Dad's Birthday Dinner

My dad's birthday is at the start of July, and as per usual I made him a special birthday dinner. He surprised me with his choice of asking for something with couscous and lots of vegetables for the main, but I was happy to oblige!

Seitan Coriander Cutlets from Vegan Eats World by Terry Hope Romero: The couscous recipe I picked out (from another book, see below) called for chickpeas, but I know my dad's favourite is seitan so I thought I'd make some to use instead. Seitan is something that always seems like an effort to make, but then once I make it I remember it is generally pretty easy. This was no exception. It has a lovely flavour from the cumin in it (there are also some other flavour variations you can try), and was easy to mix and knead. Cutlets are wrapped in foil and baked, and it ended up having a great texture. It made a bunch, so I had some leftover to freeze for other recipes.
Rating: :)



Seven Vegetable Couscous from Vegan Fire & Spice by Robin Robertson: Behold the couscous! The seven vegetables here are onions, sweet potato, carrots, green beans, zucchini, tomatoes, and peas. I made it eight by also using some baby spinach. As mentioned, I added some chopped and browned seitan from the recipe above in place of chickpeas. The vegetable stew part itself was quite watery, I'd use less vegetable broth next time. You don't want to boil it off too much because the vegeteables will turn totally mushy. It is served over some couscous with sultanas and parsley mixed through, which was nice. This recipe is meant to be served with Harissa sauce, though we skipped that but, but that made it a little bit bland overall. If you are doing it chili free, like I did, I'd suggest upping the spices and salt a bit more.
Rating: :)



Finally, a birthday must have CAKE! My dad was wondering what other sorts of cake there were besides chocolate and vanilla. Ummmm.... like... a million different types. After I spent several minutes going through all sorts of cake flavours, he settled on apricot. Which was excellent because it meant I finally got to make a recipe I'd been eyeing off for ages...

Apricot Crumble Cake from Vegan With Bite by Shannon Martinez: I've been wanting to make this cake since I first got this book, especially after hearing so many other people raving about it. And it does not disappoint. It is a spiced cake, topped with apricot halves, then topped with a crumble and baked. The recipe calls for tinned apricots, making it super winter friendly. I did have to bake my cake quite a bit longer to get it cooked through. Instead of sprinkling it with icing sugar on top, I sprinkled it with some chair-spiced raw sugar I have for a great crunch and flavour. This cake was awesome! I served it on the night with a dollop of Vanilla Hazelnut yoghurt, and some of the leftover apricot halves. It also keeps well for a few days.
Rating: :D

Midweek Munchies

Some fun adventures today!

You know by now that I am a fan of 'bangers and mash' with gravy. I had these Fry's sausages, which I already know that I like, and I served them with mashed potato, peas, and Celebrate Health Vegan Gravy. The gravy was just adequate, so many of these vegan gravies just do not get the proper umami rich depths I crave.





I saw this vegan quiche recipe from the wonderful Tammy on Instagram. It used some of that Flora Plant Cream, which I still had kicking around at the time. It also uses Orgran Easy Egg, like a Vegg-stule egg powder for making scrambles and the like, that I had lurking in my cupboard as well. It uses ready made puff pastry, and has asparagus and Tofurky Ham Deli Slices in it. Also topped off with some Sheese mozzarella shreds. Delicious!





I got these pies from a Cruelty Free Shop order when they were having a free-shipping special for their 20th birthday. They are pretty good, nice pastry, and a nice filling.



I always check out the plant-based meat sections of the supermarket to see if there is anything on sale, because that stuff is expensive and I generally don't buy it full price. This was a successful trip, as I found this Plant Asia Roast Pork marked down. I also picked up this nice Passage To Asia Hoisin and Garlic stir-fry sauce, so I could make a quick dinner one night. The pork was actually pretty good, it already has some flavour added to it. And has that nice sort of red outer layer. The sauce was also nice. I stir-fried it all up with some mushrooms, carrots, snow peas, and bean shoots. Served over rice.

Eating Out: Grassfed (and Sea Monsters at the Museum)

The QLD Museum had an exhibition running for several months about prehistoric sea monsters, aka marine reptiles, and I was so keen to go. But it started last year when COVID was still getting under control here. Finally, I bought tickets to an After Dark session to go to with a friend (no kids allowed!), but then the day before another COVID cluster kicked off and we cancelled. Time was running out to see it, so I went one day on a weekday that I had off.

Of course, I had to get some lunch to fuel myself! And I took a short walk from the museum to Grassfed for a burger and a shake (see my previous Grassfed posts here). I was super keen to try their current special, the Teriyaki Tempehtation Burger. It had teriyaki galzed tempeh (the tempeh from local tempeh maker Totally Tempeh) with rainbow slaw, fried lotus root, coriander, and wasabi mayo. It was absolutely delicious!

I also got a shake. Normally I am all about the strawberry shake they make, strawberry being the best flavour in general. But this time I got another one of their specials, the Biscoff Shake. Biscoff Sauce, Biscoff Spread, Biscoff Cookies! With their amazing I Should Coco softserve, soy milk, soy whipped cream, and a cherry. This was a super sweet treat, but a lot of fun. The crunchiness of the cookies was nice in it as well.



OK, let's get back to the museum! No trip to the Queensland Museum is complete without a viewing of the humpbacks and saying hello to the Muttuburrasaurus.





But the main event was the Sea Monsters exhibit! They have these fun magazine covers you can pose in, though as I was on my own I just took a photo with no one in it.



So, confession time... the idea of these giant marine reptiles gives me the creeps. I would not want to be close to them. Or any large current marine animal, to be honest. Sure, I might watch a whale from a distance, I love whales, but if I was in the water I would not want to be near anything that big! So I did have involuntary shudders as I walked through this, but I was still love them because they are cool! Just FYI, these are not dinosaurs! Marine reptiles are a different class of animals. Just like flying reptiles like Pteranodons are not dinosaurs either. Anyway, speaking of large marine reptiles...


The exhibit was broken into four sections, chronologically arranged based on when these giants swam the seas. First up, the Ichthyosaurs. Look at that cheeky face! With some big snappy jaws.



Behold some fossilised poo! AKA early turds, hee.



The Plesiosaurs are like the longnecks of the marine reptile world.



This is a cast of Penny The Plesiosaur, the most complete plesiosaur found in Australia, which was found in Queensland. My state has been the site of discovery of a lot of cool prehistoric animal fossils.



If you are familiar with the Jurassic World franchise, you will know the Mosasaur! When I first saw this cast, I was surprised because I was expecting it to be much bigger. But within each of the types of marine reptiles, there are individual species. This one here is the Prognathadon.



The type of Mosasaur they had in Jurrasic World was the Tylosaurus, otherwise known as the T-Rex of the sea. They were up to 15 meters long! Of course Jurassic World would choose the biggest, fiercest mosasaur type to genetically engineer.



The final section was about Turtles, which are marine reptiles that span both ancient and current times. This was a nice, calming way to end after all those giant chompers that came before! Though turtles could still get pretty big in times past! Look at this chonky's skull.



I'm really glad I got a chance to see it before it ended, because I love this sort of thing! In the last few years, I have really rediscovered my inner dino and pals nerd, and it makes me happy!

On my way back to the car, I passed by the Brisbane sign in Southbank. Normally, this sign has people crawling all over it or taking photos in front of it, but miraculously there was no one near it on this random Wednesday early afternoon, so I snapped a quick photo.



I know there wasn't much food in this post, but if you read this far (or even just scrolled to look at the photos) I hoped you enjoyed it! Please let me know what non-food things you love to geek out about.

Recipe Round-Up: 1000 Vegan Recipes

Another mini round-up from 1000 Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson. You can see other posts from this book here.

Penne with White Beans, Red Chard, and Grape Tomatoes: Chard is called silverbeet here, and it is very rare to see any colour but the regular green. This recipe called for red chard, and miraculously I was able to find some! It makes for a pretty red colour alongside the tomatoes. I used 250g of pasta here rather than 450g, and if you are serving four with it, they were servings on the smaller side.
Rating: :)



Ziti with Catalan Vegetables: The vegetables called for here are eggplant and capsicum (red and yellow), but I used carrot and zucchini in place of the capsicum. The vegetabes are meant to be chard whole, then diced. I roasted them until soft, then quickly grilled them under the broiler. I once again halved the amount of pasta called for, but I added a tin of white beans.
Rating: :)



Classic Tofu Lasagne: This classic version of lasagne uses two different types of tofu to make a ricotta, which is then layered with lasagne noodles and marinara. I always use the instant no-boil lasagne sheets when I make lasagne, which is because I cannot find any other sort of lasagne sheet here that doesn't have eggs in it. I thought this recipe could do with more marinara sauce, because they sauce layers ended up being pretty thin. It is finished off with some nut paremsan on top.
Rating: :)





Roasted Vegetable Lasagne: Tofu is used in a similar way here to create a ricotta, but the addition of roasted vegetables are also added into the layering. Zucchini, eggplant, and red onion (which I used instead of capsicum) are roasted. The recipe also has a variation for using portobello and butternut instead of zucchini and eggplant, which sounds like a wonderful autumn lasagne!
Rating: :)



(% 1000 Vegan Recipes blogged: 31.1%)

Midweek Munchies

It's the middle of the week, and you know what that means.

Here is a recipe I made from a random blog! I think I must have seen someone post about it on Instagram, and then I went looking. It is the 20 Minute Vegan Egg Roll in a Bowl from The Cheeky Chickpea. I made a half recipe for two servings, used some V2 mince, left out spring onions because I didn't have any, used celery instead of water chestnuts, and double the amount of five spice because I love that. Served it over some rice. It was nice, but I should have made all the sauce because it was a bit dry. Double to sauce if you make this!



The fancy Fine Cultures Port Cheddar cheese I had bought was nearing the best before date, so I figured that I had best use it up! I found these delicious rosemary crackers from Coles (they are good enough to just snack on plain) and put together a fancy little cheese plate with some cucumber, grapes, and spiced cherry paste. The cheese was really good, and I will definitely buy it again.





I also used some of the cheese and the spiced cherry paste (which I just found at the supermarket) with some V Bites Cheatin' Chicken slices to make a fancy toasted sandwich.



I got these breakfast sausages from the discount grocery store I had been to a while before, and had been storing them in the freezer. I was making a recipe with them (from a book, so that will eventually turn up on a round-up on the blog), and also did a little solo taste test. They do have some coconut oil in them, but not enought for me to notice. They are a bit on the smooshy side for sausages, but the flavour is not bad. I wouldn't buy them full price, but if I saw them on a good enough sale I'd get them again.



Woolworths now sells these little vegan apple crumble tarts. They are in the fridge section near the bakery section. You can eat them cold, or heat them up. I just ate them cold for instant gratification. They are very nice. Would be great heated up as well with some ice cream.



Finally, a cool day calls for a hot mug of milky caffeine free bush chai with some mini dandies in it!

Eating Out: Green Life Warehouse and September 18 (North Lakes edition)

Combining a couple of eating out trips into one post, as they both involved trips up to North Lakes. North Lakes is just north of Brisbane. I have some friends who life up there, and there is also a vegan restaurant up there. It is about 45 minutes from my place on the motorway if the traffic is good.

Trip one was on a Friday to visit my friend who lived up there, we both had the day off. My friend is not vegan, but is super vegan friendly, so we decided to go and try the cafe at the recently opened Green Life Warehouse that people had been talking about. It is a place that also has a vegan food store. When we got there, we discovered that it was indeed a warehouse. The warehouse part was more for catering or food businesses, so if you need to buy single-use straws, food or cake boxes, cups, or cutlery in bulk, that is the place to go. It also had a lot of reusable ecocups, water bottles, and things like that to buy individually. And also some other random stuff.



The vegan cafe is a small affair, and even though we got there by 12pm they had sold out of most of the savoury food. They normally have a couple of savoury bowls (I was sad that the mac and cheese bowl was sold out), some pies, and some slices. I got a $10 deal of the last piece of savoury vegan quiche and a turmeric latter. The savoury quiche was pretty nice. My friend was feeling like something sweet, so she got a mint slice biscuit and an apple cinnamon muffin that she said was good. Overall, I wouldn't really bother to go to Green Life for a meal, but it is a good place to stop by and pick up some treats.



We checked out the little health food shop also attached, which ended up not being all vegan. They had quite a lot of vegan food there, but it was a fairly random assortment, and not much I hadn't seen elsewhere closer to home. They did have Pog Balls though, which are delicious crispy peanut butter balls coated in chocolate. They also had a small bulk section as well. I bought a couple of things. But the most exciting thing I took away was from the cafe. Black Lemonade is a vegan bakery that supplies cookies to cafes at the Sunshine Coast and surrounds. So they don't normally supply down near me, but they do supply to Green Life. I got a Biscoff Smores, a macadamia, and a double chocolate cookie. They were all so good, but especially the Biscoff Smores one!



A while later, I went up to September 18 with another friend. September 18 is an all vegan restaurant that I have been to a couple of times before. They recently announced that they will be closing at the end of the year, which is sad. I got some delicious BBQ buns, and my friend had some satay chicken sticks to start.





For our mains, I had Hokki Mee and my friend had Chow Mee with chickn. I have had the Hokki Mee before and enjoyed it. It is tofu, mushrooms, greens, and noodles in a savoury sauce. Can't go wrong with that.



We also had some lychee drinks.



Afterwards, we did stop by Green Life to pick up some treats to take home. I got some more Black Lemonade cookies, this time a Cookie Dough Sandwich and a Chocolate Chip Smarties cookie. The cookie dough filling was too sweet for me, I ended up having to scrape it out and enjoy the cookie part on its own. The smarties cookie was great and a lot of fun!

Recipe Round-Up: Bowls of Goodness: Grains & Greens

Let's do some more rounding-up of this wonderful book! I posted a bunch of recipes from this in my last round-up post (see here), and these are some more delicious things I have eaten from it.

Grain Lasagne with Broccoli and Vegan Mozzarella: So... my broccoli was slimy when I went to make this. Thankfully, the recipe is pretty customisable, and I took an option of using some baby spinach (always plentiful in my fridge) instead of the broccoli. I used some cooked barley as the grain. The star of this is a delicious miso marinara sauce, I love miso in any form, and this did not dissapoint. The recipe also calls for some nut mozzarella, which is another recipe in the book. This takes a bit of advance preparation, but is pretty easy. It is a cashew-based cheese, though I found that mine never really set properly. Instead of forming sliceable balls, it was more like a spread. It was still good though! Everything went together really well. The recipe doesn't specify what temperature to bake it at, but I used 200dC. I made a 1/2 recipe in a 20 x 20cm dish, which made 3-4 serves.
Rating: Lasagne :), Cheese :), Sauce :D



Creamy Kale Barley: I made a big batch of cooked barley, so I could use it for a bunch of recipes including this one. This is really simple. Just cooked barley covered in a creamy green sauce. I used baby spinach instead of kale. The sauce also has some white beans in it to make it thick and creamy, as well as basil and nutritional yeast. I made a half recipe of the sauce, but I still had a bunch leftover. The barley I served with some more nutritional yeast sprinkled on top. Leftover sauce froze well and made a great dressing for a pasta salad, mixed with some vegan mayo, at a later time.
Rating: :)



Mafe: This is a wonderful peanut and tomato stew from West Africa. It is full of vegetables like tinned tomatoes, carrots, peas, and potatoes. The recipe calls for mustard greens, which I have never seen here, so I used (you guessed it) baby spinach. I left out the chile and the capsicum. I made a half recipe of this, which made two big serves but they weren't super filling. So I'd probably add some chickpeas in next time. Served over rice.
Rating: :)



Sunset Kitchari: This warming bowl has a lovely spice mix, brown basmati rice, red lentils, and baby spinach. I didn't have any tinned crushed tomatoes, so I used a mix of a bit of leftover passata and some chopped tomatoes, which worked great. I made a half recipe, which made two big serves. Topped off with some plain soy yoghurt, mango ginger chutney, and coriander. Also, kitchari always makes me think of Hillary!
Rating: :)



Lemongrass Goreng with Oyster Mushrooms: This recipe calls for lemongrass paste, but the only lemongrass paste available here has dairy in it (why??), and I couldn't find any fresh lemongrass, so I used some of the lemongrass you get out of a jar. The lemongrass flavour was not very strong, but that is probably why. This also has oyster mushrooms, tofu, pak choi, and carrot in it. I made a half recipe, but I used extra pak choi to make things extra green. I also left out the spicy sambal.
Rating: :)



Moroccan Aubergine Stew with Yoghurt and Minty Millet Couscous: This is a fun bowl, with millet standing in for traditional couscous and a lovely rich stew. The stew has eggplant, mushrooms, chickpeas, sultanas, olives, and baby spinach in it. I used celery instead of capsicum. It calls for a Ras el Hanout spice blend, and the book has a very quick and easy recipe for it using ground spices (I left out the chili powder). It is served with some plain yoghurt blended with feta (I used the Sheese greek style), which is lovely. This is the second recipe I have made from this book that uses that as a garnish and I do recommend. It was also meant to be garnished with toasted almonds, but I forgot, but that was OK because it was already lovely.
Rating: :)



Gravad Carrot Salad with Rye Berries: Remember that barley I had pre-cooked? I used that instead of rye berries here. This lovely Scandinavian-inspired salad also has some Gravad carrots (which I spoke about in the last round-up), beans (I used cannelini), capers, and leeks. The leeks were meant to be added raw, but my stomach wouldn't cope well with that, so I sauteed them. The salad is dressed with a wonderful mayo-vinegar-dill dressing.
Rating: :)



Greens with Seroendeng and Satay Sauce: This is a simple recipe, but it requires two other recipes to be prepared in advance: The Satay sauce and the Seroendeng. The satay sauce is easy to make, a blend of peanut butter, tamari, lime, and coconut sugar and mil with a few extras added. I left out the chili, and found it to be a bit too salty, so I added some extra PB, lime, and sweetener to balace it out a bit more. The seroendeng is a lovely mix of dessicated coconut, coconut sugar, and spices that are toasted until golden. Once these are made, you just sautee up some greens (I used asparagus, green beans, snow peas, and baby spinach), sprinkle with the seroendeng and top with the satay sauce. I also added some diced tofu to make it a meal, and served it over rice.
Rating: Greens :), Satay sauce :|, Seroendeng :)



That's it from this book for now, but I have so many other recipes I want to make from it you will definitely be seeing it again in the future!