Midweek Munchies

I realised after discussing it in comments on my last post, I never mentioned on the actual blog the actual great news that I do not have to do an oral defense for my PhD! You have no idea what a giant relief that is. When I started my PhD (officially in 2014, when I upgraded from a Masters that I started in 2009... I kid you not when I see this was the slowest PhD ever!) an oral defence was not required, but then in 2017 it changed that publication based theses had to do one. The post grad liaison at the time told me that I had to do one... but she was so wrong. Shout out the the person at the graduate school who contacted me to check if I actually meant to tick the 'oral examination required' box, as because I started in 2014 I still get to submit according to those rules. I absolutely do not want to do an oral examination! Thank you graduate school person who saved me from so much stress. Now I just have to wait for examiners to read it and do any revisions until they are happy and then... PhD!

That was a long ramble. And I know you are actually here for snacks. Well, OK, some of you are here for cats, and the snacks are just a bonus. Time for some munchies.

The frustrating quest for stevia-free kombucha and water kefir continues. I found these Buchi cans in funny flavours, and may I say they were both very good. Of course, they are super hard to find unless I want to buy and entire case of them online, and who has the fridge room for that? But next time I see them in the wild I will definitely pick up some more. Of course, I have forgotten where I bought them the first time.



I bought this GF Hemp Rigatoni to use when my brother was here the last time, but we didn't end up using it then. So I made it a while ago to use it up, and it is awful. It absolutely just fell apart and turned into pasta fragments in the gummiest of ways. The sauce I put on it barely saved it.



Chocolate bar the first. This was like eating a very rich Vego-style bar. Was it good? I honestly can't remember. So I can only imagine that it was fine. I remember when things are incredible, and when things are bad.



Chocolate bar the second. This was not good, and mostly tasted like chalky protein poweder. I had also bought one of their hazelnut flavoured ones, which suffered from the same issue.

I really like this Woolworths Summer Fruit Blend. It has strawberries, grapes, mango, and pineapple. I originally bought it thinking I would make some great summer smoothies with it, then just never felt like a smoothie. I ended up just defrosting it in portions to add to yoghurt and granola. But one day, I shall smoothie it.



Tasti makes my favourite fruity snack balls. Here are two flavours I tried recently - the apple and the blackberry. The blackberry one had a very very strong blackberry flavour. The apple one is sweet and mild.



I don't remember where I got these mushroom snacks, possibly a supermarket, possibly The Green Edge, but they were good. They have a mix of mushrooms in them.



Finally, some vegan gummies a friend sent me. These had three flavours - apple, blackberry, and orange. The apple was my absolute favourite, but the orange had a funny aftertaste to it. The blackberry was nice. I would love to get just a whole bag of the apple ones!



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



BIG YAWN from Eloise.