Happy 15th Birthday to Dim Sim

Dim Sim turned fifteen today! I am not sure where all the time has gone, since she first came to me as a tiny six week old kitty who could fit in my hand. She is still pretty tiny for a kitty! She has recently been diagnosed with early kidney disease, which breaks my heart somewhat, though it doesn't seem to be bothering her. Anyway, black kitty birthday photos!



This is from last night - a last 14 year old birthday photo!

And now onto some birthday day photos!





Sitting on the windowsill in the sun room.



Enjoying some sun out in the catmax. She actually spent most of the day out there, and only came in this afternoon.





And settling in for the afternoon on her pink snuggie on the sofa. It was originally meant to be my pink snuggie, but I think she claimed it as her own within days of it arriving in the house a few years ago.

Possum, a farewell

Five weeks ago tomorrow (Saturday), our beloved family cat Possum was injured. His injuries were so severe that surgery was not a realistic option, and we made the painful decision to help him go in peace.




Possum was nineteen years old, he had been in my family for almost two thirds of my life. He had stage three renal disease, arthritis and was going a bit batty, as old cats tend to do. But he still had a gleam in his eye and could frisk up the stairs like a kitten if he wished to. He had a firmly established routine in his life (he liked his routine), and ruled over the house with a quiet dignity. He was a gentleman.



Possum came into our family in November 1994 as a tiny little kitten. For my high school years, the two of us were very close. After I moved away for university, and eventually came back nine years later with three cats (something he dealt with with great tolerance), he very much became my parent's boy. However he still saved some moment for me. I treasure all these moments.



Unlike the long, painful ordeal with Gizmo, Possum's departure was sudden and unexpected (though in the immortal words of Tara Maclay from Buffy... It's always sudden...). We were all so used to working within his routine, and to having his quiet presence nearby. Adjusting to a two cat household with Dim Sim and Sahara.



Goodbye good boy, handsome boy. Thank you for nineteen years. I hope you are frolicking freely, and eating all the prawns and kangaroo you want.

Three little kittens lost their mittens.

I wish to issue a formal apology. In yesterday's post I had a momentary lapse of sanity and forgot to give you a Cute Kitty Photo of the Post. Thanks to River for pointing this out.

I offer you this photo of three kittens the clinic currently has for adoption, I hope this will make up from my lack of kittens yesterday.



Please meet (clockwise from front): Julia, Penny and Quentin. Can anyone guess the theme of their names? These three ladies are super adorable and sweet and snuggly, though super playful! Quentin is still looking for a home, so if you are in Brisbane and ready to help a kitten find her forever home, come and meet her. :) 

Gizmo's 15th birthday

Yesterday, the 1st of November, was Gizmo's 15th birthday. For those of you in the US, it is still Gizmo's birthday right now! So celebrate. :)

Gizmo is my eldest girl, and over the past year she has had a bit of a rocky time. She has frequent urinary tract infections (and she gets sick on almost every oral antibiotics, so I have to inject her - sometimes every day depending on what antibiotic she needs!) and was also diagnosed with stage 2 kidney disease last year. A few months ago, Gizmo got a bad UTI that actually went all the way up into her kidneys, she had to go into the clinic and stay there on IV fluids for five days. Her kidneys took a big hit, and never fully recovered. She is now in stage 3 kidney disease (there are four), but is also losing a lot of weight. I am hoping I can get at least get her to maintain weight and then hopefully a long period of stable kidney disease... I hope.

So with all that is going on with her, celebrating her birthday was especially important. Especially for a 15th birthday! Here are some photos for you.


This is Gizmo on Monday night, her last night of being a 14 year old.


And this is Gizmo on the morning of her 15th birthday! Isn't she lovely?


I had to work a 12 hour day on Gizmo's birthday, so you imagine how eager I was to get home to her! I found her on the sofa, sleeping on the pink Snuggie. The Snuggie was originally mine, but then my black kitty Dim Sim decided she loved sleeping on it, so it became hers. Gizmo loves stealing the sleeping spots of other cats, and she has taken to stealing the Snuggie, much to Dim Sim's disgust.


So, for her birthday, I got Gizmo a new bed! (She has lots of other beds/blankets/sofas/etc as well). This is an adorable reversible bed by Fuzz Yard, the pattern is called Carnival. On the inside is a caramel colour fleece, and on the outside it is cream coloured with big pastel spots. And it is reversible, too! So I can switch from a fluffy inside to the material inside. Very cute and clever.


Verdict? After an initial few minutes of completely ignoring it (she has to maintain that aloof kitty air, after all), Gizmo decides that she loves it. Like, really loves it. The cats sleep up in my room with me at night, and after I fell asleep last night Gizmo hopped off our bed and went back downstairs to her bed! She has been in her bed a lot this morning, too!

So happy birthday my beautiful girl, I hope the universe sees fit to grant us many more together. <3

What did you give your animal companion for their last birthday?

VeganMoFo 2011 #22: 'The Voluptuous Vegan' and 'The Asian Vegan Kitchen'

Today I will be looking at two books, as I have only cooked a little from each one. So this way you can still have lots of photos of food!

The Voluptuous Vegan
Myra Kornfeld and George Minot, Potter, 2000



A menu book! A menu book! I love menus, so of course I had to buy this. This book is paperback and does not stay open easily. There are no photos either. The book is divided into the following chapters: Introduction, Ingredients, Equipment and Cutting Terms, Soups, Main-Course Menus, Desserts, Glossary and Resources. The Main-Course Menu section is made up of many different menus with several components. The menus cover all sorts of cuisines and ingredients. Unfortunately, as much as I love menus, I often don't have time to make menus. And because I am obsessed with making menus, I don't like to make single dishes out of menus. This is the reason why I have yet to make anything from the amazing Party Vegan by Robin Robertson, and why I have only made a few menus from this book. I do find a lot of the recipes in this book quite fiddly and time consuming as well, which is another limiting factor with time constraints. Anyway, let's have a peek.

Gingery Split Pea Soup


The soup chapter of the book contained stand alone recipes, as does that desserts chapter. This yummy soup has a great smokey flavour from chipotles. 4 stars.

Menu Page 123



This menu includes:
*Thai Vegetable Stew - includes eggplant, cauliflower, zucchini, carrots, sugar snap peas and others. 4 stars
*Baked Tofu Triangles - amazing little morsels. 5 stars.
*Jasmine Rice With Coconut - 4 stars.
*Mint, Orange, and Red Onion Salad - makes a small amount. 4 stars.
*Total menu rating: 4 stars.

Menu Page 166


This menu includes:
*Mesclun with Raspberry Vinaigrette - fast and tasty. 4 stars.
*Seitan Bourguignonne - this has an amazing marinade, it makes heaps so there are leftovers for all sorts of things. It is quite time consuming. 4 stars.
*Mashed Potatoes with Parsnips - a fun twist on mashed potatoes. 4 stars.
*Total menu rating: 4 stars.

Menu Page 205


This menu includes:
*Indonesian Sambal - mixes together really well and is super addictive. 5 stars.
*Rice Noodles with Thai Peanut Sauce - I used 250g of rice stick noodles here. 4 stars.
*Stir-Fried Vegetables - A yummy mix of different fresh vegetables. 4 stars.
*Mango slices - not a recipe at all, just instructions how to cut mangoes. 5 stars (because mangoes are awesome).
*Total Menu Rating: 5 stars.

There are a lot of fun recipes in here, though some of them do call for some more obscure ingredients. I look forward to making more menus, if I can find the time! Savannah over at In Her Grace is blogging about recipes from The Voluptuous Vegan this week, so check things out over there as well!

The Asian Vegan Kitchen
Herm Parekh, Kodansha, 2007



If you look above the book in the photo, you can just see two little Gizmo feet! This is a great book that is packed full of authentic recipes, including recipes for making many sauces and pastes from scratch. This book does mean a bit of a trip and trawl through the Asian grocery shop, but it is worth it. The book is a paperback with a glossy dust jacket. There are is a middle section of lovely colour photos. Chapters work through different Asian countries, and include India, Japan, China, Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia and Korea. Each chapter includes four or five sections such as Soups and Salads, Main Dishes, Rice Dishes, Noodle Dishes, Side Dishes and Snacks, Pancakes, Breaks, Drinks, and Desserts. There is also a glossary of ingredients (which is very handy) as well as a great index of main ingredients.

Again, I have not made much from this book yet. But let us see where I have been!

Chickpea Curry (India) with Bhatura Bread (India)


The chickpea curry gives instructions to soak and cook chickpeas from scratch. I had to cook them for much longer than the hour called for. In the future I would just use tinned, as any sort of woody chickpeas give me tummy aches. There are only one or two brands of chickpeas I can buy, even. Anyway, this is quite a spicy little curry, and great with the bread. 4 stars.
Bhatura is normally a deep fried bread. I shallow fried it here and it worked well. 4 stars.

Biryani (India)


I like biryani - rice and vegetables and seasonings make for an easy and yummy dinner. I served this with the above two dishes. 4 stars.

Red Curry Paste


My own homemade red curry paste! Beautiful. 4 stars.

Red Curry with Vegetables (Thailand) with Pineapple Fried Rice (Thailand)



The red curry used some of that beautiful curry paste. This recipe uses 3 cups of coconut milk, which I found way too rich! Either use light coconut milk, or even sub in some stock if you get overcome. I added lots of extra vegetables as well. 3 stars.
Pineapple Fried Rice is one of my favourite dishes to order from a Sydney vegan Thai restaurant. This is also amazing! Plus super cute. I used peas in place of capsicum. The restaurant one has fake prawns in it, which skeeves me out. This one has sliced up strips of inari skin (the closest thing I could find to abura-age deep fried tofu). 5 stars.


Food I have made but not photographed:
Dashi (Japan) - 4 stars.
Miso Soup with Tofu and Wakame (Japan) - Very quick and easy. 4 stars.
Green Tea Ice Cream - Was not good, but I realised that my green tea powder was not matcha. So I will report. Made me sad because it uses a cup of maple syrup - that is like $9 worth of syrup in something that didn't work great. Star rating pending retrying with proper matcha.
Sukiyaki (Japan) - This is delicious and so beautiful. I am sad I have no photo. 5 stars.

There is so much more for me to make from this book!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


Possum smooching it up on the carpet.

For more kitten action, check out my girls in their international debut - they are featured in this week's Feline Friday on Lauren's wonderful blog Whoa Wren. They are besides themselves with glee!

Possum turns 17!

Two kitty dedicated posts - you know you love them. Sweet little fuzzy faces, what is not to love? Anyway, I am much more timely with Possum's birthday post than I was with Sahara's (which was about a month late). Who is Possum? Possum is my family cat. I live with four cats at home - my three girls and the handsome Possum, who has been very gracious about having his solitary life interrupted by my three kids for the past three and a half years, with probably many more to come!

Possum turned 17 on the 28th of September. He enjoyed some of his favourite special treats. I was out at work all day and had a vet meeting until late that night, so I didn't have much time to spend with him on his birthday. I did take these adorable photos of him before bed.





Happy birthday little man!

Tomorrow is the first of October, which means it is Vegan MoFo! I will be participating this year, and I am determined to make the quota this year!

Sahara turns 10!

It's hard to realise that your little ones are growing up. Especially when they are so very little and cute and furry. But apparently not even my will can stop the passage of time. Sahara had her tenth birthday on the 28th of August - my youngest hit double figures.


Here she is the night before her birthday, still only nine years old.


When we woke up on her birthday, she started the day with some Greenies in bed. Sahara loves her Greenies!


Then it was downstairs for some morning oatmilk. Actually, this wasn't a birthday treat - Sahara likes to share my oatmilk with me every morning!

She spent the day as she always spends her days - lounging around, napping, playing in the cat max, chasing toys and being adored.


For dinner, in addition to her normal dinner (which is super non-vegan so I didn't get a photo of that) she also enjoyed a bowl of steamed broccoli. Broccoli is one of Sahara's favourite things, and whenever I make it she is always around, trying to steal it off your plate. She was very happy to get her own bowl of it, just for her!


Here she is with her present - a Kong Kickaroo! She loves to kill things, and the bigger the better, so this is great for her! She knew what to do with it straight away, unlike the other two - they think it is more of a Sniffaroo and just like to smell the catnip. I haven't been able to get a photo of her playing with it yet, she always knows and jumps up quickly! One day.

Love you my little bear!

Feast of Christmas Past

It occurred to me yesterday that I never did post last year's Christmas feast. So here it is, one year later. I took a lot more photos last year compared to this year, so it's a bit of a picture heavy post.


Christmas Eve dinner was Basic Scrambled Tofu from Vegan Brunch with Creamy Coleslaw from 1000 Vegan Recipes and olive and thyme sourdough bread.


Christmas Day breakfast was Perfect Pancakes and Tempeh Bacon Revamped, both from Vegan Brunch.


I made my own cranberry sauce for the first time. It is Traditional Cranberry Sauce from Eat, Drink & Be Vegan. Delicious! Jarred sauce pales in comparison.


My brother made this delicious and refreshing watermelon, olive and red onion salad.


A festive cucumber and tomato salad. Just right in summer!


A delectable fruit bowl.


Potato and Mushroom Galette. I have made this most years for a long time, it was one of the first recipes my mum started making at Christmas once I went vegan. I didn't make it this year (2010) though.


The Rosemary White Bean Salad from Donna Hay again.


Marinated and baked tofu. I don't remember what I had marinated it in.


Rustic Quinoa and Yam Salad from The Garden of Vegan.

This year the leftovers were nibbled up in a few days. Last year they lasted for a little bit longer, in many tasty variations...






YUM!

Cute Kitty Photos of the Post

Here's how the kitties celebrated Christmas 2009...


Last year I made Christmas cards with my cats as the stars. Here is a Dim Sim card.


Possum got his reindeer antlers on.


Gizmo visited Santa Claws!


And Sahara dressed up as well. She totally wanted to do this. I promise.

Phew. Those posts were meant to be a series last year I think, so thanks for bearing with me as I just unloaded them all off in the one post.