December Dates: Mum's Birthday and Litha 2022

A little catch up December post before we head in to Christmas.

Mum's Birthday:

In a shocking break in tradition, Mum picked something other than the usual Deconstructed Banh Mi Salad, and instead asked for a different salad! Several years ago, Mum and I had a stopover in Hawaii on our way home from Seattle, and we had lunch a the California Pizza Kitchen. Mum had a BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad that she loved, and she had since bought the CPK cookbooks. So I veganised the BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad for her! I used this for my chicken, and left the oil out of the marinade as this roast chicken was already very oily.



The salad has a lot of non-vegan ingredients, but thanks to the world we live in it was easy to veganise! For the garden herb ranch dressing I used vegan mayo, homemade buttermilk made from oat milk and lemon juice, Made With Plants sour cream, and vegan worcestershire sauce. Everything else in the dressing was herbs or spices. The salad itself has baby gem lettuce (rather than a mix of cos and iceberg), fresh basil, celery for crunch as I couldn't find jicama, chopped Sheese mozzarella, black beans, corn, coriander, and tomatoes. I scaled the recipe way down, as it was asking for huge amounts of ingredients! Even a halved recipe of the dressing had lots of leftovers! The salad is topped off with crushed tortilla chips (rather than homemade deep fried tortilla strips, which the recipe included), the chicken, and BBQ sauce as well as dressing.



Normally I would make a cake, but this time I was a terrible child and I bought one because I just didn't have enough time or energy. Woolworths has a Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Mud Cake. It is huge, a 1kg slab of cake.



You could defnitely tell it was store bough, as it had an overly sweet icing and the cake itself was a bit dry. But I enjoyed the leftovers with the icing scraped off and some chocolate ice cream. Next year I will definitely make one.



Litha aka Summer Solstive (21st of December, 2022)

The summer solstice has finally come! Which means at last the days can start getting shorter. Too much sunshine for too many hours. Bring me the dark, please. I had a super lowkey litha, I literally just made the salad I will talk about below and I ate a lot of lovely summer fruits - cherries, peaches, plums, and apricots are all in season. So good! I had planned on making more, but again I just was out of time and energy. So I am not stressing about it and will just show you my dinner!

Charred Zucchini and Sweetcorn with Basil Caesarish-Sauce from Tenderheart by Hetty McKinnon: Tenderheart was one of my birthday presents! And I am just realising I don't think I have posted about my birthday yet. I will eventually. I hardly ever get cookbooks anymore, but this one was a must get and it is gorgeous! I picked this salad for Litha because zucchini and corn are definitely summer produce! And while made on the grill,charring is grill-adjacent. The zucchini is first sliced and charred in a hot pan, before being drizzled in a tiny bit of red wine vinegar. I used frozen corn kernels, which are also charred in the hot pan. Then they are combined with fresh herbs and a lovely dressing. The caesar-ish dressing is based on tahini and has capers, basil, and more in it. You will notice that my dressing looks very soupy, which is because I am a doofus and accidentally put in double the amount of water required so then had to add in more of everything else. I served this with some fresh (from the bakery, not from me) olive sourdough slices.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Gizmo made a very fetching Santa Claws. This Christmas is going to be hard for myself and so many of my friends who have lost their furry loved ones recently. If you are grieving, leave space for that and be gentle with yourself.