peppers, and topped with chopped parsley rather than scallions. I roasted these for a bit longer, and at a slightly higher temperature than the book suggested to make sure they were nicely roasted and glazed.
Rating: :)



Potato Squashers from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton: These have been a Christmas Day staple at our house for years. Salty, hot, crispy, roasted potatoes. Who can say know? We always bake them for about five extra minutes on each side once they have been squashed, to make sure they are super crispy.
Rating: :D



Cinnamon Citrus Cranberry Sauce from Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin: Frozen cranberries are hardly ever available here, but I had some in my freezer still from when I bought a heap of bags last year when Woolworths randomly had them (they didn't this year). This is my favourite cranberry sauce to make, and I've made if to previous Christmas times as well.
Rating: :D



Mum also made this lovely tomato and cucumber salad with balsamic dressing.



Our Christmas table.



And my fully loaded plate.



For dessert, I got these mini vegan friendly Christmas puddings from Coles. It was great having them in individual portions, as we could each eat ours when we felt like it and it was just a small bite, rather than having a huge pudding to share with leftovers. I drowned mine in some Alpro custard, because I like a very high custard to pudding ratio.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



While she may not look impressed here, Dim Sim had a lovely Christmas day. She got a fresh packed of Greenies, enjoyed running in and out of the rain multiple times to get rubbed down and hugged, had many sweet lap snuggles with me, and ate very well.