Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my birthday! By yesterday I mean Saturday the 7th, but as I am typing this I am pretty sure it is still my birthday in parts of the US. I woke up today, the day after my birthday, to the news that Biden will be president. Thank goodness! A birthday on a Saturday is a special birthday, people can do things! Not that I am one for big gatherings. But then COVID happened. But now my state has not had any community transmitted cases for over 50 days! So... I could do something very small. I had planned to just go out to lunch with my friend Amy, but then with all the Dim Sim stuff I didn't want to not be with her on my birthday. So in the end Amy came over and brought lunch and I made cake and we had a really good chat. She is the first friend I have seen that wasn't work related in over six months. It felt wild to have someone over in the house! But very nice as well. Here's to slowly (and safely) re-entering the world... and by world I mean my specific small area of the world where COVID is (touch wood) pretty much under control for the moment.

But I know you are here for the food! I need to start on the night before my birthday, because leftovers from the night before became a very important morning of breakfast.

Pizza Margherita from Chloe's Italian Kitchen: Yes, pizza! This is a super easy and simple pizza to make. I used my go-to dough recipe from Vegan Pizza and Leggo's Pizza Sauce for the base. The dough is seasoned with garlic powder and salt before you put the sauce on, which was a nice touch. Thinly sliced tomato, fresh basil, and a cashew-based mozzarella sauce go on top. The sauce was super easy to make. This pizz was simple, fresh, and fast, but delightful. And it help up very well for breakfast the next morning.
Rating: :)



Amy brought lunch with her from Cafe O'Mai, my favourite Vietnamese place in Brisbane. We had tofu banh mi, and tofu rice paper rolls. So fresh and delicious.





Chocolate Cherry Coffee Cake from Chloe's Italian Kitchen: I made a cake! I love chocolate and cherry, and I love the crumb on coffee cakes, so this was a great pick. It was easy to make, and I could assemble it the day before, pop it in the fridge, and then bake in the morning so I wasn't having to run around in the kitchen on my birthday morning. It was very yummy, but it needed more cherries!!
Rating: :)



For dinner we got delivery, and I had a place in mind. I had seen Cheeky Poke Bar as a new addition for delivery, and a giant bowl of things seemed perfect. I got the Signature Tofu Bowl, which had tofu, quinoa, spring onions, broccoli, kale, cabbage, beetroot, pickled ginger, miso tahini, fried shallots, avocado, nori, and sesame. I got them to leave off the togarashi, as that can be quite spicy and I have some at home so I can control the amount. I also added enoki mushrooms. This was delicious, just what I wanted! They also have a signature mushroom bowl that is vegan, as well as the option to create your own bowls, so I will definitely be ordering from them again.



As for non-food things, the evening just happened to co-incide with a Kylie Minogue online streaming event for her new album release. I love Kylie, I have since I was little, and I love her still. So I bought a ticket and watched a wonderful performance on my TV! While eating a poke bowl! With my cat! What a great way to pass the evening. With my ticket I also get a copy of her new CD, so I am looking forward to that arriving because there were some great songs I look forward to singing along to.

And presents! I am getting a new phone soon, so a contribution to that is my main present. But I also got two books - a new cookbook and a novel I am super excited to read because the protagonist is ace and aro, just like me! I also got a mysterious box of goodies from the Cruelty Free Shop, which was from my sweet friend Jojo. I am especially excited to try the chai mix. It is a cool day here, so I think a mug of that with a slice of leftover cake is on the agenda for this afternoon.





Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Birthday selfie with my girl.

Beltane 2020

I know that spooooooky season has just ended (though the horror of the world continues). I have never much been one for Halloween. I didn't grow up with it, and I just do not like food that is made to look like gross body parts. I don't want to eat it. Or look at it. Halloween has been growing in popularity in Australia, but I remain unmoved. Though I love seeing my friends getting a lot of joy out of it. Why am I talking about Halloween in a post about Beltane? Because in the Northern hemisphere, Halloween lines up with Samhain, and it is a nice autumny time. In Australia, it is spring but really it is already summer where I live in. And because our year of the wheel for sabbats is the opposite down here, the 31st of October is actually time to celebrate Beltane.

Beltane (31st October - 1st November, 2020)

Beltane is between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and it celebrates life and fertility. Beltane fires are a common theme, but I did not light any fires here. And I certainly didn't jump over them. And certainly not with another human. Nor did I make a Maypole. Instead, I did what I do best and celebrated with food. All the recipes I made ended up being from books written by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau! That wasn't a concious decision, it just worked out that way.

Strawberry Lemonade from Color Me Vegan: My first time making homemade lemonade, it it won't be my last. In fact, I have another recipe chilling in my fridge as I type this. Strawberries are just going out of season here, so I made the most of them with this gorgeous drink. It is really nice and tangy, with the right amount of sugar and a good flavour balance. It did foam up a lot in the blender, which you can see here. But delicious.
Rating: :)



Pasta Primavera from The Vegan Table: Spring vegetables is a great way to celebrate Beltane, and this very simple pasta dish was packed with carrots, zucchini, asparagus, tomatoes, and basil. Also some olives. I left out the capsicum, scallions, and red pepper flakes. I made this with 8oz (250g) of pasta rather than 12oz (which the book says would be 160g of pasta, which is just completely wrong), and because I was using less pasta I only used 3/4 cup or stock rather than 1 cup for the final simmer. The next day I had the leftovers made into a pasta salad, with some Vegenaise, nooch, and chopped celery added. I love turning pasta leftovers into pasta salads, inspired by Food for Dissertating.
Rating: :)





Fruity Spinach Salad: I picked this salad because spinach is a great spring vegetable, and it had berries in the dressing, also very Beltane. The dressing is a really nice blend of raspberries (I used frozen ones, thawed out) and seasoned rice vinegar. I made a half recipe of the dressing, and kind of just went by feel for the rest of the ingreidents. But it has baby spinach, oranges, cucumbers, slivered almonds (that I used instead of chopped macadamias), and sunflower seeds in it. It was also meant to have poppy seeds in it, but I was out.
Rating: :)



Raspberry Oatmeal Bars from The Joy of Vegan Baking: This recipe is so quick and easy to make! It is a simple crumble of flour, brown sugar, oats, and Nuttelex that is pressed into the base, covered in raspberry jam, and then sprinkled with more of the oat crumble mix. The only think you need to think about is remembering to take your Nuttelex out to soften.
Rating: :)



And here is my dinner all together.



The next day I did not wash my face in the morning dew, as some people speak about. That would not really work here. But I did have a lovely breakfast of crumpets with rice malt syrup (instead of honey) and some fresh strawberries on the side.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Just a couple of cuties.

Art and Stuff

We are still in uncertain times right now, so here is a post of some pretty art and other pretty things that I have bought lately. I love surrounding myself with pretty and adorable things, and also love supporting some of my favourite small artists.

Some cute mini-prints I got off Society 6. The 'cat landscapes' are by Lim Heng Swee and the two lovely ladies are by Ariel Sinha.



Also off Society 6 I bought these by Vashti Harison, two mini prints of magical princesses and a larger print of a black cat.





Some patreon rewards and some ordered stuff from Heidiroo, who happens to be an awesome vegan person and cat advocate. She also recently released her first book, Working From Home With Your Cat, that I am excited to get.





Some gorgeous prints from Stine Greve. I have some more stuff on order from her at the moment as well.



I'm awaiting some breathtaking artwork from Fatties and Feelings in the post, but here is a colouring in page that I printed off their patreon and coloured.



I have posted about art from Bunny Dee many times, and here are a couple of new additions. Unfortunately my most recent prints arrived with water damage from their journey, but they will be resent with some other fun stuff in my next order. Most excitingly here is that the Luna Moth Cat print is an ORIGINAL! I won it in a raffle she did on Instagram, and it is SO GORGEOUS.





I signed up to Sugar & Sloth's Tiny Party Club, a monthly subscription box of cuteness. The postage from the UK is actually pretty reasonable, so why not have something fun. Plus all the shipping materials are plastic free! Below are my first three boxes: Glitter Dinosaur Space Explorers, Chonky Tea Party, and Spoopy Bees. My November box, Rainy Day Penguins, is on the way. I also bought some awesome cat-related badges.









Finally, some pre-ordered t-shirts. Sugar & Sloth has a monthly tee that you can pre-order, it is only available for the month, and every shirt purchased means a tree planted! How cool! I had to get this month's gay dino t-shirt. Kiss who you want! In my case I don't want to kiss anyone, which is totally valid. Vegan clothing company Compassion Co has also been doing a lot of awesome pre-order, limited run designs to help keep afloat during COVID. This gorgeous Liberation is Love design really spoke to me.



As I mentioned above, I have more art on the way! Inlcuding a new commissioned family portrait. I hope you don't mind these non-food posts, I just think they are a nice break at the moment. I hope you have enjoyed seeing some plants and some art over the last two days.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Not To Be Dramatic But I Would Die For My Cat.

Plants in my garden

Hi everyone, thank you so much for your kind words and love for Dim Sim.

Today is a rough day for the world, it is the day of the US election. I am nervous about it here in Australia, so can only imagine how it feels to be there right now. I love you!

With everything right now, posting about food is not on my mind. But I thought I'd share some nice photos I had taken over the past several weeks from my garden. A nice calming post.

The jasmine blooms earlier every year it seems, but while the flowers only have a short time I just love their smell.



A pretty pink hibiscus.



Gizmo's memorial ficus tree.



Azaleas.



Our cherry tomato plant! Mum has been growing it, and it has survived! We have been enjoying fresh picked cherry tomatoes. The mesh surrounding it was to protect the growing plant from hungry possum friends.







Our New South Wales Christmas Bush.



And finally, not from the garden, but a beautiful bunch of flowers my friend Michelle sent me after getting the news about Dim Sim.



Stay safe friends, and look after yourself

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



May we all find the level of peace as Dim Sim does when she is snoozing.

Dim Sim update

Hi friends.



Those who are on IG/Twitter may have already seen this, but we have Dim Sim's results back and the results are not good. She has an extensive carcinoma in her bladder, and it is also in a lymph node. Plus she has some other sorts of masses in her liver, currently of unknown significance. This is not the sort of cancer that we can cure, all we can do is treat to palliate and hope for as much time as possible. I have taken her to see a veterinary oncologist, and we are starting some oral chemotherapy that will hopefully delay the progression. But we are talking six months if we are very lucky.

It is hard to wrap my head around, because she is so normal in herself. Which is good, she is doing all her things and she does not have a lot of clinical signs from it. We have been together so long, surely we should be able to be together forever??

I haven't been blogging for the last couple of weeks, as I have been going through a lot of emotions. With Gizmo I didn't blog at all, with Sahara I blogged a bit to keep some sort of routine. I am not sure where I will fall this time. We'll see. At the moment the only difference is she pees an extra time a day and she is going to be on some more medications. We will be seeing the oncologist every couple of weeks going forward to monitor.

Midweek Munchies

Some random things...

When I was growing up, 'Tuna Glug' was a fond favourite in our household. So much so that I veganised it for MoFo one year. A while ago Mum and I made this new version of it: Baked Bean Glug! We kept things easy by layering cooked rice, spinach, creamed corn, a big tin of baked beans, frozen peas and corn, some sliced tomato, and Daiya cheddar shreads, then into the microwave it went. This was good.





I picked up this Vegglove Cake on sale one day for $4 instead of the usual $7, which I would never pay. It was OK. The top layer was sort of a gelled berry slice on top of a crumbly base. They have some other flavours, but they all seem heavy on the coconut cream, so this is the only one I tried. I'd get it again if it was on an even better sale, otherwise I wouldn't bother.



I got this on sale one day from Woolworths, a vegan gluten free pasta. It has actual vegan cheese on it, which I appreciated, and the roasted veggies and sauce were good... but oh boy that gluten free pasta. It was thick and grainy. I am sure I have had gluten free lasagne sheets before that were not like that, so they need to improve their pasta work!



This little bag of flavoured almonds came in a CFS Mystery Box ages ago, and I found it languishing in a container of stuff. I am sorry I waited so long, because they were extremely delicious. However the raspberry flavouring could have been stronger.



Fry's has come out with some newer products, though the term newer is relative because I was late to the party with these balls. They are nicely flavoured, have a crunchy little outside and are nice and soft on the inside. Would recommend.



Finally, this tin of soup! It is soup... for my family! (If you know, you know, and you will laugh with me because soup for my family will never not be funny to me.) This was a totally adequate veggie soup, that is handy to have around. I would suggest adding some nutritional yeast to it (because duh) and serving it with a toasted cheese sandwich.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This little baby was the bravest girl yesterday, she had her needle aspirate without needing any sedation! And she was so sweet when we got home, she doesn't hold grudges. No results yet, hopefully tomorrow. We'll see.

Eating In: Stir-Fries, Sandwiches, Salads

Some more delivered or taken away foods that I ate.

When scouring all the restaurants on delivery apps for vegan options, I came across Kingsfood Chinese Restaurant, which helpfully has a few options clearly marked vegan. I got the tofu and veggies with rice as my first offering, which was lovely. The next time I sampled some of the vegan spring rolls (which were pretty much your standard spring roll), and I got the Combination Vegetarian Delight in Garlic Sauce. I was feeling like a whole bunch of veggies, and this was just a whole bunch of veggies and mushrooms. Though unfortunately it was super oily, which was sad.







One day I had to get petrol on my way from somewhere to somewhere, and I knew I needed to get something to eat. 7-Eleven now has a range of vegan options in their grab and go cases! They have a vegan pie, vegan sausage roll, falafel and salad wrap, vegan chicken salad sandwich, and a vegan egg salad sandwich. I went for the egg salad sandwich, which had a really nice tofu and mayo filling and crunchy lettuce. The only thing was it lacks a little in flavour, I would have loved some mustard on it.



Swinging by my beloved The Green Edge as I moved between clinics, I was sad to see that their grab and go fridge was devoid of their chicken caesar salad, and the only wraps in there had sweet chilli sauce in them. So I ended up ordering a salad wrap, minus the capsicum, add in some crispy chicken, to go. As I had to wait a little bit for it to be ready, I ended up spending a bit of time browsing and buying some fun things that you will see in upcoming Midweek Munchies posts!



The Green Edge recently closed for a couple of weeks for renovations, I am super excited to see what they have done with the place. But it happened to be one of those times I needed to get lunch between clinics. So I popped by Botanica, an fancy all vegetarian salad place that always has vegan options and is just around the corner from work. I got a small box, which was enough for lunch and dinner. They pack it full and it is filling! I got the roasted carrot and quinoa salad with tahini dressing, the raw broccoli cashew and cranberry salad, and the rice, pumpkin, spinach, and soy salad. I've had these salads before, and they are all great. I just have to remember in future though that even though the salad tastes amazing, my guts do not enjoy a lot of raw broccoli! I also got a juice from their cabinent, and one of their vegan brownies.





Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I am typing this post three hours before we are going in to get her bladder masses needle aspirated, though it will still be a few days until we have any results.