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.

Midweek Munchies: Mooncake Edition

A while ago Loving Hut announced that they had a limited number of vegan boxed mooncake sets, and I had to race out and buy some. They were very beautifully presented! There were four flavours: Durian, Fruit & Nut, Pandan, and Lotus, and each one also had a vegan egg yolk in it.









I tried the Durian one first, and it was lovely. It had a tropical sort of pineapple flavour to it. The egg yolk parts were kind of dry and crumbly, maybe a very slight black salt flavour.



The Fruit & Nut was very sweet. Kind of like a Christmas cake flavour in a mooncake.



The pandan had a great flavour! I really like pandan.



But Susan, you say, that is only three? Sigh. Indeed. I was saving the Lotus for last, because I LOVE lotus! But alas, I forgot the part where they were also preservative free and when I opened it after a few days of being on the bench, it was all mouldy. I was so sad. Next time, put them in the fridge!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Day



Everything here is christmas this and christmas that. Here is a photo of the time that Gizmo met Santa at the clinic. She was not impressed.

Midweek Munchies

Here are some more random things I have eaten.

This Earth Vegan Fried Rice frozen meal is actually not bad. It has tofu and vegan ham in it, and has good flavour.



One of the limited edition Treat Dreams bars that I tried was The Wilbur, which had bacon bits and popcorn in it. It was pretty good, with the salty, smokey and the sweet together.



I made some of my own fried rice using this Masterfood Chinese Beef stir-fry sauce that happen to be vegan. I used leftover frozen rice, some Japanese marinated tofu, and frozen veggies.





Another limited edition Treat Dreams I got was the Banana Split. It had banana infused chocolate with wafers, sprinkles, vegan Smarties (of the UK/Australian variety), and candy stars.



Golden came out with this Scone Bread, that was vegan friendly. But much like their previous Cinnamon Donut bread, it was a letdown. Not as great a letdown as the cinnamon one, at least. But there was nothing particularly scone like about it. It was just a thick, slightly dense, slightly sweet bread.



Finally for today is this Pat and Stick's ice cream sandwich. I had seen their ice cream and ice cream sandwiches around, but although they are oat based they do have coconut oil in them, so I never bought any. But I found a place that sold these sandwiches individually (rather than having to buy a pack of 4) and bought one, and it was great!


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Yesterday (which was the 1st of November here) may have been World Vegan Day, but to me it is always Gizmo's birthday. Id has been a decade since we celebrated what turned out to be her last birthday, but I will never forget. I love you Gizmo.

Midweek Munchies

It's a Wednesday, so it is time to reflect on some munchies.

I had tried the Leftfield Provisions Brie from Coles earlier in the year, so was keen to try the Camembert. I regret to inform you that this one was not great. It was quite dry and hard and the flavour was just... meh. I will stick to the Brie.



Veef came out with some premade meatballs in sauce, which I used to make a very quick dinner with spaghetti and Follow Your Heart parmesan. I realised after I bought it that the tomato sauce has coconut cream in it, sigh, but thankfully it was not enough to make it taste coconutty or to make me feel sick. The meatballs themselves were fine.



I made this Pan-Fried Teriyaki Tofu Bowl from Just One Cookbook, a Japanese recipe blog, and it was lovely. Look at the glaze on that tofu! I was doing this as a very pantry friendly meal, so I served it over some rice and some steamed frozen green vegetables.



Alas, Sunrice no longer makes their incredible Smokehouse BBQ chips, and instead make these Smokey BBQ, Tomato, and Herb. The good new is they are still delicious, though not quite as delicious as the original. But I am very happy to eat them.



Earth has come out with a few new frozen meals lately, so I tried this Satay one after assessing that it was not full of coconut or chilli. It was fine... it uses sunflower butter to make it peanut free. But my heart and my brain and my tastebuds were crying out for a peanut sauce.



After trying some incredible brownie hummus from Aldi over Christmas, I found this in Coles. It is nice, but not as good as that Aldi stuff (which was limited edition, I hope they bring it back again). Good for dipping apple slices in or smearing on toast.



Cute Kitty Photos of the Post



Please enjoy a random throwback photo of Dim Sim and Gizmo actually close to each other enjoying the sunroon.

Midweek Munchies

Some random things.

I got this teriyaki sauce on clearance sale and it is pretty good as far as bottled teriyaki sauces go. A lot of them are way too salty, but this has a nice blend of savoury and sweet. I served it with some charcoal noodles (and also some beet noodles I had to use up), some tofu, and some frozen green vegetables for a super pantry/freezer friendly use stuff up meal.





These chickpea chips were kind of meh. They had a weird flavour, just a hint of vinegar, and the rosemary was like an aftertaste rather than an actual flavour. Would not try again.



It's been a while since I've shared any silly drinks, so here is a silly juice that I bought. While it has many ingredients, it sadly mostly tasted like apple juice. They need to make the greens more prominent!



A random lunch of salad topped with a burger patty and melted cheese, plus some tomato relish and caramelised onions.



Another silly juice. This juice had a beautiful colour! Again, it mostly tasted of pear but definitely had the earthiness of beetroot coming through. Not sure I could really taste the strawberry. It was nice for what it was.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Gizmo's cute portrait by Cloris Creates.

Midweek Munchies

I know it is Monday and not midweek, but these are the easiest posts to write, so here we are.

I've been trying out different frozen meals for when I get home late from work, and I was excited to try this new Veef Three Cheese Lasagne. However, it was a total letdown. As you can see, it just looks kind of watery. I guess there was some cheese in there? Will not buy again.



A more successful frozen meal option was this Fable American BBQ meal. It was lovely, with the mashed sweet potato and BBQ sauced Fable chunks. The corn you see in the photo on the box was a serving suggestion, and I didn't have time or energy to do anything about corn, so I just had mine as is over some baby spinach. Would buy again.



I love Fry's products, and these Boerie Sausages were a hit! They actually had a casing on them that wasn't gross and didn't turn into a gelatinous mess or peel off in big sheets. You bit in to them and there was that little pop as you bit through the casing. The flavour was nice too, not spicy, just nicely spiced.



Pikelets! It has been ages since I have had some pikelets. Golden Crumpet brand pikelets and pancakes have recently changed their ingredients to be all vegan! Yes, I know, pikelets or pancakes out of a bag will never be as good as freshly made. But who care when you can have a fun and nostalgic snack! Of course jam and cream is the classic pikelet topping, but I am not one for cream. I made this fun little pikelet plate with Nuttelex and jam, Nuttelex and chocolate spread, and Biscoff and marmalade. Not going to lie, I also ate some of these straight out of the packet with nothing.





Ages ago my friend Amy and I had a dumpling making day at her house, but there was some leftover filling that didn't fit in the wrappers. I took some home and had it lurking in my freezer, until the day came where I used it to make some pineapple fried rice. I also added some grated carrot and some bok choy. So fast, so nice.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Some more Gizmo for you to appreciate. How has she been gone 10 years? I will never understand.

Recipe Round-Up: Cafe Flora Cookbook

Time to keep moving through these cookbooks. Today the alphabetical order brings us to Cafe Flora Cookbook. I am pretty sure someone gave me this during a clean out they were doing, and I took it because I have been to Cafe Flora several times before. And now I'm feeling sad looking through these blog posts, I miss my friends. Not just my Seattle friends, but my everywhere friends. The friends I haven't even had a chance to meet yet. Sigh. Let's look at some food. This cookbook, like the restaurant, is vegetarian with lots of vegan options. And honestly plenty of the vegetarian recipes can be easily subbed to make vegan. This is the first official round-up of this cookbook, but I've posted about a few individual recipes before

Roasted Vegetable Tofu Scramble with Cafe Flora Fu Sauce and Rosemary Roasted Potatoes: A pretty classic brunch plate. The scramble has a mix of roasted vegetables (I didn't have onion or yam, so I added extra of the carrots broccoli, cauliflower, and zucchini), that are mixed into a pretty basic scramble. A lot of the flavour comes from the Fu Sauce, which has sesame seeds, soy, mirin, cinegar, ginger, mustard, garlic, and sesame oil (I left out the red pepper flakes). I also added spinach to the scramble. The potatoes are simple but a classic. Parboiled and then roasted until crispy on the outside.
Rating: Scramble :), Potatoes :)



Dill Caper Tofu Aioli: Dill and capers? Sign me up. This is simply blended up using silken tofu as the base, I used garlic powder instead of fresh garlic, and added extra dill and capers because obviously. This is meant to be served with a selection of crudites. I went slightly off script, with some nuggets along side my cucumber, celery, and grape tomatoes for a fun dinner.
Rating: :)



Sesame Vegetable Soup With Miso: I was excited for this, because I love a good miso soup! But unfortunately the flavour just fell a little flat. I did enjoy making my own dashi with dried mushrooms and kombu. Despite it having red miso and soy sauce, it just needed a bit more of both of those. As you can see, it also had leek, celery, carrot, and silken tofu in it. I made a half recipe, and got just over two serves.
Rating: :|



Smoky Split Pea Soup: Again, another soup that fell just a little bit flat. I found i needed to cook it for longer, because even soaking my split peas overnight they were still a bit firm at the end of the cooking time. The recipe calls for smoked mushrooms, but as I don't have my own smoking abilities I went for some smoky tofu bacon instead. I pureed it a little bit at the end to thicken it up.
Rating: :|



Ginger Miso Dressing and Garlicky Sweet Shiitaki Mushrooms: Both of these were elements of a salad that I didn't really feel like making, I just wanted to make these parts. So I did, and I turned it into a little bowl. The dressing is lovely with misop. roce vinegar, and garlic. I replaced the oil in the dressing with water and guar gum, as I just can't handle really oily dressings. The mushrooms are simply sauteed and then doused in dry sherry and sweet soy sauce. I added a little bit of tofu to them as well. Rather than letting the mushrooms cool, I had them hot with rice white, baby spinach, avocado, and pickled carrot and ginger. Poured the dressing all over the top, and sprinkled with some black sesame seeds.
Rating: Dressing :), Mushrooms :)



Soba Salad with Peanut Sauce and Vegetables: I love noodle salads with peanut sauces. This one has a couple of components, with a quick pickled red cabbage and the peanut sauce. For the cabbage, I didn't have any raspberry vinegar so I just used rice wine vingar instead. The peanut sauce was meant to be spicy, but of course I left out the spicy part! Rather than blanch broccoli florets separately, I added them to the soba in the final minutes of cooking and then drained them and ran them under cold water together. I also didn't bother to serve the noodles and the broccoli separate, I just mixed them together. And I added some Soyco Japanese Marinated Tofu as well. Topped with the cabbage, pickled ginger, and some Seaweed Salad Topper I had hanging out in my cupboard. The recipe suggests topping with pistachios and seaweed salad, but you do you!
Rating: :)



Janine's Wasabi Potato Salad: This is a lovely mix of regular and sweet potatoes. It is meant to be purple potatoes rather than white, but we do what we can with what we have. I took a shortcut on the wasabi dressing and used Vegenaise in place of the silken tofu, rice vinegar, soy milk, and vegetable oil. Mainly because it required such a tiny amount of silken tofu that and I didn't have any immediate plans to make anything with the rest of a packet if I opened one for this. It also has baby spinach, snow peas, and cashews. I really enjoyed this, but I would increase the wasabi powder in the dressing because I like a bit more of a kick.
Rating: :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Yesterday was ten years since Gizmo passed away, which seems impossible. I miss my sweet, caring, tabby girl.