Christmas Day Feastings.

I woke up on Christmas Day at the clinic, after spending the night on call with the company of the lovely kitty Daphne. She indeed is a sweet little girl, and spent the night all snuggled up sleeping soundly.

I was ravenous by the time I got home for our family Christmas Day breakfast!



Here is my breakfast. Pancakes with fresh strawberries and blueberries, vanilla soy yoghurt, maple syrup and fresh orange juice. It was so yummy! My omni parents and veggie brother had eggs, croissants, haloumi and ham... so I had my pancakes all to myself and didn't I just eat them all... tee hee!

Breakfast was followed by present opening, which was fun. I got some books and DVDs, some pretty stuff and the black and pink cat mugs that I have been coveting ever since I saw them on Mandee's Cupcake Kitteh blog. They are so CUTE! The kitties also got a stocking full of toys and Greenies.

After presents came time to start the preparations for the late lunch! Last year I had made the pot roast from Vegan Vittles, and in previous years I had just munched on lots and lots of vegetables. This year I decided to try my hand at a stuffed seitan roast. I chose Roast Seitan With Ginger Peach Stuffing And Glaze from Vegan Dad. It was a bit of an exciting time, as I hadn't had any time for a test run before the big day! I chose it because peaches are a summer fruit, so it was kind of seasonal... even though it was still a honking big roast in the middle of summer. Hee.



And here it is! It doesn't look as pretty as the one on the page. I found that the stuffing recipe made way too much to actually stuff the roast with. Maybe I wasn't rolling it out enough, but any more rolled out and it would have been too thin and started tearing. It was a bit fragile, so care was needed to roll it and move it to the alfoil. Then I steamed it in yet another makeshift steamer. Once steamed and safely transfered into the baking dish, it was basted with the glaze and then baked according to directions. I found I also had loads of glaze left over as well. I think I have enough stuffing and glaze in the freezer to make another one. It fell apart a bit in the cutting and moving, but it was well received. I found the glaze incredibly sweet thought, I might add some soy sauce next time to up the salt a little bit. Also, I would have liked it to be a bit firmer and chewier in texture. It's a shame it is too fragile to crisp up quickly in frying pan before putting in the oven, but I might try baking first without the glaze to see if I can get a bit of a crust going. But all up, it was pretty tasty and the entire family enjoyed it. And it made for tasty leftovers too!



And here is the Christmas lunch plate! What is on it? Well, clockwise from the top there is slices of the stuffed seitan, sauteed mushrooms and peas (which were covered liberally in nooch after this photo), Christmas Day salad (baby spinach, asparagus, green beans, olives and cherry tomato) and roast vegetables (potato, parsnip, pumpkin and lots of garlic cloves). It was delicious! An exciting milestone is that this is the first Christmas lunch ever in my life that there has been no turkey or duck or similar. I was stoked! Not even a plate of ham made it to the table! Though my parents did have a prawn and mango salad, but I think that this is a great trend for years to come. See... our plans for vegan world domination are slowly but surely working! Let us all laugh our evil laughs! Mwahahaha!

After lunch was our Christmas Day Trivial Pursuit match... parents vs. kids. Alas, parents won. Evil. And it was one of those matches where Greg or I often had the right answer first, then talked ourselves out of it. Which is way more sad then just no knowing the answer at all. But still, it was a lot of fun and it was very close at the end. Next year we shall crush them like bugs, I am sure. You know, with Christmas Spirit and all!



Snacks during the game were a very pretty plate of the Santa Hats I made earlier in the week. And then there was fullness. And peppermint tea. And a fridge full of left overs. We didn't even manage to touch the Christmas Cake or the non-vegan Christmas Pudding until days later! Normally I make a vegan Christmas Pudding, but this year I just ran out of time with work... Next year I shall be back!

So I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas Day with lots of food and presents but most of all, with the people and critters that they love.

A week of dinners.

I love dinner time. That zen time at the end of the day where I can unwind in the kitchen. It doesn't always have to be long or complicated, some days I get home with just not enough time for that! I don't get to cook everynight. Being on call at the clinic several nights a week means dipping into my handy freezer stack of leftovers, not to mention the times I sometimes actually manage to go out for dinner (like tonight - hello The Forest!). Still, I thought that at the beginning of each week, I might do a review of the dinners I have made from the previous week.

(FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS RIGHT LITTLE GIRL, DO NOT LET THE FREAKY CLOWN INTO YOUR HOUSE. OK, sorry about that. Supernatural outburst. It happens).

Wednesday

Hoisin Drenched Garlic Seitan with Bok Choy, from Vegan Planet. I made a batch of seitan that morning (thanks to my favourite VWAV recipe) to make this recipe. This is super easy and really delicious. It has also started my love of the zen like state of mincing garlic by hand. Served with jasmine rice.

Thursday

Spaghetti with Cauliflower Romagna Style, from Vegan Cooking For One. This is very, very easy to make. I love the texture of wholemeal spaghetti. I have served it here with roasted green beans and a very liberal sprinkling of nooch.

Sunday

Oops! Got my pictures mixed up, so let's skip straight to Sunday. Asparagus And Lemongrass Risotto, from Veganomicon. With beautiful asparagus straight from the Mt Gravatt farmer's market! This is amazing! It does take time and patience to make a risotto properly, but this makes it all worth it. Sprinkling fresh lime juice over the finished product just takes it to a whole new level! Served with sauteed broccolini.

Saturday

Back to Saturday! Shredded Seitan With Green Beans And Shallots, from Vegan Planet. Using the second half of my tasty seitan. I doubled the sauce for this recipe to have enough. It is based on sherry, soy and Dijon. The taste is interesting, not bad, but not something I would hurry to make again. I was worried about putting the seitan through the grater on my food processor incase it smooshed it, so I had a lovely time slicing it up very small.

Also, tomorrow is the start of October, which means it is the beginning of The Post Punk Kitchen's VeganMoFo! Stay tuned for lots of vegan food blogging!

Good samaritans and good seitan.

So, it has been a few days since my last post. Surprisingly, not all of it is due to working! The weekend was all mine, and Sunday had a wonderful trip to the farmer's market at Mount Gravatt, which included my first purchase of kale! Stay tuned to see what I do with it.

Good Samaritans

At the clinic again tonight. I just had a call from a man who drove past a beautiful fluffy white cat who had been hit by a car and was on the side of the road. He was ringing to see what he should do, and he couldn't believe that someone had just left the cat there. His obvious emotion was touching. I guess I don't know the outcome of this case, he is on the other side of town and if the cat is alive, it needs to go somewhere closer to them than here if possible. But even if the cat had passed away, he was going to take it somewhere to get it scanned for a microchip. Just in case it had an owner somewhere fretting who could be contacted. I can only hope that kitty angels will watch over the situation.

Good Seitan

My plan for Mondays was to post a week in review of my dinners for the past week. Alas, I am at the clinic tonight as another vet is on holidays, and this computer will not upload from my camera to Flickr. So I will do it tomorrow! However, I of course have the handy Vault to dig into. I need to upgrade my Flickr account because I have only uploaded photos from three cookbooks and I've already almost exceeded the monthly limit! Hmph.

So, seitan... I love seitan! Yummy, scrummy, wheat gluten meat. My first experience with seitan was bought, which was fine but quite expensive. But now I make my own. My favourite recipe is from Vegan With A Vengeance, and this is the one I make the most often. Here are some photos of VWAV recipes I made with my very first batch of home-made seitan last year. There were some great dinners!


This is Jerk Seitan with Coconut Rice and sauteed broccolini.

Cold Udon Noodles with Peanut Sauce and Seitan. This is absolutely one of the best things ever! Cold noodles with cucumber and carrot strips (I used carrots instead of red capsicum), mung beans, warm peanut sauce and hot crispy seitan. Taste sensation!

Ethiopian Seitan (with zucchini instead of green capsicum), brown rice and steamed carrots.