New Year

I am not a big New Year person. I don't really see a new year as being the start of something amazing, it is just the continuing passage of time. I don't do resolutions. I don't stay up until midnight. But I still do some food things. The last several years, I have had a pizza and pie theme for new year's eve. But this year I was working until late afternoon, I was tired, and I was stressed thinking about making pizza. So you know what, I just let it go. I made that tradition, I can break it, I can make another one! I can do whatever I want! Instead I decided to put together some platters of ready made things. That way I could just come home, sit down for a bit (my feet get so sore standing all day), and then platter things up.

These are some of the bought things I used in my platters, but I'll elaborate more on below!





First I made a savoury platter!



Clockwise from top:

• Grape tomatoes
• Beetroot Hummus
• Fine Cultures Port Wine Cheddar
• Leftfield Aged Cashew Brie
• Celery and Carrot Sticks
• Chris' Sweet Potato Vegan Dip
• Always Fresh Dolmades

Most of these things I have tried before, but it was my first time trying the Leftfield cashew cheese. This is a new vegan cheese available from Coles, and I was a bit wary as it has coconut oil listed. But it is honestly mostly cashew, and the coconut oil isn't very present. Maybe if I ate a whole block, but it is too rich for that! It was a great cheese.

On to a sweet platter:



Clockwise from top:

• Deli Originals Fresh Brownie Batter Dessert Dip
• Pink Lady Apple Slices
• Booja Booja Truffles
• Plantitude Meringue Nests filled with mango peach jam, vanilla yoghurt, and a blueberry

Friends, I finally found some dessert hummus! And it was DELICIOUS! It is from Aldi, which means I probably won't get it very often as Aldi is endlessly frustrating to me. Also, COVID everywhere. And I think it was limited edition. But this was SO GOOD! Definitely going to try and make my own. I served it with some apple slices for scooping. I also tried the Plantitude Meringue Nests from Woolworths. I don't actually like meringue, but I bought these for science. They space inside them was extremely shallow, so I couldn't put much filling in. I am not sure if they are all like this, or I just got a dodgy batch. Anyway, they were extremely too sweet, as I always find meringues.

I also had a few extras, for things that wouldn't fit on the platters. These included green grapes, Kettle Sea Salt crackers, water crackers, and peanut butter filled pretzels.



I spread everything out on the table, then we snacked while we watched You've Got Mail. And then I went to bed well before midnight.



Cranberry, Elderflower, and Rose Spirtzer from Delightful Vegans: I had bought some elderflower cordial and Ikea ages ago, had some left over cranberry juice from Christmas, and always have rosewater in my cupboard. So this seemed like a fun thing to make! I used lemon juice as I didn't have any lemon zest (I have loads of frozen lemon juice ice cubes in the freezer), and I topped mine off with coconut water rather than fizzy. It was a lovely refreshing drink!
Rating: :)



For the last several years, I have also traditionally made pancakes on New Year's Day for breakfast. But see above re tired. And being able to actual do whatever I want. So I didn't! I did try and make some pancake overnight oats for fun. I cobbled this together from few places, but basically just add some quantity of vanilla yoghurt, maple syrup, cinnamon, oat milk, and almond butter to your oats. The in the morning top with more yoghurt, almond butter, and maple syrup, and fruit and nuts of your choosing. Does it taste like panakes? Of course not. But it was still a nice breakfast for any time of year.



I did keep up with my New Year's Day tradition of making beans and greens for dinner. I used to try and make black eyed peas, as is the Southern US tradition. But I can't buy them tinned, and sometimes I just can't be bothered soaking and cooking them from scratch, so I have expanded it to just be any bean. Also, can't get collard greens here, so it has long been any green.

Southern New Year's Stew from Vegan On The Cheap by Robin Robertson: This recipe calls for both black eyed peas and collars. I used white beans and baby spinach. As I was using spinach, I got to skip right over the initial step whre you have to cook the collards, and just added it the end to cook down in the pot. I also used some pre-cooked brown rice and quinoa mix added at the end, rather than cooking brown rice in it. This was a great collection of beans, greens, grains, and vegetables.
Rating: :)



Anyway, it is now 2022, for better or for worse, or for more of the same. Back to your regular Kittens Gone Lentil Programming next time!

Cute Kitty Of the Post



New Year's Day is Abby's gotcha day. Not her adoption day, because when she first came into my life I was fostering her. Sure, it was a foster to adopt arrangement, but the formalities came later. She was a terrified little cat, hiding under a bedside table on her first day. But she opened herself up to me so quickly! Now she is a sweet, sassy, adorable little friend. She still has her limits, don't get me wrong. But she seems to be really living her best life and we have lots of snuggles.

Ostara 2020

Ostara aka Spring Equinox (22nd September, 2020)

Spring has sprung. Actually it sprung awhile ago. In Australia, our seasons start based on the months, so Spring starts on the 1st of September. Where as in the Northern hemisphere seasons seem to start based on solstices and equinoxes, which I like. Anyway, three weeks into our official Australian spring, and Brisbane cranked it up to summer with a few hot, humid days. Thankfully it has cooled off a little bit now. I am very jealous of all my Northern hemisphere friends posting all about Autumn (or Fall, I guess) at the moment. Seeing all those cosy posts... cosy is my happy word.

Many parts of the celebration of Ostara have been folded into the traditions of Easter, which makes sense season-wise if you are in the Northern Hemisphere. In Australia Easter is in Autumn. It is a celebration of new life and fertility. Hence why eggs are one of the featured foods. It is sad that int his modern world, this celebration of life centres so much around products of the trauma and exploitation of chickens. I am so glad as vegans we can avoid this.

Now, onto the food!

Sunday Supper Frittata from Vegan on the Cheap by Robin Robertson: Honestly, who needs eggs when you can have tofu! This is a pretty simple frittata to make: sautee some veggies, blend up the tofu mixture, combine, bake. For the veggies, as well as the called for potato, onion, mushroom, and spinach, I also added some broccoli and grated carrots, and some FYH cheddar shreds and bacon bits because why not. I also realised that I have not been processing my tofu mix enough when I have made frittatas in the past. I don't know how, but this time I gave it some extra time (plus my food processor is pretty powerful these days), and it came out so nice and smooshy. The recipe says to put the tofu mix on top of the sauteed veggies, but I mixed it all together before I put it in the pan. I used a 9in springform cake pan. It baked up and held together really nicely, and as a bonus I have an extra piece to take to work for lunch tomorrow. I served it with some roasted asparagus (lovely spring greens), and after this photo we drizzled on some ketchup.
Rating: :)



Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting from Everyday Vegan Eats by Zsu Dever: A carrot cake is a pretty classic way to welcome Spring, with the bonus being that I love carrot cake. This recipe was super simple to make. I baked it in a 9 inch square baking dish, and while the cake doesn't rise super high it is an excellent size for a snack or dessert without being overpowering. The flavour of the cake is really nice, and not too sweet. The cream cheese icing is also not to sweet, and has that great cream cheese tang to it. I skipped the nuts on top. This cake was great on the first day, but might I suggest that leftovers are even better? After being in the fridge overnight, the flavours really melded that the frosting took on an almost marshmallowy type texture.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I cannot talk about carrot cakes without thinking of my own little carrot cat. Sahara, my cinnamon Abyssinian queen, posing here with the carrot toy I brought home from the US for them one year. Sahara and I shared our carrot-top colouring. I miss my baby red.

VeganMoFo 2019 #4: B is for Bake Sale

I used to organise a lot of vegan bake sales to raise money for different animal charities in Brisbane. At one point, I was doing one a month, but then I burnt out. I slowed down to organising one a year, and baking for some others, but this year I've just stuck to baking for them rather than organising. It has made it fun again, rather than stressful. This post is about some stuff I baked for a recent bake sale raising money for Cranky's Farm, a local farm animal sanctuary. You can see other posts about bake sales I've either organised or baked for here.

S'mores Cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero: I've never had traditional s'mores, they seem to be a very American thing, but I have had s'more inspired things. In these cupcakes, the cake part is made out of graham crackers (or Digestives in this case as I can't get graham crackers), the buttercream frosting stands in for the marshmallow, and there is a chocolate topping as well. The batter is very runny, I ended up using a jug to pour it into the cupcake liners, and this resulted in a very soft and moist cupcake. I made a half recipe of the buttercream for topping them, but for some reason had to add a lot of extra icing sugar this time for it to be firm enough. It was meant to be piped, but didn't pipe well, so I smoothed it with an icing spatula. I maybe ended up putting a bit too much icing sugar in, it ended up quite firm, but this actually worked very well as a marshmallow stand in. I topped it with biscuit crumbles, chocolate shavings, and chocolate sprinkles, and stuck a mini marshmallow and a chocolate chunk on top of each one.
Rating: :)



(Espresso) Chip Oatmeal Cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero: Of course I took the espresso out of these, instead making them a Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookie. They had cocoa powder in them already, which I doubled, and I added in one tsp of cinnamon instead of the espresso. This makes a very sloppy dough, so I ended up chilling it in the fridge for a while to thicken. I used an AU TBS as my scoop, and got 20 cookies that I baked for 20 minutes.
Rating: :)



Gold Bar Cookies from Vegan On The Cheap by Robin Robertson: These are more a slice than a cookie, with a base of oats and peanut butter (and other things of course), then topped with some golden jam (apricot in this case) and raisins (I used sultanas) and roasted peanuts, then more of the base mixture crumbled on top. The jam got absorbed into the topping a lot, so wasn't a distinct layer on its own. But this was a very nice combination of flavours.
Rating: :)





Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Gizmo on her 15th birthday. I gave her this bed, which became a fast favourite of hers. She loved it! Though so did Sahara, who would sneak into it when she could.

Recipe Round-Up: Vegan On The Cheap

Vegan On The Cheap is one of my favourite cookbooks by Robin Robertson. It has a great range of recipes, with a eye to being budget friendly in mind. She also has some options for 'splurging' if you feel like adding a little extra. I've posted about this book a number of times, and you can see those posts here.

Mu Shu Burritos and Thai-Style Pineapple Rice Salad: This is a nice combination (suggested in the weekly menu section of the book) of a warm burrito and cool salad. The mu shu filling is shredded seitan (I just chopped it finely), carrot, and wombok aka napa cabbage (which I accidentally turned to mush because I had my food processor shredding blade the wrong way around so it got the fine grate treatment... sigh) in a lovely hoisin-based sauce. The filling was quite liquid, I suspect due to my unfortunate cabbage smooshage, so I used a slotted spoon before putting it on the wrap. The recipe says it fills eight 7-inch tortillas to serve 4. I was serving two people, and I used a large wrap for each of us and had plenty leftover. I scaled down the salad a bit, and used jasmine rice that had been cooked, frozen,and defrosted. I suspect the texture of the rice would have been better if I had used freshly cooked and cooled, but we use up what we have. The salad has pineapple, carrot, peas, coriander, and peanuts in it. I left out the green onions and chile. I think the salad would also work well turned into fried rice! Certainly I combined the leftover salad with leftover burrito filling and heated them up for dinner the next day and it was great.
Rating: Burrito :), Salad :)





Comfort Loaf with Creamy Mushroom Gravy: Winter calls for 'meat'loaf and gravy. This comfort loaf was delightful, with onions, carrots, celery, tofu, beans, oats, walnuts, and breadcrumbs (I used panko because they were there), as well as other bits and pieces. This made a large and satisfying loaf. It stuck a little the the bottom of the loaf tin, so grease it extra well, but it is delicious. Also, leftovers made fabulous sandwiches! I served it with the Creamy Mushroom Gravy. I made a 1/2 recipe, which was enough for three serves. This is a great savoury gravy, and is easy to make.
Rating: Loaf :D, Gravy :)



Peanutty Pumpkin Stew: This comes together easily, using a tin of pumpkin puree as the pumpkin base for it. It also has other vegetables, peas, peanut butter, tinned tomatoes, and kidney beans. I left out the curry powder and the chiles, but I added some spinach and about 3/4 cup of brown rice.
Rating: :)



Call It Cassoulet: Delicious beany tomato stew! This recipe uses white beans (I only used two tins rather than three), diced tomatoes, vegetables and herbs to make a very satisfying cold weather dinner. There is the option to add some chopped pepperoni (recipe in the book), I used some chopped Field Roast hot dog instead, which was a lovely addition. It also is topped with some toasted croutons. I used one slice of wholemeal bread, which was enough for two servings. They were nice and crunchy. Overall the stew made four serves (I kept two as leftovers, which is why I didn't make croutons for all the serves because they would just go soggy), served over some baby spinach.
Rating: :)



Skillet Hash: Onion, carrots, potato, seitan, herbs and spices. A lovely, quick, tasty dinner. The potatoes need to be cooked before adding, and I used my favourite new trick of cooking them in the microwave using the potato setting. For the seitan, I used a leftover bit of red seitan from Viva Vegan, which had it's own nice seasonings to add. I took the splurge a little option of adding a bit of FYH mozzarella, though I only had a sprinkle left in the bag so it didn't get too cheesy. I also added in some baby spinach. Served with ketchup, which was great. Avocado would also be awesome on this.
Rating: :)



Seitan and Mushroom Goulash: This recipe is in the slow cooker chapter of the book. Somehow, when I was planning to make it, I totally missed this important fact until it was 4pm in the afternoon, so I delayed its making until the next day when I had lots of time to give my slow cooker some action. It smelled wonderful! It has onion, seitan, mushrooms, and sauerkraut (I used the Polish kind in a jar), as staples of paprika, caraway, white wine, tomatoes, and sour cream. I used both the Tofu Sour Cream recipe and the Simple Simmered Seitan recipe from the book. The seitan recipe is easy and gives a nice, savoury seitan that goes well in lots of different dishes. It is a forgiving recipe, as I mucked it up twice (firstly by not adding enough gluten flour, so I had to add more in after I had mixed in the liquids, and secondly I had boiled the cooking broth before adding it). The sour cream is based on silken tofu, and the tofu taste is quite strong initially but then mellows with time. I made a whole recipe of the sour cream, which claimed it would make 2 cups, but it only made one and a half. The goulash was nice, but even better as leftovers once the flavour had time to meld. Served over spinach fettuccine and baby spinach.
Rating: Goulash :), Seitan :), Sour Cream :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Please enjoy this very fancy Instagram Flat Lay-style photo of the top of Dim Sim's head and her cute little ears.

Vegan MoFo 2014 #18: Robin Robertson Rocks - Vegan On The Cheap

Today for MoFo I have been reading through all the Australian blogs listed on the Around The World section of the MoFo page. I can't believe it has taken me until almost the end of the month to check these out, there some great Australian bloggers I haven't come across yet! So I am reading through a lot of posts and commenting. Go Aussie bloggers! Here is some Vegan On The Cheap.

Walnut-Crusted Tofu with Spinach and Orange shows that cheap doesn't rule out fancy. The tofu slices are tasty and crunchy, and the orange segments give a lovely freshness. I took the splurge suggestion of adding some capers because I love capers, and I also added a splash of white wine when I was sauteeing the spinach. I served this over basmati rice as suggested. I would have liked a bit more sauciness in this dish.
Rating: :)



Barbecued Black Bean and Tofu Burritos are full of protein and very tasty. The ingredients list calls for 2 Tbs of soy, though doesn't say divided. I almost put the whole lot into the sauce, rather than just half. The other half is used to season the tofu. So read carefully. I served this with some coleslaw.
Rating: :)



Tropic of Tempeh is like and sweet and sour, though delightfully was not too sweet (I prefer less sweet, more sour). Crispy chunks of fried tempeh go with vegetable (I used zucchini instead of green capsicum), pineapple chunks, and a pineapple based sauce. I served this over brown rice, but next time i would definitely serve this with some steamed broccoli as well.
Rating: :)



Baked Ziti combines pasta, marinara sauce and noochy tofu crumble that is baked into a great dinner. The noochy tofu mixture is yummy just on its own, so make sure you don't eat it all before making your casserole!
Rating: :)



Deluxe Vegetable Lasagna makes enough for a crowd, so I just made a half serve in an 8x8 inch pan and that served 4. I made some adjustments to the proportions - I doubled both the topping and the sauce and I quadrupled the spinach mix. The topping is a creamy cauliflower mash, though there is the option to use vegan cheese instead, but I liked the cauliflower. With the changes I made, I needed to bake it for a bit longer to heat all the way through.
Rating: :)



Vegetable Crisp has roasted vegetables brushed in a sherry vinegar mixture, layered and topped with a crunchy topping. I needed to make up a triple batch of the vinegar mixture to have enough to brush all the vegetables. I used one eggplant, six small zucchini, one onion and four portobello caps, which gave me one layer of each in my 8x8 inch pan with a final layer of eggplant, before topping with fresh sliced tomatoes and the topping, which was fantastically cruncy. I served this with BBQ beans.
Rating: :)



Rice Island Casserole took a bit more time than expected, but was delicious. Even using a little less rice I needed to bake for about half an hour longer to cook the rice through properly. I got three serves rather than four out of this. Rice, beans, pineapple, vegetables and coriander, coconut and cashews make for a delectable dinner.
Rating: :D



Torta Rustica is a masterpiece. I had made some sausage patties for another recipe in this book and had the leftovers stored in my freezer for ages. Finally I just committed to making this. It is a bit of work, but check out the result! I used the pie crust recipe in the book, which came together easily. Layers of noochy bean puree, roasted eggplant, sausage-spinach mixture and tomato-pepper mixture are repeated until the pie is all filled up, then it is sealed. I added some roasted zucchini as well to the eggplant layer, and I used an extra tin of tomatoe instead of the jar of roasted capsicum to make a tomato-tomato mixture. This fit perfectly into a 9 inch springform pan, and came out of the pan without a hitch. I was seriously impressed by the look of my masterpiece!
Rating: :)



Three Spicy Sisters Stew is from the slow cooker chapter, and smells amazing as it bubbles away. The three sisters are corn, bean and squash (butternut). I left out the capsicum.
Rating: :)



Barley Vegetable Stew is another slow cooker recipe, a classic winter dish. It makes four big servings, and is very satisfying. Next time I would also serve it with some sort of green.
Rating: :)



Chocolate Oatmeal-Peanut Cookies are a no bake treat that sets up fantastically. I made these for a bake sale and they were very popular. The chocolate chips melt in the hot mixture as you are making it, which is great.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Our clinic miss, Abbey, loves to be tucked up warm in her bed on the front desk during winter. Her green blanket matches her beautiful green eyes.

Vegan MoFo 2014 #6: Robin Robertson Rocks - Vegan On The Cheap

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I had an amazing time at OzComicCon. I had photos and autographs with Colin Ferguson (Eureka) and Jason Dohring (Veronica Mars) as well as Emma Caulfield and Nicholas Brendon, who are from my favourite show ever - Buffy! I also had so much fun working the convention as a guest handler, I have just arranged to have time off for OCC Brisbane in 2015, as well as the following weekend so I can go and work down in Sydney. Bring it on!

Okay... so... food. Or something. Time to pop back to Vegan On The Cheap, for another look at some cheap and tasty recipes.

Skillet Chili Mac uses leftover Stovetop Cheezee Mac (see previous VOTC post) and prepared chili, and salsa, so comes together in an absolute snap!
Rating: :)



Salsa Rice and Red Beans is made particularly delicious by the addition of some Cheezee Sauce (recipe included in the book) and fresh tomato and onions. I would have loved to top this with some avocado, but tragically I was all out at home (it happens sometimes).
Rating: :)



Curried Red Bean Pilaf with Walnuts and Raisins made me happy because I didn't have to cook the rice for longer than the recipe stated, hurrah! I served this with broccoli for extra greens.
Rating: :)



Coconut Curry Rice was a lovely rice dish, I love coconut based sauces. It did take me twice as long as the recipe said to cook the rice, even though I only used 3/4 cup rather than 1 cup of rice. I also didn't drain the tomatoes because I like the tomato/coconut combination, and I put in extra peas as well. I served it with some roasted eggplant slices and salad greens.
Rating: :)



Moroccan Chickpeas and Couscous is a colourful dish with lots of colour and texture. The almonds add a great crunch. I ony got 3 serves out of this, with my big appetites. I added some extra vegetables - zucchini and peas. I only used one cup or couscous instead of a 10oz box, that would have made far too much couscous for me for the amount of vegetables.
Rating: :)



Polenta with Pan-Seared Mushrooms and Tomatoes is a delicious, satisfying dish. There is something a little magic about polenta. I added a tin of kidney beans for some extra bulk and protein, as well as 1/4 cup tomato juice to keep things juicy.
Rating: :)



Indian-Spiced Lentil Ragu was full of lentils, spinach, onions and tomatoes, with a dollop of yoghurt on top. I used Kinglands plain soy yoghurt, which is the only vegan plain yoghurt available to me (that isn't coconut based, coconut yoghurt = death for me).
Rating: :)



Penny-Pinching Pinto Picadillo is nice with the sweet raisins and salty olives. We don't have diced tomatoes with chiles here, so I just used regular diced tomato and added some chopped green chile.
Rating: :)



Savory Sausage and Peppers became Savory sausage with zucchini and extra carrots, because capsicum is gross. It gives the 'splurge' option of using packaged sausages, but I made the Close to Mom's Sausage Links recipe in the book. There is something fun about making your own sausages!
Rating: :)



Better-Than-Takeout Tofu Stir-Fry is quick and delicious, and saves you the cost of getting takeaway. I only gave the tofu a sprinkle in cornflour rather than using the whole 1/3 of cornflour to coat. This is very saucy, so is great to serve over lots of rice.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Petunia came to our clinic at Christmas, she was skinny, her fur was patchy, and she was hungry. She has been at the clinic since that time, and has blossomed into a gorgeous little lady. Despite being so cute, Petunia is yet to find her forever home. She is 7 years old, and a lot of people aren't interested in looking at older cats. If you live in Brisbane and might be interested bringing Petunia into your life, please call on 07 3361 0011. If you aren't in Brisbane, but are looking for a feline friend, please consider an older kitty as well!