Midweek Munchies

Hello! I have been on holidays for the last week, going no where, house to myself and the cats, having a lovely time. I suppose I could have been posting every day, but I wasn't feeling the vibe until today. So here are some midweek munchies!

I found this purple corn drink in a market with a lot of international options, this was from the Peruvian section. It mostly just tasted sweet, but did have a bit of a corn undertaste.



KM Foods is a small vegan business based in Brisbane, and they have started making frozen cheesecakes you can pick up from the Green Edge. This was their strawberry one. Really lovely flavour and great creamy filling, though the base could have been a bit crunchier.



I got this Bolognese mix on sale, which was basically just bolognese seasoned TVP. But it made for a quick and easy dinner one night. I added carrots, celery, and mushrooms.



Coles brought out a jumbo vegan chocolate chip cookie in their fresh bakery range. I was super excited, because it seemed like it was the sort of thing that gets baked fresh daily. But when I finally found one, it had like a week's expiry on it. So I guess it technically is baked fresh at some point! It was still good. I have heard from others that the best way to eat it is to heat it gently in the microwave.



Get Plant'd brought out some vegan slices - ham and steak slices. The ham is probabl the best ham since Tofurky become unavailable, However, lately, every package has gone mouldy, so I am not buying them until they sort it out.



Brazilian Style BBQ Grill Flavoured Pringles! Are good! Of course they were a limited edition, so they don't make them anymore, but I still have a tube in my cupboard to enjoy.



Has anyone been watching the new season of Our Flag Means Death? I have been completely undone by it, it has taken over my brain. I just want to scream about it. Ed is my precious baby girl and I would die for him. Etc. If you have seen it, please scream about it in the comments!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Eloise. As she does.

Eating In: Featuring Yavanna and Nonna's Nightmare

Hello friends! This post talks about some extra fun deliveries I've had.

First up a burger and chips! This is from Plantein Cafe, which is one of those places that only exists on delivery apps and shares a kitchen with other delivery app only places. I ordered the Hawaiian Burger with bacon, and also the fries with gravy. This was a huge serving of fries, but not enough gravy.



Now we are getting into some more exciting territory. One day I was working late at out Paddington location, which is just around the corner from Yavanna. You can see some other posts about Yavanna here. They do not have an outdoor area, so I decided to get takeaway and then heat it up a bit more and plate it at home. I was very keen to try their seitan steak with mash and peppercorn gravy. It comes with blistered cherry tomatoes and greens. This was really nice, but the star was the gravy. That stuff is drinkable. I need to be able to buy a large container on it please.



UberEats has dramatically widened their delivery range, which means I can order from places I never could before. Downside is they are often not quite so hot, so I have to reheat them a bit when they get here. Also, higher delivery fees. But that is understandable. So one night I ordered myself some dinner from Nonna's Nightmare, a vegan Italian restaurant. You can see other Nonna's Nightmare posts here.

I started with the Arancini All a Pizzaiola, which were arancini with some sort of stuffing and a dill sauce. I added the cucumber. These were good, though I cannot for the life of me remember what the stuffing was!



The Pasta Gnocchi Al Ragu was lovely gnocchi, but they use Beyond meat mince in their ragu. I knew it was a risk, because I find Beyond Burgers too meaty, but I was curious. You know, for science. Indeed, it was a bit too meaty for me in this dish. But otherwise is was a very satisfying, hearty dinner.



For dessert I ordered some Cannoli, which had an orange scented filling and pistachio. Cannoli I have decided are a thing I like more in theory than in practice. I just never really like the cannoli shell. But what I did enjoy was the filling, it was delicious.



Here is a final little photo, not from a takeaway or delivery, but from my beloved yum cha at Easy House that I went to a while ago. I didn't take enough photos for a full post (I have already posted so many posts about this place, see them here, but I can't resist a good crownded yum cha table shot.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Yesterday (Monday the 14th of November) was Boo's sixth birthday! Happy birthday Boo! Her tummy fur is still very slowly growing back after her last ultrasound.

Midweek Munchies

Let's just get straight to into it!

Couldn't resist getting this vegan-friedly Pad See Ew sauce! Handily the spicy stuff is in a seperate packet that I can leave out. The sauce itself is a pretty great pad see ew sauce. I made a quick and easy version using pad thai noodles that I had in the cupboard (not as good as fresh rice noodles, but we do what we can), some greens, and some tofu. Very satisfying and I have bought this again.





Ages ago I posted about getting this seaweed chocolate, that I was super excited for. I'd had the raspberry seaweed chocolate, which was incredible! But this plain seaweed chocolate was a let down, sadly. The chocolate itself wasn't great (too sweet) and the seaweed didn't really give much flavour. I wouldn't get this plain version again.



I'd seen these Black Rice Toasties for ages in the fridge section in the shops, but they are so expensive. But I found some on super sale clearance, so I pounced. They are actually really good! I had them with a few different toppings, but I loved it simple with some avocado and tomato. I would almost be tempted to pay full price for these, but if I see them on sale again I will definitely purchase.





One of Plantry's newer frozen meal offerings is this Teriyaki Meal, with plant-based chicken and edamame. The flavour of the sauce was good, but it could have been a bit saucier. Edamame are something that I can only have a little bit of, they make my stomach bloat and hurt, and these ones were a bit on the al dente side so I only ate a few.



I also tried these Plantry Chicken-Style Burgers. First off,they are shaped annoyingly to put on a bun. Just give me something round. Secondly, you have to bake these from frozen, which I hadn't quite realised until I took them out of the freezer so dinner took a bit longer than planned. Thirdly, they are not good. Taste and texture and both a thumbs down from me.





Finally, Coles now has these Get Plant'd deli slices and bacon. They are the same as the Made With Plants brand sold in Woolworths, just packaged under a different house brand for Coles. I like the bacon, you can see it in the burger above. The chicken slices are dry and don't have much flavour. So a miss there. I haven't actually tried the pepperoni slices yet (they are hanging out in my freezer), but everyone says they are great. I will report back when I do.



Cute Kitty Photos of the Post



The tinest of tiny babies.

Midweek Munchies

Ever get the feeling that you will just never get your head above the water? Feeling that way a lot. Anyway, here is some food.

I ordered a bunch of these Vegan Chocolate Co chocolates from The Vegan Grocery Store. They are vegan versions of Wagon Wheels, KitKats, Tim Tams, and Cherry Ripes. They were all fine. Good even! The chocolate was just a bit eh. I enjoyed them though!



These chips are available at Coles now and they are incredible! They have such a great cheesy flavour. I have eaten several bags of them and always like to have them in the house. So good.



Made a little bowl using this microwave wasabi rice and these stuffed patties I got from the Korean grocery store. They patties are stuffed with mashed potato, and come with a demiglace sauce. They are a bit tricky to cook, because they are quite thick so the outside browns before the potato centre is fully heated. There are no cooking instructions on the packet. They come frozen, but I defrosted them before cooking. A friend of mine made hers in the airfryer, which would be better I think. But they were nice, and pretty fun to eat. Who doesn't love a mashed potato centre? The rice has a pretty subtle wasabi flavour, I could have done with a bit more.





Vegan ready made jelly desserts! Aeroplane Jelly makes several flavours of premade jelly cups, and they are all vegan! The pineapple one has a very subtle flavour, but the strawberry one is great! A nice flavour punch! They are stable at room temperature, but I keep one in the fridge for if the jelly urge strikes. The other little pot is SPC Mango in Jelly, that also happens to be vegan! I don't get the jelly urge that often, but it is nice to have something fun to eat when the need strikes, without having to go through the effort and time of making it up from a packet.



I love Pad See Ew! But it is not always easy to find it vegan, and sometimes they are not that great. I was cautiously excited about seeing this Plantry Pad See Ew frozen vegan meal in Woolworths. Is it good? Yes! Is it Pad See Ew? No! The sauce is all wrong for Pad See Ew, but if you are looking for a very savoury and very garlicky sauce, this is your frozen meal!



Finally, this Treat Me Rhett's Peanut Butter Cup. Sigh. I LOVE peanut butter cups, but I am also very fussy about them. Justin's Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups are the VERY BEST! Theo's are also very good. I can't get either of those here. And so I try others. And am mostly disappointed. But this, this was horrifying! It was SO BAD. The filling tasted mostly like grainy coconut. An abomination of peanut butter cups! Avoid at all costs!!



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Let's cleanse the palate with some kittens, shall we!

Midweek Munchies

How are you all holding up? It is going to be a rainy summer here, so very wet. But also very hot and humid. Gross. Hurrah for air conditioning! Let's see some food.

My beautiful friend Amy gifted me some of her homemade pho broth a while ago, which kept very nicely in the freezer until I was ready to do something with it. It made the whole freezer smell amazing! I loved having it there for some quick and easy dinners, just adding bits of pieces of things I had around the house. The first time I made it I used a whole little cake of rice vermicelli (I know, not traditional noodles for pho, but it was what I had), which ended up making it more like a saucy noodle dish! The second time I halved the noodles, and got a lovely soup. The first time I used cubed Japanese marinated tofu, the second time I used fried tofu puffs. Plus some random veggies I had lying around, as well as some rehydrated shiitake mushrooms. Delicious.





I did the thing! A while ago Kraft released a vegan (and gluten free) version of their boxed mac and cheese. And I ate it! And it is... really good. I don't remember really eating the original version, so I don't have any nostalgic ties. They only downside is the pasta is just a little bit gluten-free textured. But the sauce is so good!



Some fun snacks from the Asian grocery store! Of course I had to get these charcoal peanuts. They look like a sheep poop, but they are nice to eat. The charcoal layer is mostly crunchy sugar, but does have a nice slight charcoal flavour. Just remember, if you are ever eating or drinking anything with charcoal in it, make sure it is at least two hours away from any medications you need to take so it doesn't interfere with absorption.



These cute little peanut snacks were fun. The chocolate covered peanuts were as you'd expect, but the real star was the F&Fs. They are are basically vegan peanut M&Ms and I highly recommend them.



Finally for today, these chips. I was intrigued by the flavour. Unfortunately, they were a let down. The texture of the chip was really strange... they were thick like a ruffled chip, but without the ruffles, so it was just a bit odd. And the flavour... eh. I suppose it was a bit bacon-ish if I really thought about it. Oh well, they can't all be winners, and everything else in this post was very much enjoyed.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



A Sahara photo, just because.

Eating Out: Easy House and Flour of Life

Easy House is my favourite place down at the Gold Coast, because I just love yum cha a lot! So in my week of eating last week, my friend Amy and I went down to eat our favourites. It had been a while since we had been. I don't always post when we go to Easy House, because I have posted a lot about it before and we tend to get the same things, but I thought in honour of the occasion I'd share these favourite things again.

While not originally on our radar, when they suggested getting some skewers with satay sauce, we said yes. We'd had these before (as with everything), and knew they were good. They seemed extra good today!



They make these amazing pan-fried rolled rice noodles in XO sauce. Problem is, XO sauce is spicy! But if you ask, they will switch out the XO sauce for some sweet soy sauce, and then I can enjoy them too! These noodles were extra crispy and delicious. But so hot... do not burn your mouth. Restrain yourself and try and let them cool a bit.



An array of favourites! Two lots of steamed BBQ pork bao, some steamed coriander dumplings, and my beloved radish cakes!



And no trip would be complete without some delicious steamed beancurd roll. Oh so good.



No trip down would be complete for us without stopping at Flour of Life, the vegan bakery. I got a strawberry flan (my favourite) and a blueberry crumble for me, a passionfruit tart for my mum, and an apple crumble for my dad.



My friend Amy is also a magnificent seamstress. She makes all her own close and they are so cute, she has amazing style. For my birthday, she gave me a super cute pair of pyjamas made in this adorable Pusheen fabric. I feel so lucky to have some talented and generous friends!


Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Abby being very cute on top of the cat turret.

Beltane 2021

Hello friends! I haven't posted for a bit, because I have just been so busy with work and other things. I am so tired. But here is a fun little post about the food I ate to celebrate Beltane this year! Halloween only seasonally works in the Northern Hemisphere, given its pagan roots. While Halloween as a fun thing is gaining more and more popularity in Australia, I reserve the 31st to celebrate Beltane, the spring festival.

Beltane (31st October - 1st November, 2021)

Beltane is between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and is a celebration life and fertility. Normally by this time of year in Brisbane it is hot hot hot. But strangely, we had a relatively cool and cloudy day that day, which was lovely. We opened up the house to let the fresh breeze blow through.

I started my Beltane with breakfast. Some rye sourdough English muffins spread with Nuttelex and drizzled with agave, served with some fresh strawberries and some oat milk. Also my daily multivitamin and morning neurofen. Chronic pain is no joke friends. For Beltane, butter and honey are both traditional foods, but we don't need to exploit animals to get the same delicious flavours. Oats are also traditional, and my homage to that was with my glass of oat milk. I know some vegans think it is pitiful to drink a glass of non-dairy milk, but I don't care. I like my oatmilk, and I love a serve of plant-based calcium in of a morning!



Pasta Primavera from Everyday Vegan Eats by Zsu Dever: The last few years I realised I have made some sort of pasta dish for Beltane. Why break with tradition now. Pasta loaded up with wonderful spring vegetables! I changed it up a bit, and used carrots, broccoli (florets and stems), asparagus, baby spinach, and baby peas, and I used 200g of linguine. The sauce is cashew based, and easy to make quickly in the blender. The sauce was a little on the bland side though. Next time I think I'd use some non-dairy milk in place of the water, and bump up the seasonings. But nothing a little nooch couldn't fix!
Rating: :)



For dessert, I tried out a beautiful Rosewater and Strawberry Cheesecake, from the blog Like A Vegan. The recipe called for Soyatoo Whipping Cream, but I used some of the new Made With Plants Thickened Cream that you can get from Woolworths. I had some of it in my fridge already, and to get Soyatoo would have involved a special trip to the other side of town. The Made With Plants cream is sold in the fridge section with the tofu, and does not have coconut in it, hurrah.



Maybe it was because of the difference in cream setting abilities, but my cheesecake didn't quite set. This is a no-bake cheesecake, which makes it great for an easy dessert on a warm day. I whipped the cream cheese (Tofutti, of course, the best) and the thickened cream with some hand beaters, and while it thickened up a bit, it wasn't as much as you would get from a whipping cream I don't think. But that didn't matter, because the flavour was beautiful! I love rose and I love strawberry and I love pink, so this was a perfect dessert. I ended up popping the cheesecake in the freezer for a couple of hours before serving, to firm up so I could cut it nicely. This was so delicious!
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Of course, as an athiest witch with two black cats, I didn't completely leave Halloween unobserved. We watched Practical Magic (which I hadn't seen in so long! It is so silly, but kind of great.). And the cats, well, they just were themselves. As a black cat called Boo, we designated it her particular day. She didn't care.