Recipe Round-Up: But I Could Never Go Vegan

Hello! What a difference a few days makes. Since my last post, I had my wallet stolen (I am fine, it wasn't violent, I didn't even know until a couple of hours later, they got some cash, used my credit card a bit, but I am safe and financially will be OK). Some people are just so rude. I am very sad about the loss of my perfect wallet (pink with a cat on it) and my tokidoki strawberry unicorner mini that I had hanging off it. Anyway, let us distract ourselves with some photos of food, and finish off my current round-up from But I Could Never Go Vegan. As always, see my previous posts here.

Warm Lemony Olive Potato Salad: Dipping back into the salads are boring chapter, this is a lovely salad for cooler months. The potatoes are roasted (it says to use tiny potatoes halved, I just used regular potatoes diced). It is tossed with lemon juice (go easy on the amount, I used an Australian TBS and it was very lemony), baby spinach, rosemary, and olives (I used green).
Rating: :)



Potato & Pea Samosa Cakes with Tamarind Sauce: This recipe and the next are from the 'fake meat freaks me out' chapter. This recipe takes a little bit of prep work, but is very tasty so I think is worth it. I made a half recipe and got 8 little cakes. The recipe says to shape them using a cookie cutter, I have no patience for that so I just shaped them by hand and as you can see they look fine. The tamarind sauce was pretty runny though, but it had a nice and tangy taste. I left out the cayenne from the potato mix, and used a smaller amount of mild curry powder as well. As well as potato, there are onion, carrots, and peas. There was meant to be red capsicum but I just used extra carrot. I served this over a microwave spiced rice mix that I found at the supermarket, and with some steamed broccoli.
Rating: :)



Lentil, Chard & Sweet Potato Curry: This may look like a plate of slop, but it is so yummy! It turned our very soupy looking when I made it, whereas in the picture it looks a bit more solid. Food styling? Anyway, the appearance doesnt mated because it was amazing! I used baby spinach instead of chard, and only a little sprinkle or mild curry powder. Served over some basmati rice. This was amazing.
Rating: :D



Broccoli Cheddar Soup: Heading into the 'not soup again' chapter (people get tired of soup?), this soup uses roasted broccoli, chickpeas, and nutritional yeast. I made this during lockdown last year (yes, some actual recently made recipes! I know some of my round ups have recipes I made 10 years ago... oops), and I used frozen broccoli to make this super pantry friendly because it was that time where you really had to think about making produce stretch out a week or two. This recipe could be a bit cheesier and have more broccoli in it, to be honest. The chickpeas gave it a bit of a texture. I served it with some olive sourdough.
Rating: :| (not bad, just could have been more)



White Bean & Portobello Stew: Another lockdown recipe. I actually used this book more over the past 14 months to get a nice bunch of recipes for the round up. One good thing about working through books in alphabetical order for the round-ups is that it encourages me to actually use them so I can make long boring posts. It's OK if you just scroll for the pictures! Anyway, this is a lovely savoury soup. I made a half recipe and got three small servings or two big servings. It has leeks, carrot, celery, portobellos, white beans, and greens in it. The broth has liquid smoke and miso added for extra good flavour. I served this with some garlic bread, not pictured.
Rating: :)

Butternut, Carmelised Onion, & Porchini Mushroom Pizza: From the 'I'd Miss Pizza' section, this is a unique and wonderful pizza! There is nothing meaty or cheesy about it. The recipe is actually for kabocha, but I used butternut because it is easier for my to cut with my dodgy shoulder. I used shallots to caramelise, because my red onion didn't turn up in the order, and I used the Coles Pizza Dough Ball rather than the recipe from the book. The Coles pizza dough is really good and just helps makes things I bit easier. This pizza is 100% delicious, and I really recommend that everyone make it.
Rating: :D



Red Velvet Beet Smoothie with Cashew Cream Icing: There is a chapter about encouraging people to eat vegetables that they don't like, and this recipe is obviously for those who hate beetroot. Other hated vegetables in the chapter include eggplant, avocado (how? why? who?), cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts. Note there is no capsicum included. But to be honest, no recipe would entice me to eat capsicum again. Anyway, this smoothie! It is a bit special compared to your basic smoothie. The lovely red velvet part has beetroot, strawberries, banana, dates, and cocoa powder to give a magnificent rich flavour. I used frozen bananas and strawberries to make it cold and thick, how I like my smoothies. The icicng is made by blending soaked cashews, water, and sugar. The icing is a fun idea, but to be honest I preferred the smoothie without it.
Rating: :)



Creamy Curried Tempeh Salad with Dried Cherries and Almonds: From the potluck chapter, though I made a 1/2 recipe for a single serve for me for lunch (my family doesn't like tempeh, sadly). I really liked the flavours in this, I of course used a smaller amount of a mild curry powder. But the dried cherries and almonds were a great addition. It suggests serving them fancy style in endive leaves, on a sandwich, or over greens. I went for the final option.
Rating: :)



Rosemary Lemon Pound Cake: This winter, a friend gifted me several giant juicy lemons from her tree. I juiced them so I can have fresh lemon juice for months in my freezer, I have several whole bottles full, but this recipe was the perfect way to use some up. Plus we have a giant rosemary bush in our yard. This is from the 'you can't bake without butter or eggs' chapter. And it uses silken tofu for binding. It also called for melted coconut oil instead of butter, I used melted Nuttelex. This recipe calls for coconut sugar and agave, so it is not the most pantry friendly recipe. I just always happen to have those in my cupboard. It also has a glaze made from lemon juice and icing sugar, though I left that off.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



As much as losing my wallet hurts, I am glad it was not a bag snatch and that they didn't get my phone. Honestly, my phone would hurt more probably. My support system and friends live on my phone. And it lets me take beautiful photos like this one. After I went to bed, sweet Abby came and sat on my legs while I read for a bit. She does this every night, but I was especially grateful for her comforting little body and sweet face after such a stressful day.

Recipe Round-Up: But I Could Never Go Vegan

Hello and welcome back to another proper recipe round-up!I'll be delving into But I Could Never Go Vegan, a book by Kristy Turner. I've had this book for awhile, but it has been languishing a bit on my shelf. You can see some other posts I've made about it here. It has the fun concept of each chapter titled after a reason why someone might claim they could never go vegan, and then the recipes are based around that.

Tempeh Bacon Mac 'N' Cheese with Pecan Parmesan: This is in the 'couldn't live without cheese' chapter. The sauce is a lovely blend of roasted cauliflower and cashews, with a lot of nutritional yeast and other yummy things. I made all the sauce, with just a half recipe for everything else to get the right sauce ratio that I like. If you'd used all the pasta I think it would be a but dry. Instead of making the tempeh bacon crumbles, I used some Veef Bacon Bits (watch for those in an upcoming midweek munchies). It is topped off with some easy to make pecan based parmesan, I just made 1/6 of the recipe for that so I would have just enough to top my mac.
Rating: :)





Mediterranean Tofu Scramble: From the 'tofu doesn't taste like anything' chapter, this has spinach, artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, capers, and olives in it. Unfortunately, the recipe as written ended up being too salty (it uses black salt for that eggy flavour), so please go easy on the salt. I served it with some cucumber, pide bread, and roasted asparagus.
Rating: :| (too salty!)



Creamy Mushroom Fettuccini Alfredo: Also in the tofu chapter, this one uses silken tofu to make the creamy alfredo sauce. My tofu block was a little less than the amount requited, but I had a quarter of a tub of Tofutti Cream Cheese kicking around, so I added that for some extra creamth. As well as the sauteed mushrooms, I also added some peas and spinach. This suffered from being a bit bland, so I needed to up the seasonings in it. I thing sauteeing the mushrooms in some soy sauce would also help with this. But the flavour did improve when I had some for leftovers the next day!

Rating: :) (with appropriate seasoning)


Portobello Steak Frites: From the 'vegan cooking is too hard' section, which is a chapter of recipes that take 35 minutes or less. I love a sauteed portobello and fries, I used to eat something similar a lot when I was at uni (though using frozen fries). Here the mushroom in marinated for about 10 minutes, and during that time you get the chips ready. I didn't have any red-skinned potatoes, so I just used a regular white skinned one. The fries were good, but I would have liked them to be a little crispier. The mushrooms are baked with the fries as well, though they just needed a little something extra. I think pan-frying them in a little vegan butter once they have marinated (rather than baking) would hit that nail on the head perfectly.
Rating: :)



Avocado & White Bean Salad Wraps: This is from the same chapter. The white beans are seasoned and mashed, then added to mashed avocado and some extra seasonings (I left out the chili). This results ina wonderful tangy and creamy spread. In this case it is spread onto some large tortillas with tomato and baby spinach, which go great with the spread. Roll up and cut for a cute presentation. I served it with some roasted broccoli.
Rating: :)



Chickpea Sloppy Joes: The next few recipes are from the 'where's the beef' chapter, for people looking for a 'meaty' sort of meal. I made a half recipe of the sloppy chickpeas (which was enough for three rolls). I left out the sriracha from the mix, and added some celery instead of capsicum. I served it on a Fry's brioche roll with some mayo and baby spinach.
Rating: :)



Thai Seitan Satay with Peanut Sauce: These seitan strips are meant to be served on skewers, but I can rarely be bothered with that. Instead I just grilled them (on my cast iron grill pan, which is giving me a lot of challenges with its seasoning), and served them over coconut rice and spinach. The seitan is marinated before grilling, I left out the curry powder to keep it mild. The sauce is meant to be a spicy dipping sauce, but I left out the hot sauce and I just served it as a sauce over the seitan rather than a dipping sauce. For the seitan, I used some leftover seitan I had from another cookbook.
Rating: :)



Three Pea and Orzo Pistachio Pesto Salad: The final recipe for this post is from the salads chapter. The pesto is a lovely green pistachio and basil affair. The 'three peas' in this are meant to be green peas, chickpeas, and black-eyed peas, but I went rougue and just used some green peas (frozen, I cooked them with the orzo) and white beans... so not even a second pea! The recipe is finished with some feta, and while there is a recipe from tofu feta in the book I used some Sheese Greek-Style that I had already open in the fridge.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Boo, peeking around the top of the stairs. This looks cute, though unfortunately will often end in her trying to stalk up to Abby and pick a fight. If I hear growling, I know I have to run to break it up with distraction techniques! Boo just needs to chill out!

Midweek Muchies

It's the middle of the week and we are munching!

Starting off with an easy meal of some Beef and Black Bean. Using a bottle of Black Bean stir-fry sauce and some Fry's Strips. I stirfried it all up with some broccoli and served over rice. The sauce was not bad, I'd use it again for a quick meal. But the Fry's Strips just weren't great. They had a weird flavour to them, the same flavour that their mince has, that just overpowers everything a bit. A shame because I normally love Fry's products.





Another quick meal! This time courtesy of the Nature's Kitchen range from Coles. Their Lentil Bolognese Ravioli and the Veggie Sauce. The Ravioli were nice, they had a good texture and flavour. The sauce was a bit meh though. Also full of tiny pieces of capsicum. But I'd get the ravioli again. I added some peas to the mix, served it over baby spinach, and sprinkled with some FYH parmesan.





This may not look like much, but this is a jar of deliciousness! I dropped off some goodies to a bake sale a while ago, and I had to pick up one of Lisa's famous smoked salmon cream cheese jars. The salmon is carrots, and it is cashew based, and it apparently takes three days to make. It is full of dill, and I love it. Always have to get some any time they are at a bake sale!



Last year when we were all stocking up our pantries with whatever shelf stable food we could find, I bought this tin of Shiitake mushrooms. It languished for ages, until I eventually used it in some recipes. They pretty much just taste like watery tinned mushrooms, the shiitake flavour is lost. I wouldn't buy them again under normal circumstances, I prefer rehydrated dried shiitake to these in the absence of fresh ones.


Some fun dried fruit snacks! The dried jackfruit was quite sweet and had a unique flavour. The aloe vera and ginger mostly tastes like crystallised ginger, which is fine because I like crystallised ginger.



I made these oats using frozen blueberries and brown sugar, and topped them with peanut butter and pepitas. I've been enjoying a lot of hot oats over the cooler months, though things are sadly getting warmer now.



Finally, another frozen meal that I have been relying on a lot for nights I get home late. This Plantry Lasagne is not quite as good as the Earth One, but is still very nice.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Yes, cats are back. For the most part, I think. So please enjoy this photo of Abby looking very cute but also slightly annoyed that I am taking her photo yet again.

Boo!

Hello, please give a blog welcome to Boo!



We adopted Boo about two months ago, and she is four and a half years old. Boo's profile said she was a calm kitty who loved sleeping in laps, which sounded perfect as feline friend for my mum. She has been in foster care for about two an a half years, after her original person passed away. Poor Boo, she's been looking for her forever home since.



Once she arrived into our home, she decided that in fact she is a very active play driven easily bored kitty! She loves to play with interactive toys!! She will run and jump and leap after them, and we need to keep her entertained. Her previously demure attitude to life was a cunning ploy to get into a home where she could stretch her rather long legs our and be extremely silly.



Boo and Abby are not getting along so great. I actually had a behaviourist out a couple of weeks ago to help stop them from fighting, which was really good. Abby pretty much still stays upstairs and is shy except with me (though she is better with my dad and also working on getting her used to my mum). Boo is mostly downstairs, but is such a curious kitty she loves coming up to have a peek at Abby.



While we are still all finding out feet together, Boo has become a beloved member of the family. So I hope you will look forward to seeing her pop up on the blog in the future.

Cranky's Farm Open Day

A few weeks ago, my friend Amy and I took a little road trip out to Cranky's Farm for their open day. I was so excited, it had been a long time since I had been to a farm animal sanctuary, and we both needed a pick me up from the joy that comes from seeing animals just doing their things and being happy and at peace.

We arrived right as the first tour of the cow paddock was about to start. It was a huge paddock, with a steep slope. And did I mention it was extremely windy? It was SO WINDY! But that was OK. That meant that by the time I was all rugged up with a hoodie, sunglasses, and a mask there was very little exposed skin for the sun to attack. Of course, sunscreen was applied liberally. The event was meant to have masks mandatory unless you were eating, but probably only about a quarter of us had maskes on, and it wasn't being enforced, which was dissapointing. It was during a post-lockdown period where there was still a mask mandate. Sigh. At least there was lots of space to keep our distance most of the time!

But back to the cows! Who also shared their paddock with some cutie donkeys named Jack and Hannah. As was only right, there was a lot of respect given to the cows and how they wanted to interact. Several of them didn't want to interact at all, which was fine. I patted a lovely boy called Fifteen. And I spied my sponsor cow Freckles from a far. Freckles is a shy boy. The donkeys had no respect for the boundaries of humans though, and would nudge us freely with their noses to get more pats!



Hannah has diabetes, and so she has these extra fatty deposits on her neck and her butt. It gives her a cutie little bootie. But she is being managed very well at the farm.



We visited with their horse Lopez, who is a rescued ex-trotter. I have a very special place in my heart for horses, and I am always delighted to see them being able to just be horses and not have to perform. I got to feed him some carrots, I love their velvety lips!



Our next stop was to visit the goats and the chickens!







I was very excited to meet a very special goat who I also sponsor. Her name is Mrs Black aka Mumma. She is a very senior goat, so she spends her days in her own little area away from the shenanigans of the younger goats that are too much for her. The farm gives a lot of love and attention to her to help her with her little arthritic joints and old lady needs. Visiting with her was very special, she loved gettting scritches.



Sweetpea is a little pigglet who recently was rescued. At the moment she lives in the house and is apparently toilet trained! She is very cute and cheeky. She made a little guest appearance.



A break for lunch, which was provided. They had a lot of food that they were loading up plates with. My plate had two different types of pasta salad, a sausage, a bolognese pie, and some falafel. They also had a bake sale stall there.



Sonny the pig was chilling in his paddock for the day, he accepted some pats. Pigs are very amazing.



After lunch, we took a walk down another very steep paddock in the big wind to see the dam where a platypus lives. I was so hoping to see a platypus!!!! Sadly, there was no platypus to be seen. I suspect the wind meant that they decided to stay nice and sheltered some where. So please enjoy this pretty photo, and know that a platypus does live there, and was there somewhere, even if we didn't see them.



Our final visit was with Spring, the superstar goatling! Spring is about eight months old. She was rescued as a tiny goat along with her brother, but Spring had very contracted tendons, and some genetic issues that meant she was was smaller than she should have been. Her brother Nicholas is now out and about with the other goats. But Spring lives in the house. She had a long road of leg splinting to help her walk, and now she walks amazingly! She has her own instagram page, and I definitely didn't want to leave without a glimpse! To keep her from getting overwhelmed, they wisely only brought her out for a short time on her terms. She is SO CUTE! And such a floof.



After this we were ready to make our drive back to Brisbane. I was looking forward to a hot shower! But it was such a wonderful day. I hope to go out there again sometime, and perhaps get a glimpse of the elusive platypus! We are very lucky in Brisbane to have several farm animal sanctuaries surrounding us, doing so much really good work. I am glad that these animals have a safe space to go. I wish that could be extended to all the animals.

Midweek Munchies

Who feels like some cake? Well, Woolworths released a super cute mini vegan Biscoff Cake a while ago. And the verdict is that it is gooood. The flavour is great! As you can see, it is a fun little layer cake. A bit too much icing for me, but the cake part is lovely and I am glad that this seems to be sticking around.







I got these Macro Mike protein bars ages ago. One in a mystery box, one that I bought. I finally decided to eat them. But alas, they are strongly coconut oily. And that sort of takes over any other flavour I could taste. I did eat them, but could only manage about one quarter of a bar at a time.



I got this Licorice and Cinnamon Pukka tea, and it is amazing. As you can see, it also has cocoa in it. I have just had it straight, and I love the sweet and warming flavour of it. But I think it would probably be nice with a splash of soy milk in it as well. Maybe I'll try that with afternoon tea! Anyway, this is my current favourite non-peppermint tea.



Some Ginger and Turmeric Kraut I found. It was pretty nice! The turmeric and ginger flavour was barely noticeable though.



I ordered this Green Lion Lasagne from the Vegan Grocery Store when I did a big order than included frozen things. It was pretty underwhelming though. It seemed to have a curry flavour to it, which was not what I was expecting or wanting. Plus it was kind of dry as well.





Finally, I saw one of the coconut based flavours of So Delicious on clearance, so I thought I'd try it. The Very Berry flavour had the swirl like the ones I posted about previously. It was just on the border of being too coconut fatty for me. I was able to eat it, but I will stick to the nut based flavours from now on.