A New Year

I am not a New Year's person. I don't do resolutions. I don't really get excited that a change in the year is going to bring all sorts of new changes and excitement. Especially not this year, which was the first time waking up in a new year without any of my girls. I do still have a few food traditions though, because why not. So here they are.

Pumpkin Pizza from Cooking With Kindness: I always make pizza for dinner on New Year's Eve. This year I picked a simple pumpkin and feta pizza from one of my cookbooks (that I haven't really spoken about yet, but eventually will get its own post). Store-bought pizza dough (as opposed to pre-cooked pizza bases) has recently become available here, so I tried out one of them (which I will picture below). I wouldn't use this brand again. Even following the instructions, the dough didn't rise and it was so sticky and hard to spread out that I almost thought I was going to have to abort the whole thing. But, onto the pizza itself. I used some Leggo's Pizza Sauce to spread on (rather than just some crushed tinned tomatoes). It is topped with roasted butternut, sliced shallots, kalamata olives, Sheese Feta, and some leftover mozzarella sauce I had in the freezer from another cookbook. It was a wonderful mix of salty and sweet, and the feta and the cheese sauce melted into a wonderful stretchy mess.
Rating: :)





Normally we follow up our pizza with some pie for dessert. I rarely make pies, they are effort, and this is one time of year I will make something fun. But this year, there was no energy or excitement for it. So I just went the easy route by heating up some individual Nanna's Vegan Apple and Rhubarb pies in the oven, and serving with some ice cream from my freezer stash.



Marmalade Pancakes from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen: New Year's Day is pancakes for breakfast day. And I am glad that I found the energy to make these as they were really nice. These had marmalade and dark chocolate chips gentle mixed through the batter. I got six regular sized pancakes and two bitty pancakes out of this. The recipe suggests serving dusted with powdered sugar, but that was a step too far for me for breakfast, so we went with maple syrup. Also served with some grapes. My brother lives in Spain with his partner and near her family, and apparently at midnight on New Years it is traditional in Spain to eat green grapes. I certainly was not up at midnight, but these were a nice fresh addition to our breakfast table.
Rating: :)



Black-Eyed Peas from Vegan Diner: After pizza and pie and pancakes, I like my New Year's Day dinner to get back to basics with beans and greens and grains. I often will make something involving black-eyed peas, as these are traditionally served in parts of the US. Aside from brief moment in time, we can't get tinned black-eyed peas here, so it involves having some home cooked in the freezer, which I did not have. But I did have some dried one, and this recipe blessedly calls for those. I had soaked them over night before cooking. I made a half recipe of this, which gave three serves over rice. I left out the capsicum, but also added some chopped tomato and a lot of baby spinach (this recipe on its own doesn't have greens in it).
Rating: :)



It is Easter Monday as I write this, and I am still waiting for my COVID test result. I don't have any food traditions with Easter except for a lot of hot cross buns, which I achieved. I also had bought a few vegan Easter eggs I was looking forward to trying yesterday, but because I have been sick my appetite is a bit wonky so I will save them for another time.