Isolation Brunches

Going back in time to those two months I spent on leave from work, isolating away in our house. One of the things I did to try and bring some struction and fun into our lives was a weekly brunch. This also meant, as you will see, that I dug out my waffle maker and had a mighty fine time! I keep forgetting that waffles are so easy to make with this waffle maker. It was also a nice time to get to make some of these sweeter brunch-type recipes that I hardly ever have a good time to make. Since heading back to work, I haven't made brunch once! I need to try and at least find a fun time to do it occasionally.

Old-Fashioned Chelsea Waffles and Brown Sugar Peach Coulis from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: These was so easy to make, and they make a lot. I used half the recipe and got 6 nice fat waffles and one mini one. They are not overly sweet, but I really enjoyed that. I served them with some Brown Sugar Peach Coulis, which allowed me to use up some frozen peaches in my freezer because it certainly was not peach season. I also drizzled it with a bit of sweetened rice cream.
Rating: Waffles :), Coulis :)



Peanut Butter Waffles and Blueberry Ginger Whole Berry Sauce from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: Peanut butter everything! These waffles are filling, and also a bit crunchy because you use crunchy peanut butter. Again, I made a half recipe for 6 waffles. These had a nice peanut buttery flavour, and were not too sweet (again, hurrah!). Served with the Blueberry Ginger variation of the Whole Berry Sauce recipe, which used frozen blueberries and fresh ginger. The fresh ginger gave such a lovely sparkle to the sauce.
Rating: Waffles :), Sauce :)



Raised Waffles with Baked Cinnamon Apples from Vegan Brunch by Isa Chandra Moskowitz: I thought I'd try my hand at these yeasted waffles. You have the option of making them in the morning and letting them rise, or making them the night before and doing a longer rise in the frige overnight. I took the first option. Again, I halved the recipe and got 6 waffles. Mine got very dark on the outside with this recipe, which is different from how they look in the book. It didn't do anything bad to the flavour though. When I pulled these out of the waffle iron, they still seemed a bit soft compared to the others. But once out the crisped up on the outside and have a lovely fluffy inside. I served these with some nice and easy Baked Cinnamon Apples, also from the book.
Rating: Waffles :), Apples :)



Tempeh Bacon from Baconish by Leinana Two Moons: Pancakes, bacon, and fruit, which a combination. The tempeh bacon from Baconish is easy to make and delicious to eat. I had a packed of Melinda's gluten-free pancake mix from an Vegan Mystery Box that I needed to use up, and I am sorry to say that it was not a good time. They tasted funny, the batter was so thick but also so fragile to flip. Thankfully the bacon, some apple slices, and maple syrup saved the day!
Rating for Tempeh Bacon :D



Raspberry Cornmeal Pancakes from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton: These pancakes were a bit of a miss, they were quite crumbly and hard to flip. I wonder if my cornmeal was not fine enough? The recipe itself I noted had no sweetener in it, however it did call for vanilla soy milk which is normally sweetened. I didn't have any of that, so I used a blend of plain oat milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract to make my own. I used a 1/3 cup measure as a scoop, and got 6 pancakes. I served this with some Maple Cream, another recipe from the blog that I have made a few times before, and some fresh strawberries.
Rating: :|



Hearty Pancakes with Buckwheat and Blueberries from Power Plates by Gena Hamshaw: These also gave me a bit of trouble with the batter, as it was very thin and if you made the pancakes too big then it would tear when you flipped it. But I found using a 1/4 cup measure as the scoop just perfect. These had a really nice flavour and texture, thanks to the mix of spelt and buckwheat flour. I served these with some runny peanut butter, maple syrup, and sliced strawberries.
Rating: :)



This final brunch, which was actually the first brunch we had chronologically, did not involve any recipes. On my last day of work before I went into isolation, I stopped by Naim to pick up some vegan raspberry croissants. When I got home they went into the freezer and there they stayed until we decided to get brunching! These were lovely. Dusted with a raspberry poweder and filled with raspberry jam, they were a big hit. We happened to have quite a few types of fruit in the house that day, so I mixed up a quick fruit salad with banana, apple, raspberries, grapes, and pawpaw to have with it.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



As well as sleeping with my bamboo contour pillow for bad necks, I have to sleep with a little cushion tucked next to the right side of my head to stop my head from flopping to the side too much while I sleep, thus ruining my neck more. Chronic pain, it's so unfun. But one morning Dim Sim decided that sitting on a little cushion on top of the pillow was the ultimate in comfort. She stayed there for quite a while! Thankfully she doesn't try and take it from me when we are sleeping, because you know I would let her have it no matter the consequences for my neck.

Recipe Round-Up: Vegan Brunch

I have all of Isa's books, and love them, but Vegan Brunch is my least used one. I'm not sure why, I love brunch and the recipes look amazing! But I realised I haven't even done proper round up from it yet. I've posted a few bits and pieces from it which you can see here, but this is the first round up. I really need to fix that, because I have a bunch of stuff I want to make!

Fennel Breakfast Risotto with Smoky Shiitakes: I made this for dinner, for not brunch. I do enjoy making risotto, but I feel it is more an evening activity. Unfortunately, I found the flavour of the risotto a bit flat, plus the chopped fennel seeds gave it a weird gritty texture. The shiitakes were a good addition, though I found to be very salty. That kind of worked with the bland flavour of the risotto. I had risotto left over, so I made cheese stuffed arancini for lunch the following day, which was actually be best thing I did with it.
Rating: Risotto :|, Shiitakes :)





Grilled Marinated Asparagus Tofu Omelet: The book has a basic recipe for omelets based on silken tofu and chickpea flour, and flavoured with black salt and others. There is then a list of a whole different lot of filling variations, or you can make your own. The omelet was very easy to make, and held together and flipped well. I chose the grilled marinated asparagus option, stuffed with asparagus and topped with a miso tahini sauce. It was outstanding!
Rating: :D



Sesame Scramble Tofu and Greens with Yams: We don't get yams, so I used sweet potato here. I chose kale as my leafy greens,and used a whole bunch chopped up and cooked down. This is quite a simple recipe, once you have baked and cooled the sweet potato, but is very satisfying.
Rating: :)



Paprika Rosemary Roasted Potatoes: Another simple recipe with a heap of flavour variations. The combination of paprica, cumin, and rosemary is outstanding!
Rating: :D



Toasted Coconut and Mango Muffins: These are a lovely not-too-sweet snack. The mango flavour comes from chopped dried mango, and the coconut is both toasted coconut shreds and some coconut extract.
Raging: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Do you ever look at your sweet little baby and wonder how you got so lucky to have them in your life? That is me every time I look at Dim Sim. How am I so lucky?

VeganMoFo 2015 #27: Cinnamon

27. Favourite herb or spice?

Without a doubt, my favourite spice is cinnamon. I love it so much! I always have it sprinkled on PB toast or PB/banana toast, and when it is called for in a recipe I always add extra. You cannot have too much cinnamon! Oh cinnamon, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love you as a cinnamon sugar doughnut. Really, these are the only doughnuts I care about, you can keep all your strange glazed doughnuts with crazy toppings. Cinnamon doughnuts are what it is all about. And the best cinnamon sugar doughnut is found in Melbourne, where Crumb's makes a sourdough cinnamon sugar doughnut you can only dream about. Thankfully in four weeks I won't be dreaming, I will be eating.



The cinnamon doughnut from Mighty-O in Seattle was my favourite for a long time until I tried Crumb's last year. It is still outstanding, even if it is no longer number 100.



I love you in a cinnamon scroll! Preferably without glaze, because who needs super sweet glaze when you have already got yummy dough and delicious cinnamon? I left the glaze off these ones that I made from Vegan Brunch.



But sometimes a cinnamon roll is so good, that I can forgive the glaze. Like this Chicago Diner cinnamon roll aka best cinnamon roll ever (but would be ever better without the glaze).



I love you with grains, like this Cinnamon Lime and Quinoa with Apricots and Almonds from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan, to serve with savoury dishes.



Or to serve with sweet grains, as with Breakfast Porridge with Raisins from Blissful Bites. Sure, it says to add a generous dash of cinnamon, but we know that that means add a whole lot more! I haven't blogged this recipe before, so I had best give it a rating! It is a great mix of brown rice, quinoa, raisins, maple syrup and of course lots of cinnamon!
Rating: :)



Snickerdoodles would be meaningless without you to coat their outsides.



You are also good on muffins. Or as cinnamon toast. Or any of the other million ways you make life better. Thank you cinnamon, for being you!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post: Month of Gizmo



Perfect Gizmo paw and tail.

Baked Relief

On Saturday I spent a morning helping clean out flood damaged homes in the Brisbane suburb of Fig Tree Pocket. It was a sobering experience, and also very hard physical work. I'm afraid to say that my apparently weak little body took several days to recover. But there are many ways to help out with the flood relief efforts if you are not able to provide physical strength.

Baked Relief is an incredible phenomenon that started with one woman baking to send out to feed volunteers, and with the simple #bakedrelief hashtag on Twitter, it has snowballed into a massive organised front of people across the area baking and providing food that is then sent out to feed the volunteers out on the ground.

Baking is definitely something I am well suited to, and I had a day off to spend baking. But I was working the next day, so would not be able to get the food out there. A tweet for help later and I was in contact with someone who lives close to me who was able to pick up the food the following morning. And then I was off baking some vegan love.

I definitely found my baking mojo, and not even an emergency trip to the shop to replace a bag of flour that had bugs and having to restart my muffins could break the rhythm. Here are the goodies I made:


First up was Cowboy Cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. These cookies are serious stuff - pecans, coconut and chocolate chips. I guess cowboys like that sort of thing? I only had half the amount of pecans required, but it was still lots. Also, I used the whole cup of chocolate chip cookies the recipe called for, but it seemed a bit too much because there were about 1/4 cup of chocolate chips left at the bottom of the bowl. I found I got two and a half dozen cookies instead of two dozen, I must think golf balls are smaller than they are!


Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, also from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar are a classic cookie and so easy to make, there isn't really any excuse not to! The recipe was meant to make two dozen, but I found it made a bit under that. I must think tablespoons are bigger than they are!


Savoury items were also being requested. I guess people cannot live on sugar alone! I made these Spicy Chick-Wheat Savoury Muffins from 500 Vegan Recipes. They are a combination of wheat and chickpea flour, and are spiced with garam masala and red chili flakes. I really enjoyed this, plus the chickpea flour added some extra protein and that makes for full bellies. The look a bit small, because for some reason instead of filling out the 20 muffin tins required I filled up 22. Oh well, more to share.


I had those left over chocolate chips from the Cowboy Cookies, and they were damp so I couldn't exactly put them back in the bag. So I made Coffee Chip Muffins from Vegan Brunch. I am disturbed how much I liked my sample muffin (I sampled a small one of all before sending them out). I don't like coffee. It makes me sick. It is gross. This did not. The coffee flavour was just very subtle, and I didn't have any caffeine side effects. I still don't think I'll be drinking coffee any time soon though.


The final thing I made was Mediterranean Olive Bread from The Joy Of Vegan Baking for some more savoury action. As well as olives, it also has sun-dried tomatoes and rosemary (I used some fresh from our garden). It was good, but I couldn't make it go golden on top, which was a bit sad. The picture in the book looks way better!


Here it is all packaged and ready to go. I know that it is a lot of plastic wrap, but if you were out covered in mud you would want your food to be wrapped and be able to eat it without actually having to touch it! It was also all labeled as Vegan (no eggs or dairy), so that any vegans or lactose intolerant people out there could be confident in what they were eating. I've been told that these goodies were taken out to Jindalee and Oxley, and I am glad to hear they were enjoyed.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


As my mum helped wrap up all the goodies, Sahara supervises. Don't worry, she was looking with her eyes, not touching with her paws. Just making sure that mum did a good job of wrapping. What would we do without kitty helpers in our lives?

Queensland Flood Aid

Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal

RSPCA's Flood Appeal

Baked Relief

Flood Aid - Coordinating help wanted with help offered.

Adopt-A-Family - Provide weekly meals to families displaced by the floods.

Adopt-A-Wash - Help families who have lost their washing machines by doing a load for them.

VeganMoFo 2009 #9: Match made in heaven.

Whenit comes to muffins, I love them all - but I do have a clear favourite. Lemon and poppy seed - who is with me? It's funny. I used to dislike anything lemon flavoured when I was younger, but then I grew to enjoy lemon in baked goods and now I just love it anywhere, any time, any place. But as far as muffins go, lemon and poppy seed is where it is at. Though lemon and blueberry is a fairly close second.;)

What makes a good lemon muffin to me? They need to have a delicious, real lemon flavour. They need to be not too sweet. And they need to be pretty light in texture.

Below are two batches of lemon poppy seed muffins I have made.


From Vegan Brunch.


From Vegan With A Vengeance.

OK, yes - both are Isa books and both are similar, but there are a few differences. The VB version doesn't require any soy yoghurt - which is great seeing as I need to make my own yoghurt if I want something that isn't flavoured and doesn't contain dairy starter culture. But they both fit the bill!

What is your favourite muffin flavour?

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


It's a beautiful and sleeping Sahara. But look closer. You shall see that above her I have left some clothes lying on the bed (I know, slob, whatever, hee). But look under Sahara's head. Yes - she is sleeping perfectly curled up on the hood part of my jumper! This cat is like the princess and the pea, I swear. If you leave anything lying around on the bed, she will sleep on it. She likes as many layers under her as possible! It's rather amusing, and keeps my clothes covered in red cat fur! I don't mind though. ;)

(For those who were hoping to find out about the risotto balls, they have to wait for a few days. My camera is at the clinic so I used my mother's camera. She is out at the moment and I don't know where the cord is to transfer onto the computer!)