Midweek Munchies

Some more fun random things.

I bought this nice range of snacks from Woolworths one day. The mini PB tubs I keep at work. I did have a big jar of PB, but sometimes I didn't eat it in time and it would dry out and go a bit gross (sadness), so these tubs will keep fresh for when I need a little something. The chickpea crisps were OK. I didn't think they had a strong turmeric taste, but my mum did, so I guess it depends on your turmeric tolerance. But the Roasted Raspberry Dark Chocolate covered chickpeas? AMAZING! I love these.



Some lovely Olive and Thyme Sourdough from a local bakery with avocado, tomato, and smoked salt. Served with lots of cucumber on the side for a light lunch.



When I saw this silly juice, and just had to get it. And it was worth it, the combination of flavours was really refreshing and a bit tangy. Would definitely buy again.



I tried out these Sol Mushroom and Wild Rice veggie burgers that I found on sale at The Green Edge one day. They were OK texture-wise, but they did have a bit of capsicum in it and I found that to be the overwhelming flavour. Boo.



I got this pouch of Super Fudgio in a mystery box ages ago, so finally decided to give it a try. It is delicious! I served it with some natural yoghurt and fresh raspberries so that it wasn't overwhelmingly sweet. The only annoying thing is the pouch it comes in, I ended up cutting it open so I could clean it and recycle it with our soft plastics, and there was so much more product trapped inside that I would never have been able to squeeze out!



Finally, this sandwich. I have no memory really of what this sandwich is. I think it is a smoked sesame cheese BLT, I can see the L and the T looking at it. But I have no memory of what the B was! Anyway, it looks good and I am sure it tasted good.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Can you even with these two cuties?

Eating Out: Flora by Greenhouse

I've been back to my beloved Flora by Greenhouse a few times. Not as often as I would like though! You can see my previous posts about Flora here.

I stopped in for lunch one day after yoga. There was some work being done at home, so I was trying to stay out of the house until it was done. Lunch at Flora seemed like the perfect way to do that! Because I had been sweating a lot at yoga, I had one of their green juices, with apple, cos, celery, spinach, cucumber, lime, lemon, and mint. Very refreshing!



For food, I got one of their jaffles filled with smokey pulled jackfruit, cashew brie, rocket, and cheddar. It came with a side of their delicious tomato relish. And I also got some creamy dill potato salad as a side. As you can see, they were also covered in Flora's signature pea sprout garnish, so I also took some nude photos so you can actually see the food.







I took my mum there a while ago for her first visit. I am happy to report that she really enjoyed it. For drinks, she got a hot chocolate and I got an iced turmeric latte, both on soy.



She had the savoury vegetable and dill chickpea pancake, with spinach and pea puree. I've had this before, and honestly it is the best thing that I have had from Flora ever. It is so good.



I had the Garlic Mushrooms, which were served on sourdough with spinach, tomato, cashew brie and lots of herbs, and I got some avocado to go with it as well. Very nice.



Definitely need to try and get here a bit more often! I still am yet to try their famous Bruffin!

Flora by Greenhouse West End - 239 Boundary Street, West End

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



By now, all the kitties and Petal have gone to their homes. But I still have a few more to share. I love this photo of Petal in the cat tunnel, with Holly peeking from the outside.

Recipe Round-Up: Veganize It - Anatomy of a lasagne

I am spending a bit more time with Veganize It (by Robin Robertson) for a special post about the most special lasagne that I have ever made. My best friend Ashleigh loves lasagne, and so I knew I had to make this for her. While there are options for store-bought things you can use, I made every single part of this lasagne from scratch. For better or for worse. Let's get started! (You can see my other posts about Veganize It, including the one from last week, here.

Seasoned Tofu Ricotta: This is your basic tofu ricotta - crumbled tofu with a bunch of seasonings. But the blend of seasonings in this one is amazing. It is savoury, cheesy, and yum, my favourite tofu ricotta recipe to date! I used a 350g block of firm (not extra firm) tofu, and it had a great texture.
Rating: :D



Nut Parm: A simple blend of nuts, nutritional yeast, and salt. I used slightly less salt than the recipe called for, which was salty enough for me.
Rating: :)



Melty Vegan Cheese: This is a cashew based cheese that uses tapioca starch to thicken. It was quite gloopy and hard to spread, so perhaps if you are using it for something like this it would be good to pull it off the stove before it gets too thick. But it tastes good!
Rating: :)



Oven-Roasted Tomato Sauce: This is amazing. It involves a lot of roma tomatoes, so you will want to make it when roma tomatoes are at their peak season. However, if it is not tomato season, there is also an option for using tinned tomatoes as well. I used 20 roma tomatoes, and got 3.5 cups of sauce (the recipe says it makes 3 cups). This has a beautiful, deep, sweet flavour, and is definitely worth the extra time to make for a really special meal.
Rating: :D



Homemade Pasta: And then... there was the pasta. I haven't made pasta before, I don't have any special pasta making stuff. So this was a learning experiment for me as much as anything. I found I needed to add a bit of extra water to the dough, as it was quite dry, but just moistening my hands when kneading took care of that. To make sheets for the lasagne, I rolled them out with a rolling pin. The dough was quite springy, so it ended up a bit thick. Because I was making the lasagne, I didn't have to cook the pasta in boiling water. They were briefly soaked in some boiling water before assembly.
Rating: :)



Handcrafted Lasagna: And then, there was lasagne. I made a half recipe in an 8 x 8 inch pan. Layers of sauce, noodles, a ricotta/spinach/nut parm mix, ending with the sauce and topped with the melty cheese (I had a bit extra of this, but extra cheese is never a problem) and more nut parm. The pasta was a bit thick in places, but it didn't really matter. It was delicious, and I made it all from scratch and with love. And it was enjoyed!
Rating: :D





The end! Now I have looked at the word lasagne/lasagna so many times, they make no sense. Which one to use? Apparently lasagna is the noodle and lasagne is the plural of that, so it is the dish? But then... I know not. The book spells it lasagna, I spell it lasagne, this word is just getting sillier to look like. I think we can all agree with Garfield and just say that it is yummy.

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Dim Sim would like to remind you that sure, kittens are cute, but she is the cutest. We had some blood work done a couple of weeks ago, which showed that her thyroid meds are not too much so her thyroid is too low, meaning her kidneys had gotten worse. You need your thyroid hormone to keep your kidneys working! So we've decreased her meds (after having to increase them... we are specialising in the teensiest dose adjustments with this little girl), and we'll recheck her bloods in the new year. Then she got another UTI, so she is on antibiotics again. But she is otherwise her happy little self.

Midweek Munchies

Random food that I ate... or saw.

It is summer here, technically only for ten days now. But realistically it has been summer for months already. Hot hot hot. I hate it. So I have been making a lot of big salads for lunch, where I throw in any random stuff I have lying around. Like this one, with baby cos, sauerkraut, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, cubed Daiya cheddar, bacon bits, and creamy balsamic dressing. I made the dressing my mixing some bottled balsamic dressing with some Vegenaise, inspired by The Student Turned Doctor.



Bagels! These rye and sunflower seed bagels are spread with avocado and the most delicious horseradish and beetroot pate, that I bought but forgot to photograph the bottle. But it is so good! For one of them, I tried out a bit of melted Sheese mozzarella. I haven't bought Sheese since it came out with the new coconut oil formula, but I found a bag on super sale. Alas, a bit too coconut fatty for me, so I gave the rest of the bag to a friend.



I had a few left over pieces of fu - rounds of gluten - from a recipe I made from a Japanese cookbook. I needed to use them up, so I hit Google and found this recipe. Instead of the eggs, I used some FYH egg powder made up into eggs. I used gai lan as the green, and uses some soy sauce instead of the salted rice malt. I left out the bonito flakes. It was fun, and pretty tasty. Though the FYH/fu was a bit gluggy.



McCain came out with some microwave chips, and I was sceptical but lured in by the idea of chips in a few minutes. The only type they had when I was there was the shoestring. Look, these tasted like they were microwaved. Simutaneously soggy but also dry. This experiment was a fail.



I didn't buy any of these, but I saw these varieties of vegan friendly quick oat cups in Woolworths. As someone who used to have similar to take for breakfasts when I used to work at conventions, vegan cup oats were so hard to find here. So it is nice to see some varieties for it you need them. They had some other flavours that were not vegan, so check to make sure you are getting a vegan one if you see them.



Finally, the second flavour of the Well and Good Mac and Cheese that I tried. This one was... not great. It had a really weird taste to it, like some sort of chemical flavouring? I don't know, but my head and my tummy didn't love it. Also turned out super runny. The directions have you boil the macaroni in a milk and water mixture, and then add the flavour sachet to it. No draining step in between.



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



My sweet little Pansy.

Eating Out: French Tarts

I've posted about French Tarts once before, at the time bemoaning that I probably wouldn't be back to soon because the parking situation was terrible when I went. However, some time later I was driving past at a different time of day, and there happened to be a park right out the front. Who was I to say know to that delightful happenstance? Of course, I had to get a few things while I was there to make the most of my unexpected visit.

Like this Raspberry and Almond Tart. Sadly, they were out of Strawberry Custard Tarts, the key to my heart, but they had a few other tasties to choose from. This was lovely. And almond base with raspberries and almonds on top. It kind of just melted in your mouth.



I love a good danish, and this Cherry Danish didn't disappoint.



And this pain au chocolat was legit. Lightly warmed with a cup of tea, it was such a good breakfast.



As I was leaving, I noticed they had a milkshake board up and they said they could do all flavours vegan. I almost didn't turn back to ask what sort of ice cream they used, so many places use coconut it is just not worth it, but I am so glad I did because they use soy ice cream! HURRAH! So I got a strawberry milkshake to go. Which you can't really see, because it is in this cute pink compostable takeaway cup.



Unfortunately, I almost never happen to be driving past here. But now I maybe have a better idea of when is a good time to stop by to get a decent park and pick up some goodies!

French Tarts - 198 Boundary Rd, Bardon

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Tulip and Jed Junior, just hanging out being adorable.

Recipe-Round Up: Veganize It

Veganize It is a great book by one of my favourite vegan cookbook authors, Robin Robertson. It is full of great recipes for veganising a lot of favourite dishes, and has a load of DIY basic recipes in it as well. You can see my previous posts about this book here.

Chickpea Flour Omelets with Shortcut Hollandaise: I made a half recipe of the chickpea omelets, and made two omelets in my small frying pan (one and a time). They worked perfectly, and were super easy to flip as well. They are seasoned with lots of spices, as well a having scallions and parsley in them. I served them with some sauteed spinach topped with the Shortcut Hollandaise recipe. This is based on mayo and lemon juice, but I found it was a bit too much like mayo and not enough like Hollandaise.
Rating: Omelets :), Hollandaise :|



Cheesy Mushroom Scramble with Eggplant Bacon Strips: This scramble was very nice, and was filled with onions and mushrooms (I left out the capsicum), and includes both nutritional yeast and a homemade cheddary sauce to make it super cheesy. I served it with some eggplant bacon strips, which I struggled with in the oven. As you can see, they burnt in some places, but were still soft in others. I think eggplant bacon is an art that I must practice. But they tasted good. Also served with some potato waffles and steamed broccoli.
Rating: Scramble :), Eggplant Bacon :)



No-Meat Loaf with Great Brown Gravy: The loaf is based on mushrooms, walnuts, oats, sunflower seeds, rice, and lentils. It sounds like a lot, but is fairly simple. It also looks like it is a huge amount and will end up being too dry, but it came together well when mixed and fitted just right in my 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. I used the optional ketchup-based glaze as well, because you should always ketchup. As you can see, I sucked at getting it neatly out of the loaf pan, but it tasted very nice. Leftovers also made some lovely sandwich filling. The gravy was nice and savoury. As you have to blend it after cooking, I just chopped my onion rather than mincing it. It says it will make 2 1/2 cups, but I got about 2 cups from mine. Served with tater tots and kale.
Rating: Meat Loaf :), Gravy :)



Loaded Baked Potatoes: I used a half recipe with two big potatoes to serve two people alongside some broccoli. As is my preference, I cooked the potatoes first in the microwave to make this a fast recipe (they would have taken so long to bake in the oven), so they weren't as crunchy as they could have been even though they were finished in the oven. They are loaded with the scooped out and mashed potato flesh, cheddary sauce (I used some from another recipe I had leftover, or you can make the Cheddary Sauce from this book from scratch), coconut bacon bits (recipe in the book), sour cream (again there is a recipe in the book, but I used some I had leftover from something else), chives, and seasoning. They are topped with extra cheese sauce and bacon. These make a good light meal, but are not super filling. The coconut bacon is easy to make, though did soften up again a bit after baking. But very tasty. I decreased the amount of liquid smoke in it because mine is super strong.
Rating: Potatoes :), Coconut Bacon :)



Breakfast Nachos: Breakfast Nachos just seem so much fun! In this recipe tofu is diced and then pan-fried with a bunch of spices and black beans. I didn't have any onions, so I used some scallions instead. The 'sauce' is a mix of tomatoes, coriander, lime, and avocado. I left out the jalapeno. It is topped with some Smokey Queso Sauce. The sauce is an easy blender sauce that includes cornstarch and is then thickened by heating. I used some tomato paste instead of pimentos, left out the chipotles, and added extra nutritional yeast.
Rating: Nachos :), Sauce :)



Tuesday Tacos with Avocado Crema: I am very proud of myself for making this on a Tuesday! It is a lovely combination of cabbage slaw, some tofu based Crispy Crumbles, and the Avocado Crema. The Crispy Crumble recipe is delicious! The perfect mix of spices on crumbled tofu, sprinkled and coated in cornstarch, and then baked. I found that I had to increase the temperature and bake for a bit longer to get the perfect texture, but so good. The Avocado Crema is another simple recipe in the book, with avocado (of course), coriander, lime, and seasonings. I needed to add a touch more salt. I made a half recipe of this, which was enough for one person to enjoy on several tacos.
Rating: Tacos :), Crumbles :D, Crema :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



The Milk Bar is open! Petal is such a good mum, though she isn't afraid to pop them off and wander away when she's had enough and needs some Petal time.

Midweek Munchies

That time of the week again!

I think I am almost caught up on sharing all of the soups I tried over winter. This bean and vegetable soup was pretty good, served with some sourdough.



I mentioned before that Alpro almond yoghurts had become available (in mango and strawberry flavours), but then I found out they also have cashew yoghurt! Two flavours, vanilla and passionfruit. The vanilla is nice and smooth, but I love the passionfruit. It is so tangy and great.



We have a chain of shops here called The Reject Shop, and I never think to go in there. They have a very small food section, mostly it is random house things. But I did pop in one day to see if they had any good food on sale, and they did! I got all those bags of protein balls for $1, when they are normally $3. I keep these in my locker at work when I need a quick snack. Also some grain cups, and a soup (that I have not had yet because too hot for soup).



I get this Mock Beef Jerky from an Asian shop near me. I love it! It is mushroom based, and has a strong five spice flavour. So good.



I posted about this new brand of vegan mac and cheese a while ago. I originally found them in Coles, but they are available at heaps of places now. There are three flavours, and I tried the original first up. It had a bit of an odd taste to it. Cheesy but with something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on.



Behold a Grilled Cheeseburger that I had for lunch one day. A leftover Vegie Delight's Smoky BBQ Patty, some cheddar Daiya, and some gherkin relish. Once I put it in the bun, I stuck it in the panini press.



One morning I looked out the window into the back yard and this friend was hopping about. Please excuse the very bad photo, but I was taking it through the window with the zoom on. I asked a friend who knows about birds, and he said this is a pheasant coucal. Which is a type of cuckoo with a pheasant-like appearance. Pretty cool!



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Why we called him Jed Jr, because he looks a bit like our clinic boy Jed!