New Years Eats

I am not one who celebrates the new year, or makes resolutions, or does recap posts. Time is time and it just keeps on passing. I certainly don't stay up until midnight, that is way way way past by bedtime/ But I do like food traditions, so I have a few that I have made around the new year.

New Year's Eve I will normally make pizza and pie for dinner and dessert. This is what I made this year.

Chard, Coriander, and Cashew 'Cheese' Pizza from Greens 24/7 by Jessica Nadel: This pizza has a base of Chard and Coriander Pesto, topped with some broccoli florets and sliced red onion, and finished off with blobs of a delicious and easy to make cashew cheese. I used a store-bought crust for ease. The cheese and pesto were very easy to make as well. This is a really fantastic combination of flavours, and not the usual pizza suspect. The pesto recipe is lovely on its own, and uses sunflower seeds to make it nut free.
Rating: Pizza :), Pesto :)



Creamy Banana Pie from Hearty Vegan Meals For Monster Appetites by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman: This is a very rich pie! First up, a word about the crust. The instructions say to bake in a pie plate, but then remove it from that to completely cool. Do not do this, mine completely fell apart. I think this must be a mistake? Unless they meant a tart pan with a removable base. Anyway, I ended up with crust bits. I blitzed them up in the food processor to crumbs with the intention of making a cookie crumb base by adding some melted Nuttelex. I followed some proportions for this from Joy Of Vegan Baking, but it ended up being too sloppy. Oh no! But I ended up just pressing it into the bottom of a lined 9 inch springform round cake pan. The filling is a mix of tofu, Mori Nu vanilla pudding mix, almond butter, and chocolate chips. I used regular chocolate chips instead of white chocolate like the recipe called for, because I hate white chocolate. As a result of my fiddling around with the crust, now really just a base, I just used a single layer of the sauteed bananas on top, not an extra layer in the middle. The base actually set up in the fridge and worked out pretty well, like a dense brownie base for it. But as I said, super rich!
Rating: :)



On New Year's Day, I like to start the day with some pancakes for breakfast, and end it with some beans and greens.

Banana-Chocolate Chip Pancakes from Tofu 1-2-3 by Maribeth Abrams: This recipe makes a lot of pancakes! It says 15, but I got 16, so between three people we had several left over. I made half with chocolate chips, and half just plain. To be honest, for breakfast I preferred the plain ones, the chocolate chips make pack a pretty rich punch first thing in the morning. The pancakes have silken tofu and a banana blended into the liquid ingredients. Lovely served with maple butter, maple syrup, blueberries, sliced bananas, and some peanut butter.
Rating: :)



Coconut Black-Eyed Pea Curry (Lobia) from Vegan Eats World by Terry Hope Romero: I took a different spin on my greens and beans this year. In the past, I have made many versions of Hopping John, normally having to make my own black eyed peas from scratch because you can't get them tinned. For a brief few months though, there were some tinned ones available. Sadly I only bought one, and now they are gone again, but I used that tin for this recipe (with a second tin of kidney beans). This is simple, you make an onion/garlic/spice paste in the food processor, but then it is just sauteeing that and simmering beans in a coconut-milk broth and then mixing through some coriander. I served it with some spinach for the greens (no collards where I live), and some brown basmati rice. This served three people.
Rating: :)



However you do or don't mark New Year, I hope you had some nice days regardless.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



The one tradition I very much do care about is going to sleep and waking up next to this precious baby for the new year, and if fact for every new day regardless.

2018 Parental Birthdays

I love cooking for people, so every year I make a special feast for my parents on their birthdays (as well as Mother's and Father's Day, which you can see here).

Dad's Birthday (Mini Viva Vegan Recipe Round-Up by Terry Hope Romero):

My Dad is a big fan of Indian food, which is normally the theme of his special dinners. But this year he felt like a change. Chinese for Father's Day, and Latin Food for his birthday. I turned to Viva Vegan for all the recipes, which is a great cookbook that I don't use nearly enough.

Steamed Red Seitan: The first step was to make some lovely, flavoured seitan. This recipe was so easy, and turned out very well. The dough itself was quite wet, which worried be a little, but it firmed up beautifully when steamed. I used garlic powder in the dry mix, rather than fresh garlic in the wet mix, just for ease. The recipe I was making only needed half a recipe of the seitan, so I have frozen the other half for future use.
Rating: :)



Seitan Saltado (Peruvian Seitan and Potato Stir-Fry): My dad loves seitan, which is why I picked a seitan-based recipe. This recipe involves mixing a stir-fry of seitan and veggies with baked french fries, and is a great combination of flavours and textures. I only used half the amount of potato to make the fries, which was the right amount for us. The seitan is marinated briefly, and once again I used garlic powder instead of fresh garlic. You mix the fries in at the end, and want to serve this ASAP so things don't get too soggy.
Rating: :)



Pan-Grilled Vegetables in Chile-Lime Beer: This is super easy to make. A marinade of Mexican beer, lime, garlic, and paprika (which I used in place of chile powder, so they aren't really in chile-lime beer). I used a mix of green zucchini and asparagus for my vegetables.
Rating: :)



These two recipes were suggested to be served together in the menu section of the book, and it was a nice combination. Along with some white rice as well.



Chocolate Orange Spice Cake with Dulce De Batata: In the full recipe, this cake is four layers - two baked cakes cut in half. I decided to halve the recipe, but the single cake that came out was so thin and moist I knew it would be problematic to cut. So I made another cake, essentially the full cake recipe, but only served it as two layers. I had a half recipe of the dulce de batata, which is a delicious sweet potato sweet mash, to fill the cake. The cake has orange juice, orange extract, and a mix of spices. I couldn't taste the orange flavour very strongly, but the spices came through well.
Rating: :)



Mum's Birthday

Mum's birthday recipes came from a mix of different books.

Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts from Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman: I wasn't the biggest fan of these, but my mum really liked them. The bacon recipe in the book is a blend of pureed TVP and gluten flour, and I found it a very springy dough almost impossible to roll out the way the recipe implied it should. I ended up just kind of wrapping it around the water chestnuts the best I could. I also found the seitan bacon a bit smooshy. They are quite smoky in flavour, so the suggestion of dipping in maple syrup was very good.
Rating: :|



Deconstructed Bahn Mi Salad from Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson: I had made this salad a few weeks before my mum's birthday, and she loved it so much she requested it again. As written, it is a mix of sauteed seitan or tofu on a salad of cabbage, carrot, cucumber, and coriander. I skipped the first step by using a packet of Soyco Japanese Flavoured Tofu, and I also subbed out the cabbage for baby cos. Too much raw cabbage is not great for my tummy. I also skipped the scallions, as raw onion is also not the best. The salad is dressed with a hoisin-based dressing (I left out the sritacha and instead let people drizzle that on top as well if they wanted some heat), and surrounded by toasted baguette slices spread with mayo. It is so refreshing and delicious.
Rating: :D



Brooklyn Blackout Cake: This cake isn't the prettiest, but it was fun to make. Two chocolate cakes are baked, then cut in half (unlike the cake I made for my dad, they were high enough to do this with). Three layers become the layers of the cake, the fourth is crumbled in the food processor. The three layers and then filled, and then everything is covered, in a chocolate pudding before the reserved cake crumbs and pressed all over the outside. For the pudding, I used a mix of light coconut milk and soy cream, rather than all coconut milk. I also baked the cakes in two 8 inch pans, rather than 9 inch pans, which needed an extra 10 minutes to bake through. I took the option for using cold water in the cake mix, rather than cold coffee, as I don't do caffeine. As you can see, my end appearance was a bit on the lumpy side, but it tasted good!





Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



A rare photo of the chair cave dwelling Dim Sim.

VeganMoFo 2018 #30: Ice Cream in my Kitchen (Recipe Round-Up: Hearty Vegan Meals)

Sunday 30th: Kitchen Tour – Now the month is concluding, show us where the magic has been happening!

This prompt has popped up a few times over the years of MoFo, and I have given kitchen tours before. So for something a bit different, I thought it would be fun to highlight an appliance in my kitchen. So today I am going to be talking about my ice cream maker, as well as giving a mini recipe round-up.

It is a Sunbeam Gelateria, which Mum got me for my birthday about.... 13 years ago I want to say? I have used it sporadically, but not as often as I should. It is a pretty heavy machine, it has a cooling unit in it so you don't need to pre-freeze any bowls (though you still need the mixture itself to be cool). It makes 1L of ice cream, so I sometimes have to scale down recipes to make sure it fits. No photo of mine, as we are doing renovations and it is currently on the lounge room floor surrounded by other things.

I have recently been trying to use it more, and I turned to Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetite for some ice cream recipes to try. Since I bought it, this book has been republished as Home-Cooked Vegan Comfort Food, and it was written by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman. You can see what else I've made from this book here.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream: This was so yummy, and had a great peanut butter taste. It is a blend of peanut butter, silken tofu, and cream cheese. I blended these, plus the rest of the ingredients, in my food processor (rather than using an immersion blender), and it is like a thick peanut butter cream when it comes out. Put it in the fridge to chill and you have peanut butter mousse. Put it in the ice cream maker and you have delicious ice cream! It does go super hard in the freezer, I will say, so leftovers need to be taken out to thaw for a good while first.
Rating: :D



Peanut Butter Molasses Shake: This uses the above ice cream, mixed with some molasses (it says to use regular, I used blackstrap), banana, salt, and milk. It makes a small serving, but it is very rich.
Rating: :)



Simply Vanilla Ice Cream and Apple Pie with Pecan Crust: This vanilla ice cream is amazing, with a delicious and intense vanilla flavour (thanks to vanilla bean and vanilla extract... I used vanilla paste with seeds in place of a scraped vanilla bean). The base is a nut creamer, though I also had to add a bit of oat milk to make up the volume. It was perfect with a warm slice of apple pie! The pastry crust of the pie was very sticky, and stuck a lot to my fingers when I was trying to press it into the pie plate. It is filled with home cooked apples, I accidentally cooked mine a bit too soft but it was still fine. Best of all, it cuts into great looking slices!
Rating: Ice Cream :D, Apple Pie :)



Mint Chip Ice Cream: Eehhh... so to preface I don't really like a lot of mint things... too much like toothpaste. But I was making a particularly garlicky pizza, and I knew my parents liked mint ice cream, so I gave it a whirl. They liked it, I found it a lot like toothpaste. Actually it was pretty good before freezing, but once frozen... toothpaste. I also only used half the amount of mint extract - 1 TBS instead of two... two would have been blow your head off minty, I think. The chip aspect comes from chocolate shavings, the traditional form of chocolate in this sort of ice cream, but they really kind of got lost both taste and texture wise. I think either grinding up the the chocolate or using crushed chocolate chips would have been much better.
Rating: :| (but take this with a grain of salt, if you like mint and chocolate you will like this)



So.... the end of MoFo for another year. I have had a great time reading everyone's posts and seeing their Instagram! It is always a lot of work, but a lot of fun. Until next year, I'll just be doing my regular blogging for whoever feels like reading it here!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Even though it is a terrible and blurry photo, this always had to be the final photo for my kitty group photo month. All four cats are in this photo, though to varying degrees. This is the only photo I have with the four of them 'together'!

Recipe Round-Up: Hearty Vegan Meals

Hearty Vegan Meals For Monster Appetites, by Celine Steen and Joni Marie Newman, is now sold under the name Home Cooked Vegan Comfort Food. Whatever title you have it under, it is full of decadent and filling meals. I've already done a few round-ups from this book, so be sure to check them out for more recipes that I have made. Today's post starts with a salad, but then is pretty much all about dessert! As I wrote this, I realised that all but one of the desserts have marshmallows. There was a time when I had a bunch of marshmallows and marshmallow creme that I brought home from the US to use up. I guess this was that time!

East Cost Meats West Coast Pasta Salad: This salad is packed full of tofu, artichokes, red onion, broccoli, olives and tomatoes. I left out the pepperochinis. The dressing uses quite a lot of oil, I always sub some out for water mixed with guar gum otherwise I feel a bit icky, but is tanky (lots of balsamic and Dijon) and makes for a lovely salad. I used half the amount of pasta, but the same amount of vegetables (you could even use more), and decreased the dressing quantity a little. Rating: :)



S'more Pie: This is a very rich treat - a biscuit crust (I used Digestives as graham crackers are not a thing here), with a chocolate/tofu/cream cheese/marshmallow cream filling. Oh my! The base was a bit crumbly, especially up the edges, so might need a touch more melted butter to firm it up. The base is baked, then cooled, then the filling is added and it is chilled in the fridge. The final touch is to top with more marshmallow cream, and then caramelise it using a kitchen torch. I have a torch, but it doesn't work, so I took the option of using the grill (which is what we call the broiler in the oven in Australi), but I wouldn't recommend it as the filling also started to melt a little!
Rating: :)



Grasshopper Pie: I am not a huge fan of mint myself, but I made this for a mint-mad friend. A buttery Oreo base (we don't have Newman O's here, so Oreos it is), filled with a cream cheese and marshmallow filling. Unlike the S'more Pie, this one uses melted marshmallows rather than marshmallow cream. The filling has one teaspoon of peppermint extract in it, which was very pepperminty for me. But I still enjoyed a small piece, plus then I had minty fresh breath after.
Rating: :)



Sugar Rush Cereal bars: These look a little ugly, but they are a gooey and sweet treat. The cereal in question is a crispy corn cereal, suggested is either Cap'n Crunch or Gorilla Munch. The Cap'n has never made it to our shores, but I was able to find some Gorilla Munch. The box was a little less than the 12 ounces required, which probably added to the gooey-ness! As well as cereal, these have butter, marshmallows, and chocolate clips.
Rating: :)



Red Eye Treats: These have coffee in it, so I was making them for a friend. I only tried a bit, as I don't coffee, and I did find the coffee taste to be quite strong. Though I didn't have any coffee powder, only coffee granules, so they may not have melted into the mixture quite as well. I didn't want to buy coffee, so I just used whatever Mum had in the cupboard. This also had peanut butter, puffed rice, and lots of syrups.
Rating: :| (but my friend liked them, I just don't like coffee taste much)



Graham Cracker Cake: Well, really a Digestive Biscuits Cake, but whatever. Delicious! Biscuit crumbs are part of the cake mixture, which is then topped with Dandies and baked. The recipe says to bake for 30 minutes, the I needed 50 minutes. The Dandies came out of the oven puffed up and quite hard, but then they softened overnight. An excellent treat.
Rating: :D



Peanut Butter Rocky Road Pound Cakes: I made these for a bake sale, and they were well received! The recipe says it makes 8 mini-loaves. I only have 6 mini-loaf pans, so for the rest I used a Texas-style muffin tin (which took the same quantity of batter)... and I still got 12. 8 loaves would be pretty big! There was meant to be dandiesin the batter, but in a tragic twist something ate into my bag of Dandies. Devestation, so I had to leave it out of the batter but was able to put some on top of each portion. The muffins took 35 minutes to bake, and the loaves 30 minutes.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim is shocked. Shocked, I tell you. This photo was taken shortly after I manually removed some calculus from her tooth (read, cracked it off using my thumbnail), and she wasn't quite sure what to make of it!

Recipe Round-Up: Hearty Vegan Meals

Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites (also sold as Home-Cooked Vegan Comfort Food) is a fun book that I have blogged about before. So let's get into some decadent food!

Black and Braised Tofu: I had some issues with this recipe, mainly the beautiful dry rub seemed to just wash off in the braising liquid so there wasn't much of the flavour left on the tofu itself. I am not sure where I went wrong. This recipe calls for a 680g block of tofu cut into four steaks, which is a huge slap! Served with broccoli and brown rice.
Rating: :|



Beefy-Cheesy Mac: I decreased the amount of butter and oil called for in this recipe, but it is still very rich. Hamburger Helper was not really part of the growing up in Australia experience, so I can't compare this to it's original inspiration, but this was very nice. Cheesy and beefy from TVP, I added some peas and served over broccoli.
Rating: :)



Pasta Alfredo: This one was a little too rich for me, even with reducing the amount of butter. It is a combination of butter, sour cream, cream cheese and others. It comes together very quickly.
Rating: :|



Traditional Red Lasagne: This is yum! Classic layers of ricotta (tofu and cashew based), and a TVP red sauce (which is a bit on the sweet side) will definitely satisfy. Although cooked in a 20cm square dish, the serving sizes are huge because it is so hearty. I served it with some roasted vegetables.
Rating: :)



Pasta Alla Carb-Onara: This creamy sauce is not as rich as the alfredo, based on light coconut milk and homemade nut/seed parmesan. The flavour here is subtle but satisfying, and the fresh burst of peas and salty flavour of the bacon bits (I used the recipe from the book) is nice.
Rating: :)



Twice-Baked Spaghetti: I never had this sort of spaghetti based casserole before going vegan, but now I love them. The sauce is again fairly rich with mayo and cream cheese but this is cut by the tomato sauce mixed through it, and nooch makes it cheesy as well. Of course I added some extra nooch.
Rating: :)



Eggplant Parmigiana: This is delightful, and the sauce is super tasty. As well as making a red sauce, it also uses a home made hemp and almond parmesan as well as homemade mozzarella (very easy to make). You end up with a huge pan of a very nice dinner. I served over pasta with a side of Brussels sprouts.
Rating: :)





Irish Nachos: Hello lover. You can't go wrong combining potato gems (or tater tots, for my US friends) and nachos. This was amazing! There is a great smoky, cheezy sauce and fresh diced tomato and bacon bits and sour cream... all smothering crispy gems. My mum and I ate this together, and it really is a bit much for two people, but we persevered.
Rating: :D



Deli-Style Macaroni Salad: I made this to take to a potluck, where it was well received. Bonus, it makes a truck load! I used grated carrot instead of diced capsicum, and also added some white beans.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



It is very hard for me to get a photo of Dim Sim with my big camera, because she generally runs away. It is also hard for me to get a good photo of her with any camera, because black cats confuse cameras. This photo is slightly fuzzy and it makes her head look out of proportion, but this is a photo I was recently able to capture using my big camera. I guess she was really sleepy.

VeganMoFo 2015 #28: Team burrito!

28. Tacos VS Burritos. Where do you stand on this important issue?

Today I stand bravely before you, risking the certain scorn of many of my brethren, and proudly declare that I am team burrito!

Okay, okay, okay. Calm down. Tacos are fine. I like tacos, I do! I mean, let us all reflect on the glory of the 'Vegans Heart Tacos' lunch buffet from VidaVeganCon...



But sometimes I'll be eating a taco and I'll just think... I wish this was a burrito. Okay, I am taking cover now. But there is something about a satisfying chunk of filling all wrapped up in a big floury tortilla that just gets me that little bit more excited. Granted when I was growing up, tacos were in crispy shells and came out of a box, but even now with my new found taco appreciation, chances are I will still order the burrito.

I mean, the Westergram taco from VVC was great, but who can go past the MacNoCheeto Burrito from Homegrown Smoker in PDX?



Or this mammoth Bobcat Burrito from Bandidas in Vancouver...



I get so happy when I hear the words breakfast burrito. This amazing creation is from Smith & Daughters in Melbourne.



To celebrate, I decided to make the Breakfast Burrito from Hearty Vegan Meals. This burrito has a filling of potato and scrambled tofu, mixed up with a great sauce that include fire roasted tomatoes, HP sauce, peanut butter and ginger. The recipe just says to add avocado to the wrap, but I also added some baby spinach and nooch. Yum!
Rating: :)





I have to admit that I am having a bit of fun in this post, but really I think that tacos and burritos are both excellent foods, and to be honest my feelings on the topic are not that strong. Though I do prefer burritos, but I hope my taco friends will still find it in their hearts to love me anyway.

I will definitely admit that tacos are much more photogenic than burritos!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post: Month of Gizmo



Gizmo sitting under the Christmas tree. If only I could wish very hard and find her under there this year.

Recipe Round-Up: Hearty Vegan Meals For Monster Appetites

I'll be having a short blogging break after this post, as I am off to Sydney tomorrow to kick off a fabulous holiday of amazing food and gorgeous animals with my awesome friend Leigh. I can't wait! I do have a couple of posts ready to go in drafts, so if I find myself with some downtime and some wifi then I might pop one up, but mostly I will be stuffing my face and hugging all the animals (or worshipping them from a distance, whatever they prefer).

Speaking of epic eating experiences, Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites (which has been renamed Home-Cooked Vegan Comfort Food) is full of rich, tasty, impressive food!

Chocolate Stout Chili and Skillet Cornbread: I don't drink anymore, but even when I did I never drank beer because it is gross. However I have since enjoyed it in cooking, though mostly pale ale style. There is a lot of stout in this recipe, and for me it was too overpowering. I would have liked it better if I had used less stout and made up the volume with stock. The skillet cornbread was a nice accompaniment. I don't have a cast-iron skillet, so I just cooked it in a baking dish. The cornbread is also the basis for a Savoury Cheesecake recipe in the book that I reviewed here.
Rating: Chili :|, Cornbread :)



Sloppy Jo-nis and corn with Mexican-Style Dipping Sauce for Corn: These TVP-based sandwiches are pretty sloppy indeed, but are pretty yummy. The mixture is quite sweet, so next time I would probably skip the brown sugar. It says that this serves four, but we greedily fit it onto three buns. The sauce for the corn is based on mayo and cream cheese with lime and chili, and goes great with fresh corn on the cob.
Rating: Sloppy Jo-nis :), Sauce :)



Barbecue Ribs with Cheesy Garlic Mashed Potatoes: Hello comfort food. I made a half recipe of the ribs, which was enough to serve four (the book says a full recipe serves six). The mix is very thick and ended up quite doughy, so you need to push it down pretty hard to spread it out. I didn't bother with the 'bones', chopsticks to push through the mixture. After baking I basted the ribs with extra BBQ sauce and pan fried to brown up. The ribs use a homemade Whiskey Barbecue Sauce, which is fairly sweet. The potatoes are amazing! The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of sour cream and 1/4 cup of butter, but I decreased these a little bit and the taste was still amazing. Nooch gives cheesiness.
Rating: Ribs :), BBQ Sauce :), Potatoes :D



Orange Seitan Stew: This stew takes a long, slow simmer on the stove to get where it is going. Fresh OJ and red wine give a lovely flavour, and it is filled with carrots, garlic, potatoes and seitan. I just left out the capsicum. I needed to add an extra cup of broth in the last 20 minutes as it was getting a bit thick. I also added about 2 tablespoons of soy sauce towards the end as it was a bit sweet for my tastes. This makes big servings.
Rating: :)



Stew-Tatouille: I always have to change up ratatouille recipes to swap out the capsicum for something else, in this case I used some cremini mushrooms. This satisfying stew is served with a squirt of Dijon mustard to top each serving, which is fantastic with it. I served this with some delicious olive ad thyme sourdough.
Rating: :)



Seitan Burgers for Stews and Chilis: These are kind of strange on their own. The dough is very wet at first, and takes a while to come together. There is the option of beer or broth to use as the liquid, and I used some pale ale here. These are baked covered with some baking paper and an upside down tray, presumable to keep the sheet, but after the first 20 minute bake when it was time to take the top layer off it stuck on a bit. They are oddly bready when cut, and you certainly wouldn't just saute them to eat, but in stews and chilis they soak up the flavours well.
Rating: :)



Sesame Udon Stir-Fry: This colourful dinner comes together quickly, making it great for a weeknight. I used 270g of dried udon (rather than 454g) and carrots instead of capsicum. I also added some cubed sauteed tofu for extra bulk. I also decreased the amount of sesame oil for coating the noodles to just a splash rather than a quarter or a cup.
Rating: :)



BBQ Slaw Tacos: This recipe includes a mini-recipe for a quick and easy 'chi-fu', which can be used in place of store-bought chicken style strips. It is then doused in some of the Whisky Barbecue Sauce. The slaw combines peanut butter, pickle relish and capers for an unusual dressing. It was a little bit too vinegary for my tummy, but my mouth thought it was great.
Rating: :)



Better Love Your Beans Bake: Macaroni, beans, salsa and guac baked into a casserole and topped with a puree of chickpeas, sour cream and seasoning. I totally forgot to mash the black beans, but it worked out fine. And I just left out the capsicum.
Rating: :)



Cheesy Chili Bake: This uses leftovers of the chocolate stout chili, though you can use any chili. I only made a half quantity of this and it made enough to feed three people happily. The nut-based topping was very thick, I struggled to get it completely smooth, but this didn't really detract from it at all.
Rating: :)



Creamy All-In-One Bowl: This is a fun mix of jasmine rice, tofu, broccoli, pineapple, fresh coriander and nuts all topped with a creamy peanut butter based sauce. I would decrease the rice from two and a half cups down to two for a better rice to other stuff ratio.
Rating: :)



Patatas Bravas Frittata with Homefries: I had trouble getting this to firm up as much as I thought it was supposed to, so it was a bit smooshy, but it was still good. It is based on blended chickpeas, and it says to leave them a little chunkier for a firmer texture, so I may have pureed them a little bit too much. I used one roasted capsicum instead of an entire can. The home fries are based on a recipe from later on in the book, however with different seasonings. Potatoes are always good.
Rating: Frittata :), Home Fries :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I mentioned previously that Sahara loves sleeping on top of things. This time it is a folded up blanket on top of a bed.