Sydney OCC Foodings

The last two weekends of September I worked as a guest handler for OzComicCon's Brisbane and Sydney shows. It is awesome yet exhausting! Brisbane of course is my home town. However for the weekend I was in Sydney I was determined to make sure I got in some seriously delicious vegan eats. Because of the long days, my breakfasts were overnight oats and fruit in the hotel room and my snacks were from my ridiculously large stash of bars. My lovely friend Leigh brought me an amazing spinach and Daiya pie each day for my lunch, to go with the fruit salad that was the only vegan option I could get from the venue. So I was pretty serious about getting food for dinner!

Sorry for the really bad lighting in a lot of these photos. I only had my phone, and even once I remembered to put the low light setting on and/or have my handy extra light source shining, they are still pretty dark because there wasn't much light in the restaurants.

On Friday night I needed to go somewhere close to the hotel because I had a short time between set up finishing and having to be ready for the cocktail party, so I ended up at Lord of the Fries. I have had LoTF twice before, and each time I have been pretty meh about it. This time I got the Parma Burger and some fries with aioli. I continue to be meh about it. The burger was super salty, and the fries were just not that good. If you are calling yourself 'Lord of the Fries', you had better make sure your fries are awesome. I'd rather go to Grill'd.



On the Saturday night I was super excited to go to Gigi Pizzeria, a traditional Italian pizza restaurant that had just that week relaunched itself as completely vegan. How awesome is that? There is no mock meat and I think only one pizza has faux cheese (a crumble of blue cheese) here, mostly it is based on beautiful veggies and nuts. Because we didn't get there until later (I had to wait for the con to finish for the day), we had to line up for about 40 minutes and the line is right next to a hostel's smoking point, which was gross. Thankfully the food was worth it!

We picked chose the Melanzane pizza (tomatoes, grilled eggplant, basil salsa), the Ripieno zucca e spinaci calzone (pumpkin cream, sautéed pumpkin, spinach, swiss brown mushrooms & onion topped with roasted cherry tomatoes, thyme & rosemary) and the Rucola, mele e cannella salad (rocket, radicchio, roasted apple, pistacchio, cinnamon, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt & lemon zest). Below are some photos. Unfortunately the pizza photo turned out totally dark and terrible, but you can see also the corner of it in the photo with the salad.







Oh. My. God. This is incredible pizza. The calzone was beautiful and rich, the salad was a lovely and slightly bitter counterpoint. However the true star was the eggplant pizza. This is probably the best pizza in the world, I almost cried when I had my first bite because I was just overcome with how amazing this pizza was! I can't wait to go back again! Though working my way through the menu will take a little longer because I will always have to have the eggplant pizza.

After dinner I went by my favourite ice cream place in the whole world, Gelato Blue. Gelato Blue has an entire cabinet of vegan sorbets and gelato, with amazing flavours, as well as a variety of other vegan sweets. And they have an insane menu of vegan dessert treats. Can you feel the sugar just by looking at this?



I went for a cone. Raspberry Shortcake on the bottom and Pokey Hokey on the top. When I was little, I loved Hokey Pokey ice cream (from New Zealand Natural). In my advancing years, I am not really a fan of butterscotch or caramel anymore, but I had to have this for old time's sake. It wasn't really the same thing (NZN cornered the market on the best hokey pokey), but it was fun. After eating this I was so sugar buzzed that I took an hour walk back to the hotel rather than catch a bus.



The Sunday night I didn't get out until extra late, because after the convention finished we had to do pack down. I was pretty keen for food! We went to Golden Lotus, which was another new place for me. We started with the Steamed BBQ buns, which were good. Then we shared a delicious eggplant, tofu and mushroom hotpot (soooooo goooooood!), the satay tofu and vegetables (a little bit too much spice in the sauce for me), and the mock duck in plum sauce. Again, sorry for the crappy dark photos! I must have accidentally turned off the low light setting after the buns.









Then of course it was one last trip to Gelato Blue. I got another double scoop, with more raspberry shortcake on the bottom and milk chocolate with chocolate chip cookie chunks on the top.



Monday morning was our flight back to Brisbane. I had some juice and banana bread at the hotel, but I felt like I needed something more at the airport. I got some avocado sushi, a hilariously overpriced spring green salad from Sumo Salad and a soy chai (which was made on syrup, so sweeter than I like, but still did the job).



Here are some of the super cute things I bought at OCC!



Unfortunately I picked up a pretty nasty bug at the convention and was really sick by the time I got home on Monday evening. It is called ConFlu. I am still recovering from it. However it hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for OCC at all, I am really excited that next year I am going to be working at all five OzComicCons. :)

I'm off to Melbourne on Thursday for the Animal Activist Forum and a lot of food, so look forward to more exciting food adventures when I am back. :)

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



After being away for the weekend I couldn't wait to get home to my girls. If you are a new reader after MoFo and my month of Gizmo, here are my other two babies. Dim Sim and Sahara. I thought Dim Sim was going to bop Sahara to try and get her off the footstool, but she just stared. It was very cute.

VeganMoFo #30 - Fusion Challenge! (Again!).

30. Fusion Challenge!

This post originally appeared briefly on day 23 due to some confusion over changing the order of prompts. But only a few people had read it before I took it down, so sorry if anyone is confused as to why it is here again. However, there is a different picture of Gizmo at the end now, so please at least check that out if you did already read this because it is my favourite photo of her.

I cannot believe that the final day of MoFo is here! What a fun month. I had to do a lot of advanced planning and writing to get it done, but it was definitely worth it. I loved the prompt system this year, because it helped to guide and inspire me. So here is my final post for VeganMoFo 2015.

For a long time, I have wanted to get a copy of Fusion Food in the Vegan Kitchen by Joni Marie Newman because it sounds pretty amazing. However, for a long time I have been on a pretty strict cookbook budget, so it has been sitting around in my wish list. I knew it would provide me with the perfect recipe for this challenge, however even if I did break the cookbook budget and order it, it might not be here in time!

Thankfully, Joni has provided some recipes from the book on her blog. There are some pretty tasty looking ones here, but I eventually settled on Sloppy Joe Pho, and intriguing mix of pho and sloppy joes.



To create this recipe, first you simmer a flavourful pho broth. For this, I subbed in some star anise instead of aniseed. After I simmered for 30 minutes, I didn't have a huge amount of broth left, so I wonder if I was a little too enthusiastic about simmering. The sloppy joe component is TVP-based. I used some chopped carrot in place of the capsicum and also added a bit of extra ketchup once it had finished soaking. For the noodles I found some great Wokka-brand instant brown rice vermicelli noodles, and I used one little cake for each serve. Put noodles in a bowl, top with the TVP mix and ladle broth all over it! Garnish with fresh coriander and green onions, I did not use jalapeno.

I really liked this, it was a good mix of flavours. The recipe says it makes three main dish servings, but I only got three. The third serving, which I took for lunch the next day, was pretty light on broth.
Rating: :)

I can't wait to finally order this book and be able to play with all the fun fusion flavours inside!

And so ends VeganMoFo for 2015. Thank you to everyone who read and commented on my blog and Instagram posts. I have had a great time reading your posts as well, and my blog feed is now bigger and better for it!

Love you guys!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post: Month of Gizmo



As MoFo comes to an end, so too does my month of Gizmo. I hope you have enjoyed seeing photos of her, as much as I have enjoyed sharing her with you. I miss this beautiful girls every single day, and consider myself so blessed and lucky to have been able to share my life with hers, even if it wasn't for long enough. I leave you with this photo, which was taken on her final Christmas day in 2011. I didn't know it at the time, but I only had three weeks left with her. You can see she is thin and that she has had bit of fur shaved off for IVs and bloods and ultrasounds, but the sweet sweet look sums up everything about her perfectly.

VeganMoFo 2015 #29: Road trip snack attack.

29. What would you bring on a vegan road trip?

Another weekend of OzComicCon done! I had a wonderful time, though I have succumbed to the dreaded ConFlu, but it was worth it. Long days, but great people! I was a guest handler, and looked after Brian Krause (who was Leo in Charmed), and he was lovely. I also discovered that Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter) is a vegan cat lady, and speaking of vegan I had some delicious dinners in Sydney as well! Now I have a weekend of MoFo posts to catch up on, but first I give you today's penultimate post!

I kind of don't mind road trips, if you are going somewhere exciting, have pretty scenery and a good soundtrack. Good company is nice, but I am happy to road trip alone. Of course, being a road trip you need to have road trip snacks. It is no good to get hungry.

I have a handy little cooler, so for longer trips I generally will pack a sandwich or two. Often peanut butter features in my sandwiches, because it is easy to eat one handed and not get filling dripping everywhere. Also, you don't really need a cooler for peanut butter sandwiches, though if you are having fancier fillings it is probably advisable. Cookies are good to. Preferably home baked, because store bought cookies tend to be a bit too dry and crumbly, so you get crumbs all over your lap. Also maybe some hummus and veggie sticks, for when you are a passenger or if you stop somewhere. Fruit is also good. Bananas are best for driving, if someone peels it for you. Nothing too juicy or sticky.

However, when driving (or flying, or working long days at OzComicCon) it is essential to have a handy supply of a variety of perfectly portioned snack foods. Don't worry, I've got you covered...



Actually, this photo doesn't quite give you an accurate idea of the actual size of my pile. Yeah, okay, so I am a panic buyer when it comes to being hungry. This pile is a little leftover VVC swag bag, and a lot of random buying at grocery and health food stores. I put this pile together for my OzComicCon weekends, because with long hours and limited food availability I needed to know that I could eat if I got hungry. The thought of being stuck somewhere and being hungry causes mild alarm, I always have a couple of bars in my handbag everyday just in case. So I think it is best to be prepared. So don't worry, if you are road tripping with me you won't go hungry!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



One year Gizmo met Santa. You can see how thrilled she was about this.

VeganMoFo 2015 #28: Team burrito!

28. Tacos VS Burritos. Where do you stand on this important issue?

Today I stand bravely before you, risking the certain scorn of many of my brethren, and proudly declare that I am team burrito!

Okay, okay, okay. Calm down. Tacos are fine. I like tacos, I do! I mean, let us all reflect on the glory of the 'Vegans Heart Tacos' lunch buffet from VidaVeganCon...



But sometimes I'll be eating a taco and I'll just think... I wish this was a burrito. Okay, I am taking cover now. But there is something about a satisfying chunk of filling all wrapped up in a big floury tortilla that just gets me that little bit more excited. Granted when I was growing up, tacos were in crispy shells and came out of a box, but even now with my new found taco appreciation, chances are I will still order the burrito.

I mean, the Westergram taco from VVC was great, but who can go past the MacNoCheeto Burrito from Homegrown Smoker in PDX?



Or this mammoth Bobcat Burrito from Bandidas in Vancouver...



I get so happy when I hear the words breakfast burrito. This amazing creation is from Smith & Daughters in Melbourne.



To celebrate, I decided to make the Breakfast Burrito from Hearty Vegan Meals. This burrito has a filling of potato and scrambled tofu, mixed up with a great sauce that include fire roasted tomatoes, HP sauce, peanut butter and ginger. The recipe just says to add avocado to the wrap, but I also added some baby spinach and nooch. Yum!
Rating: :)





I have to admit that I am having a bit of fun in this post, but really I think that tacos and burritos are both excellent foods, and to be honest my feelings on the topic are not that strong. Though I do prefer burritos, but I hope my taco friends will still find it in their hearts to love me anyway.

I will definitely admit that tacos are much more photogenic than burritos!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post: Month of Gizmo



Gizmo sitting under the Christmas tree. If only I could wish very hard and find her under there this year.

VeganMoFo 2015 #27: Cinnamon

27. Favourite herb or spice?

Without a doubt, my favourite spice is cinnamon. I love it so much! I always have it sprinkled on PB toast or PB/banana toast, and when it is called for in a recipe I always add extra. You cannot have too much cinnamon! Oh cinnamon, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love you as a cinnamon sugar doughnut. Really, these are the only doughnuts I care about, you can keep all your strange glazed doughnuts with crazy toppings. Cinnamon doughnuts are what it is all about. And the best cinnamon sugar doughnut is found in Melbourne, where Crumb's makes a sourdough cinnamon sugar doughnut you can only dream about. Thankfully in four weeks I won't be dreaming, I will be eating.



The cinnamon doughnut from Mighty-O in Seattle was my favourite for a long time until I tried Crumb's last year. It is still outstanding, even if it is no longer number 100.



I love you in a cinnamon scroll! Preferably without glaze, because who needs super sweet glaze when you have already got yummy dough and delicious cinnamon? I left the glaze off these ones that I made from Vegan Brunch.



But sometimes a cinnamon roll is so good, that I can forgive the glaze. Like this Chicago Diner cinnamon roll aka best cinnamon roll ever (but would be ever better without the glaze).



I love you with grains, like this Cinnamon Lime and Quinoa with Apricots and Almonds from Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan, to serve with savoury dishes.



Or to serve with sweet grains, as with Breakfast Porridge with Raisins from Blissful Bites. Sure, it says to add a generous dash of cinnamon, but we know that that means add a whole lot more! I haven't blogged this recipe before, so I had best give it a rating! It is a great mix of brown rice, quinoa, raisins, maple syrup and of course lots of cinnamon!
Rating: :)



Snickerdoodles would be meaningless without you to coat their outsides.



You are also good on muffins. Or as cinnamon toast. Or any of the other million ways you make life better. Thank you cinnamon, for being you!

Cute Kitty Photo of the Post: Month of Gizmo



Perfect Gizmo paw and tail.

VeganMoFo 2015 #26: The apocalypse is nigh.

26. It's cold and rainy and there's a snow drift outside your door! What are you going to make using the ingredients you have?

First off, if this happened to me the first thing I would do would be to freak the heck out and cry a lot, because it does not snow where I live and if there was a snow drift blocking me in then it would mean that something had gone terribly wrong and the end was pretty seriously nigh. Chances of me getting out of bed in such weather are pretty low, though I guess I would have to get up to feed the cats breakfast eventually because Sahara can only wait so long.

OK, so I have cranked the central heat up to infinity (wait, do you lose power if there is a snow drift? I hope not...) and pulled on some very warm clothes and made it downstairs. To be honest, because I am a bit of a food hoarder there are probably a lot of things I could make, because I keep a pretty well stocked pantry, freezer and fridge. Assuming the power is still on. However chances are I would be so confused and miserable that I would just need to eat a lot of cold day carbs.

For example, this would be a good breakfast! I had this recently when I was feeling a bit under the weather, and I can assure you it is good for a cold morning to get you going. It is a piece of toast with peanut butter, banana and cinnamon and a mug of chocolate chai (made with some cashew milk I recently bought to try).



Moving on to lunch, I think it would be pretty similar. One of my favourite things to eat on a cold day is jaffles! There are a lot of different filling options for jaffles, I have put almost everything in them at some point or another, however I am a huge fan of the traditional baked bean and cheese jaffle. I always like to dip my jaffles into a mix of ketchup and mustard as I eat them. Served here with some cashew milk hot chocolate with a few mini pumpkin Dandies that I brought home from the US.





Even though I have a handy stash of Earth Balance mac and cheese and tater tots, I should probably have something a little more nutritious for dinner. Though mac and cheese and tater tots does sound might tempting....

Abe's Hearty Lentil Soup from The Abundance Diet by Somer McCowan is pretty much the best lentil soup I have ever had, and I have made a lot! The always have onions and carrots on hand, as well as lentils and tomato paste. I normally have roma tomatoes as well, though in a pinch I have plenty of tinned diced tomatoes I could drain and use. I don't always have celery, but that is an easy omission, or I could add some frozen peas! When I made this, I had all the right ingredients. I think what makes this so good is the use of both Braggs and nooch in the soup, so yum! It calls for Spike herb seasoning, and I don't know what that is, so I used some left over 10-spice blend from Oh She Glows. This lentil soup will change your life, and is just the thing for a freezing cold night!
Rating: :D



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post



Gizmo knew a thing to two about staying warm. Here she is snuggled into her birthday bed. Even though it was late spring and into summer. She was a funny girl, when the weather got warm she could often be found in close spaces or underneath blankets!

Vegan MoFo #25: My favourite cuisine.

25. Share your favourite cuisine.

I'm off to Sydney in an hour for another weekend working at OzComicCon. Once again I have all my posts lined up to go out each day, but I will catch up on everyone else's properly once I am home on Monday. :)

This was another tricky one, because I love lots of different cuisines! I managed to narrow it down to two that I do consider my favourite. It came down to a tie (hee) between Thai and Japanese.

Actually, when I think about it there are a lot of Thai dishes I need to be careful with, because I am sensitive to coconut fat (and there is a lot of coconut cream or milk in many curries) and also I don't like things spicy, but Thai gives us one of my favourite dishes of all time - the Pad See Ew. If I see this on a menu, I just have to order it! I also love thai peanut sauce (either for dipping or as a stir-fry sauce), and Pad Thai is pretty great as well. Eating out at Thai restaurants can sometimes take a little bit of discussion to work out with the kitchen what has shrimp paste, oyster sauce, fish sauce or animal stock in it, but generally you will end up with something delicious.

My favourite Thai place is the all-vegan Araya's (in Seattle, of course). Their tofu satay has the best peanut sauce in the world!



One of the better Pad See Ew's I've had recently was from In The Bowl (also in Seattle). It had the right ratio of noodles to tofu and veggies and had a great sauce.



When I lived in Sydney, I used to love going to a Thai place called Green Palace, and they made the most amazing pineapple fried rice. No pineapple fried rice has come close.



Eating out at Japanese restaurants brings its own challenges, as bonito or fish seems to be in everything! However finding delicious, vegan friendly Japanese food is well worth it (and if you ever do travel to Japan, there is plenty to be had in the major cities!). My favourite is eggplant dengaku, which is so delicious! Eggplant in miso sauce? You could not go wrong.

I love Japanese Curry, like this one I had last year in Melbourne at Yong Green Foods.



Of course I love sushi as well. Here are some delicious sweet potato rolls from Departures in PDX.



One of the highlights of actually eating in Japan was the beautiful set lunches, so many options all on one beautifully presented tray. This was the weekly special set meal from Brown Rice Cafe in Tokyo.



To celebrate my two favourite cuisines, I made a new dish from each of them!

Thai Hangover Noodles with Tofu and Thai Basil from Vegan Without Borders (by Robin Robertson): I loved this noodle dish! I used a sprinkling of red pepper flakes rather than fresh chilies, because fresh chilies are far too spicy for me! I also subbed out capsicum and used zucchini instead. The sauce is a delicious blend of soy, vegetarian oyster sauce and sugar, I ended up doubling that to get enough to coat the noodles properly. The recipe suggested using Golden Mountain Sauce if you could find it instead of the oyster sauce, I did find it but it had an ingredient derived from fish in it, so I left it on the shelf. For the noodles I used some great brown rice vermicelli I found in the supermarket. All up delicious!
Rating: :D



Sukiyaki and Cucumber Salad with Wa-Fru Dressing came from a book called Japanese Cooking. Before she was a cheese and pantry queen, Miyoko Schinner wrote this beautiful book. The sukiyaki is extremely delicious! I used all tofu (rather than a mix of tofu and seitan), a delicious mix of mushrooms, butternut, zucchini, shiritaki noodles, wombok and green shallots. I had to leave off the bean sprouts because when I opened the bag they had gone slimy, gross. I only used a half quantity of ingredients (and got two and a half servings), but made the entire amount of sauce (is is so good!). Served over Japanese rice. The cucumber salad was light and refreshing as a side dish.
Rating: Sukiyaki :D, Cucumber :)



Cute Kitty Photo of the Post: Month of Gizmo



I got this great Fuzzyard bed for Gizmo for her 15th birthday, she loved it! Sahara loved it to, and continues to love it to this day.