Midweek Munchies

It's the middle of the week, or at least it is in Australia, so let's celebrate with some snacks!

Like this very thoughtful box of Treat Dreams chocolate that my good friend Leigh sent me. It had caramel filled bears (which I have had before), Hazel Bunnies (which I ripped into and were delicious), and a Dark Chocolate Fleur De Sel bar. I haven't eaten the salted chocolate bar yet because I am trying to work through my stash of chocolate bars in order of expiry date, so I shall report back once that has happened.



Woolworths brought out a Vegan Apple Pie. It is in the fridge section in the bakery, and is heated up in the oven. It is pretty good!





You know how I am with coconut stuff, so I have never bought coconut kefir because I thought it might make me sick. I saw this one on a super clearance sale, so thought I'd give it a go because $2 is not a big loss. Hahahaha. OMG, this is one of the foulest things I have ever tried. I could bearly swallow it. I tipped the rest down the sink. Imagine sour fizzy coconut milk. No no no.



I bought these Meet Tenders and was looking for something fun to do with them, so I checked out their website and decided to try out the Hokkien Mee. The recipe calls for 600g udon noodles today, I used 450g. I also added extra snow peas and baby spinach. For the tufu I used a but of the Soyco Japanese Marinated tofu. The sauce made a lot, and I had to simmer for quite a while and eventually add a bit of arrowroot to help it thicken, but it tasted good. As for the tenders, they were a bit meh on their own, and a bit oily overall.





I didn't buy these, but I saw these in Woolworths and it is good to know I can get them there for future baking projects.



Some biscuits! I bought a bunch of biscuits awhile ago, I have finally worked through them. The Lotus Biscoff ones are a biscoff biscuit with a biscoff cream... sounds amazing, right? And they do taste great! But they are very insubstantial, you could eat a whole lot before you even feel a little bit full. Same goes for the Ritz Sweet N' Salty. Normally I would say the same for Oreos, but these flavoured Oreos are not like that! First up, I bought these earlier in the year, and I wasn't sure if I would even share this post because of the Nabisco strike. However, the strike has now ended with the workers being offered better terms. In Australia, we don't get all the superfun flavours of Oreo that the US get, so I was excited to see these were vegan! My favourite was definitely the Birthday Cake. Sprinkles in the filling, so fun! The S'Mores icing wasn't really obviously marshmallow flavoured. They were more like a fun chocolate and vanilla icing mix.



A final ending with a good drink. This grape flavoured kombucha was really fun!



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Today is Boo's last day as a lamp shade! Tomorrow she gets her sutures out and her cone can come off! She's been such a good girl about having it on for the last two weeks.

Recipe Round-Up: 1000 Vegan Recipes

Small bites is definitely the best way to work through the huge backlog of photos I have to share from 1000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson. And as a bonus, it's also been inspiring me to make a couple of new things from it as well! I haven't cooked much from this book for a couple of years, because I have so many new cookbooks, so it is nice to be diving back in again. Anyway, here are the next four recipes to share with you in this mini round-up.

Grilled Tofu with Tamarind Glaze: I love tamarind, and this recipe makes a beautiful tangy and sweet glaze that has a lot of grate flavours in it. I grilled the tofu quickly in a George Foreman grill to get the grill marks, then baked it in the oven to finish it off. Served with rice and broccoli, and extra tamarind sauce.
Rating: :)



Tofu Stuffed with Watercress and Tomatoes: This is a fiddly recipe, as you can see, but it looks pretty. I always struggle with any sort of stuffing tofu as I tend to break it, so I always try to be very gentle and not overfill. In this case tofu is sliced to form a pocket, stuffed with fresh mix of watercress, tomatoes, and others, coated in breadcrumbs, and sauteed until golden. I served this with some potatoes and a salad for a pretty dinner.
Rating: :)



Tofu with Pistachio-Pomegranate Sauce: Another sweet and tangy sauce, though I had some issues with not having enough sauce and the pistachios were just too much texture wise. I would suggest doubling the sauce recipe, but only using half the original amount of the nuts (and no need to add extra nuts for garnish, there is plenty in the sauce). But it was nice flavours! Served with rice and salad.
Rating: :| (due to texture and not enough sauce issues)



Spice Island Tofu: The tofu is coated in seasoned cornstarch and fried first, then coated in the sauce. It leads to a good bend of flavours. The sauce is kind of a little bit sweet and a little bit sour... a bit of a theme for this post! It has pineapple in it, so I was worried it might end up a bit sweet, but it was just right. As with many of the other recipes in this post, it was best served with some simple flavours - in this case rice and steamed broccoli.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Abby would like you to know that she is still extremely cute. All this fuss over Boo, she says. What about my adoring fans?

Eating In (Mostly): A Random Assortment

Here's a selection of foods I have taken away or had delivered...

Grill'd has a new vegan range using the Fable Mushroom Meat as a patty, and it is delicious! I hadn't tried Fable from the supermarkets before because it is expensive and has coconut oil so I didn't want to risk it. Trying it out in a patty seemed a lower risk option. And it was awesome. I love the mushroom flavour. I got the Vegan Fable Southern BBQ Burger with pineapple added, plus some chips. A very good meal!



Here is the mostly part, because I actually at this in a food court. This is the vegan ramen from Shinobi Ramen in Westfield Carindale. You get the vegetarian one, but without the egg. It is really lovely, though I wish they added some tofu. But all the veggies in it are very nice.



Also at Westfield Carindale, I stopped by the Nodo's pop up for a vegan doughnut. Their option this time was a chocolate raspberry doughnut, which was lovely. I very much enjoyed the tang of the raspberry icing.



A Ginger and Lime Sugarcane Juice from my beloved Huey's sugarcane, which is closing... I think as I type this it is actually closed. RIP Hueys. I don't know why, because they were always busy. I will miss them. I still have a few more drinks to share from them in upcoming posts.



I picked up my favourite Chickn Caesar Salad from The Green Edge to take to work for lunch one day. But they have done something to it. I think it was the chickn, it wasn't seasoned the way it normally is? It was just a bit of a letdown considering how much I normally love these.



Finally, a collection of salads from Nonos. Nonos is a great Lebanese place an all their salads are vegan. They where close to one of work's old locations, but that location has moved even closer! So I can walk there! This is a combination of their potato salad, rice and lentils with crispy onions, and green beans and tomatoes. One thing I forgot about Nonos after not eating there for awhile is just how much garlic they pack into everything. At least wearing a mask means that everyone is safe from my garlic breath... except for me. ;)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



I know what you are thinking, what about Boo? Well, Boo is doing OK. She came home last Saturday (so a week ago) after her surgery and has been wearing her cone and resting in a collapsible cage since then. She's been mostly very good about it. Though in the last day she has decided that she feels much better now and would like to be cheeky and run around. We are letting her have supervised time outside of the cage. She managed to get her cone into the purple cat house, and turn around, what a clever girl! Her gut biopsy results came back as IBD, so not cancer. This is good news, though IBD is still a chronic condition that needs ongoing management. We are still waiting for some more blood tests regarding possible causes of her high calcium to come back. She will get her stitches out on Thursday, and will start some medication then that will help both her IBD and her calcium.

Midweek Munchies (Plant Nation edition)

It's the midweek, so time for a day appropriate midweek munchies, with a Boo update at the end! This week I am highlighting a couple of Plant Nation products. Plant Nation is a brand I have seen in IGA. Not all of their products are vegan, a couple are just vegetarian, but all of them a gluten free. I got some on clearance, my favourite way to try!

First up, the Parsley & Thyme Beef Style Burgers. These fried up fairly well. They were meaty without being too meaty. The texture was OK, but they definitely needed more seasoning. I'd buy them again, but only on a decent clearance sale.





I made two different burgers with them. The first one was just mayo, spinach, tomato, and BBQ sauce. I wanted to see what the flavour of the burger was like. The second one was a more traditional cheese burger. I had used some of that gross Coles Natures Kitchen cheese that was in my last post, as you can see, it wilted but it didn't really melt. I also had some ketchup and some gherkin relish on it.





The other product I tried was the Roasted Chicken Style Sausages. I was pretty excited to try a chicken-style sausage. But unfortunately, these tasted like nothing, They also had that vegan casing on them, always kind of goes a bit gross when you fry them. I served them seasoned roasted potato and peas, with some gravy added after this photo was taken. I wouldn't buy these again, even on clearance.







So not a stellar showing for this brand. The other two vegan products they have are Italian Herb Chicken Style Burgers and Tomato & Cracked Pepper Beef Style Sausages. I might try the beef style sausages if they were on a good clearance, because I would hope they had an interesting flavour.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



This is Boo snuggled up in her collapsible cage, which I am using to help keep her rested so she doesn't run around and ruin her sutures! She is not lying in her litter, don't worry! That is a clean tray with a blanket in it, she likes to sleep in a little nest. We have some results back! At least for the intestinal thickening. It came back as inflammatory bowel disease, not cancer. This is good that there is no cancer! Though IBD can still be a serious condition that will will need to manage for the rest of her life. We are still waiting on some more blood tests results to work out her high calcium. Thank you for all your kind thoughts!

Midweek Munchies

Hello friends! I had some life stuff, see below for more details, so even though it is Sunday I felt like doing an easy blog post by hitting you all up with another midweek munchies!

Veef, beloved creator of some of the best vegan burger patties, has expanded their range. They brought out their chicken burgers, which are the best chicken burger, and they also brought out some bacon bits. I was excited to try them! They are not the most practical though, being all frozen together in a lump. You cannot really just use them a little bit at a time. They are the sort that you need to thaw and then fry up. The taste is great though. I used half of the packed for a mac and cheese recipe (posted about here), and the other half to make the Veggie Fried Rice recipe off the Veef website. I used jasmine rice for my rice, and changed up the veggies a bit. Of course I nixed the capsicum, and used celery. I also didn't use any onion, but I sauteed my scallions with the garlic because my tummy doesn't like them raw. I added some baby spinach and fresh coriander as well. This was a tasty recipe! Though it is cute that it says four serves, because it was two serves.





A while ago I heard about Alg, an Australian seaweed company, that was launching seaweed chocolate. You know I like silly things, so I had to preorder some! It was flat rate shipping, so I also got some of their seaweed snack bars and seaweed seasonings.



I'll post more about each product as I try it, but I of course had to crack into the raspberry seaweed chocolate immediately. And you know what?? IT WAS GREAT!!! I am very glad I got two blocks of it, as well as a block of the regular seaweed one. Stay tuned for future reviews!



As the supermarkets try and create more and more of their own vegan products, there will be some hits and some misses. Coles Nature's Kitchen Cheddar Slices are a huge miss. These are like shitty vegan cheeses of ye oldy times. They are tastely, plastic, and rubbery. They don't really melt properly (instead just turn more rubbery), and they go mouldy super fast. Do not recommend.



The first thing I did was make a toasted sandwich with Tofurky Ham slices. Oh, terrible cheese, you hurt me. This is making me even sadder looking at this photo now, as I have just learned that Tofuky is no longer shipping to Australia due to their own local COVID shortage issues. So this precious ham was dishonoured by being paired with a truly tragic cheese.



Onto some better days, with these fun Natural Confectionary Co Vegan Fruity Flavoured Jellies! I am not a big lolly person, but I am partial to a fruity gummy treat every now and then. These came in five flavours (raspberry, apple, peach, grape, and pineapple) and they were really good! Plus available in almost all supermarkets, so very accessible. They are frequently on half price sale as well.



I am not too proud to say that sometimes I just need the convenience of a package of microwave rice. Even with a rice cooker, sometimes I just need something that will take 90 seconds. Lately, there have been more and more flavoured microwave rice options available. This Brown Rice Pilau was so easy and had a lovely flavour, I would definitely buy it again. I used it in combination with another recipe, which you can see here.



Finally, some jerky! KM Foods makes some pretty tasty jerky. I love their Teriyaki one! This new Fake NBacon flavour is also pretty great. It has a lovely savoury smoky flavour to it. This is a local company (in fact, they regularly have stalls at vegan markets in QLD), so it is great to see such a great product being made so close to me!



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



What was that life stuff I mentioned? That life stuff was Boo! Last week I took Boo in for a check up and some bloods, and it was noticed that she'd lost some weight. Her bloods came back with high calcium. High calcium on regular bloods isn't all that specific, it needs to be followed up with another test for ionised calcium. If that is high, then that can be caused by all kinds of things! The most common cause in cats is idiopathic (cat's love to be weird for no discernable reason), but you have to rule out all the other stuff first. Her ionised calcium was also high, so on Tuesday afternoon she had some fancy blood tests taken (that take a few weeks to get results back from), chest x-rays, and an abdominal ultrasound. Her ultrasound showed she had some significantly thickened intestines, so on Thursday she had a exploratory laparotomy to have a look around and take biopsies... results of those should be back tomorrow. She came home yesterday, but Boo related thoughts and things have been taking up a lot of my time! This is a photo of her not long after waking up from surgery, wearing a very big cone because she had previously chomped her way through her IV line so we were making sure to keep her teethies away from her current IV line and her stitches!

Midweek Munchies

Today I am kicking us off with the Field Roast meatloaf. This had been kicking around in my freezer for ages, and I was excited to finally get a chance to use it! I used it in three ways, the first of which was as a side to a recipe that will be turning up in a future recipe round-up. But I also figured I should make it those two classic meatloaf ways...



First up, meatloaf and mash with gravy! I tried out this new Coles Vegan Gravy, that you just heat up and it is ready to serve. This gravy is not good. It had this weird almost metallic taste? Why so hard to make good gravy? Do gravy makers know what gravy tastes like? Anyway, this subpar gravy was dolloped over pan-fried slices of meatloaf, mashed potato, and green beans.





I also made a meatloaf sandwich, which had mayo, ketchup, and spinach. The meatloaf itself is very heavy, a bit too heavy for my stomach, so I don't think I would get it again. The flavour is good though.



Coles brough out some vegan pies, and I love a pie! They have two flavours, but so far I have tried the Cheesy Cauliflower one. The pastry on these was very thick and not very flaky, but the filling was nice. They also have a mushroom one I will eventually try. Though the weather is heating up here so it may not be for some time.



This is a very funny quick lunch I made one day after I found some portobello mushrooms on super clearance sale. Sauteed mushrooms with spinach and crinkle chips, all covered in ketchup, It was very satisfying. I love sauteed mushrooms and chips.



The Vegan Grocery Store (previously The Cruelty Free Shop) had a free shipping day a while ago, so I had to put in an order of random things. Here are my random things, including some very sensible vitamins. I was super excited about the oat condensed milk, until I got it and realised it is still full of coconut oil. Alas! But as for the rest of the things, they will be turning up in future munchies posts as I try them.



Praise mayo has always had some accidentally vegan options, but they brought out a few specifically vegan ones. I've never been a fan of their accidentally vegan mayo (too sweet), so I wasn't in a rush to try their vegan specific ones (which are double the cost). But I found this on super clearance and thought I would give it a go. It pretty much tasted like their accidentally vegan one, I could barely taste any garlic, so glad I didn't spend much on it.



Finally, some savoury oatmeal I made to use up some extra bits. I had some tomato broth left over from another recipe that I used as the base of the oats, which a little bit of oat milk for creamth and nutritional yeast because always. Topped it with some roasted broccoli and fennel (which I needed to also use up), and then a mediterranean chickpea crunch salad topper.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Abby is always ready to remind you that she is extremely cute.