Mother's Day 2021

Mother's Day came around again this year, as it always does, and I made a fun little dinner for my mum.

Smoky Maple Baked Beans from Kindness Community Vegan Cookbook: Despite the name, this recipe involves no baking. It is all done on the stove, and it doesn't take that long. The beans are a mix of butter beans and borlotti beans, and they are simmered in a mix of tomato, smoked paprika, maple syrup, and vegan Worcestershire sauce. They were quick and tasty. I served them with some roasted broccoli, potato gems, and some Rough Rider BBQ Sauce that I had made from Vegan Diner (another cookbook) to serve over the top as my mum loves that sauce. The recipe says it makes two serves, but we got three serves out of this, which worked well as there were three of us!
Rating: :)



Chocolate Fudgy Puddin' Cake from Cookin' Crunk by Bianca Phillips: Colder nights call for warmer desserts, and this was a pretty easy one. I love a good self serving pudding! The only issue I had with this was the recipe calls to cream room temperature vegan margerine with soy milk... I've had a couple of other recipes call for that as well and it never works, the butter just goes a bit chunky through the milk. So I added half the flour and continued to beat and it all combined nicely, then mixed in the rest of the dry. This baked up with a delicious warm chocolate sauce bottom, and was great served with vanilla soy ice cream.
Rating: :)





But wait... there is more! Well, a little flash back. My mum's birthday is early December, but last year that was only about a week and a half after Dim Sim passed, so I didn't make her a big special dinner, because I could barely feed myself. But I did want to do something, so I made a chocolate pudding cake... but a different one to the one above. It made my feel a little better to be able to do something nice for someone I loved.

Chocolate Puddin' Cake from La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer: This recipe was a little easier in that it didn't involve margerine so there was no beating involved. Just mixing. The only change I made was to replace the walnuts it called for with chocolate chips, to make it extra chocolately. Please enjoy a very similar photo to the one above, but it was a different recipe!
Rating: :)

Christmas 2020

It's the easter weekend, so seems like a good time to show you what I ate for Christmas last year. I was not feeling the Christmas spirit... Christmas day itself was exactly four weeks since Dim Sim passed away. Left to my own devices, I would have had a quiet day of doing nothing. But as I was not on my own, I had a quiet day of lunch with my parents.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, everyone was scrabbling around to get the Coles special Christmas products, which included some vegan gravy, a vegan roast, and a vegan vanilla pudding with chocolate sauce. I managed to score all three of them. (Though we didn't eat the gravy until after Christmas, so keep an eye out for that in a future post.)



For lunch, we kept it simple. One of the new very easy things I tried was Maple Glazed Carrots from one of my newer cookbooks, the Kindness Community Vegan Cookbook. These had a nice citrus kick from orange juice, and had thyme and garlic and bay leaves as well. Rather than usual cute Dutch carrots with the tops still on, I could only get regular big carrots so I just cut them on a diagonal.
Rating: :)



Served these on a platter with some cranberry sauce from a jar, and some green beans that were steamed in their packet in the microwave. As I said, keeping it easy.



The Coles Christmas Roast was delicious! I was sad I only got one of them, if they bring them back next year I will get a couple. It was not too heavy or too dry, and had a really nice savoury flavour. It came with some chutney in the box, which is served gently heated.



And we made the Potato Squashers from Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan, which we make every year for Christmas.



My mum made this Feta, Watermelon, and Cucumber salad that we got out of the Coles Christmas magazine. We used Sheese Feta in it. It also had olives and mint, and I used celerey for some crunch in place of raw red onion. This was really lovely, sweet and salty and fresh.



A plate full of food.



For dessert, we had some Christmas pudding from Coles, which happened to be vegan. I served mine with some Alpro custard.



We had the Vegan vanilla sponge pudding the following day. It is just heated up in the microwave. I was a little suspicious as there was some coconut cream in the chocolate sauce. But while I could taste a hint of coconut, it was in such a small quantity that a serve didn't have any ill effect on me. This pudding is great! Again, wish I could have bought more than one. They should really have it year round, as there is nothing particularly Christmas-y about vanilla with chocolate sauce.



As for presents, I got two new cookbooks that I was really excited for! Also a Buffy colouring book and the DVD of Cats. I love that movie and I don't care what anyone thinks! I also love listening to podcasts where they trash talk that movie. It is just a gift that never stops giving. I saw it two times in the movies, back in those blissful pre-COVID days.





My mum also ordered me some goodies from this place she saw on a FB advertisment. Sometimes advertising does pay! Some salted caramel and spiced maple covered nuts, ginger cookies, chocolate fudge cookies, and some rose berry and orange ginger truffles. My friends, these were all legit delicious! I'd never heard of this brand, but they were ah-may-zing.





In the following days, I of course made some sandwiches with leftover roast and chutney. I also added some baby spinach and some mayo. Very good.



Anyway, three and a bit months after the fact, but there you go. It was a sad day, though it was nice to spend it doing some traditional things. But a lot less effort than I normally go to. Sometimes taking it easy is the way to go. I am also taking this Easter Sunday easy, as I am sick and had to go get a COVID test this morning. So lots of resting today.