Apples for my Dad.

As I continue to catch up on my backlog of Things To Blog, these are the special dinners I made my father last year. I just discussed how my mother loves baked beans. Well, my dad likes apples, and you will see a few apple desserts coming up.

Birthday 2010

My dad let me pick for his birthday dinner last year. I know he really likes seitan, so I chose The Vegan Ghost of Julia Child Menu from Veganomicon.


The main course was Sauteed Seitan with Mushrooms and Spinach with Herb-Scalloped Potatoes. The seitan calls for 2 cups, but I have written here that I used a whole batch, which I think must mean that I used 500g (1lb) of seitan, as that is what I consider a normal batch size. The recipe calls for 6 cups of spinach, but it cooks down a lot so you can always add more for extra green goodness. The potatoes are good too, though they never seem to brown up quite as much as I would like. There seems to be a lot of liquid in them.


The dessert was Individual Heart-Shaped Apple Galettes, which are SO CUTE! I was a bit worried that they wouldn't work out, but they were really easy and look adorable. They would be awesome for company.


This is the Bulgur, Arugula, and Cannellini Salad. I did not actually make this the same night as my Dad's birthday dinner, but it is an optional part of the menu, so I thought I'd share it here with you. I made it to take to work for lunches. It is nice, but even better topped off with some marinated mushrooms or baked tofu - yum!

Father's Day 2010

My dad also likes vegetable curries. He picked a red curry for Father's Day.


I thought I might have a go at making my own curry paste, so I did. This is the Red Curry Paste from The Asian Vegan Kitchen. It was very easy to use, and looked so fresh and spectacular compared to the stuff from the bottle.


The curry paste went into Thai Curry With Veggies from The Vegan Table. The recipe says it yields 2-4 servings, but it seemed to make HUGE servings! I did add some additional broccoli to make it a bit more green, but still! Next time I would cut down on the potatoes, three potatoes seems excessive, especially when serving with rice. I also used carrots instead of red capsicum.


Dessert was the Apple and Pear Cobbler from 1000 Vegan Recipes, served with some soy ice cream. In this recipe I did not grate the apples, I just chopped them and it worked out fine. I would have like a teeny bit more of the topping mixture to spread over it.

Birthday Cake

Not content with a birthday dinner and a Father's Day dinner, my Dad also wanted a cake! He wanted a dessert for his birthday dinner, and a cake for later.


This is the Apple Lover's Cake from 1000 Vegan Recipes. This cake never really rose, it stayed quite flat and lumpy throughout the baking process. I also found I needed to add another teaspoon of juice to the icing to make it spread enough, but be careful as it gets too runny quickly. It has apple sauce, dried apple and fresh apple in it, plus apple juice in the glaze, so it is apples all around.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


The handsome Possum, being adorable in the garden again. He loves lying in this garden so much, and snuggling gently up to the flowers.

(% '1000 Vegan Recipes' Blogged: 9.2%)

Beans for my Mum.

In this post, I am going to play catch up with special dinners I have made for my mother but haven't posted yet, so two birthdays and one mother's day. You will pretty quickly notice a theme here... my mother loves baked beans. She asks for them every single time, with not a care for my bursting desire to cook new and interesting foods. Honestly. ;)

Birthday 2009


We started with Mahogany Eggplant from Vegan Planet, which I have made several times before, it seems to be a favourite with the family.


The main event (which will look very familiar to you by the end of this post) was Old Fashioned Baked Beans and Skillet Cornbread with Smoked Chiles from Vegan Planet, salad dressed with Cumin-Cinnamon Vinaigrette from Eat Drink & Be Vegan and a roasted tomato. This is my mother's favourite baked bean recipe. The cornbread is also really good, the chipotle gives it a wonderful smoky flavour without being overpowering.


Dessert was Papaya with Vanilla Bean Syrup from a Donna Hay magazine. The papaya was meant to be peeled in long strips so you could make a pretty pile of ribbons, but it was a bit too soft for that so I ended up just cutting it up.

Mother's Day 2010


A brunch was held, as is so often the case on Mother's Day. Yet again you see some Old Fashioned Baked Beans from Vegan Planet, served alongside some amazingly delicious Pan-Fried Spuds from 1000 Vegan Recipes, some salad and some delicious Olive and Thyme Sourdough toast from Sol Breads.

Birthday 2010


By now you recognise the Old Fashioned Baked Beans from Vegan Planet. This time it is served with a mixed salad and some yummy Double-Corn Skillet Corn Bread from Veganomicon.


For dessert this time I had a free choice, so I made this yummy Mango Spice Cake from 1000 Vegan Recipes. The spice and mango blend to make a subtle but delicious taste, I really enjoyed it. The option in the book is to use some cream cheese icing, but I couldn't go past some fresh mango slices and a dusting of icing sugar.


Here it is again, cut up and served with some coconut ice cream. Delicious!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Here is Possum, celebrating Mum's birthday in style wearing a gold tinsel tiara. Very manly.

(% '1000 Vegan Recipes' Blogged: 9.0%)

Recipe Round Up: Appetite For Reduction

I have this tendency to get quite obsessed with a particular cookbook (as seen with my 1000 Vegan Recipes cook through). Many moons ago I pre-ordered Appetite For Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz, so by the time it arrived it was just like getting a surprise present from myself. I am very thoughtful. Over the past two weeks, I have been absolutely loving this book and have cooked several delicious recipes from it, with many more planned to come. Here's what I have made so far.


Pizza Hummus is one of the many hummus variations in the book. I made it to take to work as a snack during the day, along with some carrot sticks. I left out the paprika in the recipe and subbed in oregano. I also made some delicious pizza burritos with this - a tortilla spread with pizza hummus, lettuce and a sprinkle of nooch and all wrapped up. Yummy.


This was one of the first dinners I made: Miso Udon Stir-Fry with Greens & Beans and Eggplant Dengaku. The noodles were delicious, I really enjoyed using the broccoli stem (which is something I haven't really used before... all those years of wasted broccoli stems!). I used a 270g packed of dried udon (I find the 'fresh' udon too mooshy) and that made enough for five servings total. The eggplant was out of this world delicious. It is one of my mother's favourite dishes, and she gave it thumbs up. I think I forgot to add the water to the sauce when I was making it, but it didn't matter - it was thick and oh-so-delicious. I grilled (broiled) the eggplant for a couple of minutes longer to get it too cook properly as well. Such a good dinner.


Quinoa Salad with Black Beans & Toasted Cumin Seeds was a good choice of lunch to make to take to work during the week. It required 2 cups of cooked, cooled quinoa. I cooked up one cup of dried quinoa, and I ended up with just under 4 cups cooked, so I split it and froze the rest for another recipe. This photo is using Isa's super cute serving suggestion of unmolding from a tea cup, though when I took it to work I tolled the baby spinach and rocket leaves through it and ate it out of a plastic box. Not as cute, but just as tasty.


Another salad, this was actually the first recipe I made from the book. Trattoria Pasta Salad with White Beans is another great option for a make ahead lunch, it keeps and travels very well. The Sun-Dried Tomato-Walnut Dressing is delicious, and includes fennel which gives a very pleasant taste. I couldn't find any brown rice pasta, so just used regular wheat small shell pasta. I used butter beans here, but think in future cannelini beans would be best to keep the size of everything consistent.


Forty-Clove Chickpeas and Broccoli was always at the top of my list of things to make. It actually only has ten garlic cloves, but that is enough for a garlicky punch. This dish is so quick to assemble, there is very little effort involved, though it does take a little bit of baking time. But it is delicious and just so satisfying. I found that this only served three hungry bellies at our house, served with some brown rice.


So much deliciousness crammed onto one plate here: Creamed Corn, Coriander Mushrooms with Cherry Tomatoes, Unfried Refried Beans and brown rice. The corn was fantastic - so quick and easy, why would you ever eat creamed corn from a tin again? I enjoyed the leftover corn in two of my favourite trashy ways - on toast with Nuttelex and just straight up with some ketchup mixed in. Kind of wrong, but kind of right. I also found with the corn that I could make it a bit in advance to the point of blending it, then just put it aside until I was ready to quickly do the final heat-through with the cornflour (cornstarch) mixture. The mushrooms were also great, and remainders were enjoyed on toast the following day for breakfast. Finally, the beans. Oh, the smooth and delicious velvety beans. I used two 400g tins of borlotti beans and 250mL passata for the recipe. I have leftovers stored in the freezer for an upcoming taco night!


Sometimes, even in the middle of summer, a big bowl of lentil soup is just what you need. Lotsa Veggies Lentil Soup fits the bill. It uses Du Puy lentils, which was great because I had some leftover from something else that were crying out to be used up. Instead of chopped spinach leaves, I just stirred in a 150g bag of baby spinach leaves and cooked until wilted.


A quick and easy dinner was Masala Baked Tofu with Curried Cabbage & Peas served over brown rice. The tofu marinade is great - and oil free! I save my marinades to use again, so I have made another batch of tofu with it and still have enough left over to marinate a few portabello mushrooms for another upcoming dinner. The curried cabbage and peas is also very fast.


More salad for lunch! This is the basic version of the Everyday Chickpea-Quinoa Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette. I used my stored away two cups of quinoa for this, along with lots of fresh, chopped Cos (romaine) and chickpeas. The vinaigrette was really nice, I like using nuts as the base. But even though it only makes 3/4 cup, it was a bit too runny for my just-over-a-cup-capacity mini-food processor and ended up running all down the sides, no matter how hard I pushed the lid down to seal the cracks, so next time I shall make it in my big one. Isa gives lots of options to bulk the salad up, so I look forward to making a fully loaded version!


A dinner dedicated to my little fiery-red Abyssinian kitty, some fiery Ethiopian food (Abyssinia is the historical name for Ethiopia, and is thought to be where the original cats from the Abyssinian breed came from, even though the breed was developed in Britain): Ethiopan Millet, Mushroom Tibs and Ye'abesha Gomen (Stewed and Sauteed Collards). There was some heat involved here, especially in the mushrooms - I think next time I might go a bit easier on the curry powder. The millet was also a bit spicy. When making the millet, I found I did need to add the extra vegetable stock to stop it from drying out too much. For the greens I used silverbeet (chard) instead of collars. I have never seen collars here, ever. Which makes me a little sad, because I love different greens. Anyway, I suspect that the collards might be a bit tougher than the silverbeet, so I only stewed the silverbeet for about 15-20 minutes rather than 30 minutes, and they turned out great. A nice counterpoint to the heat in the other two dishes.

So that is my first round up from this great book. I already have other photos awaiting transfer from my camera, and many more recipes planned for upcoming dinners. I look forward to sharing more!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


Speaking of spicy Ethiopian, here is the little Ethiopian kitty herself. Sleeping ever so gracefully, with her front arms stretched out and her back legs tucked up. Snoozing kitties are funny sometimes!



And here is a bonus kitty photo for you of Dim Sim! The reason you get a bonus photo of Dim Sim is because we are both very happy today. Five weeks ago I had her senior bloods checked, and her thyroid level came up a little bit high. To treat her hyperthyroidism, she would have had radioiodine therapy and I would have had to leave her at work for three whole weeks, the first week I could not even visit her! But last week I rechecked the T4 level and it was well back into the normal range again. Curious. I am rechecking it again in three months time, but for the moment no I131. And today was the day she was booked to go in, so I am very happy to still have her home with me!



And an extra bonus photo of Gizmo. I can't very well give you a picture of the other two and leave out Miss Giz can I? Absolutely not!

By the way, all photos in today's post come from my awesome new camera. I heart it muchly.

Goodbye Little Brother... Again.

Last year my little brother moved to London. He came back for Christmas and stayed for several weeks. I have already posted about Christmas, but there were several other fun times to be shared.

Cooking for Melissa and Tnee

Greg's best friend Tnee and his wife, Melissa, came over for dinner with their little bub Ella. Greg put the menu together, and I helped out as well.


The main part of dinner was Pasta Norma, which was a naturally vegan recipe from an omni Italian cookbook Greg brought home from London, which was a big plate of penne pasta with tomatoes and eggplant. Very yummy! The eggplant, instead of being cooked in the sauce, was sauteed separately and mixed in at the last minute, and retained a great texture and taste. Greg chose to serve Cos lettuce leaves as well and we made the Basic Balsamic Vinaigrette from 1000 Vegan Recipes. Also on the plate, from the same trusty tome, are some Mushrooms Stuffed with Spinach and Walnuts, which were lovely. However the stuffing seemed to make two to three times more than would fit in the mushrooms!


Dessert was Grilled Orange and Strawberry Skewers from 1000 Vegan Recipes. I wasn't able to grill in the American sense, so I grilled in the Australian sense, which is broiling in the American sense. Delicious fruit marinated in Grand Marnier and then cooked, which I served with ice cream.

A Fleeting Moment In Time - Greg's Concert

My brother is an awesome jazz musician, and he is considered a 'son' of the Brisbane Jazz Club. He had one gig when he was back in the country, and this was it. The BJC itself is situated on the bank of the Brisbane river, and was swamped in the floods, so the event was held at a venue in the Valley. Hopefully lots of money was raised during the night to help them with rebuilding.

Before the gig, my parents and I went to Loving Hut for some vegan pre-show noms.


We started with a plate of Hearty Nuggets, which are just crispy tasty little morsels of vegan protein.


I also enjoyed my favourite Loving Hut drink, the Iced Chai. Delicious!


My mum had the Seven Seas Delight, which is one of my favourites. Vegan protein wrapped in seaweed and smothered in a lively sweet/salty sauce. Served with rice, chilled broccoli and pickled vegetables.


Dad had Crispy Chow Mein, beefy-style protein and vegetables in sauce serve over crispy noodles. Yummy.


I tried something new on the menu - lasagne! And it was goooooood. The creamy sauce was so tasty. I love a vegan lasagne! Not pictured here is my dessert, which was a passionfruit cheesecake. My favourite of their flavours.

Then we headed off the to the gig, which was awesome. It is very special seeing your brother playing so well in front of a packed out venue. Oh, and remember how I said we had his friends Tnee and Melissa over? They happen to also be amazing jazz musicians - Tnee on instrumentals and Melissa with her amazing voice! Check out Melissa's website to find out more!


Here he is, playing on his bass. Super cool.

Farewell Dinner

I made Greg a farewell dinner for his last night. Given his love of Italian food, I chose the Italian Menu from 1000 Vegan Recipes.


First up was Classic Crostini with Black and Green Olive Tapenade. I added some chopped tomato to some of them for a bit of a change. The crostini is essentially baked (toasted) baguette slices. The tapenade is very easy to make (according to my mother who made it, I had to duck into the clinic for a cat emergency).


I couldn't make the salad required by the menu, because I could not find any radicchio. Woe. So instead I made a salad of baby greens and cherry tomatoes and served it with this Italian Dressing from Vegan Vittles, which was light and tangy and a little sweet. Good stuff.


The main was Ziti with Abruzzese Vegetable Ragu, which was loads of penne (I made the whole pound because there were five eating, with lots left over, normally I would use 250g pasta and just have it extra saucy) served with a red wine and tomato sauce with onions, carrots and yellow capsicum - yes, capsicum! Chopped small and stewed the yellow kind is not too bad and didn't hurt my tummy.


Dessert was Sweet Polenta with Grilled Pineapple and Strawberry Sauce, which was very handy to make ahead. The sweet polenta is cooked then chilled in a pan for several hours. I actually grilled the pineapple early in the day on the George Foreman grill and then reheated it in the oven with the polenta. The polenta did not go golden brown, even with a slight increase in temperature. Also, the strawberry sauce takes about three seconds to make.

Goodbye


And then he was gone. *sniff* Here he is heading off at the airport to his flight. The upshot of this is that I was up at 4am today to get him to this flight. I am looking forward to a good sleep tonight!


To console myself, I made this Tapenade and Tomato Pizza from 1000 Vegan Recipes for lunch. It used some left over tapenade and is on one of the yummy fresh vegan pizza bases I get from the local deli. It was nom.

So there he goes, off for another year. Right now he should be approaching his stop over in Korea.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post


Our sweet old boy Possum, stopping to smooch some violets in the front yard. Too beautiful.

(% '1000 Vegan Recipes' Blogged: 8.9%)

Information on QLD Flood Relief.

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.