Green Flea Markets at West End

Today I finally made it to the Green Flea markets at West End. I had been wanting to go for ages, but my abilities to get to a market early on Saturday morning are pretty much always hampered by work. But this week I am on holidays - so hurrah!

The markets are at Davies Park on the corner of Montague Road and Jane Street in West End. Drive all the way to the end of Vulture Street and turn right, and it is just up on the left. There is free street parking around, though be prepared to take a little bit of a stroll as there are lots of people wanting to park.

The markets were wonderful! Produce stalls were mixed in with other market stalls through a lovely, windy park. With trees! Very nice and open air, but no under cover so keep this in mind if it is raining. The pathways between stalls are also quite narrow, so be prepared for a bit of hustle and bustle.

There are several very large produce stalls, along with smaller ones. There is were two special mushroom stalls, a stall that specialised in heirloom tomatoes (see below), a few organic stalls, jam stalls and then some. All of this was mixed in with clothes, bric a brac, massage, fabrics and various other stalls. Plus the most awesome portable barber ever seen. There was also a variety of fast food stalls.

Sol Breads is an organic sourdough bakery that has a lot of vegan breads. It also had a stall at the markets - hurrah! This is a yummy loaf of Pumpkin And Pepita Bread I bought. I am going to take it down the coast with me on Monday to make lots of yummy sandwiches.



And what market trip is complete without yummy fruit and vegetables? Pictured below is my haul for today, though I am very cranky I forgot to get mushrooms despite the presence of TWO mushroom stalls! Anyway, moving on. To the left of this photo is a lare variety of heirloom tomatoes. There is a great stall there that has boxes of all these different and amazing tomatoes, and you can just mix and match for $10/kg. I am not sure of all the names of them, but I am looking forward to exciting salads and I shall let you know how they measure up.



And finally, the most exciting find of all - VEGAN CUPCAKES! Hurrah! Take that other non-vegan cupcake stall. Like, whatever. These cupcakes are cruelty free and the money made goes to charity. I forgot to ask what the charity of the week was today, I was so excited about the cupcakes. The cupcakes are $3 each, and they also had mini cupcakes for $1. They are packed up in brown paper bags, so that is why the icing is a big smooshed. Next time I will take my own containers to put them in and preserve all the beauty! Below, starting from the left and moving clockwise: Chocolate Peanut Butter, Lemon and Cookies and Cream. Thus far I have eaten the lemon - yummy! And licked up some of the other frostings from the paper bags - also yummy!



One vegan experience that I saw, but did not partake in, was the YKillAMooCow food stall, selers of the famous vegan dagwood dog, as well as pies and sausage rolls and other such things. Dagwood Dogs didn't go on sale until 10am, and I was there at 8am. I would have tried one, even though I was never a fan of the dogwood dog, just in the name of research. But I wasn't going to wait. The early hour of the day and the increasing heat of the day also just meant I couldn't actually face the prospect of a meat pie or anything like that, even to take home. Sorry vegan troopers, next time!

All in all, a great morning spent. And I will try and go back there again, on the few times I can. Damn working! Interferes with the shopping and the eating! Tee hee. ;)

VeganMoFo: To market, to market, to the internet!

Hurrah, another day of VeganMoFo. And what a beautiful day it was too - sunny and warm and everything good about spring. I was going to talk about my favourite things in the kitchen today, but given the weather and my activities today I have decided to postpone that and talk about other fun stuff instead.

Farmers' Markets are something I have always meant to go to, but never quite got around to doing. Until recently! Unfortunately my work arrangements mean I can only get to a market every second Sunday. In theory I could go every second Saturday, but I would get there quite late and by that stage they are sooooo crowded!

For the past few Sundays I have been going to the Mount Gravatt Markets and loving it! All that fresh produce just sitting around waiting for me to buy it and eat it. So much more satisfying than buying it from the green grocer, let alone those other places of mass selling. I really enjoy the Mt Gravatt ones - they are smaller local markets, but there is a lot of variety there. The area has a fairly heavy asian influence, which means there is some great stuff available. Plus my favourite mushroom man has a little stall there, with all sorts of amazing mushrooms including portobellos as big as your face!

This morning fate allowed me to go to a Saturday morning market, so I decided to go to the Brisbane Market Place at Rocklea, which I had heard were meant to be big. We got there at about 8am, lots of free parking available, and headed on in. Overall, I prefer Mount Gravatt. It is smaller, but with just as much if not more variety. Some of the lines waiting to pay were unbelievable! One thing the Rocklea markets did have was a huge flower section, which made my mum very happy and she got some very pretty poppies.

There are a few more markets I am keen to get to next time I have a Saturday's grace. Top of my list is the Green Flea Markets at West End. Not in the least because they have YKillAMooCow there, with vegan pies, sausage rolls and dagwood dogs. Now, I never was a dagwood dog fan. But heck, if there's a vegan one out there I need to try it! I'm also hoping they might have some more unusual stuff. One of the draws of markets is the eternal hope I will find something new. Quite often my US cookbooks have vegetables in there that I just can't find easily here in Brisbane. Top of my list are yuca, jicama and tomatillos. Any Brisbanites who have found these before - please let me know where!

There are some other markets in the area and a bit further afield I would like to try as well. I love the general atmosphere of them, and the absolute beauty of the produce. I bought some asparagus the other day I could write sonnets about, it was so perfect! Nothing like that washed out, limp, smelly stuff from Peru you get offered elsewhere.

Here is a photo of some adorable baby Jap pumpkins (kabocha to you USians) that I bought today. I plan on stuffing them with butternut vindaloo stew, as written in Vegan With A Vengeance.



Another invaluable source for us vegans is the wonderful internet! There are somethings I just cannot find, no matter what organic and health food groceries I scour (though I always will love you Mrs Flannery's. And Macro - hurry up and open a store near Brisbane!). In these cases, internet comes to the rescue! I recently placed my first order with The Cruelty Free Shop. They must think I am a total sugar head, because it was all sweet stuff! But that's because I am able to get most of the other stuff around here. It arrived a few days later, to my great excitement. Pictured below is Liebers' Chocolate Sprinkles, Vegetal Soy Cream, Sweet And Sara Marshmallows, Popples Vegan Popcorn and an assortment of yummy filled vegan chocolates and truffles. Not pictured are Tropical Source Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips, which are sadly on backorder but shall be arriving soon for all my baking needs!



And finally, some vegan food porn! I had a packet of raspberry vegan jelly in the cupboard that was about to expire. I also had Now Vegan, a newish Australian cookbook by Lynda Stoner, which had a recipe for Jelly Tart. What a great thing for a hot spring evening's dessert! I made it in about half an hour before I went to work in the morning, popped it in the fridge, and it was all set for dinner when I got home! For the base, Lynda's book said a packet of plain biscuits. One of my pet hates in cookbooks is when they just say 'packet' or 'block'... how much is in a packet? So instead I used the cookie crumb base from The Joy Of Vegan Baking. I like to use Nice biscuits and Nuttelex for all my cookie base needs. You'll need to make 2-3 times the quantity depending on how big your flan or pie plate is so you can get good coverage all the way up the sides. The fruit I used was sliced kiwi fruit and banana, and as my fresh strabwerries weren't very nice (so sad) I just scattered some whole frozen strawberries on top. Make up the jelly, pour it over and in a few hours - yummy tart!