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.

The dinner choir sings!

I've been talking about food a lot. Not so much about kitties. But don't worry, I have many, many stories to tell, and I love to talk about the kitties. My cats get fed breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper. Set amounts for the day, but divided up. Dinner is met with exreme enthusiasm, as it is the 'non-biscuit' meal of the day. I try and make dinner shortly before sun down, so in theory it should become later as the days become longer. Not so, according to the cats. Specifically, according to Sahara. At almost 4.15pm every afternoon, she jumps up from where ever she may be snoozing, and begins the dinner choir for the next hour until dinner finally appears, usually around 5.30pm or so. It is uncanny her timing! Almost on the dot!

So, because I love talking about my kitties, I thought I might introduce Sahara to those who don't know her. Sahara is my most recent kitty friend. She was rehomed to me following a business card I picked up at the Royal Easter Show in 2003. She's a beautiful cinnamon Abyssinian kitty. She only has one eye, she lost the other to a particularly bad bout for feline herpes (an upper respiratory tract infection) when she was just a wee kitty. Not that it has slowed her down at all - she is precision plus when it comes to catching things! Sahara is my youngest, born on the 28th of August, 2001. She came to me when she was 18 months old. She is really the cheekiest little cat I have ever met. But she is so sweet and loving, that she can get away with almost anything. She especially loves great big bear hugs, which gave her the nickname SaraBear or Bear. Also nicknamed Minx, Slinky, Cheeky, Pumpkin Belly or simply Sara for short.

Here are some photos of her for your viewing pleasure:

Sahara posing (she is the biggest poser), with the lady bug cat nip toy I got her for her 7th birthday.

Speaking of food... Christmas morning 2007, and Sahara thought she might join us for our family breakfast.

Sahara reads Veganomicon. What a very well read cat!

I still have two more kitties to introduce to you, and loads more kitty stories to tell, so I hope you enjoy the cats - there's lots more to come!

Today's Vegan Food Porn

And as always, some vegan food porn for the folks at home. Digging into The Vault again!


This is a delicious vegan indian feast I made from (yes!) Veganomicon. To the right are Samosa Stuffed Baked Potatoes, and on the left is Sauteed Spinach and Tomatoes with basmati rice. In the middle there is a bowl of 5 Minute Mango Chutney. Delicious!

Food that heals.

You know the feeling, where you wake up. Your head is sore and fuzzy, the joints are achy, the throat is throaty... and you have 'flu'. OK, not the real influenza. I had the joy of that last year, and if that was the case I wouldn't be awake, let alone blogging! But flu-ish enough that you are not up to functioning in the normal world.

On days like this, I always try to get up and showered, and remove myself from the bedroom. To 'the nest'. The nest involves a sofa, the TV, DVDs, a pillow, blankets, kittens and, now, a laptop. So entertainment and naps are on tap.

I tend to have a strange appetite when I am sick. Ranging between feeling like I couldn't even look at food, to ravenous cravings for the most unhealthy and horrible stuff. So today have alternatively craved jam roll (thanks Baker's Delight!), salt and pepper chips, and slab cut fries. Hardly the stuff of nutritious legends.

But the food I crave the most when I am ill is soup. Specifically hot and sour soup, though a sweet corn soup or a miso soup (even out of a -gasp- instant package) makes a good second. Unfortunately, my takeaway hot and sour soup tonight was more hot than sour and a little underwhelming. But a good hot and sour soup just seems to soothe all the aches away!

My favourite hot and sour soup comes from Veganomicon (I swear, I do own more cookbooks!). I haven't made it for a while, but here is a picture of it for your viewing pleasure:



It is fabulous. And just hits the spot when you are feeling a little bit down.

So the point of all of this blogging, is that I was wondering if anyone else (of the few people reading) would care to share their favourite foods for feeling ill. Especially those super easy to make foods for those of us who end up sick all on our own. Kittens a great, but they lack certain culinary skills.

Supernatural musings, with bonus food.

Once again, at the clinic. And what does one do when one is at the clinic? Watch Supernatural and have random thoughts.

Jensen Ackles has got to be one of the tastiest morsels ever to present himself onto my TV screen. I bow before the almighty ZB for showing me the light and bringing the Ackles and his perfect, pouty, ducky lips into my life. Hurrah for Supernatural! Oh no, Sam is getting one of his 'headaches' - cue squinchy eyes and pinching of the forehead! Can we get back to Dean please?

Alas, being at the clinic means no exciting new food made today. But because I have a zillion photos of past foods, I thought I might share something from 'The Vault'.

With the warmer days and nights coming on - especially these last few - it is time to be thinking of food more suited to summer. This was an amazing dinner I made early this year, when the nights were just as balmy. It is Butternut Squash Rice Paper Rolls and Corn and Edamame Sesame Salad, both courtesy of the fabulous Veganomicon.






Sorry for the randomness of these posts. I am in training for VeganFoMo in October!

A very first blog.

A very first blog post on a new blog! Oh the excitement - who will read it? Who will ignore it? Who wants to look at pictures of vegan food and kittens galore?

I am currently on call at the clinic, watching Supernatural and moseying around the internet. I have really nothing interesting to say in this first post, but I thought I would post a photo of vegan cake (because, you know, awesome), to at least make something in this post worthwhile!



It is a Raspberry Blackout Cake with Ganache frosting that I made for my friend's birthday party this year. From Vegan With A Vengeance.

Stay tuned for more ramblings!