Eating Out: Grown (Birthday edition)

Hello friends, today is my birthday! I am turning 40, which apparently is a big deal but I am not so much a birthday person. I am not doing anything big for it, rather I am having a few small outings with only one or two people at each. And it started this morning, when my parents and I went to Grown for breakfast! You can see the other times I have been to Grown here. We all ordered the same thing! A mug of soy hot chocolate (their hot chocolate is the best!), and the tofu scramble (roasted mushrooms and silken tofu, with a slice of sourdough spread with sesame cheese) with a side of hashbrown (they make the best and crispiest ones) and seasonal sauteed greens. Everything was delicious, as it always is! But it was HUGE! We were all so full.





Afterwards I went home and made a cake! And while I was waiting for it to cool, we watched Bring It On. Bring It On is my favourite movie, and I will never get tired of watching it. It is iconic, and a classic. But about that cake...

Raspberry & Coconut Polenta Cake from Like A Vegan: I've had this on my too make list for ages, and this seemed like a great time. It is super fast to make! I mixed all the dry ingredients together the day before, so when we got home from breakfast I just pre-heated the over, mixed up the wet, and mixed it all together. So easy. It also fit my other birthday cake brief, because I am not a huge fan of icing. I love that this cake is delicious and gorgeous without needing ice cream! You could sift a bit of icing sugar over the top if you wanted to make it look a bit fancier (I did not do this because I am not an icing sugar fan), or serve it with a scoop of ice cream (definitely going to do this with leftovers). I highly recommend people try this cake out!



A couple of other birthday related photos...

My mum ordered me these beautiful bunch of flowers! She had ordered an arrangement with peonies, which are my favourite flowers, but the florist somehow managed to not actually include any. Good work florist! It is still a lovely bunch of flowers.



I also got some lovely vegan treats. My mum has ordered from this brand before, and she managed to get all of my favourites!



In other birthday-related news, two days ago I got my hair dyed pink again. This was my second time going pink, but this was a lot more pink over all of my hair! Here is a rare photo of me.



Stay tuned for more food-related fun times! I'm getting ready to go for dinner with some friends in a couple of hours.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This time last year, I knew Dim Sim was sick. What I didn't realise was how little time we had left together. Just 20 days. I am forever grateful that I decided to spend my birthday last year home with her rather than going out.

Beltane 2021

Hello friends! I haven't posted for a bit, because I have just been so busy with work and other things. I am so tired. But here is a fun little post about the food I ate to celebrate Beltane this year! Halloween only seasonally works in the Northern Hemisphere, given its pagan roots. While Halloween as a fun thing is gaining more and more popularity in Australia, I reserve the 31st to celebrate Beltane, the spring festival.

Beltane (31st October - 1st November, 2021)

Beltane is between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and is a celebration life and fertility. Normally by this time of year in Brisbane it is hot hot hot. But strangely, we had a relatively cool and cloudy day that day, which was lovely. We opened up the house to let the fresh breeze blow through.

I started my Beltane with breakfast. Some rye sourdough English muffins spread with Nuttelex and drizzled with agave, served with some fresh strawberries and some oat milk. Also my daily multivitamin and morning neurofen. Chronic pain is no joke friends. For Beltane, butter and honey are both traditional foods, but we don't need to exploit animals to get the same delicious flavours. Oats are also traditional, and my homage to that was with my glass of oat milk. I know some vegans think it is pitiful to drink a glass of non-dairy milk, but I don't care. I like my oatmilk, and I love a serve of plant-based calcium in of a morning!



Pasta Primavera from Everyday Vegan Eats by Zsu Dever: The last few years I realised I have made some sort of pasta dish for Beltane. Why break with tradition now. Pasta loaded up with wonderful spring vegetables! I changed it up a bit, and used carrots, broccoli (florets and stems), asparagus, baby spinach, and baby peas, and I used 200g of linguine. The sauce is cashew based, and easy to make quickly in the blender. The sauce was a little on the bland side though. Next time I think I'd use some non-dairy milk in place of the water, and bump up the seasonings. But nothing a little nooch couldn't fix!
Rating: :)



For dessert, I tried out a beautiful Rosewater and Strawberry Cheesecake, from the blog Like A Vegan. The recipe called for Soyatoo Whipping Cream, but I used some of the new Made With Plants Thickened Cream that you can get from Woolworths. I had some of it in my fridge already, and to get Soyatoo would have involved a special trip to the other side of town. The Made With Plants cream is sold in the fridge section with the tofu, and does not have coconut in it, hurrah.



Maybe it was because of the difference in cream setting abilities, but my cheesecake didn't quite set. This is a no-bake cheesecake, which makes it great for an easy dessert on a warm day. I whipped the cream cheese (Tofutti, of course, the best) and the thickened cream with some hand beaters, and while it thickened up a bit, it wasn't as much as you would get from a whipping cream I don't think. But that didn't matter, because the flavour was beautiful! I love rose and I love strawberry and I love pink, so this was a perfect dessert. I ended up popping the cheesecake in the freezer for a couple of hours before serving, to firm up so I could cut it nicely. This was so delicious!
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Of course, as an athiest witch with two black cats, I didn't completely leave Halloween unobserved. We watched Practical Magic (which I hadn't seen in so long! It is so silly, but kind of great.). And the cats, well, they just were themselves. As a black cat called Boo, we designated it her particular day. She didn't care.