Mum's Birthday

Earlier this month it was my mother's birthday, and as per usual I made her a special birthday dinner!

Deconstructed Banh Mi Salad from Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson: And as per usual, she wanted this salad for dinner. She refuses to budge and pick something new. Thankfully, this salad is outstanding, so wonderful and fresh! I've posted it on the block a number of times before... because she always asks for it for her birthday!
Rating: :D



Flourless Soy Sauce Brownies from To Asia, With Love by Hetty McKinnon: Normally I'd make a cake, but she had ordered one and sometimes there is just too much cake. So we settled for brownies instead. Completely different! This is a recipe she had previously marked as interested in when I got this cookbook, and it was agreed that they would make a wonderful cake stand-in! The recipe uses almond meal, and no flour, so is gluten free if you want it to be. It does require three large eggs, but I subbed in some Vegg Baking Egg Mix. These brownies were wonderful, and even better the next day after being kept in the fridge overnight. 10/10, recommend. On the night, I served them with some So Delicious cashew vanilla ice cream, and a candle stuck in the piece for the birthday girl.
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This photo may not look super Christmassy, but this was a quiet Christmas morning that Dim Sim and I spent together, before other people were awake. (Yes, her eye is runny. I also had to do a Christmas day trip to work to get her some ointment for conjunctivitis... not her favourite Christmas present!).

Mum's Birthday 2019

My mum is a December baby, earlier in the month so that it doesn't get swallowed up by Christmas. I always make my parents a special dinner for birthdays, and this year was no exception.

Deconstructed Banh Mi Salad from Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson: I have posted about this a couple of times before, because my mum is in love with this salad and no amount of suggesting something new for me to try cooking had any effect. This salad was her birthday wish. I made it as I have before, using cos instead of cabbage, and using some Soyco Japanese Marinated Tofu instead of seitan. I imagine you'll probably be seeing this salad same time next year as well.
Rating: :D



All-Out Chocolate Honeycomb Loaf from Cook Share and Eat Vegan by Aine Carlin: One thing I stand firm on is that birthday dinners must have a cake! Other desserts are for other times, cakes are for birthdays. This is a chocolate cake, topped with chocolate icing and homemade honeycomb. The cake itself has a banana in it, which you could definitely taste. It was meant to be baked i a 450g loaf tin, and when I looked up measurements I realised I didn't have one small enough, so I baked it in am 8x4 inch pan for 30 minutes, which is why it is a bit flat. The icing is really simple, and remarkably not overly sweet. The biggest part of this was the honeycomb - my first attempt at making it. I made a half batch, which was lots for topping the cake with some left over. It didn't really go to plan. I was leaving it to bubble untouched as the recipe instructed, but then it seemed to start burning? Whatever I did, I obviously didn't do it long enough as it ended up being pale and chewy, I couldn't break it into chards well. But it was still tasty. And I made honeycomb!
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim 'helping' me make the bed.

Other Christmas Eats

Last post I shared our Christmas lunch, but there were several other festive Christmas foods over the last few days.

A few days before Christmas, I made some Christmas pudding overnight oats using this recipe. I made 2/3 of the recipe (based on measurements for one cup of oats with everything scaled accordingly). As well as the oats and cinnamon, it has dried mixed fruit, dried cranberries, and sliced almonds in it. I topped mine with some pepitas, blueberries, and coconut flakes. I know a red berry would have been more festive, but blueberries were what I had.



Aldi always comes through with some vegan friendly Christmas goodies. I love their stollen, and I also picked up a dark chocolate covered marzipan bar for my dad and some festive coloured strawberry and apple flavoured liquorice.



Super Nachos from Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson: I have a semi-regular tradition of making nachos for Christmas Eve dinner. As I was working most of the day on Christmas Eve, I needed something that would come together fast, and Robin Robertson's quick-fix series always comes through. This has a layer of pinto beans and salsa mashed together on the bottom of a ceramic dish (I used a 9 x 13 inch one, rather than a 9 x 9 inch one, to better fit all the chips). These are topped with chips (I used a bag of Mission tortilla strips), then with a very quick and easy cheese sauce and baked for five minutes. This it is topped with sour cream (except I used some natural almond yoghurt as easy to get and pretty much fills the same purpose), more salsa (I was just using a bottled one), black olives, and minced scallions. I left out the pickled jalapenos, and also the chili powder from the cheese sauce and the beans. I served it with diced avocado on the side for me and my dad, as my mum has an avocado intolerance. These were tasty, scooped up into a bowl to get the chips covered with everything, and very quick to make. We ate these while watching the first three-quarters of Love Actually. Then there was a huge storm and we lost power! But it came back on in time to go to bed.
Rating: :)



Pomegranate Ice Smoothie from 350 Best Vegan Recipes by Deb Roussou: I mentioned in my last post that I do a bikram yoga class on Christmas morning every year, and when I get home I normally make some sort of vaguely festive smoothie to help with rehydrating me. This year I had some pomegranate juice in the freezer that needed using, so this seemed like a good option. Pomegranate and orange juices, mixed with berries (I used all frozen - strawberries, blueberries, raspberries) and ice. I made some ice cubes out of coconut water, and then also some coconut water liquid as to make up for using all frozen berries instead of some fresh. This was very tangy, strongly citrus, and very icy. It was OK, but probably not something I'd make again. Or if I did I would replace the OJ with more coconut water.
Rating: :|



Presents! My big present for the year is that I am getting a new mattress for my bed, which I desperately need because my current mattress seems to actively hurt me. But I still need to go looking for one. But I also got a few books and some chips, pictured here, as well as another 6 month subscription for The Cruelty Free Shop mystery box. I'll give the December box it's own post soon.



After a big Christmas lunch, dinner on Christmas day is just fend for yourselves leftovers and snacks. I used the leftover pea and tarragon side, mixed with the leftover field roast, some diced cherry tomatoes, and some Green Goddess dressing I had leftover from a recipe I made a few days before to make a nice, light, salad for dinner.



The day after Christmas in Australia is Boxing Day, another public holiday. No yoga on that morning, Dim Sim and I had a nice little snooze in. For breakfast, I made a ham and cheese croissant. The croissant is from Flour of Life, the ham is Tofurky, the cheese was Nutty Bay Garlic Cashew cheese, and also I added the leftover cranberry sauce from the day before. I had this with some fresh cherries.



I spent the day dawdling around the internet and watching some movies, a very relaxing day. For lunch, I tried out some new to me dips. The Yumi's White Bean and Lemon with Oregano was lovely and refreshing, though a bit sweet. I was very excited to try the Chris' Plant Based Spring Onion Dip, they recently came out with a range of creamy vegan dips. While the taste was good, unfortunately the texture was not. It is kind of oily and greasy in your mouth. It is based on vegetable oil, but unlike Vegenaise which is so delicious I could eat it by the spoonful, they haven't really mastered the technique.



Dinner was simple and light, a bowl of steamed vegetable gyoza with plum sauce and black vinegar.



And finished off with some stollen and some fresh grapes and cherries.



The clinic only closes for the public holidays, so I was back to work on Friday morning.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



We haven't had a Christmas tree for a few years now, but back when we did, and when I had my sweetest Gizmo, she used to love sitting underneath it. She didn't try to climb it or play with any of the ornaments, she just liked to sit and purr and contemplate.

Christmas Bake Sales for Farm Animal Rescue

For those of you who don't know, large parts of Australia are on fire. And what isn't is in drought. This drought is hitting properties very hard, including Farm Animal Rescue. A refuge for rescued farm animals, their dams are dry and they are having to truck water into the property to keep the animals alive. They have a lot of costs at the moment, on top of the regular costs for caring for their residents. As part of their fundraising efforts, they had a run of three bake sales spread over eight days, all supported by wonderful local businesses. The bake sales were all very successful. and they have been getting some good donations on top of that, but obviously everything is still a struggle at the moment. This is what I baked for them over those eight days. If you have any sway with the weather, please send rain.

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from Cozy Inside by Joni Marie Newman: A combination of the classic cookie flavours, it is hard to go wrong with this mix. The recipe just says to mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. I beat the peanut butter, sugar, and liquids together first and then stirred through the dry stuff. The dough is very goopy, and does benefit from firming up in the fridge a bit before scooping. I made a full recipe, but used and Australian TBS (20mL) as my scoop, so I got 28 cookies rather than 3 dozen. As they were bigger, I needed to bake them for about five minutes extra. These were great straight out of the oven, but froze very well also.
Rating: :)



Gooey Peanut Butter Creem Cheeze and Chocolate Chip Brownies from Cozy Inside by Joni Marie Newman: These are some very fudgy brownies. It has the option to use 2/3 - 1 cup of flour depending on how fudgy or cakey you want them, I used a heaped 2/3 cup. The batter melted peanut butter and chocolate in it, as well as additional chocolate chips. It is topped with a peanut butter and cream cheese swirl. I found the topping to be a bit thick, making it hard to spread and marble. Next time I would add a smidge more soy milk to loosen it up a bit, and perhaps a touch of maple syrup for a little bit of sweetness.
Rating: :)



Candy Cake Fudge Cookies from The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: Chocolate and mint, for the most part, is not my choice. But it is a very popular Christmas combination. I made a half recipe of these cookies, and using an ice cream scoop to portion out the dough got 11 nice big cookies. Because they were bigger, I baked them for 20 minutes. I was worried at first, because the chocolate in the cookie dough melted a bit and puddled around some of the cookies in the oven, but it all worked out. I used a block of Alter Eco Super Dark Mint Chocolate in the dough, and I only needed one candy cane crushed for the tops. Isa loves coconut oil, so I used Nuttelex instead of that in the recipe. The mint was not that over powering for me in the end, the chocolate was so rich, that I didn't mind these at all.
Rating: :)



Gingered Cheesecake Bar Cookies from Veganissimo by Leigh Drew: These are SO GOOD! The cheesecake is based on cashews, no tofutti or bananas in sight. They cashews are blended in non-dairy milk that has been simmered with some fresh ginger and then left to steep, there in ginger in the base, and there is also chopped candied ginger scattered over the base before pouring on the topping. It is very gingery, which I loved. The base is a blend of gluten free flours and olive oil. I needed to bake these for about an extra 15 minutes in my oven before they were ready. These were so good, I cannot recommend them enough!
Rating: :D



(For The Love Of) Fruit Cake Bars from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero: I made a half batch of this cake bar, in an 8x8 inch pan. Instead of separate golden raisins and candied/glacee fruit, I used some ready made Christmas fruit mix. I also substituted the rum in the cake and icing in this recipe with rum extract and water. The cake itself was a little dry, and the icing was nice but didn't fully over it. But the flavour was good. I did almost screw up a little by adding too much baking soda, but I scooped most of that out gently.
Rating: :)



Harvest Cookies from Quick-Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson: The night before the final bake sale, I had an aesthetic baking fail (see later on in this post), and needed to make something quickly to replace it as my contribution. This recipe came through for me. Plus it had cranberries and ginger in it, so that is kind of Christmas-like, right? They have oats, cranberries, nuts, and sultanas in it, along with a delightful spice blend. I used an ice cream scoop to get nice bake sale sized cookies, and it made 14 cookies that I baked for 25 minutes. These were delicious, so I am glad I made them!
Rating: :D



Mincemeat Pinwheels from Cook Share Eat Vegan by Aine Carlin: I mentioned a recipe that was an aesthetic fail, and this was it. The recipe seemed simple enough, a jar of vegan fruit mincemeat, a sheet of puff pastry. Roll, slice, bake. But I think that my sheet of puff pastry and her sheet of puff pastry were different. I know they are, because hers seems to be a rectangle according to the instructions to roll from the short side, and mine were squares. Anyway, it was meant to be cut into 18 x 1cm pieces, I did 12. But it was so thin, and the pastry was so smooshy. My mum suggested in future to pop the roll in the freezer for a bit before cutting, and I would also suggest cutting them thicker. So while they tasted lovely, and didn't look totally horrendous, they were not for putting out a bake sale table.
Rating: :) (for taste)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Clinic boy Jed, sitting on his rocker/scratcher and having a good time.

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 #5: Recipe Round-Up: Quick-Fix Vegan

Time for another round-up from Quick-Fix Vegan, by Robin Robertson. This book is full of quick and easy recipes that take 30 minutes or less to make, and it is a book I highly recommend to anyone starting to dip their toe into vegan cooking. But it is a great book for anyone. You can see my other round-ups of it here.

Black Bean and Green Salsa Burritos: I used a bought Tomatillo salsa to make these, that sadly I no longer seem to be able to buy. It was super mild, and suited my sensitive palate. With mild in mind, I also left out the green chiles and only used a teeny sprinkle of chili powder in the beans. I wrapped it all up in some tortillas with some cheesy mayo (in lieu of sour cream), spinach, olives, and tomatoes.
Rating: :)



Black Bean Sunburgers: These came together so easily, and held together really well. They have that slightly smooshy bean burger texture, but tasted great. I served mine on a bun with some mayo, spinach, ketchup, and cheesy sauce for a tasty lunch. I made a half batch of these, for two patties, as I had half a tin of black beans that I needed to use up. Excellent use of it.
Rating: :)



Vietnamese Tofu Wraps: The tofu is glazed in a lovely sauce of hoisin, soy, and a teeny little bit of sriracha, and is totally snackable! I managed to restrain myself so I had some left to make the wraps. They are quite filling, with mayo (goes really well with the sauce on the tofu), carrot, cucumber, and fresh coriander for freshness. I left out the bottled jalapenos.
Rating: :)



Indian Shepherd's Pie: This staple is given a makeover, with a filling of kidney beans and vegetables with a tomato and coconut curry sauce. It has a lot of vegetables in it, which I really liked. The topping is made of a blend of mashed potato and cauliflower. This says it serves 4-6, though I didn't find it particularly filling. It should be noted that the casseroles take less than 30 minutes to prepare, but not including baking time, so you still need to leave some time before dinner to start making them.
Rating: :)



Country Gravy with Bits of Onion: This is so quick and easy to make, and a good dark gravy. I used dark soy in mine, so it ended up a bit salty. If you do this, cut out the added salt). I also didn't have soy creamer, so just used some thinner oat milk. It still thickened up fine. Ready to pour all over potatoes or roast vegetables or whatever you wish.
Rating: :)



Three-Nut Cheeze Whiz: Forgive the unassuming photo of this absolutely delicious sauce. It is so quick and easy to make, you are never far from a quick cheesy sauce for all your mac and cheese (or other) needs. It uses cashews and tahini (technically more of a seed than a nut?), as well as almond milk... though I strayed further from the nut theme by using oat milk. With a hefty dose of nutritional yeast, of course!
Rating: :D



Hoisin Peanut Sauce: Two of my favourite things! This is another quick recipe to tasty sauce land. So good for pouring over things, or it would also be great for dipping as well.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I have a lot of photos of Gizmo and Sahara near each other, they were super good friends. Here they are sleeping on my bed!

VeganMoFo 2016 #26: Favourite cookbooks

26th: Cookbooks – Show us your favourite cookbooks!

I have a slight cookbook addiction. I currently own over 100 vegan cookbooks, and I have more on the way. I just love them! And I certainly use them. I am trying to cook everything in all of them! Anyway, to have me pick a favourite is pretty hard, because I love many of them so so so much. Sure, there are some that I am not so fond of, and ones I don't use that often, but I am pretty in love with a lot of them. So this is a very hard prompt to narrow it down.

But narrow it down I have. I am going to present to you five very loved cookbooks. I can't say I don't have others that I also love just as much, but these are standouts for me. I also decided that I would not double up on authors in the list of five. This was hard. OK, here we go. In alphabetical order. For each book I will also share a favourite five star ':D' recipe photo, though this doesn't mean that it is my favourite recipe from the book!

Appetite for Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Ugh, you guys, how do you pick a favourite Isa cookbook? They are all so amazing! VWAV has a super special place in my heart, of course. But for choice of favourite it really came down to Appetite For Reduction and Isa Does It. But Appetite For Reduction won out by a hair.
See all my Appetite For Reduction recipe round-ups here.

A favourite recipe: Five-Spiced Squash (The recipe is for delicata, but I use butternut.)



Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan by Dreena Burton.

This is hands down my favourite Dreena cookbook! Let Them Eat Vegan comes a solid second out of her collection.
See all my Eat, Drink, and Be Vegan recipe round-ups here.

A favourite recipe: Potato Squashers. A must for every Christmas!



Keep It Vegan by Aine Carlin.

I picked up this book on special at an actual bookstore last year, and it quickly became one of my favourites. The recipes are so delicious! I also have her new book, The New Vegan, which is lovely. But I cannot recommend Keep It Vegan enough!
See the food I have made from Keep It Vegan by clicking here.

A favourite recipe: Carrot Cake Bites



Quick Fix Vegan by Robin Robertson.

I love Robin Robertson a lot. She has written so many great cookbooks, plus she is an awesome cat lady! I first came across her when I found Vegan Planet, and 1000 Vegan Recipes is a personal life-long challenge for me. Vegan Without Borders is so beautiful, plus she has so many other books that are great. But the Quick-Fix series is the one I recommend to people who are looking for simple and tasty vegan food. All the food can be prepared in 30 minutes or less. So great!
Quick-Fix Vegan is the second in the Quick-Fix series, I also have Quick-Fix Vegetarian (which is all vegan) and More Quick-Fix Vegan.
See all my Quick-Fix Vegan round-ups here.

A favourite recipe: Butterscotch Apple Cookies



The Abundance Diet by Summer McCowan.

This book came at a time when I really needed to sort out my eating a bit, and I am so grateful that it did. This book is packed full of delicious and tasty recipes. You can follow it as a 4 week diet if you wish, or just dip in and out of it as I have. But there is certainly no lack of flavour or variety here.
See all my posts for The Abundance Diet here.

A favourite recipe: Grilled Eggplant and Zucchini Lasagna



As I said, I cannot pick a favourite vegan cookbook. I can't even say that these are my top five cookbooks. They are just five books that I really love out of a huge pool of books that I love. Even as I was writing this I thought of others I wanted to add in, but I stayed firm in my initial picks to share with you so that this didn't spiral out of control into the longest post ever!

How many vegan cookbooks do you have?

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



We only have four photos of Max ever, and this is the last of them. My brother Greg giving him a hug. Max was only with us for six short weeks before he was found passed away. He was a little wild kitty at heart.